Psalms 32:3-4 NIVUK
[3] When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. [4] For day and night your hand was heavy on me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. https://bible.com/bible/113/psa.32.3-4.NIVUK
There are some concepts that people simply cannot understand because their worldview refuses to acknowledge their existence.
Let me give you an example.
There is a hard-core group of people, mostly in the US, who have built a series of highly unscientific conspiracy theories around the long-disproven concept that the world is flat.
One of them was even rich enough to decide to go up to the edge of space to take photos to prove his long-debunked theory. However, his private rocket blew up during take-off and he was killed outright.
Now imagine that you are excited about going on a round the world cruise. How could you possibly explain such a vacation to a man or woman who believes the world is not round?
This is where this Psalm sits.
This is a wonderful Psalm about guilt, and the wonderful joy that results when we are released from it.
However, we live in a culture that has progressively done everything it possible could – over many decades – to eliminate guilt as if it was a dangerous disease.
Why?
Because guilt is a negative emotion. It makes us sad. It limits the activities we can do. It creates boundaries for us. It leads us to choose not to do things that other people choose to do, and can cause secondary guilt in them.
In other words, it spreads.
So nowadays we find that people sin and, with consciences seared by the latest human rights activist or self-actualisation seminar or godless psychobabble, they feel no guilt. Or at least, they do everything they can do feel no guilt.
Because guilt implies that they are wrong. And they can’t be wrong. They have to be right.
Christianity stands alone among all the world religions, and has done since its inception, because it, and only it, has a sure-fire, one hundred percent cure for guilt.
And it certainly is not to argue against it, or suppress it, or to douse it in alcohol or dose it with pills.
No. The cure is to face it, confess it, repent of its cause, make amends and move on.
That’s it right there in a nutshell.
That is what David teaches in this Psalm. That is what David commends in this Psalm.
Don’t get me wrong: I am not undermining the seriousness of guilt or the darkness it can bring into our lives. It can trigger seriously deep and dark and long nights of the soul that can last for years.
What I'm saying is that there can be an end to them.
And David here speaks about the deep, heart-felt joy when that release comes.
Firstly, though, we must look at The Pain of Unconfessed Sin, in verses 3-4.
I have often stood in long queues to check in to trains or planes. Most of the time, I take wheeled suitcases with me. In my youth, I used to take a couple of backpacks: one on my front, another on my back.
Have you ever stood behind people bearing those loads in a slow moving queue? It's tough to carry that weight anyway, especially in heat. But to be carrying it when you could set it down quite easily seems to me to be quite silly.
Guilt is exactly like that. It is like a burden. A dead weight. A load we were not designed to bear.
Look how David describes it:
Psalms 32:3-4 NIVUK
[3] When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. [4] For day and night your hand was heavy on me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer. https://bible.com/bible/113/psa.32.3-4.NIVUK
And this is a common thread through the Psalms – indeed, he whole of Scripture:
Psalms 38:18 NIVUK
[18] I confess my iniquity; I am troubled by my sin. https://bible.com/bible/113/psa.38.18.NIVUK
Psalms 51:3 NIVUK
[3] For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. https://bible.com/bible/113/psa.51.3.NIVUK
Job 42:6 NIVUK
[6] Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.’ https://bible.com/bible/113/job.42.6.NIVUK
I don’t count myself as being a fashion expert or a rider of the cultural zeitgeist, but I understand that a new trend is developing where being dysfunctional and mildly addicted to various substances is becoming ‘on trend’: where being ‘wrong’ is ‘right’.
How more messed up can we get!
These verses describe the opposite: where realising that making wrong choices does not bring joy and ‘likes’ and ‘subscribes’, but the deep, dark awareness that something is rather terribly wrong. Where our quest for fulfilment had left us empty and hollow. Where the selfish actions we have carried out have harmed, not healed.
Where everything just seems like a waste of time and space.
And it gnaws at us. It nags at us. It gives us no rest. It exhausts us by day and keeps us up at night.
This is what sin does when you are aware of what it is doing.
It hurts. Deeply.
And there us one cure. Just one. No other.
Because we move from the pain of unconfessed sin to The Joy of Confessed Sin.
Psalms 32:5 NIVUK
[5] Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.’ And you forgave the guilt of my sin. https://bible.com/bible/113/psa.32.5.NIVUK
Telling someone your deepest, darkest secrets, exposing the truth about who you really are and what you have done really does doesn’t seem like much fun. It requires vulnerability. Openness. Integrity.
Aspects of personality that our culture would like to forget exist.
And yet, they are completely necessary. As John explains:
1 John 1:5-10 NIVUK
[5] This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. [6] If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. [7] But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. [8] If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. [9] If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. [10] If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.
Evangelical Christians in particular are often characterised as hypocrites because they seem to be actors, which is what the original Greek word behind ‘hypocrite’ means. People outside the church think we come to church to ‘out-holy’ each other, but then leave it unchanged and continue with our evil lives regardless.
That is, if course, not entirely true.
But it is partly true.
And I would say it is not just true of Evangelicals, but actually of pretty much everyone.
How many of us have played a role, pretending to be someone we are not, just to fit in with the crowd or to be popular or to please someone else?
How many of us have found ourselves practically crippled by imposter syndrome and the fear that we will be found out?
How many of us find ourselves to hamstrung by social anxiety and the fear that we will not be liked that we have developed serious self-loathing?
There is a cure for all of that. And it doesn’t need a prescription. Or a lengthy and expensive session with a shrink.
Come to God. Confess what you have done. Confess who you are. Confess how you feel about yourself. Pour it all out. Lay the dead weight of that awful burden down. You were not designed to carry it.
And then walk in the light. Be honest about who you are.
We all need to dispense with the idea that we are perfect, or that we can be perfect on earth. We are far from it:
Romans 3:23 NIVUK
[23] for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. https://bible.com/bible/113/rom.3.23.NIVUK
No-one is better. No-one is worse. Sin is the great equaliser. We are all sinners. We all need to be forgiven. We all need grace.
We are not alone.
But if everyone sins, then to have integrity and live in the light, we must confess that sin, repent of it and seek forgiveness.
Then, and only then, will we experience the joy of having that sin forgiven.
In the country where I live, higher education is free for people who have resided here for a certain period of time. In countries like the US, however, higher education is astronomically expensive and lands those who want to better themselves with enormous debts they may never pay off. Debt forgiveness has been a huge controversy over the Pond – especially higher education debt.
But I don’t understand the opposition to it. Debt is slavery. The Bible is clear about that (Proverbs 22:7). Education – like health care- is a basic human right. No-one should need to commit themselves to debt-slavery to have an education.
Anyway, every Christian has been forgiven an enormous debt they could never hope to repay: their sin debt. We know how it feels to have that forgiven and written off.
We should never deny the same joy to others.
As well as the pain of unconfessed sin and the joy of confessed sin, we see, thirdly, The Relief of Escaping Sin.
Psalms 32:6-7 NIVUK
[6] Therefore let all the faithful pray to you while you may be found; surely the rising of the mighty waters will not reach them. [7] You are my hiding-place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.
We see here two scary situations: floods and troubles. Given the context of the Psalm and its subject matter, it’s easy to work out that the Psalmist is discussing here the consequences of sin, and how, if we put our trust in God, we will not have to face them.
This is true. There are many consequences of sin from which we will be spared, if we confess our sin and trust in Jesus.
But we will not be saved from them all, as Psalm 3 makes plain.
Often the consequences of our sin are not a lead wright around our neck, but a means of disciplining us to make sure we do not do the same thing again. And they hurt. Of course they do.
But a lost eternity without God would hurt so much more.
The Psalmist here is rejoicing because God is protecting him. And God is protecting him because of his faith – his trust in God and not in his own chicanery or trickery to get himself out of trouble.
The Psalms are full of wonderful tales of God’s protection. The verses below are one of the best examples.
Psalms 91:1-4 NIVUK
[1] Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. [2] I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.’ [3] Surely he will save you from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestilence. [4] He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.
But to get this protection, even from the consequences of our sin, we must have faith in God: dwell in the shadow of the Most High; rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
Because apart from Him, we have no other Saviour.
So yes, we are sinners. Yes, our unconfessed sin should eat us up inside. Yes, we must confess that sin and trust in God to deliver us from the very worst consequences of it. But there is one last aspect we must examine: The Thrill of Avoiding Sin.
Psalms 32:9-11 NIVUK
[9] Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you. [10] Many are the woes of the wicked, but the Lord’s unfailing love surrounds the one who trusts in him. [11] Rejoice in the Lord and be glad, you righteous; sing, all you who are upright in heart! https://bible.com/bible/113/psa.32.9-11.NIVUK
As I write these lines, the run up to the Paris Olympics of 2024 for the UK team has been disrupted. One of our most decorated athletes – Charlotte Dujardin – has been suspended and is under investigation.
Her crime?
She competes in dressage and was filmed a few years ago whipping her horse excessively, to the point where you can actually see the horse almost hopping to get out of the way of the whip.
It is, of course, a scandal. Dressage relies on horses being light on their feet and dancing. It takes a lot of training for them to reach that high standard. The rider relies entirely on the horse – they can’t win a medal on their own. So to see such a respected rider and trainer treating their horse that way has been shocking.
But then, the reality is that horses and donkeys don’t carry people on their backs right away.
They need to be trained. They need to be broken. Part of that training involves the use of a bit and bridle to restrain them and control them.
I’m sure that having a bit between your teeth and have someone steer it is not an altogether pleasant experience.
What David us explaining is that the pain caused by sinning is like that bit. It is like that bridle. It is God bring us back to heel. It is an act of Divine grace that He does not give us over to our sin, but uses pain caused by it to bring us back to Him.
So the pain of unconfessed sin brings us to our knees to confess it and repent of it. Because of the pain of that repentance we then avoid it.
But how much better for us would it be if we just didn’t indulge in the first place?
After all, in Psalm 78, we see a depiction of the Israelites as being a people who constantly and repeatedly faced the consequences of their own sin, repented, and then went back to their sin as soon as the consequences were averted.
What an awful situation!
It would have been far better for them if they had never sinned.
I heard recently of a strange thing that has been happening in the culture of our young people. For a long time, apparently, a ‘clean girl aesthetic’ has been trending on social
media sites, where girls try to be healthy and ethical, and almost compete to out-do each other in fitness and soundness.
But a group of girls believe this is unrealistic. Led by several cultural leaders – pop stars – they have rebelled against this by promoting an unhealthy, hedonistic lifestyle: talking openly about their use of illegal narcotics or appearing in music videos while smoking or drinking alcohol.
They might say that they are being their ‘authentic selves’, but to me it is incredibly stupid and irresponsible. If they wish to damage their own health, they are free to do so. But since they are influencers, by the very fact that they are open about it, they are encouraging their followers to do the same, and that is wrong.
It is a heinous lie that we can live however we want. Of course we can’t. We live in a universe of cause and effect. Those who choose to live selfishly will reap a reward of harm, both to themselves and other people. That is just how life is.
But for the rest of us, who want to live a life that pleases God and blesses others, sooner or later we are going to surrender to temptation and do something that does not line up with who we want to be.
That is when the darkness descends.
People with a Christian mindset are often pictured as being tortured by our own sinful failings.
That should not be.
When we feel the bitter sting of failure which robs us of our sleep and tortures our soul, we do not need to stay tossing and turning. We can confess it to God. We can leave it there. We can repent. And we can learn our lessons.
Every racehorse begins as unbroken. But training tames it and breaks it in. God's discipline, by allowing us to feel bitter pangs of guilt, and, yes, some of the consequences of our sin, tames us and brings us into line as the people He wants us to be.
All we need to do is surrender to God’s loving, but disciplining, hand, turn from our sin, and follow Him.
Then the night will end.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, so often I am not the person I want to be. I often let myself down. I am a sinner – a failure. I confess my sin to You. Forgive me, I pray, and remake me in Your image. Amen.
Questions
1. Why does sin cause us pain? Why is this a good thing?
2. What should this pain causes us to do? Does it do that to you?
3. Why is it better to not sin in the first place? How do you respond when God disciplines you?
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