Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 0-205 Sunday 15 Oct 2000 Reading: PSALM 32 – CONFESSION (From ‘Encounter with God’ Bible Reading Notes)

Unresolved guilt is a miserable condition: ‘I said, I will confess … And you forgave the guilt of my sin’ (v 5). Sin is what I do to God when I resist the invitation of his boundless love. (See Hos 11:1-4) David ‘kept silent’ (v 3) about his guilt (many commentators connect this Psalm with his affair with Bathsheba) and felt in his body and mind the disintegrating effects of unconfessed sin (v 3,4 – see Isa 1:5-7). God moved in David’s exhaustion (‘your hand …’ v 4)

causing him stress until he was willing to confess (v 5). But why David’s delay? Why do any of us delay repentance? Embarrassment at failure, shame, pride, the superstitious hope that in time guilt may fade away like an old stain on a carpet. Or perhaps for darker reasons: when one is sick there may be spiritual guilt involved, a person’s secret acquiescence in sinful behaviour which so dominates to such an extent that he cannot break free, but neither does he wish to. (See Matt 12:28) So we settle down in our pigsties (new wallpaper, fresh curtains)

instead of heading off home to the waiting Father as fast as we can. (See Luke 15:14-20)

Do not put off repentance. Confess your sins and you will find Christ in it. He is an inexhaustible fountain of forgiveness for the guilt of our sin, of cleansing from its pollution, and release from its domination (vv 1,2,5-7; see 1 John 1:5-10). ‘When God forgives, the well-spring turns from bitter to sweet, the acid of sin ceases to corrode, and living water irrigates the soul. We stop shrivelling, we begin to grow’ (Austin Farrer, ‘Said or Sung’). The believer is one who constantly gives thanks for having been loved and who cannot forget the misery of once not having loved or let Christ love them (vv 6,7,11). He owns me for his child, his pardoning voice I hear; In Jesus reconciled, I can no longer fear. With confidence I draw nigh, And ‘Father, Abba, Father!’ cry. (Charles Wesley)

* Dennis Lennon

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