Seeking God Through the Psalms


08/01/2004 - Silencing a Guilty Conscience



Have you ever had trouble trying to silence a guilty conscience? If you are a part of the human race, the answer is "yes".. A London psychologist once told Billy Graham that 70% of the people in mental hospitals in England could be released if they could find forgiveness.

People have tried many ways to silence those convicting shouts that come from deep within their hearts telling them they've messed up. They...

  • Deny it: "What did I do wrong?" Feign innocence
  • Ignore it: just stop listening to their conscience
  • Deaden it: They inhale, ingest or inject something to make it go away.
  • Compensate it: Do something good to pay for the bad they've done.

ILLUS: I love this child's letter to President Cleveland in 1895: "To His Majesty, President Cleveland: Dear President: I'm in a dreadful state of mind; and I thought I would write and tell you all. About two years ago, I used two postage stamps that had been used before on letters, perhaps more than twice. I did not realize what I had done until lately. My mind is constantly turning on that subject, and I think of it night and day. Now, dear President, will you please forgive me? and I promise I will never do it again. Enclosed find cost of three stamps, and please forgive me, for I was then but thirteen years old, for I am heartily sorry for what I have done. From one of your subjects."

Refreshing, isn't it? She did what the human spirit was created to do:

  • Obey it: Admit one's guilt and seek forgiveness

Did you know that the Fed Gov't even has a conscience fund for people who cheated Uncle Sam and decide to pay up? After 160 years of its existence, it only received about $3million, so guess what a lot of people are living with? A guilty conscience.

Some who sent in money to it enclosed notes like: "I'll sleep better now", or "I'd hate to burn in hell for a couple of bucks."

Many are like the man who wrote the IRS stating, "I can't sleep; my conscience is bothering me. Enclosed find a check for $50. If I still can't sleep, I'll send you the balance."

To what extent would you go to cover up a sin? The most famous sin in the whole Bible is also one of the greatest cover-up stories of a man hiding from his conscience.  It affected a whole nation's reputation. It affected a king's ability to judge and it even cost lives. Movies have been made about it. Even Veggie Tales produced their rendition of this sin. Who am I talking about? King David and his sin with Bathsheba.

Background Story

The story is found in II Sam. 11. It's a very sad story of lust, adultery, deception, murder and cover-up. You might expect such evil from a despotic tyrant who had no regard for God, no moral bearings for his life. But this was David, the Sweet Singer of Israel, king of the only nation whom God called "My People".

I see this sin as a rather sudden fall for David, a total take-over by the flesh....not a gentle slippery slope, but a Grand Canyon drop-off into lustful tyranny. He did set himself up for failure by neglecting his kingly duties: he should have been with his men in battle. Instead he lazed around at home and became a voyeur from his own rooftop. He spied a lovely woman taking a bath and in his heart he said, "I want her and I will have her."

A servant told him, "Uh, King, excuse me, but don't you realize that's Bathsheba?  She's married. She belongs to Uriah the Hittite - you remember him - one of your mighty men...helped you win many victories...chose our God Yahweh over his own people's gods...your neighbor...loyal friend."

"Bring her to me!" David had to be obeyed. Can you imagine how his servants felt, knowing their king was committing an act worthy of death according to God's law? David ignored the blinking red lights on the dashboard of his heart and plunged headlong into adultery with Bathsheba. She went home and several weeks later sent word to the king that she was pregnant. He quickly devised a plan to try to cover his sin. He called for Uriah to come home from battle. If Uriah had relations with his wife while on leave, no one would suspect that it was anyone else's child.

Uriah did come home but refused to enjoy the comforts of his wife and home while his men were on the battlefront. David even tried to get him drunk enough to ignore those convictions, but Uriah still slept with his servants.

David now had a bigger problem. Bathsheba was carrying his child, but she belonged to Uriah. The only way to resolve it was to become her husband. That meant getting rid of Uriah. One desperate sin leads to another, so David devised a plan that would ensure Uriah's death in battle. He wrote it down and sent it back to commander Joab by Uriah's very hand. He knew he could trust Uriah not to open the top secret message he carried, which was his own death warrant.

Uriah is killed in battle. David is told. He says, "That's too bad. War takes the great and the small. Get on with the battle."

As soon as Bathsheba is through mourning the loss of her husband, David marries her. Ahhh. All bases are now covered. Things progressed so well. The plan was working well. Bathsheba even bore him a son. Everyone should live happily ever after, right? Is that the end of the story? "But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord." (II Sam. 11:27)

Do you think David had a guilty conscience? It makes you wonder what those intervening 8 months of Bathsheba's pregnancy were like. Do you suppose she had any suspicions that David, her new husband was responsible for Uriah's death? What was going on inside David's head? Had he forgotten his heinous crime? Did he think that maybe God hadn't seen it after all?

Yes, he knew God knew. Let me read you what a guilty conscience feels like from some other songs that David wrote:

Ps 32:3, 4 "When I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer."

Ps 38:1-10   "Oh Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath. For your arrows have pierced me, and your hand has come down upon me. Because of your wrath there is no health in my body; my bones have no soundness because of my sin. My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear. My wounds fester and are loathsome because of my sinful folly. I am bowed down and brought very low; all day long I go about mourning; My back is filled with searing pain; there is no health in my body. I am feeble and utterly crushed; I groan in anguish of heart. My longings lie open before you, O Lord; my sighing is not hidden from you. My heart pounds, my strength fails me; even the light has gone from my eyes."

Sounds like a guilty conscience affects our whole being - body, soul and spirit, doesn't it?

God sent Nathan the prophet to confront David and he did so very carefully. It was a simple parable with an unmistakable teaching point: sin must be paid for .             

A poor man had one precious lamb that was like part of his family. A rich man had a visitor one day and rather than take a lamb from his own large flock to feed to his guest, he stole the poor man's little lamb and killed it for the feast.

When David heard this, believing it had actually happened in HIS kingdom under HIS watch, he was furious and demanded the man repay 4 times as much as he had taken and then be executed.

David didn't see it coming...his own words condemned him. "YOU are THAT man!" Nathan quickly retorted. "YOU!" David, the King of Israel - a brazen thief of another man's wife; a heartless murderer of the innocent. How could he possibly do these things against the God he said he loved and not expect God to do something about it!?

How did David respond? Exactly like he should have and exactly like Nathan had hoped he would! Six crucial words that changed everything: "I have sinned against the Lord!" (12:13) A man who knew the heart of God like David did knew that his sin was first and foremost against God himself.

Our psalm today is like a peek into David's personal journal as he spills his spiritual guts out to the God he offended. This song holds the secret to silencing a guilty conscience. David discovered you don't silence a guilty conscience by ignoring it, but by admitting your sin and appealing to God's mercy.

Read Ps 51.

The first thing David did was to

1. Admit guilt before God

David says "I'm guilty! Forgive me!" in about as many ways as a Hebrew poet possibly can:

v1 "blot out my transgressions" (rebellion)
v2 "wash away all my iniquity" (perversity)
     "Cleanse me from my sin" (sin offering)
v3 "I know my transgressions" (rebellion)
     "My sin is ever before me" (sin offering)
v4 "against thee have I sinned" (to err, miss the mark)
v5 "in sin did my mother conceive me" (error, failure)
v9 "hide your face from my sins" (error, failure)
     "blot out all my iniquity."(perversity)

He even uses 5 different terms for "sin". I think he feels totally dirty - inside and out. He's fallen into the muddy morass of denial and he can't get up.

V3 tells us why he is so bent on getting rid of his sin: it was haunting him; it wouldn't release him from the shame; 24/7 he was bearing heaviness of heart that it was not designed to bear. But the only way to release it is to admit guilt, which is what he does next in v 4.

David says a surprising thing here. "Against you and you only, have I sinned." What about Bathsheba? Uriah? Israel? Yes, they are the relational fallout of his sin. They received the collateral damage from a legal violation against God Himself.

Sin violates our relationship with God by breaking His law, rebelling against HIS holy standard, perverting the truth, missing the mark of righteousness, failing Him.  People around me are affected by my perversity, but you can't make it right with them until you've reconciled with the one who made the rules. David committed adultery with Bathsheba, he murdered Uriah and he disgraced the whole land of Israel by abusing his power. But the transgression was against the Lord.

You can see the far-reaching effects of sin. There are huge relational consequences with friends and family. Worst of all, spiritually it estranges us from God. In v 11, David even feels like a castaway, unable to enter into God's presence anymore...feeling so distant that he no longer even senses the inner witness of God's Spirit. Have you ever felt that far away from God because of sin? If you feel far from God, guess who moved. God designed us for relationship with Him and a guilty conscience is His way of saying, "It's not right between us...let's get it right." How? "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." I Jn 1:9.

Sin is not something we can just smile at, ignore or deny, even though powerful people seem to be able to do it without conscience. 

Confession is not something you do only because you got caught and the proof is irrefutable. You can't just shrug it off and say "What I did was bad," and then make millions on a book about your sinful life.

By confessing his sinfulness to God, David is saying, "God, you are so totally right and I am so totally wrong. I cannot deny your indictments because I was born a sinner and you saw me sin. Your judgment against that sin is true."

Verse 5 is not equating conception with sin, but simply that we are all born into a sinful race in which sin is already deeply imbedded. Sin is so pervasive that it's unlikely a day goes by that I have not sinned against God.

ILLUS. When I was growing up, my parents loved to listen to Jim Reeves' records. Whether or not he was a Christian, he sang the old hymns my parents enjoyed with his very gentle and soothing style. One hymn I remember had these words to it:

"If I have wounded any soul today,
If I have caused one foot to go astray,
If I have walked in my own willful way,
Dear Lord, forgive."

The hymn sounds noble and religious on the outside, but it's the woose's way out of true confession. The "if" prevents a clear admission of guilt. It's a generic prayer that lets me off the hook from being real with God - from admitting to actual, real sins against Him. "Lord, there is a slight possibility that I might have done some of these evil things, although it is not likely. But IF I have, then forgive them." Nebulous confession will never lay hold of God's forgiveness because it avoids the real issues of my culpability. It doesn't consider the heavy price God paid to forgive it. Therefore, avoid the big "IF".

David showed us the higher road to getting rid of a guilty conscience. First of all, he admitted his guilt before God. Secondly, he must...

2. Appeal to God's mercy.

Look at verse 1. Why doesn't David immediately appeal to God's justice? Because justice demands payment for a crime committed. "I've committed crimes worthy of death, Lord, so let justice reign down." If God's justice was not balanced by His mercy, there would be no hope for any of us for forgiveness. Mercy withholds deserved punishment and is motivated by God's unfailing love. God's love is an eternal commitment to His children to never abandon us to what our crime truly demands. I am thankful God is a compassionate God.

Evidence of His mercy is to blot out the stain just like you blot up a carpet stain. He wants God to get rid of the source of the guilt and sin deep in his heart and make it so totally right between them that it is just as if he had never sinned.

But that kind of forgiveness does not come cheaply: it will cost someone's blood.  In v 14 he speaks of his blood-guiltiness. He refers to Hyssop in v. 7, which is a sponge-like plant that was dipped in the blood of sacrificed animals and applied to the altar or doorposts. God accepted the blood of animals to cover sins in the OT, but they couldn't REMOVE them. Those sacrifices anticipated the ultimate sacrifice of a sinless human whose blood would totally remove, not just cover, sin. That person is our Savior, Jesus Christ. Jesus' blood is the ultimate laundering agent that whitens our hearts clear through, like snow is white clear through.

Was David being presumptuous of God to say "God, get rid of my sin; don't even look at it and make me as if I had never done it." Can God do that? Will God do that?  Yes, but only because of the heavy price God paid to remove those sins. David knew well that God had a heart and not just a gavel. God loved him too much to allow him to stay in that horrible condition. Even Nathan's coming to him was evidence of God's loyal love.

ILLUS. A pastor was sharing with me the other day about a member of his staff who had been seen going into a porn shop. When this observer came to the pastor with the bad news, he responded, "I don't want to know who it is. Have you personally talked to him to see why he was in there?" No. "Then your biblical responsibility is to go talk to that man and let him know what you've witnessed." The staff member did talk to the offender and the man's immediate response was, "Does anyone else know?" When he answered no, he was relieved, thanked him and then blurted out this desperate plea: "I NEED HELP! I want to be freed from this addiction." With that admission of guilt and a plea for help, he began a new life of freedom. He found grace not only from the Lord, but from his co-workers who loved him.

Admitting your sin is the first step of gaining the freedom you seek from a bad conscience. Appealing for God's mercy naturally follows. Loving-kindness and compassion await you not only from God, but from brothers and sisters who care about you and want you to live free. This body is a genuine community of grace and love and forgiveness. You can dump that heavy burden of sin you've carried far too long right here today. People who care will be ready to pray with you after the service today.

To encourage you in that quest to silence a guilty conscience, listen to what happens to those whose iniquities are washed away. David not only admits guilt and appeals for mercy, but now he can...

3. Enjoy the Affects of Forgiveness

David's cry in v12 is to restore the joy of salvation and sustain me with a willing spirit. God does that and much more for a repentant heart. It's called spiritual restoration. Here is what it looks like.

a.      I become more truthful. Verse 6. Failure to confess develops a false satisfaction with who I am - it becomes too easy to live a lie. When we stop trying to hide our sin and speak the truth, truth triumphs in our life. That truth grows into wisdom in the inner person. We don't have to fake life, always worried about who we told what . ("Is my sin showing? Maybe I should just smile more and do good things to cover it up.")

     Yes, confession is painful. Yes, it's humiliating. But look what it makes

     you: truthful - a reflection of HIS character.

ILLUS: When I was serving with American Missionary Fellowship as a missionary in Oregon, I remember an occasion when my car needed tires. I went to K-Mart and had them put 4 new tires on my car. I examined the bill and noticed they only charged me for 3.

After an initial adrenalin rush, my first thoughts were, "Look what the Lord provided!" My flesh was trying to convince me this was God's way of making up for our extremely low missionary salary. But, my spirit told me otherwise. It was K-mart's mistake, but it was my test of character. I owed them another $50. So, I followed what I knew was God's will and sent them the money along with a letter explaining the situation - how I had been tempted to keep the money, but because of my convictions as a Christian, I wanted to live the truth that I said I believed.

  Soon I received a call from the manager of K-Mart. What do you think she said? She thanked me profusely, saying how unusual it was to get such a letter. Then she said that they were having a staff meeting and asked my permission to read the letter at that meeting (without my name, of course). She said she wanted her staff to know that there were still people with such convictions living in our community. I hope that my testimony to them was an encouragement, because it certainly taught me a lesson. Which brings me to the next great benefit of experiencing God's forgiveness.

b.      I become more wise. V 6. I'll have more discernment the next time temptation tries to draw me away from a life of truth and peace with God. I don't have to think twice about giving back extra change the cashier gave me, or paying the taxes the tax forms say I owe (Well, maybe I do think twice, but I pay it anyway!).

c.       I can rejoice again. V 8. It seems that when we let God break us, that's when the true music of the soul is released and it's like hearing praise music for the first time. There is joy and gladness and songs of praise to God flowing out again because the soul is clean and the spirit is set free to reconnect with God.

d.      I become useful to God, v13. Don't ever believe that sin forever negates your usefulness to God and he throws you out of his toolbox. A sinner who is spiritually restored to God and relationally restored to their community of believers has a testimony that God can use. The awareness of God's gracious forgiveness makes you appreciate anew his salvation. Your life becomes a living trophy of God's grace, you speak His truth to sinners, and they listen and are converted unto God because they see the reality of His grace and mercy in your life.

e.      I know God better.  I come to realize that He is in the renewal business. He desires a personal relationship with His children so he recreates hearts (10) and opens them up to praise Him (15). He welcomes me into His presence. He sustains me with a spirit willing to stay clean (11,12). He doesn't expect payment for my sin - there is no personal sacrifice I can make that compensates for my weakness. All he wants from me is my broken and humble heart - he will never despise that (16,17).

f.         My Christian community is blessed. (18,19) David realized that his sin affected the safety and security of Jerusalem, so he asks God to restore her walls so that true worship can happen there again. Did you know that every person is a king over a kingdom? It may be a small one - our family, a friend or two, coworkers or a classroom. But they are people over whom we have influence. Even as our sin impacts them, so does our repentance and restoration.  Valley View is a community of people who are affected deeply when we know of a brother or sister who is struggling with sin. To the degree that sin brings pain, to the same degree forgiveness and a cleansed conscience brings joy and delight.

Conclusion

Some of you have been set free of sin because you admitted your guilt and appealed to God's mercy and found it. But old worries still haunt you into believing that God hasn't forgiven certain sins - they are just too big - and you are still guilty. That's false guilt coming from the father of Lies - your enemy, Satan. Were David's sins of adultery and murder too big for God? Your enemy wants to imprison you in a false sense of guilt, so be careful what voices you listen to. If God sets you free, then you are free indeed. If God is telling you to make it right with those you've sinned against, that's another whole issue that you can draw upon His wisdom to deal with.

Others are experiencing the inner turmoil of guilt and haven't been able to silence it because you've gone about it all wrong. It's a simple process with God: admit you're a sinner, appeal to His mercy and receive the benefits of forgiveness. It doesn't matter the size of sin: stealing a postage stamp or stealing someone else's dignity or even stealing their life. God has unfailing love and compassion to grant you today. Humbly accept His forgiveness today.