Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Psalms 32:3

Clarke's Commentary

Verse Psalms 32:3. When I kept silence — Before I humbled myself, and confessed my sin, my soul was under the deepest horror. "I roared all the day long;" and felt the hand of God heavy upon my soul.

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

Psalms 32:0 The joy of the forgiven sinner

When people are honest with God and confess their sin to him, they experience the unspeakable joy of knowing that their sin is forgiven (1-2). If, however, instead of acknowledging their sin they try to push it out of the mind, they only create greater distress and tension for themselves. This can lead to a falling away in physical health (3-4). But when confession is made, forgiveness follows, the burden of the mind is removed, and people enjoy afresh the assurance of God’s safe-keeping (5-7).
God now speaks, encouraging believers to listen to his teaching and walk in his ways willingly. If they stubbornly refuse, God may act against them with corrective discipline to force them back to the right path (8-9). Unconfessed sin brings punishment; confession of sin brings joy (10-11).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

SECRET vs. ACKNOWLEDGED SINS

“When I kept silence, my bones wasted away Through my groanings all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: My moisture was changed as with the drought of summer I acknowledged my sin unto thee, (Selah) And mine iniquity did I not hide: I said, I will confess my transgressions unto Jehovah; And thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.”

“When I kept silence” (Psalms 32:3). This speaks of a period when David did not acknowledge his sin, nor confess it. “The time here spoken of is that immediately after David’s sin of adultery and murder and which continued till Nathan uttered the words, ’Thou art the man.’“ The Pulpit Commentary, Vol. 8, p. 236.

What is described here is the punishment inwardly inflicted upon God’s people by their guilty consciences. Spurgeon described this punishment. “What a killing thing is sin! It is a pestilent disease! a fire in the bosom! While we smother our sin, it rages within and like a gathering wound swells horribly and torments terribly.” Charles Haddon Spurgeon, p. 257.

Dummelow thought these words might refer, “Either to an actual sickness brought on by sin, or to a spiritual suffering represented by physical terminology.” J. R. Dummelow’s Commentary, p. 342. We prefer the latter option of understanding the passage.

“I acknowledged my sin unto thee” (Psalms 32:5). This means that David acknowledge his sin “to God.” There’s not a hint here that he openly acknowledged it before men.

“And mine iniquity did I not hide” (Psalms 32:5). This is the passage with which this writer has difficulty in the assignment of it to David. Did he not make every possible human effort to “hide” his sin? He brought Uriah home in the hope that Uriah’s homecoming would hide it; but it didn’t; then he had Uriah murdered to cover it up, but that didn’t work either. The whole nation knew of the shameful conduct of their king; and it appears to us that a much more appropriate statement in David’s mouth would have been, “Lord, I tried every thing I could think of to hide my sin, but I couldn’t hide it,” Of course, it is also true that he did not hide it.

Perhaps in this abbreviated account, the reference is to the time when David did freely acknowledge his transgressions and sought and received God’s forgiveness, which is so dramatically stated in this verse.

“I said, I will confess my transgressions unto Jehovah; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin” (Psalms 32:5). In this entire verse, the confession mentioned is that of confession “to God,” not acknowledging transgressions before men. The Romish doctrine of “Auricular Confession,” is contrary to everything the Bible teaches regarding the confession of sins.

This verse has been made the basis of some very broad statements, which in our view seem to go beyond what is taught.

“The clear teaching of these verses, therefore, is that by simple confession sin in all its aspects - the outward act (sin), the rebellious disobedience (transgression), and the inward corruption (iniquity) is completely forgiven, and covered, so as to remain no longer an issue between God and man.” The New Bible Commentary, Revised, p. 470.

Just confess (not to men, but to God). That’s all, just ’simple confession’ followed by total forgiveness! Without repentance? Without any acknowledgment of sins before men? Without any effort toward restitution, or any kind of justice toward those who were wronged! In this writer’s opinion, someone is reading a lot more into this passage than may legitimately be extracted from it.

True, David’s life indeed exhibited valid evidence of sincere repentance, and acknowledgment of his sins before all men, as well as “unto God”; and he even took Bathsheba into his harem; but the statement from McCaw is not based on the conduct of David, but upon what is said in this text.

It is precisely this verse that entered into Barnes’ comment that:

“Whether this Psalm refers to David’s experience in the matter of Bathsheba and Uriah or to some other occasion of his life when he was troubled at the remembrance of sin, it is impossible now to determine.” Barnes’ Notes on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, a 1987 reprint of the 1878 edition), Vol. 1, p. 270.

“I will confess my transgressions” (Psalms 32:5). The importance of acknowledging sins, however, cannot be overstated; as DeHoff wrote, “In a practical sense, the unpardonable sin is the unconfessed sin.” George DeHoff’s Commentary, p. 124.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

When I kept silence - The psalmist now proceeds to state his condition of mind before he himself found this peace, or before he had this evidence of pardon; the state in which he felt deeply that he was a sinner, yet was unwilling to confess his sin, and attempted to conceal it in his own heart. This he refers to by the expression, “When I kept silence;” that is, before I confessed my sin, or before I made mention of it to God. The condition of mind was evidently this: he had committed sin, but he endeavored to hide it in his own mind; he was unwilling to make confession of it, and to implore pardon. He hoped, probably, that the conviction of sin would die away; or that his trouble would cease of itself; or that time would relieve him; or that employment - occupying himself in the affairs of the world - would soothe the anguish of his spirit, and render it unnecessary for him to make a humiliating confession of his guilt. He thus describes a state of mind which is very common in the case of sinners. They know that they are sinners, but they are unwilling to make confession of their guilt. They attempt to conceal it. They put off, or try to remove far away, the whole subject. They endeavor to divert their minds, and to turn their thoughts from a subject so painful as the idea of guilt - by occupation, or by amusement, or even by plunging into scenes of dissipation. Sometimes, often in fact, they are successful in this; but, sometimes, as in the case of the psalmist, the trouble at the remembrance of sins becomes deeper and deeper, destroying their rest, and wasting their strength, until they make humble confession, and “then” the mind finds rest.

My bones waxed old - My strength failed; my strength was exhausted; it seemed as if the decrepitude of age was coming upon me. The word here used, and rendered “waxed old,” would properly denote “decay,” or the wearing out of the strength by slow decay. All have witnessed the prostrating effect of excessive grief.

Through my roaring - My cries of anguish and distress. See the notes at Psalms 22:1. The meaning here is, that his sorrow was so great as to lead to loud and passionate cries; and this well describes the condition of a mind under deep trouble at the remembrance of sin and the apprehension of the wrath of God.

All the day long - Continually; without intermission.

Calvin's Commentary on the Bible

3.When I kept silence, my bones wasted away. Here David confirms, by his own experience, the doctrine which he had laid down; namely, that when humbled under the hand of God, he felt that nothing was so miserable as to be deprived of his favor: by which he intimates, that this truth cannot be rightly understood until God has tried us with a feeling of his anger. Nor does he speak of a mere ordinary trial, but declares that he was entirely subdued with the extremest rigour. And certainly, the sluggishness of our flesh, in this matter, is no less wonderful than its hardihood. If we are not drawn by forcible means, we will never hasten to seek reconciliation to God so earnestly as we ought. In fine, the inspired writer teaches us by his own example, that we never perceive how great a happiness it is to enjoy the favor of God, until we have thoroughly felt from grievous conflicts with inward temptations, how terrible the anger of God is. He adds, that whether he was silent, or whether he attempted to heighten his grief by his crying and roaring, ⁽⁶⁶¹⁾ his bones waxed old; in other words, his whole strength withered away. From this it follows, that whithersoever the sinner may turn himself, or however he may be mentally affected, his malady is in no degree lightened, nor his welfare in any degree promoted, until he is restored to the favor of God. It often happens that those are tortured with the sharpest grief who gnaw the bit, and inwardly devour their sorrow, and keep it enclosed and shut up within, without discovering it, although afterwards they are seized as with sudden madness, and the force of their grief bursts forth with the greater impetus the longer it has been restrained. By the term silence, David means neither insensibility nor stupidity, but that feeling which lies between patience and obstinacy, and which is as much allied to the vice as to the virtue. For his bones were not consumed with age, but with the dreadful torments of his mind. His silence, however, was not the silence of hope or obedience, for it brought no alleviation of his misery.

(661) The translation of this verse in our English Bible is, “When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long;” on which Street observes, “I must own I do not understand how a man can be said to keep silence who roars all the day long.” Accordingly, instead of When I kept silence, he reads, While I am lost in thought; observing that, the verb חרש, in the Hiphil conjugation, signifies to ponder, to consider, to be deep in thought.” But according to the translation and exposition of Calvin, there is no inconsistency between the first and the second clause of the verse. To avoid the apparent contradiction of being at once silent and yet roaring all the day long, Dr Boothroyd, instead of roaring, reads pangs.

Smith's Bible Commentary

Psalms 32:1-11

Now this next psalm is thought to have been written at the time of David's sin with Bathsheba. After the prophet of God, Nathan, had come to him and spoken to him of that sin. We will get another psalm that relates to this same situation in Psalms 51:1-19 . Another of the Penitent psalms.

David had many wives, and yet, one day while standing on the roof of his house and looking over the city of Jerusalem, he saw on the roof of a house nearby a beautiful lady bathing. And he was attracted to her, and he sent his servants over to her house to bid her to come to him. And David had an adulterous affair with her; her husband at the time was out fighting with the armies of David, under the leadership of Joab. David received in a few weeks a message from her, "I am pregnant." And David ordered that her husband be brought home from war and he sort of just said, "Well, how are things going? How is the battle going? How are the men? How is the morale?" and all. And then he expected the guy to go home and spend the night with his wife. What he was hoping is that the guy would go to bed with his wife and later on when she says, "I am pregnant," the guy would never know the difference. But it didn't quite work out that way because this fellow, rather than going home, spent the night on the porch of David's palace with David's servants. And in the morning it was told David, "He didn't go home last night. He spent the night here." And David called him in and said, you know, "Why didn't you go home? You had this wonderful opportunity to be with your wife." And the fellow said, "Well," he said, "all of my buddies are out there in the trenches and it wouldn't be right for me to enjoy a night with my wife when all of my buddies are still out there in the field fighting."

So David that day got him pretty drunk, thinking that if he gets drunk enough he will stagger home and still never know the difference. But he only staggered to David's porch and again spent the night there, and so David was faced with a dilemma and he took a tragic way out. A horrible way out. For David ordered Joab, his general, to put this fellow into the thick of the battle and then to withdrawal the other troops from him that he might be killed. And the ploy worked; Uriah was killed. And David then took Bathsheba as his wife. The child that was born became very sick. David prayed; the child died.

And then the prophet Nathan came to David, and the prophet said, "David, there was a man in your kingdom who is an extremely wealthy man. He had many servants, many flocks. Now next door to him there lived a very poor man who had just one lamb. And the lamb was like a child. It went to bed with him. It ate at his table, and it was just a pet, a family pet. Now this very wealthy man had friends come for dinner and he ordered his servants to go and by force take the one lamb from his poor neighbor and kill it in order that he might feed his guests." And David became very angry and he said to the prophet, "That man shall surely be put to death." And Nathan said, "David, thou art the man!"

Now David's response to that was that of repentance. David's actions were terrible. The scripture in no wise seeks to excuse the actions of David, but they also do point out the repentance of David. This is thought to be a psalm that relates to that period of David's life when he was going through this guilt of sin. When he was trying to carry it. He was trying to hide it. He was trying to bury it, and going through the guilt of this illicit affair. And this particular psalm relates to this period.

And David begins the psalm by saying,

Blessed [which is, Oh how happy] is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered ( Psalms 32:1 ).

Oh, what a happy moment it is when I have that assurance that my transgression has been forgiven, that my sin has been covered.

Now there is a difference between a transgression and a sin. A sin is not always a willful act. The word sin comes from a root word which means, "to miss the mark." God says, "Here is the mark. I want you to hit it." All right. And I take aim, and I miss. Now I may not deliberately miss. I may be trying to hit it. I might just be a poor shot. That is still a sin. I have missed the mark. Whether it is deliberate or just a lack of weakness or failure, it is still missing the mark that God has set. That is why the Bible says, "All have sinned." The Bible calls you a sinner. You may get uptight about that, but God said that you have all missed the mark.

Now when I tell you the mark is perfection, that is what God wants you to be, then, is there anyone here who is willing to stand up and say, "I have hit the mark. I am perfect. Look at me. I am Mister Perfect"? No, I think we will all confess, "I have missed the mark." Not always willingly. I have sought to be a better person than I really am. I am not as good as I would like to be. I have missed the mark.

A transgression is a little different, because a transgression is a willful, a deliberate missing of the mark. It is a deliberate action of disobedience on my part. God says, "Here is the line. Now, Chuck, I don't want you to go over that line." And I get busy with my activities, I am not paying any attention, and all of a sudden I am over here on the other side of the line. And God says, "Hey, hey wait a minute. There is the line I told you not to go over." "Oh Lord, I'm sorry. I forgot all about it. I, hmm, didn't mean to." I still went over it. It was a sin; it was a missing of the mark. It wasn't really a deliberate, willful kind of a transgression. Whereas if God says, "Here is the line, Chuck. Now don't you cross over it." And I step over it and say, "Okay, God, what are You going to do about it?" That is a deliberate, willful transgression. Many times sins compound into transgressions. I start off innocently enough. But then rather than repenting and turning, I seek to try to cover it and hide it and all, and it compounds until it becomes a transgression. But either way, oh how happy I am when it is all forgiven. When it is all over. When it is all covered.

O how happy is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, in whose spirit there is no deceit ( Psalms 32:2 ).

Now David had done his best to deceive. I mean, he was trying to set up Uriah. You know, "Go home and spend the night with your wife." And he was trying this whole deceitful little scheme. But he is talking now about an interesting experience here, "Oh how happy is the man to whom God does not impute iniquity."

Now I think that many people, because of Santa Claus, have gotten a wrong concept of God, and many people think of God as a glorified Santa Claus. That, just anything I want, all I have to do is come to God and just tell Him what I want Him to lay under my tree this Christmas, and God will give me anything that I insist on. Anything that I believe for. Anything that I will confess God will give to me, because after all, He's just a Santa Claus waiting to hear my request. And in carrying this concept of God as Santa Claus, we know that Santa Claus is making out a list and checking it twice, and going to find out who is naughty and nice. And if you have been naughty you are going to get a bundle of sticks. You know, he doesn't bring toys to bad little boys. Making this list, keeping the records.

Now, he is speaking about a man, "Oh how happy is the man to whom God does not impute, or account, iniquity." Who in the world would that be? A man that God isn't even making a black list on his deeds. Not imputing iniquity. Paul tells us in Romans that that happy man is the man who is in Christ Jesus. "For there is therefore now no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus" ( Romans 8:1 ). Oh how happy is my life in Christ, this glorious life I have in Him. For if we walk in the light as He is in the light we have fellowship one with the other, and the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, is continually cleansing me from all sin. God is not even keeping a record of my failure, of my sin. Oh what a happy man I am. Not only has He forgiven my transgressions, not only has He blotted out my sins, but He's not even keeping a record of my current failings. Oh how happy is the man to whom God does not impute iniquity, that man who is in Christ Jesus.

Now David goes on to express when he was trying to cover the whole thing and hide the whole thing and the reaction that it had upon him.

When I kept silence ( Psalms 32:3 )

That is, when I was trying to hide it, when I would not confess, when I would not bring it out and confess.

When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long ( Psalms 32:3 ).

Did you know, you may try to hide your sins, you may try to cover your guilt, but it will find a way out. With guilt there is always the developing subconscious desire for punishment, which, if I cannot find a relief for this guilt, I will begin some abnormal behavioral pattern by which I am seeking to be punished. And I will start just doing weird things because I am feeling guilty and I want someone to punish me. I want someone to say, "Hey, man, you are weird. You're crazy. Something is wrong with you. You ought to go jump off of the pier." "Oh, thank you, brother. I needed that." Now I feel relieved from my guilt; someone has punished me.

When I was a kid I had no problem. My father took care of my guilt complexes very efficiently. And the old apricot tree, those switches always stung, but it sure got rid of my guilt complex. It was healthy, psychologically. But now I am older, no one to take me into the bedroom and apply the psychology. And so I have to do things, abnormal things, neurotic things, in order to be punished. Get people to punish me. Don't tell Romaine I said it, but this is why he is such a fantastic counselor. I mean you come in and he will lay it on ya! If you are wrong, I mean, he will tell you. And you go home relieved. You get angry with him because he is so straightforward, but I mean he will just tell you what a rat you are, you know. And he doesn't realize it, I am sure, but from a psychological standpoint it is very healthy. We see them storming out of here sometimes, steam coming out of the top of their head. And we say, "Well, they have been counseling with Romaine." He is so good.

But when you are trying to hide and cover your guilt, there is an inward roaring that is going on all the time. This inward turmoil. "When I sought to keep silent, my bones were waxing old because of the roaring all the day long."

For day and night thy hand was heavy on me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer ( Psalms 32:4 ).

"Boy, I will tell you. My life just became all dry. Just like a drought in summertime, no moisture, no life. Felt like I was dying." The Selah brings an end to that strophe of the psalm, and now we move into a new direction.

The first is the endeavor to cover the sin, the endeavor to hide the guilt. But now as we move into the new direction.

I acknowledged my sin ( Psalms 32:5 )

Now the Bible says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness" ( 1 John 1:9 ). So,

I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin ( Psalms 32:5 ).

Now, in the Hebrew language there is here the intimation of an immediate process. In other words, "The moment in my heart I said, 'I am going to confess my transgressions,' in my heart. Before I could ever get the words out of my lips, God had already forgiven me." God is only looking for the change of the attitude of your heart. The moment in your heart you say, "Oh God, I am sorry. I am going to confess. I am going to get it right with God." In that very moment, God's grace comes flowing over your life and the sins are all obliterated. Why should we carry guilt, why should we carry the sins, when God is so ready to forgive, so ready to cleanse, so ready to pardon? "The moment I said, 'I'm gonna confess,' Thou forgavest my transgressions."

Now we enter into the third strophe.

For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when you may be found: surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come near unto him ( Psalms 32:6 ).

Surely all of us ought to be seeking God, because of His love, of His grace, and of His preserving power. In the times of these great waters, in the times of tragedy, it shall not touch you.

For thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance ( Psalms 32:7 ).

So another Selah. We enter into a new strophe of the psalm. "God is my hiding place. He is my preserver from trouble. He encircles me with songs of deliverance."

Now in verse Psalms 32:8 we have a whole change of voice, and God is now responding to the psalmist. Up till now David has been speaking of God and his relationship to God, but now God responds to David, and David writes God's response to him. Now this is God speaking to David. God said,

I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way in which thou shalt go: I will guide you with my eye ( Psalms 32:8 ).

The steps of a righteous man are order of the Lord. God said, "I will teach you and instruct you in the way that you shall go. I will guide you with My eye."

Be not as a horse, or a mule, which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in a bit and a bridle, lest he comes near to you ( Psalms 32:9 ).

So God is saying, "Don't be like stubborn mule where you got to put a bit in its mouth in order to guide it." Now a bit is painful when you jerk on it. But the bit is put in the mouth of a mule or a horse in order that he might be led. That you might have control. So that he doesn't walk or step all over you. You put the bit in their mouth, and if they don't hearken or respond to your reign upon them, then you pull on the bit and it jerks the mouth. And it is painful, but you get the message. You are led.

Now God is saying, "Hey, I don't want to lead you that way. Don't be stubborn like a mule. Where I have to use harsh methods to lead and guide you. I want to guide you with My eye. Okay, that way, son." We are the ones that make it tough on ourselves when we rebel against God. When we won't listen to God. When we are insensitive to God, then He has to get rough. God doesn't delight in the painful processes. God didn't want to send a whale after Jonah; it was just that was the only way that He could get his attention. God doesn't want to lead you in a painful process. He doesn't want to bring painful experiences into your life in order to get your attention, in order to change your directions. So He is saying, "Look, be sensitive. You'll beat him. I will guide you in the right way. I will guide you with My eye. Don't be like a horse or a mule; you've got to put a bit into its mouth in order that you might lead so that it won't step on you and all."

Many sorrows shall be to the wicked: but he that trusts in the LORD, mercy shall compass him about. Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, ye righteous: and shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart ( Psalms 32:10-11 ).

As I said, when you are in your own reading of the psalms, it might be an interesting experience for you to, as you read, just sort of follow the exhortations. When it says, "Be glad in the Lord," just be glad in the Lord. When it says, "Rejoice," then you should rejoice. And if it says, "Shout for joy," try it sometime. Just shout for joy unto the Lord. "

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

Psalms 32

In this psalm of wisdom and thanksgiving, David urged those who sin against the Lord to seek His pardon, with the encouragement that He is gracious with the penitent. He will, however, chasten the unrepentant.

Different scholars have identified different psalms as wisdom psalms. Bullock regarded 32, 34, 37, 47, 73, 112, 127-28, and 133 as wisdom psalms. Some literary distinctives of wisdom psalms are proverbs, admonitions (often taken from nature), similes, "blessed," "son" or "children," and "better." [Note: Bullock, p. 202.] They are not prayers as such but reflections on life and life’s problems. The wisdom psalms are a subset of the didactic psalm genre, other subsets being Torah psalms and historical psalms. Wisdom psalms can be subdivided into psalms of proverbial wisdom and psalms of reflective wisdom.

"The proverb represents a concentrated expression of the truth. It teaches the obvious because it is a slice out of real life. . . . This proverbial type of wisdom teaching is sometimes called lower wisdom.

"The second type of wisdom, the type represented by Job and Ecclesiastes, is basically reflective. This reflective wisdom puts forth problems that arise out of real life, but it does not have the pat answers that proverbial wisdom offers. . . . This type of wisdom teaching is sometimes called higher wisdom. The Psalms actually contain both types." [Note: Ibid., p. 200.]

Students of this penitential psalm have often linked it with David’s adultery with Bathsheba and his murder of her husband Uriah (2 Samuel 11). While that identification seems probable in view of the content of the psalm, the connection is not indisputable. Psalms 51 was David’s prayer for pardon for having committed those acts. If Psalms 32 looks back on these very sins, David probably composed it later than Psalms 51. Psalms 32 stresses God’s forgiveness and the lesson David learned from not confessing his sin quickly. Other penitential psalms are 6, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143.

"While they are not all strictly ’penitential,’ Psalms 51, 130 are definitely prayers of penitence, and Psalms 32, 102 are laments related to an illness, perhaps stemming from the psalmist’s sin (Psalms 32:3). The tone of all seven penitential psalms, however, is one of submission to the almighty God, a necessary disposition for anyone who would seek God’s forgiveness" [Note: Ibid., p. 207.]

Thirteen psalms contain the word "Maskil" in their titles (Psalms 32, 42, 44-45, 52-55, 74, 78, 88-89, , 142; cf. Psalms 47:7). The meaning of this term is still uncertain.

"The word is derived from a verb meaning ’to be prudent; to be wise’ (see BDB 968). Various options are: ’a contemplative song,’ ’a song imparting moral wisdom,’ or ’a skillful [i.e., well-written] song.’" [Note: The NET Bible note on the title of Psalms 32. "BDB" is Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, The New Brown-Driver-Briggs-Gesenius Hebrew and English Lexicon.]

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

David’s failure to confess his sin immediately resulted in internal grief and external weakness for him. God oppressed him severely with discipline (cf. Hebrews 12:6). Consequently David felt drained of energy. Evidently this is a description of how he felt in every aspect of his being-physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

2. The chastening of the unrepentant 32:3-5

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

When I kept silence,.... Was unthoughtful of sin, unconcerned about it, and made no acknowledgment and confession of it to God, being quite senseless and stupid; the Targum adds, "from the words of the law"; which seems to point at sin as the cause of what follows;

my bones waxed old; through my roaring all the day long; not under a sense of sin, but under some severe affliction, and through impatience in it; not considering that sin lay at the bottom, and was the occasion of it; and such was the violence of the disorder, and his uneasiness under it, that his strength was dried up by it, and his bones stuck out as they do in aged persons, whose flesh is wasted away from them; see

Psalms 102:3.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

A psalm of David, Maschil.

      1 Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.   2 Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile.   3 When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.   4 For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. Selah.   5 I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. Selah.   6 For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found: surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto him.

      This psalm is entitled Maschil, which some take to be only the name of the tune to which it was set and was to be sung. But others think it is significant; our margin reads it, A psalm of David giving instruction, and there is nothing in which we have more need of instruction than in the nature of true blessedness, wherein it consists and the way that leads to it--what we must do that we may be happy. There are several things in which these verses instruct us. In general, we are here taught that our happiness consists in the favour of God, and not in the wealth of this world--in spiritual blessings, and not the good things of this world. When David says (Psalms 1:1), Blessed is the man that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, and (Psalms 119:1), Blessed are the undefiled in the way, the meaning is, "This is the character of the blessed man; and he that has not this character cannot expect to be happy:" but when it is here said, Blessed is the man whose iniquity is forgiven, the meaning is, "This is the ground of his blessedness: this is that fundamental privilege from which all the other ingredients of his blessedness flow." In particular, we are here instructed,

      I. Concerning the nature of the pardon of sin. This is that which we all need and are undone without; we are therefore concerned to be very solicitous and inquisitive about it. 1. It is the forgiving of transgression. Sin is the transgression of the law. Upon our repentance, the transgression is forgiven; that is, the obligation to punishment which we lay under, by virtue of the sentence of the law, is vacated and cancelled; it is lifted off (so some read it), that by the pardon of it we may be eased of a burden, a heavy burden, like a load on the back, that makes us stoop, or a load on the stomach, that makes us sick, or a load on the spirits, that makes us sink. The remission of sins gives rest and relief to those that were weary and heavily laden,Matthew 11:28. 2. It is the covering of sin, as nakedness is covered, that it may not appear to our shame, Revelation 3:18. One of the first symptoms of guilt in our first parents was blushing at their own nakedness. Sin makes us loathsome in the sight of God and utterly unfit for communion with him, and, when conscience is awakened, it makes us loathsome to ourselves too; but, when sin is pardoned, it is covered with the robe of Christ's righteousness, like the coats of skins wherewith God clothed Adam and Eve (an emblem of the remission of sins), so that God is no longer displeased with us, but perfectly reconciled. They are not covered from us (no; My sin is ever before me) nor covered from God's omniscience, but from his vindictive justice. When he pardons sin he remembers it no more, he casts it behind his back, it shall be sought for and not found, and the sinner, being thus reconciled to God, begins to be reconciled to himself. 3. It is the not imputing of iniquity, not laying it to the sinner's charge, not proceeding against him for it according to the strictness of the law, not dealing with him as he deserves. The righteousness of Christ being imputed to us, and we being made the righteousness of God in him, our iniquity is not imputed, God having laid upon him the iniquity of us all and made him sin for us. Observe, Not to impute iniquity is God's act, for he is the Judge. It is God that justifies.

      II. Concerning the character of those whose sins are pardoned: in whose spirit there is no guile. He does not say, "There is no guilt" (for who is there that lives and sins not?), but no guile; the pardoned sinner is one that does not dissemble with God in his professions of repentance and faith, nor in his prayers for peace or pardon, but in all these is sincere and means as he says--that does not repent with a purpose to sin again, and then sin with a purpose to repent again, as a learned interpreter glosses upon it. Those that design honestly, that are really what they profess to be, are Israelites indeed, in whom is no guile.

      III. Concerning the happiness of a justified state: Blessednesses are to the man whose iniquity is forgiven, all manner of blessings, sufficient to make him completely blessed. That is taken away which incurred the curse and obstructed the blessing; and then God will pour out blessings till there be no room to receive them. The forgiveness of sin is that article of the covenant which is the reason and ground of all the rest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness,Hebrews 8:12.

      IV. Concerning the uncomfortable condition of an unhumbled sinner, that sees his guilt, but is not yet brought to make a penitent confession of it. This David describes very pathetically, from his own sad experience (Psalms 32:3; Psalms 32:4): While I kept silence my bones waxed old. Those may be said to keep silence who stifle their convictions, who, when they cannot but see the evil of sin and their danger by reason of it, ease themselves by not thinking of it and diverting their minds to something else, as Cain to the building of a city,--who cry not when God binds them,--who will not unburden their consciences by a penitent confession, nor seek for peace, as they ought, by faithful and fervent prayer,--and who choose rather to pine away in their iniquities than to take the method which God has appointed of finding rest for their souls. Let such expect that their smothered convictions will be a fire in their bones, and the wounds of sin, not opened, will fester, and grow intolerably painful. If conscience be seared, the case is so much the more dangerous; but if it be startled and awake, it will be heard. The hand of divine wrath will be felt lying heavily upon the soul, and the anguish of the spirit will affect the body; to the degree David experienced it, so that when he was young his bones waxed old; and even his silence made him roar all the day long, as if he had been under some grievous pain and distemper of body, when really the cause of all his uneasiness was the struggle he felt in his own bosom between his convictions and his corruptions. Note, He that covers his sin shall not prosper; some inward trouble is required in repentance, but there is much worse in impenitency.

      V. Concerning the true and only way to peace of conscience. We are here taught to confess our sins, that they may be forgiven, to declare them, that we may be justified. This course David took: I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and no longer hid my iniquity,Psalms 32:5; Psalms 32:5. Note, Those that would have the comfort of the pardon of their sins must take shame to themselves by a penitent confession of them. We must confess the fact of sin, and be particular in it (Thus and thus have I done), confess the fault of sin, aggravate it, and lay a load upon ourselves for it (I have done very wickedly), confess the justice of the punishment we have been under for it (The Lord is just in all that is brought upon us), and that we deserve much worse--I am no more worthy to be called thy son. We must confess sin with shame and holy blushing, with fear and holy trembling.

      VI. Concerning God's readiness to pardon sin to those who truly repent of it: "I said, I will confess (I sincerely resolved upon it, hesitated no longer, but came to a point, that I would make a free and ingenuous confession of my sins) and immediately thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin, and gavest me the comfort of the pardon in my own conscience; immediately I found rest to my soul." Note, God is more ready to pardon sin, upon our repentance, than we are to repent in order to the obtaining of pardon. It was with much ado that David was here brought to confess his sins; he was put to the rack before he was brought to do it (Psalms 32:3; Psalms 32:4), he held out long, and would not surrender till it came to the last extremity; but, when he did offer to surrender, see how quickly, how easily, he obtained good terms: "I did but say, I will confess, and thou forgavest." Thus the father of the prodigal saw his returning son when he was yet afar off, and ran to meet him with the kiss that sealed his pardon. What an encouragement is this to poor penitents, and what an assurance does it give us that, if we confess our sins, we shall find God, not only faithful and just, but gracious and kind, to forgive us our sins!

      VII. Concerning the good use that we are to make of the experience David had had of God's readiness to forgive his sins (Psalms 32:6; Psalms 32:6): For this shall every one that is godly pray unto thee. Note, 1. All godly people are praying people. As soon as ever Paul was converted, Behold, he prays,Acts 9:11. You may as soon find a living man without breath as a living Christian without prayer. 2. The instructions given us concerning the happiness of those whose sins are pardoned, and the easiness of obtaining the pardon, should engage and encourage us to pray, and particularly to pray, God be merciful to us sinners. For this shall every one that is well inclined be earnest with God in prayer, and come boldly to the throne of grace, with hopes to obtain mercy,Hebrews 4:16. 3. Those that would speed in prayer must seek the Lord in a time when he will be found. When, by his providence, he calls them to seek him, and by his Spirit stirs them up to seek him, they must go speedily to seek the Lord (Zechariah 8:21) and lose no time, lest death cut them off, and then it will be too late to seek him, Isaiah 55:6. Behold, now is the accepted time,2 Corinthians 6:2; 2 Corinthians 6:4. Those that are sincere and abundant in prayer will find the benefit of it when they are in trouble: Surely in the floods of great waters, which are very threatening, they shall not come nigh them, to terrify them, or create them any uneasiness, much less shall they overwhelm them. Those that have God nigh unto them in all that which they call upon him for, as all upright, penitent, praying people have, are so guarded, so advanced, that no waters--no, not great waters--no, not floods of them, can come nigh them, to hurt them. As the temptations of the wicked one touch them not (1 John 5:18), so neither do the troubles of this evil world; these fiery darts of both kinds, drop short of them.

Spurgeon's Verse Expositions of the Bible

The Danger of Unconfessed Sin

by C. H. SPURGEON

(1834-1892)

“When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.”-Psalms 32:3 .

It is well known that in ordinary cases grief which is kept within the bosom grows more and more intense. It is a very great relief to shed tears; it gives a vent to the heart. We sometimes pity those who weep, but there is a grief too deep for tears, which is far more worthy of compassion; we ought most to pity those who cannot weep. A dry sorrow is a terrible one, but clear shining often follows the rain of tears. Tears are hopeful things; they are the dewdrops of the morning foretelling the coming day. So is it also a very great consolation to tell your story to a friend; I do not know whether it would not be a comfort to speak it to a little child, even if the child could not understand you. There is something in telling your sorrow and letting it out; otherwise it is like a mountain tarn which has no outlet, into which the rains descend and the torrents rush, and at last the banks are broken and a flood is caused. Let thy soul flow forth in words as to thy common griefs, it is well for thee. A festering wound is dangerous. Many have lost their reason because they had good reason to tell their sorrows, but had not reason enough to do so. Much talk hath in it much of sin, but a heart full of agony must speak or burst; therefore let it talk on and even repeat itself, for in so doing it will spend itself.

“Sorrow weeps!

And spends its bitterness in tears;

My child of sorrow,

Weep out the fullness of thy passionate grief,

And drown in tears

The bitterness of lonely years.”

We shall now, however, think of spiritual sorrows, and to these the same rule applies. “When I kept silence,” and did not pour out my sorrow where I ought to have confessed it, “my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.”

Is it not a great mercy for us that we have the Book of Psalms, and the life of such a man as David? Biographies of most people nowadays are like the portraits of a past generation, when the art of flattery in oils was at its height. There is no greater cheat than a modem biography; it is not the man at all, but what he might have been if he had not been something else. They give you a lock of his hair, or his wig, or his old coat, but seldom the man; they make huge volumes out of a heap of his letters which ought to have been burned, and copy little scraps of pictures which he used to draw for friends, and neither the letters nor the sketches ought ever to have been published. Like burglars, they break into a man’s chamber and purloin his hidden things; they hold up to the public eye what was meant for privacy only, and expose the secrets of the man’s heart and hearth. Things which the man would never have drawn or written if he had thought that they would meet the public eye are dragged forth and brought out as precious things, and so they are, but precious nonsense. We have no biographers nowadays. When Boswell died the greatest of all biographers died, and he was not far removed from a fool. If a man lives a noble life he may well shrink from dying, because he knows what will become of him nowadays when writers of his memoirs unearth him, and tear him to pieces. David’s psalms are his best memorial. There you have not the man’s exterior, but his inward soul; they do not reveal the outward manifestations of the man, but you see the man’s heart-the inner David, the David that groaned and the David that wept, the David that sighed and the David that sinned, the David that yearned after God, and the David that was eaten up with the zeal of God’s house-the man who was born in sin and groaned over sin, and was yet the man after God’s own heart. What a wonderful autobiography of a wonderful life that Book of Psalms is! David was a many-sided man, and his life was like the life of our Lord in this respect-that it seemed to comprehend the lives of all other men within itself. There is no man, I suppose, who has known the Lord in any age since David wrote but has seen himself in David’s psalms as in a looking-glass, and has said to himself, “This man knows all about me. He has been into every room of my soul-into its lowest cellar and into its loftiest tower; he has been with me in the dens of my inbred sin and in the palaces of my fellowship with Christ, from which I have looked upon the glory of God.” Here is a man who “seems to be, not one, but all mankind’s epitome.” Though we mourn over David’s sin, yet we thank God that it was permitted, for if he had not so fallen he had not been able to help us when we are conscious of transgression. He could not have so minutely described our griefs if he had not felt the same. David lived, in this respect, for others as well as for himself.

I am thankful that David was permitted to try the experiment of silence after his great sin, for he will now tell us what came of it- “When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.”

We shall apply this first, as it should be, to the erring child of God convinced of his sin; and then, secondly, we shall remind you that the same rule holds good with the awakened sinner in whom the Spirit of God has begun to work a sense of guilt.

I. First, Let Us Think Of The Child Of God. Children of God sin! Some of them have claimed to be well-nigh free from it; but-I will say no more; I think they sinned when they talked in such a lofty strain. God’s children sin, for they are still in the body. If they are in a right state of heart they will mourn over this, and it will be the burden of their lives, Oh that they could live without sin! it is this that they sigh after, and they can never be fully content until they obtain it. They do not excuse themselves by saying, “I cannot be perfect,” but they feel that their inability is their sin. They regard every transgression and tendency to sin as a grievous fault, and they mourn over it from day to day. They would be holy as Christ is holy. To will is present with them, but how to perform that which they would they find not.

Now, when the child of God sins, the proper thing for him to do is at once to go and tell his heavenly Father. As soon as ever we are conscious of sin, the right thing is not to begin to reason with the sin, or to wait until we have brought ourselves into a proper state of heart about it, but to go at once and confess the transgression unto the Lord, there and then. Sin will not come to any very great head in any man’s heart who does this continually. God will never have great chastisements in store for those who are quick confessors of sin. You know how it is with your child. There has been something broken, perhaps, by carelessness; there has been some violation of a rule of the house, but if he comes and catches you by the sleeve, and says, “Father,” or “Mother, I am very sorry that I have been doing wrong”-why, you know, while you are sorry that he should transgress you are glad to think that his heart is so right that without being questioned he comes of his own accord and tells you so frankly that he was wrong. Whatever grief you may feel about his fault, you feel a greater joy in the frankness of his confession and the tenderness of his conscience, and you have forgiven him, I am sure, before he has got half way through his openhearted acknowledgment. You feel that you cannot be angry with so frank and penitent a child. Though sometimes you may have to put on a sour look, and shake your head, and reprimand, and scold a little, yet if the little eyes fill with tears, and the confession becomes still more open, and the sorrow still more evident, it is not hard to move you to give the child a kiss and send him away with, “Go and sin no more; I have forgiven thee.” Our heavenly Father is a much more tender Father than any of us, and therefore, if we, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto our children, how much more shall our heavenly Father forgive us our trespasses. “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him,” and therefore he has compassion upon the children of men when they acknowledge their offenses. We are not more ready to forgive our children than our heavenly Father is ready to forgive us. We may be quite sure of that. And so, if it be our habit-and I do trust it is-never to suffer guilt to lie upon our consciences, but to go as soon as ever we are sensible of a fault and own it before the Lord, asking pardon from him for Jesus’ sake, there will be no great amount of damage done to ourselves, and the Lord’s anger will not wax hot against us, neither will severe chastisements happen to us. We may endure sharp afflictions, because they are often sent for another purpose, but we shall not have visitations of paternal wrath. Many trials are not sent for chastisements at all, but as preparations for higher usefulness; for every branch that beareth fruit he purgeth it, evidently not because of any offense in the branch, but even because the branch is good and does bear fruit, and, therefore, it is allowed the special privilege of the pruning knife that it may bring forth more fruit. Speedy and full confession will not prevent tribulations which are meant merely for instruction, but it will avert trials which are intended as severe chastisements; and this will be no small benefit. Did not David pray, “O Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure”?

Now, it sometimes happens that God’s children, when they have done wrong-especially if they have done very, very wrong-do not go and confess it. When there is the most necessity for confession, there is often the greatest tardiness in making it. It was so in David’s case. Alas! how foully had he fallen! It is never to any purpose to try and excuse David’s sin. There are certain palliating circumstances, but he never mentioned them, and, therefore, we need not. Indeed, if David were here to-night, and we were to begin excusing his sin, he would rise with tears in his eyes and say, “For God’s sake do not attempt it. Let it stand in all its deformity, that the power of God’s mercy may be the more clearly seen in washing me and making me whiter than snow.” But David’s heart was very naughty. It was sound towards God as a rule; there was deep love to God always there, but it had become overlaid and crusted with what was always David’s great besetment-the strong passions of his impulsive nature. He had followed in some measure the ill example of neighboring kings, in taking a number of wives to himself, and this had fed rather than checked his natural tendencies; and at length in an evil hour, he fell into a crime of deepest dye. He knew that he was doing wrong. He sinned against light and knowledge, but, alas, he did not hasten to his God and confess the grievous crime.

I think I can see why he could not have gone straight away from the sin to confession, for the sin prevented the confession-the sin blinded the eye, stultified the conscience, and stupefied the entire spiritual nature of David. Hence he did not confess at once; but surely he felt as if he must own the fault when the time came for prayer. I have no doubt that David prayed after a sort, but he must have presented very formal and mutilated prayers so long as he refused to acknowledge his transgression. When the time came for David to finger his harp, perhaps he did so, and went through a song or a psalm; but he could never reach to the essence of true praise by pouring out his heart before God while the foul sin was hidden in his bosom. How could he? His psalms and his prayers were silence before God, whatever sound he made, for his heart did not speak, and God would not hear him. However sweet the tone or the tune, his songs were nothing to the Most High, for his heart was silent. And why was he silent when he knew that he was wrong? Why did he not go to God at once? Well, it was partly because he was stupefied by his sin. He was fascinated, captivated, and held in bondage by it. Oh, brethren and sisters, beware of the basilisk eye of sin. It is dangerous even to look at sin, for looking leads to longing. A look at sin often leads to a lusting after sin, and that soon ripens into the actual indulgence. No man even thinks of sin without damage. I saw a magnificent photograph in Rome, one of the finest I had ever seen, and right across the middle there was the spectre mark of a cart and two oxen, repeated many times. The artist had tried to get it out, but the trace remained. While his plate was exposed to take the view, the cart and the oxen had gone across the scene, and they were indelible. Often in the photograph of a fine building you will see the shade of a man who passed by, who is there represented by a sort of ghostly figure. Upon our soul every sinful thought leaves a mark and a stain that calls for us to weep it out-nay, needs Christ’s blood to wash it away. We begin with thinking of sin, and then we somewhat desire the sin; next we enter into communion with the sin, and then we get into the sin, and the sin gets into us, and we lie as oak in it. So David did. He did not feel it at first, but there he was, plunged into the evil deeps. In such a state sin does not appear burdensome. A man with a pail of water on his head feels it to be heavy, but if he dives he does not feel the weight of the water above him because he is actually in it and surrounded by it. When a man plunges into sin he does not feel the weight of the sin as he does when he is out of that dreadful element; then he is burdened by it. So David did not feel his guilt at first; he knew that he had done wrong, but he did not perceive the exceeding heinousness of his evil deed, and therefore he did not confess it.

Next, there was much pride in David’s heart. Have you a child who, when he has offended, knows he is wrong, but will not own it? If so, you talk to him, but he will not speak; he is quite silent, or, if he does speak, it is not in the right way; he makes some naughty, obstinate, strong-headed speech. You cannot bring him to say, “Father, I have done wrong;” but he tries to excuse himself in this way and that. Perhaps he partly denies the fault, and only mentions certain things that other people did, by way of excuse for himself. Now, what our children do to us we have often done to God. We have sullenly stood it out before him. I remember well a story of a reputable Christian man who on a certain occasion was betrayed into drinking. He was a long time in distress of mind about his sin. He had been drunk, but when he was spoken to about it, as he was, by some of the officers of the church, he said that he was “overtaken,” and added that “a very little affected him.” I think that is what he said; and he pleaded that some others had been overtaken too, and he did not see why such notice should be taken of a little slip. All this he said to leave a loophole for himself. When he had done saying that, he would add- Well, he did not know, he did not believe that he was drunk; he was sure that nobody could prove that he was, though he might have taken a little more than was good for him. His tongue talked in that way, but his heart knew better. He was a child of God, and he knew he was wrong, and he never got peace by making these shocking self-defences. He was, indeed, terribly tortured in his soul, till at last he went down on his knees, and said, “Lord, I have been drunk. There is no use in denying it; I, who am thy servant, have been drunk. Forgive me for thy mercy’s sake, and keep me henceforth from even tasting of the intoxicating cup.” He honestly confessed his transgression, and a sweet sense of pardon followed at once. It takes some professors a long time to get up to that point. We call our sin by some other name, and fancy that it is not quite so bad in us as it would be in others. Oh, the ways we have got of trying to extenuate; and, oh, the sullenness which has sometimes been put on and carried out for days and days together before the living God by God’s naughty children when they have fallen into an ill-temper.

I have no doubt that some have been silent before God for a time as to the confession of their wrong because of fear. They could not believe that, after all, their Father loved them. They thought that if they did confess they would receive a heavy sentence and be overwhelmed with wrath. David had often looked up into the face of God and known his love; but now that he had thrown dust into his own eyes he could not see God’s face, and he only felt God’s chastening hand, for he says, “Day and night thy hand was heavy upon me; my moisture is turned into the drought of summer.” The sun burned him up, but afforded him none of the sunshine of the face of God. Unbelief is sure to follow sin of the kind committed by David. When it has brought on sullenness of temper, then we begin to think that God deals hardly with us, whereas it is we that are dealing hardly with him. If we would confess, all would be well; but there is the hard point. It is not, if he would forgive, for he is ready to blot out the transgressions of his people, but the difficulty lies in if we would believe in his love. There is a great deal of the Pharisee in many Christians. You may question the statement, but I should not wonder if there is a good deal of the Pharisee in you, or else you would not have doubted the assertion. You are so much of a Pharisee that you do not think yourself a Pharisee. But we are prone to begin thinking, “Surely, surely, I at such a time was a worthy object of God’s love, but now I am not.” Oh, then, you were once a wonder of goodness, and marvelously worthy and excellent? Do not believe it. My dear brother, perhaps you were as bad when you had not openly transgressed as you are now, for then your disease may have taken the form of pride, and though it has now taken another shape, it may be no worse, for pride is as damnable as any other form of sin. He who says to himself, “I am righteous; I can stand before God and deserve his love,” is as surely lost as though he had fallen into gross sin. Take heed of the Pharisee that lurks within you.

Anyhow, whatever was the reason, David was silent about his sin for some long time. The result of it was that his sorrow became worse and worse. He could not pray; he tried to pray, but as he would not confess his sin, it stuck in his throat, and till that was out he could not pray. But still he must pray; so he took to roaring. That is to say, it was such inarticulate, indistinct prayer, and there was so much of his soul in it, that he calls it the roaring of a beast instead of the praying of a man. His inward grief over his unconfessed sin was such that his bones began to wax old. They are the pillars of the house, the strongest part of the entire system, but even they seemed as if they would decay. He was brought into ill health of body through the torment of his mind. He could find no peace, and yet he would not go and confess the sin. He was still sullenly looking up to God, not as a sinner, but as a saved one, and talking to God as if he were righteous, while at the same time his sin was crushing him. All this while, I say, his grief gathered, and there was only one cure for it; he ought to have confessed it to the Lord. As soon as it was confessed he was forgiven. How quick was that act of amnesty and oblivion David said, “I have sinned,” and Nathan said, “The Lord hath put away thy sin; thou shalt not die.” If pardon be so near at hand, who would linger a moment? Who among us would not at once repair to our heavenly Father, and with our heads in his bosom sob out the confession of our sin? Because he is so ready to forgive we ought to be ready to confess.

I may be addressing a child of God, or one who thought that he was a child of God, who has grievously fallen. My brother, go thou with haste to thy Lord, and acknowledge thine iniquity. He bids thee come. Only confess thine iniquity in which thou hast transgressed against the Lord, and he will have mercy upon thee now. And oh, what a relief it is when you have discharged the load, and when the voice of mercy has said, “Thou art forgiven; go in peace.” What would I give for that, says one. Well, thou needest not give anything. Do but confess, and if thou confess into the ear of God, with faith in his dear Son, for Jesus’ sake he will accept thee, and seal thy pardon home to thy soul. Come and unburden thy spirit at the bleeding feet of the Redeemer, and leap for joy.

Thus have I tried to encourage the Lord’s own children to own their sins. I do not know for whom these words are particularly meant, but I am driven to say them, for I labor under the strong impression that there is some child of God here who is almost despairing of the Lord’s mercy and who is well nigh ready to renounce his profession of religion because he fears that the Lord’s mercy is clean gone for ever. My dear friend, judge not so harshly of him who loves thee still. Did he not love us when we were dead in trespasses and sins, and will he not love us if now our sin has wounded us again? He never loved us because we were good, and therefore as he knew all that we should be, he will not change in his affection. He “commendeth his love to us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly”-died for us as sinners. If you never did come to him-if all your religion has been a mistake-do not begin to argue upon that matter, but come to Jesus now, for the first time. Many and many a score times have I done that. When the devil has said, “Your faith has been mere delusion, and your experience has been all a fiction,” and I have replied, “I will not dispute with you, Sir Devil, but I will just go to Christ as a sinner, for I know he came to seek and to save sinners, even lost ones, such as I am; and I will humbly ask him anew to be my Savior.” That is a short cut to comfort, may the Spirit lead you into it. Be not baffled by Satanic suggestions, but come to Jesus over again, and over again, and over again, “to whom coming as unto a living stone”-looking unto Jesus-not having looked once, but continually looking and trusting in him.

II. But now I must have a few minutes, while we use this same subject in reference To The Awakened Sinner.

Some in this place, perhaps, have lately been aroused to a consciousness of guilt before God; but one thing they have not done, they have never made confession of their sin. They feel the burden of it in a measure, and they will feel it more, but as yet they have kept their grief to themselves; neither to God nor man have they poured out their souls. To speak to our fellow-men about our heart troubles is comparatively of little use, and yet I would not recommend persons under conviction of sin always to hide their souls’ sorrows from their Christian friends. They might often be much helped if they would communicate their thoughts to those who have gone further on the road to heaven, and know more about Christ and the way of salvation. Yet, for the most part, a wounded conscience, like a wounded stag, delights to be alone that it may bleed in secret. It is very hard to get at a man under conviction of sin; he retires so far into himself that it is impossible to follow him. Ah, you poor mourners, I know how you try to conceal your pains. I will tell you one reason why you do not like to tell your mother, your sister, your brother. It is because you think your feelings are so strange; you suppose that nobody ever felt like you; you have the notion that you must be the worst person that ever lived, and therefore you are ashamed to tell what you feel for fear your friends should scout you out of their society. Ah, poor soul; you do not know; you do not know. We have all been on your road. When you tell of your sin, you put us in memory of the way in which we talked, perhaps five-and-twenty years ago, or more, when we, too, felt sin a burden as you feel it now. When you tell us of the greatness of your sin, and think that we shall surely despise you, and never speak to you again, tears of joy are in our eyes to think that you feel as we did. We are glad to discover your tender and contrite spirit; we only wish that thousands felt as you do. Do you not remember what George Whitefield said when his brother at the dinner table said that he was a lost soul? Mr. Whitefield said, “Thank God,” and his brother wondered. “Why,” said Whitefield, “Jesus came into the world to seek and to save that which was lost.” The more black you think yourself to be, the brighter is our hope of you; when you poor tremblers give yourselves an awful character we know it is correct, and we do not wish to contradict you, but we are glad to hear you say it, and to know that you feel it, because now we see in you that which will prepare you to value a precious Christ. A man who says, “I am well clothed,” is not likely to accept Christ’s righteousness. But when he cries, “How naked I am, how useless are these fig-leaves,” he is the man for Christ’s robes. When you meet with a man who says “I am full; I feast on my own righteousness,” what is the good of inviting him to the gospel banquet? You must invite him, for you are commanded to do so; but he will refuse to come. But when you meet with another who is hungry, and faint, and ready to die-ah! there is the man for your money. Bid him come where the oxen and the fatlings are killed, and all things are ready. His mouth is watering while you speak to him, and he will come with you, and sit down at the banquet of the King. We are glad, poor sinner, to hear your tale; and therefore the next time you meet with a Christian, I would advise you to tell him a little of it. But still that is not what you most want. You need to lay bare your deep sorrow before your God; and, oh, if you do it, there stands the promise, “He that confesseth and forsaketh his sins shall find mercy.” Confession before God was never sincerely offered but absolution from the Most High was sure to follow.

Remember that, even though you do not go and tell the Lord, he knows already, and therefore concealment is in vain. He needs not your confession for his information, but for your own benefit. But if you do not confess to him, you certainly will never obtain pardon, for there is not between the covers of the holy Bible a single intimation that God will ever pardon unconfessed sin. If you cover and cloak it, and feel no repentance about it, and do not bring it to Christ, you cannot expect to receive mercy from the offended Lord.

Now, it happens with some that, though they are conscious of sin, they do not confess it; and what is the result? Why, it increases their misery. It is impossible that you should find peace while sin continues to gather in your soul. It is a festering wound; the lancet must be let in, there cannot be rest until it is so. I have known a sinner before confession of sin feel as if he could lay violent hands upon himself, so intense was his anguish. Well do I remember repeating to myself the words of the prophet, “My soul chooseth strangling rather than life,” for of all the tortures in this world an awakened conscience, pressed down with a sense of guilt, is the worst. The Spanish Inquisition invented cruel racks and thumbscrews, but there is no inquisitor like a man’s own conscience, for it can put the screw upon the soul to the uttermost degree. Let a man’s conscience loose upon him, and at once the worm commences to gnaw, and the fire begins to burn. They used in olden times to ascribe the torment of hell to the devil; but we do not want any devil for that; conscience can measure out an infinite misery. Let but remorse lay its thongs of wire upon a man, and it will scarify him, and gash him to the very soul. So long as a man continues silent before God, and does not own his sin, if the Lord really has begun to deal with him, he will have to suffer more and more from the pangs of conscience.

But, then, increase of sorrow accompanied by this silence is a very dangerous piece of business. I spoke cheeringly just now of those of you who are under a sense of sin, but it was only in the hope that you would go to God, through Jesus Christ, and confess your sin; for if you refuse to do so, your position is one of very great danger. “What danger?” say you. Why, if sin remain festering within you, and your sorrow increases, you will come to despair altogether, and that is an awful prospect indeed. You remember John Bunyan’s picture of the man in the iron cage? There is not in the “Pilgrim’s Progress” an incident more terrible. Now, you are forging the bars of a cage for yourself as long as you refuse to acknowledge your guilt before God. Those who are in the iron cage of despair will tell you that they delayed to acknowledge sin, that they refused to accept Christ, that they suppressed their feelings, and so brought themselves into bondage. They were pleased to hear ministers preach about conviction of sin, and speak of deep sorrow, and the like; but they did not care to be told that it was their duty, there and then, to believe in Jesus; they could not endure that doctrine. They liked to be comforted in the notion that there was something good in feeling a sense of sin, apart from believing; whereas, if a soul will not believe in Christ, its sense of sin may be an evil instead of a benefit to it. Nothing can be good that is unsalted with faith. “With all thy sacrifices thou shalt offer salt;” and if the salt of faith be absent, the sacrifice is unacceptable.

We have known some who, through getting into despair, have afterwards fallen into utter hardness of heart. They used to be malleable; they used to feel the strokes of the divine hammer; now they feel nothing, but are as hard as the blacksmith’s anvil. They have got into such a condition that they wickedly say, if God will save them they will be saved, but they have nothing to do with it. They once were tender; now they are presumptuous. They say “there is no hope,” and therefore, on the theory of the old proverb that they may as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb, in all probability they will go on to commit worse sins than ever. Some of the biggest sinners that have ever disgraced the name of humanity have been persons who were once tender of conscience and were on the point of conversion, but they did violence to conviction, came to despair of ever entering heaven, and in the end determined that as they must go to hell they would go there with a high hand and an outstretched arm. He who has seen heaven’s gate open before him, but has not stepped in, is the man who above all others is likely to find the hottest place in hell. You may think it strange for me to say so, but I know it is so, for such persons go by the way of despair into hardness of heart, and then into the grossest transgression. Yes, and this is the back door to atheism, for when a man feels that God and he never can be at peace,-when he has made up his mind that he never will confess his sin,-what is the first thing that he does to comfort himself? He says- “There is no God.” And what does the declaration, “There is no God,” mean? It means this, that the man feels that he would be much more happy if there were no God. That is what it means, and nothing more. It is the man’s wish rather than his creed, and he wishes it because he despairs and his heart has grown hard. Oh, when God makes your heart soft as wax, mind who puts the seal upon it. If the Spirit of the living God set not the seal of deep repentance and holy faith upon the softened soul, there is another that will put the seal of despair, and perhaps of atheism and of defiant sin upon it; and then woe worth the day to you that ever you were born. Refusal to confess is a perilous thing for your soul. I am sure that when a man begins to be awakened to a sense of sin, if he tarries long in that condition he is being entangled moment by moment in the Satanic web. The devil cares little about careless sinners. “Let them alone,” says he, “they will come to me by-and-by,” And as for very religious people who possess no true godliness, the devil does not bother them; he says, “No, let the hypocrites be in peace; they are going my way as nicely as possible. Why should I arouse them by causing them mistrust as to their state?” But the moment that souls are startled into a sense of sin the devil says to himself, “I shall lose them,” and so he plies all his arts, and uses all his craft, if by any means he may prevent their escape. Man, now is your time to flee away to the city of refuge without tarrying even for an hour, for even now all the devils in hell are after you. They did not trouble about you before, but they are after you now with sevenfold energy. Close in with Christ, then, and at once escape them all. Oh, may the Spirit of God enable you now to find eternal mercy through the confession of your sin to God and looking to Christ for mercy-the mercy which he is so willing to give.

This is the last point. There is no hope, then, of any comfort to a bruised heart except by its confessing its guilt. I would earnestly urge upon every one conscious of sin to go with troubled heart and heaving bosom and confess his transgression to the Lord at once. I would do it in detail, if I were you. I find it sometimes profitable to myself to read the ten commandments, and to think over my sins against each one of them. What a list it is, and how it humbles you in the dust to read it over! When you come to that command- “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” “Ah,” say you, “I have never been guilty there.” But when you are told by the Savior that a lustful glance breaks that command, how it alters all! Then you perceive that fleshly desires and imaginations are all sins, and you humble yourself in the dust. You read also, “Thou shalt not kill,”- “Well,” say you, “I never killed anyone”; but you change your note when you hear that “he that is angry with his brother without a cause is a murderer.” When you see the spirituality of the law, and the way in which you have broken all the commandments ten thousand times over, be sure to confess it all, right sorrowfully. I find it good to look all round sometimes, and think, “I am a father; there are my sins against my children. Have I trained them up for God as I should? I am a husband; there are sins in that relationship. I am a master; there are sins in that position; how have I acted towards my servants? I am a pastor; how many sins occur in that relationship?” Why, you will not look around you, if God opens your eyes, without being helped to see what you ought to confess. Take the very limbs of your body, and they will accuse you; sins of the brain in evil thoughts, sins of the eye in idle glances, sins of this little naughty member, the tongue, which does more mischief than all the rest. There is no member without its own special sins. There are sins of the ear-how often have we heard the gospel, but heard it in vain. On the other hand, have we not too often lent a willing ear to unholy words. and to wicked stories against our neighbors? I need not read over the calendar of our offenses from this pulpit; go and write it out in the closet, and pour out a flood of tears over it. If yon are willing to confess, everything will help you to confession, and there is good reason for doing it at once. May the Holy Spirit work with its tenderest influences to melt your heart into contrition.

Remember while you are confessing, that each one of your sins has a world of evil in it. There is a mine of sin in every little sin. You have taken up a spider’s nest sometimes-one of those little money-spinner’s nests-and you have opened it. What thousands of spiders you find hanging down and hastening away in divers directions. What a myriad of them. So in every sin there is a host of sins. There is a conglomeration of many kinds of evil in every transgression, therefore be humbled on account of each one. Confess your iniquities before God, and accept the punishment as being your righteous due. There stands the block, and there is the place for your neck; put it down, and say, “Lord, I submit to my sentence, and if thou biddest the headsman strike I cannot complain.” Go before God as the citizens of Calais came before the English king, with ropes about their necks. Submit yourselves to the punishment due to your offense, and then make an appeal ad misericordiam, to the mercy of God alone, and say, “For Christ’s sake-for his blood’s sake-have mercy upon me. There is no man, woman, or child in this Tabernacle who shall do that to-night who shall be rejected; for “him that cometh to me,” saith Christ, “I will in nowise cast out.” And this is the right way of coming-the way of confessing your sin and acknowledging the evil of it and turning to the great Substitute for deliverance. Say that you deserve to be sent to hell, and cast yourself upon the mercy of God in Christ Jesus, trusting in the great Surety and Sacrifice, and you shall be accepted in and through him. This is the way of life, and he who runs therein shall find salvation.

Spurgeon's Verse Expositions of the Bible

Terrible Convictions and Gentle Drawings

May 6, 1860 by C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892)

"When I kept silence, my bones willed old through my roaring all the day long. For day, and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer." Psalms 32:3-4 .

David here describes a very common experience amongst convinced sinners. He was subjected to extreme terrors and pangs of conscience. These terrors were continual; they scared him at night with visions, they terrified him all day with dark and gloomy forebodings. "Day and night thy hand was heavy upon me." His pain was so extreme, that when he resorted to prayer he could scarcely utter an articulate word. There were groanings that could not be uttered within his spirit; and hence he calls his prayer roaring a "roaring all the day long." Wherever he was, his spirit seemed to be always sighing, sending a full torrent of melancholy groans upwards towards God; a "roaring all the day long." So far did this groaning proceed, that at last his bodily frame began to show evidences of it. He grew old, and that not merely in the lines of the countenance and the falling in of the cheeks, but his very bones seemed as if they partook of the suffering. He became like an old man before his time. We have heard of some who through severe trouble have had their hair blanched in a single night. But here was a man who did not show merely externally, but even internally, the heavy pressure of grief, on account of sin. His bones grew old, and the sap of his life, the animal spirits, were all dried up; his "moisture was turned into the drought of summer." So intimate is the connection between the body and the soul, that when the soul suffers extremely, the body must be called to endure its part of grief. Verily in this ease it was but simple justice, for David had sinned with his body and with his soul too. By fornication he had defiled his members; he had looked out from his eyes with lustful desires, and had committed iniquity with his body, and now the frame which had become the instrument of unrighteousness, becomes a vehicle of punishment, and his body bears its shave of misery, "my moisture is turned into the drought of summer." We gather from what David says in this Psalm, and indeed in all these seven penitential Psalms that his convictions on account of his sin with Bathsheba, and his subsequent murder of Uriah, were of the deepest and most poignant character, and that the terrors he experienced were indescribable, filling his soul with horror and dismay. Now, this morning, I propose to deal with this case, so common among those who are under conviction of sin. There are many, who, when the Lord is bringing them to himself, are alarmed by reason of the hardness of the stroke with which he smites them, and the sternness of the sentence which he pronounces against them. After having dealt very solemnly with that character, I shall then turn and spend a fear moments in trying to comfort another class of parsons, who, strange to say, are without comfort, because they do not have these terrors, and are unhappy because they have never experienced this unhappiness. Strange perversity of human nature, that when God sends the terrors we doubt, and when he withholds them we doubt none the less. May God the Spirit bless my discourse doubly to these two different conditions of men. I. First, then, let me address myself with lovingkindness to those who are now THE SUBJECTS OF GOD'S REBUKE AND THE TERRORS OF GOD'S LAW. To you would speak on this wise; first, detect the causes of your terror. In the second place tell you God's design in subjecting you thereto, and then point you to the great remedy. 1. As for the causes of your terror they are many, and perhaps in your case the cause may be so peculiar that the wit of man may not be able to discover it. Nevertheless, the remedy which I have to propound at the end, will most assuredly be adapted to your case, for it is a remedy which reaches all diseases, and is a panacea for all ills. You tell me you are sore troubled by reason of conviction, and that your convictions of sin are attended by the most terrible and gloomy thoughts, I am not at a loss to tell you why it is. I shall this morning borrow my divisions from quaint old Thomas Fuller, whose book happened to be thrown in my way this week by Providence, and as I cannot say better things than he said, I shall borrow much of his description of the causes of the terrors of conviction. First, those wounds must be deep which are given by so strong a hand as that of God. Remember, sinner, it is God that is dealing with you; when you lay dead in your sins he looked on you, and now he has begun not only to look, but to smite; he is now wounding you with the design of afterwards making you whole; he is killing you that he may afterwards make you spiritually alive. You have now entered the lists with DO other than the Almighty God; do you wonder, then, that when he smites, his blows fell you to the ground? Are you astonished that when he wounds, his wounds are deep and hard to heal? Besides, remember it is an angry God that you have to deal with; one who has had patience with you in your sins these thirty, forty, or fifty years, and now he has come forth himself to compel you to throw down the weapons of your rebellion, and to take you captive by trio justice, that he may afterwards set you free by his grace. Is it any marvel, then, that when an angry God a God who has restrained his anger these many years comes out in battle against you, you find it hard to resist him, and that his blows bruise you and break your bones, and make your spirit feel as if it must verily die, crushed beneath the mighty hand of a cruel one? Be not astonished at all your terrors; God on Sinai, when he came to give the law, was terrible; but God on Sinai, when he comes to bring the law into the conscience, and to strike it home, must be more terrible far. When God did but stretch out his hand with the two tables of stone, Moses did exceedingly fear and quake; but when he throws those tables of stone upon you, and makes you feel the weight of that law which you have broken, it is but little marvel that your spirit is bruised and mangled, and dashed into a thousand shivers. Again, it is no wonder that you are sore troubled when you remember the place where God has unrounded you. He has not wounded you in your hand, or in your head, or in your foot; he is striking at your conscience the eye of your soul; he wounds you in your heart in your inmost soul. Every wound that God gives to the convicted man is a wound in the very heart in the very vitals; he cuts into the core of the liver, and makes his darts cut through the gall, and parches your inward parts with agony. It is not now a disease that has laid hold merely on your skin or flesh, but it is a something which makes the life-floods boil with hot anguish. He has now shot his arrows into your inmost spirit, thrust his fingers into your eyes and put out their light. Oh! ye need not wonder that your pains are fearful, when God thus smites you on the tenderest part of a conscience which be has made tender by his grace. He may well smart that has salt rubbed into hi' wounds. You have been lashed with the ten-thonged whip of the law till your heart is all bare and bleeding, and now God is scattering, as it were, the salt, and making all those wounds to tingle and smart. Oh! ye might wonder, if ye did not feel, when God is thus casting bitterness into the fountain of your life. Besides these, there is a third cause for this your pain, namely, that Satan is now busy upon you. He sees that God is wounding you and he does not wish that those wounds shall heal; he therefore trusteth in his fangs, and teareth open the flesh, and trieth if he cannot pour his poison into that very flesh which God has been wounding with the sword. "Now," saith he, "that God is against him will I be against him too. God is driving him to sadness; I will drive him farther still, and urge him to despair. God has brought him to the precipice, to the edge of his self-righteousness, and bidden him look down and see the yawning gulf. Now," says Satan, "one push more, and over he will go." He has come forth, therefore, with all his strength, hoping that the hour of your conviction shall be also the hour of your condemnation. He will tempt you, perhaps, as he did Job, till you any, "My soul chooseth strangling rather than life." He will seek to bring you low, like Jeremiah, until you are ready to wish you had never been born, rather than that you should suffer like this. You can well understand, if a man had been wounded, that it were hard work for the most skillful surgeon to heal him if some vile wretch should tear away the liniments and rend open the wounds as fast as they began to close. Oh! pray against Satan! Cry aloud to your God to deliver you from this fiend, for he is the cause of much of your distress; and if you were rid of him, it may be that your wound would soon heal, and you would find peace. But, remember, the remedy that I shall have to propound to you is a remedy against devils. It is the fiend's confusion as well as sin's destruction. Let them come against you as they may. The remedy I shall have to propound can heal the wounds of Satan, and the tearings of his tangs, as well as those sorrows of soul which God has brought upon you. You may discover a yet further reason why you are so sore wounded, when you consider the terrible nature of that weapon with which God has wounded you. He had not made a little gash with some slender instrument, but if I understand your case aright, he has brought against you the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Its Word condemns you; its threatenings strike you like barbed arrows. You turn to the law as it is here revealed, and it is altogether on a smoke against you. You turn to the promises, and even they wound you, because you feel you have no right to them. You look at the most precious passages, but they do not assuage your grief, but the rather increase it, because you cannot realize them and lay hold upon them for yourself. Now, this is God using his Word against you, and you know what a weapon that is, "the sword of the Spirit, which is quick and powerful, piercing to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." They are cut deep that are wounded by the Word of God. If it were my words which had brought you into this fear, you might soon get rid of it; but these are God's words. Were it a father's curse, it might be hard to give you comfort; but it is God's curse that bath gone out against you the curse of the God who made you. He himself bath told you that the sinner shall not stand in his sight, and that he hateth the workers of iniquity. He has himself brought home to your conscience some of those awful passages: "God is angry with the wicked every day;" "He will by no means clear the guilty;" "Our God is a consuming fire;" "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God." With such weapons as these; with red-hot shot fired against you with all the power of the Spirit, it remains no longer a wonder that your soul should be sharply racked, and your very bones should wax old through your roaring all the day long. Furthermore, there is another cause for this deep disease of conviction, namely, the foolishness of the patient. Physicians will tell you that they can heal one man vastly more quickly than another, even though the disease be precisely the came, and the same remedies be used; for there are some men who help the physician by the quietude of them spirits by the ease and resignation of their minds,their heart is and this gives "health to the navel, and marrow to the bones." But other men are fretful, disturbed, vexed, anxious, questioning this and questioning that; and then the remedies themselves cease to have their proper effect. It is even so with you; you are a foolish patient; you will not do that which would cure you, but you do that which aggravates your woe; you know that if you would east yourselves upon Christ Jesus you would have peace of conscience at once; but instead of that, you are meddling with doctrines too high for you, trying to pry into mysteries which the angels have not known, and so you turn your dizzy brain, and thus help to make your heart yet more singularly sad. You know that you are trying still to work out a righteousness of your own, and this is making your wounds stinking and corrupt. You know, too, that you are looking more to your faith than you are to the object of your faith; you are looking more to what you feel than to what Christ felt; you spend more time in looking at your convictions than you do at Christ's vicarious sacrifice upon the cross. You are a foolish patient; you are doing that which aggravates your complaint. Oh that you were but wiser, and these terrors and these pangs might the sooner be over; you would not tarry so long in the prison if you would but use the means of escape, instead of seeking to dash your head against its strong walls, walls that will not move with all your ravings, but which will only break, and bruise, and wound you the more. You seek to file your fetters, and you rivet them; you seek to unbind them yourself, and you thrust them the deeper into your flesh; you grasp the hammer, and here is the fetter about your wrist; you think to snap it, but you send the iron through the flesh, and make it bleed; you make yourself worse by all your attempts to make yourself better, so that much of your sorrowful conviction is due to your own absurdity, your own ignorance and folly. And, once more, I must give you another reason. There is no wonder that you are under great and terrible pain when under conviction, for it is a disease in which nothing can ever help you but that one remedy. All the joys of nature will never give you relief. I have heard of some vain man who once wore the gown of a clergyman, who was "visited by a poor creature under distress of mind, in the days of Whitfield;" he said to the penitent, "You have been among the Methodists." "I know I have," said he. "Then don't go among those fellows; they have made you mad." "But what am I to do to get rid of the distress of mind I now feel?" "Attend the theater," said he; "go off to balls; take to gaming and the like; and in that way you will soon dissipate your woe." But as he that poureth vinegar upon nitre, so is he that singeth songs to a sad heart; it is taking away a man's garment to make him warm; it is heaping snow upon his head to dissolve the frostbite, sending him back to draff and dung that he may stay his hunger therewith, thrusting him into the kennel that he may get rid of the stench that offends his nostrils Nay, but if these be the true woundings of God, sinful pleasures will make you worse instead of better; and even the usual comforts of life will lose all power to console you. The words of the tenderest wife, the most loving husband, the mercies of Providence, the blessings of home, all these will be of no avail to you to cure this disease. There is one remedy for it; but none of these will so much as touch it. Quaint old Fuller uses language to this effect, when Adam had sinned, he became suddenly plunged in misery; the birds sang as sweetly, the flowers bloomed as brightly, and the air was as balmy, and Eden quite as blissful; but Adam was in misery; he had unparadised paradise. God had not said a word against him, and yet he went and hid himself under the trees of the garden to find a shelter there. There was nothing in the whole garden that could give Adam a moment's delight, because he was under a sense of sin. And so will it be with you. If you could be put in paradise, you would not be the happier. Now that God has convinced you of sin, there is only one cure for you, and that one cure you must have; for you may ramble the world round and you will never find another. You may try your best with all the pleasures and mercies of this life, but you would be in torment, even though you could be taken to heaven, unless this one remedy should appease your aching heart. 2. I have thus, I think, given you sufficient reasons for the great poignancy of your grief; but now, secondly, what are God's designs in thus plunging you deeply in the mire? He does not deal so with all his people; some he brings in a very gentle way to himself. Why, then, does he deal thus hardly with you? The answers to this question are these: there are some questions best unanswered; there are some dealings of God about which we have no right to ask a question If he draws you to heaven, though it were through hell itself, you ought to be content. So long as you are but saved, however fearful the process, you ought not to murmur. But I may give you some reasons after all. In the first place, it is because you were such a stony-hearted sinner, so dead, so careless, that nothing else ever would have awakened you but this-trumpet. It would have been of no use to bring out the gospel with its dulcet notes; it would have been of little service for David to play on his harp before you. You needed to be aroused, and therefore it is that God has hurled his thunderbolts at you one after another, and has been pleased to make heaven and earth shake before you that you might be made to tremble. You were so desperately set on mischief, so stolid, so indifferent, that if saved, God must save you in such a way, or else not at all. And then again, the Lord knows that there is that in your heart which would take you teach to your old sins, and so he is making them bitter to you; he is burning you, that you may be like the burnt child that dreads the fire; he is letting you see the disease in its full climax, that you may from henceforth avoid the company in which that disease was found; he has taught you the full evil of' your heart, the full obnoxiousness of sin, in order that from this day forth you may become a more careful walker, and may the more zealously hate every false way. Besides, it may possibly happen that he designs this out of love to your soul, to make you the more happy afterwards. He is filling your mouth with wormwood, and breaking your teeth with gravel-stone, that you may have a richer appreciation of the luscious flavour of the will of pardon when he pours it into your heart. It is making you feed on ashes the serpent's meat that when you come to eat children's meat the bread of heaven your joy may be multiplied sevenfold. I am one of those poor souls who for five years led a life of misery, and was almost driven to distraction; but I can heartily say, that one day of pardoned sin was a sufficient recompense for the whole five years of conviction. I have to bless God for every terror that ever seared me by night, and for every foreboding that alarmed me by day. It has made me happier ever since; for now, if there be a trouble weighing upon my soul, I thank God it is not such a trouble as that which bowed me to the very earth, and made me creep like a very beast upon the ground by reason of heavy distress and affliction. I know I never can again suffer what I have suffered; I never can, except I be sent to hell, know more of agony than I have known; and now, that ease, that joy and peace in believing, that "no condemnation" which belongs to me as a child of God, is made doubly sweet and inexpressibly precious, by the recollection of my past days of sorrow and grief. Blessed be thou, O God, for ever, who by those black days, like a dreary wilt bath made these summer days all the fairer and the sweeter! The shore is never so welcome as when you mount it with the foot of a shipwrecked mariner just escaped from the sea; food never so sweet as when you sit at the table after days of hunger; water never so refreshing as when you arrive at the end of a parched desert, and have known what it is to thirst. And yet one other reason let me give you, and I need not keep you longer on this point. Possibly, God is bringing you thus, my dear friends, because he means to make great use of you. We are all God's weapons against the enemy. All his saints are used as instruments in the Holy War; but there are some whom God uses in the thickest part of the battle. They are his swords whom he wields in his hand, and strikes innumerable blows with them. These he anneals again, and again, and again. He is annealing you. He is making you meet to be a mighty one in his Israel by-and-bye. Oh! how sweetly you will able to talk to others like yourself, when you once get comfort; and oh! how much you will love him when he once puts away your sin! Will you not? Oh! I think I see you the first day after your sins are forgiven. Why you will be wanting to preach: I should not wonder if you will be going out into the streets, or hurrying to your old companions, and saying to them, "My sins are washed away." Why there will tee nothing too hard for you. The Lord gets his best soldiers out of the highlands of affliction. These are Highlanders that carry everything before them. They know the rivers of sin, they know the glens of grief, and now their sins are all washed away, they know the heights of self-consecration, and of pure devotion; they can do all things through Christ, who strengtheneth them, the Christ who has forgiven them. Do you not think I have just driven the nail home here? Do you not feel in your spirit, that if Jesus would forgive you, you would do everything for him? Oh! I know if I should give out that hymn

"Then loudest of the crowd I'll sing, While heaven's resounding mansions ring With shouts of sovereign grace."

you would say, "Ah, that I will; if ever he forgives such a wretch as I am, and takes such a poor worm as me to his bosom, nothing shall be too hard for me. I will give him all in this life, and I will give and eternity of praise in the life to come." 3. But now I am impatient to come to the word of comfort which I have for you upon the great remedy. Sinners' distressed on account of sin, and bowed with terror down, there is a way of salvation for thee, a way open and accessible, accessible now. Thou mayest now have all thy griefs assuaged, and all thy sorrows may flee away. Hear thou then the remedy, and hear it as from the lip of God, and take care that thou availest thyself of it now, for the longer thou tarriest, the harder will it be to avail thyself of it. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." Dost understand me? Trust Christ and you are saved; trust him now and all your sins are gone; there is not one left. Past, present, and to come, all gone. "Am I to feel nothing?" No, not as a preparation for Christ; trust Jesus and thou art saved. "Are there no good works required of me?" None, none; good works shall follow afterwards. The remedy is a simple one; not a compound mixture of thy things and Christ; it is just this the blood of Jesus Christ. There is Jesus on his cross. His hands are bleeding; his heart is bursting; his limbs are tortured; the powers of his soul are full of agony. Those sufferings were offered to God in the place of our sufferings, and "Whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life." Believe on him now. "But I may not," says one. Thou mayest, nay, not only thou mayest, but thou art condemned if thou dost not believe him now. "I cannot," saith one. Canst not believe thy Lord? Is he a liar? Canst thou not believe his power to save? The Son of God in agony, and yet no power to save!! "I cannot think he shed his blood for me," saith such an one. Thou art commanded to trust him. Thou shalt read thy title clear in him afterwards. Thy business now is simply with him, not with thine interest in him. That shall be known afterwards. Trust him now and thou art saved. Faith is not believing that Christ died for me. If Christ died for every man, then every Arminian, saved or unsaved, bath the true faith: for he believes Christ died for every man. We as Calvinists, do not believe this, but we believe faith consists in trusting Christ, and whosoever trusts Christ shall know as the effect of that trues, that Jesus died for him, and he is saved. Trust Jesus now; just as thou art, fall flat on thy face before him. Away with that last dirty rag of thine that last good work; away with that last filthiness that last good thought; thy good thought, and thy good works are rags and filthiness. Come just as thou art; naked, lost, ruined, helpless, poor. If thou art so bad that I cannot describe thee, and thou canst not describe thyself, yet come. Mercy's free, mercy's free. I am never afraid of preaching grace too free, or a Christ too willing to save. You do want a Mediator to come to God with, but you want none to come to Christ with. You do need some preparation if you are going to the Father; you want none if you are coming to the Son. Come as you are; and God himself must be untrue, his throne must have foundations apart from righteousness, Christ must be false, and this Bible a lie, before one soul that trusts Jesus can ever perish. There is the remedy, by the power of the Holy Spirit; avail thyself of it. Now God help thee and thou art fully saved. II. I shall now want your patient attention for another five or ten minutes, while I take upon myself what was a double duty, because I was afraid w shout the last part of the sermon the first part might do hurt. In the last part of the sermon I have to deal with some WHO HAVE NEVER FELT THESE TERRORS AT ALL, AND WHO STRANGE TO SAY IT, WISH THEY HAD FELT THEM. I suppose I may have conversed now with somewhere verging upon two thousand souls who have been brought to know the Lord under my instrumentality, and I have very often noticed that a considerable proportion of these, and of the best members of our Church too, were brought to know the Lord not by legal terrors, but by gentler means. Sitting one day last week, I saw some twenty-three, and I should think that there might be as many as twelve out of the twenty-three whose convictions of sin were not distinctly marked with the terrors of the law. An excellent young woman comes! before me "What was the first thought that set you really seeking the Savior?" "Sir, it was Christ's lovely character that first made me long to be his disciple. I saw how kind, how good, how disinterested, how self-sacrificing he was, and that made me feel how different I was to what he was. I thought Oh! I am not like Jesus!' and that sent me up to my chamber, and I began to pray! I often have cases like this I preach a terrible sermon upon the law, and I find sinners get comfort under it; I preach another sermon upon Election, and I find poor sinners get awakened under it. God blesses the Word in the very opposite manner to which I thought it would be blessed, and he brings very, very many, to know their state by nature by things which we should have thought would rather have comforted than alarmed them. "The first religious impression I ever had," said another, "that set me seeking the Savior, was this; a young companion of mine fell into sin, and I knew that I was likely to do the same if I was not kept by some one stronger than myself; I therefore sought the Lord, not on account of past sin at first, but because I was afraid of some great future sin. God visited me, and I then felt conviction of sin and was brought to Christ." Singularly enough too I have met with at least a score of persons who found Christ and then mourned their sins more afterwards than they did before. Their convictions have been more terrible after they have known their interest in Christ than they were at first. They have seen the evil after they have escaped from it; they had been-plucked out of the miry clay, and their feet set on a rock, and then afterwards they have seen more fully the depth of that horrible pit out of which they have been snatched, So that it is not true that all who are saved suffer these convictions and terrors;. There are a considerable number who are drawn by the cords of love and the bands of a man. There are some who, like Lydia. have their hearts opened not by the crowbar of conviction, but by the pick-lock of divine grace. Sweetly drawn, almost silently enchanted by the loveliness of Jesus, they say, "Draw me, and I will run after thee." And now you ask me the question "Why has God brought me lo himself in this gentle manner? "Again I say there are some questions better unanswered than answered. God knows best the reason why he does not give you these terrors; leave that question with him. Put I may tell you an anecdote. There was a man coce who had never felt these terrors and he thought within himself "I never can believe I am a Christian unless I do." so he prayed to God that he might feel them, and he did feel them, and what do you think is his testimony? He says, "Never, never do that, for the result was fearful in the extreme." If he bad but known what he was asking for, he would not have asked for anything so foolish. I knew a Christian man once who prayed for trouble. He was afraid he was not a Christian, because he had no trouble; but when the trouble came, he soon discovered how foolish he was to be asking for a thing which God in mercy had kept back from him. O be not foolish enough to sigh for misery. Thank God that you go to heaven along the walls of salvation; bless the Master that he does not call you in the cloudy and dark day, but brings you gently to himself; and be content, I pray you, to be called by the music of the voice of love. May it not happen that Jesus Christ has thus brought you for another reason? He knew that you were very weak, and your mind was very frail, and if you had felt these terrors you might have gone, mad; and you might have been in a lunatic asylum now instead, if you had passed through them. It is true his grace could have kept you, but God always tempers the willed to the shorn lamb, and he will not treat the weak ones as he does the strong ones. And I think again, it may be that if God had given you these feelings you would have grown self-righteous. You would have trusted in them, so he has not given you them. You have not got them to build on, thank God for that, for now you must build on Christ. You say "If I had felt these things, I think I should have been saved." Yes, then you would have trusted in your feelings; the Lord knew that, and therefore he has not given you them. He has given you nothing at all, therefore you must now rest on Christ and nowhere else but there. Oh! do so now. It may be, again, that he has kept you there because he means to make you needful useful to some who like yourself have come gradually to him, for you can say to them when you find them in distress, "Why Jesus Christ brought me gently, and therefore be of good cheer, he is bringing you too." I always like to see in my church some of all sorts. Now there is a brother I could point out this morning who has never known in his life, and I think never will know, about the plague of his own heart, to such an extent as some of us have learnt. He has never gone through fire and through water, but on the contrary is a loving-hearted spirit; a man who spends and is spent in his Master's service, he knows more of the heights of communion than some of us. For my part though I do not want to change places with anybody-I think I could trust my Master if I had his experience, as well as I can trust him with my own. For what has experience to do with it after all? We do not rest on experiences, and frames, and doings;

"Our hopes are fixed on nothing less Than Jesus blood and righteousness."

Now to you then, in conclusion, I preach the same remedy. Poor soul, thou longest to be troubled; ay! but I'd rather have thee long to get relief. Jesus Christ hangs on the cross, and if thou wilt trust him, thou shalt be saved. Just as thou art, as I said to my other friend just now Just as thou art, take Christ as he is. Now, never think about getting ready for Christ; he does not want anything of yours. You need not trim and dress yourselves to come to Christ. Even your frames and feelings are not the wedding garment. Come naked. "But sir, I am so careless." come careless, then. "But I am so hardhearted." come hard-hearted, then. "But I am so thoughtless." come thoughtless, then, and trust Christ now. If you trust him, you will not trust a deceiver. You will not have put your soul into the hand of one who will let it fall and perish. ' Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved," whether convicted by terror or by love, for "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. he that believeth not "feel what he may, and be in terror though he may. "shall be damned." Amen.