HOW frequently does a sin, hidden in the heart, and lying there unconfessed, prevent the soul from finding peace with God! “When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long... I acknowledged... my transgressions unto the Lord; and Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.” Unacknowledged sin is like a bar against the door of the heart, shutting it up in its own misery.
There are at this moment three sorrowful cases before us of awakened sinners having unacknowledged sins upon them, which keep these three unhappy persons in misery of soul. The first is a respectable young woman. At times she seems as if she must soon get clear from her bonds, when again she is more terribly bound than ever. Not a spark of joy, nor a glimmer of sunshine, is in her soul. A lady most earnestly pressed upon her to own what the unacknowledged sin was, for she let us know that there was a secret somewhere — a sin lying between her soul and God! But the result of this entreaty was that the unhappy young woman, while owning the fact of a sin lying upon her conscience, chose rather to turn altogether away from Christian friends than confess her secret.
The second case is that of a young man. “I have attended religious services from my youth; I cannot help going to them. I go, though I don’t want to go; I am impelled to go,” said he.
“And yet you have no comfort, no rest?”
“None, none,” he answered, despondingly.
“Why is this?” we further inquired. His manner betokened the truth: there was a secret — an unconfessed secret. We told him we were assured such was the case.
“It is so,” he replied, in a dazed kind of way; adding, “there are difficulties which cannot be surmounted.”
“With your friends?”
“Yes,” he replied.
“But God is infinite, and you and your difficulties are but as the dust of the balance with Him. He went behind Israel when Pharaoh pursued, and cut a path through the Red Sea for His people. Confess to Him, and trust Him.”
But no, that young man remained in bitterness for months together: he would not own what kept him back from God.
“When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me” — they would have better gauged her state. Between her and God there seemed to hang a dark veil.
A young Christian woman, who felt there was some hidden thing keeping this desponding soul from God, begged of her to open her mind and tell the truth; and thus the truth came out, that she had long been witness to her fellow servant’s constant robbery of her mistress! This, she said, she had fell a sin against God, and yet she dared not own it to her mistress.
Since we penned the above, several months have passed by, and now we can say that two of the three persons we have referred to are rejoicing in God’s salvation. “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.”
Ponder over the three selahs in the thirty-second Psalm. The first two verses of this Psalm express a grand and glorious fact, and the blessedness thereof rings out again in the fourth chapter of Romans! Both King David and the Apostle Paul, speaking by the Spirit, declare how blessed it is to be forgiven our sins.
The third and fourth verses of the Psalm are the expression of one who feels, but confesses not his sin. Selah, saith the Spirit of God hereto. Pause, consider!
The fifth verse teaches the blessedness of owning to God what our sins really are, making to Him particular confession and acknowledgment of our evil ways — having close and personal dealing with Him! Alas, thousands of souls never, never thus deal with God. Selah — pause, consider! saith the Holy Spirit to this.
The sixth and seventh verses testify how gracious is our God in His forgiving mercy. He compasses about His people with songs of deliverance. Selah — pause, consider! saith the Holy Spirit unto this.
And shall we not do so? Will not our reader, who up to this hour has buried the guilt, the sense of which burns within, in his or her own bosom, just now fall before God, and own to Him the sin and the transgression so long hidden and unconfessed? Selah — pause, consider!