Confession Of Sin Series

Charles Francis Berry, a major league umpire, was once asked if he ever made mistakes in calling

balls and strikes. He looked at the person as if he were joking, and said, "Of course I may mistakes.

My only trouble is I can't admit it." The tragedy is that the inability to admit mistakes is not limited

to umpires. The world is filled with people going down the wrong road to destruction just because

they refused to admit they made a wrong turn. No man ever gets going right until he admits he is

now going wrong. No man can ever hit the mark until he is willing to confess that he is now missing

the mark. My father had a statement he liked to make frequently to my mother. He would say, "I

may not always be right, but I'm never wrong." It was a joke, but most of us take that philosophy

seriously. Nobody likes to be wrong, and the result is that confession of sin is one of our least

favorite exercises.

In spite of the fact that God has provided a cleansing agent that can eliminate sin, the world is

stained, blotted and polluted because people will not confess their need for cleansing. Because

people will not admit they are sick they will not take the prescription of the Great Physician. And so

you have one of the craziest paradoxes of life. People could be healed and made well by God if they

would only confess that they were sick, but they refuse and insist that they are well. The result is

that they get sicker and sicker. Hobart Mowrer the psychologist writes, "The neurotic is, without

exception in the author's experience, a person who had done things of which he is ashamed, but who,

instead of avowing and forsaking his imaturities, has tried instead to deny, repudiate, and repress his

own self-condemnation, shame and guilt."

David followed the same foolish path and had to go through a great deal of mental agony, and

even physical illness, because he struggled against confessing his sin. David learned that with

dealing with sin from God's perspective you must begin with His mercy, and from man's perspective

you must begin with confession. He had to learn the hard way, and it is recorded so that we need not

travel the wrong road before we admit our wrong turn. David went a whole year before Nathan

confronted him with his sin of adultery and murder. A whole year he tried to hide his sin, and he

found out what modern psychologists see everyday, and that is that un-confessed sin can make you

sick. It makes you mentally sick first. David prays that God will restore to him the joy of his

salvation in verse 12. All the while that he hide his sin he was not joyful, but depressed and

unhappy. He longed to be happy again and remarks in verse 8 that he longs for his bones to again

rejoice. Physically and mentally he was sick.

To get the total impact of how David relates sin and sickness, and un-confessed evil to deep

physical problems, we want to look at several other confession passages in the Psalms. Psalms 6:2

says, "Have mercy upon me O Lord; for I am withered away: O Lord heal me; for my bones are

vexed." Psa. 32:2-3 says, "Blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long." Psa. 38:2-3 says,

"There is no soundness in my flesh because of thine indignation; neither is there any health in my

bones because of my sin." There is no way to separate medicine and psychology from religion, for

sin affects the mind and the body, and only God has the solution to this problem of sin. If a person

will not admit they are sick, they will not go to a doctor. If they will not admit they have a mental

problem, they will not go to a psychiatrist. If they will not confess they are a sinner, they will not

turn to Christ. When you come right down to it, man's biggest problem is not that he is a sinner, for

God has made full provision for that problem. Man's biggest problem is that he will not admit he is

a sinner, and without confession of sin there can be no cleansing of sin.

Come now again thy woes impart,

Tell all thy sorrows, all thy sin;

We cannot heal the throbbing heart,

Till we discern the wounds within.

The greatest healing ministry in the world is in persuading people to be honest before God and

confess their sin in crying out for mercy, as David did. Jesus came to save His people from their