Confession Is Good For The Soul Series

One night I told my wife I was heading to the supermarket to buy carpet stain remover, because I couldn’t stand the ugly stains anymore. She said, “Wait, we have something that worked before. It’s just that we have never used it since!” after a while, she produced a ZEP 32 oz. commercial high traffic carpet cleaner. It says: “Excellent for spots and small highly soiled areas.” It promised to clean even the toughest stains in high traffic area of the owner’s carpet, including those caused by blood urine, pooh-pooh and vomit.

So we obediently followed the instructions. One of us sprayed the spots, the other clean it with a damp sponge after a few minutes wait. Voila! It worked! We were proud carpet owners again.

Sin is filth, unsightly, and vile to God. It soils, stresses and severs a believer’s relationship to God. No powder, liquid, bleach, cleaning agent or cleaning lady or cleaning company can do the heavy washing or remove the dirt, the discoloring or the disgrace within. The only way is to come clean with God and make confession to Him.

David longed for a clean heart and a cleansed heart, to be whiter than snow, to feel fresher than clean laundry, to be rid of blotted ink, to be unlike used paper or a written page, like a leper cleansed of his spots.

David began by stating his general desire for God to blot out his rebellion, to wash away his perversity and to cleanse his offense. The verb order is reversed in verses 7 through 9. “Cleanse” will show up first - in verse 7, “wash” (v 7) retains its middle position, and “blot out” (v 9) is last now. The three imageries are related to cleansing, writing – from “blot out”, and washing.

The only ultra clean wash provided in the law is the use of hyssop. Hyssop (v 7) is an aromatic plant used for ritual or ceremonial agent to cleanse or purify the altar (Lev 8:15) and the leper (Lev 14:4-7) and his house (Lev 14:49), or for the removal of sins of defiled people (Num 19:19) in a purification ceremony. David compared himself with a cleansed leper who needs the declaration of a priest to make him ceremonially clean. A person cleansed from sin feels like clean laundry and like an unmarked or new page.

However, ritual cleansing from the law is not enough. He needed to be cleansed within (v 10). David asked God for a clean heart and a steadfast spirit. The word “clean means “pure,” not perfect but wholesome or true, as in pure gold (Ex 25:11, 28:13). The word “right” means upright or erect. The Chinese commend and recommend the ability to walk and stand erect. He doesn’t want to be a fake or a slouch in character or behavior. What is more horrifying than living outside of God’s will is living devoid of His presence. The stain of sin separates us from our holy God. David pleaded for God not to cast him away or take His Spirit away (v 11). Both the word “cast” and “take” have the horror of being permanently “cast away” and “take away.” In David the psalmist’s theology, salvation comes from and belongs to God and is impossible apart from God’s presence (Ps 12:5, 18:2, 20:6, 24:5, 25:5, 27:1, 62:7, 65:5, 69:13).