Suppress or Confess - Thoughts from Psalm 32

David writing in Psalm 32 makes some very interesting and helpful observations for us related to the problems that derive from unconfessed sin in our lives.

The first thing that we should notice in verses three and four is David's condition at the time. David gives us here evidence of his psychological make up, his profile in the midst of his current situation.

Verse three sets the stage for us, "When I kept silent, [vs:5 tells us what he kept silent about was his sin], my body wasted away through my groaning all day long.''

The first thing we note here is that he knows that he sinned, that he has violated the revealed standards that he knew God expected of him. In fact he makes this very clear in verse 5 with his choice of words to describe his sinful condition. So what he has done at this point is to suppress his guilty conscience.

We all have a conscience, we all have norms and standards established which when violated we often say we have a twinge of conscience or we have a guilty conscience. This is a good and healthy reaction, that is if the norms and standards we are operating on are grounded on divine viewpoint. The question now is what is David going to do about it in relationship to God? Run to God and acknowledge that he has sinned? No, he is going to approach his guilty conscience this way, he is going to handle it, by keeping silent. He is going to suppress it. Therefore his first reaction then is to do nothing.

So one of the key responses to a guilty conscience is withdrawal. The question then is this, Who is he withdrawing from? God! One of the best illustrations of this is to go back to the first sin! Adam and Eve ate in violation of the command given to them. They knew that they had sinned! This is seen in their reaction when God showed up for their daily Bible study. They had a guilty conscience. Did they run to God! No, they hid themselves! Their perception of God's character changed and they withdrew from God!

What are the ramifications of this in our lives? When we're operating in withdrawal from God, as a result of suppression of guilt because of sin, it is going to overflow into our relationships with others. The root cause is having a guilty conscience, not dealing with the sin, but also there is an innate sense that because others also have a conscience, they just might pick up on what I'm doing or not doing as the case might be. So, there is withdrawal from God as the root, and subsequent withdrawal from those around us.

Don't we from the time we're little tykes, when we've done something wrong, we run and hide. We attempt to run from the consequences of what ever! This is part of the psychological makeup of the Psalmist, David, at this point. He has sinned, transgressed the standard of God and he is suppressing his guilty conscience and withdrawing from God.

What happens when the guilty conscience is suppressed over a period of time? Its amazing that the Psalmist saw this without the aide of the psychobabble of the 21^st century. A suppressed conscience over a period of time will have psychosomatic problems, that is the body will react.

The physical body reacts to what is going on in the head, with one's thinking. It's true the pain is real, it is there, the head aches or what ever, but the cause is psychosomatic. That's what David is talking about here, ``When I kept silent [suppressed my guilty conscience] my body wasted away.''

This points clearly to the physical ramifications of not dealing with sin in the life. It has great impact! Man is so designed by God to wake him up to the reality of his condition, to his lack of relationship with God and to motivate him to get back on track. From verse five on when God finally gets his point across to him and he acknowledges his sin, receives forgiveness, he is restored in his relationship to God and the rest of the Psalm reflects a whole different life experience then what we're seeing here in verses 3-4.

Modern man today, has a name for what David is describing here, they call it, if someone has suppressed his guilty conscience over a period of time and it is beginning to show up in his physical condition, with psychosomatic problems, what do they often call or say that is today? Its often dubbed mental illness. This is a term that the believer with any understanding of what the Word teaches must unconditionally reject as total human viewpoint and not the case at all.

Scripture does not recognize what modern man puts under this umbrella of mental illness. Oh, it recognizes the symptoms but doesn't call it that at all! Only exception that I can see that we need to recognize is that there can be an organic condition, a breakdown of the material physical brain process. This is something a cat-scan or MRI can give a pretty accurate assessment of today. What this context is dealing with is not in this category at all.

So what do we have so far? A suppressed guilt, an internal reaction to his conscience and now we have the bodily reaction to it. From the human viewpoint it is mental illness. What does David relate it to? In verse 3 he relates it to negative volition to God, ``I kept silent.'' In verse 5 he relates it to sin. Do you see a contrast between those two approaches?

We're looking at the same phenomena, suppressed guilt, the bodily reaction to it and in this psalm David is simply saying, I'll tell you why I was going through all of this, Sin! I was negative to God.

David choose to keep silent about his condition and therefore his attitude at this time is negative to God. The form of the verb in the Hebrew says that he choose this course of action, I caused myself to be silent before God about my sin. David clearly knew what the proper course of action for him was but did his own thing anyway!

This clearly is a condition that modern man does not want to hear about or even acknowledge exits, and that is SIN. The reason is that it says there is a fault in the individual. If there are no absolute standards then it can't be my fault!

Since they use the term illness need to note it implies several things: #1 I'm not responsible. Its an excusable condition. I've got the flu, a cold, or something that often is beyond our control mainly because they're something that can be caught. Even most employers give some sick time off with pay. Not your fault your sick. #2 It implies an excuse for one's condition. #3 It makes man a victim of his circumstances.

But is that really what David is saying here? Is that the divine viewpoint?

Can you catch negative volition? It's going around so you best be careful! Does David leave himself any excuse? Not at all! I kept silent, and here's the consequences until I dealt with the spiritual condition. I'm not a victim of the circumstances in any sense at all. I chose to live this way and therefore I chose the consequences, the repercussions from it.

Our generation's main problem is that we do not want to face sin and the responsibility for it and we're always looking for excuses. Where are we going to go spiritually? Where are we going to go with our relationship to Christ? Where are we going to go with this book, the Bible? That is, if we do not handle the sin problem in our lives as believers! We must face the responsibility that we have to choose correctly.

How are you going to treat these conditions with a pill? You don't! Do people attempt to treat these conditions today with pills? You bet they do! Vallium, prosac, zanex, a whole genre of drugs to escape from facing the reality of their situation.

If we can come up with an "acceptable'' excuse for sin, What are we going to do? We're going to use it! Not deal with the root of the problem.

There is really good news here in this context if you think about it for a moment. If you can choose the course of action that got you into your condition. Then you can choose the course of action to get you out of it!

At some point the physical consequences, the psychosomatic condition, the discipline from God, wakes David up and he finally deals with his sinful condition.

Are you really trying to tell me that psychosomatic illness is a divine discipline from God? Look at verse 4. How does David interpret the suppressed conscience and the physical consequences from it? "For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me;'' Whose hand? God's hand!

This says that God has so built into his creatures, made in His image, that when we sin, and we suppress the guilty conscience over a period of time it is going to show up in our body in some way. This would put it in the same category as the blessing of pain. Where would we be without pain? Have no fingers left, all burned off. Pain is designed by God to warn us that a problem exists. This type of blessing is also true in the mental areas, as we suppress the guilt of our sin, it is going to trigger a pain reaction physically.

Having said that we also need to guard against going goofy and over reacting and think that every ache or pain or head ache is the result of sin. It's not. We need always to be honest in evaluating our spiritual status before God. Remember the implication here is the condition is not dealt with over a fairly long period of time.