In Psalm 38 David is experiencing guilt over his sin.
O LORD, rebuke me not in your anger,
Psalm 38:1-8
nor discipline me in your wrath!
For your arrows have sunk into me,
and your hand has come down on me.
There is no soundness in my flesh
because of your indignation;
there is no health in my bones
because of my sin.
For my iniquities have gone over my head;
like a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me.
My wounds stink and fester
because of my foolishness,
I am utterly bowed down and prostrate;
all the day I go about mourning.
For my sides are filled with burning,
and there is no soundness in my flesh.
I am feeble and crushed;
I groan because of the tumult of my heart.
While there is more going on in this Psalm – enemies are at work – the focus is primarily on the overwhelming guilt David feels: “no soundness in my flesh”, “no health in my bones”, “like a heavy burden”, “all day I go about mourning”, “my sides are filled with burning”, “I am feeble and crushed”, “I groan”. Obviously these descriptions of “guilt” do not sound pleasant, but we should desire that God would cause us to feel this way when we find ourselves in sin. What a gracious gift guilt and conviction are, because they are intended to drive us from our sin and to our Savior.
This is what we see further into the Psalm, David’s guilt drives him to the LORD.
For I am ready to fall,
Psalm 38:17-18
and my pain is ever before me.
I confess my iniquity;
I am sorry for my sin.
And there it is. There in verse 18 we find the gracious and merciful remedy for our guilt: “I confess my iniquity; I am sorry for my sin”. To confess is to say the same thing about our sin that God says about it. It is to say “this is wrong, this is not righteous”. And as 1 John 1:9 reminds us “If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness”. Then in 1 John 2:1 we read, “But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”
Friends don’t live under the weight and misery of guilt today – follow David’s lead and say, “I confess my iniquity; I am sorry for my sin.”