There is no wonder the reason for the main stream Christian worshippers in reciting Psalm 51 in their daily prayers, so also including it after the Kauma in our church worship. This Psalm is a product of tears and burning heart that at the height of its compunction confesses the greatness of the Almighty and the futility and nothingness of man who is nothing but an amalgam of the lust of the flesh and a head weight sensation of greatness. At the zenith of the glory and earthly halo, King David who infringed upon the two great simultaneous Mosaic commandments, the second one of killing of the husband of Bathsheba with whom he had done adultery brought him to the nadir of his lifelong cultivated spirituality to dust. But he is still at the loftiness of his redeemed halo on account of his confession of his sins and remorse to prophet Nathan who reprimanded him of his place in the land of Sheol, the land of darkness that automatically can claim the soul of sinners.

Forgiveness of Sins:
Forgiveness is the gift of heartfelt confession that cleanses the soul because God knows the passions of the flesh, the notorious breeding ground of Satan who has the authority of man’s physical body as it is spun from the elements of the earth that was once his abode before his epic fall from the glorious eminence due to his rebellion against the Sovereign power of the Almighty. Our first parents’ confession of their guilt though accusing one another was forgiven and offered a second Eden, so also king David was forgiven, but had to receive the punishment as like the punishment bequeathed by Adam and his children. Adam was forgiven from his sins by the second Adam’s crucifixion, yet Adam and his progeny were forced to accept the punishment for their transgressions. Not only that Adam had to lose Eden, but also to suffer the pangs of the procreation process that bears the imprint of genetic maladies which are to be bequeathed for generations. The reason for Cain to murder the innocent and unblemished Abel, the prototype of Jesus, seemingly is nothing but the effect of the violation of the commandment given to the human race. The confession to the spiritual commander, the clergy, forgives our sins, but is imperative of penalty and restitution, the sign of the absolute forgiveness of sins.

In the Lord’s prayer also we ask to ‘forgive our debts and sins’, the first priority is the debt that we owe for the previously forgiven sins prior to our latest ones, despite we are not allowed to repeat the same sins again and again, second one is the forgiveness of sins that we committed lately. The forgiveness of sins that requires two inevitabilities: the first one that the paying back the debts for the forgiven sins and secondly to make absolute confession for the latest ones. We use the word ‘kada pariharam’ that need to be paid or met before we go for the next confessions. The priest after each confession gives a penalty that either giving back the embezzled money or wealth or making peace with anybody with whom we have any altercation. In addition, a small amount known as ‘resissa’ given to the church, as a penalty for our forgiven sins, the priest prescribes certain other penalties that depend on the severity of the sins. As God knows the weakness of our flesh, He forgives our sins for cleansing our inner body that also can purify the outer one; yet we are mathematically bound for repaying our sins by being indebted to others by recompensing them in very many ways. The Mosaic commandments and creed have given lists of such indebtedness and restitutions, Deut.23-25. Zacchaeus’s reply to Jesus buttresses this point. “Behold Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have defrauded any of anything, I restore it fourfold”, Lk.19: 8-9. The Lord’s reply is very apt at this juncture. “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.”

These verses are mystified with truth but nothing but the truth. Zaccahaeus’ open confession exhibits as a penitent confessor who embezzle money or goods from the trade or businesses that he was engaged with, yet that misappropriated money had been utilised for the vulnerable and social outcasts. As every man is proven as a sinner, Jesus accepted his confession and established the truth that any true believer in the Lord gets salvation, provided he submits to the fact that he was lost. “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me”. Sin is truly the parent of the fallen man. Contrition of heart is the pre-requisite of salvation. This is the reason why Jesus gave the authority, the key to the Kingdom of God, of forgiving the sins of the lost believer, to His ambassadors, the priests. Prophet Nathan was David’s confessor who could send the heat for melting down David’s transgressions.

Holy Spirit:
As sin is a challenger of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Triune God, He desolates the vicinity of the sinner. The church Fathers explain that the spirit of God, the Comforter, desolated the Israelite camp soon after the veil of the temple curtain was set asunder by the last sigh of the Saviour on the cross, eventuating in trampling over the city of Jerusalem by the Roman emperor and annulling of the blood sacrifice of the Jews as the continuity of the altar sacrifice ended due to the non-availability of the remnants of the last sacrifice that require the ashes of the red heifer. Jesus’ forewarning, “Your house is forsaken”, Lk.13: 35, has come true. We don’t acknowledge that we are mere robots of God by playing the roles of super gods. After Jesus collecting the fold during His second coming, this earth that is devoid of the Spirit of God for another 1000 years, leave behind the remnants in utter agony and darkness. The Paraclete is the true Comforter sent by God for the fulfilment of our redemption after the Lord’s ascension. “For apart from me you can do nothing”, Jn.15: 5. Realizing that king David was desolated by the Spirit of God by his gruesome sins, he prayed, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence, and take not thy Holy Spirit from me”, Ps.51: 10-11. The sins against the Saviour are liable to be nullified by the true remorse and contrition, but the sins against the H.Spirit are not forgiven, Mt.12: 32… Therefore any sin is a war against God; only bailing out of it is through repentance and confession that bring consolation and comfort. Just like st.Peter, the mighty king David also lost the affinity and vicinity of the Holy Spirit who only can sustain us against the rampage of the dark forces. Brood over the fate of today’s human race that defy the Divine rules and laws that only can sustain equilibrium of our mind. Let us complete the title of this message. “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in thy sight, that thou art justified in thy sentence and blameless in thy judgement’, Ps.51: 4-5; Ps.19: 9.

A cruel God ?:
Though God is our Creator and sustainer of our life at every minute, just as a parent, the human tendency to personify Him as the incarnation of retribution and cruelty, a false and unjust allegation of a benevolent God who is neither unjust nor a partisan because He measures every of His creation with the same yoke that is just and kind and soft, Ps.89: 14; 7. Adam before his fall had no worries or anguish; he bought sufferings by being an accomplice with the evil one. Accusation against a just God has in itself certain backlashes, as His sympathy withers away eventually because criticizing the Creator is a sign of prompting of the devil to prod upon the unguarded created ones. We have proved ourselves as ungrateful recipients, always grumblings that invite the wrath of God. Bereft of love towards God invite curse and punishments from the same source despite the punishment is executed by His enemy who is looking for a chance to prowl upon the divinely unguarded prodigals.

Aftermath of David’s sins:
A shepherd boy who set up a vast and glorious Israelite empire became an instrument of the devil all of a sudden, while wearing the golden crown that the benevolent God offered him although he had to come through thick and thin in receiving it. After all, man is a bundle of flesh and blood! In spite of David’s penitence and absolution from his sins, his debts to God yet remained as a plague to his life and his descendants. 2. Sam.12: 7. `I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul; [8] and I gave you your master's house, and your master's wives into your bosom, and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah; and if this were too little, I would add to you as much more. [9] Why have you despised the word of the LORD, to do what is evil in his sight? You have smitten Uri'ah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have slain him with the sword of the Ammonites. [10] Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me, and have taken the wife of Uri'ah the Hittite to be your wife.' [11] Thus says the LORD, `Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. [12] For you did it secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.'" [13] David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the LORD." And Nathan said to David, "The LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die. [14] Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the LORD, the child that is born to you shall die." The next chapter delineates that the same type of sin was done by his son Amnon in raping his brother’s, Absalom, sister, for which Absalom killed the culprit. King David was haunted over by many, many unexpected dangers. Absalom who rebelled against his father unseated him from his throne and he had to fight a war against him and the son’s death made him possible to get back to the throne. We are familiar with the Israelite history that depicts that they became slaves of alien emperors and kings for a long time. The aftermath effect that sends heat waves all along after a couple of sins are everlasting.

Accusations against a just God:
Instead of shuddering and trembling by the utterance of the name of God, accusing the HOLY ONE is a grievous sin that made the Israelite suffered for forty years in the scorching wilderness. David realized the gulf that made an unbridgeable chasm between him and the benefactor, just like our first parents experienced it by the bite of the forbidden fruit. Man is blind in understanding the greatness of God; he only realizes it by the pang of sufferings that he gets by his own commissions and omissions. Only the confessions and repentance of David could somehow breathe again the glory of God, despite by the bitterness of the aftermath of consequences that he harvested.

Instead of falling at the feet of God by contrition of heart for the sins man is doing, he charges God for His inscrutability of justice that alienates and drives him to the vicinity of God’s adversary. While he reaps his punishment from the Almighty’s foe, he tries to prod over the other mischievous prodigals who are already handed over to the dark powers for their iniquities. When man shreds out God’s glory, Rom.3: 23, he gets the image of the infernal ones who trigger him to exploits the vulnerable and the exploited for his advantages, making him to peril at his own afflictions. It is a double sin to punish the one who is already serving a sentence of God for his failings in life. “For they persecute him who thou hast smitten, and him who thou hast wounded, they afflict still more”, Ps.69: 26. Though it is a reference with regard to Jesus’ sufferings on the cross by Pilate’s sentencing of Jesus to death, the more tortures are inflicted by the hooligans who took control of Him from the officials. This is the picture of our everyday life. Instead of shedding tears and accepting the woes that our sins invited, we make it as a golden opportunity to rip off their assets and wealth by scorning and condemning them, without thinking that one day we also become a prey of some ruthless hands.

Our salvation comes by submitting ourselves at the feet of the Saviour and serving sincerely and faithfully those who are already reaping the anger of God. All are weak and liable to make mistakes that are the game of the flesh which is our seen master on this plane of life. Accusing God and misleading and persecuting the punished ones are equal to self-annihilation. We don’t have the power to judge others, but we have limited powers to help and serve others who shed their tears for their sinful and inescapable agonies of life. Those who torture others and themselves, as a result, cannot escape from the severe hands of the Holy one. Ps.50: [18] If you see a thief, you are a friend of his; and you keep company with adulterers. [19] "You give your mouth free rein for evil, and your tongue frames deceit.[20] You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother's son.[21] These things you have done and I have been silent; you thought that I was one like yourself. But now I rebuke you, and lay the charge before you. [22] "Mark this, then, you who forget God, lest I rend, and there be none to deliver! [23] He who brings thanksgiving as his sacrifice honors me; to him who orders his way aright I will show the salvation of God!”

God’s commandments and judgments are always true and just.