This is the age of science fiction come true! Trips to the moon, miracle drugs, round-the-world trips in hours (not days), and incredible computer technology. Such things were only the fanciful dreams of the science fiction writers of a century ago.
But there’s still at least one dream of scores of science fiction writers that has never happened and never will! That’s the craving to relive the past. Just to turn back the clock—to try to change the course of some past event.
We must admit a certain fascination for the past as well as for the future. Some people seem to live in the past—others dream of future exploits. Few are willing to face the here and now—the problems of today.
Have you ever wanted to relive the past? To patch up some botches you have made of things? I have. But it’s impossible!
Once a year, or even a day, has passed, you can never relive it. You cannot unmake its mistakes. For many years to come, we will each be living with the consequences of what we have done. Our past can never be repeated.
Though we cannot relive our decisions and the mistakes we have made, we can—indeed we must—live with them. The things we did right will bring satisfaction as we reminisce. But the mistakes will be what will be hard to live with.
Our world is filled with miserable people, living under the agony of past mistakes. There’s the businessman who stole company funds; there’s the young couple who, one night, went “too far”; there’s the fellow who decided to “take a trip” on drugs.
For all the talk about freedom from the presence and guilt of “puritanical morals,” these people still feel dirty—yes, guilty. They’ll try almost any route to escape themselves and their guilt. Sin leads nowhere but to sorrow, despair, defeat, and to separation from God.
Happily there’s a way to escape the gnawing guilt of past sins. There is a way to have peace of mind about past mistakes.
King David of ancient Israel, in one evening of uncontrolled passion, committed adultery with the wife of one of his officers. To get the woman for his own, David had her husband killed. The child born to their unholy union died. David’s sin led from one disappointment and sorrow to another.
David did not try to escape the reality of what he had done. He found relief from his guilt. He learned to live with the mistake he could never undo.
He revealed in vivid imagery his pent-up guilt feelings. The account is found in the Bible in Psalm 51. In an earlier psalm (32:3, 4), he had said, “When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: my moisture is turned into the drought of summer.”
He found relief in confession to God: “I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin” (Psalm 32:5).
He then took a new course of action. In humility, he obediently submitted to the will of God, to serve Him with all his heart.
“Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. . . . My mouth shall shew forth thy praise. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise” (Psalm 51:14-17).
Like David, we, too, can find pardon for past sins. We can face the future with a clean slate. We can, with David “be glad in the lord, and rejoice . . . and shout for joy.”
The scars of the sins we commit may linger on for years, maybe even for the rest of our lives. Though nature may never forgive, God can and will—if we let Him. He will remove those sins “as far as the east is from the west” to be remembered no more.
Today is the day to do a thorough “housecleaning.” Let us repent—confessing and forsaking past sins. Let’s face the future relying on God’s power to live above sin in Christian victory.
“Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13, 14).