What does the Bible say about shame and regret?

This is no proof of conversion. It is only the main proof that man has got into a bad conscience and cannot get out of it. Adam and Eve dare not look at each other, nor yet to God. They cannot bear the condition they have got into, and they cannot change it, therefore they hide it. But do not mistake this for repentance. Shame merely drives them to hide from, and excuse themselves to, God. And so with ourselves. As long as the shame of sin continues, we try to hide it, to get away from it, but it only drives us further and further from God. It is not a divinely-taught conscience, because we are more concerned about the shame before men, than the sinfulness before God. Until God has the place which man now occupies in our hearts, there is no conversion, the soul is not looking to God. We may be able to reason about the tender love and grace of God, but our sense of the guilt of sin should ever be deeper than that of its shame. When the conscience is before God, guilt brings sorrow, and yet we can, as sinners, reckon upon the love and kindness of God.

This is no proof of conversion; it is only the main proof that man has got into a bad conscience, and cannot get out of it. Adam and Eve dare not look at each other, nor yet to God. They cannot bear the condition they have got into, and they cannot change it, therefore they hide it. But do not mistake this for repentance. Shame merely drives them to hide from, and excuse themselves to, God. And so with ourselves: as long as the shame of sin continues, we try to hide it, to get away from it; but it only drives us farther and farther from God. It is not a divinely-taught conscience, because we are more concerned about the shame before men than the sinfulness before God. Until God has the place which man now occupies in our hearts, there is no conversion: the soul is not looking to God. We may be able to reason about the tender love and grace of God, but our sense of the guilt of sin should ever be deeper than that of its shame. When the conscience is before God, guilt brings sorrow; and yet we can as sinners reckon upon the love and the kindness of God.

In the next few verses (Ps. 34:5-10) we get really what the salvation is. You are instructed in what the salvation is that God ministers to the soul that thus really turns to Him. It is a statement of a broad universal principle, no matter who it is. "They look to him, and are enlightened. Their faces are not ever ashamed" (ver. 5). The sure effect of the soul having to do with God, is that it is enlightened. I am not talking of conversion now. It is true the soul is enlightened when it is converted, but here it is more in the pathway. It is a principle of the deepest importance. If you and I look to the Lord, what will be the effect? He will give us light. Why? Because God is light. And what He loves above all is to lead a soul into light, and your face is never ashamed. I have no doubt David was ashamed as he remembered the sorrowful circumstances of Samuel 21. We hang our heads too as we think of much of our pathway. That is quite right. But you will never hang your head when you look at Him. Oh no, you have the sense of the blessedness of having to do with God.

The effect of looking to Jesus by faith is stated in verse 5. Shame fills the face of the self-conscious sinner as he lifts his eyes to look upon his Savio-rtr. But one view of that all-gracious Presence turns his shame to confidence and joy. For God's light shines forth in peace upon him from that face. The pure intensity of perfect love is there. Divine glory — the glory of the God of all grace — is in Him both looked upon and loved (2 Cor. 4:16). Peace and joy and perfect liberty of conscience are the sweet and present fruits of that obedient faith which looks to Jesus at the hearing of the word of grace, and looking sees in a crucified Redeemer the fulness of the truth of God. Another shame may afterwards result from this. Sorrow may accompany and seem to be the natural effect of spiritual joy. For it is through much tribulation that the pilgrim of salvation finds his entrance into the kingdom of God (Acts 14:22). But the heart is now at ease. God is known there in Christ, as the sunlight of the day of hope. With respect to the exact force of the present verse, while its value to the believer at all times, as a presentation of the attractive power of the cross, is clear, it probably contains also an especial prophetic reference to the believing remnant of the nation in the latter day.

Now we have this salvation of God, which makes Him known, displayed in its various features. There is first of all in it light, for God is light. Things appear as they are, and we learn to recognize them, — to have truth in the inward parts, and certainty as to the way. And is not an exceptional experience, — it is the universal rule for those that look to Him. They are enlightened; and their faces are never "ashamed." Confusion as to one's thoughts and ways naturally leads to confusion of face as to the result. Where the soul truly seeks God, this is impossible; and thus there is provision made for the simplest and poorest, amid all the babble of tongues that the world is witness of. Nor could it be otherwise, God being what He is.

Now that she is awakened, and alive to what she has been, and to what she has done, deepest sorrow and bitterest regret, mingled with the most adoring love for her good and gracious Lord, fill and overflow her soul, like one who has ventured back, after sorrowful failure, to the scenes of former spiritual enjoyment. The well-known entrance, the sight of many faces so familiar, the sound of a voice not forgotten, and which has still an echo in the now melting heart — fill the soul with deepest emotions. The whole scene recalls to the mind many by-gone days of truest happiness. And now, mingled with the yielding up of the heart to the love of Jesus, are the smitings of an upbraiding conscience. The heart in silence breathes, "Lord Jesus, I am ashamed, and blush before Thee. Miserable and unhappy have I been every hour of my wanderings. Oh! how ungrateful! how ungrateful have I been! Oh! that I should have brought this stain on Thy blessed name! My soul is bitter with self-reproach. Lord, can I be forgiven? But oh! deepen in my soul the sense of my sin in going astray, and of Thy holiness and grace, in bringing me back to Thy fold. Restore unto me the joys of Thy salvation. My soul cleaves unto Thee."

Now that she is awakened, and alive to what she has been, and to what she has done, deepest sorrow and bitterest regret, mingled with the most adoring love for her good and gracious Lord, fill and overflow her soul, like one who has ventured back, after sorrowful failure, to the scenes of former spiritual enjoyment. The well-known entrance, the sight of many faces so familiar, the sound of a voice not forgotten, and which has still an echo in the now melting heart - fill the soul with deepest emotions. The whole scene recalls to the mind many by-gone days of truest happiness. And now, mingled with the yielding up of the heart to the love of Jesus, are the smitings of an upbraiding conscience. The heart in silence breathes, "Lord Jesus, I am ashamed, and blush before Thee. Miserable and unhappy have I been every hour of my wanderings. Oh! how ungrateful! how ungrateful have I been! Oh! that I should have brought this stain on Thy blessed name! My soul is bitter with self-reproach. Lord, can I be forgiven? But oh! deepen in my soul the sense of my sin in going astray, and of Thy holiness and grace, in bringing me back to Thy fold. Restore unto me the joys of Thy salvation. My soul cleaveth unto Thee."

We make the same experiences as he. Satan entices us by lusts. Yet possessing the objects of these lusts can never satisfy a child of God's heart, because they cannot silence his conscience. The man of the world finds no more satisfaction in them than the Christian does, but he sets right out in pursuit of new objects by which he hopes to fill the void he feels. Not the Christian — he comes to his senses, dismayed, his hands empty, his heart empty, the very picture of moral wretchedness: having lost his fellowship with God and heaven's joy and having not gained that of earth. His conscience reproaches him and he comes to God filled with repentance. Oh, how David now might wish to erase those nine baneful months! He cannot do so. And so he lays hold of the only resource left to him and addresses the Lord: “I have sinned greatly in what I have done; and now, I beseech Thee, Jehovah, put away the iniquity of Thy servant; for I have done very foolishly” (v. 10). On another occasion he had seen how much it cost to trespass against God's holiness. Was a new judgment going to fall on him? The consequences of his act cause him to fear, but too late; they ought to have frightened him before he followed this path. His repentance cannot lessen the guilt of the evil committed or make it less worthy of judgment; his repentance cannot atone for his sin or deliver him from its consequences. What is left for David? To submit to the judgment which he would like to have avoided.

Have you felt like that? It may be so, and you have been trying to improve your condition and life, honestly, sincerely; but it has been in vain, the foul water has broken out from the corrupted spring within you when you least wanted or expected it, and your life is a record of broken resolutions and frustrated hopes. What will you do? It is worse than useless to hide the truth from yourself, that would be self-deception, and you cannot deceive others, for they know you by what they know of themselves, or they think they do; least of all can you deceive God. Keep not silent as to this matter before Him, tell your inward grief to God, lay bare your soul before Him, even though the very thought of its corruption disgusts you. David, the great king, said: "When I kept silence, my bones waxed old, through my roaring all the day long; my moisture was turned into the drought of summer." But he saw how foolish he was in that, and he did the right thing at last, for he added: "I acknowledged my transgression, and Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin." Happy David!

Now we must be prepared for this variety in the ways of the Spirit of God. We are not to suppose that He will confine Himself in His blessed operations to any one particular type. Sometimes He produces in the soul the most overwhelming sense of guilt so the heart is crushed to the earth, and nothing is felt, seen or thought of but the vileness, the heinousness, the blackness of sin. The dark catalog of sins rises like a great mountain before the vision of the soul and nearly sinks it into despair. The soul refuses to be comforted. Shame and confusion, sackcloth and ashes, are felt to be the only suited portion of the guilty one.