Psalm 10:7, 11, 13 His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud: under his tongue is mischief and vanity….He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten: he hideth his face; he will never see it….Wherefore doth the wicked contemn God? He hath said in his heart, Thou wilt not require it.
The sinful man thinks he can get away with sinful words and deeds, because God is not present, He has forgotten, He does not see him, and He will not hold him accountable. David is talking about a Deist, not an Atheist. He believes God exists, but that He is distant, that He does not see what’s going on, that He does not care about human affairs, and that therefore He will not judge us.
When we sin in word or deed we are tempted to think that God doesn’t really notice and that He won’t hold us accountable. We are just like the wicked in that way and pretend that it didn’t really happen. But honest confession admits the hidden sin and brings it into the open so that we can know the Lord heard our confession and forgives it for Jesus’ sake. Confession denies the false notion that God forgets so we can forget. And God promises that He doesn’t remember our sins any longer because of Christ. In truth God forgets nothing, but because of Christ He promises to forget our sins and to remember me.
So instead of ignoring, forgetting, or despising God, we face Him, remember Him, and love Him. At the same time, we admit we are like the unbelieving sinner who pretends God doesn’t see, but confession and repentance exposes our sins so we can be relieved of guilt and shame.