I'm gonna ask you to take your
Bibles and turn with me to the book of Proverbs chapter 28. Proverbs chapter 28. I'd like to look at verse 13.
Proverbs 28, 13. declares he that covereth his
sins shall not prosper. But whoso confesseth and forsaketh
them shall have mercy. Now, in our passage today, we
consider two courses concerning sin and two corresponding results. Scripture declares that he that
covereth his sins shall not prosper. That means he's not going to
prosper covering them. That's what it means. He's not going
to prosper. But whoso confesseth and forsaketh
them shall have mercy. Now, let's just look at that
first part right there. He that covereth his sins. He who conceals, who hides his
sins. But concealing or hiding goes
a whole lot deeper than a man would think. Because man by nature
doesn't consider sin to really be a problem. We're so familiar with it. We're
just so familiar with sin that we think, in our mind, these
little things that we consider these little insignificant transgressions,
we cover up, we can hide that. It's like walking around in the
air. We're all here right now. We
breathe it. We enjoy it. We expect it. Because that's what we've always
known. We're just familiar with it. That's sin. Man, by nature,
knows nothing. sin. And so therefore he thinks
that he can conceal it, hide it, and that's deception. Scripture says in Jeremiah 17
9 that the sin, the wicked heart from which our sin, the heart
is deceitful above all things. That is, it's deceiving the very
man in whom that wicked heart lies. It just, it's desperately
wicked, meaning incurably wicked. And it says, who can know it?
Or the next verse, Jeremiah 17 says, who can know it? Verse
10 says, I, the Lord, search the heart. I try the reins, even
to give every man according to his ways and according to the
fruit of his doings. So here's what we know. Man thinks
he can conceal his sin, but God knows. God knows. Man can attempt to cover his
sins by denying the severity of them. They're not justly condemnable,
he thinks. I mean, I'm not talking about
that I'm perfect. I know I'm not perfect, but I
don't deserve to go to hell for it. For what I've done, I haven't
done that much. He thinks that maybe if God measures
sin against another one's sin, You know, like when I was in
school, y'all may have done like this, I don't know if they did
this here, but in Louisiana, you know, sometimes the teachers
grade on the curve. I always had somebody in the
class made A's, you know, so. But God doesn't grade on curve.
It just, whatsoever, the scripture says, Romans 14, 23, whatsoever
is not of faith is sin. A man may think that he can cover
his sins by failing in the day of judgment. God's going to weigh
in the balance, you know. He's going to take the good that
I've done. I've done some good things. I've, you know, given to this
organization and I've helped, you know, I've helped this person. I've given money I've done and
take all the good that I've done and weigh it against the bad. But again, in Matthew 7, we've
read this. Turn to Matthew 7. Look at Matthew
7, 21, 23. I think about this as I was reading
this morning. The Lord says, Matthew 7, 21
to 23, not everyone that saith unto me. Lord, Lord, shall enter into
the kingdom of heaven. But he that doeth the will of
my Father, which is in heaven, many will say to me in that day,
Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? And in thy name have cast out
devils, and in thy name done many wonderful works. Then will
I profess unto them, I never knew you. Depart from me ye that
work iniquity. Man may think that God is going
to take into consideration the acts of kindness. Numbers 32 23 says this, be sure
your sin will find you out. You know you can have a you can
have an engineer design a bridge, just steel work for
a bridge. And this is what it's gonna take.
When I was in Louisiana, we would do a lot of work. My dad had
a, which I later got, and we had a company, we would do a
lot of work, military. things where engineers would
have to design whatever to make stuff work. And you could have
somebody design a steel beam that's designed to span so far
and hold up a train. But you know, within the production
of that beam, unbeknown to anybody, if something happened and when
that beam was being poured and If air or foreign material, something
got in it, in the beam, and on the outside it looks good. It
looks good, looks like a beam. And it's installed. But if there's
something in that beam that didn't measure up to the calculations
of that engineer, do you know what's gonna happen when a train
gets on it? It's gonna fail. This is man trying to conceal
sin. He thinks, I can get it. I can do it. I can hide it. I
can let my good works outweigh my bad works. Man's sin, though
it might be ignorantly covered in his mind because of a spiritually dead
heart, or thinking that it might be concealed before others. I said, well, you know, you're
a preacher. I told somebody the other day,
they told me something like that. I told them, I said, don't go
there with me. There's not one ounce of good
in any of us. In our flesh, there dwelleth
no good thing. So the scripture declares, he
that covereth his sins. He that tries to cover his own
sins. shall not prosper. One thing that's going to put
away the sin of any man, any woman, the blood of Christ. But now on the other hand, whoso
confesseth and forsaketh them, shall have mercy. Now, those last three words right
there, that really struck me. They shall have mercy. Now, a
right understanding of the latter part of this verse, whoso confesseth
and forsaketh them shall have mercy. I want to understand what
was just said. I want to set forth, I want to
honor the Lord by setting forth before God's people, because
there's not a believer in here that doesn't want to know something
about the mercy of God. I've told you before, you know
what mercy implies? Guilt. Guilt. Mercy. Mercy. Shall have mercy. Now, we can
enter in somewhat to this whoso confesseth. Turn over to 1 John
1. 1 John 1. Whoso confesseth. 1 John 1. I'd like to read verses
8 to 10. If we say that we have no sin,
We deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess
our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned,
we make him a liar and his word is not in us. So to say I'm not,
you know, I'm not really, I'm a sinner. I told you one time, I had one
of my own uncles told me that. I'm not going back to hear that
preacher told me I was a sinner. That's how he said it. Told me
I was a sinner. I'm not a sinner. I said, well,
you're just disqualified then. Because Christ Jesus came to
this world to say sinners. I'm talking to, what I'm talking
to this morning, is anybody out there, is there any sinners out
here? Is there any sinners? Whoso confesseth,
confesseth, Paul the apostle, again, familiar passage of scripture,
Romans chapter seven, Romans 7, 18, I know that in
me, that is in my flesh dwelleth
no good thing. For the will is present with
me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. I know, Paul said, I know why.
I know why. What did David say, King David,
when the Lord sent a prophet to him? And God moved that prophet
to say, You're the man. David was moved to pen this,
Psalm 51, two to four. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me. You say, well, I thought David
was a believer. This is how a believer talks. This is what a believer
says. Against thee and thee only have
I sinned, and none is evil in thy sight, that thou mightest
be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest. David said, you've told me in
your word, you've told me in my heart, this is what I am,
this is what I am. So the Lord's people, they own
what they know they are. And they know that their confession
is not what puts their sin away. They know that only the blood
of Christ puts it away. But they know that they are,
in themselves, sinners. Whoso confesseth. But concerning that last part
there in Proverbs 28. Whoso confesseth and forsaketh
them. shall have mercy. Now I want
to just ask you something. When it comes to that word forsaketh
them, I want to know what that means, because the next three
words says shall have mercy. I understand a little bit, somewhat,
about the confession of it, but the forsaking of What Solomon's saying here, whoso
confesseth and never commits that sin again
is going to have mercy. Is that what he said? Because if he did, we're in trouble. I'm never going to get mad again,
never. I'm never gonna doubt God again.
Never. I'm never gonna do, I'm never,
don't say that. Because all you're gonna do is
make yourself out to be a liar. Brethren, we all desire that
we would never, we desire that we would never offend the Lord
again. Not in word, not in thought,
Not indeed. We all would desire that we could
be found walking in perfect obedience in this world. And I'm telling
you right now that we're going to go to our graves, seeing in
us that is in our flesh, there dwelleth no good thing. That's
what we're going to do. Now, do we rejoice in that? No,
sir. And Job said, I abhor myself. I, I, hey, Paul said, oh wretched
man that I am. This is a believer. Sees it in
himself and admits it. But forsaking it, what did the
Spirit of God set forth through Solomon? Forsaketh in our passages
a word that it means, and you can look it up. I just, I encourage
you to look it up. Here's what it means. To leave,
to loose, to depart from, to abandon, to neglect, to let go. Oh, but there's one definition
that I can, a lot of those words right there, that's what they
mean. But I need something. to where I can understand it.
One of them says, to be left to, to be left to. All these
words are words that, unless we understand what's being said,
I could, it perplexed me. I want to know what does it mean,
what does it mean? I was blessed looking up, and
that's the key to it, looking up, look up the word, know what
it means. Vine's dictionary set forth this. It means, in that
passage right there, to give up, to give up. And let me try
to make good on what I'm saying with an illustration. Whoso confesseth and forsaketh
them. He tried to cover his sins, not
go proper, but to confess them and forsake them. For sake of an illustration,
let's say that there's a criminal hiding in my house. Somebody that's broken the law,
criminal, but it's somebody that I know and I love. Somebody maybe part of my family,
maybe brother, sister, dad, mama, somebody done something. And
this one that I'm very familiar with, hiding, broken the law,
criminal. But they tell me that if I'll
just keep quiet, be quiet, don't expose them, everything gonna
be fine. But the problem is is that the
police have tracked the criminal to my house and they know that the criminal's
there. And they know that I know that
the criminal's there. But this lawbreaker has promised
me that if I'll never say anything, no harm will ever come to me.
Just don't say anything. They're there, just don't say
anything. Now, the law has got me on the
front porch. questioning me about the criminal's
presence. And the questions are setting
forth that they, that they know, that I know. I've got one or
two things that I can do. I can try to cover for the one
that's hiding and therefore be charged with harboring the criminal. suffer the penalty of the law
and will suffer for it. Or I can confess the presence
of the lawbreaker, give them up, give them up. That's what it means to forsake. It means that I'm going to let
them go and neglect them and agree with the law, agree with
God. The action of a believer when
it comes to his sins that he readily confesses and forsakes
them. I'm not going to try to hide
them. I'm going to be honest. God give a believer a heart.
Does he see that it's there? Oh, he knows it's there. Does
he know what he is? He knows what he is. but he's
gonna take God's side against himself. Before the Lord called us out
of spiritual darkness, sin and unbelief, our carnal heart had
us convinced we can cover our sins and get away with it. But we'll never cover them before
God. We can think of a myriad of foolish
ways that would be profitable, we think, but rest assured, scripture
says, your sin gonna find you out. A believer bows before the revelation
of God's word. Whenever it pleased God, all
those that he'd everlastingly loved. He comes to them under the sound
of the gospel, and he removes a heart of stone and rebellion,
that heart that ruled and reigned, had dominion over. And he removes
that heart and gives a new heart. Now, the presence of sin is still
there, but he doesn't have dominion anymore. Whenever a believer
sees in God's word that which is so, he agrees with God. He
bows to God. And he's gonna say, as David
did, in David 32 five, I acknowledge 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. See law. He doesn't trust in his confession.
He trusts in the Lord Jesus Christ. And he's honest. He's honest
with God. He's honest with himself. He
knows what he is. Thank the Lord for his good pleasure
to show mercy and compassion to sinners like us. Whoso covereth
their sins, not gonna prosper. They're gonna
suffer. But whosoever confesseth and
gives them up. I thought about how many times
I've jokingly tell somebody, I won't throw you under the bus.
Well, that's what a believer is gonna do when it comes to
himself. He'll throw himself under the bus, and this is what
I am. I pray God bless this to our hearts for Christ's sake.
All right, let's take a few minutes.