Well, let us turn to God's Word.
And turning to the portion of Holy Scripture we were reading,
familiar words here in the opening chapter of that first epistle,
General of John. And I want to draw your attention
now to the final three verses in the chapter, verses 8, 9,
and 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. Here then in 1
John chapter 1 verses 8, 9 and 10 and to say something really
with regards to what we have in that middle verse of those
three, verse nine, the confession of sin. If we confess our sins,
He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. If you'll excuse a personal word,
I remember many years ago in conversation with my late brother
John, we'd grown up together and been at Sunday school and
in the boys' brigade together and then I was the first one
I made a profession of faith and being baptised and it was
some years later, I think it was after he was married that
he and his wife were baptised and there was an occasion, well
there were several occasions when we were in company with
them and I remember one particular occasion when they were visiting
us and we would often then sit up maybe into the small hours
talking and that particular evening we were talking about better
things about the gospel and what Christianity was and I remember
him making a statement which really encouraged me the church they were attending
was not a particularly good church it was broadly evangelical I
suppose but one did wonder as to really how genuine the profession
that he had made was. But he said something to me,
he says, every time I pray, you know, I always have to begin
with the confession of my sin. And that really struck me, I
thought, well that's not the words of someone who doesn't know what
sin is. If he has to come to God and every time he comes he
says he has to begin with the confession of sin, isn't that
indicative that there's something of the grace of God in his soul?
I did feel much encouraged by that statement in that conversation. So when he died a few years ago,
I did feel to have a real hope with regards to his eternal state. And it reminds us, doesn't it,
how important the confession of sin is. The believer is one
who desires surely to walk in the light, to walk aright, and
we see that here in the passage before us, previous verses, verse
6, if we say that we have fellowship with Him, that is with God, and
walk in darkness, we lie. and do not the truth, but if
we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship
one with another. How the believer wants to have
fellowship with God, and if we're having fellowship with God, we'll
love the Word of God and we won't be partial in the Word of God. Remember how back in Malachi
2.9, the Prophet rebukes the people because of their partiality
in God's words. We love the promises of God's
words when we have fellowship with Him and He seals these exceeding
great and precious promises upon our souls and we have a promise
here of course in this ninth verse that God forgives, He is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us
from all righteousness. But we're not just to embrace
God's promises. If we're really in fellowship
with God, we will also desire to know and to abide by his precepts. Think of the language that we
have, for example, there in the second chapter of the epistle
to Titus. And verse 11, For the grace of
God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, says Paul,
teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should
live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. For the grace of God that bringeth
salvation, it teaches us then, that we are to deny all ungodliness,
all worldliness, we're to live soberly and righteously. We're
to be looking for the appearing of our God and Savior, Jesus
Christ. We're to be those then who would
also seek to embrace God's precepts as well as his promises. And
again, we're reminded of that in this epistle, in chapter 3,
And verse 10, John says, In this the children of God are manifest,
and the children of the devil, whosoever doeth not righteousness,
he is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.
For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning,
that we should love one another. Here is the commandment then
of our God again in chapter 5. And verse 3, This is the love
of God, that we keep his commandment. and His commandments are not
grievous. Walking in the light, then, is that that entails us in walking
in the path of obedience to the Lord's precepts. Verse 7, If
we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship
one with another. But see here, our walking in
the light in this seventh verse is immediately associated with
the blood of Christ. We have fellowship one with another,
and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all
sin. The more of gospel light we know,
the greater we will have a sense then of our sin. and the need of that precious
blood, the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. When
we grow in grace, what is that growth in grace? I like the language
that we have in the Gospel Standard article, that 20th article, not
a growth in conscious goodness, but in felt necessity and knowledge
of our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's growth in grace.
The more we're in the light, the more we're aware of what
we are as sinners, and the more we need the precious blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ. The mark of the Christian surely
is that which the Lord himself speaks of in that third chapter
of the Gospel according to St. John. That familiar chapter,
we were reading it today at home and there in chapter 3 of John
and verse 21 either doeth truth cometh to the light but his deed
may be made manifest that thou wrought in God or if we are those
who are in fellowship then and delighting in God's precepts
as well as his promises we will have that awareness of our need
of the precious blood to cleanse us from all sin. And so coming
to these words that I read in verses 8, 9, and 10 to say something
with regards to the confession of our sins. And I want to divide
what I say into two basic parts. Firstly, to say something with
regards to the sense of sin the sense of sin and a real sense
of sin we see here preserves us it preserves us from at least
two things it preserves us from self-deception and it also preserves
us from the denial of God firstly that self-deception that's spoken
of in verse 8 if we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves
and the truth is not in us. The entrance of the truth of
God's word shows us something concerning ourselves. James says
that, doesn't he? He speaks of the word of God
as a looking glass, as a mirror. And he speaks, doesn't he, there
in chapter 1 of his epistle of those who are false professors. In verse 3 of the opening chapter
of James, If any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer,
he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass.
For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway
forgetteth what manner of man he was. That is a man who is
a hearer. but not a doer, but we're speaking
of those who are doers, who are having fellowship with God, who
are evidently in fellowship because they're walking in accordance
with his holy precepts. Well, they see themselves as
they truly are in the light of the words of God. They're conscious,
they're not deceived. If we say that we have no seeing,
we deceive ourselves. Or the believer, surely, is that
man who is guileless. What we read concerning the disciple
of the Lord, Nathanael. Behold, concerning that man,
says Christ, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile. Or the true Israel of God. Israelites
indeed, they are those who are guileless, and they are blessed.
They are blessed. The language again of the Psalmist,
Psalm 32, Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose
sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom
the Lord imputed not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is
no guile. These are guileless. They are
not deceived. They don't deceive themselves. There's nothing of that self-deception.
They know the truth. They know for a fact that sin
is something that we're born with when we come into this world. We're born, aren't we, dead in
trespasses and in sins. And now David is brought to confess
that in his great penitential psalm, Psalm 51. Behold, I was
shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Oh, the wicked! We're all wicked
by nature. That's original sin. The wicked
are estranged from the womb. They go astray as soon as they
are born. That is the language of the Word
of God in the Book of Psalms. and we see it time and again,
of course, we see it in the book of Job in Job 14, for who can
bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one. That sin that
was committed by our first parents, Adam and Eve, has come down all
the generations. When Adam begat his son, Seth,
he was after the image and the likeness of his father and it
was after the fall that children were born to Adam and Eve and now Paul of course acknowledges
that truth of original sin, innate sin In Romans chapter 7 I know
that in me, that is in my flesh, there is no good thing. Sin then is a fact. It's a fact of
our natural birth. All who are born into this world
are born dead in trespasses and sins. The only exception of course
is the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore the necessity of what
we read concerning the virgin birth He was not begotten of any man. He received his human nature
from his virgin mother, but she was a sinful woman. He was conceived
by the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin. And what was conceived
is spoken of as that holy thing, that human nature that would
be joined to the eternal Son of God. But with regards to the
godly man who will come to the light of God's words, he is a
man who also has been brought to feel sin in his experience. In a sense, that's one of the
first evidences that he's regenerate, he's born again. He feels what
he is as a sinner. If we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. All the truth
is in this man. The Lord Jesus says, Behold,
the kingdom of God is within you. God's truth has come into
his soul. He doesn't just see it now on
the page of Holy Scripture, but he feels those things that are
spoken of here in the word of truth. And Paul knew that, once
he was a most religious man. And yet he was in a state of
unregenerousness. But once the grace of God came
into his soul, what does he cry out, O wretched man that I am,
who shall deliver me from the body of this death? He felt what
he was. It's amazing how time and again
we see these godly men and women that are spoken of in Holy Scripture
denouncing themselves. They denounce themselves, they
feel what they are, as sinners. As God deals with them in the
way of grace, so with Isaiah. There in that sixth chapter where
he relates his call to be a prophet, when he sees something of the
glories of God, woe is me, for I am undone, I am a man of unclean
lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.
and mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. And one of the most remarkable
accounts I think in some ways is what we're told concerning
Simon Peter at the beginning of Luke chapter 5 where the Lord
performs the miracle of the miraculous draft of fish These experienced
fishermen have been labouring fruitless labour through the
night and the Lord simply tells them to cast the net on the other
side and they take in a great quantity of fish. And what is
Peter's response? Depart from me, for I am a sinful
man, O Lord. Sin is false. These people are
not deceived. They don't deceive themselves.
They don't imagine there's anything in them that would ever commend
them to God. They know the truth of God. If we confess our sins,
but we have to feel our sins. If we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. But then
again, in the 10th verse, if we say that we have not sinned,
We make him a liar and his word is not in us. Here is the other
thing you see with regards to their sense of sin. They are
not those who deny God and the truth of God. God has declared plainly in his
words the states of man by nature. God saw that the wickedness of
man was great in all the earth and every imagination of the
thought of his heart was evil continually there in Genesis
6 verse 5 so shortly you see after the account of the fall
just a few chapters and we have those remarkable words as God
beholds that world that he had created so very good and man
there at the apex of all that work and yet now God sees the
wickedness of man The heart deceitful above all
things, and desperately wicked, says Jeremiah. Who can know it?
I, the Lord, search the heart. I try the reins to give to every
man according to the fruit of his doing. We are not to be those then who
deny God and the truth of God. Paul says, Yea, let God be true,
and every man a liar. What is God's Word? God's Word
is truth. But if we say that we have not
sinned, we make God a liar. And His Word, that Word which
itself is all truth, obviously cannot be in us. We're told, aren't we, in 1 Samuel
15, 29, the strength of Israel will not lie nor repent, for
he is not a man. that he should repent. Let God
be true, but every man a liar. There is in here, with regards
to this confession, there must be first of all that real sense
of what we are, our sinnership. Not just assenting to it with
our understanding, but feeling the awful reality of it in our
souls. And when God shuts us up to what
we are by nature, how awful it is, because we cannot free ourselves. But then in the second place,
the wonder of the confession that we have here in the ninth
verse. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive
us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. It's remarkable, isn't it? Because
it doesn't say that God is merciful and gracious to forgive. He is that, of course. He's a
merciful God. He's a gracious God. But there are more attributes
in God than mercy and grace and love and compassion. He is also
that God who is holy, righteous, and just, and true, and faithful. And the emphasis you see here
is on those aspects that might seem to stand against the sinner.
Surely a just God must punish the guilty. God can by no means clear the
guilty. The wages of sin is death, says
his law. the soul that sinneth it shall
die. That's the consequence. God made
that plain to Adam in the Garden of Eden. In the day that thou
eatest thereof, that was an act of disobedience. In that day
thou shalt surely die, says the Lord God. But here is God now
forgiving sins because he is faithful and just. Well how is
that? Well it's all because of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord
is well pleased for His righteousness' sake. Who is this one? For His righteousness' sake. There in Isaiah 42, 21. The Lord
is well pleased for His righteousness' sake. Why? This is the one who
will magnify the law and make it honorable. Oh, that is the
Lord Jesus Christ. When He was born, He was made
of a woman. Yes, He's a real man. he has
derived, as I said, his human nature from his virgin mother
by the miracle of the virgin birth and the power of the Holy
Ghost he's a real man, he's made of a woman but he's also made under the
law and has he not magnified that law by the life that he
has lived how He has honoured it in respect of every single
commandment and He has kept that law perfectly, not only in deed but in words, in thoughts. Holy, harmless, undefiled, separate
from sinners was He, made higher than the heavens. And so God
is just, and God is the justifier of those who are believing in
the Lord Jesus Christ. He's a just God, and He pronounces
sin as justified. They're resting in the Lord Jesus
Christ as their righteousness, because He has not only honored
the Lord in terms of its precepts, because He who lived also died,
and as you are all well aware, He died the accursed death of
the cross. O cursed is everyone who continueth
not in all things written in the book of the law to do them
and he is born that curse as a substitute dying the just for
the unjust to bring the sinner to God or the wonder of Christ
and all that we witness there in his dying mercy and truth
are met together righteousness and peace have kissed each other
all God's holy attributes harmonizing, coming together wonderfully in
what the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished upon the cross. And so here we see why God forgives
the confessing sinner because he's a faithful God and because
he's a just God. But what does it mean to confess
our sins if we confess our sins. He is faithful and just to forgive
us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Well I mentioned four things
with regards to confession and of course as we come to pray
we want to make our confessions. What does confession involve? Well there is acknowledgement.
There is an acknowledgement, an owning before God of what
we are. We see it again in Psalm 32 and
verse 5. There David says, 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. Oh, there was that acknowledging. Again, similar language in the
38th Psalm and verse 18, I will declare mine iniquity. I will
be sorry for my sins. And so there's the other thing
that we must do if we're making sincere confession before God.
It's not just a matter of acknowledgement. It's a matter of sorrow. I will
be sorry. It's a matter of compunction
of conscience, feeling what we are before God, that godly sorrow. Godly sorrow worketh repentance
and salvation not to be repented of, says Paul. The sorrow of
the world worketh death, not a sorrow that centers in ourselves,
not a feeling sorry for ourselves, That's the sorrow of the world,
but godly sorrow is that sorrow surely that centres in God. Or
we're grieved because we see Him to be a good God, and yet
we've sinned against that God who is all goodness. Godly sorrow. It works repentance to salvation. And so as there is acknowledgement,
and as there's that godly sorrow, that real compunction of conscience,
So there is repentance. Where there's confession, there
must be repentance. We're told, aren't we, the Redeemer
shall come to Zion and unto them that turn from transgression
in Israel. In a sense, that's what the repentance
is. It's a turning. Turning from
transgressions. Turning away from sin. Remember how there is one who
gives that sort of repentance. It's not something that is natural
to us, not something that we can work up for ourselves. The
same as saving faith is the gift of God, we have to look to the
Lord Jesus, looking on to Jesus, the author and finisher of our
faith. But faith goes hand in hand with repentance and we're
told, aren't we? Acts 5.31, Him hath God exalted. with his right
hand to be a prince and a savior, to give repentance to Israel
and the forgiveness of sins. The Lord gives that faith. He gives that repentance. We
can only obtain it from him. We can't work it up. We can try to. There is such
a thing, I would say, as fleshly faith, fleshly repentance. There's the sorrow of the world.
but if we want that that is genuine we can only obtain it from him
who is exalted to give to give faith, to give repentance
to Israel and remember the word the Jews there in Acts 5.31 that
repentance it's one of those words it's a compound I've remarked
on it previously it simply means a change of mind But it's such
a fundamental change of mind. It's a man's life being turned
about, or we might say more than that, turned upside down, or
turned inside out. It's such a thorough change.
The man is a different man now. That's his repentance, you see.
He has turned from transgression. He's turning to the Lord his
God. And what is the consequence?
Well, Christ gives repentance and the forgiveness of sins.
There is a promise if we confess our sins, and our confession
has these various elements, acknowledgement of sin, godly sorrow over sin,
repentance, the turning away from sins, There is then forgiveness
and cleansing. It cleanses us from all our unrighteousness,
as it says. Oh, what a forgiveness is this!
Remember that great verse that we have in Jeremiah 50 and verse
20. in those days and in that time
what an expression those days that time that's the gospel day
that's being spoken of in the old testament it's the last days
it's the ends of the earth the period in which we're living
our lives in those days and in that time said the lord the iniquity
of israel shall be sought for and there shall be none and the
sins of judah and they shall not be found for I will pardon
them whom I reserve, or those whom the Lord has reserved, those
who are the Lord's by His sovereign choice and His gracious workings
in their souls. What forgiveness! Our sins seem to prevail at times. This is the problem, isn't it?
I remarked how That personal word at the beginning where my
brother said to me every time I pray I have to begin with confessing
sin. Isn't that true? Iniquities prevail. We have to confess again and
again and again and again. Iniquities prevail against me,
says David. As for our sins, they will purge
them away. Oh, there is a purgatory of the
precious blood of Christ. to purge away all the stain of
our sins. Again, the language of another
prophet, Zechariah 13, and there at the opening verse of that
chapter, in that day, again it's the gospel day, in that day there
shall be a fountain open to the house of David and to the inhabitants
of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness. or that fountain
of the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ or that we
might know the efficacy of that blood then if we walk in the
light as he is in the light we have fellowship one with another
and the blood of Jesus Christ his son cleanseth us from all
sin 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. May the Lord bless
His word to us tonight. Let us now sing our second praise. It's Watson's paraphrase. Isaac Watson's paraphrase of
the opening part of Psalm 51. Show pity, Lord, O Lord, forgive,
let a repenting rebel live, are not thy mercies large and free? May not a sinner trust in thee? Yet save a trembling sinner,
Lord, whose hope still hovering round thy word, would light on
some sweet promise there, some sure support against despair
761 the tune is baker 292