Good morning. It's good to see
you here this morning. If you will, you can open your
Bibles to. We'll begin at Exodus chapter
nine. In verse twenty seven, so if
you just want to hold your place there, I'll begin with this.
The title of the message this morning is confession. Of sin. Confession of sin. Again, I told you I have six
texts. There could be more. There's
not. There could be plenty more. But
these were, I believe, sufficient. This is sufficient. And not that
I want to muddy the water, because by having so many texts, I know
that that might drain you if I were to go through every portion
of these in completeness. The only thing I want this morning
is for us to focus on three words. Now, I think each one of us can
maybe maintain our attention to just three words. And they're
in every one of these texts. And these three words are, I
have sinned. I have sinned. Now, the Scripture
tells us in Proverbs 28, 13, He that covereth his sin shall
not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh his sin shall have
mercy." Now, the Holy Scriptures are very clear concerning this
matter of our sin nature. In Romans it says, "...all have
sinned and come short of the glory of God." It says, there
is none righteous, no, not one. There is none that understandeth.
There is none that seeketh after God. They are all together become
unprofitable. There is none that doeth good. Here it is, no, not one. No, not one. Now, all have sinned. This is a truth. a fact. This is not a matter of shades
of gray or sins that are better or not as bad. We all have sinned
against a holy God. This is truth. This is the truth. All our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags." Now, if our righteousnesses are
as filthy rags, what are our filthy rags? In the sight of
God. There is no soundness in us.
There is from the crown of our head to the sole of our foot
nothing but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores. And yet,
in the eyes of men in this condition, They see themselves as having
some goodness. Well, how can you be so cruel? How can you blanket everybody
with that statement? Because the Scriptures do. Because
God who sees all things sees your soul, sees your sin, and
you can't hide from Him. Now, you may hide it from me.
You may hide it from your family. But one thing about it is God
sees all your thoughts, all your wickedness, all your depravity. He sees all of it. And he tells
you you are a sinner. Men might say that they're not
perfect. Have you heard that? Well, duh.
Of course you're not. You're a wicked, evil sinner,
just like me. They think that if they just
do their best that God will surely let their imperfections go, that
He'll somehow overlook their imperfections. But just as clearly
as the Scripture describes our depraved condition and declares
that we are unwilling to come, it also confesses of our inability
to come to the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. It is impossible for men to believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. It is impossible for man to do
that great work of faith. Faith is a gift of the holy God. It is a gift. It is not something
we can produce, because the only thing we can produce is sin. That's it. Jesus said, no man can come unto
me. Except, what's the exception?
Except the Father which hath sent me draw him. That word means to pull out,
like you would pull a sword from its scabbard. To pull out, to
draw men to Him. Unless God does that, you'll
never come. You'll never believe. You'll never know who you are
and what you need. You are a sinner in need of mercy,
and you'll never know it. You'll never confess it. You'll
never believe on Christ unless God does it. Unless God does
it. Have you confessed your sin? Whosoever confesseth. I like that, because that word,
E-T-H, present perfect tense, confessed, confesses, and shall
confess. his sin. Whoso forsaketh has
forsaken, is forsaking, and shall forsake his sin." Have you confessed? Have you believed on the Lord
Jesus Christ? What a work of God that is. It's
a miracle. And the Apostle Peter says to
us who have confessed, you who have confessed, I have sinned. The Apostle Peter tells us to
make our calling and election sure. Not everyone, Jesus said, 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. This morning I want to bring
the scriptures from these several texts several cases of men who
have made this same confession, and yet not all of them were
saved. Not all of them are saved. Not
all were forgiven of their sins because their confession was
not true repentance. Their confession was a deception
of their own heart. a product of their own will. And God did not give them life. The first one is found in Exodus
chapter 9. Look at this, Exodus chapter
9, verse 27. And my first point would be Pharaoh,
the hard-hearted confessor. Look at this in verse 27, "...and
Pharaoh sent and called for Moses and Aaron and said unto them..."
Notice, "...I have sinned." I have sinned. You mean Pharaoh confessed himself
to be a sinner? Yes. You have it right here. I have sinned. Notice the case of this profession,
this confession. Notice that it was a confession
wrought by fear and terror. Remember, the Lord had sent those
plagues, turned the river to blood. He sent the frogs into
the land, the lice and the flies. The Lord killed their cattle.
And yet Pharaoh's heart was hardened again and again and again. And after each one of those,
he said, OK, OK, Moses, I'll let you go. OK, OK, Moses, I'll
let you go. But this time something changed.
Pharaoh just didn't say, just didn't lie about this. He actually
made a confession of his sin before God's priest, God's prophet. But now God's sending something
that they've never seen before. He sent fire in the form of hail
from heaven. Some of you have seen, we've
seen a lot of hail this last year. We've seen a lot of that.
But never like this. These were chunks of fire that
came down from heaven and burned the land. The land of Egypt was
on fire. People were being killed. Anyone
that stepped out into the field was to be burned with these hellfire
that came down from heaven and lightning and thunder and all
sorts of earthquakes. It was a terror. The Scripture
says it was a grievous thing that happened to them. Some of you have been through
a tornado. What if you had that and then
everything was on fire? What if you had that, the hail
and all the lightning and then everything was burning around
you? It was a terrible time for them. The trees were all broken. Every plant was destroyed and
it was very grievous. Therefore, Pharaoh called for
Moses. And you can imagine, you can
picture him there and the thunder and the lightning flashing in
the background, his knees shaking. And he said, Moses, I've sinned.
Take this away. Take this away from me. I've
sinned. How many have made such false
confessions of sin under duress? because of some trouble. How
many soldiers do you think, with the bombs and the bullets flying,
when they were before in the safety of their barracks, but
now they're out in the middle of the battlefield and people
are dying around them, and they cry out, I've sinned! I've sinned! Save me! I've sinned! And then what happens? When all is
calm, they go back and they have no more thought
of their sin. A man once wrote down some names
in a hospital. He worked in a hospital and he
took a log of all those people who thought they would die. And they made a profession. They
confessed their sins. He wrote their name down as supposing
that they would have some hope and come to find out the ones
that lived, the ones that made it through. When he had checked
on them, they were right back where they had started. Yes,
even more wicked than they were when they went in. You think
of that. The man with the unclean spirit,
and how when the unclean spirit went out, he had swept and garnished
his house. And then seven more spirits came
back, and his last state was worse than his first. This is
it with a hard-hearted conviction. This is a conviction that's made
under stress, under duress of physical circumstances such as
death. Such confessions are vanity and
empty. Someone once said this, that
which is born in the storm dies in the calm. I've witnessed this. I've witnessed this. You see a man full of sin, vile
in his life, and then he comes in and he has some terror happen,
some grievous thing comes on him. He is on fire, seems like
he's on fire for the Lord, makes believers ashamed for us not
being so zealous. And then all of a sudden, when
the trouble is gone, they're gone. That's a hard hearted confession,
and it's not true. It's not right. Secondly, we
have a double minded confessor, Numbers chapter 22. Numbers. Chapter 22. We have a double-minded confessor
in this man, Balaam, who was a false prophet. Now, Balaam
is the best picture of a double-minded man. A double-minded man is one
who runs as hard and as fast as he can, both in the world
and in religion. And this man had did both to
the best example in Scripture of a double-minded man. He went
both ways as quickly as he could and as hard as he could. In Numbers
chapter 22 and verse 34, look at this. Balaam said unto the
angel of the Lord, I have sinned. I have sinned. In this character of Balaam,
we see the most extreme case of this type. This man was a
prophet for hire. He was hired by King of Moab,
Balak, for the express purpose of cursing the nation of Israel.
Now, think of this. This man actually spoke to God. This man actually heard the audible
voice of God. And God said, first of all, don't
go. And what did He do? He said,
well, I'm just going to ask Him again. In other words, Balaam was going
to go regardless. Balaam had set in his heart he
was going to go. That's just a pretend asking. How many people
have pretended to ask God for something, knowing all the while
you're going to do what you want to? That's what Balaam did. He
had his heart set on that treasure. He got there and he told Balak.
He said, I want you to build altars. And offer rams, seven
altars. I want you to build them and
offer rams and bullets on these altars. And then I'll go to God
and see what He says about cursing Israel. He was a prophet for hire. Imagine
Him now looking on the brow of that hill, standing up high above
the people of Israel and looking down on them, ready to curse
them. And all of a sudden, God says,
no, you cannot curse them. You must bless them. And he does. He says, what can I do but bless
those? I cannot curse what God has not
cursed. How can I defy whom the Lord
hath not defied? He spoke blessings on the people
of God. And I mean, such words of eloquence
are not found hardly anywhere in Scripture as this man Balak.
He spoke with such eloquence as though an angel would be speaking.
He spoke such high things of Israel, such good things of God. He even spoke of Christ. Look
at this in chapter 24 and verse 17. He even spoke of Christ.
This is amazing. He said, I shall see Him, but
not now. I shall behold Him, but not nigh. There shall come a star. out
of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel, and shall
smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheol."
Is that not like? That's a prophecy of the Lord
Jesus Christ. He's the scepter. And this is
a false prophet speaking this thing. But out of the same mouth that
came a witness Of the truth also came alive. Came a lie as came
such terrible words as to give counsel to Moab how to draw God's
people away from him. He said, what you got to do is
you got to give him women. That's what you got to do. You got to
send your women out there and they'll be drawn away by their
lust. What counsel is that? That's the counsel of a worldly
man desiring that money, desiring that fame. And he did give him
that counsel. And we see that happen, I believe, in chapter 25. It says, Israel abode in Shittim,
and the people began to commit whoredoms with the daughters
of Moab. He gave them this counsel that
they should go and send their daughters out so to draw them
away from God. The confession of a double-minded
man has no value to his soul because he is a man trying to
serve two masters. You know, that scripture says
that no man can serve two masters. Listen, some people read like
this. No man can serve two masters. Well, you can serve 20 if you
want to. It should be read, no man can
serve two Masters. You see, there must only be of
necessity one master. One master. You cannot serve
God and the world. You cannot serve God and this
flesh. You cannot live in this world.
Love this world. The love of this world will affect
your every action. Is this your confession? Do you
confess your sins only to run as quickly as you can back to
the world? Do you love God and this world?
Because you can't love both. You can't have both. You can't serve God and mammon. Do you claim to serve Christ
the Lord? only to go home and serve your
lusts. And your confession is that of
a double-minded man. Number three, an insincere sinner. 1 Samuel chapter 15. An insincere sinner. 1 Samuel chapter 15 and verse 24. We see this in the man Saul.
And Saul said unto Samuel, here's our three words, I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment
of the Lord by thy words, because I feared the people and obeyed
their voice. See, this man Saul is a type
of insincere sinner. was told to destroy all the Amalekites. Not to leave one. But he didn't
obey God. He saved the king and he saved
the best of the flocks. And he did this for selfish reasons. But when pressed for a confession,
he said, I've sinned. I've sinned. But first we read
that we can tell it's not sincere by his first confession. He said,
I have not sinned. Saul said in Samuel verse 20,
Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, I have gone the
way which the Lord has sent me, and I have brought Agag, the
king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. No,
you didn't. You brought the king. Is he not
one of them? You should have killed him with
the rest. So he said, I obeyed. But when
pressed, when pressed, put in a corner, he said, oh yeah, I've
sinned. I've sinned. I've sinned. Saul was a very
inconsistent fellow. He was a man moved by emotions
and circumstance. One minute he's prophesying on
the hill with the prophets, the next he's trying to kill David. He tells David, he gets him up
out of his bed to kill him. And the next minute he said,
How, Lord, can I touch God's anointed? How can I do that?
He was a man just moved, easily moved. Have you ever tried to
nail the mud to a wall? That's exactly how it was with
this man here. Have you ever tried to witness
to somebody and they're just so agreeable with everything?
Oh, my, you want to pull your hair out. They just agree with
everything and then they say something and you know that they've
not agreed with anything you've said. I think someone once told
me that one of the presidents of the Southern Baptist Convention
was asked when the Southern Baptist would split. And he said, Sir,
you cannot split mud. That is an insincere man right
there. That is an insincere confession. Notice this, that Saul was so
insincere. He said, I have sinned because... I have sinned because I fear
the people. How many of you have said, I
have sinned because... and shifted the blame to someone
else? That is an insincere confession. I've sinned because of my parents.
I've sinned because of my spouse. I've sinned because of this. I've sinned because of that.
No, you've sinned because you are a sinner. But let's just be honest. When
a person says something like that, they are doing nothing
but blaming God for their sin. Just like our Father, the woman
you gave me." When a man is insincere in his
confession, he is doing nothing but blaming God for his sin. That is not a true confession,
and that confession was nothing but vanity. It's not true. We are sinners
by birth, and truly, sin is the only thing we can own. What else
do you own that's yours? What do you own that you're going
to keep? The only thing you and I own
is sin. That's all we can claim as our
own. Is this your confession? I hope
not. I pray that you would confess
your sins and see your need of mercy and stop blaming others
for your sins and confess your own sins. before God, because
they are your own. The next one that we see is a
doubtful confession. Go to Joshua chapter 7. A doubtful
confession. Joshua chapter 7 and verse 20,
regarding this man, Achan. Achan answered Joshua and said,
Indeed, I have sinned." I have sinned. Now, you remember, this
is Achan who took the stuff from Jericho that he was not supposed
to. God wrought the battle. God deserved
all the spoil, all the glory for that battle. And nobody was
to take anything. But when he saw all that silver
and that robe and all that nice stuff, he just said, well, nobody
knows. He put his pockets and he went on. Well, Israel went
to face that small city Ai and they got defeated. And they lost
many men because of this sin. And it was because of Achan.
It was because of his sin. They lost. And now then, that
he is found out, Joshua says, My son, I pray thee, give glory
to God and to Israel. Make confession unto him and
tell me what thou hast done. Hide it not. And he said, I have
sinned. And then he was stoned to death. Now, was Achan a believer? Was his confession genuine? The
only truthful answer I can give is, I don't know. I don't know. I hope to see Achan. I do. I think I have a good reason
to believe that he was a believer, that his confession was genuine.
First of all, because of the voice of Joshua. It was not condescending. His voice was gentle. Son, confess. Confess thy sins before God.
And second of all, the extent of his confession was full. If
you read his confession, I don't have time, but if you read it,
It's full. He gives the full confession.
He tells of everything that he stole, everything that he took.
He gave a full, complete confession, knowing his death was coming. He knew that, but he gave a full
confession. But the only truth is that I
just don't know. How many people have gone to
their deathbed And at the end say, I have sinned. And they die. And you stand there
at their funeral and you're just like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't want that to be the case
with me. I don't want you to have a doubt in your mind as
to my confession and profession of faith in Christ. I would not
want to leave anyone with such a heart, a heavy heart as that. A doubtful confession. There's no comfort to stand at
the grave of one of these with such a flimsy confession. That's
all it is. I dare say most deathbed conversions
are nothing more than hard-hearted conversions. Because of terror. And number five, go to Matthew
chapter 22. This one is the confession of
despair. A confession of despair. Matthew
chapter 22 verse 4. I'm sorry, I got the wrong text
here. Here it is, Matthew chapter 27,
verse 4. This is regarding Judas Iscariot. Judas, after betraying the Lord,
felt conviction. And let's read verse 3. Then
Judas, which had betrayed him when he had saw that he was condemned,
repented himself. and brought again the thirty
pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, I
have sinned in that I betrayed the innocent blood." And he went
out and hanged himself. May God, by His grace, not cause
this, anyone in this place, to be in this condition. This is the worst and most hopeless
condition a man on the earth could bear in this lifetime,
is the condition of apostasy. Apostasy. Judas, he repented and threw
down the silver. He confessed. that he had betrayed
the Lord Jesus Christ, but in hopeless despair he went out
and hanged himself. There was no hope, seeing that
he was condemned. Condemned. I read a story of
a man named Francis Spirit, an Italian lawyer in the 1500s.
He was converted. Under the reformed doctrine,
he was converted to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ to make
a profession of faith. And he was a man of great state.
He was a man of great stature. He was he was a wealthy man. And the church making an example,
the Roman church, to make an example of him, pressed him to
make a recantation of his faith. And he debated about this for
a long time. And he signed it because he was
to lose his family. He was going to lose his business.
He was going to lose all that he had and possibly his life. And so he signed it. And as he
was on his way to make his public confession, he told others later
that he had heard even the voice of Christ saying there was no
more hope for him. He fell into utter despair and
had people come in and tell him that Christ died for sinners.
That Christ could forgive him of his sin. Believe on Christ
and you'll be saved. And he made such great confessions. He said, I'm lost! I know I'm
lost! I know I'm lost! And he said, I know this also,
that Jesus will not forgive me of my sin. And he died in that
condition. Friends, be warned of apostasy. No one starts out thinking they'll
be an apostate. Not me. May God, by His grace,
keep us from such a thing so that we would not have this
confession and die in our sins. But this last confession is a
truth. This last one in Luke chapter
15. Luke chapter 15. The confession of the prodigal,
I pray, is everyone's confession here this morning. Luke chapter
15 and verse 18. The prodigal said, I will arise
and go to my father and say unto him, Father, I have sinned against
heaven and before thee. The true believer knows that
we are the prodigal son. Remember this prodigal son? He
told his father, he said, you get up all that money you owe
me and you give it to me. And he took the money as soon
as he had it, and he went out and spent all that he had on
riotous living. And when all was spent, famine
came in the land, and he had joined himself to a man of that
country, and he was feeding swine. Now, the worst place that a Jew
could ever be found was in a hog pit. I love bacon, but I sure
hate to feed hogs. That is a low position. And that's exactly where we who
believe on Christ, we confess this is our condition. We confess that our sins have
not fulfilled all that they promised to fulfill. We confess that we
are hungry and thirsty for righteousness, that we have none of our own.
That our righteousness are nothing but the husks that the hogs feed
on. I can see the prodigal son, hungry,
starving, knocking on the doors of those people he once lived
in riotous living with. And they're shutting the door
in his face. Isn't that what sin did? Isn't that what it did?
We lived in riotous living. We enjoyed our sin. But now then,
that God has come and convicted us of our sin, taken away the
pleasure of our sins. Now then, sin is a burden, a
grief. It doesn't give us the joy it
once had. And we find ourselves hitched
to the lowest of men. And he came to himself. Have
you come to yourself? Do you really know what kind
of person you are? And when he came to himself,
he remembered, he said, my father's servants eat better than I do. I'll go to my father and beg
for mercy. Because I've sinned. Now, imagine
him, he's in the middle. He gets there and he's a far
off. He looks back and sees the hog pit, he looks forward and
sees the father's house and says, there's no way, there's no way
he'll allow me in. Have you been there? And what's your experience? The
same as the prodigal? The Father, seeing him afar off,
ran. It's the only time in Scripture
we have God running. God ran. He threw His arms around Him
before He could even go to the Father. The Father was on Him.
And the Father threw His arms around Him and kissed Him. And His Son, having rehearsed,
having rehearsed it in his heart over and over, over again. Father,
I've sinned against heaven and against thee. And he says, that's
enough. That's enough. Get the robe. Get the ring. Get the shoes.
Put them on him. Kill the fatted calf. My son
that was dead is now alive. Is that your confession? Has the Father hugged you with
His arms of mercy? Has He seen you with His eyes
of mercy? Has He ran to you with His legs
of mercy? Has He embraced you with His
arms of mercy? Has He kissed you with the word
of His mouth? Has He killed His Son for you? Your confession is good. Your
confession is that that is wrought of the Holy Spirit of God. And you have the best robe, the
robe of righteousness. You have the forgiveness of sins.
Your confession is not hard hearted. Your confession doesn't lead
you to turn back to sin. Your confession leads you to
righteousness. To love righteousness, to love
Christ, to serve Christ, to honor Christ. That's what it leads
you to. Your confession is not hard hearted.
Your confession is not double minded. You don't care about
the world. You don't want any part of this place. I have a
home that's not of this world. I have a home that is waiting
for me. To hell with all this stuff. You can have it. Doesn't cause
me anything but pain anyway. Grief and sorrow. I have sinned. But I believe that Jesus Christ
is both willing and able to forgive me of my sins. That's worth something. That confession is worth it. What is your confession? Who do you believe? Have you confessed your sin not
to blame it on others? Have you confessed your sin?
I know this, everyone who confesses and forsaketh his sin. will be
saved. I pray that God would bless this
to your hearts, give you comfort to know that my confession is
real, genuine. Have the men come and we'll observe
the Lord's table together.