I'm happy to be with you this
morning. If you would, open your Bibles to Proverbs 28. I appreciated Wayne's prayer there
because it kind of caused me to consider that what we're looking
at here, Wayne in his prayer, he asked about to bless the men
and women in the back who are teaching the children. ground
and settle them and pointing them to Christ. And this is this
man who wrote this, Solomon, was the product of that. He had
a father who cared for him, who wanted him to know the Lord and
to know the riches of his grace. And so we see some of the products
of that, of one of these children who was taught by his father.
And when we look at especially the Proverbs, I think it's hard
to read you know, a whole chapter and look at that as a whole because
there's so much contained in it. So this morning we're going
to restrict our study just to verse 13 and kind of examine
what did Solomon say here and what did he mean by this. So
Proverbs 28, 13 says, He that covereth his sins shall not prosper,
but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy. We can say the same thing with
what he said, if he that covereth his sin shall not prosper in
1 John 1 10. If we say that we have sinned,
we make him a liar and his word is not in us. So it has something
to do with sin. It has something to do with an
acknowledgment of this sin. So in an acknowledgment of sin,
it's recognizing that it's there. So we see that in recognizing
it's there, there's a need for a covering. He says this here,
whoso covereth his sins, he's not going to prosper. This is
seen to us in basically from the first men who ever existed. Look at Adam. What's the first
thing that he did when he sinned? He hid himself from God so he
had some understanding that sin was not a good thing. There's
something wrong with what I've done. His second reaction is,
I've got to cover it. but the thick leaves over himself,
he and his wife, and they covered themselves. So men innately understand
sin is wrong. That what I did was wrong. And
there's a need to hide that, to cover it, so that God doesn't
see me in my sin. So Adam shows us just this from
the beginning. So it's there, and it needs covered,
or else why would you cover it? So obviously it does need cover.
Our sin tells us about what we are, But our sin also tells us
what must be done because of the sin. So if you will, turn
over to Ezekiel chapter 18. I'll just read a verse of Scripture
out of there. This is the Lord God speaking
to Ezekiel in verse 4. He says, Behold, all souls are
mine. As the soul of the father, so
also the son is mine. The soul that sinneth, it shall
die. So we see here, he doesn't say
the soul that continues in sin, the soul that used to sin, the
soul that sinneth. One sin, one million sins. The soul that sinneth, it shall
die. Death is the only remedy. Whether it's one sin or whether
it's one million sins, It doesn't matter. All require death. It evidences that we're sinners. It evidences that we're estranged
from God. God can't look upon you in your
sin. There's no way that we can approach unto him. He told Moses,
you can't even see my face and live. He said, I'll show you
my back parts. I'll show you the back of me,
but you can't see my face because you're a sinner. You can't see
it and live. You're under the bondage and
the will of sin. We're helpless, we're powerless.
Look at it in your own experience. There are sins that you commit
probably every day. Many of which you have no real
consciousness that you're doing. Some of the ones you do. And
the ones that you do that bother you most, that you lay in bed
and think about, Lord, deliver me from this, turn me from this.
Those are the ones you can't stop. You are under the bondage
and will of sin. There's nothing you can do to
stop it. So, how can I get out of the situation I'm in? What
did Adam do? He ran and said, I'm going to
cover it up. I'm going to make it so you can't see what I did. And so here are some of the ways
that men and women look at covering up their sins. First, they say,
well, it's not that bad. I think that seems to be the
way of most reasonable people in the world. They say, well,
it's not that bad. You know, I do some good things and I do
some bad things, but I wouldn't say that I'm a sinner. I wouldn't
say that I'm all bad. So they try to look at it and
weigh them together and say, well, the good things that I
do outweigh the bad things. Therefore, I'm more good than
bad. So you can't call me all bad. So that's one way. Another way is people ignore
it. They pretend like it doesn't
exist. So you sin? Well, nothing happened to me.
So I don't know if I believe in anything. They don't believe
that they're a sinner. They don't believe in God. So they pretend
it doesn't exist. I can remember kind of something
I was chewing on as I was writing this out is I lived with a guy
in college and he had trouble paying his rent. And we'd get
letters in the house that we lived in from the rental company
saying his name was on the letter saying you didn't pay your rent.
Now we're going to fine you $35 on top of what you didn't pay.
So I remember opening the letter, because it was addressed to our
house, and so I laid it out on the kitchen counter for him,
and he came in, I saw him look at it, and he just turned it
over. Walked out the door and went about his day. I came back
that next morning, it was still turned over, so I turned it back
over. He's like, I don't want him to
look at this, because he's going to get all of us in trouble. Read it
again, turned it back over. This went on for about four days.
Eventually, I came to him and said, Josh, you're going to have
to do something about this. You're going to get us in trouble
if you don't pay this. And he got mad and said, well,
I didn't have the money the first time they asked me for it. What
makes them think I'm going to have $35 more than what I didn't
have before? So he was mad because he didn't
have the money. He was trying to ignore the problem.
It was easier for him to go about his day and pretend like it didn't
exist. But that didn't mean the debt wasn't over. The same is
true with our sins. We can't pretend like it just
doesn't exist because the debt will be owed. It isn't. And so
without Christ, we're left with standing for God and our sins.
So some people want to pretend it's not bad. Others try to ignore
it. And some try to make up for it. How do they do that? They
do that by saying they're going to do good works. Look at the
things that I've done. Look at what I've done in the
name of Christ. What have I given up in the name of Christ? All
the things they've done. Some people, that's a form of
tithing. You know, I give my 10% every time, every time. I
give more than that. So they're looking at the things that they're
doing. You see these churches around, you know, town in Lexington
at least, they advertise everywhere about all these missions that
they're working. And you see commercials on their TV and the
people, you know, passing out things. We're building houses
in Haiti. Look, there's nothing wrong with any of those things.
There's nothing wrong with doing good things for people. There's
nothing wrong with giving money. There's nothing wrong with building
houses in Haiti if that's what you want to do. What does that
have to do with your sin? It doesn't have anything to do with
it. It doesn't have anything to do with our standing before
God. So what difference does it make? None of these coverings
will do. It's no different than Adam putting
the fig leaf covering over himself when God could see clearly right
through it. He saw everything. So this is
a fig leaf covering. I need my sins covered. And I
need them covered in such a way where even God can't see them.
So how can I do that? I can't. Because I need the blood
of Christ to do that for me. I need him to shed his blood
for me so that my sins aren't seen by God. So that those are
not, it's not just that they're covered, it's that they're blotted
out. You see, when blood enters a garment, it's permanently changed.
You can never get it out. It's always there. I need to
be permanently changed. I need that to happen for me.
If you will turn with me over to 1 Peter chapter 1. In chapter 1, in verse 18, he says,
for as much as you know that you are not redeemed with corruptible
things, as silver and gold from your vain conversation received
by the tradition from your fathers, but how were you redeemed? But
with the precious blood of Christ as a lamb without blemish and
without spot. How were redeemed is the precious
blood of Christ. How many bulls and how many goats
have been sacrificed year after year in this time of the Jews
in their day? Millions, yet they can never
take away one cent. They were given as an atonement
for those sins, but they weren't ever able to take them away.
But yet, because of who died, because of Christ dying, he's
taken those away. Past, present, future, all. They're all gone because of who
died. Bulls and goats had no worth before God. They had no
righteousness, no merit. But yet, because Christ died,
it's who died that took it away. So you turn back to our text
in Proverbs 28, he says it's he that covereth his sins. So
that lets us know it has something to do with, there's an issue
if it's you and I that are covering our sins. We need Christ to cover
our sins. There's nothing you or I can
do to cover our sins. So if it's you that is covering
your sins or it's me, it's saying you're not going to prosper.
That word prosper doesn't mean do well, it means ruin. You'll
be taken in the ruin. If I'm found before God as someone
who has attempted to cover my sins by ignoring them, by trying
to say that they're not as bad as what they really are, and
by trying to make up for them in some way, offer my own atonement,
I'm gonna be found in utter ruin because I'm gonna stand before
God in my sins. They won't be blotted out and
I'll owe for them. But God made a way where justice
and mercy could remain true. You see, God can't have his justice
be perverted. He must stay true to the law.
He must stay true and holy to all his ways. So he can't just
overlook my sin. But there was a way in which
he could make it true that I could be not found in my sins. So he
goes on to say that in Proverbs 28, he says, He that covereth
his sins shall not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh
them shall have mercy." Well, first, what is it to confess? Because I'm interested in knowing
how I can not be found in my sins. But he says, who so confesses? Confessing has something to do
with an acknowledgment of my sins. Does this mean that I have
to stand up and say and ask for forgiveness for every single
thing I've done wrong? If that's what it means, there's
a lot I'm going to miss, first of all. I'm going to miss a whole
lot because I'm not even aware of most of the sins that I do
commit every hour of every day. Romans 10.10 says, For with the
heart man believeth unto righteousness, but with the mouth confession
is made unto salvation. So this act of confession has
something to do with salvation. So confession is something that
we do have to do. My individual sins? Well, yes,
it is important to confess our sins and ask for forgiveness
for them. But back to what I said, you're
not going to get them all. It has something more to do with
confession and lamenting what we are. The reason why we sin. It's not the sins themselves
bear their own death, but it's what's the source. The source
is my wicked heart, my wicked nature that I'm born with that
causes me to sin. I'm a sinner because I am sin. I commit those sins. If you will,
turn with me over to Daniel chapter 9. What we're going to look at is
a confession of sin here that Daniel offers. We'll start reading in verse
4. He starts out in Daniel 9 verse 4, he says, and I pray. unto
the Lord my God and made my confession. So confession isn't necessarily
me audibly saying, Lord, forgive me for these sins. It also is
prayer. So Daniel did this in a prayer. And what did he say?
He said, Oh, Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the
covenant and mercy to them that love him and to them that keep
his commandments. We have sinned. We've committed
iniquity. We've done wickedly and rebelled
even by departing from that precepts and from my judgments. Neither
have we hearkened to thy servants, the prophets, I haven't listened
to the preachers, which spoke in thy name to our kings, our
princes, our fathers, and to the people of the land. O Lord,
righteousness belongeth unto thee and unto us, Confucian of
faces, as at this day the men of Judah and the inhabitants
of Jerusalem and to all Israel that are near and them that are
far off through the countries, whether they have driven them
because of the trespass, they've trespassed against thee. O Lord,
to us belongeth confusion of faces, to our kings, princes,
fathers, because we've sinned against thee. Did the Lord God
belong mercy and forgiveness, though we've rebelled against
him? Neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord to walk in
his ways, which he set before us by his servants, the prophets.
Yea, all Israel have transgressed thy law, even by departing, that
they might not obey thy voice. Therefore, the curse is poured
out upon us. and the oath that is written
in the law of Moses, the servant of God, because we have sinned
against him, and he hath confirmed his words that he spake against
us and against our judges, by judging us, and bring upon us
this great evil, for unto the whole heaven hath not been done
that hath been done upon Jerusalem, as it is written in the law of
Moses. All this evil has come upon us, yet we have made not
our prayer before the Lord our God, that we might turn from
our iniquity. understand thy truth. This is
the crime right here, this last verse. It's not the iniquities
will condemn us, but the crime is found at the end of verse
13. He said, yet we made not our prayer before the Lord that
we might turn from our iniquities. That's different than asking
forgiveness for what you did. That's lamenting what you are.
Turn me from my iniquities and the ones that I'll continue to
commit. Most of this world understands that they've sinned, that they're,
I don't know if they would call themselves a sinner. I would
say probably not, but they've understand they've sinned and
that those things are wrong. What this world doesn't understand
is it's wrong because of what you are, your sinful nature.
And that's what Daniel's saying here is we've not, we've not
asked for forgiveness for, to cause us to turn from these things.
This is a crime and to understand thy truth. So there's confession,
he says, back to our text in Proverbs 28, confession, and
he also says, and forsaking. Now, confession's one thing.
Let's say between the two, confession's probably not the hard one to
do. You can say, yes, I've sinned. How about forsaking? How have
you done there? Well, forsaking means me saying,
I'm never gonna do that sin again. There's nobody in here that's
going to be safe, because there's not one sin that you've forsaken
one time, if that's what it means. It's not in your heart. If it does, we have to have some
understanding of what forsaking means. So when I looked up this
word, I wanted to look at the first time it was ever used.
And if you turn back to Genesis chapter two, we'll find the first
time this word was ever used. Genesis chapter 2 and verse 24,
therefore shall a man leave, the same word as confess or as
forsake, therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and
shall cleave unto his wife and they shall be one flesh. So what
is the significance here of leaving father and mother? Well, first
of all, we have no choice in who our parents are. So good,
bad, smart, dumb, honorable, dishonorable. We have no choice
in who our parents are. But the scripture says a man
shall leave his father and mother. So we have no choice in who our
parents are. I also had no choice spiritually
in how I was born. I was born dead. I had no spiritual
life because my parents had no spiritual life. had no choice
in this matter whatsoever. So you have no choice in who
your parents are. We had bad parents, all of us.
They gave all of us the nature that we have. We are spiritually
dead, a sinner born to sinners. The scripture says, though, forsake
your sins, leave them, leave father and mother. It says to
cleave to the wife. Cleave means to stick to, to
stay with, to be joined to the wife. We all have these parents,
all of our lives, that we're born with, whether we like them,
whether we don't, whether honorable or dishonorable, we have these
parents. And we also will have the old man, the old man in his
evil ways where he's gonna be with us, just like he was born
with, we were born as the old man, that's what we were born,
no choice. But, that doesn't mean that's
where our hearts are. You see, in the same way that
your heart is drawn to your spouse, the one you love, the one you
care for, the one you want to be with. I may not want to be
with my parents, but I want to be with my wife. I love her.
She's the one I want to be with. That's where my heart is. So
the scripture says to forsake, there's a leaving of this fathering
mother, leaving the old nature, leaving our father and mother.
Now, I love her, I desire her, and I seek to dwell with her.
And my parents will always be with me all of our lives. but
they don't have my heart. They don't have the desire of
the new man, Christ in you. See, when you're given a new
heart and a new nature, you have a new desire. Your desires are
to Christ. Your desires are to believe the
gospel. You're given spiritual life,
but yet you still have that old nature with you, don't you? The
one that really, when you look at yourself, that's all you see.
But you know that new nature is inside of you because you
can feel it at times, and times you don't. But that's the nature,
it gives you the ability to believe, to trust Christ, and to see Him
in His Word. What a spouse we can cleave to.
You think about that, our spouse that we cleave to. We're to leave
the old man, to leave the things that are important to him. We're
to cleave the spouse that we're given, one who's faithful. How
faithful is Christ? Have there been one of His promises
He's ever let down to even one of His people? He's the fairest
of 10,000. What would we know of the sweetness
of Christ apart from being trapped in these bodies? How sweet is
he? How sweet is his nature and what
he did for us? He came here, he died. What would
we know of that apart from living and experiencing what we do every
single day in our flesh? Would I forsake it? Would I leave
it? Paul said, it's a crucified thing unto me. Anything that
I've done, anything, the things that I would do, he said, those
are the things that I don't want to do. That's the new man struggling
with the old man inside. We have a rock in Christ. He's
unchanging. He's the same always. Today,
yesterday, forever. He's our comforter in time of
hurting. He's the one we can lean on and
know he's the only one who really understands what's going on with
me. My wife knows me well, but she doesn't understand everything
that's going on in my heart. But yet Christ does. I'm joined
to him. I'm one with him. He's my spouse.
He's my hope. So the scripture says to forsake
your sins, your sinful ways, your trespasses, your iniquities
against God, forsake them. I don't want those things, even
though I do them. But yet we're told to forsake
them. How often? One time? Two times? You do it
every single day. Every single day we get up and
we fall. A righteous man falls about,
you know, seven times a day, but yet he gives up. So we're
called upon to forsake these, this sinful what nature and sinful
ways every single day. We're to cleave to Christ. Our
mother and father we forsake, which is the old man in the flesh.
And the old man in the flesh, he'll be dead soon enough and
we won't have to deal with him anymore. But while we're here
in this world, we're called on to confess our sins and to forsake
them. I'm where I want to be with and who I want to be with,
with my spouse, with Christ. I can't help how I was made,
but it doesn't have to be who I am. I know who I am in Christ. He's given me that knowledge
in my heart through the revelation of his word, through faith in
Christ. He's given me all these things.
I know that I'm his and he's mine. and we're called upon to
leave our old parents. When we're given eyes to see
this, how worthless is sin. Sin and its nature and its pleasures
of sin that infect every bit of our body and our nature. I
will be glad to be rid of it and given eyes to see and a heart
to believe in. And I'm cleaving to Him. And
in cleaving to Him, it's being joined with Him. Being joined
with Him is more than just being wedded to him, we're one with
him, we're part of his body. So that when the Lord God Jehovah
looks upon him, he sees Christ, he sees me too, because I'm anywhere
he is, that's where I'm at. I'm joined with him. So in confessing
and forsaking, if we go back to our text here in Proverbs
28, it said, whoso confesseth and forsaketh them, it says they
shall have mercy. Mercy is the only hope that this
sinner has. And if you're to have any hope
before God, mercy is the only thing that you can desire. Because
if He doesn't give you mercy, you won't have it. The only way
He can give you mercy is if He's the one who gives it and we're
the ones who receive it. Because we don't deserve it.
So He has to give it. Now, we know that God is sovereign
in His Word. God is sovereign. react to us,
he cannot be motivated by us, good or bad. But he says in his
word, I'll be merciful to whom I will be merciful. That speaks
of his sovereignty. So we know that it's up to him
whatever happens. It's his to give or his to withhold.
But he tells us in his word, aren't you thankful for this?
He tells us in his word in confessing and forsaking, he said, you'll
have it. So yes, he's sovereign. I don't know if He will save
me. I don't know. Nobody knows. The last thing
we know about election is when we awake in glory, whether we
were elect or not. We can look and see ourselves
in this world and say, do I believe? That's our only evidence of whether
the Lord elected us or not. But in terms of your security
and your assurance, we really don't know until we awake in
His presence. The only man that I can think
of is the thief on the cross. that was given more assurance
than anybody in all of scripture. The Lord said, this day, you're
gonna wait with me in paradise. No one else was given that level
of assurance in all of scripture. So we can look upon him as the
sovereign God who says, I'll have mercy on whom I will. Thank
God he will have mercy on some. Let that be me. Lord, have mercy
on me. But he tells us here in his word,
in confessing and forsaking, you'll have mercy. I'll show
it unto you. And you're coming to him and
not hiding your sin, but confessing and forsaking it. Evidence is
the work that's been done in you. That lets you know that
you are one of his. Because you confess and because
you're leaving, he's in the sinful flesh of our past. So in doing
these things, it lets us know that we, the Lord's done something
for us, that we're in him, and that we will have mercy. Because
really, that's what we desire. Mercy is the only way my sins
are gonna be covered. And so we're called upon to forsake
and to confess our sins. And the Lord said, you have my
mercy.