Debbie Williams found out this
week that her cancer has returned back into her lungs. So everybody,
let's pray for her. And I think of Jessica Clark
and Claire, that the Lord has visited these people with his
purpose. And we want them healed, though,
if the Lord's pleased to do that. So let's pray for these people
together right now. Lord, we ask in Christ's name
that your healing hand according to your will would be upon Claire,
upon Debbie, upon Jessica. We pray for your great grace
upon them. And Lord, we're so thankful that
you are the one who sends sickness and you are the one who heals
and all things are for your glory and our eternal good. But Lord,
we greatly desire for Christ's sake that you would heal these
people. You said in your word, if any man's sick, let him pray.
And Lord, we're praying for your healing hand upon these people
for Christ's sake. We give thanks for our great
physician. In his name we pray. Amen. Verse 6 of Matthew chapter 23, They were baptized of him in
Jordan, confessing their sins. Now, what does it mean to confess
my sins? I'm almost embarrassed to say
this. but I feel like I should say
it. One of the things that makes me feel the worst about my sin,
my personal sin, is that it doesn't make me feel as bad as I know
it should. I'm way too hard-hearted with
regard to my personal sin. And sin is so evil that a perfectly good and just
God, and let me emphasize that, a good God, a just God. Sin is so evil that God made
hell to put those who commit sin into that place to suffer
his judgment, and believe me, It's not too harsh. Sin is so evil that the death
of the Son of God is the only thing that could put it away.
It's the only way that God could be just and justify a sinner
is through the death, burial, and resurrection of his son. Sin is an infinite evil. What does it mean? If we know
what it is, and we don't much know what it is, we have some
idea from the things I've said, but what does it mean to confess
your sin before God? Whatever it is, I'd like to do
it. I know this, whenever I feel, whenever I try to confess my
sin, I always feel it's inadequate. I always feel like it's not sincere
enough. It's not sorry enough. What does
it mean to confess your sin before God? Verse one, in those days,
John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea. This
is the one that God sent. Remember, he's prophesied as
a voice in the wilderness crying, prepare ye the way of the Lord
and make straight in the desert a highway for our God. He was
prophesied in the book of Malachi. He was prophesied in the book
of Isaiah that he would come. And here he is saying, verse
two, repent ye for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. For this
is he that was spoken by the prophet Isaiah saying, The voice
of one crying in the wilderness, prepare ye the way of the Lord,
make his path straight. And the same John had his raiment
of camel's hair and a leather girl about his loins. And his
meat was locusts, bugs, big bugs. I've heard people say that talking
about flowers. No, it's not. It's talking about locusts and
wild Honey, that's what he had to eat. Can you imagine seeing
this man with a leather girdle around his loins, a loincloth,
hairy like Elijah was, preaching? And in order to hear from the
Lord, you'd have to go out in the wilderness. You weren't going
to hear from him in the temple. You're not going to hear from him in
man's religion. You're going to have to go to the wilderness
to hear this man, this no doubt strange looking man to these
people. repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.' And there
went out to him Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region
round about Jordan." I love to think of how many people this
must have been coming to hear John the Baptist preach. Now
the Lord had not spoken by way of writing for 400 years. Malachi, the last prophet. And we do not know that there
was anyone with a prophetic word for God. Perhaps there was. We
don't know. But we know John had the word
of God that he was bringing. And these people came out and
were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins. Question. Does that mean before
John would baptize you, you had to make a public confession of
your personal sins before everybody? Is that what he was requiring?
You can't be baptized until you first confess your sins, the
sins that you've committed. Let me answer that question with
a resounding no. We are never to confess our sins
to a man. It's wrong to do it. What can
a man do for you? Sins against God. You're not
to confess your sins to a man. Sometimes being a preacher, somebody
say, well, I've got to tell you what I've done. Nope. Don't want
to know. Don't wanna know, please don't
do that. And if someone wants to hear somebody confess their
sins, and there's a creep factor to that, isn't there? Wanting
to hear about somebody else's sins, you've got problems. And
yet, that is what many people think of this. We're going to
confess our sins before baptism. Now, what does it mean if it
doesn't mean I'm going to get up and make a public confession
of the sins I've committed? What does it mean? Now you'll
notice it says they were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing
their sins. The act of baptism has inherent
in it the confession of sin. Now what do I mean by that? I
say, and I say publicly, This is not something I'm trying to
hide. I say publicly that I am so sinful that the only way I can be saved
is by what baptism depicts. The only way I can be saved is
if I was in Christ when he lived and worked out a perfect righteousness
for me because I can't do it. The only way I can be saved is
if I was in Christ when He died. And those sins that He died for
were my sins that were given to Him and He put them away.
The only way I could be saved is for Him to be raised from
the dead. Satisfying the wrath of God, the law of God, completely
satisfying God so that God is satisfied with me without reference
to anything I do. It's all seen by what baptism
depicts the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. You know, not many
people ever confess their sin. They might say, Oh, forgive me
my sin. I confess my sin. I did this. I did that. I wish
I hadn't done it. Please forgive me. That's not
the confession of sin. Proverbs chapter 20, verse six,
most men will proclaim everyone his own goodness. but a faithful
man, a faithful man who can find. The faithful man
is the man who confesses his sins, his sin before God, whatever
it is to confess sin. And I love the gospel promise
in 1 John 1, verse 9. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive
us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So what does it mean? What is meant by confessing sins?
Does it mean to confess to being guilty of committing some particular
sin? Well, you know, I want to confess
before the Lord every time I'm aware of what I've done. I want
to confess it. But here's the problem. We have
a lot of examples of men in scriptures who did that and were not forgiven.
So it lets us know it was not true confession. Let me give
you some examples. Pharaoh, when it thundered and the lightning
was cracking down, and fire was going across the ground, and
great stones of hell came down. He said, I've sinned this time, this time. I and my people are
wicked, and the Lord is righteous. I've sinned this time. Oh, what about the other times? There's no true confession of
sin if I've only sinned this time. The scripture says I sin
all the time. Now, you might not feel that
you sin all the time. I might not feel that I sin all
the time, but the Bible does say if we say we have no sin,
what? We deceive ourselves. and make
him a liar. If we say we've not sinned, we
call God a liar. He says we have. Listen to this
scripture. I'm not asking you to see that everything you do
is sin, but I'm asking you to believe everything you do is
sin. God saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth and
that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only
evil continually. Believe that about yourself. I dare say that you don't walk
around thinking, well, everything I do is sin. It's not something
that comes up in our consciousness all the time, but believe it.
It's what God says in his word. Balaam said to the Lord, I've
sinned. After the Lord opened his eyes
to the angel with a drawn sword ready to smite him. But he went
on to even greater works of wickedness. He is the arch false prophet. But he said to the Lord, I've
sinned. King Saul said, I've sinned. But even in his confession of
sin, he demonstrated his insincerity because he said, I sinned because
I was afraid of the people. I was afraid of what they would
do to me. I was forced into it. It's not really my fault. It's
the people that really caused this. I've sinned, but it's because
I was afraid of the people. He said in another place, I had
to force myself to do this. Like Adam, this sin is not my
fault. that you gave me. She gave me
of the fruit and I did. Eve, she blamed the serpent.
The serpent beguiled me. And I ain't not taking true responsibility
for your sin. You've never confessed your sin.
I've never confessed my sin unless I've understood it's all my fault. I can't blame my circumstances. I can't blame my raising. It's
all My fault. You see, unless your sin's all
your fault, you'll never ask for mercy. You'll ask for justice. But if your sin is all your fault,
that's when you ask for mercy. What about Judas? Judas said,
I've sinned in that I have shed the innocent blood. Now even Judas making that statement
shows how ignorant he was of the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ. That blood he shed was the blood of the God-man. It
wasn't merely innocent blood. It was altogether holy blood,
the blood of God. And I say that fearfully, even
making that statement. But the scripture does say in
Acts chapter 20, verse 28, feed the church of God, which he purchased
with his own blood. So I say that fearfully, but
when he was talking about The blood of Christ being innocent,
that's derogatory toward the glory of Christ. He proved that
he didn't really know who he was and he went and hanged himself
after it. There wasn't any true confession
of sin. Anytime somebody, if you're caught
betraying someone and you're going to feel guilty and say
something about it, but that's not what the true confession
of sin is. All these men said, I've sinned
and it wasn't real. I can show you a couple of examples
of men who said, I've sinned and it was real though. David. The next time you say or even
think, could a believer really do that? Stop. Read the Bible. You wouldn't ask a question like
that if you read the Bible. Who am I talking about? David.
What did he do? Well, he was out hanging out
on a rooftop when he should have been out fighting battles. And
he spied this beautiful woman, Bathsheba, bathing. And through
a horrible abuse of power, he had his servants go bring her
to him. You see, if you're a king, nobody
questions what you're doing. You did it. And they brought
her, and he committed adultery with her, and she became a child. And so what did he do to try
to cover it up? He tried to have Uriah come in,
that fine man, Uriah, and tried to get him with her so no one
would think it's his child. When that didn't work, he committed
cold-blooded, premeditated murder in order to kill Uriah. believer? He's the man after
God's own heart, yet we see what he did and he implicated somebody
else in it. He got Joab to participate in
this thing. I mean talking about wicked and
he went on for months without any sort of confession with regard
to this. And then Nathan the prophet came
to him, and you remember that story. He told David of a rich
man who had many sheep, flocks, and a little poor man who had
one little sheep. And he treated that sheep like
it was his daughter. And that sheep ate at his table.
He loved that little sheep. And a visitor came to the rich
man and he didn't want to slay one of his sheep, so he went
and got that man's little sheep and killed it and fed it to his
guest. David saying, as the Lord liveth,
that man will surely die. You see, we can always see other
people's sins pretty clearly, can't we? He could see the desperate
wickedness of that man. As the Lord liveth, that man
shall surely die. Nathan said, thou art the man. David said, I've sinned against
the Lord. And the first thing Nathan said
to him was, the Lord hath put away your sin. Put it away. It is no more. And David went
out and composed Psalm 51. Have mercy upon me, O God, according
to thy lovingkindness, according to the multitude of thy tender
mercies. Blot out my transgressions. Wash
me throughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin, for
I acknowledge my transgressions. My sin is ever before me against
thee, and thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight.
Thou mightest be clear when thou judgest, and justified when you
speak. When the prodigal returned, he
said to his father, like David, I've sinned against heaven. Remember
how David said, against thee and thee only have I sinned?
Well, tell that to Uriah. Tell that to Bathsheba. Tell
that to Joab. That's how David dealt with this.
Against thee and thee only have I sinned and done this evil in
thy sight. The prodigal returns and he says, Father, I've sinned
against heaven and in thy sight. Make me as one of thy hired servants. And the father gave the same
response that Nathan did. Nathan said, the Lord's put away
your sins. His father said, bring forth the best robe. and put
it on him, put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet,
and kill the fatted calf. Now, these men confessed their
sins. Now, does that mean, yes, they
were confessing individual sins, I realize that, but does it mean
to confess each one individually? Well, let me say, that's impossible. Because most of the individual
sins you've committed, you don't even know you've committed them.
You realize that? Most of the sins, the great majority
of sins that you've committed, you didn't even know you were
committing a sin when you did it. There's so many sins we're
ignorant of, and if we did know them, there's not enough time
in the day to confess them all. If you had to confess all your
sins, that means you'd be confessing sin 24-7, doesn't it? You wouldn't
have time to talk to anybody else. You wouldn't have a conversation. It's a thing impossible. You know, even in our confession,
Are we not aware that our confession of sin is sin when we confess
it? Not sincere enough. Not sorry
enough. Not heartfelt enough. Inadequate. While we've even
confessed sins that we knew we were going to commit, even while
we were confessing them. And if we stamp that down, try
not to let it come up to our consciousness, it's still a fact.
Our confession of sin is inadequate. It's no good. I want you to turn
to Psalm 138. I'm sorry, Psalm 38. Now I want you to remember in the Psalms,
Always look at it first as the words of the Lord. Look in verse 1, O Lord, and
this is as He took our sins upon Himself and owned them as His
own, though He never committed a sin in His person. even when
he was on the cross, made sin. He never committed a sin in his
person. Yet he owns the sins of his elect
as his own. Look at the way he speaks. Oh
Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath. Now this is David speaking, I
realize this, and this is David's experience. I'm not saying it's
not, but first and foremost, this is the Lord speaking. Oh
Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath. Neither chasten me in thy hot
displeasure. The Lord really experienced those
things on the cross. For thine arrows stick fast in
me, and thy hand presseth me sore. There's no soundness in
my flesh because of thine anger. Neither is there any rest in
my bones because of my sin for mine iniquities. He didn't say
Todd's iniquities that are imputed to him. He says, mine iniquities
are gone over my head as a heavy burden. They're too heavy for
me. Now look what he says in verse
18. For I will declare mine iniquity. He's the only one to confess
it properly. I will declare my iniquity. I will be sorry for my sin."
He's the only one who expressed the proper sorrow. Now, I don't
claim to understand this, but I know the only hope I have is
his confession of sin, not mine. The only hope I have is his sorrow
over sin. Not mine. The only hope I have
is his faith. I'm looking to him for everything. Everything. My confession of
sin, inadequate, insincere, not enough. But oh, he's the one
who truly, he owned my sin as his and confessed it before his
father. And oh, how sorry he felt. So what is it, I ask again, for
me to confess my sin? And the word confess, the word
confess means agreement. It means to speak the same thing. That's what a confession of faith
is supposedly. It's what everybody is saying.
Yes, we agree with that. We believe that. That's what
we believe. We're speaking the same thing.
That's what confession means. It means to speak the same thing. Now to confess my sin. is to
speak the same thing God speaks with regard to my sin. It's to agree with what God says. It's to take sides with God against
myself. Now, that's what it is to confess
sin. What does that look like? Well,
turn with me for a moment to Romans chapter 7. Verse seven, Romans chapter seven,
verse seven. What should we say then? Is the
law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known
sin, but by the law, for I had not known lust. except the law
had said, thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the
commandment, using the commandment as a base of operations. You
see, all the law does is expose sin. It doesn't restrain sin,
it exposes it. And look at the way Paul speaks.
Sin taking occasion by the commandment wrought in me all manner of concupiscence,
evil desire, lust, covetousness. For without the law, sin was
dead. I didn't see it. For I was alive
without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived,
it came alive, and I died. And the commandment, which was
ordained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking
occasion by the commandment, deceive me, and by it slew me. Wherefore the law is holy, and
the commandment holy, and just, and good. Was then that which
was good made death unto me? Is the law my problem? God forbid,
but sin, that it might appear sin. working death in me by that
which is good, that sin by the commandment might become exceeding
sinful. Exceeding means beyond all measure. Beyond description. I think that this is somewhat
expressed in Romans chapter three, Verse 19, when Paul says, and
we know that what though several things the law saith, it saith
to them who are under the law that every mouth may be stopped. No excuses, no vindicating yourself,
guilty as charged. You and people or questioning God's fairness,
or he's too severe, he's too sovereign, it's not fair. All
they've proved by that is they've never confessed their sin. If
you've confessed your sin, your mouth is stopped. Guilty as charged. Now, I want to repeat, I want
to simply believe what the Bible says about me, whether I feel
it or not. You want to do that? I want to
believe what God's Word says. Jeremiah chapter 17 verse 9,
the heart is deceitful above all things. My heart, your heart. Somebody says trust your heart.
Scripture says he that trusts in his heart is a fool. The heart
is deceitful above all things. desperately wicked and that word
simply means incurably wicked. It can't get better. What I need
is a new heart that was not there before. Now I see that the Bible teaches
that men are sinful. You see that too. Men are totally
depraved. You see that. You believe that.
But it's one thing to see the Bible teaches it and it's another
thing to believe that's me. That's me. I am a totally depraved,
unable sinner. included in this confession about
agreeing with God, taking sides with God against myself, agreeing
with what he says about me, whether I feel it or not, I agree with
what God says. Read, there's none righteous.
No, not one. That's me. I agree with that.
There's none that understands. That's me. There's none that
seeketh after God. That's me. They've all gone out of the way.
They together become unprofitable. There's none that doeth good.
No, not one. That's me. Somebody says, how
could you be saved then? Only saved people say that. An
unbeliever never sees that. He has no concept of sin. He
really doesn't. The only person who has a concept
of sin is someone who's been born of the Spirit and has a
holy nature, and they can see it for what it is. An unbeliever
gets so frustrated, you know, why are you saying stuff like
that? That's so negative. If you've got a holy nature,
you know. You know, you understand God's done something for you
and included in this confession of sin is justifying God in your
own personal condemnation. You'll notice David said against
thee and thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight
that thou mightest be justified when you speak. and clear when
you judge. Whatever you do with me is right.
If you send me to hell right now, it's right. You're just
in what you do. Now as long as I'm God's judge,
I don't agree with that. I think that's too severe. I
think that's too wrong. I think that's a, I've never confessed
my sin. But when I confess my sin, I
justify God in his condemnation of me. Now I might not even feel
it, but I agree with it. I agree with it. When I confess my sin, I confess
the complete impossibility of salvation by works. Now understand this. If my salvation
is dependent upon me doing anything, before God will do something
for me, I have no hope of being saved. None at all. You give me one thing I must
do before God can save me, I will not be saved. I want you to turn to Proverbs
chapter 28 for a moment. I used to read this scripture,
it would scare me to death until I understood what it meant. Verse 13, he that covereth his sins shall
not prosper. But whoso confesseth and forsaketh
them shall have mercy." Now you look at that verse, just take
it by itself, and it sounds to me like if I don't forsake my
sins, I'm not going to have mercy. For me to have mercy, I'm going
to have to first forsake my sins, not commit them anymore. And
we ought not ever commit sin anymore. Don't get me wrong,
sins, these things are written unto you that you sin not. But
look at that in the light of the whole Bible. Does the Bible
teach that in order for you to have mercy, you first gotta forsake
your sin? And if you don't first forsake
your sin, you won't have mercy? Bible doesn't teach that. But
I want us to notice in this text, Let me read it again. He that
covereth his sins shall not prosper, but who so confesseth and forsaketh. Notice that word them is in italics. Supplied there by the translators.
And when you see that word supplied by the translators, you automatically
think that's referring to the sins. Let's read it without the
italics. He that covereth his sins shall
not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh this thing of covering
sin shall have mercy." Isn't that
what Adam did in the garden? Tried to provide a covering for
sin, didn't he? His own covering. Now, he that
covers his sins, you're not going to prosper. under any circumstance. But whoso forsaketh this thing
of trying to cover him, he looks to Christ alone. That man, that
woman, will find mercy. So that's an example Somebody
says, well, you've got to forsake your sin before you have mercy.
Well, you ought to forsake your sin. I'm not doing any one sin.
I'm saying, well, it's OK to go on. Let's sin to grace be
abound. I'm not saying that at all. But I'm saying this. If
my salvation is dependent upon me giving up any one sin and
never committing it again, I won't be saved. And the same is true
with you, whether you know it or not. That's just the truth. You see, it's only Here, confessing that you're
nothing but sin, agreeing with what God says about you, that
you have no other options but Christ. He's the only hope you have.
The only hope you have is when he said it's finished, your salvation
was accomplished. That's it. There is no other
hope. You don't have a plan B. You don't have a Anything but
this. Your only hope is that when Christ
died, your sin was put away and he has mercy on you for Christ's
sake. The only way you can be saved
is by what baptism depicts. You say, I'm so sinful. The only way I can be saved is
if God put me in Christ and Christ kept the law for me. The only
way I can be saved is if Christ died for me and put away my sins.
The only way I can be saved is if I was in Christ when He was
raised and He was raised for my justification and my justification
was accomplished by what He did. The only way I can be saved is
if God elected me, is if Christ died for me, is if God the Holy
Spirit gives me life. I'm completely dependent upon
Him. Now when you confess your sins,
You're confessing the only hope I have of being saved is Him
saving me. This is a faithful saying and
worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners. Not good people, not repentant
sinners, no adjective, just sinners. Christ Jesus came into the world
to save sinners, of whom Paul said, I am the chief. Now he used to be the least of the apostles. When
he grew a little bit more, he became less than the least of
all the saints. When he grew some more, he became
the chief of sinners. May the Lord give every one of
us the grace to confess our sins, agree with what He says, and
look to Christ alone. Lord, how thankful we are that you have given us the grace to be at agreement with what
you say about our sin. And Lord, how thankful we are
that you have given us the grace to believe that all you require
of us is found in your son. And Lord, if there's somebody
in our midst that's never done that, never confessed their sin
and agreed with you and looked to your son only, we pray that
this might be the night that they do it for Christ's sake.
In his name we pray, amen.