Problems of Confession Part 2

The point: Do not be content with mere knowledge of pardon; hunger for and seek restored communion with God.

Prayer is analogized to a hand: 'hand full' for adoration, 'hand defiled' for confession, and 'hand empty' for supplication, categorizing different dimensions of prayer.

And he says, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet and pray to thy Father who seeth in secret. And I've suggested that all of the various dimensions of prayer, considered as the pieces of the pie, can be gathered under the three general headings, the analogy of the hand, the hand full, coming to God with adoration, praise, and worship, the hand defiled, needing cleansing, confession, acknowledgement of sin, repentance, humiliation, and then we shall consider, God willing, beginning next week, the hand empty, seeking gifts from God for ourselves and for others. And that, of course, will brin...

0:03 - 1:27 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Using the analogies of husband-wife and parent-child relationships, Martin illustrates how fresh remembrance of past wrongs, even long-forgiven ones, naturally prompts a desire…

The experience of husbands realizing past insensitivity towards their wives, and the desire to re-acknowledge that wrong, illustrates the natural human tendency to re-confess past, forgiven wrongs as understanding deepens.

them in us is grieved. Now let me try to illustrate from human relationships and then move higher to the relationship of the soul with its God. You who are husbands and wives, I think, live constantly with the experience that we're talking about. Some of us look back in the early years of our marriage and with the insight of the maturity that has come in sharing life together and we see certain patterns of insensitivity. Some of us as husbands wonder how our wives could have been so gracious to us in certain areas. We were so stupid and insensitive about what makes a woman tick. We weren't bla...

12:09 - 13:04 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Using the analogies of husband-wife and parent-child relationships, Martin illustrates how fresh remembrance of past wrongs, even long-forgiven ones, naturally prompts a desire…

The prodigal son's return to his father is used to illustrate that even after initial confession and forgiveness, a deeper understanding of the offense against the father would lead to ongoing shame and repentance.

Look, dear, I know you didn't do it maliciously, that's forgiven. But every new remembrance of those past patterns brings a desire to make a fresh acknowledgement of the grief and pain we feel that we should have ever conducted ourselves in that way. Now some of you who can't think of it in the husband-wife relationship, the wife-husband, think of the parent-child relationship. Do you think that the prodigal never thought of his past pattern after he returned home to the father?

13:19 - 13:49 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Using the analogies of husband-wife and parent-child relationships, Martin illustrates how fresh remembrance of past wrongs, even long-forgiven ones, naturally prompts a desire…

The experience of adult children who grieved their parents in their youth, and the desire to re-acknowledge that shame, illustrates the natural human desire for renewed confession in deepening relationships.

No. Hmm? Do you think that chapter was just torn out and obliterated from his memory? What about some of us who grieved our parents when they prayed for us and yearned for us spiritually and for years we defied that influence of their prayers and their love? After the Lord was pleased to save us and there was the initial confession to our parents of the grief we caused them, is that the last acknowledgement we ever make? Whenever we're in their presence and there is occasion to be in their presence, we're going to be in their presence. We're going to be able to be connected with our parents an...

13:49 - 14:34 Read in full sermon

Driving home: You see, you can never as a Christian, you can never willfully walk into a path of sin if at that moment your mind is consciously holding before it the bitterness and the gall that sin will bring.

The Israelites' longing for leeks, onions, and garlic in the wilderness, forgetting the bitterness of Egyptian bondage, illustrates how easily we forget the bitterness of sin and only remember its fleeting pleasure.

That's right. Yes. Here they are down in Egypt groaning and complaining to God, will He ever bring us out? And then God brings them out and they say, man, we really had it good back in Egypt.

38:40 - 38:49 Read in full sermon

The point: Beware of morbid introspection, especially if rooted in a misunderstanding of justification by faith or your own temperament.

Martin references Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones's book 'Spiritual Depression,' stating that chronic spiritual depression often stems from a misunderstanding of justification by faith or one's own temperament.

Martin Lloyd-Jones in his book Spiritual Depression has an excellent treatment of this very fact that most people have problems, if they have chronic problems with spiritual depression, it's rooted in one of two things. Either they do not understand the doctrine of justification by faith, or two, they don't understand their own temperament. And he starts in that area and my book is always out. I'm doing pastoral work for me, in fact it's out now and I had someone come asking for it and I had to refer them to someone else, because it deals with this perspective very well. So we must beware of t...

45:31 - 46:29 Read in full sermon

The point: Discern true repentance from morbid introspection by whether it leads you to look to Christ or inward, and whether it genders humility or pride.

Martin defends David Brainerd and Henry Martin against accusations of morbid introspection, arguing that their lives, despite hypersensitivity, breathed the 'fragrance of Christ,' which is the true test of evangelical repentance.

my own heart. If I am using conviction or allowing conviction to have its God-intended course, my preoccupation will not be my own heart, it will be God's provisions for me in Jesus Christ and the glorious reality of His forgiveness. Now the person who's morbidly introspective is one about whom there is nothing of the fragrance of Christ. Now before some little two-bit Christians come along and say, well you know, David Brainerd, morbidly introspective. Henry Martin, boy if anything will get me upset. It's little two-bit Christians reading the biography of David Brainerd and then very piously ...

46:29 - 47:39 Read in full sermon

The point: For ongoing struggles with sin, return to the foundational objective truths of being accepted in Christ and God's foreknowledge of all your failures.

The example of a person convicted about nail-biting, an addictive habit and poor testimony, is used to illustrate how believers struggle with ongoing sins even after confession, and need to return to foundational objective truths.

Here's a person who bites his nails. And he's really been convicted about his biting his nails. You know, and he's got an addictive habit, an advantage of biting his nails. And he knows it's a form of bondage.

61:14 - 61:26 Read in full sermon