"He Who Confesseth Shall Have Mercy"

Introduction: The Importance of God's Provisions for Sin

0:02 If your thinking and if my thinking are at all colored by the overriding truth of the scriptures, we would agree that sin is the greatest of all human tragedies. If we know our Bibles at all, we would also agree that the provisions of God for dealing adequately with sin are the greatest of all divine provisions. Therefore, if sin is the greatest of human tragedies, God's provisions for sin the greatest of divine provision, therefore any portion of the word of God which tells us how to lay hold of those provisions of God must be studied carefully and applied with diligence to our minds and then to our hearts. It's because of these things that the text, we've studied for several Lord's Day evenings and will study again tonight, is of utmost importance because it is one of those texts which very clearly, very pointedly, very explicitly deals with the whole subject of how man in the midst of his greatest need

1:19 may be brought into vital participation of God's great provision of mercy and forgiveness. That text is Proverbs 28. I would ask you to turn to it in your Bibles. I shall read it.

1:34 I shall spend about five minutes reviewing what we've covered in two hours of exposition and then proceed to the third and final of our studies in this text tonight.

God's Law of Conferring Mercy: The Negative Statement

1:47 He that covereth his transgressions shall not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall obtain mercy. We are studying this text under the general...

2:01 The general title, God's law of conferring mercy. Whenever God's dealings settle into a fixed pattern, it is proper to call that dealing of God a law of God. The law being word used, the word law being used in the sense of a principle of action or activity. And God's conferral of mercy is found in this text to be within such a defined framework that it is proper to call it, God's law of conferring mercy.

2:37 And this law is universally extensive. It applies to the he and to the whoso, as broad as the he and the whosoever of John 3.16. It is absolutely binding.

2:51 He that covereth shall not, but whoso confesseth shall. And then it is a definitively applied law. It has to do specifically with the matter of transgressions. Then in our previous studies we saw that the negative statement of the text, he that covereth his transgressions shall not prosper, is a description of what happens when men and women do anything less than biblically confess and forsake their sins.

3:23 What does it mean to cover sin? It means to do anything less than biblically to confess and to forsake that sin. And we saw from...

3:33 There are many examples in the Word of God, the various coverings with which man will cover his sins. He will cover it with the cloak of silence, as did David, Psalm 32. Transfer with guilt and responsibility, as did Adam in Genesis 3. Rationalization, as did Saul in 1 Samuel 15.

3:55 Framing misconceptions of God, as we read in Psalm 50. Or man will cover his sin with lies, as did Cain, after he slew Abel. Man will cover his sin with religious activity, as did the Jews in Isaiah 58, and the Pharisees in Matthew 23. And the human heart is, as it were, absolutely ingenious in the conceiving and the construction of cloaks with which to cover its sin.

4:23 But the Word of God says, he that covereth his transgressions by whatever covering he may construct, he shall not prosper. And those words have very little reference to material matters. They have in the context to do with spiritual prosperity. And any man, be he Christian or non-Christian, who covers his transgressions, shall not prosper.

4:49 And we looked into all of the ways in which the unconverted do not prosper because they cover sin. They do not prosper now. They shall not prosper in eternity. The many ways in which a child of God does not prosper, if he has a...

The Positive Statement: Whoso Confesseth and Forsaketh

5:03 a controversy with his God. Now tonight we come to the positive statement in the text, but, and thank God for those blessed buts in Scripture, though it is true, universally, absolutely, that he that covers his transgressions shall not prosper, it is also true that whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy. All who cover their sin, they are encompassed by the inflexible negative, shall not prosper. Now the text says, All who do confess and forsake are covered by the broad whoso, and they shall indeed obtain mercy. To think our way through the text, we have but two heads tonight. The activities described, whoso confesseth and forsaketh, then the blessing conferred, shall obtain mercy. First of all, then, the activities described.

6:10 What do these words mean? Whoso confesseth and forsaketh shall obtain mercy. If the conferral of mercy is contingent upon confessing and forsaking, then it is of utmost importance that we spare no pains in ascertaining what God meant when He said, confess and forsake.

6:38 If a certain firm says that by the presentation or upon the presentation of $500 you will obtain such and such a product, it will not do for you to decide what $500 is. You must present what the firm meant when it said $500. You may bring 500 pieces of paper scribbled over with a little green ink saying on each one of them $100, and you may bring five of them, but the company, the company is not impressed. When they set the terms upon which they would deliver the goods, it is your responsibility to conform to their intention in the setting of the terms and not to alter that to suit your own notions.

7:21 And when this text says, whoso confesseth and forsaketh shall obtain mercy, it will not do for us to come and say, Lord, I claim your mercy because I'm doing what I am convinced is confessing and forsaking. No, no. It is our responsibility to ascertain what God meant when He said, the terms upon which mercy will be obtained are confession and forsaking of sin. And one of the great tragedies, and it's very prevalent in our day, is the taking of these words and manipulating them to mean something far less than what God meant when He gave them.

Defining Biblical Confession

8:02 What then do these words mean? Well, the words, the word used here for confesseth is the common word used in the Old Testament for confessing and is a word which has a root which literally means to hold out the hand. Therefore, it came to be used in terms of worship with extended hands. It's the word used for confessing the name of God, giving praise to God.

8:33 1 Kings 8 and verse 33. The key word used in the New Testament, 1 John 1.9, if we confess our sins means literally to speak the same thing. Putting the two together, we understand by the etymology, by the common usage in the Old and the New Testament, that to confess in a biblical sense with reference to transgression, that is, with reference to sins we have committed against the law of God, involves at least three or four elements.

9:10 Number one, it means that I am honest about the presence of my sin. I cannot confess that concerning which I am equivocating.

9:23 Going back to even the root concept of the word, and this is not always a safe thing to do, but it's a beautiful illustration here. In the state of covering my sin, the hand has been closed. In confession I am saying, in God it's there. It's like the little kid who's been caught with his hand in the cookie jar and when his mama comes through the door, he quick takes it out and hides it behind him.

9:48 What have you done, son? Oh, nothing, mom.

9:52 And every time mom moves, he moves this way. What's he doing? Covering his sin. She says, now, son, fess up.

9:59 Fess up. And fessing up means he takes his hand from behind his back and he says, that's what I took, mommy.

10:06 Confession in a biblical sense involves at the most elementary level first confession, first of all, being honest about the presence of sin, but it involves more than that. You can be honest about the presence of sin and just whimper, and that's not confession. Secondly, it means I begin to be honest about the nature of sin.

10:25 I begin to be honest about the nature of sin. I begin to say the same thing about it that God does. Psalm 51. Against thee and thee only have I sinned and done that which is evil in thy sight that thou mayest be clear when thou judgest.

10:43 What is David saying? He's saying, God, I say the same thing about my sin that you've been saying all along, but that which I've been unwilling to say. You have called it a high-handed offense against you. I've called it something else, but Lord, I now confess my sin.

11:03 I say the same thing about it that you do. And so confession is not only being honest about the presence of sin, but being honest about the nature, the nature of sin. Thirdly, it involves being honest about the necessity of obtaining forgiveness from God. If the word confess has as its general meaning to worship with extended hands, to hold out the hand, the whole concept is that I'm looking to someone outside of myself.

11:37 In other words, true confession is not psychological self-absolution. You see, the Roman Catholic goes to the Black Veil and to the appointed priest and says through the little veil something of his sins and he gets absolution, supposedly, from the man behind the Black Veil.

12:01 Often we evangelicals, we have even an easier way. We just mumble a few words on our knees to ourselves and pronounce ourselves absolved without ever really confessing sin. Without ever really being pressed out of ourselves into the presence of the living God and seeing the necessity of having God speak peace to our hearts instead of speaking peace to our own hearts.

12:29 And then fourthly, true confession involves being earnest about receiving that forgiveness from God. Why do I come honest about its presence, its nature, the necessity of forgiveness from God, all because I'm dead in earnest about receiving God's forgiveness and I'll not rest until I know I've obtained it. Now it is assumed in this text and everywhere in Scripture that the object of all true confession of sin is the God against whom we've sinned. And man is the object of our confession only so far as is necessary to show the genuineness of our confession to God.

13:13 There are times when I must confess my sins to my fellow man. But my confession to my fellow man is only the fruit of my sin. It is the fruit of my true confession to God. For if I truly confess the sin to God in an attitude of submission to His law, then if His law demands this element of restitution and horizontal confession, I will be willing to make it as evidence of the genuineness of brokenness before God.

13:41 You see, some are willing to confess their sins to their fellow man who could care less about God. Many a person says sorry to his wife, sorry to one's husband, sorry to the children, sorry to the employer, I shouldn't have done that. Many a person confesses many a sin to his fellow preacher for which he doesn't have one. Twins of spiritual pain in the presence of God.

14:02 That's not true confession. True confession has God as its primary object and only man in a secondary sense. And Psalm 51 is the classic example. Though Uriah and Bathsheba and the nation of Israel were all sinned against in David's sin, he is preoccupied with its vertical perspectives against thee.

14:25 And thee only have I sinned and done that which is evil in thy sight. Now am I saying that this verse teaches that unless when you come to confess your sin, you stop with a little checklist and ask these four things, am I being honest about it? No, no. It's amazing how people will take any kind of a study like this and run off and torture themselves unnecessarily.

14:49 Please listen to me carefully. I am not saying that if when you confessed your sins this afternoon to God or last night or this morning, whenever you last confessed your sins to God, I am not saying unless your confession was framed in this order and with these conscious thoughts it wasn't real. I'm not saying that at all. But what I am saying is if you will look upon the general framework of what you say is your acts or your acts of confession that sinned to God, you will discover that all of these elements are present and if they aren't, then it is not genuine confession.

15:29 There will be honesty about the presence of the sin. Honesty about its nature. It is against God. There will be honesty about the necessity of forgiveness from God in earnestness to receive that proffered forgiveness.

Defining Biblical Forsaking

15:42 Now then, what does the word forsake mean? Again, it is the general word used in the Old Testament meaning to leave, to abandon, to desert, to repudiate, to discard. God says in Deuteronomy 31, verses 8 and 17, if you forsake me to serve other gods, I will forsake you. I will abandon you.

16:06 I will leave you. I will desert you. It's the word used in the familiar gospel text in Isaiah 55, 7. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts.

16:17 Let him abandon that sinful way. Let him leave it. With full purpose never to return to it again. Let him desert it, repudiate it, discard it.

16:27 That's the strength. That's the vigor of that word. Now let's analyze it a bit. What do we forsake?

16:34 Well, we forsake that which either we loathe or that which we choose to leave because we know it is not in our best interest to retain even though we may have some attachment to it. When you abandon something, when you desert it, you're saying of that thing, I loathe it, I hate it in itself and want no dealings with it, or you may be saying in addition to that and sometimes not even that. There are certain things we're called upon to forsake that we've not yet loathed at the depths of our being, but on the principle that knowing it is not in our best interest to remain with it or it with us, we forsake it. That's the spirit in all abandonment and desertion. And so the text says, Whoso confesseth and forsaketh, that is, in my confession, I not only acknowledge that my sin is against God and I need forgiveness from God, but I've begun to feel toward it as God does. He loathes it.

17:47 He abominates it and I have begun to loathe it and abominate it. I am viewing my sin as God does and I am doing it for my own good. I am prepared to deal with it to its destruction no matter what the cost.

18:02 And when there is true confession, the mind is never constructing little hidden pathways back to the sin.

18:13 When there's true confession, the mind is never conceiving and constructing little hidden passageways back to the sin. In every act of true confession, at the point of that confession, the disposition of soul is that sin and I are done.

18:36 Now, you may not in practice actually be done. You may find yourself falling before the same thing the next day, but not because you willfully and deliberately left a passageway open to it, but because you were overcome by the power of indwelling sin or the deceptiveness of Satan or the pressure of the world. Now, that's not playing with words, dear people. A true Christian, a Christian may fall before a besetting sin ten times in a week and still forsake it in principle.

19:09 Another man may fall before his darling sin but once every ten years and never have truly forsaken it. That's why we cannot stand in judgment upon one another. But we must with judgment day honesty face God in the light of this truth. Now then, having sought to open up briefly the meaning of the words in these activities described, will you know and notice in the second place under this first general heading the activities described.

The Inseparable Relationship of Confession and Forsaking

19:43 We've looked at the words and their meaning. Now notice the words and their relationship to each other. God has joined them. They're another set of these Siamese twins of spiritual experience.

19:55 He that covers his sin shall not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh. God has fused them in what God has joined together in marriage or in spiritual experience let not man put asunder. For when you do so you do so to your own peril. Now notice the importance of this inseparable relationship between the two.

20:19 First of all think of what trying to forsake sin without confession would imply. Confession is the acknowledgement of guilt before God. I've sinned against Him. Confession is the acknowledgement of my inability to remove the stain or to forgive myself.

20:41 Therefore all efforts to forsake sin under the proddings of a guilty conscience, self-esteem, whatever the motive may be, if that attempt to forsake sin is not undergirded and preceded and interpenetrated with true confession it will always lead into one of two damning states of mind and heart. It may lead on the one hand to self-justification or on the other to despair. Look how it works. Here's the person who is gnawed by the realization he's in bondage to alcohol. He's ashamed to his father and his mother, his relatives, his wife, the husband, whoever it may be. And his conscience is galled by the fact that in the eyes of society he's an older drunk. In the eyes of society he's in bondage to his alcohol. And prodded by that realization and perhaps even mixed with it the realization that somehow God will deal with drunkards. What does he do?

21:46 Without any true confession that drives him out of himself to seek forgiveness in his God, he joins the AA. And with a little semblance of religious overtones, the help of the Almighty up there, some innocuous kind of God, he gets delivered from his alcohol. Now what's happened? What's happened to him? Now he's full of self-justification. Confident that he's not like the rest of these people, the one thing that galled his conscience is now done with. And his conscience is seared to any further sense of spiritual need. And it leads to a frightening state of self-justification. He has been able to forsake a specific sin without ever truly confessing that sin. Taking his place before God as did David and saying, my drunkenness is not primarily sin against my reputation, against the dignity of my manhood, my womanhood, a shameful sin to society and family and friends. No, no. He takes his place saying, oh God, against thee and thee only have I sinned.

22:55 And I look out of myself to you, the God against you, my sin, that you would graciously and freely forgive me. And when a man has honest dealings with God about any one sin, he's in the posture where his conscience becomes agitated about many other sins. He's having dealings with the living God. And so you see, to put the emphasis upon the forsaking without joining it with the confession will lead a man to self-justification or it may lead others to despair.

23:27 What happens? They try to forsake their sin in the strength of unregenerate flesh. They've never stood like the publican, confessing that the problem lies in what they are, not what they do. They've never taken the place. God be merciful to me, the sinner. They've never planned that God would be gracious for Christ's sake and freely and graciously accept them. And they've tried to break their own shackles. They've tried to cut their own bonds.

23:57 And the bondage is too great. And because help is not sought in God's way, it leads to a crippling despair. And there are people throughout the earth filled with despair who've tried to forsake sin. Without ever confessing it in a Biblical way. But now, reverse it. And this is our great practical danger. If we have any instruction in the Word of God, we're not so foolish as to think sin can be dealt with by passing the Savior, by passing the merits of Christ, by passing confession. We're not so foolish. But you know what our practical danger is? To think that there can be exercises of true confession without a party forsaking. And this is utterly impossible. For the forsaking of sin is the proof of the hatred of sin. Forsaking

24:56 is the evidence of desire to cease and be done. And any attempt made to confess without forsaking will also lead to two tragic states. One, self-deception. Jeremiah 6 14. They have healed slightly the hurt of the daughter of my people, saying, Peace, peace. When there is no peace. They have healed it slightly. They've gone with a little word of promise, a little word of assurance. You're the people of God. You're the sons of Abraham. You have the covenants, the promises. You're all right. And Jeremiah came saying, Take away the foreskin of your hearts.

25:36 Jeremiah came saying, God's not concerned with your external privileges. He's concerned with the heart. And the false prophets came along and said, No, just acknowledge it all hasn't been quite as it should be. And look to God and His promises of mercy and forgiveness and all will be well.

25:53 God says they've healed slightly the hurt of the daughter of my people, saying, Peace, peace. When there is no peace. When a man confesses his sin with sufficient awareness of gospel promises to get some surface salve upon his conscience without really forsaking sin in his heart, he's led into that frightening state of self-deception, or he's led into a state of cynicism. The person said, Look, I've prayed, I've asked forgiveness, but I get no peace, no F, nothing's real. I've tried it and it doesn't work.

26:31 Why no peace? Because God never speaks peace to a conscience that has not forsaken sin. The personal worker may speak peace till he's blue in the face, but God never speaks peace until God sees that sin has been divorced from the heart of the sinner. God doesn't speak peace, because that wouldn't be righteous peace and God's peace is always righteous peace. You see what this person is saying? The person who confesses his sin or gives the semblance of confession without forsaking, do you really see what he's saying? This is what he's saying to God. He's saying, God, I want you to take away all the unpleasantness connected with my sin, present and future.

27:15 Right now I've got a bad conscience and I don't like a bad conscience. Anybody here that likes a bad conscience? You like to have a conscience tormenting you about sin? No, we don't like it. Anybody here that likes the thought of the future torments of hell? Every pain of conscience now is a preview of the pains of hell. Now you see, by nature, sinners don't like pain now or then. And so the guy will say, the man will say, the woman, the fellow girl, Oh God, I can't stand the pain of my sin now and I don't want it in the future.

27:51 And he goes through some surface exercise of confession, but in his heart, he still wants to suck sweetness from the sin. He's saying, God, I still want the sin, but I don't want its consequences present or future. God, will you just do something to my conscience that will take away all the pain of sin but leave me all the privileges of going on in that sin. Now the day God bends to that kind of carnal proposition, then I fold my Bible.

28:25 An angel should sit and weep and fold their wings. Because the whole moral universe has been thrown into chaos. The righteous God of the universe stooping to fix men up to go on defying his law, now with no fear of punishment or any pangs of conscience. God has joined these two things. They are the Siamese twins of true spiritual experience, confession and forsaking. True confession, deceiving and undergirding, forsaking, all true forsaking flowing out of as an inseparable accompaniment of true confession. So much then for the activities described. Confess and forsake. Now in the second

The Blessing Conferred: Shall Obtain Mercy

29:18 place notice the blessing conferred. What is the blessing promised to all who confess and forsake their transgressions? These simple words, shall obtain mercy. Notice in the first place then this blessing is certain in its bestowment.

29:38 Shall obtain mercy. Thank God for the simple shalls and shall nots of scripture. A man who has no spirit wrought consciousness of sin thinks that getting forgiveness is easy business. Yes he does.

30:01 You talk to the person whose conscience has never been wounded with some biblical thoughts of the infinite majesty of God, the holiness of God, the corruption of his own nature, the magnitude of his sin, and you ask a person like that, do you think God will forgive? He'll say, oh yeah, God's a good God. He'll forgive anybody. Just ask him, he'll forgive you.

30:21 The man upstairs is kind, benevolent. Many of us can remember when we thought forgiveness was a very easy thing. But you know what's the most difficult thing for a man who's begun to be wounded by the Holy Ghost? You let God begin to apply the word to a man's conscience and show him something of his own infinitely pure and righteous character, something of his own burning holiness, that he's a consuming fire, that he even cannot stand in his sight. Let that same God begin to show a man, a woman, a boy, a girl, that bottomless cesspool of iniquity that is his own nature. The thought that that God would freely and completely forgive, he says it can't be so. It's too good. How could that holy God, who existed for eons with no creatures to recognize him, infinitely self-sufficient, glorious, majestic, living God of heaven and earth, and eyes that are mirrored with dust, he would forgive me?

31:26 When angels who sinned against him, he'd cast them down and put them in chains awaiting the hour of judgment. Forgive me? Forgiveness becomes a very difficult thing. To a man or woman wounded of the Holy Ghost, and do you know what God has graciously provided to help him through that difficulty? Texts like these shall obtain mercy. And woven into the very letters in which Solomon penned these words, I say it reverently, are the fibers and fabric of deity. The eternal God who cannot lie has said, shall obtain mercy. Wherever there is confession and forsaking, there is certainty of the bestowment of mercy. Notice

32:25 then in the second place, not only the certainty of the blessing, but the suitability of the blessing in its nature. And what is the blessing? It is the obtaining of mercy. Now what does mercy mean? Now you think for a minute and see if you can come up with a good word for the working layman's definition of mercy. Here's the kid who's disobeyed his mom and dad, and he knows he's going to get spanked. Blessed is the child who knows that when he disobeys, he'll be spanked. Blessed is the child who has that much assessment of the righteous character of his mom and dad to know that they're walking by the rule of Scripture, and that blatant disobedience brings the application of the rod.

33:13 Papa's marching him up to the place where he gives him his spankings, or mama and the child says, Dad, have mercy. What does he mean by the words have mercy? Can you come up with a definition? You think about it. Here's the criminal.

33:30 He's in death row, he's condemned to die, and he's given the privilege of an audience with the governor the day before his appointed execution, and he says, oh governor, please have mercy on me, have mercy on me. What's he asking for? There's the beggar held in the vice-like grip of his poverty. Unable to extract himself, and the wealthy man passes by and he takes hold of his garments and he says, sir, have mercy upon me.

34:01 Have mercy upon me. What's he asking for? Do you see what mercy is? The best definition I've ever found of mercy is this. It is pity joined to suitable action. That's mercy. Mercy is pity. That has to do with the heart. Joined to suitable action. You see, mercy for the kid about to get his bottom spanked would not be the same as mercy for the beggar. What the beggar is saying is take pity upon me in my poverty and meet me with suitable action. Give me of your wealth.

34:40 The child says to his dad, have mercy on me. Look upon me with pity and meet me with suitable action. A few less whaps on my bottom. Now look at the text.

34:55 Whoso confesseth and forsaketh them, shall obtain mercy. He will find that he has met in his confession and forsaking of sin by the pity of God joined to suitable action. And what is the only suitable action for a conscience stricken sinner? Why, it's the blotting out of his sin, the cleansing of his conscience by the blood of Christ, the restoration of his communion with God, and the conferral of every covenant in the blood of Christ to such as repent and believe.

The Foundation of Mercy: The Work of Christ

35:35 That's mercy. He shall obtain mercy, the blotting out of sin, the cleansing of the conscience, the restoration of communion and the conferral of every blessing vouchsafed to a forgiven sinner. And so it is certain this blessing conferred it is suitable and thirdly in this we must read in the larger context of scripture. It's not stated explicitly in our text, but no text like this can rightly be expounded without including it. It is well founded, a well founded blessing for its foundation is the person and work of Jesus Christ. Our confessing and forsaking do not earn the mercy and that which it brings. The only thing a sinner's ever earned is judgment and hell. And if he gets anything else it's because someone else has earned it for him.

36:37 And all of the blessings of forgiveness and cleansing and restoration to communion with God have been earned in the perfect life and in the bloody death of the Lord Jesus Christ. And all our confessing and forsaking do is put us in the way of obtaining that which has been freely procured by another. And procuring it, I'm sorry, obtaining it in a way consistent with God's character as the moral governor of the universe. That's why God demands confession and forsaking of sin.

37:17 Our confessing and forsaking do not earn His pardon and forgiveness. Our confessing and forsaking do not, as it were, bend Him and persuade Him to be gracious and merciful to us. No. Our confessing and forsaking simply put us in the spiritual posture in which it is right for God to give us what Jesus Christ has freely earned on behalf of sinners.

37:43 You see, if God were to give to sinners purchased blessings while they yet despise His law, He would be denying Himself as a holy and a just and a righteous God, committed to uphold the righteous character of His kingdom and His laws and His ways. And therefore God demands of the sinner that he confess and forsake his sin, that God who longs freely to forgive on the basis of what Christ has done may forgive and may confer mercy and pardon in a way consistent with His own character as the moral governor of the universe. When you think about it, it doesn't take a profound theological knowledge to see how stupid, how literally spiritually asinine it is to think that God will freely forgive sinners who have no intention of turning their back upon that for which God is forgiving them. I mean, you don't need to be a theologian to see through the stupidity of this idea that you can take God's pardon while you still willfully, deliberately intend to go on in your sins. You see, this whole debate of whether Christ can be received as Savior now and Lord later, you can resolve it all with this simple principle.

39:05 For God to pardon a sinner who has no intention of obeying Jesus Christ is for God to say, you can confess your sin but not forsake it and you'll get mercy. For bowing to Christ as Lord is but another way of saying that you embrace the righteous dominion of the living God and are committed to a life of righteousness. That's all. You see the stupidity of it all? No, Christ has purchased every blessing that sinners need to be brought from a state of nature to a state of glory and every part of that dealing of God with sinners that will bring them home to glory until they are the many brethren in the midst of the great firstborn, the Lord Jesus, totally conformed to His image. Everything that God does in such sinners He does on the basis of what His Son is and what His Son has done. We must drive from our minds any Romish idea that we bring something to God that bends and coerces Him to grant us. No, no!

40:18 May I say it reverently? The Scripture warrants us to say that God longs and yearns to forgive sinners. He says, O turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die? I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked.

40:35 The prophet Isaiah says, judgment is His strange work. I, the Lord, delight in mercy. You remember when Moses prayed, show me thy glory? And God passed by and revealed but His hind parts.

40:49 And He proclaimed the name of Jehovah and how did He proclaim Him? Merciful, forgiving iniquity and sin. O dear ones, God is not stingy in the conferral of His mercy. And though He yearns to confer mercy, He will not confer it at the expense of His own character.

Concluding Exhortation: Be a Pardoned Sinner

41:10 For He says, confess. And He says to every Christian who has a controversy with God, confess and forsake. For the way of obtaining mercy is the way of confession and forsaking of that which is a violation of the law and the rights of the living God. Let me give you a couple of statements that have fixed their way in my own conscience that may help you in remembering the thrust of our study tonight. One, I have extracted from the commons of bridges on the book of Proverbs the second one I have added to it to make a couplet of statements that I trust will stick. Bridges said, and I quote, Only the penitent confessor can be the pardoned sinner. Only the penitent confessor, confessing forsaken, can be the pardoned sinner. Only.

42:22 May I add another statement to it? Every penitent confessor can be the pardoned sinner. Only the penitent confessor can be the pardoned sinner. But every penitent confessor can be the pardoned sinner.

42:45 And then the third statement, Only the pardoned sinner will walk with God now and dwell with God forever. My friend, it's all important that you be described tonight as a pardoned sinner. And there are no pardoned sinners but penitent confessors. And if you're not a penitent confessor then you're one who's covering your sin.

43:13 And if you cover your sin you shall not prosper. That's the whole teaching of the text. You say, why didn't you tell us that and move to something else and we could go home. Well that's the heart of it.

43:25 That's the distilled essence of the whole thrust of what the Spirit of God is saying. May I in closing press it upon the conscience of everyone gathered in this place. What will you be? A monument, a monument of the first part of the text and its inflexible law.

43:44 He that covereth his transgressions shall not prosper. Am I speaking to some who have never repented of sin and fled to Jesus Christ in repentance and faith? Oh my dear friend, listen. Do you want to be a monument in time and through eternity of the inflexible law of God that he that covers his transgressions shall not prosper?

44:12 Then you just go on in your state of impenitence and God will make you an eternal monument of the first half of Proverbs 28, 13. That's what makes preaching such a serious business. And I say to you young men preparing for the ministry, when that truth at least in some little, little measure of its weight begins to grip you, you'll be done with pushing for a reputation as a preacher. You'll be done with seeking to be clever. You'll be done with seeking to be a manipulator. And you'll plead that God might somehow just use your simple unadorned proclamation to bring some sinners up short and face them with that reality. He that covers his sins shall not prosper. My friend, I don't know how else to tell you.

45:07 I've said it with thundering tones. I've said it with tender entreaty. I've said it with quiet earnestness. Do you want to be a monument of the first part of the text? Then go on in your sin. Refuse to confess it. Refuse to flee to Christ. And you shall be such a monument.

45:26 But thank God I may say to you as a sinner, you can be an eternal monument of the last part of the text. But whoso. Ah, but you say, Mr. Martin, for years I've covered!

45:39 Doesn't say. But whoso confesseth and forsaketh in his youth. Whoso confesseth and forsaketh in his young manhood, young womanhood, whoso confesseth and forsaketh at age five fifty or ninety shall have mercy. Shall have mercy. Thou, Lord, art good and ready to forgive and plenteous in mercy unto all that call upon him. Oh, dear sinner, may God make you a monument. Make you a monument of the truth of the last part of the verse. And then I bring a word to the conscience of every Christian.

Application to Christians: Restore Your Communion with God

46:17 Some of you would be honest in that I just wonder at times, Lord, what will it take to get us as believers honest? We're professional sham artists, and we all put up such a good front. But some of you know, if you'd be honest, that the first part of this text is a description of where you've been for the past six months, year, two, three years, maybe longer as a Christian. You're not prospering in the biblical terms.

46:51 You're not knowing and enjoying true, vital communion with God. It's been a long time since your heart is broken and melted in the reading of the word. Since tears of joy have stained the pages of your Bible where you read it. Come on, be honest.

47:11 Now, it's been a long time since you were able to say thy words were sweeter than honey. They've been like dry sawdust. Or like that sugar cane after Pastor Blaise and Pastor Blois get done with it. When we're down there in Jamaica, you stop by the Rose side and they whack off a piece of sugar cane where man's there selling coconuts and sugar cane and they break off a piece of it, strip the outer core and then they just chomp on it and chomp until they've sucked all of it. Nothing left but pulp.

47:41 Nothing left but dry, tasteless pulp. That's what the word of God has been to some of you. For months and even for years. Come on, be honest. There's no sweetness. Prayer has been a perfunctory, dry ritual. Well, I'm not talking about the discipline of desertion. God deserts his choice of saints at times to discipline them. But I'm talking about for months and for years. Come on now. There's been no reality. The spirit of grace and supplication hasn't swept over your heart until you fairly could have danced for joy in the secret place.

48:25 It's been a long time since you felt your heart enlarged, stretched out for the interest of God's kingdom so you've really prayed. I mean prayed and you prayed! You're not prospering, my friend. If the Holy Ghost isn't opening up the book and giving you the spirit of prayer, you're in bad shape.

48:44 You're in bad shape. You're not prospering. It's been a long time since there's been conscious, vital, vibrant communion with God. A real twinge of compassion for sinners where your heart is moved and yearned and though you didn't know how, you would have if you could embraced them and drawn them to the Savior.

49:10 My friend, if you're not feeling something of the compassion of Christ, in the midst of the ungodly people where you work and where you go to school, you're not prospering. You're not prospering. Now, Christian, why aren't you prospering? For many of you it's not because you aren't exposed to an adequate measure of the public means of grace. You're sitting under sound preaching every Lord's Day. You have a Christian wife, Christian husband, Christian mom, Christian dad, Christian friends. I'll tell you why you're not prospering because God's true to His word. You're covering sin.

49:46 And you can look for all kinds of sin right now. Oh, that God would just take it and flash it on that front wall. The rationalization going on right here in this place tonight. Ah, but that's, but that, but that, my friend, stop all of the dodging and evading.

50:03 The issue's that sin that you balked about three, six, ten years ago. Some restitution had to be made. Some right hands had to be cut off. Some right eyes had to be plucked out. And you've been a wounded, crippled Christian ever since. You refuse to confess and forsake that sin. Oh, dear Christian, listen. Do you want to go on a monument of hollowness and sham and unreality? Then you just go right on confessing your sin. But thank God that the Lord can restore. Oh, that God would take some of you tonight and make you monuments of the truth of the next part of the text as believers. Whoso confesseth and forsaketh shall obtain mercy. Look at David.

50:56 Read 2 Samuel tonight at your leisure. A whole new offering is sin. And prophet, the prophet is sent. And the words come from David. I have sinned against the Lord. And the prophet says, the Lord hath my sin. Oh, yes. There were some temporal judgments. He says, because of this thing you've given occasion of the enemies to blaspheme, the sword shall not depart from thy house. David had to bear the tragic fruits of that sin. But there were some psalms of joy written after that experience. God did restore unto him the joy of his salvation.

51:35 God did heal the bones that were broken. God did uphold him with his willing spirit. The prophet Hosea said it this way. Take with you words and return unto the Lord. Take with you words and return unto the Lord. Would God that this night before some of you pillow your heads there would be a full and an honest confession of those sins that have been tough. True confession. True forsaking.

52:11 Saying, Lord, by your grace I shall apply myself to everything necessary to the mortification of this sin that I may be done. That I may know that pity joined to suitable action from the heart of my God through the virtue and mediation of his own beloved Son. Dear ones, this is one of those texts that's got hooks and talons in every square inch of it. Have you felt those hooks and talons? Remember their gracious talons. If the text is seized upon you and it's holding you, don't fight against its truth. For God has spoken it with power to your heart that he might show himself merciful. He that covereth his transgressions shall not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall obtain mercy.

53:14 We could spend the next hour just sharing, I'm sure, with one another how God has proven this true to us, both the first part and the last part. We've got some people here who've been on the way a long while and who've got some battle scars. And they could stand and tell us of relatively wasted weeks and months and years because sin was covered. And they could also tell us of restoration that has come, as it were, almost in a night.

53:43 Tragic declension for months and years, but gracious restoration as it were in a moment of God's smile. Oh dear child of God, dear sinner, don't leave this place tonight until you're under the canopy of mercy. Confess, forsake, you shall obtain. This is the pledge of Almighty God. Let us pray.