Necessity of Confession of Sins

Introduction to Private Means of Grace and Prayer Dimensions

0:03 Let me underscore what Mr. Dixon has said, and that we welcome those of you who are visiting with us today, and for your sakes in particular, we'll take just a moment to review what we've been covering in this adult class for the past 12, 14 weeks or so. We are dealing with those aspects of our Christian responsibility and privilege which are commonly called the private means of grace, that is, secret, private prayer, the praying that we do alone with God, in the words of the Lord Jesus, in our own closets, and the kind of study of the scriptures that we do for the development and growth of our own walk before the Lord. And after having spent a number of weeks on the matter of private study of the scriptures and how the scriptures can be read and assimilated to our prophet, we are now concerned with the matter of secret or private prayer. And thus far, we've established together in our discussion and in our examination of the word of God the duty and the privileges of secret prayer, that every disciple of Jesus Christ is responsible to engage in secret prayer. Secondly, we've established the necessity of engaging in all kinds of biblical prayer. And we took that...

1:30 We took that circle as the pie in the various slices as the kinds of prayer, and we established from the word of God that we are responsible to engage in all kinds of prayer. And then, thirdly, we've sought to define or describe the various kinds of prayer warranted by the word of God. And I have suggested that a practical way, certainly not the only way or any inspired way, but simply a practical teaching device, by which to collate and gather together these various kinds of prayer, intercession, supplication, petition, adoration, worship, confession, humiliation, is to think in terms of three dimensions of the activity of our hands. And thus far, we've considered our hands full in prayer, that is, the prayer that would be found under the general headings of worship, adoration, and praise. And the scriptures teach us that in our praying, we are to bring something to God. We are to bring to Him those acts of adoration, of worship, and of praise.

The Necessity of Confession: Hands Defiled

2:45 And in our last session two weeks ago, for last Sunday was given over to the interest of missions, as we had our missionaries with us, we concluded our concern with the matter of hands full. Now, today, we want to begin with the second dimension of the various kinds of prayer, under the figure of our hands defiled and standing in need of cleansing. The third dimension will be our hands empty, receiving things from God. But today, our concern will be with this second aspect of prayer, namely, the need for cleansing and for purging, or, to be consistent with our figure, hands defiled in need of cleansing. Now, obviously, this will take in such aspects of prayer as could be described under the headings of confession of sin, humiliation, prayer for pardon, and for cleansing. So much for review and where we're going, and I have three questions that I would propose this morning, if time permits. The first one is this.

3:54 What scriptures or biblical principles clearly reveal that this aspect of prayer ought never to be far from us? What scriptures or biblical principles? In other words, I want texts from you, or general principles of biblical revelation. What scriptures or biblical principles clearly reveal that this aspect of prayer, the hands defiled in need of cleansing, humiliation, etc., what scriptures clearly reveal that this aspect of prayer ought never to be far from us? Now, what do I mean by ought never to be far from us? Well, we are not saying that in every prayer experience there must be confession of sin. This would be unbiblical.

4:49 We are not saying that if you do not engage in acts of humiliation or prayer for pardon every time you pray as a believer, you are sinning. But we are not saying that if you do not engage in acts of humiliation or prayer for pardon every time you pray as a believer, you are sinning. But rather, if you think of your prayer experience over a period of a few days or a week, if that prayer experience is marked by the absence of humiliation, confession, pleading with God for pardon and cleansing, then of course, or, here is the question, I am assuming the answer already, and I ought not to do that, would we be praying biblically? So, it is in your hands now to give me scriptures or scriptural principles clearly revealing that this aspect of prayer should be a vital ingredient of our prayer experience. All right? Paul? All right, which says what?

Biblical Evidence for Constant Confession

5:45 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous and will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and forgive us our sins. All right, here is a statement that upon confession there is cleansing and forgiveness. But now, suppose someone would say, fine, but that text does not say how often or how frequently I ought to engage in confession, to which you would answer what?

6:25 All right. All right, so you would say the general teaching of the Word of God, that no Christian is sinless shows that there is no Christian who does not stand in constant need of confessing his sins, and this text then at least sets forth a general principle showing that confession will be a part of our general experience. All right, George? The person of a contrite spirit dwells in the implication that it means to me that he does not dwell with someone who is not of a contrite spirit, indicating confession. And the other version is, I don't know why, I can't remember where it is, but if I regard it equally in my heart, the Lord is my name. Psalm 66, 18. All right?

7:22 Now, would you read that Isaiah passage for us, George, because it certainly is a pivotal text, all right? For I must stay in the high and wealthy one in the covenant of eternity, whose name is Holy. I dwell in the high and holy place with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite one. All right, so your contention is that if God only holds vital communion with the humble and the contrite, we may therefore deduce from that that confession of sin will be an integral part of the person's heart experience who is in communion with God because confession and repentance are part and parcel of the expression of contrition. Can there be contrition without confession? Of course not. No, the very essence or almost of the essence of contrition is the conscious acknowledgement of my sin.

8:21 And so, in answer to the question, what scriptures or biblical principles clearly reveal that confession ought to be, ought never to be far from us, the answer of this text is that so long as contrition is a part of our experience, we are in conscious communion with God. Now, what is prayer if it is not that heightened awareness of conscious communion with God? And it cannot be carried on in the context of hardness of heart, indifference to our sin, indifference to our deflection from God's Word. And then, of course, the explicit statement of Psalm 66, 18, if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me, or as the American Standard has it, if I had regarded iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have heard, but verily He hath heard. Showing again, if there is a deliberate, willful covering over of sin, then God will not hear us in whatever else we ask of Him. Alright? Some other scriptures or principles showing the duty and privilege of confession, humiliation, and repentance, part and parcel of the Christian's experience. Louise?

9:34 Alright? Proverbs 28, 13. Can you read it for us, please? Alright. He that covereth his sins shall not prosper, and he shall not prosper in his praying. I mean, the general takes in all of the particulars, doesn't it? Here's a sweeping statement. He that covers his sins or transgressions shall not prosper. And that applies even to the matter of his praying. There will not be liberty, true liberty, born of the Spirit in his praying, if he is covering his sins. And the opposite of covering, according to that text, is confessing and forsaking. So there can be no conferral of mercy, no pardon, no forgiveness, unless there is confession, unless there is forsaking. Alright?

10:26 Jim, I think that is raised up next, and then back to you, Paul. John, chapter 13, you have the incident recorded of Christ washing the feet of the disciples. It's symbolical of the washing, the spiritual washing that we receive from Christ through his marriage, through his blood. And you make the statement there, in verse 10, Jesus says to him, He that is bathed, he is not saved to wash his feet, but is clean every whit.

11:01 And one of the customs of those days was that people went, when people bathed, they usually went to a public place, and on the way home, they got their feet dirty, so they had to wash them again. And here, as you're using the analogy of the hand, here you're using the analogy of the foot. Now the feet become dirty, and though we are bathed, we still have to wash our feet. Alright, so here is an explicit statement of the continual necessity of being spiritually cleansed.

11:32 Under the analogy of feet, that pick up dirt and pick up dust, Jesus is stating a necessity. He that is bathed needeth not save to wash his feet, but he does need to have his feet washed spiritually, again and again, and the way our feet are washed is the way of confession. So here again is a deduction from the text concerning the necessity of this. Alright, Paul?

12:25 Could we stop on that, and then before we move on to the next one? Alright? Could we just pause there, because that's a good point that needs to be made. Here our Lord is describing the true sons and daughters of the kingdom, those who have attained true blessedness. And how does he describe them? Not blessed are those who were poor in spirit, as though the poverty of spirit was something back here prior to conversion. When God plowed up their hearts by his law, and they looked on him whom they pierced and mourned because of him. Our Lord does not put the matter of mourning as something solely in the past, as we were being ushered into the kingdom of God. But he says the mark of all the members of the kingdom, blessed are they who mourn, present tense. Blessed are those who are, present tense, poor in spirit. So that the mark then of a true son of the kingdom, which will follow him when he kneels to pray. His chair where he kneels to pray. When he kneels

13:31 to pray, he is kneeling to pray as a true son of the kingdom. So he cannot divorce this sense of poverty of spirit in this holy mourning from his praying. If he does, he's acting inconsistently with what he is. As a true son of the kingdom.

13:47 And that's the point I think that you're making. Is it not Paul? I just wanted to flesh it out a bit more and drive it home. Alright, and then the next passage.

14:03 Alright, Matthew 6 and verse 12. When Jesus gave a model prayer, or I like to think of it as the framework within which all true prayer is exercised, you have in Matthew 6 the words after this manner therefore pray ye, and in the parallel passage in Luke you have when ye pray say. So there's clear indications that it's alright to pray this prayer verbatim, if you understand what you're praying. But the more important thing is that we understand the principle here that after this manner, according to this pattern within this framework, pray ye.

14:43 And one of the essential ingredients of this whole dimension of biblical prayer is the element of confession of sin. Now it's interesting. What is the only petition which is enlarged upon in a PS? What's the only petition which our Lord goes back over and opens up with greater fullness?

15:07 John? Alright. Yes, you'll notice that when he concludes the basic structure or framework of true prayer, the only dimension that he goes back and enlarges upon is the only dimension. This matter of confession. For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will forgive you. If ye forgive not men, neither will your Father forgive yours. I should have thought the Lord would go back and enlarge upon that first petition. Hallowed be thy name. Since the chief end of everything is the glory of God, I should have thought the Lord would have perhaps enlarged on the petition, thy kingdom come. But he doesn't. So, in terms of our Lord's own emphasis, it's clear that this matter of confession of sin and true confession, not hypocritical. You see, what Jesus is doing in verses 14 and 15 is slaying the matter of hypocritical prayer. It's not enough, he said, that you just

16:06 go through the motions saying, Father, forgive my sins. He said, if you don't pray that way with a true spirit of brokenness which will always be manifested in a disposition of forgiveness to others, you're kidding yourself. So not only is the duty of confession laid upon us, but an exhortation. An exhortation is given to make sure that it is bona fide, genuine confession, and not merely going through the motions. Alright?

16:30 Any other passages? Then we'll go back to you, Bud. I think Paul was next. I see in Isaiah 59, 1, 2, Behold, the Lord's hand is not very good.

16:38 It cannot see, neither is here, and it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, and they will not hear you, because of unprofessed sin, not by suspicion. Alright, so this is an explicit statement. If we're covering our sins, God will not hear us. And in that sense, it's a parallel passage to these two, is it not? Here and here. And they're all in the same ballpark. Alright, Bud?

17:12 Alright, here we have one of the classic examples of how true prayer is taken up with this matter of pleading for pardon and for cleansing the whole of the 51st Psalm. Very good? Yes.

17:32 Alright, another passage in which we have the example of the tremendous benefit of confession. And in this 32nd Psalm, David acknowledges, when I kept silent, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. He describes the misery of his condition until he acknowledges his sin before God. Alright?

17:53 Back here, someone else had his hand raised? Or her?

17:58 Alright, Paul? A little louder, if you will, please, Paul. Jeremiah 5, verse 23 and 25. But this people have the revolting and rebellious heart. They are revolted in God. He does say they in their heart let us now fear the Lord our God that he would reign both the former and the latter in his season. He reserved unto us the appointed weeks of harvest. Your iniquities have turned away from the saints and your sins have been opened to them from you.

18:24 Alright, here we have then what we could say is a key text that is indicative of all those portions in which God says the sins of his people, unrepented of, unconfessed, are the cause of his crown in withholding blessing negatively or positively in the conferral of judgment upon them. Alright, Jim? We have many examples in the Old Testament of the great men of God, the prophets, two in particular are the final examples. Nehemiah, in the book of Nehemiah, whom we are studying now in the text of the plays, confesses his sin in his prayer and also the sin of his people and also the prophet Daniel in Daniel chapter 9, his great prayer consists largely of confession of sin on his part of his people. Yes. Well, I think we've flushed out the basic passages. There may be some others, but it's interesting.

19:16 There's one on here that I didn't have in my notes, but the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 passages that I have listed. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. I have a couple you don't have here. But it's interesting that they've fallen together again along these basic lines.

Summary of Reasons for Confession's Necessity

19:30 Now let me suggest that in answer to this question that we've been discussing together, what scripture or scriptures, scriptural principles, clearly reveal that this dimension of prayer, confession, humiliation, etc., ought never to be far from us, can be answered without any reservation in the affirmative. Yes, we ought to engage constantly in this kind of prayer, and the reasons are, number one, the explicit directives of our Lord. The explicit directives of our Lord.

20:04 There we have it in Matthew 6, in Matthew 5, again later on, Jesus says, when ye stand praying, forgive, for if ye forgive not others, neither will your heavenly Father forgive you, indicating that a part of our praying, when we stand praying, will be the seeking of forgiveness. And Jesus said, the heart that seeks forgiveness must itself be a forgiving heart. So we have the explicit directives of our Lord. Secondly, we have the results if we do not confess our sins.

20:36 And that takes in these passages here.

20:40 Here, here, no conscious communion with God. We shall not prosper. The Lord will not hear us. His hand will not be put forth on our behalf. And then the third line of thought, explicit directives of our Lord, the results if we don't confess. And thirdly, we have the examples of true prayer in the scriptures. Psalm 51, Ezra 9, Nehemiah 9, Daniel 9, these great prayers in which confession forms a vital part of the prayer experience recorded in these instances. Alright, now, this leads to a very practical question. If you've never wrestled with it, I hope

Addressing the Paradox: Why Confess if Justified?

21:25 you start wrestling with it this morning. And it is this. If we are justified, remember way back when we started the matter of prayer, we said we should be conscious of our relationship to God, our Father who is in heaven. We do not pray as aliens.

21:41 But as adopted sons and daughters. If we are justified, all of our sins, past, present, and future are blotted out and we are accepted as righteous before the law for the sake of Christ. Justification being, as it were, a taking of the day of judgment and bringing it right down to the moment in which we believe upon Christ and God declares that we are accepted for the sake of Christ. If we are justified, and all our sins are pardoned, why do we need to confess any sins?

22:17 Now, have you ever been troubled with that question? If I'm pardoned, justified, there's no legal condemnation for my sins. Romans 8.1, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

22:30 Why do I need to confess sins for which I've already been justified? Well? I think you brought out the reason for that in your Psalm 51 series.

22:44 It was clear that David was forgiven from Nathan the prophet when he told him his sin was forgiven, and yet he still went and sat before the Lord and saw the actual experience of forgiveness where he didn't feel it just yet. He still felt the sting of the rod on him until God was pleased to break him and to give him the assurance of that. Alright, so that one of the reasons would be that prayer for pardon is essential. It's essential to bring home to the heart the sweetness of the sense of pardon and the reality of it.

23:23 Alright? Paul and then Jim. Oh, sometimes my vision, I try to keep it all over the place here. Paul back here maybe. Alright?

24:11 Alright, so you would say the reason we must confess then is to keep a lively sense in the heart of the greatness of God's provision for sin which is the death of His Son. Alright? Paul and then confession of sin keeps us from sin. Alright, so you're making the distinction then between our acceptance in Christ which cannot be broken and our conscious communion with Christ which can be broken. Is that what you're saying?

24:57 Yeah. Alright. You see the distinction that Paul is making and I think we're on the right track when we hook into this. Our acceptance in the beloved is a perfect acceptance. The scripture says Christ has perfected forever by one sacrifice those who are sanctified. The scripture says if any man be in Christ, not only is he a new creation, but there is no condemnation in this sphere of union with Christ. We're accepted in the beloved one. Ephesians 1 and verse 6.

25:29 But we are also brought into communion with God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So perhaps we should say God as Trinitarians. God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and that sin in the heart of the believer can rupture the enjoyment of that communion and the only way for it to be reestablished is by confession. Alright? Jim?

Distinguishing Legal Guilt from Parental Displeasure

25:53 I also was going to mention the service of the communion of God. One of the dangers that I think we must be aware of always is that there is a danger sometimes to enter into a course in our mind of sin with the idea, well, we're justified and all I have to do is confess it, which is very dangerous because then we must question what ground we stand on. Yes. When we do that, what are we doing in biblical language?

26:20 We are turning the grace of God into what? Glacievousness or a license for sin. Now you see, if the doctrine of God concerning grace was not this, then you could never turn it into a license for sin. If the teaching of the word of God is you are only accepted insofar as you walk sin lessly before God, how can you turn that into license? According to that doctrine, the moment you sin, you fall out of grace. You can't turn the grace of God into license. You see, it's only the biblical teaching that we're setting forth here that can be abused. And that's a good test to which I always put my own thinking.

26:57 If I'm moving out of the orbit of grace, I'll move out of the orbit of that which can be abused as an excuse for sin. Now the great teaching of the word of God is we are accepted in the beloved one, and if someone reasons from that, all right, since I am justified, therefore I can sin carelessly, and I can always seek the Lord's forgiveness. This is turning the grace of God into license, and we can't go into the whole psychology of that. Suffice it to say that that's exactly what we're doing. So we don't ever want to use that as an excuse for not confessing our sin. All right, Louise? All right, so we're back again to the realization that there can be no delightful communion with God when there is conscious controversy with God. All right? Yes, Mr. Clark?

28:10 I've never heard of it, but I've read a great interesting book. It's forgiveness and covenantal. Yes.

28:37 David gave a sin, I believe, to the tone of the word of Christ, an eternal aspect. In the time of this union with God, it was broken for many months.

28:51 He confessed his sin, and the prophet put away thy sin. He put away thy sin. Then there was a third aspect. This is it. As a result of his sin, he had to see the death of his child. Yes, I was hoping someone would introduce this element. I have it in my notes here. Establish the difference between legal guilt and parental displeasure.

29:17 And we must understand that distinction. It's a biblical distinction, and it's one that a man or woman must understand if he's to walk with any degree of confidence before God mingled with the constant spirit of brokenness. The difference between legal guilt, which always brings wrath, and parental displeasure, which may bring the rod and holy anger, but never brings divine wrath. How much of the vial of divine wrath for the sins of God's people was drunk by Christ upon the cross? Yes.

29:55 He drained the last dark drop. He cried out, It is finished. So we must never think, of the grief we experience, the tears we shed, or the disciplines to which we may be subject because of our sins as believers, as adding one thing to the sufficiency of Jesus Christ as the exclusive atoner for the sins of his people. And in that sense, he's the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

30:28 The sufficiency of that sacrifice was the ground of Abraham's acceptance, David's acceptance, and the acceptance of every single believer. In the old and in the new economy. But, as Mr. Clark has pointed out, and I think this is a good distinction to make, there is this matter of the rupturing of our communion with this God who is now our Father through Jesus Christ, and there may be for our sins some fatherly displeasure and some fatherly chastisement.

30:58 But you'll notice that every portion, almost every portion that I've encountered, I don't want to make a generalization that will find a contradiction here or there, but almost every portion of Scripture that mentions the discipline of God for his children is a portion in which God reminds his people that what he does, he does in love. Let's look at several of them in order to support that assertion. First, in the Old Testament,

31:27 chapter 89 of the book of Psalms, or the 89th Psalm.

31:34 Here's God's covenant to David and to his seed, verse 29 of Psalm 89, or we could start off with verse 28. My loving kindness will I keep for him forever, and my covenant shall stand fast with him. His seed will I make to endure forever, and his throne is the days of heaven. If his children forsake my law and walk not in mine ordinances, if they break my statutes and will not keep my commandments, then will I visit their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes, but my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail.

32:15 My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. You see what God is careful to emphasize? That's pretty strong treatment. Visiting transgression with rod and with stripes, but he says it's an expression of his covenantal faithfulness and love. It is not judicial anger. It is not penal infliction. It is parental discipline. You find the same thing in Hebrews 12.

32:43 The writer to the Hebrews, quoting, of course, from the book of Proverbs,

32:49 Hebrews chapter 12,

32:56 verse 5, he forgotten the exhortation which reasoneth with you as sons, not guilty criminals, not those who are now within the orbit of penal infliction of judgment or punishment, but you've forgotten an exhortation which deals with you in that filial context, deals with you as sons. My son, regard not lightly the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art reproved of him for whom the Lord loveth. He chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. And so you see God says, I'm dealing with you as a father. And though those fatherly dealings do not overlook the reality of sin, nor the necessity at times of even severe punishment for the sin, it is the dealing of a father with his children. It is the context of communion, the context of training in righteousness, the context of being made more and more like unto Jesus Christ. And so in answer to that second question, if we are justified, why is there any need to confess our sins? The answer of the word of God is that sin needs to be confessed in the life of a believer for the restoration of communion with God.

Confession for Restoration of Communion and Conscience

34:13 Sin needs to be confessed in order to be true to the dispositions planted in our hearts by the grace of God. If the Spirit implants within us this spirit of holy mourning, you cannot but confess your sins to the extent that you are living consistent with the work of the Spirit within you. God will never give us a spirit of indifference to sin, but He gives us a spirit of grief for sin. Yes? No?

34:39 Yeah, it's one of the essential fruits of repentance. The sinner who beats his breast inwardly or outwardly saying, God be propitious to me, a sinner, indicating that though he's looking out of himself for acceptance, he is looking with grief upon his own state as a sinner, that spirit will continue to grow along with everything else. If the initial response is the sight of sin and the sight of mercy in Christ, the continuing growth of a believer is seen in a deeper sense of sin and in a deeper appreciation of the sufficiency and the glory and the trustworthiness of Christ. Yes, dear?

36:18 I think it's in the same second area that Noel has spoken to, in that if one of the marks of regeneration is this desire to walk before God in the light of His law, then every time we depart from that law, conscience condemns. And we no longer sit down now and tell conscience he's all wrong and rationalize with him and debate with him and spit in his eye. We welcome his ministry. Before we're saved, we don't welcome. If there's one person on the face of the earth we'd love to kill and bury him and forever put him out of sight, it's this little nagging critter called conscience. Because he's the guy that is the worm and the gourd of all of our sinful pleasures. Right? Before you became a Christian, conscience was no friend of yours. At least you didn't regard him as such.

37:03 He was. But you didn't regard him as such. He was that character that every time you were just beginning to enjoy some sinful deviation from God's law, he stood there and he hollered at you, stuck his tongue out at you, wiggled his ears and said, you know, there's something more to your sin than what it's doing to your sensual delights now. Whatever pleasure you may receive from it, that harking, constant pressure, you're accountable to God. Now the difference with a Christian is he welcomes that function of conscience. Now he needs to learn to regulate it because now the devil will start telling conscience to holler at us for things that he ought not to be hollering at us about. So when conscience hollers now, we've got to say, hey, who's put the message in your ear? You take the person who's been a devout Roman Catholic and every single day for years and years has said so many Hail Marys and gone to Mass. The day after he's converted

37:53 he gets up in the morning and he starts to get out his beads and say his Hail Mary and conscience says, you must. If you're religious, you must, you must, you must. Well now he's got to learn to say conscience. Who told you to say that? That's not the dictates of God. So conscience has to get re-educated more accurately to speak according to the word of God. And that's another whole thing that we won't go into now because that would be far away from this. But I think the point that Mrs. Martin has made is well taken that if we are to be true to the present function of conscience within us as believers we must confess our sins. How can you have liberty in coming with empty hands to take things from God when the very thought of God is torturous to your bosom? And when you've got a war with your conscience, an area of conflict you've got turmoil within your breast. And try as you may to just say, well let's forget that, I'm going to pray.

38:46 You do one of two things. You just mumble your prayers and get through them and say, amen, and get out of the place of prayer as soon as possible or you come to grips with that thing that is troubling conscience. One of the conditions of drawing near to God, and this is a passage that I find helpful again and again in private prayer, is Hebrews chapter 10. Hebrews chapter 10 and verse 19. Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by the way which he dedicated for us a new and living way through the veil, that is to say his flesh, and having a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near with true hearts in fullness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience. And I find great comfort in saying, Lord, I believe my high priest ministers for me at your right hand, but I cannot draw near with full assurance of faith because of this area of sin, this area of failure, and I plead for the fresh application of the virtue of Christ's death on my behalf

39:55 and fresh confidence in the efficacy of that blood. First John 1.9. And often I find the only way I can get any degree of confidence is actually to turn to the passage. And I know God doesn't need to see it like I do, but I find it a strength to my faith to turn to it and say, Lord, this is what you've said. If we confess, you are faithful and just to forgive and to cleanse and to plead with him to do so or to turn to such a passage as the Psalm 51 passage.

Confession for Cleansing from Defilement and Overcoming Temptation

40:27 All right, does this, did you find this helpful? Maybe I raised a question and tried to answer something that was never How many of you have had that problem of wondering if I'm justified, why in the world do I have to Have you ever had that problem? Well, a few of you have anyway. Well, if down the road you do have it, I hope that you'll remember how we've sought to deal with it this morning. Any question on this aspect or any other lines of biblical truth that you'd like to add to it? Yes, Ken?

41:20 13, that we've stoned nine.

41:26 To confess our sins is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and also to cleanse us. So I think that this is why we must All right, very good point. That sin is not only a legal problem, it is a personal problem. And when we sin, we ourselves are defiled by that sin, even as believers. And that confession is the way into that cleansing from defilement. If we confess he is faithful and just to forgive and to cleanse. And you'll notice that that's one of the great pleas of David in Psalm 51. Perhaps we ought to turn to that, just to underscore this with a little more emphasis.

42:09 Psalm 51.

42:25 You see, in the first verse, his plea is for the blotting out of his transgression. But now notice from verse 2 onward. Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. Verse 7. Purify me with hyssop and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Now the plea for restored communion. Hide thy face from my sins and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence. Take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore

43:12 unto me the joy of thy salvation. Uphold me with a willing spirit. Do you see where the predominant emphasis is? Upon the defiling, crippling influence of sin in David, experimentally as a man of God. And he's confessing his sin and pleading with God to cancel those crippling effects. And this is one of the things that we need to use the language of John Owen, with which we need to load our consciences continually. That is the defiling, crippling influence of sin, even in us as believers. When we're being tempted to sin, there is but one proposition presented to the mind by the tempter. And what is it?

43:54 The pleasure that that sin will bring. Whether it's giving vent to an angry spirit, and we think of the pleasure of the release of giving vent to that, or whether it's some sensuous delight. When we're being tempted to sin, one thing is proposed to the mind and to the spirit by that sin. And that is its pleasure.

44:14 And to use the words of John Owen, we need to load our consciences with the awful reality of what every sin will bring to us. It's crippling, it's defiling, it's polluting, it's fellowship-breaking power. And we need to look that sin in the face and say, you have shown me the pretty side of your face. And grab it and turn it this way and see all the pus and the ugly sores on the other side.

44:41 If I may use the analogy, sin always presents the pretty side of its face. But we need to turn it and see the other side. And that other side is the defilement, the breaking of communion with God. The sense of inward crippling that comes, what David called the breaking of the bones, the inward crushing.

45:02 And I have found, to my shame, I'm sure, not as often as I ought, but in times of perhaps severe temptation, this has been one of the most powerful means to keep me from sinning. Shall I do this, think this, indulge this, if its price tag is no open heavens when I pray? That's a terrible price to pay if you're a true Christian for no experience is more precious than realized communion with God in the secret place. Second to it is realized communion with God in the worship of His people.

45:39 And the price you pay for sin is to forfeit those. Now as a Christian, you cannot think of those things and then deliberately walk down a path of sinful indulgence. You must first of all forget those things, and that's the work of the tempter, and the acting of our own flesh, to get us to forget those things. And so again, in the words of Owen, we must load the conscience with the realization. That's the price tag on that sin. And if we have been duped by the devil, as David was, so that all we think of is the pretty side of the face of temptation, the immediate, sensuous delight, then when we've seen the ugly side, we must say, Lord, I've been foolish, I've been stupid, I've grieved you, I've crippled myself, and then claw our way back in such terms as we find in Psalm 51. Alright, anyone else? Something to add to this second question. If we are justified, why

46:38 do we need to confess our sins? Yes, Paul?

47:20 If you catch Paul's question, his question is, is verse 7 of 1 John 1, stating that whether I'm consciously confessing or not, as I'm seeking to walk in communion with God, the blood of Christ is continually cleansing, but verse 9 is dealing with specific acts of confession. I wouldn't be prepared to answer that, Paul. I've never quite thought of the two in relationship to each other. My sort of reflex response would be to say, verse 7 assumes the activities of verse 9. For if I'm walking in the light, there will be continual exposure of my sin, which of necessity must lead to the confession of my sin. So I would have to suspend any careful and structured answer until I investigated that more carefully. Yes, Paul? Could you say that with confession of sin there would also be preparing, because David in the 51st Psalm when he's confessing his sin and asking for cleansing, he says then will I teach transgressions right away, and sinners shall be prepared. Yes, because with

48:25 restored communion, and now with the operation of an ungrieved spirit within David's heart, there will be the blessed fruits beginning to flow, one of which will be the building up of the interest of God's kingdom. Because we all know, you know as well as I do, there is no duty in the Christian life that can be performed with holy naturalness and delight when the conscience is loaded with guilt. Right? I don't care what it is. If it's the duty of a mother seeking to obey Titus chapter 2 and love the husband, be discreet and chaste, a keeper at home, if your conscience is loaded with the guilt of unconfessed sin, you begin to resent and despise your role as a mother, you begin to have quarrels with God and you get crotchety with your husband. Right? Or should I ask your husbands?

49:17 And the reverse is true. Whatever thy hand finds to do, do with all thy might as unto the Lord and not as unto men. When you go into that place of business with a conscience at peace with God, in the conscience of the blood of Jesus Christ is cleansed from sin. It's amazing how your attitude to work and to your work associates is changed but when you've got some area of controversy with God that is severing realized communion with God then nothing's right. The foreman doesn't run things right and this isn't right and that isn't right. Nothing's right. Why? Because you're carrying the sour apple in your own breast you see. So it's it reaches out into many many dimensions and we've said we don't in this treatment this time want to deal with any of these things exhaustively but I think all of this has been enough to get our minds thinking in the direction of the absolute necessity of this dimension of prayer being a constant part of our prayer experience namely confession of sins. Now the question that I'll lay before you is question number three. I hope we can get to it today but this will be your rather loose homework assignment to think about and come prepared next week to discuss. Or the following week the Lord willing we should be away next Sunday. We had

Homework: How Specific Ought Confession to Be?

50:36 one more Sunday coming to us for vacation and we plan to take a few days to go down into Pennsylvania at the end of this week. But when we come together next time the question is how specific ought we to be in our confession of sin? How specific ought we to be in our confession of sin? Is it according to the mind of God that we simply do as some of our friends in a certain, if you get in their circle it's amazing how certain phrases in prayer are culturally and provincially dictated and I've been in two circles I could locate them. The one according to geography and the other according to nationality. When at the end of almost every prayer, whatever they've prayed, they will say and forgive us our many sins or pardon all our sins for Christ's sake Amen. And when praying with some of the brethren whom I've heard pray that way publicly I don't know that I've ever heard them get more specific than that. Well is that according to the mind of God or is it not? Well

51:38 you come prepared to discuss that question will you? Alright and at that we'll leave it and commit our thoughts to the Lord in prayer. Our time is gone.