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Alright, notice with me as we
read from verse 13 of Proverbs chapter 28. He says here in verse
13, He that covereth his sins shall not prosper, but whoso
confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy. I'm going to
look at this text tonight and next week in verse 14 and then
we'll move farther on in the chapter later. Lord, we thank
you for this evening. We thank you for the privilege
again that you allowed us to assemble together. Lord, we just
pray for thy will to be done tonight. Lord, we love you. We thank you for your word. We
ask all of these things in Jesus Christ's name we pray. Amen. The verse we're coming to tonight
I'm going to kind of camp out in this passage. We find here
the importance of confessing sins. We see here the blessing
of confessing and forsaking sin, and then we see the danger of
covering sin. The Bible in both Testaments,
Old and New, speaks of confession of sins. Now we've got sermons
on this, we've covered this in the past, but as I come to this
passage here tonight, I just felt like we need to just do
this one verse tonight. Now notice as we come here again,
I want to just take some of the words in this verse, and we got
some other passages, just hold on here for a while, but we got
a few other passages here in the Old Testament and New that
we're going to look at tonight. He said in verse 13, the first
thing he says is that he that covereth his sins shall not prosper. That is, someone who is refusing
to confess their sins, to conceal it or to hide it is the ideal
here, using maybe falsehood or lies, pretending to be virtuous
when they're not. He said, he that covereth his
sins shall not prosper. The word here, prosper, has the
ideal that the person that will not confess their sins but will
cover it or hide it, They shall not succeed in avoiding God's
punishment. That's the ideal here in the
passage. Unconfessed sins will rob us as Christians, will rob
us of our joy, our peace, and progress in our Christian life.
It'll rob us of spiritual strength. And that's what we see here in
this passage. I want you to hold on here and turn with me to the
book of Psalms, and I'm going to be reading Psalm chapter 32.
I want to read in three different Psalms, or at least make reference
to them, but notice in Psalms chapter 32. Now, we found that
David was a believer, but David came to places in his life where
he had to confess his sins. I think it's a good idea to confess
our sins, keep short accounts with God, and confess them daily. And notice he said, I'm going
to begin reading in verse one, this whole chapter is dealing
with David, his sin, and when he did not confess them, and
then later when he realized that this is what he's got to do.
And by the way, in 2 Samuel 12, verse 13 and 14, when David was
confronted by the prophet, David said, I have sinned against the
Lord. David was a believer, and David
had a love for the Lord, but he fell into sin. We all know
that sin. And it's recorded in 2 Samuel
11 and 12. and he confessed that sin before
God and got it right. And this passage here is describing
his condition, it's describing when he was in sin, when he did
not confess, when he kept silent, but it also describes him acknowledging
his sin to God. And then the whole chapter, again,
is a wonderful chapter, but I want to read at least the first five
verses. Notice it says, beginning in
verse 1, Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose
sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom
the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is
no guile. When I kept silent, this is David. And notice verse three, when
I kept silent. In other words, he's not confessing
his sins at this time. Again, 2 Samuel 12, beginning
in verse one, the prophet goes to David and confronts him while
he was not confessing his sin. He said, when I kept silence,
my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day. In other
words, he was in anguish. I believe that David physically,
spiritually, emotionally, he was a train wreck because of
refusing to confess his sins and forsake them. He said in
verse 4, for day and night thy hand, speaking of God, was heavy
upon me, my moisture is turned into the drought of summer. And we can read in other passages,
Psalms 51, Psalms chapter 38. We can read in other places where
we see the anguish and the sorrow that David went through when
he was not confessing his sin before God. But notice verse
5, his confession. He said, I acknowledge my sin. See this one time he kept silent
probably for several months. But here in verse 5, he said,
I acknowledge my sin unto thee, and my iniquity have I not hid. I said, I will confess my transgressions
unto the Lord, and thou forgave us the iniquity of my sin. So
we find him confessing and forsaking this sin. Notice in chapter 38,
and I'd suggest go back and read all three of these chapters I'm
going to mention, because again, they're written by David. chapter
38, and I want to come down to just one verse, and it's going
to be in verse 18. Now, by the way, we find in the
Bible those who, at least for a time, refused to confess and
forsake their sins. In other words, they covered
their sins. They did not prosper when they did this. We find that
in Genesis 3.12, Adam and Eve, you know the story of the fig
leaves, but they also hid themselves. After that they sinned, they
hid themselves and tried to hide from the presence of God. Genesis
4.9, Cain, we find that he said, am I my brother's keeper? 1 Samuel
15 verses 19-21, Saul finally admitted that he sinned and then
immediately he blamed the people. He never confessed and forsook
his sin. Matthew 12 and verse 41, this
is true with Israel. Joshua 7 verses 19 through 20,
Achan, we find that Achan hid what he had stolen. In other
words, he had to be flushed out by the Lord. In Matthew 27, 4,
Judas's caret, kissed Jesus as a friend, but betrayed him. The
Bible tells us that he repented, but he did not forsake his sin
and put his trust in the Lord. He knew he was wrong, but he
still ended up in hell because he wasn't willing to have true
confession and forsaking of the sin. I've read this to you a
number of years ago. But this is a quote and it speaks
of a physician once kept a record of a thousand persons who thought
they were dying and whom he thought were penitents. He wrote their
names down in a book as those who if they had died would go
to heaven. They did not die, they lived. He says that out of the whole
thousand he had not three persons who turned out well afterwards,
but they returned to their sins again and were as bad as ever. In other words, it was like a
foxhole prayer. They were willing to repent because
they thought they were dying. But when they did not die, they
were back to their old selves. Well, notice here in Psalms 38
and in verse 18. Again, this is David. He said,
Notice in Psalms 51. Psalm chapter 51, this whole
chapter, is David's repentance and confession and pleading with
the Lord to restore the joy of his salvation. David had a broken
heart. He's asking God to purge him,
cleanse him in verse 7, but notice in verse 3 and 4. He says in
verse 3 and 4, he said, For I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin
as ever before me against thee, thee only have I sinned and done
this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified when
thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest." So David was a
very repentative man, especially when he was confronted with the
Word of God. Going back with me to our passage,
notice as we come back, he says here in verse 13 again, and again
we found the subject of confession all through the scriptures Old
and New Testament, he said in verse 13, he that covereth his
sins shall not prosper. In other words, they shall not
have peace. They shall not have forgiveness. They shall not have joy in their
life. We know that confession of sins
is the only way that we can be saved. And it's the only way
as a Christian that we can be in favor with God. Confesseth
and forsaketh. Notice verse 13 again. He that
covereth his sins shall not prosper, but whoso confesses and forsaketh
them shall have mercy." To confess and forsake, the sincerity of
confession is proved by the forsaking of sin. Now we see this many
times throughout the Holy Scripture. Notice with me, I guess you can
turn loose of the book of Proverbs and go with me to the book of
Acts and notice with me in chapter 19. The book of Acts in chapter
19. I hope this will be a joy to
you. I count it a joy to see past like this where God is very
honest with us and shows us how, not only how that a person can
be saved, but how that we as Christians can stay and fellowship
with him and stay within his will. Now notice as we come here
to Acts chapter 19, I'm gonna take three verses, verse 18,
19, and 20. We're gonna find, and especially
verse 18, the word believed, the word confessed, and showed
their deeds in this passage. Now notice as we come here, beginning
in verse 18. Now this is Paul, the apostle
at Ephesus. Ephesus was a, a church was started
there, but it was a city where the temple of the great goddess
Diana in verse 26 was at, that many worshiped her. And so there
many got saved at Ephesus and turned from their old ways. Notice in verse 18, 19, and 20. And many that believed came and
confessed and showed their deeds. Many of them also which used
curious arts, that is, magical arts or occult practices. Many of them also which use curious
arts brought their books together and burned them before all men
and they counted the price of them and found it 50,000 pieces
of silver. So mindily grew the word of God
and prevail. But notice back in verse 18,
notice how this is worded. He said in verse 18, and many
that believed came, now notice this, and confessed. and showed
their deeds. In other words, they proved their
confession by burning their books and their, you know, the false
teachings that they had and the magical arts or occult practices. They proved their repentance
and their confession. Notice with me in Romans chapter
10, a very familiar passage to us. And while you're turning
there, I'll give you two other scripture. One of those is Mark
1.5, a part of that verse says, and all were baptized of him,
speaking of John the Baptist, all were baptized of him in the
river of Jordan, confessing their sins, confessing their sins. Matthew 10, verses 32 and 33
says this, Whosoever therefore shall confess
me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is
in heaven. But whoso shall deny me before
men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.
One writer put it this way in reference to these two verses.
He said Christ confession of his own at his coming will depend
upon their confession of him on earth and how true that that
is. So notice with me in the book
of Romans. Now we do find those that had
sinned, and they confessed their sins, and God showed mercy on
them, forgiveness, peace, joy, things of that nature. One is
the prodigal son in Luke chapter 15. We see how that he rebelled
against his father, rebelled against God, and he came to repentance. We also find that as Jonah in
the book of Jonah in chapter three, we find that, she's a
chapter two or three or both, we find that Nineveh repented
and God spared them for many, many years after that. Then in
2 Chronicles 33 verses 12 and 13, Manassas. He was one of the
most wickedest kings of the children of Israel and God brought him
to a place of repentance and later restored him to the throne. Now the word confess means to
admit, it means to acknowledge, or to say the same thing, that
is, to say the same thing that God has said. In other words,
when we confess, we're saying what God said about Christ and
about who that He is, what He accomplished, but we're also
confessing or admitting or saying the same thing about ourselves. We have a sin nature. We also
sin ourselves. We've sinned and rebelled against
God. So to confess means to admit
or to acknowledge, to say the same thing that God has said,
whether it be about himself or his son or about us, and it has
the ideal of to agree with, to concede, or to face the facts. And we see that confession is
clearly associated with repentance, would you not agree, as we come
to the scripture. Now notice in Romans chapter
10, I'm gonna read it verse 9 through 11, all of you can quote this,
right? We use this in our witnessing. I use this, I used this this
past week while we were away a few times. But notice as we
read verses 9 through 11, He said that, If thou shalt confess
with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heart
that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with
the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the scripture
saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. There's many other good thoughts
in these verses, especially verse 13. But notice here we see it's
necessary, confession is necessary for salvation and to have a right
relationship with God. Verse 9, that if thou shalt confess
with thy mouth the Lord Jesus shall believe in thy heart that
God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved. Verse
9, to confess Christ as Lord is to confess our need for salvation
from sin. We also find, verses 9 through
13, we see here freedom from judgment. As a person comes and
confesses Christ as their Savior, they're confessing that they
need a Savior, and we find here freedom from judgment. But notice
in verse 10, he said, For with the heart man believeth unto
righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. With the heart we have understanding. With the mouth, we have acknowledgement. The Bible tells us out of the
abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. So we find here the
mouth and the heart are associated with this. Again, understanding
in the heart, acknowledgement or confession with the mouth.
But notice in verse 11, he said, for the scripture saith, now
he's quoting from Isaiah 28 in verse 16. And I'll just read
that for you before we read verse 11. Isaiah chapter 28 in verse
16 we have these words, Therefore thus saith the Lord God, behold
I lay in Zion, that's Jerusalem, for a foundation, a stone, that's
Christ, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation,
he that believeth on him shall not make haste. Now, when he
says he shall not make haste, this is used in the New Testament,
in Matthew, and Romans 9, and Romans 10, 1 Peter 3, and a few
other places. And there's different words that
are used. But when he says in Isaiah that
those who believe on Christ, this stone, shall not make haste,
that means that they shall not take flight when trouble comes. They shall not be ashamed. They
shall have no doubts. They will not be disappointed,
confounded, or alarmed. In other words, they'll have
peace in their heart, that peace you were talking about before
the service started, Brother Avery. Well, notice verse 11
now in Romans 10, for the scripture says, whosoever believeth on
him shall not be ashamed. Shall not be ashamed. In other
words, we will not come into condemnation or be confounded
be full of doubts or disappointments, or make haste. In other words,
we will have peace in our heart because we've confessed Christ
as Savior, admitting that we're sinners in need of salvation. So verse 11, For the scripture
saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. Notice we're in James chapter
5. James chapter 5. I'm going to
be reading from verses 13 through 18, but verse 16 is the verse
I'm after here tonight. Notice in verse 13, Is any among
you afflicted? Let him pray. Is any married? Let him sing psalms. Is any sick
among you? Let him call for the elders of
the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with
oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall
save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up. And if he hath
committed sins, they shall be forgiven. him confess your faults
one to another and pray for one another that ye may be healed
the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much
elias this is elijah the old testament elias was a man subject
to lack compassion as we are and he prayed earnestly that
it might not rain and it rained not on the earth by the space
of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the
heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit. Now
again, this passage is dealing with prayer. But I wanna come
back to verse 16, and I want you to notice he mentions about
confessing faults. Now think about this. Proverbs
28, 13, and other places, we're to confess our sins to God. But in James 5 and verse 16,
we're to confess our faults to one another. Confess sins to
God and our faults to one another. He said in verse 16, confess
your faults one to another and pray for one another that you
may be healed. The effectual, fervent prayer
of a righteous man availeth much. Confessing faults, that is mutual
confessing of our faults to one another, that is reconciling
of offenses against one another. This is a beautiful practice
of the primitive church, the early church, as we began reading
in the book of Acts and chapter 1 and chapter 2. One writer said
this, he said, Our religious life is not an isolated thing,
for we are all members of one body, the community of faith. And he quotes 1 Corinthians 12.
Another quote I'll give you before we turn to her last passage is,
I don't even know the author, I didn't write this down a number
of years ago, but it says, Biblical confession is not limited to
confession of sins, but also confession of faith and confession
of praise and thanksgiving, given 1 Timothy 6, 12 and Hebrews 1
and in verse 1. Well, notice as we will bring
this to a close, 1 John. I'm coming to 1 John, and I'll
be reading in chapter 1. 1 John, chapter 1. And again, I hope this is a help. We preached on this about three
years ago, a sermon titled, Confessing Our Sins, I believe was the title
of it. Notice in 1 John 1, first of
all, let us read in verse 9. In verse 9, he said, if we confess
our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That's a wonderful verse, isn't
it? Even as a Christian, we have the promise that if we confess
our sins, that the Lord will forgive us of those sins and
keep that close communion and fellowship with God. You'll notice
here in this passage, and I'm gonna quote another author in
reference to verse nine, confessing our sins. He said, the object
of the apostle is to show that it is implied in the very nature
of the gospel that we are sinners, and to deny this is to deceive
ourselves. Now we read verse eight. In verse
8, he said, if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves
and the truth is not in us. Verse 8 seems to be talking about
the sin nature, who we are by birth, and that we have a corrupt
nature. And it'd be like somebody saying,
I'm okay. and I have no need of salvation. I'm not a sinner like others.
This seems to be talking about, again, the sin nature, and verse
10 seems to be talking about specific sins, the sins that
we commit. So in verse 8, if we say that
we have no sin, that is, my opinion, sin nature, we deceive ourselves
and the truth is not in us. How many times have you witnessed
and somebody say, oh, I'm okay. I'm just good as the next person.
Well, you are because they're going to hell if they don't get
saved. How many times have you ever had that to happen? Many
times if you do very much witnessing. So verse 8, if we say that we
have no sin, that is a sin in nature, we deceive ourselves
and the truth is not in us. Now verse 9, if we confess our
sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness. His blood cleanses us from past
sins as well as daily cleansing as a Christian. Now verse 10
seems to me, I could be wrong, but it seems to be talking about
specific sins. So this covering everything,
the sin nature, and then the sins that we commit. Verse 10,
if we say that we have not sinned, specific sins, we make him a
liar and his word is not in us. And if we were to back up and
begin reading in verse one through seven, since we've read these,
and I'll just call on one tonight to pray, and to keep a little
shorter, I wanna finish this, okay? But notice as we read from
verses one through seven, it speaks of our fellowship with
God, and with His Son, and also with one another. The importance
of this. Notice as we read again, chapter
1 is our relationship and fellowship with God, one another, as we
walk in the light. Verse 1, that which is from the
beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes,
which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the
word of life. For the life was manifested and
we have seen it and bear witness and show unto you that eternal
life, which was with the Father and was manifested unto us. that
which we have seen talking about the apostles that which we have
seen and heard declare we unto you that you also may have fellowship
with us and truly our fellowship is with the father and with his
son jesus christ and these things right we and you that your joy
may be full that is complete and perfect This then is the
message which we have heard of him and declare unto you that
God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that
we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and
do not the truth. But if we walk in the light,
as he is a light, we have fellowship one with another and the blood
of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sin. Notice that
fellowship with God the Father, with God the Son, and he never
omits the fellowship that we have with one another. We see
this, and I've mentioned this a lot in the last six weeks,
just studying in Ephesians. So what we have in verses one
through seven speaks of our relationship and our fellowship with God,
with the Son, with one another as we walk in the light. But notice as we come to chapter
two, I'm gonna read verse one and two in verse 12. and we'll
actually close in this particular passage, but chapter two is simply
a continuation of all that we've read in chapter one regarding
our fellowship of the Father and the Son, and it requires
us taking sin seriously so that we can have that fellowship.
Notice as we come here reading verse one and two in verse 12,
he said, my little children, These things, write I to you,
that you sin not. And if any man sin, we have an
advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He
is the perpetuation for our sins and not for ours only, but also
for the sins of the whole world. Verse 12, I write unto you, little
children, because your sins are forgiven you for His name's sake. When he uses the word little
children, this is a tender term referring to the saints of God. And you notice as we come back
to verse one and two of chapter two, we find that these statements,
there's a good balance here in the context of chapter one of
confessing. We find that in chapter two and
verse one, He speaks of the fact that if you, I'm sorry, that
you sin not. That's the first thing he said.
He said in verse one, my little children, these things write
on you that you sin not. That you sin not. In other words,
don't make excuses for sin. But he also says this, if any
man sin, In verse 1, middle of that verse, if any man sin, we
have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, verse
2, and he is the propitiation for our sins, not for our sins
only, but also for the sins of the whole world. So he says, that you sin not, don't make
excuses for it. Then he says, if any man sin,
knowing that it's very possible. In other words, he's saying to
us, don't become hopeless. Some take sin lightly, but also
some despair in their sin. And what we find here, if we
fail and we do, we fail there is hope, we're not forsaken by
God as believers. In other words, Jesus is our
advocate and our propitiation. These are two major doctrines
in the Word of God. In verse 1 he is our advocate. If we sin and We have an advocate
with the Father, that is the Lord Jesus Christ. That is, we
have someone who represents us, the comforter. And this word
is only used once here, the word advocate in the scripture, but
it's a major doctrine. And not only that, perpetuation.
This word here is only used three times in the New Testament in
Romans 3 and in 1 John 2 here and also 1 John chapter 4. And
this word, I got fascinated with this word and this doctrine about
the mid-1980s when I was pastoring in another town. And the word
perpetuation means to appease. It means, the best word synonym
to use for a definition is to satisfy. It means to satisfy
an offended party. In other words, Christ became,
He's not only our advocate now at the right hand of the Father
making intercession for us, but He is our propitiation. In other
words, He became our substitute and He appeased the wrath of
God. In other words, we never have
to experience God's wrath. So I leave this with you tonight
that even as a Christian, The reason that we're to confess
and forsake our sins is so that we can prosper, so that we can
have fellowship with God, walk within His will, have the peace
in our hearts. I know we have that peace when
we get saved, but also that peace that we have on a daily basis.
Again, sin can rob us of our joy. of our peace, of our prayer
life, it can rob us of spiritual strength. David, as a child of
God, he became very miserable when he had not confessed his
sin before a holy and a righteous God. Would you stand with me,
please? Father, we thank you tonight
again for this wonderful privilege, and Lord, I do call it a privilege,
that we can come into thy house and fellowship with thy people.
Lord, sing the songs of Zion, look into your word, pray together,
and Lord, we thank you for this. And Lord, we pray tonight for
all the prayer requests that'll be lifted up in the closing prayer.
We thank you for your love and kindness and mercy to us. Lord,
help us as Christians to stay close to thee and to stay close
to one another. We ask all of these things in
Christ Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Confessing and Forsakeing Sins
Series Proverbs Series
| Sermon ID | 1031241518585692 |
| Duration | 35:57 |
| Date | |
| Category | Midweek Service |
| Bible Text | Proverbs 28:13 |
| Language | English |
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