1609-25P 1
CONFESSION AND REPENTANCE
(Daniel 9:4-19)
SUBJECT:
F.C.F:
PROPOSITION:
INTRODUCTION:
A. I’m slowly and devotionally reading through the book Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices by the Puritan Thomas Brooks. I have to read slowly because it is so dense—no fluff, but every sentence requiring time to digest and apply. The basic premise of the book is to reveal the various strategies the Devil employs to coax us into sin. Brooks not only knows the Scriptures very well—he knows his own sinful heart.He seems to have encountered these devilish ploys in his own life and has searched the Scriptures for help. Usually the chapters are brief, only a few paragraphs. But he devotes several pages to answering what he calls device #6: “By persuading the soul that the work of repentance is an easy work; and that therefore the soul need not make such a matter of sin.”
You probably know how this deception runs. We tell ourselves: “I know it’s a sin, but I can always confess it afterward and God will forgive me.” In the conversations I have had as a pastor I have only had a couple of people express that thought openly to me. But I think it occurs much more often in peoples’ hearts, perhaps frequently. I know I have had those very thoughts myself.
B. And the first remedy Thomas Brooks offers to this ploy of the evil one as he entices us to sin is: “seriously to consider, That repentance is a mighty work, a difficult work, a work that is above our power. There is no power below that power which raised Christ from the dead, and which made the world—which can break the heart of a sinner, or turn the heart of a sinner! You are as well able to melt adamant, as to melt your own heart; to turn a flint into flesh, as to turn your heart to the Lord; to raise the dead and to make a world, as to repent. Repentance is a flower which does not grow in nature’s garden.”
The Westminster Shorter Catechism calls “repentance unto life” a “saving grace.” It is “saving,” that is necessary for salvation. But it is also a “grace,” a gift. We cannot create true and saving repentance in our own hearts: it is a sovereign and saving work of God and a gift of God. Much of what passes for repentance is simple regret at being caught or fear of punishment. Brooks goes on to note that “Some ignorant deluded souls vainly conceit that these five words, ‘Lord! Have mercy upon me,’ are efficacious to send them to heaven, but as many are undone by buying a counterfeit jewel, so many are in hell by mistake of their repentance. Many rest in their repentance, which caused one to say, ‘Repentance damns more than sin!”
C. In Daniel 9 we find a rare and valuable help: a prayer of confession inspired by God’s Holy Spirit. Here is the kind of true confession and repentance from sin that God himself accepts because God himself has given it. And in the coming weeks we will work our way through it.
True confession and repentance, like everything else, begins with the character of God.
I. WE MUST ACCLAIM THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD.
A. God is righteous. God himself is the objective and eternal and unchangeable standard of what is right.I’m convinced that this is much of the motivation behind the nonsensical relativism of post-modernism. “Nothing is really true, it is only true for you. So nothing is really false. That means that nothing is really right or really wrong either, and so we escape all judgment except our own, for we become our own standard, and we are pretty adept at excusing ourselves.” Talk about Satan’s devices to lead us into sin!
But if you would truly live a life of continual confession and repentance you must first come to grips with the absolute righteousness of God. And that’s where Daniel begins his confession.“4 I prayed to the LORD my God and made confession, saying, “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments….”
B. The Lord God is great and awesome. He alone is God and there is none like him. Daniel addresses him as “the LORD my God,” “Yahweh Elohim.” The first word, “Yahweh,” is God’s covenant name, the One who graciously bound himself to Israel with covenant promises. The second word, “Elohim,” speaks of his greatness as the only God. It is used to describe God as the Creator of all things, the Sovereign One who rules all things, the Judge who calls all to account, and the Savior of his own. Most people imagine that the roles are reversed: we created or concocted God, and he is our servant to meet our needs. No wonder true repentance is so exceedingly rare! “If anything, the pain and disappointments we may experience are probably God’s fault. We deserve better—he has let us down. Perhaps God should confess his shortcomings to us!” I once heard Dr. James Dobson suggest that when we go through suffering we may need to “forgive God”!
Two other statements forever lay that nonsense to rest. Daniel confesses that the Lord both “keeps covenant” and “keeps steadfast love” with those who love him and keep his commandments. In other words, God has always done what is right. God has never failed his people. God need never apologize to us, nor should we ever consider something as blasphemous as “forgiving God.”
C. Now if God were not objectively righteous, if God did sometimes fail to keep his covenant or falter in his steadfast love, perhaps our sin would not be so bad. One of the most common excuses that people who are caught in sin often fall back on is “Everybody’s doing it.” But that is completely ineffective with God, the objective standard of perfect righteousness. That makes our sin look the blackest against the white hot purity of God’s holiness. We can perhaps feel this when we think of a marriage in which one spouse has been faithful and the other has not. Often the unfaithful one will try to find any flaw on which to lay blame upon the other. He or she might even wish that their spouse also would be unfaithful so that they would be “equal.”
God has never, ever done wrong to you or to me. In fact, we have been the continual, lifelong recipients of his astonishing mercy. If we are not right now in the hell we deserve, then we are, right now enjoying his unspeakable mercy.
But you and I have frequently, daily, today, done wrong, grievous wrong to the Lord God even while we were enjoying his mercies. Let that truth empower your repentance and call you to confession.
II. WE MUST ADMIT THE SINFULNESS OF OUR SIN.
A. The second of Satan’s devices to entice us to sin according to Thomas Brooks is “by painting sin with virtues colors.” If we would only name sin for what it really is, we would then fly from it rather than yield to it. So, instead of pride, we call it neatness and cleanliness. Instead of covetousness we call it good business. Instead of drunkenness we call it good fellowship. Instead of riotousness we call it liberality. And instead of wantonness, we call it a trick of youth. The third device is similar, he says. It is “by extenuating and lessening of sin.” Satan assures us that it is only a little pride, a little worldliness, a little uncleanness, a little drunkenness, and so forth.
Beloved, if we would gain a new heart for continual confession and repentance, then we need to learn a new vocabulary. Or really we need to employ the old vocabulary of the Bible and call sin sin. And when we become accustomed to doing so, we will start to sense the real sinfulness of our sin.
B. So Daniel piles statement upon statement to confess the sinfulness of their sin. “5 we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules.” So their sins were 1) an offense to God and man, 2) perversion, 3) active and deliberate rebellion, and 4) incurred guilt. “Lord God, I acknowledge that my sin was a deep offense against your holy character, a true perversion of who you created me to be and what you require of me. I have no excuse because I deliberately rebelled against you, and I acknowledge that I am indeed guilty and fully deserve your wrath and condemnation.”
Nor does he seek to minimize or excuse sin in any way. It is not as though they had not heard, did not know, or were not reminded. God was faithful to his covenant promises and repeatedly warned them. “6 We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.”“Lord, we truly have no excuse, because you warned us repeatedly, and we just would not listen.”
C. Decades ago I heard a secular psychologist declare that half the people in mental institutions could be released if they could only believe they were forgiven. What’s standing in the way? It is the full acknowledgement of our sin. After the prayer of confession in our morning worship, I will often quote 1 John 1:9: “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 promise. But you probably already know that the word “confess” means “to agree with God.” The term “homologeo” means “to say the same as.” It may take a while to fully understand the sinfulness of our sin as God sees it. But this kind of self-examination is essential if we are to confess our sin from the heart, that is say the same about our sin as God says about it.
III. WE MUST ACKNOWLEDGE THE JUSTICE OF OUR MISERY AND SHAME.
A. Daniel does not mince words. In fact, he confesses a truth that modern psychology works hard to dismiss. He even says it twice: “7 To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame, as at this day, to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, those who are near and those who are far away, in all the lands to which you have driven them, because of the treachery that they have committed against you. 8 To us, O Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you.”
According to much pop psychology, the deadliest enemy to our psychological wellbeing is shame. How can you maintain a healthy self-esteem if you carry shame around with you? How can you possibly explore the wonder of you on your inward journey of self-discovery if what you see inside is embarrassing, upsetting, and even appalling?
B. Yet I believe it is the failure to admit and to acknowledge our shame that is the most damaging factor in our spiritual dis-ease. With some notable exceptions, the great bulk of the misery we feel in this life is of our own making. Our tendency is to cast ourselves in the best light and to assign only the best of motives to ourselves, while we constantly consider others to be at fault and assign the worst of motives to them. And then we wonder why we are lonely and have trouble getting along with others.
When we were driving home from New Jersey this summer we were somewhere around Chicago in slow traffic, and I tried to change lanes, cutting off another driver. He honked at me and then sped up to give me a dirty look. So I answered with a shrug that said, “Hey, what’s up with you?” His look then went from glaring to what appeared to be a murderous rage. And, I kid you not, he deliberately swerved at me. I then slowed down and pulled over in a parking lot to let him get far, far away, which he did, and I was relieved.
But while I was pitying myself and blaming the other guy, I fell under conviction. I started it;I cut him off. And when he responded, I escalated it, blowing him off with the old shoulder shrug. I’m not sure I deserved him swerving at me, but I certainly deserved the honk and the glare.
C. And if we are to live a life of confession and repentance, we must carefully examine our thoughts, actions, and motives according to God’s Word. And in almost every situation, we will find some failing on our part. “7 To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame, as at this day, to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, those who are near and those who are far away, in all the lands to which you have driven them, because of the treachery that they have committed against you. 8 To us, O Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you.
CONCLUSION
It really is pride that keeps us from such honesty before God, and, Beloved, pride will be the death of us if we do not master it. Two New Testament writers, Peter and James, both found it necessary to quote Proverbs 3:34: “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” If you want to go on maintaining that your sin is no big deal, that it’s probably someone else’s fault, and that you are not to blame for your troubles, then you will run into the side of a mountain of granite. Almighty God will oppose you. If you would stubbornly hold on to your pride and say, “Others may fall, but not me,” then you have no future, certainly no hope for a future.
But if you will examine your life, if you will subject your thoughts and words and deeds and motives to the searchlight of God’s Word, to the penetrating analysis of the Holy Spirit, you will gain a humble and contrite heart which the Lord will not despise. And you will be able to give it up, to lay down the impossible burden of your own self-righteousness. And God will give grace to you in your new and relieved, humble frame of mind.
And I believe it will improve, almost instantly, your relationships with others. You will not be so shocked and offended when others fail you or deliberately sin against you. I’m a little more patient with those who may cut me off in traffic—because I’ve been guilty of the same. And you will be a little less quick to get your back up when others may criticize you or accuse you, even if they do so falsely. Whatever someone may accuse us of, the truth is, that even if we did not commit that particular offense, they don’t have a clue about all the other bad things we have done and have gotten away with. So we can be patient in those circumstances as well.
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