confession of sin

Our Sins Blotted Out

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out… – Acts 3:19

Many Oriental merchants kept their accounts on little tablets of wax. On these tablets of wax, they indented marks which recorded the debts, and when these debts were paid, they took the blunt end of the stylus or pencil, and just flattened down the wax, and the account entirely disappeared. That was the form of “blotting out” in those days. Now, he that repents and is pardoned, is, through the precious blood of Christ, so entirely forgiven, that there is no record of his sin left. It is as though the stylus had levelled the marks in the wax, and there was no record left. What a beautiful picture of the forgiveness of sin! It is all gone, not a trace left. If we blot out an account from our books, there is the blot: the record is gone, but there is the blot; but on the wax tablet there was no blot-it was all gone, and the wax was smooth. So is it with the sin of God’s people when removed by Jesus’ blood, it is all gone and gone for ever. But rest assured it cannot be removed except there be repentance and conversion as the result of faith in Jesus. This must be so, for this is most seemly. Would you expect a great king to forgive an erring courtier unless the offender first confessed his fault? Where is the honour and dignity of the throne of God, if men are to be pardoned while as yet they will not confess their sin? In the next place, it would not be moral; it would be pulling up the very sluices of immorality to tell men that they could be pardoned while they went on in their sins and loved them. What, a thief pardoned and continue to thieve! A harlot forgiven and remain unchaste! The drunkard forgiven and yet delight in his tankards! Truly, then, the gospel would be the servant of unrighteousness, and against us who preach it. But it is not so, impenitent sinners shall be damned, let them boast what they will about grace. My hearer, thou must hate thy sin, or God will hate thee. Thou must turn or burn. Thou canst not have thy sins and go to heaven. Which shall it be? Wilt thou leave thy sins and go to heaven, or hold thy sins and go to hell? Which shall it be, for it must be one or the other; there must be a divorce between us and sin, or there cannot be a marriage between us and Christ. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0804.cfm

Sin is a God-Killing Thing

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, repentance, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

Repent ye therefore… – Acts 3:19

The text says, “Repent ye therefore.” The apostle was logical: he had a reason for his exhortation. It was not mere declamation, but sound reasoning. “Repent ye therefore.” What, then, was the argument? Why, because you, like the Jews, have put Jesus Christ to death. This was literally true of the people to whom he spake: they had had a share in Christ’s execution. And this is spiritually true of you to whom I speak. Every sin in the essence of it is a killing of God. Do you comprehend me? Every time you do what God would not have you do, you do in effect, so far as you can, put God out of His throne, and disown the authority which belongs to His Godhead; you do in intent, so far as you can, kill God. That is the drift of sin-sin is a God-killing thing. Every violation of law is treason in its essence-it is rebellion against the lawgiver. When our Lord Jesus Christ was nailed to the tree by sinners, sin only did then literally and openly what all sin really does in a spiritual sense. Do you understand me? Those offendings of yours which you have thought so little of, have been really a stabbing at the Deity. Will you not repent, if it be so? While you thought your sins to be mere trifles, light things to be laughed at, you would not repent; but now I have shown you (and I think your conscience will bear me out) that every sin is really an attempt to thrust God out of the world, that every sin is saying, “Let there be no God.” Oh! then there is cause enough to repent of it. Come hither and reason with me, thou who hast broken God’s law…If you can really believe that though you did not nail Christ to the cross, nor plait the crown of thorns and put it on His head, nor stand and mock Him there, yet that every sin is a real crucifixion of Christ, and a mockery of Christ, and a slaughter of Christ. Then, truly, there is abundant reason why you should repent and turn from it. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0804.cfm

Man’s Duty and the Spirit’s Work

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, promises, repentance, salvation, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

And when He comes, He will convict the world of its sin, and of God’s righteousness, and of the coming judgment. – John 16:8

Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out… – Acts 3:19

The apostle Peter, addressing the crowd, said to them, “Change your minds; be sorry for what you have done; forsake your old ways; be turned; become new men.” “And yet,” say you, “and yet the apostle Peter actually says to us, ‘Repent, and be converted!’ That is, you tell us with one breath that these things are the gift of the Holy Spirit, and then with the next breath you read the text, ‘Repent, and be converted.'” Ay, I do, I do, and thank God I have learned to do so. But you will say, “How reconcile you these two things?” I answer, it is no part of my commission to reconcile my Master’s words: my commission is to preach the truth as I find it-to deliver it to you fresh from His hand. I hold as firmly as any man living, that repentance and conversion are the work of the Holy Spirit, (and) that it is the duty of men to repent and to believe. “Repent and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out.” If men will not receive truth till they understand it, there are many things which they never will receive. Ay, there are many facts, common facts in nature, which nobody would deny but a fool, which yet must be denied if we will not believe them till we understand them. The power lies not in the sinner, not in the preacher, but in the Holy Spirit, which works effectually with the gospel by divine decree, so that where the truth is preached the elect of God are quickened by it, souls are saved, and God is glorified. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0804.cfm

Repent and Convert

Sherry Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, repentance, salvation Leave a comment

“Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.”- Act 3:19

Repent signifies, in its literal meaning, to change one’s mind. It has been translated, “after-wit,” or “after-wisdom;” it is the man’s finding out that he was wrong and rectifying his judgment…Repentance is a discovery of the evil of sin, a mourning that we have committed it, a resolution to forsake it. It is, in fact, a change of mind of a very deep and practical character, which makes the man love what once he hated, and hate what once he loved. Conversion, if translated, means a turning round, a turning from, and a turning to-a turning from sin, a turning to holiness-a turning from carelessness to thought, from the world to heaven, from self to Jesus-a complete turning. The word here used, though translated in the English, “Repent and be converted,” is not so in the Greek; it is really, “Repent and convert,” or, rather, “Repent and turn.” It is an active verb, just as the other was. “Repent and turn.” When the demoniac had the devils cast out of him-I may compare that to repentance; but when he put on his garments, and was no longer naked and filthy, but was said to be clothed and in his right mind, I may compare that to conversion. When the prodigal was feeding his swine, and on a sudden began to consider and to come to himself, that was repentance. When he set out and left the far country, and went to his father’s house, that was conversion. Repentance is a part of conversion. It is, perhaps, I may say, the gate or door of it. It is that Jordan through which we pass when we turn from the desert of sin to seek the Canaan of conversion. Regeneration is the implanting of a new nature, and one of the earliest signs of that is a faith in Christ, and a repentance of sin, and a consequent conversion from that which is evil to that which is good. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0804.cfm

Go to Christ Himself at Once

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, prayer, promises, repentance, salvation Leave a comment

Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings. 

Behold, we come unto Thee; for Thou art the LORD our God. – Jeremiah 3:22

“Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings.” Can you hear these words without emotion? Backslider! I pray thee take the wings of God’s love to fly back to Him with. But I hear you enquiring, Will He still receive me? Shall I be once more-

“To the Father’s bosom pressed,
Once again a child confessed.”

It shall be so. Does He not declare that He is God and changes not, and therefore you are not consumed? Rekindled are the flames of love in the backslider’s bosom when he feels all this to be true; he cries, “Behold, we come to Thee for Thou art the Lord our God.” I pray you, then, any of you who are conscious of gross derelictions of duty, and wanderings of heart, do not ask Moses to lead you back to Christ, he knows the way to Sinai’s flames, but not to Calvary’s pardoning blood. Go to Christ Himself at once. If you go to the law and begin to judge yourself, if you get the notion that you are to undergo a sort of spiritual quarantine, that you must pass through a mental purgatory before you may renew your faith in the Saviour, you are mistaken. Come just as you are, bad as you are, hardened, cold, dead as you feel yourselves to be, come even so, and believe in the boundless love of God in Christ Jesus. Then shall come the deep repentance; then shall come the brokenness of heart; then shall come the holy jealousy, the sacred hatred of sin, and the refining of the soul from all her dross; then, indeed, all good things shall come to restore your soul, and lead you in the paths of righteousness. Do not look for these first; that would be looking for the effects before the cause. The great cause of love in the restored backslider must still be the love of God to him, to whom he clings with a faith that dares not let go its hold. – C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1008.cfm

Return to Your Lord, Backslider

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, prayer, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God 1 Comment

…but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to Me, saith the LORD. – Jeremiah 3:1

It is sadly probable that there are some who once loved God very earnestly, but now they have declined and become grievously indifferent; God’s love to us never changes, but ours too often sinks to a low ebb. Perhaps some of you have become so cold in your affections that it is difficult to be sure that you ever did love God at all. It may be that your life has become lax, so as to deserve the censure of the Church. You are a backslider, and you are in a dangerous condition; yet, if there be indeed spiritual life in you, you will wish to return. You have gone astray like a lost sheep, but your prayer is, “seek Thy servant, for I do not forget Thy commandments.” Now, note well, that the cause which originated your love is the same which must restore it. You went to Christ as a sinner at first, and your first act was to believe the love of God to you when there was nothing in you that evidenced it. Go the same way again. Do not stop, my dear brother, to pump up love out of the dry well within yourself! Do not think it possible that love will come at your bidding. If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned. Think of the Lord’s unchanging grace, and you will feel the spring-time of love returning to your soul. Still doth the Lord reserve mercy for the sinful, still He waiteth to be gracious; He is as willing to receive you now that you have played the prodigal, as He was to have retained you at home in the bosom of His love. Many considerations ought to aid you, backslider, to believe more in the love of God than ever you did. For think what love it must be that can invite you still to return; you, who after knowing so much have sinned against light and knowledge; you, who after having experienced so much, have given the lie to your profession…But thus saith the Lord, “Thou hast played the harlot with many lovers, yet return unto Me.” What matchless love is this. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1008.cfm

Simply Asking

Sherry Attributes of God, confession of sin, prayer, salvation Leave a comment

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God… – James 1:5

No man will ask wisdom till he knows that he is ignorant. Come, dear hearer, confess your ignorance into the ear of God, who is as present here as you are; say unto Him, “Lord, I have discovered now that I am not so wise as I thought I was; I am foolish and vain. Lord, teach Thou me.” Make a full confession, and this shall be a good beginning for prayer.

Asking has also in it the fact the God is believed in. We cannot ask of a person of whose existence we have any doubt, and we will not ask of a person of whose hearing us we have serious suspicions. Who would stand in the desert of Sahara and cry aloud, where there is no living ear to hear? Now, my dear hearer, thou believest that there is a God. Ask, then!

There is in this method of approaching God by asking a clear sight that salvation is by grace. It does not say, “Let him buy of God, let him demand of God, let him earn from God.” Oh! no-“let him ask of God.” It is the beggar’s word. The beggar asks alms. You are to ask as the beggar asks of you in the street, and God will give to you far more liberally than ye to the poor. You must confess that you have no merit of your own. If you will not acknowledge that, neither will God hear your prayers; but come now with the acknowledgment of ignorance, with the confession of sin, and believing that God is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, and He will even now give you the wisdom which saves the soul. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0735.cfm