#509  DRAWN TO REPENTANCE

Sermon #306 CONFESSION BEFORE FORGIVENESS No. 2

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness,” 1 John 1:8-9. 

Did you know that because of the fall we have hard hearts, and a hardened heart will hinder us in confessing our sins to one another, and it will hinder us in confessing our sins to God? The law cannot soften a hardened heart. The more we lash each other with the whip of the law, the harder our hearts become. Guilt cannot melt it. I can put you on a guilt trip and show you what a terrible transgressor you are, but this will not melt a hard and stony heart. The pangs of hell in a man’s conscience cannot break down the rebellion of the heart. That is why we do not have a gospel of hell and damnation.

All the lightening and thunder of Mt. Sinai drove the people away. They fled from the Lord. That does not melt a hard and stony heart.

Watch what we read in Jeremiah 31:9: “They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them: I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble: for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.”

Yet the Lord sends His Spirit with a blessed revelation of His love, compassion and tender fatherly care. We find the rivers not on the mountain but in the valley of humiliation. Rivers run downhill. There is no exaltation there. It is a continual flowing of humility, and it comes with weeping. The love of God draws us to repentance.

Sometimes the Lord will compel a confession out of us by laying death and hell before our eyes, but most often He will draw it out by melting our hearts with a revelation of His love. The Lord is the One who brings us to confess, and we must confess before we receive forgiveness.

We read in 1 John 4:8-9: “He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.” 

The Lord brings a confession out of our hearts when He starts manifesting the love of God toward us because God sent His only begotten Son into the world to suffer, bleed and die to pay the price of our sins. Now we see the tender love of the Father. That is what brings us with weeping and supplication. That is what brings us into the rivers and the valley of humiliation. This is not preaching hell and damnation.

Continuing in verse 10 we read: “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” Now watch what follows. He is looking for the fruit. Verse 11 says: “Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.”  Now do you understand why the Apostle John said: “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar” (1 John 4:20)?

See the condescension of God’s love in 2 Corinthians 5:18-20: “And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.”

I want you to see how God first loved us. God reconciled the world to Himself by sending His own Son to suffer, bleed and die, to pay the price of sin, to appease the Father’s wrath upon sin. He sent His servants to proclaim that reconciliation is in place from God’s side.

Where is the separation between you and God? Is it on His side or on yours? It is because of our hard hearts, that rebellion in the heart by nature that can only be broken by the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit works the work of regeneration in the heart and breaks that rebellion. The separation is on our part. The fault is with us, not God.

No one standing on the brink of eternity will ever be able to say he could not be saved because of a limited atonement. God is reconciling Himself to the world, and we are to be reconciled with Him. The fault is with man, not with God. That rebellion of the heart has kept us apart. 

Where is the hindrance to you being saved? Where is the hindrance to a person being at one with Christ? It is the rebellion and the hardness of heart whereby they refuse to acknowledge their sin. The Lord melts that hard heart with a revelation of His love. Amen.

“Whosoever will” the promise is secure;
“Whosoever will” forever must endure;
“Whosoever will” ‘tis life for ever more.
“Whosoever will,” “Whosoever will, whosoever will,”
Send the proclamation over vale and hill;
‘Tis a loving Father calls the wanderer home;
“Whosoever will” may come.

Philip P. Bliss, 1838-1876.

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