Is confession really necessary?

There is a wonderful promise found in Proverbs 28:13. "The one who conceals his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and renounces them will find mercy." Speaking from experience, the issue in this verse is not whether or not we will sin. It is a foregone conclusion that we will stray from God’s commands each day. The issue addressed in this verse is whether or not we will acknowledge our shortcomings, confess them and turn from them.


But isn’t it within human nature to try and conceal our sins? Rather than face the immediate consequences of our failures, we would rather deny our shortcomings and hope that we won’t be found out. Yet, God’s Word is clear when it says in Numbers 32:23 - "...you may be sure that your sin will find you out."


One such illustration is found in 2 Samuel 11-12. In chapter 11, we read about how King David lazily stayed home from battle while his army was out fighting. One evening, he went for a walk on the roof of his palace and saw a woman taking a bath. Instead of immediately turning away, he gawked and lusted.


Sin is never satisfied. It is like a cancer that is not content unless it grows and spreads. As he lusted, his heart began to race. His sexual engine began to throttle up. Simultaneously, his logic and his desire for holiness was shut down. His racing passions were begging to find expression and so he abused his power and sent for the woman.


That evening, he took what didn’t belong to him. He grossly abused his position as a leader and violated a woman that was not his to claim. And when he was done with her, with only regard for his own personal passions and desires, he sent her back to her home.


But sin is like a cancer. It grows. It spreads. When he found out that Bathsheba was pregnant with his baby, he realized that he left some tracks that needed to be covered. He called for her husband, Uriah, who was loyally fighting for David on the battlefield. He encouraged Uriah to spend some “time” with his wife. If that happened, David surmised, Uriah would think that the baby was his. The only ones who would know the truth were David … and Bathsheba who may have been plagued with guilt with the secret she withheld from her husband.


But sin is like a cancer. It grows. It spreads. Uriah refused to go home and enjoy his wife. He knew that he had left his comrades on the battle field who did not have such a privilege. It wouldn’t be fair for him to enjoy what his men could not. So David sent Uriah back to the battlefield.


But David did something unimaginable. He sent Uriah with an unopened note that guaranteed his death. David orchestrated a plan in which Uriah would be killed on the battlefield. The plan succeeded and an innocent man died because he did not participate in the cover-up of David’s sin. 


David continued to obstinately sit on the sin and refused to make it right. He had lusted, committed adultery with Bathsheba, tried to cover it up, planned and carried out Uriah’s death … and still he refused to acknowledge it.


All the while, 2 Samuel 11:27 says, “…the Lord considered what David had done to be evil.” (That may not sound too bad. Yet Joshua 7 recounts a story of how God’s anger burned against the whole nation of Israel because of one man’s sin.) We can only imagine who was being hurt by David’s sin and his subsequent refusal to acknowledge, confess and forsake it and then take the consequences.


In 2 Samuel 12, God sent a man to David. David was living a lie and so God moved to expose it. Listen to 2 Samuel 12:1-9:


“So the Lord sent Nathan to David. When he arrived, he said to him: ‘There were two men in a certain city, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had a large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one small ewe lamb that he had bought. It lived and grew up with him and his children. It shared his meager food and drank from his cup; it slept in his arms, and it was like a daughter to him. Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man could not bring himself to take one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for his guest.’ David was infuriated with the man and said to Nathan: ‘As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this deserves to die! Because he has done this thing and shown no pity, he must pay four lambs for that lamb.’ Nathan replied to David, ‘You are the man! This is what the Lord God of Israel says: ‘I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave your master’s house to you and your master’s wives into your arms, and I gave you the house of Israel and Judah, and if that was not enough, I would have given you even more. Why then have you despised the command of the Lord by doing what I consider evil? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife as your own wife – you murdered him with the Ammonite’s sword.’”


If you continue to read the chapter, you realize that because of David’s sin and refusal to acknowledge it, God was going to bring dire consequences into David’s life. What David had dreaded came upon him anyway. He learned firsthand the principle found in Numbers 32:23 - "...you may be sure that your sin will find you out."


We all fail. While some offenses are greater than others, we all sin. God’s message is clear. He will not bless us when we fail to acknowledge our sin and refuse to repent. In fact, He will come after us until we make it right (Hebrews 12:5-6).


One final thought: Christians are quite capable of concealing sin – for a period of time. Yet, if we live a lie and take measures to conceal our sin and never acknowledge it, we may be evidencing fruit that testifies to the fact that we were never a Christ-follower after all. In that case, the Lord would say on the day of judgment: "Depart from Me, I never knew you." An unimaginably horrific thought!


The following verse is pretty abrasive but it was no less abrasive when Jesus spoke it. John 8:44 “You are of your father the Devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and has not stood in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks from his own nature, because he is a liar and the father of liars.”


David experienced consequences for his sin but he also enjoyed renewed fellowship with the Lord as he was moved to acknowledge and confess his sins. That renewed fellowship is yours to enjoy. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).


What is your response?

Sean's birthday - a day we'll never forget!

As the cake bakes and the ice cream gets ready to be devoured, Kim and I can’t help but remember the day that God blessed us with our second son. Everyone has a few days in their life that, for various reasons, stand out above the rest. Those days may even be remembered with vivid detail until death comes. Well, that day (exactly 10 years ago today) is one of ours. Here’s the story:

Kim woke me up at about 1:30 in the morning. For me, 1:30 only comes one time a day and it takes place just past lunch time. However, the announcement of Zach’s arrival had come at the same time two years earlier and so I came to realize that an inconvenient pattern was beginning to develop. But, hey, this was the day that my second son was to be born and so I jumped out of bed and got moving.

Our 2-year-old Zach was sound asleep in his room down the hall but that wasn’t a problem. We had worked out a plan if Sean’s arrival came during the night. However, it didn’t quite turn out as we had planned.

We had previously talked with my sister and brother-in-law who lived about a mile away. Should Sean decide to come at night, one of them would come over to our house and stay with Zach while we went to the hospital. I picked up the phone and dialed the phone number a few times but no avail. They were sound asleep. But it was 1:30am, after all. Ordinarily, I’d be sleeping soundly, too.

I raced out the door to exercise “plan B.” I arrived at their home a few minutes later and began to have second thoughts about ringing their door bell. They had two young girls that where asleep inside that house. If I rang the doorbell, I would probably wake up my nieces while my son lay asleep at home. That didn’t seem fair. So I went to “plan C.”

I brainstormed and came up with a stupid idea. I found a couple of empty coke bottles in my car and started throwing them at my sister’s upstairs window. The first one missed. I threw a second one just as the front of the house lit up. It wasn’t coming from the front porch. It was coming from a car that had  pulled up behind me. It was a state trooper.

Now, if you were that state trooper and you saw someone throwing coke bottles at the second story window of a residence at 2 in the morning, what would you think? Naturally, he wanted to know what I was doing. He may have been reaching for a breathalyzer.

After a crazy explanation, he volunteered to ring the doorbell for me but I decided that I would go to “plan D.” I went back home and Kim called some other friends of ours who took a sleeping Zach from us as we headed to the hospital.

We ended up at a training hospital because Kim’s regularly OBGYN was out of town hunting moose. That created a little bit of anxiety for Kim until she heard the last name of the doctor who would deliver our second son, Dr. Zachman. In fact, Zach’s nickname around our house at that time was “Zach man.” We found comfort in knowing that God was working out the details.

Kim was prepped for the c-section (she had previously had an emergency c-section and was encouraged to have another one because of potential risks). The painkiller was administered and I was ushered to her side. The surgery began.

Because of the previous c-section, there was a lot of scar tissue which made the procedure take longer … definitely longer than the anesthetist had allowed for. The anesthetist, as I understood it, was doing his residency while his mentor was stepping in and out of the surgery room.

After what seemed like an hour, Sean was born. I had the privilege of taking him in my arms and following a nurse out of the surgery room, down a hallway and into the room where he would get cleaned up, have a few tests run, get his foot print on his certificate of birth, etc.

However, my heart wasn’t in it. I loved my new son but wanted, in fact felt compelled to get back to the surgery room. Kim had been complaining of pain much more so than during Zach’s birth. As I retook my place beside her, the doctors were still doing a lot of work on her. Cleaning, stitches, etc.

That’s when the nightmare happened. She had started complaining much earlier that she could feel her feet. That wasn’t good because the epidural was supposed to block all feeling below the chest. She was also saying that she could feel them working on her abdomen. The anesthetist in training assured her that it was just pressure. He gently encouraged her to just relax and everything would be fine.

Soon, Kim said that she could feel her lower legs and eventually her upper legs. She began to cry and moan from the pain she said that she was experiencing as the doctors continued to work.

Finally, as the doctor’s neared the end of the surgery and began to do some pushing, Kim screamed and almost jumped off the table. One of the doctor’s whispered below her breath, “What’s going on?!”

As Kim’s cries and obvious signs of pain could no longer be denied, I’ll never forget the look one of the doctors gave me. She had a mask and hat that covered everything but her eyes. As she looked at me, there was horror in her eyes. We both knew that the epidural had been allowed to run out. The anesthetist in training had failed to allow for the extra time the c-section would take because of scar tissue left from the previous surgery.

I was immediately ushered away from Kim’s side to a room across the hall where I was left alone. Doctors and nurses were barging in and out of the surgery room doors. As those doors flew open, I was able to watch in horror as Kim continued to cry out. I felt utterly helpless and scared.

The next ten minutes seemed like an eternity but the newly administered sedation took affect and Kim’s surgery was completed.

About 30 minutes later, Kim was back in the post-op room. They brought Sean, our new pride and joy into the room. He was bundled tightly in a blanket and the pride I felt mimicked what I had experienced 2 years earlier at the birth of my first son. As Sean was placed in Kim’s arms, with all of the pain and trauma she had just experienced, she still had “that” look … the look a new mother has for her child.

As I think back on that day, I cannot help but reflect on the significance of the name we gave our second son. We gave him the name “Sean” because it means “God is gracious.” Even as we went through the ordeal of that day, we realized that God, in His grace, had entrusted us with a healthy son and Kim had no lasting problems from the ordeal.

But we were also reminded that God’s grace does not guarantee that life will always go well. If life was easy, why would we need God’s grace, right? But it is in those time of trial that God’s grace shows up in all of its beauty.

We continue to enjoy God’s gracious gift that He gave to us that memorable day ten years ago. We also look forward to how God will continue to shine His grace upon us and Sean as he grows into the godly man God is preparing him to be.

Private sins - do they exist?

As I write this, the news cycles and talking radio heads are rehashing Congressman Anthony Weiner’s confession and his actions that required such a confession.

There are many principles we could draw from his confession but for the purpose of this post, let’s focus on why it is necessary to acknowledge our wrongdoings and make restitution where necessary when offenses have taken place.

Let’s begin with a passage from Joshua 22:20 - “Didn’t divine anger fall on the entire community of Israel when Achan, a member of the clan of Zerah, sinned by stealing the things set apart for the Lord? He was not the only one who died because of his sin.” (New Living Translation)

The tone in which those words were spoken may have been marked by fear, anger and disbelief. The 2½ tribes of Israel (that settled the land east of the Jordan River) had built an altar in the Jordan Valley. When the Israelites (that claimed the land west of the Jordan River) heard of this, they “assembled at Shiloh to go to war against them” (Joshua 22:12).

They assumed that the 2½ tribes were setting up a place of worship that would rival the tabernacle. If this was their motive (which it wasn’t), it would be a serious sin against Almighty God.

So why did the Israelites care about this matter at all? It was a simple altar and it wasn’t hurting anyone, right? Besides, it could even be argued that it was none of the Israelite’s business, right? Wrong.

The answer is found in Joshua 22:20. “Didn’t divine anger fall on the entire community of Israel when Achan, a member of the clan of Zerah, sinned by stealing the things set apart for the Lord? He was not the only one who died because of his sin.”

One sin, committed by one person, could bring divine judgment upon others in the group. It had happened when Achan committed a “small”, private sin and thirty six men died in battle as a result.

The Israelites were convinced that God would probably do the same thing again if this questionable altar in the Jordan Valley wasn’t destroyed. God may move to kill more people.

This doesn’t seem fair, does it? In fact, it seems to cut right at the root of God’s justice. If God is fair and completely just in His actions, why would He bring harm to those around me if my sin is private and isn’t hurting anyone?

And what do you do with Ezekiel 18:20? “The person who sins is the one who will die. A son won’t suffer punishment for the father’s iniquity, and a father won’t suffer punishment for the son’s iniquity. The righteousness of the righteous person will be on him, and the wickedness of the wicked person will be on him.”

Let’s suppose that I commit some sin (a “small”, private sin) that brings displeasure with God. According to Hebrews 12:6, “…the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and punishes every son whom He receives.” The Lord will discipline me in some way that is fitting but according to Ezekiel 18:20, He won’t discipline my wife or children. He won’t “spank” one of my boys for a sin that I have committed.

So, what’s Joshua 22:20 talking about? Let me answer that with an illustration.

Last year, I went on a trip to Ecuador. We landed in Quito and then took a long bus ride over the Andes Mountains to Shell on the edge of the Amazon jungle. For those of us who remained awake during that trip, we vividly remember how frightening it was to look out our window at times and see the 1,000+/- foot drop to the valley floor.

Suppose the bus driver wanted to get us to Shell as quickly as possible and so he broke the speed limit on those mountain passes. Let’s further suppose that as he entered one of those dangerous turns, he realized too late that he was traveling too quickly to navigate the turn. As a result, we all went over the edge of the cliff and plunged to our deaths.

Let me ask a question: Who was the one who sinned? Not me! I was sitting quietly in my seat reading a great book. Others on the bus were sleeping. How can you sin while you’re sleeping?

Possibly, the only one sinning was the bus driver. But who experienced the consequences of that sin? All of us! We were all a part of the group that was on the bus.

Suppose that bus driver had a close friend on the bus. Maybe he even had a child on board that he loved dearly. Would they have been spared the fate the rest of us experienced simply because the bus driver cared about them? Of course not. The fact is that the sin of speeding committed by the bus driver caused all of us in that bus to experience the consequences of that sin.

The fact is that while we were riding the bus, we happened to be a part of the group that included the bus driver. If he sinned and it brought on consequences, any of us in that group may have experienced those consequences … even if we were completely unaware of the offense.

So, did those 36 men in Joshua 7 lose their lives because God was punishing them for Achan’s sin? No. But Achan’s “private” sin removed God’s hand of blessing from the group he was a part of. It was because of Achan’s private offense that consequences directed at Achan’s group happened to land on 36 unsuspecting, innocent bystanders.

None of us lives in a vacuum, especially in regard to our pursuit of holiness. If you or I are engaged in sin or haven’t confessed and made amends for previous wrongdoings, we may be responsible for harm that comes to those we love.

There is no such thing as a “private” sin.

Book Review: "Decision Making by the Book" by Haddon Robinson

With all of the decisions we make each day and with our desire to please God in those choices, this book provides a biblical approach to good decision making by a trusted author.

This book will help you to understand the following and so much more:

• how prone we are to use unbiblical methods to make decisions,
• how a faulty view of God's will and God's sovereignty puts undo stress on us when we face decisions,
• how the Scriptures provide clear, simple steps for good decision making (i.e. prayer, searching the Scriptures, seeking wise counsel, etc.)

I had a few drawbacks, namely, that the author dealt much more with the objective and less with the subjective aspect of decision making. However, over all, I enjoyed this book and plan to reread it again soon.

Sermon (video): Walking Worthy of Our Calling (Ephesians 4:1-6)

So, you're saved! That's great news! But did you know that there's so much more to being saved than simply waiting on your ride to Heaven? It's the opportunity to become usable to God by becoming more like Jesus. Listen to this sermon and be encouraged on your pursuit of holiness by clicking here.

 

Video: Kayaking on the Weekie Wachee River

I recently took a trip down the Weekie Wachee River in a kayak. It was a relaxing ride and the video I took provides about 6 1/2 minutes of beautiful scenery with the sounds of Florida's backwoods. The end of the video (at 5:35) shows an encounter a few of us had with about 9 manatees.

Just click here to view the video.

Book Review: "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom

I recently read “The Hiding Place” again and enjoyed it even more than the first time. This is an incredible book that recounts one Christian family’s faith that stands as an inspiration to all who take the time to observe.

Corrie ten Boom begins the book by familiarizing the reader with what life was like at their home in Holland. The reader quickly realizes that life at the Beje (their home) was simple and eventless, at least when compared with 21^st century American life. And yet, in their quiet way, they lived out their faith. Then, one day, they were confronted with an opportunity to secretly protect a Jew during the rise of the Third Reich. Soon, the Beje would be a haven for many Jews in hiding. The home was eventually raided by German soldiers and the ten Booms were taken away.

The second half of the book recounts Corrie’s (and her sister, Betsie’s) experience in Nazi concentration camps. With great detail and pathos, she describes their unimaginably horrific treatment, the comfort she found from her sister Betsie, Betsie’s death and Corrie’s final release from the Ravensbruck concentration camp.

Throughout the book, the reader gets to observe and learn from Corrie’s graplings with many issues that contemporary Christians question: 1) why bad things happen to “good” people, 2) how to survive and grow in times of trial, 3) how to overcome evil with good, 4) how to love the unlovable, 5) the thoughtfulness required to determine how to think/behave in times of decision, 6) the relevancy of fellowship with Jesus in the tough times, etc.

Anyone who reads this book will not come to the final chapter without some change taking place in their minds and heart. Corrie’s story will no doubt impact readers for many generations to come.