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Transcript 093E — Gaining Victory Over Sin
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Good evening. Would you please explain something to me? Are you supposed to ask God for forgiveness for a sin for which you have already asked forgiveness? If it still annoys you, does that mean that that sin hasn't been forgiven? And how to you overcome such feelings? I really want to be with the Lord so much, and be on good terms with Him. How do you do it?
HC: Yes. I'll try to explain some of these things.
CALLER: Thank you.
HC: Thank you. Good night
What do we do when we find that we have sinned, and the guilt just stays with us? That is the nature of sin, you see. It troubles us. Now one of the prerequisites of salvation is that we trust God implicitly for what He says.
Now in I John 1:9 we read: "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Now God is not lying to us. He means what He says. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Now the problem arises in the meaning of the word confess. If we go to the Lord and, with our mouth, state to God that we have sinned, that we are sorry for our sins, forgive our sins, that is not confession. We ordinarily think of the word confess as meaning just to admit the truth, putting it in words, so to speak. But that isn't the meaning of the word confess in I John 1.
The word confess there really means that we not only declare to God that we have sinned, but that we also have repented of that sin, that we have become of like mind with God. You see, one of the problems in life is that we like sin. And so we sin, and we feel troubled in our heart about it, and we tell the Lord about it, but we're not ready to give up that sin, because we like it too much. So we tell the Lord about it, and we don't really feel at ease in our conscience. We somehow sense that maybe the Lord hasn't forgiven that sin. Maybe I'm still under God's wrath.
And this is particularly enhanced or encouraged by the fact that we continue to do that sin, even while we're confessing it. That is, while we're telling the Lord about that sin, we know that tomorrow or the next day, when the same temptation will arise, we'll commit that sin all over again. And so we sense in our own soul that there is something that's wrong here.
Well, the thing that's wrong is that true confession—if we're going to understand what the Bible means by true confession—has to do with repentance, that we go to the Lord, "Oh, Lord, have mercy on me, I'm a sinner, I did this, I did that, and I don't want to sin anymore" and realizing that this is wrong, that this is rebellious against God, realizing that this can't be. I am taking steps to turn away from it. I'm walking the other way, so to speak. I'm not engaging, I don't want to engage in that activity anymore, whatever it is "Oh, Lord, will you strengthen me? Will you give me victory over this sin?"
Now that's true confession, and when we do that, then we can know that it has been forgiven. "He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins." You see, in other words, at that point we are abandoning ourself to God. We are really saying, effectively, "I want Christ. I want Him only to be the King of my life. I want to live the way He wants me to live. I don't want to do my own thing anymore. I want to cast my lot with Christ. I want to hang my life on Him."
That's what true confession is, and that's also what salvation is. When we hang our life on Christ.
Now part of this faith, or part of this trust that we are beginning to manifest in our life has to do with accepting God's statement when He says that He became sin for us, that He died on the cross for our sins, that He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleans us from all unrighteousness. We must take God at His Word.
Now if you, first of all, try to say, "Okay, I know I don't want to sin anymore. I'm sick of my sin. I don't want to be in bondage to sin anymore. I don't want to go through life being rebellious against God," and so you've begun to take steps of repentance, you've begun to cry out to God for mercy, and now if you begin to say, "Oh, if I could only understand how Christ could forgive me, if I could only understand how this all works, because until I understand it I can't accept the fact that He will forgive me," that isn't salvation, either.
We simply trust what the Bible declares, because God declared it. And we don't understand it. Who can understand the mind of God? Who can really penetrate all the aspects of what this wonderful salvation is. All we know is that God declares, "If you turn to Me, I will abundantly pardon." All we know is that if we confess our sins, if we repent of our sins, and acknowledge our guilt before God, and cry out to Him for mercy, He is faithful and just to forgive us from all iniquity.
And we say, "Oh, Lord, I don't understand such a marvelous salvation. I don't understand such grace. I don't understand how You could be so merciful, but I accept it, because You declared it to me. You are Eternal God. You are the One I trust. And whatever You tell me, I trust that it is so. And therefore I rejoice that I can know that my sins are forgiven. I know that I am confessing my sins, because I know that I don't want to sin anymore. I know that as You strengthen me, I will continue to turn away from that sin. I don't want to sin anymore."
That's what salvation is all about.