What is the purpose of confession? How do we sincerely confess?

<p>What is the purpose of confession? How do we sincerely confess?</p>

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Amazing Facts

Doug Batchelor

Sincere Confession

This presentation is brought to you by the Friends of the Amazing Facts Ministry.

The height of your spiritual experience is going to be in exact proportion to the depth of your repentance and your confession.

Now I always like to use a story as a springboard and I'm going to turn to 1 that I think you'll find familiar.

It's in the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 15, verse 11.

And Jesus said, there was a certain man that had 2 sons and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.

So he divided to them his livelihood, his inheritance.

And not many days after the younger son gathered all together and he journeyed to a far country and there he wasted his possessions with prodigal living, sinful living.

But when he had spent all there arose a severe famine in that land and he began to be in want.

And he went and he joined himself to a citizen in that country and he sent him out into his fields to feed swine.

And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no 1 gave him anything.

Now, living a life of sin, this young man realized that he had squandered his opportunities, he had squandered his father's blessings, and every sinner ultimately will realize that before they repent.

That God has given me so many opportunities and blessings and time, and we waste it all selfishly.

And he starts to think about when he was back in the father's house.

It's almost like it's describing sin as a form of insanity.

And he said, How many of my Father's hired servants have bread enough to spare my father's servants eat to the full and I perish with hunger.

Whoever believes in him might not perish.

You either have everlasting life through Jesus and the new heart being born again or perishing.

You know what satisfies that hunger for bread?

I will arise and go to my father's house.

He's making a decision to go towards his father.

Now the promise is in James, if we draw near to God, James chapter 4 or James chapter 2 verses, 4 through 7, he will draw near to us.

And so we want to be drawing near to God.

He said, I will go to my father and I'll say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.

He's got this speech of confession in his mouth, and he rose and he comes to his father.

He says, I will go to my father and I'll say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.

He's got this speech of confession in his mouth and he rose and he comes to his father.

He had compassion and he ran and he fell on his neck and he kissed him and the son said, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight and I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.

As soon as he confesses, the father reacts by a completely embracing and adopting him back into the family, says you are my son calls for his servants and he says, bring out the best robe and put it on him, put a ring on his hand, meaning that he was now going to have the authority of the family to emphasize this young man came to himself.

He repented, but then he realized, I will say to my father, there was something he needed to say.

You can read where Paul says in the book of Romans chapter 14, for it is written as I live, says the Lord, every knee will bow to me and every tongue will confess.

Tonight we're going to talk very specifically about an important part of the Christian experience, the conversion experience that has to do with sincere confession.

Now, don't be afraid of confessing to God because God knows everything.

You know, we're living in a an interesting time in the world's history where it seems like no matter where you go now, cameras are rolling and, you know, people can even go to websites where they can look through satellites and see what's happening on the earth from space all over the world.

She'll see that I'm on a program called Google Earth and I'm looking all over the world to see if I can find deserted islands.

But everywhere you go now, everything it seems like is being recorded.

And more than ever, you know, in the cities for security, we just installed a video doorbell so that whenever anyone comes to our door, I know it's old technology for most people, but it was very interesting for me.

Whenever anyone comes to our doorbell and they ring the door, we get an alert on their phone.

The funny thing is every time Karen goes to get the mail every day, I get an alert that sees her.

Our son goes out to jog and I see him out in the front yard.

They don't know I'm watching, but it's like there's cameras everywhere.

There are angels that record everything we say.

Jesus said in the judgment, you'll give an account for every idle word that you speak.

Jesus says in Luke, chapter 12, verse 2, for there is nothing covered that will not be revealed nor hidden that will not be known.

Therefore, whatever has been spoken in the dark will be heard in the light.

And whatever you have spoken in the ear in inner rooms will be proclaimed on the house tops.

Ecclesiastes 12 verse 14 for God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing.

We think nobody knows everything will give an answer for.

And you may have sinned and thought, Well, I got away with that.

Everything that's done in secret will be ultimately proclaimed from the housetops unless it is confessed, repented of forsaken, and you want it under the blood of Jesus.

You know, I'm 1 reason I became a Christian is because I saw providentially you don't ever get away with anything.

I was a thief and I realized I never really got away with anything And I just became convinced there must be a God because it seemed like we started calling it karma.

Seemed like something always went wrong when you try to do the wrong thing.

And you know what they say on the streets is what goes around comes around.

Nobody ever really gets away with anything.

And so I'm sharing this sort of as a background, why it is important to confess, because you'll never really get ahead by doing wrong or by disobeying God.

Paul says, There is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of him with whom we must give an account.

And they would behave if they knew that God is always recording.

You know, we had a little church up in the hills and I had the strangest sound system, just had an inexpensive radio shack sound system and something about the length of the wires to the speakers.

And whenever any airplane flew over or an ambulance went by, I've never run into it before.

It seemed to pick up their frequencies and it would broadcast it in the church.

So while you're in there in the church and you're preaching, all of a sudden you would hear the ambulance drivers talking on the radio.

And sometimes what even ambulance drivers say to each other is not appropriate to broadcast in a church.

And I wondered if they only knew that what they think they're saying just on the radio to the dispatch is being broadcast in the local church.

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Sincere Confession

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