This message is in 2 parts. Part 2 follows after, which will be the previous post according to blogger.
Rom 10:10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness & with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Let us look at the word confess..... we find there are four kinds of confession in the New Testament, we will look closely at them because there is much confusion with the subject of confession.
(1)The Jews confession of sin. There is the teaching of John the Baptist & Jesus' teaching the Jews which was confession of sin.
Mk 1: 4-5 John came baptising in the wilderness & preaching a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. Then all the land of Judea & those from Jerusalem went out to him & were baptised by him in the Jordan river confessing there sins.
Mk 1:14-15 Now after John was put into prison Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God. & saying " the time is fulfilled & the kingdom of God is at hand Repent & believe in the gospel.
(2) The confession of the sinner under the New Covenant. In this confession Jesus made a very important statement in the New Testament in Jn 16:7-11 nevertheless I will tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart I will send Him to you. & when He has come HE WILL CONVICT THE WORLD OF SIN,& of righteousness & of judgement; of sin BECAUSE THEY DO NOT BELIEVE IN ME, of righteousness, because I go to My Father & you see Me no more; of judgement because the ruler of this world is judged.
Notice that Jesus said in V9 Of sin because they do not believe in Me. Jesus is saying that the sinner will be convicted by the Holy Spirit of all but one sin, & that is the sin of rejecting Jesus.
How many times have we insisted that the sinner must confess all sins in order to be saved, well actually no one could confess all the sins he's ever committed, no one could even think of all the wrong things he's ever done. NO the main confession he must make is the Lordship of Jesus
Rom 10:9That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus & believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead you will be saved.
(3) The believers confession of his sins. this confession is when he is out of fellowship with God Jn 1"9 tells that if we confess our sins He is faithful & just to forgive us & James 5 :16 tells us quiet plainly that if we confess our faults to one another that we may be healed.
(4) The believers confession of faith. in this confession we MUST confess our faith in the Word, in Christ & in God the Father.
It is so important that we make the distinction between the confession of the sins of the Jews under the old covenant to whom Jesus & John the Baptised were talking,& the confession of sins of the sinner under the New Covenant who has never met Christ.
Matt 3:5-6 Then Jerusalem, all Judea, & all the region around the Jordan went out to Him (John) & were baptised by him in the Jordan confessing their sins.
This is a picture of God's covenant people confessing their sins & being baptised by John. It is important to note that this is not a CHRISTIAN baptism, Jesus had not yet died & risen, & John did NOT baptise in the Name of the Father & the Name of the Son & the Holy Spirit he only baptised in the Name of the Farther. These were Jews under the law, & under the old covenant, before Jesus' death, burial & resurrection.
Acts 19:18 & many who had believed came confessing & telling their deeds. These were Gentiles it doesn’t say what they confessed but quiet plain that they were believers who were confessing their sins of practising magical arts.
Now I want you to know that they were not confessing there sins in order to be saved, the Bible tells they were already saved, you see it was so much easier to confess their wrong doings already being saved.
Eph 2: 4-7 tells us that God is rich in mercy, he has a great love for us & even when we were dead in trespass He made us alive together with Christ by grace we have been saved, He has raised us up together & to sit in heavenly places, & in all the ages to come he might show us the exceeding riches of His grace. His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
We cannot earn our way into God's favour, THAT'S an impossible task. no amount of good works would ever be enough. Take a moment & reflect on the riches of God's grace & thank Him for His loving kindness toward you.
The confession the sinner makes... he does not
not have to give anything up in order to be saved lets look at Rom 10:9 again it says that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus & believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead you will be saved.
Notice it says if you confess This is the real confession the sinner makes. He is guilty of only one sin in the sight of God & that is the sin of rejecting Jesus Christ as Lord & Saviour, Therefore God demands that the sinner confess the Lordship of Jesus Christ. This is real repentance, This is real faith.
To demand that the sinner confess his sins before God makes him into a new creation as we see in 2 Corn5:17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation, old things have passed away; behold all things have become new.
If we are in Christ Godly living is a must, it may result in disfavour with others because it warns of judgement for the ungodly, Godly Individuals live by the ethic of love, selflessly asking how can I live for the benefit
of others? They are not lawless or sloppy in the way they live, rather, they seek to do right in everything.
The sinner is a child of the devil, so the thing he must confess is the Lordship of Jesus Christ. He must confess Jesus as his saviour in order to be saved. He must let Jesus dominate his daily life. Confessing the Lordship of Jesus Christ it is the very heart of the gospel.
once a person is born again God will deal with him about the things he needs to change & will give him the power to do so.
Look again at Rom 10:9 If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus. So there must be a vocal confession by the person, his lips must frame the words, confession is not just for his sake but also for the sake of those unsaved persons around him, & for the benefit of satan, declaring that you are no longer under his dominion. Not one of us, nobody at all can be saved without confessing the Lord Jesus.
The Believer confessing his sins. this the third type of confession that is spoken of in the New Testament is of the believer confessing his sin when he has broken fellowship in Ps 137:1-4 we see a type of broken fellowship.
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept when we remembered Zion. We hung our harps upon the willows in the midst of it. For there those who carried us away captive asked of us a song & those who plundered us requested mirth, saying sing us one of the songs of Zion. How long shall we sing the Lords song in a foreign land?
This Psalm shows us how Israel had sinned they were carried away into captivity in Babylon. They could remember Zion, of course.
They hung their harps on the willows & when their enemies asked for a song, they cried, how shall we sing the Lords song in a strange land. verse 4 pictures broken fellowship. Sin always puts the light out, so faith has no song when fellowship is broken,
Jn 3:9 teaches that we used to be full time sinners & once in a while we did something right. After years of developing a close & personal relationship with God & His Word we can concentrate on being a full time obedient child of God. Yes we still make mistakes but maybe not as many as once we did. Of course we are not where we need to be but, praise God we are not where we once were.
Once you have confessed your sin, DON'T keep on confessing the same over & OVER again THAT only builds up weakness, doubt & sin-consciousness into your spirit. If you have confessed your sin once, God forgave you & He forgot it, so you need to do the same. God has no memory of you sin once you truly repent & ask forgiveness.
Isa 43:25 tells us this very clearly. & Ps 103:3 says that He forgives all our iniquities & heals all our diseases. Isa 1:18 tells us though our sins are like scarlet they shall be white as snow. Ps 103:12 reminds us that as far as far as the east is from the west He has removed our transgressions from us.
Let us now look at Heb9:14 This verse of Scripture is saying that Jesus offered His blood by the Spirit. The Spirit & the blood work together. The promise of the Holy Spirit could not be poured out on the Day of Pentecost until after the blood was poured out on the cross at Calvary. The blood & the Spirit still work together today. Honour the blood, & you will see the Spirit poured out in your life.
Remember If you sin, & you repent & confess your sin to God, you should have no more remembrance of it, God doesn’t, so why should you? Then you can see with what confidence we can come before God in prayer & know with certainty that He hears us.
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