Confessing Sin—Not the Gateway, But the Bible Way
We have read in the newspaper of elders from a church saying they didn't know that their pastor had committed this sin. They knew he was guilty of past sexual immorality, but they didn't know the awful details that have only recently been disclosed.
Do you accept that kind of answer? Or are you thinking that these men are letting themselves off too easily?
Elders, and other church leaders who knew this man for years, shouldn't be novices when it comes to a practice as basic as confession.
The foundation of a worthy confession involves giving and getting all the facts. Just admitting guilt shouldn't short-circuit this process, especially if we are dealing with a life-dominating sin.
Very specific disclosures are needed for at least two reasons: 1) in order to understand what is being confessed, and 2) in order to help this person, based on this understanding, get to the victory side of this sin, which may include making rightful restitution.
Mature Christians know, and certainly elders should know: The longer the personal history of a sin, the more likely this sin degrades in practice and, eventually, totally enslaves the will.
Making matters worse, is the deep deception that can create an alternative identity so skilled at living a double life it can manipulate the message of God.
Most likely, this person with whom you are dealing is a skilled liar; and that fact must be taken into account. This is why probative, pastoral questioning is essential.
The temptation of the sinner is to offer a partial confession and see if that will work. And often, it does. The lies told frequently in the past are more likely to work if the questioning is too brief.
More extensive questioning will tempt new lies—lies never contemplated, much less expressed before. This type of questioning—on point but not harsh—may then induce a panic of being hemmed in, found out, and exposed.
The liar now knows his lies are weak and unconvincing; and this may persuade him to cave, to give up, to confess fully.
There's something about sexual sins in particular that resist a full, honest confession. One counselor said of the thousands of cases that he counseled dealing with sexual sin, only one percent of the men came voluntarily and preemptively. Ninety-nine percent of the men were caught. And getting caught doesn't change the heart.
One can discern if the confession unfolding is partial, and not honest, when blame is attributed elsewhere, or when a degree of justification is sought, or when irritability flares during the questioning.
In some cases, the one questioned might even take a victim role, and emote convulsively so as to derail the confession. This carnal-to-the-core mindset will weasel its slimy self away from moral interrogation any way it can.
Wisdom will not let this succeed. The price is simply too high for that.
Quoting Numbers 32:23—“… be sure your sin will find you out”—Dr. R.G. Lee used to warn, “There’s going to be a payday someday!” A payday, by the way, not always reserved for the faraway future! For there can be forfeitures of blessings in this life—massive forfeitures! Forfeitures that will come as a complete shock, once the full cost for not confessing sin is finally made known.
Frank Boreham, a student of Charles Spurgeon and later a pastor in Australia, said that “there is nothing in the solar system so isolating as a secret, and especially as a guilty secret.”
What we refuse to confess will imprison us. That's why there must be nothing hidden in our life, no secret agendas, no undisclosed hiding places. The clandestine life must be completely shut down. And insincerity, the dark atmosphere in which so many souls live, must be brought to the light.
You will remember that David stonewalled God for a whole year after his sexual sin. Why, it took a prophet of God to reach this man! And even then, David showed himself to be totally dense! The plain truth didn't get through to him.
So the prophet persisted, turned up the heat, and accused David face-to-face. You are the man!
When we read the psalms of David and see his passion for the Lord, his sensitive conscience toward anything evil, his tender spirit so in love with God, we find ourselves stunned, flabbergasted! How can this spirit of a godly man suddenly vanish?
This is real scary! Sin can bludgeon a man's heart like that?
Finally, finally … the breakthrough came! The dam broke!
David pleaded, “Have mercy upon me, O God ... Blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is always before me ... Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean. Wash me; and I shall be whiter than snow.”
In reading these words, the passion and honesty which motivated them reveal, clearly and convincingly, how they came from a heart humbled before God.
There’s no rationalizing, no negotiating; for the facts are altogether clear. David is wrong and God is right. So now David wants to get this whole sorry episode behind him in the way God says to do it.
Again, there’s no fudging the facts, no defensing the indefensible, no stiffening of body, no hardening of heart, no hint of cliché contriteness. David admits all, and does so with great remorse.
If we want to know whether repentance is real, we can measure it against the clear criteria provided in Scripture. In II Corinthians 7:11, Paul informed us of what a biblical confession looks like.
He had confronted these people and called upon them to repent. And repent they did!
● “... you sorrowed in a godly manner: What diligence it produced in you” (meaning: You were so willing to tell the truth, the whole truth, and to make every needed change),
● “what clearing of yourselves” (not by rationalizing but by an aggressive willingness to expose every particle of your sin),
● “what indignation” (not toward the person who told you the truth, and not toward the ones who administered the consequences, but toward yourself: “How could I have done such a terrible thing!”),
● “what fear” (again, not of the consequences, but of the God you offended and of the possibility you might ever do something like this again),
● “what vehement desire” (not for the sin, and not for the acceptance of others, but for God! There is now a passionate purposing and a redemptive resolve to be all that the Lord wants, with no more compromises),
● “what zeal” (in other words, what discipline! What follow-through! You really meant business! No halfway confession! No pitiful and reluctant restitution),
● “what vindication!” (You have decisively separated yourself from this past sin). “In all things you proved yourself to be clear in this matter.”
Isn’t it good to see thoroughgoing repentance? Thomas Watson observed, “This sorrow for sin is not superficial: it is a holy agony.”
Nevertheless, this sober possibility still exists: a person can be genuinely tearful about that part of the sin he or she confessed, yet not confess that sin as thoroughly as these people in Corinth did.
It's been observed that we tend to confess lesser sins so as to ward off suspicion of the greater ones. Sort of like that man who wrote a letter to IRS, confessing to not paying $500 in past taxes. He enclosed a check for that amount in his letter, but then added a P.S., saying that if his conscience still keeps him sleepless at night, he'll send a check for the remaining thousand dollars in the next letter.
Returning to the justification for extensive questioning regarding sexual sins, Ephesians 5:3 fit in here: “Let there not even be a hint of sexual immorality.”
Halfway confessions will unravel, and greater pain will result. And we don't want that for this person.
Mark Twain is right, “A half-truth is the most cowardly of lies.” It, too, must be expelled.
The extensive questioning done earlier will help serve this goal of removing all traces of sin—to use the Bible's words, without spot or wrinkle.
This means, no ugly stain! No crumples or rumples! Nothing scrunched up and disheveled! Nothing messy or dirty! Nothing unkept and untidy! And this won't be a façade, a disguise, a coverup—like putting lipstick on a pig. The restoration will be real!
And it can stay real; for now, we know the triggers for this sin—the methods used, the thinking trusted, the places visited, the people involved—and can strategize a scriptural solution that will protect the truly repentant from a relapse.
