Confessing sins. Many Christians have never been taught to confess their sins specifically and to repent of them. They do not name their sins before God and obtain the Divine grace that is available and necessary for the overcoming of their sins. They keep the sin, bitterness, unforgiveness, and rebellion buried in their heart. However, the sins continue to publicize their presence in their private thoughts, in their words, and in their deeds.

From the saved, born-again person proceed adulterous thoughts, spiteful words, and acts of lust and hatred.

Sins—every one of them—must be confessed as soon as they are pointed out to us by the Holy Spirit. A believer must tell the Lord, and sometimes other people, exactly what it is he or she has done, said, or thought.

We may be in too much of a hurry to start naming our sinful deeds, words, motives, and imaginations one at a time to the Lord. However, God is not in that much of a hurry. He will take the time to listen now or He will take the time to listen during the Day of Judgment. As it is written: "Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment" (Matthew 12:36).

Only a Christian living in victory, and one with experience, can engage in this kind of judging of his actions and motives without falling into gloom and introspection. Confessing one's sins with authority and power is the action of a conqueror, not of a halfhearted Christian who continually is falling away from his state of obedience to the Master.

Perhaps this is why the judgment on sin in the life of the believer is delayed symbolically (as in the type of the feasts of the Lord) and actually until the Christian has experienced both initial salvation and Pentecost (baptism with the Holy Spirit).

Some Christian teachers have maintained that it is necessary only to confess that we are "dead to sin," according to the sixth chapter of Romans and then to more or less ignore the problem of sin in our lives. To do otherwise, they counsel, will result in the resurrection of our sinful nature.

Maintaining that we are dead to sin is part of the answer given in the Scripture. It solves the problem for some believers, at least for a season. It can be helpful to the saint who is vainly struggling against the adversary, against the spirit of the world, and against his own fleshly lusts and self-will.

It assuredly is true that the virtue and will of a person struggling "in the flesh" cannot overcome the power of sin. If, on the other hand, the disciple is under the impression sin cannot affect him because he has accepted Christ, how then can the Spirit of God point out to him the acts of sin he is committing? Why would it ever be necessary for him to repent?

Also, why would such a large part of the apostolic writings be devoted to the putting away of sinful behavior on the part of the believers? If the Christian is supposed to forget about his sinful nature, why did Paul, Peter, Jude, and John write as they did concerning sin in the life of the believer?

To be continued.