Unless We Confess our Sins We Become Prey

 

 

We are afflicted by many sins which can take control of our minds and hearts. Even a single unrepented sin can transform us into God’s enemy. After their one sin, the first couple hid from their Benefactor and Creator and decided to handle their sin problem on their own by covering themselves with fig leaves. As God questioned them, they resorted to half-truths and blame-shifting. Even after God declared His frightful verdict, they seemed relieved to be cast out of His presence without a word of confession! They had entered the domain of darkness and denial. Instead of naming his wife “death,” Adam named his beloved “Eve, the mother of all living.”

Sin had taken them captive, like the maggots of predatory wasps which parasitize its grasshopper victim. The maggots begin to consume their host and advance to its brain where they take over their prey and direct it jump to its death into the water where these parasites can complete their horrid lifecycle.

This is the power of sin to take control of the mind. Therefore. sin requires a decisive response. Instead rationalization and the denial gives sin a free pass to prey upon us, while we self-righteously devote ourselves to prove our worthiness against all evidence to the contrary. In contrast, Jesus taught that we are self-condemned by our love of the darkness of sin:

·       John 3:17–20 “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.”

If we refuse to confess our sins to find forgiveness and cleansing (1 John 1:8-9), we will continue to flee from the light of truth, from the Lord’s exposing light. We will run from His light lest it expose the truth about ourselves, even to call for boulders to fall upon us to hide us from the truth:

·       Revelation 6:15–17 Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”

Consequently, God need not throw anyone into hell. Instead, we gladly do this to ourselves. Meanwhile, we live lives of self-deceit trying to prove ourselves worthy in many tangled ways:

·       Proverbs 12:15 The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice.

·       Proverbs 26:12 Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.

Why do we not see ourselves accurately? We do not want to! Instead, we choose to feel good about ourselves through self-delusion than to be exposed by the light of truth:

•                   Luke 16:15 And [Jesus] said to them, “You [Pharisees] are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.”

Why is trying to look good [justifying ourselves] an “abomination in the sight of God?” It is a rejection of the truth, God’s truth that we are sinners who are in desperate need of the Savior. This is not only a rejection of God but also the rejection of real relationships, a plunge into the self-centered world of narcissism.

Adam and Eve chose to cover themselves with fig leaves and to hide from God. Others choose to impress with power:

•        Acts 12:20–23 Now Herod was angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon, and…they asked for peace, because their country depended on the king’s country for food. On an appointed day Herod put on his royal robes, took his seat upon the throne, and delivered an oration to them. And the people were shouting, “The voice of a god, and not of a man!” Immediately an angel of the Lord struck him down, because he did not give God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and breathed his last.

The love of the darkness of self-deceit is death. What then is the answer?

•            Psalm 46:1–3 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling.

Without the Savior, we too become prey, not to the wasp and its maggots, but to a more deceptive predator who allows us to believe that we are in control of our own lives: 

·       1 John 5:19 We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.