Sermon #232                                                            Series: Isaiah

          Title:           Seven Things Every Awakened Sinner                                   Knows and Confesses

          Text:           Isaiah 64:6-8

          Reading:    Office: Bob Poncer        Auditorium: Ron Wood

          Subject:     The Believers Confession of Sin and Grace

          Date:          Sunday Evening - February 18, 1996

          Tape #       S-26

          Introduction:

 

          I realize that God deals with different people in different ways. Though all who are saved are saved by the same grace, we do not all experience grace in the same way. Lydia did not have the same experience of grace as the Philippian jailer. Peter did not come to know Christ the same way Paul did. And none of us have had exactly the same experience of grace. Some of us have been snatched as brands from the burning, as it were out of the very jaws of hell. Others, like Lydia, have simply been sitting in the house of God, hearing the Word of God, when suddenly (perhaps after many years) the Lord opened your hearts and gave you faith in Christ. For some, the experience of grace is explosive, climatic, and radical. For others, it is gradual, less emotional, and less decisive.

 

                 Illustration: Compare Mark 8:22-26 and Mark 10:46-52

 

          I stress this fact with good reason. Many of God’s saints constantly question their experience of grace because they have not felt the same things that others did when they were saved. They did not have the same conflicts, the same deep pains of conviction, the same struggles, emotions, and feelings that others speak of, when testifying of what God has done for them. Regrettably, many preachers make grace conditional, and teach that you cannot exercise saving faith in Christ until you experience certain things, which they consider sort of preparatory works of grace. That is a serious mistake.

 

          God commands us to believe on his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. He does not tell us to wait until we feel this way or that, experience this thing or that, but to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. That is your responsibility. You must believe on the Son of God. You must come to Christ (I John 3:23). Come to Christ right now, just like you are. Believe on Christ now. Trust him now as your only Lord and Savior. If you do, you are saved. That is the teaching of Holy Scripture.

·        John 3:36

·        John 5:24

·        John 6:37

·        Acts 16:31

·        Romans 10:9-13

 

          Do not wait for anything. If you do not think you have faith enough, you are right. Come to Christ for faith. If you think you do not feel your sin deeply enough, you are right. You do not. Come to Christ. Ask him to make you feel your sins. If you do not think you have the kind of repentance you ought to have, you are right. Come to Christ for repentance. If you look to Christ, if you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, as you look to him, trust him, and see him, your heart will break in repentance (Zech. 12:10). It is not your business to work up repentance. It is your business to look to Christ. If you look to him, you are saved.

·        Isaiah 45:22

 

                   Illustration: Spurgeon’s Experience of Grace

 

          Come to Christ now. Come to Christ without delay. Come to Christ without preparing yourself for him, or waiting to be prepared. Who ever heard tell of a man in a burning building, that is about to collapse around him, waiting to see if he is fit to fall into the net spread out to save him. What nonsense! And if ever you know what it is to be under the wrath of God, if ever your soul begins to choke on the fires of hell, you will not sit around and debate about whether you are fit to be saved. You will simply fall into the arms of Christ!

 

“Just as I am, without one plea,

But that Thy blood was shed for me,

And that Thou bidst me come to Thee,

O Lamb of God, I come!”

 

          Having said that, I want you to turn to Isaiah 64:6-8. There are no prerequisites to faith, not conditions to be met by you before you can come to Christ. Yet, there are certain things that all who are saved by the grace of God know and acknowledge, certain things that all true believers do experience in their souls and confess before God. I want you to hold your Bible open tonight at Isaiah 64:6-8. Follow me as e go through these three verses together. I want to show you Seven Things Every Awakened Sinner Knows and Confesses. This is what I am saying...

 

Proposition: Every regenerate soul, every person born of God, every sinner who looks to Christ alone for salvation and grace knows and confesses that which Isaiah here confesses.

 

          All that God’s prophet speaks in these verses he speaks by divine inspiration, not only from his own heart and for himself, but also as the spokesman for God’s people. Let’s read this confession together (Isa. 64:6-8). If from your heart you can join in this confession, it is because God the Holy Spirit has begun his good work of grace in you and he will finish it.

 

 

I. Every truly enlightened soul acknowledges and confesses the sinfulness and utter depravity of his own heart before God.    “We are all as an unclean thing.”

 

          I am convinced that there is nothing on this earth more contrary to human nature and more impossible for a person to do than acknowledge and confess his sin. We simply will not and cannot do it apart from the grace of God. Until God does a work of grace in us, we will do anything to keep from acknowledging our guilt.

·        We deny our sin.

·        We excuse our evil thoughts and deeds.

·        We justify ourselves.

·        We cover our sin with a cloak of self-righteousness and religion.

·        But we will not acknowledge and confess our sin.

 

          Listen to me now. There is no possibility of salvation apart from the  honest  acknowledgment  and  confession of our sin (I John 1:9). No man will ever seek pardon, who does not know his guilt. You will never seek salvation by Christ until you know that you are lost.

 

“What comfort can a Savior bring

To those who never felt their woe?

A sinner is a sacred thing;

The Holy Ghost hath made him so.”

 

          This is the very first thing that must be seen. Every truly gracious soul, every sinner awakened and enlightened by God the Holy Spirit confesses with Isaiah, “We are all as an unclean thing.”

 

          This metaphor is taken from the Levitical law of the Old Testament. A person who was unclean could not go up to the house of God. He was unfit for worship, unfit to make sacrifices, unfit to be in the company of others. Everything he touched became unclean. That is our condition by nature. And all who are taught of God confess it. Believers know that their hearts are evil and confess it.

·        Isaiah 6:5

 

          Those who talk about the nobility of fallen man and the dignity of humanity simply do not know themselves or God. They are utterly void of spiritual light.

 

II. Truly regenerate people, men and women who know God, acknowledge and confess that even their righteous deeds are abhorrently evil...”And all our righteousnesses are filthy rags.”

 

          We repent of our sins and of our righteousnesses too. Our prayers need to be prayed over. Our tears need to be wept over. Our repentance needs to be repented of. Our love needs to be forgiven. Our faith must be washed in the blood of Christ. Our very best thoughts, noblest aspirations, and most holy deeds are, in and of themselves, on their own merit, nothing but filthy rags, rotting, horribly smelly, corrupt, discarded menstrous clothes, no more acceptable to God than such filthy rags are to us! If this is a proper description of our best works, what must our sins be?

 

III. Every soul awakened and taught by God the Holy Spirit acknowledges and confesses his utter helplessness and spiritual inability before God...”And we all do fade as a leaf.”

 

          I take that to mean we can do nothing to change our condition. We have no ability whatsoever to help ourselves. Like the dead leaf hanging on the tree in winter, we utterly powerless to make any change in ourselves.

 

A.   Our attempts at moral reformation fail because our hearts are evil; and we cannot change our hearts (Jer. 13:23; 17:9-10).

B.   Our efforts at controlling our passions are useless because we cannot control our hearts.

C.   Our attempts to resist evil are wasted efforts because our hearts are in league with hell.

 

IV. Every soul awakened by grace knows and confesses that he is by nature utterly alienated from God...”And our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.”

 

A. By nature we are all far off from God, lost, undone, and incapable of bringing ourselves back to him.

·        Ephesians 2:11-14

 

B. Every believer also knows that he has no power in himself to resist temptation.

·        Romans 7:14-24

 

                   C.H. Spurgeon wrote, “The well-instructed believer is very much afraid of himself.” If you have not yet learned to be afraid of yourself, I fear for you. You will soon learn to be. I know that God’s grace is stronger than temptation. I know that God’s grace is sufficient to keep me at all times. But I know also that apart from God’s grace I have no power over any evil, for all evil is in me and natural to me. I can no more withstand sin than chaff can withstand the wind.

 

V. Sinners awakened by the Spirit of God are aware of, acknowledge, and confess their utter, total inability with regard to all things spiritual.

 

          We cannot even pray. Look at verse 7 - “And there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee.”

 

          I hear men talk about prayer in a manner that I simply cannot understand. I conclude that either they do not know anything about it or I do not. Prayer is more than asking God for something. Prayer is worshipping God, calling upon his name, like Jonah did when he was in the whale’s belly. Prayer is stirring up your soul to take hold of God, like Jacob did when the Lord wrestled with him. I know these two things:

 

A.   No man by nature can or will call upon the name of God (Rom. 3:9-10).

B.   Not even true believers can, by their own strength, stir themselves up to take hold of God in prayer...True prayer must be put in the heart by God the Holy Spirit (II Sam. 7:27).

 

VI. Every awakened sinner acknowledges the justice of God in the judgment of his sin.

 

          The believer takes sides with God against himself. He says, “Thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us, because of our iniquities.”

·        Psalm 51:1-4

 

VII. Every sinner who has been awakened, enlightened, and taught of God the Holy Spirit acknowledges and confesses that salvation is of the Lord.

 

          That is the meaning of verse 8. “But now, O Lord, thou art our Father; we are the clay, and thou our Potter, and we are all the work of thine hand.” God taught souls understand, believe, and confess that salvation is God’s work alone.

·        I Corinthians 15:10

 

A.   We are the sons of God by divine adoption.

B.   We are vessels of mercy by divine predestination.

C.   We are believers, we are new creatures in Christ by divine operations of grace.

 

Application:

 

·        Matthew 11:25-26

·        John 6:44-45

 

          May God the Holy Spirit bring you to Christ and teach you these things by his grace, that you may know them and confess them from your heart.