In the last newsletter we looked at Daniel 9:3-6 but primarily asked why we need to confess our sins in prayer when seeking the Lord. We will continue with the same thought but with a different focus this week. We know that we are to confess sin, but many times we don’t really think about why. We recognize that we have sinned and know that we need to be forgiven, but many times we have a wrong idea of what forgiveness really means. If the professing Church in America and beyond is going to truly repent and seek the Lord, it must learn what it means to seek the Lord for forgiveness. The confession of sin is at the heart of this.
Daniel 9:3 – “So I gave my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes. 4 I prayed to the LORD my God and confessed and said, ‘Alas, O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and lovingkindness for those who love Him and keep His commandments, 5 we have sinned, committed iniquity, acted wickedly and rebelled, even turning aside from Your commandments and ordinances. 6 Moreover, we have not listened to Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings, our princes, our fathers and all the people of the land.”
The text shows us that the primary thing that Daniel is doing is seeking the Lord. Part of seeking the Lord is to confess sin. God does not need to hear us admit that we have sinned, so we know that confession of sin is for another reason. But it is so easy to go astray. Last week we pointed out that confession must come from the heart. What we must avoid is the practice of confession that is of the mouth or intellect only. But why is that important in this context? Why is it so important to confess sin and to really have the heart broken for the sin we are confessing? It is because of the nature of forgiveness. In other words, we must confess sin from the heart because we must be really forgiven of sin as it really is. But there is even more to the story. Unless we deal with what forgiveness really is, we will not grasp what true confession really is and why we need to seek the Lord Himself.
We can imagine a person that says s/he is seeking the Lord. This person confesses sin in an intellectual fashion but has no real sorrow for the sin and does not see it as all that bad. This person simply knows that s/he has violated the commandments of God and is guilty. This person has heard that if sins are confessed and followed by believing what God says about confessing sins then those sins are no longer held against you. Nothing has really happened in the heart and all that is done here is perfunctory and goes no deeper than the mind and a few beliefs. The person might even have affections in the heart if s/he thinks that hell has been avoided, but that is based on nothing but self-interest. But again the whole thing seems more like a transaction or like one is manipulating God to forgive him or her. If we simply admit that we have done something wrong in order to escape punishment, then something is terribly wrong with this picture. It seems to be, however, the majority report in the modern day.
The real issue is whether we are seeking the presence of God in our hearts and in our midst or whether we just want to escape hell and some external judgment by seeking God. By “seeking the presence of God in our hearts” I am meaning something that is real. It is to seek the very presence of God Himself to fill us with Himself. If we seek God in order to obtain something from Him, then we are not seeking God but ourselves. We must seek God in accordance with His holiness, love for Himself, and His glory, or we are not seeking God but self. Confession of sin and seeking forgiveness in the believer must always have a higher purpose than simply to escape punishment. If not, the very confession of sin is idolatry and sin itself. We are to have no other gods before Him and we are not to have any idols. Yet if we go to God and our love for ourselves is seen in the desire for God to serve ourselves rather than to display His glory, we are our own god and are in service of an idol. We can get very intense in our efforts to escape punishment, but that does not mean that we love anyone but ourselves.
It should be clear that our confessions must be motivated by love for God and His glory to be true confessions. In our day we have turned even our confession of sin into a self-centered act which in our minds has relegated God to something less than He is. It has been told that a famous atheist who scorned of God was dying. Someone asked him if it turned out that God really did exist would God forgive him. The man purportedly said this: “He must, it is His job.” If that man’s reply is wrong then so is the way God is treated in much of religion today. We think that forgiveness is something that God must do as long as we confess to Him and admit we have done something wrong. While many say that God is sovereign, they certainly don’t apply it at this point. God is not obligated to forgive sin. He does not have to do so and there is nothing a human being can do to bring God under some form of obligation to forgive sin. God is perfectly holy and just even if He does not forgive sin. If we would meditate on that for a while, it might change our thoughts and practices of confession of sin.
God knows human hearts with perfect understanding. Can our unfelt confessions that come over lips moved by cold hearts be seen as true confessions? Are our confessions any better than some religious ritual that an utter pagan utters to an idol? If we really believe that the true and living God will simply gloss over our sin because we have said some words, then we are not in the worship of the living God in truth but have idols in our own imaginations. Our cold and perfunctory confessions that we think will automatically bring forgiveness are nothing but the reflections of idolatrous hearts. If we think that our cold and perfunctory confessions will bring the presence of God back to our congregations, then our hearts are so hard and cold that we must begin to cry out to God to break our hearts so we can confess our sins in truth. Our hearts are open and naked before God and He knows when we truly confess or when we are trying to use religious practices for selfish purposes.
What is true forgiveness of sin? It is when the sin that stands between God and the soul is removed and God is now dwelling in the soul. This is a point that must be driven into our souls. Forgiveness is not just intellectual, but it is the return of the living God to human souls. In the Garden of Eden sin meant that Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden where they walked with God. Isaiah 59:2 tells the issue: “But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.” Deuteronomy 31:18 makes the point in a different way: “But I will surely hide My face in that day because of all the evil which they will do, for they will turn to other gods.” The phrase “hide My face” is throughout Scripture as a punishment, yet when God turns so that His people will see His face and behold His countenance that is what was thought of as truly good. Sin is what keeps God turned from a people and sin is what keeps God from returning to a people.
True forgiveness is not just an intellectual act of the mind of God, but it is for Him to return to His people. Thus we can see how this impacts our confession and how this should influence our seeking of God. Confession of sin is not just babbling of words in a religious manner, it is striving for a heart that is broken from its sin and sees how horrible sin really is. This is a heart that is confessing sin in its pursuit of God Himself and it knows that its sin is the real problem. The heart that loves God and desires His presence in the soul will turn against itself and cry against itself for its true love which is God. Confession of sin then takes on a sense of urgency and certainly of a spiritual reality. When true confession is uttered to God, it comes from a heart that knows and feels the weight of its sin and so is far removed from a perfunctory utterance of the lips. This is a heart that is truly seeking God Himself and desires for God to dwell in its soul. Oh that the churches would wake up to what it means to seek the Lord and to desire His presence to dwell in them. If only we would be turned from seeking ourselves in our religious practices to seeking God for His presence and His glory. We must understand that if we are going to see God return to His people (which is true forgiveness) in power and glory it will take much pain of the heart. We must be turned from a slight dealing with sin and be turned to repenting of it regardless of the pain or cost.
In the text of Daniel 9 we can read it as if he was cool and calm and simply began to confess sin in a monotone voice. But let us read the rest of the chapter and book and we will know that the above is not a description of Daniel at all. He was a man who was blood earnest in all that he did. Here was a man that loved Israel because it was the nation that God has set His glory upon. He knew that the sin of Israel had to be forgiven in order for God to return and His face to shine on His desolate sanctuary (Dan 9:17). The sanctuary of the Lord is very desolate in our day. There can be a lot of religious activity and great numbers of people crowding to places of religious excitement without the presence of God being there. Many times it appears that people mistake activity and excitement for the presence of God as the Israelites did. But when God comes or is about to come people get very serious about the sins of their hearts and begin to devote themselves to seeking God Himself. It begins with true conviction of sin and then a true confession of sin. It continues with a true seeking of God. Without a true turning from sin in the heart, there is no true seeking of God. God is not manipulated by our words, but He must work true confession in our hearts. If we have even a slight desire for God to turn His face back to us in our day, we must start where Daniel started. We must begin to confess our sins, but we must learn to seek the Lord to work a truly broken heart in us in order to truly forsake sin and to seek His face. If we try anything less than this, we are kidding ourselves at best. Most likely it will be that we are deceived and God’s judgment will continue.
God Loves... Himself 
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