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I. The meaning of dealing with sin:
А. Producing fruits of repentance.
B. Purging out leaven.
II. Confessing sin:
А. Confessing sin to God.
B. Confessing sin to man.
III. Being reconciled to others.
IV. Making restoration to others.
V. Clearing up evil things.
1. “Produce then fruit worthy of your repentance” (Matt. 3:8 see also Acts 26:20).
As soon as we repent and believe in the Lord, we should produce fruits of repentance. There are both positive and negative aspects to this matter. In regard to the positive aspect, all our actions and behavior should be according to God’s desire. In regard to the negative aspect, we should deal completely with the sins and wrongdoings that we committed in the past, and we should no longer participate in them. For example, before a brother repents and believes in the Lord, he may argue and even fight with his wife. After repenting, he should go to his wife and confess his wrongdoing in arguing and his sin of fighting with her. He should beg her forgiveness. In this way he can clear up any negative impression that his wife has toward him. Thus, he will produce fruits of repentance by dealing with the wrongdoings and sins that he committed in the past.
1. “Unleavened bread shall be eaten...and nothing leavened shall be seen with you, nor shall any leaven be seen with you in all your territory”; “Let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (Exo. 13:7; 1 Cor. 5:8).
Dealing with sin is related to purging out leaven, which makes dough rise. In the Bible leaven does not refer to positive things. Instead, leaven refers to heresy (Matt. 16:12) and sins, both of which are negative things. The evil and uncleanness of leaven corrupt us. Therefore, we should completely purge it out.
In the Old Testament, God told the children of Israel to eat unleavened bread immediately following the passover and to completely purge out the leaven from their surroundings. This type indicates that we must purge out any evil and unclean things from us and our surroundings once we are saved. Furthermore, we should no longer touch these things. The children of Israel kept the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days, which represents a complete period of time. This means that from the time that we are saved until we meet the Lord, we must purge out any leaven and live an unleavened life. We must purge out every evil action and deal with every unclean thing so that we may become and continue to be a new lump of dough. We should deal with sin as soon as we are saved and continue to deal with it until we meet the Lord.
1. “When I kept silent, my bones wasted away / Through my groaning all day long... / I acknowledged my sin to You, / And I did not cover my iniquity. / I said, I will confess my transgressions to Jehovah. / Then You forgave the iniquity of my sin. / ...You surround me with the ringing shouts of deliverance” (Psa. 32:3, 5, 7).
Dealing with sin includes several things. First, we should confess our sins both to God and to man. To confess our sins to God is to come before Him and to confess everything that we have done that offends Him. Every sin that we commit offends God, whether the sin is against God or against man. We may think that David sinned only against man and offended man when he usurped the wife of Uriah and had him killed, but David acknowledged that he had sinned against God and man (51:1-17). Therefore, David confessed his sin to God. Before he confessed his sin to God, he suffered, but when he did not hide his evil and confessed it to God, he was forgiven by God and surrounded with the ringing shouts of deliverance. This caused him to be full of joy. Thus, if we want the joy of salvation, we must confess our sins before God.
Many have repented and were saved but have never thoroughly confessed their sins before God. Therefore, they do not have much joy of salvation or spiritual hunger, thirst, pursuit, or growth. If we want to richly taste the Lord’s joy of salvation, we must come before the Lord and thoroughly confess our sins. If we also want to have spiritual hunger, thirst, pursuit, and growth, we must come before God and confess our sins one by one. When we confess our sins to God in this way, we cannot be general; we cannot confess, in principle only, that we have sinned greatly. We must be specific and confess our sins one by one. We cannot bring a bag of sins to God, throw it down before Him, and forget about it. We must open the bag of sins before God and mention each sin; we must open the bag and thoroughly confess each sin one by one. It is not sufficient to say to God, “I have committed many sins. I am full of sin. Please forgive me,” and think that everything is all right. We must ask God to search us, enlighten us, and expose all our sins so that we might see them and confess them to Him one by one. Only this is sufficient. When we pray to God in this way, He will enlighten us through the Holy Spirit and expose our previous sins one by one. He wants us to realize how we have offended our parents, brothers, and sisters; how we have wronged our wife or husband and children; and how we owe our teachers, fellow students, friends, relatives, and neighbors. He also wants us to realize how we cheated and stole from people, sought personal gain in public positions, profited at the expense of others, were falsely benevolent and falsely righteous, were evil in thoughts and devious in actions, and committed other sins and transgressions. If we let Him enlighten us, He will uncover all our sins and enlighten us. When we become aware of a sin, we should confess it to Him. We should confess our sins one by one until we feel that we do not need to confess anything more. If we practice this, we will be able to thoroughly confess our sins to God. This is not related to our salvation; it is related to our living after salvation. It is not a requirement for salvation but a condition for spiritual growth. Receiving of the Lord’s salvation is not based on this kind of confession; however, those who have received the Lord’s salvation should confess their sins in this way.
2. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us” (1 John 1:9).
Every saved one should confess his sins to God. If we sin after we are saved, we should confess our sin to God to receive His forgiveness and cleansing. We should not have any unconfessed sins or transgressions before God. If many unconfessed transgressions pile upon us, our spirit will not be able to be released or bright. We should always confess our sins to God. We should completely deal with our sins before God at all times so that we do not lose our fellowship with Him but live in the light of His face. We should clear away the barriers between God and ourselves through the confession of our sins to recover and maintain our fellowship with Him.
3. “He who covers his transgressions will not prosper, / But whoever confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy” (Prov. 28:13).
According to the ordinances of God, if we cover our sins, we will not prosper. If we confess and forsake our sins, however, we will receive God’s mercy. If we want to receive God’s mercy, we must confess our sins. Confessing our sins to God is a prerequisite for receiving mercy. If we do not completely confess our sins before God, we will lose His mercy and will not prosper.
If we want to experience the joy of our salvation, to remove the barriers between God and us in order to restore and maintain our fellowship with God, or to receive God’s mercy and blessing, we must confess our sins to God. God hates sin. Sin prevents us from receiving His blessing and kills the spiritual things in us. We must completely deal with sin before God so that it will not touch us. We should practice this earnestly. The more thoroughly we deal with sin, the better.
1. “Whoever confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy” (Prov. 28:13).
Most of our sins offend others, so we should not only confess our sins to God but also to man. We confess our sins to God because every sin that we commit offends Him. However, the sins that we commit not only offend God but also man. If we offend God, He immediately forgives us when we confess our sins. But God’s forgiveness cannot take care of the people whom we have offended. Therefore, we still must confess our sins to man. If we sin against and offend our neighbor, we need not only the forgiveness of God but also that of our neighbor. We need to confess to our neighbor and beg for forgiveness. Otherwise, even with God’s forgiveness, we will still be condemned before our neighbor and our heart will be bound. If we want to be released and forgiven by our neighbor so that we can act freely before him, we must confess our sin to him. Proverbs 28 surely refers to confessing our sins to man.
2. “Confess your sins to one another” (James 5:16).
God wants us to confess our sins to one another. When we confess our sins to one another, we confess our sins to men. As we deal with each other as brothers and sisters, there are always matters in which others offend us or we offend others, so we must confess our sins to each other. If we commit a sin or make a mistake that offends a brother or sister, we should not only confess that sin to God but also to the brother or sister whom we offended. This will cause us to receive forgiveness from God and from the brother or sister.
3. “They shall confess their sin which they have committed” (Num. 5:7).
According to the context of this verse, confessing sin refers to confessing to God and to the offended person. When we are negligent in our obligations to man and offend God, we must confess our sins to God and to the affected person so that the matter can be cleared up. God does not want us to be sinful and unrighteous before Him nor to be sinful and unrighteous before men. Therefore, He wants us to confess our sins to Him, and He also wants us to confess our sins to man.
As children of God, we should completely confess our sins before God and completely deal with our sins before man. Although this is not related to our salvation, it is very much related to our spiritual growth. No Christian can have spiritual growth without confessing sins and dealing with them before man in this way. There once was a revival meeting in England. A believer came and asked the leader of the meeting, “How can Christians grow?” The leader of the meeting asked, “How long has it been since you confessed your sins to others?” When the believer first heard this word, he was surprised. He wondered how confessing sins to others could help a Christian grow in life. Later, he realized that confessing sins to others not only enables a Christian to grow but is also a basic requirement for Christian growth.
Oh, brothers and sisters, a Christian who has never confessed sins to others is almost certainly a Christian who has never grown in life! If we want to know whether or not we have grown, we need only to look at whether or not we have confessed our sins to others. The amount that we grow is determined by the amount that we confess our sins. Confession of sins to others and growth are in direct proportion to one another. They have a mutual cause-and-effect relationship. Confessing sins to others not only causes us to grow, but our growth requires and causes us to confess our sins to others. If we are continuously growing, we certainly are continuously confessing our sins to others.
Confessing our sins to others also causes our spirit to be released, revived, strengthened, and enlivened. The spirits of many brothers and sisters are not released and are in a dry, weak, and deadened condition because they have offended others and are unwilling to confess their sins to those whom they have offended. Sin deadens our spirit. This is especially true of the sins that offend others. Such sins cause the witness of our conscience in our spirit to be one of offense before man. Such sins hinder our spirit from rising up before others and keep it deadened and low. If we want our spirit to be released and strong before others, we must confess our sins to man to remove the offense in our conscience.
When we confess our sins to others, we should not be afraid to be conscientious and thorough. The more conscientious we are and the more thorough we are, the more benefit we will gain. Furthermore, we should not hesitate or wait. We should take advantage of the first opportunity and do our best to confess things quickly. In 1933, when I was thoroughly enlightened and cleansed by God, I sent forty letters in one day to confess my sins to people, apologize, and beg their forgiveness. Looking back, I realize that that day had a great impact on the amount of grace that I have since received in the Lord’s way. Praise the Lord that He gave me the grace to conscientiously deal with the matters in which I had offended people.
In confessing our sins to others, we must pay attention to the extent of our confession. In principle, the extent to which we have offended others should be the extent of our confession to others. It should not be greater or less. We should confess our sin to whomever we have offended. We should confess our sins to as many people as we have offended. We should not confess to more people or confess to fewer people. If we confess to fewer people, we still owe some an apology. If we confess to more people than necessary, it creates a problem. We should not confess an offense to someone whom we have not offended, because it makes them aware of our sin unnecessarily. The purpose of confessing our sins is to erase the impression of our sin among those whom we have offended. If our confessing instead causes someone with no knowledge of our sin to gain an impression of it, such a confession is improper.
Our confession of sins not only gives us blessings but also glorifies God and benefits others. If our confession of sin to others does not glorify God or benefit others, even if it may cause us to receive blessing, we should not do it. Thus, we should have wisdom in the matter of confessing sins to men. We should do it in a way that glorifies God and benefits others. We must not shame God’s name or cause others to suffer loss because of our confession of sins.
1. “Therefore if you are offering your gift...and there you remember that your brother has something against you...first go and be reconciled to your brother...Be well disposed quickly with your opponent at law, while you are with him on the way” (Matt. 5:23-25).
Second, dealing with sin involves being reconciled to others. Confessing sins to others involves begging others’ forgiveness for offending them. Being reconciled to others involves going and seeking peace with those who have animosity toward us. These two aspects are connected because those whom we have offended often hold a grudge against us. Therefore, we need to beg for forgiveness and seek peace with them. Sometimes, however, we are blamed for something by others, even when we have not offended them. In such a situation, we do not need to beg for forgiveness, but we should seek peace. We should do this so that no problem exists between ourselves and others or between others and ourselves. This enables us to be bold, and it eliminates all barriers when we come close to God and have fellowship with Him. (The offering of our gift in Matthew 5 refers to fellowship with God.)
2. “When you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone” (Mark 11:25).
If we have offended anyone, we should confess our sins to him and beg for forgiveness. This verse, however, says that we should forgive anyone who has offended us. If we want to live before God, we must do more than beg forgiveness from those we have offended; we must also forgive those who have offended us. Regardless of whether we have offended others or others have offended us, we must clear up any offense so that there is no separation between them and us before God. Then there will be no barriers to our prayer or barriers to the answers to our prayer. Any separation between others and us blocks our prayer and becomes a barrier to receiving an answer to prayer. Therefore, we must deal with these things completely so that we would not be separated from God.
Forgiving others is often harder than begging for forgiveness. Perhaps this is the reason that the Bible constantly teaches us to forgive others. The Lord often connected forgiving others with prayer because if we do not forgive others, God will not forgive us, and there will be a separation between God and us. This will break our fellowship with God, and we will be unable to pray to God in an unhindered way. Moreover, we will be unable to receive God’s answer. We may not have offended others or created problems with them, and we may not need to beg forgiveness of others or clear up matters, but whenever someone offends us, if we do not forgive him from the heart, we will have a problem with him, and this matter will block our fellowship with God. Since it will interrupt our prayer to God, we must deal with it by forgiving others.
1. “If anyone sins and acts unfaithfully against Jehovah and deceives his associate in regard to a deposit or a security, or by robbery, or has extorted from his associate, or has found a lost item and lied about it, if he has sworn falsely in any one of all these things a man may do, and sins thereby...he shall even restore it in full, and shall add to it a fifth part of it. He shall give it to the one to whom it belongs, on the day he is found guilty” (Lev. 6:2-3, 5).
Third, we should deal with sin by restoring money to those whom we have cheated. If we have cheated others in money matters, we should repay the principal with an additional fifth part as soon as we realize our transgression. Although this is an ordinance of the Old Testament law, the principle still applies in the New Testament. In the New Testament the work of grace on a person has a higher requirement than that of the Old Testament. When the tax collector Zaccheus was saved, he said, “If I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore four times as much” (Luke 19:8). This was the work of the Lord’s grace on him. Although we need not regard Zaccheus as a standard, we must at least comply with the requirement of the law, which is to return the amount in question with an additional fifth part.
Brothers and sisters, whether we owe something to the government or to individual persons, we should restore it all. If we do not, we will have unrighteous things in our hands or in our home. We cannot merely confess our sin of cheating people to God and then forget about it. We must completely restore what we cheated from others. When we confess our sin of cheating people to God, He will forgive us, but we still need to resolve the matter involved in our cheating of others. If something we obtained unrighteously is still in our hands, it will give us a feeling of unrighteousness and will interrupt our progress in spiritual matters. Can we read the Bible on a table that was bought with money obtained unrighteously? Can we kneel in prayer before a bed that we gained improperly? Can we give a message wearing a suit that was acquired unrighteously? God forgives all our sins when we believe in the Lord and when we confess them, but there is still a need to make restoration and completely deal with any unrighteous thing that is still in our hands. Although this has no relationship to our salvation, it is very much related to our spiritual life following our salvation. This would be like living with the corpse of a person of whose murder you have been absolved. Even if you have been absolved of his murder, you would have a difficult time living a comfortable life if the corpse was not removed from your house. Everything gained by unrighteous, improper means is like an unremoved corpse; it hinders us from living a comfortable spiritual life. Therefore, we must completely clear away everything of unrighteous gain and return it in a proper way.
This kind of restoration pleases God and is a result of the special work of the Holy Spirit. In England many years ago F. B. Meyer was preaching. Without warning, he pointed to the audience and said, “Look, here is a young man who stole three pounds eighteen shillings from his master. If he does not return it, he will never have peace.” The next day a young man came to see Meyer and said, “I am the person you talked about yesterday. I really did steal three pounds eighteen shillings from my master, and since then I have not had peace in my heart. With this check I will return the entire amount.” This shows that the Holy Spirit does a special work to cause people to deal with matters in which they cheated others.
When God leads us to deal with these kinds of things, He also gives us some special experiences. Before I believed in the Lord, there was a fire where I worked. While everybody was moving things out of the building, I saw a small Chinese ink bottle and a brush. I liked both of them and stole them. After being saved, the Holy Spirit told me to deal with this unrighteous matter. At that time I still had the ink bottle, but I no longer had the small brush, so I could only use money to replace it. I took the small ink bottle and a dollar and went to my old boss. I shamefacedly confessed that I had stolen two things and said that I had come to make restoration. My boss listened but refused to take them. After I continued to beg him, he said, “I will take the ink bottle, but I will not take the money.” Then he saw that I was carrying a small combined solar-lunar calendar card. At that time everybody liked this kind of calendar card, but they were not easy to obtain. Then he said, “You can give me the calendar card as a substitute for the little brush.” Although I did not want to give up my calendar card, I owed him, and so I had to agree. After I left his office, I felt sad about losing the calendar card, and I did not know what to do with the dollar. Inwardly I said, “The best thing would be for the Lord to show me a needy beggar so that I can give this dollar to him.” When I arrived home, it was already dark, and I closed the door very securely because it was wartime. Not long afterward, there was a knock on the door. I opened the door to see who it was. It was a beggar who could not find anything to eat. He came to ask for help. I felt that God answered my request, so I brought him in, fed him, and gave him a few steamed rolls. He did not know where to look for lodging, so I agreed to take him to a place. On the way I gave him the dollar and told him that it was from the Lord Jesus. At a crossroads I pointed to a place where he could stay. He thanked me and left. At that moment Brother Chao Ching-hwai called to me from across the street, “Brother Lee, where are you going?” He came across the street, and I told him what had happened. He took an envelope and handed it to me, saying, “This is a gift for you.” When I arrived home and opened the envelope, I saw that it was a solar-lunar combined calendar card! By this time I clearly understood God’s leading. God gave me a special beggar so that I could deal with that dollar. Then He caused me to meet that brother so that He could restore the calendar card. Although these were small matters, God’s arrangement and leading was truly marvelous! This proves that repaying our debts and dealing with unrighteous things pleases God.
2. “If the man has no kinsman to whom restitution may be made for the wrong, the restitution which is made for the wrong goes to Jehovah for the priest” (Num. 5:8).
If we owe restitution for unrighteous things to a person who has died, we must make restitution to the relatives. If he has no kinsmen to receive our restitution, it should go to Jehovah for the priest. Today this means that it should go to the church.
We should make restitution in monetary matters within the limitations of our ability and circumstances. If we do not have the ability, or if our situation does not permit, it will be all right if we cannot do it. If we have the ability and the situation permits, we should be diligent in clearing up the matter. We should always clear up things to the best of our ability and to the extent that our circumstances permit so that our conscience will release us. We should do as much as we are able and as much as our circumstances permit us to do. If we truly are unable to repay the person whom we owe, we should still confess to him, beg his forgiveness, and promise to repay as soon as possible.
1. “He removed the foreign altars and the high places and smashed the pillars and hewed down the Asherahs”; “Purge...the Asherahs and the idols and the molten images” (2 Chron. 14:3; 34:3).
Fourth, in dealing with sin, we need to clear up evil things. We should remove every idol and everything used in the worship of idols. Many of us previously worshipped idols. After being saved, we should remove everything associated with their worship from our hands and our homes. If we hold on to these things, the devil has the ground to harass, attack, and disturb us. Therefore, we must clear up these things. We must completely stand on God’s side, not leaving any little thing of the devil.
2. “A considerable number of those who practiced magic brought their books together and burned them before all; and they counted up the price of them and found it to be fifty thousand pieces of silver” (Acts 19:19).
We should also clean out devilish and immoral things. The believers in Ephesus burned many evil books. A few years ago I went to Wei Hai to preach the gospel. Those who were saved brought many demonic and filthy things to the meeting place and burned them in front of everyone. They made a good testimony and gained the joy of being freed from sin. Demonic books, obscene books, pornographic pictures, gambling apparatus, things related to smoking and drinking, and things related to other kinds of sin should be completely removed from our homes and possessions after we are saved. Regrettably, many brothers and sisters still have evil things and keep evil things on their person and in their homes. According to the Bible, for example, the dragon is a symbol of Satan (Rev. 20:2), but even now some brothers and sisters wear clothing, shoes, and jewelry with dragons on them, have dragon furniture, or use utensils with dragons on them. Even now some brothers and sisters have pornographic books on their bookshelves and hang superstitious writings or indecent pictures in their homes. These should be eliminated to testify that we are children of God. When we preached the gospel in 1938 in Beijing, an elderly sister asked me if it was all right for her to have a lampshade with a dragon on it. I asked her, “How do you feel inwardly?” She said, “I think there is a problem.” I said, “Since you feel that there is a problem, why do you not take care of it?” So she got rid of the lampshade. If we truly want the Lord, the Holy Spirit will cause us to feel that certain things are wrong. We should not have any symbol of Satan on our person, in our homes, or on anything we own.
3. “If you return to the Almighty, you will be built up. / If you put injustice far away from your tents” (Job 22:23).
If we truly turn to God and desire to please Him, we must eliminate every evil and unrighteous thing from our person and homes. By doing this we can be built up before God.
If we practice what we have seen item by item and completely deal with every unrighteous and unclean thing and if we clear up everything until we are clean, we will have a strong testimony and walk in the straight way. God will bless us.
