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.