After a person is saved, if he wants to make progress in life, he must carefully purge out all leaven. This means that he must deal with every situation that is improper in the eyes of the Lord and every matter that is condemned by the Lord. However, he should not only deal with the outward things, but he should confess to the Lord, from deep within, all his inward sins.
Man always has more inward problems than outward problems. He may have many outward problems that are condemnable, but his inward problems and his inward evil far exceed his outward problems. His outward problems are related merely to behavior, but his inward problems are related to his mind, opinion, and even more, to his self. It is possible for a person to be wrong inwardly but not to be wrong outwardly. This means that a person may be full of sins within, and yet outwardly he does not behave in a sinful way. Inside of man there are sin, iniquity, and darkness, but outwardly these things may not seem to be expressed at all. Therefore, if a person wants to grow in life after he has been saved, he should deal with outward sins and improper matters, but he should continually come to the Lord to deal with his real inner condition. When God deals with us and cleanses us, His focus is on our inward being.
A person may outwardly appear to be right but inwardly be altogether wrong and unrighteous. In the Gospels the Lord rebuked the Pharisees, saying, “You resemble whitewashed graves, which outwardly appear beautiful but inwardly are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness” (Matt. 23:27). This means that some people are like whitewashed graves: They appear to be beautiful on the outside, but they do not want others to know their real inward condition, and they would not allow others to see the filthiness of their inner being. Much of man’s outward behavior is condemnable, but his inward evil is many times more deserving of condemnation. Man’s inner need is far greater than his outward need. Many times after a person is saved, outwardly speaking, he is very good and is almost blameless, but two or three years later, he still does not have much progress in life. This is because his problem is not something outward but inward. His outward behavior is correct, yet his inner being is wrong. Most of our outward behavior is done before men, yet our inner being is before God. Man should confess not only his outward sins before God, but even more, he should confess his inward sins. When God shines on us, He shines not only on our outward behavior, but also on our inner being.
Some have been saved for a long time, yet they have never had a time of confession before God. We all confess that the Lord Jesus is our Savior, but until today we still may not have confessed all our inward sins before God. Some may say that they do not sense that they are sinful. Of course, this word is not false; a person can be full of sins but still not have any sense that he is sinful. According to the fact, he is full of sins; but according to his feeling, he does not sense that he is sinful. Before God he is full of sins, but in his own feeling he does not have any sense that he is sinful.
One day in Shanghai, when I entered into the church business office, everyone laughed at me when they saw me. I asked them what the matter was. Then a brother brought me to a mirror, and I saw that I had made myself dirty without knowing when I did it and without having any feeling about it. In reality, I had made myself dirty, yet in my feeling, I was still clean. Many people are like this before God. They are, in fact, full of uncleanness, yet they still feel that they are good. Their subjective feeling is far from the fact. There are many examples of this in the Bible. Before a person meets God, he thinks that he is good, but once he touches God, immediately he realizes that he is wrong. Why is this? This is because God is light, and God is like a mirror. Everyone who sees light finds himself sinful before God. The reason a person can see anything, including his own face, is also related to light. For example, if a house is dark and there is no light, even though it may be full of rubbish, no one will sense that it is dirty. However, once a beam of light shines into the house, we will be able to see clearly. If the light is strong enough, we will be able to see even the dust clearly. Bacteria can be seen clearly under a microscope; they cannot escape being seen. Many doctors say that under strong enough light and a powerful microscope, everything a person sees will look dirty.
Every person is sinful before God, but not everyone can see that he is sinful. In the Old Testament once a person came to God, he immediately sensed that he was sinful. When Isaiah the prophet was enlightened, he immediately found that he was unclean. When seraphim from heaven were saying, “Holy, holy, holy,” Isaiah said, “Woe is me, for I am finished! / For I am a man of unclean lips, / And in the midst of a people of unclean lips I dwell” (Isa. 6:3, 5). There are at least four things in us which are unclean: our upper lip, our lower lip, our tongue, and our throat. Some people may say, “This is not true; my lips, my tongue, and my throat are all very clean.” However, one day when we are truly enlightened by God, we will see that there is no other part of our body that sins more than our lips.
No matter who a person is, once God comes to him, he will confess his sins. Even two hours will not be enough time for him to confess all his sins. Even though we do not know how many sins our tongue and our lips have committed, we do know that we have said things that we should not have said, and that our speaking is often mixed with a bit of evilness and wickedness. As long as a person’s lips are clean, he is a clean person. Even today, whose lips have not sinned from morning to this moment? Some may say that they are right and that they do not have sins. Yet when someone really touches God, he will immediately see that he does not have only a few individual sins but piles upon piles of sins. After he has confessed some of his sins, he will still have more to confess. In fact, there will always be more to confess.
One of my gospel friends told me that before he was saved, he thought that he was a perfect gentleman. I also admit that his temperament was one of a righteous gentleman. However, one day he became sick and began to suffer from several diseases: high blood pressure, heart disease, lung disease, and so forth. After he had stayed in the hospital for a long time, he still had not recovered. One day he became really desperate and started to consider, while lying on his bed, what kind of person he was. The more he thought about himself, the more he found himself good; the more he assessed himself further, the more he still found himself good. At that moment, however, he saw a Bible beside him. At that time he had not yet believed in Jesus, and he did not know the meaning of salvation. He opened the Bible, read a little, and suddenly, he discovered that something was wrong in his being—something that he had never found before. He realized that there was a thought in him that was not right, so he confessed this sin before God. Right after he confessed this sin, a second feeling came, causing him to confess a second sin. Then a third feeling also came and he confessed a third, then a fourth, and then a fifth sin. He was confessing his sins in this way, until eventually he lost track of how many sins he had confessed. After a while he felt that because he had so many sins, he should not continue to confess while lying on the bed, so he rose up and prostrated himself in front of his bed. After he had confessed more sins, he took his hands off the bed and entirely prostrated himself on the floor, weeping and confessing at the same time. For at least three hours, he felt that the more he confessed his sins, the more sins he had to confess. In the past he had not sensed that he was wrong, but on that day his sense was completely different. In the beginning he only felt that he was a little bit wrong. But once he made one confession, another sin came; once he made another confession, the third one came. This continued until he forgot about time—confessing on the one hand and weeping on the other. Although he was quite a strong man and was accomplished in his career, he was saved! His salvation was not a casual one, but one in which he confessed all his sins.
Luke 5 records Peter’s story. Originally, Peter did not realize that he was sinful, but when the Lord shined on him, he immediately said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, Lord” (v. 8). In the Old Testament Job was one who also did not realize his sins until God shined on him. His three friends told him that he must have sinned before God, but Job did not agree and wanted to argue with God to see where his sins were (Job 5—6). This shows that Job was in darkness; he had never touched God or seen the light. However, at the end of the book of Job, he met God and said to Him, “I had heard of You by the hearing of the ear, / But now my eye has seen You; / Therefore I abhor myself, and I repent / In dust and ashes” (42:5-6). Why did he repent? He repented because he saw his uncleanness. All of us are filthy and unclean before God. A person who has touched God sees his filthiness, and one who is enlightened by God senses his uncleanness. But one who has never touched God or seen the light, even though he is filthy and unclean, does not have any feeling of filthiness. Every time a person touches God, he will see that he is full of sins and that he is a constitution of sin.
Over fifteen hundred years ago there was a man named Augustine. When he was young, he lived a life of debauchery. His mother loved the Lord devoutly and always prayed for her son. One day Augustine suddenly had a feeling and asked himself why he was living in debauchery and not turning to God. At that moment he repented. To his surprise, that day he discovered that the more he confessed his sins, the more sins he had. It seemed that before he began to confess, there was not much sin, but the more he confessed, the more severe and abundant the sins became. Later, he wrote a book called Confessions, in which he describes his experience of confession. He confessed his sins to the extent that he said something like, “Even the regret in my confession needs to be forgiven by God; even the tears that I shed for the sorrow of my sins need to be washed with the precious blood.” Can you imagine the extent to which this person confessed? Even though he had already confessed everything, he still felt that even the regret in his confession needed to be forgiven by the Lord.
A person who is before God and who touches God should see that he is sinful. The more he confesses his sins, the more he senses his filthiness; the more he senses his filthiness, the more he comes to God; and the more he comes to God, the more he finds himself sinful. Every saved one, from the moment God leads him to walk this way, has to pass through this experience. From the time we were saved until today, have we ever had a thorough confession before God? This is a very serious question. Many people do not have any problem with their salvation, but it is questionable whether or not they have ever had a thorough confession.
The first time I thoroughly confessed my sins after my salvation was not just for an hour or two, but for a very long period of time. I was enlightened by God to such an extent that even sitting made me feel guilty. It seemed that if I said yes, I sinned, and if I said no, I also sinned. We all were born unclean. Every one of our thoughts and intentions is unclean. When a baby is born and first starts to make noises, his mouth is very pure. But gradually as he learns to speak, his mouth is no longer pure. After he begins to go to elementary school, when you ask him something, he will roll his eyes. Then when he speaks you know that his speaking is with a motive. Any word which is uttered with a motive is unclean.
From 1931 to the present, I have confessed my sins almost every day. One time I was really bothered by a certain matter and I went to confess before God. At the end of my time of confession two sentences came to me that I had never heard before. In response I prayed, “O God, before You I am not merely dirty, I am basically a pile of filth. It is not only that I was a clean person who was defiled and became unclean; not only so, Lord, I am a being constituted with uncleanness. O God, I am not just false, but my whole being is constituted with falsehood.” I was enlightened by God to the extent that I realized that I am a constitution of uncleanness, and I am a constitution of falsehood. It was these two sentences which enlightened me. We are not only sinful but we are a constitution of sin. When God enlightens us, we immediately see our filthiness and evilness. If we have never allowed God to enlighten us, we have not walked, or progressed, even one step before God. When God wants us to walk a step further, He must first enlighten us and cleanse us. Anyone who has never been enlightened thoroughly, no matter how long he has been saved, how much doctrine he understands, or how deeply he knows the Bible, although he is saved, he has never walked one step on the path of God. God’s first step in enlightening us is always to cleanse us thoroughly.