[AI translation] Dear Brothers and Sisters! This is the third time I have spoken about this word, and I would like to finish it this Sunday. But before I start explaining the final part, let me briefly summarize the whole story, as I did the previous two times, for those of you who were not here for the previous two sermons.What happened was that the people of Israel, under the leadership of Joshua, conquered the great city of Jericho, a fortified stronghold, during the conquest battles. The great spoils found there, gold, silver and precious things, were all to be dedicated to God. No one could keep anything for himself, so that he would have enough to build the temple in Jerusalem later. But one of the warriors, a man named Achan, secretly took some of the spoils dedicated to the Lord, so he literally stole from God. He then brought terrible evil upon the whole nation. For it came to pass that in the next battle, the siege of the city of Ai, the soldiers of Israel could not stand before the enemy troops, they were defeated, they left many dead, they fled in disgrace, there was great mourning, shame, defeat, and defeat. But then the reason for this was revealed, that they had stolen from God. By the casting of lots, it was also revealed who the culprit was: Achan. And he had to pay for his sin in a terrible way, for not only himself but all his relatives were stoned with him, all his possessions were burnt and a great pile of stones was laid on him. And so the wrath of the Lord ceased against Israel.
In the explanation of this very dark story, we came to the point last Sunday that Achan finally broke down, confessed, confessed that he had stolen from God, poured out his whole soul there before Joshua and all the people. I said - and this is how we ended the sermon last Sunday - that when a man comes to the point where he no longer hides his dear sin within himself, but exposes it and opens it up to God, pours it out of his soul before God, then that man - no matter how seriously ill he was spiritually - has at that moment already embarked on the path of healing. People who read the Bible immediately hear another verse in this connection, from the letter of the apostle James, which also says: "Confess your sins and pray for one another, that you may be healed." So whoever wants to be healed, Brothers and Sisters - remember, we talked about it last Sunday - must be willing to undergo surgery. Whoever wants to be healed, whoever wants to start a truly new life, must always start here. There, to confess your sin! There, what I read from the Word, that Achan said, "I have sinned against the Lord, and have done this and this.
Whoever wants to be healed cannot avoid this, Brothers and Sisters. I know very well from my own experience and from my pastoral experience that this is where healing begins. But do we not come here because we want to be healed? Isn't that why we listen to the preaching of the Word from Sunday to Sunday, and especially from day to day during the past week, and isn't that why God's message has been preached in this congregation for 25 years now, so that our lives may be healed? And Brothers and Sisters, is it being healed? Do you know what I would consider the most terrible? That when the Word of God brings to the surface in a heated evangelisation or in a service, or even in a simple conversation, the vices, the miseries, the sins of our lives - nothing happens! Then everything stays the same. And we go on living in the feeble, the half-hearted, the tired luxury of the Christianity we have been in, and the whole message becomes a breeze for us to blow away. It was all a lukewarm spiritual bath that passed away, and we were not healed of anything. That would be the most terrible thing. It would be the most terrible thing, dear brothers and sisters, if God were to waste his blessings on us - and this is what we have been reminded of during the last week, how many blessings he has wasted on us for 25 years - if there were no healing, no renewal, no awakening! There would be no fulfilment of the redemptive power of Christ in our lives, but everything would remain the same. That would be the most terrible thing! Well, Brethren, healing always begins with confession of sin. And if anyone really wants to be healed and to start a new life, he should take this confession of sin deadly seriously!
"Give glory to God, confess what you have done, hide nothing," says Joshua to Achan. Brothers and sisters, I know very well how difficult it is to confess sin. It is quite different, essentially different, from telling our problems. It is quite another thing to confess my sins, and quite another to talk myself out and tell my difficulties to an understanding soul. This is also a very good thing and a necessary thing, and we all know how good it is when one can really complain, when one can pour out one's soul and with it everything that has been put on one. Because so much unworthiness and unpleasantness happens to people, it builds up in them, and it's good to pour out the bitterness sometimes. There is no doubt that this always brings a great deal of spiritual refreshment, a great deal of liberation, of relief. But let me say, Brothers and Sisters, that this is not yet a confession. Confession is a different thing. It is one thing to tell someone about the burdens and problems of my life, and quite another to confess my sins to someone. One feels good, but the other is terribly difficult. One is something my soul longs for, but the other is something it protests against to the very end.
For the true confession of sin, Brothers and Sisters, is the most inexorable exposure: when I confess my sin, I am, as it were, expressing that I no longer have fellowship with it. I no longer hide it within myself, I no longer harbour my sin, I call it by name, and in doing so I take it, as it were, and remove it from my soul and expel it from my life. Confession of sin is like a willingness to now be ready to deal with my sins. I don't care what happens to me because I can't take it anymore. Sin likes darkness, cover, Satan likes to stay hidden. Confessing my sin is precisely to expose the Satan in me. I betray and expose his work. I expose him, and I expose him to God. Before a sin-hating, powerful, holy God!
That's what Achan did. He exposed himself perfectly. And brethren, I say very seriously, if any of you want to be healed and truly start a new life, you have to start here. "Give glory to God!" - tell everything, hide nothing, confess everything truly, honestly. And look how good it is that Achan has a Joshua to help him in this terribly bitter and agonizing operation of confession. Who listens to all the ugliness with great, compassionate love that has happened. How good it is, Brothers and Sisters, when there are faithful, trustworthy Christian men and women in a congregation, pastors and non-ministers alike, to whom the Achan with their overwhelming burden of sin can go to confess. Yes: to confess, to confess sin.
One might say: but what need is there for another person when one wants to pour out one's soul in private with God, to pour clean water into the cup, to clear one's own affairs; what need is there for another person? Brothers and sisters, I have said it so many times, but I say it again, that it is a great help to have a spiritual brother there in the difficult operation of confession. A very great help. We need, yes, we need that other person there, so that, on the one hand, his presence makes the weight of sin more real for us, and on the other hand, the presence of the invisible God. Because - have you not noticed? - we blush much more when we speak of our sins in front of another person than when we confess them only before God. This is usually a sign that neither the weight of our sin hurts enough, nor is the presence of God really conscious before us. Well, that other brother there helps us with his pure presence: helps us to take sin seriously, helps us to unload it, helps us to bring it before God, helps us to beg for mercy, and helps us to sense that God is not an idea or a thought, but a living One. He is as personally present and all-listening as the other brother or sister right there beside us. So if you really want to be healed, find yourself a Joshua like this. Find yourself a spiritual brother who is ready and willing to help you in this very difficult operation. The Scripture also says: "Confess your sins to one another, that you may be healed." - Thank God, we have such brothers and sisters in this congregation! And the silence of the pastoral office is just for this, exactly for this!
Then Achan sighs and adds, "I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and have done this and this." You see, Brothers, it's hard to get this far. It's hard to get to the point where you say, "I have sinned! Like the prodigal son, it is hard to get to the point of saying, I have sinned against my father and against heaven. That I have sinned! Because of course it's much easier to say: well, you see, Father, I got here, I got into this spiritual bankruptcy, I got into sin because my spouse behaved in such and such a way, and I couldn't help it. Either because I was in a situation where he was eating away my nerves, or because I was in danger of my life, I was forced to resort to dishonest means, because otherwise I couldn't have got out of it, I couldn't have helped myself and my people... I was forced to! Yes, Brothers, it is much easier indeed. But this is not a confession! It's confessing the sins of others, and that doesn't help. It doesn't heal anything! In fact, it will only aggravate that poisonous wound in your family or in your life or in your church. It is a wonderful thing that everyone, without exception, instinctively tries to get rid of their sins by blaming someone else. But then you have to realise that you can't do it that way, you can't get rid of it that way. The reason why confession is so terribly difficult is that there is no room for error. There, each one must come before God with the burden of his own individual sin, each one brings his own account to the Lord. So, if someone really wants to be healed, to start a new life, he should not shun, should not excuse himself, should not accuse anyone else, should not explain himself, but should start right from the place where Achan said, "Truly I have sinned against the Lord, and have done this and that...
And then Achan will tell what happened, how it all happened. And it is so terrible, Brothers, the way Achan tells it. It's as if he had to replay all the things he did. It's as if he has to repeat once again what happened - but this time in the sight of the living God. Yes, that's how agonizing something like confession really is. To feel that the sin I have committed I must commit again, in the presence of God. Thus he says: "I saw a beautiful Babylonian robe, and 200 shekels of silver, and a golden rod, and I coveted them and took them." Listen, Brothers: I saw... I coveted... I took. It is always by these steps that sin goes deeper and deeper into your heart. I saw, I coveted, I took away! This is the triad of sin.
I saw... Oh, those eyes! The trouble always begins when you see something or someone that doesn't belong to you. And he covets it. Yes, sometimes such unheard-of riches, such dazzling beauty, such desirable fortune, shine before one's eyes that one's eyes are almost dazzled! Oh, how tempting! One should only reach out one's hand for it! Achan reaches out his hand for her, then suddenly withdraws it as if he had burnt it. Yes, yes, burned by the divine prohibition, that Achan, don't do it! Don't steal! You must not! And then Achan hesitates, and turns away so as not to be seen, and flees, and would run, and runs in another direction to escape the tempter. But the awful thing is that there seems to be someone else running with him, and he keeps hearing it in his ear. You know him, don't you, because he's always doing that to us. As if to say: You fool, where are you running off to, what are you doing, are you going to leave all those beautiful things you saw there? You are a fool! If you don't take it, someone else will. Everybody steals, everybody steals, everybody cheats, everybody lies a little - you're allowed to do it, you can afford it! Don't miss this excellent opportunity that your luck has just given you! You've seen how that gold and that silver glittered! If you take it now, you'll be a rich man and a happy man. You're doing it for your family, for your children, for your children! And the Babylonian robe would suit a woman, wouldn't it? She deserves to look a little better! Don't be so stupid! I'd do it if I were you... And God? - asks Achan to himself. What will God say to him and Joshua? Come on, don't be such a child! Don't be so hard on yourself! Don't worry, God won't be any poorer for a few screams! And Joshua will never know... It's all in the "I saw it". But then it went on.
He coveted it. Yes, the desire that was stirring in his soul. The desire that took hold of Achan, the desire she couldn't resist. I can imagine that he looked around Achan and saw that there was no one near him - now or never, quickly, quickly!
And he took it. And it happened. It's like a moth circling around a candle flame until it's dizzy. The angels weep, the devils laugh. I stole God! And then, by all the detours, he manages to return home without being seen. No one, except God. I came home with the beautiful clothes and the gold and silver and my desires and wishes fulfilled - but without God! I brought my family gold, silver, everything their eyes desired, but I stole from them! I stole from them the one thing they needed: I stole from them God! It's all in the tent, take it, I can't bear to see it, it burns my soul! I have sinned, I accuse myself, God, forgive me!
Somehow this poignant confession of sin must have happened. Because, Brothers and Sisters, confession is always an unheard of shock. A person could not really bring himself to confess his sins without the encouragement of God's promise, written so many times and in so many ways in the Bible. Once like this: "He that covereth his transgressions shall not prosper; but he that confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy." Then like this: "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Then again thus: "If your sins are scarlet red, they will be as white as snow, and if they are the color of blood like crimson, they will be like wool." And like this: "The blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin."
You see, brethren, this is the great difference between the old Achan and the present Achan: that the old Achan confessed his sin and had to be mercilessly punished. Today's Achan, on the other hand, if they confess their sins, they are freed from punishment. And it is not that God is any more lenient in His judgment of the sinner today than He was in the Old Testament days, but because Someone has taken the punishment of our sins upon us. It is because someone has already died in our place in the judgment that God has passed on our sin. That terrible judgment has already been carried out, only not on you, Achan, but on Jesus of Nazareth. That is why Jesus had to die. That is why Jesus took the curse of death on the cross. The Lord cast all our sins upon Him, and in Him He punished and judged. Thus Jesus became a curse for us. And so it is true that His blood cleanses us from all sin. That is why it is possible that if we confess our sins, He forgives us, He ascended, and then He says, "Go and sin no more."
You see, Brothers and Sisters, this is how God heals. He heals by forgiving. And confession of sin is important precisely because when a person confesses his sin, there is no longer any obstacle to this healing power of God, this forgiveness of sin, flowing into our lives. When one confesses his sin, then forgiveness becomes concrete, then I know what God has forgiven for the merit of Jesus. Then I know why my Savior atoned for me.
When someone confesses his sin, it is like opening up the sore wound of his life and bringing it into the healing ray of divine love, and then that divine forgiving love really does heal right there, heals right where it was sick, where it hurt, where our lives bled. Yes, it is by God's forgiveness that we become new people! By God forgiving all the misery and wickedness we have confessed as if it had never existed! He wipes it out of our lives, frees us from its burden, its memory, its accusation, its power.
Such a spiritual cleansing is a way to start life anew, to begin again - differently than before. It is after such a great cleansing that one is free, that one is willing and able to live and work in a Christlike way.
Do you know what would be a joyful and worthy celebration of the 25th anniversary of our church, in the sight of God? That by confessing our sins to one another, praying for one another, we would be cleansed, healed, strengthened for healthy Christian living by the power of his forgiving grace!
Time is pressing. The years are passing. Life is slowly slipping away. And suddenly one realizes that it is too late! He who has not yet laid his sins on Jesus by confession of sin, must now take the judgment himself, like Achan! And from that there is no escape.
Let us not be late! "Confess your sins one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed."
Amen.
Date: 17 February 1963.