Our scripture reading is Proverbs chapter 28. Proverbs chapter 28. The wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous are bold as a lion. For the transgression of a land, many are the princes thereof. But by a man of understanding and knowledge, the state thereof shall be prolonged. A poor man that oppresseth the poor is like a sweeping rain which leaveth no food. They that forsake the law praise the wicked, but such as keep the law contend with them. Evil men understand not judgment, but they that seek the Lord understand all things. Better is the poor that walketh in his uprightness than he that is perverse in his ways, though he be rich. Whoso keepeth the law is a wise son, but he that is a companion of riotous men shameth his father. He that by usury and unjust gain increaseth his substance, he shall gather it for him that will pity the poor. He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination. Whoso causeth the righteous to go astray in an evil way, he shall fall himself into his own pit, but the upright shall have good things in possession. The rich man is wise in his own conceit, but the poor that hath understanding searcheth him out. When righteous men do rejoice, there is great glory, but when the wicked rise, a man is hidden. He that covereth his sin shall not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy. Happy is the man that feareth all way, but he that hardeneth his heart shall fall into mischief. As a roaring lion and a ranging bear, so is a wicked ruler over the poor people. The prince that wanteth understanding is also a great oppressor, But he that hateth covetousness shall prolong his days. A man that doeth violence to the blood of any person shall flee to the pit, let no man stay him. Whoso walketh uprightly shall be saved, but he that is perverse in his ways shall fall at once. He that tilleth his land shall have plenty of bread, but he that followeth after vain persons shall have poverty enough. A faithful man shall abound with blessings, but he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent. To have respect of persons is not good, for for a piece of bread that man will transgress. He that hasteth to be rich hath an evil eye, and considereth not that poverty shall come upon him. He that rebuketh a man afterwards shall find more favor than he that flattereth with the tongue. Whoso robbeth his father or his mother and saith, it is no transgression, the same is the companion of a destroyer. He that is of a proud heart stirreth up strife, but he that putteth his trust in the Lord shall be made fat. He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool, but who so walketh wisely, he shall be delivered. He that giveth unto the poor shall not lack, but he that hideth his eyes shall have many a curse. When the wicked rise, men hide themselves, but when they perish, the righteous increase. So far we read God's Holy Word. The text for the sermon is verse 13, Proverbs 28 verse 13, He that covereth his sins shall not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy. Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, you know well that Proverbs is a book of wisdom. In chapter one, we read the purpose, really, of all these various Proverbs. The Proverbs of Solomon, to know wisdom and instruction. The purpose is to teach us wisdom. All wisdom is of God. And in chapter eight of the book of Proverbs, the way that it is written, wisdom is personified. That is, wisdom speaks as if it is a person and calls men to follow wisdom. Clearly, if you read that chapter, you will see that Jesus Christ himself is wisdom. He is the wisdom of God. And that runs through the whole book. When you seek wisdom, you seek Christ. and you seek eternal life. Fools despise wisdom and they perish, but a wise man hears and lives. The text that we consider tonight sets forth the way of wisdom in relationship to sin and repentance. It gives a stark contrast. You have on the one hand a man who covers his sin and he does not prosper. And the man who confesses, on the other hand, and forsakes his sin, he shall obtain mercy. We might be tempted to make that a bit of merely practical advice something like well if you do make a mistake admit it and go on and and don't commit the mistake again others will forget about it and you can go on now that that may be true that you ought to do that but the heart of the proverb is not merely practical advice for life, how to live in the home or school or workplace, but this is spiritual wisdom. It's the wisdom of God, and the wisdom of God is confess your sins and turn from them. Confess your sins and forsake them. This is the way of wisdom. This is the way of Christ. This is the way of salvation. how a saved person lives. So God gives us help by showing us how important this is for us to confess and forsake by giving us the contrast. Well, what happens to those who do not? And when it says they will not prosper, that of course is kind of a soft way of saying By putting it negatively, it's emphasizing the other side, which is they will perish. They will perish. So let's consider this text under the theme, The Antithetical Walk of Repentance. The Antithetical Walk of Repentance. First of all, noticing the positive side, and we'll look at the negative side within each one of them, but we're called to confess our guilt. That, first of all. Secondly, forsaking our sins. And thirdly, obtaining God's mercy. The antithetical walk of repentance begins with confessing our guilt. Two different persons are set forth in the text. One covers his sin. One confesses his sin. What did Solomon mean when he wrote about sin here? He that covereth his sins. Well, the word sin there really means to revolt or to rebel. That's the central idea of that word sin. It's a breaking of the law, but it's active rebellion. in that sinning. That's what sin is. It is a revolt. Consider a kingdom. Consider a king and a man within that kingdom that is very dissatisfied with his king. He hates the king. He despises the king. His desire is that the king even be assassinated or that someone push him off the throne so that The king no longer rules over them and they can live as they please. Despising the king, he revolts. He deliberately does the opposite of what the king commands his citizens to do. The man willfully breaks the law. He openly shows his hatred and his disrespect of the king. In word and in deed, He encourages all the subjects around him to follow suit, to follow his lifestyle. It is rebellion. It seeks the overthrow of the king and, of course, then preferably to put himself in a position where he can rule, where he can make the laws of the kingdom. Within any revolt, it's very self-centered, very proud, and self-promoting. Sin is a revolt against God. As the creator, God has the right to demand of everyone that they live as he commands them. He's the creator of the heavens and the earth. He is not a cruel, arbitrary tyrant. He is not that. God is good. He is gracious. He reveals that in the way he deals with his people. Most of the revelation of God to men in the world is from the works of God. And now consider the work of God. First of all, that he gives existence to every living thing, every man, woman and child, every creature of the sea, every creature of the land or of the air. And God not only gives them existence, but he provides for every living thing. And he gives his law so that man will know this is what is expected of you as my creature. God created man good and upright, able to serve God, and even to be a friend-servant of God, to know God, to love Him, and to fellowship with Him. God, therefore, has the right to expect that man will serve Him from the heart, that he will love God and obey Him. But, of course, the opposite happened. Adam and Eve sinned, as they were tempted by the rebel, Satan himself, who appealed to their pride with his lies and said, you can be like God. You can be like God. And imply that this good God who had created them wonderfully in relationship to God and provided for them every day, that this God was actually withholding something good from them. God knows that if you eat this tree, you will become like Him. God is withholding that from you. They believed the lie and they rebelled. In essence, they said, we do not have to listen to God. We do not have to listen to him. We can do as we please. They imagine that they could push God from the throne and that they could put themselves there. All sin is essentially that, saying we do not have to listen to God. He does not rule us. We can live as we please. Sin is revolt. It is rebellion. The foolish man will try to cover his rebellion. This is the first, this is the natural inclination of man. Job speaks of the fact that Adam did exactly that. In Job 31, 33, if I covered my transgression like Adam, said Job, by hiding mine iniquity in my bosom, that's what Adam tried to do, cover his transgression Adam and Eve, in kind of a figurative way, sewed together fig leaves and tried to cover their shame, in a sense thinking that they could cover their own sin. And this is the inclination of every single man and woman and child. Because when man sins, he is in trouble. He has revolted against God. And he knows he cannot push God from the throne. He knows that he cannot destroy the absolute power of God that rules over all things. He knows that sin is wrong, and so he tries to hide it, as Adam and Eve tried to hide their sin from God. Man tries to cover his sins before the face of God and before those who are around him. How does man do this? Well, there are many tactics that man uses to try to cover his sin, his rebellion. First of all, by hiding the fact that he even committed the sin. Just hide the sin so no one finds out about it. Or he simply outright lies. No, I didn't do that. He tries to shift the blame to others, to husband, to wife, to children, to friends, to those in authority, anybody but himself. Put the blame on them. Or he makes excuses. I really couldn't help it. I had no choice. I had to do this. And yes, I did this, but look how bad that is, what they did, and how horrible that is, far worse than what I did. He will call it a different name. I didn't really sin, this is a sickness. This is a disease. It's not really a lie, it's disinformation. It's not really fornication, we're just sleeping together. Think about many euphemisms, how many different words man has come up with to describe drunkenness. or stealing to make light of those sins as if they're not really sin to get high or to get sloshed or any of the other words that men have come up with. Does that sound familiar? We have the same nature. And we are very often like the man who covers his sin. We will look for any way to get out of our own responsibility for what we've done, push the guilt off from ourselves onto other people, draw a cover over the sin so nobody knows about it. This is the way of foolishness. And foolishness is not merely being unwise, But this is the folly of the psalmist who says, the fool has said in his heart, there is no God. That's the folly we're talking about here. We have folly in our heart that says, no, there is no God. God doesn't see what I've done. That's foolishness. The reality is God sees it all. He knows. But the fool denies that. And that's our inclination too. It's stubborn pride that refuses to confess, that refuses to say God is king over all. Sin is rebellion against him. There is a God who knows all and sees all. To break the law and to refuse to confess it is simply to cover, to cover. That's what this man does. That's one way of dealing with sin. the wrong way. Solomon says there's another way that is a man who confesses his sin. In many respects this man is no different from the first. He has the same nature. He's prone to the same sorts of sins and he revolted. He thought that the greatest happiness in life was not Loving God and serving him that that's not the greatest happiness of life, but rather he wished to be the one Who could make the rules for his own life? Thinking himself higher than God wanting to climb up to the throne himself and make the rules for his life And so he revolted simply rebelled against God knowing what God demands of him, he simply ignored it and did as he pleased. And whether in word or deed, he told others, come along with me, come along with me in breaking the law. I may do this, you may do this. We can live as we please. He revolted. But then the big difference is that by the grace of God, he confessed his sin and his guilt. When the king of all the earth confronts him with his sins, he makes no excuses. No blame does he put on his wife, on his children, on his friends. He sees his sins. He acknowledges them. He acknowledges they are not mere oversights concerning God's law. They're not ignorance of God's commandments. His sin was rebellion. By the grace of God, he is humbled. He is brought to grief over his sin. He confesses them. That's what David did when Nathan the prophet came to him with a story and then finally said to him, David, thou art the man. And David said, I have sinned. I have sinned. This man declares before God, I have revolted against God. I deliberately rebelled against Him, thinking that I could get away with it. But there's more to his confession, because he does not merely confess that he has sinned, but his guilt goes deeper than that. In shame, he confesses, I am a rebel. That's what I am. He stands before the king with that admission. I am a rebel to the core. I was born a rebel. I will die a rebel. I am prone by nature to hate you, the king, and all your subjects. It is something that I need to fight all my life long. He doesn't say this defiantly. He says it in humble grief. This is what I am. Rebellious. His is a genuine confession. From two perspectives, especially number one, it's complete. It's not partial. He's not leaving out the worst part of it before God. He's not leaving out at least that and only saying what he has to and leaving out what he thinks he can get away with. It declares before God all sin, all rebellion, and admit this is my sin. This is my guilt. The second thing that makes it genuine is not only the completeness of it, but the sorrow of heart. Grief and guilt. My soul. Oppress. Genuine repentance. You remember Genesis chapter six, where we read about how God, it repented him that he had made man, and then you remember the end of that verse, and it grieved him at his heart. Repentance always is a grief. Repentance is not merely that we admit what we have done, that we can list the sins that we have done That's part of confession. That's the completeness side of it. But there's the repentance side of it that says, I am truly grieved. It gushes out of him. And really, the word confess has that idea of throwing something out. It just has to come out. He's so overwhelmed with grief. He has offended God. He has hurt the church. He has hurt his Fellow saints, he's grieved. This is required. Confession is absolutely required. God always demanded this, even in the Old Testament Israel. On the great day of atonement, the priest would come with two of the goats, and the second goat, which was to be sent out into the wilderness, the priest would put his hand on that goat, and we read, and confess all the sins of Israel and her transgressions. Every year, that was required. on the great day of atonement. But not only that day, any time a man would come with his lamb or his goat and bring that offering to the Lord, he was to put his hand on the head of that animal and say, I have sinned. A confession. God demands confession. And Scripture records exactly that. David, Jeremiah, Daniel, amazing prayer of confessing sin for the whole nation. Hezekiah, Ezra, Nehemiah, and how many of the Psalms are not confession of sin? God requires it. This is the way of repentance, confession. But not only that, It includes forsaking his sins. The man who covers his sins does not forsake them. He doesn't even try. Why should he? In his own mind, he has justified himself. In his own mind, he has made it clear to himself that he didn't really sin. He didn't really do anything that bad. He can't really help what was done. It's the fault of someone else, after all. So why forsake it? There really isn't any need for it. He has neither the desire nor the ability to forsake his sins. So he continues in his sin, in his folly. He gets caught, perhaps even red-handed, but before long he is back at the same wicked deeds. Part of repentance is forsaking. Now understand, there is a direct connection between confession and forsaking. And that is that when a man, by the grace of God, repents and confesses his sins, the next step is asking God for grace to forsake it. And God gives that grace. But if a man is not sorry for his sin, and then piously goes before God and says, oh God, forgive me and deliver me from my sin, but he really isn't repentant, God is not mocked. God does not give the grace to forgive, to forsake sin if there is not genuine repentance. There will not be that grace given. Forsaking sin is difficult. It might seem that this is fairly easy once a man has gotten past the point of making a genuine confession After all, by his confessing, he has broken his sinful pride. He has opened up his heart. He has revealed, declared his own rebellion against God. He has sorrowed over them. He has pleaded for forgiveness. And I'm talking about someone now who's genuinely repentant. But you might say, well, if he's done all of that, forsaking the sin should be easy. But we know better. We know better. We who pray daily for the forgiveness of sins and pray that God will give us grace to fight them, find that the next night we're praying about the same sins that we haven't forsaken. Why is that? Why is it so difficult to forsake sin? Two things especially. First, sin is part of our nature. It's part of who we are. We are rebels to the core. And even after regeneration, that mighty work of the Spirit whereby He gives us a new life, a holy life, a heavenly life, And we have the grace of God, which is the power of God to fight sin. We have that grace. The reality is we have only a small beginning of the new obedience. A small beginning. That old man of sin is so powerful and relentless that the moment we let down our guard he takes control once again of our mind and will and emotions and our body and off we go again into the old sin we have just the beginning of obedience secondly the difficulty of forsaking sin is that sin is an addicting power an addicting power. Sin is habit forming. Sin grabs hold of a person and pulls him in a certain direction. We think of drugs as being addicting. We think of alcohol as being addicting. They are, but understand all sin is addicting to us. Adultery is addicting Lying is addicting. Taking God's name in vain is addicting. Neglecting the means of grace is addicting. It's addicting because these sins appeal. to our flesh. We don't see them as something horrible and ugly and a vile transgression of the law. They're appealing to us. And once a sin works its way into our life and into our mind, it is virtually impossible to root it out. That explains How a believer can flop down in front of the television set and watch the same entertainment of the world week after week. How a child of God can pull out that phone and go back to that website with all of the world's corruption time after time. It's addicting. It's powerful. We come to need it. We come to crave it. We will not deny ourselves the pleasures of that sin. So forsaking them is not an easy matter. But we must. That's the point of the text. Confessing our sins and then forsaking the sin. The word in the text for forsaking is literally to loosen the bonds and to let it go. That's very descriptive. Forsaking demands that we do not want to. We don't want to let that sin go. It's something we enjoy. We cling to it, hold it fast, we harbor it, but forsaking it means letting it go, sending it away. Many times that means we need to run from the sin, but it surely means we do not put ourselves in a position where we will fall into it. We will void those situations that at the least is required of us. To be absolutely clear about this, understand that this forsaking of sin is not simply a matter of the power of the mind over the body. It's not a question of how strong your willpower is. Because you cannot simply will yourself to stop sinning. If that's all that you do, You might stop the sin outwardly for a time. You might not perform the sin in its most obvious forms, but that's not forsaking them. That's not forsaking them. Only the grace of God breaks the power of sin. Breaks the death grip of sin in your soul, gives you the power to continue to fight against it because it's not a one day battle. This is a lifetime battle. Confessing. Forsaking. The believer prays for that praise for grace to be able to do that. Not only forgive us our trespasses, Deliver me from the power of that. That's part of the Lord's prayer, which the catechism explains so well in question 127. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. That's a prayer for deliverance. And remember what it says there, that is, since we are so weak in ourselves that we cannot stand a moment And besides this, since our mortal enemies, the devil, the world, and our own flesh cease not to assault us, do thou therefore preserve and strengthen us by the power of thy Holy Spirit that we may not be overcome in this spiritual warfare, but constantly and strenuously may resist our foes till at last we obtain a complete victory. Young people should pray for God's grace before they go out on a date. We all need to pray, young and old, when we go out with friends. Guard our tongues, Lord. Keep us from activities that are sinful. We need grace. And whatever sin it is to which we are prone, whether it's drinking or pornography or lying or whatever it is, gossip, that we pray for grace for that sin, to fight that sin. We must forsake sin. And in this way, we find God's mercy. The man who does not forsake but rather covers does not prosper. Does not prosper. And literally it means he does not succeed. He does not succeed. Now, first of all, that means he doesn't succeed in covering his sins. He does not. God sees it all. God knows every evil thought and word and activity. He knows the depths of the heart. No man can hide a single sin from God. And therefore, this impenitent man does not succeed in the sense of being blessed. Not ever. God will not bless. In the Old Testament, prosperity, that's the word that is used here in the English, the idea of prosperity was an earthly prosperity that pointed to spiritual blessings from God. This was especially true in the land of Canaan, which was a type of heaven. Prosperity was a picture of spiritual blessings, the blessings of salvation. the love of God, and the blessedness of eternal life. The man who covers his sin has none of that. No blessing. He is held accountable for his sin. His sin must be paid for. He has rebelled against the King of heaven and earth. There is no blessing. Only the curse of God is upon him, a dreadful curse which says, you will die. God's wrath is upon Him. That's all He knows, day after day. And in the day of judgment, He stands before that righteous God of heaven and earth and judges, God does according to His righteous law, and He condemns all workers of iniquity. This man will be condemned. He will in that day acknowledge his sin, He will say, yes, I have sinned. He will say, yes, I am a sinner, but without any sorrow, without any remorse, but he will say it, I deserve my punishment, but he will not repent. People of God, there's some of this in us too. When we do not confess and forsake sin, if we cover our sins and continue in them, the heavy hand of God's wrath comes upon us. Psalm 32, when I kept silence, My bones wax old through my roaring all the day long, for day and night thy hand was heavy upon me. My moisture is turned into the drought of summer. It wasn't until he acknowledged his sin, confessed his guilt, that he received mercy. Failure to confess, failure to forsake, not only brings God's heavy hand upon us, but it says to you and me, as we read in the forum tonight, do not come to the table of the Lord. You will not receive in the Lord's Supper God's assurance of love and mercy toward you. You will not experience that if you do not confess, if you do not forsake your sins, you will experience God's judgment. His judgment. Of course, for an unbelieving man, for a reprobate man, that's obvious, but you understand that can happen to us if we do not Confess if we do not forsake and think, I can come to the Lord's table. There is a judgment. Terrible judgment. Do not come. But whoso confesseth and forsaketh shall obtain mercy. Mercy is a beautiful attribute of God, closely related to His love and to His grace. Mercy is an attribute, and in that attribute, God desires the blessedness, the happiness of the one that is the object of His mercy. And the Bible says God is eternally merciful, and that means then before there was even a people that existed, God was merciful within himself. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit within the Trinity, all of them had mercy on each other. That is, they desired the blessedness of each other. But now when that mercy of God comes upon a creature that is a sinner, Then that mercy is also pity. God has pity on his people in their suffering as they are overwhelmed by their grief, as they are experiencing the terribleness of sin against God. God has mercy upon them. He lifts them up. He forgives. God has mercy. He blesses. What a wonder. Would it not be amazing if that infamous rebel we talked about at the beginning stands before the king and says, I am a rebel and I will be a rebel till the day that I die. I don't even have the will to stop rebelling. And yet the king would have mercy on him and not send him to the dungeon or to the death. Well even more amazing is that we who sin and rebel continuously before this very God whose law condemns us, that we would find mercy with God. This holy God who knows our sins and every sin is a sin against His majesty. He knows that according to his law, we deserve eternal destruction. But mercy, great mercy, the Bible speaks of it because of the depth from which God brings us up to the height that God gives us such blessedness. He forgives our sins. He takes us out of the prison of our own guilt. He adopts us as his own sons and daughters. He says, you are forgiven, and I will even change you so that you are more and more conformed to the image of my own son, my begotten son. Eternally, I will bless you. That is God's amazing mercy. The text says that those who confess and forsake shall have mercy. Shall have mercy. What does it mean that we shall have mercy? Surely it does not mean that we merit it by confessing our sins. And that's very obvious from two things immediately that shows that we don't merit it because even when we come confessing our sins, we're still rebels. We still deserve to be cast out of his presence. There isn't anything in us that ever merits any mercy from God. And the second thing that makes it obvious that we didn't merit it is God has eternally been merciful to us within his own mind, in his own counsel. God says, I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy. And who is that? Romans chapter nine, it's his elect people. Jacob, who has never done good or evil, yet God said, Jacob have I loved, I will have mercy on him. It's his elect people. He reveals that mercy by sending his son. And the death of Jesus on the cross becomes the very basis for why he may show mercy to us. because we are forgiven in Jesus Christ. We never earn that mercy. And yet the text is saying that the one who confesses and forsaketh them shall have mercy in the sense almost as if, well, he didn't really have it in a certain sense before, but after Confessing and forsaking, now he has it. Now again, eternally God has been merciful. I know that, you know that. But this is the reality that God shows mercy in the way of. God leading us to confession and forgiveness and then showing us his mercy. in the way of. In the Old Testament, the man putting his hand upon the animal, confessing his sins, those sins went away. They were taken away from him. And so do we know that all our sins are imputed to Jesus Christ. Every time we confess them, they're taken off from our account. They're put on Jesus. And God says, once again, I forgive you. I forgive you. He shows us mercy. I forgive you for Jesus' sake. That's the only way we should ever dare to come to the table of the Lord. Do that this week. Do that every day of your life. Confess with grief. Forsake the sins by the power of God's grace and you shall have mercy. This is God's beautiful promise to sinners. Amen. Let us pray. Father in heaven, how great thou art, how great is thy mercy. The heavens and the clouds above, thy mercy extends beyond that. And we know it. Oh, we know it. That's why we dare even to confess, knowing that we go before a merciful God who has loved us eternally, who has redeemed us in the blood of his own son. So Lord, make us to be ever a repenting people. Genuine repentance. For Jesus sake we ask it. Amen. Salter number 83. Salter number 83. Blessed is he whose trespass hath freely been forgiven, whose sin is wholly covered before the sight of heaven. We sing the three stanzas, number 83. and poor man, whose sin is wholly covered before the sight of God. My head was heav'nly ugly, my soul found no relief. But when I awed my trespass, my sin did not from me. when Thou forgivest me. So while Thou art beseeching in times when Thou art near, O well-being, what shall we hearts to Him. In Thee, O Lord, I might be, Thou The Lord, he saves below, who in his grace divides. By all his creatures let his name be honored. The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make his face to shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee and give thee peace. Amen.