While each of the confessions we highlight today came before the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, the meaning of confession is the same throughout the Bible. In each account there is enough to let us know whether or not each man’s confession of sin was acceptable to God.

In the late 1980’s, well-known TV preacher Jimmy Swaggart fell from his place of fame and prosperity as the world’s leading religious televangelist when he was photographed visiting a prostitute.(1) In the aftermath, Larry King interviewed Swaggart on his television show, Larry King Live. During the interview, Swaggart admitted his sin, as he had done before to his then 7000 member strong Family Worship Center church. King, who had known Swaggart for some years, expressed his feelings in a USA Today piece this way:

Last Lord’s Day I brought a message called "Confession: The Christian’s Lifeline to God." The text was 1 John 1:9, which says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." In that sermon I presented to you the scope of this passage, the sense of it, the significance of it and the system of it, that is, how it is that God forgives Christians who confess their sins. None of us should sin. But we do. I tried to encourage all of us toward the practice of keeping a soft heart and confessing our sin to God promptly and regularly, when it occurs.

But there is more we need to say about confession of sin. There is a necessary attitude behind confession that is a little harder to nail down. Thus I thought it would benefit us to take a look at a few of the more well-known confessions of sin in the Bible, and the stories of the men who made them. I propose to do that in this week’s sermon and next. For today we’ll consider the Bible’s description of three men who uttered the words, "I have sinned," but whose lives ended in ruin. As we look at each, I will show you that simply mouthing the three little words, "I have sinned," is not sufficient to bring God’s cleansing if the heart attitude behind the words is not right.

While each of the confessions we highlight today came before the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, the meaning of confession is the same throughout the Bible. In each account there is enough to let us know whether or not each man’s confession of sin was acceptable to God.

The first of the three confessions I have chosen for us to look at this morning is:

Exodus 9:27 contains the words of the King of Egypt’s confession. It says, "I have sinned this time; the Lord is the righteous one and I and my people are the wicked ones."

That certainly sounds like an effective acknowledgment of sin, doesn’t it? At least the words sound right. There is agreement with the verdict of God. There is admission of guilt and transgression. There is no blame shifting or minimizing. But if you know the story, you know that there is more to consider. Pharaoh said these words because he really had no other reasonable choice at the moment he spoke them. He was forced by his circumstances and thus, confessed grudgingly.

About 1500 years before Christ, Moses was called by God through the burning bush in Exodus 3 to go back to Egypt and demand the release of the enslaved Israelites. In chapter 5 he stood in Pharaoh’s presence and delivered God's command to let God’s people go to worship in the desert. But the arrogant king refused and penalized the Hebrews by increasing their labors. Israel languished under the added burden and a very surprised Moses went back to God and asked why He had even sent him if this was all that was going to happen. In chapter 6, the Lord responded to Moses: "Now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh; for under compulsion he shall let them go…."(2) The margin in my Bible says that those words "under compulsion" mean literally, "by a strong hand." Pharaoh's obstinacy was soon to meet head on with the force of God's hand. The king would be compelled to comply.

Moses returned to the palace and renewed the Lord’s demands. When asked for proof of the power of God before this polytheistic king, Moses threw down his staff and it turned into a snake. But Pharaoh’s court magicians were able to counterfeit the miracle and Pharaoh was unimpressed. Again he refused to let the people go. "Pharaoh’s heart is stubborn," God said in Exodus 7:14.

Next God had Moses meet Pharaoh on the banks of the Nile. There Moses and Aaron repeated the demand to release the people. Aaron stretched out his rod over the water of the river and it became blood. The river was so foul as a result of the miracle that all the fish died. Not only that but all of the reservoirs, pools, streams, and even the water pots of Egypt now contained foul water. Pharaoh was unimpressed, however, because his magicians were somehow able to mimic the miracle. "Pharaoh’s heart was hardened," we read in Exodus 7:22. He returned to the palace unchanged.

Next God brought swarms of frogs upon the land, so that they came up out of the Nile and filled their houses, their beds, their ovens, and their kitchens. Though again Pharaoh’s magicians managed somehow to produce frogs, that did little to remove them from the land. They were everywhere. Finally the king said he had enough. He acknowledged God and begged Moses to take them away. He promised to release the people. The frogs died everywhere except in the river. They piled them up in heaps and the whole land was filled with the stench of rotting frogs. But when the crisis was past, Pharaoh again refused to let the people go.

Next came gnats or "lice" as some translations say. At that point the magicians dropped out. They couldn’t produce lice. They said, "This is the finger of God."(3) But stubborn Pharaoh refused again.

Then came flies on the land, with the same results, then pestilence on the livestock, such that all the Egyptian animals died. Egypt was decimated by these plagues. But stubborn Pharaoh held his ground. Then there was hail. Huge hailstones, larger and heavier than anything Egypt had ever seen. The hail cut down men and animals in the field. It shattered trees and leveled crops. Great jagged streaks of lightning cracked out of the sky. Thunder rose to the level of a roar. Only in the land of Goshen where the Hebrews lived was there no hail, thunder, and lightning. At that point we read of Pharaoh’s confession: "I have sinned this time; the Lord is the righteous one and I and my people are the wicked ones."(4)

Good words, to be sure. But the commitment behind them didn’t last. Forced confessions seldom (and perhaps never) do. Exodus 9:34 says, "When Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the thunder had ceased, he sinned again and hardened his heart…."

Pharaoh stands as an example of the stubborn, obstinate, hard-hearted person who sins with little concern for anyone but himself, then, at the last minute, when it looks like he is about to be punished, or he begins to suffer, or his life is threatened, he cries out, "I have sinned," but means it only to the extent that he momentarily fears the wrath of God. As soon as the force is removed, he reverts back to his old ways of sin because, in reality, his heart never changed.

Many a man has bargained with God as Pharaoh did, promising under duress, and perhaps even seeming to mean it at the time, that if God will but spare him in his hour of need, he would change. But then when the pressure was off, he reverted back to his old ways. This is not to say that a crisis which wakes us up to our need to bring our lives into harmony with God is bad. In fact, I would venture that quite a number of us came to God as the result of a difficult time in our lives that helped us realize our needs. But if the crisis doesn’t break our stubborn will, if we do not truly surrender our obstinacy to God, our confession will mean very little.

God disdained Pharaoh’s confession. His wrath came down upon the Egyptian king when he and his army were drowned in the Red Sea. So also shall God’s wrath come upon those who confess only to the extent that they are in trouble, but never really surrender their stubborn wills to God.

We move along in the history of the Bible now from the contest with Pharaoh when Israel was in Egypt to a time near the end of Israel’s wilderness wanderings. There we find:

Balaam is one of the strangest characters in the Bible. He seems to have been a Gentile soothsayer or wizard with a reputation of power among some of the pagan nations Israel passed through on the way to the Promised Land. Apparently he put his unique skills out for hire.(5) Yet this diviner had some knowledge of the God of heaven and, according to 2 Peter 2:16, God worked through him as a prophet, at least on the occasion we will look at.

He too, like Pharaoh, confessed his sin. In Numbers 22:34 we read his words: "I have sinned, for I did not know that you were standing in the way against me. Now then, if it is displeasing to you, I will turn back."

Here is how it happened. Israel left Egypt and was headed for Canaan, but they were turned back into the wilderness when they refused to trust God in the conquest of the Promised Land. They wandered forty years in the desert as an entire generation died. Near the end of their wandering they were attacked by the armies of two powerful kings.(6) God delivered them in a mighty military victory. Word of the triumph spread all around the region and filled the surrounding nations with dread. When the news reached the Moabites, Balak, their king, sent for this Balaam character, who had a reputation of getting effective results when he blessed or cursed people.(7) The king’s request was carried by the distinguished elders of Moab along with a sizable bribe, to the place where Balaam lived. It seems reasonable that though Balaam was a Gentile, he must have known that the Israelites were God’s people and that they should not be cursed. But apparently the money and prestige offered to Balaam were a great temptation. He asked the elders to stay overnight while he consulted with God. God clearly told him not to go with them and not to curse Israel. Balaam told the elders of Moab that the answer was no and they left.

Not to be deterred by the prophet’s refusal, King Balak sent new messengers, even more distinguished than the ones he had sent before, along with promises of great wealth if Balaam would but come and curse these people. That’s the point where the prophet began to go astray. Rather than simply refuse again, knowing that God had already given him the answer, he was enticed by the bribe. Balaam went to God a second time to ask if he should go and curse the Israelites. At that point, as He sometimes does when we insist on receiving that which we know is wrong, God gave the double-minded prophet just what he wanted. He told him to go ahead and return with the messengers, but only to speak what He put into his mouth. Then the Lord, in anger because of Balaam’s double-mindedness, commanded His angel to stand in the road on prophet’s way. Balaam rode on his donkey along with two servants toward the palace of the king of Moab. As he came upon the invisible angel stationed in his way, God performed a miracle and allowed the donkey to see what the prophet could not. Seeing the angel standing in the road with a drawn sword, the beast swerved to the side of the road and refused to go forward. Balaam, oblivious to the danger, beat the animal and forced it to move forward. This time the donkey swerved to the side of a narrow pass and pinned the prophet’s foot against the wall. Balaam was furious. Again he beat the animal and made it go forward. The angel repositioned, this time ready to strike the prophet dead. Again the donkey stopped, and this time lay down in the road. Balaam, nearly out of control by this time, struck the animal a third time, and then suddenly, by the miracle of God, the donkey began to speak to the prophet!

"What have I done to you that you have struck me these three times?" You would think that a talking donkey would shake a man loose from his anger. They say that "anger blows out the lamp of the mind." We see that here. Rather than recognize what was going on, Balaam started arguing with the donkey! He told the animal that if he but had a sword he would kill it. At that point God allowed Balaam to see the angel with the drawn sword. The heavenly messenger told the prophet that had he moved forward but a few more steps, he would have been killed.

The angel of the Lord then told Balaam to continue on to Moab but only to speak the words God would put into his mouth. King Balak met him at the capital city of Moab and threw a party in his honor, bestowing great dignity upon him. The next day they went out to the Israelites. On three successive hills that had been consecrated to idol worship, Balaam told them to sacrifice offerings to Jehovah, and then he consulted with God. Each time God put a blessing in the prophet’s mouth rather than a curse. Balak was furious! He had hired this man to curse, not bless. But Balaam prophesied again in favor of Israel, this time at such length that he actually uttered some distant future messianic prophecies. While in the midst of these prophecies, Balaam, on a momentary track of doing right, even uttered the words, "Let me die the death of the upright, and let my end be like his!"(8)

To this point it appears that Balaam had overcome the temptation of the money and prestige offered by Balak. But sadly, that isn’t the end of the story.

In numbers 25 we read that the Israelites "played the harlot with the daughters of Moab." They began to engage in the sex orgies that were part of the idol worship of the Moabites and Midianites. In punishment for their sin, 24,000 Israelites died in a plague as God called their sin to a halt. Then in chapter 31 of Numbers, God told Moses to avenge the incident by attacking and destroying the Midianites and Moabites. This Israel did. Significant to our consideration this morning, among those put to death intentionally in the battle was Balaam.(9)

Why would God not spare the prophet after he seemingly triumphed against the temptation to curse Israel for money and prestige? Numbers 31:16 reveals the answer. There Moses tells us that Balaam had actually gone back among the Moabites and Midianites and counseled them that though God would not allow him to curse the Israelites as they requested, if they would simply entice God’s people to join them in their lewd worship, they could overcome Israel even without his curse! So Balaam was overcome by his double-mindedness after all. He just couldn’t say no to the temptation of riches and prestige. The prophet for hire ultimately caved in and figured out a way that he could gain the reward. But he paid for it with his life.

"I have sinned…." Balaam had said early in his dealings with the Lord. But it did him little good ultimately because he persisted in his sin.

"Let not that man expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways," the New Testament writer, James, would write 1600 years later in James 1:7-8. The lesson for us, therefore, is that the confessions of a double-minded man who continues in his two-faced ways will ultimately come to nothing. When we want God, but want something else even more, our confessions end up being meaningless.

I have one more confession that I want us to consider, then I’ll be still.

Again we move ahead in Israel’s history, this time to the beginning of the United Kingdom period. Saul was the first king of Israel and his confession is recorded in 1 Samuel 15:24: "Then Saul said to Samuel, ‘I have sinned; I have indeed transgressed the command of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and listened to their voice.’"

While Pharaoh’s problem was his stubborn will and Balaam’s problem was his double-mindedness, Saul’s problem was that he wasn’t sincere about anything. He was one who simply put his wet finger in the wind and said whatever it took to deliver himself at the moment. While we might describe Balaam’s life as a struggle between two core values, Saul was one of those people who has no core values. He is representative today of the person who will say whatever it takes, right or wrong, to insure his own continuance, comfort and well-being. Here is his story…

God told Samuel the Prophet to commission Saul to attack the Amalekites as judgment for what they did to Israel when the people were coming out of Egypt. They had been particularly cruel to the traveling Israelites, waiting in ambush and attacking them from the rear where they slaughtered the weakest among them who were exhausted from traveling.(10) God’s judicial remembrance of this,(11) along with further hostilities from these people(12) had finally brought their time of judgment upon them. Saul and the army of Israel would serve as God’s hand of vengeance. Saul was ordered to utterly destroy them from the face of the earth until not a single life among them was left. Not even their livestock was to be spared.

Saul set an ambush against them and engaged the battle. True to his lack of core values though, Israel’s king did not do all that the Lord commanded. Rather than destroy them all, he spared Agag, their king, probably as a war trophy, and he also spared the best of their livestock. Returning with these spoils of war, rather than regret his disobedience, he erected a monument to himself at Carmel.(13)

Meanwhile, God informed Samuel of what had happened and ordered him to go and confront the disobedient king. As Samuel approached, Saul said, "Blessed are you of the Lord! I have carried out the command of the Lord."(14) Samuel replied, "What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?"(15) This question was no problem for the coreless, insincere Saul. He replied, "They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and oxen, to sacrifice to the Lord your God; but the rest we have utterly destroyed."(16) "I tried to stop them, Samuel, but you know, they wanted so much to worship God that I just couldn’t keep them from saving some of those animals." What a farce!

Samuel didn’t buy a word of it. He replied, "…The Lord sent you on a mission, and said, ‘Go and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are exterminated.’ Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord, but rushed upon the spoil and did what was evil in the sight of the Lord?"(17)

"I did obey the voice of the Lord," insisted Saul, "and went on the mission on which the Lord sent me, and have brought back Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the people took some of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the choicest of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God at Gilgal."(18) Not only is Saul again trying to shift the blame to the people, now he is revising history. But God’s prophet would have nothing of it.

"Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has also rejected you from being king,"(19) said Samuel. Oops! This is getting more serious than Saul expected when he brushed aside the command of God. Now comes the confession.

"Then Saul said to Samuel, ‘I have sinned; I have indeed transgressed the command of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and listened to their voice. Now therefore, please pardon my sin and return with me, that I may worship the Lord."(20) Notice that even in Saul’s confession; he is still trying to shift the blame and make excuses. "I feared the people," he says. He just couldn’t accept responsibility for his own actions.

Samuel reiterates the verdict on the insincere Saul: "I will not return with you; for you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel."(21)

Terrified by these last words, Saul revises his confession once again, this time leaving out the excuses but adding a request:

These words may be taken either of two ways. Either Saul was asking Samuel to help him save face before the elders and people by not walking away from him in public or he is genuinely asking him not to walk away from him in his role as king. Either way, it was to no avail. The passage ends with these words:

Saul represents the person who confesses but says only that which puts himself in the best light and avoids as much incrimination as possible. Such a one gives up only what information the situation calls for. There is no coming clean in the confession of such a one. It is an insincere confession that does not show a genuine broken and contrite heart.

As Christians you and I share in the marvelous promise of 1 John 1:9: "If we confess our sins He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." But we dare not be flippant about this privilege. We dare not make confession of sin a travesty. Obviously from Scripture, forgiveness is not afforded to the hard-hearted who confess only because they are forced. It is also not afforded for the double-minded who cannot decide what or whom they want to live for. And forgiveness is not afforded to the insincere, who just say as much as it takes to get them out of trouble, yet strive to preserve their pride and position before men.

Next time we will take a look at several additional confessions from the Bible, including several that received the blessing of God and full pardon for sin.

Footnotes: Please us your back button to return to your place.

1. For a full transcript of Swaggart’s February 21, 1988 confession before his church, go to: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jswaggartapologysermon.html
2. Exodus 6:1
3. Exodus 8:19
4. Exodus 9:27
5. Nehemiah 13:2
6. Numbers 21:21-35
7. Numbers 22:6
8. Numbers 23:10
9. Numbers 31:8. See also Joshua 13:22
10. Deuteronomy 25:17-18
11. Deuteronomy 25:19
12. 1 Samuel 14:48
13. 1 Samuel 15:12
14.1 Samuel 15:13
15. 1 Samuel 15:14
16. 1 Samuel 15:15
17. 1 Samuel 15:18-19
18. 1 Samuel 15:20-21
19. 1 Samuel 15:23
20. 1 Samuel 15:24-25
21. 1 Samuel 15:26
22. 1 Samuel 15:30
23. 1 Samuel 15:34-35

Dave Redick is Minister of the Hwy 20 Church of Christ in Sweet Home, Oregon and Editor of The Preacher's Study. He may be reached at pstudysupport@comcast.net.

Copyright © 1996-2008 by The Preacher's Study. Permission is granted to subscribers to use this document in total or in sermon preparation in the context of the local congregation only. Publishing it in a book, on the Internet, or anyplace beyond the local congregation is prohibited.

All Scripture quotations and references are from the New American Standard Version unless otherwise stated.

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