CONFESSION

IS IT NECESSARY IN SEEKING HOLINESS? -- No. 2

     The "carnal mind" Is a unit and can not be sloughed off by piecemeal. If one carnal tendency still exists within you, they all do, and when you get deliverance from one, you do from all. But you can so loathe and abhor a tendency as to suppress and get complete victory over it, and this may be such a lasting victory that you may never be troubled again on that point; yet this is not the witness unless every unholy temper is gone and your heart pronounced clean by the Omniscient gaze.

     But how shall we get rid of "the old man;" dump him out by simply confessing "here is the old man, Lord, take him out," or confess his deeds, his tendencies? Paul speaks about putting "off the old man," and then to be more explicit he specifies certain manifestations. Samuel "hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord." All this evidently implies detail work.

     "Seekers of holiness usually see one trait at a time, and as they confess to the bottom on that line, they feel a sense of relief, and light immediately shines on some other trait, and so on until every manifestation which is revealed by the Spirit is confessed to God. The Holy Ghost will do the work, witnessing to the fact as clearly as when the soul was converted.

     "Few hold on until they get this witness. Some even doubt that it is their privilege to have an assurance as positive as they received when regenerated. Others say they believe the work is done, but have not as yet received the clear witness. This is all a mistake. The work is not done until the witness is received; the witness is the consciousness that the work has been performed. The Bible speaks of knowledge. 'KNOWING this, that our old man is crucified with Him'" (Rom. 6:6).

     Sin that has once been confessed and forgiven never need be confessed again. In seeking pardon, actual sins are confessed; and in seeking purity, the principle that caused those actual transgressions is confessed. A soul can not see and bemoan those principles, only as the Spirit points back and brings to the mind actual transgressions as the outcroppings of such principles. In this sense, and this only, may a soul who is seeking holiness refer to outward sins that have already been forgiven, in order to more fully abhor and confess the inward tendency.

     "Sanctification by faith is at present passing through the same test that for years justification by faith has had to pass through. Men used to reason that because justification was received by faith that no amount of praying, fasting, groaning, weeping, restoring, or confessing would do any good, and that those things were only done by fanatics and extremists, and that all that was necessary was just to rest on the promises. How many ever got a real touch from God without these preparatory steps, even though they be not saving in themselves? Nay, in nearly every case they are in a greater or less degree used by the Spirit to drive us to the yielding point. And indeed, faith itself is the cause of them even in the penitent unsaved.

     "That is just the way it is in seeking holiness. Men are told to consecrate and believe God doeth it now and then 'reckon themselves dead,' 'for no amount of groanings, confessions, fastings, and loathings of self,' say they, 'will do any good.'" Then when those poor deceived ones feel the carnal rankling, they are taught that it is temptation from the devil. But if that be the case they need to have the devil cast out, for this carnal boiling is felt on the inside.

     "No, my brother, the 'old man' does not die so easily. You will need to get down before God in old-fashioned earnestness and plead for death to the carnal mind as a man would plead for his life, until the light of heaven streams in on your heart and shows you the hateful lusts thereof in such a manner as will make you loathe yourself and cause the cry of your soul to go up like the wail of Egypt for her first-born.

     "When your 'old man is crucified wit') Him' you will know what Pentecost means. Glory be to God! Faith alone will be the cause of your getting the experience. Faith, as in every justified soul, will be the cause of your complete consecration, for no man can be justified and not be consecrated up to all the will of God, known or unknown. Faith will make you plead and pray and groan. Faith will make you confess your carnal condition and fast and plead and agonize and hold on to God, till at last as a sense of loathing Unspeakable seizes you, as you see your heart as it is, you yield yourself indeed, and faith at last driven to desperation touches the blood and becomes sanctifying in its effects. Hallelujah!

     "The devil and carnal professors hate this death struggle in seeking holiness; but as it pays to die to the world and actual sin in justification, and not put up with a spurious experience, so it pays to die to the 'old man,' our carnal heart, in seeking holiness, and get something that will stand the tests and keep us blest and full of faith and the Holy Ghost."