Renewal and Revival

8221; (confession)

Why does God want us to confess? Surely not to inform Him of something He does not already know.
• Firstly, God wants us to admit them so that we can take the steps toward change. Only when we agree with God that it needs to be change, will we find the commitment to change it.
• Secondly, confession makes us real. We are fully honest before God, honest with self, and honest towards people. It is being authentic, being vulnerable and being real.
• This is the way to happiness. We are not laden with guilt or shame; we experience God’s forgiveness and the joy of forgiveness.
• Good fellowship with God cannot happen with unconfessed sin in our lives.


The second thing that is necessary for RENEWAL to take place is to acknowledge God’s way – or take God’s Word seriously.
• It is this deep conviction that His Word is the only blessed way.

This is closely related to the first – confession. God’s Word leads to confession.
• The reading of the Law, and the subsequent DAILY reading of the Scriptures, led to the people’s confession and repentance.
• This realisation that we have sinned against God comes through the reading of God’s Word.
• We will never acknowledge sin to be sin or grieve over it unless we understand it as an offense against God, and the only way to see that is to know God’s Word.

If we are to change, then we got to have an alternative. What do we really want to change into? What kind of a change are we looking at?
• It cannot be your way against my way, or his way against the world’s way. It must be God’s Word that we are looking at. God’s Word is our benchmark.
• God’s Word is the mirror to our soul, to our character, to our conduct.

In this prayer of confession, the Levites directed the people’s thoughts to the goodness and grace of God. The word YOU appeared throughout the prayer.
• You made the heavens; you give life to everything; you are the Lord God – we see God’s greatness in creation.
• You made a covenant with Abraham; you saw our suffering; you sent miraculous signs and wonders against Pharaoh; you divided the sea; you came down on Mount Sinai (the list goes on) – we see God’s goodness to Israel, His people.

Despite their failures to recognise God’s kindness and their betrayal, God remains faithful and continues to shower His blessing on them.
• 9:17c “But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love.”
• You did not desert them in the desert; you gave your good Spirit to instruct them; you did not withhold your manna from their mouths, and you gave them water for their thirst; you made their sons as numerous as the stars in the sky.
• 9:31 “But in your great mercy you did not put an end to them or abandon them, for you are a gracious and merciful God.”
• 9:33 “In all that has happened to us, you have been just; you have acted faithfully, while we did wrong.”

God was good and faithful to His people, when His people were ungrateful and unfaithful to Him. It speaks of God’s grace.
• In this prayer, the people were led to see through their history, a God