This sermon emphasizes the importance of personal ownership and recognition of sin, highlighting the need for individuals to confess and repent of their sins before God. It delves into various biblical examples where individuals, such as Pharaoh, Achan, Saul, Judas, and the prodigal son, confessed their sins and faced the consequences. The sermon also addresses the significance of acknowledging personal sin and the impact it has on individuals, families, and nations, urging for repentance and turning back to God to avoid the impending judgments due to sin.

All right, I'd like to begin with reading over a scripture that as we have been talking about seven levels of judgment, we begin with the first level, which we'll read out here in a moment, but I want to set the background passage for what each time I go through these seven levels, what we'll be looking at in the scripture of where all this came from. For me, as I have been praying over our nation and over families and situations of individuals, I begin to look at why God is doing what he's doing in the lives of people, and that's what led me with a whole series of verses and scriptures to say, now this is the hand of God that is stretched out against the people. The best thing we can do is in studying the Bible, reading the Bible, we learn who God is. We learn his attributes. We learn his nature, and he's infinite. We're finite. We cannot possibly understand all the things of God, but it is enough for us that when we see in scripture, Old Testament, New Testament, when we see in history, we see a consistency of God, of what he's doing to the nation, what he does against his own people, and what he does against individuals when they set themselves against him. So I'm going to look at that as we begin here tonight. We've set up for our first study of this, of the level of judgment, and again, it is probably the most serious of all the levels because of its initial impact, and as I said, let's take our Bibles and we'll open up to where this all was founded off of. We'll read this each night that we look at these seven levels, and I see Leviticus chapter 26, and we'll begin reading in verse 16. Leviticus chapter 26, verse 16. I want you to see, and I might stop in my readings and point these verses out to you, but there's a phrase that's used over and over in this passage of scripture, which we really don't see anywhere else in the Bible, that says, and if you will not listen to me, then I will increase your judgment, your punishment, seven times more. Now, that's the basis of all this. The seven levels of judgment comes from this passage of scripture that God says, you sin, I judge you, you're left with a choice. You either repent and make things right, or you continue on in your course and the sin remains. Therefore, I will increase the judgments on you, and that's the development of it. So, Leviticus chapter 26, verse 16, and note the verses that uses that seven times more. I will also do this unto you. I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning aid that shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart, and you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemy shall eat it, and I will set my face against you, and you shall be slain before your enemies. They that hate you shall reign over you, and you shall flee when none pursues you. This is our first verse here, and if you will not get through all this hearkening to me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins, and I will break the pride of your power, and I will make your heaven as iron and your earth as brass, and your strength shall be spent in vain, for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the field of the land yield their fruit. And if you walk contrary unto me, and you will not hearken unto me, I will bring seven times more plagues upon you according to your sins. I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall rob you of your children, and destroy your cattle, and make you in number, and your highways shall be desolate. And if you will not be reformed by me by these things, but will walk contrary unto me, then will I also walk contrary unto you, and I will punish you yet seven times for your sins, and I will bring a sword upon you that shall avenge the quarrel of my covenant, and when you are gathered together within your cities, I will send the pestilence among you, and you shall be delivered into the hand of the enemy. When I have broken the staff of your bread, ten women shall take your bread and one other, and they shall deliver you and your bread again by weight, and you shall eat but not be satisfied. And if you will not for all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me, then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury, and I even I will chastise you seven times for your sins, and you shall eat the flesh of your sons, the flesh of your daughters shall you eat, and I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcasses upon the carcasses of your eyes, and my soul shall abhor you. I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation, and I will not smell the savor of your sweet oods, and I will bring the land into desolation, and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it. I will scatter you among the heathen, and I will draw out a sword after you, and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste. Let us pray. Blessed Father, we thank you now. On reading of your word, we ask of you for direction. Pray for an honoring, O Lord, of your great presence. Lord, these are horrible verses that we read when men's hearts refuse to be repentant, refuse to turn from their sins, and you being holy, being just, being righteous, you must meet that action, we know. Lord, we seek of you for your mercy to none. We ask of you for a leading Lord to teach us your ways, so that we might not be guilty of the same trespasses, of the same iniquity, the same doom to repeat as your own children of Israel did in the Old Testament. Father, I seek you for your Holy Spirit, asking of you to come to open the ears, the minds, the hearts of your children, that Lord, this world will not understand these principles, but Lord, your own children should. Teach us, teach us your ways, Lord, and help us to be responsive to it, I plead with you for these things in the name of your great Son, in the name of my Savior, in the name of our great Lord Jesus Christ, amen. Now those, that is the background passage, Leviticus 26. You see how many times that it's repeated and that phrase is used, if you walk contrary unto me, then I will walk contrary unto you. It is this parallel throughout the scriptures of back and forth with this, draw not to me, I will draw not to you. Therefore, the opposite of that is true. If you don't draw not to me, then I'm not going to draw not to you. John 15, Jesus' last words that he was speaking of that time before his betrayal, when he said, if you abide in me, then I will abide in you. And the same of that is the opposite paradox of this. If you don't abide in me, then I'm not going to abide in you. It is foolish for a nation, for a people, for an individual, to dare count to the word of God when it is spelled out in book after book, chapter after chapter, and it is repeated, not only in the scriptures, but it is repeated in the experiences of the church. God is consistent, and that is one of the attributes that seems that has been forgotten by the church. God changes not. Spurgeon in his morning and evening taught me that word so eloquently as he used it over and over. God is immutable. Of course, when I came across that word, I said immutable. I didn't know what it meant. I had to go to Webster's Dictionary, look it up, and there it is. It is the scripture out of Malachi. God changes not. Therefore, if God is the same God in 2012 as he was in the book of Leviticus, he is the same. If he is the same God in the book of Acts to the first church, and he's the same God for us here right now, then it is that you and I ought to pay attention to who this God is, what he has declared, what he's doing, and more importantly, what he's going to do. Now seven levels of judgment are laid out, and I take that from seven times more. I will add to your afflictions and your plagues and your consumption and your terror and the other phrases that he uses there. So let me give the seven levels to you because each night as we go through this, we're going to be looking at this, and we'll go back to this portion of scripture. We'll review the other verses that are before us, and we'll continue to look at future things that we're going to be looking at for these judgments. First level of judgment. It is the very first transgression. It is the beginning that there is no need for judgment. There is no need for punishment. There is no need for correction unless something be wrong. So tonight as we look at this, the first level of judgment, we're going to be examining the root cause of all this where it begins, sin. Sin is the beginning of all this problem of judgment. Now again, God in his mercy has set up a way that once sin is committed, there has to be an answer to that sin, and that's the second level of judgment, God's response. So as sin is committed, and we'll go back to Genesis, we'll look at that for a moment, we'll see that God immediately responds to the sin, and it is the same as true today. When we see Calvary, we know that a man who never sinned died for sin, because he knew that men were born sinners. It is appointed unto men once to die, and after this the judgment. What are they going to be judged for? They're going to be judged for the sins that they allowed or caused, and they're going to be answering for those sins in the judgment. Now judgment on the earth today, that's the judgment of eternity, judgment here for today that's unfolding by multiplying factors across our nation today in rapid succession, what we're seeing is is due directly to decades worth of sin that has not been answered for. But again, God in his mercy and grace says, I give you the word so that you might understand you have provoked me, and that you can turn back that provocation, repent, confess, make the wrongs right, restore, restitute the need that's there, and God says, and I will stop the judgment. I can't tell you how many times in scripture that I've read that where God says, if only you would return it to me, then I would stop, but you would not return, so therefore I increase the judgment. It's a very graphic picture, especially in the book of Jeremiah that we see that, if only you would come back to me, but you would not. So that second level is God's response to the sin that begins the initial stage of judgment. The third level of judgment, it is against the land. We see highways, byways, we see mountains, we see plains, we see the states, the regions, God begins to attack the land. We see this in the book of Exodus when God began to inflict them in the ten plagues of Egypt. There was a distinction between Goshen, where the children of Israel were, and where the Egyptians were. We see it in the promised land. We see it in the United States today, and we'll see it in a greater fashion as judgments continue to escalate of complete annihilation, places like Sodom and Gomorrah, and things like that that we've seen in history as well as in scripture. So the third level is when God uses nature, God uses weather, God uses phenomena to take place, and it is the judgments that is to shape the people back to respond to the sin that started it all. If they don't look at the land, which is on inconveniences, it is on outward of things of our life, not so much life-threatening, although we know tornadoes and disasters like that can be life-threatening, God says, then I'll continue to afflict your life, and I'll afflict every aspect of your life. So the fourth level that God says is against the government. God takes away from us wise, discreet, honorable leaders, and he gives us fools. He sets up the court gestures that you say, why in the world would they ever decide to do that? And those kind of things where God says, not just that, but the judicial role, and the legislation of the laws that are passed for the land. When these laws become sin against God, as abortion is, as homosexuality is, then God ratchets up the judgment against the government, and he removes government. Daniel chapter 2, God removes kings, and God sets up kings. He can give us a wise, good leader that can lead us like Josiah did to the children of Israel, to the children of Judah. He can give us men like David, who did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, or he can give us kings like Ahab, who did more evil in the sight of the Lord than any that were before him, or like Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, and they never recovered from that. So it is that God can afflict the leadership and the government through these things of judgments. Fifth level, now it comes against his own people. The fifth level is against, as we see in the Old Testament, the children of Israel. What we see today is the church. God can attack the church by removing his presence from it, and it is that we see that the children of Israel in the Old Testament paid a very steep, costly price, and it is the same today as that the church, if it doesn't wake up, is paying an ultimate price that's going to affect generations from here on out, because we forsook the Lord, we never repented, we never corrected the sins, but we continued in them, and God takes out our way of living, our comfort zone, to shake us to the place that we finally realize, hey, we've got to do something. We can't go on like this. Our problem today, in my belief, of what I see, is that I don't hear and I don't see people saying to correct the problem. Now, I hear people preaching repentance, but it is the identifying of those things as to say, you will not do this anymore, because the people's response, they don't listen. So the people and the preachers are not in oneness about this, then there's no unity, and it breaks down, and so God is afflicting his people in such rebellion that we won't respond. We can read it, but we don't respond. We can hear it, but we don't respond, and the Spirit of God has quenched greed, resisted, limited blasphemy. So these are the atrocities of judgment against his own people, and there's other things that we'll look at when we get to that. Sixth level. Now it's getting close. Now it's becoming very more personal, and then in the sixth level of judgment that we see, it comes against, actually against the people. Now, weather affects people, but it's really, weather is a phenomenon on the outside, and people can run to shelters and run for cover and avoid it and things like that, but when God stretches out his hand to start to afflict individuals, he allows our choices to affect us. Life and death is now becoming an issue. It's becoming a question. We see, as a way of example, real quick, we see that when God sent darkness on Egypt, there was three days of darkness, and that gross darkness affected the people mentally, emotionally. They couldn't get light. They didn't have light, and not everybody is content in the dark, that's for sure, but it became inward. We see by this in the scriptures, I'll send wild beasts that should devour your children. I'll send calamities into your life, pestilence, disease, things that we've not heard of or experienced for a long time, and now they're all coming back, and it's beginning to make people sit up and take notes, but people are starting to die. We have this most recent scare of meningitis that's taking place, and 12 people have died with this, and what's happening here is that that which was taken for granted, a shot by a pharmaceutical group, is now costing people lives. Whooping cough has made a surprise comeback. Bubonic plague is out on the west coast. We see these things. We hear about these things. These are things that have not been on the news. They've not been on the scope of things for a long time. We're on the sixth level, and individuals are dying. One of the greatest catastrophes in the last 18 months of the history of the United States on this sixth level is murder suicides, and that's into the hundreds. Hundreds of people have died, murder, suicide, families, epidemic rate, and I began to set my prayer line against that, that every night I was praying that, Lord, however, Satan may come in to devise people to harm others like that and to take their own lives. I was praying against that demonic force with that, and I was grateful that it began to de-escalate very quickly, but then we come to the seventh level. Whereas we saw death and issues of life and death in the sixth level, there's no question about it in the seventh level. Seventh level is a cataclysmic event. It is the worst. This first level is the worst because it initiates sin. The seventh level is because it finishes life. The wages of sin is death, and when hundreds of thousands of people are killed in the blink of an eye, that is something to sit up and take notice because people today are not ready to go out of this life into the next life. They are not ready to meet God, so therefore their eternity in hell is fixed, and it ought to bother the church more than anybody else on the face of this planet, especially when it's our sons and daughters, especially when it's our husbands and wives and our grandchildren and our loved ones. But this event is coming, and it is on the horizon now. The pastor asked me most recently, he said, where are we at on those seven levels? I said, we are on level number six getting ready for level number seven. So the burden on my heart to share this, to get this out, I can't tell you the weight pushing down on me, and I've got to get this out. So the reason that I'm giving this Leviticus 26 is the background passage for us. Those are the seven levels. We'll look at them, each one, one by one, and we begin tonight with level number one, the initial beginning of sin. I'm going to look at this in three sections. We're going to look at this back in Genesis chapter three. If you take your Bibles and turn there right now, and in Genesis chapter three, we have the first sin ever committed. Original sin, it's called. And it is, is that it seems to be one of the biggest problems that we're facing today. Men, women, and children do not recognize, nor do they look at their choices as sin. They look at it as choices. They look at it as, well, everyone else is doing it. Humanism to me, not so much religion, but humanism has taught the church today to accept sin. You cannot in any profound way look at Calvary, look at Christ's death, and be happy with sin. It cost him, who knew no sin, too much. It cost him his life. He took a beating that marred him physically, that scarred him. The man of sorrows in Isaiah 53, the transgressions that he bore on our behalf because it was our sin. And then we see a world out there that knows about the cross, sees the cross, they deny the cross, they reject the cross, and they spurn the Son of God who died for them. Is there any greater assault before a wholly just God than for men to take sin casually, to take sin lightly? It is, is that we must begin with this, the reason that all these calamities are happening in our life today, the reason of the downward spiral of our society, the lessening of the church, holiness gone, power gone, souls lost and perishing. It's seemingly no way to see them reached or rescued. Drugs and addictions of alcohol and all these other things, afflictions that are coming, a generation being brought up that knows nothing about the God that we're serving or the God we're talking about, all begins with this initial thing, sin entered in somewhere. If there is nobody left to deal with that sin, if there is nobody to teach the good way, to show the good way, then that sin blossoms into its fruitfulness and it creates what it was designed to do. Sin, the day that you eat, is the day that sin enters in, and that day is the day of death. Death is happening all around the balance because men take lightly the issue of sin. Now let us go back to Genesis chapter 3, and we're going to read this account of what happened, what transpired, and then we're going to begin to shape the issue today, where sin is found, and how it's found, and how we need to deal with it, and then we'll come to the last part of this. Sin enters in Genesis chapter 3. It enters into the world. It's born into our flesh. Men are born in sin, but the choice of sin, that's the reason Christ being born as a man, knew no sin. He had the capacity to sin, but he knew no sin because he chose not to sin. You and I being born again Christians are left with that commandment, be ye holy as I am holy. Yet what we see in the church today is anything but holy, so we're going to answer that question on our last round. So three different rounds we're going to look at here, and the first one begins with the original sin in Genesis chapter 3. Begin reading the verse 1. Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made, and he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden. Oh, isn't Satan, oh, questioning God, causing us to question God. Don't you ever be too hard on him, because the choices in our life has been no better. We have listened and given ear to Satan, and we have allowed for him to creep into our minds and our hearts and corrupt the truth with a lie or a half-truth. The woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the tree which is in the midst of the garden. God hath said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die a death. And the serpent said unto the woman, You shall not surely die, for God does know that in the day that you eat thereof then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as God, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit, she touched it, and she did eat. And she gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. They heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. The Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, Where art thou? He said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself. And he said, Who told you that you was naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? Isn't it amazing all these questions in Genesis 3 that God asks, Where are you? Who told you? God knows all the answers, but God still asks the questions. I tell you that before we're done here tonight, God is asking questions. He already knows the answer. He's just waiting to see whether we tell the truth, or whether we're going to lie like Satan. Who told you? The man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle and above every beast of the field. Upon your belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply the sorrow of thy conception. In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband. He shall rule over you. And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of the wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it, cursed is the ground for thy sake. In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also and thistles shalt I bring forth to you, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return into the ground, for out of it thou was taken. For dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return. So we see the beginning, where sin entered in. And it has been an onslaught ever since then. There's nothing to read here about as a children's story, to make it all this comical. And we've done that at times. I feel that we've made pictures of this, not with the full regard of where it all began in this. And men, women, and children who try to explain today why they are the way that they are, have no understanding of original sin. They have no understanding about where it all came from, or what it is. It is rebellion against God. God said, don't look at the tree, don't eat the tree, don't touch the tree. And Eve said, I will. Men today are saying the exact same thing to a holy God. I don't care what you say, I'm going to do it. And so they do it. And then the judgment comes. And when the judgment comes, then they have the audacity to come to the church, to come to me, to come to individuals and say, what kind of God is this? The very simple answer is, is that he's holy and just. We are wicked. Understanding why the original sin is a problem for us today is ever so needed. It needs to be taught. And I have not done it. I did not grow up with the catechism being taught. But I have come to appreciate it more and more in these later years of my life here where I'm at now. Because it does teach the very basic principles, where sin came from, why sin is here, and what we need to do to address it. And that's the condition of the church today. We need to say, hey, this sin is costing us too severely. Let's deal with it. How do we deal with it? Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe. All to him I freely gave. If Jesus paid it all, then let's take what we owe and go to him. So it is that understanding original sin is where we begin here. Sin entered in and it became a part of the flesh. And it is throughout scripture. We see this. We see the anointing that God put on John the Baptist, that he leaped in Elizabeth's womb. We read where Jeremiah said, where God said, and I chose you before you was born, before you came forth out of your mother's womb, I ordained you to be a prophet. God sets things into motion to deal with the sins of this world and the sins of our own life. And there is only one remnant, and his name is called Jesus. Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. Now I want to begin to look at identifying sin. We've got to deal with our sin. Pronouns are everything. Pronouns are everything in prayer. When you listen to people pray, it was a lesson for me that I learned in listening, trying to take the good and throw out the bad. And the bad that I hear in people's prayers today is when they talk about God, but they never talk to God. And people do the same thing with sin. They talk about sin, but they don't deal with sin. And so the pronouns in the sin, it's very important for us that we understand judgment is happening because of personal sin. Now I identify in a very internal fashion my sin. We're going to look at here that there are four phrases that we have to identify in scripture that deals with judgment happening because of these four individuals' sins. First one, I. Personal. I have sinned. Second one, you have sinned. Third one, we. You and I have sinned. We have sinned. And then the fourth one, they have sinned. Now identifying throughout scripture that there are over 100 verses that identify in this of that confession, that testimony, that either the individual said it, the people said it, or God said it. We're going to go down through these. And this is a lengthy, there are 68 verses of these. I'm not going to give all 68 to you, but I want enough verses to tell you, to show you in the Bible, when sin is identified, it's because God is pouring out judgment on them. And when they saw the judgment, they didn't do one of those two things. They either repented and ended up to the sin and God stopped the judgment or they disregarded God's command and they continued in their sin and therefore judgment has continued. The reason that we are on level number six of the seven levels and the reason that on the horizon is the seventh level of a cataclysmic event is because the church, who should know these truths, have not done these truths. They've not taught them, they've not owned up to it, and there is no humility in the church today at all. Pride, rules, and brains. If my people, which are called by my name, humble themselves, we haven't humbled ourselves. Pray, we don't pray. 90% of the North American church do not pray and if they do pray, they don't pray rightly. They ask a mess. Seek my face. Most men and women sitting in the pews of today have no desire to seek God's face. They go to church to ease their conscience and to get something out of it. And the fourth thing, turn from their wicked ways. No repentance. Because those four things are not done and the sin is not identified, then the sin continues and we continue to ratchet up six levels, now on the seventh level, of disaster. And it's going to cost dearly because we would not do what we were supposed to do. And our purpose again of beginning this study is to identify these things, see it in ourselves, see it in others, see it in them, and pray. Praying to identify, praying to change it, praying for God's mercy to help us with it. So let us begin now as we begin to look at the four individuals of sin. We've seen where original sin came from, Eve's choice, sin entered into the world, and now it's part of us. Now we have to identify that testimony. I have sinned. Now it's easy. It's easy for us to sit here tonight and to point out there to the world. They said, look at how horrible Washington is. Look at how horrible Hollywood is. Look at that person next door to me. We judge other people. You cannot go judging other people until you've judged yourself. It's the parable where Jesus was talking about and he said, how in the world? You get a speck in your eye. You get, of course, that there was a piece of wood in your eye. You don't want somebody that's got a piece in their own eye to be taking it out of your eye. He says, get it out of your eye, then go take it out of their eye. Proper priorities is what we're looking at. So starting in scripture now, I want us to go through and I'm just going to name a couple of each of these four groups for us to identify what God was saying, what God was doing, and then to make it practical for ourselves. All right, so scripturally let's begin, and I want to give you the first time that it's mentioned in the Bible, I have sinned. Now apart from this original sin that Adam and Eve, that they sinned, did you notice there that they say, I have sinned. God comes to Adam and says to Adam, what have you done? And Adam falls down and he says, I have sinned against you, oh Lord. I have transgressed your commandment. He didn't say that, did he? He said she did. And God comes to Eve and he says to Eve, what have you done? And Eve falls down in sackcloth and ashes in humility and she cries out, oh let this be on me, I have sinned, I made the choice, I listened to that serpent. She didn't know it. What did she say? Serpent beguiled me. Then he comes to the serpent and he curses the serpent. The serpent didn't even have a chance to answer for itself. Ownership of sin. It might be easy for you to cast judgment on others, but I have a little phrase that I use with people, don't ever forget where you came from. As Christians, as a church, it's easy to condemn them, but don't you forget that you was once guilty. Don't you forget that you was once in darkness, you was once in sin. God had mercy for you and God had patience for you and it is our responsibility to pray for them that they come to a place that they say I have sinned against the Lord God. Now the first part of this that it happens is over in the book of Exodus. The plagues are happening, judgments are increasing. This level of judgments is being demonstrated in the ten plagues of Moses against the Egyptians and Pharaoh and every time you read a plague happens, Pharaoh does what? He hardens his heart. Now when the first couple plagues that happened, Pharaoh lapped them off and scoffed because the magicians were able to do them, but when the magicians stopped being able to do them, things got serious and they got serious and it hurt. Then death started coming. The moraine happened to the livestock. Then the fire brimstone fell as fire on the ground and those that was left out in the field died, their animals and their servants. So lives were lost during that one and it is at that beginning process where the judgments begin to afflict the people. They begin to feel it. Then Pharaoh has this prayer. He has this testimony, this confession. I have sinned and that's found in Exodus chapter 9 verse 27 and again the next plague chapter 10 verse 16. Now the problem with that again is what we're seeing in the church. We can see people walk down the aisle and thanks be to God for those that have walked down. I walked the aisle. I walked the aisle and gave my heart and my life to Christ. I walked the aisle and I recognized that I didn't have what was needed to get to heaven which was Jesus. So as many as would receive, I came forward and received. But it is today is that we're seeing people walk down the aisle and confessing I have sinned against the Lord. But then they're not staying. They're going right back to their sin. They're going right back to their iniquity and this is becoming a continual thing. Every eight months they're coming saying I have sinned. Well somewhere along the line the sin is going to stop. We've got to be delivered from the sin. We've got to be saved from the sin. If we're not saved from the sin then there has been no salvation and that's the problem in the church today. And we'll look at that especially on the third question the third point of this study here tonight. But it begins with this where Pharaoh is confessing I have sinned against the Lord. But he hardens his heart. He doesn't repent. He goes right back to saying I'm not going to let you go. So even though he confessed it I want you to see confession is not enough without repentance. Now the next time we come and again I have sinned. Numbers chapter 22 verse 34. It's the story of Baal. Oh don't you love this story. You read the accounts of scripture and you see miracle after miracle. Here is Baal being paid to come speak against God's people. Now how ridiculous is that? But he's given this grand glorious opportunity to be recognized and he's given a word from God that says that unless the men come and get you in the morning don't go. And then the next verse that we read Baal gets up packs his bags gets on his donkey and starts to head. Well he then men didn't come get him. He disobeyed the word of the Lord. So we see the sin. Sin done. Now the donkey that he's riding he sees the death angel standing there with a sword drawn and he walks out into the field. And then the next time he crashes into the wall and every time he does that Baal strikes his donkey and punishes him because he can't see. Having eyes to see he can't see but the donkey sees. And then of course the third time he drops out from underneath of him and just falls and collapses because he doesn't want to go closer to the death angel and Baal smites him again and God opens the donkey's mouth and he says why are you hitting me? Man I tell you one thing that would set me on right then and there. And the donkey he answers the donkey but now all of a sudden this action has pushed him back and he sees the death angel and he has now made a front before God that he's transgressed. He sees and he speaks in Numbers 22 34. He speaks saying I have sinned. I'll go back home. God says no now go on but you will say exactly what I say. He's got Baal's attention but it almost cost him his life. Sin will cost a life. Wages of sin is death. We go over to the book of Joshua chapter 7 verse 20. You see this continual uh but again what happens to Baal? Baal is killed on down the road by the Israelites. He doesn't join the children of Israel so his death even though not at this particular point happens in a few chapters over in the book of Numbers. Baal was killed. Pharaoh died even though they both confessed I've sinned against the Lord. Death still came to them over in the book of Joshua chapter 7 verse 20. We have the account of Achan. They go in to Jericho. The walls fall down. Great miracle. Rehab the harlot is delivered her family. They kill all those that was there but there was commanded a command by God do not take of anything of the city. We know that Achan took. He took gold. He took some dresses. He took other merchandise and he hid them in his tent and so that when the children of Israel went against the city of Ai there were scores of them a couple dozen of them that died in that battle because God wasn't with them. So Achan not only was guilty of disobeying the word of the Lord he now has blood on his hands because of his sin those men died. So Joshua falls down before the Lord and is crying and upset. God says get up they're sinning the king and they took him tribe by tribe and they took the tribe of Judah and they came to the family of Achan and he says to Achan give testimony to God and in Joshua chapter 7 verse 20 Achan has that same testimony same confession I have sinned and they took Achan his wife his children all his possessions and they destroyed they killed him confession of sin but it was too late it cost them dearly for that a high cost of sin is death it's coming it's happening in the lives of people today younger and younger dying why because of choices to sit against God these judgments where God afflicts the people he takes the very breath that he holds in his hand then we come over to first Samuel chapter 15 we have king Saul here giving again underneath the banner of God children of Israel Benjamin now king of Israel anointing upon him he prophesied by the spirit of God oh well this guy's got it Samuel the prophet comes he gives them two commanders he doesn't listen to either one of them he disobeys the word of God and the kingdom is written from him and in this process he falls before Samuel and he knows he's in trouble because Samuel had said the kingdom has been taken from you and given to a man after God's own heart which we know to be David and Saul makes that testimony makes that confession as we saw Balaam Pharaoh Achan they all said it but they all died with it we see Saul make this great plea I have sinned against the Lord even in that one place he says I have sinned against your God say it wasn't his God but that testimony is still born I have sinned it's not just enough to get them to say I have sinned then in second Samuel we see that David is in chapter 12 he is caught in Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah the Hittite and Nathan comes to him and he tells them that story about a rich man who had many sheep goes and takes from his poor neighbor the one sheep that he had David is wroth and David is angry and Nathan looks at him and he speaks to him and says to him thou art the maker now David writes in Psalm 51 and he speaks it here with a very personal broken confession now this is the man after God's own heart guilty of adultery guilty of murder covering it up and his sin has consequences and because of this sin the child of Bathsheba and David dies because of this sin his own household Absalom raises up against him because of this sin Tamar is raped by her own stepbrother and Absalom kills him we see all this consequences of sin even though David says I have sinned against the Lord you can have great hope that because they testify to that David says in this that or Nathan says to David in this God has removed the wages of sin of death here he's not going to kill you although you're worthy of it and so we see this happening of the confession is made but there's still consequences that come due to our sin now I want to read several verses in the Job Job has two verses here pleading with God because he lost his 10 children he lost his health he lost all his possessions and in Job chapter 7 verse 20 and in chapter 33 verse 27 here's the way Job chapter 7 verse 20 is just a confession by Job I have sinned against the Lord so again we see it doesn't undo the judgment that's already happened but it is is that he's owning up to that I have sinned it is the beginning it has to be getting there with us personally saying I have sinned one of the greatest mistakes that I hear people pray in their time of prayer I hear them say this oh Lord forgive our nation for their sin oh Lord forgive my family for their sin now Lord but if I have any sin in me well I want to tell you you just ought to start off with I I have sinned against the Lord and if you need help identifying your sin I'll be glad to help you with that we have sinned and our problem is that we don't identify our sin therefore the sin continues now in chapter 33 of Job verse 27 we have this verse he looks upon man meaning God God looks upon men and if any man say I have sinned and I have perverted that which was right now that's ownership I have corrupted that good and right way then it doesn't profit me anything unless I confess it it's not going to help me in confession is the beginning of ownership confession is the beginning of recognition and boy if we didn't need today a personal recognition by each and every one of us to say I have sinned and something God fires back I've sinned against you oh Lord and God fires back what what sins which sins are you talking about and now we got to get personal well now Lord you know uh that cashier gave me uh an extra dollar there and I pocketed I stole identify the sin I stole oh Lord you're down through the ten commandments and you said well I'm not broke the ten commandments you'd be like a rich young ruler I've kept all the commandments from my youth up and you know there's been nobody that has kept the fifth commandment all their life honor your father and your mother or the one translation obey anybody ever obeyed all things that's a heart right there well I've never I've never committed adultery but that wasn't Jesus said Jesus said if you've looked at a woman or looked at a man and lusted after them in that fashion you've already committed adultery in your heart and you're guilty and if you broke one commandment you've broken them all I have sin ownership recognition what is my sin and I begin to name the sins that are found there I want to jump over uh or I want to finish I gave you verse 27 chapter 33 verse 27 look at verse 28 to write it down whichever you're doing with me here verse 28 if I confess my sin verse 27 and God is looking for that he will deliver his soul from going into the pit and his life shall see the light I have sinned God says I know you have again thank God for the cross thank God for shed blood that takes my sin and removes it and keeps me from having to go into the pit called hell and it brings me out darkness it takes me into life thank God for ownership of sin now psalm 41 verse 4 David writing here great song I said unto the Lord Lord be merciful unto me there is nothing wrong with praying God be merciful unto us plural pronoun Lord bless them there's nothing wrong with per se David's praying personal me Lord be merciful to me heal my soul why for I have sinned against you personal recognition personal attachment I am reaping judgment because I've sinned against you Lord you can't blame everybody else well my parents made me this way it was the life that I grew up in I didn't know anybody I don't care what the excuses are ownership and recognition of sin has to take place and at the end of the Old Testament one of our last verses here we'll be looking at for I have sinned personal I will bear chapter 7 verse 9 of Micah I will bear the iniquities of the Lord because I have sinned against him bear the indignation of the Lord indignation fury wrath judgments why because I have sinned against him then over in the New Testament we have a couple verses there I'll give you real quick Judas again we saw Pharaoh we saw Balaam we saw Achan we see all these people that confessed I have sinned and they still they never turned from their sin it got worse and they died in their sin Judas said the same thing in Matthew chapter 27 verse 4 there is this statement here I've sinned against innocent blood testimony bearing witness to that but he didn't repent went out and it says he repented and went out and hung himself Peter sinned denied him three times went out wept bitterly and repented and then made things right restoration restitution sin doesn't have it cannot be left to lay loose if you sin second level God's going to respond third level God's going to begin to send judgments the end judgment was for Judas his life even though he confessed I have sinned and then the last example of this of I have sinned the sound of the prodigal son prodigal son in chapter Luke 15 he's down in the hog trough and it says that he came to himself quickening of the Holy Spirit brings men women children to themselves thank God for those days when the Holy Spirit touches us and says what are you doing why am I here why does this continue oh I know why because I have sinned against the Lord and the son practiced this little speech I will go back to my father now and I will pronounce to him I have sinned against heaven and against you he had this great speech made out of course we know family got back home his father never really gave him any time to work that speech out he just received him forgave him and welcomed him back so those are the examples that we see uh in scripture here about I have now the second left area of sin that needs to be identified is you have sinned and we go back to the book of Exodus on this in Exodus chapter 32 verse 20 Israel had sinned a great sin they made the molten calf they rose up and committed fornication and been playing it says they rose up and played and they danced in nakedness before the before the calf Aaron let him do it great sin Moses comes down he throws the ten commandments shatters them he chastises the people and his statement is in Exodus chapter 32 I said 20 sorry about that it's verse 30 he says you have sinned a great sin now again it's easy for us to point our fingers at others you have sinned but it is the recognition of a person that knows the word of God that you rebuke and love people that sin you have sinned against the Lord there's a false prophet running around today in the United States and he and his antics are crazy and I watched a video clip of this is where these seven different pastors attended one of his meetings and one by one they rebuked him for to repent and to get right with God and every one of them they carried out they silenced him he rebuked them to say you have sinned in order for what purpose so that he recognized the sin I have sinned to repent from that and to stop the course of action of judgment so when you are saying you have sinned and we see only a few occasions of this in the Bible it's a hard one but in Exodus chapter 32 verse 30 Moses talking to the children of Israel you have sinned we need a prophet today to show up on this on the scene and to do the same thing to say to the United States of America to say to the government officials you have sinned against the Lord God you've removed his word you've removed him you won't listen you won't obey you have sinned against the Lord and because of you're going to reap we sow we reap what we sow and we have sun sin rebellion and now we're going to reap in the judgments we're going to hit that level number seven as I said two other verses here and they're found over in the book of Jeremiah Jeremiah is filled with these you have sinned we have sinned and so if you want to keep your finger there but again however you're doing this the first one is in Jeremiah chapter 40 verse 3 Jeremiah speaking here to the children of Israel to the children of Judah you know the calamity that Jeremiah prophesied and saw the destruction of Judah and Jerusalem so he says because you have sinned there's our phrase against the Lord and you have not obeyed his voice therefore the this thing has come upon you now he's talking after the fact I don't I do not want to be that problem of Jeremiah that after a hundred thousand people are killed a million people are killed in the United States that I have to stand in front of people and say because you have sinned and you would not listen therefore this has happened unto my entire intention of preaching this series my entire prayer life is built on stopping that so that it doesn't happen sin is serious to me because I see the end result and unless the church sees it and responds to it we're sunk and there are not enough people on their knees or faces there are not enough tears that have been shed and broken is to understand that what Jeremiah lived through is the same thing that we're going to live through today unless unless God in his compassion God in his mercy shatters our hearts shatters our lives and we say we cannot go forward anymore we will not sin against you Lord and they make restitution and they end up to their sins I have sinned they restore they do that which was called upon them to do Jeremiah chapter 44 verse 23 another intense verse here because you have burned incense they're false idols they're false gods and because you have sinned against the Lord and you have not obeyed the voice of the Lord nor walked in his law that's all disobedience nor in his statutes nor in his testimonies again same end result because you have walked away from the law the statutes the God's word thou shalt not and the world says we will thou shalt and the world says we won't now that's not just the world that's also in the church and the church needs to hear this as well because you have forsaken his word you in the church have disobeyed his law you in the church