The California Collection/TheCaliforniaCollection.cdr/his107/theol74.arj/THEOL74.TXT

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Confessing Christ Before Men



Confessing Christ before men is one of the practical aspects of
Christianity. When I say "Christianity," I am not referring to
the popular concept of an organized religion, but rather to every
saved child of God who has been born again by the Holy Spirit.
The matter we are going to discuss is preeminently practical: the
public confession of Christ.

The Lord Jesus Christ said: "Whosoever therefore shall confess me
before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in
heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also
deny before my Father which is in heaven" (Matt. 10:32-33). When
the apostle Paul writes to the unsaved at Rome, he says, "That if
thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt
believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead,
thou shalt be saved" (Rom. 10:9).

The question comes up: is it possible to be a secret believer,
that is, one who does not confess Christ openly? Well, yes,
apparently, for a short time. For example, we find Joseph of
Arimathaea being a secret believer, but later he openly confessed
Christ by asking Pilate for the body of Christ (John 19:38).
Another secret disciple in the Bible is Nicodemus, who comes to
Christ by night but doesn't stand up for him publicly until years
later before the Sanhedrin (John 3:1; 7:50). Many of the chief
rulers believed on Christ, but because of the Pharisees who ran
the synagogue "they did not confess him, lest they should be put
out of the synagogue: For they loved the praise of men more than
the praise of God" (John 12:42-43).

So it is possible to be a secret disciple of Jesus Christ, but
eventually the cat will get out of the bag. If you are saved and
a child of God, you are not going to keep your mouth shut
forever. Sooner or later the Lord is going to put you in a place
where you are going to have to openly confess that you are His. A
prime example is Simon Peter, who got by very well at the
fireside, cursing and searing and denying Christ when he really
was a follower of Jesus Christ (Matt. 26:69-75), and yet within
three days of that denial the Lord put him on the spot and made
him confess Him three times before his buddies (John 21:15-17).

The two parts to salvation that Paul preaches to the Gentiles
have nothing to do with Acts 2:38. They are "believe in thine
heart," which is receiving the Lord Jesus as Saviour, and
"confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus" (Rom. 10:9).

The dying thief on the cross confessed Jesus as Lord by saying,
"Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom" (Luke
23:42). At least, the penitent thief confessed that in the King
James Bible. You have no Bible on your shelf that has the dying
thief confessing Christ as Lord, unless you have the King James
Bible. If you have any other "bible" on your shelf except the
King James, the word "Lord" has been knocked right out of the
dying thief's mouth and is not there. Strangely enough, the new
"bibles" attacked Paul when he gets saved by removing half of
Acts 9:5-6, and attacked the Ethiopian eunuch when he gets saved
by removing Acts 8:37, and attacked the Gentile Philippian jailer
in Acts 16. Those are the four salient places in the New
Testament where a man is saved by grace through faith--without
water baptism. In every one of those cases the man is saved
before he is baptized, except the case of the dying thief, who is
not baptized at all. Every so-called "Bible" on the market has
altered those verses. If you don't believe it, go to the
bookstore and check them out.

The necessity of confessing Christ openly: we must confess Christ
because Christ commanded it. If a man is a deaf mute, he can
confess Christ with sign language; if a man can't speak and
doesn't know sign language, he can nod his head. There is some
way you can confess Christ. I've been by the death beds of dying
men in the hospital whose confession of Jesus Christ was reduced
to a simple nod of the head upon the question, "Have you received
Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour?"

Confessing Christ strengthens our faith and gives us greater
courage to do what He would have us do. A witnessing Christian is
not liable to be a backslidden Christian. Many backsliders can
trace their downfall to their failure to confess Christ publicly.
In confessing Jesus Christ we very often get the greatest
blessing and joy that is possible in this human life. Joy comes
from obeying Christ, and that is part of the obedience. A man who
confesses Jesus Christ every day doesn't get timid about it; a
man who witnesses for Jesus Christ every day very rarely doubts
his salvation. A man who gets out of fellowship with Jesus Christ
is always marked by the fact that he quits witnessing publicly
for Jesus Christ. There should be some time and place in your
life when you publicly and openly confessed that Jesus Christ is
your Lord and Saviour.

Confession of Jesus Christ solves many problems. Others know who
you are and what you stand for and respect your clear-cut stand.
Even if they hate your guts, they respect your stand. Bob Jones
Sr. used to say, "You may have to plead for love in this world,
but you don't have to plead for respect." Even in this God-
forsaken, Bible-denying, sex-crazy, money-mad country an old
reprobate will still tip his hat to an uncompromising character.
Don't compromise with them: the world despises a weak, cowardly,
secret Christian. Temptations to worldly places of amusement are
halted by confession of Christ. Invitations to church activities
are multiplied by confessing Christ.

By confessing Christ publicly you are automatically put into a
different group, and you can't get back in the old worldly group.
They won't have you. Before I was saved, I had been searching for
months. A young colleague in junior college invited me to Sunday
school at his church and there led me to Jesus Christ, and I
confessed Him publicly later.

One of the first problems I had was how to get rid of my old
buddies. I asked somebody once, "How am I going to get rid of
this fellow I used to mess around with?" My brother in Christ
said very wisely, "You won't have to get rid of him; he'll get
rid of you." I said, "Oh, no, we've been buddies for a long
time." He said, "Are you afraid to confess Christ publicly to
him?" I said, "No." He said, "Try it, and he'll get rid of you."
So I tried it. A few days later my buddy came over and wanted to
go to a movie or something, and I said, "O.K., just a minute,"
and I took him aside and shut the door behind us. I turned to him
and asked, "Have you ever been saved?" He turned all colors of
the rainbow and said, "What's the matter with you, Harris? Are
you getting religion? Are you becoming a 'Jesus freak'?" I said,
"No, I'm not getting religion. I just got saved. I received Jesus
Christ. Have you ever been born again?" He went out that door
like a bat out of Hades, brother, and we never had another
conversation again. Do you want to get rid of the old crowd?
Start speaking up for Jesus Christ, and I don't mean for some
fool "experience" you had. I mean, start talking about Jesus
Christ Himself and they'll scatter.

You ought to confess Christ because of what He has done for you.
If someone did a great thing for you, you would tell everybody
about it. If you were rescued from death in some miraculous way,
you would tell everybody about it. So if you are saved by a great
Saviour, you surely must tell the news to everybody you meet. How
can you keep your mouth shut? It is like a poor little boy who
had a leg operation. He hadn't walked for twelve years, and a
famous Viennese doctor fixed his leg so he could walk. When the
boy got back on his feet again he hugged that doctor and said to
him, "Doc, I can never repay you for what you have done, but, God
willing, my neighbors are never going to hear the end of this,"
meaning he would never quit telling people what that doctor had
done for him. If the Great Physician has taken you by the hand
and got your bleeding feet off the hot pavements of hell, how is
it you can't open your mouth and tell people about it?

There are all kinds of ways to confess Jesus Christ. You can
confess Him publicly in a church assembly, or at a prayer
meeting, or at a young people's meeting, or a testimony meeting.
You can confess Him privately to your friends, relatives, and
neighbors in daily conversation. A Christian can confess Jesus
Christ publicly by public baptism. He can confess Christ publicly
by constant attendance at a Bible-believing church. Perhaps the
most difficult, yet the most essential, is by simply relating his
testimony to relatives, friends, and strangers and telling them
how the Lord Jesus Christ saved him.

Is one public confession enough for life? Of course not; it
should be done repeatedly. The Christian life that is not
confessed will starve and die on the stalk. Jeremiah said he was
going to quit confessing the Lord and was going to keep his mouth
shut. He was resigning from the ministry: "Then I said, I will
not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name" (Jer.
20:9). But then he says, "But his word was in mine heart as a
burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with
forbearing, and I could not stay" (Jer. 20:9). He couldn't hold
back. That is the experience of every true Christian who attempts
to limit his testimony. A fire cannot be hid; it must reveal
itself. A city set on a hill cannot be hid; you can see it. A
lamp is not lit to be put under a bushel, but to be placed up
there on the corner table so it can give light to the whole house
(Matt. 5:14-15). A Christian should confess Jesus Christ
repeatedly, as the Lord gives him opportunity. The experience of
every true Christian is that the word of God is a burning fire in
his bones, and he can't shut his mouth. He has got to open his
mouth even if he puts his foot in it, which sometimes he will.

To whom should we witness? The Lord Jesus Christ said, "But ye
shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you:
and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all
Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth"
(Acts 1:8). So the twelve apostles wrote to witness to everyone.
Jerusalem was their hometown. From there they went to Judaea,
their province; from there to Samaria, the neighboring country;
and then on to the ends of the earth. Our chief responsibility is
to witness to our relatives first, our friends next. Then later
our circle of influence will grow, and we will reach more and
more people, and God will expand the circle.

When I got saved the first thing I did was witness to the people
who were closest to me--my immediate family and friends. The next
people I witnessed to publicly and openly were people in the
church, the Orangeburg Avenue Baptist Church of Modesto,
California. The next bunch of people I witnessed to were people I
worked with. From there I had a chance to witness as I grew older
in college to people I knew in college; and then, I had a chance
to witness to people further away, such as San Francisco,
Berkeley, Mill Valley, and even across the country. I have
traveled thousands of miles since then, and have lost track of
all the cities I've been in. Eventually, I moved to Virginia, and
had an opportunity to witness to hundreds of people I had never
met before. You start witnessing at home and keep up as a
faithful witness, and God will open doors for you, and your
circle will get bigger and bigger.

I don't have any idea how far my personal witness has gone. No
doubt it has not gone as far as it should have gone. I have
delivered my testimony and witnessed of my Saviour to many
classrooms and pulpits, and sometimes I get reports back. I was
not really raised a Christian; there are no preachers in my
family. I wasn't one of these goody-good boys raised in a
Christian day school and a Christian college. I grew up during
the so-called turbulent 60's, when kids my age were into all
sorts of drugs and sex and violence and immorality of all kinds.
So if God can take an old dog like me out of the alley and patch
me up and use me for His glory at least that much, think what He
could do with some of you who got saved when you were young and
lived a clean life with all the advantages I didn't have. Shame
on you if you are not witnessing for Jesus Christ every chance
you get.

In witnessing for Jesus Christ, what should we say? A confession
of the Lord Jesus is witnessing to the fact that you are a
Christian, a believer on Jesus Christ. A witness is someone who
knows something. He is somebody who sees something or observes
something or has been through something. Witnessing is not
necessarily preaching sermons, but telling the simple story of
the actual facts that you know to be true. When a witness is put
on the stand in court, he raises his right hand and is asked, "Do
you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the
truth, so help you God?" Every Christian is a witness, and you
are called upon to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing
but the truth, so help you God. A witness's knowledge must be
positive, definite, personal, direct, and not hearsay or
imagination. Don't waste too much time telling folks about what
you experienced in your feelings because some of that could have
been neurotic or psychotic, and some of it could have been based
on your metabolism or gland failure. A witness must testify to
something that has affected one or more of his five senses. He
must have read the thing and saw it in print, or felt it, or have
something happen to him that changed his life, or be an observer
of his own life after the change. A witness for Jesus Christ must
be saved himself; that goes without saying. His testimony must be
capable of endurance under cross-examination. Tell the simple
facts of your conversion. Tell the simple facts of the change in
your life. Tell about the answers to prayer that you've received.
"And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and
thou shalt glorify me" (Ps. 50:15). If you have experienced that,
tell people about it. Tell how the Lord Jesus Christ satisfied
you completely. If you say, "I'm saved and really happy since the
Lord Jesus took away my sins," people will listen, but don't say
that you are happy and look as miserable as death when you say
it. Talk about personal victory over sin and temptation. This
interests people because many of them are having a great deal of
trouble with sin and temptation. Of course, your personal life
must be clean before you can say this. Witness and tell people
about your favorite verse of scripture in the Bible and about how
God speaks to you through a passage of scripture.

Give your friends the gospel of Christ. If you want to talk about
something, talk about Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit, in writing
the Gospel of John, emphasized the fact that He, the Holy Spirit,
came not to witness to Himself, but witness to Jesus Christ (John
16:13-14). A man who is filled with the Spirit witnesses about
the Lord Jesus Christ's perfect life, His death, His burial, His
resurrection, His ascension, His Second Coming, and the White
Throne Judgment.

There are several hindrances to confessing Christ. There
shouldn't be any, for we ought to obey the plain commands of the
scripture, but the fear of man can keep you rom confessing
Christ. If you are afraid of what people say, you should read 2
Timothy 1:7, "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but
of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." In relation to our
assurance of salvation John said, "There is no fear in love; but
perfect love casteth out fear" (1 John 4:18). Paul said, "I can
do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me" (Phil.
4:13). So if you are a timid Christian, a backward Christian, or
an awkward Christian and have a hard time witnessing, you should
claim the promises and ask God to give you the strength necessary
to witness for the Lord Jesus Christ.

Some people are hindered from confessing Christ because of being
ashamed of Him. That is why Paul says, "Be not thou therefore
ashamed of the testimony of our Lord...but be thou partaker of
the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God" (2
Tim. 1:8).

Mainly, however, the reason the average Christian likes to talk
about his personal experiences and the Holy Ghost instead of
witnessing for Christ is because of an impure life, fearing that
the spoken testimony will not be in agreement with his actual
life that he lives. Begin at the beginning: if your problem for
not confessing Christ is that you don't know you are saved, begin
by confessing your sin of unbelief in what God said and of making
a liar out of God, and ask Him to give you assurance of salvation
and to take the sin out of your life that is preventing you from
believing Him. The Bible says, "whatsoever we ask, we receive of
him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that
are pleasing in his sight" (1 John 3:22). If your life is not
pleasing in the sight of the Lord, you will often doubt your
assurance and you will often fail to confess Christ publicly
because your own conscience condemns you. John says, "If our
heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all
things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we
confidence toward God" (1 John 3:20-21). The Lord knows whether
you are saved or not, but if your heart condemns you and puts you
down because of the impure life you are living, you will never be
an effective witness for Jesus Christ. You may spend a lot of
time talking about experiences and the Holy Ghost and baptism,
but as a witness for Jesus Christ you will be a perfect blank.

The danger of not witnessing is apparent. There is a solemn
warning to the silent believer in both Testaments. Paul says, "I
am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to
declare unto you all the counsel of God" (Acts 20:26-27). He
implies that if a man doesn't declare what God said as God said
it to the people around him, then in a sense he is responsible
for their ignorance, their lost condition, and their unbelief. So
the Christian should get the blood off his hands. In the Old
Testament, Ezekiel said, "When I say unto the wicked, O wicked
man, thou shalt surely die; if thou dost not speak to warn the
wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity;
but his blood will I require at thine hand" (Ezek. 33:8). So we
see we are not necessarily responsible for results. If people
refuse to accept our witness and earnest pleadings, that is their
responsibility, but our responsibility is to witness. Let it be
noticed that there is no commandment in the New Testament to win
souls to Jesus Christ. There are verses that say a man should be
"all things to all men, that I might by all means save some" (1
Cor. 9:22). There are commandments in the New Testament that
state a man should reap and work in the field and witness for
Christ, but there is nothing directly about soul-winning. The Old
Testament says, "he that winneth souls is wise" (Prov. 11:30).
Daniel says "they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of
the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the
stars for ever and ever" (Dan. 12:3). But in the New Testament
the commandment is given to witness, to witness, to witness.

Every Christian should be a witness. Your job is to privately and
publicly testify to the fact that Jesus Christ is not dead. He is
living. He is not buried; He is risen. He is not through; He is
coming again. Your job as a witness is to tell people what you
know to be true about the Lord Jesus Christ. Your job is to tell
them that the Lord Jesus Christ is God manifest in the flesh,
even though that has been taken out of every "Bible" on your
bookshelf except the King James Bible. If you have a King James
Bible, your Bible still says that "God was manifest in the flesh"
(1 Tim. 3:16). If you have some other version, you have the
incarnation of God denied in 1 Timothy 3:16. That is why in this
Studies in Theology series we always use the Holy Bible and never
use modern translations because they pervert the deity of Christ.

A good witness will not lie about the facts. A good witness will
tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. You
should witness to the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ was God
manifest in the flesh, dying for your sins, a completed atonement
for sinners, and that whosoever will may call upon the name of
the Lord and be saved. In short, you should be one of Jesus
Christ's ambassadors to tell the world that reconciliation is
available through Jesus Christ, that God "hath made Him to be sin
for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him" (2 Cor. 5:21). May God help you to be a faithful
witness by every means possible, at all times possible, to the
honor and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.