THE MENTION OF SINS IN ASSEMBLY

^[p. 56] THE MENTION OF SINS IN ASSEMBLY

In answer to your question, ‘Should our sins be spoken of in prayer at assembly meetings?’ I would ask you, Do you know that you are in the presence of Christ risen from the dead? If you do not believe in His resurrection and that He was raised for your justification, you could not be in His presence risen from the dead. If you do there is not a disturbing element between God and you. The mention of sins in the assembly arises from confounding our practical state with our place in the mind of God. The blessed God never alters nor diverges from the acceptance in which He has received us because of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Alas! we diverge from the state in which God can be ever toward us as recorded in Romans 5: 1 - 11. Many suppose that because they are conscious of sins, that hence they must renew their acceptance with God. The truth is that God has not altered. His eye rests on the work accomplished by Christ for the believer. When you are not walking in the Spirit you are in the flesh: you have returned to the old man which was crucified on the cross. You have to be restored, and when you are, you find your acceptance with God unchanged and unchangeable. When sins are introduced there is a fear that God has changed. He has not changed but you have; when you sin you have changed. You are not walking in the Spirit, but in the flesh. You have to judge yourself in order to be restored. Matthew 26: 28 states the purpose of His death. The fact that He died for us makes His death more intensely affecting to us. But if all our sins were not met there, where can they be met? In Hebrews 10: 18 we read, “Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin”. God has effected the reconciliation; He always remains true to the efficacy of Christ’s work. You and I do not remain true to it, alas! We diverge from it; and the tendency is to suppose that the blessed God has altered towards us. He certainly will judge the flesh if we do not, but He never departs from the love which He has expressed to the ^[p. 57] prodigal, and we find that when the cloud, which walking in the flesh produced has passed away, that His love, blessed be His name, had never changed. If you agree with me you will see the unsuitability of the passages you have named being read at the Lord’s supper.