confession

• once was rite of remission, public notice of defilement

89:2.5The idea of con­fes­sion and for­give­ness early ap­peared in prim­i­tive re­li­gion. Men would ask for­give­ness at a pub­lic meet­ing for sins they in­tended to com­mit the fol­low­ing week. Con­fes­sion was merely a rite of re­mis­sion, also a pub­lic no­ti­fi­ca­tion of de­file­ment, a rit­ual of cry­ing “un­clean, un­clean!” Then fol­lowed all the rit­u­al­is­tic schemes of pu­rifi­ca­tion. All an­cient peo­ples prac­ticed these mean­ing­less cer­e­monies. Many ap­par­ently hy­gienic cus­toms of the early tribes were largely cer­e­mo­nial.

• essential to spiritual progress; does not mitigate consequences of disloyalty
• repudiation of disloyalty

89:10.5The con­fes­sion of sin is a man­ful re­pu­di­a­tion of dis­loy­alty, but it in no wise mit­i­gates the time-space con­se­quences of such dis­loy­alty. But con­fes­sion—sin­cere rec­og­ni­tion of the na­ture of sin—is es­sen­tial to re­li­gious growth and spir­i­tual prog­ress.

• has led nations to mighty efforts of reform

91:5.2But prayer need not al­ways be in­di­vid­ual. Group or con­gre­ga­tional pray­ing is very ef­fec­tive in that it is highly so­cial­iz­ing in its reper­cus­sions. When a group en­gages in com­mu­nity prayer for moral en­hance­ment and spir­i­tual up­lift, such de­vo­tions are re­ac­tive upon the in­di­vid­u­als com­pos­ing the group; they are all made bet­ter be­cause of par­tic­i­pa­tion. Even a whole city or an en­tire na­tion can be helped by such prayer de­vo­tions. Con­fes­sion, re­pen­tance, and prayer have led in­di­vid­u­als, cities, na­tions, and whole races to mighty ef­forts of re­form and coura­geous deeds of val­or­ous achieve­ment.

• if any say, ‘I have sinned,’ God will deliver

96:7.7Only at Ur did a voice arise to cry out the mercy of God, say­ing: “He shall pray to God and shall find fa­vor with him and shall see his face with joy, for God will give to man di­vine righ­teous­ness.” Thus from Ur there is preached sal­va­tion, di­vine fa­vor, by faith: “He is gra­cious to the re­pen­tant and says, ‘De­liver him from go­ing down in the pit, for I have found a ran­som.’ If any say, ‘I have sinned and per­verted that which was right, and it prof­ited me not,’ God will de­liver his soul from go­ing into the pit, and he shall see the light.” Not since the times of Mel­chiz­e­dek had the Lev­an­tine world heard such a ring­ing and cheer­ing mes­sage of hu­man sal­va­tion as this ex­traor­di­nary teach­ing of Elihu, the prophet of Ur and priest of the Salem be­liev­ers, that is, the rem­nant of the one­time Mel­chiz­e­dek colony in Mes­o­po­ta­mia.

• words of Job

130:8.2At Syra­cuse they spent a full week. The no­table event of their stop here was the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of Ezra, the back­slid­den Jew, who kept the tav­ern where Je­sus and his com­pan­ions stopped. Ezra was charmed by Je­sus’ ap­proach and asked him to help him come back to the faith of Is­rael. He ex­pressed his hope­less­ness by say­ing, “I want to be a true son of Abra­ham, but I can­not find God.” Said Je­sus: “If you truly want to find God, that de­sire is in it­self ev­i­dence that you have al­ready found him. Your trou­ble is not that you can­not find God, for the Fa­ther has al­ready found you; your trou­ble is sim­ply that you do not know God. Have you not read in the Prophet Jeremiah, ‘You shall seek me and find me when you shall search for me with all your heart’? And again, does not this same prophet say: ‘And I will give you a heart to know me, that I am the Lord, and you shall be­long to my peo­ple, and I will be your God’? And have you not also read in the Scrip­tures where it says: ‘He looks down upon men, and if any will say: I have sinned and per­verted that which was right, and it prof­ited me not, then will God de­liver that man’s soul from dark­ness, and he shall see the light’?” And Ezra found God and to the sat­is­fac­tion of his soul. Later, this Jew, in as­so­ci­a­tion with a well-to-do Greek pros­e­lyte, built the first Chris­tian church in Syra­cuse.

• leave no fault unconfessed

131:3.3“Un­righ­teous­ness is con­temptible; sin is de­spi­ca­ble. Evil is de­grad­ing, whether held in thought or wrought out in deeds. Pain and sor­row fol­low in the path of evil as the dust fol­lows the wind. Hap­pi­ness and peace of mind fol­low pure think­ing and vir­tu­ous liv­ing as the shadow fol­lows the sub­stance of ma­te­rial things. Evil is the fruit of wrongly di­rected think­ing. It is evil to see sin where there is no sin; to see no sin where there is sin. Evil is the path of false doc­trines. Those who avoid evil by see­ing things as they are gain joy by thus em­brac­ing the truth. Make an end of your mis­ery by loathing sin. When you look up to the No­ble One, turn away from sin with a whole heart. Make no apol­ogy for evil; make no ex­cuse for sin. By your ef­forts to make amends for past sins you ac­quire strength to re­sist fu­ture ten­den­cies thereto. Re­straint is born of re­pen­tance. Leave no fault un­con­fessed to the No­ble One.

• sins forgiven after

131:5.5“This re­li­gion of the Wise One cleanses the be­liever from ev­ery evil thought and sin­ful deed. I bow be­fore the God of heaven in re­pen­tance if I have of­fended in thought, word, or act—in­ten­tion­ally or un­in­ten­tion­ally—and I of­fer prayers for mercy and praise for for­give­ness. I know when I make con­fes­sion, if I pur­pose not to do again the evil thing, that sin will be re­moved from my soul. I know that for­give­ness takes away the bonds of sin. Those who do evil shall re­ceive pun­ish­ment, but those who fol­low truth shall en­joy the bliss of an eter­nal sal­va­tion. Through grace lay hold upon us and min­is­ter sav­ing power to our souls. We claim mercy be­cause we as­pire to at­tain per­fec­tion; we would be like God.”

• finding oneself in wrong, do not hesitate to make

131:9.3“God is with us; there­fore we have no fear in our hearts. If there be found any virtue in me, it is the man­i­fes­ta­tion of Heaven who abides with me. But this Heaven within me of­ten makes hard de­mands on my faith. If God is with me, I have de­ter­mined to have no doubt in my heart. Faith must be very near the truth of things, and I do not see how a man can live with­out this good faith. Good and evil do not be­fall men with­out cause. Heaven deals with man’s soul in ac­cor­dance with its pur­pose. When you find your­self in the wrong, do not hes­i­tate to con­fess your er­ror and be quick to make amends.

• sins forgiven after

156:2.7Said Je­sus: “My dis­ci­ples must not only cease to do evil but learn to do well; you must not only be cleansed from all con­scious sin, but you must refuse to har­bor even the feel­ings of guilt. If you con­fess your sins, they are for­given; there­fore must you main­tain a con­science void of of­fense.”

• realization of need for

167:5.2That night, in Jeri­cho, the un­friendly Phar­isees sought to en­trap the Mas­ter by in­duc­ing him to dis­cuss mar­riage and di­vorce, as did their fel­lows one time in Gal­i­lee, but Je­sus art­fully avoided their ef­forts to bring him into con­flict with their laws con­cern­ing di­vorce. As the pub­li­can and the Phar­isee il­lus­trated good and bad re­li­gion, their di­vorce prac­tices served to con­trast the bet­ter mar­riage laws of the Jew­ish code with the dis­grace­ful lax­ity of the Phar­i­saic in­ter­pre­ta­tions of these Mo­saic di­vorce statutes. The Phar­isee judged him­self by the low­est stan­dard; the pub­li­can squared him­self by the high­est ideal. De­vo­tion, to the Phar­isee, was a means of in­duc­ing self-righ­teous in­ac­tiv­ity and the as­sur­ance of false spir­i­tual se­cu­rity; de­vo­tion, to the pub­li­can, was a means of stir­ring up his soul to the re­al­iza­tion of the need for re­pen­tance, con­fes­sion, and the ac­cep­tance, by faith, of mer­ci­ful for­give­ness. The Phar­isee sought jus­tice; the pub­li­can sought mercy. The law of the uni­verse is: Ask and you shall re­ceive; seek and you shall find.