Introduction

Moral authority is unraveling in our society because the meaning of confession, fear, and habits are unraveling. The guilt you confess, the things you fear, and the habits you form are inextricably tied to the full tide of human existence. When there is no consensus about what and what not to confess, fear, and do; when there is no transcendent moral standard, then moral messages matriculate to things like “carbon footprint,” “diet,” and “wellness.”

In other words, the absence of God’s moral authority is the beginning of calamity. The church must have Jesus Christ as the center of its confessions, fears, and habits. In practice, this means Christians must subjugate sin rather than let sin subjugate them. Consider the Proverbs 28 method for subjugating sin.

First, New Confessions

“Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.”

Proverbs 28:13

The first step of every spiritual quagmire is to confess sin, which leads to forsaking sin. How does this work? Receiving the gospel of Jesus Christ by faith is not a one-time experience. It’s not something you do and mark off a to-do list. It’s not something that happens in a moment in time. Faith in Jesus is the profound and repeated fact that when you confess your sins to God, He is faithful and just to cleanse you from all unrighteousness (1 Jn. 1:9). The immediate and undeniable efficacy of Christ’s grace is the ongoing transformation of a sinner to a saint. Sin is thwarted by forgiveness. Each time God forgives you of your sin—yes, God forgives even that sin—you are one step closer to crushing Satan under your feet (Rom. 6:20).

Transformation is the act of turning around and forsaking transgression. Confession without repentance does not obtain mercy. Consider Jonah. God gave Jonah a task to go to Nineveh. Jonah went on a flight in the opposite direction. Through a series of events and a very large fish, God overthrew Jonah and overcame his sinful resistance. When Jonah returned to his task, God didn’t just change the direction he walked (Jon. 3:3), God changed the direction of his heart (Jon. 4:1-11).

When God forgives someone, he doesn’t just wipe away sins. He re-orders their desires, changes their spiritual bearings, and points them in a new moral direction. This is how grace leads to transformation; how forgiveness leads to righteousness; how sin is defeated. And it begins when the sinner confesses in all honesty rather than concealing transgressions. Sinners must tell the truth about their lives, their sin, and their motives. Otherwise, they will remain in the spiritual quagmire. 

Second, New Fears

“Blessed is the one who fears the Lord always, but whoever hardens his heart will fall into calamity.”

Proverbs 28:14

It’s not just that unbelievers should fear the Lord and the threat of eternal punishment. Christians should also fear the Lord. Children can both love and fear their father in reverence. So can the children of God love and fear the Heavenly Father in reverence. The Westminster Confession of Faith says that saving faith believes whatever is revealed in the Word, “yielding obedience to the commands, trembling at the threatenings, and embracing the promises of God for this life, and that which is to come” (14.2). What does it mean to tremble at God’s threatenings? It means to stay away from sin. If Adam had listened to Yahweh’s threatenings in the garden, then Adam would not have sinned and died. God’s threat was given in love. Adam’s disobedience was the failure to maintain the filial fear of faith.

In this way, fear is a regular part of the Christian life. The Lord teaches his children to fear Him (Ps. 34:11). Those children then “serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling” (Ps. 2:11). The 14th article of the Canons of Dort explains that perseverance of the faith happens by “hearing, reading, meditation, exhortation, threats, and promises of the same gospel, as also by the use of the sacraments.”

God doesn’t threaten his children, does he? “But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Mt. 6:15). “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live” (Rom. 8:13). “Envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal. 5:21).

Those who don’t fear the Lord don’t know Him well enough. “The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Prov. 1:7). Proverbs instructs the fear of the Lord fourteen times. Those who fear the Lord learn to imitate their heavenly Father (Prov. 14:2), hate evil (Prov. 8:13), live humbly (Prov. 3:7), and trust the Lord (Prov. 29:25).

To “fear the Lord always” (Prov. 28:14) is not to live in constant terror of an unexpected smiting. It’s fear defined by love and knowledge of God’s self-sacrificing gifts. This type of fear both assures of God’s grace and prompts apprehension about sin and its consequences. Awe for God seats a sublime sensation deep in the soul because His works, His mercy, and His justice are worked out in the story of the Bible: The Fall, sin, the devil, hell, redemption, atonement, justification, sanctification, and glorification.

Third, New Habits

“If one turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an abomination.”

Proverbs 28:9

The word “habit” Is derived from the verb “to have.” The ancients said that habit is second nature. People possess certain qualities that aren’t the original nature, but the second nature, things they have added to their nature, like clothes are added to the body. When temptation arrives, what practices will they default to? What “retained effect” will kick into action?

For Christians, indeed for all humans, it’s not an edifice of syllogisms that will cause faithfulness. Faithfulness is implicit in the practices of worship that happen first on Sunday and then are carried throughout the week. Faithful Christian action needs the weekly picture of the whole Christian life. The singing, praying, preaching, confessing, Scripture reading, and sacraments of the Lord’s Day service is the model of what faithful habits during the week looks like. Maybe we can call it recursive sanctification.

There is a necessary union of the Word and prayer in the Christian life. Making a habit of righteousness is the strongest proof of God and his activity in the world. Habits double as coping mechanisms. When your routine is disrupted and the pressure mounts, you will live out your habits. When you race out the door in a hurry, you still tie your shoes as you always have. Only Proverbs 28:9 isn’t about the habits of footwear, but the habits of listening. If man is deaf to God’s Word, God will be deaf to man’s prayer (Luke 13:25-27).

Conclusion

The fragments of futile confessions, fears, and habits account for the resilient impression of despair that is piling in heaps all around. It’s a spiritual calamity with a divine solution. The ancient architecture transcends the cold altar of condemnation. When Jesus Christ is at the center of your confessions, fears, and habits, then justice is swayed by mercy, and sin is subjugated.