Derek Prince - This Biblical Practice Might Be The Key To Your Healing
This is a clip from the full sermon: Self-Humbling Through Fasting
Then there’s another aspect. That’s the vertical, but more difficult still, and perhaps just as important, is the horizontal. In James 5:16 it says, "confess". This version says trespasses, but it’s sins. It’s the same word for sins as it is elsewhere. I think actually just to speculate a little bit, the translators of the King James wanted to avoid the impression that you had to confess to a priest. There’s a certain amount of political pressure in that translation, although it’s a glorious translation. Anyhow it says, and you can check this anyway you like: Verse 16 Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another that you may be healed. This is one of the keys to physical healing.
Again I don’t see it practiced in most places. People just lay hands on and say, "Brother, God will heal you". God says, "You may need to confess your sins before you get healed, because your unconfessed sin is a barrier that keeps your healing from you". That’s not the only reason. There are many other reasons. But it’s one possible reason. So I don’t believe that we can maintain an attitude of pride if we’ve confessed our sins to one another. If we sincerely confess. If a husband says to his wife, "Honey, I’m sorry. I didn’t treat you right. I spoke very rudely to you. I was very impatient with you. I didn’t give you the consideration you deserve". He cannot be proud. Is that right? Or if a wife says to her husband, "I’m sorry but I just haven’t given you the respect I know I owe to you. I’ve been doing my own thing. Pleasing myself, just been self-centered. Forgive me. I haven’t been the kind of wife the Bible says I ought to be".
I don’t believe anybody who sincerely does that can remain proud. This is the key to humbling ourselves. It’s confessing our sins. And as I said before, God doesn’t demand that we confess every sin that we ever committed. But if we refuse to confess a sin, I don’t believe God forgives it. So this is my recommendation that we put it into practice. I want to suggest that we take a little while in an undemonstrative way to confess our sins to God, right where we are now. You remember that to "One who knows to do good and doesn’t do it, it is sin".
There are not only sins or commission. There are sins of omission. I’m going to come to one of those in a later message if God wills and I live. I won’t go into it today. You’ll get it later. But now I really sincerely suggest that we spend a little while, each one of us individually in the presence of the Lord and let the Holy Spirit put His finger on things. Before this meeting started, Ruth and I were here a day in advance as we like to be, and sovereignly God put His finger on a sin in each of out lives going back many years, that we had never really acknowledged and confessed. I don’t believe we could be in this meeting effectively without that. And I believe in a way God let that happen to us as a pattern for what needs to happen to many here.
So let’s just be in whatever attitude you can be in with your eyes closed, or your eyes open, bowed or sitting. We can’t let you prostrate yourself. There just isn’t room, but let’s take a little while, about three minutes. We cannot complete this business here. I’ve no illusions about that. But I want you to just ask one question of yourself. Is there some person against whom I have sinned, to whom I need to make confession and ask for forgiveness? I’ll just let you think that over for a minute and ask the Holy Spirit to make it clear to you, and then I’m going to ask Joseph to come and lead us in worship, Joseph.