But all right, let's jump into this tonight turn, if you will,
to Acts chapter 20. This is kind of our theme verse
for this, this lesson. And there's, there's a good bit
left here. So I was going to try to get
into the second one. The, the, the lesson on faith is
not very long. But rather than trying to jump
into both of these and get both of these done tonight, I'm just
going to finish up with this repentance.
And it's a very, very important, very, very important concept in
the in God's Word, a very important doctrine, if you will.
But let's go back to page 11 and just remind ourselves of what
are some of the false views of repentance.
And first of all is that repentance is not reformation.
It's not changing your life. We see a lot of that happening
with, you know, Alcoholics Anonymous.
People can go and they can reform.
They can change does not mean it's repentance.
Repentance is also not doing penance.
The Catholic Bibles translate repentance as doing penance, but
that's not a concept that we find in God's Word.
It's not as something that they made-up and then translated in
that way. Repentance is also not just
remorse. We talked about King Saul, we
talked about Judas. Both of them were sorry, but
they but it was, it was not repentance towards God.
It was a repentance of I'm sorry I got caught essentially.
And then repentance is not just believing on Christ.
There's there's a good faction of people out there who say that
repentance is just turning from unbelief to belief.
But as as we already mentioned as well, that's why Acts chapter
20 and verse 21 is so important, testifying both of the Jews and
also to the Greeks, repentance towards God and faith toward our
Lord Jesus Christ. Both of those are mentioned
together. So if those are things that
repentance is not, then what is biblical repentance?
Well, this is very, very important, very necessary.
I hope you got a pen. Maybe you can write some some
notes down here in the margins. And what I will do is get a
couple of you to read as well like we did last week.
So maybe we'll start with Kevin's row on this side and and
brother Johnny's row on this side so we can grab those
microphones and we'll get to some of these here in just a
little bit. Actually, Kevin, if you will, if
you will look up Acts 64, six and who wants to read on that
row? Julie, why don't you?
Why don't you read Isaiah? Oh, sorry.
Acts 2620. We'll get there first and then
behind Brother George. Anybody on that?
What you want to read, Brother George?
All right, let's do Isaiah 4522 and 23.
Frank, you want to read what you want to read?
OK, All right. Macy.
Romans 87 then, then brother Gary's row.
All right, Charlie, you want to read, look up Luke 2342 and then
let's see here. First Thessalonians 19 Somebody
on brother Ryan's row want to read.
All right, First Thessalonians 19 and we'll stop there.
We'll, we'll get to some more of them, but we'll finish up.
We'll, we'll do these before we get any further.
All right, It'll save us a little bit of time too, if we
can just have you ready to read and just make sure you get the
mic and have it ready to go by the time it gets to you.
May be easier to just kind of set it on the chair next to you
or something. So it doesn't, I mean, I guess
they can kind of control it from back there too.
But all right, So what is, what is biblical repentance then?
Well, first of all, repentance is admitting that I have sinned
against God and being sorry for that sin.
Acts chapter 20 and verse 21. We've already read repentance
towards God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
So repentance is toward God because He is the one that I
have sinned against. Right.
I mean, I can be sorry for something that I've done or you
know, you think about somebody, a drunk driver, let's say that
ends up killing somebody in a car accident.
And they're they're so sorry that it happened.
They're so sad for the family that has to go through all those
things and they sit in prison. And, you know, many times you
see their testimony when they get sentenced and they're just
broken down. They're in tears and they're
just I'm. So sorry, I'm so sorry.
If I could go back and redo it, I would do it all over, you
know, do everything differently. I would have never taken that
drink, blah, blah, blah. They're sad, they're sorry, but
it's not repentance toward God. Then that's what repentance in
God's Word is. He made man for himself, and He
made man to obey his laws. But we've turned our back on him
and broken his laws, and He requires that we repent of that.
So repentance is admitting that I'm not good, that even my
supposed righteousness is as filthy rags before a thrice holy
God. You've probably.
Seen that term before? What do you, what does thrice
holy God mean? Anybody know, Josh?
It's the Trinity. It is the Trinity.
But we see there's, there's a passage in the Bible where we
get that from. Yeah, right.
Holy, holy, holy, right. Three times holy.
That's that's where thrice holy God comes from.
I'm sure you've seen that term before, but that's what that is.
But. Acts 64.
Six. Isaiah 64 Sorry, I said X Isaiah
64 six. But we are all as an unclean
thing, and all are unrighteous. Excuse me.
And all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.
All our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, even the best
things that we can do as filthy regs.
Now this is where I say that it's an important thing.
You know what, what we see so often, and I'm, you're seeing a
lot of this now. And I, and I'm, you know, I'm
thankful that, you know, at the memorial service that they did
for Charlie Kirk, I think there was a couple of them that gave
the gospel clearly. And there's a possibility that
some people could get saved from that.
What, what's a grave danger that you see that's going to come out
of something like this is it's going to be a very, very
ecumenical movement. Everybody's together in this,
the Catholics and the Presbyterians and the Methodists
and the Baptists and everybody that's non denominational,
everybody is seeing a revival, right?
Most of them are not right. Most of them are not giving the
gospel. Most of them are not preaching
the Gospel of Christ that they're preaching the gospel of
Christ with all of their own things added to it.
So yes, we're seeing a turn back toward things that are godly,
but it doesn't necessarily mean that it's repentance.
And I'm seeing this happen a lot.
Boy, I'm telling you what, we had so many new people at
church. We had 300 people that got
baptized. That's not salvation.
It's not so there's no repentance, right?
It's that's what we see when people profess Christ through
baptism, but that's not what we see when people truly repent in
God's Word. Baptism is the faith aspect of
it. I'm willing to put my faith in
Christ, but it's faith only. Salvation requires repentance
and faith. You have to have both, and we'll
talk a little bit more about that in just a minute.
So repentance means it's admitting that I've sinned
against God and being sorry for that.
Repentance also means to turn around or to change directions.
Acts 2620. But showed first unto them of
Damascus, at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coast of
Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn
to God, and do work to meet. For.
Repentance. OK, that's an important that's
an important phrase there. Do works meet for repentance?
What does that word meet mean? Fit right?
Do works that show that you've repented.
All right, Well, no, Yeah, it's not.
We're not saved by our works. No, we're not saved by our
works. And that's not what we're
saying. But the Bible very clearly says
here that we should do works, meet for repentance, right?
Words that show that you have repented.
There ought to be something different about you.
It's something that happens in the heart and the mind.
Actually. Turn over to Exodus Chapter 9.
Let's just have everybody turn over there.
I came across this this morning in my reading.
And obviously I knew that I was doing, I'd already studied
through a lot of this and, and what I was planning to say
tonight and then this, these verses just came right up.
And I think this is such a perfect example.
Of exactly what happens with so many people who think that
they're saved, but there's never been any kind of repentance.
Look at Exodus Chapter 9. And this is the obviously going
back several chapters before this.
This is Pharaoh in Egypt. Pharaoh.
Hardened his heart, he hardened his heart, he hardened his heart
and then God started hardening his heart to try to to to try to
show his power. And he makes that very clear.
But the same thing is happening here again in Exodus chapter 10.
Sorry, Exodus Chapter 9. And they they just had all the
disease where all the beasts of the, you know, all their, all
their animals got killed or most of them died in the pestilence.
And then the boils come along and then the hail.
And Pharaoh calls Moses and he says, take this away.
I can't handle this. We've got to do something to get
rid of it. And look what Pharaoh says.
OK, if if you were, if you were part of this quick prayer ISM
crowd, if you were part of this man, it's just faith.
It's just believing in God. Pharaoh was a Christian.
Look at verse 27. Pharaoh sent and called for
Moses and Aaron, and said unto them, I have sinned.
This time the Lord is righteous, and I and my people are wicked.
Intrigue the Lord, for it is enough that there be no more
mighty thunderings in hail, and I will let you go, and you shall
stay no longer. That is Pharaoh's salvation
testimony according to most people, right?
Pharaoh admitted that he sinned. Pharaoh admitted that God was
God, that the Lord is righteous. But look what happens next.
Verse 29. Moses said unto him, As soon as
I am gone out of the city, I will spread abroad my hands into
the Lord, and the Thunder shall cease.
Neither shall there be any more hail, that thou mayest know how
that the earth is the Lord's. But As for thee and thy
servants, I know that you will not yet fear the Lord God.
And the flax and the barley was smitten, for the barley was in
the ear, and the flax was bold, but the wheat and the rye were
not smitten, for they were not grown up.
And Moses went out of the city from Pharaoh, and spread abroad
his hands unto the Lord. And the thunders and hail
ceased, and the rain was not poured upon the earth.
And when Pharaoh saw that the rain and the hail and the
thunders were ceased, he sinned yet more, and hardened his
heart, he and his servants. And the heart of Pharaoh was
heartened, and neither would he let the children of Israel go,
as the Lord had spoken by Moses. Is that works Meet for
repentance. No, it's not right.
He hardened his heart. He, he very specifically, when
he saw that everything was starting to go back in his
favor, he basically backed, you know, went back on everything
that he had just said. Right.
Is anybody under the illusion that Pharaoh was was saved?
Is Pharaoh in heaven today? Highly, highly doubted.
And we don't have everything that Pharaoh ever said, but
highly, highly doubt that Pharaoh was a Christian.
But he's got a testimony. He's got the same testimony that
a lot of people have. Oh, I sinned.
I believe that God is holy. I believe that God's righteous
baptize me and let's go on with life.
I can live however I want to live my life because now I'm a
Christian and I'm on my way to heaven.
That's the testimony of most people.
Pharaoh has that exact same testimony, but yet none of us
would say that Pharaoh was saved.
Why? Because of all of his works.
After that, there was no evidence of any kind of
repentance. There was no evidence of any
kind of works meet for repentance, right?
So repentance means to turn around.
Pharaoh obviously gave mental assent to God.
Pharaoh. Had some rough things that
happened in his life and he was ready to admit that here's God
and I know that's where it's coming from, but Pharaoh did not
do work. To meet for repentance, well,
let's let's go to Isaiah 45. You don't have to turn there
because somebody else has that. But the third thing here,
repentance means to surrender to God's rule.
Isaiah 4522 and 23 Look unto me, and be ye saved all the ends of
the earth, for I am God, and there is none else.
I have sworn by myself. The word is gone out of our
mouth in righteousness, and shall not return.
That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.
OK, so repentance means to surrender to God's rule.
And we see a couple points along with that.
The first one being that repentance is to receive Christ
as Lord. Romans chapter 10, verse 9 and
10. That if thou shalt confess with
thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart,
that goddeth Raisin from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the
mouth confession is made unto salvation.
For there is no difference between the Jew or the Greek
right. Romans 10/13 For whosoever shall
call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
That's the gospel. In a nutshell, well, it is, but
there's more to it than that. That is, that is the faith side
of it, right? Repentance is to receive Christ
as Lord. To believe is to receive Jesus.
Christ as my only Savior, meaning nothing else can save
me. Not my good works, not not going
to a priest, not doing this thing or that thing, or
believing on anything else and not believing, believing on
anything else can save me. So to believe is to receive
Jesus Christ as my only Savior, and to repent is to receive him
as my. Only Lord.
And what that means is I am counting on nobody else.
I am not. I am not putting anything else
in the place that He belongs in. I have completely surrendered to
Him. The Bible says the Sinner is at
enmity against God because of his rebellion to God's rule.
Does somebody have Romans 87? All right, let me see.
Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is
not subject to the law of God, neither in needed indeed can.
Right. The carnal mind is enmity
against God, for it is not separate to the law of God, and
neither indeed can be. Enmity means the quality of
being an enemy, and we see that. We see it in first John, We see
it in other places. That word that's used to repent
means that I reject this attitude and surrender to God's
rule over my life. I don't want to be the enmity of
God. I don't want to be at enmity
with God. I don't want to have the quality
of being an enemy. And so we see this surrender
throughout the New Testament in the lives of those who were
saved. Those who receive Jesus in a
saving manner called upon him as Lord.
Luke 2342. I give that one to somebody, OK.
And he said to Jesus, When will Remember Me?
When thou hast cometh into thy Kingdom.
Right, that's the thief on the cross.
Lord, Remember Me. When thou cometh into thy
Kingdom, it is receiving Jesus Christ, calling upon him as
Lord. Lord, Remember Me.
So repentance means to surrender to God's rule.
It's essentially to receive Christ as the Lord of your life
in addition to accepting him as the Savior, the only Savior, and
the only Lord. Repentance.
Then the third, the 4th point is repentance is not a change of
life. It's a change of mind about God
and sin that results in a change of life.
Now, those who are the critics, if you will, of repentance,
those who say that it's just changing from unbelief to
belief. And by the way, Steven Anderson
is one of these guys that that really promotes this.
If you've not heard his name, you're not missing anything.
But he is. He is.
He is the the de facto head, I guess you could say, of what's
called the New Independent Baptist movement.
And he is one of the ones that promotes this very, very much.
It's just a change from unbelief to belief.
And, and, and one of the main reasons that they say that is
because they say if you, if you say that you have to repent of
your sin, then that's a work. You're saying that you have to
turn from your sin and turn to God, then that's worked.
And we're not saying that at all.
Repentance is not a change of life.
Repentance is a change of mind about God.
It's a change of mind about your sin and that will result in a
change of life. That's what the works meet for.
Repentance is. It's not that okay, I've turned
from enough of my sin. Now I can consider myself saved.
It is. I want to turn from all of that
sin. There are sins that I'm going
to. Commit that I'm not going to get
victory over right away. But I don't want that lifestyle
anymore. I don't want to live that way
anymore. It's a complete change of mind
about my sin. I know that it sent Christ to
the cross. I know that it hurts the heart
of God. I know that it grieves the Holy
Spirit. I don't want to do that anymore.
It's a change of mind about my sin.
It's a change of mind about God, and it's a change of direction.
I was going that way. I loved my sin.
I lived in my sin. I enjoyed my sin.
I don't want that anymore. I've changed my mind and I've
changed my direction and I'm going away from that.
So naturally, when you change your mind and you change your
direction, you're not going to do the things that you used to
do. But my salvation took place when
I, when I made that turn, right, Not after I got this far down
the road from that turn. It's not the, it's not the,
it's, it's not the stopping of sinning that saves me.
It's the repentance and the faith that saves me.
But I don't want that anymore. And it ought to result in a
change in my. Life.
Many who believe or pray the sinner's prayer have no
intention to change it or to allow God to take control of
their lives. And I, and I gave you that
example last week of that young man that took two or three
minutes with this guy and, and led him to Christ, gave him the
assurance that he was on his way to heaven.
And we came and talked to him just a few minutes after that.
And he said, I have no, I have no intention of stopping my
drinking. I have no intention of stopping
doing this. I have no intention of stopping
doing that. That's not salvation.
Mental assent to who God is, mental assent to what Christ did
on the cross in dying and raising again from the dead is
not salvation. Repentance is absolutely
necessary for salvation, as we've already talked about.
They want to take it to heaven. That keeps them out of hell, but
they want to continue to live as they please.
They want to believe in Jesus, but they have no interest in
obeying Him. It's not biblical salvation.
The Sinner must be ready to turn from his false gods, including
self worship, in order to worship and serve the true God.
And we see this happening in First Thessalonians 19.
Somebody have that for the Ryan? They themselves show shoot of us
what they are of thinking in. Ye had unto you, and now ye turn
to God from idols to serve the living and true.
God, OK, that's repentance. That's turning away from what
you used to have and turning to God, right?
Turning away from your idols and turning to God.
Now let's go to the next page, page 13.
Here's a couple examples, and these are just quotes from
pastors, evangelists, but repentance.
According to evangelist James Stewart, this is kind of a good
way to explain it is an assassin laying down his knife.
The hand that clutches the Assassin's knife must open.
Eric can grasp. The grasp the gift that's
intended victim proffers and opening that hand, though a
single act has a double aspect and purpose.
Accepting the gift implies a turning from the crime the heart
was on, was bent on, and it was the gift itself that worked the
change. Faith is the open hand
relatively to the gift. Repentance is the same hand,
relatively. Not only to the gift, but more
especially to the dagger that has flung from it.
The intention of sin is gone with genuine repentance.
You're not going to be perfect. You're going to sin again.
But the intention to sin is gone.
And essentially the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus
Christ our Lord. But in reaching out for that
gift. I am throwing aside all of the
other things, all of the other harm that I intended.
To do to Christ. Here's another good example.
Repentance is a thief returning the stolen property.
Lester Roloff, He said, I believe we ought to make right
what we can make right. What if I was staying with a
group of preachers and one of them stole my wallet while I was
sleeping? The next day he comes up to me
and tells me he's terribly sorry and asked me to forgive him.
I would be glad to hear that he is sorry for stealing my wallet,
but I would certainly want and expect more than that from a
repentant thief. I would want my wallet back.
I don't believe he has really repented unless he brings my
pillfold back. I don't believe you have
repented until you get right and say Lord, I'm going to live
different from now on. And by the grace of God you will
live different. Not perfect, but different.
And I and we're. Not saying that you have to live
a perfect life in order to be saved was not saying that you
have to to stop sinning in order to be saved, but you ought to
want to stop sinning. In order to be saved.
So what are some biblical examples of repentance?
Well, we've got a we've got a few good ones here.
And of course one of the best examples of that.
Let's all turn over to Luke chapter 15 is the prodigal son.
Luke chapter 15 and verse #17 of course you know the story.
He went out and wasted all of his money on a riotous living.
He spent everything that he had and the next thing you know, he
finds himself feeding the swine. He's in there with the hogs and
it's said that he would much rather have eaten what they were
feeding the hogs. But then verse 17 says, and when
he came to himself, he said, how many hired servants of my
father's have bred enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger.
I will arise and go to my Father, and we'll say unto him,
and here's the key, Father, I have sinned against heaven and
before thee, and I'm no more worthy to be called thy Son.
Make me as one of the hired servants.
Now obviously he knew that he had sinned against his Father,
right? He had wasted the money.
He had done very, very foolishly, but he recognized
that his sin was not just against his dad.
His sin was against God. And that's a.
Huge, huge, huge key. He arose verse 20 and came to
his father. But when he was a great way off,
his father saw him and had compassion and ran and fell on
his neck and kissed him. That that's that.
That refers to conviction and spiritual enlightenment by the
Holy Spirit. He humbled himself.
He acknowledged that his sin was against God and against his
Father. He turned around so that he was
facing in a different direction. This is repentance.
The evidence of his repentance is that he returned home and he
made things right with his father.
He humbled himself and he was willing to become a mere
servant. The repentance resulted in a
change, but he repented. When he was sitting in that hog
slop, that's where the repentance took place.
The repentance took place when he recognized that he had sinned
against heaven and against his Father, and that repentance led
to a change in his direction. He didn't go back to the world
and say, let me go see if I can make my fortune here.
This is not a good situation, he said.
I've sinned against heaven. I've sinned against my father.
Let me go back and make things right.
Here's another example, and I think you know this one probably
pretty well as well. We're not too far from it.
Just let's turn over to Luke chapter 19, the story of
Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus, he was a tax
collector and obviously very hated because he stole money
from people and he heard Jesus. Jesus said in verse #5
Zacchaeus, Make haste and come down, for today I must abide at
thy house. And he made haste, and came
down, and received him joyfully. Verse 8.
Zacchaeus stood and said unto the Lord, Behold, Lord, the half
of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have taken anything
from any man by false accusation, I restore him
fourfold. And what did Jesus say?
Jesus said unto him, This day is salvation, Come to this house.
For as much as much as He also is the son of Abraham.
For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was
lost. Zacchaeus repented and was
converted so dramatically that it became an honest man who paid
back those he had cheated. It was not the fact that
Zacchaeus paid those people back.
That was not his salvation. That was not his repentance.
His repentance came before that, when he was under conviction,
when Jesus was sitting in his house.
But his repentance resulted in a change of life, a change of
direction, and a desire to make the things right that he had
done that were that was wrong. Here's another one.
Let's turn over to 1st Thessalonians chapter 1 and
verse #9 First Thessalonians 19, the Thessalonians themselves,
and we already, we already alluded to this one, Brother
Ryan already read it for us. But I think it's interesting
this, this order that we see mentioned here is important.
First Thessalonians 19 For they themselves show of us what
manner of entering in we had unto you, and how you turned to
God from idols to serve the living and true God.
This is biblical repentance. Notice that they didn't turn
from idols to God. They turn to God from idols.
The order is important. If a man turns to God, he is his
back to his old gods and old life.
That's true repentance. It's repentance towards God.
As we read in Acts chapter 20 and verse 21, unless a person
rejects his false gods and false religions and self righteousness
and surrenders to Christ's Lordship, he cannot be saved.
And it's such a huge thing. We see this happening so often
and especially in countries where they have a lot of gods.
India is a great example of this.
They have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of gods in India.
And many times what happens is things aren't going so great for
me. Oh, you're introducing Christ.
Well, I'll try him. I'll see if I'll see if he
works. And if I can see miracles, if I
can see blessings, if I can see God do something for me, then
certainly I'll believe in Jesus, right?
He's just another God. That's not salvation.
And, and it's, it's difficult in many cases dealing with somebody
who has that mindset because they got saved and their life
was, was turned around because they came to Christ and oh, they
had this great testimony of understanding who Christ is and
all of these other things. And in some cases it is genuine,
but in a lot of cases it takes years of working with somebody
and helping them come to that understanding that it's not just
another God that you're trying out to see how He'll do for you.
It's all of Him and none of anything else.
Or it's not salvation. If you are counting on anything
else besides Christ, then it's not salvation.
So. This is important.
Then we understand what salvation is, not we understand
what salvation is. We've looked at a couple Bible
examples of salvation. So how do we use that in so
many? Well, there's three things here,
and the first is that we must not skip over it.
We must tell the people that God.
Requires it and we must explain what it is and this is where it
gets so this 123 pray after me. I don't I don't like to call it
easy believism because it's not hard to believe in Christ.
It's quick prayerism. If I can get you almost, almost
like you're trying to sneak it past somebody, almost like
you're trying to you know, we I worked as a.
I did construction for for several years in college and I
tore my knee up playing soccer and I couldn't climb the ladders
and everything else. So I had to, I had to switch and
do something else. For two weeks.
I worked at a call center and I started day one and I put my two
weeks in and I worked two weeks and that was it.
I couldn't handle it sitting there.
But they train you how to how to try to get people to just say
yes. Right.
If they can just say yes, then you can mark it down and that
counts as another one for you. And you send them the stuff and
you go on to the next call. It's almost like you're trying
to sneak it past somebody just to get them to say yes so that
you can send them the credit card offer or you can add this
thing to their credit card or whatever it happens to be that
you're trying to sell. And that's the way a lot of
salesman work. If you can just get somebody to
say yes. If they say yes once, they'll
probably say yes again. And if they say yes twice, then
definitely they're going to say yes the third time.
Many times they just want to get you off of their porch.
But if you can just get them to say yes.
And that's what a lot of people are doing when it comes to to,
to knocking on doors. And I mean, maybe 1520, thirty
years ago, it was easier to, to lead somebody to Christ on their
porch because people had a knowledge of the Bible and they
had a moral understanding and they knew who Jesus was.
And they had been to Sunday school and they had been to VBSS
and they've been through all of those things.
People have no idea today. They don't know anything about
the Bible. And for you to show up on their
porch and 5 or 10 minutes later you've LED them to Christ,
that's a very, very, very dangerous thing.
And I'm not saying that somebody couldn't be ready to accept
Christ as their Savior. It it can happen, but you know,
I hear about these churches that go out knocking on doors and
praise the Lord, we had seven people saved outdoor knocking
today. That's a very, very dangerous
thing. Most of those people you
probably gave a false assurance to because they just wanted to
get you off of their porch and they just realized that all they
had to do was say yes and you will leave.
It's it's, it's something that we have to be so careful about.
This is a, this is an example that brother Cloud used.
Obviously is is his his course here, but he said one afternoon
I accompanied a pastor to knock doors in a part of the city that
was populated with university students.
A few times in one afternoon. He shared a 5 minute Romans Rd.
plan. IE all have sinned against God.
The wages of sin is death. Jesus died for our sins and
those who believe can be saved. And then immediately asked three
questions. Does that make sense to you?
All of them said it made sense. Do you have any questions?
None of them did because they didn't appear the least bit
interested, not interested enough even to invite us into
the home. And the third question, Would
you pray to receive Christ right now?
None of them did, which I'm surprised that because most of
them do they just whatever I got to say to get you off my porch.
Not only was the program quick, to say the least, the pastor
didn't even hint to the people that there would need to be a
change in the direction of their life, a turning or a surrender.
I've heard of this this. I've actually seen this happen
before too. This is another example.
An independent Baptist Church in Maine conducted a door to door
campaign a few years ago in which the people were taught to
say if. I were to tell you today.
Say that you can be saved and go to heaven and you won't have to
change anything. Would you be interested?
And that's what I'm saying, that a lot of this is just trying to
sneak it past somebody to get them to say yes.
Why would you even want to do that?
Why would you even want to try to sneak it past somebody and
and, and get them saved without them even realizing what they're
doing? Do you really think that that's
the gospel? Do you really think that that's
salvation? What if I could?
What if I told you you could go to heaven and you don't have to
change your life? That's what a change from
unbelief to belief gets you. Do you believe in heaven?
Well, yeah. Do you believe the Bible?
Yeah. Do you believe in Jesus?
Yeah. Do you believe that he died and
rose again? Yeah.
All right. Pray this prayer.
You're on your way to heaven. It's just a change from unbelief
to belief. And now you can go live your
life the way that you want to. Nothing has to change.
There is no repentance in that, and that's why we say that
repentance is necessary for salvation.
They've got to understand that there will be a change in their
life and there should be a change in their life.
Many gospel tracts don't contain a hint of repentance.
This is not scriptural sewing. If Christ and the apostles
preach repentance, then we must preach repentance.
We need to explain that the individual must be ready to
surrender to God and to give him the false impression that it's
possible to be saved. And not to give him the
impression that it's possible to be saved without it, because
it's not possible to be saved without it.
There must be repentance in order to be saved.
And I think you know this, this next, of course, we will also
explain that God will do the changing.
Repentance is not reformation or turning over a new leaf, but the
Sinner must be ready to accept God's working.
He must surrender. And I think that's where so
often we have it, it happened where there's, there's people
that are, that are filling our churches that think they're
saved because somewhere along the lines, they, they prayed
that prayer too. And they repeated what somebody
told them to say. And they, they got assurance of
their salvation. And, and 5 minutes later, this
guy's telling him, don't ever doubt that you're on your way to
heaven. You just got saved.
And if anybody ever questions you, you can tell him this is
the day you accepted Christ. No, no mention of repentance at
all. And many times what happens is
that they, they, they try to put the sanctification in front of
the justification. And I've mentioned that quite a
few times because that's exactly what happens.
You start going and doing Christian things.
You start acting the way a Christian acts, you get involved
in church, you learn what the right things are to do, and you
learn what the right things are to say.
But there's never been justification.
You skipped completely over that process and went straight to the
sanctification part. And that's why you're still
struggling with sanctification. You can't live holy before God
if you've never been justified by Him.
And if you didn't have repentance, then there was no
justification. It's not just, I believe, Dunk
me in the water. It's not just that.
It's repentance and faith. Both of those go hand in hand.
If the individual is not ready to surrender, he's not ready to
be saved. And the problem with that for
most people is that they lose out on a number.
Man, I missed one that that was one that I really should have
gotten. And I could have told people
that we had this many people saved, but missed him.
No, it's if he's not ready to surrender, he's not ready to be
saved. And if he's not ready to be
saved, then you better not push him into salvation.
It's a decision. And we say this all the time
and, and even those people would say that you have to make this
decision for yourself. I can't make that decision for
you. But don't you want to pray after
me? Don't you want to repeat this
prayer so you can go to heaven? You're making the decision for
them. It's not a change of direction.
It's not a, it's not a surrender to God.
It's pray this prayer after me. Let me help you make this
decision so you don't have to do it.
All right, it's, it's, it's, it's not repentance and it's not
salvation, he says. I've dealt with hundreds of
people who came to the place of understanding and believing that
Christ died for their sins and that faith in Christ is the only
way of salvation. But they were simply not ready
to surrender to God. They refused to repent.
And I think this is a great example.
He gave 2 examples. The second one is the one that I
want to focus on. He says one of my wife and I
first began our missionary work in South Asia in 1979.
Our landlord began coming to our house to have Bible studies.
He was a wealthy, middle-aged Hindu.
And had a. Concubine, with whom he spent
most of his time, though he was married and had grown children.
After we went through the gospel a few times, he told me he felt
that he understood what I was teaching and he believe that
Jesus died for his sins and then he was interested in receiving
Christ. But he wanted to know what he
would have to do about two specific things in his life, his
shady business practices and his illicit relationship with the
concubine. He's the one who brought these
things to my attention. I could have said, don't worry
about that, just pray to receive Christ and those things will
work themselves out later. That's the method I was taught
in Bible school. But I don't.
Believe it would have been Scriptural Council.
I don't believe he could receive Christ and be saved unless he
repented of his immorality and his dishonesty.
Salvation requires surrendering. I explained to him that if he
would turn to Christ, God would change his life and he would
have different desires. But he didn't want that.
He was entirely unwilling to surrender to God as God.
The power to change one's life is from God, but the Sinner must
surrender to God's working. After I told him this, he never
returned for a Bible study. That's somebody that's looking
for the cherry on top of the ice cream, not somebody who's
looking to change the ice cream flavor.
Right. And and that's what so many
people are looking at. At, at, at salvation, you know,
and, and This is why I say this, this we're in a very dangerous
spot in this ecumenical age that we live in, because as long as
you're conservative and as long as you have decent.
Morals. Then the only thing you need to
do to to add to that is to just accept Christ.
Just just believe in God, go to church a few times, get
baptized, and then keep living your good conservative moral
lifestyle and everything will be fine.
You're going to heaven. And that's not that's not true
that that's a works based salvation.
Repentance is not a works based salvation.
There ought to be a change in your life.
We don't, we don't, we don't repent in order.
I mean, we don't, we don't stop sinning in order to be saved.
But there should be a desire to stop sinning because you are
saved. Think about Christ with the
woman at the well in John chapter 4, and I'm not going to
take the time to turn over there, but he very plainly told
this woman what her problem was. He could have said, hey, I'm
Jesus, I'm the Messiah, I can give you everlasting life,
believe in me. Oh, but what did he do?
He basically said you're a wicked Sinner.
You had five husbands and the one you're living with right now
is not even your husband, right? He could have been very, I mean,
I'm not saying he probably was very kind to her in the way that
he said it, or maybe she wouldn't have it, wouldn't have
believed him, you know, wouldn't have accepted it.
But he was very point blank with her about her.
What her sin, her sin, her immorality, but it's sin, right?
He was very point blank about that.
And that's what caused her to change her life.
He called her out on her sin. And that's what most people are
not willing to do. Same thing with the rich young
ruler. He faced this rich young ruler
with his sin of self righteousness and his sin of
covetousness. That's the way that God deals
with his people. He reproves them for their sin
in order to bring them to repentance.
Let's turn over to John 16. John, Chapter 16.
We only have a the actually the rest of this page left and we'll
be finished. But it's so important that we
understand this idea of repentance.
John chapter 16 and verse #8. Let's go back actually to verse
7. Nevertheless, I tell you the
truth. It is expedient for you that I
go away. For if I go not away, the
comforter will not come unto you.
But if I depart, I will send him unto you.
And when he has come, he will reprove the world of sin and of
righteousness and of judgment. That is a conviction.
That's a conviction that comes from the Holy Spirit.
And that's the way that we have to deal with people if we want
to follow the Bible in our gospel work to, to to bring
repentance and to preach repentance in the gospel
presentation is to deal with glaring sins that people are
holding on to and tell them very plainly that they have to repent
of that sin against God. Doesn't mean that you have to
stop sinning. Because I know there's some
things that are addictions and some things that are, are things
that people have been holding on to for a long time and they
don't know anything different. But there ought to be a desire
to stop those things. And God will help you through
those things, right? God will give you the power to
defeat the sins that you were dealing with in your life.
But they have to yield their lives to him.
They have to change the directions.
They must surrender. God will do a great work in
their life. But they have to be ready for
that to happen. They have to have a change of
mind about God. They have to have a change of
mind about sin and that'll result in a change of in their
life. Luke chapter 13 and this you
want to say that there's there's a lot of so winning programs out
there who were just trying to slip the gospel by somebody, get
him saved for he really knows what's happening.
That is not even possible. You might get them to ascent
mentally, right. You might get them to agree
mentally. That they're going to accept
Christ. You might get them to agree to
pray a prayer after you and you might genuinely think, boy, I
think he got it. He prayed he was he was ready to
be saved. Look at that.
I only took 5 minutes and he was ready to be saved, right.
But many times what's happening, the Lord said Luke chapter 13, I
tell your nay, but accept you repent.
You shall all likewise perish. It really, it really is scary to
me how many people there are sitting in churches who think
they're saved that are not because somebody LED them in a
quick prayer and there was never any repentance that was part of
their salvation. You know, I took part in this
film that Spencer Smith did disclosure.
And one of the main things about this disclosure is disclosing
the quick prayer is an idea. And I think what's happened in
so many of our churches. And This is why This is why you
can have a pastor who will, you know, be having an affair or,
or, or being, you know, doing some things that are just just
gross and whatever else and still get up in the pulpit and
preach and don't say anything about this or, or you're going
to, you're going to cause the whole ministry to shut down and
everything else. The reason why that's that
happens, I believe, is because the the pastors of most of those
churches are not even saved. Just because you claim to be an
independent Baptist and you wear a suit and you carry the right
Bible does not make you a Christian.
But we think that. Well, I'm in a good church and I
carry my Bible and I wear a suit to church.
All right, So do the Mormons. They think they're right, right?
They think their Bible is the right one.
They wear a suit to church. They're more dedicated than most
independent Baptists are. They're not saved just because
they do those things, right? Well, we got the truth though.
Do we? Do you?
We have the truth. We have it in God's Word.
But I wonder how many people are sitting in churches that were
led to Christ by a pastor who wasn't even saved because
somebody led him to Christ who wasn't even saved.
And now there's thousands of people sitting in churches
across the country who never got saved.
They, they, they mentally assented to it and they went and
got baptized and everything else, but they never repented.
There was never a change or if it.
Was it was putting all the sanctification things in front
of the justification? It's, it's so important that we
make sure I don't care how many people we have saved.
I obviously I want as many people to get saved as possible,
but not at the expense of them. Just praying a prayer so that we
can count them as a number. We're looking for genuine
salvations and those are few and far between because most people
are not willing to repent. Most people are not willing to
change. They just want to put Christ on
top of their life like it's some kind of cherry on top of the ice
cream. I got a great job, we got a
beautiful wife. I got, you know, 2.5 kids.
I've got, you know, two cars and you know everything.
My life is great. The only thing you're missing is
Christ. No, you have Christ and He has
you or you have nothing is not just the cherry on top of the
ice cream. He is everything and repentance
is absolutely necessary for that to happen.
So for some, some ways that we use repentance and so winning.
First of all, we must not skip over it.
The next two are quick. It's not necessarily the word
repentance that always has to be used.
It's the concept that a soul winner has to get across.
We have to make the individual understand that God requires
surrender. And I'm not saying that you've
got to jump through 50 hoops in order to get saved, right?
You don't have to. You don't have to bend over
backwards and do all these mental gymnastics and everything
else that come to repentance, but it absolutely has to be part
of the gospel presentation you. Are a Sinner and if if you had
never sinned, Christ would never had to die and you cannot
continue to live in that sin the way that you are and expect that
you're going to get that that you're going to be saved.
You have to be willing to surrender all of that sin to
Christ. It's not a hard concept, but
it's hard to tell people that because they don't like to hear
it. And that's where they say well,
I can't stop doing this. This is you're telling me that I
have to yes, well then I don't want that.
Oh, and that's a number that you can't count, and it doesn't go
toward all the hundreds and thousands of people that you're
seeing getting saved every year. So we just won't mention that.
And you've got 100 or 1000 people that you are sending to
hell because you're focusing only on belief and not on
repentance and belief. So the third thing is that we
need to deal with each case individually.
And I think this is important. We have a couple examples in the
Bible. Preaching repentance depends on
the context and we see that. From the fact that the Bible
sometimes mentions repentance and sometimes it doesn't, right.
We have we have examples of that in the Bible and the Philippian
jailer, I think is a is a perfect example.
Look, here's a perfect example. You don't need repentance.
He says, sirs, what must I do to be saved?
And they said believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt
be saved. And he believed that he got
saved. There was no repentance in
there. Hang on a second, though.
Doubtless, Paul and Silas had been witnessing to him.
We know that they've been singing and praising God.
Further, the power of God displayed in the earthquake had
shaken the jailer deeply. Now, through the spirits
working, he was ready to do whatever God told him to do.
In such a case, there is no need to go into a lengthy study about
repentance. He was already repenting.
I too have met men in jails and other places that were ready to
be saved. They had heard the gospel and
God was working in their hearts. They knew that they were sinners
and they were sorry for that sin against God.
They were tired of the old life. They were ready to surrender to
Him. In that context, all that is
needed is to explain to the individual how.
To put his, his or her faith in Christ in a saving manner.
Somebody who has broken over their sin and wants to come to
Christ is already repenting. So why doesn't why is not the
why is no repentance mentioned to the Philippian jailer?
He was already repenting. He was broken already.
He was on his knees, Sir, what must I do to be saved right?
That's he was already there. And the other one is the example
of the idolaters in Athens. This is the exact opposite of
that right? Acts chapter 17, verse 30.
Paul preached to the idolaters at Athens who were treating the
gospel as just another philosophical debate.
But he told them that God now commandeth all men everywhere to
repent. He didn't say just believe in
Jesus, right? He could have done that.
Hey, Jesus is God. OK?
You believe that? Yeah.
OK, well pray this prayer after me and you'll be saved, right?
No, their mindset was totally different.
They were not broken over their sin.
They were just having a philosophical debate about
another God. Hey, this is to the unknown God.
We don't know who he is, but whoever he is, we want to make
sure that we give mental assent to him too.
And Paul said God's commanding everywhere that all men repent.
He had to bring it up because they were not repenting.
And and it's a great point. He could have very easily said,
well, just believe in Jesus. This is this is the one that
you're missing. It's God Jesus, right?
Do you believe in him? Oh, yeah, sure we do.
They would have all been saved. But it's not, it's not
salvation. He didn't say just believe in
Jesus. They needed to repent of their
false gods and particularly of their chief God, which was
themselves. They needed to be confronted
with Almighty God. And.
His claim on their life SO22 examples one.
Where repentance was not necessary to be mentioned
because he was already repenting, he was already
broken. Before them about his sin.
But then the other ones, repentance had to be mentioned
because they had no, they had no intention of turning away from
their sin and turning to God. So repentance and faith.
And now we're going to talk about faith in the next lesson.
And you'll see hopefully how these two things go hand in
hand. But repentance is absolutely
necessary for salvation. It's not just the change from
unbelief to belief. It's not just mentally assenting
that Jesus died on the cross. Listen, does the Bible says in
in Matthew Chapter 7, straight is the gate and narrow is the
way that leadeth into life and few there be that find it.
How many people do you think in the United States right now
believe the story of the crucifixion and the
resurrection? A lot, right?
I know the number of atheists is going up, but how many
percentage wise 7580% of people believe the story of the
resurrection, that Jesus died on the cross because to pay for our
sins and then he rose again from the dead, right?
There's, there's a huge number of people in America that
believe that. Are all of them going to heaven?
Because they believe they have faith, right?
Doubt it. They live like the devil.
And obviously you can backslide and you can get away from God
and everything else. And it's not.
It's not based on your works, but there ought to be works meet
for repentance. There ought to be.
A change in your life, there ought to be something different
about you, and if there is no change, then very likely there
is no repentance. If there's no repentance, there
is no salvation. It's important, it's very, very
important that we bring this up when we, when we give the gospel
to somebody. And there's, there's ways and,
and we'll talk about this when we get into the next lesson as
well. But there's ways to, to explain
that to somebody to help them understand, right?
You take, I'll give you an example that you can use that,
that that might be helpful in explaining to somebody about
their sinful condition, right? You can, you can take a, a
really crooked tree, right? Let's take a let's take a tree
that is, you know, wide in circumference, right?
And it's, it's, it's got a big crook in it on its way up.
And you can take that tree and you can cut the whole center out
of that tree and get a nice straight piece of wood, can't
you? But if you actually look at the
heart of that piece of wood, it's very crooked.
And is it eventually what happens when that thing dries
out, it's going to go right back to crooked.
You can, you can make it straight.
You can put it on a mill and you can cut it, but because the
heart of that thing is crooked, it's always going to have that
natural bent toward that crookedness, if you will.
And, and that's exactly what it is, right?
Somebody can reform, somebody can believe, somebody can get in
church, somebody can change their life and do things
differently than what they're doing right now.
But that's just reformation. That's that's cutting the center
out of that tree and making it look straight.
It actually needs to be made straight.
And the only thing that can do that is a miracle.
And that's through the blood of Christ, right?
And it's a it's a miracle that what he does for us when he
saves us, that justification is a miracle.
Justification. Just as if I'd never sinned,
right? That's an easy way to remember
what justified is. Just as if I'd never sinned.
When God looks at me, he doesn't see all my sin.
He only sees the blood of Jesus Christ covering that sin, right?
And when God looks at me, it's just as if I'd never sinned.
Doesn't mean that I'm sinless, Doesn't mean that I've never
sinned. It's just that when God looks at
me, that's what he sees. He sees only the blood of Jesus
Christ covering those sins. And it's, it's important that we
have that repentance as part of that, as part of salvation.
So faith, is it necessary? Absolutely.
Repentance, is it necessary? Absolutely.
And that's why Paul mentioned that in Acts chapter 20 and
verse 21. Repentance toward God and faith
toward our Lord Jesus Christ, both of them are necessary for
salvation. Hope that's helped.
Let's pray. Father, again, we thank you so
much. For your goodness to us, we
thank you for. Your word and God, I pray that
we would be able to see genuine conversions.
I pray that we'd be able to see people genuinely come to know
Jesus Christ as their savior. God, may you help us to not only
be bold and witnessing and sharing the gospel, but bold and
preaching repentance the way that Peter and Paul and and and
Jesus and so many other people did in the New Testament.
God, I pray that you'd help us to be very careful about this
and make sure that we're leading people in the right direction,
leading them down the narrow way instead of just allowing them to
walk the Broadway and count them as a number.
And God, may you help us to be the soul owners that you want us
to be, the witnesses that you want us to be.
But may you help us to be careful in the way that we do
it. And again, we thank you so much
for all that you do for us. In Jesus name, Amen.
We have a quick invitation. I don't know if God spoke to
your heart, but go ahead and stand with me to your seats and
as the panel plays, if God spoke to your heart, maybe, maybe God
laid somebody on your heart. I don't know.
I'm going to give you an opportunity to respond.