The Nature of Repentance, Part 4

Introduction: Repentance and Faith, the Hinge of Salvation

0:02 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday morning, August 28, 2005, at Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now may I encourage you to turn with me in your own Bibles to the book of Acts, Acts and chapter 20, and follow as I read in your hearing verse 17 through to verse 27. Luke, recording the activities of Paul, writes,

1:08 And with tears, and with trials, which befell me by the plots of the Jews, how I shrank not from declaring unto you anything that was profitable, and teaching you publicly, and from house to house, solemnly testifying both to Jews and to Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. And now, now, now, now, now, now, now, I go bound in the Spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there, save that the Holy Spirit testifies unto me in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. But I hold not my life of any account as dear unto myself, so that I may accomplish my course in the ministry which I receive from the Lord. to testify the gospel of the grace of God. And now behold, I know that you all, among whom I went about preaching the kingdom, shall see my face no more.

2:26 Wherefore, I testify unto you this day that I am pure from the blood of all men, for I shrank not from declaring unto you the whole counsel of God. God. Now let us again pray and ask for God's special help in the preaching and in the hearing of his holy and infallible word. Our Father, throughout the course of this hour of worship, we have sought you for many things. And now we come seeking again the one thing needful as we come to the preaching of your word. Oh Lord, may you give us the one thing needful, the present powerful operations of the Spirit upon the mind, the heart, the tongue of your servant, upon the ears, the hearts, and the affections of those who sit beneath that word. Oh God, grant us that one thing needful, we pray. That we may praise you, that we may profit from the ministry of the word, and above all, that you will be glorified as your word runs and has free course and is glorified in our midst.

3:50 We ask through our Lord Jesus. Amen. Now in the passage read in your hearing, it is obvious that the Apostle Paul is reviewing in the presence of the Ephesian elders or pastors, the nature, the spirit, and the content of his preaching and teaching among them throughout the course of some three years that he had spent in Ephesus. And as he does this, he describes the content of his preaching and teaching in several ways. He calls his teaching and preaching in verse 24b, a testifying of the gospel of God. The grace of God. In 25a, he calls it a preaching of the kingdom. In verse 27, he calls it a declaration of the whole counsel of God. And in verse 21, he summarizes his ministry

5:02 under these two heads, a solemn testimony of repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Now these various descriptions of the substance of his ministry are not descriptions of different gospels, but various aspects of the one and only saving gospel of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And in the past several weeks, I have chosen to focus our attention on verse 21b. In verse 21, where it is clear that repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ are set before us as indispensable elements of the gospel of the grace of God, of the whole counsel of God, of a right proclamation of preaching the kingdom of God. And so I have chosen this text, verse 21, as the foundation and framework of a series of messages which I have entitled, Repentance and Faith, the Hinge on the Door of Salvation.

6:26 Whenever the door of salvation swings open for any sinner, bringing that sinner into the possession of the full salvation provided by God's grace in Jesus Christ, it is because that hinge has caused that door to swing open. The hinge of repentance and of faith. And throughout scripture, we are informed that repentance and faith are indispensable. He that believes not shall be damned. Except you repent, you will perish.

7:04 It is inseparable. Wherever there is true repentance, there is true and saving faith, wherever there is saving faith, there is true evangelical repentance. As Professor Murray has stated it so succinctly, it is impossible to disentangle faith and repentance, for saving faith is permeated with repentance, and repentance is permeated with saving faith. Charles Hodge has stated it this way, repentance is the act of a believer, and faith is the act of a believer.

7:42 And faith is the act of a penitent, so that whoever believes, repents, and whoever repents, believes. And I've tried to capture it under the imagery of two eyes. Repentance is the tear in the bright eye of faith, and faith is the gleam of hope in the wet eye of repentance. And no one has a saving look to Christ without the bright eye and the wet eye.

The Nature of Repentance: Soil, Taproots, and Trunk

8:11 Repentance the tear. In that bright eye of faith, and faith the gleam of hope in the wet eye of repentance. We then proceeded to consider the nature of repentance unto life, using that phrase from Acts 11.18, and I have announced in the previous three messages what I will repeat this morning, that Scripture is our source of authority as we take up the subject of repentance and faith.

8:41 The shorter captioning. Catechism will be our organizing framework, and a tree will be our visual aid. The shorter catechism, in answer to the question, what is repentance unto life, gives this answer. Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sins, and an apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, does, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavor after, new obedience.

9:26 And so we saw that the soil of repentance is the grace of God. As we move into the visual image of the tree, that tree is embedded in the soil of the grace of God. And we looked at three clear texts. The first in the New Testament, which affirmed that repentance is God's gift.

9:48 Wherever there is true repentance unto life, it is because Almighty God, in sovereign grace, has worked powerfully and effectually in the heart of a sinner. Then we considered what I call the two taproots of the tree of repentance. The shorter catechism defines them as a true sense of sin, and an apprehension, or a laying hold of the mercy of God in Christ. And we saw from the Scriptures that no one comes to repentance who does not have, by the operation of the Spirit through the Word, and his own conscience, a true sense of sin.

10:30 Not a mere flippant admission of sinnerhood, but a sense of sin. That is, a sense that I have sinned against the God of the world. That is, a sense that I have sinned against the God of the world. That is, a sense that I have sinned against the God of heaven.

10:42 The God of heaven has a controversy with me, because I have a controversy with Him. And the degree of that sense of sin will vary from one sinner to another. But that there must be a sense of sin is clearly affirmed by our Lord Jesus, who said, I came not to call the righteous, that is, those who are yet righteous in their own eyes and in their own estimation, but sinners, to repentance, that is, those who are brought to this sense of their sinfulness. But that alone would not lead to repentance, that would only lead to despair, to know that God has a controversy with me, but that He is not prepared to be gracious to me in Christ, is to run from God, not to move toward Him. And yet repentance is repentance unto God. It is a repentance with respect to the sinner returning to God. And embracing God's rightful claims over him.

11:45 And so, Jesus made it plain in Luke chapter 24, that repentance was to be preached in His name. Repentance unto remission of sin in His name, that is, against the backdrop of the full declaration of all that God has revealed of His grace and mercy in the person and work of His Son, the Lord Jesus. And so, the two, tap roots of repentance are a felt awareness of our sin and our sinfulness on the one hand, and a believing grasp upon the mercy of God extended to us in the person and work of Jesus. And then, two weeks ago, we began to consider the main trunk of the tree of repentance, the soil, the grace of God. The tap roots, conviction of sin, a laying hold of Christ. What then? Sin is the very substance, the trunk of this tree of repentance.

Repentance as a Sin-Repudiating Grace: Definition and Necessity

12:48 And I asserted that the shorter catechism, when you strip away all of the prepositional phrases and the dependent clauses, has caught the essence of the Bible teaching in telling us that repentance unto life is a turning from sin unto God. In other words, the substance of repentance, repentance unto life, is to be understood as a God-focused grace and a sin-repudiating grace. It is a turning from sin unto God. And in our study two weeks ago, we looked into the Scriptures to see that indeed, true saving repentance is a God-focused grace. And we looked at three texts that clearly establish this and three texts that illustrate it. Now then, we come this morning to consider that true repentance is not only a God-focused grace, it is a sin-repudiating grace. It is a sin-repudiating grace.

14:04 It is a turning from sin unto God. And without a turning from sin, there can be no repentance. There can be no turning to God. Just as there is no true turning from sin that does not issue in a turning to God, there is no turning to God through Christ in faith without a turning from sin.

14:29 It is a sin-repudiating grace. Now I begin with a definition of the word repudiate. It's a key word throughout the message and we must grasp what I mean what I believe the word does convey and we ought to put this meaning upon it. To repudiate means to divorce oneself from something.

14:53 To refuse to have anything to do with a person or thing. To refuse any further association with that is to repudiate. I repudiate that allegation. I repudiate any relationship to that person.

15:13 It is a negation of any previous relationship. It is bringing it to naught. It is setting it back to zilch and to zero. And I am saying that true repentance according to the scriptures is not only a God-focused grace, it is of necessity a sin-repudiating grace.

Explicit Biblical Evidence: Proverbs 28:13

15:39 Now I have two heads and see two heads. We can go open this up this morning. First of all, the explicit biblical evidence that repentance is in every instance where it is true repentance a sin-repudiating grace. And we're going to look at four texts and then secondly, we're going to look, having considered the explicit biblical evidence that repentance is a sin-repudiating grace, we're going to look at the clear biblical example of repentance as a sin-repudiating grace and again, we'll look at four of them.

16:17 So we've got four heads under heading number one and four headings under heading number two. First of all then, where do we find in the Bible explicit evidence that repentance is a sin-repudiating grace? Turn with me please to Proverbs 28 and verse 13. Proverbs chapter 28 and verse 13.

16:53 He that covers his transgressions shall not prosper, but whoso confesses and forsakes them shall obtain mercy. And here in this structure of Hebrew poetry, we have the negative statement first. He who covers his sins shall not prosper. And throughout the, scriptures we have examples of people seeking to cover their sins and they do not prosper so long as they cover their sins.

17:31 That is, they refuse to own them. They refuse to bring them out into the light of God's countenance and in God's presence say, O God, this is my sin. My sin which I've committed, for which I am morally responsible, for which I desire your forgiveness, your pardon, your cleansing, and there are a thousand ways that the human heart conceives by which to make an effort to cover sin. And whoever, in whatever circumstance, for whatever reason, covers his transgressions, mark it down, shall not prosper.

18:08 Anyone sitting in this building this morning who in any way, with respect to any sin, is covering it, mark it, you shall not prosper. Mighty God has said it. Oh yes, you may prosper economically, you may prosper in certain social relationships, but in terms of the prosperity which alone at the end of the day really counts, communion with God, fellowship with God, a cleansed conscience, uprightness and moral integrity, you shall not prosper.

18:48 You shall not prosper. But now, notice the last half of the verse, but in contrast to that, whoso confesses, that is, whoso brings his sin out from under whatever covering he has made, whoso openly acknowledges his sin, whoso stands in relationship to his sin the way God stands in relationship to it. He knows it fully. And now in confession, I own it fully.

19:17 That's confession. Saying the same thing about my sin as God does. Taking the same posture with respect to my sin that God does. No equivocation.

19:29 No rationalization. No blame shifting. It's my sin. The language of Psalm 51.

19:35 But now notice what is joined to that confession. Whoso confesses and forsakes them. Whoso confesses and forsakes them, that is, whoso confesses and repudiates them. In other words, his confession is not just a means to get the pressure off his conscience.

20:01 He desires to deal with the moral offense before the face of Almighty God and the disposition of his heart. Though he may fall into that sin a thousand times again, the disposition of repentance at the point of true repentance, whether initial repentance in the returning prodigal or the ongoing repentance of a dead, the disposition of the heart and where necessary the action of the eyes, the hands and the feet is to be done with it. Forsaking it, repudiating it, abandoning it. Jesus said, even if it is radical as gouging out a right eye, chopping off a right hand, those things which tie me to the sin, I'm prepared to do it radically in order that I might forsake the sin. Now, what's the promise? Whoso confesses and forsakes them shall obtain mercy. Divine mercy.

21:13 Mercy that forgives. Mercy that leads us to the fountain open for sin and uncleanness. Mercy that heals the bones that our sin has broken. Opens up the fountains of the soul that have been shriveled because of the sin.

21:32 Because of our sin. Whoso confesses and forsakes them shall obtain mercy. Were God to forgive sin in an impenitent heart that does not forsake sin would make God the minister of sin. You follow what I'm saying?

21:55 Here someone has sinned. Conscience accuses. They're miserable in the sense of guilt and uncleanness from their sin. Now, if they merely confess without any determination to forsake and God were to give them mercy, what is God doing?

22:11 He's taking away the sting of conviction. He's taking away the sense of moral uncleanness. And what does that do? It emboldens the sinner to go back to his sin.

22:24 God's grace is never the minister of sin. Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid, Paul says, may it never be. And so God, as added to the word confess, forsaking.

22:38 And God's mercy from the human perspective is conditioned. It is not founded upon my confessing and forsaking. It is founded and grounded in the work of Jesus Christ. But it is conditioned upon my sincere, honest, determined repudiation of the sin that I'm confessing.

Explicit Biblical Evidence: Isaiah 55:6-7

23:02 This is an explicit biblical evidence. That repentance is a sin repudiating grace. Second explicit biblical evidence, Isaiah chapter 55. We turn now to the prophets.

23:18 Isaiah chapter 55.

23:22 Most of you familiar with this part of Isaiah will remember that in chapter 52, 13, all the way through chapter 53, we have this wonderful prophecy of the servant of Jehovah who will suffer not for his sins, but for the sins of others. The promise that he shall see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied. And then in chapter 54, marvelous descriptions of the enlargement of God's dwelling place here under the image of a tent. Based upon the suffering servant and his work, God will greatly enlarge his kingdom.

23:59 And now in chapter 55, God takes the posture of a street vendor standing in the marketplace and says, saying, Oh, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. He who has no money, come buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without price. God stands with all these gospel commodities.

24:22 And he says they are here. They've been purchased by another, even by the suffering servant. And now I offer them freely to you. Come buy without money, without price.

24:33 They are yours. And then God reasons, says, why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and for that which cannot satisfy? God takes the posture of a hawker, of a street vendor, and holds out before all of us these marvelous gospel commodities. But then notice what God goes on to say in verse 6 in this very context.

24:58 Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. You see, God comes with the offers of his grace freely, indiscriminately. He holds them before us.

25:13 And now he graciously commands us, seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. And what is to be our disposition in seeking him and in calling upon him? Verses 7, verse 7, let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, the understood verb is forsake.

25:37 Let the unrighteous man forsake his thoughts. And as we saw last study, let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon. We are to deal with our sins in the certain hope of mercy. God will abundantly pardon.

25:59 There is this God-focused dimension in this passage. We are to return unto the Lord and to our God in the confidence pardon is there. But now our focus is upon the sin-repudiating nature of that return. Look at it again.

26:16 Let the wicked forsake his way. Same Hebrew word as we had in Proverbs 28, 13. Whoso confesses and forsakes them, repudiates them, is determined to be divorced from them. Let the wicked forsake his way.

26:36 What is the way of the wicked? Well, the prophet had already described it in chapter 53. It is the way of self-centered, self-willed, self-indulgent, self-pleasing existence. Isaiah 53, 6.

26:53 All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way. See how personal it is? We have turned every one of us to his own way.

27:08 That is life. Life shaped by self-interest, self-desire, self-indulgence, self-pleasing. We've turned every one of us to his own way. God says, let the wicked forsake from the heart a life in which you are at the center.

27:37 In which your standards are the standard by which you live. Your desires are the measure of what you will do and not do. Your ideas of right and wrong. God says, abandon match.

27:54 Forsake your way. Not the grosser manifestations of your way that even society might frown upon. The heart with you at the center. Let the wicked forsake his way.

28:11 But then God goes further. Look at the text. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his way. Thoughts.

28:22 His thoughts. His thoughts. Why his thoughts? For the simple reason that a man's life is the transcript of his thoughts.

28:36 You are what you are and do what you do because you think the way you think. Remember how clearly this was brought forward way back in the days before the flood? Look at Genesis 6. In verse 5, Genesis 6, 5.

28:59 And the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth. There's the outward manifestation. You read on and there was violence throughout the earth. The wickedness was great.

29:13 And what was the fountain of that wickedness? And that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil contained in the heart. Continually. It doesn't say in that the thoughts of his heart, but the very imagination of the thoughts.

29:31 You can't get much deeper into the human psyche than the imagination of the thoughts of the heart. And when you see a world full of such gross wickedness and immorality and violence, God says trace it all to its source. The thoughts. So when God is calling us to radical repentance, to return to Him, He says, seek the Lord while He may be found.

30:02 Call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake His way. And that which produces His way, His very thoughts about me.

30:17 Light and rocks about what I should live for. What should be the standard of my life. And if no, no, forsake your thoughts.

30:30 Not just your thoughts about those things that are the grosser manifestations. Of human thinking. But all of them that are contrary to the revealed will of God. That's why in Ephesians chapter 4, when Paul is giving a call to these Ephesians to a life of holiness consistent with being the alternate community there at Ephesus.

30:59 Living a totally alternate lifestyle. Notice how he describes it in Ephesians 4.17. This I say therefore and testify in the Lord that you no longer walk as the Gentiles walk.

31:13 And what frames their walk? In the vanity of their mind. Being darkened in their understanding. Alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them because of the hardening of their heart.

31:30 You see what Paul says? You're not to walk like the Gentiles walk. Their walk. Walk is a transcript of their inner life.

31:38 They walk the way they walk because they think the way they think. Paul goes on to say of these Ephesians you did not so learn Christ and you're to grow in conformity to Christ in the realm of knowledge and understanding. And so when God calls us to repentance He calls us not only to forsake our way the way of indifference to God's being His law, His claims but He calls us to forsake our thoughts.

32:13 Jesus stated it in the positive way when He said come unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden come unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden I will give you rest take my yoke upon you and what? Learn from me. Learn from me. No longer the dictates of your perverse heart and the thoughts that it spews out about what ought to be your goals in life and what ought to be your standards in life and what ought to be the things that are precious to you.

32:50 No, no. Put them aside. Learn from me.

32:56 Embrace my mind to become your mind. To think my thoughts after me in all things.

33:07 You see, true repentance is indeed a sin repudiating grace. Proverbs 28. 13 clearly establishes it. Isaiah 55.

33:18 7 and 8. And I want to make some pointed application of this. You young people, you read it for sake and repudiate your way of disobedient to parents.

33:31 Grousing about your teachers. Arguing with your siblings. Making an idol of your pop stars. Desiring to imitate the world in dress and speech.

33:43 You ready to turn from all of that?

33:47 If not, don't talk about being a Christian. That's what you want to live for. You'll go to hell unless you repent.

33:55 If gazing upon a crucified Savior. If taking in the sight of the incarnate God hanging on a cross. Put there by a world that hates Him. Hates His ways.

34:12 Hates His truth.

34:16 You want to hug that world and be a slave of that world.

34:21 You've never had a slave. You've never had a sight of Christ. It is a saving sight.

34:27 Let the wicked forsake His way. And the unrighteous man, his thoughts. You young adults,

34:37 what is part and parcel of your way? You older, retired men, what's part of your way? God says forsake it. Forsake it.

Explicit Biblical Evidence: Luke 3:8-14

34:47 Then we come to the third passage. Luke chapter 3.

34:51 Luke chapter 3.

34:55 All I'm doing is trying to lay out the explanation. Explicit biblical evidence that repentance is a sin repudiating grace. We've had two witnesses. Now we bring forward the third.

35:08 Luke chapter 3. Verses 8 to 14. John the Baptist speaking. Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance.

35:18 And begin not to say within ourselves we have Abraham to our father. For I say unto you, God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham. And even now the axe lies at the root of the rock. At the root of the trees.

35:31 Every tree that brings not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. And the multitude asked him, saying, What then must we do? And he answered and said unto them, He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none. And likewise he that has food, let him do likewise.

35:48 And there came also tax collectors to be baptized. And they said unto him, Teacher, what must we do? And he said unto them, Extort no more than that which is appointed you. And the soldiers asked him, saying, And we, what must we do?

36:02 And he said to them, Extort from no man by violence, neither accuse any man wrongfully, and be content with your wages.

36:11 John's ministry, as you well know, was a ministry of preaching repentance. His baptism was called a baptism of repentance. And when we ask what was involved in the repentance which he preached, it's clear that it was a sin repudiating repentance. Yes, it was God-focused and Christ-focused because he kept pointing to the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world.

36:39 He kept pointing to him who was the Son of God. He kept pointing away from himself. He must increase. I must decrease.

36:47 It was a Christ-centered, God-focused repentance. But it was also a sin repudiating repentance. So when the general crowd said, What shall we do? to manifest that we have truly repented?

37:04 He says, repudiate a selfish, self-indulgent lifestyle. In other words, start keeping the second commandment, love your neighbor as yourself. Isn't that what the text says? When the indiscriminate multitudes asked him, he said, He who has two coats, let him impart to him who has none.

37:22 He that hath food, let him do likewise. What's the principle? The principle is stop living for yourself.

37:30 The others around you, even if you can meet the need in love, meet it at the concrete level. That's repentance from a self-indulgent, self-centered lifestyle. What about the tax collectors? They were known to use their position to exact more than was contracted with the Roman government.

37:52 They used graft and dishonesty to take advantage of others. And what does he say to the tax collectors? He says, Extort no more than that which is appointed you. Keep the standards, the economic standards that Rome has given you as guidelines and stop lining your pockets by a poor man who stands at the beginning of a road and unless he pays his tax, he can't have his donkey drag his goods to market.

38:18 And you know you've got him over a barrel and so you squeeze him. Stop it.

38:24 Repudiate. Using your position for personal advantage. And then furthermore, he says to those tax collectors, stop your dishonesty. Stop your dishonesty.

38:34 Stop your dishonesty. Stop your dishonesty. Stop your dishonesty. Stop your dishonesty in your business dealings.

38:37 And to those tax collectors, he says, extort no more than that which is appointed you. And then to the soldiers, he really goes after them. And we, what must we do? He said unto them, extort from no man by violence.

38:54 Don't use your sword and your military accoutrements to pressure people to get stuff out of them because you've got the military hardware to frighten them. To frighten them. Stop it. Stop using your position as a soldier for personal advantage.

39:12 Furthermore, don't accuse anyone wrongfully. Don't use your position to wrong someone else and put his life, his possessions, his reputation in jeopardy. And he knew that when they got around together in the barracks, they were always grousing about their wages. He says, stop it.

39:32 Stop it. What did that mean? He said, begin to be content. Be content with the place God's put you and the provision He makes for you.

39:41 That's repudiating. Specific sins that were specifically the aggravated, well-known sins of the general public, of the tax collectors, and of the soldiers. And what's the great principle? The principle is that you and I must in our repentance repent of our particular sins, particular sins, particularly...

40:08 That's the language of the Westminster Confession in one of the paragraphs on repentance. A general repentance will not do. We must repent of our particular sins, particularly.

40:25 Because repentance is a sin-repudiating grace, not a sin-repudiating grace in some airy-fairy, undetached, ethereal way up here. But with respect to your and my particular sins.

40:44 You know when my family was convinced I had come to true repentance? When I stopped being lazy.

40:53 And when I was the first one to own sin in the inter-tribal tensions of the Martin household with ten kids.

41:05 When they saw repentance of my particular sins, particularly!

41:13 And what about you? You ready for me to sit down and ask your siblings with judgment day, honest? Honestly, this question. So and so in your family professes to be a Christian.

41:25 Do you see them repenting of their particular sins, particularly?

41:31 Would they answer, instinctively say, oh yes! If anybody's real, John's real, Mary's real, Henry's real. What they were like before they professed to be a Christian. I see them now.

41:45 And in those particular areas where their sins were evident, the opposite graces are now evident. Not perfectly, but purposefully, and really, and manifestly. Were you a glutton before you professed to be a Christian? Has your gluttony stopped?

42:07 Not perfectly, but purposefully? Have you repented of your abuse of food? Of alcohol? Your abuse of recreation and avocation?

42:20 Whatever your particular sins are, repentance is the reason. It's the repudiation of our particular sins. Particularly. That's the great message of this passage.

Explicit Biblical Evidence: Revelation 9 & 16

42:34 Then we turn to Revelation. And I do this purposely because some of you may not have heard this teaching, but sooner or later you will. Heresy has a way of floating around and popping up in cycles. When I was first wrestling with the biblical doctrine of repentance years ago, I was told by people, well the only sin that we're called to repent of in this gospel age is the sin of unbelief.

43:01 When the Bible says we are to repent, that simply means you change your mind from rejecting Christ to saying, I will now accept Christ. And the only repentance demanded in the gospel age is a change of mind about Christ. In other words, the only sin of which we are to repent is the sin of unbelief. Now we are to repent of the sin of unbelief.

43:23 It's a wicked, horrible, damning sin. But I want you to look at two passages in the book of the Revelation that are explicit in their teaching that we are to repent of our particular sins. We are to repudiate particular sins. Revelation chapter 9, verses 20 and 21.

43:48 God is pouring out His judgments upon mankind and we read in the rest of mankind, Revelation 9, 20, who were not killed with these plagues, who repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons, and the idols of gold, and of silver, and of brass, and of stone, and of wood, which can neither see, nor hear, nor walk. And they repented not of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornications, nor of their thefts. Could language be more plain? Revelation 9, 20, 21.

44:28 They refused to repudiate their particular aggravated sins. Clearly indicating that repentance does involve not only repentance from unbelief and a change of mind about God and Christ and His salvation, but a change of mind about our particular sins. And then in chapter 16, verses 9 and 11, a similar emphasis. And men were scorned, torched with great heat, and they blasphemed the name of God who had the power over these plagues.

45:03 And they repented not to give Him glory. Verse 11, they blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and sores, and repented not of their works. The particular works that were the manifestation of their rebellion against God. So in summary, we see from these passages, that repentance is in the form of repentance.

45:28 Indeed, a sin-repudiating grace in both the Old and the New Testaments. And because I am not conducting a Bible study on repentance, I simply want to ask you, do you personally know, in your spiritual experience, this reality?

Biblical Examples of Sin-Repudiating Repentance: Nineveh and the Prodigal Son

45:49 I'm not asking you, did you know it at one point in your life? For if any past repentance was real, the evidence is, it is ongoing repentance, today. Repentance is not the act of a moment, but the acquisition of a spiritual disposition that will be with us as long as there is sin. That is, until we die, and our spirits join the company of the spirits of just men made perfect, or until the Lord should return, if we are alive at that return.

46:21 Repentance is the ongoing experience, yes, for some it may have a dramatic beginning, when someone can point out, when someone can point to the day when they pass from death unto life. Others, there may be an indiscernible, murky kind of a foggy emergence of a true disposition of repentance, but the issue is this, do you know that repentance unto life, which is indeed marked by the repudiation of sin? Well, then we come, secondly, to look at the clear biblical examples, of repentance as a sin repudiating grace. We're going to look at four examples, time permitting. The first is the city of Nineveh. In Matthew chapter 12, Jesus makes it very clear that the repentance of the Ninevites was saving repentance. That even with their limited light, they will rise up as part of the company of the righteous in the day of judgment.

47:27 Matthew 12, 41, The men of Nineveh shall stand up in the judgment with this generation and shall condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah. They repented. They experienced true repentance. Well, what was involved in that repentance?

47:50 Well, turn please to the book of Jonah. Turn to the book of Jonah, and we have the Spirit's record, record of precisely what they did when they repented. Jonah chapter 3, beginning in verse 5. The people of Nineveh believed God, proclaimed a fast, put on sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least of them.

48:15 The tidings reached the king of Nineveh. He arose from his throne, laid his robe from him, covered him with sackcloth, sat in ashes. He made proclamation and published through Nineveh by the decree of the kings and nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed nor drink water.

48:34 Let them be covered with sackcloth, both man and beast, and let them cry mightily unto God, Yea! Let them turn every one from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows whether the Lord will be merciful? Here was just a faint glimmer of hope, that God would be merciful.

49:00 But there was a ray of hope in his mercy. But in the light of it, there was this repudiation of sin. Let everyone turn from his evil way, from the whole course of his life that has been lived in opposition to God, and specifically from that which marked the Ninevites from the violence and cruelty that was the hallmark of that nation. Let him turn from the violence in his hands.

49:27 The repentance was a sin repudiating repentance. And then secondly, turning to the New Testament, there is the marvelous example in our Lord's parable of the prodigal who left the household, his father's side, his father's face, his father's house rules, goes out into the far country and wastes the inheritance with riotous living and harlots. But when he's come to himself, we saw last week six times, I will arise and go to my father and I will say to my father, our Lord indicates repentance is a God-focused grace. It was the father to whom he was returning. But in so doing, he repudiated certain things. Look at the passage, Luke 15. Luke chapter 15 and verse 18, I will arise and go to my father, and say to him, Father, I've sinned against heaven and in your sight no more worthy to be called your son.

50:34 Make me as one of your hired servants. And he arose, came to his father. He had to make a decision. He didn't drag a troop of harlots with him and ask his pop to set up a shack for them in the back of the back 40.

50:52 He left his partying buddies. He turned away from everything associated with the far country. By saying I will arise and go to my father, he was saying I repudiate everything that's been my life in the far country. I'm ready for life under my father's government.

51:13 In fact, I'm ready to become one of his hired servants. I'm not worthy to be his son. But whereas I looked upon my father's rules as restricted and narrow, I now see my father is such a loving, generous man that it would be a blessing to be one of his hired servants and be within the compass of his gracious heart and his open hand. Repentance for the prodigal was a sin repudiating repentance.

Biblical Examples of Sin-Repudiating Repentance: Thessalonians and Zacchaeus

51:44 And then thirdly, look at the example of the Thessalonians in 1 Thessalonians 1. We looked at it last week in terms of repentance being a God-centered grace. But now look at the flip side of it. 1 Thessalonians 1.9 They themselves report concerning what manner of entering in we had unto you, how you turned unto God. Yes, repentance is a God-occupied, God-focused grace. You turned unto God, but in doing, you turned from apo, away from your idols to serve a living and true God. There would be no true turning to God, to serve without a turning from the idols.

52:34 The idols that were the symbol of their distance from God, their alienation from God. Their repentance was a sin repudiating repentance. And then some of you perhaps have already thought of Luke 19 and the example of Zacchaeus, the little guy who scrambled up in the tree. And the Lord Jesus comes and calls him and says, I must abide at your house.

53:04 Verse 6 of Luke 19, And he made haste and came down and received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying, He's gone in to lodge with a man that's a sinner. And Zacchaeus stood and said unto the Lord, Behold, Lord, half of my goods I give to the poor. If I've wrongfully exacted anything of any man, I restore fourfold.

53:25 And Jesus said unto him, Today is salvation, come to this house. For as much as he also is a son of Abraham, for the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost. The Son of Man came to seek and save Zacchaeus. The Son of Man says he has saved him.

53:47 Salvation has come to this house. He is now a true son of Abraham. He is a true believer. And what was the evidence?

53:55 That he had experienced a sin repudiating repentance. He takes the worst case scenario with regard to himself. If I've taken anything wrongfully, I restore it fourfold. Half of his goods he gives to feed the poor.

54:13 It never dawned on me until I was preparing for today. He took a real risk of probably liquidating everything. This guy had been a chief among the tax collectors and for years had been taking advantage of people, giving away half his goods to the poor and then saying, I'm restoring fourfold to everybody else. He may have ended up on the bread line for all I know.

54:37 But you see, whereas he was an avaricious and grasping materialistic man, now his repentance is a sin repudiating repentance. He repudiates stuff and things and money and all that they give as the goal of his life. And the tangible way he expresses it is that the half of his goods he gives to the poor from a grasping, avaricious, selfish, dishonest man, he becomes a generous, open-hearted, open-handed man. And he will not keep in his possession his unjust gain, but he's determined to restore it fourfold. And Jesus said salvation has come to his house. Well, we could find many more, but I trust you who believe your Bible say the evidence is clear. What more do we need to see that repentance is indeed a sin repudiating grace?

Conclusion: The Reality of Repentance and Call to Self-Examination

55:39 Well, let me say then, as I bring this to a conclusion, as I said earlier, I'm not conducting just a Bible study on the biblical doctrine of repentance. No, repentance and faith are the hinge on the door of salvation. And if you are a stranger to this kind of repentance that has led to deep-heart repudiation of sin, then you know nothing of the saving power of the gospel. Listen to Calvin's comments on the Acts 20-21 passage.

56:15 Since the gospel of Christ now calls all to repentance, it follows that all are naturally vicious and corrupt and need to be changed. This verse similarly teaches that those who separate the grace of Christ from repentance are stupidly perverting the gospel. That's strong language. Those who would separate the grace of Christ from repentance are stupidly perverting the gospel.

56:48 And I say they are tragically, tragically jeopardizing their own souls if they separate those realities in their own judgment. Even here this morning can I say that by the grace of God, out of a true sense of sin and hope of the mercy of God in Christ as revealed in the gospel, that I have turned to God from my sins, my particular sins particularly, and am I, by the grace of God, living a life that validates the reality of that turning that I profess? What have I done with yesterday's sins? Have I repented of those particular sins particularly, whether they were the sins of the irritated word to wife, to husband, grousing to mom and dad about this or that? Those sins that are our sins, not the sins of the people out there, but our sins in our homes, in our hearts, when we're driving our cars and we're cut off and the cuss word comes to our minds, do we repent there and then of our particular sins of the mind

58:16 particularly? When we know that we have indulged our appetite beyond what is good and in the best interest of our health and what is necessary for the sustenance of life, do we repent of our sin of gluttony and overeating? And when our eyes have watched what we know they should not have seen on the television, do we repent of our sins dearly? And that's where you and I need to repent if we are to satisfy our consciences in the presence of God that our repentance is real.

59:00 Where are you? Where are you? Are you repenting of your part particular sins, particular thee? And where necessary, making restitution by confession to husband, to wife, to children, to mom, to dad, to peers, to work associates, so that anyone who gets close enough to us for any length of time knows that not only does that man, that woman, that boy, that girl follow Jesus, that man, that woman, that boy, that girl hates sin.

59:34 And repents of sin. Is that what they know us to be? I ask you, answer in the theater of your heart in the presence of God, is that who you are? If not, how can you claim to be a Christian?

59:52 How can you claim to be a Christian? For wherever there is true faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, there is repentance toward God. And that repentance is not the act of a moment. It is not the memory of a past experience.

60:12 It is the reality of the ongoing disposition of the heart of a child of God. Let's pray. Our Father, we confess with shame that we take our sins altogether too lightly. We pray that you would forgive us and cleanse us of the very sin of light thoughts and light attitudes and utterly inadequate dealings with our sins.

60:52 We thank you that in Christ every provision has been made for us to be cleansed, for us to be washed. Your promise is sure that if we confess our sins you are faithful and righteous to forgive us. But we know that that confession, if real, will be joined with the forsaking, the inner repudiation of the heart, in which we are prepared to cut off right hands and pluck out right eyes, that we do not return to it. O God, help us, we pray.

61:28 And for those who are utter strangers to that reality, we ask you to bring pressure to bear upon their hearts and consciences and give them no rest until they know the reality of that repentance which is unto life. We pray your word to our hearts for our good and for your glory we pray. Amen.