2 Corinthians 7:8-10
Emotional Attendants
Pastor Albert N. Martin expounds on the emotional attendants of repentance unto life, specifically grief, self-loathing, and shame for sin. Drawing primarily from 2 Corinthians 7, James 4, Ezekiel 20, 36, and 16, and Job 42, he argues that these emotions are indispensable accompaniments of true repentance, not its ground, but its necessary manifestations. Martin provides pastoral counsel against both harsh self-condemnation and shifting trust from Christ to internal graces, urging believers to cultivate deeper grief, self-loathing, and shame for sin as a response to God's mercy in the Gospel and the sufferings of Christ.
Primary Texts
Topics
Outline 12 sections · 63 min
- Introduction: Repentance and Faith, the Hinge of Salvation 0:02
- Review of Repentance's Soil, Taproots, and Trunk 2:51
- Introducing the Emotional Attendants of Repentance 5:12
- Refining the Emotional Attendants: Grief, Self-Loathing, and Shame 7:43
- Pastoral Counsel and Caution Regarding Emotional Attendants 9:07
- Biblical Evidence for Grief for Sin 12:04
- Biblical Evidence for Self-Loathing for Sin 32:12
- Biblical Evidence for Shame for Sin 42:33
- Why These Emotional Attendants Must Be Present: A Right View of God 48:32
- Why These Emotional Attendants Must Be Present: A Right View of Sin Through the Cross 55:06
- The Measure of Emotional Attendants: Enough to Turn 58:50
- Prayer for Deeper Repentance 61:21
Key Quotes
“Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner out of the world, out of a true sense of his sin and apprehension of the mercy of God, does with grief, self-loathing, and shame for his sin, turn from it unto God.”
“This emotional attention, dependent of true repentance, is a grace worked in us by the Holy Spirit. But it is not our Savior. Christ alone is our Savior.”
“Godly sorrow is effecting something in its working. It does not leave the person who experiences it simply buried in this sea of his own emotions of remorse and regret, but it moves him unto repentance.”
“Until our delight in sin and our pleasure from sin is turned to grief and sorrow for sin, there will be no repentance.”
“In a day when the God of self-esteem is worshipped both within and without the church, the very use of that term probably sets some of your teeth on edge. Self-loathing? No! Whatever we do, we must stroke our self-esteem.”
“Self-loathing is evermore the companion of true repentance.”
“It is not shame prior to the gift of forgiveness. It is shame that grows out of divine forgiveness.”
“If you ask how much grief must there be, how much self-loathing must there be, how much shame must there be, I answer a lot more than I've ever experienced. Ought to be.”
Applications
All listeners
- Do not judge yourselves too harshly when considering the emotional attendants of repentance.
- Pray for the Lord Jesus to help you not to put yourself under unnecessary accusations of conscience and to rightly apply the Word of God.
- Do not allow the enemy of your soul to shift your trust from Christ (objective) to some grace worked within you (subjective).
- Be miserable, afflicted, mourn, and weep for your sins, turning laughter to mourning and joy to heaviness.
- Examine whether you know something of grief, self-loathing, and shame for sin, and desire more, not to add to Christ's work, but to appreciate it more fully.
- Confess with shame that we know so little of dealing seriously with our sins.
- Pray for mercy for those who have never known grief, self-loathing, or shame for their sins, that God would break their hearts.
- Pray to grow in tenderness of conscience and awareness of the magnitude of our sins, to loathe not only our sins but ourselves for committing them.
A full transcript is available on the tab. 148 paragraphs, roughly 63 minutes.
Introduction: Repentance and Faith, the Hinge of Salvation
The following sermon was delivered on Sunday morning, October 9, 2005, at Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. In Acts chapter 17 and verse 30, we read that God commands all men everywhere to repent because He has appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness. With these simple but sobering words, the Apostle Paul brought to a close his sermon to the Athenians.
Dear Athenian philosophers, and were there no other verse in the Bible demonstrating the supreme importance of repentance, surely this one verse should be sufficient to arrest our attention and to persuade us of the great importance of knowing what this repentance is and being assured on Biblical terms. Biblical grounds that we have and are experiencing that repentance.
We come this morning to our sixth study on the doctrine of repentance as part of a series of studies which I have entitled, Repentance and Faith, the Hinge on Which the Door of Salvation Turns. And since it has been four Lord's Days since we embarked, engaged in this study, I want to take a few moments briefly to review what we have covered in the first five messages. Having established that repentance and faith are both indispensable for salvation and inseparable in all saving experience of the grace of God, we began to
focus our attention upon the nature and the fruits of repentance unto life. As we began our study, I informed you of three things that would be the dominant features of the messages on repentance. The scriptures would be our supreme authority, the shorter catechism would be the organizing framework, and the image of a tree would be our visual aid. We then began to consider what is repentance unto life, a phrase taken from Acts 11 and verse 18.
Review of Repentance's Soil, Taproots, and Trunk
The shorter catechism answer is this, repentance unto life is a saving grace whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin and an apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, does with grief and nieuwhility. And going to our visual image of the tree, we noted first of all the soil of repentance unto life. And the writers of our catechism were right.
Repentance unto life is a saving grace. That is, it is something worked in the heart of a sinner by the grace of God. So the soil of true repentance is the grace of God. And then we looked secondly at the two tap roots which support the substance or the trunk of repentance.
And they are a felt sense of one's own sin and sinfulness. Repentance unto life is a saving grace. Whereby a sinner out of a true sense of his sin, that's tap root number one. And secondly, tap root number two, a believing grasp upon the mercy of God extended to sinners in Jesus Christ by the gospel.
That's what the writers meant when they used the terminology an apprehension, a laying hold of the mercy of God in Christ. And then thirdly, we looked at the substance of repentance. The main trunk, it is a turning from sin unto God. That's the heart of true evangelical repentance.
It is, in the language I used, repentance unto life is a God-focused grace. It is a turning unto God. And it is a sin-repudiating grace. It is a grace whereby a sinner turns from it, that is his sin, unto God.
Introducing the Emotional Attendants of Repentance
Today, we begin to consider what I'm calling the attendance of repentance unto life. And we may liken them in our visual aid to the main branches that are always attached to the main trunk of that tree. The soil of repentance unto life, the grace of God. The tap roots, an awareness, a felt awareness.
The main substance of sin, a laying hold of God's mercy as extended in the gospel. The main substance or trunk of repentance, it is a turning from sin unto God. But wherever there is that turning from sin unto God supported by those tap roots embedded in the soil of God's grace, there will always be certain attendance. And those attendants are captured in the prepositional phrases, of the shorter catechism.
Listen again. Where the tap roots are present, the sinner does with, here's the first, grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God with full purpose of and endeavor after new obedience. Here are the accompaniments or the attendance of all true repentance unto life. With grief and hatred of sin, with full purpose after a new obedience, and with an endeavor after new obedience.
And I have chosen to call these attendants the emotional attendant of repentance unto life, grief and hatred of sin. The volitional attendant with full purpose of. New obedience. And then the ethical or the behavioral attendant, endeavor after new obedience.
And each of those components is critical. For never does God implant the grace of true repentance in the heart of a sinner, but what that sinner turns from his sin unto God with these attendants present. Grief and hatred of his sin. Full purpose of new obedience, and this endeavor after new obedience.
Refining the Emotional Attendants: Grief, Self-Loathing, and Shame
And all we'll have time to take up this morning is the emotional attendant of repentance unto life. Now I'm always reluctant to alter the shorter catechism. Always. However, as I took my books in which the shorter catechism is expounded with, with respect to the definition of repentance, and began to look at the proof texts that are set forth, I found myself more and more uncomfortable sticking with the language of the catechism in its description of the emotional attendance of repentance unto life.
And so I'm changing those words, not for the rest of the world, but for my preaching, into these words. Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner out of the world, out of a true sense of his sin and apprehension of the mercy of God, does with grief, self-loathing, and shame for his sin, turn from it unto God. In place of the word hatred of his sin, I am setting before you that the scripture teaches, with grief will be self-loathing and shame, for his sin.
Pastoral Counsel and Caution Regarding Emotional Attendants
Now, before I begin to open up the scriptures that clearly teach that grief, self-loathing, and shame for sin are indeed the emotional accompaniments of repentance unto life, I want to give a couple of words of loving pastoral counsel. First of all, a word of counsel to those tender souls who are always ready to judge too harshly, of themselves. In fact, some of you have already done it. The moment you heard the emotional attendance of repentance, grief, self-loathing, and shame, you sat there and judged yourself.
Well, I don't know enough grief. I don't know enough self-loathing. I don't know enough shame. Don't do that.
I know there are some of you of tender conscience, who are so quick to condemn yourself when you ought not to. However, I cannot hold back from preaching the whole counsel of God, because you are so quick to condemn yourself when you ought not to. But you abuse it to your own hurt. And I'm simply pleading with those of you of more tender souls that you sit even now and pray, O Lord Jesus, help me not to put myself under any unnecessary accusations of conscience.
Help me to rightly apply the Word of God to myself. I plead with you to do that. I will do all I can in working through these things, to be careful, to be balanced, to be sensitive. But at the end of the day, if you're determined to bury yourself with the Word of God, you answer to God for it.
But then secondly, I want us to be aware that the devil is constantly attempting to shift our trust from the Christ outside of us as the ground of our acceptance with God to some grace within us. This emotional attention, dependent of true repentance, is a grace worked in us by the Holy Spirit. But it is not our Savior. Christ alone is our Savior.
And as we work through these things this morning, don't allow the enemy of your soul to shift your trust from the Christ who is objective to you in the Gospel, who is the object of the confidence of the believing soul, don't allow your confidence to be shifted from the Christ outside of you to some grace that is worked within you. Now with those two words of pastoral counsel and caution before us, come then with your Bibles in your hands and earnest prayer for the Spirit's illuminating ministry as we consider together the three emotional attendants
Biblical Evidence for Grief for Sin
of repentance unto life. And I'll spend most of my time identifying and giving the Biblical evidence for these three emotional accompaniments of repentance and then just a few minutes as to why they must be present. First of all then, we're going to identify and set forth the Biblical evidence of these three emotional accompaniments of repentance unto life. Grief, self-loathing, and shame.
Grief, self-loathing, and shame. Grief, self-loathing, and shame. Grief, self-loathing, and shame. First of all then, let us consider together the presence of grief for sin in connection with repentance unto life.
And we're going to look at three crucial passages. The first is the most foundational of all of them and it's found in 2 Corinthians and chapter 7. 2 Corinthians and chapter 7.
I'm going to pick up the reading at verse 8 and then we'll spend a moment filling in the context. For though I made you sorry with my epistle, I do not regret it, though I did regret it, for I see that that epistle made you sorry, though but for a season. I now rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that you were made sorry unto repentance. For you were made sorry after a godly sort that you might suffer loss by us in nothing.
For godly sorrow works repentance unto salvation, a repentance which brings no regret, but the sorrow of the world works death. Now the context is Paul's reference to a stern letter. Some commentators believe it's a letter that's been lost. We don't know what it was.
Others say no, there's enough sternness in what we have as 1 Corinthians 1 Corinthians. That Paul may be referring to that letter, but in any case, the Apostle Paul found himself in a posture where certain sins there in the church at Corinth needed a stern letter. And while he wrote that stern letter, he was grieved and pained in his soul. He wasn't this hard-hearted, right-angled, insensitive guy that says, all right, they're sinning, chop their heads off, give it to them straight, I'm a straight shooter.
No, it pained, the same way it pains a parent when he must sit a child down and deal sternly with an issue of aberrant behavior in that child. And so the Apostle indicates, I made you sorry with my epistle, though I don't regret it, though I did regret it. And here in this section that I've read in your hearing, within the short compass of these three verses, there are eight references to sorrow or to sin. There are six uses of the verb lupeo, which means to be sorrowful, and two uses of the noun lupe, which means sorrow.
And eight times in these few verses where the Apostle is recounting what made him happy as a result of his letter, he uses the word sorry, sorry, sorry, be sorrowful, sorry. And he indicates, in these two key phrases, and I want you to note them with me, the intimate connection between sorrow and repentance. Notice at verse 9. Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that you were made sorry unto repentance.
You were made sorry unto repentance. There was a sorrow that opened the door into true, deep, thorough repentance. Repentance so deep and thorough as we'll see in the subsequent message as Paul gives the details of it in verse 11, that the Apostle's heart is now glad that they have dealt with their sin.
Sorry unto repentance, verse 10, for godly sorrow works repentance unto salvation. Godly sorrow is effecting something in its working. It does not leave the person who experiences it simply buried in this sea of his own emotions of remorse and regret, but it moves him unto repentance. Godly sorrow is working, is effecting repentance that is unto salvation.
Now I'm fully aware of the fact that Paul is here describing the repentance of those who are already in a state of grace. But as we've already had occasion to note and will in the subsequent messages underscore, repentance, whether in its initial actings or in its ongoing actings, for as long as sin is present in us, repentance will be the order of the day, which means to the end of our days, it is not different in kind. Repentance has the same essential ingredients. And so the apostle says, you were sorry unto repentance and godly sorrow
is working repentance. Clearly indicating that if we take away godly sorrow, there will be no repentance unto salvation. That if it is godly sorrow that works repentance, take away the godly sorrow, and there is nothing to work unto the end of repentance. You were sorry unto repentance.
And so whether on the threshold of the Christian life or in the ongoing unfolding of the Christian life, there must be godly sorrow if there is to be repentance. The grief for our sins is an essential accompaniment of all our sins. All true turning from sin unto God. And we learn from this passage that until our delight in sin and our pleasure from sin is turned to grief and sorrow for sin, there will be no repentance.
I repeat, until our delight in sin and our pleasure from sin is turned to grief and sorrow for sin, there will be no repentance. When God grants the gift of repentance, He does so by producing that sorrow for sin which works that repentance. He does not dump, as it were, the gift of repentance out of heaven into an unbroken heart. He first of all brings the heart and the mind of the sinner to see his sin, for what it is in relationship to God, in relationship to Christ
and to His cross. And on the basis of that biblical spirit-wrought perception of sin, God works in the heart of the sinner genuine sorrow for sin, without which there is no repentance for godly sorrow works repentance unto salvation. And so we cannot hope that we will ever come into the possession of God's free saving grace in Jesus Christ clicking our heels and whistling all the way to the cross.
Listen to Charles Hodge who addresses this very perceptively. Sorrow in itself is not repentance. Neither is remorse nor self-condemnation nor self-loathing nor external reformation. These are all of its attendants or consequences.
But repentance itself is a turning from sin to holiness, from a state of sin to a holy state. It's a real change of heart. It's a change of views, feelings, purposes resulting in a change of life. Godly sorrow works repentance.
That sorrow on account of sin which arises from proper apprehensions of God and our relation to Him necessarily leads to that entire change in the inward life which is expressed by the word repentance and which is connected with salvation. It is not the ground of our salvation but it is a part of it and a necessary condition of it. Those who repent are saved. The impenitent perish.
Repentance therefore is unto salvation. And he's hit the nail right on the head with those words. And here in this passage we see that there is an indispensable emotional attendant to true repentance that is called sorrow. Now God does not send down from heaven a sorrow meter saying you must have this much or that much.
And I know the question how much sorrow? Sorry enough to quit. Sorry enough to change. Sorry enough to experience what the old Puritans called the vomit of the soul in repentance.
But sorrow, yes. Sorrow, the opposite of heel-clicking joy and gladness. Sorrow, the emotional attendant of true repentance. The second text is James chapter 4.
Turn with me please to James chapter 4. In the context James has been exposing spiritual adultery among those to whom his letter is sent. So strong is his language that some commentators take the position that he's not even speaking to brethren. He's speaking to unconverted people.
But I think it's hard to come to the position that this is where James is at. He's speaking of this kind of spiritual adultery that these professing believers have been guilty of. And in the midst of it he begins to call them to deep and thorough repentance with a whole string of imperatives beginning in verse 7. James 4 and verse 7.
Be subject therefore unto God but resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands you sinners and purify your hearts. Purify your hearts.
You double-minded. Be afflicted and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he shall exalt you.
Here particularly in verse 9 James calls all of his readers to experience genuine grief for sin along with the sin of sin. Sin. Sin. Sin.
Sin. Sin. Sin. Sin.
Sin. Sin. Sin. With its natural manifestations.
He says be afflicted. You know what that word means? It means be miserable. I thought the Bible was given and the gospel was given to make me happy.
You'll never be truly happy with divine happiness until you're miserable. Be miserable. Be miserable. Be afflicted and mourn and weep.
And then he gets very explicit by showing that grief demanding they express the grief and then he gets with these two contrasting ways of conduct. Notice, be afflicted, mourn, and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning. You people should not be going around laughing.
If you came into any realistic assessment of your true condition, it would break your hearts. And you would show that broken heart by giving up your giddy laughter. Let your laughter be turned to mourning, and giving up your shallow joy. Let your joy be turned to heaviness.
Brethren, this is the Word of God. This call to repentance clearly indicates that there is this emotional attendant to true repentance that we call grief. Does with grief, as well as hatred for his sin, turn from it unto God. It is a call for such a radically different, different view of God and of ourselves as to shatter our glass house of careless giggling and see ourselves as we truly are, whether unconverted or as the people of God when repentance is the order of the day.
For repentance is needed wherever there is sin, and sin is grievous offense against the sovereign of the universe, against the high and the lofty one who inhabits eternity. It is no light and frivolous thing. And for the creature who is in the hands of the Creator to come to grips with the nature of his sin, surely there must be this emotional attendant of grief. How much grief?
How the grief expresses itself? All of those issues God does not legislate to us, but He says, Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep. And surely those imperatives cannot be understood and taken seriously, without coming to the conclusion that true repentance does indeed have this attendant of the emotion of grief. You remember Jesus said of the Ninevites that they repented at the preaching of Jonah.
Well, when they repented, what was their response to the word of God? Well, here in Jonah chapter 3, listen to what that response was.
Jonah chapter 3, the first four verses tell us of Jonah's obedience now to the command of God to go to Nineveh and preach. Verse 5, And the people of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast, put on sackcloth from the greatest of them to the least of them. And the tidings reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, sat in ashes, made a 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. Let them be covered with sackcloth, both man and beast, and cry mightily to God. Yea, let them turn every one from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. Who knows whether God will not turn and repent and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish not.
And God saw their works that they turned from their evil way. And God repented of the evil that he said he would do to them. Here is a manifestation of that grief. And they took the outward symbols of that grief that had gripped their hearts, that they saw themselves under the preaching of Jonah as exposed and liable to the wrath of the God of heaven.
And it broke them, and it wasn't business as usual.
There was genuine grief.
We see the call to repent is a call to repent. That we experience its attendant, real, deep grief and sorrow for sin. It's a call for such a radically different view of God and of ourselves as to shatter our silly joy and bring us to that grief which alone can lead to true joy.
And then I would ask you to turn to the Beatitudes for the third passage that points to grief as an inseparable, attendant to true repentance. Matthew chapter 5. Matthew chapter 5.
Remember the Beatitudes are not the description of a ladder by which we climb into heaven, but they are a picture of the character traits of those who have embraced the King of Grace. And this is His composite picture of the characteristics of all the subjects of that kingdom. If you want, to know what a kingdom man, a kingdom woman looks like, you read the Beatitudes. Here are the features of those whom God has sovereignly brought into the kingdom.
Verse 3. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The first Beatitude points to the fact that in bringing sinners into the kingdom, God strips them of all of their strut, of all of their cockiness, of all of their confidence in themselves. And they are brought to see that they are nothing, they have nothing, can do nothing to commend themselves to God.
They are really poor. And to such the kingdom belongs. Then verse 4. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are they that mourn. A present tense. The sign, one of the features of the true sons and daughters of the kingdom is they mourn. Now they do more than mourn because he goes on later on and commands these very people to rejoice when they are persecuted and opposed.
So there is in the midst of the mourning great joy. But there is mourning. Why? Because as long as they are here in the kingdom, in its present manifestation, the now but the not yet, there will be sin.
And as long as there is sin in the true people of God, there will be repentance. And as long as there is repentance, there will be its attendant of genuine grief. Blessed are they who mourn. Mourning, a sign of that grief of heart in the reality of our sin.
And while the word repent is not used, how do they come into the kingdom? Jesus in Mark chapter 1 preached saying, repent. Why? For the kingdom is at hand.
Repent and believe in the gospel. They repent, believe in the gospel. They become part of the company of the mourners. And it is only the mourners who shall be comforted.
Biblical Evidence for Self-Loathing for Sin
And so I set before you these three pivotal texts to demonstrate that grief for sin is indeed one of the essential manifestations or the essential accompaniments of true repentance. Then secondly, the presence of self-loathing, in connection with repentance. The presence of self-loathing in connection with repentance. Now in a day when the God of self-esteem is worshipped both within and without the church, the very use of that term probably sets some of your teeth on edge.
Self-loathing? No! Whatever we do, we must stroke our self-esteem. The God of self-esteem is the Dagon that is worshipped.
The God of self-esteem is the Dagon that is worshipped. The God of self-esteem is the Dagon that is worshipped. Throughout our society and in much of the church, making the gospel into something that's supposed to boost our self-esteem. Well, I'm prepared to say on the basis of the Word of God, the presence of real conviction and Holy Ghost bringing of a sinner to Christ will bring him in a repentance that has as one of its emotional accompaniments some degree of self-esteem.
And I'm prepared to say on the basis of the Word of God, that the only way to bring him into this world is by giving him a sign of self-loathing. Consider with me several texts that clearly point in this direction. Ezekiel, chapter 20. Ezekiel, chapter 20.
Chapter 20 in Ezekiel is a litany of the chronic sinful patterns of the nation of Israel. It's not pleasant to read it, where God through the prophet reminds them of how they have sinned, in verse 33, we have a restoration in grace and power that God will bring to His people. And then when we come to verses 43 and 44, we find these words in the context of God's gracious commitment of a restoration of His people. Verse 43, And there shall you remember your ways and all your doings wherein you have polluted yourselves, and you shall loathe
yourselves in your own sight for all your evils that you have committed. And you shall know that I am the Lord when I have dealt with you for my name's sake, not according to your evil ways nor according to your corrupt doings, O house of Israel, says the Lord God. It's an amazing passage. God says He's going to come in gracious restorative power. And when He does, His grace conferred
will bring them into this state not only of gratitude for His restorative mercy, but self-loathing when they consider what they have been and what they have done. You shall remember your ways and all your doings and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for all your evils that you have committed. Loathe yourselves. That's God's language, not mine. God says
you will loathe yourself. Loathe yourself against the backdrop of two realities, your horrible sins and my amazing grace. And when you view your sins not only in the light of God's holiness and God's law, but God's grace. You come into Me and you call to Me a TU Christmas welcome that is so exhilarating and that only brings a self-loathing that I would treat, so gracious and marvelous of God, in such an unconscionable way.
And then in Ezekiel 36 we have a similar emphasis. Ezekiel chapter 36, here in the midst of God promising blessings in the new covenant. Beginning in verse 26, A new. Heart will I give you, a new spirit will I put within you. I will put My Spirit within
you. All of these blessings God will bring in grace. Verse 31, Then, then when I bring them, you shall remember your evil ways and your doings that were not good, and you shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations. Not for your sake do I do this, says the Lord God, be it known to you, be ashamed and confounded for your ways.
O house of Israel. Here again, the same motif against the backdrop of Israel's sin and God's restorative grace and blessing. They will remember what they've done and what they've been and they will loathe themselves before God.
Listen to the words of one of the old writers. This humbling sense of our unworthiness which produces true contrition and self-abasement is essential to repentance. Most men are willing to acknowledge themselves to be sinners, but they are at the same time disposed to extenuate, to lessen their guilt, to think they are as good as could be reasonably expected, that the law of God demands too much of being so frail as man and that it would be unjust to visit their deficiencies with any severe punishment. The change which constitutes repentance destroys this disposition of self-justification.
The soul bows down before God under the consciousness of inexcusable guilt. It stands self-condemned and instead of regarding God as a hard master, it acknowledges that He is righteous in all His demands and in all of His judgments. You shall loathe yourself in your own sight. Then remember, remember the example of Job, the old patriarch Job, at the end of all of God's dealings with him.
What does he say in chapter 42?
Here are his last words before the Lord turns His captivity after He prays for His friends.
Job 42, 5 and 6. I've heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you. Wherefore, wherefore, I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes. His repentance, that as its attendance, this self-abhorrence, what I am is sickening to me.
As Matthew Henry has stated it so eloquently, self-loathing is evermore the companion of true repentance. Self-loathing is evermore the companion of true repentance. Repentance. Repentance.
Repentance. Repentance. Repentance. Repentance.
Repentance. Repentance. When we turn to the New Testament, that's why we sang the hymn we did before the message. When that publican is in the temple beating upon his breast, God be merciful to me, the sinner.
All I present to you, God, is a sinner. A human being that breathes and lives in your world, but is a sinner. And his sense of self-loathing is manifested as he beats upon his breast. Now he didn't go, he didn't go down to his house still beating.
It says he went down to his house justified. No doubt as God conferred to him that sense of his acceptance and justification, he would have been singing and praising God and perhaps dancing with joy. But he came to his state of dancing by means of the state of genuine self-loathing. The self-loathing was not his savior.
He looks outside of himself, most likely upon that altar of sacrifice and seeing the immolated, consumed body of a sacrifice. His confidence that God will be propitious to him and show mercy to him is based upon the sacrifice external to him and objective to him. Yes, but self-loathing was the way into justifying faith. And he went down to his house justified.
This is not a despairing, self-turning, terminating self-loathing, but joined to an apprehension of the mercy of God in Jesus Christ, the second taproot of repentance. And it fits beautifully that motif in Ezekiel. In each of those passages where God says you loathe yourself, the context is God's promise of conferred mercy. And as the people of God think of mercy to the likes of themselves, it is mercy against the backdrop of what they, they were and what they've done that produced the self-loathing.
I shall never forget hearing a godly man known in his generation as an unusually godly man saying the most sickening sight he had ever seen was his own heart. The most sickening sight he had ever seen was his own heart. And when God gives us just a little sight of what this heart is and what it's capable of, and yet this God who could consume us has not done so, but come to us in grace and mercy through the gospel and offered his son and a free salvation in him, we are filled with self-loathing.
Biblical Evidence for Shame for Sin
And then, briefly, let's look at several verses that point to the presence of shame in connection with repentance unto life. And again, this goes counter to the whole ethos of our society. Nobody's supposed to be ashamed of anything. Come out of the closet and tell who you are.
Let the world hang its head that they ever thought there was anything wrong with being a homosexual.
Unashamed. Tell you who I am, what I've done. We've become the shameless society. But God says, in conjunction with true repentance, one of the emotional attendants will not only be grief, self-loathing, but shame.
Turn with me to Ezekiel chapter 16.
Ezekiel chapter 16. Chapter 16.
This chapter hardly fit to read in mixed company. Likens God's relationship to Israel to that of someone who found Israel like an unwashed baby just born. Washes that baby, brings it to maturity, enters into a marriage covenant, and then the bride becomes a whore. Indiscriminate.
Not even a whore. She's just plain promiscuous. She pays her lovers to lie with her. God says that's what Israel has become.
And yet, wonder of wonders, toward the end of that chapter, God again says, I'm going to come with mercy. Verse 53, I will turn again their captivity. In spite of all they've done, in the judgment I must bring upon them and send them into captivity, into the Babylonian captivity, I'm going to turn again their captivity. Verse 60, nevertheless, I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish unto you an everlasting covenant, and you shall remember your ways and be ashamed.
When you shall receive your sisters, your elder sister and your younger, and I will give them unto you for daughters, but not by your covenant, and I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord, that you may remember and be confounded and never open your mouth anymore, for because of your shame. Now notice, when I have forgiven you all you have done, says the Lord God. It is not shame prior to the gift of forgiveness. It is shame that grows out of divine forgiveness.
And that's why I keep emphasizing that the repentance that is unto life, the repentance that Jesus said we are to preach among all the nations, is repentance in His name. It's repentance in the context of the gospel with its free, glorious promise of full forgiveness in Jesus Christ. Full forgiveness and acceptance with God in Jesus Christ. And it is against the backdrop of that conferral of free forgiveness and the remembrance of what we've done to such a God.
The way we've treated such a God. The horrible, twisted thoughts we've had, about this God, that we are filled with a sense of shame. And you will never open your mouth anymore because of your shame. When I have forgiven you.
When I have forgiven you. It's an amazing statement. The shame that is the consequence of free and full forgiveness. And surely, it must be perhaps even that language that the Apostle had in mind, when he wrote to the Romans.
Romans chapter 6. In the section of Romans where he's speaking that in union with Christ, we not only died with Christ and rose with Him. The first 14 verses thereby breaking sin's dominion and our service to sin. But in verses 15 to 23, that in union with Christ, we've come under a new Master.
Sin is no longer our Master, but God and Christ and righteousness. And in that context, notice what he says in verse 17. But thanks be to God, that whereas you were the slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching whereunto you were delivered. And being made free from sin, you became servants of righteousness.
I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh. For as you presented your members servants to uncleanness and iniquity, to iniquity, even so now present your members as servants to righteousness unto sanctification. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard of righteousness. What fruit had you then at that time in the things whereof you are now ashamed?
Now, this side of the conferral of grace, this side of this transfer of masters from sin to God, from evil to righteousness, he says now in this posture of the recipients of grace, you have a sense of shame as you think of what you once were and what you once did. And so I submit to you that where there is true repentance, the attendance of grief, of self-loathing, and of shame, to some degree, will be present. In the human heart. Now, why?
Why These Emotional Attendants Must Be Present: A Right View of God
And I spend just a few moments on this, a few minutes in conclusion this morning. Why? Why must these three emotional attendants be present where there is repentance unto life? Well, fundamentally, because we've come to a right view of God through the gospel.
This is the repentance in conjunction with the gospel. And it is in the prism of the gospel that we come to right views of God. We've had, we've skewed views of God. We've thought of Him as a hard master.
His law was unreasonable. His standards were absolutely off the wall. And like the prodigal, we have left the Father's presence and left the government of the Father's house because we have distorted views about the Father. But it's interesting in Luke 15, Jesus said, but when He came to Himself, in other words, He was in a state of moral, spiritual madness.
He was out of touch with reality. But when He came to Himself, what were His first words? I will arise and go to my Father.
No, those weren't His first words. His first words were, how many of my Father's servants have bread enough and to spare? Look at it with me. Luke chapter 15.
Luke chapter 15. Verse 17. But when He came to Himself, He said, how many hired servants of my Father's have bread enough and to spare? I perish here with hunger.
I will arise and go to my Father. What moves Him to go to the Father whom He left? It's this sane discovery of the Father's heart and the Father's disposition and the Father's character. He left the Father's home because He regarded, regards it as a place where the rules are too stringent, where the Father's heart is narrow.
The Father's standards are crimping His style and keeping Him from life with a capital L. Life is out there in the far country, not here in the Father's house. When He comes to Himself, the first expression of that moral sanity is a whole different view of the Father. And He says, my Father's, even His servants, they have enough food and to spare.
Why? Because my Father is not this tight-fisted, unreasonable, grumpy old man that rules the roost. He's the large-hearted man who manifests His large heart in giving excess even to the hired servants.
And that's why grief and self-loathing and some degree of shame always attend true repentance because when God is bringing sinners to true repentance, through the Gospel, they get a glimpse of what the heart of God is really like. This God who so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. This God that sent His Son to a world of rebels who did not spare Him. This God who ordered all events and circumstances that He would be put in the hands of, wicked and cruel and unprincipled men,
His flesh torn, hung upon a cross, forsaken of His God, that you and I might have free pardon and full acceptance and be at home delightfully in the Father's house, in the Gospel. We come to some sane, accurate views of the Father's heart. And when we do, we cannot help but be grieved at all that we've been and done, because we had these wicked views of the Father. Because we've trampled underfoot the Father's laws.
We've not lived to the praise of the Father. We've taken the Father's stuff and we've squandered it upon ourselves. There must be grief upon the discovery of what God is really like. And there must be self-loathing.
I have done this because of who and what I am. That's what led David in his prayer of confession in Psalm 51, to move from the specifics of his sin against thee and thee only have I sinned and done that which is evil in thy sight, that you may be justified when you judge and clear when you pronounce guilty over my sins. But then he says, Behold! There's a shift of thought and of emphasis.
Behold! I was shapen in iniquity. In sin did my mother conceive.
He gets into the realm of conscious self-loathing. I did what I did from the time I took the second look on the rooftop and lusted after Bathsheba and then sent my servants and took her and lay with her and then sent my soldiers out to kill her noble husband. Oh God, I did what I did because I am what I am. And there was a sense of self-loathing.
Behold, I was shapen in iniquity. In sin did my mother conceive me. Oh God, I did what I did as a man in his late middle years because I am what I am and what I am I loathe. I loathe, I loathe.
And shame, one can never, never then know the forgiving grace of God, the God who could cut us off in our sins, the God who could have damned us and yet spared us in spite of all we did to provoke Him to His face. And we're ashamed of ourselves. We're ashamed. We're ashamed of the things we did.
We're ashamed of the thoughts we've had of Him because we've seen the heart of God mirrored in the cross of Jesus Christ.
Why These Emotional Attendants Must Be Present: A Right View of Sin Through the Cross
But then there will always be grief and there will always be self-loathing and some measure of shame in true repentance because we've seen our sin in the light of the sufferings of Jesus. When God confers His mercy, we know He confers it on the basis of what His Son has done. And what His Son has done is He has borne the curse that was our due. And as one hymn writer said, I love this little couplet and I've been trying to track down the hymn from which it is taken and I can't find it.
A bleeding Savior I have viewed and now I hate my sin. A bleeding Savior I have viewed and now...
I hate my sin. As I read the account of the crucifixion in the early hours of this morning, I had to cry out to God again, Oh God, how can I commit one sin and come to You and ask forgiveness and not weep tears of brokenness? What my sin cost my Savior. All the mockery, all the taunting, all of the abuse, all of the indignation, the purple robe, the crown of thorns, the mockery, as they bowed before Him.
Hail, King of the Jews! Strapped to the post, His back laid bare with the lictor's lash, the nails pounded into His hands, and above all, the blackened heavens and the forsakenness by His Father. How can I confess one sin and not feel grief and self-loathing and shame? My sins, my sins, my Savior,
they cost us. Yes, the Jews, yes, Pilate, yes, Herod, but my sins, my sins, my Savior, they take such hold of me that I am not able to look up, save only Lord to Thee.
The old writers love to use Zechariah 12.10 in this connection. Zechariah 12 and verse 10. You will find it in much of the devotional literature, of the Puritans,
in the book of Zechariah 12 and verse 10.
And I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplication. And they shall look unto Him whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him as one mourns for his only Son.
He said a saving look at the Savior is what breaks the heart. The heart for sin. And surely that grief and self-loathing and shame that are the attendance, the emotional attendance of repentance not only are rooted in the fact that we've come to a right view of God through the Gospel, but we've come to a right view of sin through the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. And if you ask how much grief must there be, how much self-loathing must there be, how much shame must there be, I answer a lot more than I've ever experienced.
The Measure of Emotional Attendants: Enough to Turn
Ought to be. How much must there be in order to truly repent enough to turn from our sin unto God. That much no more is necessary. Do you hear me?
Enough to turn from our sin unto God. Turn wholeheartedly. And as we shall see when we come to the volitional and to the practical, manifestations or attendance of repentance, this full purpose of and this endeavor after new obedience enough to truly turn, to truly turn from our sin unto God with unscathed commitment that by His grace, sin and ourselves will strike no peace treaty in any area, under any circumstances, if it means the plucking out of right eye and the cutting off of right eye. And if it means the plucking out of right eye
right hand. And so I lay before you this morning this first attendant of repentance unto life, this emotional attendant of grief, self-loathing, and shame. And I ask you very simply, have I been talking a strange language, or have you sat here this morning and said, O God, I know something of that grief, of that self-loathing, of that shame, but O God, I want more. Not to add to the work of my Savior, but that I may demonstrate that I appreciate the work
He's done for me all the more. Not that I may increase the love and the majesty of God as He shows His grace to me, but that it may demonstrate that I have a fuller appreciation of that grace. You will be ashamed when I have forgiven you. It's an amazing conjunction. May God grant that
as we live and feed upon our Savior, that we will grow in the grace of true repentance as the people of God, that we will know more and more not only the delight of living with a clean conscience and of sins forgiven, but that we will know more and more of that grief, self-loathing, and shame, which are the emotional accompaniment of all true repentance. Let's pray.
Prayer for Deeper Repentance
Our Father, we confess with shame that we know so little of dealing seriously with our sins. Father, forgive me that I've preached this morning far beyond what I desire to experience. Pray that you would have mercy upon those who have never known any grief, any self-loathing, any shame for their sins, that you would this morning, by your word,
break their hard, insensitive hearts and cause them to know that sorrow that is unto repentance, not to be repented of. Pray for your people that you would help every one of us, by your grace, to grow in our tenderness of conscience, in our awareness of the magnitude and the horrible nature of our sins that we may loathe not only our sins but where necessary loathe ourselves for committing them. Oh Father, help us. Help us, we pray.
Seal your word to our hearts. And may your blessing be upon us throughout the remainder of this day. We ask through our Lord Jesus. Amen.
This transcript was generated by automated speech recognition and may contain errors. It is provided for study and reference only; the audio recording is the authoritative source.
Passages Expounded
This passage is foundational for establishing 'godly sorrow' as an essential emotional attendant of repentance unto salvation.
This passage provides direct imperatives to 'be afflicted and mourn and weep,' explicitly linking grief to repentance.
This passage, along with Ezekiel 36 and 16, is central to demonstrating self-loathing and shame as emotional accompaniments of repentance, especially in the context of God's mercy.
Texts Expounded
Also Referenced
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