Fruit of Faith

Welcome to No Compromised Radio Ministry. Mike Abendroth with Mario Escobar here in this studio, in this office, in this study. You can write me, mike at nocompromisedradio .com. Don't forget, we've got Tuesdays and Thursday shows.

Here's an email that I received not that long ago. Hello, Pastor Abendroth, pray you are well. The YouTube programs are very well produced. Kudios, kudios. We're leaving that in. Kudos to Mario, kudios to Mario's, or kudios tomorrow.

So that's good, as a listener, I'm one who would vote for returning to your regularly weekly schedule. All right, I like that, no problem. I think we're pretty much doing that. Here's another one I received.

Dear Mike, excuse me, that's Reverend Dr. Pastor Mike. I have a doctorate of ministry. I wanted to write to you and let you know how much I have extra appreciated the past few episodes you've done, especially the episode on mysticism and the party spirit episode.

In other words, we're thankful that the gospel goes out in Calvary chapels and charismatic churches and other churches. The mysticism, this is show four today. Mario said, do you think you can do five?

No, I can't even do four. The mysticism episode, which would be different than the Mississippi episode, was so informative and so hilarious, because I'm meek and gentle. We were on a trip from Texas to the Northeast and we were driving through a town in Maine, bursting out in laughter as you talked about your stomach growling, saying, grandma, is that you?

Also the party spirit episode is very convicting. I'm new to reform theology from dispensationalism and I'm still in the cage stage. All I can see are the glaring problems with every other theological system.

So this episode has really got me thinking about things on how I approach other Christians in charity instead of mentally proclaiming everyone a heretic. Thank you again. I didn't ask you if I could read your name, so I won't read your name, but thank you, Cindy.

No, it's not Cindy. Well, when you don't have any material and you can't talk and just laugh. And, you know, back to the old thing where they gave me bad ratings on iTunes because they said it sounds like you're in a room by yourself laughing at your own jokes.

Yeah, true, except I'm in the room with my friend Mario laughing at my own jokes and he has to laugh since I'm El Jefe Senior Jefe over here. Sure. Today, we're talking part two, repentance. What about repentance?

And we're looking at part two. If you haven't watched the last episode last Wednesday on repentance, I suggest you do that because we're building this theme about repentance. The definition of repentance, essentially the word means to change your mind, which will then lead, of course, to a change of intentions and direction and view and sorrow for sin, turning from sin, et cetera.

We talked about how it's a command. Unless you repent, you'll likewise perish. Luke 13, verse three, verse five, Jesus said the same thing. No, I tell you, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.

That it's important. John the Baptist preached repentance. Ezekiel preached repentance. Jesus preaches repentance. Paul preaches repentance. Peter preaches repentance. I'm not sure if it's true or not, but I think as I was saying that, the first word out of their mouths in public ministry, John the Baptist, Jesus, Peter, and Paul, I think the first words were all repent.

So that shows us that it's important. Since we're all sinners, repentance is mandatory. If you never sinned, you'd never have to change your mind about your sin because you would not have sinned. You would have thought rightly about God, His holiness, His justice, His law.

And so sinners need to repent. And that's why Luke chapter five, Luke chapter 24, repentance for the forgiveness of sins has to be preached. It's mandatory. It's a command. But we also look at that it was a gift.

As faith is a command, belief, and then it's a gift, Ephesians chapter two, so too repentance is something we command people to do, but we realize they can't do it on their own. So we looked last week about how it's also a gift.

So how that works practically, you could be telling an unbeliever to repent and at the same time praying for them that God would grant them, 2 Timothy 2 .25, repentance. So it is an evangelical grace.

It is something that they can't do on their own. God in time, of course, regenerates and immediately following that regeneration, there's going to be conversion and that conversion will be faith and repentance, et cetera.

And then lastly, in review, we look at how repentance and faith are the same in time and they're different sides of the same coin. They're an evangelical grace, but they're twin graces. That is to say, you have to be a believing, repentant person.

You can't be an unrepentant believer or an unbelieving repenter. In time, they happen at the same time. So God regenerates you, makes you alive, makes you born again, causes you to be born again and you respond with repentance and faith, evangelical graces.

We talked about how if I say repent, it means you're believing. If I say believe, it means repenting. I say one, I mean both, Acts chapter 17. The Bible doesn't always say repent and believe. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, Acts chapter 16, and you will be saved.

Meaning if you're trusting in Jesus, you're not thinking about sin the way you used to, that it was just okay, it was messy, it was a boo-boo, it was whatever. So we move now to repentance is the fruit of faith.

Repentance as the Fruit of Faith

Just talking about repentance here on Antinomianism Radio. I have many things to say about that. I'm just trying to bite my tongue right now because I'm meek and gentle. King, how the sovereignty of God changes everything.

This is not about Martin Luther King Jr., nor is it about Christian nationalism. It's about Jesus. On the back here, Todd Friel endorsed it. You're holding what is destined to be one of the worst selling books of all times.

All time. Evangelicals need to read this book. There we go. Repentance is the fruit of faith. So remember what we talked about last time? That in time, repentance and faith happen at the same time. It's a repentant faith.

It's a faith that's repentant. But theologically, is there an order? Just like with regeneration, proceeding faith theologically in nature, in theology talk, in logic, but in time, there at the same time, you have a regenerate believer.

You don't have an unregenerate believer or an unbelieving regenerate. So we look at things in time. We look at things theologically. And so looking at things theologically, we believe that repentance is the fruit of faith.

Logically, which one comes first? Repentance or faith? Is there a priority? Sinclair Ferguson said, by nature, my hands are full of sin, self, and my own good deeds. However, hands that are full cannot hold onto Christ in faith.

Instead, as they take hold of him, they are emptied. So we're looking, and we have sin in our hands that we need to repent of. And as we take hold of Jesus by faith, our hands are empty, Ferguson said.

That which has prevented us from trusting him falls inevitably to the ground. The old way of life cannot be retained in hands that are taking hold of the Savior. There's a theologian named Shedd, W-G-T Shedd, and he talked about how faith precedes repentance.

Quote, though faith and repentance are inseparable, we talked about that, and simultaneous in time, we talked about that, yet in the order of nature or logic or theology, faith precedes repentance. Ferguson talked about Shedd saying, Shedd argued this on the grounds that the motivating power of repentance lies in faith's grasp of the mercy of God.

If repentance were to precede faith, both repentance and faith would be legal in character, and they would become prerequisites for grace. In other words, there has to be something about the person who knows that God loves them, knows that God has mercy, because why would you ever turn from sin unless you knew that God would receive you and have that mercy for you and have that love for you?

This is alluded to in Zechariah 12, verse 10. When they look on me, on whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him. And of course, we know that prophecy was fulfilled when they pierced Jesus' side on Calvary.

Did you notice the order there? When they look on me, faith, on whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him. So faith is primary, fruit comes from that, and that fruit is called repentance. R .L. Dabney, which he's got a really good book on repentance, freemodernism .com.

The convicted sinner cannot exercise tender and affectionate sorrow for sin, which involves a true love to God, until he entertains some hope that God loves him in Christ. How can I turn from sin, knowing that could be forgiven, being sorrowful over it, hating it, abhorring it, unless I know there's mercy to be found as I look to him?

John Cahoon said in that free book on monergism, that's a good site, by the way, a spiritual apprehension of the pardoning mercy of God in Christ is one of the springs of true repentance. Without the exercise of saving faith or the apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, see, he does the same thing.

There may be a sense of sin, but not a true sense. How can you really be hating sin, thinking about sin rightly, sorrowful for sin, direction and change in life because of sin, unless you really, really understand who Jesus is as you turned in by faith.

Without faith in Jesus, it's impossible to please God. And of course, we know repentance is pleasing to God because you're turning to God by faith and that repentance then is a fruit. We're not talking about in time, we're talking about logic.

We're talking about nature as they call it. True or false, without Jesus, you can do nothing. Well, that's true because it's John chapter 15, verse five. Faith's fruit is repentance. Now, think through this a little bit.

The five solas of the Reformation, sola homeschula, sola. So, there's some other ones in there somewhere, but sola fide or sola repentance. Why is it sola fide? You know what, that's the sixth sola of the Reformation.

I was trying to think of the other one and it just popped into my mind. It has been said, Mario, interestingly, that one of the things that was recovered in the Reformation was a husband and a wife together in marriage.

And it wasn't somehow celibacy was the key. Celibacy meant you were more godly. Priest had to be celibate, you know, couldn't get married and have children and all that stuff. And the Reformation recovered the scriptures.

And in the scripture, God does call some people to be single, but most people he doesn't call to be single. And so, he's given them an opportunity to get married and to have a wife or to have a husband and to have children and to have just a companion and a friend and someone that just will be with you till death do you part and all the different ways you could be together.

And that is a Reformation recovery. And so, we've got the five solas of the Reformation, sola scriptura, sola fide, sola Christus, sola gratia, sola dea gloria, sola homeschula, sola spousa. Seven we now have.

But we would all say sola fide, it's by faith alone. Because faith, we think about the object of faith. Yes, we're believing, yes, but the focus is on the object, Jesus. And the focus of repentance is us turning from sin.

So, we wanna make sure when it comes to priority, when it comes to not having some legal character, some prerequisite, you have to repent in order to come to Christ. You have to stop sinning in order to come to Christ.

You have to be sorrowful for your sins in order to come to Christ. No, it's a free offer of the gospel. Freely come, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. And by the way, in time, you'll be repentant. But in the order of things, it will flow from faith.

It will flow from looking at who Jesus is. John Cahoon said that again. He said, the exercise of true repentance flows in an eminent degree from a deep and effective meditation on the doleful anguish and amazing death of the Lord Jesus, our adorable surety.

When we seriously consider who he was, for whom he suffered and what he endured, we cannot but perceive God's infinite and irreconcilable abhorrence of all iniquity. In other words, you see this God-man who loved you in such a way, and you're just gonna say, you know what?

Of course, I need to get rid of my sins. Sinclair Ferguson talks about this, and he'll talk about faith is the root and repentance is the fruit. Faith is the root and repentance is the fruit. Faith receives Christ and all his righteousness, and repentance flows out of that union with Christ and says no to sin and turns to God.

The solution that we tell people to their problems if they're an unbeliever is not to try harder to repent. We tell the unbelievers to what? To look to the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. Trust in him, and as you trust in him, repentance will happen, it will grow, it will mature.

In what we call the order of salvation, the ordo salutis, faith precedes repentance. Faith grabs hold of Christ and that empty hand, monergism says, stretched out to receive the free gift of righteousness at that very moment coming to Christ is already by the Spirit's regenerating work, a desire to be free from sin, and that is repentance.

So today on No Compromise Radio, we're talking about something that's a little headier, but it's repentance is the fruit of faith. In time, they happen at the same time. In logic, in nature, in theology, faith comes first.

Our London Baptist Confession, 1689, hints at this. It's talking about repentance and being given faith in Christ humbles himself over his sin. So you're given faith and immediately begin to repent upon the apprehension of his mercy in Christ, Westminster Confession.

Of course, repentance is mandatory. Of course, faith is mandatory. You say, well, why is it sometimes then in scripture, it says, repent and believe, it puts repentance first. John Cahoon says, repentance is indeed in scripture placed sometimes before faith, but the reason seems to be that repentance is the end and faith is the means of attaining to that end.

The end is first in attention and therefore is mentioned first, but the means are first in practice. To be clear, repentance is not meritorious. That's where we're going with all this. If you don't care about repentance is the fruit of faith and you don't wanna argue that way and you think logic, experience, nature, theology, if you just say to yourself, my repentance doesn't merit salvation, I'll be fine.

I'll be happy. I'll be very, very happy because we do not forsake sin. In order to come to Christ. That's the marrow controversy, right? Does a person have to say no to sin in order to come to Christ?

Do you have to clean up your life first in order to get saved? Someone comes to you and says, I'm struggling with a sin. I'm homosexual, I'm fornicating, I'm a drunkard, whatever it is, and I've tried to stop, but I just can't stop.

Do I have to stop sinning, Pastor Mike, in order to come to Christ? What would I say? Well, I would say, flee to Christ by faith right now, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. And then you will have the power by the Spirit, the Spirit's indwelling power to say no to all those sins.

How do you have the power to say no to sin without Jesus and being united to Him? And how are you united to Him? By having faith in Him. We never say, I've cleaned myself up, please accept me, because we could never clean ourselves up.

I've repented adequately enough, therefore save me. He's called a savior for a reason. He saves people. Cahun said, quoting invitations of the gospel are these, let him who is thirsty come, whoever will, let him take the water of life freely, Revelation 22.

Believe, come, buy, eat, come buy wine and milk without money and without price, Isaiah chapter 55. Yes, repentance is mandatory because there has to be a turning of sin, but it doesn't function as the atonement.

Remember Horatius Bonar, he would say things like this. Faith wasn't born in Bethlehem. Faith didn't live a perfect life. Faith wasn't baptized by John the Baptist. Faith didn't die on the cross. Faith wasn't raised from the dead.

So now let's flip that around with repentance. It's the same thing. Did repentance die on the cross? Did repentance, was it buried? Was it raised from the dead? Is it, did repentance ascend into heaven?

No, repentance is mandatory, but it's not meritorious. And you're like, okay, I've just got to work through all this stuff. It is proper for Jesus to say, if you don't have repentance, you're going to perish.

He did not say, unless you clean up yourself and repent by yourself and then come to Christ, you'll perish. He just saying, without having repentance, you'll perish. Without having the fruit of salvation, without having God work in your life, you'll perish.

Let's make it really easy, super simple. When Jesus said, you must be born again, or you won't see the kingdom of heaven. It's a statement. It's not even a command in the original. It's a statement. Unless you're born again, you don't go to heaven.

Unless you repent, you don't go to heaven. Unless there's repentance, you don't go to heaven. He's not talking about the order. He's not talking about, well, you don't have to believe or anything else.

No, no, it's just a fact. Unless there's repentance in your life, unless there's a fruit of faith, unless there's a fruit of conversion, unless there's a fruit of the regenerating work of the spirit of God, you're not going to heaven.

Because guess what? All born again people repent. All people that trust in Jesus repent. All people that are united to Jesus repent. I'm just saying it's not front loaded so that people say, when you tell me repent and believe, I've got to clean up my life in order to be saved.

That is not true. Repentance, Dabney said, is proper, but it cannot recall the past or undo that which is done. You're like, oh, wait, did I get that right? Think about it. It's like, oh, how do I repent unless I'm able to repent?

This goes back to, I tell people to repent, but it's also a gift. You have to be in a state of grace. You have to be united to Christ. You have to be born again in order to do anything. This is a consequence of grace.

Jesus saves. No one's saved without repentance, but it's not the cause of salvation. No one is saved without being repentant, but it's not the cause of salvation. Jesus alone is the cause of salvation.

You come to Christ as you are, and through union with Jesus, you repent. Apart from repentance, you're going to perish, so come now by faith. John Cahoon, do you postpone the act of trusting in the Lord Jesus for all his salvation till you first sit down and mourn a while for your sins, or till your heart be so humbled that you may be welcomed to him?

In other words, think about it. If you have to repent in order to come to Christ, if you have to forsake sin in order to come to Christ, how much do I have to hate my sin? How long shall I hate my sin?

To what degree do I have to just go over and over and over all these things and say, you know what? Am I humble enough? Am I sorrowful enough? Am I shameful enough? Am I confessing enough? Quit it. Just come to Christ.

Believe. And all those things will take care of themselves. Lastly, on No Compromise Radio today, repentance bears fruit. Repentance bears fruit. Now, some people in the easy believism camp just say you're a Christian and there's no fruit.

We know that's false. Repentance bears fruit. I don't wanna have repentance meritorious and flip to the other side of legalism, but I also want to say that when someone truly believes, there's going to be repentance.

Therefore, if you have no repentance, you have no faith. And if you have no faith, you have no union with Jesus. Repentance produces fruit. Repentance produces a change in your life. If there's no change, then there's no change, my friend used to say.

If there's no change in your life, there's no change in your status before God because Jesus has given to you as a whole Christ, Christ for pardon, justification, Christ for us, Christ for power, spirit dwelling in us so we can say no to sin.

If God plants a seed, I wonder if it'll grow. The answer is yes, it will. Repentance is evidence and fruit. Repentance is evidence and fruit. Did you get that? Repentance is evidence and fruit. It's not the root, it doesn't cause.

Listen to what Westminster Confession says in chapter 16 of Good Works. These good works, repentant works, done in obedience to God's commands are fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith. By the way, why do we do good works?

We usually say guilt, grace, gratitude, rightfully so from Romans and from Heidelberg Catechism. But this chapter of Good Works in Westminster Confession gives us a few more reasons that are wonderful.

By good works, believers manifest their thankfulness, guilt, grace, gratitude, strengthen their assurance, edify their brethren, adorn their profession of the gospel, stop the mouths of adversaries and glorify God.

Why do you do good works? All those reasons, those are wonderful. So when it comes to fruit, Christians bear fruits of repentance. I think that's actually said by John the Baptist, bring forth fruits of repentance.

So you can look at your life and say, am I a repenter? Do I have certain fruits in my life? What would some of those fruits be? Well, you used to think sin was just bad because of the consequences, now you think sin's bad because it's against a holy God.

Here's a fruit of repentance, another one. I wish I would obey more than I do, right? It's not the perfection of our life, it's the direction and it's the desire. Do you know, even a desire to obey, a striving to obey, a desire to say, you know what?

I wish I would just be a more mature Christian. I wish I would just handle things better. I wish I would just not do what I used to do so often. That's fruit. How about evangelism fruit? How about fruit of one another?

There's all kinds of fruit. I just looked up at Mario. I was gonna say something else, but I bit my tongue. All kinds of diagnostic questions. The true test of repentance is fruitfulness that flows from faith.

So my name is Mike Ebenroth, this is No Compromise Radio Ministry. I want you to know that if you study a chapter on repentance in the Bible, a good one to study is Luke chapter 13. The whole thing is about repentance.

And then Israel doesn't have any repentance. They don't have any fruit of repentance. And then you want to know what fruit of no repentance looks like? Jesus can go to a synagogue and a lady could be hunched over for 18 years and he heals her on the Sabbath.

And they say, you shouldn't be doing that. That's a fruit of unrepentance, is what that is. By the way, Spurgeon said of that lady that was bent over like that for 18 years, she walked around like she was looking for her grave.

And so you see Jesus do a work in someone's life and you're thrilled. That's a fruit of repentance. You've got a friend, you've got a child, you have a spouse and they come to faith in Christ Jesus and you have so much joy and happiness and you're so glad.

That's a fruit of repentance, thinking rightly about sin and thinking rightly about the sin bearer. Well, I wish I had another email, Mario, as we land the plane here to talk about how great we are. Meekness, gentleness, hilarious, but I don't have those.

In all seriousness, if you want to write us, mike at nocompromisedradio .com. Appreciate Mario's work behind the scenes. Some of you have even said we were glad that he did the show with you, Mike, so we could hear the testimony about what has happened in his life by the Lord's marvelous grace.

By the way, speaking of guests, I did record audio only of my future son-in-law, Dawson Driscoll, and we're going to talk about, or we did talk about how do you win a girl in a godly way? How do you win her dad and mom and sisters and brother and friends and people at church?

He flew out here two weeks ago and asked me for my permission. It's a real question, may I marry your daughter? It was a real answer that I gave him, and I guess you're going to have to find out what the answer was next time you tune in to No Compromised Radio.

See you then.