The ABC's of the Christian Life (2): Coming to Christ for Salvation (2)

Today is a little different than what we normally do.

Rather than giving an exposition of a passage, we're going to hit on quite a few verses.

But I thought it appropriate to begin here in what is referred to as the beginning of the

Gospel.

So this is Mark 1 -15, and we have in this

passage an emphasis that the Gospel is the good news of the

arrival of the promised Kingdom of God through Jesus Christ,

and that it calls for repentance and faith in this Gospel.

And so Mark chapter 1, we have both John the Baptist and the Lord Jesus commanding people to

repent of their sins and believe the Gospel.

In the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, as it is written in

the Prophets, Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way

before you, the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths

straight.

John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the

remission of sins.

And then all the land of Judea and those from Jerusalem went out to him and were all baptized by him in the

Jordan River, confessing their sins.

Now John was clothed with camel's hair and with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild

honey.

And he preached, saying, There comes one after me who is mightier than I, whose sandal strap I am not worthy

to stoop down and loose.

I indeed baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

It came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in

the Jordan.

And immediately coming up from the water, he saw the heavens parting and the Spirit descending upon him like a dove.

And then a voice came from heaven, You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

Immediately the Spirit drove him into the wilderness.

And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan, and was with the wild

beasts and the angels ministered to him.

Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God,

saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand.

Repent and believe in the gospel.

So that was the substance of our Lord's message.

It was the substance of John's Baptist message.

It was the good news of the arrival of the kingdom of God.

And in response to this good news, people were to repent of their sin and believe

all that was involved in this good news.

Now last Lord's Day we began to address this new series that

we're giving attention to toward the end here of the summer months.

We want to address important truths that are in God's word respecting how Christians are to live

within this world.

And of course at the head of this list that we've called the ABCs of the Christian life is

our initially coming to Jesus Christ for salvation.

And that's what we addressed in some detail last Lord's Day.

Based on the passage of John 6, which we considered in some detail last week, we showed that coming to

Christ for salvation involves several matters.

But we first showed what it is not to come to Christ for salvation.

And this is very clear in John 6.

Coming to Christ for salvation does not occur when people only come to Jesus Christ in order for him to

heal them or provide for their daily needs.

The Lord Jesus rebuked the crowds for only coming to him for that purpose.

And so that's clear in what we advocated last week.

It's a sad thing, but that's the kind of gospel that's proclaimed all over the world to which people are flocking

to by the millions.

But that's not the gospel of the kingdom.

That's not the gospel that is set forth in the scriptures.

And so we would say that there are many people who claim to have come to Christ, but not as

the crucified, buried, risen, enthroned Savior over all who must be believed upon and obeyed

as Lord over all of life.

Rather, they've really come to the Lord on their terms with expectations that

they preconceived expectations that they are hoping that he will provide for them.

And so we consider the crowds in John 6, those who came to Jesus,

but not because they saw the signs, however, that testified to who he truly was, the Lord from

heaven, but rather they came as Jesus criticized them for coming

because they ate the loaves and were filled.

Our Lord distanced himself from them, telling them they were strangers to him, for he declared

to them that the Father had sent him in order to bring eternal life to his people, not merely an enhanced

temporal life in this world.

And so our Lord rebuked these people who came to him for these lesser reasons, saying to them, do not labor

for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life which the

Son of Man will give you because the Father has set his seal on him.

And so rather than coming to the Lord on our terms to obtain our ends, that's not the kind of gospel we should

proclaim, that's not the kind of converts we should secure.

We showed what it is to truly come to Jesus for salvation, and we set forth a

number of gospel truths.

I'm not going to rehearse those because of the time, they're in your notes last week in some detail, and they're

here as well.

But the point that we were making last week is that if we do come to Christ, it's due to a work of sovereign grace.

Because many people will naturally want to come as these crowds did in John chapter 6,

but nobody will come on the terms that the Lord Jesus set forth unless the

Father draws them, unless the Spirit enables them.

Coming to Jesus Christ for salvation is a result of a divine work of grace,

and we should remember that in the gospel we proclaim.

We're proclaiming a Christ and a coming to Christ that doesn't appeal to

people in the fallen world unless the grace of God is operative in their souls.

And so we showed last week that indeed salvation is of the Lord, as Jonah

records in Jonah 2 .9.

Coming to Jesus Christ for salvation is wholly due to God's grace, even His sovereign grace.

James expressed it this way, of His own will, that is God's own will, He brought us forth

by the word of truth.

Brought us forth means He gave us birth, brought us into spiritual life, and He did so by the word of

truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures, it was God's.

Will.

And apart from God's grace no one could come to Jesus Christ for salvation, Jesus declared that in John 6.

And apart from God's grace no one would come to Jesus Christ, no one could or would, apart from the

grace of God.

But I want to emphasize this truth this morning too, because some people who believe in God's sovereign grace and

salvation are at fault here.

I have to admit when I first came to the doctrines of grace back in 1980, that

I fell into this way of thinking for a time, and the Lord brought it out of me.

Knowledge of man's inability and unwillingness to come to Christ for salvation apart from God's work of grace does not mean,

as some falsely conclude, as some might reason and conclude, that a fallen man does not have the

personal responsibility to come to Jesus.

Christ.

In other words, some Reformed people in their understanding of sovereign grace

become passive.

Well I can't do it, God's got to do it, so I'll just sit back and watch God do His work.

And they don't press the gospel upon people, they don't call people to act,

to repent and believe the gospel.

And what we want to emphasize this morning is that although salvation cannot

happen apart from God's sovereign grace, that does not remove personal responsibility.

For the fact is that no one comes to Jesus Christ for salvation

unless they willingly.

Do so.

And this is not inconsistent in any way whatsoever with the sovereign grace of God.

It's perfectly consistent with the sovereign grace of God.

And therefore we are to appeal to them, we are to plead with them,

we are even to command them to respond to the gospel, as John the Baptist did, as the Lord

Jesus did, repent and believe the gospel.

And so some people think wrongly in this manner.

Since sinners are unable to come to Jesus Christ for salvation, it must be due to God's grace alone.

They're unable apart from God's grace to come.

What's the point of pleading with them or attempting to persuade them to come to Jesus?

If people come to Christ, only come to Him when the sovereign grace of God draws them, why would we

even try to lead them to Christ?

And you can see how debilitating that would be for the work of the gospel

if people didn't have that attitude, or if people had that attitude and had that outlook.

We ought to be compassionate and concerned for the lost.

And we ought to appeal to them, persuade them, urge them, plead with them

to come to salvation in Jesus Christ.

And so it's terribly wrong to have this way of thinking, to be passive and be almost

unconcerned, oh well, it's in God's hands.

Because this really does conflict with the word of God.

It certainly conflicts with the Lord Jesus in His own attitude, in His own concerns and desire for the lost.

He was concerned for the multitudes who were as sheep without a shepherd.

He desired to reveal Himself to them.

And so, emphasizing the responsibility of the individual to

believe the gospel and repent of sin does not conflict, is

not contrary to this idea of sovereign grace in salvation.

And our own Confession of Faith states this.

The Men and Our Men study on Saturday morning, this is the article that we're in right now and the paragraph that we're in, we read it

yesterday morning.

Those whom God hath predestined, destinated unto life, He is pleased in His appointed

and accepted time effectually to call by His Word and Spirit out of that

state of sin and death in which they are by nature to grace and salvation by Jesus

Christ, enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God,

taking away their heart of stone, giving unto them a heart of flesh, renewing their wills, and by

His almighty power determining them to that which is good and effectually drawing them to

Jesus Christ.

And then I embolden, italicize the last clause, yet so as they come most freely,

being made willing by His grace.

And that last statement is very important to underscore.

Well, because this is the case that the Lord brings people to be willing to come to Christ in faith and repentance,

we would argue that we are to instruct, plead, and even command sinners

to come to Jesus Christ for salvation.

And so we're talking about this matter of coming to Christ and it involves, God uses

instruments such as you and me to preach the gospel to them, to tell them

of their great responsibility, to tell them of the great opportunity that's before them,

to plead with them and urge them to be concerned for their souls and to

come to Jesus Christ.

And so let's look at some verses that emphasize the commands that

are given to people to believe the gospel.

And we already read the one at the beginning of Mark's gospel in Mark chapter 1, in

which the Lord Jesus Himself in Galilee came preaching, repent and believe the

gospel, a direct command given to people.

Our Lord Jesus secondly warned His hearers that unless they repent of their sins they would perish, implying

that they would die under the wrath of God.

There was an occasion when some came up and challenged Jesus one day.

Basically I can understand, you know, what they're saying, they're challenging Jesus.

How can you say that God is sovereign when He allows bad things to happen in this way?

They were present at that season, some who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had

mingled with their sacrifices.

Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor was a very cruel despot.

How can you explain this?

How can God allow this to take place, allow this evil man to do this?

Well the Lord Jesus didn't make apologies for God.

He responded and said to them, do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all other Galileans because

they suffered such things?

Many people would conclude that.

I tell you, no, but unless you repent you will all likewise perish.

And so Jesus is telling them of the need to repent, to turn from their sins and to turn

to God.

Well one could reason or justify, you know, God's dealings in allowing

Pilate to do this because Pilate's an evil guy.

But our Lord Himself introduced this second scenario.

For those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, do you think that they were worse sinners than all other men who dwelt

in Jerusalem?

I tell you, no, unless you repent you will all likewise perish.

You can't blame the falling of a tower on an evil despot.

You know, this happened, it would seem to be an act of God.

How can God allow this to happen?

And basically the Lord Jesus makes no apology for God.

He basically says, hey, the same is going to happen to you and worse to you unless you repent.

And so He's commanding people, He's instructing people.

He's making clear to these people they are responsible before God to take

action.

They were to turn from their sins in humble contrition before God.

Thirdly, the Apostle Peter proclaimed to the gathered people on the day of Pentecost that they must repent of

their sins in order to receive the forgiveness of sins.

And so again, sovereign grace and salvation is perfectly consistent with

responsible action on the part of sinners.

And so Peter declared, Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly God has made this Jesus whom you

crucified, both Lord and Christ.

He's the King.

And this means you've been in rebellion to Him, you put Him to death.

Verse 37,.

Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart.

They said to Peter and the rest of the Apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?

See there are things that sinners are supposed to do with view to their salvation.

They're not saved on the merit of doing those things, but they are to do these things because

it's God's command.

If they have faith, they'll do them.

It's a manifestation of faith.

Peter said to them, Repent, let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ with view

to or for the remission of sins.

And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

He commands them to act, to respond in the light of this truth.

Fourthly, we read of the Apostle Paul calling upon the jailer in Philippi to believe on the

Lord Jesus Christ in order to be saved.

You're probably familiar with the account.

Paul and Silas did preach the gospel there in Philippi and seemed to be things

were going well at first, but then there was a reaction.

They were captured, they were jailed, they were beaten, they were

thrown into prison and the jailer was commanded to keep them in their stocks.

We read of that in verses 23 and 24, but verse 25, At midnight, Paul and Silas were

praying and singing hymns to God and the prisoners were listening to them.

Wherever Paul and Silas were, they saw it as an opportunity to preach the gospel and they were doing so in song

here in the prison.

And suddenly there was a great earthquake so that the foundations of the prison were.

Shaken.

Immediately all the doors were opened, everyone's chains were loosed and the keeper of the prison awaking from sleep,

seeing the prison's doors open, supposing the prisoners had fled, drew his sword and was about to kill himself.

If a Roman jailer allowed his prisoners to escape, he would have to suffer

the punishment of those escaped prisoners.

And so he was about to do himself in.

But Paul called with a loud voice saying, Do yourself no harm, for we are all here.

And then he called for a light, ran in, fell down trembling before Paul and Silas, and he brought them out and said, Sirs, what

must I do to be saved?

And so they said to him, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved and your household.

Now some argue if the jailer believes, then his entire family would be

saved because they are all in covenant relationship because of the father's faith.

That's not what the passage is talking about.

I think the context clearly says the entire household believed as the jailer did.

Back then there was a sense of unity in the family where it

would have been very difficult and unusual for the head of the family to embrace something and the

rest of the family not follow suit.

And so when the jailer believed, it would have been appropriate and

commonplace for the household to also believe.

And there's one variant, textual variant, we would acknowledge is reflected in the King James and the New King James

that the entire household believed along with the Philippian.

Jailer.

And so they were all saved wonderfully.

But again, the command was given for the jailer to do something.

You need to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.

Sinners need to be told they need to act.

They need to put their faith in the Lord Jesus.

They need to believe who he is.

He is the Lord.

In the next chapter, the Apostle Paul called upon Gentiles in Athens.

These were pagans up there on Mars Hill.

And he declared that God was commanding all men everywhere to repent.

You know, sometimes we as Christians, I think, wrongly go out and present Jesus almost

like a beggar.

You know, Jesus wants to bless you.

Won't you let him?

And it's like we put the sinner on the throne, you know, who's able to, you know, control

everything.

But the gospel, in another sense, is a command to repent.

God commands everyone everywhere to repent.

And if you don't, you refuse, you're in rebellion against God and you're going to suffer the consequences for

that.

And again, I think some people, because they are so afraid of offending people

and causing them to be turned off to the gospel, are not as direct with the

gospel as they should be.

Paul told these pagans who worshiped idols, God, now God commands, he's put up with

his idolatry long enough that now that Jesus is in throne, God commands all men everywhere

to repent.

And the reason is, he's appointed it a day of judgment.

This King Jesus is going to judge you.

You'd better repent and get right with this God.

In 2 Corinthians 5, I included this passage because here the Apostle Paul wrote of

pleading with people that they be reconciled with God.

And so he wrote, now he's writing to a church here, I understand that.

Now all things are of God who has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ.

He's given us the ministry of reconciliation.

We're reconciling God and sinners who are enmity with one another.

We're bringing peace between them, that we're reconciling them.

We have this ministry of reconciliation that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not

imputing their trespasses against them.

He's committed to us the word of reconciliation.

And then he says, now then we are ambassadors for Christ as though God were pleading through.

Us.

And so depending on the occasion, the situation you're dealing with, sometimes you need to command people

to repent.

Sometimes you persuade them to believe.

And here we see there are occasions when God is pleading and we

implore people, please, you know, for the sake of your own soul,

for the well -being of your eternal soul, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

We're to use every means possible to urge people to willingly embrace

Jesus Christ.

Now we know, again, if somebody responds and they willingly embrace Jesus Christ, it was

because the Father drew him.

It was because the grace of God was operative in his soul, otherwise he wouldn't come.

And so this command, this urging, this imploring for people to believe the gospel

is not inconsistent with the sovereign grace of God.

Now in these verses that we've been considering, we read about believing and we read about

repenting.

And so it's important, again, under this heading of coming to Jesus Christ initially for

salvation that we address this matter of repentance.

And so we're at the top of page five now in your notes.

We're to call people to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, even as we command them to repent of their sins.

In the passage which we read earlier, we read the word repent in several instances.

And so it's important for us to understand the nature of repentance, a lot of confusion about this, even

among supposed evangelicals.

And how repentance relates to saving faith, because repentance seems

to be something that we do turn away from sin and turn unto God.

How is that related to faith and believing on Christ?

Sometimes scripture, sometimes in scripture the command to repent is given in order to.

Be saved.

In other words, the word is not given about faith or believing, but repent in order to obtain the remission of

sins.

In other cases, the sinner is called upon to believe the gospel so as to be saved, like the Philippian jailer.

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.

Not a word about repentance to the Philippian jailer it would seem.

But then there are places in which both the command to repent and to believe are both declared, and that's what we saw in

Mark 1 .15, and that's why I initially chose it.

Jesus went into Galilee after John the Baptist was imprisoned, and he began to repent

and believe the gospel.

So both repentance and faith are linked with one another.

We might say that to repent of sin, turning to the Lord Jesus Christ, is saving faith in action.

It is a demonstration of faith.

It is an act of faith.

Really to have your faith in the Lord Jesus is to obey the Lord Jesus and what he commands.

And so repentance is a manifestation of faith.

People repent of sin because they believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so really in some ways they can be distinguished, believing and repenting, but in other

ways they can be seen as related to one another.

Two sides of the same coin, repent and believe.

Well let's understand a little more clearly this matter of repentance.

What is repentance?

First recognize, and here we are in Roman Catholic New England, first recognize that repentance is not penance.

They sound alike don't they?

And there's a lot of confusion between these two.

I remember a friend of mine, I got to know him over the years, working at a local funeral.

Home.

He's not here any longer.

He oversees a military cemetery.

Nice guy.

And a Roman Catholic fellow, a serviceman, a very fine

man, and a friend.

And we were driving in the Hertz from here to the cemetery.

And he was lamenting the ills of society and how, you know, the Lord needed to turn things.

Around.

What we really need, he says, is a recovery of the idea of penance.

I said, I won't name him, you know, I said, friend, I said, that's not what we need.

We need a recovery of the idea of repentance.

And I went ahead and explained to him that penance is not taught in the scriptures.

It's not repentance.

And yet there's much confusion between this.

People think that when they do penance, they're repenting.

And that is just not the case at all.

And so repentance is not penance.

Repentance is taught everywhere in the Bible.

Penance is taught nowhere in the Bible.

Those who prescribe penance teach their penance is something that a person must do in order to appease God.

Penance is viewed as making satisfaction to God for one's own sin through

the things that he does.

Say, Hail Mary, you know, so many times, go on a pilgrimage, do some good deed

as though you are, you're paying for your sin or for the forgiveness of sin.

But that notion is foreign to the gospel.

It denies the full satisfaction that Jesus Christ provided God when he died upon the

cross for the sins of his people.

Jesus called out from his cross, it is finished.

Those who teach penance say it is not finished.

You must add to Jesus's death on the cross things that you do in order to atone

for your sin.

And so those who teach penance are unbiblical in doing so.

They're declaring that it means a more complete payment of the debt that the sinner owes to

God must be paid.

And so the Bible teaches, the gospel announces that Jesus Christ paid all that was required for

all the sins of his people.

And there is nothing more that you could contribute to it.

And in fact, if you think you're contributing to it, you lose out on the benefit of Christ's.

Death, don't you?

Paul declared in Galatians that you people who think you need to be circumcised plus faith in Christ,

Christ will profit you nothing.

You have to accept the total satisfaction of Jesus Christ's

payment on the cross for your sin.

And so what is repentance?

Well, repentance is simply fully turning oneself from serving sin to submitting to

God and doing his will.

Repentance is turning away from sin and turning onto God.

And so it involves really two actions, turning from sin, but turning onto God.

Repentance is not just turning from sin, but it's turning onto God also.

Let's be a little bit more detailed in this matter, the nature of true repentance.

True repentance includes the following elements.

We're going to have to go through these rather quickly.

With true repentance, there is a real awareness and acknowledgement of personal sin.

Many people, in attempting to present the gospel, try and lead people to see that

they are a sinner, acknowledge they are a sinner.

I used to do it when I was a young man.

I was told this is how you win people to Christ.

Romans 3 .23, for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

Are you a sinner?

Well, yeah, I've sinned like everybody else has.

As though that qualifies the person or that person now is suitable to understand what it is to

repent and believe the gospel.

But repentance involves an awareness of personal sin.

It's me.

It's my sin that I have to deal with.

My sin.

My sin, Lord.

Psalm 51 and David's confession is a good illustration of that principle.

Secondly, with true repentance, there's a sense of one's guilt because of sin.

Many times, I've seen it through the years, some husband gets

caught doing immoral things, violating his marriage and his wife, and

he's ashamed of it because he's been caught.

And then the pastor brings him into his office, and the man is

ashamed of it.

But he's just been ashamed because he's been caught.

He doesn't really sense great guilt for it.

And yet, that man in that kind of broken condition is led, supposedly,

to make a profession of faith in Jesus Christ.

And I've seen it a number of times over the years, false professions gained quite easily through

this false means of evangelism.

Now, there has to be a sense of guilt over one's sin.

That is, when a man truly repents of his sin, he feels the just condemnation for

his sin.

And when the Holy Spirit convicts of sin, a person comes to the point where he says, how can God forgive

me?

I am guilty.

Well, that's a sign of the work of God's grace when they become aware of

their guilt.

He doesn't see his sin as a minor matter, but a terrible affront to God's law that warrants

condemnation.

I don't deserve any mercy, any favor whatsoever.

If it comes to me, it must be through the free and voluntary exercise of God's mercy.

And he's free to bestow it, but he's not under obligation to do so.

I am guilty.

And that's the attitude of a true repentant.

Thirdly, with true repentance, there's a sense of shame due to sin.

And shame is a little different than guilt.

Guilt is a sense of one's condemnation.

Shame is a feeling of utter disgrace due to sin.

And we ought to have a sense of disgrace about sin.

There are some who teach that you should never experience shame or guilt, and that when you preach the gospel and

bring people to Christ, that you don't bring people to experience that shame.

But I don't see that in the scriptures.

If you've not experienced a sense of guilt, in other words, just condemnation, and a sense of shame concerning

your sin, perhaps you haven't received the forgiveness of sins.

Sin is a shameful thing.

Adam and Eve sensed their great shame, their nakedness, and they ran and hid from God.

And when we repent of sin, we see ourselves in that sense.

We're ashamed.

And then, certainly, with true repentance, there's a sorrow over personal sin.

It's an inward sorrow, a remorse for having committed it.

And this is in contrast to a sorrow or fear merely for its consequences.

So parents say, when your little child sins and he's sorrowful before you, that's good, but that's not good enough.

Direct him to have sorrow before God.

That should be our aim.

And that should be the aim for ourselves.

The sorrow is not simply a sorrow for having committed the sin itself, but it's a sorrow before God.

And when one repents, it's God whom he has offended, and he's sorry for it.

And then, fifthly, with true repentance, there's a desire and effort toward restitution, if that's possible.

How can I undo the great harm I've done, the great offense?

And Zacchaeus is such a, one of my favorite stories in the scriptures, a little offensive,

you know, despicable Zacchaeus, we read of his commitment

to the Lord when the Lord showed mercy.

Come on down from that tree, Zacchaeus, I'm going to have lunch with you.

And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, look, Lord.

And what's so impressive about this is Zacchaeus, before the crowds, he didn't wait to tell Jesus in secret when he was in

the house eating with him, but Zacchaeus announces this before the crowds.

I give half of my goods to the poor, see, he was a dishonest man, he was a tax collector who

oppressed his people.

And if I've taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore four full.

He had been a thief, oppressed the people, and now he would undo what he had

done.

And that's how true repentance is evident.

If I can fix what I did, I can.

That's not always possible, but if it's possible, we try and do it.

With true repentance, there's certainly a confession of sin.

I've sinned.

It's an owning of personal responsibility.

He doesn't lessen his guilt.

If it were possible, it's not.

He would magnify his guilt, because he sees again, well, Zacchaeus again,

he stood and confessed his sin to Christ in the hearing of others, and by the way, he wasn't just

restoring what he had taken, he was acknowledging that he was basically like a rustler under the Old

Testament law, I'll restore four times what I've taken.

He was aggravating, if possible, his sin, and would make restitution, he

confessed it.

And with true repentance, there's confession of specific sin.

Yes, there's a recognition of pervasive sin, I am a sinner, but there are many times it's

a specific sin that God drives home in order to bring people to salvation in Jesus

Christ.

The gravity of one sin will sometimes bring a person to true

repentance, because he sees in that sin that it's pervasive.

And then eighth, with true repentance, there is a hatred of sin in all its forms, wherever it's detected.

The non -Christian may grieve over certain sins, but you notice it's usually sins out there, sins of

others, sins of the world that he detests, that cause him disgust, but he doesn't get so upset with

the sin in here.

Well, that's not true of the one who repents.

There is a sense of my sin.

Yes, all sin troubles him, but his own sin troubles him most.

He doesn't justify himself, for we are all somewhat like the immoral woman of

Proverbs, this is the way of an adulterous woman, she eats and wipes her mouth and says, I have

done no wickedness.

Doesn't that sound like the spirit of the world today?

And people justifying their sinful actions.

The repentant person is not like that.

There's something defective about us if we don't hate sin.

Ninth, true repentance.

In true repentance there is a cessation or a turning from sin.

Now this is not the time to speak of sins from which we repent that come back upon us and plague us.

That's a discussion for another time.

And it happens all the time, of course.

It's in the experience of every Christian to one degree or another at one time or another.

But there is a turning from sin.

For the one who repents there truly is a desire, if I could I wouldn't sin again,

if the Lord would enable me.

And then when we do, and we will, we're not happy about it, we wish we hadn't.

And that's the evidence of a person who's been wrought upon by the spirit of God.

And then lastly, with true repentance there's a turning to God and His Son Jesus Christ.

And this is important.

Repentance is not just turning from sin, it's turning unto God.

As the Apostle Paul spoke to the Ephesian elders, how he had

kept back nothing that was helpful.

He proclaimed it to these elders and taught them publicly from house to house, testified to Jews,

also the Greeks, repentance toward God.

See, it's repentance from sin, but it's toward God, and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ.

So these are basic elements, I'm sure there's others, this probably isn't a complete list, but you get an

idea.

This is what, if you've experienced true repentance, these things will resonate with you.

This is how you think, and this is how you feel, or at least you know this is how you should feel,

should think, because the Lord has wrought this within your soul.

There's a false repentance, however, and there is, in the King James language,

and Spurgeon used to talk about it all the time, there is a repentance that needs repented of.

And it's a reference to 2 Corinthians chapter 7, a false repentance,

that some people think they have repented, in reality, they have not.

In some ways it looks like true repentance, but it falls short.

And so let's just describe what false repentance may look like.

First, false repentance is selective in what sins it forsakes.

The scriptures describe even King Herod, he's the one who had John the Baptist beheaded.

Herod, King Herod, heard John gladly and did many things.

There are people who come to church and hear God's word gladly, and they might even do.

Many things.

Have they advanced beyond Herod?

Simon Magus would turn from magic, but not covetousness.

And so false repentance is selective in sins.

I'll repent of this sin, but I'm going to reserve this category of sin for myself.

Carve it out for myself.

By the way, I'm thinking about that man that you're dealing with, helping the wife in this.

Somehow he's walking with the Lord, believes in the Lord, but he's got this area of his life that he thinks

he can reserve and be a Christian.

And that's just not the case.

Secondly, a false repentance will acknowledge wrongdoing, but at the same time justify his action.

You know, when the people of the world sin, I made a mistake, you know, they lessen it,.

Don't they?

But again, when the true Christian repents, he doesn't make any apology, he

acknowledges it, and he's ashamed for it, but he owns up to it.

He's not like King Saul, who would not repent, and a confession had to

be drugged from him.

He sinned against God, and he justified himself to it.

Well, listen, I was in a situation I couldn't do otherwise, implying if you were in

my situation, you'd do the same thing.

And King Saul had not repented, it was partial repentance.

A false repentance is when one turns from sin because it's painful, not because it's sinful.

And there will be people that will turn from sin in a measure because it's brought on them great difficulty or

hardship in life, but it's not because it's sinful against God.

Again, King Saul would be an example, we won't go into detail about that.

False repentance exchanges one sin for another.

Oh, they may repent of immorality, but now they're full of pride, because they beat it,

and so they look down on others.

So false repentance may be discovered if it's only temporary repentance.

True repentance is permanent.

Now, it lapses, you know, they're backsliding on the part of true Christians, but at least

a backslider, there's renewed repentance.

Because repentance is not temporary, it's permanent.

And a false repentance may be discovered if it's only an external repentance, that is, if it's not a

turning of the heart to serve the living God.

And so, repentance is an important matter.

Spurgeon wrote about false repentance, that's a quote at the bottom of page 8, Does repentance make

men hate sin?

They who have a false repentance may detest some crimes.

Does repentance make men resolve that they will not sin?

So will false repentance, for Balaam said, If Beric would give me his house full of silver and gold, I

will not go beyond the word of the Lord.

Yet Balaam was a false prophet, wasn't he?

Does true repentance make men humble themselves?

So does false repentance, for he hath humbled himself before God, and yet he perished.

There is a line of distinction so fine that an eagle's eye hath not seen it, and only God himself,

and the soul which is enlightened with his spirit, can tell whether the repentance be genuine or no.

And sometimes it takes time for these things to shake out, and it

becomes evident.

I gave some words about repentance in the non -Christian, and then I gave some final words about repentance in the

Christian.

You know, it's not just initially repenting of sin, but repentance becomes a way of life, doesn't it?

We are a repenting people, and so we repent weekly, we

sometimes repent daily with matters.

But it's a life of repentance, just as it's a life of faith.

We're always turning from sin, always turning to the Lord.

And this is the nature of the life.

But it happened when we initially came to Christ, and it continues in this

way, in the way that we live.

And so this is what it is to come to Christ.

We believe on the Lord, and we repent of sin, and we follow the Lord.

And next week, after addressing this matter of coming to Christ, we'll have to address

secondly, what it is to follow Christ, and how that is to be

done.

Let's pray.

Thank you, Father.

As we deal with these very basic matters, we pray, Lord, that you would help correct

maybe some misunderstandings.

May you inform us, Lord, perhaps where we were uninformed.

May you reinforce us, our Lord, in matters that should be kept to the

forefront of our.

Souls.

Help us, our Lord, to be genuinely concerned and passionate about speaking to others about.

Their souls.

And may you bless our efforts, Lord, to proclaim the gospel.

May you summon many, our Father, call many to salvation, to faith in Jesus

Christ, in whose name we pray, amen.