Excuses for Putting Off Repentace

After giving some introductory examples of what repentance is not, Davies lays out these points. First, repentance extends to the heart as well as the practice. Repentance includes a deep sense of the evil of sin and sorrow for it because it is against God.

Repentance extends to all known sins without exception. Repentance always includes reformation. And repentance implies a believing application to God for pardon only through Jesus Christ. And of course he gives some remarks and applications.

So a couple of matters even before we get to that. The verse he uses to guide his sermon is Acts 17 verse 30 where Paul writes,. And the times of this ignorance, speaking of humanity,. And the times of this ignorance God winked at,.

But now commandeth all men everywhere to repent. So now, some translations say now is the time. And all men everywhere. So two big issues. What the sermon's talking about, based on what Paul says in Acts, this theme of repentance is one that is for all man and it's urgent now.

Um, so, you know, sometimes in dealing with souls, especially in a church setting, you know, we do find people that would make excuses for putting off repentance. It's not that big a deal. Or maybe it's not a big deal for me.

Maybe I'm not owing God repentance. So, I mean, Chuck, what do you think would be some of the things that people would use as an excuse saying, well, I don't have to repent? At all or now? Either. Yeah, or just, you know, whatever they're using as a delay mechanism.

Some people, you know, there's time. I'm young and I'll do it later. Yeah, I will live for myself now, but then I'll serve God. That's one.

Yeah, and he mentions here that it's because the gospel has come that now it's so urgent. Later he says it's even more inexcusable than it was before. You know, before the cross of Jesus Christ, to reject God's command to turn to him was a terrible thing.

But after the cross, it's even more terrible. And I think that we would probably, human nature is that we would think of it the exact opposite way. Well, because of the cross, I have all the time in the world I want.

You know, I'll come to him when I'm good and ready. But the door's open. And so what a clever ploy of the enemy to use the kindness and the patience of God as motivation for us to ignore Paul's statement that now, now is the time to repent.

But on the other issue of, you know, it applying to every single person, we have found sometimes in the church setting, especially as people begin to understand the sovereignty of God, that they will abuse that truth and say, well, I don't know that this really applies to me because I don't know if I'm one of those elect people.

So it's always good to remind ourselves that the foundation of this command is never election. God doesn't say anything about, well, if I've chosen you, you should repent. But all men everywhere, oh God, repentance.

And the foundation of this is not the degree of sin that we've committed. So we're not saying, if you've committed really heinous sins, really, really embarrassingly life-destroying sins, or if you've committed sins for long enough, then you really need to repent.

But those that have just kind of played around on the edge of sin, well, it's not as important. The foundation for the command is the character of God. He's holy and that he calls us to himself. And even in the gospel, Christ brings us to God.

It is simply impossible to imagine a response that's appropriate that doesn't turn away from these things as we're turning to a holy God. So we would say that this is an essential response, not meritorious.

You're not earning the invitation to come, but there is no other way to respond without turning to him in faith and repentance and turning away from the emptiness and the lies that we once lived for.