Repentance (Part 2)

Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr.

Mike Abendroth. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the

Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the scriptures, verse by verse, with No Compromise.

2 Corinthians chapter 7, sorrow that produces repentance.

You come to the side of your sin like the prodigal son when he came to his senses and then you realized, it's not that I'm sinning and going to hell, it's

I'm sinning against this great God. I've offended this God. It's holy agony,

Thomas Watson calls it. Sorrow is good but it leads to repentance.

Repentance. Watson says people have four qualities in their tears, they're moist, salty, hot, and bitter.

Watson said it's true of repenting tears, they are hot to warm a frozen conscience, moist to soften a hard heart, salty to season a soul putrefying in sin, bitter to wean us from the love of the world.

And then Watson says when you repent, you see your sin, you're sorrowful over it and then you confess, you say the same thing as God.

What's confession? I agree with you God, the way you see sin, I see sin. The way you see holiness,

I see holiness. Turn your Bible if you would to Ezra please, chapter 9. There's something else that the world discounts but the

Bible shows as a wonderful fruit that goes along with repentance and that is shame.

Shame for sins. Don't shame children, don't shame students, don't shame anyone.

The response to our sin should be shame. That's part of repentance.

I'd rather be ashamed of my sin now not as it's coming the second time. Ezra chapter 9 verse 5, the

NAS says, having Ezra say this, Ezra 9 5, but at the evening offering

I arose from my humiliation even with my garment and my robe torn. Those are the external things that the

Jewish culture did to show repentance and sorrow. And I fell on my knees, I stretched out my hands to the

Lord my God. I said, oh my God, I'm ashamed and embarrassed to lift up my face to Thee.

That's part of repentance. Shame. We're the people like that today. I'm ashamed and embarrassed, my

God, for our iniquities have risen above our heads. It's like we're drowning in them and our guilt has grown even to the heaven.

And then when you think about your sins like that, then that final component, Watson says, you'll turn from your sins and bring forth fruits keeping with repentance.

Luke 3, John the Baptist, Matthew 3, therefore bring forth fruit in keeping with repentance.

John Murray said, repentance, there's four things involved. It's a change of mind, respecting

God, two, respecting ourselves, three, respecting sin, four, respecting righteousness.

And if you think differently like that, your change in your life will show itself.

Luther's thesis, number three out of 95, Wittenberg door, yet its meaning, repentance is not restricted to repentance in one's heart, for such repentance is null unless it produces outward signs in various mortifications of the flesh, or you flee fornication, you flee idolatry, you flee the love of money, and you pursue righteousness, faith, and love, 2

Timothy 2. Number three, biblical repentance has been damaged by being included in the gospel.

It's been damaged by being included in the gospel. Please turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 15 if you would.

Is repentance part of the gospel, strictly speaking? And I think the answer is an obvious no.

We have a gift, we have a promise, and the response to that is repentance. The response is a demand, the response is a command, but the gospel means good news, and there's nothing good news about me trying to repent of my sins.

The good news is Jesus died on behalf of sinners for you, like you rather. Let's look at this passage right here, 1

Corinthians chapter 15, verses 1 through 5. Maybe the most wonderful definition of the gospel in all of Scripture, 1

Corinthians chapter 15. Now, I want to remind you, chapter 15, verse 1, brothers, of the gospel

I preached to you, which you received and which you stand, this great good news.

And by which you are being saved, not only saves, it sanctifies. If you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain, there is a kind of faith in God that's in vain.

For I deliver to you, this is technical language, I'm going to give you some important document. This is notary kind of language.

As of first importance, everything in the Bible is important, this is at the top of the list. You get the gospel wrong, everything else is damaged.

And that's something I received, by the way, that Christ, the Messiah, the

Old Testament anointed King, the Holy One, died, not for His sins,

He was virgin born, He didn't die, He didn't sin. For our sins, that is what kind of language?

Substitutionary atonement language. There's a penalty for sin breaking, Jesus pays the penalty in our behalf.

He died for our sins, and it's all over the Scriptures, including the Old Testament. In accordance with the

Scriptures, that He was buried, it was a real death, and He was raised on the third day, in accordance with the

Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve. So, when

I heard that guy in Dublin, on a little soapbox, preaching the gospel, I've told you the story before, but it's illustrative of this point, and he was saying, repent, turn or burn, flee from the wrath to come.

I was happy that he was saying Bible things. You would probably be happy too. I mean, I wasn't there for ministry,

I was there, you know, shopping for sunglasses or something. So, who am I to say? But I thought, you know what,

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. The gospel, and the response to the gospel.

Law and the gospel. Demands of the gospel, gifts of the gospel. Gospel being good news, and my responding to the good news, something completely different.

And so, I said to him, I went up to him, he had kind of like a bodyguard next to him, and I made it over to the other side.

And I just put my head like this, sheepishly, because I wasn't trying to challenge him. And I said, don't forget to tell people the good news about Jesus died on the cross, was raised from the dead.

And then I just walked off. And as I walked through, I mean, there was a thousand people there. They weren't all listening, but he was in the middle of a thousand people.

And then he got it, because we're so, we live in such a works world, that sometimes even that's what we only preach, is the law, and are the demands of God.

And he said, Jesus Christ died on the cross for sinners like you.

And in light of that, you must repent of your sins and believe on the risen Savior. I didn't do that with my arms, but I did that in my heart.

Of course, Jesus didn't come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. But friends, what

I'm trying to remind you of is the gospel is good news. And the response to the gospel is necessary.

It's mandatory, but it's not to be confused. Herman Bobnick said, Herman Bobnick, strictly speaking, there are no demands and conditions in the gospel, but only promises and gifts.

Faith and repentance are as much benefits of the covenant of grace as justification. So, when you preach the gospel, and you tell them about what

Jesus did, these indicatives, of course, the response for them is repentance and faith.

But don't forget about the indicatives, because if you just tell people, stop sinning, change your mind, don't do that anymore, there's nothing there that can save them, because that's not the gospel.

That's a response to the gospel. That's a law that proceeds from God's holiness to make them think they need the gospel.

This next Saturday, I go to the Cape, and I'm going to sit on an ordination council. And I'm going to ask a pastor some questions, and then watch him squirm.

Now, I'm going to tell you the answer to this one question I'm going to ask him now, and it'll help you realize grace, response, indicatives, imperatives, law, gospel.

I'm going to ask him this question, and I'm going to say, will you affirm this statement, or will you deny it? I'll be nicer than that, but that's my preaching voice.

And I might even write it out so he can see it, because even as Thomas Boston said, it's a little difficult in its wording.

For you grammarians, you'll quickly catch that. So I'll say it a couple times, but I want to know, is this sound or not?

Is this biblical or not? And remember, my whole point here is that you understand repentance, so much so that you see grace as pure grace, sovereign grace, amazing grace, and you never let grace and works mix themselves together.

That's what I'm after. Here's the question I'm going to ask him. Could you affirm this statement? And it's known as the

Octorarter Creed, 1717, Scottish Presbyterian, Church of Scotland.

And it was asked, by the way, to William Craig, the presbytery of Octorarter. It is not sound, okay?

It's not sound and orthodox to teach. So this isn't sound and orthodox to teach this following.

It's not sound and not orthodox to teach the following. We must forsake sin in order to our coming to Christ.

Would you affirm the statement or would you deny it? It is not sound and orthodox to teach.

It's wrong to teach. You've got to forsake sin in order to our coming to Christ. They asked that of William Craig, 1717.

He would not affirm it. And this actually, this creed was condemned later by the

General Assembly of the Church of Scotland as unsound and detestable. But there were some other men that said, listen, we've got two camps here.

The Merrow Men. Don't you like that for a name, by the way, the Merrow Men? The heart of the gospel, the

Merrow. I think that's a new discipleship group that I've got with the men, the Merrow Men.

I'm not kidding. That's such a good name. The Merrow Men and the

Neonomians kind of sounds like a spooky trilogy. The Merrow Men and the

Neonomians. Like, well, what does this matter? Well, when you see something in a historical context, it helps you hang your your thoughts on that.

And then you remember, just like when you study the downgrade controversy with Spurgeon, you go, now I get it. The Merrow Men, 12 men standing in front of everybody else in the assembly.

Thomas Boston was one of the men. Ebenezer Erskine. Anybody named Ebenezer is all right by me.

And Ebenezer's brother, Ralph Erskine. They said it's poorly worded, but it's true.

It is not sound and orthodox to teach that we must forsake sin in order to come into Christ. And the

Neonomians said it is sound. What's Neonomian mean?

It means new law. So now we've got a new law. If you want to come to Jesus, you've got to repent first so that he can save you.

The Merrow Men said, no, there is no necessity to forsake sin in and of yourself before you are united to Christ.

What power do you have? People are dead in trespasses and sins. And you say, you know what?

All right, now your friend comes to you and say, I'm just I've had people do this to me before. They've come to my house in the middle of the night back in California.

I'm enslaved to sin. I know I'm going to go to hell if I die today. And I know I'm not forgiven.

I want to be forgiven. What do I need to do? Panic stricken. I know I'm going to go to hell.

I'm positive. I could die at any time. My life's a vapor and I just can't stop sinning.

What do I tell him? What would you tell him? I'm enslaved to sin. What do I do?

Friends, now let's think big picture for a second. Salvation is from the Lord. Salvation is of the

Lord. Salvation is all of God's work from the beginning to the end.

He's the alpha and the omega. He's the author. He's the finisher. When you get down on your knees and thank

God for your salvation, do you say, God, I'm so glad you did 99 percent of it. And and I'm just I'm just going to keep that one little bit of repentance for me.

I repented. Why are you different than your loved ones who aren't saved? Because you repented of your own strength.

Must a person forsake his sins in order to come to Christ? Now, most of the time my friends don't say, do

I have to stop sinning so I'm made savable? That's not what they say. They say, what must

I do to be saved? I can certainly tell them, believe, repent, trust, follow.

After I've told them the good news, I can say all that. I must say all that. But if the technical question is, do

I have to stop sinning to make myself savable? The answer is you can't, but you must.

Can anyone stop sinning when they're not united to Christ? Thomas Boston said it is impossible for any to forsake their sins until the spirit has determined him to come to Christ as prince and savior, exalted to give repentance and remission of sins.

Which comes first, grace or repentance? Which comes first, union with Christ or belief?

And the Neonomians said, repentance comes first because I'm responsible to do it.

It must come first. And the Meromans said, you're destroying grace. We will not.

We must not. Is repentance a cause of grace? Is belief the key that unlocks grace?

No, it's the response of grace. It's the response of God's sovereign grace.

Your penitence doesn't save you, friends. Your belief doesn't save you. Repentance didn't die on a cross and neither did belief.

If your repentance could save you, then Jesus was killed horribly and without purpose.

Now, here's how we solve this conundrum in our mind to make sure we don't offer a conditional offer of the gospel like these

Neonomians, a new law. I don't have a new law for people. Stop sinning, make yourself clean, then

God could save you. Instead of a condition that you fulfill, I wanted to make it biblical, a means through which

God works. So here's how we solve the problem. I hope you're listening. Before the fall, Adam was supposed to tend the garden.

He was responsible to do it. It was his pleasure. And could he do it? Could he garden, tend, cultivate, be fruitful, multiply?

He could do all that God asked. True? Yes. After the fall, God said, you know what?

You're a slave to sin now, Adam. You're spiritually dead. And I know you can't do these things I ask anymore, so I'm going to change my laws for you.

And my law is no longer a reflection of my holy nature. It's just abandoned. So you just do whatever you can't do, which is nothing.

You don't have to do anything because I've removed my laws now. No. God's holy standard stays the same because he is immutably holy, always holy, perfectly holy.

But now man has fallen. He can't do anything. Eve couldn't do anything either.

But God's commands are still here. They didn't change. So after the fall, man is responsible, but he's not what?

Able. So here's how we all unlock this whole thing. Repentance is both a command and it's a gift.

Someone says I'm enslaved to sin. Must I stop in order for God to save me?

What do you tell them? I can't stop. I'm enslaved to sin. What do you tell them? Just pretend like we're in the

South for a second. What do you tell them? Okay, who said that? Raise your hand.

Thank you. That's just earned you heaven. I tell them to do what they can't do.

So here's what I'm thinking. You must repent. You must be born again. You must believe on the

Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. Simultaneously, my mouth is doing that and my brain is going,

God, give them the faith. God, give them the repentance. They can't do it on their own. If the person asks, and I doubt they ever will.

If they say, according to the Octorotor Creed in 1717, must I stop sinning so that God could save me?

The answer is you can't stop sinning. But the way you're saved is through me preaching the good news to you about who

Jesus is, what he's done, and your response must be repentance and faith.

That's what I say. Their faith, their repentance isn't salvific. Let me show you both the command and the gift of repentance.

Go to Acts chapter 3. We got to wrap this up. Acts chapter 3, 5 and 11. We're going to look at that. And so if you remember that before the fall,

Adam was able and responsible. And after the fall, we with Adam are responsible but not able.

You will understand the conundrum of preaching to pit dead people, even though they can't respond.

Kind of sounds like Ezekiel, doesn't it to you? Go preach to some bones. That's why, by the way, if you're in my

Merriman class, I take you right over here to this cemetery, this Catholic cemetery. You have to open up the Bible and you have to preach to the tombstones.

Why do I make them preach to the tombstones? Well, A, it's memorable. B, my neighbor Phil Philbin over here then asked me questions about it and I get to preach the gospel to him.

But it gives the student this. Unless God attends to his word when I evangelize, nothing's going to happen to the people.

It sounds like, doesn't it to you, Jesus going to the tomb of stinking Lazarus.

King James, he stinketh. And what does Jesus say? Now just wake up so I can save you.

I'll wake up so I can revive you. Wake up so I can resuscitate you. You just make that first little bit.

Lazarus says, Jesus, if I must wake up on my own in order for you to wake me up all the rest of the way, must

I do it? What would you tell him? Jesus would say, Lazarus, arise.

God saves through the preaching of the gospel. That kind of sounds stupid to me. That sounds foolish to me.

That sounds like 1 Corinthians chapter 1 to me, the foolishness of preaching. We tell people to do things they could never do in their entire lives.

But God is often pleased to save through the instrument of preaching. My preaching doesn't save you.

Your repentance doesn't save you. Your belief doesn't save you. But without repentance, there's no forgiveness of sins. Without faith, you can't get to heaven.

It's a command and it's a gift. Take a look, Acts 3, 319. Acts 319, repent therefore and return that your sins may be wiped away in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the

Lord. Everyone here would have to believe that repentance is a command. John the

Baptist, repent. Jesus, repent. Ezekiel, repent. Isaiah, repent.

Jesus, repent. John the Baptist, repent. Peter, repent. Paul, repent. But it's also a gift,

Acts chapter 5. Acts chapter 5, it's a gift. So remember the fall. You can save yourself a lot of theological headaches when you remember the depravity of man and Romans 5 and the fall.

Most people, when they can't understand election, it's because of the fall. They can't understand effectual call, it's because of the fall.

They can't understand repentance. How can it be a gift or responsibility? William Craig, the neonomian, didn't understand the fall.

Acts 5, 31. He is the one whom God exalted to his right hand as a prince and a savior to grant repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.

One last verse, Acts 11, 18. There are more. You could go to 2 Timothy chapter 2. But Acts chapter 11, verse 18.

And when they heard this, see, God doesn't just grant repentance to Israel. I'm glad he grants repentance to Gentiles too.

They quieted down and they glorified God saying, well then, God has granted to the

Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life. Friends, when you have an unbelieving loved one, you pray for their salvation and pray that God grants them repentance.

And then you tell them you must repent. Let me tell you about the Jesus in whom you must look to via repentance and faith.

Repentance is a gift and it's a command. So friends, if you have been made a

Christian, God made you a Christian. He chose you in eternity past.

He had a son die for you at Calvary. The spirit made you born again. And when the spirit united you to Christ, he gave you the gift of repentance and faith.

That's why when you praise God from whom all blessings flow, except for my duty of repentance. No. So if you're a

Christian, when you preach, tell them about Jesus and then tell them you must repent. You must believe and pray simultaneously.

God grant them what they could never do on their own. That's how you save because the fall is real and your grace overpowers the fall.

If you're a Christian, you ought to say, I'm going to heaven because God granted me these things. When's the last time you said,

God, thank you for granting me repentance. And if you're an unbeliever here this morning, you must repent.

Say, well, I'll do it later. Thief on the cross. He repented later. Let me sow my wild oats.

I'll repent later. I've got my own life to live. Dow said, deathbed repentance is burning the candle of life in the service of the devil.

Then blowing the snuff in the face of God. Stern said, whatever stress some may lay upon deathbed repentance.

It is but a weak and slender plank to trust our all upon.

How many deathbed repentances are in the Bible? One. Why only one?

Well, some say it's because we don't want to be presumptuous and say, you know, yeah, people, everybody just dies and on their deathbed and repents.

As Spurgeon said, a little hope have I for deathbed repentance. Never trust them. I beseech thee. My conviction is that they have been very, very, very, very, very, very few.

In fact, I do not remember a case in which the person who recovered has been at all what he said he would be when he thought he was on the borders of the grave.

We read in the cross in the scriptures, only one who was saved at the last, the dying thief on the cross. That's why you shouldn't go any longer without repenting.

We don't want to be presumptuous, but you know, we can be hopeful when we're at the deathbed of a loved one and they have not followed

Christ and they have not believed and you preach the gospel to them. You should be saying to yourself, God, I know you have the power to save on the deathbed because a 70 -year -old life full of nothing but sin can be redeemed because Christ's death is so great.

Venning said, late repentance is seldom true, but true repentance is never too late. And so if you have not repented, you must repent.

I will tomorrow that I will. I will be sure to do it. Tomorrow comes, tomorrow goes, and still you are to do it.

Thus still repentance is deferred from one day to another until the day of death has come and judgment is the other.