Repentance (Samuel Davies) | The Whole Counsel

Welcome back to the Whole Council Podcast. I'm Jon Snyder and I'm with Chuck Baggett, and this week we're looking again at the book

Salvation in Full Color, and we've come to the sermon on repentance, and so far,

I think each week, Chuck, almost every week I think, well, this is my favorite sermon in the book. I mean, we've been through it as a church a couple of times, and I've read through it before that, but really,

I have to say it again, this is probably my favorite sermon so far, and part of it's because of the pastor that preached it,

Samuel Davies. Samuel Davies is considered by some, including

Martin Lloyd -Jones, to be the greatest preacher that America has ever produced. So he didn't say greatest theologian, that might be

Edwards or whoever, but greatest preacher. So able to take these deep truths and speak in a way that the common man is able to understand, and I remember hearing that and then getting the three -volume set of his works.

It used to be Soli Deo Gloria, published those, and we'll see if Teddy can put a link to them in the show notes, but those three volumes, they're not easy to find, but they really are worth it, and I think they've been recently republished.

I remember reading his sermons and finding such a balance in there that—so it was kind of like having all the flame and all the captivating logic of a

Whitfield or a Spurgeon, but also so clearly laid out, it was easy to know the outline.

This is really a very simple and deep sermon, and I think this sermon is particularly helpful for us today on two opposite camps.

One is kind of the sinner's prayer approach, which has recently taken a lot of criticism, and a lot of it should have been criticized, but the idea that just repeat kind of a formulaic prayer, and that's the end of everything, or that that is essentially the beginning of everything, that God just responds to that formula.

One of the things that's wrong with that is that really a repentant heart isn't necessarily part of that, even if you mention repentance.

Are they repenting? Are they turning from and turning to? But I think also the doctrine of repentance is a doctrine that the

Reformed camp has struggled to keep in its proper perspective.

As we have returned to reconsider truths that the

Reformation, you know, unearthed again and brushed off and made brilliant, the doctrine of Christ's sufficiency, salvation by grace through faith, somehow the doctrine of repentance has not kept its appropriate place.

And so we were talking some years back when we looked at the 1689 Confession, so it's the

Baptist version of, you know, of kind of the Westminster Confession, that its statement on repentance was a little weak.

And I don't know, you know, I don't know why that would be, except that perhaps we try to guard the nature of salvation, that it's holy of grace.

So we don't want people to think that repentance is a good work. You know, clean up yourself and come to Jesus.

That's exactly not what we're talking about. You know, in running to Christ, turning to Christ, turn your back on all the empty things.

Samuel Davies does a great job, though, covering the nature of repentance here, so we'll hit that in a minute.

Just a couple of words about Samuel Davies. Other than the fact that he was such an extraordinary preacher, let me read what a man named

Sprague says about him. He said, His glowing zeal, combined with exemplary prudence and an eloquence more impressive and effective than had then perhaps ever graced the

American pulpit, Davies made his way among all classes of people, and was alike acceptable to all, from the most polished gentleman to the most ignorant

American slave. Of course, this is during the time of slavery. A manifest blessing from on high attended his labors, and within about three years from the time of his settlement, and he was, mostly he labored in Virginia with the

Church of England there, after three years of being settled, no less than three hundred had been gathered to the communion of the church.

Then in 1753, he and Gilbert Tennant make a trip from the colonies over to the

UK on behalf of the College of New Jersey, which eventually was renamed Princeton.

Princeton needed funds. Princeton began as a very evangelical effort, and so as Harvard and Yale were kind of slipping,

Princeton was established, and so these men sent evangelical ministers to go to England and to talk to the churches there from the

Great Awakening who would support it. Later he was asked to take the presidency of Princeton after Edwards had died.

He refused at first because he wanted to continue to labor as a pastor in Virginia. Later he accepted it, but after only eighteen months, he died, and he was only thirty -six years old.

If you really like the sermon in the book, you ought to go get the three volumes of his sermons, because they're really helpful.

So Chuck, you want to give us an overview of this? Sure. After giving some introductory examples of what repentance is not,

Davies lays out these points. First, repentance extends to the heart as well as to 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.

Then 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 this 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.

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. 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 a 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 owe 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.

As we prepare to look at the points that he makes again, he first gives some examples of what repentance is not.

And he says it's evident that every expression of sorrow that a person feels is not repentance.

It should be evident to anyone. He says even common sense tells us that every pang of sorrow for sin, every instance of reformation is not that repentance which we now have under consideration.

So you can think of a number of reasons why you might feel sorrow over sin, whether being caught in your sin and you know consequences are coming or you look bad in front of someone.

So self -preservation, self -reputation are a number of reasons why a person might feel sorry or sorrow that has nothing to do with really hating the sin itself and hating that it grieved

God. And he mentions that he couldn't imagine that a person lives that hasn't felt something like that at some time or another and you might be tempted to think because you have felt that that you are repentant and you're okay.

So he says perhaps you have cried and wept to think of your sinful life and trembled to think what would be the end of it.

You have also prayed to God to forgive you and resolved and promised you would reform. Nay, it is possible the terrors of the

Lord and a sense of guilt may have almost overwhelmed and distracted you, haunted you from day to day and disturbed your nightly slumbers.

On these accounts you conclude perhaps that you are true penitents, but alas, after all this, you may be but impenitent sinners.

So if that's a possibility, what does real repentance look like? Yeah, and that's where this sermon is so helpful.

I was thinking when you were reading that, that all through my teenage years, I was a lost kid who was a baptized lost kid, a church member lost kid.

And very active because of my parents in church. But I remember living so selfishly that even

I was bothered at times. But I always used that, what you just read,

I used that as my one last line of defense. Well, I must be a

Christian because after I do these things, I do feel bad about them. And really looking back now,

I understand, well, I felt bad about them because I have a conscience from God. And my conscience was trained by parents who believe the

Bible. So I had this conscience that would constantly, whether I wanted it to or not, would be a mirror of my actions.

But it wasn't until I read Charles Spurgeon's autobiography in college, and we were sharing a house at that time, that I realized

Spurgeon felt bad for his sins years before he's a Christian. Then I thought, well, now what have

I got? If that's not a Christian, well, what is the evidence? And of course, I had no evidence. Well, when he looks at the evidences or the distinguishing marks of what he calls an evangelical repentance, and he gives us five here.

They're very helpful, and they're clear, and they follow. But what does he mean by, you're going to ask me?

Yeah, what does he mean by evangelical? What does he mean by evangelical? I think what he means is the older writers use this term to distinguish between kind of a self -righteous repentance and a repentance that flows out of gratitude because of the gospel.

So the key is evangelical. So think of it this way. You can either see God at Mount Sinai with the thunderings and the terror, and you realize, okay, if that God really exists,

I'm in trouble because I keep breaking His law. And that's one view of God, but an evangelical view of God is the view that a person who sees

Christ on the cross dying for my crimes, and the heart is broken and melted, and then when you hear the call, turn to me, turn from, turn toward, the heart immediately leaps up and says,

I want to do that. So it's the kind of repentance that flows from gratitude in the life of a person who sees

Christ as that suffering Savior. Yeah, so evangelical instead of legal repentance that would see the law and hear the thundering of the law and think, woe is me, without any of the gratitude to God and desiring to have

Him. Yeah, and we're going to talk about his fifth point where he brings in the Christocentric nature of repentance that it's only as we're looking at Christ that repentance is really fueled.

So yeah, grateful, not to earn my salvation, and it's not really about me, it's I want to live for the

King that paid. Well, number one, he says, evangelical or true repentance extends to the heart as well as to the practice.

And that's pretty simple, and I find that to be one of the simplest and most penetrating tests of hypocrisy.

The hypocrite, okay, so a church member who keeps everything clean on the outside but is not a true believer in Christ, not a real follower, one of the evidences is that the sins of the heart that nobody knows about except God do not plague their conscience.

It's the outside stuff. It's the stuff that embarrasses. Whereas Davey says that for the believer, it is often the heart sins that no one knows about that we could say, well,

I haven't seen that they've actually affected anybody or they've manifested themselves yet. These are the things that sometimes grieve the believer most deeply.

So you could live in a way that everyone watching is impressed and happy with your conduct and no question whatsoever, and yet you're still grieved because you see what's on the inside and people would be shocked to know that you're bothered.

Yeah, and that leads to the second thing. Chuck, you want to hit that? Yeah, it includes a deep sense of the evil of sin and sorrow for it because it is against God.

So not just the sorrow that fears damaged reputation, etc.,

but that God himself is offended, and that's why you would be bothered about the heart and not just the externals.

Yeah, so in one sense we could say that evangelical repentance or true repentance includes a clear sight of the real nature of sin.

Sin is not—we have a friend, Mr. Roberts, who has reminded us sin is not primarily a ticket that you grab hold of and you get on a train and it takes you someplace you don't want to go.

Like, you know, I lose my marriage if I behave this way, I lose my job if I behave this way, I lose my friends, or ultimately

I get to go to hell if I keep living this way. Sin is a thing that is against God, and it robs him of the glory due to him in our life.

And for the person who has seen Christ on the cross by faith, it breaks our hearts that we would continue to treat him in that way.

And so we see sin for what it really is. If that's not you, if that's not how we feel about sin, then it may be that we've not really experienced evangelical repentance.

He mentions that for that person it's not sin they hate but hell. Were it possible for them to enjoy their sins and yet be happy, they would never think of repenting, and hence repentance is really a hardship in their view.

It's not a joy that brings them to God, but a burden that they have to deal with because of the consequences of sin.

Yeah, I think of repentance as the open door that Christ purchased, because repentance is not legal, it's a gift.

It's an expression of God's mercy. It's not justice, it's mercy. So justice has been satisfied in the work of Christ, and the result is there is now—it's like being on the edge of a cliff, and there's a wall behind you, and it's pushing and pushing and pushing, and this wall is this life of self -centeredness, and eventually you're going to fall off the cliff and perish forever.

And in this wall, there is a door opened, and Christ calls you, come to me.

And when we're thinking correctly, we think, can it be true? Is there really hope for a person like me?

I mean, I brought myself to this situation. Why would you open the door? And he did, through the cross. So you either view it like that, or you view it like this terrible heavy burden, like, oh,

I have to do all this repent stuff so I can help pay for my sins. Some really good questions to ask ourselves, because it's hard to know what you really think.

When we're in church settings, we just automatically spit out the church words, whether you're a preacher, or it's the first time you're in church, you kind of think, well,

I ought to say something churchy at this point. But think of it this way. He already asked, would you be happy to have heaven and take your sins with you?

You know, would that be okay with you? And for the genuine believer, the answer is no. I do not want

Christ to become what Rutherford called my pack mule to carry me and my favorite sins to heaven together.

You know, I want those sins put to death. But another question we could ask is this.

When we think of God as the sin -pardoning God through the work of His Son, rather than the sinner -destroying

God outside of Christ, okay, does the fact that God pardons sin, does that make sin to you a smaller matter or a greater matter?

Does it make it easier on your conscience? Well, you know, don't worry. I mean, God will forgive it.

All you have to do— I cannot tell you how many times I prayed 1 John 1, 9. If we confess our sins,

He's faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And I would shoot that up to God at the end of a day of living for myself as if that were like a magical formula that kind of controlled

Him, you know. Like you have to do it because you said it. And so to me, for many years,

I grew up thinking that sin was not that big of a matter because 1 John 1, 9 existed.

After really being saved and tasting the kindness of the Lord, then 1

John 1, 9 didn't make sin a smaller matter, it made it a bigger matter. Yeah, if sin is grievous to God and you love

God, then you're going to be bothered that you're grieving the one you love. Yeah.

I often think that the wrath of God is not the great wrecking ball to sin. In the

Bible, it is a great wrecking ball. It's not the greatest. I think the love of God, if seen correctly. I mean because there have been times in my life where I would have been willing to say to God before I was a

Christian, Okay, I'm willing to take whatever consequence there is for this sin because I want it. So whatever the payment is, fine, take it.

But I'm going to get my sin. But after becoming a believer, that idea didn't cross my mind anymore because I thought, but John, you're sinning against the king that is loving you in the present moment that you're sinning.

He hasn't become cold towards you. If he became cold toward me like I was toward him, it wouldn't have bothered me.

I thought, well, come on, he's indifferent and he should be. But if he isn't indifferent, my conscience would rise up and say, how can you continue to treat him this way?

And I would think to myself, but he should be indifferent by now. No, but he's not. And so sin, the wrecking ball, to me thinking sin was okay, was the love of God.

Chuck, let me ask you a question. If dread of God's wrath is not the great motivation for the

Christian going on repenting and repenting, does it have any place in repentance?

Sure. It often is a starting place for us. We're brought to a sensibility or sense of our sin,

God uses it maybe to awaken us to the terrors of hell and that there is a law and I am answerable to him.

And then to run us out of our hiding places, to look for mercy. Yeah, in a sense, we could say that self -interest is a good starting place for repentance.

And we know that that's true, not because of Samuel Davies says it, but because it's scriptural. How many times does

God turn his face toward the sinner and at the moment of the sinner's rebellion say to him something like, if you wish you could have or if you wish to avoid, then.

And he's using our self -interest. But I think that Davies is right when he points out that if that's all you have, you know, if that's not just the starting place, but that's the destination.

Well, I don't want to go to hell, so I try to be a good guy. I try to, you know, do that repenting thing. If that's the only thing that fills the mind when we think of sin, then probably it's because we have never been brought to love him who first loved us.

So what's the third point? The third point is that true repentance reaches to all known sin in you without exceptions.

So not just that you hate particular sins, maybe the ones that are more readily noticeable, we've already kind of touched on that, that the heart of sin and not just the externals, but that you don't categorize any sin as being okay with God because they're all against God or okay with you because they're all against God.

Yeah, and that really does flow just perfectly from the first two. It would be impossible to have the first two elements and not to have that third.

You know, if you compartmentalize your life and you spare your favorite sins, your agags, you know, to use an

Old Testament allusion, and you crucify the most embarrassing, life -destroying sins, that is not repentance.

Repentance is when we do love the King, therefore we do hate the rebellion against the

King that we see in our soul, in our life, and there's no area that it's allowed to live and have sanctuary.

The fourth thing he says is true repentance always includes reformation.

There are some very helpful passages in the Bible to help us to be thorough, to make sure that our repentance doesn't kind of just stay in the arena of concepts, like, wow, you know,

I understand that now, so I must possess it. No, real repentance must be thorough, and so it will work itself out into concrete actions.

So, 2 Corinthians 7, verses 9 -11, Paul gives a number of evidences that the

Corinthians have genuinely repented, and it's a great list for us to look at. Thomas Watson's little book on the doctrine of repentance deals with those.

Richard Owen Roberts' bigger book on repentance deals with those, and both of those books are really very helpful in keeping us from being casual and stopping short in our repentance.

If we love the King, we want the repentance to go beyond concepts. We want it to actually include real reform.

So this repentance always includes reformation, but at the same time, it doesn't mean that we are perfectly reformed in this life, that we reach a point of sinlessness.

And so that kind of opens a question that he raises, and that is, do you view the inability to be sinless in this life as a relief or as grief, knowing that I will still struggle with certain sins?

While I'm attempting to put them to death, does that knowledge give you relief? Like, ah,

I don't have to be perfect, I can't. Or is that a grief to your soul, that I cannot be that?

Yeah, that is a really penetrating question. The fifth thing, repentance implies a believing application to God for pardon only through Jesus Christ.

And that's where we bring in the reality that faith and repentance are always linked.

Two sides of the same coin. They are twin virtues, twin gifts that appear in God waking us up, you know, what we call the new birth.

God opens our eyes, He softens our hearts, puts a soft heart within, He breaks the chain on our will.

So what Paul says in Romans 3 is no longer the case. Paul says nobody understands

God, nobody wants God, seeks for God, and nobody obeys God. There's not one righteous, no not one. And then the great work of the new birth reverses that.

Now I begin to understand Him, and I long for Him, and I choose

Him. But even though that's imperfect, it's real, and it's begun.

But that is always, that always includes the great gifts of repentance and faith woven together.

True repentance will always be a believing repentance. And true faith will always be a repentant faith.

So that affects how, you know, that affects why, our motivation, and how.

So if you were talking to a person that came to you and said, you know, what part does seeing

Christ as my Savior, as my everything, what part does that play in repentance?

Like he says in number five here. When we think of this relationship of faith and repentance and faith's view of Christ, what jumps out to me, one is the motivation that if I see

Christ being crushed for my sin, you know, I see that occurring on the cross, and I understand that to be true.

Not sin in general, my sin, not my sinfulness in general, my sins that I could never, you know, be willing to explain to people.

When I see the Father gladly do that, when I see the Son gladly be the sin offering, you know, the

Father was pleased to crush the Son, Isaiah tells us, if He would be a sin offering.

Then the motivation for repentance is there, that we've been talking about all along. But also the pathway of repentance.

A daily depending upon what Christ did on the cross to enable me, moment by moment, to put sin to death.

So Romans 6. By the cross, I'm in a whole new realm. By the cross, living in the realm of grace, the old enemy can tempt me, but he can never rule me again.

By the cross, I am now able to wake up and present myself alive to God.

So the cross is everything. Without the cross, everything we've talked about is just, you know, good intentions and trying to scrub yourself clean.

But seeing the cross and depending upon that constantly, I mean, that's

Christianity. Don't sin, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Yeah.

So responsibility. You believe, you repent, but in the power of the

Spirit. It is His work. It's what He's accomplished. You trust Him. If that is real repentance and real

Christianity, then what is left, you know, there's, as He began with, there are a lot of people who have felt stuff, sorrow, etc.,

that don't necessarily make real repentance, but again, they believe they have repented.

And so He makes the statement, more souls are destroyed by their repentance than by their sins.

How would you explain that? Yeah, I find that a shocking statement. And I'm glad He said it because I think it's a true statement.

There is a repentance that we have to repent of. So if we have manufactured kind of a counterfeit repentance, okay,

I'll clean up my life, you know, I'll stop doing this or that, and then God will be okay with me. If we do that, then we become deluded.

And so we don't really go to the King for forgiveness because we think, well, I got it. Like we don't go to the doctor because we took a pill that made me feel better for a moment.

So that's one way that we could say like an unbiblical version of repentance, a counterfeit repentance is more dangerous than your sin almost because you become deluded.

We were talking earlier, if you think that you're in trouble with God, at least there's something in you that keeps saying, do something about this.

But if you think that what you just did, that kind of self -cleansing, fix myself for Jesus, then you're deluded and you're satisfied.

And instead of longing for Christ, you think, well, I got everything I wanted. I got the get out of jail free card, so I'm good.

And that kind of repentance, which is not repentance, if you don't repent of it, will lead to hell.

Well, as we pull this together, we really want to encourage you that as you look at those five things, those evidences of an evangelical or of a true and biblical repentance, as you look at those, ask the

Lord to help you to be very honest. And that may take some real soul searching to get alone, to lock yourself away for a while, to plan time, to make time this weekend or whenever to say to God, is this really me?

And not just the question, well, I'm a Christian, so I must have all five. But even as a

Christian, since repentance is ongoing, is that me now? Okay, and is there room for growth in any of these?

And will I leave God alone or will

I plead with Him and say, God, I can't leave you alone until these things are in wonderful full bloom in my soul, you know, as an ongoing habit.

We see these evidences of that real happy, love -rooted, you know, gospel -fueled repentance.

So, it's a good question to ask ourselves. So what if you're not there yet? You hear this, but you're just not there yet.

You're not experiencing this yet. Where would you start? Yeah, and Davies has a great point there at the end of the sermon.

He says, if you do not love God enough to repent like this, well, let self -love start you on the course.

You know, put your shoes on, start walking. And he gives some good guidelines. He says, search the

Scriptures to see what the Bible says about the nature of sin, what it really is doing to you, and what it will do to you.

And we've, of course, mentioned that that's not all there is to repentance, but it's a good starting place. If you do not love

God enough to turn from sin to God, then at least love yourself enough to take an honest look at what you're doing to yourself.

And maybe that will stir the heart to cry out to God and say, God, save me, the chief of sinners.

Yeah. This has been a really helpful sermon. And as we bring it to a close, let's close the way that Samuel Davies does.

He says, repent you must, either in time or eternity, upon earth or in hell.

You cannot possibly avoid it. The question is not, shall I repent? For that is beyond a doubt.

But the question is, shall I repent now when it may reform and save me? Or shall I put it off to the eternal world when my repentance will be my punishment and can answer no end but to torment me?

This is a hard question. Does not common sense determine it in favor of the present time?

Therefore, let the duty be as extensively observed as it is commanded. Now, let all men everywhere repent.