Twin Graces

Welcome to No Compromise Radio Ministry. My name is Mike Avendroth. This is Wednesday, our Wednesday show with Mario behind the scenes. And we've got Tuesday, Thursday shows that are just audio, but this one's audio and visual.

Thanks for watching. Tell your friends, tell your enemies, tell people that listen to the Pactum, we're on. One of the things I want to start doing, and Mario gave me this advice, which was good advice, we get emails.

You can write me, mike, at nocompromiseradio .com or info at nocompromiseradio .com. We get emails from folks, and I want to read some emails every once in a while and encourage you to write. And this is encouraging for me as well.

Hi, Pastor Mike, I wanted to let you know before I became Reformed, I ran across your No Compromise Radio talking about the book, Jesus Calling. It was such a blessing and it helped me to have a dialogue with my niece who was soaked in that soaking prayer.

Then a couple of weeks ago, I heard you on my Pastor Chris Gordon's radio podcast, and I was blessed to know that you are Reformed as God brought me into the Reformed faith from Calvary Chapel. My husband is Reformed before we got married and patiently talked to me about Reformed theology, but since Calvary Chapel painted a very negative perspective about it, it scared me away, being delivered from a couple of bad churches while growing up.

All that said, I just wanted to say, I was so blessed how the Lord brought you into the Reformed faith. So thank you again for your ministry. I was blessed listening to you and Pastor Gordon on Law Gospel.

It blew me away how beautiful you both described the difference. Now the next line, I'm gonna read it, but I don't know if it's true. I really appreciate your gentle make demeanor when you explain things too.

I guess Jesus was gentle and meek, but it's usually not the Mike Avendroff style, gentle demeanor, meek demeanor. Remember, I'm in New England for a reason. That is because I'd get kicked out of every church in the South and in California and the Midwest because I'm too blunt.

But the Lord knew to put me just in New England because we're blunt here. We stab people in the chest. Not in the back. And it's just the way it goes. So maybe I was just especially subdued or I don't know.

Maybe I was taking my chemo medicine at the time. But if you write me an encouraging or even you could lambast me if you want, I might just read it on the new Wednesday shows. Mike at nocompromisedradio .com.

I've often been called an antinomian. And sometimes that is from a neonomian. So gnome, N-O-M means law. Anti, anti is against. So anti against the law. And somehow I don't want holy living or somehow I don't want people to obey.

That's minimized. And I think if you've listened for any amount of time, you'll realize that's not true. Especially if you're here on Sundays, hearing the Bible preached verse by verse, Christ for pardon, Christ for power, third use of the law, first use of the law, et cetera.

And so the last couple of weeks I preached on repentance. I emailed someone more in a lordship environment. And I said, I listened to one of your sermons. I really appreciated it. Thank you for that. This person wrote back and said, thank you, brother, even though we might disagree on some of the minor things on lordship salvation or something.

I thought, I don't know why they're saying that to me, but I wrote back and said, I preached the last two weeks on repentance. If you think I'm an antinomian, I'm preaching on repentance. How many times do I have to tell you that I'm not an antinomian?

So I guess it's a pat in the back if a neonomian calls you an antinomian, but back to the point. Today and next week, I'd like to talk a little bit about repentance. What is repentance? Jesus says twice in Luke 13, no, I tell you, but unless you repent, you will likewise perish.

And so obviously repentance, all joking aside, is important. Jesus said it twice in five verses. Unless you repent, you'll perish. I think that makes it pretty important. And then he said, I tell you, unless you repent, with extra force, extra emphasis.

Then repeated twice, verse three, verse five, so important. Jesus calls people to repent. And I could probably ask you the question, have you repented? Have you repented? What is repentance? So today on the show, I'd like to give you some truths about repentance.

And I'm actually trying to turn this into a booklet called Repentance, a Primer, so we understand repentance rightly. There's all kinds of issues swirling around repentance. And is it the fruit of faith?

Is it the flip side of faith? Is it a synecdoche? All these things, Sinclair Ferguson's view, Calvin's view. And so we wanna work through that today, a deep dive into the topic of repentance. It's not as easy as you think, but I'll try to make it simplified here on the show, truths about repentance.

So let's start off with a definition of repentance. If somebody were to ask you, please tell me what repentance is. Could you give me a definition? What would you say? That's a good question. It is a translation of metineo, and it basically means to change your mind.

It means to change the way you think, to change your opinion. You reflect on something and you used to think one way and now you think a different way. And of course, when your mind changes, that will lead to a change of purpose, a change of direction, a change of life, a change of disposition, a change of judgment, a change of conduct, all things that we would have under the umbrella of the definition of repentance.

Change of views, change of sentiments, change of view on what? Change my view on God's holiness, change my view on what sin is, who sins against, change my view on salvation. Is it by works? Is it by a variety of saviors?

There's a change of mind. John Calhoun, by the way, you should get this book. It's free online, monergism .com. John, it's pronounced Cahoon, but it looks like Cal, Cahoon, C-O-L-Q-U-H-O-U-N. There's a booklet called Evangelical Repentance, and it is free on monergism .com.

And you can just read that, and I'm gonna be quoting quite a few John Calhoun quotes today on repentance and next week on repentance, and it's free for the asking. You don't even have to ask monergism.

You can just click on it and get that. He said, repentance is a change of mind, of judgment, of disposition, of purpose, and of conduct. It denotes properly a change for the better, a change of mind that is not transitory, but durable and productive of good conduct.

It implies not only sorrow and remorse for what is past, but a change of disposition and of conduct for the future. So if you wanna just summarize what repentance is with one word, maybe it could be change.

And it includes a sorrow for sin, because I changed my mind about sin, a hatred for sin. Some people say a humiliation over sin, ownership of sin, a confession of sin, turning from sin, changing my mind and my intentions and my purpose and my will about sin.

Now, one of the things we can do when we're defining things is we can look at root words, and we've kind of done that some. We can also think about it in a theological definition. If you had to find a theological definition of a Bible term, one of the best places you could go is one of the confessions, one of the reformed confessions.

Let me give you the London Baptist 1689 Confession of Faith. 15 .3 is where it's found. And it says this about repentance. Saving repentance is an evangelical grace. By the way, you wanna keep that in your mind, an evangelical grace, by which a person who is made to feel by the Holy Spirit the manifold evils of his sin and being given faith in Christ, humbles himself over his sin with godly sorrow, detestation of his sin and self-abhorrency.

In such repentance, the person also prays for pardon and strength of grace and has a purpose and endeavors by supplies of the Spirit's power to walk before God and to totally please Him in all things.

London Baptist Confession. And so when someone repents, they begin to think rightly. In their mind, they begin to think rightly about sin, about God's word, about the gospel, about the Holy Spirit. If you wanna think about mind changing and then heart grieving, sorrow, hatred, self-abhorrency, striving with mind to do the right thing.

Westminster Larger Catechism, question 76. It says, included in this saving grace definition, whereby out of the sight and sense, not only the danger, but also of the filthiness and odiousness of his sins, grieves for and hates sins as that he turns from them all to God.

And so we understand things rightly. We're thinking about things rightly and we turn from those sins on to God, directing ourselves to God. And again, this is what we're doing. It's a conversion aspect.

It's not, we repent in order to be saved. God is saving us and we're repenting in response. We'll get to that in a little bit more, but right now, the definition of repentance. William Perkins also writes about repentance and you can get that free online too, I think at monergism .com.

William Perkins writing a couple hundred years before John Cahoon, the conversion of a sinner through repentance consists of three parts. First, there's a purpose and determination in the mind, the changing of the mind.

Second, there's a change in will and affections. That's going to remind you that it's going to have to be God doing this work because we can't change our will and affections. Thirdly, there's a practical effort in one's life and conduct to forsake and abandon all sins.

So we know about sin, we're sorrowful for sin. We confess sins, we want to break with sins and live to the Lord. So that is a good definition of repentance. Starts off with changing of the mind root word and it flows theologically into changing behavior or lifestyle.

The Command to Repent for All Sinners

Number two, not just the definition of repentance, but now the importance of repentance. It is mandatory for everyone to repent. It is mandatory for you to repent. Now we'll talk about Christians repenting later, but right now the focus is on unbelievers.

Is it mandatory for them to repent? Yes. If you're a sinner, do you need repentance? If you've sinned, do you need to think rightly about your sin and rightly about God, rightly about Jesus, rightly about eternal life?

Yes. If you are not a sinner, then you're not going to have to change. Adam before the fall did not have to repent. And you're like, that's obvious. Well, today maybe it's kept an obvious on this as we're just building on this primer on repentance on No Compromise Radio.

It is mandatory for you to repent. I just read Luke chapter 13, verses three and five. Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. He said it twice. Unless you repent, you will likewise perish. John Cahoon said the unnumbered multitude of a sinner's transgressions, though it cannot add to the certainty, yet will add to the greatness of his condemnation and should therefore add to the depth of his repentance.

Could a man be found who had but a single instant fail to yield perfect obedience? Even such a man would need repentance. He cannot be saved without it. Basically what he's saying, you could live a life, a perfect life, but only sin one time, you'd still need repentance.

So we realize we've sinned so many times, we need repentance. Every unbeliever needs to consider their ways, consider their soul and repent. And one of the reasons why we know repentance is so important is because God judges sin.

Unless you've repented from your sins, thought rightly about your sins, and of course then turning to Christ for forgiveness, God is faithful to just. God will be faithful to just people who haven't repented.

Jesus said, unless you repent, you'll perish. Do you think he's just saying that? Do you think that's not true? Do you think God doesn't keep his word? Do you think God doesn't keep his promises? If you don't repent, you will be perish.

Psalm 7, God is angry with the wicked every day. If he will not turn, that is the person, God will wet his sword. He has bent his bow and made it ready. Numbers 23, has he said and shall he not do it?

Has God spoken and shall he not make it good? If you don't repent, you'll perish. That's the reason why it is mandatory. Psalm 50, you forget God, lest he tear you to pieces and there be none to deliver.

So consider. No wonder John the Baptist shows up on the scene as the forerunner. And what does he say? He's proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus in Luke 5, I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

Luke 15, verse 7, just so Jesus said, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance. Repentance is mandatory, so much so that after the resurrection of Jesus, Jesus said, thus it is written in Luke 24, that Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations beginning in Jerusalem.

Repentance is mandatory. Repentance is a must. Repentance is not optional. Repentance is needed. So if you hear God's word, you hear his voice, don't harden your hearts. John Calhoun said, if you put God off today in repentance, he might put you off tomorrow.

God has not promised everlasting salvation to the impenitent, but to the penitent. He has not promised so much as tomorrow to the negligent. So repentance is mandatory because repentance is thinking rightly, of course, about sin, sorrow over sin, running from sin.

And if you realized, and if I realized how bad sin was, it would make us realize, of course, it's mandatory. And what John Calhoun does, John Calhoun, is he'll say, you wanna know how bad sin was? Just think about what it did to Jesus on the cross as he bore sin, right?

Not his own sins, of course, but for our sins. He said, you wanna think about sin and repentance? Think about Jesus on the cross. How so? Consider seriously the dreadful sufferings of the lamb of God, he said, and see how loudly they call upon you to repent.

Just think about the cross. How tremendous must be that indignation of God against sin, which is written with the blood of his dear son, shed for the remission of the sins of many. Will you continue any longer in sin when such dreadful indignation against it appears?

How terrible did sin appear on Calvary where the justice of God seized and pierced his dearly beloved son with the sword of infinite vengeance? Will you not abhor and forsake sin? When the Lord Jesus was enduring the infinite punishment due for sin, the earth quaked, the rocks rent, the graves were open and the sun was darkened and you will remain unmoved and impenitent, not repenting?

Behold how he loved you. He loved you with such an infinite willingness to lay down his life for you and you will not love him and so hate and forsake your sins for him? Oh, pray that his great love in dying for you may constrain you to die to sin.

John Cahoon, the creator of the universe bearing sins. We realize how bad sin is, therefore we say we need to run from it, flee from it, think rightly about it. What's the definition of repentance we've looked at?

How it's mandatory. Now, number three on No Compromise Radio, repentance is a gift. It's a command. Yes, you must repent, but it's also a gift. By the way, you can always write me, mike at nocompromiseradio .com.

I say that a lot in the middle of the show just because we need to take a break. It's like repentance, whoa, what it did to Jesus. I need to be a repenter. I think it was Calvin who said, I need to be a repenter of my repentance because my repentance needs repenting.

Like, oh, without repentance, I'm gonna perish. How can I do this on my own? How can I change my mind? How can I change my will? How can I be sorrowful for something? Well, that comes to number three.

Now, repentance is a gift. So before we flesh this out a little bit, I could say to you, you must believe in the Lord Jesus. Believing is a command. And you'd say, yes. You'd also say, yes, Mike, I also think belief is a gift.

Philippians 1, 29. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. Belief is a command and it's a gift. We're telling people they must believe, but we realize they're dead in trespasses and sins. Unbelievers cannot do any good thing.

Without Jesus, it's impossible to please Him. Without Jesus, you can't have any fruit. Romans, Hebrews 11, verse six. Without faith in Jesus, it's impossible to please Him. So nothing we can do comes from ourselves.

We need to be receiving grace to do it. So we tell people to believe and we know it's a gift. And now it's the same thing with repentance. It's a command. Jesus just said it, Luke 24, to tell people to repent, but we know it's a gift as well.

Acts chapter five, verses 29 through 31. You'll see this very fact that it's a gift. But Peter and the apostles answered, we must obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree.

God exalted him at his right hand as leader and savior to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. Flowing from the sanctifying work of the spirit, flowing from the regenerating work of the spirit, repentance is a gift.

I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and will give you a heart of flesh, Ezekiel 36. And when God does that, you're able to repent. Here's the verse I like maybe the most to teach that repentance is not only a command, but a gift.

2 Timothy 2, 25. If God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the truth. How can you have this resolute desire to flee sin, to think rightly about sin, to stop sinning, to hate sin, to self-abhor?

Well, it's gonna have to come from God, obviously. And we know in the way things work in the order of salvation, that there's a regenerating work of the power, new affections, new desires, new thoughts.

And that flows into one's life. And we'll see in conversion that then someone repents. I like Jeremiah 31, 18 in this context, because it says in the King James, turn me and I shall be turned. Who's the first turner?

Who's the first, who's on first? Well, it has to be God. The ESV says, bring me back that I may be restored. I could put it this way, bring me back, grant me repentance so that I may repent. Grant me repentance so I can repent.

That's the idea. 1689 chapter 15, such of the elect that are converted at riper years, having some time lived in the state of nature and there in serve diverse pleasures, God in their effectual calling gives them repentance to life.

It's a gift, repentance is a gift. It's a command and it's a gift. Both are true. We would say it's an evangelical grace and we know grace is a gift. Grace is something that God does for us. Well, in addition, in this repentance primer, we've talked about the definition of repentance.

We've talked about how it's mandatory. It's a command. We've talked about how it's a gift. And now I wanna talk about how repentance and faith go together. Repentance and faith go together. Robert Dabney called them twin graces, the grace of faith and the grace of repentance.

It's a coin with heads and tails, right? And so when I say repent, am I also implying believe? If I say believe, am I also implying repentance? We are going to talk about that now. Acts chapter 20, verses 20 through 21 will clearly demonstrate that faith and repentance go together, they're twin graces.

Paul said, I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable and teaching you in public and from house to house, testifying both to the Jews and Greeks of repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.

When God regenerates, when God makes it alive, when God caused you to be born again, the response is always the same. There will be repentance and faith. There will be faith and repentance. They go together.

And in time, experientially, they're simultaneous. You cannot have a repentant unbeliever and you can't not have a believing unrepentant. So in time, we're gonna talk about the order soon, theologically, but in time, they're together.

When God saves, you're not going to have an impenitent believer and a penitent unbeliever. No, they go together. They're different aspects of conversion. When we're talking about man's response to the work of God, conversion.

True faith, they say, is a repenting faith. True repentance is a believing repentance. It's interesting, sometimes in the Bible, repentance will be preached and it says they responded with faith. Other times it says they preach belief in the Lord Jesus and it says they repented.

Let me give you an illustration of that. Acts 17, verse 30 through 34. The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent. Okay, it's mandatory. You have to repent.

You've sinned, you gotta think rightly about sin. A good way to think rightly about sin is to think about what Jesus did on the cross. God calls people everywhere to repent. If you're watching this, He calls you to repent because He has fixed a day, judgment day, on which He will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom He has appointed.

And of this, He has given assurance to all by raising from the dead. You can be sure that judgment day will happen because God has raised His son, Jesus, from the dead and Jesus is coming back to judge the living and the dead.

So they hear this message about repentance. Now, when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. Others said, we'll hear you again about this. So Paul went out of their midst, but some men joined him and I'd wanna say repented because he was preaching repentance.

It says, but they joined him and believed, among whom were also Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Amaris and others with them. You preach repentance and the response is belief. I preach belief and the response is repentance.

They go together, they're inseparable graces. They're twin graces. They're conjoined graces, converging graces. Can you really trust Jesus without turning from sin? No. Can you really turn from sin without looking at Jesus?

No. We turn from our sin, we turn to Jesus. Repentance, faith. Say one, you mean both. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ means you'll believe on Jesus as you're turning from sin and turn from sin. Sometimes people say, well, the gospel of John and the Bible never says the word repent.

Some other people will say, you don't preach the gospel unless you tell people to repent. To both, I would say this, the word repent doesn't need to be in the gospel of John because it's implied in the word faith.

Believe on the Lord Jesus and you'll be turning from sin. And for me, if I say, you know what? I didn't say the word repent. When I say one, I mean both. When I say one, I mean both because that's exactly the way the scripture does it.

Same thing when it comes to the Trinity. If I say Jesus all the time, you're thinking, he never talks about the triune God. He never talks about the Father or the Son or the Spirit rather. Well, when I say Jesus, I mean the one that the Father sent.

I mean the one that the Holy Spirit applies the work of Jesus to people. When I say one member of the Trinity, I'm talking about all of them. When I'm talking about the triune God, I'm talking about all three persons.

It just goes back and forth. When I say repent, I'm thinking faith. When I think of faith, I'm thinking about repentance. Repentance implies faith, Sinclair Ferguson said, and faith implies repentance.

One cannot exist without the other. Well, how do they go together? Repent and believe. Does repentance happen first? Say in time, Mike, you just said experientially, they're at the same time. But logically, is there a difference?

We're gonna talk about that logic next time, but let me give you a little teaser. Regeneration and faith. You think I'm talking about repentance, but I'm talking about regeneration and faith. Which one's first?

Can you have a regenerate unbeliever? Could you have a believing unregenerate? In time, they happen together. God makes you born again and you believe. But logically, theologically, which one's first?

And the answer has to be regeneration's first. Because how can a dead man believe? How can a dead woman believe? How can a dead child spiritually believe? Regeneration has to happen first. In time, they're together.

But theologically, what's the order? And the order is regeneration precedes faith. Now, next time, we're gonna talk about which one comes first theologically. Which one do you think comes first? Repentance or faith?

Because the text says repent and believe. Maybe repentance comes first. But to just let you know, on No Compromised Radio, we're gonna talk about repentance is the fruit of faith. Don't forget, you can write me either a lambasting email or a nice one that we looked at today from a friend who thought that No Compromised Radio style is meek and tender and sweet and lovely.

One day, you can write me, mikeatnocompromisedradio .com. See you next time.