Did Mark Driscoll Repent? A Look at Biblical Repentance.

It's time for another edition of Fighting for the Faith, Monday, March 17, 2014. All right, today's program unfortunately has the super high potential to be controversial. Disclaimer at the front, I am not being controversial for the sake of controversy.

The reason why this program will be controversial is for the sake of the truth and the biblical standards that exist regarding the office of the pastoral ministry. Thank you for tuning in. You're listening to Fighting for the Faith.

My name is Chris Rosebro. I am your servant in Jesus Christ, and this is the program that dishes up a daily dose of biblical discernment. The goal of which, help you to think biblically, help you to think critically, help you compare what people are saying in the name of God to the Word of God, because there's no shortage of crazy things being said and done.

We slow down, stop, open up our Bible, and compare. Now, the big story today is the Mark Driscoll apology. This broke on Friday, late on Friday. There was a letter that went out from Mark Driscoll, kind of an in-house email that got leaked onto the Internet, and everybody's talking about it.

And some people see it as an apology, as true repentance. Other people, well, like myself, believe that the devil's in the details, and we need to slow down and take a really close look at what's in this letter.

What exactly is Driscoll apologizing for? What exactly is he repenting of? What has been omitted? And we're going to begin, actually, not there, but we're going to begin by taking a little biblical survey, if you would, of the concept of repentance.

We'll take a look at the biblical standards regarding the office of the pastoral ministry, and then we'll get into this. So today's program is going to be kind of dedicated, at least the first hour, dedicated to the Driscoll apology-slash-repentance to see if what we're really dealing with is real repentance on the part of Mark Driscoll.

Now, I'll be blunt. I'm of the opinion that we are not seeing true repentance. If we are seeing repentance, it's partial. That's about the best construction that I can put on it. And what hasn't been repented of, what hasn't been apologized for, is very disturbing.

His explanation for some things he's done in the past is that you kind of have to fill in the blanks as to what exactly he's talking about. That's disturbing. And then, of course, there's other issues that we're going to have to raise along the way.

So what I recommend you do is get a Bible, put your thinking caps on, and again, keep this in mind. This is not controversy for the sake of controversy. This is controversial because these questions need to be asked regarding the truth.

That's really what it comes down to. So we're going to get right into it, and we're going to start by taking a close look at biblical passages that talk about repentance. What is repentance? Metanoia.

It means to change your mind. But what exactly does repentance mean? And to kind of begin with, the Lutheran confessions summarize the biblical teaching regarding repentance. And this is from Luther Smallcald Articles.

And here's what he talks about in summarizing the biblical teaching regarding repentance. We'll get into our Bible, and we'll go from there. Luther writes, he says,. The office of God's law that screams at us and tells us we're sinful.

As St. Paul in Romans 1, verse 18 does,. This is what the law does. And again, in Romans 3, verse 19, it says,. So this, then, is the thunderbolt of God by which he strikes in a heap, hurls to the ground both manifest sinners and false saints, otherwise known as hypocrites, and suffers no one to be in the right.

He declares no one to be righteous, but drives them all together to terror and despair. This is the hammer, as Jeremiah 23, 29 says,. This is not activa contritio, or manufactured repentance, but passiva contritio, or the torture of the conscience.

True sorrow of heart, suffering in the sensation of death. So the idea here is that if we're going to talk about repentance, this is not something manufactured. True repentance is that passive torture of the conscience through the thunderbolts of God's law, which causes the heart to feel the wrath of God.

So this, then, is what it means to begin true repentance. And here man must hear such a sentence as this,. No matter what sort of people you are, whether you are as great, wise, and powerful, and holy as you may be, here no one is righteous or godly, etc.

But to this office, the office of the law, the New Testament immediately adds the conciliatory promise of grace through the gospel, which must be believed. As Christ declares in Mark 1, 15,. And John preceding him, this is John the Baptist preceding Christ, is called a preacher of repentance.

However, for the remission of sins, John was to. In other words, repentance is the terror that comes through God's law, that accuses us of our sin, feeling God's wrath and being sorry for it. The gospel comes and forgives us and comforts our consciences, and then the sinner being set free from sin, death, and the devil begins to bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

That's kind of the overarching idea that we're going to be working with here as we talk about the issue or the topic of repentance when it comes to Mark Driscoll. Now let me give you some more biblical texts here.

So Luther here cited John the Baptist as the preacher of repentance. Let's take a look at the Gospel of Luke and take a close look at the preacher of repentance. John the Baptist is famous for this, and you hear the voice crying in the wilderness,.

Repent! Repent! Right? The kingdom of heaven is at hand, right? So let's hear what the preacher of repentance has to say. Luke chapter 3, we'll start at verse 1. Luke writes, he says,. As it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him.

Now listen to this politically incorrect message. Are you ready? Here's John's message. Yeah, that wouldn't fly in most megachurches today, now would it? So we continue. Verse 10. Now notice, in hearing this message of God's law preached in all of its unbridled fury against them and their sins, right?

They're cut to the quick by the Spirit, and here's this passive contrition, this passive terror, right? And they asked, What shall we do? And he answered them,. Tax collectors also came to be baptized, and they said to him,.

Soldiers also asked him,. And he said to them,.

Okay?

So here's this idea. With repentance comes the fruit of repentance, where you've felt the terror of God's law convicting you of your sin, and you hear of the forgiveness of sins, and keep in mind, these people not only heard his message of the law railing against them, saying you brood of vipers, who warned you to flee the fires to come, and saying that the axe is laid to the root, and that every tree that doesn't bear good fruit is going to be thrown into the fire.

What's their response to this? They're repenting, they're being baptized for the forgiveness of their sins, and then they're asking, What shall we do? And here's the bearing fruit in keeping with repentance.

Whoever has two tunics is to share, whoever has food is to share likewise. Tax collectors, don't take more than you're supposed to collect, no more than you're authorized. Soldiers, don't extort from people.

So there's a bearing fruit in keeping with repentance. That's the idea. Let me give you another cross-reference, Luke 19, verse 1. We're going to read the story of Zacchaeus. So Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through, and behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus.

He was a chief tax collector, and he was rich. And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd, he could not, because he was small in stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up in a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way.

And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today. So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all grumbled and said, He's gone to be the guest of a man who's a sinner.

And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold. And Jesus said to him, Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham.

And the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. So here we have another biblical picture from the Gospels of repentance. Repentance produces fruit in keeping with repentance. The fruit here of Zacchaeus, the tax collector, is that he's giving half of his possessions to the poor, and he's restoring fourfold any amount of money that he has defrauded from another.

This is true repentance. That's another biblical picture. Let me give you the ultimate biblical picture. The ultimate biblical picture comes from the story of David, from the book of 2 Samuel. I'll start at chapter 11.

We're going to work through this entire text and take a look at what repentance looks like in Scripture. In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to do battle, David sent Joab and his servants with him and all of Israel, and they ravaged the Amorites and besieged Rabba.

But David remained in Jerusalem. It happened late one afternoon when David rose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king's house that he saw from the roof a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful.

And David sent and inquired about the woman, and one said, Is not this Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her.

Now she had been purifying herself from her uncleanness. Then she returned to her house, and the woman conceived, and she sent to David and told David, I am pregnant. So David sent word to Joab, Send me Uriah the Hittite, and Joab sent Uriah to David.

When Uriah came to him, David asked how Joab was doing and how the people were doing and how the war was going. Then David said to Uriah, Go down to your house and wash your feet. And Uriah went out of the king's house, and there followed him a present from the king.

But Uriah slept at the door of the king's house with all the servants of his lord and did not go down to his house. When they told David, Uriah did not go down to his house, David said to Uriah, Have you not come from a journey?

Why did you not go to your house? Uriah said to David, The ark in Israel and Judah dwell in booths, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field. Shall I then go to my house and eat and drink and lie with my wife?

As you live and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing. Then David said to Uriah, Remain here today also, and tomorrow I will send you back. So Uriah remained in Jerusalem that day and the next, and David invited him, and he ate in his presence, and he drank so that he made him drunk.

And in the evening he went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house. So where we're at in the story, David has committed adultery. He hasn't confessed his sin.

He hasn't repented of his sin. He's trying to concoct a way to hide his sin. Basically, make it so that it'll go away like it never happened. That's the idea. And this will lead to a compounding of his sin.

We continue reading. Verse 14, In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it by the hand of Uriah. In the letter he wrote, Set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting and then draw back from him that he may be struck down and die.

And as Joab was besieging the city, he assigned Uriah to the place where he knew there were valiant men. And the men of the city came out and fought with Joab, and some of the servants of David among the people fell.

Uriah the Hittite also died. Yeah, so he murdered him by the hands of the Hittites. All looks good. He's going to get away with it, right? Well, we continue. So then Joab sent and told David all the news about the fighting, and he instructed the messenger, When you have finished telling all the news about the fighting to the king, then if the king's anger arises, if he says to you, Why did you go so near the city to fight?

Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall? Who killed Abimelech, the son of Jeroboam? Did not a woman cast an upper millstone on him from the wall so that he died at Thebes? Why did you go so near the wall that you shall say, Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also?

So if the king complains, just, Oh, yeah, let him know, Oh, yeah, Uriah is dead. And isn't that horrible? Uriah literally had to carry his own death warrant and didn't even know what was going on. His wife's pregnant by the hand of the king he's loyal to, and I mean ridiculously loyal to.

And the king's trying to get him to sleep with his wife, and then, you know, hopefully the baby will come and he won't be able to put the math together. It might seem a little early, but hey, you know, nine months is, you know, eight and a half, and, yeah, that's good enough, right?

He doesn't sleep with his wife. So David has him carry his own death warrant, and now he's murdered by the hand of the Hittites. So the messenger went and came and told David all that Joab had sent to tell him.

And the messenger said to David, The men gained an advantage over us and came out against us in the field, but we drove them back to the entrance of the gate, and then the archers shot at your servants from the wall.

Some of the king's servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also. So David said to the messenger, Thus shall you say to Joab, Do not let this matter displease you, for the sword devours now one and now another.

Strengthen your attack against the city and overthrow it, and encourage him. When the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead, she lamented over her husband. And when the morning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son.

But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.

Adultery and murder.

And now the way it's gone down, David looks like, Oh, what a great guy. I mean, look at this. He's marrying a war hero's widow. Isn't that just great? Yeah, but he hasn't pulled any of the wool over the Lord's eyes.

So Yahweh sent Nathan to David, and he came to him and said to him, There were two men in a certain city, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had very many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought.

And he brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children. It used to eat of his morsels and drink from his cup and lie in his arms. It was like a daughter to him. Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was unwilling to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the guest who had come to him.

But he took the poor man's lamb, and he prepared it for the man who had come to him. And David's anger was greatly kindled against the man. Listen to David's response. And he said to Nathan, As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die, and he shall restore.

Listen to that. David has a sense of justice here. As surely as the Lord lives, the man who has done this thing, he deserves to die, and he shall restore the lamb fourfold because he did this thing and because he had no pity.

So David pronounces the judgment. Included in the judgment against this man, who he doesn't even know is him, is the idea of restitution, right? So Nathan said to David, You are the man. Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you out of the hand of Saul, and I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your arms and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah.

If this were too little, I would add to you as much more. Why have you despised? Who did he despise? Now listen carefully, okay? Now technically David despised Bathsheba because he totally took advantage of her.

David utterly despised Uriah the Hittite because he had him murdered. But who really was it that David was despising? Why have you despised the word of the Lord to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with a sword and have taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.

Now therefore, the sword shall never depart from your house because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife. Thus says the Lord, Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house, and I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of the sun.

For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all of Israel and before the sun. Now you're thinking,.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Is there not mercy? Yeah, there is. David said to Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord. Yes, you have. And Nathan said to David, The Lord also has put away your sin. You shall not die. Nevertheless, because you did this thing, you shall utterly be scorned, and have utterly scorned the Lord.

The child who is born to you shall die. Then Nathan went to his house. Was there mercy and forgiveness? Yes, there was. Is David a man after God's own heart? Yes, he is. Was there forgiveness for David the sinner?

You bet there was. But all of this was to bring him to repentance. This event with Nathan the prophet was to bring him to repentance so that he could hear the forgiveness of his sins, but there were also temporal consequences that go with it.

Right? Now, from there, what happens? David writes Psalm 51. No sooner is Nathan out of the palace that David takes pen to parchment, and he begins to write. And here's what he writes. Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love and according to your abundant mercy.

Blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me and against you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, you delight in truth and the inward being and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean.

Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Let me hear joy and gladness and let the bones that you have broken rejoice. Hide your face from my sins and blot out all of my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me and cast me not away from your presence and take not your Holy Spirit from me.

Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit. Then I will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will return to you. Deliver me from blood guiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.

O Lord, open my lips and my mouth will declare your praise for you will not delight in sacrifice or I would give it. You will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit a broken and contrite heart, O God.

You will not despise. So, here's the question that is before us. We're going to be taking a break shortly and we're going to be asking some tough questions. Has Mark Driscoll really repented? Is there true contrition and sorrow over his sins?

Are we seeing true restitution for the sins that he has committed? Or is this all still really, you know, is he still at the point where David was when he was covering things up? That's the question that needs to be asked.

Now, I want to make something clear. There is forgiveness and mercy for Mark Driscoll. Absolutely, God is merciful. Christ has bled and died for these sins. But does he really want to be forgiven? Or is he still trying to hide?

Is he still whitewashing? That's the question that remains before us. And, considering the nature of the sins that he's committed, we have to ask the tough question. Is he still qualified to be in the pastoral office?

That's one of the questions that we're about to ask. And we're going to have to take a look at Titus 1 5 -9 to take a look at the biblical standards regarding this. Now, just like David was forgiven for his sins and his sins were blotted out and God was not going to kill him, at the same time, there were temporal consequences.

And if Mark Driscoll had committed adultery on his wife, everybody would understand, hey, listen, you know, there's mercy and forgiveness for him. Pray that he repents and that he's forgiven. But because of what he's done, he's not qualified to be a pastor.

The standards for a pastor are he must be above reproach. He cannot be somebody who is greedy for gain. And, unfortunately, what's transpired over the past, you know, several, not just the past few months, but for a while now, major things, scandals regarding Mark Driscoll, I would argue that although there is forgiveness for him, what is called for is for him to be removed from the pastoral office.

We're going to take a break and we'll cover that aspect of it when we return. All right, we're up on our first break. If you'd like to email me regarding...

Hang on a second, too much.

All right, we're up on our first break. If you'd like to email me regarding anything you've heard on this edition or any previous editions of Fighting for the Faith, you can do so. My email address is talkbackatfightingforthefaith .com or you can subscribe on Facebook.

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Follow me on Twitter.

My name there at pirate Christian. When we come back, we're going to take a look at Mark Driscoll's apology letter and notice the details of it. Stay tuned. Don't want to miss it. We'll be right back.

Living a life of purpose can't save you. You're listening to Fighting for the Faith.

You're listening to Pirate Christian Radio. We'll be taking your false doctrine now.

Presents, day select. I do wish these planes would give us passengers more leg room.

Hey, let me help you with your luggage.

Oh, thank you so much.

What in the world do you have in these bags?

Bricks.

Bricks?!

I'm a door-to-door brick salesperson.

I'm not even going to ask.

Ladies and gentlemen, the captain has turned on the fasten seatbelt sign. If you have not already done so, please stow your carry-on luggage underneath the seat in front of you or in an overhead bin.

Please take your seat and fasten your seatbelts and make sure your seat back and tray tables are in their full upright and locked positions.

Thank you.

Thank you, Brittany. In case y 'all don't know me, I'm Mark Driscoll, and I'm going to be your pilot for today.

Oh, dear. He looks more like a terrorist if you ask me.

If any of you bastards feel at any time that you can pilot this plane better than me, then you'll be swiftly thrown under the bus. I mean plane. As you may have noticed, there are also no parachutes on this flight, which means, should you be thrown off the plane, that your landing will be unpleasant.

We thank you for flying Mars Hill Air with us today.

I guess it's time to take off then.

Well, let's just hope our flight to Boston will be nice and easy.

Then I just had from God we are no longer heading to Boston. Rather, we are now heading to New Jersey. As I've said before, please trust your pilot or you'll be forcibly removed from the plane.

Who on earth would want to go to New Jersey anyway?

That's it. God, please escort this man to the back of the plane for violent ejection.

Hey, I have my rights. You can't do this to people.

Oh, but I can.

I can't believe that just happened.

There's something seriously wrong with all of this.

Oh, this is your captain speaking. Do not be alarmed. You are now free to move about the cabin and do as you please. Just whatever you do, don't question my actions or authority.

So you're a brick salesperson, huh?

Yep.

But why on earth would you want to talk about something like that at a time like...

Yeah, I'm thinking it's time that Mr. High and Mighty.

Got relieved of his duties.

It is now time for you all to buckle your seatbelts and hold on tight because we are about to start doing barrel rolls.

He's going to do what?

Remember to always trust your pilots. I know what I'm doing. I do believe the ground is getting awfully close.

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All right, we're back. Warning, listening to Fighting for the Faith could cause you to become supremely dissatisfied with your church, especially if you have a vision-casting leader who has no accountability.

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And let me thank you for your support. We truly cannot do what we are doing here without it. Okay, next thing we are going to do is we're going to take a look at the letter that Mars Hill sent out to the people there that was from Mark Driscoll that is the apology letter.

And we're going to take our time to walk through this and compare what we are hearing in this letter to what we've just looked at. That's the biblical case for repentance, what it is, what it involves, to see if what we're hearing from Mark Driscoll is true biblical repentance.

Now keep in mind the charges that are against him. Number one, that he plagiarized authors in his books. Now the only thing he's admitted to is that there were mistakes made. He hasn't actually come right out and said he's guilty of plagiarism, although in his own words from one of his previous books, he's stated no doubt that if a pastor plagiarizes, he should find another job and should not be a pastor.

Mark Driscoll has said that himself. And we're up to seven books now where there's been plagiarism found and his publishers have gone back and cleaned up after him. So we're up to seven books. The book Real Marriage was one of those books where Dan Allender's work was plagiarized and is now in the new Kindle versions, is properly cited.

But Real Marriage is the book that $210 ,000 in tithe money was spent to basically game the system and manipulate the New York Times bestselling book status in order to make Mark Driscoll a New York Times bestselling author.

So you've got the gaming of the system. You have the money being spent from tithes and offerings, which, by the way, is probably inurement, which is probably illegal. And by doing this strategy, he may have actually risked the tax-exempt status for Mars Hill Church.

No joke, that's a reality of this situation. And also keep in mind, with Mark Driscoll, we're also dealing with his statements regarding throwing people under the bus and the pile of dead bodies behind Mars Hill.

You have Mark Driscoll, who was the one who participated in Elephant Room 2, interviewed T .D. Jakes and gave him a clean bill of health despite the fact that T .D. Jakes said that he believes in one God and three persons, if by persons you mean manifestations.

So there's a whole host of things that Driscoll has done over the years. Then you've got the pornographic visions. You've got him being what's called the cussing pastor. We've got the Song of Solomon sermon that blew up on the Internet a few years back.

So there's quite a few things that we can talk about in the history of Mark Driscoll, of things that he could and should be repenting of, and most specifically, most recently, plagiarism and using $210 ,000 in tithes and offerings to make him a New York Times bestseller.

So those are the things that we're talking about here. Let's take a look at this letter. Here's what Driscoll writes. He says, Thank you. I have received a great deal of love and encouragement from you for more than 17 years.

I genuinely appreciate every person who prays for my family and me. Also, I continue to find great joy in teaching the Bible every week to people I have grown to love with a father's affection. For those of you who have been around for a while, it is amazing for us to see all that Jesus has done.

People often ask if our church today resembles what I had originally planned. Not even close. The smallest location of a Mars Hill church is bigger than what my total vision was for the whole church when we started.

As the church grew over the years, it was clear that both the church and I were unhealthy in some ways. Now, there's the first admission that there's something wrong, and it was that he's unhealthy, despite some wonderful people and amazing things that the Holy Spirit was doing in and through them.

For years, I felt a joy in teaching the Bible and love for the people, but frankly was overwhelmed on how to organize and lead all that was happening. I felt the crushing weight of responsibility, but did not know what to do, and I lacked the abilities to figure it out.

I was frustrated at my shortcomings, but needed help from people who were more experienced and mature. In my worst moments, I was angry in a sinful way. For those occasions, I am sorry. As I've expressed in several sermons, I needed to mature as a leader, and we needed to mature as a church.

Now, notice he's not actually admitting any particular thing, just kind of in general. If I've done anything, if I was angry in a sinful way, then I'm sorry. Next, he says, In the last year or two, I have been deeply convicted by God that my angry young prophet days are over.

Okay?

Now, this is the first time in this email, but not the last, that he's going to play the prophet card. And I have to say it that way. This is a man who claims direct revelation from God. So he says, I've been convicted by God regarding my angry young prophet days, and that those days are over.

So he's no longer an angry young prophet. He's supposedly a mellow, mature prophet. But playing the prophet card is, well, abusive and manipulative. I would say if he's claiming to be a prophet, then he has to be a false prophet.

We continue. To be replaced by a helpful Bible-teaching spiritual father. Now, let me read the sentence in context. In the last year or two, I have been deeply convicted by God that my angry young prophet days are over, and to be replaced by a helpful Bible-teaching spiritual father.

Those closest to me have said they recognize a deep change, which has been encouraging because I hope to continually be sanctified by God's grace. I understand that people who saw or experienced my sin during this season are hurt, and in some cases have not yet come to a place of peace or resolution.

Now, my question here is, are we talking about those who were run over by the Mars Hill bus? Is that who we're talking about? I have been burdened by this for the past year, and I've had private meetings one at a time to learn from, apologize to, and reconcile with people.

Which people?

Because I know some guys who were thrown under the Mars Hill bus who haven't even received so much as a phone call or an email inviting them to come and be apologized to and be reconciled with. We continue.