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October 14, 2021 8:00 am
We want to distinguish true repentance from its counterfeiters want to see what true repentance looks like and distinguish it from the false versions that give people a false assurance that lead them ultimately into a very true and real time of judgment. You've heard the expression so near yet so far will it turns out that can be aptly applied to repentance. Some people seem outwardly repentance, but are not biblically so high a bill right in on today's edition of the true pulpit pastor Don Greene will discuss what repentance is not as he continues our series, unless you repent.
Don will offer two major examples in Scripture of people falling short of the real thing. Along the way you'll see why it's not even in the power of the natural person to come to genuine repentance. Rather, it's the work of the Holy Spirit lets joint on green right now in the truthful, what is the gospel, Jesus Christ, who is the eternal son of God came to earth and lived a perfect life of obedience to his heavenly father. He offered that life at the cross of Calvary and died for sinners in their place.
God accepted the sacrifice of Christ and raised him on the third day to prove that point in the resurrection shows that Jesus Christ is Lord over all.
Even over death and now in the gospel.
Christ offers himself to sinners for the forgiveness of their sins, and how do you respond to that offer salvation. How do you respond to Christ. Scripture tells us that you must repent and receive Christ personally into your life in repentance and repentance a sinner recognizes his sin and understands the mercy that God offers to him in Christ and with a sense of grief and with a sense of hatred of his sin, a sense of self-denial. By faith he turns from sin, to receive Christ with a full purpose to pursue obedience to Christ as Lord. There is this recognition of sin in repentance. There is this there is some measure there is some kind of of of grief and and regret over sin that is wrapped around that and there is a motion of the will away from sin toward Christ in order to receive him in Christ is received by faith alone for salvation, not by anything that we do. Repentance is not a is not something that we do beforehand in order to position ourselves so that we can receive Christ. Repentance is a demeanor by which we approach Christ in faith is not something that is done apart from faith, faith and repentance are inextricably linked together like two sides of a coin. That's the nature of true repentance. What we find when we look at this passage in Matthew is is that somehow these people completely missed the boat on on repentance.
Perhaps they didn't really hate their sin.
Perhaps they never really turned to Christ in faith. Perhaps they never understood the terms on which the offer was made at all. Whatever the case, this is tragic.
This is an irreversible tragedy of eternal proportions. To think that that any center would go to hell. Is it a tragedy of immense proportions that he would go to hell sent away by Christ, shocked and surprised is is unthinkable would be unthinkable, except that it's revealed to us in Scripture. Here's the thing. Whenever a pastor comes to preach on these issues.
He sees mindful of the way to Evanston sometimes weighty things are not the easiest things to hear and respond to and think about, you know, there's this tendency we so want things to be easy and and and not have difficult consequences that it is so very easy to push it aside and say I don't even want to think about that. I would rather suspect that that's how a lot of people end up in within the scope of verses 21 through 23. I don't even want to think about it it's too horrible to contemplate my response to that is this II think about it.
Just the opposite. It is precisely because it is so horrible that we have to contemplated. We have to think about it we have to deal with it.
We have to come to grips with what Scripture says I have with the tongue somewhat intrigued.
Halfway jokingly said there are two keys to discernment and just generally speaking in in the world as you go through life.
My greatly simplified to principles of discernment. Is this see what everybody else is doing and then go secondly go do the exact opposite. And that's going to serve you pretty well. You see what everybody else is doing and then you say all I will do the exact opposite. That would actually take you a lot further than you might think.
In the spiritual around you know you could look out and see what most other churches are doing and that you know the circus that they used to try to attract people and they get big crowds and I said hey I think great taken crowds want to do the exact opposite.
Were going to build a ministry around God's word that has no appeal to the carnal mind and will see what God does with that. I would rather see the results of that thin than just joining in the circus and being another clown in the pulpit.
I have no interest, no desire, and that I don't care how isolated that might leave us be how I'm happier to be isolated with all of you than to be someplace with a bunch of clowns in a crowd gathered around, that's way I feel about it. And so the fact that many people would say this is too difficult. This is too harsh to contemplate. I don't want to consider it in my mind tells us, and we need to consider it all the more.
And it's important for us to think this way. Now when we do that we know Christ well enough here. I think to be able to say that that there is an embedded blessing.
There is a blessing waiting for us.
If we take this word seriously and that Christ will meet us, not with a deep and sense of despair, but with with clarity and with discernment and with a sense of joy. For those of us to truly know him and to see the the Marvel and the wonder of the fact that he delivered us out of that kind of darkness and truly brought us into his kingdom by a sheer act of his have his amazing grace. That's what comes from this and so what we need to see what we want to do is we want to distinguish true repentance from its counterfeits. We want to see what true repentance looks like and distinguish it from the false versions that give people a false assurance that lead them ultimately into a very true and real time of judgment and I think that as we do this will gain some clarity about the nature of true repentance and either be able to examine our own hearts with greater clarity. For one thing, and also to be able to be more effective in the hands of God as ministers of the gospel as we understand what true repentance looks like were going to look at some biblical illustrations to see what repentance is not, and to see what is not a mark of true repentance and I think that what you will find is is that even in these two subject matters of this could've been for him, save in the last two for another time.
Is that even in even in these two things were going to consider were going to see how easy it is to fall into the trap of false repentance to think that there is something real, which is not the real repentance of which Scripture describes repentance reminding you again a center recognizing his sin, and understanding the mercy of God offered to him in Christ with a sense of grief turns away from his sin in order to embrace Christ by faith with a full desire a full purpose of mind to pursue obedience to Christ as Lord. That's the kind of repentance that were talking about.
And when you contrast some of the biblical examples of people who fell short of it, you start to see what the real thing looks like so little going to look at to hear it in the first one is this is that regret alone is not repentance regret over sin alone is not repentance. And this is a tough one to get your mind around it would seem that is you're talking about regret over sin, it would be easy to assume that you're talking about true repentance. But that is not the case and beloved what I want to say to you just plainly here is that sorrow over sin, standing alone, by itself, is not true repentance to simply be sorry over sin is not true repentance that is not an expression of what biblical repentance is and we see that illustrated in the life of the traitor Judas Iscariot turn in your Bible. If you would, to Matthew chapter 27 Matthew chapter 27. As you know, Judas betrayed Christ and identified him to the Roman authorities at night in exchange for 30 pieces of silver, and he betrayed Christ with a kiss and the Roman soldiers had found their man is Christ voluntarily yielded himself over to their to their dominion in that moment at Gethsemane that Judas later regretted what he had done and we see that expressed in chapter 27 verse one says when morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people conferred together against Jesus to put them to death and they bound him and they led him away and delivered him to pilot the governor then in verse three. Then when Judas, who had betrayed him, saw that he had been condemned, he felt remorse and returned the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders saying I have sinned by betraying innocent blood, but they said what is that to us see to that yourself in verse five, and he threw the pieces of silver into the temple sanctuary and departed and he went away and he hanged himself. He committed suicide in Scripture's calls Judas in different places a son of perdition. Jesus referred to them as a devil in John chapter 6 this was not true repentance and beloved self-destruction in the form of suicide is not an act of repentance. It is not a spiritual act at all and I say this with with a lot of sympathy in knowing that this kind of method of dealing with issues is increasingly common, but self-destruction. Suicide is not a spiritual act at all, and Judas shows by by his active self-destruction that he was not truly repentant. He felt regret but he did not repent in the way that we're talking about the way the Scripture describes repentance. It wasn't a a renunciation of self. It was not a returning to Christ. It was not a crying out to mercy to Christ. He felt regret and he ended his life.
Instead, that is not true repentance and so when you and I think about life and when we hear about people who have committed suicide, and all of that, we must think very clearly and precisely in spiritual terms about we recognize we understand that there is that there is something very sad and sorrowful about that and we would you drive no satisfaction out of it at all, but there should be, and none of our minds any sense that this was somehow a an active repentance that there was some kind of repentant act. There, because that if repentance leads you to Christ. Repentance is a turning from sin toward Christ and the last thing the Judas did in his active suicide was to to turn to Christ, he felt regret but he did not repent and so while he felt regret over his what he had done. He felt regret over the betrayal that was not the same thing is repentance. You can see this in another illustration in Scripture. If you've turned acts chapter 7 acts chapter 7C, in part, you will you will recognize your recognize repentance by its fruit in the fruit of repentance is found in is found in a peaceable trusting Christ a peaceable turning to Christ AAA resignation to Christ and the submission to him and that was not the mark of Judas at all. In acts chapter 7, you remember that that Stephen was preaching to the Jews, and he convicted them of their sin and turning Christ over the crucifixion and in acts chapter 7 verse 51 just picking it up at his conclusion, he says in acts 751.
He said you men who are stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears are always resisting the Holy Spirit you are doing just as your fathers did which one of the prophets did your fathers not persecute. They killed those who had previously announced the coming of the righteous one whose betrayers and murderers you have now become you, who received the law as ordained by angels and yet did not keep it. Now I like the courage and the forthrightness of his preaching, don't you, in verse 54 we see how the men responded they were certainly convicted as it says in verse 54 now when they heard this, they were cut to the quick.
They were cut to the quick.
They were pierced in their heart by the truth that Stephen had proclaimed against them.
They felt the weight of it.
They felt the conviction, but how did they respond did that lead them to repentance. Did it lead them to a turning from sin a self renunciation in a turning to Christ. Not at all. They began gnashing their teeth at him. It says in verse 54 in verse 55 Stephen being full of the Holy Spirit gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and he said, behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God, but they cried out with a loud voice and covered their ears and rushed at him with one impulse when they had driven him out of the city, they began stoning him, and the witnesses laid aside their robes at the feet of a young man named Saul. They went on stoning Stephen as he called on the Lord and said, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit then falling on his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, Lord, do not hold this sin against them and having said this, he fell asleep.
Notice the result of the conviction that they felt inside. They cried out against Stephen and in a in a most symbolic and and instructive act. They covered their ears so that they would not here anymore. This is what sinners do. This is what people who fall short of repentance. Do they stop listening. They plug their ears, they say, not not not not listening anymore. And far from turning from sin, they turned to sin in order to stop the conviction that was being brought up upon their heart. They hated Stephen for the conviction that he brought through his preaching and therefore they killed him. Now beloved all the we want to see out of this understanding of guilt is not full repentance. It is not true repentance. They were close in one sense and that they saw the issue. They were close but they were surprisingly far away from repentance and this is what I want you to see as we think about Matthew seven as we think about Judas as we think about the men who stoned Stephen the first Christian martyr it's it's sobering to me. At least it's sobering to recognize that that man could be so close to the real thing, Lord, Lord, depart from me.
I never knew you Judas feeling remorse and even casting away.
The silver that he had taken to betray innocent blood. But then he goes out and he hangs himself. Stephen rightly convicts the Jews and they understand it so much that there cut to the heart and yet the responses one of greater sin turns to murder rather than turning to Christ Judas turn to suicide rather than turning to Christ in mercy, and so we have to understand that the mere bare fact of feeling guilty over sin is not true repentance because it stops short of turning to Christ notice. This tells us this tells us many things a a man who feels a who somewhere in the corner of his heart. No matter what he professes outwardly, a man who, in his heart feels satisfied with his own self-righteousness is a man who's not repentant, no matter how much he talks about God or Jesus or or wanting to do the right thing. If you have a settled sense of self-righteousness. You are not repentant. You are not in Christ.
You are outside of the kingdom. This is serious someone who is heard of Christ again and again and again and begins to inwardly if not outwardly rolled her eyes and here it comes again no matter what they say about themselves that that N-word that inward dissatisfaction, resistance, indifference of pushing away when that's a settled mark of a heart are not a Christian.
No matter how often they show up at church matter how often they tag along with somebody else. You see there there is that there is a genuine sincerity to true repentance of a genuine hatred for sin and the genuine turning to Christ, but is without guile.
That is, without pretense that is that is full of that is full of sincerity and saying I really do want to leave my sin behind.
I really do want to receive Christ as a reality to it.
And yet it is a reality that goes beyond mere regret. See beloved, I haven't.
I have in mind. No one in particular. As I say this, but it's just important to say somebody use a second person singular. You if you simply regret the consequences of your sin, and he goes no further. That's not real repentance. Lots of people can regret the fact that they are suffering the consequences of their wrongdoing. Prisons are filled with people like this who regret the fact that they were caught who regret the fact that they are being punished, but it stops short of a self renunciation in order to embrace Christ fully is Lord and so we should not confuse feelings of guilt, standing alone, as being that which is the expression in the fullness of repentance. Repentance involves a a sorrow over sin, to be sure it involves a recognition yes I'm a wrongdoer. Yes, I'm a sinner. Yes, I have broken God's law. It involves that, but it goes further than that to a turning to Christ and those two things while intimately related cannot be separated. So we see in Judas and in the Jews that they were surprisingly far from repentance, even though in our superficial day and age we could look and say look their spiritual motions going on in their heart, no, no repentance.
Repentance can be known in part by its fruit. It can be known in part by its fruit. What comes after words in Matthew chapter 3, I believe it is in Matthew chapter 3, you can turn there with me. In Matthew chapter 3 John saw this is again a good illustration of falling short of true repentance. John the Baptist saw Matthew chapter 3 verse seven Matthew chapter 3 verse seven John the Baptist saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, and then you would think all this is good they must be repentant.
They got spiritual desires are coming to the leader seeking to submit their selves to him. John the Baptist says you brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come. And he challenges them and says therefore bear fruit in keeping with repentance.
Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. If there is repentance.
It can be known by the fruit that follows feelings of guilt, followed by suicide is not true repentance is not biblical repentance. It's not the change of mind. It's not the change and redirection of life itself. Full preoccupation with self that is not the fruit of true repentance.
And so you and I as biblical Christians need to be able to distinguish these things in our minds that's done green founding pastor of truth Community Church in Cincinnati Ohio with part one of a message titled surprisingly far from repentance. The latest installment of our series unless you repent. Don will have part two on our next broadcast. So join us then you're on the truth pulpit right now though Don's back in studio with news of a great resource.
My friends would bring today's broadcast to close one offer you a very special gift of special resources, a gift from our ministry is my series called trusting God and trying times in this series over the years has proven to be the most popular set of messages that I've ever done. It helps you know how to trust God is you're going through the deep sorrows that sometimes come to us in life comes from the book of Habakkuk in the Old Testament, and it comes from some very deep sorrows of my own that were present early in my Christian life is very personal. It's very helpful.
It's very biblical I would love to see you have it in your hand is available in CD album or by download transcripts are available if you prefer that my friend Bill is going to give you information on how to find just visit our website at the truth. Pulpit.com to get the resource done just mention I built right and will see you next time. For more from the truth