This sermon was preached on Sunday
evening, June 14th, 1981, at the Trinity Baptist Church in
Montville, New Jersey. Our study in the Word of God
this evening is the fourth in a series of meditations drawn
together by the common concern expressed in the words, some
missing notes in contemporary gospel preaching. Now, I have
sought to underscore each time we have taken up this theme that
we are not dealing with an abstract theoretical concern, but since
Almighty God has made but one provision to remedy the soul-destructive
malady of sin, and since that one remedy is set forth in the
gospel, any perversions of, additions to, or subtractions from that
gospel are ruinous to the souls of men. The first missing note
in contemporary gospel preaching, which we have examined, is the
note of the wrath of God. And if you were not present for
those studies, they are available from the Trinity Pulpit, and
I urge you to get hold of them, not because of any particular
excellence in the preaching, but simply because there at least
is an honest effort to deal honestly with this dominant biblical theme
so woefully lacking in much of contemporary gospel preaching. Tonight we take up the second
of these missing notes in contemporary gospel preaching, namely the
note of repentance. And as we attempt to come to
grips with this vital issue, we shall consider, first of all,
the prominence of repentance in the biblical preaching of
the gospel. The question that is before us
is this. What place, if any, was given
to the teaching and preaching of repentance in the ministry
of our Lord Jesus Christ and his apostles? Was this a note
included at all in that chord of truth which constitutes the
gospel of the grace of God? If it was a note that was included,
was it a dominant note in that chord of truth? Well, in taking
up this division of our subject, the prominence of repentance
in the biblical preaching of the gospel Consider with me,
first of all, the prominence of this note in the preaching
of Christ himself. If you turn with me to Mark's
Gospel, chapter 1, you will notice that Mark, plunging right into
his subject in verse 1 of chapter 1, says, The beginning of the
gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And there follows then
an account of the life and ministry of John the Baptist, and then,
beginning with verse 14, the direction or the attention is
again directed to our Lord. Now, after John was delivered
up, Jesus came into Galilee, and here is a summary of His
Galilean ministry, preaching the gospel of God and saying,
The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent ye, and believe in the
gospel." Here Mark, by the inspiration of the Spirit, is summarizing
the dominant lines of emphasis in the ministry of the Lord Jesus,
and he tells us that the great themes of his preaching were
these. First of all, there was the declaration
of the presence of gospel mercies in the person of the King of
Grace. The time is fulfilled, and the
kingdom of God is at hand. And when we read in other portions
of the gospel record, we come to understand that that kingdom
was not the offer of a political kingdom which was temporarily
postponed by the unbelief of the Jews, but it was nothing
other than that spiritual kingdom which had been prophesied by
all the prophets of the Old Testament a kingdom which was now at hand
in the person of the Lord Jesus. And so a great and dominant note
in the preaching of our Lord Jesus was that all of the promises
of God's mercy to His people are at hand in the coming of
the kingdom through the person and presence of the King Himself. And so the note of pure gospel
provisions is bound up in that language, the time is fulfilled,
the kingdom of God is at hand. But then you will notice that
there was another dominant note in the preaching of our Lord
Jesus. In the light of the presence of the unspeakable privileges
of the kingdom that are at hand, Our Lord continually laid upon
his hearers these two great imperatives. Look at them in verse 15. Repent
ye and believe in the gospel. He did not call them simply to
faith, nor to a faith that was devoid of repentance. He did
not call them to a repentance that merely had reference to
the legal demands of God apart from the gracious provisions
of gospel grace. That to which our Lord continually
called men had these two focal points, the note of repentance
and the note of faith. And the summary of His Galilean
ministry is this that is set before us by Mark, in which we
see that repentance was not an occasional note sounded by our
Lord. It was a fundamental, it was
a central, it was a prominent note in the preaching of our
Lord Jesus Christ. When we turn to the Gospel of
Luke, we find a similar emphasis coming through in the fifth chapter
of Luke's Gospel, in which our Lord self-consciously speaks
of His own mission as the Son of Man and the Savior of sinners. He has just accomplished an amazing
act of forgiving grace in the case of Levi or Matthew. And this disturbed the religious
snobbery of the leaders of that day, and they are disturbed that
our Lord is found in such close proximity to sinners. And Jesus,
in answering to them, says these words in verses 31 and 32 of
Luke 5. Jesus answering said unto them,
Those that are in health have no need of a doctor, but those
that are sick. I am not come to call the righteous,
but sinners, now notice, not to a decision, not to a profession,
not to a surface acknowledgement of who I am and what I've come
to do, Our Lord says that the very end for which He calls sinners
is that they might experience a deep and thorough work of repentance. So we see that according to our
Lord Himself, repentance is no secondary issue. It is central
to His whole mission as the Son of Man who has come to seek and
to save that which was lost. He conceives of his mission in
no lesser terms than one of bringing sinners to repentance, so that
if Jesus Christ has ever sought and saved a sinner, he has sought
and saved him in a way of repentance. And if your professed salvation
from Christ has left you a stranger to the realities of repentance,
you have not been sought and saved and called by this Christ,
but by some other. Well, then we find our Lord again
in such passages as Luke 13, 3, and 5, emphasizing the note
of repentance, but we must pass over much of this material and
come to what is one of the most pivotal passages in the ministry
of our Lord in Luke's Gospel, chapter 24. For here we find
our Lord not in a preaching role, emphasizing repentance, But we
find him in a teaching capacity, his post-resurrection teaching
ministry to his disciples, instructing them with respect to the gospel
that they are to take to the ends of the earth, subsequent
to his ascension to the right hand of the Father. And we read
in Luke 24, verse 44, the following words, And he said unto them,
These are my words which I spoke unto you while I was with you,
that all things must needs be fulfilled which are written in
the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning me.
Then opened he their mind that they might understand the Scriptures. And he said unto them, Thus it
is written, that the Christ should suffer and rise again from the
dead the third day and that repentance and or repentance unto there
is a textual problem whether you have the conjunction chi
or whether you have the preposition ice that repentance and or repentance
unto remission of sins should be preached in his name unto
all the nations beginning from Jerusalem, you are witnesses
of these things." Now, according to our Lord's There is no gospel
which does not focus upon the realities set forth in the certainty
and the significance of the death of Christ. Notice the language.
He opened their mind that they might understand the scriptures,
and he said unto them, thus it is written, that the Christ should
suffer and rise from the dead the third day. As they go forth
among the nations, they are to bear witness to these things. What things? Well, first of all,
to the truths that cluster around the fact and the meaning of the
death of our Lord Jesus Christ. And surely there is no one who
has even but the most cursory acquaintance with the gospel
that would say any gospel presentation was a truly biblical gospel if
it omitted all reference to the death of Christ. A gospel script
of the fact, the certainty, the meaning of the death of Christ
upon the cross is no gospel whatsoever. Furthermore, he went on to say,
that is surely as these things include testimony to his death
there must be this testimony to His resurrection and rise
again from the dead the third day. And in the light of 1 Corinthians
15, 1-4 and the entire chapter, we can say with equal conviction
and dogmatism that no presentation of the gospel is biblical if
it omits the fact and the significance, the implications of the resurrection
of Jesus Christ. A Christ who is crucified, dead
and buried, whose carcass has long since turned to dust, is
not a Christ who in the livingness of resurrection power can save
sinners. It is only the resurrected Christ
whose resurrection is the validation of all that he did in death,
whose resurrection installs him in a position of power from which
he can call and save sinners, it is only such a Christ who
is presented in the gospel. But now you'll notice if you
simply look at the passage that Jesus says in the light of that
preaching of the objective realities of his death and resurrection
according to the scriptures, there is a divine imperative
that is to be preached to all men if they would experience
the remission of sins provided for sinners in the death and
resurrection of Christ. And whether we translate it,
repentance and remission of sin should be preached in his name,
or repentance unto remission of sin, this much is clear. No
remission of sin is promised by our Lord, divorced from repentance. The passage is clear. Whether
it is repentance and, consequent upon that repentance, true remission,
or whether it is repentance unto remission, our Lord gives no
one any authority to promise remission to sins to any sinner
among all the nations except that sinner repent. One of the keys to a proper understanding
of the passage is repentance and remission of sins preached
in His name. That is a repentance that is
a call to forsake sin, sin that has been seen in its true light
in the full revelation that has come in the person and work of
Christ. It is to be gospel repentance. It is to be repentance preached
as a divine imperative following the opening up of the grandeur
of divine mercy in the person and work of Jesus Christ. It
is to be repentance not so much poured down upon men amidst the
fire and thunder of Sinai, but amidst the awesome grandeur of
Golgotha and the open tomb. It is to be repentance preached
in His name, in the light of the full revelation of God in
Jesus Christ, but It is nonetheless repentance preached in His name. Not simply trust Jesus, not simply
make a decision, not simply believe the record God has given concerning
His Son. There is to be repentance unto
remission of sin. And our Lord authorized no gospel
that did not have repentance as a prominent note in that gospel. Well then, did the apostles take
him seriously? Well, if you'll turn with me
to the book of the Acts, we'll look very quickly at several
pivotal texts in which we have a distillation of some of the
early apostolic preaching. Did they take our Lord seriously? Did they offer remission of sin
to guilty, hell-deserving sinners apart from repentance? Well,
let's take that specimen sermon preached on the day of Pentecost.
Peter is exalting his Lord, and in the midst of proclaiming Christ
to the multitude gathered there on that significant day, the
Scripture tells us that as he preached, God did an amazing
and wonderful thing, verse 37 of Acts 2. Now when they heard
this, they were pricked in their heart, literally they were stabbed
in their hearts as with a dagger. and said unto Peter and the rest
of the apostles, Brethren, what shall we do? You see, here was
no little sales job, no Madison Avenue con job to get people
to make some kind of a weak inquiry about spiritual realities. The
Word of God had reverberated in the deepest chambers of their
spirits until the great realities of their culpability and guilt
so possessed them that they literally broke Peter off in the middle
of his sermon and cried out, What shall we do? And what was
Peter's answer? Now we don't want to embarrass
anyone. We don't want to put anyone to shame. Everyone bow
his head, close your eyes. No, no, Peter didn't go into
the rigmarole of trying to get people to slip up a hand in secret
and then trick them to walk down an aisle and then go back into
a little room and feed a few verses under their nose and give
them Protestant absolution and send them back home half deceived
or fully deceived and on their way to hell thinking they were
saved. because they made a little ditty decision. No, no. Look
at the language of the text. When they heard this, they cried
out, What shall we do? And Peter said unto them, Repent
ye, and be baptized every one of you unto the remission of
your sin. Do you notice what he ties together?
Repentance and the remission of sin. And we'll not go into
the problem part of the text. There is a very reasonable explanation. Salvation is not found in baptism. That would contradict everything
else that is taught in Holy Scripture. But for our purposes, we simply
want to extract that close conjunction which Peter makes between repentance
and remission, so that everyone who is stabbed in his heart knows
If I am to get rid of this great burden of guilt that I feel,
that I painfully experience, if I am to come to the remission
of my sins, it will only be in the way of repentance. If I miss
the way of repentance, I will miss remission. I will go down
to my grave and on to judgment under the load of this guilt
of my sin. We find Peter preaching in Acts
3. And again, in this situation, an entirely different setting,
there does not seem to be that same powerful, sovereign work
of the Spirit, pricking many hearts with deep conviction.
But as the Apostle brings his sermon to a close, notice his
wording in Acts 3 and verse 19. and turn again in order that
your sins may be blotted out. Now isn't that the great provision
of the gospel? The divine method of blotting
out the sins of men, scrubbing them from God's record, and in
its place giving us the perfect record of the Lord Jesus Christ. And yet Peter informs his hearers
that if their sins are ever to be blotted out, they must look
for the blotting out of their sins in no other path but the
path of true repentance. Repent ye therefore in order
that your sins may be blotted out. In Acts chapter 5, here
we find Peter preaching before those who had just a short time
before abused them, persecuted them. And this is what he says
of his Lord, verses 30 and 31. Acts 5, The God of our fathers
raised up Jesus, whom ye slew, hanging him in a tree. Him did
God exalt with his right hand. to be a prince and a savior,
not sometime in some future age between time and eternity. Right
now, he's been exalted to God's right hand, constituted a prince
and a savior, to do what? Look, to give repentance to Israel
and remission of sin. The exalted Christ gives remission
of sins only in those situations where He gives repentance. If
He gives no repentance, He gives no remission. But blessed be
God where He gives repentance in every instance. He grants
full and complete remission to the true Israel of God. And then in chapter 8, in verse
22, we find him in a one-to-one situation, not preaching before
a vast auditory, but preaching to an individual who, though
he made a profession of faith, he made a decision, he was baptized. He was even a close companion
of one of the eminent servants of God for a while. But when
his true character emerges, Peter doesn't tell him, now Simon,
your problem is you are a backslidden Christian or you're a carnal
Christian and you need to learn the secret of the deeper life
and get things all sorted out. No, no. When he showed he had
no basic perception of the spirituality of the kingdom, no basic passion
for holiness, Peter concluded he didn't have the root of the
matter in him at all. And so he says to him in Acts
8 in verse 21, Thou hast neither part nor lot in this matter. Thy heart is not right before
God. You've made a profession. You've
made a decision. You've been baptized. You've
been very impressive wherever the evangelist has been. You're
at his side. But in spite of all of this,
your heart is still unchanged. Now what directive does he give
him? Look at it. Repent therefore. He doesn't say simply admit your
wickedness, your wickedness. He says repent therefore of this
thy wickedness and pray to the Lord if perhaps the thought of
thy heart shall be forgiven thee for I see that thou art in the
gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity. If this gall
of bitterness and bond of iniquity is ever to be broken in the case
of Simon, Simon is given to know by the preaching of Peter it
will only be in the context of a deep and thorough repentance,
a repentance as pointed and specific as was his sin. But now someone
who has been schooled in the so-called teaching of distinguishing
things that differ, says, ah, but Pastor Martin, don't you
know that that was preaching to ethnic Israel, a people already
in external covenant relationship to God, and to them the message
was to have a change of mind, but when the gospel went to the
Gentiles, it was a gospel of simply trust in Jesus, simply
belief. Is that so? Well, it certainly
cannot be substantiated from the book of Acts, because we
read in Acts 11, the record of Peter coming back and reporting
his experience when he preached to a household of Gentiles, Cornelius
and his household, who were what we might call loose proselytes,
but they were Gentiles. And when his Jewish friends heard
that he had eaten with Gentiles as well as preached to them,
they were disturbed. But he gives a report of what
God did in sending the Spirit upon that group of Gentiles gathered
in one place, and notice the conclusion to which these people
came when they heard it in verse 18. And when they heard these
things, they held their peace and glorified God, saying, That
to the Gentiles also hath God granted repentance unto life. So when the gospel first comes
in a Gentile context, it comes with this understanding that
it is surely as we who had all the privileges of association
with the Jewish nation, the scriptures in our hands, the great legacy
of the prophets, the temple worship, the priestly line, the sacrificial
system, as surely as we will find no true forgiveness except
in a way of repentance. So likewise the Gentiles. If ever they are to come into
the possession of that light which has been purchased for
the people of God in the doing, in the dyings of Christ, it will
come only in the way of repentance. And when we turn to the testimony
of that great apostle to the Gentiles, he gives us two summary
statements. One that summarizes three and
a half years of ministry in a very citadel of Gentile pagan worship
and pagan culture and life, the city of Ephesus. And then another
that summarizes his entire ministry up to the very point that he
gives that summary. The first passage to which I
make reference is, of course, Acts 20 and verse 21. The Apostle
is summarizing the substance of three and a half years ministry
in Ephesus. And notice his language in chapter
20 and verse 20. I shrank not from declaring anything
that was profitable and teaching you publicly and from house to
house. Testifying notice now both to
Jews and Greeks. repentance toward God and faith
toward our Lord Jesus Christ. The two great pivots around which
all of his ministry turned were the pivots of repentance with
specific and distinct reference to God as creator, lawgiver,
and judge. and faith with distinct reference
to Jesus Christ as God's Messiah, the exalted Lord, the only Savior
of sinners. Now notice, Paul did not simply
preach faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ. Nor did he simply
preach repentance toward God. He said these were the two great
watersheds, as it were, of all that I taught. Repentance toward
God, faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Underscoring the inseparability
as well as the distinct elements of repentance and faith. And
then we turn to the final passage in the Apostolic Record, Acts
26. And all I'm seeking to set before you is the biblical evidence
of the prominence of the note of repentance in the teaching
and preaching of our Lord and of his apostles. Acts 26 and
verse 20, Paul standing before a heathen potentate, again giving
his testimony and an account of his ministry, says, verse
19, Whereupon, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the
heavenly vision, but declared both to them of Damascus first,
and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the country of Judea, and
also to the Gentiles. The notion that there is a distinctive
gospel for Jews and one for Gentiles is unfounded theological rubbish. The great apostle says, I had
one gospel. I preached it wherever I went. And here was that message. Look
at it. What did you preach, Paul? He
says, this was my message, that they should repent and turn to
God, doing works worthy of repentance. For this cause the Jews seized
me in the temple and assayed to kill me, having therefore
obtained the help that is from God. I stand to this day testifying
both to small and great, saying nothing but what the prophets
and Moses did say should come. Now notice how that the Christ
must suffer. how that He first, by the resurrection
of the dead, should proclaim light both to the people, that
is, the Jews, and to the Gentiles. You see how He brings it all
together? He said, My gospel was one gospel to the Jew, to
the Gentile. It proclaimed the saving mercies
of God in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, saving mercies
terminating upon the death and the resurrection of Christ. Oh,
how he must have loved to take the Old Testament Scriptures,
Isaiah 53 and 55 and 57, Psalm 22, and other passages such as
that, and set forth the Lord Jesus as the suffering servant
of Jehovah, by whose death and resurrection a just peace has
been made on man's behalf with God. But, my friends, when he
was done He didn't tell people, now all you need to do is admit
you're a sinner and believe Christ died and you're fixed up forever.
He told them in the light of those things they had to repent. They had to turn to God, and
furthermore, they had to prove by their subsequent pattern of
life that the repentance and the turning was real. They had
to do works worthy of repentance. Well, my friends, I rest the
case. Can anyone say who believes his Bible that repentance was
an absent note or even an occasional note in the preaching of our
Lord and of his apostles? No. It was a dominant note, and
I say it is this missing note in contemporary gospel preaching
that lies at the root of so many of our present woes. Now then,
having set before you from the Scriptures the prominence of
the note of repentance in apostolic preaching and teaching and in
the preaching of our Lord, this brings us in the second place
to what I trust is a burning question in the hearts and minds
of all who hear my voice. If indeed, as the Scriptures
teach, there is no remission No forgiveness, no pardon, no
acceptance with God apart from repentance. A repentance drawing
to itself all of the light and privileges of the glorious gospel
of the grace of God, but a true and deep and thorough repentance
nonetheless. I say, if there is no forgiveness
and pardon apart from that repentance, And the question that ought to
be burning in every mind and heart within sound of my voice
is this. What in the world does that word
repent? What does the word repentance
mean? For if I miss repentance, I miss
life. If I miss repentance, I miss
pardon. If I miss repentance, I miss
the forgiveness and the remission of sins. And if I miss that,
I'm under that frightening thing we contemplated for three weeks,
the wrath of Almighty God. Let me give you a very sober
warning as we try to bring into sharp focus the basic meaning
of that repentance demanded by the gospel. Beware of establishing
doctrines on etymologies of words. Now, we are often told, well,
don't you know, that the Greek word for repentance is comprised
of a preposition and a verb. Put them together, and they mean,
by etymology, an afterthought, a change of mind upon reflection. Well, that's good etymology,
but that's bad theology. For the meaning of a word in
Scripture is not determined by etymology, but by scriptural
usage. How did the Holy Ghost use a
word in the Bible? And its meaning is in its use,
not in its etymology. And when we look at all of the
passages in which people are said to repent, called upon to
repent, parallel passages in which the word repent is not
used, but the activity is described, what is the fundamental conclusion
to which we are inevitably drawn? Well, let me suggest it is this. The basic meaning of repentance
is simply this. It is a turning from sin. unto
God. That's the heart, that's the
core, that's the distilled essence of the biblical demand of repentance. It is a demand to turn from sin
unto God. Now let's think of why this demand
is so inextricably bound up with the call to faith and to entrance
into the provisions of the gospel. When the gospel comes to us as
sinners, how does it find us? Well, if we have any acquaintance
with the Bible in our own hearts, we know that when the gospel
comes to us, it finds us all under guilt and condemnation. The wages of sin is death. All have sinned and come short
of the glory of God. Romans 319, what thing soever
the law says, it says to those that are under the law that every
mouth may be stopped and all the world come under the condemnation
of God. When the gospel comes to us,
it finds us not only all under guilt and condemnation, but it
finds us all in bondage. alienation and rebellion against
God. Whosoever commits sin is the
slave of sin. The carnal mind is enmity against
God. It is not subject to the law
of God. Neither, indeed, can it be. If,
when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death
of His Son. So when the gospel comes to us,
what does it find in us? It finds us in a state of condemnation
and guilt. It finds us in a state of alienation,
bondage and slavery to our sins. And then it sets before us the
amazing provision that God has made in His own beloved Son,
the appointed substitute for sinners, who took the place of
sinners, and in the room instead of sinners perfectly kept the
law, and then went to the cross and died the death which the
law demanded, but was raised again as a vindication of the
sufficiency of His work. And in setting forth the Lord
Jesus in all the glory of his redeeming grace, then God issues
the summons to sinners to do what? To repent and to believe
the gospel. You see how reasonable those
two demands are? To believe the gospel means that
the sinner credits all that God has said about his son. He is
willing to entrust the well-being of his guilty, bound, condemned
soul into the hands of Jesus Christ. But what did Christ come
to do? To take away the pressure of
a guilty conscience while his back is still toward God? While
his heart is still one big clenched fist in the face of God? Did
Jesus Christ come from heaven to die in order that sinners
might go on in alienation, rebellion, and bondage without any fear
of hell at the end? Tell me, is that why the Son
of God came? I hope everything within you
says, Preacher, no! Sooner that we should all go
to hell than that Jesus Christ would be the minister of sin. No. That's why you see the call
of repentance is bound up with the call to faith. For what is
the call to repentance? It says to the sinner, leave
the sins that brought you into condemnation. Turn from that
alienation. Turn from that posture of your
back towards God and your fist clenched against God. Turn from
your rebellion. Turn from your indifference to
communion with God, fellowship with God, obedience to God. Turn from that indifference to
His law, His people, His ways, His church. Turn from all of
that to God. And it's as though the sinner
says, but if I turn to God, He's got a controversy against me.
He's a God of infinite holiness. He's a God of infinite and inflexible
justice. How can I turn to a consuming
fire? And we say, oh, my friend, He
calls you to turn. Well, He calls you to believe.
No man comes to the Father but through Christ. Turn and face
that God with Jesus Christ, the mediator, summoning you to God. And that's why Spurgeon said,
Repentance is the tear in faith's eye. You see, when the eye turns
to behold Christ in faith, if it truly turns, it's a heart
broken for its sin and broken from its sin. not confirmed in sin to go on
in sin with no fear of punishment for sin, that's turning the grace
of God into lasciviousness. And so Paul can write of the
Thessalonians, and I love this passage, turn please to 1 Thessalonians
1, where there is a beautiful description of the repentance
of the Thessalonians I'm seeking to establish now that the fundamental
meaning of repentance is a turning from sin unto God. Paul says of the Thessalonians,
chapter 1, verse 9, back up to verse 8, For from you hath sounded
forth the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia,
but in every place your faith to Godward is gone forth, so
that we need not speak anything. For they themselves report concerning
us what manner of entering in we had among you. Now here it
is, how you turned unto God from idols to serve a living and true
God and to wait for his Son from heaven whom he raised from the
dead, even Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come. Whom does Christ deliver from
the wrath to come? Everyone who makes a decision?
Everyone who makes a profession? Everyone who goes through a little
rigmarole of praying a prayer that someone else puts in his
mouth but can't put in his heart? No, no. He saves from the wrath
to come only those who can be described in these words, who
turn to God from their idols to serve God and to wait for
his Son from heaven. And no one, my listener, get
it straight, no one will be delivered from wrath in the final day if
he has not turned to God. That is to embrace God as his
God. to give him that supreme place
in his affection that God deserves and demands, to embrace the law
of God as the rule of his life, the people of God as his companions
for time and eternity, turning to God from your idols. An idol is anything that claims
your affection and robs God of His due. For them there were literal idols,
these Thessalonians, stone and wooden gods, and they turned
from them. Your idol may be your face, may
be an ambition, may be your career, may be a friend, it may be a
relationship. Anything that keeps you from
wholeheartedly saying, Oh God, you're my God with all my I long
to do your will. As you give me strength, I shall
do it, even unto death." And any person or thing that keeps
you from saying that is an idol. They turned from their idols
to the living God. And notice, the one in whose
presence all of this was done, it was in the light of the person
and work of Christ which they knew. having ushered them into
communion with God now, had pledged that they should know what the
old writers called the beatific vision, and they would have the
consummate joy of open-faced communion with God in the final
day. And so what they knew now of
the work of Christ didn't send them glibly on their way, saying,
Well, I've got enough of Christ to fireproof me. That's all that
matters. I'm a carnal Christian, but I'll make it. That's all
that matters. Now I'll get on with business as usual. No, no! What they tasted of what Christ
gave them in communion with God now made their heart and flesh
long for the consummate glory. And so he says, you waited for
his Son from heaven. Why? Not to escape things that
were getting kind of hot down here, but because face-to-face
communion with God through Christ had now become life's greatest
treasure, and they longed for its consummation. My friend,
that's what it means to get saved. That's what it means to come
to repentance, to turn from your sins unto God through Jesus Christ,
the one and only appointed mediator between God and man. Now, if
that's what repentance is, then do you see that it affects the
whole man, the mind, how it thinks about God, his laws, his ways,
his justice, his holiness? What the heart feels about God,
His ways, His person, His justice, His holiness, His son, His salvation. It affects the will. What I choose
with regard to God, His claims, His law, His people. You see,
repentance is an act of the whole man. The judgment of the mind
is changed. The bent of the affections is
changed. The commitment of the will is
changed. Not perfectly. But fundamentally,
pervasively, and basically, and one day, thank God perfectly,
but in principle, there is that radical turning from sin unto
the living God. Perhaps one of the clearest illustrations
of repentance is in that familiar story of the prodigal son. All
of you children know that story. That young man that had a judgment
in his mind about his dad's government and his dad's presence and his
dad's fellowship. He said, I don't like it. I want
to get away from it. And he looked upon his dad in
only one light. Old money bags. Give me that which comes to me. That's all he looked upon his
dad is old money bags. He got what he wanted from his
dad and left him, had no desire for communion with him, had no
love for the government of his house, no delight in communion
with him. The scripture says he went off
into a far country and there he showed what his mind was thinking,
what his feelings were feeling, and what his will was choosing.
He then gave himself to what the Bible calls riotous living.
His mind said that true bliss in life can never be found at
my father's side and within the rules of my father's house. True
bliss can only be found out there in the whorehouses, out there
where people really live. And his judgment was such that
it led him to go to a far country to really find life. His affections
were where his mind and ultimately his feet were. But then the scripture
says he came to himself. And what happened? He had an
entirely new judgment about his father's house. He said, I will
arise and go to my father. And I will say to him, Father,
I've sinned against heaven and in thy sight and no more worthy
to be called thy son. Make me as one of thy hired servants.
What an about face. When he had all the privileges
of a son, he couldn't stand it. He had such a view of his father's
heart, his father's laws and ways that he couldn't stand them,
he wanted to leave them. Now he says, my father's heart
and law and ways are such that I counted a privilege just to
be one of his hirelings that lives out in a little shack in
the back. He's such a gracious man. His will is just and his
rule is holy and good. And he said, I'll go back and
say, father, you're not the tight fisted, hard hearted, insensitive
creature that I said you were when I left. You're just the
opposite of that. And the scripture tells us that
when he came to himself, he didn't sit there and have some wishful
thinking. It says he got up and he went and he did arise and
he did come to his father. And, you know, the subsequent
history. What's repentance? It's the prodigal coming to think
right thoughts about the father. to think right thoughts about
his haunts of iniquity. He no longer looked upon his
sinful companions in the whorehouses and the drinking places and all
the rest as anything desirable. He abominated it! He spiritually
vomited it out! And he left it! And he found the Father willing
to receive him. to put the robe upon him, the
ring upon his finger, and the rest of the story you know. That's
repentance, my friends. An entirely new judgment about
God and His ways and His laws. An entirely new disposition of
the affections. An entirely new choice of the
will. Well, time is going from us all too quickly, and in these
few remaining minutes, in the light of this brief survey of
the biblical data, indicating that repentance is a dominant
note in the preaching of our Lord and his apostles, seeking
to bring into sharp focus the essence of the meaning of repentance
as turning from sin unto God. Now, in conclusion, let me seek
to bring home three very fundamental points of application. Number
one, there is a searching question based upon our study tonight.
And the question, and I trust it will search you to the depths,
is this. Listening to my voice tonight
in this auditorium, in your homes, in a car, on a beach somewhere
on the Jersey Shore, wherever you are, my friend, stop what
you're doing and let this question sink deeply into your consciousness. Do you know anything of this
repentance we've been talking about tonight? Do you know experimentally
this change of mind, of affection and will, this turning from your
sin unto God through Jesus Christ alone? My friend, if you know
nothing of this repentance, you know nothing of forgiveness.
And if you know nothing of forgiveness, you are yet under wrath. And
if you are yet under wrath, you are to be pitied above all the
creatures of the earth. Oh, my friend, if you're a stranger
to this repentance, you're a stranger to God and to grace, and I plead
with you, oh, I plead, don't, don't, don't just push this off
as the rantings of another old-fashioned preacher! This is the Word of
God! God commands you to repent! You have it upon the Word of
Christ, except you repent, you'll perish. Then there is a second
line of application, and it is this. Not only does a searching
question based upon our study come to our consciences, but
an unavoidable conclusion grounded upon our study comes before us.
An unavoidable conclusion grounded upon our study. And what is the
conclusion? Well, it is this, that much of
current religion is rotten to the core. Much of current religion
is rotten to the core for the simple reason that it knows nothing
of this repentance. All the so-called born-again
people in this country, supposedly 30 to 40 million, and no real
moral impact upon the fabric of society? Why? Because this
repentance has not been preached. This repentance is not known
amongst multitudes who speak glibly of being born again and
being saved by Jesus Christ. I cannot help but think of the
text in Jeremiah. They have healed slightly the
hurt of the daughter of my people, saying, Peace, peace. when there
is no peace. God goes on to say, they have
dabbed them with untempered mortar. They've done a patch job, that's
all, giving people enough religion to make them feel good, but not
to make them good. Enough religion to take away
the sting of conscience, but not enough to make them have
conscience about walking before God in every detail of life.
so as to have an impact as salt and light in the midst of a crooked
and perverse generation. I remind you of the announcement
of the angel, thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall
save his people not in their sins but from them. And if he's
not saved you from your sins of materialism, your sins of
obsession with sex, your sins of obsession with yourself and
with your own plans and with your own face and your own form
and your own friends. If he's not saved you unto holiness,
he hasn't saved you. An unavoidable conclusion from
our study is simply this. Much of current religion is rotten
to the core. But then finally a burning exhortation
necessitated by our study comes before us and that exhortation
is this, and in part it was fulfilled in the pastoral prayer tonight.
Pray that God will give power to those who are seeking to preach
to this generation the biblical doctrine of repent. Pray that
the Holy Spirit will come upon that preaching and make it efficacious
in the hearts of men, for unless God grants repentance, no sinner
will ever forsake his darling idols and turn from them unto
God. That's why in Acts 5, 31, 11,
18, and 2 Timothy 2, 26, repentance is here or in these texts declared
to be the grant and gift of God. We must not only pray that God
will give power to those who boldly preach repentance, but
pray that God will raise up a host of preachers to preach it. That
God will correct the deficiencies in the content of the preaching
of good and earnest men, but men who have either through ignorance
or through simply going along with the current clichés failed
to thunder this note into the ears of our generation. And then
let us cry to God that he will work in our hearts a deeper spirit
of repentance than we have ever known, for repentance, to be
sincere, must be perpetual. It's not the act of a moment,
but the acquisition of an attitude. And as long as sin remains, the
necessity for repentance abides. So we're going to be repenting
until there's no more cause for repentance when we see him and
we're like him. And in the midst of the bitterest
tears of repentance, friend, remember, there should be glistening
on those tears the hope that the God who put in you a broken
heart for your remaining sin is the God who's going to take
away all that remaining sin. And one grace that will not carry
to glory is the grace of repentance. Hallelujah. But that will be
such the experience only of such who have come to repentance and
to faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us pray. Our Father, we are so thankful
that you have not left us an obscure record of your mind and
will for sinners. We thank you for the clear testimony
of these many passages that we've examined tonight. We thank you
that every call, every command to repent is also an offer of
mercy, telling us that you are willing to receive the returning
sinner. Oh, marvel of marvels that you,
the infinitely holy God, would take us into fellowship with
yourself. Oh, we pray for any who even
now are in the throes of wrestling with the pull of their idols,
and yet they know to go on as idolaters is to go on to destruction. Oh, Father, give them such a
sight of your overwhelming mercy and kindness in the Lord Jesus
that they may turn from their sins with full purpose of and
endeavor after new obedience. And in the joy of sins forgiven,
in the joy of being liberated from sins bondage, may they serve
you, the living and the true God, and wait for your son from
heaven. We do pray, even as we exhorted
your people, raise up a host of fearless men endowed with
the spirit to hurl into the conscience of this giddy, light and frothy
generation the necessity of sober reflection upon your just claims
and the command to repent or perish. O God, we pray, raise
up such a host of men And for those who are seeking to be faithful
to this biblical note of gospel preaching, bless them, make them
bold and fearless, give them measures of the Spirit's anointing
that hitherto they have never known. And oh, may we yet live
to witness men breaking under the preaching of the Word, even
as on the day of Pentecost they cried out in the anguish of soul,
pricked in their hearts, We long for that day when our preaching
will be interrupted by the sob and the cry of broken, penitent
hearts. Oh, our Father, hear the cry
that we offer in your presence and help us who are your people
not to be discouraged in the ongoing work of repentance. Help
us in our moments of bitterest grief over our sins to take encouragement
that you, having planted within us that longing to be done with
sin, will one day consummate that work, and the longing shall
come to fruition. Even so, even so, come, Lord
Jesus, we long for the day when we shall serve you and love you
with unsinning hearts. Hear our cry, seal the word,
O may the great and final day reveal that the word was not
preached in vain this night. Hear us, O our God, hear us for
the sake of your Son and to your name and to your name alone be
praise and honor and glory. Amen.