from ourselves and our dead works
to faith in Christ. And it's to be turned to rest
in Christ for all. Now, repentance is a gift of
God. It's not true repentance if it's
not the gift of God, because repentance is by grace. Every
part of our salvation, all the gifts we are given are by grace. Freely, unmerited, given by God
to whom He will give them. So repentance is a gift of God. Now, until God grants repentance,
we may repent. We may repent, may come under
some sort of illegal fear and repent. But until God grants
repentance, Scripture calls that repentance to be repented of.
It's repentance unto death. Paul said, Godly sorrow worketh
repentance to salvation not to be repented of, but the sorrow
of the world worketh death. So, I want you to look now at
Pharaoh. A vain pretend repentance is
what we see in Pharaoh. After the Lord poured out the
The second plague of frogs, verse 8 says, Then Pharaoh called for
Moses and Aaron, and said, Entreat the Lord that he may take away
the frogs from me and from my people, and I'll let the people
go, that they may do sacrifice unto the Lord. Verse 15 says,
But when Pharaoh, and the Lord did what he asked, and it says
verse 15, But when Pharaoh saw that there was respite, when
all the judgment was over, He hardened his heart and hearkened
not unto them as the Lord had said. I touched on this a little
bit last time, but I want to look at it a little more closely
this time. I've titled it True Repentance. And again, we're
going to see here now repentance is only true when it's the gift
of God's grace. Now first of all, the judgment
of God will not work repentance. The judgment of God alone will
not make a man repent. Look at verse 8, it says, Then
Pharaoh called. It was after he saw these plagues
come upon him. The river Nile had been turned
into blood and then these frogs had come up. This was God's judgment. And he began to be afraid because
of this judgment. It was everywhere. It was in
every house. There was nothing they could do about it. Verse
15 says, But when he saw there was respite, He hardened his
heart and went right back to his rebellion. Now, we see this
throughout Scripture. We're shown this throughout Scripture,
that a man will come under judgment, he'll begin to feel guilty, and
he'll change. It's just natural when you come
into some sort of sorrow or some kind of a guilty, you try to
get out from under it. And that's what this vain repentance
is. We'll go over to Exodus 9. We're
going to, as we go through Exodus, we'll see several times that
Moses did this. Exodus 9 is another good example.
Verse 27. It says, when Pharaoh sent and
called for Moses and Aaron, and he said unto them, I've sinned
this time. You know that's not repentance,
starting out, because he said, I've sinned this time. He'd been
sinning the whole time. I've sinned this time. The Lord
is righteous, and I and my people are wicked. And treat the Lord,
for it is enough that there be no more mighty thunderings in
hell, and I'll let you go, and you shall stay no longer." And
so God did it. Verse 34 says, When Pharaoh saw
that the rain and the hail of the thunders were ceased, he
sinned yet more and hardened his heart, he and his servants.
And the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, neither would he let
the children of Israel go as the Lord had spoken by Moses.
And I'll show you a striking example of this. Go to Jeremiah
34. Jeremiah 34. This is where The Lord had brought judgment
upon Israel through Babylon, through the Babylonian kings
and different nations were seizing coming up against them in war,
and it says in verse 7, Jeremiah 34, 7, When the king of Babylon's
army fought against Jerusalem and against all the cities of
Judah that were left, against Lachish and against Azekiah,
for these defense cities remained of the cities of Judah. So you've
got to picture this, now all the cities are being besieged
by Babylon, by the king of Babylon's armies. So this was a terrible,
terrifying time. Verse 8 says, the second part
says, King Zedekiah then made a covenant with all the people
that were at Jerusalem to proclaim liberty unto them. That's what
God had commanded him to do, they were to do, but see what
he did is he got religion. He got scared and he got religion
and decided, okay, I'm going to obey God now and in verse
9, He said to them that every man should let his manservant
and every man his maidservant, being a Hebrew or a Hebrewess,
go free, that none should serve himself of them to wit of a Jew
his brother. That was a picture of Christ
setting us free by His covenant, by His works. Verse 11 says,
but afterward, but afterward, after God removed these Babylonian
kings, they turned, they went back. Verse 12, Therefore the
word of the Lord came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying, look down
at verse 15. He said, you were now turned
and had done right in my sight in proclaiming liberty ever been
to his neighbor and you had made a covenant before me in the house
which is called by my name but you turned and polluted my name. and caused every man his servant,
every man his handmaid, whom you had set at liberty at their
pleasure to return, and brought them into subjection to be unto
you for servants and for handmaids. And therefore thus saith the
Lord, You have not hearkened to me in proclaiming liberty.
Every one to his brother, and every man to his neighbor. Behold,
I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord, to the sword,
to the pestilence, and to the famine. And I will make you to
be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth. You know why that?
That example is so striking because this is what preachers do. Preachers
do what's been done to them. And they hear a message proclaiming
liberty. They hear a message preached
proclaiming liberty, promising them liberty by Christ. And men use the terrors of God's
judgment and the terrors and use the law in an unjust way
to frighten men with hell, and men will repent. And it looks
like they've repented and made a profession of faith. And as
soon as they're able, if they're used and put in a pulpit, they'll
do exactly what happened to them. Those men that they proclaim
liberty to, they'll turn around and bring them right back in
bondage under the law and use them. and use them for their
own selfish gain, just like Israel did. What's the problem in all
that? It's not true repentance. That's
what the problem is. It's not true repentance. The
Lord said there, you've not proclaimed liberty. You've not proclaimed
liberty. Liberty is liberty. Liberty is
to be set free by Christ. If Christ would make you free,
you'd be free indeed. But to claim liberty, and frighten
a man into a profession and then turn around and bring him under
bondage? That's just exactly what Israel did. Exactly what
they did. But understand why this is the
case. The terrors of God's judgment
won't give a sinner repentance, won't make him truly repent.
But in time, when he has this respite, he'll go back to his
natural inclination, his natural way And He does it for this reason. Ecclesiastes 8.11 says, Because
sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily. Because sentence against an evil
work is not executed right now. God doesn't come right now and
manifest Himself quickly. Therefore the heart of the sons
of men is fully set in them to do evil. God said, Because he
feareth not God. He's been moved by terror and
by a fear of judgment. He's been moved this way into
what looked like repentance. But as soon as he sees, nothing's
happened. God didn't work the thing I was
afraid of. And he goes right back. Fear,
terror won't hold a man under Christ. It won't even bring him
under Christ and it won't hold him under Christ. It's just terror. When his terror subsides, he'll
do what Pharaoh did. He'll go right back to the way
he was. Isaiah said in Isaiah 26.10,
he said, Let favor be showed to the wicked. That means to
a man whose heart hadn't been made new. Let favor be showed
to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness in the land
of uprightness. That is, When the terror is over
and the fears are over, in the land of uprightness will he deal
unjustly and will not behold the majesty of the Lord. It's
all natural. Paul said to the Pharisees in
his day, he said, Do you think, O man, that judge men who break
the law and who sin and all this horrible sin outwardly, do you
judge them? And yet you do the same exact
thing. And he said, do you think you're going to escape God's
judgment? He said, or is it that you really and truly despise
the long suffering of God? Not knowing that the goodness
of God is what leads men to repentance. And he said, and so after your
impenitent heart, your hard and impenitent heart, an impenitent
heart is a heart that will not repent. He said, you are just
treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath and judgment against
the day of judgment. How? It's not out in the world
in wickedness. It's in pews and in pulpits,
yoking and binding and judging sinners. When that person hasn't
repented and does the same exact thing he is accusing others of
doing. This thing of God working, He's
got to do this. It's got to be God that gives
it because we have a heart problem. We have a heart problem. The
heart's deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can
know it? We can't know our own heart unless
God makes us know our own heart. That's how wicked our hearts
are in sin. God saw that the wickedness of
man was great in the earth and that every imagination... Now listen to this description
of the heart. Every imagination of the thoughts of his heart
was only evil continually. That's you and me by nature. The heart of the sons of men
is full of evil. Madness is in their heart while
they live and after that they go to the dead. If God doesn't
intervene, You can frighten a man, you can terrorize a man with
threats of hell and everything else. That will not bring that
man to repentance. God's got to give a new heart.
Now that's where we come to secondly. I want to talk about true repentance
now. True repentance is the gift that God gives when He creates
a new heart within a sinner. True repentance is given by God's
grace when He creates a new heart within a sinner. Go over to Ezekiel
36. God said this was the work that
He does. This is part of His covenant
promise. That's why it's so important that God alone does it and we
declare God alone does it because this is the work of His covenant
promise. He said Ezekiel 36.25 Then will I sprinkle... He talks
up there verse 24 about taking you from among the heathen and
gathering you out of all countries and bringing you to your own
land. Our land is not that land over there in the Middle East.
Our land is heavenly Jerusalem, the new Zion, the new Mount Zion. That's what we've been brought
to, spiritual Mount Zion, Christ's church. And he gathers us there
and he says, verse 25, ìThen will I sprinkle clean water upon
you and you shall be clean from all your filthiness and from
all your idols. Will I cleanse you? A new heart
also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you
and Iíll take away the stony heart out of your flesh and Iíll
give you a heart of flesh and Iíll put my spirit within you
and cause you to walk in my statutes and you shall keep my judgments
and do them.î You know what those statues and those judgments are
He causes us to walk in? The doctrine of the gospel of
God's grace. That's what He's talking about.
These things we've been looking at in 2 Corinthians 8, we've
been seeing how God works grace in the heart to make a believer
give. These are the statues, these are the laws of grace He
brings us to walk in. This is what we're talking about
here, verse 31. What does it do? True repentance does it. Now here's something that you
never find this in a fake phony repentance. Only God can make
this right here in truth. Look at verse 31. Then shall
you remember your own evil ways and your doings that were not
good and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities
and for your abomination. Most of the time, when it's fake
repentance, men will get up and give their testimony and they'll
talk about how bad they were. And they take delight in it,
telling you about how bad they were. And they make statements
like, well, if I believe what you believe, I just live like
I want to live. And all that saying, that's betraying
a heart that's saying, I really don't want to live like I'm living
right now. But when God grants you real
repentance, you loathe yourself. You look at your ways and everything
you've ever done and you hate everything you see about yourself.
You're ashamed of it. Only God can make a man ashamed
of himself. That takes God doing that. It's
not repentance. It's not a profession of faith
that comes first. That, you know, you'll hear people
tell you, do this step, that step, the other, and now you're
born again. No. Uh-uh. Repentance and faith do not come
first. The new birth comes first. God has to give you life. A dead
man can't do anything. Until God gives us life, we don't
have life. We can't do anything spiritual
until He puts spiritual life in us. So it does no good to... This is the thing about our gospel.
The truth of the gospel is telling men to repent. I tell you, you
have to repent. You're responsible to repent.
But I don't leave it there. If I left it there, I'm making
you think it's a work you can do. The gospel tells you, you
must repent. You're responsible to repent.
But you can't do it. And that's the message. You can't
do it. But then we declare how God does it. And that's the message
God blesses to grant repentance. But He does it by giving you
a new heart. Go to John 3. The Lord talked
this to Nicodemus. John 3. Nicodemus was a man who thought
repentance and faith and good works and all that came first.
That's how you're born again. Listen to it in John 3.1, there
was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. That means he was a religious
somebody. And it says, the same came to
Jesus by night and said unto him, Rabbi, that means master,
that means teacher. He says, we know, we know that
thou art a teacher come from God. He didn't say anything by
that. He didn't say he believed Christ
or anything. Watch this. For no man can do
these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Now listen
to Christ's answer. He said unto him, Verily, verily,
I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see
the kingdom of God. He said, Nicodemus, you don't
know anything. Until you've been born of God,
you don't know a thing about God and about His Christ and
about His Teacher. You don't know anything until
you've been born of God. And Christ knew He wasn't born
of God because being born of God is of Him. And He's telling
him, you don't know anything. You don't know anything. You've
got to be born again. True repentance, like true faith,
is a gift. And it's given to us by life,
by the Spirit of God. When He gives you life, He gives
it to you. So repentance doesn't come first. Life comes first. Repentance is the fruit that's
produced by God in a man He's already made alive. That's it. It's proof of life. That's what
repentance is. That God's given life. And when
a sinner's born of the Holy Spirit, now go to John 16. When he's
born of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God has to teach him.
He has to make him know what he is. Look here in John 16.
Make him know who Christ is, make him know what he is. John
16, 7. Christ said, I tell you the truth,
it's expedient for you that I go away. It's necessary, it's profitable. For if I go not away, the Comforter
will not come unto you. But if I depart, I will send
him unto you. And when He has come, talking
about the Spirit of God, He will reprove or convince the world. That is, His people all over,
wherever they are in the world. This is what He does. He convinces
us of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. Of sin, because
they believe not on me. Of righteousness, because I go
to my Father and you see me no more. Of judgment, because the
prince of this world is judged. The Spirit of God bears witness
in this new heart God's created. And the Spirit of God begins
to convince us, persuade us of sin. that we don't believe on
Christ. And because we don't believe
on Christ, all we are is sin. All our works are filthy rags.
It doesn't matter how religious they are. Because we have sinned. We haven't believed on Christ.
In Christ is the only place there is no sin. And it convinces us
of righteousness. Not that we're righteous, but
that Christ is the only righteousness that exists. He's the only one
that is the righteousness of God. He's the only one ever pleased
God. He's the only one God's pleased
with. And God will not be pleased with anybody unless they come
through faith in Christ. The only way I can be made righteous
is to believe on Christ. And He'll give me His righteousness. And the same with you. But He
has to persuade us that Christ is the only righteousness. God's
not interested in our works. He's interested in His Son and
His works. And then He convinces us of judgment.
You know, if He convinced us of sin, and convinced us of righteousness,
it still wouldn't bring us to repentance. Because you know
what we'd do then? I'll tell you what we'd do. We'd
be like these who say they believe on Christ, and they started by
grace, and it took the Spirit of God to give them a new heart,
it took the Spirit of God to teach them Christ is righteousness,
but then, because they don't realize judgment is finished.
It's settled. There's nothing else to be done.
Now they've got to do something to finish the work and make themselves
more holy and more holy and more holy. He's got to teach you judgment's
settled. When Christ said it's finished,
that means the work is done. If there's no condemnation, you
know what that means? God will never charge His people
with sin ever again. It's done. And when He makes
you holy, all of this is part of the work of Him sanctifying
you, making you holy with a pure heart within to actually look
up to Christ and realize He is all my salvation. And when that's
been worked in you, now you've got a totally changed mind and
a totally changed direction from where you were before. Now you
hate your sin and you abhor your works and you don't put any confidence
in anything you've ever done or shall ever do. Now, Christ
is your only righteousness. He's your only hope. He's your
only Savior. Your all. So by this work, you
know who it is that's given us repentance? What did Christ say?
I'll send a comforter to you. That was not just a one-time
thing. He's the one that sends the Holy Spirit to the heart
that He's going to teach. And look over at Acts 5. Who
is it that gives us repentance? Who do we glorify for giving
us repentance? Acts 5.30. Peter was preaching to some men
and he said, The God of our fathers, Acts 5.30, The God of our fathers
raised up Jesus whom you slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath
God exalted with His right hand to be a prince and a savior for
to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sin. That's
Christ's job. That's Christ's job. God's so
well pleased with His Son, He raised Him and exalted Him to
be head over the church to work everything in the hearts of His
people and give us everything that we need. Every gift that
He purchased with His own blood, He's the one that gives it. He's
the one that gives it. And so, go to 2 Timothy 2. This
is why God teaches the preacher and the people that when we're
bearing witness, when we're preaching this Word, we're bearing witness
of Christ, we have to be patient. You know, you'll start talking
to somebody and they can't understand you. They don't understand what
you're saying and they keep saying, but, but, but, but, but. They
want to squeeze their works in there somewhere. Something they
did somewhere and that can try your patience. You have to be
patient because you can't scare them into repentance or sorrow
them into repentance or try to present it in such a way that
it weeps them into repentance. Only He can give it. So look
what He says to us. 2 Timothy 2.24, The servant of
the Lord must not strive. But be gentle unto all, apt to
teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves,
if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging
of the truth. That's why we have to be patient
and speak as the Lord enables you to speak, as He opens the
door, because you can't force a man to believe this. You can't
force a man to let go of his vain works. It takes God to do
that. And we don't know who God is
going to grant that repentance to. So you just speak the Word
patiently, consistently, according to the Word of God. And it's
through this Word, it's through this Word, the Gospel of God's
works accomplished by His Son. It's through this Gospel. See,
we're not here preaching our works. Even when we're talking
about the works that He works in us, we're still talking about
His works, because He's the one that worked any work in us that
worked. So, we're talking about the gospel
of His works, and it's through that gospel that He does this
work, works this work, sanctifies that word to our heart, makes
us hear it, makes us understand it, makes us believe it. And
again, when He grants you true repentance, Jeremiah 31.18 said,
then we give Him the glory and we speak of ourselves as low
as we can talk about ourselves. He said this, Jeremiah 31.18,
Turn thou me and I shall be turned, for thou art the Lord my God. Surely after that I was turned,
I repented. And after that I was instructed,
I smote upon my thigh, and I was ashamed, yea, even confounded,
because I did bear the reproach of my youth." Now that's when
a man's repented. What did he do? He glorified
the Lord. He said, you know how I repented? The Lord turned me. That's how. And when He turned me, I said,
He's the Lord my God. And I said, I'm ashamed of myself. I can't look to myself for anything. I have to look nowhere but to
Him. That's true repentance. God's given true repentance then.
And it don't end. It doesn't end. It's not just
something that a man does and he's done with it. We don't ever
stop repenting. Just like you don't ever stop
believing, just like you don't ever stop coming to Christ, we
don't ever stop Repenting. As long as we are in this body
of death, we are going to be repenting our whole life coming
to Christ. And all the while saying, the
Lord my God did this, I didn't have a thing to do with it. Isn't
that different from what you hear preached and you hear men?
If you ask men about their repentance, oh, they will tell you all about
it. But it is different. They talk about what they did.
We talk about what God did. Alright, let's stand together. Father, thank You for Your Word.
Thank You for bringing us here. Thank You for teaching us, turning
us. Lord, You grant us repentance
every day. You keep turning us to Christ.
We keep turning away. You keep turning us back. We're
thankful, so very thankful You do it. Forgive us, Lord, of our
sins. Forgive us of our boasting. make
us to look to Christ only and rest in Him alone. It's in His
precious name we ask it. Amen.