Let us turn once again to the
Word of God, our text. This morning is to be found in
the 2nd Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians in chapter 7 and
verse 10. 2nd Corinthians chapter 7 verse
10. For godly, sorrow workers, repentance
to salvation, not to be repented of, but the sorrow of the world
worketh death. In 2 Corinthians 7, verse 10,
for godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented
of, but the sorrow of the world worketh death. I want then to
address the subject matter of that repentance that is true,
that is evangelical, in its very nature, the repentance that is
spoken of here in the first part of the verse. But before we come
to consider the subject of true evangelical repentance, I want
us to observe something of the context in which we find these
words this morning In the context, we see how Paul
is referring to a matter of discipline in the church at Corinth, the
disciplining of the incestuous person. In the previous verses,
verse 8, he says, for though I made you sorry with a letter,
I do not repent, though I did repent, For I perceive that the
same epistle hath made you sorry, though it were but for a season. Now I rejoice not that ye were
made sorry, but that ye sorrow to repentance, for ye were made
sorry after a godly manner, that ye might receive damage by us
in nothing. And then again see how he speaks
at verse 12. Wherefore though I wrote unto
you, I did it not for his cause that had done the wrong, nor
for his cause that suffered wrong, but that our care of you in the
sight of God might appear unto you. He refers then to previous correspondence with them, a previous
letter how he had written to them with regards to a very serious
matter that had arisen in that church. And we have to turn back,
of course, to the first epistle to see just what it was that
had brought such concern into the heart of the Apostle. You
turn back to 1 Corinthians 5, When we read these words, it
is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and
such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles,
that one should have his father's wife. And ye are puffed up, and
have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might
be taken away from among you. For I verily, as absent in body,
but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present,
concerning him that hath so done this deed. In the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my Spirit,
with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, to deliver such an one
unto Satan, for the destruction of the flesh, that the Spirit
may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Very strong words
he had written to them with regards to this particular individual
and how they were to deal with the whole matter. He speaks of
the need for them to come together as a church and he speaks of
them delivering this man to Satan. What are we to understand by
such an expression as that? Well it means that they were
to exclude him. He was to be put out of the fellowship
of the Church. And the reasons for such an act
of excluding one, delivering him to Satan, would be immorality. This is what this particular
individual was guilty of. He had taken his father's wife. It wasn't his own mother, it
was another wife of his father. and he had committed fornication
with this woman. It was a matter then of immorality
and the action to be taken was that of exclusion from the church. It might on another occasion
have been a matter of false doctrine or heresy. That would be another
ground and we see that quite clearly when in writing to Timothy,
in 1 Timothy, at the end of chapter 1, we read of these men, Hymenaeus
and Alexander, whom says the Apostle, I have delivered unto
Satan, that they might learn not to blaspheme. They were guilty
of some foul, doctrinal harrassment. And again there, Paul uses the
same expression, delivered to Satan. It means that the person
is excluded, no longer accounted a member in the local church,
but put out, put into the world, which is of course the realm
of Satan. The whole world, says John, lies
in wickedness, lies in the wicked one. To be given unto Satan then
is to be treated not as a member in the local church, but as an
unbeliever. We see it again in the teaching
even of the Lord Jesus Christ himself where there is offence
and though the matter is to be addressed and there is to be
an attempt at reconciliation if it proves to be unsuccessful
well then the person who is guilty is to be treated as a heathen
man says Christ In Matthew 18 verse 15 following he says, Moreover
if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him
his fault between thee and him alone. If he shall hear thee,
thou hast gained thy brother, but if he will not hear thee,
then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two
or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he
shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church, Initially you see it's a personal
matter, you go and speak to the individual, but if that proves
to be unsuccessful, you take witnesses, if that's unsuccessful,
you take it to the whole company of God's people, the body of
the church, turn it on to the church, but
If he neglects to hear the church let him be unto thee as a heathen
man and a publican. Treat him then as one who is
outside of the church. One who is again in the world,
in the realm of Satan. This was the matter then that
Paul was having to address and deal with in the church. This is the context in which
our text this morning is found. Now, the ultimate aim of that
act of discipline is, of course, that the individual might eventually
be restored, though he is to be treated as a heathen man,
though he is delivered unto Satan. We read
there We read just there in 1 Corinthians 5 and verse 5, it's for the destruction
of the flesh that the spirit may be saved in the day of the
Lord Jesus. And it seems that there was some
recognition of his folly and he's seen some repentance on
behalf of this particular individual. and yet they were still dealing
with him in rather a harsh fashion. Look in chapter 2 at verse 6. He says sufficient of such a
man is his punishment which was inflicted of men and so the contrary
wise he ought rather to forgive him and comfort him. lest perhaps
such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow, wherefore
I beseech you that ye would confirm your love toward him." There
seems to have been this happy outcome then, there was the recognition
of his sin, there was repentance for his sin, there was restoration
to the church. And so here in the words that
we come to consider, godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation,
not to be repented of, but the sorrow of the world worketh death. Considering then this true repentance,
this evangelical repentance, first of all we observe that
in this verse there is a contrast being drawn between two types
of of repentance, or two types of sorrow. Look at the word but. Godly sorrow
worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of. But, he
says, the sorrow of the world worketh death. There are those
individuals that we read of in scripture who give us such a
remarkable example of a repentance that is not true but false. All repentance is not the genuine
article. It is that which is false. We
read, for example, of Pharaoh on occasions repenting as God
through his servant Moses did those mighty deeds, those terrible
plagues, remember, that came upon the Egyptians. There was
an effect. But alas, in Pharaoh's case it
was only a temporary change in Exodus 9 and verse 27 we're told
our Pharaoh sent and called to Moses and Aaron and said unto
them I have sinned this time the Lord is righteous and I and
my people are wicked and free the Lord for it is enough that
there be no more mighty thunderings and hail and I will let you go
and ye shall stay no longer. But that was a false word, it
wasn't true, that repentance was not genuine, it's not the
only occasion, we have it furthermore in the next chapter, in chapter
10 of Exodus, verse 16, we read similar words, Pharaoh called
for Moses and Aaron in haste And he said, I have sinned against
the Lord your God and against you. Now therefore forgive, I
pray thee, my sin, only this once, and entreat the Lord your
God that he may take away from me this death, O Lord. But again, you see, it was but
a temporary change of mind. There's the example then there
in the Old Testament, the case of a man like Pharaoh, who seemed
to repent. But what is his sorrow? It's
the sorrow of the world that only works death. And of course
we have a most striking example in the New Testament, in the
case of Judas Iscariot, who betrayed the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact,
he is spoken of as one who repents. What sort of repentance was this?
In Matthew 27 verse 3, then Judas, which had betrayed him, when
he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought
again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders,
saying, I have sinned, in that I have betrayed the innocent
lot. And they said, what is that you ask? See thou to that. and
he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed and
went and hanged himself. There was no repentance at all.
He adds to his sin his guilty of self-murder. And yet it says
that he repented of the evil that he had done. There is a
false repentance of false sorrow for sins and the prime example
of course is that that we read this morning the case of Esau
and it's referred to by the Apostle in the New Testament writing
in Hebrews chapter 12 verse 16 following lest there
be any fornicator or profane person, says Paul, as Esau, who
for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For you know how
that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing,
he was rejected. For he found no place of repentance,
though he sought it carefully with tears. He seems to be full
of regret. But what was it? What was the
cause of that sorrow in the man? His grief centred only in himself. That was the thing. It all centred
in self. It was self-serving. He was grieved
that he had lost the blessing, but he had despised the birthright.
We read chapter 27 there in Genesis, but at the end of chapter 25
we read of him selling the birthright to his brother for a a mere pot of food. And then, as we saw in the reading,
when he comes back from the field and Jacob had stolen now the
blessing also, how he was so sorry for himself. He is a prime
example, I say, of that false repentance that is spoken of
here at the end of our text, the sorrow of the world, that
work of death. Well there's the contrast but
let us consider what is the content of a true repentance. We read here that godly sorrow
worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of. Now It's important that we have a
proper definition and understanding of what is meant by the word
repent or repentance. The basic meaning of the word,
and we've said this on other occasions, is really an afterthought. It's made up of two words, it's
a compound word in the original then, and the two words have
the basic meaning of after and mind or thought. After-thought,
that's what the etymology of the words as we have it in the
original amounts to. It's an after-thought, it's a
change of mind, that's what repentance is in its fundamental meaning. But it is a very deep afterthought,
it's a very profound change, because the life of the repentant
one is a life that is now turned around altogether. In fact we
might say that the life is so affected it's turned inside out.
it's turned upside down, it's so great and profound a change
that has come into this particular individual in chapter 5 and verse 17 Paul
says therefore if any man be in Christ he is a new creature
all things are past a while behold all things are become new that's
a repentant one you see that one who has a true repentance
that has come from God And so, having sought to define the word,
let us consider what is the cause, the cause of this challenge. And we see, do we not, in what
Paul is saying. He says, Godly sorrow worketh
repentance to salvation not to be repented of. Again, look at the beginning
of the previous verse. In verse 9, it says that they
sorrowed to repentance. We observe then, that strictly
speaking, sorrow, feeling regret, being sorry for our sin, is not
a part of repentance. It's not a part of it, it's a
cause of it here. Remember the basic meaning of
the word repentance. It doesn't really have the idea
of being sorry, or sorrowful, or
grieved. It has that simple meaning of
a change of mind, but such a basic and fundamental change of mind. But it is associated with sorrow. In salvation, of course, there
are many ingredients. I was brought to this text in
the course of the week, when we were away, staying with Mrs
Baker at Haines, in devotions each day, we read through the
book of Jodah. And of course there we read of
the repentance of the Ninevites, when Jonah goes with the message
although initially he refuses to go and the reason why he refuses
to go he says at the end is because he knows that God is a merciful
God and God deals mercifully with the Ninevites because there
is a national repentance on the part of the king of Nineveh and
his people and we were discussing the whole matter then of repentance
as a result of reading through that particular book. It was
quite late one evening and we were talking over this matter
and seeking to define what repentance is and how we are to understand
repentance and Mrs Baker at one stage did pick out the dictionary
and read it and in the dictionary it spoke in terms of sorrow and
grief. But that's not the basic meaning
of the word as we find it in scripture. In fact the point
was made in the course of our conversation that there are many
different ingredients that go into salvation just as there
are many different ingredients when someone is wanting to make
a cake. Various ingredients have to be
brought together and various ingredients, of course, they
work together. And so it is with regards to
salvation. There is sorrow, there is confession,
there is repentance, there is faith. We might say that these
are the principal parts Just as there might be the principal
ingredients in baking a cake, so there are these principal
parts necessary to salvation, and they are distinct parts.
Sorrow, confession, faith, repentance, each and every one of them are
quite distinct and separate from the other. And we see it here. It is the sorrow, the godly sorrow
that worketh repentance to salvation. So what do we see here? We see
that it is God really who is the author of the repentance. He is the author of the sorrow
that leads to repentance, that works repentance. Godly sorrow. That is the sorrow which had
God for its author, comments Dr. Gill. The sorrow which had
God for its author. Again, look at the end of verse
9, they were made sorry, it says, after a godly sort. They were made sorry according
to God. God himself is the author. of
that sorrow that leads to repentance. God, in that sense, is the author
of the repentance. From whence do we find true evangelical
repentance? It comes from God, it comes from
the Lord Jesus Christ. It is one of the gifts of the
exalted Saviour. He has received gifts for men,
says the Psalmist, yea, for the rebellious also. and in Acts
chapter 5 we are told how God hath exalted him with his right
hand to be a prince and a saviour to give repentance to Israel
and the forgiveness of sins the Lord Jesus Christ is exalted
then in heaven, he is there at the right hand of God, he is
the great mediator on behalf of his people and he is exalted
to this end to give repentance. And who does he give repentance
to? Israel. That is the true Israel, the spiritual Israel.
That is the people of God. These are those to whom Christ
grants that grace of repentance. God is the author. Again, in chapter 11 and verse 18 of the
Acts we read out God also to the Gentiles granted repentance
unto life all there are sinners of the
Gentiles who are also part of that spiritual Israel of God
and from whence do they obtain their repentance it is God who
grants We have the sign with Paul writing
in 2nd Timothy 2.25, he says, God peradventure will give them
repentance. For those who want to know a
true repentance for our sins, we must ask God for it. If we
want to be those who know a true sorrowing over sins, that must
come from God. And that will lead on, you see,
to that godly repentance, that true repentance. Not just sorrow,
godly sorrow. The sorrow that comes from God
is the sorrow that works repentance to salvation. God then is the is the author,
he is the cause of that true repentance. But more than that,
do we not here discover that God is also the object of it? Not only the author of it, but
he is the object of it. It's not something that centers
in self, it's not self-serving, this repentance. This is the
distinction between that that is real, that that comes from
God, and that repentance that we see in a man like Esau. Godly sorrow workers' repentance
to salvation, it says. It's a sorrow for sin as that
sin is seen to be something that is committed against God. That
sin that is a grievous offence to God. That's what brings the sorrow
into the heart of the sinner. He understands something of the
nature of his offence. It's not so much the consequence
that will be brought into his own life. It's a fact that he
has offended God. And we see it so many times in
David. This is the man after God's own
heart. And David is far from a sinless man. We sang a part of the 32nd Psalm. We often refer to Psalm 51 as
David's great penitential psalm, but it is also suggested that
Psalm 32 was probably written at the same time, under the same
circumstances. And how David had sinned, and
grievously sinned in the matter of Bathsheba and her husband
Uriah. he had been guilty of adultery,
he had been lying with another man's wife and then how perversely
this man had acted, he tried to cover his sin when Bathsheba
is found to be with child, he wants her husband Uriah to return
from the battlefield, he is there with the armies of Israel David
desires him to come back and wants Uriah to go to his own
bed that it might appear that the child is not David but Uriah. But Uriah refuses to enjoy the
comforts of his bed when the armies of Israel are in the open
field. So David gets him drunk but still he refuses to go. And
then David, as you know, sends him back and tells Joab to put
him in the hottest place of the battle and to withdraw from him
so arranges things that this man will die David is an adulterer,
David is a murderer and then now faithfully the Prophet
deals with him Nathan comes to him, Nathan fingers David thou
art the man and thou that word strikes home to David's heart
and there is a true repentance he sees his sin and to whom or
against whom has he sinned as he cries out there in Psalm 51
against the world the only have I sinned he says to God and done
this evil in thy sight He sees his sin then against God. Here is the object, the object
of that true repentance. It's a sin against God. And as
I said, it's not only in Psalm 51, it's Psalm 52. We see David as a true penitent.
We see it again in the language that he employs in Psalm 38.
I will declare mine iniquity, he cries out. I will be sorrowed. for my sin. He has such an understanding,
does David, of what his sin is because he's a man after God's
own heart. Oh, he has that new heart from
God that sorrows over sins, sins committed against God, sins committed
against the law of God. The true penitence, you see,
sees God's law as that that is God's. Paul says the law is holy
and the commandment is holy and just and good. As God's law, of course, it is
a perfect law. There is nothing wrong with the
law. All the wrong is in the heart of the sinner who is a
transgressor of that law. That sin by the commandment,
Paul says, might become exceedingly sinful. or to see our sins against God's
holy law and to feel that we are those who are the transgressors
of a law that is only good. But with an evangelical repentance
it's not just that we see our sins against the holy, just,
righteous and good Lord of God. We sang just now Law and terrors
do but harden, all the while they work alone, but a sense
of blood would pardon. Soon dissolves the heart of stone,
and how true that is. We have to see God's goodness,
and we see that goodness of God ultimately in the life, the ministry, the
death, the resurrection. all that the Lord Jesus Christ
accomplished here upon earth. Paul says to the Romans, it's
the goodness of God that leadeth thee to repentance. And when we see our sin, you
see, in the light of Christ and all that Christ endured, not
only of the contradiction of sinners, but all that Christ
bore of the wrath of God. Isn't evangelical repentance
that which is born of faith? All must proceed from faith. Faith must have the priority,
because whatsoever is not of faith is sin. And without faith
it is impossible to please God, says the Apostle. And so this
evangelical repentance is not only The result of that godly
sorrowing over sins, it's born of faith. And true faith, of course, has
Christ only for its object. True faith is that looking onto
Jesus, as we have it there in Hebrews 12.2, looking away from
every other object. Looking only unto Jesus, the
author and finisher of our faith, says Paul, who for the joy that
was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame. Oh, this is the one that faith
has to do with. It looks to Christ, it looks
to the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it sees the
dreadful nature of sin in the light of those sufferings. He
endured the cross. For the cross that was the accursed
death. Accursed is everyone that hangeth
on a tree. What a death it was that Christ
died. The death of a common criminal
and he endured it. And there we see the dreadful
nature of sin against God in what was meted out upon the Lord
Jesus Christ, that punishment that was visited upon Him. It's true that faith and repentance
do go hand in hand. Isn't this the great message
that we find in the Scriptures? We see it in the ministry of
the Lord Jesus Christ when Christ begins His public ministry in
the opening chapter of Mark's Gospel. What is the message that
we see Christ proclaiming. His forerunner, John the Baptist,
has fulfilled his office, he's come to prepare the way for the
Lord, and John is then put in prison. And we're told there
at the beginning of Mark, verse 14 in chapter 1, Now after that
John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the
gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying the time is fulfilled,
The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repentance and believe the Gospel. This is the message then that
Christ proclaims. Repentance, faith. Repentance,
he says, and believe the Gospel. And it's the same message that
we see being proclaimed by the apostles. The apostolic ministry is but
an extension, is it not, of the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and so they preach the same words. When Paul speaks to the Ephesian
elders in Acts chapter 20, he reminds them of the nature of
his own ministry. What was it? Testifying, he says,
both to the Jews and to the Greeks, repentance toward God and faith
toward our Lord Jesus Christ, faith and repentance. These two graces go hand in hand. However, we have to recognise,
as I say, the pre-eminence, the priority of faith, or whatsoever
is not of faith is sin. And so this godly sorrow that
we read of in the text, godly sorrow, worketh repentance to
salvation, is godly sorrow as Christ, as its object. It sees Christ, it sees the awful
nature of sin in the sufferings of Christ, and the outcome is that true
repentance, repentance to salvation, and repentance not to be repented
of. Or the cause of it, you say. God himself is the author of
true repentance. It comes from God. But it centres
in God, it looks to God. And it sees sin not in that self-serving
fashion that we see in the case of a man like Esau or in the
Pharaoh. They're only concerned about
themselves and what their folly and their sin has brought upon
themselves. But where there is this true repentance, it's a
repentance that's bound up with that faith that has Christ alone
as its object. And so what is the consequence
where there is this true evangelical repentance? Well we have it here
in the middle of the verse, it's not to be repented of, it's not
to be regretted. The word that's used here, the
verb translated, not to be repented of, is not really the same word
as what we have in the first part, the word repentance. As
I said, the basic meaning of that word, to repent, is a fundamental change of mind. But what we have in the middle
of the verse really has the idea of regret. Or where there is
this true repentance, there is no regret. It's not a miserable
thing. It's not a miserable thing. going to sing those lines presently
of Joseph Hart concerning repentance, nor is it such a dismal thing
as it is by some men, knowing the sinner may repent and sing,
rejoice and be ashamed. This is the strange mix, is it
not, of the life of the child of God. He feels the awful nature of
his sins and how it grieves him. And yet, all the time he is able
to rejoice in all that Christ is, as that one who is the gracious
Saviour of sinners. He can repent, he can sing at
the same time. He can be ashamed over the sense
of his sinnership before God, and yet he can be rejoicing. It is a strange paradoxical sort
of a life of the Christian is leading as he lives that life
of faith. He is daily believing, he is
daily repenting. This is the strange way of Christianity,
is it not? As we have to live by faith,
so at the same time, as I've said, as I've sought to emphasise
this morning, that faith goes hand in hand with repentance.
We will never attain a state of sinless perfection in this
life. but how it grieves us when we sin against God and how we
sorrow over our sins and how we have to return repeatedly
to the Lord and cry to Him and confess to Him and seek from
Him always that grace of repentance for godly sorrow worketh repentance
to salvation not to be repented of but the sorrow of the world
work of death. May the Lord be pleased to bless
to us his word.