All right, Luke chapter 13, read
with me the first five verses. They were present at that season,
some that told him, the Lord of the Galileans, whose blood
Pilate had mingled with their sacrifice. Jesus answering said
unto them, suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above
all the Galilean, because they suffered such thing? I tell you,
nay, but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. Or
those eighteen upon whom Tyre and Siloam fell, and slew them. Think ye that they were sinners
above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, nay. No, but except
ye repent, you shall all likewise perish. And verse 10 says He
was teaching this in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And
that's what we're doing right now. We're teaching what our
Lord taught in His church right now. Now these are not the words
of a wild religious fanatic standing on the street corner crying out,
repent or perish. These are the words of the altogether
lovely, merciful, gracious Son of the Most High God. Who is
He speaking to? Everyone. Anyone who has ears
to hear. And what the Lord is clearly
telling all of us. You notice He said, you shall
all perish if you don't repent. That's us. His disciples were
listening. What the Lord is clearly telling
all of us is, number one, God is holy. God is just. God is righteous. The true and living God is holy,
just, and righteous. He hates sin and He will punish
sin. And the way we know that more
than any other is He killed His Son because sin
was found on Him. And his wrath and his judgment
is against sin. Romans 1.18 clearly says that. That the wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. Right? That's what the Scripture said.
And what he's telling us also is that we're all sinners. All have sinned. and come short
of the glory of God. Every one of us deserves wrath
and judgment and to be cast out, to perish. We all deserve to
perish. He's telling us unless we repent,
we will perish. That's clear in all of us, all
of us. Now all the prophets preached
repent, all of them did. You go through the scriptures
and read the scriptures, they all preached repent. Ezekiel perhaps more than any
other. I started reading Ezekiel and
it's throughout Ezekiel. John the Baptist is called the
last of the Old Testament prophets. And he came preaching the first
thing, repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. That prophet,
the Lord Jesus Christ, his first message, the first words out
of his mouth, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Peter at Pentecost, the apostles, Peter at Pentecost, when he preached
Christ, and he said, you have taken with wicked hands and crucified
the Lord of glory. And then after his message, he
sat down and the people were convicted. And what shall we
do? What did he say? Repent. That's what he said, okay? Paul's
last words to the Ephesians when he was leaving, going to Jerusalem,
about to be beheaded for preaching. He said in Acts 20 verse 21,
he said, I testify both to the Jews and also to the Greeks,
repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. Because there is no true repentance
without faith. They go together. They go together. So, this is the message and what
I want to do I don't want to do is just preach on the doctrine
of repentance. I don't want us to just understand
what repentance is. I want to know, have I repented? And I want you to examine yourself.
Have I repented? Do I repent? Because it's not
a one-time thing in the past. It's a state of the heart and
mind. It's a lifelong thing. It's what is in your heart and
mind forever until we're without sin someday and then we'll be
without repentance. So, as I said, I don't want to
just preach doctrine. I want to know. I want to try
my own heart and mind and see if I've repented. Now, the Old Testament word,
repent, I'll not pronounce the Hebrew word. You don't need to
know Hebrew or Greek. But I had looked it up. What
the Old Testament word means to sigh or breathe strongly as
in being sorry. Groaning. Romans 8 talks about
groaning. The whole creation groaneth because
of sin. And when God does this work,
now, I'm already going to tell you where repentance comes from.
It's the gift of God. It's the goodness of God that
leads us to repent. And the first thing it does is
it creates a strong, heartfelt sorrow over sin. Sins. Sin, sins, and self-righteousness. Sin is what we are. Sin is our
old Adamic or the nature we got from Adam that makes us do and
think and say what we do and not do what we ought to do and
say and think. Sins, outward committal of things
as a result of this old nature. Look at Psalm 34 with me, Psalm
34. And this is, throughout the Psalms,
oh my, David, in every Psalm he's repenting. unto God, toward
God, of himself, of his sins. Psalm 34, verse 18. What we're
talking about is a broken heart, a contrite spirit over sin. Psalm 34, verse 18. The Lord
is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart. Now everyone
at some point has a broken heart over you know, a death in the
family or troubles in the family, all that, that's not the broken
heart he's speaking of. It's a broken and a contrite
heart. Contrite means just troubled and deeply troubled
over yourself. Contrite spirit, compunction,
sorrow, deep sorrow. Look at Isaiah 57. Isaiah 57. This man will I look. This is
the one the Lord is mine unto. The reason that person is broken,
the reason that person is contrite is because God is working on
them. God is touching them. The reason
their heart is broken over sin is because God touched that heart.
He broke that up. Isaiah 57, 15, look at that.
It says, Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabits the
eternity, whose name is Holy. I dwell in the high and holy
place. But look who's with Him. Him also is of a contrite and
humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, to revive
the heart of the contrite one. Look at Psalm 66. I love these
verses. And we need to commit these to
memory for our comfort. Isaiah 66 talks about the Lord
and on His throne, on earth His footstool, verse 2. All these
things that mine hand made, all those things have been, saith
the Lord. But to this man, this is the
one I look to in mercy and love and grace, to him that is poor,
a poor sinner and nothing at all. of a contrite spirit and
trembleth at my word." The word that says the soul that sinneth
shall surely die. That's who the Lord looks to,
in mercy. And the reason they're broken is because the Lord is
looking upon them and revealing Himself to them. Now, what psalm
would you turn to first that speaks more of repentance than
any other? What psalm? That's exactly right.
We heard John Chapman preaching. Go back there, Psalm 51. Psalm
51. And there's a reason why this
is a favorite psalm of God's people. Because all of God's
people are broken-hearted, contrite sinners. Broken over their own
sin. So here's the heart cry, because
with the heart being believed, out of the heart are the issues
of life. Psalm 51, Have mercy upon me,
O God, according to Thy lovingkindness, according unto the multitude
of Thy tender mercy. Blot out my transgression. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin. I acknowledge my transgression. See, these people that came to
Christ and said, talked about those Galileans that died, they
were brutally murdered by Pilate and the ones that the tower fell
on, like the World Trade Center, you suppose the people in the,
what was the name of that, the World Trade Center, yeah, World
Trade Center, you suppose those people were worse than you and
me? So, those people were saying
that those must have been really bad sinners. And our Lord said,
unless you repent, you're going to die. So here's repentance. My transgression. Verse 4, Against
thee and thee only have I sinned. You remember the Pharisee came
in. Pharisee came in to worship and pray, and God didn't hear
him at all. All he could talk about was what
he had not done. And he said, I'm not like that
publican over there. Well, you need to be, unless that's your
heart's cry. And the publican had a seven-word
perfect prayer to him. Seven words is the perfect prayer. God be merciful to me, the sinner. Nothing more needs to be said.
And you know what Christ said? He was justified. All his sins
blotted out. He went home a justified man.
Just for confessing his sin? Yeah. Whosoever confesses his
sin, either confesses his sin, The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses.
So David said, in verse 4, he said in Psalm 51, against thee
and thee only. So he sins against God. So repentance
is toward God. We don't confess our sins to
one another. We confess our sins to God. Our sin. We confess our
faults, not our sin. Against thee and thee only have
I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. All things are naked
and open before his eye. Everything is secret. Alright? That thou mightest be justified
when thou speakest and be clear when thou judgest. If you send
me to hell, if I perish, I will get what I deserve. That's repentance. So the goodness of God leads
us to repent. It's not the fear of hell. A lot of people seem to make a
change. turn from whatever bad habits
and all that, when something bad, something drastic happens,
some trauma, some death, or something that scares them. You know, religion
uses the movie Burning Hell to scare little children into making
professions of faith, and they do it by the thousands. And they
scare them in, and when you're going to go to hell, you're going
to go to hell. That's not repentance. Nobody wants to go to hell. They'll
do anything to stay out of it. It's not sorrow over the consequences
either. Esau tried to repent, but he
found no way because he wasn't sorry toward God for rejecting
God. He was sorry for losing the blessing. He was sorry because he thought,
I'm going to have everything taken from me. But it's the goodness, now listen
to this, it's the goodness of God. that leads us to repent. First of all, God in His grace
and goodness It's what makes that God graciously grants us
conviction of sin. He convicts us. He convinces
us. Like our Lord said in John 16,
8-11, He said, when the Holy Spirit's come, and the Holy Spirit's
the one who convinces of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Those three things. Sin, that's
what you are. and nothing you can do about
it. Righteousness, that's what you need, and you don't have
any. Judgment, that's what you must face. How are you going
to face it? Right. One word, one way, one
truth, one life. Christ. Sin, because they don't
believe on me. Righteousness, because I go to
the Father, and who's going to go with Him? Who's going to be
with Him? He had a clean hand and a pure
heart. Well, how are we going to have that? How are we going
to have a righteousness that we can't produce? Christ said, He
must give, He must cover. And judgment, a judgment to face. No, no man will stand. Sinners won't stand unto judgment. Christ has got to stand for it.
There you have it. You already know these things.
Blessed art thou. The goodness of God has led you
to repentance. The goodness of God leads us
to repentance. That is, see, and the greatest
goodness of God is Christ crucified him. When Moses said, Lord, show
me your glory. The Lord said, I'll make all
my goodness pass before you. All the goodness of God. He said,
I'm going to be merciful. I'm going to be gracious. That's
my name. Merciful, gracious, pardoning,
forgiving. I'm going to make all my goodness
pass before you. He said, now Moses, you stand,
there's a place by me. I'm going to come down on the
rock. I'm going to put you in the rock, cleft of the rock.
What's all that? Christ, the rock of aid, Christ
crucified the cleft of the rock. Moses, I'm going to show you
and all of my people my goodness. Now, goodness is gospel. I'm going to show you my gospel.
The good news, the goodness of God is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. He is the gospel. Nothing more,
nothing less. The good news. It is the goodness
of God that leads us to repentance. The people at Pentecost, the
thing that they saw and heard from Peter was Christ crucified
them. Buried, risen again, seated at the right hand of God. And
they all were convicted of their sin. What are we going to do?
Peter said, Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name
of Jesus Christ for remission of your sin. That is, believe
the gospel, confess Christ, your sin is gone. That's the goodness of God. You
see, it's the goodness of God. The gospel is the goodness of
God that leads us to repent. Not the fear of hell. It's seeing
Christ go through hell for us. And then the goodness of God.
God's love. God's mercy. God's grace. Makes me sorry for sinning against
such a good God. Such a loving God. Such a merciful
God. That God has been so merciful
to me all my life. That's what slew me as a young
rebel, a young prodigal son. It slew me. Here I've sinned against God
who's been so good to me. That's what made I lived all
these years in rebellion against God. Didn't give him a thought.
He's feeding me. He's clothing me. He's protecting
me. He did all these things to me
that should have woken me up. Threw me off a building. Rx,
this multitude of... Spared my life. Looking back,
I saw... And I never gave him a thought.
That just killed me. It's the goodness of God that
leads us to repent. Or is that a one-time thing?
How many times as an adult, as a believer, how many times do
we forget God? How many times? How many times?
How many? Prone to wander. Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave
the God I love. That's the nature of sheep. Sheep
wander. Sheep follow. Don't they? Repentance
in the New Testament, the word means to think differently. And
I had a man call me, he wanted to straighten me out on repentance.
He said, it's a change of mind. Well, it is. That's not all it
is. Because it's not with the mind man doesn't believe under
righteousness, but the heart. It starts in the heart, contrite
heart, broken over sin. But God does change your mind. When He changes your heart, He
gives you a new mind, a new way of thinking. He finally brings
you to your senses. To see who God is that you've
sinned against. To see what you are. To see what
sin really is. See what sin really is. See what
we really are. It's a new mind, a new heart
to realize who God is, what I am, what I have done, what I do and
what I do not and have not done. The mind of Christ. And it causes
me grief and sorrow. Now these people in our text, as I said, they thought that
others were worse than them. And they deserve, other people
deserve God's wrath and they didn't. Well, Psalm 90, we read it all
the time. We need to read it over and over and over again.
It says, according to thy wrath, so is thy fear. He goes on and
he said, Thou hast set our sins in the light of Thy countenance.
Whose sin? Who's writing that? Moses, talking about the children
of Israel. Moses, a hundred year old man.
He's talking about his own sin. It's in the light of Thy countenance.
And it says according to Your wrath, according to Thy fear,
so is Thy wrath. We always fear God. I know perfect
love casts out fear, but we never quit fearing God. We never quit
fearing sinning against God. When God shows us what we are
and we feel what we are, the chief of sinners, we say with
the Apostle Paul, we say, oh wretched man, that I am. Romans 7, so many religious people
say that Romans 7 was written by Paul before he was saved.
No, he said, oh wretched man, that I am. Job, at the end of
the whole book of Job, Job said, behold, I am by. came to realize about himself.
Now, there's an old man and a new man. It's an old nature. It's still there. They can't
do anything but sin. There's a new man that cannot
sin. Explain that. I can. But that's it. It's just the truth. And that
old man, someday the Lord's going to bury him, he's going to be
gone forever. And that new man, that new creature created in
Christ Jesus, unto good work, created in His image, that's
the one that loves holding it. That's the one that loves righteousness.
That's the one that repents. That's the one that needs pride. That's the one that loves the
truth. The old man is none of that. So, we say with Paul, I
am the chief of sinners. I'm the chief of center. I'm
the worst. I read old brother John Newton.
Oh, I love him so much. He said, I am the publican. I am Mary Magdalene. I am the thief on the cross.
I am. You know, our Lord said this,
if you listen to this, if you would, if we would judge ourselves,
we won't be judged. Go back to Luke 7 real quickly
with me. Luke 7. We looked at this, but
we need to remember this. Luke 7, verses 29 and 30. Look at this. Luke 7, 29. You have it? I'm not like, was
it David that said, I know when you found it because I can hear
the pages stop turning. You remember when he said that?
I can't hear it. Do you have it? Okay. Verse 29,
all the people that heard Christ, the publicans, justified God. Like David, you'll be just when
you speak, just when you judge me and cast me out. And they
were baptized with the baptism of John. What's that? Repentance.
God be merciful to us. That's what everybody came to
be baptized with John was saying. The Pharisees, verse 30, the
Pharisees, the lawyers, rejected the counsel of God against themselves. Because the handwriting of ordinances
is what? Against us. And they would not be baptized.
They didn't need repentance. And that's what our Lord came
preaching. And he preached that public and
the Pharisee, and he said, this is for those who think they're
righteous and have no need of repentance. All right, go back
to our text in Luke 13. All right, now the Lord told
this parable. We're going to look at this real quickly, because
it goes with it. Luke 13, 6. He spake also this
parable. A certain man had a fig tree
planted in his vineyard. and came, saw fruit thereon,
found none. He said to his dresser, the dresser
of his finger, Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit
on this fig tree, and find none. Cut it down. So I come with it
to ground. She's taking up space. And the
dresser Verse 8, answered, said unto him, Lord, let it alone
this year also, one more year, till I shall dig about it and
dung it, and if it bear fruit, well, if not, after that, cut
it down. That's frightful. Now what person
in here thinks you bear fruit? Anybody. Anybody. Oldest person
that's there. Anybody. Can you say that I have
glorified God in my life? Because our Lord said, herein
is the Father glorified that you bear much fruit. Didn't He? Love, joy. peace, long-suffering, gentleness,
goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Who's full of that? Who can say,
I love God, I love my neighbor as myself, I love my brother?
Anybody? I can't. I'm teaching this. This is repentance. Oh, God's
people do have this proof. If they don't have this fruit,
they're not one of His, okay? But when you look in the mirror, you can't see it in yourself.
You can't see one fruit, hardly, except repentance. But this is, see, the Lord, the vineyard, See, the vineyard is the Lord's
church. This is talking about His vineyard. In Isaiah it talks about the
vineyard. The Lord planted a vineyard and
hedged it about and so forth. And the Lord's church is His
people, His sheep. And there's tares among wheat
and the Lord said leave them together. In the end it's going
to be none. And the fig tree. If you notice
how much the Scriptures talk about the fig tree. I believe
Adam and Eve ate of the fig tree. Because it was shortly after
they tried to cover themselves in what? Fig leaves, fig leaves. And then our Lord, the only one
plant on earth our Lord cursed. It was the fig tree. Now this is by design. This is
according to his purpose, alright? A fig tree. A fig tree, if you've
looked at one, I have one. The bark is real smooth, the
foliage is large, large foliage. You can take one leaf and cover
your private part for a while. Or you can turn it over, but
it's going to wither. The fruit though thereof, the
fruit thereof of the fig is marvelous. It's wonderful. It's no wonder the Lord talks
about fruit being the work of God in a belief because there's
nothing more beautiful. There's nothing, there's not
anything, any plant, any whatever, food that there's more of than
fruits. Think about it. Think of the
colors. Think of the shapes. Think of the beauty of them.
Think of the taste. Is there anything, somebody made,
many made a fruit salad for our guests while they were here and
it was just everything but figs. But you know, kiwi and blueberries
and apples and grapes and peaches and mangoes and just name it. Oh, every color and a rainbow
and more. And man, I can go on. I love
it. It's beautiful. It tastes so
good. Fig is one of the most delectable, juiciest, gorgeous
inside of it when it's ripe is red. And it's full of seed like
the pomegranate. That ring a bell? Ring a bell. That was what was on our Lord's
hem of His garment, pomegranate and bells. Fruit, seed, The work of God. We can't produce
any of it. We can't produce any of that
fruit. Not one. Make yourself a little bit more. Can't do it. Who's going to do
it? The dresser. Who's that? The Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God. The fruit
of the Spirit. Okay. What's He do? What does
he do? And it's the same thing with
repentance. The Lord shows us in the Gospel.
I've been preaching the Gospel to you for three years. I've
been preaching the Gospel to you for 33 years, 43 years, and
I don't find much fruit. That's a person who's heard the
Gospel, the truth, and they repent. They never quit repenting. And so the Lord sends the dresser. He says, one more year. And you
know, we ought to approach the Gospel as if the Lord's given
me one more opportunity, one more message. I failed miserably
yesterday, this morning. Now I get one more opportunity.
So what's the dresser going to do? He's going to dig it. The Lord, David said, has digged
my ear, searched me, and tried me, and I found wanting. He's going to dung it. You know
what dung is, don't you? Maneuver. pronounced when she's trying
to first read it, manure. This one's manure. What's that? Dung. It's excrement. It's filth, isn't it? It's filth. Is it a pleasant thing? Is dung
a pleasant thing? Have you ever applied chicken
manure to your garden? These German Baptists that spread
that cow slop all over, you can smell it for miles. You're just
hoping it'll go away. It's not pleasant at all. It's
stench, filth, vile, excrement, waste. No good. You know, that's
what the Spirit of God does, continues to do, every one of
God's people. This is you. This is what I find in you. This
is what you're going to have to think about yourself. And you know what that's going
to do to them? It's going to produce love. Love for number one, the truth,
the gospel, that God has sent the gospel to man. Love for Christ. It's going to make you love your
brother more than you love yourself, because you're going to think,
he's not worse than me, I'm worse than him. That's the only thing
that will make you love your brother is if the Lord works
on you with the Holy Spirit and convinces you that you're worse
than them. You will love them. You will
esteem them higher than yourself. That's what will make you appreciate
the preacher. Like Rahab the harlot. We're going to look at
that next. That's the next message. Right
hand, the heart, chapter 2. Joshua. Okay. May the Lord have
done us all.