St. Corinthians chapter 7, having therefore these promises,
dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness
of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Receive us. We have wronged no
man. We have corrupted no man. We
have defrauded no man. I speak not this to condemn you,
for I have said before that ye are in our hearts to die and
to live with you. Great is my boldness of speech
towards you. Great is my glorying of you.
I am filled with comfort. I am exceeding joyful in all
our tribulation. For when we were come into Macedonia,
our flesh had no rest, but we were troubled on every side.
without were fightings, within were fears. Nevertheless, God
that comforteth those that are cast down comforteth us by the
coming of Titus, and not by his coming only, but by the consolation
wherewith he was comforted in you, when he told us your earnest
desire, your mourning, your fervent mind toward me, so that I rejoice
the more. 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 sorrowed to repentance, for ye were made
sorry after a godly manner, that ye might receive damage by us
in nothing. For godly sorrow worketh repentance
to salvation. not to be repented of, but the
sorrow of the world worketh death. For behold, this selfsame thing
that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought
in you! Yea, what clearing of yourselves!
Yea, what indignation! Yea, what fear! Yea, what vehement
desire! Yea, what zeal! Yea, what revenge! In all things ye have approved
yourselves to be clear in this matter. 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 for
you in the sight of God might appear unto you. Therefore we
were comforted in your comfort. Yea, in exceeding the more joyed
we for the joy of Titus, because his spirit was refreshed by you
all. For if I have boasted anything
to him of you, I am not ashamed. But as we spake all things to
you in truth, even so our boasting, which I made before Titus, is
found a truth. And his inward affection is more
abundant toward you. whilst he remembered the obedience
of you all, how with fear and trembling ye received him. I
rejoice therefore that I have confidence in you in all things."
Now, in order to get the gist of what Paul is speaking
about here, one would have had to have read the first epistle
that Paul wrote to the Corinthians wherein He mentioned a grave
sin that was going on in the midst of the assembly wherein
a man was living together in a fashion as being married to one
who was his stepmother. As he said to them, you know,
this was a thing that wouldn't even be named among people in
general, let alone should it be named among the children of
God. And so it was a great sin, and
he brought this to the awareness of the church, not that they
weren't aware of it, but that they weren't doing anything about
it. And so he took them to task about
that and he basically upbraided them and was harsh in some manner
towards them in telling them that they needed to do something
to correct this situation, to remove fellowship from this man
until he repented. And so he comes in his second
letter here and he said that Though I made you sorry with
a letter, I do not repent." He says, I'm not sorry that I made
you sorry, because you needed to be sorry. And sometimes it
is that God's people need to be sorry. They need to feel bad
about things that they're not doing that are proper. And so
he said there, though I did repent, In other words, he's saying,
I didn't do it to make you sorry, but then once I made you sorry,
I was sorry that I made you sorry. Because of the fact that it was
the tenderness of Paul's love for them that caused Him to write
to them in the first place. He didn't have a desire just
to point out their error. Now some people like to point
out the error of other people. They just get a delight in that.
And they think that that somehow is a godly trait, but it isn't.
You know, the only godliness in pointing out someone else's
error is that they might be bettered by it. That is why the Lord said
that we are to esteem one another above ourselves, so that if we
are going to point out an error to somebody, let it be our sole
purpose be that they be bettered by it, not simply that we would
just be able to say, you did the wrong thing, or that we could
point out their fault and get some satisfaction out of catching
them in some error. So he says, though I made you
sorry with the 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. Now again, some people like to
point out other people's faults just to make them squirm. That's
not the point. We're not supposed to delight
in pointing out an error so that we might make the other person
feel bad about it. But that you sorrowed to repentance. Now, a lot of people think that
sorrow and repentance are the same thing. Now, repentance is
accompanied with sorrow. It's impossible to repent without
sorrow. But it is possible to sorrow
without repenting. And so he says, I am not rejoicing
that ye were made sorry, but that ye repented. Now the concept
of repentance is a change of direction. If I am going to Live
Oak and I turn around and come back from Live Oak, then I have
repented of going to Live Oak. Now, if I'm on the way to Live
Oak and I think, well, I ought not to go to Live Oak, I better
not go to Live Oak, I'm not going to go to Live Oak, but I go on
to Live Oak, then I have not repented of going to Live Oak.
It doesn't matter how much sorrow or angst or whatever might accompany
what we're doing. That is not repentance. Repentance
is a turnabout. It's making a U-turn and going
in the other direction. So Paul is saying here that he
rejoiced not that they were made sorry or that this was just brought
to their awareness, but that they sorrowed to repentance.
Actually, something transpired as a result of this. For ye were
made sorry after a godly manner, that ye might receive damage
by us in nothing. Now here is the working of the
Spirit of God in a man when he is given repentance, and that
is that he does not take that as a personal affront. If somebody
points out an error in you, and God is pleased to give you repentance,
then you are not going to be angry at the person that pointed
out the error in you, but you are going to be thankful that
it was pointed out because if you have godly repentance, you
have a desire. It proves that you have a desire
after godliness. And that is what he said here.
For you were made sorry after a godly manner. So there is a
way a man can be sorry, not in a godly manner. A man can be
sorry that he got caught doing something. Now that's most of
the time what the sorrow of most times when we're kids, that's
usually where our biggest sorrow comes in, is not so much we're
sorry for what we did, But we're just sorry that somebody, that
mom or daddy found out about it. We're sorry so that we don't
get further and deeply suffer more consequences of it. And so that is sorrowing in a
natural sense, not in a godly manner. Because the man who sorrows
after a godly manner, He receives damage by the person who points
that out in nothing. And the man who is sorry recognizes
his error, not just the fear of the punishment that comes
with it. For then, he says, for godly sorrow worketh repentance
to salvation not to be repented of. Now the salvation that he
is speaking of here in this particular context is not specifically about
eternal salvation. It is not talking about they
repented to gain salvation, but rather what he is speaking about
here is that repentance brought about deliverance. Now again,
going back to our illustration of going to live vote, if we
repent and turn from going to live vote, then we have been
saved. from going to Labba. We got salvation
from the destination of which we were going. And that's what
he means here. Godly sorrow work is repentance
to salvation, that is to a change. to the place of deliverance. Now, remember the sin that was
in their midst, and he's speaking here to the church in general.
He's not speaking to the man that was guilty of committing
the sin, but he's speaking to the church, which he wrote to,
telling them, you ought to correct this problem that is in your
midst. And so he said, you did that and you repented unto salvation. You were delivered from that
thing that I pointed out to you by the repentance not to be repented
of. It was not something you should
have changed your mind about, changing your mind about. Have
you ever changed your mind and then changed your mind and then
changed your mind? Well, if a man has godly sorrow,
he doesn't change his mind about it. In other words, he doesn't
later on say, well, wait a minute, they didn't have any business
telling me about that. It's not temporary, in other
words, and that's what he means there. That the repentance was
not to be repented of. But he said, the sorrow of the
world worketh death because the sorrow of the world is to be
repented of. When a man is just sorry for
something because he got caught, then later on he'll be angry
about getting caught. Didn't you sometimes when you
did the thing you knew you shouldn't do when you was a kid and your
mom or your daddy caught you in it and they chastised you
for it? And then you got mad later when
it was all said and done that all that happened. And you said,
I'm going to leave town. I'm going to run away. I hate
this place. I can't do what I want to. Well,
that's the sorrow of the world. That's not godly sorrow. Because
godly sorrow brings about a change of the mind and heart. It is
that which affects the whole man and not just the outward
manifestations. For behold this selfsame thing
that ye sorrowed after a godly sort. Your sorrow was after a
godly fashion. It wasn't just temporary. Now you remember that Judas,
He was sorrowful, wasn't he? He wept. He went out and what
did he do? He hung himself, killed himself. Now, that's a pretty
drastic thing, but that was still not true repentance because it
wasn't motivated from a love of the truth, but it was motivated
by a hatred of what he had done. insofar as what he had done to
himself, not insofar as what he had done unto the glory of
God. And so that's the difference
between godly sorrow and that which is of the flesh, the sorrow
of the world worth its death. And that is what happens. If
a man has worldly sorrow, he might commit suicide. But I don't
believe that godly sorrow is that which drives a man to suicide
because the Lord has, I mean, that is the ultimate turning
away from what God has said if we take our own life. So, and I'm not saying that here,
we're not entered into a discussion here about can a person who is
a child of God commit suicide. I'm not going down that road,
okay? I know this, that every sin which
a child of God has committed or shall commit has been paid
for in the blood of Jesus Christ. And so, I would never say that
a child of God absolutely could not commit suicide, but I will
say that godly sorrow is not that which produces death. Godly sorrow is that which produces
life. And so it is that Paul says here.
He said the sorrow of the world worketh death. Now, unfortunately,
we are in the world, even though we are not of the world. And
so there may be circumstances and things that occur in this
world that would, in the weakness of a man's flesh, cause him to
do such things as that. I don't know. I can't say. But
I certainly don't believe that it would be godly sorrow that
would bring a man to that place, but it would be the sorrow of
the world which worketh death. Because it is that godly sorrow
worketh repentance to salvation. For behold this selfsame thing,
that ye sorrowed after a godly sort." And then he's going to
describe what this repenting and this sorrowing after a godly
sort is. First off, he said, what carefulness
it wrought in you. What carefulness! That is, it
was a thing that caused a man to stop and look at what he was
doing. He became considerate of what
it is that he was doing. Now, that's the first step that
a man that occurs in the godly repentance that the Lord would
bring upon a people, is that they would be careful or mindful
of what is being said. Now, when we turn a deaf ear
to those that would rebuke us or exhort us, then it cannot
be that we would have godly repentance. Godly repentance brings about
a listening to what is said. And repentance, godly repentance,
is not an activity of the flesh, but it is a work of the Spirit.
And this is that which is pointed out by Paul. He said, after God
has shown what carefulness it wrought in you. Now, he didn't
say what you wrought in yourself. He said what it wrought in you,
what wrought in you repentance. Repentance is a gift of God.
Even his faith is a gift of God. A man can't have repentance because
he wants repentance. or because he wills to have repentance. Now, in our situation where we
were talking about going to Live Oak, it is a true thing that
we would be the one that turned the car around. But where would
the thought or the mind to turn around come from? If it was a
godly repentance, it would have come from the Lord. And the Lord
would have given us grace that we might consider it and turn
around. And that's what he says here,
for what carefulness it wrought in you. So repentance brings
about these things in the people of God. It's not that people
bring about repentance by doing these things. You don't become
repentant by being careful. Because you are repentant, it
causes you to be careful. And that repentance is a state
of mind and heart more so than an activity, although that state
of mind and heart produces an activity. And where there's no
activity, there's no repentance. I mean, if a man says, well,
I'm sorrowing after a godless orc, but he doesn't change his
manner, then he can say that all day long. You can talk about
being sorry. I mean, what if the church at
Corinth, if they had said, Okay, Paul, you're right. You're absolutely
right, and we've got to do something about this. But then they never
did anything about it. There wouldn't be any sorrow,
would it? I mean, there wouldn't be any
carefulness manifestation that is listening to what it is, what
carefulness it wrought in you. Yea, what clearing of yourselves. Now that's an interesting word,
what clearing of yourselves. Now we usually think of that
in the term of clearing our name. That is, we would say, oh, well,
we didn't have anything to do with it. I mean, that's what
That's what people do when they go to court usually, isn't it?
Oh, I don't know anything about that. I didn't have anything
to do with it. They want to clear their name of it. But that's
not what he means here. He said, what clearing of yourselves,
or that word there is the word we get apology from. So when he says, what, clearing
of yourselves, he's talking about the fact that they made apology. Now, apologies are a hard thing,
isn't it? I mean, now, fake apologies aren't
hard. You can just tell someone, oh,
I'm sorry. In reality, you're thinking in the back of your
mind, oh, I'm glad I did that. But I want to get on their good
side. But in reality, I really enjoyed
doing what I did, but to preserve peace, I'm going to say I'm sorry.
But that's not what godly repentance does. It's not what godly repentance
produced in this church, is it? Because He said, what clearing
of yourselves, that is, what apologies you made. You wanted
to get this thing out. You wanted to get it out in the
open and make yourselves free from it. You apologized for it. You had that spirit of true apology. You were sorrowing in it. What clearing of yourselves,
yea, what indignation. Now again, the indignation, we
usually think of that in a bad way, don't we? I mean, indignation
is usually an indication of self-righteousness, and it can be. Sometimes people
get indignant because they see something in someone else that
seems far worse in the other person than it does in them.
Have you ever been in that situation? And you see somebody else there
doing something and you just hate it. But then later on you
start thinking about, well, you know, actually, I'm guilty of
the same thing, just not in perhaps the same way. But you see, indignation
is that which rises up. Indignation is a thing that you
don't have to think about something to be indignant. Because you
become indignant about something just because you automatically
have some reaction to it. And that's what he says here,
what indignation this brought about. I mean, when the Lord
brings a sin into our awareness and godly repentance is the cause
of it, it causes us to immediately hate that thing. We want it to
be taken from us. We look at him and we say, how
could we do such a thing? What on earth were we thinking
about? See, true repentance is always
centered on ourselves. It's not looking around. When
a man's repentant, he doesn't have time to be looking around
for looking within and saying, they're right. Man, I hate that. See, Job, he manifested indignation
when he repented. He said, I abhor myself. I hate myself. Now, I know that's
not good for the philosophers of today and we're supposed to
not, oh, don't hate yourself. You're supposed to love yourself.
Isn't that what they tell us? I mean, I'm okay, you're okay,
we're all okay. No. True repentance causes a
man to be indignant. at his own failure, caused him
to see what he is by nature. He said, What indignation! And
then he says, Yea, what fear! Now the man who is awakened by
the Spirit of God and knows God to be a consuming fire, When
once he sees his sin in the true light that it is shown to him
in, it does cause fear, because he knows that his sin is against
God. It's not just some little old
thing over here, but David, when he confessed his sin, he said, against thee and thee only have
I sinned. He understood. that what he had
done was the worst thing that you could possibly do. It wasn't
just some little minor problem that he had, but it was against
the God who rules the heavens and the earth. It was to spit
in the face of Him who is the Judge of all. Yea, what fear! Yes, there is a fear that is
brought about. It was through repentance. Because it's a fear that we ought
to be cast out from the presence of God. Now, if a man never thinks
that he ought to be cast out from the presence of God, then
I don't believe he's ever known what repentance is. Because the only grounds upon
which we stand would be the mercy of God. And true repentance causes
us to see that we have violated that mercy. We've disregarded
that mercy. I mean, God has kindly dealt
with us and we have disregarded it and gone our own way. Yea, this is that which is brought
about by true repentance. Yea, what vehement desire! Now, vehement desire is burning
desire. Now, what is the burning desire?
To correct the problem. See, that is what the burning
desire is. The burning desire is not just to know what the
problem is, but the burning desire is to get rid of the problem.
That's what the thing is, and that's what Paul said they did
as a church. He said, when godly sorrow came
upon you, he said it brought about vehement desire. You say,
we've got to do something about this situation. Yea, what zeal! That is the impetus to go ahead
and do something. Now, zeal is a great thing. Unfortunately,
most zeal is of a fleshly nature. And it doesn't last long, does
it? I mean, you know, you get all fired up to do something,
maybe you're going to go and clean the yard up. And you get
started, and buddy, you know, you go like a house of fire for
a couple of hours, and then all of a sudden, you're kind of burned
out, and you get to thinking, well, this isn't as much fun
as I thought it was going to be. But you see, zeal is that
which causes a man to be moved to action. And repentance of
a godly sort brings that to pass, and not temporary zeal. See,
if a man has zeal after a godly sort, it's going to accomplish
the thing that it is sent to do. It's not going to just be
a flash in the pan. It's easy to become zealous for
religion. And we often see men in fleshly
Confessions of faith become zealous for God. I mean, they're going
to serve God. They're zealous, but their zeal
doesn't last. It burns out, doesn't it? And
they turn aside and walk no more with Him. It doesn't matter how
much zeal you have if it's not zeal that's wrought by the power
of God in repentance to bring something to pass. And then he
said, yea, what revenge! What revenge? Now, the Scripture
says, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord. He tells us not to be concerned
with vengeance, but yet the Scripture says here that true repentance
causes us to seek revenge. Well, who are we seeking revenge
on? Ourselves. Paul said, I keep
under my body and bring it into subjection, lest after I have
preached to others, I myself should be a castaway, a reprobate. That's what the spirit of revenge
is. He says, I'm going to get at the heart of this thing. I
hate the very one that caused this problem. And who is it? All we've got
to do is look in the mirror. And we know what you see, and
godly sorrow causes us to look in the mirror. We see ourselves
as in a glass. The Scripture says, you see,
when we're in Christ, we see ourselves for what we are, contrasted
with Christ. I mean, when we see our face
and Christ's face in the same looking glass, And those faces
are looking at us, and we see ourselves compared to Christ.
What do we see? Not a pretty sight, is it? What revenge! That is, we desire
that that be corrected in us. As in all things, he said, you
have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter. What Paul wrote to them about,
they took care of. They dealt with the issue that
had arisen in their midst, and they dealt with it after a godly
sort. And they didn't just gloss it
over, they didn't just play church, but they actually hated this
way of sin in such a fashion that It brought repentance to
the one who was brought under the discipline of the church. You approved yourselves to be
clear in this matter. That is, you did the thing that
you should have done. And you made yourselves approved. And of course, all of this by
the grace of God. Wherefore, though I wrote unto
you, I did it not for his cause that it done the wrong." Now,
he's saying to them, I wrote to you not because this guy had
done the wrong thing and I just wanted to see him straightened
out. Now, surely he did wrong, but he said, that wasn't my primary
purpose. He says, I didn't even write
to you for his sake. that had suffered the wrong,
that is, the man's father, whose wife he had taken. He said, I
didn't even write to you for his sake. Not for his cause that suffered
wrong, but that our care for you in the sight of God might
appear to you. He said, the only reason that
I wrote to you about this situation is that you might know that I
love you. Wow, that's a strange way to show you love, Paul, isn't
it? I mean, wouldn't love have just
caused him to just not say anything? Not so. Because he loved them,
he couldn't allow this to go on in their midst. So he didn't
write it specifically because he just wanted to see the young
man corrected, though he did want to see the young man corrected.
He didn't write to them just because he wanted to see the
man who had been wronged in this situation comforted, though he
did want that to occur. But he wrote to them so that
they might know that he loved them. And the Lord said that
whomsoever he loves, what does he do? He chastens. If you be without chastisement,
he said, you're bastards and not sons. You're not those who
are the children of God. And so Paul says to them, the
reason that I brought this to your attention is because I love
you and I want you to know that I love you. Because if I didn't
love you, I wouldn't say anything about it. Therefore, we were
comforted in your comfort. When it comes to your awareness
that you understand, that you understood that we wrote to you
to demonstrate our love to you, he said, we are comforted because
now we know that you are comforted in knowing that we love you.
And exceedingly, the more joyed we for the joy of Titus, because
his spirit was refreshed by you all. So when the Lord sent Titus
into their midst, they didn't say to Titus, or when Paul sent
Titus to them, They didn't say to Titus, man, now you need to
tell Paul that he needs to lighten up. He needs to leave us alone.
Let us go our own way. No, they said, man, we're so
glad that Paul wrote to us. We're so glad that he showed
us the error of our way. And Titus was refreshed by that. He said, man, the Lord's at work
here. See, you know when the Lord's
at work when there's repentance. You don't know the Lord's at
work when everybody's hopping around and shouting and praising
God. You don't know if the Lord's
there or not. But I tell you, when you do know when the Lord's
there is when people are sorrowing over their sin. For the Spirit
of God is sent into the world to convince men of sin, righteousness,
and judgment. Now, modern day religion has
got this all screwed up. They don't have the mind about
what this is. Paul said here, Therefore we
were comforted in your comfort, yea, exceedingly the more joyed
we for the joy of Titus, because his spirit was refreshed by you
all, because he saw the work of God in your midst. Now isn't
that how the body of Christ benefits one another when we see the work
of God in the midst of one another? And how much it is hindered,
our joy is hindered, when we don't see any of that. I mean,
when God's people walk through life in a lethargic manner, unconcerned
about their standing, or unconcerned about their walk with God, and
just kind of calling it in from a pay phone somewhere. That's
not beneficial to the people of God. But what's beneficial
to the people of God is when we see the work of God in the
midst of God's people when they are made to be sorrowing over
their sin, and they see themselves for what they are. For if I have
boasted anything to him of you, I am not ashamed. But as we spake
all things to you in truth, even so our boasting, which I made
before Titus, a fount of truth." He said, I love those Corinthians. He says, I am proud to be associated
with them. He said, I would stand with them
and I believe they would stand with me to the end. He said,
I didn't just say that in empty boast. You know, a lot of times
we're taught to just kind of fake Build one another up. I mean, isn't that the philosophy
of the world? We're supposed to pat one another on the back
and say, man, you're doing a great job. I mean, even if they're
doing a poor job? No. That's not what Paul did. He said, we didn't just boast
about you to be boasting about you. He said, we boasted about
you because we believed what we said. is found of the truth, and His
inward affection is more abundant towards you while He remembered
the obedience of you all, how with fear and trembling you received
Him." Oh, what an encouragement! I rejoice therefore that I have
confidence in you in all things. Now, how is confidence in the people
of God wrought in one another? It is as they see the work of
God taking place in the lives of God's people, how they are
sorrowing after a godly sort. As the Lord said, blessed are
they that mourn, blessed are the poor in spirit. Now, I know
that this is contrary to modern philosophy. It's contrary to
natural philosophy. I mean, we don't want to be mourning.
And our goal is not to mourn. Paul's goal here was not to cause
these Corinthians to mourn. That wasn't what he wanted to
do. He wanted to cause them to rejoice, but the only path of
true rejoicing comes through mourning. And the work of God
is only manifested in the people of God, not as they rejoice,
but as they mourn. Because it is that through mourning
joy is going to be produced as they see godly sorrow in one
another and in themselves by the work of the Spirit of God.
By this shall ye know that ye are my disciples, because ye
have love one for the other. That's what John said. He was
repeating what the Lord said. He said, "...by this shall all
men know that ye are my disciples, because ye have love one to the
other." But then John says in his book, "...by this we know
that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the
brethren." And how is that love made manifest as we see the work
of the Spirit of God? in our midst, among us, as God
is pleased to grant to us godly repentance. Oh, that He might
be walking among us and drawing
His people to Himself. And may we be those who would
have the fruits of true repentance.