Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening and now
for today's program. Welcome to our program today.
I'm glad you could join us. If you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, I'm going to be preaching today from Luke
chapter 13. It's the gospel of Luke chapter
13, the first few verses here, about from verse one to verse
five. And the title of the message
is Repent or Perish. Repent or perish. Now, hearing
that title, you may say, oh no, the preacher's gonna preach a
hellfire and brimstone message today or something like that.
Well, you know, they used to talk about the old time preachers,
you know, who would angrily sometimes preach those kinds of messages
and to scare people and all of that. I think about when I was
in high school, in our literature books, we had a message that
that a preacher priest, his name was Jonathan Edwards, you may
have heard of him. It was called Sinners in the Hands of an Angry
God. But that's not what I'm going
to do. I am going to talk about the danger of dying in our sins
and being eternally separated from God. That's hell. That's perishing, that's what
he's talking about. And certainly that's something
we want to avoid. But one of the ways that he relates
that here is in view of the issue of repentance. And repentance
in the Bible is part of the fruit that God brings sinners to that
comes out of the death of Christ. Faith in Christ, we call it,
the Bible calls it, and repentance of dead works and idolatry. And that repentance, that faith
is the revealed knowledge by which the Holy Spirit convinces
God's people, the elect, of the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ, salvation. conditioned on Christ who fulfilled
those conditions, that all of my sins are forgiven on a just
ground, the blood of Christ, that I stand before God justified,
forgiven, and declared righteous, not by my works, not by my decisions,
not by my experiences, but by the righteousness of Christ,
The righteousness of God, which is the entire merit, value, power, of the obedience unto death of
the Lord Jesus Christ to save his sheep, his church, his people
from their sins. And am I part of that blessing?
Well, if I am, God will send the Spirit to bring me under
the preaching of the gospel and he'll give me life from the dead.
It's called the new birth. You must be born again or you
cannot see or hear or enter the kingdom of God. And he'll give
me life under the preaching of the truth, the gospel, which
is the power of God unto salvation. And he'll give me the gift of
faith, for by grace are you safe through faith. That's not of
yourselves, it's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man
should boast. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and faith. And by faith he brings me to
see the awfulness, the sinfulness, not only of my immorality, not
only of my law-breaking, as we say it, but also of my best efforts
to save myself by my works. That's repentance of dead works.
What are dead works? Let me put it to you this way.
If you're seeking to be saved, and to be right with God by your
obedience, your attempted obedience to the law, that's a dead work. Because you see, we're sinners.
And we've all come short of the glory of God. That means we missed
the mark. You see, you need to understand
that God requires perfection of righteousness. Now you may
say, well that's unreasonable because I can't attain that.
That's why we need salvation by grace, friend. Grace, Romans
5 21 says grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life
by Jesus Christ our Lord. I cannot attain righteousness.
There's none righteous, no not one. But God has provided righteousness
for his people in the person and work of Christ. So where
can I find the perfection of the righteousness of the law
that God requires in order for me to be justified, forgiven
of my sins, declared righteous in God's sight, saved? Where
can I find that? In Christ. Not in yourself, not
in me, not in the church, not in your works, not in your decisions,
not in your free will that's in bondage to sin, but in Christ. And when God shows you that,
when he reveals that to you, he brings you to faith in Christ
and repentance of dead works and idolatry. You say, why idolatry? I'm not an idolater. Let me tell
you something. whenever you thought, and if
you think now, that God will accept you and bless you based
upon your works, that God that you're looking to is an idol.
Now that may sound harsh, but the true and living God of this
book, the only true and living God, will not accept that. The
only way that we can be accepted before God, the true God, is
in Christ. Any other way will bring you
to an idol, a false god, a false Christ. Now with that in mind,
let's look at Luke 13. And Christ is teaching a very,
very important lesson here that we all need to see. And he uses
two examples in their history to prove this. And here's what
he says in verse one, Luke 13. There were present at that season
some that told him of the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled
with their sacrifices. Now this was an episode in their
history that they told the Lord Jesus about of Galileans who
were coming to sacrifice animals, that was under the old covenant
now, They were coming to God with the blood of bulls and of
goats, and Pilate, remember Pontius Pilate, he sent soldiers to kill
these people. Now, I don't know what all the
reasons that all this happened. There may have been insurrection
and rebellion against Rome, or Pilate may have put down a law
or something, but this is something that actually happened. And so
this is an act of high sin of Pilate against these people.
And it says in verse two, and Jesus answering said unto them. Now what happened? Pilate killed
them and mingled their blood with the blood of their sacrifices.
And Jesus answering said unto them, suppose ye that these Galileans,
the ones that were slaughtered, Suppose you that these Galileans
were sinners above all the Galileans because they suffered such things.
When you hear about something that goes on like that, an act
of human depravity, what we would call it, human slaughter, we
talk about the history, man is a history written in blood and
slaughter, cruelty. And here these Galileans, for
whatever reason, Pilate killed them all. Now, when you look
at something like that and you think about it and you make a
judgment, do you suppose that those Galileans were greater
sinners than the ones whom Pilate did not kill, who survived? Have you ever seen somebody who
was cruelly treated that way and even thought, well, they
must have done something really bad or that wouldn't have happened? Now, that's a natural way of
thinking. Sometimes we don't think that way. But look what
Christ says in verse three of Luke 13. He says, I tell you
no, or nay or no, but except you repent, you shall all likewise
perish. Now, what's he teaching there?
He's teaching that we're not to look at, you know, when we
look at people and say, well, they got what they deserved,
or they must've done something really bad. Well, somebody might
be able to reason themselves out of that situation, but look
at the second thing that he says in verse four. He mentions another
historical event and he says, or those 18, there were 18 people
upon whom the tower of Siloam fell. A tower in Siloam fell
disastrously upon 18 people and slew them. Now think about that. Now that's what we would call
a natural disaster. And that kind of hits home a
little bit more maybe for us, because I was thinking about
this as I was studying for this message. You know, back years
ago when Hurricane Katrina came through New Orleans, now I heard
at least two, probably more than this, television preachers, when
they were talking about this, what we call an act of God. Now all things are acts of God,
But you know, the insurance companies, they call that an act of God
or an accident. And here this tornado, or hurricane
rather, came through New Orleans and killed many people. And I
heard some preachers say, well now, New Orleans is such a sinful
city. And God brought judgment down
on New Orleans. Well, I would agree New Orleans
is a sinful city. But I also agree that every city
in this world is a sinful city. You know why? Because cities
are made up of people. And people are sinners. They
may be religious sinners. Or they may be sinners like in
New Orleans who go to the Mardi Gras or whatever they do. But
this is the problem, see. These preachers, they say, well,
God brought judgment upon New Orleans. New Orleans got what
it deserved. It's such a sinful city. Sin
city, they call it. Like Sodom and Gomorrah. And
Sodom and Gomorrah were sinful cities. And God did bring judgment
down on them. But look at what Christ says
on this, this natural disaster. Look at it again, verse four.
or those 18 upon whom the tower of Siloam fell and slew them.
Think ye that they were sinners, and the word for sinners there
is a debtor, that they owed a debt to God's justice above all men
that dwelt in Jerusalem. Now think about it. Here's Siloam,
and then you talk about Jerusalem, the holy city, the city of God,
the city of David. Now think about it, he said,
do you think Jerusalem, the people of Jerusalem, were better than
the people that the Tower of Siloam fell on? Those who died
under the Tower of Siloam, they were greater sinners than Jerusalem?
And he says in verse five, I tell you nay, no, but except you repent,
you people of Jerusalem, you religious sinners, except you
repent, you shall all likewise perish. Now, one of the things that he's
dealing with here is man's evil, self-righteous judgment. You
remember over in Matthew chapter seven, the beginning of that
chapter in the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord said, judge not
that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge,
you will be judged yourself. That's basically what he's saying.
And a lot of people look at that verse and they say, well, we
can't judge anything at all. No, that's not what it's saying.
That's one of the most misunderstood verses in the Bible. What he's
forbidding there in Matthew 7-1 is self-righteous judgment. And
that's what he's talking about here. And here's what he's saying. Now listen to me very carefully
here. Whenever we look at other people
who are let's say openly, immoral, great sinners. And we look at
those people and say, well, they're lost or they're going to hell
because they are great sinners. You know what we've done? We've
just condemned ourselves. Now that's right. It's not that
we cannot recognize openly immoral sins and say they're wrong. But
when we judge such things in ways that say, well, I know I'm
not lost, I'm saved, I'm going to heaven because I'm better
than they, I'm not as sinful as they, then that's self-righteous
judgment by which we condemn ourselves. Here's what I'm saying.
We are all sinners. And you say, well, I'm not as
sinful as that one, or I'm not as sinful that one. I had a man
tell me one time, he said, I know I'm not perfect, but I've not
done anything that deserves hell. I've not done anything bad enough.
Well, my friend, that's self-righteous judgment. He needed to repent. Because here's what the Bible
teaches, that if God were to give any of us, me, you, whoever,
church goers, Mardi Gras growers, if God were to give any of us
what we have earned and what we deserve, it would be perishing
in hell. Do you believe that? If you don't,
except you repent, you will likewise perish. That's what he's saying.
You see, this repentance is a gift of God. that comes by the Holy
Spirit that brings about a change of heart and mind. That's what it is. Most people,
when they look at repentance, they say, well, I need to repent
of being a bad person, an immoral person. I gotta quit smoking,
I gotta quit drinking, I gotta quit doing this, that, and the
other. That's not repentance, that's reformation. And reformation
will accompany salvation. But that's not repentance. Repentance
is a change of mind. In the Old Testament, the Hebrew
word for repentance, repent, would be a change of direction,
like a 180 degree turn. You're going north and you turn
completely around and you go south. In the New Testament,
the word is a change of mind. How you think and how we think,
it's not just an intellectual thing now or a mental thing,
even though it is that the mind is involved. But it's a change
of mind that brings about a change of judgment. It's kind of like
the old guy said one time, he said, there but for the grace
of God go I. What is grace? It's God giving
me what I don't deserve and what I have not earned. For by grace
are you saved. Through faith, that's not of
yourselves, not even faith is of ourselves. It's the gift of
God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Paul wrote in the book of Romans
chapter nine, when God said, it's not of him that runneth,
nor of him that willeth, but of God that showeth mercy. You see, grace is God giving
a sinner. who deserves nothing but death
and hell, who has earned nothing but death and hell. God giving
that sinner salvation and all the blessings and all the benefits
of salvation based on not their works or their decisions, but
based on the blood of Jesus Christ, the righteousness of Christ freely
imputed and received by God-given faith. That's what grace is.
Mercy is God not giving us what we deserve and what we've earned,
which is death and hell, but His mercy is given to sinners
on a just ground, the blood of Jesus Christ. That's what it's
all about. And if you think it's based on
anything else, if you think it's based on your works, your decisions,
your religiosity, your baptism, your obedience, your prayers. If you think it's based on anything
but the blood and righteousness of Christ, I would tell you,
except you repent, you will likewise perish. Your thinking has to
be changed on that issue. Now, it takes a work of the power
and grace of God to change a sinner's mind in that issue. The Apostle
John spoke of that in John 16, verses eight through 11. You
can read that passage, I won't open and read it. But what he's
talking about is the conviction of the Holy Spirit. When the
Holy Spirit is sent by God to convict us, and what that is
is he changes our mind and our heart. through the Word of God
when He shows us the glory of the person and work of Christ.
What does it take to save me from sins? What does it take
to make me bow to the ways of God? It takes the power of God
unto salvation. That's the work of the Holy Spirit
sent from Christ in the new birth. to apply the word of God, the
truth of the gospel to my heart and bring me to faith in Christ
and repentance of dead works. And one of the things that he
says that he convicts us of, it says he convicts us of sin
because we believe not on Christ. And what he's saying there is
that without Christ, it doesn't matter how good I try to be,
Should I try to be a good person? Well, of course I should. There's
no argument there. There's nothing in this book
related to the grace of God that gives me encouragement or leave
or freedom just to go about sinning in any form or any way. Nothing. So should I try to be a good
person? Yes, but here's what repentance is about. When God
brings me to see that my best efforts to be good cannot save
me, cannot put away my sins, cannot make me righteous in God's
sight, cannot earn eternal life and glory and blessedness for
me, and cannot put me in a position where I can say I deserve it,
That's what the word of God says. My best efforts will not accomplish
that. Only the person and work of Christ
in my place as my surety, as my substitute, as my redeemer,
as my mediator and intercessor can and has accomplished that.
And this is the way I put it all the time. And I tell people,
I've been preaching, I've been a believer by the grace of God
for almost 40 years now. And I've preached the gospel
for almost 40 years now. But if God were to judge me based
upon my best efforts to be an obedient servant, to keep the
law, I would perish in a devil's hell. That's what I'm telling
you. My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness. That was true when I began the
race of grace, when God saved me by his grace. It's true today. And when I enter heaven's glory,
it'll be true then. All my, should I try to be a
good person? Yes, but all my efforts to be
good will fall short, not of man's standard of goodness, but
they fall short of the perfection that God requires for salvation
and blessedness and a right standing with Him that can only be found
in Christ. His glorious person. His finished
work. And that's what Christ is saying
here, except you repent. You'll likewise perish. The moment
you look at a person and say, well, I know they're going to
hell because they're a sinner, you've condemned yourself because
you're a sinner too. I'm a sinner too. We've all sinned
and come short of the glory of God. And that's true for safe
sinners and unsafe sinners. Did you know that? This is where
repentance comes in. You know, the Bible says, over
in the book of 2 Peter 3, and let me read this. Now, Peter
wrote this epistle to the elect, to believers. In fact, he says
that. Look at 2 Peter 1 in verse one. It says, Simon Peter, a servant
and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like
precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and
our Savior Jesus Christ. That's believers. And over here
in 2 Peter 3, he's talking about how some people, you know, the
Lord told his disciples he's coming again, he's coming back.
When he arose from the dead, because of our justification.
And he ascended unto glory, he told his, I'll come back, I'm
coming back. The second coming of Christ,
that's a gospel issue, a gospel truth. But he hasn't come back
yet, has he? And some scoffers, unbelievers,
they say, well, God, he's not coming back, he's delayed his
coming. And they say the Lord's slack
on his promise, he's gone back on his promise. And Peter writes
this in 2 Peter 3, 9. He says, the Lord is not slack
concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but he's
long-suffering to usward. Now, who's the usward there?
That's his people, that's his elect. That's not everybody without
exception. He says, not willing that any
should perish, any of the usward, but that all, all of the usward,
should come to repentance. You know why the Lord has not
come back yet? Because the appointed day, the
appointed time has not come yet. And when will the appointed day
and the appointed time come? When the last one of God's chosen
people is brought to repentance. That's what he's saying. He's
not saying that God has sent preachers into the world to try
to persuade people to repent and God's not gonna come back
until he persuades a bunch of, not everybody's gonna repent.
And man by nature will not repent. Man by nature, as we are naturally
born, will not repent or believe. But God's got a people and he's
gonna bring them to repentance. It's faith in Christ. and repentance
of dead works and idolatry. Except you repent, you'll perish. Likewise, just like the worst
of sinners, because none of us deserve salvation. None of us
have earned it. It's all in Christ, His glorious
person, His finished work. And when God brings us to faith
in Him and repentance of dead works, then that's the issue
of repentance. Hope you'll join us next week
for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
a copy of today's program or to learn more about Reign of
Grace Media Ministries or Eager Avenue Grace Church, Write us
at 1-1-0-2 Eager Drive, Albany, Georgia 3-1-7-0-7. Contact us
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today and may the Lord be with you.