Revelation chapter 16. Subject of our lesson this morning
is repentance. I want us, by God's grace, to
learn two things about repentance this morning. First, I want us
to learn what does and what does not cause repentance in a sinner. And second, I want us to learn
what true repentance is and what it's not. Now the seven plagues
are getting ready to be poured out upon the earth by the seven
angels. Revelation 16 verse one. And I heard a great voice out
of the temple saying to the seven angels, go your ways and pour
out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth. You remember
from last week, these seven angels are seven preachers, seven of
God's pastors. They represent all of God's pastors.
And these seven plagues are wounds. their wounds or stripes that
are poured out upon unbelief through the preaching of the
gospel. Now, these are not some horrible, awful plagues that's
going to fall upon the earth in the very last moments right
before the return of our Lord. These are awful plagues, but
they're awful plagues suffered by men throughout all time who
refuse to believe the gospel of God's grace in the Lord Jesus
Christ. These plagues have always been
on the earth. And they're happening right now
as we speak. You'll notice as we go through these in the next
couple of weeks, how closely these plagues resemble the plagues
that came upon Egypt before the children of Israel left Egypt.
Well, why did those plagues come on the Egyptians? Just one reason. Unbelief. Pharaoh's refusal to
bow, refusal to submit to God. That's why those plagues came.
These plagues represents the consequences of refusing to believe
the gospel, of refusing to bow to God's authority and submit
to the righteousness of Christ. So here's the first vial in verse
two. And the first wind poured out
his vial upon the earth and there fell a noisome and grievous sore
upon men which had the mark of the beast and upon them which
worshiped his image. Now when the first vial was poured
out, this noisome and grievous sore was poured out on everyone
who had the mark of the beast. The picture here is this is what
the gospel reveals. The gospel reveals man's noisome
and grievous sore. The noisome and grievous sore
is our own sin. The word noisome means depraved
and worthless. Man's depraved and worthless
nature is only revealed through the preaching of the gospel.
You know, we look at bad things that people do, and we think,
well, I'm not as bad as them. The only way we know that I'm
the one that's totally depraved is through the preaching of the
gospel. The only way I know I'm just as bad as the worst people
that I know is through the preaching of the gospel. Before we hear the gospel preached,
we're like soft tarsals. You know, we think, I'm doing
just fine, you know. But when we hear the gospel preached,
Sin revives and that's when we die. That's when we find out
what we really are. That we're totally depraved and
worthless. We're totally depraved. So everything
we do is sinful. Everything we do is offensive
to God. We're worthless. So God doesn't
want us to give our heart to Him. We're worthless. We're worthless. We're not worthy for God to take
note of us and have mercy upon us. Somehow, by nature, we think
we're worthy. God owes it to us to have mercy
on. No, he doesn't. No, he doesn't. We're worthless
by nature. And the word grievous means evil
and hurtful, and it means essential character. Our essential character,
our very nature, is evil and hurtful. That's what the gospel
reveals about us. The disease of sin is what we
are, what our character is, what our nature is. Sin is not what
we do, near as much as sin is what we are. And this disease
of sin is incurable by all human means. Doctor of theology can't
heal you. These self-proclaimed preachers
can't cure us through knowledge because the whole head is sick.
Doctors philosophy and therapy and counseling can't make us
any better. The whole heart is faint. Dr. Priest, Dr. Religion can't make
us clean. Our leprosy is our problem. Our sin is leprosy that makes
us unclean. All Dr. Priest can do is pronounce
us unclean. He can't make us clean. There
is no human cure for our disease of sin. No human cure whatsoever.
But the gospel tells us there is a cure. The cure is the Lord
Jesus Christ. But men by nature hear that truth
of the gospel. And look here at the very end
of verse nine. They hear this truth of the gospel and they
repented not to give him the glory. Men hear the truth of
the gospel. Men hear that there's healing
in Christ, that he's the only one who can heal us. But they
won't bow. They won't submit. They won't
repent and turn to Christ. So God will ultimately damn them
for it. All right, verse three, here's the second vial. And the
second angel poured out his vial upon the sea, and it became as
the blood of a dead man, and every living soul died in the
sea. Now, when the second vial is
poured out, it's poured out upon the sea, and all the sea became
as the blood of a dead man. Now, this is what the picture
here is, that when the gospel is preached, the gospel declares
that everything about man, everything about you and me is death. The sea represents the whole
world. In the sea, there's all different
kinds of fish. There's good fish, there's bad
fish, there's big fish, there's little fish. Well, in the sea,
there's all different kinds of men, good and bad, believers,
unbelievers. But everyone who is in the world,
everyone who's trusting in the way of the world, everyone who's
trusting in the flesh is spiritually dead. God doesn't have to do
anything to make them spiritually dead. That's the way they came
into this world, spiritually dead. The gospel, when it's preached,
reveals to us that we're spiritually dead. What is the blood of a
dead man? The sea became as the blood of
a dead man. Well, the blood of a dead man is dried up blood.
There's no life left in it. You know, the blood going through
your veins right now could be taken out and given to somebody
else that could help them. But the blood of a dead man can't
do that. It's dried up. There's no life left in it. That's
this flesh. Everything about this flesh,
everything about the religion of this world, the way of this
world is dead. There's no spiritual life in
it. There's nothing there to sustain spiritual life. You cannot
find spiritual life in this world, in the way of this world, the
thoughts of this world, the religion of this world. But there is life
to be found. There's life to be found in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Eternal life is knowing Christ. Eternal life is believing Christ.
A dead sinner has eternal life by being joined to Christ by
faith. Just like the branch has life because it's joined to the
vine. The believer has life because we're joined to Christ by faith.
Eternal life was earned by Christ's obedience to the law. And our
obedience, our works, all the things that we do in this flesh
never enter into the equation. It's all Christ. And everyone
who believes Christ shall never die. Our Lord told Martha that. He that liveth and believeth
in me shall never die. You believe that? Everybody who
believes Christ like that will never die because Christ already
died as their substitute. Now think what that means that
Christ died as the substitute for sinners. He died as a substitute. Well, that means that we deserve
to die for our sin, but Christ suffered that death. as our substitute
so that we'll never die. He died for our sin. He took
our death and gave us his life. And just like there's no life
in the blood of a dead man. There's no life in anything that
that we can. Come up with any any way to define
life in the life of a dead man. There's no life there. But there
is life to be found. There's life to be found in the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the living Savior. Believe
Him. Just quit looking at everything
about you and look to Christ alone. And men by nature hear
that truth of the gospel and they hate it. So they repented
not to give Him the glory. You know what they say when they
hear the gospel preached? They say, no, I'm not that bad. I mean, I know I do some bad
things, but I'm not dead in sin. I can contribute something. I've
got to contribute anything, no matter how small it is, I've
got to contribute something because I'm not that bad. I'm just not
dead. They won't repent. And God will
give them eternal death for it. The scripture and gospel declares
that in the end they're spiritually dead. And when they repent not
to give God the glory, he'll give them eternal death. All
right, verse four, here's the third vial. And the third angel
poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters,
and they became blood. The third vial is poured out
and all the rivers of water, all the fountains of water turn
to blood. And here's the picture. The gospel makes this clear that
there's nothing in this world that will refresh the soul. There's
nothing in this world soul refreshing. Just like the thirst of a body,
our human physical body can't be quenched by drinking blood.
The soul cannot be refreshed. by drinking and taking in the
things of this world. That's a good warning to us,
isn't it? Even a child of God. Where are
you going to go tomorrow morning? You're going to go back out into
the world. You're just going to go back out and, you know,
continue the rat race. And we get caught up in these
things, the things that people around us want more money and
more power and more influence and bigger cars and bigger houses
and nicer stuff. Well, gather all of it you want,
but I'm telling you what, it never satisfied the soul. Never
will. It can't do it. There is nothing
refreshing to be found in this world. This world is a dry, barren
wilderness to a believer. But there is soul refreshment
to be had in the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is the water of life.
That's why he stood on that last day of the feast. He said, if
any man thirst, they come unto me and drink. Are you thirsty?
Our Lord told that woman at the well, if you drink of this water,
you'll never thirst again. Because there'll be a well of
water, spring of water, springing up in you. So that your heart
and soul is refreshed by the Lord Jesus Christ. Now that's
water only Christ can give. And men by nature hear that truth
in the gospel. But they repented not to give
Him the glory. They will not repent and they will not turn
to Christ. You know why? They're not thirsting
for righteousness. Christ will satisfy that soul
that hungers and thirsts after righteousness. But to anybody
who thinks they've got enough righteousness of their own, if
they can contribute just a drop of water, they'll repent not
and God will give them eternal death for it. All right, verse
5. And I heard the angel of the
water say, Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art and was and
shall be. because thou hast judged this.
For they have shed the blood of saints and prophets, and thou
hast given them blood to drink, for they are worthy. And I heard
another out of the altar say, even so, Lord God Almighty, true
and righteous are thy judgments. This is what the gospel declares,
that everything God does is right and just, because he is right
and just. When God gives judgment to people
who will not repent to give Him the glory, God is just. He's righteous in everything
He does. They didn't want Christ to be
their Savior, so He won't be. They didn't want to stand in
Christ, so they're going to stand on their own, and they'll be
damned for it. They shed the blood of the saints or the prophets
or the martyrs, and God will give them that blood to drink.
Now, He's not going to actually give them blood to drink. But
what he's going to do is do the same thing to them. They killed
the prophets, they killed the martyrs, and God's going to give
them eternal death. And it's only right that he does.
It's better for them that a millstone were hanged about their neck
and they're dropped in the depths of the sea than they mistreated
one of God's little ones. God's going to deal with them.
And when he does, it's injustice. The gospel declares that God
will deal with the sins of every man, woman, boy and girl in absolute
justice. He'll either deal with our sins
in justice with us, or he'll deal with our sins in justice
on our substitute. But if we don't want Christ to
be our substitute, we don't want him to be all of our salvation,
then God is just and right to punish us for our sins in hell
because we would not repent to give God the glory. Right, verse
eight, here's the fourth file. And the fourth angel poured out
his vial upon the sun, and power was given unto him to scorch
men with fire. And men were scorched with great
heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over
these plagues. And they repented not to give
him the glory. And when the vial was poured
out, this fourth vial was poured out upon the earth, fire scorched
the whole earth. And the picture here is what
the gospel declares, that God's wrath is going to fall on all
sin and unbelief, the fire of God's wrath. Now, these men heard
the gospel, but they refused to believe. They heard of Christ,
but they refused to repent and turn to Him and trust Him. And
just like Pharaoh, maybe God sent them several warnings throughout
their life, things that should have warned them of God's coming
wrath, of His coming judgment. He gave them afflictions of body
and all different things. But instead of repenting, you
know what they did? They got angry with God. They said, why
me? Why would God do this to me?
God has the power over this plague. He has the power to stop it.
He has the power to do more. He has the power to be merciful.
He has the power to be gracious. But instead of begging God for
mercy, you know what they did? They blasphemed God. And I'm
not just, and this is going to go into the fifth vial, I'm not
just talking about some gutter drunk out there laying, you know,
in the gutter, looking up the sky and cursing God. No. I tell you where it's worst.
Where this cursing of blaspheming God is the worst. God sends these warnings and
someone gets deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper into false
religion. That's where God's name is blasphemed.
That's where they They refuse to give God the glory. They refuse
to tell the whole truth. They refuse to believe it. They
refuse to bow. They will not give God the glory. Repenting is giving God the glory. We'll get to that. I don't want
to get too far ahead of myself. That's what repenting is. When
we turn to trust Christ and Him alone, that gives God the glory. But they won't do it. Because
what they try, they think, well, if I live better, you know, obey
more laws or I act more religious or I do whatever, you know, then
God will bless me more and take away these problems. That's blaspheming
the name of God. That's what they do. All right,
verse 10, here's the fifth vial. And the fifth angel poured out
his vial upon the seat of the beast, and his kingdom was full
of darkness. And they gnawed their tongues
for pain and blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains
and of their sores. and repented not of their deeds. Now the fifth vial is poured
out on false religion. That's the seat of Satan. And
that's where Satan really operates. It's in false religion. The preaching
of the truth, the preaching of the gospel is what reveals the
lie of false religion. Just like Brother Henry told
us so often, if you want to reveal a crooked stick and see how crooked
it is, lay a straight one down next to it. The preaching of
the gospel is what exposes the lie of false religion. And men
by nature hear it, but they will not repent. They will not turn
to Christ from their false religion. They're just so steeped in it.
They want something for this flesh to do. And so they will
not turn to Christ to rest in him alone. And God's going to
judge them all in their false religion. And notice how God
treats them here. False religion is not something
that's just nice, you know. Aren't they sweet? They do some
sweet things. No, sir. No. It's vile. God sees it. It's vile. And God's
going to damn them for it. Listen to this punishment. They
love darkness rather than light. They're already in darkness,
but God gave them complete darkness. His kingdom, His kingdom of false
religion was full of darkness. so that they cannot see. They
open up the scriptures and they cannot see Christ. All they can
see is things that tell you to do to win friends and influence
people. That's all it is. And believe me, it's winning
friends and influencing people. What they teach is trying to
get you a way to influence God, to get him to do something for
you. That's all it is. God gives them complete and utter
darkness so they cannot see Christ. They spoke lies with their tongues.
And God gave them so much pain, they tried to gnaw their tongues
out of their head. They tried to gnaw that offending member
out of their head. But they still would not repent.
They still blasphemed God. They blamed all this on God.
They would not turn from their idolatry and turn to Christ. All right, now that's what these
verses are saying. Now to the lesson I hope that
we can learn this morning. Natural man left himself, you
know, is going to refuse to repent. So what will not bring repentance? What won't bring repentance?
Look at Isaiah chapter one. Isaiah chapter one. Verse five afflictions of the
flesh won't do it. You know, sometimes we hope somebody,
the Lord knocks someone off their feet physically. We hope and
pray that the Lord will use this to turn them to the Lord, but
more than likely it won't. Afflictions of the flesh don't
bring repentance. Isaiah 1 verse 5. Why should
you be stricken anymore? You will revolt more and more.
The whole head is sick and the whole heart is faint. Affliction
of the flesh won't bring repentance. All it'll do is cause us to revolt
more and more. Now don't turn to this, let me
read it to you in Amos chapter 4. Afflictions of the weather
and the crops and financial hardship will not bring repentance toward
God. Amos 4 verse 7. And also I have withholding the
rain from you when there were yet three months to the harvest.
I caused it to rain upon one city, caused it not to rain upon
another city. One piece was rained upon and
the piece whereupon it rained not withered. So two or three
cities wandered into one city to drink water, but they were
not satisfied. Yet have you not returned unto
me, saith the Lord. That didn't cause repentance.
Then he says, I've smitten you with blasting and mildew. When
your gardens and your vineyards and your fig trees and your olive
trees increased, the palmer worm devoured them. Yet have you not
returned unto me, saith the Lord. I've sent among you the pestilence
after the manor of Egypt. Your young men have I slain with
the sword and taken away your horses and made the stink of
your camps to come up into your nostrils. Yet have you not returned
unto me, saith the Lord." That didn't bring repentance. Then
he says, I've overthrown some of you as God overthrew Sodom
and Gomorrah. And you were as a firebrand plucked
out of the burning. Yet have you not returned unto
me, saith the Lord. Therefore, thus will I do unto
thee, O Israel, And because I will do this unto thee, prepare to
meet thy God, they would not repent. Financial hardship and
hardship of the weather and crops, those kinds of things, that's
not going to bring repentance. What about being afraid of God's
power, seeing His power in judgment, that He could justly damn us
just so easily? That won't do it. We read in
scripture, when men saw that, what did they do? They didn't
repent. They call on the mountains and rocks and hills to fall upon
them, to hide them from the wrath of the land. All right, look
at Luke chapter 16. What about if we start preaching
what we just read? Most people take that, prepare
to meet thy God, O Israel, and say, well, let's preach the terrors
of hell. Let's preach fire and brimstone, and that'll scare
people into repentance, because nobody wants to go to hell. That
won't bring Fire and brimstone preaching, fear of hell, will
not bring repentance. You know the story of Lazarus
and the rich man. Look in the beginning of verse
27. This is the rich man speaking. He said, I pray thee therefore,
Father, that thou wouldst send him, send Lazarus, this poor
old beggar, send him to my father's house. For I have five brethren,
that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this
place of torment. Let him go back and tell them
about this place of torment. Let him go back and give an eyewitness
description of what hell is. And Abraham said unto him, They
have Moses and the prophets. They have God's word. Let them
hear God's word. And he said, Nay, father Abraham,
but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. And
he said, No, they won't. He said unto him, If they hear
not Moses and the prophets, if they don't hear the word of God
declaring Christ the Savior, neither will they be persuaded,
though one rose from the dead. So none of those things will
bring repentance. Repentance doesn't have to do
with the flesh. These fleshly things, bodily
things, is not going to bring repentance. So what will bring
repentance? Well, what say the scripture? The goodness of God. It's the goodness of God that
leadeth thee to repentance. See how good that God is to sinners. Oh, that brings repentance. That
makes us come to Christ. Repentance is a gift of God.
It's a gift of His goodness to His people. In Acts chapter 11,
verse 18, they glorified God, saying, God hath also to the
Gentiles granted repentance unto life. God out of His goodness
has granted repentance unto the Gentiles. Then there's this. This is what will bring repentance.
It comes from the goodness of God. If God is ever good enough,
to let us get a glimpse of the Lord Jesus Christ, we will repent. If we see Christ as he is, we
will repent. Now, this is very important. Repentance is not just being
sorry that I got caught. Repentance is not just being
sorry for the consequences, you know, that we got caught and
we had to bear punishment. That's not repentance. Repentance
is turning to Christ. from our idols. It's turning
to Christ from whatever it is we used to trust in that made
us think we were savable and turning away from those things
and turning to Christ. But now the only way we're going
to turn from our idols is if we see something better. If God
ever shows us something better, if God ever shows us Christ,
we'll repent. We'll turn from those things
and turn to Christ and trust Him. Seeing Christ crucified,
hearing of Christ crucified as a substitute for sinners when
the gospel is preached, that brings repentance. Zacharias
said, they shall look on me whom they have pierced and they'll
mourn. When we see that it's my sin
that caused Christ to suffer, it's my sin that nailed him to
the tree. Oh, I'll turn to him. I'll turn
to him in love and thanksgiving. This is the one who suffered
and died for me. That brings repentance. That
causes me to turn to Christ and to rest in Him, to never leave
Him. And I'll tell you how it is that God gives us repentance.
He does it through the preaching of the gospel. When did the men
of Nineveh repent? That evil, wicked city. When did they repent? When did
they say, maybe God will have mercy? At the preaching at the
preaching of Jonah. That's when they did. God gives
repentance. He grants repentance to the preaching
of the gospel. Now, remember I said repentance
is not just being sorry for the consequences of our sin. That's
not real repentance. That's not what repentance is.
That's the kind of repentance Esau had. That's the kind of
repentance Judas had. But that's not real repentance,
is it? Look where it led them. Repentance is a turning from
our sin. and turning to Christ the Savior. But more importantly,
it's a turning from all of those things that we think make us
so good, make us more savable than somebody else, turning away
from those things because we've turned to Christ to be our Savior,
to trust Him, to rest in Him alone. And that true repentance
gives God the glory because it trusts Christ. It trusts the
Son of God that He sent into this world to save His people.
It's not trusting in ourselves. It's all in Him. Now, in closing,
I want to give you the nature of true repentance. This will
help us answer the question, have I really repented or not?
Well, here's the nature of true repentance. First, true repentance
is not a one-time thing. True repentance is a continual
thing. We even repent of our repentance.
You know, be careful that we don't trust in our repentance.
No, we turn from our repentance and keep turning to Christ. Peter
said, to whom coming? Well, it's not to whom I came
one time. I'm not saying I came to Christ
once 20 years ago. No, it's to whom coming, to whom
coming constantly. That's what repentance is. Repentance
is constantly turning to Christ to rest and trust in Him. In
true repentance, here's the truth of the gospel. Unlike these men
who heard it and repented not to give God the glory, True repentance
hears the gospel tell me that my flesh is not just sick, but
it's dead. It's sick with sin. It's a noisome
and grievous sore on my flesh. True repentance says that's true. That is true about me. I'm going
to run to Christ for healing. True repentance hears the gospel
tell me that I'm dead and trespasses in sin. Not everybody else. I
am dead and trespasses in sin. And true repentance says, that's
true. I'm going to run to Christ who
is my life. True repentance, here's the gospel tell us over
and over and over again, there's nothing for you in this world.
There's no soul refreshing in this world. There's nothing refreshing
for your soul found in yourself, anything that you do. True repentance
says, that's so. I'm going to run to Christ for
washing. I'm going to run to Christ for refreshing. True repentance
sings, all that thrills my soul is Jesus. He is more than life
to me. In true repentance, here's the
gospel say, that God's just. God is holy and he must deal
with my sin in justice. That makes me, true repentance,
run to Christ. It makes me run to him in love. to think how he suffered for
me. He suffered God's justice for
me. He died for me. He earned righteousness
for me. That's what makes me run to Christ.
God's holy. Thank God. That makes me run
to Christ. The substitute that satisfied
God's justice. Then true repentance, just like
all flesh, experiences the fiery trials of this life. Those trials
hurt. hard, they hurt, they're burning
hot trials. Believers suffer sickness and
heartache and misery just like everyone else in this world.
But here's the difference to the believer. The believer sees
these sicknesses and the weaknesses in our body as a warning. These
bodies are going to die. They're not going to last. So
true repentance looks past this life, looks past the suffering
of this life. looks past the sin of this flesh
and looks to Christ who is our life. That makes us look to Christ
who is the hope of our resurrection. Then there's financial trials.
We looked at this earlier in our study in Revelation in the
four horsemen. It is hard to make ends meet
in this life. Hard to do. Financial trials. Now they don't bring true repentance.
But when a believer suffers those things, True repentance looks
past those things and looks to Christ, who is our exceeding
great reward. The true riches of repentance
are the riches of God's grace and goodness to his people. And
these things make us look past this life and continue looking
to Christ to be our all. And the nature of true repentance
is this. It's going to endure. It will endure to the end. It's
going to endure all these things and it'll make us love Christ
and appreciate Christ and need Christ more than ever. See, to
the unbeliever, it makes them question God, makes them blaspheme
God, makes them mad at God. But to the believer, to the one
who has true repentance, these things make us love Christ, appreciate
Christ and need Christ more than ever. You're growing in grace. It's not growing so much so it's
stronger so I can stand more on my own. Growing in grace is
growing in repentance so that I need Christ more. That's the
nature of true repentance. All right, Lord bless you.