Paul, I was amazed when you read
that passage of Scripture. That's one of five times in the
New Testament that we read that phrase, they repented not. When
they heard the preaching of John the Baptist, they repented not. I've entitled this message, They
Repented Not. Repentance. A change of mind. You're thinking in a certain
way, and you change your mind. You don't think that way anymore. Your mind has been changed. You have a certain view of something.
Maybe a certain view of God. A certain view of yourself. A
certain view of salvation. a certain view of church and
your mind has changed. You no longer think that way. Now, when our Lord began his
public ministry, his first words. Repent. Very first words. Repent. And before he ascended
back into glory, what were his closing instructions to his disciples? What are you to preach? You are
to preach repentance and the remission of sins in his name. Now, in Matthew chapter 11, if
you'll turn with me there, verse 20. Then began he to upbraid the
cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they
repented not." They repented not. His message was a call to
repent. to change your mind and the corresponding
change of attitude and actions that will always come when the
mind is changed. When the mind is changed, the
conduct is changed. The attitude is changed. He called
upon them to repent, and they repented not at his preaching. Now notice it says in verse 20,
He began to upgrade the cities wherein most of his mighty works
were done. Not only did they hear his preaching,
but they saw the mighty works which he did that attested to
his divine authority. He controlled the weather. Who
could do that? Only God can control the weather. Men cannot. Demons cannot. Satan cannot. Only God can do
that. And they witnessed it and did
not repent. They beheld him give sight to
the blind. They saw him give lepers cleansing. They saw him make the lame to
walk. They saw him make people who
were born blind to see And they repented not. They watched demons grovel in
His presence in fear, afraid to make a move, asking Him for
permission to go somewhere. You think of how afraid you'd
be of a demon. I mean, scary. Well, they were
more scared of Him than you are of them. They groveled in His
presence. And they repented not. They watched Him demonstrate
the power of creation, bringing matter into existence that was
not there before. Who can do that? Only God. They watched this. And they repented
not. They watched Him raise the dead.
On at least three different occasions, he raised the dead. And they
saw this. And they repented not. And what that tells me is repentance
is not produced by seeing miracles, is it? You can see all of these
things and never truly repent. Repentance is not produced by
the fear of hell. Turn with me for a moment to
Luke chapter 16. I could describe all the horrors
of hell in such a way that would make every one of us scared to
death. And yet it would not produce true repentance. Now, here we
have the story of the man who was in hell, the rich man. And
he says in verse 27 of Luke chapter 16, then he said, I pray thee
therefore, father, that thou would send him to my father's
house, Lazarus, for I have five brethren that he may testify
unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. Abraham
said unto him, they have Moses and the prophets. They've got
the Bible. Let them hear them. He said,
Nay, father Abraham, but if one went unto them from the dead,
they would repent. And he said unto him, If they
hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded,
though one rose from the dead. Repentance, true repentance is
not caused by a fear of hell and
judgment and wrath. It's just not. I'm afraid of
those things. But that doesn't produce this change of mind,
this change of heart. this change of attitude. Powerful
preaching by powerful personality doesn't produce true repentance,
and we just read about that with John the Baptist. If there was
ever a powerful preacher, it would be John the Baptist. If
there was a powerful personality, it was John the Baptist. Yet
it says regarding the Pharisees that they repented not at his
preaching. When the Apostle Paul gave his
own summary of his preaching. He said in Acts chapter 20 verse
21, I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but
have showed you and taught you publicly and from house to house. Testify. Both to the Jews and
also to the Greeks. Repentance. Towards God. That's my message. repentance
toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. And they repented
not a couple of months ago, I was reading through the book of Matthew,
and this phrase just struck me. They repented not. And I thought I'm going to preach
on that sometime. They repented not. And then this week, I've
been reading through the book of Revelation, and four times
I came across this phrase, they repented not. And I thought,
time to preach that message. So I hope the Lord's in this. Trust he is. They repented not. Turn with me to Revelation chapter
two. Verse 21, speaking of Jezebel,
Revelation 2, verse 21, And I gave her space to repent of her fornication,
and she repented not. Now, men are responsible to repent. It's their duty to repent. Christ
said, I gave her space to repent. And she repented not. Revelation 9. Verse 20. And the rest of the
men which were not killed by these plagues Yet repented not
even after seeing these judgments that were taking place and read
Revelation chapter nine of the judgments that came by where
the third of the population was killed by these judgments. These
people witnessed this. And they repented not of the
works of their hands, that they should not worship devils and
idols of gold and silver and brass and stone and of wood,
which neither can see, nor hear, nor walk. Neither repented they
of their murders, nor of their sorceries, or of their fornication,
nor of their thefts. Turn to Revelation 16. Now, these people went further
than the people in Revelation 9. In this sense, the people
in Revelation 9 witnessed these other people being tormented.
But look here in verse 9. And men were scorched. They were
scorched with great heat and blasphemed the name of God, which
hath power over these plagues. And they repented not to give
Him glory. even while they were being scorched,
they repented not. Verse 10, And the fifth angel
poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast, and the kingdom
was full of darkness. And they gnawed their tongues
for pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven because of their
pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds. They repented Go back to Revelation chapter
2, if you would, please. The Lord had been commending
the church at Thyatira, but he says in verse 20, notwithstanding,
I have a few things against thee. Because you suffer, you allow
that woman, Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach. You allow this to happen when
you shouldn't. This is what he had against them,
what they were tolerating. And she teaches to seduce my
servants to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed
unto idols. Now, in the church, there was
a woman by the name of Jezebel, and she was teaching. the members
of this church to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed
to idols. Now, is this speaking of literally
teaching them to commit fornication? Perhaps. Perhaps. It very well may be, because
if you'll speak, if you'll commit spiritual fornication, you'll
commit physical fornication also. But when it says he was teaching,
she was teaching him to eat things sacrificed to idols. Paul tells
us in 1 Corinthians 8 that there's nothing inherently wrong with
eating meat sacrificed to idols. We looked at this in Bible study
last week. If there was a piece of filet
mignon that had been used in a sacrifice to idols, I'd eat
it and I'd enjoy it. And there wouldn't be anything
wrong with it according to scripture. There just wouldn't be anything
wrong with it. I mean, neither if we eat or we better, if we
don't eat, we're not the worst. So there's nothing inherently
wrong with eating meat sacrificed to idols. So here's what was
going on with this woman, Jezebel. What is fornication? It's sex
outside the covenant of marriage. It's finding pleasure outside
the covenant. It's finding comfort outside
the covenant. Now, what this is a reference
to is finding some kind of assurance, some kind of joy or pleasure
in something outside the covenant of grace. It's called spiritual
adultery. What is the covenant of grace?
Well, David spoke of it in 2 Samuel, chapter 23, verse 5, when he
said, Although my house be not so with God, yet hath he made
with me an everlasting covenant. Ordered in all things and sure
now this covenant of grace was the covenant that God made with
Christ before time began When he agreed to be the surety and
the salvation of those the father gave him All my salvation was
taken care of before I was ever born That's what the covenant
of grace says the divine Covenant of grace and you know what David
said about that covenant. He said this is all my salvation
All of it. It's all of yours. But it's mine,
too. And it's all my desire. It's
all I desire is to simply be found in Christ. I look for no
assurance, no favor from God apart from the covenant. All
that God requires of me, I have in this covenant. And I'm not
looking anywhere else. Now, she was seducing them to
look outside this covenant. And this thing of eating meat
sacrificed to idols has something to do with finding some kind
of nourishment in that which is contrary to the covenant,
that which is contrary to the way of salvation by grace. Eating
things sacrificed to idols, you're getting spiritual nourishment,
so to speak, out of something apart from the divine covenant. Now, the Lord says regarding
this woman, I gave her space to repent. And he goes on to
say in this passage of Scripture that what she was doing was the
deaths of Satan. It wasn't just mistakes. It was
the very deaths of Satan. He said, I gave her space to
repent. You repent of this kind of thinking. And she repented
not. Now, I don't want to be one of
these people who repent not. That kind of leads us to the
next one. Look in chapter nine. Let's begin reading verse 15.
And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour
and a day and a month and a year for to slay the third part of
men. And the number of the army of
the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand, two hundred
million. And I heard the number of them,
and thus I saw the horses in the vision. And them that sat
on them, having breastplates of fire, of jacinth and brimstone,
and the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions, and out
of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone. By these
three was the third part of men killed by the fire and by the
smoke and by the brimstone which issued out of their mouths. For
their power is in their mouth, and in their tails. For their
tails were like unto serpents, and had heads which with them
they do hurt, and the rest of the men which were not killed
by these plagues." They observed all this, but they weren't killed.
What's it say about these fellows? Yet repented not of the works
of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and idols
of gold, and silver, and brass, and stone, and wood, which neither
see, nor hear, nor walk. They repented not of what? And
you listen real carefully to this. This is very important.
They repented not of their religion. They repented not of worshiping
demons and devils and idolatry and offering sacrifice to idols
of silver and wood and gold. They repented not of their religion. In spite of seeing all this,
they repented not of their religion. Now, everybody has a religion
of some kind. Everybody has some thoughts about
God. What about atheists? Well, they're
passionate about what they don't believe about God. They have
a religion of some kind, don't they? And deep down, everybody
knows, I don't care how convinced that atheist may be, deep down,
when he's all alone at night, he knows. She knows. Everybody has a religion of some
kind. Everybody has some kind of thoughts
about God and what is needed to be accepted by him. But all religions can be brought
down to two. The religion of works. And the
religion of grace. What is the religion of works? The religion of works is salvation. Acceptance with God is ultimately
dependent upon man. That is the religion of works. It comes in many forms. It comes
in many shapes. It comes in many sizes. But this
is the common denominator. Salvation. Acceptance with God. is ultimately dependent upon
you. It may go under the name of Buddhist.
It may go under the name of Baptist. It may be Muslim. It may be Methodist. It may be the worship of Confucius
or Confucianism. I don't know how you say it.
But it may be Catholicism. It can go under so many names. But here is what it has as its
deciding factor. Salvation is ultimately dependent
upon you. Now, it may take the form of
a bunch of rules and regulations that you need to keep, that if
you conform to these rules and regulations, you'll please God
and you'll be saved. It may be as simple as God loves
you, Christ died for you, God wants to save you, He offers
you salvation, but salvation is ultimately dependent upon
you. You have to accept his offer
or you won't be saved. According to this you, God can
love you. Christ can die for you. God the
Holy Spirit can call you. He can do all those things. But
you still might be damned anyway if you don't do what you need
to do to accept what he did for you. Salvation is still ultimately
dependent upon you. It may even take a more covert,
secret position. Yes, it's true. Salvation is
all of grace. But yet where you'll be in heaven
is dependent upon your works. The last stone Yes, you've got
in heaven by grace, but your position will be dependent upon
what you do. Now, if you put works in the
beginning, if you put works at the end, it's still the religion
of works. Salvation by works. Now, what is the religion of
grace? The religion of works is salvation dependent upon what
you do. The religion of works, salvation,
dependent upon what you do. The religion of grace is salvation
dependent upon what Christ does. By grace are you saved. Not salvation is offered to you. Not salvation is possible for
you. But Ephesians 2 says, for by
grace you are That is the religion of grace. Salvation by the full,
complete, free, absolute grace of God. Electing grace. Redeeming grace. Justifying grace. Regenerating grace. Saving, keeping
grace. By grace you are saved. And those are the two religions.
The religion of works. and the religion of grace. Now in our text, notice what
it says in verse 20 of Revelation 9. And the rest of the men which
were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of the works
of their hands. That they should not worship
devils. and idols of gold and silver
and brass and stone of wood which neither can see nor hear nor
walk. Now please listen to this statement
very carefully. The religion of works is devil
worship. It is satanic. Am I being over
the top? Am I taking this too far? Not
according to the scripture. According to this passage of
scripture, these people who refuse to repent, they repented not
of worshiping devils. You know, I think of all the
worship services going on right now, people doing all kinds of
things, using the name of God, using the name of Christ, using
words like grace and faith and so on. And yet it's the worship
of devils. Have you ever, have I ever repented
of my religion? What I think I can do to gain
God's acceptance. It's what the writer to the Hebrews
calls repentance from dead works. Now, that is absolutely necessary. There is no salvation apart from
repentance. Now have I seen, oh may we all
ask ourselves this question, have I seen that my religion,
before I believed the gospel of God's grace, was nothing short
of demonic? Not just mistaken, but demonic. Now these people repented not
of this. Revelation chapter 16. You know, before I leave that
point. If people who believe works in
some way are merely mistaken. But we're going to the same place. What difference does it make
what you preach? It really doesn't, does it? Not in reality. May
God give us grace to preach the truth and to repent in this sense. Now look in Revelation chapter
16, look in verse 11. They blasphemed the God of heaven
because of their pains and of their sores and repented not
of their deeds. The things which they did. evil works which they performed. They had no change of mind about
this. They repented not. Look back
again in Revelation 9, in verse 21. Neither repented they of their
murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication. nor
of their fests. There was no change of mind regarding
what they were doing. They didn't see anything so very
wrong with it. It wasn't the best thing, perhaps, but it certainly
wasn't the worst. I'm certain there are people
who do worse things than I do. There's no agreement with God, no taking
sides with God against self. Murders? I wouldn't call it murders. I wouldn't take it that far.
I mean, that's that's that's shit. Murders? Sorceries? You
think I'm Fornication? No. Now let's don't... Thefts? Let's don't take it that far.
No true repentance. They blasphemed God because of
His judgments and repented not of their deeds even while being
judged and gnawing in pain. They repented not of their sin,
or of their sins. There was no true repentance
before God. Even while God's wrath was coming
down upon them, all they did was blaspheme God for doing it.
There was no repentance regarding their sin. Look up in verse 9
of Revelation 16. Verse 9. And men, now if you want to understand
what repentance is, I believe this verse will help us. And
men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name
of God, which had power over these plagues, and they repented
not to give Him glory. Now here's what repentance is.
When you repent, before God, you give Him glory. This is essential to real repentance. Giving Him glory, and they repented
not. Now, the glory of God is essential
to His being. He says, My glory I will not
share with anybody else. He's not going to do it. It's
essential to His being. He's altogether glorious. Now, it's not essential for me
and you to have glory. We're sinful, fallen creatures.
But the Holy God, the Sovereign God, it's essential that He has
His glory. And He said, I won't share it
with somebody else. And we don't have to speculate as to what
He considers His glory. Turn to Exodus 33. This is how
God defines His glory. Verse 18, this is Moses praying,
and he says in Exodus 33, 18, he said, I beseech thee, show
me thy glory. Now, Moses had seen a lot. He'd
seen the ten plagues. He'd seen water come out of the
rock. He'd seen the parting of the
Red Sea. Oh, all the things that he'd seen. He'd seen manna come
down from heaven. He'd seen some pretty glorious
things, hadn't he? But he says to God, show me what you call
your glory. I beseech you, show me. I haven't
seen it. Let me see your glory. What a request. Verse 19, And he said, I'll make
all my goodness pass before thee." God's good. He's good. And whatever He does
is good because He does it. God is good. Essentially good. And He says, I will proclaim
the name of the Lord before thee. Now his name is his attributes. It's not just repeating his name.
Look what it says in verse 5 of chapter 34. And the Lord descended
in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name
of the Lord. And the Lord passed by before
him and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious. longsuffering, and abundant in
goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity
and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the
guilty." visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children
and upon the children's children unto the third and the fourth
generation. And Moses made haste and bowed his head toward the
earth and worshipped. His name is who he is. And look once again at verse
19. He said, And I will be gracious. Thank God for that. He said,
I will be gracious. Now, remember what this bunch
had done. They had made Him a golden calf and bowed down before it
and worshipped it. And God says, because of His
goodness, because of His attributes, He says, I will be gracious.
Aren't you thankful for that? God will be gracious. He is gracious. And He says,
I'll be gracious to whom I will be gracious. And I'll show mercy. on whom I will show mercy. His
mercy is sovereign. And that is God's glory. True repentance glorifies God's
righteous and holy law. It's not too strict. It's not
too severe. It's glorious. God's demands
are glorious. God's requirements are glorious. Not too strict, not too severe,
but glorious. True repentance glorifies God's
justice. If he sends me to hell for my
sins, he's glorious. If he judges me for my sins,
He's glorious. He's just. That's what I deserve. And these people repented not
to give Him glory. True repentance glorifies His
sovereignty. He has grace on whom He will
have grace. He's gracious to whom He will
be gracious. He shows mercy to whom He will show mercy. True
repentance knows it has no claims on God, no claims of past, no
claims of present, and no claims of future merit or ability. If He elected everybody in this
room to be saved but me, He's glorious. You believe that? If He saved everybody here, and
as an act of His judgment, passed me by, He's glorious. My sin is all my fault. I can't blame Him or His sovereignty. My sin is all my fault. And whatever He does is glorious. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord
God of hosts. The whole earth is full of His
glory. And they repented not to give
Him glory. True repentance. Listen to this.
True repentance glorifies His way of salvation. What's his
way of salvation? Romans 4 verse 5. Now this is
ought to be and is one of our many favorite verses. To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth
the ungodly. Now, here's my hope. My hope
is that He, by His grace, justifies the ungodly. He does it by grace
and not by works. That's my hope of heaven. And
I glorify His grace. I'm glad it's that way. Thank God for the freeness of
His justifying grace where He can take somebody like me and
make me justified before him. True repentance glorifies his
way of salvation. True repentance knows the only
way it can be saved is by his grace in a way that glorifies
his grace. The scripture says we're saved
to the praise of the glory of his grace. And they repented
not. They repented not to give Him
glory. Now, I don't want to be in that
crowd, do you? I do not want to be in that crowd. I want to
be someone who truly in my heart, before Him, gives Him glory. I repent. I change my mind about
salvation by works in any form. It is devil worship. Call it
for what it is. It is devil worship. I change my mind. I repent of
my deeds. And I take sides with God against
myself. And I plead for mercy for Christ's
sake. And grace, reigning grace to
have dominion over me. And I change my mind. I repent. And I give Him all the glory
with a willing heart. That being the desire of my heart. I repent. May God give us grace
to not be of that number who did not repent. Let's pray together.