interstate that was in a bank,
maybe? I remember doing that as a kid,
and I remember whenever Dad would tell me that we were going to
Wheelersburg, I said that to my sister this morning. I remember
celebrating we would get to go to Fred's to eat. I always remember
that moment. That was the highlight as a little
kid. Well, it's good to be here. I
send regards from plenty of people in Kingsport, my dad especially.
If you would open your Bibles to the book of Luke, Luke chapter
five, Luke chapter five. The title of my message this
morning is true repentance glorifies God. True repentance glorifies
God. Look here in Luke 5 at verse
27. And after these things, he went
forth and saw a publican named Levi, and this is our Lord, who
saw a publican named Levi sitting at the receipt of custom, and
he said unto him, follow me. And he left all, rose up, and
he followed the Lord. And Levi made him a great feast
in his own house, and there was a great company of publicans
and of others that sat down with them. But their scribes and Pharisees
murmured against his disciples, saying, Why do you eat and drink
with publicans and sinners? And Jesus answering said unto
them, They that are whole need not a physician, but they that
are sick. And look at verse 32 here. I
came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. To call sinners to repentance. What is the definition of the
word repentance? If we simply use the dictionary,
the definition is to be truly sorry for something you've done. Be truly sorry for something
that you've done. Let me give an example of repentance,
or an aspect of repentance. My life as a child followed a
similar cycle over and over and over again. And I mean as a little
child. It started with me doing something wrong, and then I would
get a punishment. And then I would do something
else wrong, and I would get a punishment. And I would do something else
wrong, or say something wrong, or act in a bad way, and I would
get a punishment. And this just happened over and over and over
again. Until one day, my older sister was nice enough to call
me aside and say, why don't you just say you're sorry? To which
I replied, because I'm not. I'm not sorry. I didn't do it.
It's not my fault. She said, just say you're sorry.
At one point later on, probably because I saw her in the midst
of getting troubled, I looked at one of my parents and said,
I'm sorry. And it didn't help any. So I
went back to her later and said, you told me to say I'm sorry,
but it didn't work. And she said, well, you at least have to act
like you mean it. Well, she wasn't telling me in
that moment that I needed to be deceitful and I needed to
lie. but that's the way I took it. So I then went on a path
of trying to figure out how I could say I'm sorry even though I didn't
mean it and convince my parents not to punish me or not to punish
me as bad or maybe get away with something. And so I became very
successful at it and I learned that that phrase that you hear
all the time, the power of the words I'm sorry or that phrase
I'm sorry, Well, the reason that phrase is so powerful to us is
because as sinners, we don't really know when someone is actually
sorry or not. As a parent, I've learned this
even more, that the words I'm sorry don't actually mean very
much. When I first used I'm sorry to
my parents when I got in trouble in that sarcastic, like, I'm
sorry, like, whatever, can I get out of this? I realized that
the words I'm sorry don't mean anything. But as a parent, when
you see your children occasionally behind the eyes, in the face,
you see that, you know, they might really be sorry for that.
And that's when it means something. And that's repentance, when someone
is truly sorry for something. Now, what causes true repentance? What causes someone to be truly
sorry for what they've done? Well, religion has tried just
about everything to get repentance. Repentance has been a buzzword
for centuries. Because it says it in this book,
people try to make people repent. If someone repents, then a church
or a preacher or someone feels like they've done their job.
If we just get them to repent, we're good. Well, wrath does
not cause true repentance. Being angry at someone doesn't
do it. In Revelations, it speaks of
the wrath of God bringing fire down upon people. They're being
burned for their sins and what they've done. And you know what
they say? They grit their teeth and say, I hate you, God. Why
are you doing this to me? They don't say, I'm sorry. They're
not repentant. Not fear alone causes true repentance. In Amos, it talks about the people
being starved and being in famine because of what they've done.
It says that they have no need of brushing their teeth because
there's nothing to eat at all. And yet they're not sorry. They're
just angry. Fear won't do it. In Noah's day,
do you realize that Noah preached for hundreds of years? For hundreds
of years, he told the people, Flood is coming and every single
person that's not in this ark is gonna die. Every one of them.
For hundreds of years he said that. Have you ever heard that
phrase preached with fire and brimstone? People who get up
and say, you're gonna die, you're gonna go to hell if you don't
repent. Fear alone does not make people truly repent. In Noah's
day, who got in the ark? No one apart from who God put
in the ark. Not a single person out of how
many ever millions or so there were, not one person repented
because of the fear. Not trial or judgment. Those
things don't cause true repentance. What about Pharaoh? Pharaoh had
all of Israel as his slaves. And God went to Moses and said,
you go free my people. And he went to Pharaoh and said,
I Am sent me to let your people go. And he said, I don't want
to let them go. So Moses turned the rivers, the water, into blood.
And Pharaoh said, I don't like that. That's bad for the crops.
That's bad for everything. OK, you can go. Well, that trial
came away, and he said, no, no, no. Now come back. I'm not letting
them go. And this went over and over again. It went to the point
that God had to kill the firstborn of every one of their children,
their firstborn of every single one of them. Pharaoh's own son
was killed for this. And when that happened, he was
so sorrowful. And it lasted a while. And then
he said, you know what? He said, even the death of his
own son wasn't enough to make him sorry for what he had done.
He then went back out and rejected again. All these different things
can often cause partial repentance. See if any of these make sense
to you. A short-lived repentance, maybe from a trial, such as Pharaoh. Something happens to us and we
in the moment think, I'm sorry for what I did. But when the
trial's gone, the repentance is gone. That's not true repentance. Or a partial repentance that
is not real. Faking it, going through the
motions. There's a whole lot of that that
goes on this day. What about a partial repentance
from punishment? You know, Abel, after he killed
his own brother, he was repentant. And you know what he said? He
said, take this punishment away from me. He was not sorry that
he killed his brother. He was sorry that he was punished. Now that's a repentance that
I recognized as a child. I remember in a certain situation,
sitting at the dinner table, and I remember saying something
I shouldn't have said. And in that moment, I had true
repentance because of the punishment I knew was coming. The moment
I said what I said, I immediately, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say that, I shouldn't have said it.
But I was not scared, I was not sorry for what I said, I was
sorry for what was coming because of what I said. That's not true
repentance. And finally, the loss of benefits. is not true repentance. Esau,
he lost the birthright. And when he came to the Lord
and he said, I can't handle losing this birthright. He wasn't sorry
that he gave away his birthright. He was sorry that he lost the
benefit. These things that we think we'll
lose. So what is the true cause? What is the cause of true repentance? Romans 2 verse 4 says this so
simply. It's the goodness of God that
leadeth to repentance. It's the only thing. The goodness
of God leadeth to repentance. We will not repent, we will not
submit apart from our Lord making us. Let me give you a quick little
example of this, an illustration. When I was teaching, one day
I was substituting in another teacher's class and something
was going on in the school and they were doing busy work. And
I was listening, and there was a person in the student classroom,
a high school student, who I overheard say something. They said, I wouldn't
submit. I wouldn't at all. And this went on a little while,
and it kept going. And this person was so adamant. I am not going
to submit. And it was over something extremely
trivial. And I couldn't help myself. And I just said, so no
matter what, you wouldn't submit? And they said, I'm not submitting.
And I said, so what about for a million dollars? Would you
just say, would you just say I'm scared? I wouldn't do it. I wouldn't say it. And I thought,
are you kidding me? And so then I said, what if somebody held
a gun to you and threatened to kill you? I wouldn't do it. Now,
I don't believe that person, but that's who we are as sinners.
We are stubborn to the end. We will not submit. We will not
have this God reign over us. We're not sorry for what we did.
Only the goodness of God. can make us repent. Only a true
repentant son will bow before the throne of God because they
want to, out of respect and love, out of awe and worship. God can
make you to bow. He can make us to bow. He can
force us to bow, and someday we all will bow. Every knee shall
bow and tongue confess. But true repentance bows without
being forced to. The grace of God, the love of
God, the goodness of God that produces in the heart of a son,
of a child, godly righteousness and repentance. It produces godly
conviction, godly mourning over our own sin to trust in Christ. So this morning I quickly just
want to give us six examples, six things of true repentance
glorifies God. Examples of why true repentance,
what I've just talked about, truly being sorry for what we've
done, why that glorifies God. The first is true repentance
glorifies God by acknowledging God's sovereignty. Turn with
me to Job chapter one. Job chapter one. True repentance
acknowledges God's sovereignty. True repentance acknowledges
sincerely and most heartedly and willingly God's majesty and
right to do with his own what he will. They came and told Job, everything's
gone. All of your livestock, all of
your everything, and all of your children, all of them are gone. And look at verse 20 of Job 1. Then Job arose, rent his mantle,
and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground and worshiped,
and said, naked come I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall
I return thither. The Lord gave and the Lord hath
taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. That's true repentance. Acknowledging
lovingly that God Almighty can do with me what he will. He has the right and the privilege
because he's God. Eli said the same thing. Samuel
came to Eli and said, your two sons, because of the way they
are, they're gonna be killed. And Eli said, it's the Lord Let
Him do that He will. That's repentance, true repentance.
That's a conversion. That's a submission. It's a change. And not just a change of manners,
it's a change of masters. We so much consider, we look
to ourselves, that's who our master is. I'm my own master.
That's why man fights so hard against God. I don't want someone
else to have control over me. I am the one who wants to control
myself. But true repentance causes us
to have a change of masters, a change of mind, a true change
of mind. That's repentance. Repentance
is submission. We have to submit. And submission,
not because I made you, not because He made us to do it, not because
you're scared to, because you want to. That's the word about
submit with marriage and things. Submission is something that
is so great because a person wants to do it. When a master
such as the Lord is our bride, when we're His bride, we want
to submit to Him because of how great of a master He is. It's God, blessed be the name
of the Lord. The Lord prayed that way. He
said, Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and
hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed
good in Thy sight, Thank you. He says, in every good thanks,
in every good give thanks, this is the will of God for you. Can
we do that? Can we do that? You said this
a minute ago. In all our trials and tribulations,
can we give him thanks for? Repentance does. True repentance
does. I just don't think I can give
thanks for my afflictions. Well, repentance does. I just,
I can't give thanks for my trials. Repentance does. Because we know
who sent it. God sent it. That's why we give
him thanks. I mean, isn't it so wonderful
that we have that scripture, all things work together for
them to love God? I mean, if we weren't told it
works together for our good, we wouldn't know what to do.
Everything works together for the good of His people. That's
true repentance, and that glorifies God. They repented not to give
God the glory. Repentance is going to give God
the glory. It's not going to give the church
the glory. It's not going to give Grandma
who raised you right the glory. It's not going to give the Sunday
school teacher who taught you any glory. It's not going to
give the preacher the glory who won you to the Lord. But repentance
is going to glorify God. That's who it glorifies. When
a child of God, when a sinner truly repents, God gets the glory
because everyone knows that's the only way they ever repented.
Secondly, true repentance glorifies God by admitting God's righteousness,
His holiness, along with my sinfulness. Show us who you are, Lord. And
if He shows us who He is, we found out really, really quick
who we are. Man does not find his sin by
looking at the law. Often in pulpits and so many
places you hear him talk about, if you do this, if you do that,
don't do this, look at the law, this says don't do this, don't
eat that, don't do all this stuff. We see who we are when we see
who God is. When we see his holiness, our
sinfulness just comes, oh man, it just exudes off of us, our
sin does. Isaiah saw the law in Isaiah
5, and throughout the whole chapter from the law, he said, woe is
you, woe is you, woe is you, over and over again. Then on
Isaiah 6, he says, I saw the Lord, woe is me. That's the difference. Daniel saw the Lord, and it says
his comeliness melted into corruption. Righteous Job, who feared God,
hated evil, yet he didn't see himself until he saw God. And
when he did, Job said, I abhor myself. I am a vile creature. True repentance acknowledges
God's holiness, and it admits my evil and sin. And this is
hard. It's a struggle. It goes against
our nature in every single way to admit who we are. You know,
it's one thing to say it out loud. I feel like at a very young
age it was very easy for me to say I'm a sinner. I heard everybody
say it, and I make mistakes. You know, I did things that were
wrong. I already said earlier that I sure didn't think I was
sorry or wrong in almost anything I did, but I was not naive enough
to think I was perfect. But to actually admit that that's
who we are, that we're sin in every way, that's our nature.
The Lord showed his disciples his power and his might one night
by letting them catch a whole net full of fish after they caught
nothing all night. When Peter saw the power of the
Lord in that moment, his control and dominion over even the fish
of the sea, he fell down on his face once he saw who he was and
he said, get away from, depart from me, I'm a sinful man. Our
sin, when we see it, makes us scared to be anywhere near God. I am not worthy of your presence,
not worthy of your blessing. I'm just wicked. Admitting who
God is and his holiness and who we are in sin is literally impossible
for us to do. We will not do this. That's why
it has to be by the grace of God. If any sinner can truly
admit God is holy and righteous, that in his presence is such
pure light that not even a thought of darkness can be present, can
even invade it. God told Moses, you can't even
look on me and live, let alone be in my presence. If anyone
here can admit that I'm the definition of evil, that I contest Paul's
claim of being the chief of sinner because I'm worse than him, if
anyone can even think of that, They can only say it because
God's gracious and God gets all the glory. Thirdly, true repentance
glorifies God by confessing the justice of God's judgments, the
justice of God's justice. Let me ask a couple of questions.
Will God punish sin? Yes, yes, God will punish sin. Not only will he, but he has
punished sin. Will he punish all sin, all of
it, not just punish some sin, but all sin? Yes, he will punish
all sin as a holy God. Is God just to punish sin? Should he punish sin? Yes, absolutely. He cannot be holy and not punish
sin. All right, so part of the way
there, but it gets tougher as we ask these questions. Would
God be just to punish our sin? Would He be just to punish my
sin? Would God be just to send me
to hell? To send us to hell? Right now,
I mean this moment, just open the floor and send us to hell.
Would He be just? Would He be just if He did that?
What about our sons and our daughters? What about our kids? Would He
be just to punish their sins and send them to hell? Are we
gonna be mad at God if He does that? If we can say that He would
be just to do that and that we wouldn't be mad at Him, then
we're truly repentant. Now, that's awkward to even say some
of those questions out loud. I don't even wanna think about ever he does in his judgments.
Turn with me to Psalm 51. I've talked about a lot of things
that we couldn't do apart from the grace of God. Being okay with God's true judgment
upon our children. You want to talk about something
we can't do apart from the grace of God? You are not repenting until you
can justify God, not only in His holiness, but in His judgments.
We aren't saying that we want God to punish us. We don't want
Him to punish us or punish our sons or our daughters. We're
not saying that we want God to punish our friends and our family.
But God would be just if He did. He would be righteous in whatever
He did. Look at Psalm 51 verse 4. David says here, against thee,
thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight, that
thou mightest be justified when thou speakest and be clear when
thou judgest. It is my fault. It's your fault. It's our fault. It's our responsibility. If he sends me to hell, it's
my fault because I've sinned against him. As David said here,
I clear him. He's just and righteous in all
His ways. Whatever He does, whatever it
is, He is just and righteous as a holy God. I mean, we just
have to face it. God is just. We can't get mad
at Him. Our God deals in mercy. Anyone
who wants to face God and demand justice is going to get it. I guarantee it. It says it throughout
this book and illustrates it. Anyone who comes to God looking
for justice, they're gonna find it. But I don't want justice. I don't want it for my kids,
my family, or anybody here. I want mercy. I need it, a full
lot of it. I need an unbelievable helping
of it. I want mercy. I feel like I need it more than
anybody I know. But if he doesn't give mercy to me, he'd still
be just and he'd still be holy because I don't deserve any mercy.
Psalm 130, let me read this to you. You don't have to turn to
it. True repentance glorifies God in His judgments. If He sends
a flood right now to this place and wipes all of us out, that's
what we deserve. I hear people all the time questioning
and finding fault with God. Why did the Lord do this? Why
did the Lord do that? It's just His mercy that He's
kept from doing more than that. We should look at everything
in the way we read what happened to Noah in the flood. We look
at something and think about it. Look at those people that
got hurt. How could that happen? Or not got hurt, that got hurt.
We look at those things and we think, how did that happen? In
Noah's day, he says, everyone was evil and all their thoughts
were evil in every way. And he thought everyone needs
to die, but he had mercy. Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. Let me read these verses. In Psalm 130 it says,
Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord. Lord, hear
my voice. Let thine ears be attentive to
the voice of my supplications. If thou, Lord, shouldest mark
iniquities, O Lord, who should stand? If our Lord marks iniquities,
who could stand? Right now in this place, full
of church-going people, people who believe on the Lord, who
try to pay their bills and treat people right, and so on and so
forth. If God Almighty should mark iniquity in this place,
anybody want to stand up? Anybody want to face that? I
don't know about you, but I'd want to crawl under a pew. I
want to get as low as I can. I want to hide. If God marks
iniquity, who could stand? We are so high and mighty. I'm
standing saying here that I want to hide from the Holy God, but
give me an hour, and I'm going to be somewhere, and I'm going
to have my chest puffed out, and someone's going to do the
slightest little thing, and I'm going to spout off and act like
I'm something special. Don't let us brag, because outward
claims usually just cover inward corruption. The more we brag
and boast, the more we're just telling everyone how awful and
despicable we are on the inside. I remember just, it beat into
my head as a kid, the same verse over and over again, pride goeth
before destruction, loathing a haughty spirit before a fall.
God is just in His judgments. We deserve the worst, and anything
else we get is 100% because of His mercy. Think about that.
Anything we get, anything that happens to us, is what we deserve
apart from His mercy. We deserve the worst. If we lose
our job, we need to be so thankful that's all we lost. It's His
mercy, it wasn't worse. Fourthly, true repentance glorifies
God by owning that it lies only with His sovereign mercy to graciously
save me or justly damn me. We own it, we believe it, that
His sovereignty is all in His mercy to graciously save us or
damage us. It's up to Him. Do we have that
much grace to go there? Listen to these scriptures. The
children not yet being born, neither having done any good
or evil, that the purpose of God, according to election, might
stand, not of works, but of Him that caweth. It was said to her,
the elder shall serve the younger. Jacob have I loved, but Esau
have I hated. What shall we say to these things?
Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For he said
to Moses, I'll have mercy on whom I'll have mercy. I'll be
gracious to whom I will be gracious. So then it's not of him that
willeth nor that runneth, but God that showeth mercy. True
repentance glorifies God by owning that his sovereignty is totally
everything in salvation. A man or woman hasn't repented.
They may have religion. They may have a profession, they
may have repented, until they acknowledge that everything we
have, everything we know, everything that'll ever be, is by the grace
of God through Jesus Christ. Totally by grace, without any
works on our part, or contribution on our part, but that God loved
you, loved the child of God from eternity past, and redeemed us
at the cross of Calvary, and called you by his grace, and
kept you by his love. It is all by grace. That's true
repentance. Salvation is of the Lord. No
one has ever, no one was ever saved by accident, not a single
person. No one was ever saved by their
own righteous, not even by in part. No one was ever saved by
their own free will. Everyone that was saved is saved
by the free will of God. I will be merciful to whom I
will. That's what he says. He didn't
have to save me. He did it because he wanted to.
He did it because he chose. Many people can't handle this.
It's what God has said. He created the world, and He
is the sovereign of the world and in salvation. Out of all
this world, He chose a people. He chose His sheep. He had the
right to choose them. He had the power to choose them,
and Christ died on the cross to redeem them. He said, my sheep
hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give
them eternal life. True repentance glorifies God
by owning publicly, privately and secretly, out in the open,
that salvation is of the Lord. And you know, that is such good
news. Only by the grace of God can
I say this. It amazes me how many people
are unhappy with the Lord saving people all on his own. I think
that is the best news I have ever heard. It is such good news
for someone to tell me God can do what I can't do. It's good
news for someone to tell me that there's a way out. It's good
news for someone to tell me what I can't do, Christ already did. That's unbelievable news. Election
is not my enemy, it's my friend. If God didn't choose somebody,
nobody would be saved. If Christ didn't die for somebody,
nobody would be saved. Everybody would go to hell. Everyone
would. And let's just keep the good
news coming. If He died for sinners, then He died for me because I'm
a sinner. If He died for the ungodly, that's awesome because
I'm ungodly. By nature I'm ungodly, by birth,
by practice, by thought, by imagination, by association, in every single
way I am ungodly. But it says he died for the ungodly. Don't be afraid to claim that.
He says, come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden.
That's me. I've got a huge burden. He says,
all you that are hungry, come. I'm hungry. He says, everyone
that thirsts, come to the water. I'm thirsty. If Jesus Christ
died for sinners, that's about the only thing I know for sure
about myself. I'm a sinner. The grace of God
not only sent Christ to the cross, but he showed me that I need
it. I'm so glad when it comes to salvation. I'm glad I'm a
sinner. There's no hope for anyone other
than the sinner. If somebody wants to stand up
and say, I'm not a sinner, well, I'm sorry. I mean, not only has
the Lord showed me I am a sinner, but I'm so glad that it says
that He died for sinners. Christ died for the ungodly. Now, I've got two more, but they're
both quick. True repentance, fifthly, glorifies God by receiving
the grace of God as it's presented in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now,
this seems obvious, and for a long time I never even understood
how this could be even separated. But if you want to glorify God
in true repentance, you must kiss the Son, bow to the Son. God is going to honor those that
honor his Son. The Lord said, whosoever shall
confess me before man, I'll confess before the angels and God. We
must own publicly, openly before man, that without any reservations
that the Lord Jesus Christ is my only hope for salvation. He's
our righteousness. He's our holiness. We have none
of that without him. He's our refuge and he is our
strength. We are not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ. Worthy is the Lamb. Worthy is
the Lamb of God. Let that be repeated over and
over and over again. Let it be preached from this
place forever. That song says, my hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest
frame. I wholly lean on Jesus' name. On Christ the solid rock
I stand. All other ground is sinking sand. And finally, sixly, true repentance
glorifies God by living the rest of my life walking in fellowship
with him and submission to his word. You can come all the way
to this point and not repent. In review, true repentance acknowledges
God's sovereignty. True repentance acknowledges
His righteousness in my sin. True repentance acknowledges
His justice. True repentance confesses it's
God's power to save or to condemn me. And true repentance looks
upon the Lord Jesus Christ as the only Redeemer. But it also,
true repentance also receives him and walks with him and fellowships
with him to the end. Now turn with me to Colossians
1. This is my last point, so stay
with me on this. I've got a pause, though, and
I want to tell on myself. This, and this is not the part
I'm telling on myself, but this message comes from an outline
from my grandfather, from Henry Mahan, my Bal Bal. And when I
look through these six coins, For the longest time, I just
thought to myself, I think I'm just going to have five points.
I didn't want to use this sixth point. This point of true repentance
glorifies God by living the rest of my life walking and fellowshipping
with Him in submission to His Word to the end. Now, that's
embarrassing for a few different ways. First off, My grandfather's
the person I've always looked up to the most, the person who
I heard the gospel from, who was my pastor forever, and the
person that I would trust the most in what they said to me
in these things. And for me to look at this and to pick part
of it and think, I don't need to say that. And over and over
again through this message, and I hope this is what I've just
kept hitting, that everything is by the grace of God. Everything
is through Him. All these things I'm saying that
true repentance does, over and over again, it's because of him.
I don't do any of these things. None of us, no man, woman can
do any of these things apart from the grace of God. Yet when
I get to this part, for some reason, look here at Colossians
1 and look at verse 21. Colossians 1, 21. And you that were sometimes alienated
and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled. in the body of his flesh through
death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable
in his sight, if ye continue in the faith, grounded and settled,
and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel." I've said over and over again,
it's all by the grace of God. It's only through Him. Yet when
I read that first part of verse 23, if you continue in the faith,
grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope
of the gospel, I didn't want to stand up here and say that.
Because I can't. I can't. I cannot continue in
the faith. I am not grounded. I am not settled.
I'm moved away constantly. My hope is just so feeble. Yet,
this point has to be made because it's all of Christ. True repentance
will persevere. If it does not persevere, it
was not true repentance. True repentance will continue
in the faith. If it does not continue, then
it wasn't true repentance. No matter who it is, John said,
they went out from us. We have no idea how long those
people were there, but they went out from us. They left us. The
only one who finishes the race is the one who crosses the finish
line. Let me tell you what I'm saying
here. If you can leave Christ, you never knew Christ. Or said
better, if you can leave Christ, He never knew you. If you can
leave Christ, you never knew Him, because there's nothing
else to turn to. Let me just give you this list
in closing. There's nothing better, there's nothing sweeter than
Him. There's no water sweeter than the water of life. There's
no bread sweeter than the bread of life. There's no lover more
wonderful than the lover of my soul. There's no foundation more
firm than the foundation, which is Jesus Christ. There's no peace
like the prince of peace. There's no joy like his joy.
If you can turn from it, then you never knew it. No way you
could have known it. No way, because you don't lay
down life and pick up death if you knew what life was. Once
you're shown who life is, not what life is, once you're shown
who life is, that the Lord Jesus Christ is life, you won't have
eyes for anything else. By the grace of God, if He shows
a person who He is, truly, by His grace, you can't walk away. You can't turn away. You can't
even look away. I mean, we try. We do anything we can for our
affections to go everywhere. But once the Lord shows His children
who He is, His face, His light, His beauty is something we can't
turn our eyes away from. We have no other desires. And
one day, thankfully, that will actually be true in ourselves. We won't have this sinful flesh
that just is constantly just going everywhere and wrestling
with our nature and stuff. But true repentance glorifies
God, and through His grace, a child of God shows that they truly
are sorry for what they've done. Because of His grace, he gets
all the glory.