WE BELIEVE THAT REPENTANCE AND FAITH ARE SACRED DUTIES, AND ALSO INSEPARABLE GRACES, WROUGHT IN OUR SOULS BY THE REGENERATING SPIRIT OF GOD; WHEREBY BEING DEEPLY CONVICTED OF OUR GUILT, DANGER, AND HELPLESSNESS, AND OF THE WAY OF SALVATION BY CHRIST, WE TURN TO GOD WITH UNFEIGNED CONTRITION, CONFESSION, AND SUPPLICATION FOR MERCY; AT THE SAME TIME HEARTILY RECEIVING THE LORD JESUS CHRIST AS OUR PROPHET, PRIEST, AND KING, AND RELYING ON HIM ALONE AS THE ONLY AND ALL SUFFICIENT SAVIOR.
2. Actually, whenever we preach about believing in Christ as your personal Saviour, repentance is always implied. Whenever we preach about having faith in Christ so that you can be saved, repentance is implied. You can’t separate faith for salvation and repentance. When a person has true heart repentance, he automatically will have saving faith. Also when you truly believe with your heart the Lord Jesus, you will have repentance.
3. Repentance is as old as the gospel, and actually a vital part of the gospel. Today, the gospel – the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ – is preached and the doctrine of repentance is left out. The result is not salvation.
4. There are many people who “believe” in Jesus, but continue in their lost condition. The reason? They have never repented of being lost, they have never really repented of what they are; therefore, their “believe” is not a true belief. It is a belief of the facts of the gospel, but not a belief in a personal Saviour that has personally forgiven them of what they are. There is a difference between repenting because of what you are and repenting because of what you have done. There is a difference between repenting because of what you have done, and repenting because you got caught.
2. Many people turning from their sins, without turning from their sinfulness. (In other words, people, by the strength of the flesh, try to stop doing things that are considered bad, but they never recognize that they themselves are wicked, notwithstanding the things they do are bad.) There is a lot of “moral, external, fleshly, rehabilitation,” (which is called “salvation”) without an “internal, spiritual, reconciliation” of the sinner to a most holy God. Much of modern religion is a “pick yourself up by your bootstraps” religion, which will eventually land many professional religionists in an everlasting hell.
3. Many churches are filled with lost people trying to live right. They don’t have the will or ability to study their Bibles, or really get down to business in praying to God or really getting into the worship services and worshipping God. They have a lot of trouble trying to apply the truths of the Word of God to their own lives – they’ve never really been saved, just convinced.
4. The end result is religion that does not mean anything to anybody. It is a “Sunday religion, which is forgotten on Monday”. There is no real application of spiritual truths in the lives of the professed believers. Those that are truly saved become discouraged because the lives of those “saved” people around them. Churches and families are constantly in confusion. In short, you have what you now see around you.
D. Definition of repentance:
2. Dictionary – To amend or resolve to amend one’s life as a result of contrition (broken down with sorrow for sins.)
2. Numbers 23:19, “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?”
3. I Samuel 15:29, “And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent.”
4. The Problem.
b. So the question is, “Does God repent or not?”
6. The solution to this dilemma is easily found when the word “repent” is defined. Many people define repentance as sorrow for sin. Thus they believe God has sorrow for some of His actions. This is not the Bible definition. The Bible definition of repentance is “to change ones mind toward a certain action.” For the human being, there is sorrow for sin, which accompanies repentance, but for God there is no sorrow for His sin, because He cannot sin. When God repents, He has sorrow for the sins of mankind and changes the way He deals with them.
7. Scriptures That Seem To Show God Repenting
2) God had been dealing with man without physically punishing him for wrong.
3) Remember God did not kill Cain when he killed his brother Abel. Lamech, Gen. 4:23, was not punished when he killed a young man.
4) In Genesis 6, God begins to punish those people that sin against Him.
5) This punishment is seen when God sent a worldwide flood on the earth. Today, the earth is waiting for another destruction by fire, II Peter 3:7.
2) There are two things to consider here.
b) Deut. 23:2, “A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the LORD.”
4) When Saul was anointed king, there were only nine generations in the family of Pharez, but when David was born, the ten-generation requirement is fulfilled and the time is right for God to set David on the throne of Israel.
He continued to regret his sin.
Judas repents of a sin, but not of being a sinner.
Judas didn’t get an “relief” when he confessed his one sin.
This is shown by the fact that he went out and hung himself.
His guilt drove Him to suicide.
As long as people repent of particular sins, they don’t repent of being a sinner in the first place.
Jesus did not “look” at Judas, therefore Judas did not correctly repent.
Peter repented and wept bitterly. (To think differently.) He repented not only for what he was, but what he had done.
Peter got relief when he realized he had denied Christ because of what he was.
He received forgiveness from Christ, and from then on he was a different person.
He preached on the Day of Pentecost and 3,000 were saved, baptized and added to the church Jesus organized during His personal ministry, which kind of church still remains on the earth until this day.
2. Matthew 4:17 – The first recorded message of Jesus is that sinners must “repent and believe.”
3. Acts 2:38 – The message on the day of Pentecost was “repent and believe.”
4. Repentance and faith go together, you cannot have one without the other.
5. One who believes has repented and one who repents will believe.
2. Repentance is not a work of man, but something man feels in his soul.
3. The Holy Spirit is the One who brings about true repentance within a man.
2. Faith is believing what Jesus said, and trusting what he said regardless of circumstances.
3. Concerning salvation, having faith means we believe God’s word when it condemns us of being a sinner, and of our sins.
4. We make no excuses, but fully believe we are under eternal condemnation.
5. We understand we cannot help ourselves, but need help from outside ourselves – and Jesus Christ is the only one that can bridge the gap between us and an most holy, Almighty God.
2. I answered that it seemed to me that repentance is because of sin.
3. It seemed to me that repentance must come first because it would not be right to repent of faith.
2. I John 5:1 – Believers are born of God, they not born of or by themselves.
2. The Holy Spirit brings light to the soul of the sinner so they can see things as they really are.
3. Man can only do what he knows to do and that is to sin. He will never repent of his sins until the Holy Spirit convicts him that he is the sinner.
2. Baptism here is not in order to be saved, but because of their being saved they were to identify with Christ and that is done by baptism.
2. The repentance of the jailer was evident when he trembled and fell down before Paul and Silas.
3. His belief was evident as he took Paul and Silas out of the jail and washed their stripes that very night – even as his life was in danger.
2. Taking your place as a guilty, but sorrowful sinner.
2. James 4:7-10 – Submit to God, resist the devil, cleanse your hearts, and humble yourself.
3. II Cor. 7:11 – The Corinthian church repented because of Paul’s first letter.
4. Romans 10:12-13 – Jew and Gentile can turn to God for salvation.
5. Psalms 51 – David repents over the sin with Bathsheba.
IV. “AT THE SAME TIME HEARTILY RECEIVING THE LORD JESUS CHRIST AS OUR PROPHET, PRIEST, AND KING, AND RELYING ON HIM ALONE AS THE ONLY AND ALL SUFFICIENT SAVIOR.”
2. Salvation is received by faith and confessed with the mouth.
C. Other scriptures that teach this to be true are:
2. Heb. 9:24-28 – Christ was once offered for the sins of many.
3. II Tim. 1:12 – Paul is not ashamed, but knows that Jesus is able to keep him safe in the Day of Judgment