For
godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be
regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death. 2Cor.7:10
If faith comes by hearing the word, the likelihood of
genuine repentance in our churches today is almost nil. You can’t
find anyone who understands the concept behind real repentance! They
all think God must first save you in your sins (as a wretched miserable
sinner) and then you can repent. Of course, we have made this assertion
a thousand times and will probably make it a thousand more before it's
all over. But herein lays the crux of the matter. To the Pastors, if
you can stop sinning, you don’t need Jesus because you can then
‘Save yourself!’ They all say this. No Exceptions.
However, NOTHING could be further from the truth. Merely
because a person can stop their wrongdoing has no bearing whatsoever on
their eternal salvation. It only proves that they were born with FREE
WILL, with BOTH the ability and the willingness to seek God and entreat
Him for Mercy. But Fundamental Church Doctrine for the past 1700 years
(and especially since the Reformation) denies man has the ability or
will to seek God. Thus the concept of Repentance Proven by Deeds is
lost to their thinking. Because DEEDS would give man ability, which
their own doctrine (article six, Westminster Confession of Faith)
states he does not possess!
So Stated: “They
being the root of all mankind, the guilt of this sin was imputed, and
the same death in sin and corrupted nature conveyed to all their
posterity, descending from them by ordinary generation. From this
original corruption, whereby we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and
made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil, do proceed
all actual transgressions."
Now even if they affirm that man is born with free will,
as most of them will do, they actually mean he has a LIMITED free will,
damaged by inbred sin. Or Sin inherited from Adam. Therefore, somewhere
along the line (generations) he LOST his ability to respond to God.
Consequently, God has to somehow OFFSET his malady and compel him to
come. (In his sins of course.) The major problem with this theory is
it’s FALSE!! God does not change your desires or direction in life,
YOU DO. He is waiting for you to respond to Him. He has already done
His part in the calling, drawing, convicting, and stretching forth His
hand. He has done so with ALL MEN EVERYWHERE! (Acts 17:30-31) He is
calling them to repentance and faith proven by DEEDS! (Acts
20:21, 26:18-20) It’s fundamental, but NO ONE can see it! They
have everyone waiting around for God to make the first move to change
their desires (so they can sin less and less) and magically regenerate
them with the mind of Christ.
The problem, however (and the reason so few are being
saved), is it DOESN'T WORK this way! The longer you wait on God to
change you, or give you some magic desire to love Him, the HARDER your
heart will become against His truth. Why? Because sin hardens your
heart, NOT make it more humble. (Heb. 12:14-17) The more you trifle in
sin, believing you were born with some kind of inbred disease you have
no control over, the less likely you will ever YIELD to God in a real
repentance. Once you embrace this lie, of inbred sin, strong delusion
will follow. But you will swear up and down THIS is what the Bible
teaches and those calling it false are nuts!
Incident after incident in the Bible clearly shows God
working in this manner entreating man to repentance and faith proven by
deeds. Time and again, God allows for man’s natural ability to
respond BEFORE he acts. That way the outcome is always determined by
CHOICE, NOT Pre-destination or Election. Of course, you can find
isolated Scriptures that SEEM to prove otherwise, but the weight of
evidence is overwhelming. In Nineveh, the people ceased their
wicked actions and turned to God. They didn't presume that God would
necessarily extend His mercy; their sole focus was on obeying His
Prophet.
Similar incidents happened under the
Moses ministry. God was vexed by the people’s rebellion and had
every intention of destroying them. Yet because Moses entreated Him,
and begged for His mercy, He changed His mind! Cause and
Effect….Simple equation! Zacchaeus the tax collector made full
restitution for his wrongdoings BEFORE Jesus came to his house. He knew
in his heart the RIGHT thing to do and did it. He didn’t expect
it to EARN his salvation but understood that coming to God meant
cleaning up your act. WHY? Making NO assumptions at all that God would
show them, mercy, ONLY that they obeyed His Prophet, stopped sinning
and entreated His mercy. This PROVES, beyond ANY DOUBT, that man can
indeed clear himself of wrongdoing (repent) and SEEK God without
coercion. (Jonah 3:5-10)
Because inr r epentance is a vehement
desire change! (2Cor.7:11) You believe from YOUR heart. You OBEY to
receive the Holy Spirit! (Acts 5:32) He comes into a CLEAN vessel. A
heart made PURE by Faith! (Acts 15:9) Nothing physically changes.
This is not magic. You obey and KEEP obeying, daily, to keep your heart
pure and undefiled from the world. (1Pet1:22) That’s how it
works. Simple.
Mess up the process with a bunch of doctrines invented by
men to facilitate the sin nature teaching, and you will NEVER obey God.
Because you will always have an excuse why you CAN’T! Grasp the
fundamental difference here. IF man is born hating God, dead in his
sins, depraved in nature, because of something he had no control over,
HOW can he forsake it? Or Stop his wrongdoing? They have made it
impossible for him to repent as God has commanded. His will is in
bondage to something inborn, which is contrary to the truth. But no one
will fight harder to support this false doctrine than the Church.
It’s their bread and butter! Everything is based on it. They
would rather burn you at the stake for telling them to stop sinning
than STOP and be saved. So they will invent every excuse in the book to
prove you wrong and show others you are a lunatic.
Genuine repentance involves humility, brokenness and is a
humiliating experience. When the true light of God’s word floods
into your being, you see yourself as you are, in rebellion to God! This
is what Godly sorrow is about. Deep regret for your sin. A season of
sorrow. Most people will think you have gone off your rocker. Because
their mind is unsound, still in bondage to sin, a sound mind is
frightening to them. (Such was the case in Scripture.) People
fear someone on the straight and narrow, focused on God. Why? Because
it’s NOT the common condition of man! And two contrary spirits
are at work…the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. (1Jh
4:4-5) They may not be able to articulate it but they do sense it. The
Spirit-filled person, obedient to God, with a pure heart of Faith, is a
threat to their environment. Why do you think they killed Jesus and all
His followers thereafter? It’s a given, that the god of this age
is in control of the religious systems and the author of all false
doctrines.
Under delusion you will never see your need for this kind
of repentance, not only is it impossible, but you see everyone saved in
the Bible, ‘in their sins’. In a sense, you hear this
as someone telling you to be PERFECT before you can be saved. Yet
nothing could be further from the truth. Stopping your wrongdoing has
nothing to do with perfection! It only proves you can DO what is right!
And that’s what God is waiting for. That you DO your part and He
will DO His…..the purging of sin by the blood of Christ, the
cleaning of the heart to make it pure. (Heb. 9:14) You CAN’T do
those things alone. BUT you CAN STOP sinning by choice and seek God.
Think about it. If you NEVER lay a solid foundation to begin with, on
which to build, the house will fall apart very quickly. (Matt.7:21-23)
So if your salvation is based on a fallacy (born in sin
doctrine) it will crumble and wash away. You DO what is right, to begin
with, and the odds are you will endure on the narrow path to life.
Never stop sinning and you’ll remain in darkness and learn to
twist God’s word to your own destruction.
All this is not to say that you can repent anytime you
feel like it. Remember: Faith comes by hearing the word! It’s the
word that convicts, cuts, and judges the thoughts and intents of the
heart. If it is NOT preached in a manner designed to bring about this
conviction that leads to a godly sorrow for sin, no one will repent. Of
course, you can get people to respond to an ‘invitation’
and compel them to repeat some words. They may even ‘FEEL’
some sorrow and emotion doing so. But this has NOTHING to do with
repentance. When God's message really cuts to their heart, the cry is
heard, ‘What must I Do!’ NOT: ‘Gee,
I’m a poor sinner, born depraved, but God loves me anyhow, I
accept Him.’
WHERE in the book of Acts or the early Church for that
matter, was such a thing ever practiced by the saints? It WASN’T!
So WHY has the present-day Church embraced it wholeheartedly? Simply
because their Gospel is based on the most demonic fallacy ever
invented: The Sin Nature!
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