True Repentance
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
in repentance 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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