In Luke chapter 13 verse 3, Jesus states unequivocally that if you don't repent, you perish. You don't get saved. Repentance is a non-negotiable aspect of the gospel. And thus, we have to know what repentance is and what it is not. So to that end, of course, a couple of weeks ago, I preached a message on what repentance is. Then last week, I began to discuss what repentance is not. You know, sometimes understanding what something is not is a helpful tool for clarifying in our minds what it is as we clear the ground of misconceptions and wrong perceptions. It helps us hone in more carefully on what it actually is. And so today I want to continue the discussion about what repentance is not. But before we actually look at the scriptures, would you join me for a brief word of prayer? Our Father in heaven, we recognize that we need the Holy Spirit as our teacher, and we do ask for his teaching ministry in our hearts and minds this morning as we wrestle with this very important biblical concept that we have to get right if we're going to serve and minister effectively in getting the gospel out to others. And so we ask for this teaching and this blessing in Christ's name. Amen. Now, in previous weeks, we examined the biblical definition of repentance. And we saw that essentially it involves a change of heart or a change of mind about the sin in one's life, such that in his heart, the individual is now sorrowful and contrite about his sin. And moreover, he rejects and repudiates that sin in his heart. So essentially one repents when he says in himself, I know I'm a sinner and that my sin is in the front to a holy God, but I don't like being a sinner. And yet there's nothing I can do about it. I cannot change my own heart. But I am willing to let God fix what's wrong with me. To let God do for me what I cannot do for myself. And I am willing then to embrace the change in my life that He can bring about, whatever that might entail, whatever that might be. When a person has this mindset, this mentality, just throws himself on the mercy of God and says, God, fix what's wrong with me. I want to be free. Then he has repented. Now, as simple as this seems, there are nonetheless two common misunderstandings and misrepresentations of repentance in a lot of good Bible-believing churches. One is a concept that has been called Lordship Salvation. We talked about this last week. Let me review briefly what we saw there, and then I want to add a little bit to that this morning. Now, basically, we saw that lordship salvation proponents would argue that when a person gets saved, his life must change. If he has not changed, then he has not been saved. As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5, 17, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. All things have passed away. Behold, all things are become new. Now, in this regard, I agree that if one claims to have repented, then his life must change. If no change takes place, then, most assuredly, he has not repented. But where some lordship proponents go wrong, where they err, is in identifying that change with repentance. But the change in their life itself is not repentance. It is rather the fruit of repentance. They are works worthy of repentance. For repentance does not take place externally in one's life as he turns his life around. Rather, it takes place internally in one's heart and mind. It is a frame of mind, an attitude of the heart. Furthermore, advocates of lordship salvation would argue that this change is wrought in one's life when he surrenders to the lordship of Christ in his life. And thus, they would insist that one cannot merely accept Christ as Savior. No, he must accept him as both Lord and Savior. There is no such thing as accepting Jesus only as your Savior. It is all or none, Lord and Savior or nothing. And this surrender to the Lordship of Christ in one's life and the change that it entails is then defined by them as the very essence of repentance. They would say, look, Repentance is when, hey, I was going this direction. I was the Lord of my life and of my heart. I was the captain of my soul and the master of my faith, and I was doing things my way. But now I've done a 180 degree turnaround. Now Christ is the Lord of my heart and my life, and I'm doing things His way. But here again, they err. As we saw last week in Paul's epistle to the Romans, in chapters four through five, when Paul discusses how a person gets saved, how he achieves a right standing with God, that Paul says nothing about the lordship of Christ. Instead, repeatedly in chapters four through five, what Paul emphasizes is faith, faith, faith. It is not until he turns his attention to the post-salvation experience of sanctification, which immediately flows out of the salvation experience as an immediate and inevitable result of salvation. It is only when he turns his attention, I say, to the sanctification, chapter 6 through 8, that then he introduces into the discussion the issue of Christ's lordship in our hearts and lives. Well, you see, this whole sanctification, as I said, is a logical ramification and outgrowth of salvation. And so it is there then, in chapter 6, that he then raises the issue of who reigns in our lives, sin or Christ? Who lords it over us, sin or Christ? To whom do we yield ourselves and our members as servants, sin or Christ? But this is clearly in the context of sanctification that Paul raised this issue. Not in chapters 4 and 5 when he was talking about how you get saved and justified. So clearly, yielding to the Lordship of Christ is not a prerequisite of salvation. It is rather the outcome of salvation. Now, it cannot be both the outcome and the prerequisite. It is one or the other. And Paul puts it in the context of outcome. And so in a word, the lordship salvation proponents err by confounding the effect with the cause. They put the cart before the horse. All of that is really essentially review of what we said last week. But now I want to build on what I said last week by giving you an illustration of what I'm talking about here based on my own personal testimony. Now granted, my story is just one anecdotal example and we don't base theology on people's experiences. We base it on the scripture. But my personal experience conforms to what I see the Bible teaching. I got saved as a very young child. Is it not until I was about 14 years of age, 14 pushing at 15 years of age, that in my personal time of Bible study and devotions in the Scriptures, that God asked me, basically, I mean not audibly, but I mean I felt God very much challenging in my heart and mind. And you know, up to this point in your life, I've never really asked you to do anything that you didn't want to do, did I? Well, no, not really. I mean, let's face it, being a Christian in America is pretty easy, not particularly challenging. Now, no, not really. I pretty much have lived my life doing what I wanted to do. Now, because I was regenerated, because I was born again, you know what I wanted to do? I wanted to please God. I wanted to do what was right. So I'd been living my life pretty much trying to do what was right, trying to be a good testimony for God. But then God seemed to pose a question, a question came to my mind that I honestly had never even thought about to that point in my life. It's as if God said, what if I ask you to do something you don't want to do? I never thought about that. you know, whether it's something you don't want to do. And I don't know what it would have been. Maybe if God said, you know, this is, you know, back in the era of the Soviet Union. What if I want you to try to sneak into Russia as a missionary? And you know that if they catch you, they're going to throw you in the gulag. It's like, I might not want to do that. That doesn't sound too fun. You know, I don't know. So what if I ask you to do something you don't want to do? I had never thought about that. But you see, I believe God confronted me with that question because he was trying to force the issue that had, up to this point in my life, not come about. See, it had been a totally non-issue because God hadn't asked me to do anything I didn't want to. So he was forcing the issue. And again, God wasn't, again, verbally, audibly speaking to me. But it's almost if God, you know, like I said, I hadn't really thought about it. It's almost if God said, well, you need to think about it. And I want an answer. You think about that and you get back with me. And pretty much God didn't leave an open end and say, that's something you need to be thinking about sometime or other. You might want to think about that. It's like, think about it and get an answer back to me. I need an answer real soon. What are you going to do when I ask you to do something you don't want to do? Right now, you need to settle the issue of who's the lord of your life. This was a crucial time in my life. I was a teenager. I was around 15 years of age. In the next few years, I would be transitioning into adulthood where parents are no longer making the decisions for you, but you've got to start making major life-changing decisions in your life. The very next year, at the age of 16, for example, I'd be making the decision, am I going to college and where? And you see, when it came time to start making those decisions, before I made them, God wanted me absolutely to settle the issue. Before you're ready to make those decisions, one issue needs to be settled. Who's the Lord of your life? I want an answer now. And again, you have to realize by this point, I'd been saved about a decade. I had read the entire Bible through, I don't know how many times, but a number of times by that stage in my life. I had read, I mean, Bible commentaries and so forth. I was not a new believer. I'd been saved about a decade. I grew up in a Christian home. I had studied the Bible intensively, and yet I had never even thought about the issue. And I suppose that like me, anybody who gets saved at a very young age, when someone's getting saved at the age of four or five, He's probably not even thinking in his four-year-old mind or five-year-old about the issue of, who's the lord of your heart and life? I guess for the average four-year-old, there's not too much independence in his life. You ask him, who's the authority in your life? He thought, my parents. Right? So if Foyle gets saved, he's probably not consciously thinking, you know, Christ is going to be the Lord of my heart and my life. What he can understand is he sees the Gospel of the Illustrated, for example, with the wordless book, and he sees the black page in the wordless book, and he can relate to that and say, well, that's my heart. My heart's black like that. It's dark. I see that. But I want my heart to be cleansed and clean and new. I know that. I know there's something wrong. There's a defect in me. And I want it to be right. I want to be right with God. He can understand that. But probably the average four or five-year-old's not wrestling with the issue of who's the authority in his life. He's pretty much just thinking, well, Mom and Dad are. Now, in this regard, then, what is one to make of his experience? Was I not really saved when I was young, then, as a little child? Did I not actually get saved until I was 14? Because only then did I consciously confront the issue of the lordship of Christ in my life and make a conscious decision to surrender to the Lord and say, OK, God. Whatever you want. Only then did I wrestle with that issue. Once God kind of made an issue out of it, then, yeah, then I thought about it. Well, you know, I mean, there is that verse that says, you bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and your spirit, which are God's. And so as I thought about it, well, I've already been bought and paid for. I guess that pretty much answers that. I guess I don't really have really any choice. There's only one real answer. I've already been bought and paid for. Yeah, Christ is Lord. I've already put my hand to the plow. There's no looking back now. But was I just then getting saved? No, I had been saved. There is not a question in my mind. There was never any question or a doubt about my standing with God in the years prior to that. I was saved and I knew I was saved. But what would a lordship salvation proponent say? because I had not consciously embraced him as Lord of my heart and life until I thought about it. John MacArthur is an example of a well-known Bible teacher who's a proponent of what has been called Lordship Salvation. Now, to his credit, He and I would be in agreement on the issue that repentance itself is something that transpires internally within the heart, and that a changed life is but the fruit of repentance. He is much more careful to draw that distinction that, unfortunately, many lordship proponents do not. Yet still, Still, where I think he reaches a little too far in his well-known book dealing with the topic, he wrote a whole book on the topic called Faith Works, is when he makes comments like this that he makes on page 23 of his book, quote, sinners must repent of their sin and yield to Christ's authority. Surrender to Jesus's lordship is not an addendum to the biblical terms of salvation. The summons to submission is at the heart of the gospel invitation, unquote. I don't know. I didn't consciously yield to Christ's authority until I was a teenager. So what would he say about my testimony? Well, based upon his book, he has an entire chapter when he deals with Romans chapter 6. And what he would say is that, well, as a teen, I was merely putting into practice what I had already done in principle years before. I was only doing in practice what I had done in principle. So in principle, I had accepted Christ as Lord of my life. I was only then putting that into practice. The problem with that is I say, no, honest, trust me, I hadn't. I didn't do it in practice because I had never even thought about it. It had been a total non-issue. I didn't do it. In this regard, notice where, again, I think MacArthur is a little bit off. In Romans 6, verses 3 through 7, that's what the apostle Paul writes. Romans 6, verses 3 through 7. He says, know ye not that so many of us, as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into his death? Therefore, we are buried with him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now, Paul here is presenting the foundational principle, the basis on which a person does, in practice, surrender to the Lordship of Christ. But in this passage, did you notice the excessive use of the passive voice? I did not baptize myself into Christ. I was baptized by the Holy Spirit into the body of Christ. I did not crucify myself. God did that in his court of law. I did not free myself from sin, God freed me from sin. I did not make myself a servant of righteousness, God made me a servant of righteousness. So when the Holy Spirit identified me with Christ, Then the Holy Spirit, God identified me with Him. He identified me with His death. He identified me with His resurrection. He freed me from sin. He made me a servant of righteousness. So this is all about what God did in principle when I got saved. Paul, the contrast here is not between then what I did in principle when I got saved and then what I did in practice in the context of sanctification years later. The contrast here in Romans 6 is between what God did in principle and how I responded in practice. So we come back to the issue. That's a nice try, MacArthur, to say, well, I did that in principle. I was only later doing it in practice, like, well, no, this is really what God did in principle, according to Romans 6. If I made such a commitment to Christ at the point of salvation, I didn't know I was doing it, which raises some interesting questions. Is it possible to repent and not know you're repenting? If so, is it possible to believe in Jesus and not know you've believed in him? Is it possible to get saved without knowing you got saved? Where does this line of reasoning lead? I'm telling you, I did not consciously, with any sense of awareness, bow to the Lordship of Christ when I got saved, because I hadn't really even thought about the issue until I was a teenager. That, at least, is my experience. Returning to the experience of the average unsaved person. When he says, Lord, whatever it takes. I don't know what all this involves, but I just, I'm tired of my sin. I'm tired of who I am and what I am. I want to be free of my sin. I just, I want to be right with the creator. When he says that, whatever it takes, when this is the attitude, the mentality of his heart, the frame of his mind. Now what Jesus knows is, well, what actually, what that's going to take to free you from sin is a number of steps and processes. First, I'm going to regenerate you and send my Holy Spirit to indwell you, and I'll justify you. But then, beyond that, you've got to really begin to grow and nourish that new life. That's going to require a life-long process of sanctification. You're going to have to learn and develop some skills. You're going to have to learn how to read and study the Bible, how to apply its principles to life and connect the dots there. You're going to have to learn how to pray. Well, you will need to join a local church and be a faithful member of a local church and fellowship with God's people. That's a very important part of that. Again, if you want to have victory over this sin in your life that you're so contrite about. Well, yes, you're certainly going to have to acknowledge the Lordship of Christ in your heart and life. So there are a whole slew of things that are going to have to happen. But Jesus doesn't respond to the sinner and say, all right, now I'm going to walk through all these steps. Here's all the stuff you're going to. He's like, Jesus knows all that, but he doesn't bother with all that. You don't need to know all that stuff now. That's information overload for the average sinner. He doesn't need to know all that. So pretty much, Jesus pretty much just comes to the sinner and says, listen, do you want to be free? Because I can so totally make you free. If you want to be free, do you want it? Do you want it? That's all I need to know right now. Do you want it? And if the sinner says yes, the response of God is, that's all I need to know. I'll take it from here. So I say this recognition of the Lordship of Christ is an effect. Yes, it's something he's going to have to learn in the context of sanctification. But I think putting that up front, that's one of the things you're gonna need to know right up front. is putting the cart before the horse for the average unsafe person. And I think we really need to be careful about this approach in evangelism. So I reject the lordship salvation approach. Having said so, now I want to turn our attention to another common misunderstanding or misrepresentation of biblical repentance. It's a position that has often been referred to as easy believism. Now, easy-believism is pretty much a reaction against the perceived works-based emphasis of lordship salvation. This is a typical case of a knee-jerk reaction that swings the pendulum 100% the opposite direction. I'm going to run as far as I can from that lordship salvation position. Now, that sounds suspiciously like a works-based salvation. You have got to make him the lord of your life to be saved. Well, that sounds like works. And brother, we can't insert works into the gospel. And so whereas lordship salvation emphasizes the effect over the cause, easy believism emphasizes the cause over the effect. Indeed, they emphasize the cause to the exclusion of any necessary effect. And whereas Lordship Salvation emphasizes a change of heart and mind about all of our sin, our sin, our depravity, our brokenness, Easy Believism stresses that salvation requires no repentance for sin at all, or if it does, of only one sin in particular, the sin of unbelief. So basically there are two varieties of easy believism. The one says you don't have to repent at all. Repentance is not a mandate of the gospel. People don't have to repent to get saved. You're adding something to the gospel if you tell them they have to repent. Zane Hodges is an example of a fellow who has articulated this position. He wrote a book, well-known, that was called Absolutely Free, pages 144 to 146 of that book. He pretty much argues, you do not have to repent to be saved. You're adding to the gospel if you tell people they have to repent. No. He says, justification is by faith and faith alone. What that means is you just have to believe that Jesus died and rose again for your sins, period. That's it. You just have to believe in Jesus. No repentance required. People who take this position, in arguing the position, often love to point out, for example, one of their favorite arguments is that, you know, John's gospel never once references repentance. And that's true. The entire gospel of John never says anything about repenting. Why? They say, that's a gospel. If repentance were so important to the gospel, you'd think at least once, somewhere in there, John would have told us, and you have to repent. But no, John only talks about believing. He talks a lot about believing, a lot about faith. But never once does John talk about repentance. Of course, never mind the fact that the other three gospels all repeatedly mention the requirement of repentance. John, written after all of the other three, now wants to advance the theological ball and, you know, down the court and not just continue to repeat the same information. But let us not confuse issues with facts. This is a ridiculous argument. It is enough that Matthew, Mark, and Luke tell us you need to repent. We can't conclude just because one of the Gospels doesn't mention it, therefore you don't have to do it. By that standard, by that standard, do you know that Matthew and Mark never once mentioned the concept of grace? The word grace is never found in the Gospel of Matthew or Mark. What am I to conclude from that? That, therefore, salvation is not by grace? Why, if it were, you'd figure somewhere in there at least Matthew would have mentioned grace, right? This is a ridiculous argument. It's not solid biblical interpretation. But such is the common argument that is made. John never said you had to repent. And we'll build everything on John and ignore what Matthew, Mark, and Luke have said. Now, other easy believism proponents acknowledged. They're forced to acknowledge that clearly the Bible demands repentance for being saved. You can't get around that. Like Jesus said, except you repent you shall perish. You can't get around that. So we acknowledge that repenting is something you have to do to get saved, but the tactic then is simply to redefine the word repentance. so as to avoid any possible implications of what they think would otherwise be a worship-based salvation. And how then do they redefine repentance? Their definition of repentance is this. They say, look, I mean, the word repent simply means to change your mind, right? We talk about that. Repentance is a change of mind. Well, what are you changing your mind about? Oh, just one thing in particular. In what object will you place your faith? You see, before I was saved, my faith was in myself, perhaps. I thought I was a pretty good person. But on further reflection, I've changed my mind and decided rather than trusting in myself and my goodness, I'm going to trust in Jesus. So I only changed my mind about one thing in particular, from trusting in myself to trusting in Jesus. Or perhaps prior to my salvation, my trust, my faith, was in religious rituals and ceremonies or a particular church. I was counting on the church and its ceremonies to save me. But on further reflection, I changed my mind and decided instead I would trust in Jesus atoning death. And that's what I'm stating everything on. So only on this one issue, I changed my mind about what I would trust in. Or perhaps if one was a pagan, well, I was trusting in the gods, Baal or Zeus or what have you. But I changed my mind and decided now to start trusting in Jesus. And that change of mind from trusting in something else to trusting in Jesus is the change of repentance. I repented when I decided to start believing in Jesus. And thus, advocates of easy believism would argue that one does not need to repent of his sin in general, of all of his sins. He does not need to repent of his depravity, of his fallenness, of his brokenness, and of all the many sins that are symptoms of that in his life. No, he only needs to repent of one sin, the sin of not believing in Jesus, the sin of unbelief. Now in this regard, important clarification here. It is true that in the Bible only one sin is unpardonable. There is only one unpardonable sin. And that is the sin of unbelief. You can't be saved if you refuse to believe in Jesus. You can't be pardoned for refusing to trust Jesus. So the sin of unbelief is the only unpardonable sin. All other sins, no matter how bad, how terrible they are, all other sins can be forgiven. But the point is, if you want to be forgiven for all those other sins, you're going to have to repent of them. So while it's true that only one sin is unpardonable, the sin of unbelief, it is also true that all other sins can be pardoned only if you repent of them. Thus defined by easy believism, repentance then essentially really becomes just a synonym for faith. They would argue that repentance and faith are one and the same concept, because to repent is simply to start believing in Jesus. It's the flip side of the same coin. And so easy believism advocates will tell you that repentance and faith are not two separate and distinct prerequisites for salvation, both of which must be met. No. Repentance and faith, they say, are the same single precondition. Call it faith. Call it repentance. Call it what you will. It's the same thing. This position has been advocated, for example, by Charles Ryrie. I like Charles Ryrie. I have his study Bible. A lot of the stuff he writes is good. He thinks a lot like me. I read his notes in the study Bible. I say, that's exactly how I look at that. Well, he's right on. Until he comes to this issue. I was like, oh, by the way, and he was a magician in his younger years. But Dr. Wright, he's just wrong on this one. He's wrong. He takes great pains, though, to make this point. In his well-known book in which he deals with this issue, he and John MacArthur kind of sparred some years back, writing back and forth. MacArthur taking the lordship salvation position, Ryrie taking the easy believism position. On pages 87 to 88 of his book, he makes statements like this. Quote, the lordship teaching apparently makes repentance and faith two distinct and necessary requirements for salvation. Then he will go on to argue, quote, repentance stands for faith. And that repentance is, quote, a synonym for faith, unquote. So there you have it, in their own words. Oh, repentance, that really is faith. Now, why do I reject easy believism? I want to present to you three reasons this morning, three key reasons and problems with the easy believism then. The first problem is that easy believism, as we have seen, basically limits repentance only to the sin of unbelief. That's the only sin you have to change your mind about, is that you've not been trusting in Jesus, and now you need to start doing that. Nothing could be further from the Bible. I think the Bible is very good from the biblical truth in that regard. Look at Ezekiel chapter 18. And I think the Bible is very clear on this issue, that the Bible calls us not simply to repent of the sin of unbelief, It's much broader than that. Ezekiel 18, verse 30 and 31. Ezekiel 18, verse 30 and 31. We'll begin to look at more scriptures from the remainder of our time this morning. Here in Ezekiel 18, 30 through 31, the prophet says, Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, everyone according to his ways, saith the Lord God. Repent and turn yourselves from all your transgressions. So iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions whereby you have transgressed, and make you a new heart and a new spirit. For why will you die, O house of Israel? Now listen, these people were in trouble with God, facing the judgment of God. What is it that would bring forgiveness, pardon, and avert the judgment of God? Well, repentance. But what does it involve? Twice, twice he mentions the expression, all your transgressions. Not some, not one, all your transgressions. In verse 30, the latter part of verse 30, he says, repent and turn yourselves from all your transgressions. In the first part of verse 31, he says, cast away from you all your transgressions whereby you have transgressed. If you're going to repent, you've got to repent of them all. Furthermore, in the latter part of verse 31, is really what you need is a whole new heart and a whole new spirit. Repentance, therefore, is not simply a change in the object of faith. Well, I was trusting in this, now I'm going to trust in this. Repentance is a change of mind about your very identity. This is what I am. I'm depraved. I'm fallen. I'm broken. And I want a whole new heart and a whole new spirit. I need a whole new identity. That's what I changed my mind about in repentance, that I want a new heart. I want a new object for faith, but I want a new identity. So you see, repentance is all-encompassing. It is not limited to the one sin. Well, I'm going to repent of the fact that I had not been believing in Jesus. Likewise, look in the New Testament. There are a couple of New Testament texts. We could look at the book of Revelation, Revelation chapter 9. Revelation chapter 9, I think, is pretty clear. For here in this passage, we encounter unsaved people who are under the wrath and condemnation of God. And why is this so? And what would they need to do if they were to avert the condemnation of God? So in Revelation chapter 9 verses 20 through 21, as we find God judging people, this is in the future tribulation period. We're told, the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repented not of what? 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, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts. Now according to this passage, why are these people suffering the wrath and condemnation of God? Is it simply because they've been trusting in the wrong object? They've been trusting in the wrong thing. They should have been trusting in Jesus. Well, that's true as far as it goes. But is this the only reason that they are incurring the wrath of God? No. John makes it very clear. The reason they're suffering the wrath of God is because they love their sins and they won't relinquish them. They won't let go. It is not the soul and single sin of unbelief for which God is judging them. It is all of their sins. It is not only their idolatry, trusting in the wrong God in verse 20, it is their murder. Now, were they trusting in murder for salvation? The problem is, oh, you're trusting in the fact that you murdered somebody to save you. You need to be trusting in Jesus. Look, nobody thinks murdering somebody is going to set them right with God, right? The problem wasn't that they were trusting in murder versus God. The problem is just that they did murder and it was wrong. And they didn't want to give up their murders. Likewise, he talks about their sorceries and their fornication and their thefts. It is not the single sin of unbelieving that they needed to repent of. They need to repent of all of this stuff. Murder, theft, fornication, drugs. This is the stuff they need to be repenting of. And if they don't, And of course, they continue to suffer the wrath of God. I don't know what could be more clear here. Likewise, if you look over chapter 16 in Revelation and verse 11, we find a similar statement. Unsafe people facing the wrath and condemnation of God because they refuse to repent. But repent of what? Change their mind about what? Only a lack of faith in Jesus, or is it more broad than that? Revelation 16, 11 says that they blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores and repented not of what? Their unbelief? Their lack of faith? No, their deeds. Their deeds. This is what they didn't repent of. Time and again, the Bible talks about the necessity of repenting of deeds. Hebrews 6, 1 talks about repentance from dead works. Revelation chapter two, verse 21 through 22, God says, I gave her space to repent of her fornication, but she repented not. Behold, I will cast her into a bed and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds. And to face the judgment of God, unless you repent of your deeds, not of your lack of faith in Jesus, but of your deeds. Luke 5, 32, Jesus said, I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Note the contrast there in the words of Jesus is not between those who have believed and those who haven't believed. He didn't say, hey, I came not to call believers but unbelievers to repentance. If that were really the issue, if repentance really just defined those who have believed in Jesus versus those that haven't, then one would have expected them to word it that way. I came not to call believers but unbelievers. But that's not how he framed the statement. He said, I came not to call the righteous, but rather sinners. The issue is one of sin versus righteousness, not faith or the lack thereof. So what sinners need to change their mind about is their sin. Jeremiah 8, 6, he says, no man repented him of his wickedness, saying, what have I done? Time and again, the Bible says, no, you repent of your sins, plural. In no way, shape or fashion can you redefine repentance, therefore, in a very limited way of saying, well, it's really nothing but changing your mind and deciding to start believing in Jesus. Moving on quickly, there's a second problem with easy believism, and I believe that essentially it is that they confound the solution with the problem. And we saw Lordship Salvation confounds the effect with the cause. Easy believism confounds the solution with the problem. In this regard, when we talk about repentance, repentance basically is oriented around the problem. We've got a problem here that needs to be resolved, and I see this problem now, I recognize this problem, and I'm brokenhearted about the problem. What's the problem? Sin. I'm depraved. I violated God's Word. I stand under His judgment. So repentance is really oriented around recognizing the problem, and I'm broken about the problem. And I need a solution. Faith, on the other hand, is then oriented around the solution, whatever it would be. I'm going to put my trust and confidence in this particular solution to the problem of sin. And of course, we know what is the solution. It is the gospel. By his sacrificial death upon the cross and substitutionary atonement, Christ provides atonement for us, thus justifying us before God so that we can become reconciled to the Creator. By his resurrection from the dead, he provides us with new life, a new heart that is imparted to us at regeneration. So the gospel, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the solution to the problem. Now in this regard, there is obviously a quite logical sequence. First you identify the problem, then you seek for the solution. Who goes looking for a solution for a problem that doesn't exist? Obviously, you first realize I got a problem, then, only once you reckon with the fact that you have a problem, are you really interested in a solution. That's why sometimes it's been said when you do evangelism, you can't get somebody saved until you first get them lost, right? Some have said that, you know, you first preach law to the sinner, then you preach grace. You got to first show him his lostness before he sees the need of getting saved. Suppose, for example, that one learns that he has cancer and it's severe and he will soon die unless he gets some kind of treatment. Only once he really accepts that and accepts the fact, listen, you've got cancer, and you've got to do something about that. Now, this is beatable. You can beat this. But you've got to do something. You've got to take action, or you're not going to beat it. Only if you really accept that and take those words to heart, then are you ready to consider a solution. And only now that you've identified the problem of what's been making you so sick can you then look and say, OK, now it's just a matter of what solution am I going to entrust myself to? What solution do I trust? Will I trust chemo or radiation or maybe some kind of natural dietary changes? And so it is. I say then repentance focuses upon the problem and therefore logically comes first. Then faith focuses upon, well, what solution am I going to trust? Am I going to trust in atoning death of Christ? Or am I going to trust in some good deeds and some good works, hoping that'll kind of compensate for my sin? Or am I going to trust in the church, thinking maybe some church can save me from my sin? Or what am I going to trust? What's the solution? And that being the obvious case that there was a naturally logical sequence from problem to solution, it's not surprising that this sequence is followed in scripture. There are five times in the Bible, five passages in the Bible where the word, some form of the word faith or believing and repentance are both mentioned in the same verse. Five times I speak both of faith and repentance in all five cases. Repentance is always mentioned first, and then faith. Is this a coincidence? I don't think so. They're mentioned in that order intentionally because it is the logical order. Let me give you an example of these passages. Look at Mark 1, verse 15. Mark 1, verse 15. Mark 1, verse 15. Encounter the the ministry of Christ mark quickly gets us into his ministry He's finished his days of temptation in the wilderness And then he comes on the scene now is ready to announce himself publicly to the world as the Messiah So he goes forth with a bang proclaiming his message, and here's his message mark chapter 1 verse 15 as he was saying the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand repent ye and believe the gospel There you have it, a two-fold command of Christ, repent and believe. Repent comes first. Is that a coincidence? Now, the easy-believerism folks would have said, oh, those terms are interchangeable, so it doesn't really matter which order. You just easily switch it around. But of course, I observe that they never do get switched. Always the sequence. Likewise, look at Acts chapter 19 and verse 4. Acts chapter 19 and verse 4. Now this passage in Acts 19 is going to reference the ministry of John the Baptist, looking back and reflecting on what John the Baptist was doing when he was baptizing people. When people got baptized, what were they saying? What were they affirming? What were they thinking? What was the significance of being baptized by John the Baptist, essentially? So here's the explanation from the Apostle Paul about the ministry of John the Baptist. Acts 19, verse 4. Then said Paul, John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus. If baptized, this is your public testimony to the fact that you've repented. And now having repented then, when the Messiah comes on the scene that's been identified, we don't know who he is. He doesn't yet have a face or name yet. But when he comes, you're going to believe on him. Essentially, what was John the Baptist saying? Repent now, believe later. Right? You don't know who to believe in yet, right? Of necessity, In this passage, faith is not repentance because it comes later, subsequent to the repentance. You cannot say the terms are synonymous. Look at Matthew chapter 21, verse 32. Matthew chapter 21, verse 32. Again, gives us the appropriate sequence. Now, it certainly does make a tie between the two. They go together like hand and glove. Like I said last week, hand and glove, they go together, but the hand is not the glove. Repentance. If somebody truly repents, he will believe in Jesus. He will do that. But again, there is a logical sequence that Christ then presents us with. In Matthew 21, verse 32, speaking about the Jewish leaders who rejected him, they refused to repent. He says, for John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and you believed him not. But the publicans and the harlots believed him. And ye, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward that ye might believe him. He said he refused to believe in his ministry. And even when you saw the tremendous change in the hearts and lives of these sinners through his ministry, you didn't even rethink it afterwards. Even afterwards, you didn't repent and then believe. Repenting, yes, would have issued in their believing. But notice how Christ, again, puts the repentance first. Repenting would have issued in believing. And the reason you didn't believe is because you didn't repent. In a similar way, Hebrews 6, 1 speaks first of repentance and then faith. But for the sake of time, let me move your attention on to the fifth passage where these two terms occur. Acts chapter 20, verse 21. Acts 20, verse 21. Acts chapter 20, verse 21. The passage again we're going to read is the Apostle Paul describing his own ministry, how he ministered, essentially what message he preached and proclaimed and where. So here it is, Acts 20, verse 21. Paul speaking says that he was testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks. Repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. There you have it again. Repentance first, then faith. So those are your passages. Mark 1, 15. Acts 19, 4. Matthew 21, 32. Hebrews 6, 1. Acts 20, 21. Always repentance is first. I'm a little incredulous if you're going to tell me the two terms are interchangeable and entirely synonymous. Clearly they are not. There is, yes, a link between the two, one issues and the other, but there is clearly a sequence. And this first we just read here at Acts 20, 21, introduces to us another related issue then. For when we confound the problem and the solution, this further then lead us to confounding the distinction between God the Father and God the Son. Well, why? In verse 21, again, what did Paul preach? Notice his wording. Both to Jews and Greeks, I testify, repentance toward God. Repentance is God-oriented. As you know, in the Bible, when it references God, without any other further clarifiers, qualifications, that's expression for God the Father. So repentance is ornate toward God the Father. That indeed is the biblical teaching. When you sin, you're in trouble with God, and you know it. You know your sin is an affront to this holy God. But you want to be right with Him. You want to be reconciled to Him. And if you're not, you know you stand under His wrath and condemnation. As Paul said in Acts chapter 17, verse 30 through 31, God commandeth all men everywhere to repent. because he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness." So you know you're in trouble with God if you're a sinner and you're under conviction. You know that you need to repent, but the repentance is God-oriented because the sinner is saying, I know I have sinned against God, meaning God the Father. But whereas repentance is oriented toward God, what is the orientation of faith? What does he tell us in the latter part of verse 21? Faith, however, he says, is directed toward what? Toward the Lord Jesus Christ, God the Son. And of course, that makes sense, because faith is oriented toward the solution. What's the solution? It's the gospel, the atoning death of Christ upon the cross. Now let's be perfectly clear about this. God the Father did not die on the cross for your sins. We all know that. Each member of the Godhead of the Trinity had the role in the plan of salvation. God is the one who planned it and commissioned it. The Son is the one who actually went into the world, was incarnated and died on the cross. The Holy Spirit is the one who takes the benefits of what Christ did and He applies in our hearts and life. Each has an appropriate role. It was not the role of God the Father to die on the cross. He did not become incarnated. He did not die on the cross. It most assuredly was God the Son who died on the cross. And it is God the Son's atoning death and sacrifice and resurrection in which we place our faith in order to be saved. So your faith is directed specifically toward God the Son. Now, you cannot confound the two. You can't confound the Father and the Son. If you did, it would be a total denial of orthodoxy, of the doctrine of the Trinity. If you tried to argue that God the Father died on the cross for your sins, you'd be a heretic. And this distinction between the appropriate role of the Father and Son is consistently maintained throughout scripture. Passages such as 1 Timothy 2.5 tells us that there is one mediator between God and men. the man, Christ Jesus. See, we are seen in there in that passage as at odds with God, meaning, of course, the Father. We need a solution. What affects reconciliation between the sinner and the Father is the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. So we must maintain the distinctions of the persons. Now, a point of clarification here. I'm not saying that we should never place faith in God the Father. We can believe God about various things. For example, we can put our faith and our confidence in God's promise to save all who will trust in Jesus. Doesn't God give us his word that if you'll trust in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus, if you'll put your faith in that, then I'll save you and you'll be reconciled to me. So obviously, we can put our faith and our confidence in the promises of God the Father that are given to us in his word. But I'm saying specifically in the context of salvation, what we're trusting is the solution. Jesus Christ is the solution. He's the one that died. And the necessity, therefore, saving faith is oriented toward Jesus. Look, you cannot, therefore, confound repentance and faith. If repentance is oriented toward God and faith is oriented toward Jesus, well, the Father and Jesus are two separate and distinct persons. Ergo, repentance and faith must be two separate and distinct things. But we must move on quickly then to a final and third problem that I have with easy believism. And it basically is this. It really is offering to sinners sin without consequences. It basically conveys to the sinner this kind of mentality that, wait a minute, you're telling me that I can just trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of my sins? So, like the bumper sticker, I've seen them in cars over the years, says, so the only difference between a Christian and a non-Christian is I'm just forgiven. So, that's it? I can just trust Jesus for forgiveness of sins? All I have to do is believe that He died on the cross for my sins? Well, great, sign me up. then I can have sin without consequences. Because if I don't have to be broken and contrite over my sin, much less do I have to in any way or sense reject and repudiate that sin, all I have to do is accept the prophet forgiveness. Meanwhile, I can keep on sinning and just know that I'm forgiven for all these sins that I'm doing. then I can very much continue to downright love my sin. I can enjoy my sin. All with the assurance that, but of course, I won't die and go to hell because of it. Boy, that's the best of both worlds. I can sin it up and then die and go to heaven. Boy, that's good news, says a sinner who loves his sin. And folks, this is most decidedly what easy believism teaches. That you can still love your sin. You can cling to it in your heart. You cannot want to be fixed. You say, I'm pretty much fine as I am. I'm not broken. I'm not depraved. Wherever I am, I'm okay with it. I'm comfortable with who I am. I just don't want to go to hell because of it. Maybe God's not comfortable. Well, okay, then I don't want Him sending me to hell. But I'm pretty comfortable with it. So if all I've got to do is trust in Jesus and then He won't send me to hell, sign me up! Now this is a monstrous perversion of the gospel, because let us be perfectly clear, Jesus did not come merely to save us from the consequences of our sin. He did not come just to save you from hell. He did not. He came to save you from sin itself. Not from the consequences of sin, but from the sin itself. Salvation is about being delivered from bondage to sin. And the sinner cries out, I just want to be free. And that's why we observed last week that the moment one is born again, that's not the end of the matter. It's just the beginning. The beginning of a whole process that starts with justification and regeneration, but moves immediately and inevitably into sanctification, which will be a lifelong process of growth and increasing victory over the power of sin in one's life, followed ultimately by glorification, wherein we are delivered entirely from any taint of that old fallen nature. This is what Jesus came to do. He came to save us from the sin itself. As Paul says in Philippians 1.6, He who has begun a good work in you will complete it. And there's a whole process of delivering you from the sin. Not just from hell. From the sin itself. From the taint and the depravity and the fallenness and the brokenness. So when in repentance the sinner says, yes, I want to be free from sin. I don't want it to reign in my life anymore. Jesus says, okay, you got it. Be careful what you ask for before you get it. If that's what you want, if that's really what you want, if you want to be free from the sin and the bondage to sin and your brokenness and your fallenness, it's exactly what I'll do for you. I'll deliver you not only from the penalty, but also from the power and the presence of it, 100%. And Jesus doesn't deliver halfway. So in this regard, think of it. Why was Christ named Jesus? What is the very meaning of his name? Look at Matthew chapter one, verse 21. We remind you in the birth narrative of Christ why he was given the name of Jesus, and it anticipates the very purpose for which he came into this world. Matthew 1, verse 21, being, of course, how Mary had conceived miraculously, told, she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from hell. Oh, no, wait a minute. That's not what it says. From what? from their sins. He didn't come just to save you from hell. He came to save you from your sins. You have to repent of your sin. That's what you got to want to be saved from. And that's what he's going to save you from if you want it. And one final passage this morning, Titus chapter 2, Titus chapter 2, verses 11 through 12. So many more we could look at in this regard. But again, understanding what salvation is all about helps us understand then why we repent and what repentance is. Titus chapter 2, verses 11 through 12, Titus 2, verses 11 through 12. The Apostle Paul says here that the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts. We should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. Now, he talks here about the grace of God and how it instructs and teaches us something. Now, not God's grace in general, not some kind of generic grace, but the grace of salvation in particular, saving grace. Now, what does saving grace teach us? Sin without consequences? Good news, sin and fear not. No. Saving grace teaches us to deny sin. Saving grace teaches us to repudiate ungodliness and worldly lusts and instead to embrace in their place godliness and righteousness. This is what saving grace teaches. So as Paul says in Romans 6.1, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. And Romans 6.15, this follow-up question, shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? God forbid! But why can't I continue to sin? I mean, after all, if I never rejected it, if God's grace didn't demand that I repudiate it, because that was not a precondition to being saved. So, if I never rejected it, if I never repudiated it, if I never lost my love affair with my sin, why can't I continue in it? Of course, we know the answer is I can't continue in sin because that's not what God's saving grace taught me. Rather, God's saving grace taught me to repudiate it and let it go. God's grace taught me to let Him nail it to the cross. not to keep on loving it. In the fourth verse of Jude's epistle, he warns about those who would turn the grace of God into lasciviousness, a license to sin without consequences. Unfortunately, that is precisely what easy believism does. And so there you have the three reasons. I believe it limits repentance solely to the sin of unbelief. Not so. It confounds the solution in the problem. and it offers sin without consequences. So here we have these two extreme misrepresentations of biblical repentance. Lordship salvation on one hand, easy believism on the other. They are polar opposites of the two. I find that my sympathies are much closer to the lordship salvation position. I share their concerns about the shallow evangelism of the easy-believism crowd that says, you just have to believe in Jesus, and then you can have sin without consequence. But you don't have to stop loving your sin. Much closer to the lordship salvation position. But at the end of the day, at the end of the day, I must also reject the lordship salvation position, because I believe they go a step too far. Many lordship salvation advocates lack clarity and precision of definition. So that although they would insist, although our brothers would insist that they believe in the concept of justification by faith alone, what the unsaved hears when they call them, you know, them to put their faith in Jesus as Lord and Savior, what they are hearing is a works-based salvation. Whether or not that's their intent, this is how the unsaved person is going to hear it. And so instead, let us recognize, as is so often the case, that actually the truth rests somewhere in between the two extremes. Let's find a place of balance where we can appreciate, on the one hand, easy believism's concerns about conveying a works-based salvation. And here, their call to faith in Christ, faith alone. while at the same time appreciating Lordship salvation's call to repentance from sin and a gospel invitation that is to a deliverance from sin and not merely from its consequences. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for the opportunity we've had to reflect on the scriptures this morning and the biblical teaching on repentance. Help us have clarity in our own minds and clarity of presentation of the gospel as we call sinners to repentance and faith in Christ as a solution to the problem of their sin before God. And this we ask in Christ's name. Amen.