Hello, this is Robert Rowland. I'm the teacher for the Family Integrated Bible Study, Sunday mornings at 945 a.m. at First Baptist Church Las Colinas in Irving, Texas. We're currently studying the 49 Commands of Christ, and this is the second lesson in that series. The first lesson was an introductory lesson, so this is actually the first command, which is from Matthew 4.17, where Jesus said, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. You know, sooner or later we all need to ask forgiveness of somebody or something, of someone that's significant to us. My children have had to come at various times in their lives and repent of something that they did and ask my forgiveness so that they could have a right relationship with me again. My Heavenly Father and I have the same relationship because I mess up and I do things that I shouldn't do. And when I do, I'm thankful that my Heavenly Father, as it says in the book of Joel, is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. I think it's a great job description for any dad, and I would encourage you if you're a dad, Or even, for that matter, if you're a mom, this is a wonderful job description of what it means to be a parent. We should be gracious, to be kind, to be tender toward those around us and our family. Dad, you should be compassionate to your wife and your children. You should listen to their hearts before you make a judgment. The Bible even says that he that answers the matter before he hears it, it's a folly and shame unto him. And yet a lot of times as the husband and father in my house, I'm rendering judgment before I've even heard the heart of my family members. I need to be more compassionate. I need to be slow to anger, and yet when I feel like anybody's trouncing on the authority that God's given me and my family, I sometimes want to react with anger. I need to be abounding in love, not in judgment. And so I think this is a great job description for any parent. We should be gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, and abounding in love. The Heavenly Father, of course, does this perfectly. And I think it's significant that this Father, who is so willing to forgive us of our sins, tells us that when we come to Him to restore that relationship, we should rend our heart and not our garments. Back in Joel's day and prior to that time, and even during the days of Christ, when someone would mourn in repentance or they'd be sorrowful over something, they would often take their coarse garment and they would rip it. showing that they were having a time of repentance. And you know, if you did that out of a true expression of sorrow and as an act of humility to God, that was a fine thing to do. But it kind of became something to do ceremonially, to show your piety and to show off things. I remember the high priest in the New Testament, when he heard Jesus claim to be God, or didn't deny that he was God, certainly, He rent his garments. He tore them in two. But the thing is, sometimes we go through the motions. If you just tear your garments and say, hey, look at me, I'm repenting. You're just going through the motions. And I think there's been times in my life when I have gone through the motions of repentance and I have prayed and asked God to forgive me for the same sin that I did before. And I've come back over and over and over again to him for that same sin. without ever gaining victory over it. And it's because I was going through the motions. I didn't rent my heart. I rent my garments. Now, what exactly is repentance? Well, it's a change in our mind, our emotions, and our will, the three areas of our soul. And all these are illustrated very well in Psalm 51 where David repents of his sins of murder and adultery. that he committed in the incident that is recorded for us about Bathsheba and having her husband Uriah put to death and trying to hide his sins. He first of all changed his mind about his sins. When he first was walking along the top of his palace and looked down and saw Bathsheba and he lusted after her, his mind was busy thinking about what a fun thing it would be to give in to his temptation or how pleasurable that thing might be. But when you read Psalm 51, his mind has changed about his sin. He says, Against thee and thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. He says, I've sinned and the evil is against you. It wasn't just cheating Uriah out of a wife. It wasn't just doing something to violate Bathsheba. All sin is a sin against God. So it changed his mind. Changed his emotions. I'm sure he was just a little bit giddy. Bathsheba first came into the palace and yet he's far from that in Psalm 51 when he says my sin is ever before me. He says I wake up in the morning my sins there I go to bed at night my sins there I can't think anything but about my sin the reality is it's just not fun you know the old saying is that that sin will keep you longer than you want to stay and cost you more than you want to pay. And that's exactly what David experienced. So he changed his emotions. You also have to change your direction. A man once asked a small girl who had tried to share her faith in Jesus Christ with him, Somewhat unsuccessfully he says well you still go to the same school. Don't you and she said yes? He said well you still wear the same clothes. Don't you she said yes? He says do you still live in that same house over on the other block and she said yes? He says well Jesus hadn't made a difference in your life has he and the girl thought for a moment She says well mister. I guess it's like this I used to run towards in but now I run away from it so we need to have a change of direction and And that's very often what's wrong with us. I recently saw a movie made by a church called Fireproof. In my mind, it's probably the best movie I've ever seen. And Kirk Cameron plays the part of a fireman who is estranged from his wife. And one of the things that has damaged their relationship is his looking at internet pornography. And it's dealt with very tastefully in the movie. There's nothing untoward that is seen in the movie. So you can be safe taking your family to see it or when it comes out on DVD renting it to watch. And I highly recommend the movie, especially for anyone you know that's having marital problems. Just today I read a letter from a couple that had actually filed for divorce. The woman had filed for divorce. The man thought there was no hope, but one of his friends said, call your wife, take her to see Fireproof. And they called the lawyer on Monday and canceled the divorce proceedings and they were getting help. It's just a powerful movie. But at one point, Kirk Cameron's character takes the computer that he's been looking at internet pornography with, and he takes it out and he beats it with a baseball bat. And because he knew that it was providing for the lust of his flesh, and he didn't want it around anymore, he made a decision to walk away from that temptation in his future. So repentance involves a chain in our mind, our will, and our emotions. Now let's look at two lives, Esau and David. Esau, of course, was a descendant of Abraham, just as David was. Esau was the son of Isaac and Rebekah. He had a twin brother named Jacob. He was a hunter, gatherer kind of person. He was an outdoorsy kind of guy, a man of the field. King David, who was later king over Israel, was much the same kind of guy. He was not only a descendant of Abraham, but he had been a shepherd, and he had had to keep sheep, and out in the field he was once called on to kill a bear, another time he had to kill a lion, so he was a powerful man. They both satisfied a physical desire in a way that was not pleasing to the Lord. Esau had gone on a hunt one time, and he may have been gone two or three days, but when he came back, he thought he was starving to death. Have you ever heard somebody say that? I am starving to death. If I don't eat right now, I'm going to die. They're not really going to die. They're not that close to starvation. I doubt Esau was that close to starvation. If Jesus could fast for 40 days in the wilderness, and others have done similar things, then I think Esau probably could have lasted a while longer. But he smelled food. He was so starved. He says, I'm going to die. My birth night's no good to me. I'll sell it to you. And his brother says, OK, well, promise me. And right there and then, Esau sold his birthright for a mess of lentil soup, the Bible says. Now, I like lentils and I like to eat a bowl of lentil soup a few times a year, but it's not something I'm going to hop in the car and drive to the nearest restaurant and say, I am starved for some lentil soup. Now, I'm going to go get something with more substance in it. But he sold his birthright for lentil soup and he gave up something that was important. And we'll talk more about what the birthright was in just a moment. David, in a similar way, he had a physical desire when he saw Bathsheba, and he met it in a wrong way by committing adultery, and then when he couldn't cover up his sin, he tried to make it look like Uriah had gotten his wife pregnant. When that didn't work, he tried to kill Uriah. Both of these men despised the commandment of the Lord. Esau despised, and we'll have a scripture for that in a moment, but he despised the commandment of the Lord in his life. David did also, because he ignored what God's Word said about the sanctity of marriage. Both of them gave up spiritual treasures for temporal pleasures. The Bible says that that which is seen is temporal, that is, it's temporary. That which is not seen is eternal. So spiritual treasures are eternal, and they both gave up some eternal treasures for temporal pleasures. David gave up, and so did Esau for that matter, the opportunity to raise a godly seed unto the Lord and have generations of godliness that followed. So anytime we sin, we're giving up spiritual treasures for temporal pleasures. Both of them wept over their sin. And yet, the amazing thing is, they both suffered lasting consequences. But the amazing thing is that the Bible is going to tell us in a minute that Esau never found repentance while David had his sins put away from him. Why? Well, Esau despised God's word as I said. In Genesis chapter 25, Esau says in verse 32, Behold, I am at the point to die. What profit is this birthright to me? And Jacob said, Swear to me this day. And he swore to him, and he sold his birthright unto Jacob. And Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils. And he did eat and drink and rose up and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright. So he despised something that was very important. the writer of Hebrews is saying, verse 16, lest there be any fornicator or profane person as Esau who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. It's kind of an interesting phrase there, one morsel of meat. It could just mean figuratively one small bowl of lentils or it could be that that one small bowl of lentils happened to have one chunk of goat's meat in it or something. But he says for that one morsel of meat or one meal he sold his birthright. Verse 17, for you know how that afterwards when he would have inherited the blessing He was rejected, for he found no place of repentance, so he sought it carefully with tears. By the way, that verse 17 that I just read is the key to understanding the passage. He says, afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, in other words, he wanted the double inheritance that came by having the birthright, he was rejected. What was it he really wanted? He wanted the double portion. See, when you had the birthright, you got twice as much inheritance as any of your siblings did. That was because the oldest son was not only to receive an inheritance, but he got a double portion and he was to use that extra portion of inheritance that he got to help take care of the rest of the family. So for example, if you had three kids, you would divide the inheritance up four ways and the oldest son got two portions of the inheritance and each of the other two children each got one portion of the inheritance. But the oldest child then was responsible to see that his other siblings had their needs met or that if their kids grew up and needed help, you know, getting braces or going to college or whatever, that oldest child was responsible to see to that. That was a responsibility and a privilege to have that birthright. He wanted that back. He wanted to undo the consequences of what he had done, but he never really had real repentance. He wasn't sorry about losing fellowship with God. He was only sorry about losing the blessings. This birthright always went to the firstborn son. Now the firstborn son himself always was supposed to belong to God. You give the firstborn calf to God. You give your firstborn fruit of any kind to God. The first fruits that came out of the field went to God. You give the first goat to God. You gave your first son to God. I did that with my oldest son. I gave him to God when he was a baby. And he's grown up to be a fine young man and has been preaching the gospel a number of years. And I believe he's going to grow into being just a superb young man. And one day, you know, the oldest son was considered to be the beginning of his father's strength and power. And he was given spiritual responsibility. One day, my oldest son will become the patriarch of my family when I am gone. That was a big deal. But Esau was determined just to do things his own way. And so that's what he did. Now David also despised God's word. Not any better than Esau in this regard. He committed adultery with Bathsheba. He tried to cover it up by first inviting Uriah home for a period of time so that everybody would think the child Bathsheba was going to have was his child. When that didn't work, he sent Uriah into the heat of the battle, had all his men fall back from him so that Uriah was basically murdered by the Ammonites who were the enemies of Israel. And then he goes a whole year with a wrong relationship to God. He doesn't repent. He's going to all the ceremonies and he's doing all of his parts in the ceremonies. He's going through the motions for a year until Nathan the prophet comes and tells him a story about sheep. Now there's a whole other interesting story we can't cover now about why Nathan uses a story about sheep to get David's attention. But when he does get David's attention, and David says, you know, tell me who that man is in this fictional story of Nathan's, and he says, you're the man. He says, you have taken, in 2 Samuel 12, 9, you've taken the wife of another man. You've done these things. And David repents, and he says, you're right, I've done those things. And I've done this evil in God's sight. Then in 2 Samuel 12 verse 13, the prophet tells David, God has put away your sins. Now, why did God put away David's sin, but he didn't put away Esau's? Why did Esau not find repentance when all he really did was give up a portion of his inheritance for Ebola's two, and yet David is forgiven when he had committed murder and adultery? Well, it's because David, When he was confronted with his sin, the thing he mourned the most was not the loss of blessings, but the loss of his fellowship with God. That's why he is called in the Old Testament a man after God's own heart, because he messed up just like we all do. But when he messed up, it grieved him that he had hurt the heart of his Heavenly Father, of his God. And he sought to restore that relationship. And the entire book of Psalms is based around one theme, and that theme is that God desires an intimate fellowship with us, and David wanted that fellowship just as God wants it in our lives. So real repentance then leads to deliverance. We have to have repentance in order to come into a relationship with God to begin with. In 2 Corinthians 7 it says, For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation, not to be repented of. But the sorrow of the world worketh death. And so, godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation, not to be repented of. What's that mean? That means that when we have true sorrow, the kind of sorrow that we're sorry that we have hurt the heart of God, we have broken the commandments of God, we have violated the holiness of a God who loves us and who is willing to give his Son to die for our sins. When we come to that sorrow, it leads us to salvation. And when it says salvation not to be repented of, it means salvation that you're going to hold on to. A lot of people think you can lose your salvation. They say, well, you know, you can blow it, and when you blow it, you lose your salvation. The problem is, is there's two verses that the people that believe that, I think, and must have never read in scripture. One of those verses is in Ecclesiastes chapter 3 and verse 14. And that verse just tells us very plainly that whatever God does, He does forever. So you should get your Bibles and open to Ecclesiastes 3.14 and read the words, underline them in your Bible. I know that whatsoever God doeth, it shall be forever. Nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it. And God doeth it that men should fear before Him. So what that means is that if salvation is a work of God and not a work of man, it's something God gives us, not something we earn, it says we can't add anything to it, nor can we take anything away from it. And I have friends that believe you can lose your salvation. They say, well, other people can't cause you to lose it, but you can cause yourself to lose it. Because I pointed out to one of my friends one time that in John 17 when Jesus prays his high priestly prayer He says, you know, they're in my father's hand and no man can pluck them out talking about his followers Well, if we're in God's hand, the only way we can ever leave God's hand is for a bigger hand More powerful hand than God's to come along and since there is no more greater power than the power of God We're in God's hand forever But then this friend said, well, other men can't pluck you out, but you can pluck yourself out. Well, if you read Ecclesiastes 3.14, it says, I know whatever God doeth, it shall be forever. Nothing shall be put to it, nor anything taken from it. And God doeth it that men should fear before him. So, the beautiful thing is that I am eternally secure in the fact that I am redeemed. But I also give proof of that redemption by the change in my life. Hebrews 10.14, one other verse on this subject, it says, For by one offering he, talking about Christ, perfected forever them that are sanctified. So we are perfected forever. I was made blameless before God forever when Jesus Christ came into my heart. So salvation comes as part of an act of repentance. Now David When he repented, he had a godly sorrow because he grieved over the lost fellowship of God. But Esau had the sorrow of the world. He just had a sorrow over his lost blessings. And that's the difference between David and Esau. So what are the steps of repentance? Well, there's five, really. We should recognize we're in the presence of a holy God. We need to change our minds about what we have done. We should grieve in our hearts over sin. We should walk away from the things that we have done. and we need to decide to act according to God's will. Let's look at each of those individually for just a moment. We first of all need to recognize we are in the presence of a holy God. This immediately brings to my mind Isaiah chapter 6 where Isaiah, in the year King Uzziah died, said he saw the Lord high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. And he said he saw the seraphim surrounding the throne of God. And the seraphim were these angelic beings whose name means burning ones. So if you've ever met somebody who claimed that they were a Christian, and yet they were icy cold in their deportment, they'll melt in front of the seraphim, I assure you. But with two wings, they had six wings, with two that covered their eyes, with two that covered their feet, because they were in the presence of a holy God. And even though these angels were sinless, they're in the presence of a God whose holiness transcends sinlessness. Holiness doesn't just mean you're without sin, it means you're set apart. And God is set apart from all of the created beings. And they shouted to one another, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory. And it caused the pillars of the temple to be shaken. And as a result of that, Isaiah in verse 5 of chapter 6 says, I am undone, for I am a man of unclean lips in the midst of a people of unclean lips. He says, you know, man, I need cleansing. And nobody had to tell him that. Just being in the presence of the Holy God, he knew that he was very sinful. By the way, one quick observation on that passage. Imagine for a minute, because verse 6 of Isaiah chapter 6, and I encourage you to get your Bible out and read this. It says that an angel took tongs and went to the altar where there were some hot coals and took one of the hot coals, a burning coal, off the altar and came and touched it to Isaiah's lips. And he says, you know, Isaiah, because this has touched your lips, you're made clean and you're purged from your sin and from your iniquity. Your lips are clean. And I got thinking about that one day. If you invited me over to your house and you went out back and you had decided to barbecue that day. And so you had gone and gotten some good chicken and sausage and beef ribs or whatever. And you went out back and you fired up the grill and instead of one of those fancy gas light things, you had a charcoal grill. And so you went down to the store and you bought a bag of Kingsford briquettes, the ones that you light the bag on. And you went in and you poured them all there and you lit the briquettes. And after about 20 minutes, these black chunks of charcoal turned kind of ashen gray and the ones that are really hard glow a hot red. And then meanwhile, because you're outside cooking dinner, I don't have anything else to do. I'm sitting down, I'm writing my memoirs, and you come in with a hot hole held in a pair of tongs and you touch it to my lips while I'm writing my memoirs. Now, after I had gotten back out of the hospital and out of the burn unit, and had all the debridement done, and then I had corrective surgeries to repair my lips. At that point I believed, quite seriously, that I would do something rather radical. I would get back in my book and I'd write about my whole horrific experience. But Isaiah doesn't do that. Isaiah nowhere actually records the pain. And the reason for that is because The angel touched a hot cold of his lips, but Isaiah didn't feel the pain. Why not? Because Jesus Christ took the pain for our sins when he hung on the cross at Calvary. That's the beauty of that story. It's in what's not there. Now, Saul of Tarsus, who later became known as the Apostle Paul in Acts chapter 9, when he was on his way to persecute Christians in Damascus and kill them and throw them in prison, he was knocked off his horse by a blinding light. And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the voice came back and said, It is Jesus whom thou persecutest. And his instant reaction was, after he'd been in the presence of the Holy God, is, What do you want me to do? You know, just tell me. I'll go do it. Whenever we see God's holiness, it causes us to see our own sinfulness. Secondly, we need to change our minds about who will control our lives. When we're doing iniquity, iniquity means doing things my own way, and iniquity is the opposite of righteousness. Righteousness is doing things God's way. We need to decide who's going to be in control of our lives and who's going to be boss. Everybody wants to be their own boss. A lot of people think that when Lucifer fell from heaven, which is recorded for us both in the book of Ezekiel and in the book of Isaiah, that he said, I'm going to be higher than God. No, he didn't say that because there wasn't anything higher than God. So what he says, if you read carefully those accounts in the Old Testament, he says, I will be like the Most High. When he tempted Adam and Eve, and a lot of people think the serpent just talked to Eve, but that's not what the Bible says. Eve was the principal person there. But then it says she did give to her husband to eat who was with her. So he heard everything that was going on in the garden. But he had told them, you will be like gods, knowing good and evil. Well, they wanted to be on an equal footing with God. That's the nature of rebellion. Rebellion is one in the same authority as one who's an authority over us. You have to change your mind when you repent of your sins about who's in charge of your life. Thirdly, we need to grieve in our hearts over sin. Our sins put Jesus Christ on the cross. Isaiah depicts this event for us when he says, He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him. He was despised, and we esteemed Him not. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we were healed. verses are talking about the fact that Jesus hung with a back that had been already beaten with a cat-o'-nine-tails so bad that he had no flesh on his lower back or abdomen. He was essentially a chunk of raw meat. And he was put on a rough wooden cross. He had spikes driven through his wrist and through his ankles. When they held him up, waves of pain eventually caused paralysis in his ribcage. And the only way that he could exhale the air that was in his lungs was to pull up on the nails that were in his wrist so that he could exhale his air and take in another breath. And he had the crown of thorns that had been beaten into his head. He had bits of his beard plucked from him the hard way. He had soldiers that had struck him with their fist and said, tell us who hit you. He was beaten so bad that the Bible says in the book of Isaiah, he had not the form of a man. In other words, it was hard to tell he was human while he was hanging on the cross. Now you'll never see that in a movie, because no movie would ever get a rating to show what it was really like. And we've had some graphic depictions of it in different movies about Christ, but none of them really tell the whole truth. You and I need to come to the place where we picture Christ hanging on the cross in our minds when we're asking God to forgive us of our sins. We need to see how our sins hurt the heart of God because He watched His own Son dying the most horrific of deaths in order to pay the price for our sins. Jesus should be on the throne of our life, but he's either on the throne or on the cross, figuratively speaking. In other words, we're either letting him be in charge or we're living in such a way that we're putting agony on the cross. I don't know if you've ever thought about this, but God is not bound by time. He doesn't know a past, present, and future. He is one eternal I am. He says his name is I am, not I was, but I am. It's kind of like if you were to get in a helicopter and you were to go up 50 feet over the street I live on, you could see further than I do, because I can see about two blocks down one way, and because there's a bad curve in the road, I can only see about a half a block the other direction. But if I got in a helicopter and went up 100 feet over the street, I could see further. If I went up 1,000 feet, I could see a lot further. If I went up 10,000 feet, I could see probably my whole county, and maybe neighboring counties as well. God is over time. He sees the past, present, and future all at one time. Jesus once told us to a group of people, he says, before Abraham was, I am. So he was saying that because he was God, he still existed to where he could see Abraham offering up Isaac or about to offer up Isaac on top of Mount Moriah. He said one time that Abraham was his friend because he told him all things. God told Abraham that he was going to offer up his own son on Mount Moriah on a hill called Calvary. He revealed that to Abraham and that's why Abraham was called a friend of God. Why? Because God could see what he was doing with his own son and related that story to Abraham. God sees past, present, and future. They're all the same to him. He's not bound by time. In fact, it is in the book of Revelation, in the last days, an angel is going to come down from heaven and it's going to say, there shall be time no more. We will eventually come into a state of being ourselves where we live in one great eternal now. There won't be a past, present, and future. There'll just be a great eternal now. That's the reality in which God lives. That means that every time I sin, my Heavenly Father can still see the suffering that Jesus experienced on the cross at Calvary. He still sees His Son suffering. Now, his son came into time to live as a temporal being, a human, in the time in history, when the fullness of time had come, and my father still sees his son suffering every time I commit those sins. We need to look at our sins as though we can see Christ hanging on the cross and grieving our hearts over the pain we bring him. We also need to walk away from our sins. You see, it's not enough to be sorry over sin. We've got to learn to hate it. Paul said, but put you on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof. I recently had the privilege of seeing the movie Fireproof. This movie is made by a church. They made two previous films, Flywheel and Facing the Giants, both of which were good films, but Fireproof is by far their best. And Fireproof is the story of a fireman who has been estranged from his wife. And part of the reason they've been estranged is he has been giving in to looking at internet pornography. Now it's dealt with very tastefully in the movie, so even young children are not going to really get a glimpse of anything that's inappropriate or improper but it's fascinating to me that in this story this fireman when God finally gets a hold of his life and he accepts Jesus Christ and he once again is struggling with this issue of internet pornography that he rips his computer out takes it outside and beats it with a baseball bat That was a great thing for him to do because the Bible tells us, make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof. If you really hate sin, like God hates sin, you won't just ask God to forgive you of it and then leave around the things that are causing you to do it. You don't leave your hookup to the internet if you're struggling with internet pornography. You don't leave the magazines around that cause you to lust. You don't leave the advertisements around about gambling establishments if you're given into gambling. You throw the stuff away. Finally, we need to take action directed by God. In Acts chapter 2, when Peter was preaching and told a group of people that Christ was delivered up by the terminant counsel and foreknowledge of God, and he says, you've taken him, and by wicked hands you've crucified and slain him, and they immediately wanted to know what they should do, and Peter tells them, you need to repent. You need to repent, and as evidence of your repentance, you need to be baptized. Now, they wanted to do whatever action God had for them. Now, who is it that really needs to repent and do these five things we've talked about? Acts 17.30 spells it out very plainly. It says, And the times of this ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent. And that, by the way, includes you ladies. That's a generic men there, not an actual deal just talking to men. But everybody needs to repent. Let me put it this way. Have you ever told a lie? I have. I guess if you tell one lie, that makes you a liar. So I'm a liar. Have I ever stolen something? I remember when I was in about the I believe it was the first grade. I went down to a convenience store with my mother one day. She went to buy milk and I saw some bubblegum and I took two or three pieces and stuck it in my pocket and walked out without paying for it. I made the mistake on the way home of pulling out one of those pieces of bubblegum and started chewing it and my mother grabbed me by the arm, took me back to the grocery store, made me apologize to the owner, made me pay for it and I thought, oh, I don't think I want to steal again. But if you've ever stolen one time, you're a thief. I have looked at women before and had inappropriate thoughts about them. These were women who were not my wife. And that's called adultery because Jesus says His standards of righteousness are so high that He says if you even look after a woman to lust after her, you've committed adultery already in your heart. Because God is so holy to Him, just lusting after somebody is adultery. By those standards, I am a lying, thieving adulterer, and I need to repent. I had to repent and ask Jesus Christ to become my Savior. But even now, as a Christian, I have a relationship with God, but I still mess up. I still do wrong things. And when I do, I need to repent. Well, you certainly have to repent to be saved, because Jesus said twice in Luke 13, once in verse 3 and once again in verse 5, except you repent, you shall all likewise perish. Two verses later, He says, except you repent, you shall all likewise perish. I remember one time hearing a sermon on tape played by a neighbor of mine, and the walls between our apartments were unusually thin. And this preacher was saying, you don't need to do anything to become a Christian except believe in Jesus. You don't have to repent. You don't have to do anything. I thought, that's not right. Because Jesus said, except you repent, you shall all likewise perish. You know, repentance is essential for salvation. A lot of people think that life's kind of like on an elevator, and if you're at the bottom, you're hell. If you're at the top and you're perfect, you go to heaven. But none of us feel like we're at the bottom, and all of us know we're not at the very top. But the problem is, is the buttons in between don't get us to heaven. But we think that as long as we're better than somebody else, or is our good a little better than somebody else's good, how much good is good enough? Jesus told a story to deal with this view of theology about a Pharisee who went in and was praying and looked up to heaven and told God how good he was and there was this guy in the back who was a kind of a publican or a tax collector who couldn't even look up to heaven and just said, God be merciful to me a sinner. And he asked the question, which one of these two went home justified? When he tells that story in Luke chapter 18, He says that the Pharisee got up and said, you know, I thank you, I'm not like other men. I'm not an extortioner. I'm not unjust. I haven't committed adultery. I'm not like that tax collector, publican guy in the back. I fast twice in a week. I give of tithes. This guy was a good dude. Now that's okay to be that good. You know, fact is, there was research done in a zoo where they decided to not feed the animals. twice a week because in the wild animals don't get to eat every day. They only get to eat on the days they can find stuff to eat or the days that they can kill. They discovered if they starve the animals two days a week like on Tuesdays and Fridays it wouldn't be two days back-to-back. The animals live twice as long. Fasting is good for your health. Isaiah 58 establishes that. So it would be a good thing for you to fast once or twice a week. It's a good thing to tithe and God blesses those who tithe. But the reality is he had all these things that he said, I'm so good at these things, and yet this other guy wouldn't even look up. He just kind of beat his chest and in sorrow said, God be merciful to me a sinner. And Jesus answers his own question. He says, I tell you, this man, that is the man who said, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. This man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For everyone that exalts himself shall be abased and he that humbles himself shall be exalted. You have to come to a place where you confess the fact that you're a sinner and you cry out to God for his forgiveness in order to receive salvation. But even after we're saved, and we're a believer, we've received Christ as our Savior, we're the children of God, it's still important that we keep a right accounting with God of our sins, and that we make sure that we don't cover up our sins. Proverbs 28, 13 says, He that covereth his sins shall not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy. Now there's several important things to notice about that verse. One, it says, He that covereth his sins, plural, In other words, a lot of times I've heard people pray, God forgive me of my sin. No, that's not a biblical prayer. We're to ask God to forgive us of our sins. That is, we should confess our individual violations of the holiness of God. We should confess our individual sins. We ought to stay on our knees until every wrong thing we've done that we can think of, that the Holy Spirit of God brings to our mind, that we have confessed those things. And if you don't do that, you won't prosper. And what does that mean? Not just in terms of your wallet, but in your family, in your health, in so many areas of your life. He says, but if you confess them and forsake them, and we need to understand what those words mean. To confess means to admit you're wrong. It's the picture of having something hidden under your suit jacket, but you open your suit jacket and you bring it out. It's taking out that which has been concealed. And to forsake means to depart from, to leave behind, to let alone, to abandon, neglect, to let loose. It means you let go of something, you put it on the ground and you turn and you walk away from it. That's so very important for us to do. How can you be more repentant? What can encourage us to have a repentant attitude? I would encourage you to read Psalm 51 every day for a week. It would be a wonderful thing if you could memorize it and meditate on it because this prayer will come back to you over and over again. David was so sorrowful over sins and he prayed, God restore unto me the joy of my salvation. He wanted that joy back. Learn to look at your sins the way God sees them. And quit comparing yourself to somebody else, thinking maybe you're a button higher on the elevator than they are. But instead, realize that all sin is serious to God. All sin keeps you from going to heaven unless you're a child of God. All sin hurts the heart of God because He still sees His Son hanging on the cross. All sin is a serious matter to Him. give no excuses for sin. Very often we want to justify. I remember going to a doctor one time who told me to do something that I knew was wrong and he says, now don't think of this as some sin, that's ancient archaic thinking. No, it was the thinking that it was a sin, so it was a right thinking. But we often develop excuses for things. In Exodus 20, we're told that we're not to bear false witness against others. But sometimes we think, well, it was just a little white lie. No, it was a violation of one of the Big Ten Commandments. And Jesus said in John 8.44 that those who lie are from the father of lies, from Satan. They're under the influence and power of Satan. How serious a deal is just telling a lie to God? Revelation 21.8 says, but the fearful and unbelieving, the abominable, the murderers and whoremongers and sorcerers and idolaters, and by the way, we would all agree that murderers, whoremongers, sorcerers, and idolaters all sound pretty bad to us. And all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." And that, by the way, doesn't mean that if you've ever committed adultery or murder one time that you're going to spend eternity in the lake of fire. You can escape that lake of fire through forgiveness by inviting Jesus Christ to be the Lord and Savior of your life. But those who continue to live in a lifestyle of those sins, including lying, in other words, they're habitual liars, they live in that kind of thing, give proof or evidence to the fact that they've never truly been born again. And those people are going to burn in the lake of fire, which is where they spend eternity. So, what is the evidence of repentance? How do you know that somebody has actually repented? Because Jesus said in Matthew 3, bring forth therefore fruits made for repentance. So in other words, your repentance ought to show. In the book of Jonah, there's a story. Of course, Jonah was an uncooperative prophet. who didn't want to go tell the evil people in Nineveh that he despised, that they needed to repent. And so he went on a rather interesting maritime trip from ship to the belly of a great sea creature and finally spit up on the land. finally goes and he preaches in the city of Nineveh who interestingly enough happen to worship a fish god and so when this guy came out of the belly of what they consider to be a giant fish or a whale they really listened to him they really paid attention to him and they repented the entire city of people put on sackcloth and they sat in ashes and they prayed for God to repent. They prayed prayers of repentance to God and asked God not to destroy them. They even made their animals fast and they didn't feed their animals because they were praying. They didn't feed their kids because they were praying. In other words, they really showed a change of heart and it was seen on the outside. When you repent, people should be able to see a difference in your life. And if they don't see a difference, and if you haven't forsaken sin and turned away from it, then you haven't really repented. I want to close with this quote from President Ronald Reagan. And this video you're about to see will not be in the downloadable files because we've paid only to show it in our church and on our website. So you can look at it there, but if you decide to download these PowerPoint files and use them for your own, you won't have access to this file. I think it's significant that Ronald Reagan seemed to understand that there was something important about the promise made in 2 Chronicles 7 where God says, if my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and turn from their wicked way, then God promises that he'll hear from heaven. He will heal our land. And that's what we need. And I just want you to listen to these words of the President of the United States.