Dear people, as we turn to the Word of God and preaching the Word this morning, I'm going to go back to our study in the Confession of Faith. And again, if you don't have your copy of the Confession of Faith, like I didn't bring mine, you can turn to 677, I believe it is, in the back of the Hemlo. And here, we are going on to a new chapter now. And as we come to that chapter. I want us to understand what the Lord is saying to us and what he did with those reformers and bring in a confession before us. And so as we look at it, we're looking at chapter 15. This morning we're going to begin. And it is the biblical work of salvation in the heart of the men is what I'm actually scoring these studies as the title of it. But in chapter 15 is it. It is of repentance unto life and salvation. We must take notice of the place of this very chapter in connection with the chapters that we have gone before and why I chose these. Remember, we started with chapter 10, which is of effectual calling. And then chapter 11 of justification, chapter 12 of adoption. and chapter 13 of sanctification, chapter 14 of saving faith. Now this 15th chapter, we have here now, there's a spiritual response for those who are affectionately called to God by salvation. And what this chapter does now, it focuses upon what now the sinner, or I should say the elect person who's brought to Christ, what he or she lives and how he or she is doing. It is all on that focus of repentance. Something now takes place in the believer. Before, what we're looking at, we saw all that what God was doing by his grace upon us. But now, in chapter 15, we see what God does and bring out of us that true, heartfelt worship to him. Now, I'm going to read chapter 15, the entire chapter, and then I'm going to make some comments, quick comments. Chapter 15, it starts off in paragraph 1. Such of the elect as are converted at riper years, having sometimes lived in the state of nature, and therefore serve diverse lusts and pleasure, God in their effectual calling giveth them repentance unto life. Whereas there is none that doth good and sinneth not, and the best of man may, through the power of deceitfulness of their corruption dwelling in them, with the prevalence of temptation fall into greater sins and provocations, God hath in the covenant of grace mercifully provided that believers so sinning and falling be renewed through repentance unto salvation. This saving repentance is an evangelical grace whereby a person, being by the Holy Spirit, made sensible of the manifold evils of his sin, doth, by faith in Christ, humble himself for it with godly sorrow, detestation of it, and self-abhorrence, praying for pardon and strength for grace, with purpose and endeavoring, by supplies of the Spirit, to walk before God into all well-pleasing in all things. As repentance is to be continued throughout the whole course of our lives upon the account of the body of death and the motions thereof, so it is every man's duty to repent of his particular known sins particularly. Such is the provision which God hath made through Christ in the covenant of grace for the preservation of believers unto salvation, that although there is no sin so small, but it deserves damnation, yet there is no sin so great that it shall bring damnation on them that repent, which makes the covenant, the constant preaching, excuse me, of repentance necessary. Now, you see this here. Now, what I'm going to do is going to do something different here. As I looked at this chapter and going over it over and over again, I didn't like the way it set out. And I could try to change it here. But as I come to preach this, I believe we see more. I'm going to start it differently. I'm not going to start with paragraph one here. I'm going to go down to paragraph 3. And the reason why, and if you look at it, it says in chapter 15, of repentance unto life and salvation. Now, paragraph 3, it starts, this saving repentance is an evangelical grace. I want to start there because I believe that helps us to see and understand what repentance is doing. Now, the first two paragraphs have some of the The study of this chapter itself says, first what God is doing, he's putting up here, or I should say the confessant is doing it, they're putting up here those areas of sin and then they go to how it's dealt with. I want to deal with the fact of the true saving repentance which comes to those and how we live through it, and then look at those later on. So I'm kind of turning it around, but I'll tell you right now, the only thing we're going to do, I'm going to begin with chapter, excuse me, paragraph three. Now, paragraph three says this. This saving repentance is an evangelical grace whereby a person, being by the Holy Spirit made sensible of his manifold evils of sin, doth by faith in Christ humble himself for it with godly sorrows, detestation of it, and self-abhorrence, praying for pardon and strength of grace, with a purpose of endeavoring by supplies of the Spirit to walk before God unto all well-pleasing things." Now here, as we look at this, we find, first of all, that we see what the nature of repentance is. Remember, God is showing us, or I should say, our Reformers are showing us what repentance is. We want to understand what it is, and this is what the reason for it. But it is put in line with now those that repentance unto life and salvation is saying is going, this is what God does. The writers of the confession is putting these things down for us. It starts off with the phrase, this saving repentance. And that's why I believe this is a better place to start. I won't try to change up the confession itself, but this is a better place. The writers of the confession make it very important, very important notation to repentance here. It is called this saving repentance. Remember, we just came out of the the very chapter of salvation. So now, this is one reason why I want this saving repentance. It's called saving because of what it is attached to, the work of salvation, meaning that it is joined to faith and salvation. In chapter 14 of Saving Faith, paragraph 1, The work of faith is described in the following way, the grace of faith, whereby the elect are enabled to believe to the saving of their souls. Now in chapter 15, we see that repentance is the part of the saving work of the spirit of Christ, which is described as saving repentance. So you see why I want to connect it to even our last chapter. What we look at here, it says also, this saving repentance is an evangelical grace. This is stating that repentance is a grace connected with the gospel and the power of God. It comes through in repentance. Repentance is God's work, and what God's doing, he does it, it's an act of grace, and God himself is working through it. Job 42. Verses five and six, he said, I have heard of you by the hearing of the year, but now my eyes see you. Therefore, I retract and I repent in dust and ashes. Job is saying that the good news of God and his grace was the gospel that he embraced him and it changed his whole life. Job, if you read the book, you know, he knew God. God knew Job, and God was bragging on Job, even when the devil came before him. But God now was beginning to work on Job, and God showed Job more in his heart of who God was. And that's why he said, I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eyes see you. And Job, when he's saying that, not that he looked upon God and he saw him, but in his soul, now he has been given that vision of God and who he is and his almighty self. Therefore, Job says, I retract and I repent and dust and ashes. Job is knowing now that it is God is the one who's done all things, but he have a fresh vision of who God is. When the apostles were arrested in Acts chapter 5, and then let out by the angel of the Lord, they were brought before the council once again, and they said in Acts chapter 5 verses 30 and 31, The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you had put to death by hanging him on the cross. He is the one whom God exalted to his right hand as a prince and a savior. to grant repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. Here, Peter and the apostles were saying that God's gospel has come into the world by the one you put to death on the cross. And he lives and our lives are being changed by the grace of repentance because it is what God now himself gives to you. And as we move to the subject of this paragraph, we will find that it is focused upon repentance in the life of the Christian. Now, remember, as we look through these, we saw, first of all, it is God's elect that we look at, and it's God's elect who he's working with. Now, as we come, my next section will be, there are three elements of repentance that we see in this very section here. Louis Burkoff describes these three elements of repentance in his systematic theology, and this paragraph consists of these three elements. First element we have, repentance is an intellectual element. This element focuses on the mind. What is believed as seen in the following phrase, notice what it says, this repentance, and it says, whereby a person being by the Holy Spirit made sensible of the manifold evils of his sin. This is when the person began to recognize his personal guilt, sinfulness, and helpless state before God. Peter was preaching Christ in Acts chapter two, verse 36. Therefore, let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him, meaning Jesus, both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucify. Then he said in verse 37, now, When they heard this, they were pierced to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, Brethren, what shall we do? They were moved. You know the verse, you have to bear passage yourself. They were moved. They're crying out. How are we going to get past this? If this is the case and we have with our hands even okayed the killing of the Christ, what shall we do? Peter said in verse 38, Repent. And each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." You see, repentance here, he's saying, this is what you have to do. You must turn from what you were thinking before and turn to something else entirely. Peter was saying that there must be a change in their thinking about Jesus Christ and realize that he was God's Savior sent into the world. This first element of of repentance to sinners is thinking about a change, seeing who they are, how they perceive things, even religious things at that time. It is very clear that a sinner will not have a true sense of his lost state until the Holy Spirit brings the reality of his sins to bear on him. And see, dear people, this whole idea that you can decide, a person can decide to come to Christ when he wants to, that is not in the Bible. Matter of fact, the Bible teaches us clearly you can't do nothing until God works first. And so this first element, as one of the old divines say, is an emotional element. And five, in Psalm 51 and two, notice what the psalmist say, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. Verse four, against you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight. Verse five, behold I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin my mother conceived me. Like David, When the sinner understands his lost condition, he pleads to God for mercy and grace. He doesn't say, as some say, I'm going to pick myself up by my bootstraps. I'm going to be a different person. I'm going to live better. If he truly is struck in his heart by this, he knows that something must take place. And it is that he see and understand this is the very thing he must do. But the Bible goes on, and we find in Psalm 130 in verse 4, but there is forgiveness with you that you may be feared. This is what the psalmist can say concerning God. There is forgiveness in you. Lord, you look and you see. You know what we are. You know our sins and how we live. But there is forgiveness with you. that you may be feared, that is reverenced, that you may be looked at as a God and a one that should be served you and you only. Again, Acts 2.38, remember what he said, Peter said to them, repent, and each one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Dear people, we come into the world sinners, We have sins. We may not all sin on the same level and commit the same sins, but we all are sinners and disconnected from God. Man is dead in his sins, and he will not come to this humble state and godly sorrow without the work of the Holy Spirit. Man is too in love with himself and wedded to his sins to turn from his lifestyle and turn to God on his own. There will be no hatred of sin or seeking of parting unless God breaks his stony heart. And you and I ought to be able to say, we know this because this is what has happened to us. This is what you and I have done. Now, this first element, we see that it is something that God brings to the mind. He began to see and understand something is wrong. In this second element, sinner is made to see that he is lost and he pleads for God's pardon and grace. It is called, I think I pulled the page down two in one. Yeah, I did, okay. Now, the second element. There's some of this I want to get back to you. Since I had two pages pulled together, it messed it up, and I wanted to hear you go back. Now, in this first element, the sinner is thinking, the sinner's thinking is change. It is very clear that a sinner will not have a true sense of his lost state until the Holy Spirit brings the reality of his sins to bear upon him. Man in his dead sinful state cannot and will not understand the wickedness of his sins. Oh yes, when we did wrong things as we were living, we felt sorry about it, and in some cases we even promised ourselves we'll never do it again. But that didn't change anything. The Holy Spirit must show sinners the true depth of their sins. Now the second element that we are given by the divines is an emotional element. See, we have that, first of all, there is what comes to the mind, but now there's an emotional element. And the confession goes on. And as we read it, and you look, this saving repentance is an evangelical grace, whereby a person, being by the Holy Spirit, made sensible of his manifold evils and his sins, and doth, by faith in Christ, humble himself for it with godly sorrow, detestation of it, and self-abhorrency, praying for pardon and strength of grace. It is not until there is a real understanding, dear people, of sin that the sinner will be moved in his emotions. If Peter the First here came to the mind and what he saw and understood, but now the emotions have to be moved. This understanding comes by faith in Jesus Christ alone. There is a true inward sorrow for the wicked life that the sinner lives, which produces godly sorrow and pleading for forgiveness of all sins with a longing for grace to live to the glory of God. Yeah, and David says in Psalm 51, verse two, wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sins. In verse four, against you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight. Verse five, behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me. Like David, the sinner understands his lost condition. He pleads to God for mercy. You see, this is now in the emotions. It's not in the mind where we see and understand a particular thing. Now it's in the heart. God comes in and with this repentance, and he comes, and he comes into our hearts and our emotions to show us who we are and what we have done. This is where I should have read Psalm 130 and 4. But there is forgiveness with you, that you may be feared. And then Peter's word in Acts 2, 38. Repent, each one of you, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Man, dead in sins, will not come to his humble state godly. This second element is the sinner is made to see that he is lost and he pleads for God's pardoning grace. He can't take it. He knows there's nothing he can do. So there is. He looks, you come to him. So this repentance tells him now you must go to God and cry. Cry out to him. But they give us a third element. And this paragraph is broken up into these elements. I broke them up into the elements. The third element, and he called it a volition element. It is something that is done inside us. And here's what it says if you look back at the paragraph. And it says, with a purpose and endeavoring by supplies of the spirit to walk before God until a well-pleasing to well-pleasing in all things." This is what now the person comes to. Here's what had happened in the work of repentance. Now what he wants to do, she wants to do, is walk before God, which is a change of purpose. It is the inward turning from sin and a desire to seek God for pardoning and cleansing and to please Him in all things. to live a life of holiness in all that we have. Ezekiel 36. In 26 and 27, he writes, moreover, I will give you a new heart, this is what God's saying, and put a new spirit within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statues, and you will be careful to observe my ordinances. You see, God is saying here, You cannot decide to live to my glory. You cannot decide to do anything that I'll look at you and be able to say, well done. Complete surgery must be done with you. And he says, moreover, God is saying to Ezekiel, I will give you a new heart. He's talking about the inward part of the man, that very soul of man, dead right now, you're living. Yes, Ezekiel, and I had you as my own, but you still don't have what you need. I will put a new spirit within you. You're not going to be the same. And when I do that, I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh. Cold, dark hearts are what sinners have. Cold, dark hearts are what you and I had before the Lord saved us. I was just talking to a young man out just now and I said, I was glad, good that you brought sister to church. And I said, why don't you come in with us? Well, I don't know about Jesus. I said, well, I know you don't know about him and I understand that, but you're going to know about him. You're gonna know about him. And this is the thing. This is what he says. And I will remove the heart of stone. Now, you know what God is saying here. He's saying, your heart does not pulsate for me. Your heart does not beat for me. Your heart is only turned to your own self. And we know when he says that, that he's talking about the inward desires of the man. This is what you do. You live for yourself. Brethren, everybody in the world outside of Christ, they don't want anything, and this young man really said, he don't want nothing to do with Christ. And I told him, he don't have something to do with you. And that's it. And that's what the world is out there saying. We don't want Christ. We want to live our own way. And he said, I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statues, and you will be careful to observe my ordinances. They have to be a whole new life given to you. And this is what he said, and what repentance is doing, it does this. In this volitional part, now God is beginning to work on the inner being of each and every one of us. Psalm 51.7, purify me with hyssop, David says, and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Verse 10, create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. There is no turning from sin if there isn't a change of heart. And it's a sad state. We got more people who are religious, and some religious people have gone to Christian churches, and they're saying that they love Jesus and all that, but they have a desire for them. Jesus said, if there's not a change in the heart, You cannot turn from your sin. And we wonder why we hear, and so on and so on, and it was even early in my days going to church, why this man in church, you know, you hear about him, he's committing this sin and that sin. This preacher over there, he commit this sin. We heard of churches who the pastor had to be kicked out because of sin. Why? Because they are not saved. They picked up religion. And sadly, many of them pick it up because they know there's money in cheating people. What a dastardly, damnable heart they have. And so here, salvation, God is saying, and what we see in our confession of faith, the heart will be changed. Purify me with hyssop. and I shall be clean. Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Created me a new heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. There is a turning from sin that we see. In Isaiah 55 and seven, let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return to the Lord and he will have compassion on him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon. Nowhere in the scriptures they tell a man to stay the way you are and come to me and I'll take you just as you are. No, there has to be a change. The third element is change of life from serving self to serving God and for his own glory. No sinner would change his own life because he does not have the ability to do so. Man is caught in the vice of his sin and he cannot get out on his own. God must move, and when he moves, he makes the sinner ashamed of his sinful life, and by his grace, puts the sinner on a path to life. And oh, when he puts him on that path, he's the one that does what needs to be done. You see, this is what we have here, and on this first, this very Paragraph that I'm reading out, it goes to, and I hope you will see, and as I go on, here's what we needed to see first before we go down to the rest of the paragraph. But what does this mean for you and I today, dear people? What does it mean? Just to read this and, you know, okay, we're going about our faith. I'm in a church. I'm a part of the church. Everywhere, when you study this out, it says that repentance must be preached always in a church. The pastors must preach repentance. And when I get to the applications of a sermon, really, I may not use the word repentance, but really, that's what you're showing. You're preaching that you need to deal with your own sins. And it's not because we're saying that someone, we got some kind of word about you that you're not living right, it's because Sin is not taken out of our lives. It's there. It's going to be there. And we're going to fight with sin. You're going to see that as we go on in this passage. of repentance unto life and salvation. Repentance is turning from sin, dear people. Here's what we have to see, and hatred of God. We no longer look at God as something that just wants to, as it were, to destroy our lives, coop us up in some kind of little basket, and let us do only this, this, and that other thing, and we are not able to do what we want to do. No, that's not what it is. Repentance turns us from that hatred to God, to loving God, and hating our sins. In some cases, when the sins break out, even almost hating ourselves, that we would go that low. Remember, this is the work of the Holy Spirit. It is an evangelical grace, meaning it is the gift of God available only in the gospel. The evangel is the gospel. And so it is something that comes in there. And this is the very thing is it mentioned for us. In this very chapter, I pick it up. This saving repentance is an evangelical grace. It is God coming to the sinner in his or her state and bringing the gospel to them. And from that gospel, we find these three elements that I mentioned here this morning. Oh, dear people, we cannot produce this on our own. The gospel works on us and in us. Remember, repentance works on the mind, the heart, and the life. And the mind, it begins to bring something to us, and we begin to hear it, and we take it a little differently. Has it ever, did that happen to you? The first time you heard something, you probably heard people talk about church, and Christ, and this and that, for all so long. But one day you hear it, and you hear it differently. It starts to work on your mind. You start to think about what it's saying. And then before you know it, you're looking and you're scrounging around. You're trying to understand. You may pick up a Bible. You may go to church. And then something happens in the heart. And it begins there. And then the life is changing. Repentance changes our thinking. Repentance changes our heart and emotions. And repentance changes our whole life. There's no way anyone can say, I am the same as I was when I was lost, but I'm saved. No, the life has changed. We don't look at things the same way we did. What should we do with this truth, dear people? We must take a real good look at ourselves and ask some real questions from ourselves, real searching questions. You and I got to do that. Here we are. Oh, I love Christ. I believe Christ saved me. I'm in a church, and I'm living to hear them. And I understand that. But here's what we must ask our question. Do I know what biblical repentance is? Is this something that has been working on me? Have I found myself doing something and I say, no, I can't do that. And I cry and ask God's mercy to turn me away from that. And not just to put it out of our mind. Repentance is a turning, dear people. Turn from that sin and never come back to it again by the grace of God. Do I have a changed life? And am I living to the glory of God? You see, there are people, a lot of people, they like religion, and they make a religion fit their lives. I'm living to my life, and so I take this religion, and I put it in a nice little box that fits me. And I can say, I'm a religious person. And you got some out there saying, I'm a Christian. But they don't know anything about true biblical repentance. Is repentance as an ongoing work working in your heart today? Each and every one of us have to say. When we commit sin, dear people, if it's working or not, it makes us come to the point where we say, how can I continue to do this? And then it causes us to see who we are. And we say, watch me, Lord, and I'll be cleansed. And we want the change to take place. It's repentance of ongoing work in our hearts. And we see as we go down, we are never gonna get rid of that sin stain that's in us, and it's there. Sin gonna always cause to drive us in towards that area which pulls us out of true relationship and worship to God and to doing things which will cause us to live. I mentioned a few times, and one of the divines, John Owen, he's talking about repentance, and he's talking about faith, and he's talking about the person who has it. And he says, and he said, this can happen to any one of us. Here's this little pet sin that we may have. We haven't dealt with it rightly. We haven't really gone to God and say, God, move this. And so, and here what her brother does, he says, now, so what happens is the sins say to you, you know, I'm here, nobody don't see me. I won't even come out when you're around people. You could just stroke me when me and you are alone to ourselves. And sometimes that's what happens. We may say, yes, we know who we are, we don't sin and so on and so forth, but when we get by ourselves, some of those sins just come out. And we're stroking it instead of dealing with it. Oh, we have to ask ourselves, is repentance an ongoing work in my heart? When I sin, what do I do about it? Do I say, oh Lord God, this needs to be dealt with. Am I turning from sins to serve God in faith and holiness, or am I sinning and making excuses for my sin? We need to see ourselves and understand. As we go on, am I aware of my personal guilt and sinfulness? There is no one, no one save who is not a sinful person. We start our morning worship this morning. And then there's the first prayer. And the prayer was, forgive us our sins, the sins of the past week that's gone by. And no doubt, if you sinned in the past week going by, you probably already asked God's forgiveness for those sins. But we come that way knowing the sin. We understand that we are saying we are not cleansed of sin. Sin is going to be with us throughout this life. Am I turning from my sins? That's the question. Turning from my sins to serve God and holiness. Have you had this sense of this particular sin that was plaguing you and you took it to God and you asked God for grace and power to turn from it and you could say, that sin does not plague me anymore. We ought to be able to say that. We ought to have that experience with some sins. And that's what happens in the life of the Christian. But now something else may crop up, something we see here that we never noticed. But we're going to have to work with that the same way. We are those who really work on our sins. Do I have godly sorrow and hatred for my sins is what each one of us have to say. Or do I commit the sin and just go on like nothing? Nobody else knows about it. So I'm just going about my business. No, God knows about it. And it doesn't matter what I hide from you or what you hide from me. What matters is what God sees and knows about each and every one of us. We have to ask ourselves, is it my purpose to please God in every aspect of my life? Not some things. Some people have a religious department. They have a fun department and other departments. And this religious department never clashes with these other departments. I'm free to do what I want to do. No, that's not it. We are brought to Christ. We're in Him. Every department is the religious department. I should say the salvation department, because we don't have a religion. And oh, brethren, you see what this first paragraph I want to use here is showing us and telling us that we are not going to have progress. And God has made it where we will not have progress without the preaching of the word and the preaching of repentance. Because it is the very thing that's going to come. May we earnestly, dear people, may we earnestly seek God as we complete these questions, and we ought to ask these questions of ourselves. Get back home and go over this to this week. Look at everything that we are doing, every word we say, every deed we're doing, and ask, is this being done to the glory of God, or is it being done just for my own purposes and joy or whatever, and in doing it, is anyone being hurt or am I sinning against God in it? Brethren, we have to deal with ourselves that way. If we don't, we are carelessly walking this Christian life. May we seek Him. Seek Him earnestly, dear people. Ask these questions. And as we continue in this chapter, we will see more and more on this repentance. Let us seek our God in prayer. Father in heaven, we ask you, oh God, that you would truly look to us and help us. This searching truth here is one that would help us. We've now moved into the area where we live, oh God, and we ask you, oh Lord God, to help us and bless us. May we be those that would live before you, knowing that we have truly put away sin and we're pleading for your hand and your might to work upon us and to get rid of all sin. When we see it, O God, let us tackle it. Help us by your grace to defeat it and put it away. Hear our prayers. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.