Turn if you have your Bibles to Genesis chapter 42. Genesis 42, verse 21. This is after Joseph, their brother, puts them in prison. That's there in this prison cell. They had this conversation. And they said, one to another, we are verily guilty. That's the title of the message, we are guilty. Concerning our brother. Concerning who? Concerning our brother. our brother, in that we saw the anguish of his soul and looked upon the one they had pierced. See Christ there? When he besought us, when he begged us, we see more and more the unknown anguish that Joseph went through. And we were not here, therefore is this distress come upon us. And Reuben answered them, saying, Spake I not unto you, saying, Do not sin against the child? There's Christ. Do not sin against the child. He's innocent. And you would not hear. Therefore, behold, also his blood is required. His blood, Christ's blood is on our hands. And we pierced him. We did it. Where were they at this time? Where did I just say they were? They were in prison, weren't they? Well, they're under the law. They're under the law. The law put them in prison. The law exposed their guilt. Would they have ever confessed and not the law exposed them? Now, the law couldn't save them, could it? Only Joseph could release them from prison, but the law exposed them. That's what the law does to us. What led to this imprisonment? Well, famine. Famine, hunger. Got them there. Then the rough treatment that they didn't expect. And then the imprisonment. Trouble. Sorrow. Personal affliction. That often is what leads men to the gospel. So what we have here, we have two types of repentance that I see. In this case, they were sorry. They were sorry, but I don't think they were truly repentant yet. It started. They were exposed. But, then Joseph sends them on their way in verse 25. Their sacks were filled and, you know, so they went on their way. And what I see there is what we have so often with people, a superficial religion. You know, something you've gone through brought you to church for a little while, and you sort of semi-repented. Not that you were hypocritically repenting, but you did sort of repent. It turned you ways, free ways. You had religion, superficial religion, but you didn't have Christ. There was no revelation of Christ. That's what I see there. Now, you go over to chapter 44. Turn over there. Here, I think, is true repentance. Verse 1, and he commanded the steward of his house. That's the Holy Spirit, spiritually. To do this, to start this work, Christ commands the spirit to begin to work in the heart. And that's where he filled the men's sacks with food, as much as they can carry. So there it starts. And then he says, when they were gone out of the city, in verse 4, Joseph, being our, you know, our greater Joseph in mind here, said unto his steward, the Holy Spirit, go after them. Go after them. Follow them. Pursue them. Apprehend them. That's what the Spirit does, and it apprehends us. Overtake them. And then, when the steward gets there in verse 6, what does he do? He repeats the exact words. What did the New Testament say? When the Holy Spirit comes, what's he gonna do? He gonna speak of me. He gonna speak of me. And that's what he did here. He spoke the very same words that Joseph told him to say. He spoke of Joseph. Then you go to verse 14, they come back, and Judah, Judah sort of takes on the role of speaking for the group. And Judah came to Joseph's house, for he was yet there, and what did they do? They fell before him. They were upset in chapter 42. But here they fall. They lay down. They got as low as a person could get. They were at their wits end. They fell before him on the ground. And Joseph said unto them, What deed, you got to confess, don't you? What deed is this that you have done? What you not that such a man as I can certainly divine, that I know? I know all things. Christ knows all things. And Judah said, here it is, here it is, Judah said, this is where a man comes when he truly repents. What shall we say, my Lord? I got nothing to say. I got no excuse. Now they weren't guilty. of what he had brought them in here for. They didn't steal that cup. They didn't steal that gold. But did it matter? They were guilty of enough other things, weren't they? That's what got them that guilt before in verse chapter 42. The guilt that got them was when they sold Joseph. And that's still what's got them. That's still. They've injured the child. We've injured Christ. Doesn't matter whether we're guilty of stealing a sucker or not. We've injured and that's where a man gets. He quits making excuses for things. Not the first excuse. He says, what shall I say? What shall I speak? How shall I clear myself? That's a repentant man. God hath found out the iniquity of thy servants. Behold, we are thy Lord's servants, both we and he also with whom the cup is found." We're all guilty. We're all guilty. I think that's true repentance. And I think that will lead to revelation in verse, chapter 45, Verse one, then Joseph could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him. And he cried, get everybody out of the room, get everybody out of the room. And there stood no man with them, just you and the sinner, Christ and the sinner. And Joseph, what, he made himself known. He made himself known. Here's, I'm your hope. I'm the object of faith, I'm your hope. And to his brethren. Over in 2 Corinthians chapter seven, You have Paul. Paul talks about the same thing, about two types of repentance. 2 Corinthians 7, verse 9. He says, Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that you sorrowed to repentance. For you were made sorry after a godly manner. that you might receive damage by us in nothing. For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation, not to be repented of. But the sorrow of the world worketh death. It's just temporary. Temporary. Over in Luke 13.3, our Lord says this, our Lord says this, except you repent, except you repent, you shall all likewise perish." Who's he talking to there? He's talking to everybody. Is this the gospel? Is this the gospel? Who spoke it? Our Lord spoke it. Christ, our Lord, spoke it. And like I said, to whom did he speak it to? Everybody listening, everybody standing there, the religious, the non-religious, he spoke it to all of them. All the people got to hear this message, right? It applies to all of us. What was he doing there? He was warning, wasn't he? He was warning. In love and concern. What do we tell our kids? They get too close to something, you know? Jax gets too close to a swimming pool. Stop! or he gets out there in the ocean too far, stop, come back, you know. Paul drives too fast, or Lily. Stop doing that. Stop. Why do you do that? Because you love them. You love them. Indifference leaves people alone. I don't say anything to people that I don't care about. I don't care what you do. Love, love and compassion warns people, right? So the gospel, the gospel has in it, along with the grace of the gospel, there's a call to repent. And it may well be a hard saying. It's tough. Some people can't abide it. All they want to hear in a gospel message is the grace part. So it is a hard thing for some. You know what? But if we ride by that house across the road at midnight and we see the back of it on fire, you know, and they're asleep inside, beating on that door probably is hard. It sort of startles them, don't it? What's it done, though? It saved their lives. It saved them. Yeah, it's harsh. It can be rude. A man's sleeping. You woke me up. But I woke you up to save you. Life has been preserved. The sternness of the gospel called to repent are words of love. Words of love meant to deliver souls from hell. A man that don't tell you you've got to face your sins? You've got to confess your sins? Not to me, not to each other. That just leads to problems, don't it? Now what happens is you're telling on one another, you know. Confess them to God. I'm not a priest. You get to God, but you confess them to Him. What is repentance? It's one of the foundation stones of the gospel. 60 plus times, I forgot the exact number, but over 60 times, repentance is mentioned in the New Testament. Our Lord's command, repent and believe the gospel. The text we just read out of Luke, except you repent, you shall perish. He's charged to His disciples when He sent them out to preach that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations. What was the conclusion of Peter's sermon at Pentecost? Repent and be baptized. They said, what shall we do? Same as the brothers. They were convinced of the death of their brother. What can we do? Repent of it. Leave and be baptized. repent and be converted. That was a summary of Paul's preaching. All people, he said, wherever he went, every church he ever went into, that all people, he said, should repent and do works fit for repentance. John the Baptist came. What? Preaching repentance. But what is repentance? What is it? It's a word we're familiar with, but what is it? What does he or she repents mean? Repentance is the change of one's heart and attitude about sin. It starts in the heart. Everybody in this room, everybody in this world is born in sin. And we all love sin. We love it. We take to sin like a fish is born swimming or bird flies. It's just natural. It's what we do. You don't teach, you've heard this a thousand times, you don't teach your kids to cuss. They learn it on their own. You teach them not to. Teach them that ain't right. You don't teach them not to steal or to steal bubble gum. You take them back to the store cause they stole the bubble gum. I guess that's the only thing I ever stole, I reckon. I was about Jack's age and I stole a piece of, two of bubble gum. Old Jitney Jr. You remember Jitney Jr.? I'll never forget it. I'd open that thing up at home, took it out of my pocket and eat it. Dad said, where'd you get that, that store up there? He said, you stole that. He made me, he took me back to that store and made me go tell that man that I'd stole that bubble gum. I didn't think anything, but I didn't know what stealing was until he told me just what I did. I wanted it, I took it. See? We're just born to sin. Love it. It's what we do. And here's another thing. Moms will always say, I pray for him. He's just running with a bad group of people. Who chose that, Gary? Huh? Who chose that? We chose the people we run with. Truth is known, we're probably the worst one of the group. Sam and I, we're the preacher's kids. We got something to prove, you know. No, you don't, it's always, you know, we are the bad company, because we got a bad heart. Sins are the product of not people or of environment. Sins are a product right here, right here. That's where they come from, right out of the heart. And when the Holy Spirit, that steward, I was told when the Holy Spirit removes this love of sin, that change then is called repentance. That's what happens. You see yourself as you are, and you repeat. You don't like that anymore. I want to be that. This man, this woman, then that reaches that point by God's grace is called the penitent. And that simply means they're truly, they're godly, Sorry. That's what that means. Truly sorry. Not just because they got caught. They're sorry. Now, that's repentance in general. Now, the specifics we'll talk about. Number one, true repentance begins with the knowledge of sin. You can't say you're sorry for something you're not aware of, can you? So it begins with the knowledge of our sins, not sin in general. Our sins. The eyes of that penitent one are opened. And he sees he's guilty. I'm guilty of breaking God's holy law. That's what those boys were saying over there, right? I'm guilty. I'm guilty. They were in chapter 42 and chapter 44, they really realized it. I'm guilty. And then 44, they finally say, I got nothing else to say. I can't think of anything I can say other than I did it. I'm not a good man. That's where, I'm not a good man. I'm not a good woman. I'm not. I am the sinner. God sees me. And now I realize God sees me. He's angry with me because of my sin. Here's another thing, true repentance leads to sorrow for that sin. Your heart broken over the past life that dishonored God. It does, it breaks your heart. You know, you wish you could just not ever think about things again, but they come back. That was David's problem in Psalm, you know, and he was a believer. We'll fall into that as believers. But it broke his heart the rest of his life. He lived with that. He lived with the consequences of that. Every time one of those kids sinned, he looked at himself and said, that's my fault. I did that. The remembrance of it, the burden of it sometimes becomes intolerable, don't it? True repentance confesses that sin. That sinner must tell God. Must tell God against you. That's what they said, Jason Redwall go, against you and you only have I done this sin in your eyes. He'd killed a man. He had taken a man's wife and you know, he had ruined the relationship with his kids. He had lied to his general. But who do you confess to? Who do you apologize to? Against you God have I done this. God be merciful to me, I am the sinner." Then true repentance breaks from sin. Get that? True repentance breaks from sin. The penitent man's life is changed. His conduct is changed. A new master reigns now. A new king is in place. And whatever that king forbids is avoided. Now that penitent, now he fights the sin. He separates from bad ways and bad companions. He don't continue. He don't make some profession of faith, surely, and just continue with the group and the places and the things he's always done. He's had that first repentance I read about there. Leave those things. True repentance then leads to greater and greater hatred. See the progression here? Leads to greater and greater hatred of sin. That man battles more fervently that old nature. It's there, it's always going to be there. He battles it. And he loves more and more that new man, the one that looks like Christ. He loves Christ in him. He loves more and more the new walk, the new talk that he has with his Redeemer, the relationship. He's more aware of his infirmities. And he groans to be more like Christ, don't he? Don't you want to be more like Christ, huh? That's what David said in Psalm 119. He said, I count all your precepts concerning all things, all things, whatever you say is right. That's what I agree with. And then he said this, and I hate every false way. And he didn't look out among Israel and say, I hate his false way, I hate his false way. He's talking about himself. I hate every hypocrisy, every sin, every false thing in me. I hate it. I hate it. And then one more most important thing concerning this first point of what it is, what is repentance. Here's the hope. Here's the joy of it. Repentance as a companion. True repentance comes with true faith. You see that. If you read the rest of chapter 44 after Judah confesses, you can see the rest of it is solely looking to Joseph for whatever comes. His faith is facing him. You're like Pharaoh, he says. And that's what happens. True faith comes. Somebody says, you know, which comes first, faith or repentance? I don't know. I read this good man much, much, much, much smarter than I am that says it this way. Then I read another smart man says it this way. You know, does it come together? Do they come over time? I don't know, but they come, they'll come. Faith will accompany repentance at some point. There's two sides of the same coin, if it's a genuine coin. Both of them have an object. Both, both, that's what, that's what Paul said, look over here, let me read that. Like Gabe and Paul, I wasn't gonna go here, but we got, we got it. It's gonna rain all afternoon. Acts 20, verse 21. Testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks, Repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. See, outcome. Two sides of the same coin. You'll never have true repentance. You'll never have true repentance without Christ reveals himself. He'll reveal himself. Now, now this, Paul writes what in first second corinthians thirteen five he says examine yourselves examine yourselves to believers he says examine yourselves so we should examine ourselves is our repentance not not necessarily our original repentance but our we repent is our daily repentance is all of it genuine are we really sorry we're really sorry So here, here's some checks for us. Be sure that your repentant is a heart matter. You know, a lot of people think a good, sad, church-going sinner just walks around sad and, you know, their jaw's, you know, dragging the ground and they're very austere or they're sanctimonious or both. You have that presence of just, oh me, oh me. And it's not that. It's not that. It's not that. It's not days or forms or it's not clothes. Look, Ahab, think about Ahab. Remember when Elijah came to Ahab and said, you're gonna die and the worms gonna eat you. God's told me. Ahab put on sackcloth, took his king's robes off, put on sackcloth and went silent, it says. But he never repented. He never repented. Be sure your repentance turns you to God. Felix, Felix, Paul preached the gospel to Felix. And he said, Felix trembled, but he didn't see God. Be sure your repentance forsakes sin. Many, many are moved by religion. Many are moved by these doctrines of grace. Many of them. You know, we've got to narrow things on down, don't we? Many are enamored with the doctrines of grace in their head. But they still hold on and love their sin. And sin is just... I mean, it can be vices. But sin is also just an absence of the presence of God, and they don't even worry about that. That's a sin. No fellowship. Make sure, make sure that you forsake those sins. Herod. Herod loved the message of John the Baptist, but he took his hat off. He didn't love the God of John the Baptist, right? He loved his sins more. And when John the Baptist confronted him with that sin, he said, now you're not preaching, you're meddling. And he cut his head off. And above all things, be sure your repentance is united with faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Be sure that all your convictions, all your confessions, all your repenting point you to one hope, Christ alone. Christ alone. Judas cried, I've sinned. But he never saw repentance. He never looked to cry. He never went to Christ and said, will you forgive me? And he died in his sins. His faith never had faith. True conviction and repentance causes one to flee to Christ. That's where you go. You flee to Christ. causes you to mourn your guilt, be sorrowful for what you've done to the one who died, crucifying him. You did it. You know, going to Sinai, to the law, learning the Ten Commandments, hearing the Ten Commandments, fearing hell and its damnation, it may make a person afraid for a bit, but it's not going to last. It won't last. No repentance that doesn't look to Calvary more than Sinai will ever last. No repentance that doesn't see a bleeding substitute as the motive of your sorrow is not going to last. This is repentance, looking simply to Christ, confessing to Him, telling Him, I'm sorry. Tell me anything. Christ, you're sorry. Lord, I repent. This is it. This is true. This is repentance from heaven. And this is planted in a man's heart by God the Holy Spirit. And it'll last. It'll last. One more thing. One more thing. Don't make a Christ of repentance. Don't make repentance your religion. Don't, or don't let it do this. Don't let it become a bondage of your soul where you just never know if you've repented enough. Don't measure your justification like some do by your repentance. Or think this, or don't think that my sins are not forgiven because of an imperfect repentance. Justification is not repentance. We are justified fully completely in Christ by faith in His faith. Hmm? He's the object. By faith in His faith. What He did. His merits. His faithful participation to His death with God the Father. That's what our faith looks to. His faith. His perfection. But, but we always want to guard ourselves, don't we? In prayer and never. never become careless about sin. What's the Scripture? The disciples' prayer. The disciples said, Lord, teach us to pray. It was a daily thing. It was a daily thing. And one of those daily things that you ask is what? Forgive us this day of this sin, this sin. Whether you know them or not, they're there. Matthew Henry, you know Matthew Henry, the great commentary man, I asked his dad, Phillip, how long shall a man go on repenting? The reply was this, son, I hope to carry my repentance to the very gates of heaven. He said, every day I find I'm a sinner and every day I need to repent. Okay. All right.