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It is impossible to fulfill Christ’s Great Commission without preaching repentance. Christ preached repentance (Lu. 13:3, 5). Peter preached repentance (Ac. 2:38). Paul preached repentance (Ac. 17:30).
The Bible emphasizes that there is no remission of sins without repentance (“And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached,” Lu. 24:47). Compare Lu. 13:3, 5; Ac. 17:30; 2 Pe. 3:9.
This shows the wickedness of those who have omitted repentance or redefined it contrary to the Bible. This is no small thing. Preaching repentance is a matter of life and death, heaven and hell.
What is repentance?
Following are seven lessons on repentance, and all of these lessons are interconnected:
- Repentance is a change of mind that results in a change of life (“that they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance,” Ac. 26:20).
- Repentance is a surrender to God’s authority (“repentance toward God,” Ac. 20:21). The unsaved is a born rebel against God. He is estranged from God. He is a child of disobedience (Eph. 2:2). He fulfills the desires of the flesh and of the mind and is by nature the child of wrath (Eph. 2:3). The sinner must repent of his rebellion against God and his life of self-will.
- Repentance is to renounce the life of sin (“Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts,” Re. 9:21).
- Repentance is to turn to God from idols (“ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God,” 1 Th. 1:9). Idols represents every false religion and every false thing that men trust in - Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, goddess worship, witchcraft, evolutionary atheism, false christs, false gospels, false spirits, Roman Catholicism, Greek Orthodoxy, baptismal regeneration, infant baptism, sacramentalism, Mariolatry. There must be public renunciation of such things. I think of a couple in our church who were saved about 15 years ago and who were trusting in false Christianity and false religion. The husband was a Hindu, and the wife was Greek Orthodox. In the process of being dealt with about salvation, they repented of their false worship and renounced it. The wife rejected her infant baptism and icon worship. Both were persecuted by their families. Soon after he was saved, the husband’s father died and the Hindu family put great pressure on him to perform the idolatrous death rituals because he was the eldest son. He refused to do this. This is clear evidence of true repentance..
- Repentance is a work of the Spirit (“ye be endued with power from on high,” Lu. 24:49; “if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth,” 2 Ti. 2:25).
- Repentance is also man’s response to God’s Spirit (“God now commandeth all men every where to repent,” Ac. 17:30).
- Repentance is a product of God’s Word. “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). The man who led me to Christ dealt with me over a period of about four days that we spent traveling together. When we first met, I didn’t believe the Bible is the infallible Word of God, that Christ is the only Lord and Saviour, and that hell is the destiny of all who did without faith in Christ. I believed in reincarnation. The man simply quoted the relevant Scriptures to refute my thinking and he explained those Scriptures to me. I argued with the Bible, but it was the Bible that broke through the darkness of my mind and brought me to repentance and faith.
- Repentance cannot be forced or rushed. There must be patience. We must look to God to do this work. We must wait on man to exercise his heart toward God. “And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will” (2 Ti. 2:24-26). “Then they that gladly received his word were baptized” (Ac. 2:41).
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