Dennis Tuuri

dismissed now to go down to their Sabbath schools. Their parents wishing we come this morning to a very important topic, a very important aspect of the Christian faith and the Christian life. And that subject that we’re going to talk about this morning is repentance. If repentance is, as I said, a very important doctrine for us. It’s important for many reasons. A few of which are the following.

First of all, it’s important because Jesus preached repentance.

In Matthew 4:17, after John the Baptist has been taken by Herod and put in jail, Jesus then begins to preach in the areas around where he is and the content of his preaching begins with the message to repent. So repentance is important because our Savior Jesus Christ taught it when he preached. It’s also important because we’re commanded to preach repentance to people. In Luke 24:47, Jesus in his first appearance to the disciples gathered together on the Lord’s day on Sunday appears in their midst and he tells them in one of these farewell addresses—now in terms of giving them orders for what they’re supposed to be doing now.

He says that repentance should be preached in his name found in Luke 24 in one of his addresses to his people that he was going to send out. Now on the basis of the work that he had accomplished. So our Lord preached repentance. He commanded us to preach repentance and that was a central aspect of what we’re to do in the world.

Additionally, repentance is necessary for salvation.

In Luke 13:3, we read, “Except you repent, ye shall also likewise perish.” It is important to know that repentance is absolutely necessary for salvation. And it’s part of the gospel we’re to preach. John Calvin said that there are basically two parts to the gospel. Those parts consist of repentance and forgiveness. Repentance is our subject this morning. Forgiveness will be our subject next week. And Calvin said that these things are extremely important and in fact repentance and forgiveness go together to make the whole of which is the gospel of Jesus Christ and salvation.

So it’s important for that reason also. It’s also important because that was the reason why Jesus Christ was exalted or resurrected. In Acts 5:31 we read that Christ is the one that God has exalted to his right hand as a prince and as a savior for what purpose? That he might grant repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. Those two aspects again of the gospel which we’ll be dealing with this week and next week.

In one sense then the whole purpose of Christ’s exaltation to the right hand of the Father according to the holy scriptures themselves is that repentance be preached to people and be granted to his covenant people Israel and forgiveness of sins would ensue.

Now it’s obvious when we deal with a topic that has this incredible amount of importance attached to it and is so central to the teaching of the gospel and what the scriptures tell us about God and our relationship to God that this morning all we can do is really touch on some very basic elements of repentance. We can’t do a thorough study of it. That would take a long time to do. But I think it’s important that we look at certain aspects of it and specifically those aspects that are important contextually to us right now in the situation we’re in this church.

And that’s the last reason why repentance is important for us to consider this morning: the contemporary events in our church demand an understanding of biblical repentance.

There are other events also in the lives of Christians in the state of Oregon that also need addressing in relationship to repentance. As we get to the close of today’s talk, we’ll mention a little bit about the fact that Senator Bill Olsen, State Senator Olsen has got himself in some trouble and there’s a great human cry for his resignation. And I think an understanding of biblical repentance will help us understand how to respond to that particular set of contemporary events as well.

But we have events in our own church that also require us to talk about this particular subject. I think it’s important that if we’re going to deal with problems which arise in the context of our church family that we understand the nature of what true biblical repentance is, what it is and what it is. We have to have a common foundation based upon what the scriptures teach about repentance and forgiveness.

If we’re going to proceed in areas of church discipline, suspension, excommunication, and absolution, repentance is absolutely necessary for us. Then in light of our contemporary events as a church, we need to understand, pull together on, be walking in with one purpose and one mind according to the word of God as it teaches us what biblical repentance is.

So repentance is important. We said last week it’s important to guard the table. We talked about that in connection to excommunication and suspension. And certainly all of us would agree that if a person is repentant then the scriptures teach that person is absolved of their sins by God in heaven. That there’s an absolution declared on earth not to affect the absolution of the sinner, but rather to declare the sentence that God has declared from his judicial court of justice.

And so there’s a necessity to understand what repentance is. If we all agree that if a person is repentant, he can be given baptism, for instance, or if in the context of a person who has been baptized, if he has sinned and then repented of his sin, he then should be ushered back into the communion table. We have to get on a common footing in terms of what repentance is. What is it? That’s the really the essential question in terms of restoring people who have either been excommunicated or suspended or initially giving them the sealing ordinance of baptism.

So it’s an incredibly important subject for us right now. We have to come to a like-mindedness about what it means to be repentant before God.

Now, along this line, then we’ll turn to our passage first that we read this morning. And I want to do the first thing I want to do now, the next thing I want to do is just go through a brief overview of the verses we just read, kind of giving the historical context for what John or what Luke teaches here in terms of John’s baptism of repentance. I think it’ll help us as we go through these verses in summary fashion.

First of all, note in verse two of this passage we have before us in Luke 3 says that the word of God came into John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness. John is in the wilderness baptizing people. Okay? And that’s important for us to recognize because if you understand the nature of the wilderness, you’ll understand that what was happening here was that the nation of Israel had itself gone into the wilderness in terms of having moved away from obedience to God and to his calling and they were now in sin and in a position then of cursing from God.

And so they had in this big overview of the two great symbols of blessing and cursing, the garden of Eden on one hand and the wilderness on the other hand, the people of Israel at this point in their life were now actually in the wilderness. And so John the Baptist calls them to go back to the wilderness. And what’s he doing out there? He’s baptizing people in the Jordan river. We see that in verse three.

It says that he came into all the country about the Jordan preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins. John is calling the people of Israel, the covenant nation, to go back into the wilderness to recognize that they’ve gone into the wilderness by turning their back on God and that they have to be rebaptized as it were. They have to go back through an entrance back into the holy nation of Israel, back through the Jordan, back through those waters.

And of course, the central element of his teaching is one of repentance. And so you see a correlation here between repentance and the state of the whole nation of Israel at this point in time and what John is trying to do. Verse three also tells us that baptism of repentance was for the remission of sins. And that of course tells us again the importance of understanding repentance. Forgiveness is what’s being talked about here in the message of John’s baptism of repentance.

And that’s what we’ll talk about next week. Following this same order in terms of repentance and then forgiveness that repentance is necessary and forgiveness in God’s sight.

Now, there’s a parallel account of this passage of scripture in Matthew 3, and I’ll be bringing in verses from Matthew 3 as well as we go through these few verses. And right now, I’d like to point out that in Matthew 3:2, it talks about John was preaching that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. Okay? The kingdom of heaven. Other places it’s called the kingdom of God. And it’s important there to recognize that here we have a man on the earth talking about the kingdom of heaven’s arrival on the earth. And so this should be seen in relationship to the Lord’s prayer where we pray that thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

And so John is trying to affect that nature of the gospel. The will of that things would be done on earth as they are in heaven. That the kingdom of heaven was now come. The covenant mediator had now come into history. He was then alive on the world. The kingdom of heaven was beginning to flourish on the face of the earth. He didn’t preach it to something awful way far away. He preached it as very near and present with them.

And so this idea of repentance, going through the Jordan, getting baptized in terms of repentance for remission of sins, entrance back into the promised land, this all is part of affecting the will of God on earth as it is in heaven. And so John is said to be preaching the kingdom of heaven in Matthew 3:2.

Back to Luke now. In verse 5 of our account in Luke 3, we read that I was thinking of this morning. I was thinking that we’re at Christmas time now. Many of us will be hearing the tapes and maybe participating in the “Sing Your Own Messiah” that activity in Portland which probably a good thing to do around Christmas time to become acquainted with that great work.

And I was thinking of these verses of course being part of one of the songs in that performance. And it says in verse 5 that every valley shall be filled, every mountain and hill shall be brought low and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough ways shall be made smooth. Now that’s interesting in the context here because what John is talking about is this baptism of repentance. People repenting becoming again vessels as it were to be used by God to affect the will of God on earth as it is in heaven.

Now you’ve probably heard and it’s certainly true that the Roman emperors, the Caesars when they would go to a land, they would do road construction work, okay? And they would level valleys and they would or they’d bring up valleys and they’d level mountains to effect a nice smooth even road for Caesar as he would ride into a conquering nation. And certainly that’s what’s part of what’s going on here.

We have now the true King of Kings, the true Caesar, if you want to look at it that way with the Caesar of Caesars coming in the person of Jesus Christ. And people at this time would recognize that what John is talking about is the coming of a king. And that certainly was important to what he was teaching. But I think it’s also important to recognize that when he says the crooked way shall become straight that we’re calling people to do is to take their lives which are crooked by sin and to straighten them out to repent before God for forgiveness of sins to be accepted back into the blessings of God’s order and to make themselves then fit vessels that Christ would then be preached throughout the nation through.

And so I think in the context of John’s baptism of repentance, it’s important to recognize that what he’s doing here is straightening people out. It’s a common expression we use when you want to straighten somebody out, they’re crooked. And that’s what John is doing here in terms of his teaching as well. And so repentance has that aspect to it. We’re going to be straightened out now to be used as good straight vessels for the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, it’s important to remember in this context that this is the Advent season and next week would be the first Sunday of Advent if we were to celebrate that kind of thing in this church. I think probably some of us do in our homes. We have Advent calendars. We won’t do anything formally in this church in terms of Advent. But it’s interesting that the historic church has always in terms of Advent the first Sunday would have a reading typically from the book of Revelation about the second coming of Jesus Christ and only later if they would have readings about John the Baptist coming.

And I think that’s important to point out here that John is teaching an advent of Jesus Christ. And that advent occurs not just then and not just at the second coming of our Lord. We’ll see later we’ll develop this a little more. But Christ comes in history. He comes every Sunday when we get together. We have communion downstairs and we ask that our Lord be with us in a special way at communion.

He comes to us in communion in terms of blessing us. He comes to us in our lives in terms of judgment as well. And so this aspect of being exalted and lowered and the straightening out of the crooked things should be a daily aspect of our own lives. Preparing for the coming of Christ in our lives through history as well as we live our lives. We should make sure we are prepared for that coming the way that John called these people prepared for the first coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In Matthew 3:4 we find out that John is dressed like Elijah. He has a leather girdle about him. The only other place that I know in scripture with a man with a leather girdle, it’s Elijah himself. And so John now is coming and there’s an identification with Elijah and there’s other identifications in scripture as well. But the point is there’s a simultaneous nature to their work there being a parallel being drawn out.

And there’s also another parallel we’ll be talking about it besides the dress or the apparel of John the Baptist as we go along this morning. Remember Elijah his preaching was in the context of an ungodly king Ahab. And we have John the Baptist here. His preaching as set out in the verses we read verses 1-20. You’ll notice that it starts with talking about Herod and ends with talking about Herod. And so there’s a false king as it were in the world then as well that John the Baptist operates in the midst of the way that Elijah operated in the midst of the world that was governed at that time by Ahab.

And so there’s parallels there and we’ll talk about that in a few minutes too in relationship to repentance. They both repented in a certain sense and yet it wasn’t biblical repentance. Okay.

In Matthew 3:6 it says that people were coming to John to be baptized by him. And it says there that they were coming confessing their sins. And that teaches us an important element of repentance. In their repentance they were coming to John involved a confession of sins.

And it says they’re coming to be baptized by him confessing their sins. A necessary element then of John’s baptism was repentance as demonstrated by a confession of sins. And that’s important to realize in this portion of scripture as we deal with repentance as well.

In verse seven of this passage we read that then said John to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him “Oh generation of vipers.”

Now if we go to Matthew 3:7 as a parallel verse to Luke 3:7 then we’ll see that the specific people he was addressing, he was addressing the multitude which comprised of various elements, the specific element that he is addressing in terms of referring to them as a generation of vipers are the Pharisees and Sadducees and that’s found in Matthew 3:7. And so in the midst of this context of one calling people back to a right relationship to their creator through the covenant mediator who was coming to repent to prepare for his coming to straighten out their lives as it were to confess their sins and to repent and turn.

In the midst of all that he has these people come out to him who are Pharisees and Sadducees and with those particular people he doesn’t have very kind words for them. It may sound bad enough in the context that we normally think of to be called a generation of vipers, little snakes as it were. That’s not too nice a thing. I know my wife hates snakes. I suppose a lot of people in the congregation do.

I tend to think that there’s a reason for that which you can only understand theologically as you go to the scriptures because of course it was Satan in the form of a serpent or a snake or a reptile or some sort of reptilian animal there that tempted Eve in the garden. And so when John calls the Pharisees and Sadducees generation of vipers, he’s calling them children of Satan. Understand that correlation there?

He’s not just saying you’re deceitful little guys. He’s using terminology there that everybody who understood the biblical use of the term serpents and vipers would understand to mean that they were children of Satan. And so he’s addressing them quite harshly here.

He commands them to bring forth fruit worthy of their repentance. In verse 8, in Matthew, that same word worthy is translated meat. Now, it’s the same word one way or the other. We’ll talk about that word in a couple of minutes, but the point is that don’t be thrown off by worthy or meat. It’s the same word there in the Greek.

Verse 9 of Luke says, “Also, the axe is laid at the root of the tree. Every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruits is hewn down and cast into the fire.”

And so we have John addressing these Pharisees and Sadducees as children of Satan, he demands of them fruits, meat for repentance. And that word meat has its root in a term of weightiness, comparable worth. That’s a good term we use these days for meat. He wanted them to have fruits that were in weight, in adjustment to balance off as it were the repentance. It was supposed to be comparable to it. It didn’t mean you could earn it. It just meant that it was supposed to be in correlation to the degree of repentance that you came forward for.

And so he called them to have fruits. And then he said, “If you don’t have fruits, you’re going to be hewn down and cast into the fire.”

Well, the question here that becomes one that we have to deal with then is: did these Pharisees and Sadducees who came to him, were they baptized by John? Now, some commentators think they were, others think they weren’t. I tend to think they weren’t. We read in Matthew 21:32 that those who opposed Jesus’s ministry didn’t believe in John and didn’t feel remorse either.

That’s what Christ says about these people. They didn’t feel remorse. In Matthew 23:13, the scribes and the Pharisees are described as those who shut up the kingdom of heaven to others and who do not enter into it themselves. They didn’t enter into the kingdom of heaven. They felt no remorse. There’s no indication of confession of sins as they come forward. All we have is a railing rebuke by John of the Pharisees and Sadducees who came out to him.

Now, it’s possible that the Pharisees, it’s possible that John was going to baptize them anyway. It’s possible the Pharisees were going to humble themselves then and let a guy who had just railed on them and called them children of Satan baptize them, but I think it’s highly unlikely. So, I don’t think these people were baptized by John. John demanded of them fruits in terms of demonstration of their repentance.

Without those fruits, there was no way to evaluate or to determine whether or not they were really repentant before God.

Verse 10 says to bring forth fruits worthy of repentance. We just talked about that a few verses ago as well. And I wanted to point out here again, we pointed out this several times. We’ll put it out several more times in the next few weeks. We’re not saying here that the fruits that John required, and John certainly didn’t say that those fruits could merit forgiveness of sins.

Those fruits were an evidence of God’s work of repentance in their lives. And we’ll talk more about that later on in the talk this morning. So, we can’t satisfy God by our fruits of repentance or by our repentance, but we can please God by them. Okay? We cannot satisfy his righteous demands. We can please God when we turn and do what’s right.

It’s interesting also in relationship to this that in verse 11, John says, “I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but he comes after me as mightier than I, he’ll baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.”

And a lot of people take that one verse out of context. We talked last week about the importance of context. They think that what he’s talking about here are the tongues of fire that came in the book of Acts and that we should pray for this kind of baptism that’s talked about here by Jesus. But if you go on to read what he’s talking about in the very next verse, he says his fan is in his hand. He’ll thoroughly purge his floor, gather his wheat into the garner. They’re baptized with the Holy Spirit. And he’ll burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

So John is giving him an option here. Repent or don’t repent. Be a good guy or a bad guy in that sense that we’ve been talking about for the last few weeks. And he’s saying that you will be baptized either with the Holy Ghost as a result of that or with fire in terms of judgment. I find it hard to believe that men at that point of time, John said, had the wrath of God abiding upon them, who were children of Satan and who were fit only for the judgment of fire to be burned up like chaff. I find it hard to believe he had ministered the waters of baptism ushering them into the kingdom of heaven there in a visual sense if not in a real sense. I find that hard to believe. Okay.

In verse 20, then this passage concludes with saying that Herod added yet another evil to his list of evils. He put John into prison. And of course later on he’ll do an even worse thing. He will behead John the Baptist adding even more judgment and damnation to him. Okay.

So that’s an overview of the passages we looked at this morning.

And I want us to consider now more about this passage as well as the rest of the Bible and what it teaches us about this critical area of repentance and what it is. Now, as I said before, as we do this, I want us to keep in mind and we now look at the contents or the ingredients of true biblical repentance as talked about in this passage of scripture and others.

As we do this, I want us to keep in mind that it is Advent time. Next week, we’ll sing “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” And I don’t know is Cheryl Turner here this morning. But that’s her favorite song, you know, and it’s a real good song. It’s one of my favorites as well. And it’s important to recognize that song was written not to just make us think about what happened in the past when the nation of Israel was waiting expectantly for the coming Messiah.

It’s an exhortation to us to look for the coming of Jesus Christ in terms of judgment and blessing as well contemporaneously to us. When we read, “Oh come Emanuel and ransom captive Israel,” okay, we should look about our nation today and see that the church is captive in a very real sense because of humanism and because of apostasy within the church. And we should look for the coming of Jesus Christ in this nation in terms of judgment that he might again deliver his people from that particular situation.

We should look for him to judge our works. And if we’re sinning and have been captive to particular sin, we should look for his judgment upon us that we might turn from that sin back to righteousness to him. And so Advent is important as we think about these fruits or ingredients rather of biblical repentance. We should think about that and think about its implications for us as well. The preparation of John the Baptist then can be seen in terms of teaching repentance not just as a historical event but as having implications for us as well as we live out our days in terms of God’s holy requirements as we fall short to make those crooked ways straight to straighten ourselves out and prepare ourselves for the coming of Christ in a daily sense.

Okay. First of all, we see from the passage of scripture we’ve read and other passages of scripture as well that repentance must include an aspect of biblical sorrow.

Now, it’s true that the ungodly also can sorrow or have remorse for things they’ve done wrong. In Matthew 27:3, we read that Judas himself, who betrayed our Lord, when he saw that Christ had been condemned, the passage of scripture says he felt remorse.

So, here we have a man who did not repent in the biblical sense. There’s no indication of that. I don’t expect to see him. I won’t—I don’t expect to be able to ask any questions of Herod or of King Ahab either in heaven. And I hope you don’t prepare a list of questions ‘cuz I don’t think they’re going to be there. But in spite of that, he did feel remorse for his actions. The ungodly can do that. They do that for several reasons.

One is because of legal terror. They know in a sense the judgment of God rests upon them. They’ll know that if a criminal breaks the law in America and gets caught by the police, he’s going to feel remorse for having done what he did because he doesn’t want to, you know, be put to jail or executed or something else. So there’s a remorse there that isn’t biblical in nature, but is more natural.

Additionally, some people just have a natural tenderness to what’s wrong and what’s right based upon good upbringing or something. So the ungodly can repent in that sense of having some remorse for actions they’ve done. But true biblical remorse is quite a different thing. We know that although the ungodly can have remorse, that the godly must have remorse as part of their repentance before God as well.

And there’s many verses that teach that in scripture. In Psalm 51:17, we read that a contrite and a broken heart, oh God, thou will not despise. Contrition, brokenheartedness before God as part of his repentance there. Mary brought forth tears and ointment. And it’s said by many that her tears were much more precious to Jesus Christ than was her ointment. And I believe that to be the case.

Humiliation is part of that remorse that we feel for when we’re truly repentant according to the scriptures. Leviticus 26:41 says that if there—and the relationship what he’s talking about there is the covenant people of God. If their uncircumcised hearts be humbled, then God will remember his covenant with them. There’s a humility then that brings upon the forgiveness of sins and the blessings of God.

That’s part of biblical repentance. A humbling, a humiliation for our past actions of sin. And that’s important to see.

Theologically some people talk about a differentiation in terms of this remorse. One being attrition and the other contrition. Contrition—you’ve probably heard about a contrite heart for instance. It means a humbleness and awareness of our sin. Letting God’s word melt our heart before him as we sorrow before him for our sin.

Attrition is spoken of as that remorse for sin that’s brought about basically by the fear of God’s law. Now both aspects are there for the believer. We fear the penalty of God’s law. But if that’s all we have, then we’re not contrite and we don’t have biblical repentance. Biblical repentance couples attrition, a fear of God’s judgment upon us with contrition, a real sorrow that we’ve offended a holy God and done what’s wrong and brought disgrace upon the people we know or upon our church or to the name of God as we profess him.

And so both elements are important.

Jeremiah 23:9, we read the following. “As for the prophets, my heart is broken within me. All my bones tremble. I have become like a drunken man, even like a man overcome with wine because of the Lord and because of his holy words.” His holy words. God’s word should have that effect upon us when we’re sinning. God’s word should humble us, make us like a drunken man before God, break us—in other words, bring us to our knees before God in a heartfelt contrition for our actions.

Ezekiel 7:16 says that they shall be like doves of the valley, all of them mourning everyone for their own iniquity. That’s biblical repentance. That’s an aspect of it.

Luke 18:13 talks about beating on our breasts. Ezra 9:3 talks about plucking out of hair. And Psalm 66, David said, “I would soak my couch with my tears.” All these things are indicators of biblical remorse, which is an aspect of repentance.

James 4:9, “Be miserable and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy into gloom. Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord and he will exalt you.”

So God says, John said he was to bring repentance. The mountains would be humbled, brought low. People who had pride over their sinful actions would through the preaching of God’s word be brought to a position of humbleness and God would then exalt them in due time.

So that’s certainly an aspect of biblical repentance: remorse.

Along with that aspect, we have a confession of sin. You certainly don’t humble yourselves if you don’t confess your sin. And so in Psalm 51:4, we read, “Against thee, against thee only have I sinned.” In Psalm 32:5, “I confess sins and God forgave me.” Confession is linked there to repentance, which then results in the forgiveness of God. So confession of sin is also important.

Now, this is all good and fine, and many churches would stop here, however, and they’d say that is repentance. If a person is contrite, broken before God, and confesses their sins before God, and is fearful of God’s punishment, we now have biblical repentance. And so as soon as a person comes to that point of tears of a visible brokenness before God, we then say, “This person has repented. That’s all there is to it. We move on from here.”

But the scriptures say much more than that. The scriptures say that though sorrow and confession of sin is certainly an important aspect or part of repentance, the wicked do this as well. There’s got to be something more that the wicked don’t do. Otherwise, the wicked themselves are in a position of repentance before God and so open to God’s blessing. And we know that’s not the case.

2 Corinthians 7:9 and 10. We’ll be coming back to this portion of scripture. It’s an excellent one to keep in mind when you think through the implications of biblical repentance.

2 Corinthians 7. We’ll read verses 9 and 10 first. We’ll come back later and read verse 11.

2 Corinthians 7 says the following. “Now I rejoice.” This is Paul writing, of course. “Now I rejoice not that ye were made sorry, but that she sorrowed to repentance. For ye are 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.”

And see, Paul is saying that there are two sorrows that are possible in light of God’s holy word’s reactions to them. There’s a sorrow unto life, but there’s also a sorrow unto death. So there must be other factors involved in what biblical repentance is.

We have to make sure we’re dealing with sorrow that leads to life and salvation and health and not sorrow that leads to sickness and then to death.

Martin Luther—this we’ve been talking several weeks ago, we celebrated Reformation Day. Martin Luther in thesis number three of those 95 theses that he nailed on the door of Wittenberg. Thesis number three is this. “However, our Lord does not here only speak of inward repentance. Indeed, inward repentance is invalid if it does not produce outwardly every kind of mortification of the flesh.” Death to the words deeds of the flesh is what he’s talking about there.

Luther affirmed there was more than sorrow required and that more was mortification of flesh. And so our next point in our outline point four is that repentance also carries with it a cessation of sin.

Now that should be somewhat obvious but we do have to add that to our definition don’t we? We can’t just have contrition and humbleness. We have to add a cessation—a stopping of our sinful acts before God. It’s not good enough just to confess. You got to stop doing it. Okay.

Ahab repented in this fashion apparently in 1 Kings 21:27. He apparently was the words the prophet became remorseful, became despondent, ripped his clothes, threw sackcloth, put on sackcloth, threw ashes upon his head, dust to dust, ashes to ashes. And so he indicated his repentance in that way. And he apparently changed his idolatry because God said, “Look at Ahab’s humbled himself before me.”

And God certainly wouldn’t have said that if Ahab continued his terrible idolatry that the verses just before that tells us about. So again here though the ungodly can have a cessation of sin. Having said that though it is important to keep in mind the cessation of sin is an aspect of biblical repentance and the scriptures plainly teach it.

In Daniel 4:27 Nebuchadnezzar is urged by Daniel to “break off thy sins by righteousness” to stop doing them. And he mentions here not a specific sin the breaking off of sin of the godly must be of all sins. It’s not good just to stop one area of sin and think you’ve repented if you have other areas of sin that you’re not willing to deal with. It’s a breaking off of all sins.

James 4:7 says to “resist the devil and he will flee.” James 4:8 says to “cleanse your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, you double-minded.” Stop doing it is what he’s saying there. Stop doing those sinful actions.

Isaiah 33:15, beginning in verse 14, it says that sinners in Zion are terrified, trembling has seized the godless. “Who can live with a consuming fire or continual burning? Who can put up in the face of God’s wrath?” In another words. And it said the verse goes on to say that those who reject unjust gain, who shake their hands so that they don’t hold any bribes and who shut their eyes from seeing evil. Those people can abide the coming of God in judgment in terms of the fire of his judgment if they cease from doing evil.

Cessation of evil is important in terms of repentance. Absolutely critical. And now certainly most people would have acknowledged at this point in time, well, they made a slight error in terms of contrition. There certainly does have to be an acknowledgement also that one must cease from their sins in order to have biblical repentance.

And so now we’re not going to baptize somebody who doesn’t agree that they should stop sinning even if they’re sorry for the sins. They’ll admit to that.

An important aspect of this is found in 2 Chronicles 7:14. Now, that’s a verse that probably many people—it’s possible that most evangelical Christians are more familiar with that verse than many verses in the Bible because there’s been a lot of using of this verse in the last in terms of our country.

That verse of course reads: “If my people which are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

So he says, “Prior to forgiveness, there’s got to be repentance.” Repentance is a humbling before God, an acknowledgement of sin, seek his ways, and turn from their wicked ways.

Now, it’s amazing. I’ve heard people in a church that we used to attend—I heard specifically a pastor in the church we used to attend preach on this passage, and every time he read the verse, he did not read the portion that says, “Turn from their wicked ways.” His theology had caught up with the way he read the Bible. And he’d quote this verse from memory, and he failed to memorize that little chunk in there that says you got to turn from your wicked ways.

See, he had thought that repentance was just this contrition, a humbling of ourselves before God and there was no necessity to put on this legalistic work of turning from our ways. But the scriptures say that’s just exactly what you got to do. And certainly it means cessation from evil. You can’t say you’re sorry for sins and confess those sins to God. Call that repentance. If you don’t agree, you got to stop sinning.

But I think that more than that is implied in this verse. It doesn’t just say stop doing your wicked ways. It says to turn from your wicked ways. Okay. And that brings us to the next element of what’s important to see as a necessary ingredient. And that is a positive demonstration of good fruit. Good fruit is an essential aspect of repentance.

It’s kind of like, you know, Jesus talked about how the man who was had the demon cast out of him and instead of doing well, the man just got rid of his problem. He comes to sin and his demon was cast out. He had a nice clean house now and seven more demons come back in to take up residence. Well, it’s the same thing with ourselves. If we leave a vacuum there, we’re going to turn again to wickedness.

The scriptures say you must turn, stop doing that, feel sorry for it, but then you got to turn and have good fruit. And all those elements together are necessary for repentance.

Now, good fruit is important on two—to understand in terms of two specific areas. First of all, good fruits are important in terms of an evidence of repentance. Okay? And this passage of scripture we’ve been reading this morning says that bring forth fruits meat are worthy of your repentance. And I think that certainly one aspect that he’s talking about here is that you must evidence your repentance by a demonstration of fruits.

And if you see fruits, you have no reason to believe that all the thrashing about and beating of oneself on his chest is really a real repentance before God. It could be ungodly repentance unless you see some fruits. So fruits are important as an evidence.

In Acts 26:20 [Editor’s note: passage cited later as Acts 16:3], the jailer who was saved there washed the wounds of the saints after he had been brought to biblical repentance. He turned to doing good instead of doing evil.

In Luke 15:8 [Editor’s note: likely means Luke 15 with the parable of the prodigal son], the prodigal son not only stopped messing around with harlots and got out of the pig pen, he didn’t stop there. He came home. He returned to the father into the father’s house and the father’s authority and started acting in obedience to the father. A life of positive demonstration of fruits.

Psalm 36:8 says to “cease to do evil and do good.” Not just enough to cease to evil, you got to do good. Same things echoed in Isaiah 1:16 and 17. “Cease to do evil and learn to do good.” Two sides of biblical repentance, but all part of the one thing that we’re talking about in terms of repentance.

Now as I say this, it’s important of course that we point out we’re not saying here that fruits are necessary apart from remorse or contrition and a cessation of sin. The Roman Catholic Church in the middle ages frequently looked only at penance as the outward demonstration these fruits that we’re talking about looked only at penance and not at whether the person was really contrite before God.

In fact, they actually taught that attrition apart from contrition—fear of God and then a doing of penance—would usher in forgiveness. They equated repentance just with fear of doing what’s wrong and then doing the various things the church would set out. We’re not saying that.

But remember that’s the context. When you read the reformers and they say they really emphasize the interior works of the person, contrition, which they do, it’s because their environment they were working in had denied the importance of contrition. Okay? Well, we’re in a different situation today, aren’t we? We’re in the context of a church that has played heavy on contrition, but played light in terms of a demonstration of fruits that their contrition is really heartfelt contrition.

People say they’re sorry and that’s enough for repentance, they think. Well, Isaiah 55:7 says, “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 and he will humbly pardon.”

J. Alexander said, “To return to God in both these respects and ways and thoughts and our actions and our intentions is a complete description of repentance implying an entire change of heart as well as of life. A conversion of the heart, a change of life, Alexander said, is what’s taught by this verse to be biblical repentance.”

Leviticus 26:41, I said that if God said, “If my covenant people humble themselves, if they humble themselves and realize their uncircumcised actions are terrible before God, then he’d remember their covenant.” But he goes on to say, “If they humble themselves so that their works amend—that their works rather would make amendment for their iniquity.”

In Leviticus 26, he says that him remembering covenant is conditioned not just on contrition but upon making amendment in terms of their iniquity.

In Acts 26:20, Paul before Agrippa said that he had kept declaring to those at Damascus and to Jerusalem throughout the whole region of Judea and even to the Gentiles that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds appropriate to repentance. To preach the necessity of deeds as evidence of repentance is biblical. Paul did it. We should do it. It’s an important aspect of repentance to leave it out is incorrect biblically and to teach people false doctrine.

In Ephesians 4, we have a demonstration of what kind of fruits are worthy or comparable or in proper weight to repentance. Ephesians 4 says a person’s lied—it doesn’t say stop lying. It says to not turn around and tell the truth to your neighbor. Says if a person has stolen doesn’t say have him stop stealing. It says may he work with his hands so that he can give things to the needy. You see? It’s not just a cessation.

He turns them into a positive demonstration of his true repentance and he does things commensurate with what he’s done wrong in the past in terms of correcting it.

Some of you get the publication out of Tyler where Brian Soren has had a recent article in there. Brian Soren is a man who has raped at least—I don’t know four or five women. I think he’s in penitentiary in Texas probably for most the rest of his life if not the rest of it.

And he’s become a Christian and he now is writing articles about the dangers of pornography. He made a great point in the first article I read by him. He said that to whatever degree we’ve participated in the sin of pornography passively or you know actively—to that degree we have the necessity of bringing forth fruits worthy of repentance in an equivalent measure to our sin by working against pornography now to warn people about the dangers of pornography and what it leads into.

And his—you know, I’ve mentioned he’s a rapist. You probably think he was some kind of terrible reprobate but that’s not—that’s exactly what happened. This man began to read pornographic magazines. He was a well-to-do man, upper middle class, kids, wife, nice family, good upstanding job, and he just slowly worked his way into a position where he was in terrible and grievous sin before God. That of course would in a biblical society would he would suffer death for.

Well, the point is that he now is doing what the scriptures require. Let him who engages in that kind of activity now go out and help others to prevent them from falling into that same hole by warning them of the dangers of pornography. That’s biblical repentance.

We read 2 Corinthians 7:9 and 10 earlier about sorrow unto death or sorrow unto life. And Paul goes on to say how he knows that sorrow into life.

He says in verse 11 of that passage, “For behold this self-same thing that you sorrowed after a good sort, a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you. Yay, what clearing of yourselves. Yay, what indignation. Yay, what fear. Yay, what vehement desire, yay, what zeal, yay, what revenge. In all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter. Wherefore, though I wrote unto you, I did it not for this cause that you had done wrong, nor for his cause that suffered wrong, but that our care for you in the sight of God might appear unto you. Therefore, we were comforted in your comfort, yay and exceedingly, the more joyed we for the joy of Titus, because his spirit was refreshed by you all.”

So Paul is saying is that whole purpose of his earlier letter getting on him about their sin in their congregation wasn’t ultimately so that somebody might repent of his works individually or for the person of the offender or the offended but he says instead it was to bring you in position of where you’d have evidence to yourself that your godly sorrow over sin is biblical repentance.

It would usher into all these works—revenge, zeal to do what’s right, cleaving to what’s right and doing what’s right. All these things he said are evidence to you—is what the Greek reads like there—in the sight of God. They’re evidences to yourself that your godly sorrow is biblical and they’re evidences to God as well. Good deeds are important. Fruit is an essential aspect in terms of evidencing our true repentance before God.