Repentance is an absolute change of mind, not merely a change of habits or outward actions. Genuine repentance involves a profound internal shift in one's thinking about sin, the world, oneself, God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Word of God, and judgment. This transformation is illustrated by the parable of the two sons, where the son who initially refused but later went to work demonstrated true repentance by changing his mind. True repentance leads to salvation, as God's mind will only change regarding condemnation if individuals repent.
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just to see the first one. Shall we turn in our Bibles to Acts chapter two? Acts chapter two. We read the same verses we did last week on the subject of repentance. Chapter two and verse thirty-eight. Then Peter said unto them, Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
And verse nineteen of chapter three, Repent ye therefore and be converted, and your sins may be borne out when the time of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. Chapter five and verse thirty one. Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a prince and a savor for to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. Verse eight and chapter eight rather, and verse twenty two. Repent therefore of this thy wickedness and pray God if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee.
And the times of this ignorance, God winked at, but now command of all men everywhere to repent. That's verse thirty of chapter eight. Now verse, that's verse thirty of chapter seventeen, excuse me. Chapter seventeen and verse thirty. We'll read that again. And the times of this ignorance, God winked at, but now command of all men everywhere to repent. because he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, and that he hath raised him from the dead. And also in chapter twenty, verse twenty one, testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks repentance toward God and faith, toward our Lord Jesus Christ, then verse twenty, verse twenty of chapter twenty-six, but showed first unto them of Damascus and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coast of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and
do works meet for repentance. In other words, we've read to you the seven times in Acts where you have the word repentance introduced. The word repentance in the different connections. We may have time to bring in the connections, but if not, I want to emphasize repentance. Last week we were pointing out some points relative to repentance, emphasizing except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish. And though that word except, We emphasize, just mentioned about twelve times in the New Testament.
It means it's definite. It's infinite. There's no detour around it. There's no other way, except ye repent. There's no other alternative. Except ye repent, ye shall all like wise parents. Then it's up to the wise souls who ask this question, just what is repentant? If I've got to repent in order to be saved, then what is repentance? Well, we pointed out last week what repentance was not, or some of the things leading up to it, I think we'll continue that point, what repentance is not.
And we mentioned, if I remember rightly, here you have the case of Pharaoh, showing that fear is not necessary, repentance. You remember how Moses and Aaron made known unto Pharaoh the judgments that were coming upon Egypt, and how those judgments fell one after another, especially that terrific lightning and thunderstorm, and when Pharaoh heard the thunder, almost spitting his eardrums, and he saw the flashes of lightning and the fire running along upon the ground, He was so terrified and gripped with fear.
He called for Moses, and he says, I'll let Israel go. I'll let Israel go. And soon as God says, all right, we'll accept that, and my people are to go. And soon as Pharaoh saw that God had changed his mind, he hardened his heart. He says, who is the Lord? I know not the Lord. Neither will I let Israel go. And some more judgment came, showing in that one instance how Pharaoh was gripped with fear. He saw the display of God's power and justice.
Even that didn't cause him to change his mind. He hardened his mind. He hardened his heart, showing that fear is not repentant. Then another thing, fasting or afflicting your body is not repentance. You read over in the Old Testament about many who afflicted their bodies, and also in heathen religions, you find those who will fast and afflict their bodies, thinking that they are obtaining God's salvation thereby. Friend, you may fast, you may afflict your bodies, but that's not repentance.
And neither is repentance penance, there's a difference. Penance simply means one's effort to atone for the wrongs he has done. And you have in the Old Testament the woman, and the prophet speaks of one, a woman, shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body, for the sin of my soul? No. thing like those people who go to the river, those who go to the special river Ganges, with their firstborn son. And they've been told that they have infuriated or angered the God of the River Ganges.
And the only way he can be appeased is for that young mother to take her firstborn son, the fruit of her body, and go down to the River Ganges and cast her offering into the water to be snapped up and be powered in wounds by the crocodiles. And she goes back home, all those saddened and hot, yet she feels at ease that she has appeased the anger of the God of the River Ganges. What awful deceptions for people to be brought up in. Things like this are practiced around the world.
Such things as fasting and afflicting your body and doing penance and so on, thinking that is what the merit, salvation, all that is repentance. No, then, you can do all that and not change your mind. Then quitting one's bad habits is not repentance. Many a person turns over a new leaf. at the beginning of the year, well, I'm not going to do this anymore, and I'm not going to do that, and I think if I turned over a new leaf, I'll go to heaven. Friend, if that would take anybody to heaven, a lot of people would be on the way, because plenty of folks make new resolutions, but that's like chopping off a few twigs on a tree when the whole tree is corrupt from the root or not.
So, just turning over a new leaf or quitting some bad habits is certainly a long distance away from true repentance. Nor is repentance reformation. Reformation is outward. Repentance is inward. Repentance is in the heart. And so reformation is not repentance. You can read the Bible, which is a good thing to do. You can pray, which is a good thing to do. You can work. and do lots of good deeds, and still not repent. But also penitence is not repentance. Penitence or sorrow for sin that you've committed simply because you've been found out.
If you hadn't been found out, there'd have been no penitence. And there's a lot of that today. There can be sorrow without repentance. but there cannot be true repentance without sorrow and godly sorrow worth of repentance, but worldly sorrow brings remorse. And so is a big difference between penitence and repentance, genuine repentance. Repentance, what does it mean? Is it conviction of sin? That may be the beginning, but it's certainly not the conclusion.
Here's a question under conviction, and where do I know in my own life? Many times before I was saved, I was so convicted, I couldn't sleep at night. All I thought about was my sin, I thought about dying without Christ, I thought of the Lord coming and I'm not ready. My judgments would go and I'd be left behind and I was restless. But I didn't change from mine. I didn't repent. Otherwise I would have gotten saved. And so just conviction of sin is not repentance. Many people have been convicted and gone out of this chapel as many can witness.
especially if you're at the door, going out there, out the door, weeping, crying, yet not to return. They've made up their mind about one thing, I'm not ready for that. I want to go to heaven, but not yet. I'm not ready for that decision. They're not ready to change their mind. They can get convicted, deeply convicted, and yet not truly repent. Well, now what is repentance? Repentance, as far as we can see from the Bible, is an absolute change of mind.
This is the hardest thing for a man or a woman to do, especially someone who is stubborn. That's one of the things that God's got to break. Man's stubborn will. Man's rebellious will. And a person who is stubborn is very hard to get him or her to change his or her mind. A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still. True repentance is an absolute change of mind. I think you have an illustration of that in the two sons in Matthew, twenty-one and twenty-eight, and I am going to read that.
But what think ye a certain man had two sons? And he came to the first and said, Son, go work today in my vineyard. He answered and said, I will not. But afterward he repented and went. And the Lord came to the second and said, Likewise. And he answered and said, I go, sir. but he went not. Just lip service. Well, that all of them twain did the will of his father. They say unto him the first. Yes, that's right.
Jesus says unto them the scribes and the Pharisees, Verily I say unto you, that the publicans and the harlots go into the kingdom of heaven before you. For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, or he preached repentance, and ye believed him not. But the Republicans and the Hollis believed him, and ye, when ye had seen it, ye repented not. That's what they did not do. They repented not afterward that ye might believe, and be saved.
Here were these publicans and hearts, out and out sinners. You talked religion to them, they weren't interested. Of course you talked religion to the strides and the fallacies. Yes, they're interested. They are religious. But when the chips are down, the facts are made known, the power of the Lord is displayed in his miracles and in his preaching. The strides and the fallacies backed off. because he denounced human merit and said righteousness. At first they said, oh yes, we'll receive the Word of God, we'll receive the prophets of God, we'll receive the Messiah.
But when his ministry was so scathing and he tore the mask of hypocrisy from off their face, he ripped those robes of pretence from their bodies and left them naked. They withdrew. They weren't ready to change their minds. They repented not. But these publicists, these sinners, who had no interest in religion, when they saw the miracles performed and they heard the word preached by the Son of God, they changed their mind. We're interested in this. This is what we've been looking for.
This is what we want. We want to know our sins forgiven. We want to know we're going to heaven. And they accepted Christ. And Christ said to these tribes of Pharisees, the publicans and the harlots, which the kingdom of heaven before you. Quite a scathing remark, wasn't it? These men were not ready to change their mind. They were not prepared to repent. In other words, in this passage you have sonship and servant. Son. There it is sonship. He was talking to a true Christian.
Or in our case we're applying it in the Gospel, like the Fifteenth of Luke. Certain man had two sons. And we use that as an illustration of the Gospel, and it is very appropriate. And so we speak of, first of all, sonship, and then service. Son, divine relationship, the command, go to work, is a divine command. The time, today, and the sphere, my vinyana. This is God's word to you and me who are Christians.
son, daughter, go work today, in my dream. Oh, I ain't going. I ain't going yet. Count on me. I'll be right there. When the time comes, you're absent. Just look, sir. If you meant business, you'd be there. You'd be there ready to do whatever is planned or organized to be done. The first one said, He would not in this battle. I'm not going to do it. But afterward it says, He repented, He went.
I should have a Christian tell me, or I asked him to repeat the chapter such and such a time, who won't do so and so. No, I'm not coming. I haven't got time to go. I've got a thing to do. But when the time comes, they turn up. I far sooner heard that kind of a person, the person said, Yeah, I'll be there, I'll be there. Tell on me. I need not be. And the Lord is pointing out about these people who are ready to change their minds. Second thoughts are sometimes best. The person who said, No, I'm not going to be there.
They get home and something begins turning within them a guilty conscience. Well, you know, I ought to go. I'm a Christian. After all, I can help a little. Things need to be done that everybody did like I did while they all stay at home. And they change their mind, and they go, that's what the Lord has. Second thoughts. And I want to apply this to you who are not saved. You better have second thoughts about your salvation. And don't be saying I'm not interested. I'm not concerned. You better think that thing through.
And if you sat down for five minutes or ten minutes and faced the facts, you change your mind. You change your mind. And so you have, in this case, the Lord Jesus emphasizes the need for a person to repent or to change his mind. And if you are not Christians, those of you who are not Christians this morning, you say you're not going to become a Christian, you're not interested, you better change your mind, or you'll have a long, long eternity to change it, when there will be no salvation available.
Then the second one, he says, I go, sir, but he went not. empty professions. You say, I'm a Christian? All right. Proven. I don't want words, empty words. So many people say, I'm saved. I got saved. Is there any evidence in your life that something genuine happened within your soul? Proven! That's the point. Oh, yes. So many have said, I'll be at the church on Sunday. I suppose this week you told me that, I don't see them here this morning.
Very seriously and very solemnly they promised they'd be here this morning. Albany is the most promising city I've ever been in. If all the people kept their promises since I've been in Albany, you couldn't begin to hold them in the city I was in. A very promising city in the wrong way. promising you're going to come, you're going to do this, you're going to do that. The first one changes mind for the best. The second one changes mind for the bad. Friend, I trust whatever is necessary to change your mind if you're not a born-again Christian.
I trust you to give your mind change and change the day before the today. That's real repentance. Yes, repentance. Pentance is a change of mind. About what? About various things. First of all, about sin. People look lightly upon sin. You know, light thoughts of sin means light thoughts of the atonement. And even if this is true of a Christian, it's on them. Christians can take light thoughts of sin and brush things aside. The first time, oh, well, They had a guilty conscience. They were there that.
Finally, their conscience got a little hardened. And they could do things. And they didn't worry them. They didn't worry them. It means God wants you to change your mind about sin, what his freedom of character is. And that's what the Spirit of God is in this world to convict men and women all about. Sing! The true nature of sin! Oh, the ugliness of sin. It's ugly. It's horrible. It's abominable to God. And if only we could see sin as God sees sin. How do you feel about it?
And the disease that God uses the most to illustrate sin is a very loathsome disease, leprosy. Leprosy. horrid sight of a leper, and especially other people who have certain running diseases when you take all the bandages and all the thoughts off them and put it in a pile in what a room as far as you can, the sight of the mention of Satan, God says, all your good deeds as I should just be right.
you can't describe what a heap of filthy rags is really like when all those bandages have been taken off a colony of lepers possibly some members of their body have stuck to the floor that's filthy rags and that's how god describes your righteousness if you're not born again all your righteousness is honest, filthy life. Do you see sin like that? Sin, the true nature of sin. It's abominable, loathful, despicable the eye of God.
You know, sin is deceptive. How did sin array itself when Jesus Christ came into this world to put sin away? For Christ came into the world to put away sin. How did sin array itself, trying through this section to put away the one who came to put away sin. Did sin dress itself up in a barabbas, in a bandit, in a murderer, in a liar? No. Did sin dress itself up in military might? No. Sin dressed itself up in religious gods religious gods, religious rules, phylactics, portions of Scripture tied around the bottom of their gods, long prayers, terrible looks.
Sin dressed itself up in the scribes and the Pharisees to put away Christ who came, to put away sin. And today sin can attire itself in very respectable garments. Oh, you can't do this. You shouldn't do that. And they'll pull away from the fallen sinner. And they'll pull their skirts about them and look in the other way, like the priest, and like the legite in Luke chapter ten. All I've got to say beyond your guard against sin, it's very subtle.
unable to see. So see sin in its true form. Change your mind about it. Then again, think of this world. You think this world is a wonderful world. Oh, I hear people talking about the world. By the world of self-creation, that's fine, but it's the people who live here. And people say, it's getting bad. It's getting bad. I don't know where their intelligence is, or where they got their education, and they can say that these worlds get in touch. Do you know how God described this world? He speaks of it as a wicked world, a wicked world, an ungodly world, in the arms of the wicked ones, Satan.
And if you think this world is wonderful, and you're going to make it your object, To settle down here and enjoy it, you better change your mind. But this world is a wicked world, an ungodly world. A brutal world, a cruel world, a sick world, a suffering world. That's the world as God sees it. Necessitating His Son to come and to save all who believe. then you need to change your mind too about yourself. Real repentance means a change of mind about yourself.
You think yourself, you're always. You live a good life, as good as your neighbor. And if so and so is going to heaven so by, and there you go. You put another one down in order to exalt yourself. your great opinion of yourself, and I live a pretty good life. You're well satisfied with yourself. Friend, you haven't repented yet. You haven't seen yourself as God sees you. You haven't seen your mind. If you saw yourself as God sees you, you'd repent in sackcloth and ashes.
change your mind about yourself instead of you thinking yourself, well, you're bad. And I'm not going to say there's some good about you, and there's some bad about you. That's the way you'd like to put it. No, friend, as God sees you, there's nothing good about you. It's all bad. All that. God says from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head, there's no solemnness in them, but wounds and bruises and cutrifying sores neither bound up or modified with punishment.
But he's got an Isaiah one that I think for the sick. If you want to see God's description of a man without Christ, I'll tell you, he hasn't much to glory in. Self. Seven. You've got to change your mind about yourself. That you're a lost sinner. And you need to be born again. You need to change your mind also about God. Some think God is like an Indian rubber dog. You can stretch him to sit all kinds of brains and thoughts and ideas.
No, friend, there's only one part in the Bible that the Bible presents. And you have a photograph of him, and you have it in Jesus Christ, for he says, He's going to see me, has seen the Father. And in Jesus Christ, you have perfection personified. You better change your mind about God, that He's easy to deal with, that He's lenient on sin, And you can do this, and he won't punish you." Well, the Graham said three or four years ago about a young woman, married woman, came up to him, and she said, Mr.
Graham, she said, I'm a Christian, but she said, I've got to confess this, that I'm living with another man other than my husband. But she said, I think the Lord understands. I think the Lord understands. Yes, he understands the wantonness, the wretchedness, the depravity of that woman doing such a thing as I am protesting to be a Christian. I think the Lord understands. People think today they can do little things.
They call them white sins. Some of them are gray. Oh, I think the Lord understands. There are things of some life. Well, you don't know the God of the Bible. Say a sin, and God sees no good in your sins of any kind or color or character. God is a Holy God. nothing but holiness satisfies him. And the only way you can satisfy God and be accepted by him is by your coming to Jesus Christ and being accepted in the beloved. For Jesus Christ is perfection.
Jesus Christ is sinlessness. The very opposite to you. And God is such a God that only perfection will he accept? Only sinlessness will he accept. Only righteousness will he accept. And without Christ you have none of these. With Christ you have them all. And God will accept you when you accept His Son. And so men and women need to change their mind about God. They need to change their mind about Christ. Some think, quite well, he's a good man.
And it's so strange to me it's almost amusing if it went so sad you hear these modernists talk about the Lord Jesus, what a wonderful charity he was, the most righteous man that ever lived, the most perfect example of humanity that ever lived. Oh, they play up the virtues of Christ, the light he lived in. character he displayed and manifested. Then they turn around and call him a liar. They say he was one born of a virgin. He wasn't a son of God. When Jesus Christ himself made that man.
And if they say that Jesus Christ was all that they claim to be, then they would accept him. And not only him, but what he said. about himself, and about you, and about his father, and about the way of salvation. And yet these men who try their best to get rid of the fact that Jesus Christ was virgin born, and that they can get away with that, then all the other fundamentals fall within. But Jesus Christ was virgin born. He lived a sinless life. He could not sin. and he died on the cross of Archerius' death.
He suffered a new place of dying. He rose from the dead on the third day. He didn't evaporate into death. He rose himself. He's coming back. He says, the Lord says the Lord himself shall come. I will come again and receive you unto myself. And if Jesus Christ isn't all that, and doesn't mean all that he said, then he's a liar. He's an imposter. Let me tell you, everything the Lord Jesus Christ said and did was hurt.
Delightful to the Father which is in heaven, and unless you change your mind about the Lord Jesus Christ, and see more than a historical figure, a wonderful personality, a strong character, one who's helped the poor. Unless you see more in Jesus Christ than a patron or an example, you'll never be in heaven. You've got to see in Jesus Christ the only way you see it. In Christ is the only way you'll ever enter heaven. I am the way, the truth, and the light. No man cometh unto the Father but by me.
There is none of the name under heaven given among men whereby you must resort. And if you have any other ideas about the Lord Jesus, then what is presented here in the Bible, you need to change your mind. You need to repent. That's what repentance means. You need to change your mind toward the Holy Spirit or say some, Spirit of God, that's just an influence. No, the Spirit of God is a person, not just an influence, but a person with a very great influence. The Spirit of God has got a great influence, and he's in the world.
and He's here to convict the world of sin, of righteousness, and of justice. You better get right thoughts about the Holy Spirit. He's here for one purpose, to convict you of your need, and to convict you of the righteousness that you need to get to heaven, and that righteousness is found only in Christ Jesus, and if you don't accept that righteousness, imputed righteousness, it'll be blackness of darkness forever, And you better have right thoughts about the Spirit of God. After all, he's the author of this book. And if you don't believe it, you're calling him a liar.
You better change your mind about the Spirit of God. And change your mind about the Word of God. Not, Christ aware of some of it is good. Some of it's inspired, but some of it isn't. Christ says... June twenty-four when he's with the two in the Damascus Road. It says, He opened unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. Beginning of Moses, that takes in the Pentateuch, and the Proverbs. And then He speaks the Psalms, that takes in the Psalms. He opened unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerned himself.
And the Bible is a is a personality, an embalmed personality. And friend, unless you change your mind about the Bible, if you have any thought of it being the work of men and not the work of God, you better repent. And change your mind and realize that every word of God is true. Every word he spoke in every verse, all of it is true. If you don't believe the Bible is the inspired word of God, then you're not saved. And you're not a thug to be saved until you believe the Bible from Genesis to Revelation is God's fully inspired word.
Men need to be convinced of this. You're not going to get anyone to Christ unless they have the right thoughts about sin, the right thoughts about God. the right thoughts about Christ that's presented in the Word, and the right thoughts about the Spirit of God, the Triangle. Then you need to have the right thoughts about salvation. If you think you can get to heaven by doing the best you can, joining the church, try and live your best, you better repent, you better change your mind. Christ says except the man be born again, he cannot enter.
Men and women today need to repent about these persons and things that I've mentioned. And I want to say something else. That you need to repent about the subject of judgment. Oh God, he is too loving a God to let anyone be punished forever. You be to tell me that any father or mother would see their child suffer forever in the lake of fire? No. And God as a father won't allow one of his sons or daughters, his children, to suffer forever.
Not one of his children will be in heaven. not only their sons or daughters will be in the lake of fire, but creatures. God's creatures. People don't see the difference between God's children and creatures. God's creatures. We're all born into the world of God's creatures. But God's not satisfied with that. He wants a closer relationship. He wants you to come into the family and be among the children of God. and you can only get into his family by birth, to be born into it by the Spirit of God. I'm praying that you're not clear on this point.
I hope you'll get your mind changed this morning. As to salvation, as to the consequences of you rejecting that salvation, if you don't accept what the Bible says about yourself, sin, God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, the Word of God, salvation, the judgment of God. If you don't accept all these truths as presented in the Bible, not only are you not saved, you're a long way from being saved. And you need to repent and change your mind about these matters. And cry out like the public and God, be merciful to me this sermon.
We'll have to close another one of these introductions. We'll conclude, hope we'll conclude this in two weeks' time. I'll not be here next Lord's Day. I'll be back when he's taken the meeting next Lord's Day. I'm going to be up in Columbia. I haven't spoken at a conference for many a year, five years. I've been sitting off doing the Bible conferences. and serve my strength with all of them. But this time we're going up to your brother McKay. He hasn't preached together the council for many years. So we're going to have that pleasure. And I'll not be here next Sunday. But I want to get back to you on the subject of the matter.
Are you a sinner? Are you a sinner? Do you know it now because God said it? Do you believe that God loved you and he gave Christ to die here? and that Christ shed his blood upon that cross with all your sins away. And if you accept him by simple, shy-like faith, the moment you do, the Bible says you'll pass from death unto life. You'll become a new picture in Christ Jesus. All your sins will be forgiven. You'll have everlasting life. You'll never perish. you'll be going to heaven.
All that and much more is yours. If you'll simply lay aside your ideas, change your mind about these fundamental truths and accept what the Bible says. And be saved. True dependence is a complete abandonment of what you think and of yourself and your effort to save yourself. and turn yourself completely over to another, and that other is the Lord Jesus Christ. We'll leave you that this morning if you do. God says, thou shalt be saved, and God won't change his mind.
God never repents. I'll qualify that. In the Old Testament, he said, and we may speak on this a little next Sunday, or Sunday to speak on repentance, the next message. He said, Jonah entered Nineveh with this short sermon. Forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. And Noah began preaching, and right from the king and the throne to the baker in the dungeon they put on sackcloth. They repented, and when God saw that, he says, I will not destroy them.
God changed his mind when they changed them. And friends, God has it in his mind that unless you're saved, then again, you're going to be punished with everlasting destruction. God is not going to change his mind. He is not going to repent unless you change your mind. If you repent and say, God's right, I'm wrong, then God will save you. That's the only thing that will cause God to change his mind about your being condemned and going to hell is for you to repent.
You change your mind, and God then will change his mind. and sing by his will. Shall we pray? Our Father in heaven, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to thy presence. We ask thy blessing on thy word. May someone hear thy voice and let the Savior in. We humbly ask this in our Lord Jesus. Precious name. Amen. Shall we sing Psalm just as I am without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me. That thou bid me come to thee, O Lamb of God, I come.
If you've come to Christ at any previous meeting or this morning, will you come up and tell us, or if you're not a Christian, do you think we can help you? Will you come up?