Repentance Leads to Restoration: Being Right With God, Pt 7

21.  Repentance is all about the divine grace of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God.  We speak of human responsibility but it really refers to God's awesome grace alone in progressive sanctification.  In progressive sanctification, we care able to cooperate with God and His Spirit because of a new nature in Christ.  We have been spiritually awakened and born from above.  The grace of God moves us and helps us and dives us and keeps us going.  No force in heaven, hell or earth can stop God's gift of repentance unto remission.  There are many devils in this world that seek to undo us.  I remember when others of non-Christian cults sought to undo me because of man-made traditions rather than the written Word.  The battles were long and hard but a simple word of no fellowship would suffice and stand my ground, or a Scriptural quote from the written Word to convict the sinner of sin if the Lord would be gracious!  We get the divine command of contrite repentance from God's divine Scriptures.  Many non-Christians in world religions think they are good.  Others think they do not need the divine command to repent and believe the gospel.  The Bible says that no one is good and no one is righteous in and of themselves.  The only good we possess is the good that Jesus Christ brings to us through His perfect life and perfect death.  Jesus never sinned one single sin in breaking the divine law of God according to the divine Scriptures.  However, people are sinners and we will never stop sinning until the awesomeness of divine glory.  We cannot stop sinning through the flesh.   There are times, however, in a reprobate's life that they can resist sin but only for a short time.  I suggest to you it is not the same thing as a Christian who is able to resist sin.  We ought to resist sin by His Spirit.  It is possible to resist sin by reading His Word and the all-dominating presence of God's Spirit in us and upon us.  Many gossip about a Christian who has many faults and sins.  Why are you gossiping about a Christian's particular sins and wrong habits?  Shouldn't you be praying for him or her to abstain or avoid this sin instead of using your tongue set on fire by hell?  No Christian is without sin touching the flesh.  However, the Bible clearly teaches that the soul is sinless but the shadows on the soul are the sins of the flesh.  The great saint Samuel even sinned but all Christians like Samuel use their spiritual freedom by God's all-powerful and all-effective grace to repent and return to God for divine mercy and forgiveness and cleansing and holy grace!   If someone sins, pray that God humbles that person through His Word being preached so that they can grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  The written Word preached changes us only by His accompanying divine grace through His Spirit alone to transform our minds in renewed obedience and He conforms us to the very image of Jesus Christ.  Constant repentance is necessary for holiness.   Are you committed to constant repentance over against sins of different degrees?  There is no sin that can outdo the Cross of Jesus Christ.  The difference between a unbelieving reprobate and a Christian is adherence to the call of holy repentance through Christ alone.  I suggest to you that if you turn to anyone besides Christ you have fallen into a different gospel or another gospel.  He alone has the divine and spiritual ability to save you.  There is no other intercessor that is divinely sufficient to save than Jesus Christ.  I do not mean to suggest that the Word does not speak of the Spirit of God as our Comforter.  The Spirit of God is indeed our Comforter but man's tradition or extra-biblical visions seeks to add to even the Spirit of God.  The Spirit enables us to repent and through repentance we have God's sheer mercy.  Are you conscious of God's divine mercy upon you?  No one should add something to God's absolute mercy like good works, meritorious works, purgatory, merits of others, or sacrifices that contradict the divine atonement of Jesus.  Mercy is the result of repentant hearts.  We repent because God has given us His divine grace.  We repent because it is necessary to enter into a holy relationship with God.  If you repent, you are in a healthy relationship with God. 

22.  What is the spiritual solution for America and the world around us?  We do not hear people speaking of contrite repentance before God unless its to the wrong God.  First of all, we ought to never repent to a false "deity."  We ought always to repent to the God of the Bible alone apart from any man-made traditions, viewpoints, corrupt theology and worldly philosophies.  The Bible in Jeremiah 18:8 speaks of a nation turning from its evil way and God will relent from His calamity.   Has America or the world turned from its evil way?  Have abortions stopped?  Why now homosexual marriage?  What about government corruption?  I suggest to you that if people understood the absolute holiness of God and their total sinfulness, they would repent and turn to God in obedient submission through His design.   I would like to tell the world or anyone who reads my few "fishes and loaves" to repent and turn away from your sin.  Sin could be anything like sexual evil or gossip or hatred or murder or stealing or coveting or plagiarism.  If you repent to God, He will surely bless you with spiritual mercy.  However, we ought to understand that repentance does not save us, but Jesus Christ in His active and passive obedience.  What now is that?  His active obedience is His perfect life and His passive obedience is His perfect death.  Some people nowadays reject His active obedience.  I do not understand why this is the case in light of the divine Word.   I would like to point out that sinners want to earn their spiritual salvation on their own but we are unable because of our sinful nature.  Jesus earned spiritual salvation through His sinless life in our behalf.  We need to apprehend it by simple child-like trust.  It is hard to trust God because of our remaining corruption.  We are sometimes faithless but God is faithful and He will see us through no matter what.  However, we have ignored the Lord and rebelled against Him. We have even excluded Him from our public schools, but when monsters arise and disaster strikes, people want to know where God is.  We have thrown Him out of our public schools and banished Him from our minds.  By nature, man wants nothing to do with thoughts about God.  If public schools do not want Him in their classrooms, it is no doubt a great sin that leads many into mistaken thinking.  We have also taken Him out of our judicial system and our legislative system.  I ask to the responsible people, why have you done this to our country?  We have committed sin and wickedness and lawlessness.  There is no excuse but to go to God and ask for His pardon and bear fruits of repentance.  If God turns a person over, it is no doubt judgment.  Homosexual marriage, abortions, killing the elderly, replacing the Bible with the Quarn, denial of prayer in public and sexual abuse are all evidence of God turning a world over to itself.  I suggest to you that this means judgement.  We must admit we have fallen into great sin and return to God who made the heavens and the earth!   If we reject Him, there will be further consequences.  We need God's divine restraining grace but we are a godless people, but may God remember mercy when He decides to judge in His fury, indignation and wrath.  America is presently experiencing God's wrath, because we refuse to live the way God says.  He says in His written Word that our thoughts are not His thoughts and His ways are not our ways.  I submit to you that America needs to change and I am speaking of a reformation of all society!  It begins with allegiance to the sole supremacy of His written Word and loyalty to Him in an abandonment to repentance unto obedience.  I suggest to you that according to Romans chapter 1, God has given America over to the lusts of her impurities, immoralities and spiritual ruin.   She has exchanged the divine truth of God for a lie and served the creature over the Creator.  However, there is still hope for us.  Do not fear!  The hope for America and the world is the same hope Israel possessed in ancient history but we must never surpass the truth in an abandonment to unrighteousness!  I am not calling a nation or the world to morality but trust and faith and repentance towards God the Trinity alone.  I suggest to you that this is our only hope and confidence!  The remedy for restoration is through repentance and faith.  How many of you will turn away from your sin and trust the God of the Bible alone?  May God grant a remnant of the spiritual seven thousand to bow the knee to Him this day!  Amen. (Sermon Reference:  Smith/June 24, 2007/"Repentance Is the Remedy For Restoration"/1 Samuel 7:3-17). 

Repentance Leads to Restoration: Being Right With God, Pt 6

18.  There was a "stone of help" in the nation of Israel and it served as a reminder that God was faithful to His divine Word.  It is true that we should not live in the past.  We should not dwell on sin but I am sure we remember the consequences of our sin.  The punishment for our sin is chastening unto holiness not redemptive.  We hear that we should not live in the past.  This is basically good advise, but it is not entirely true for the Christian.  If we remember it will help our gratitude, and Christian gratitude will help keep us faithful.  The mark of a true Christian is faithfulness.  However, because of our remaining corruption we despair and doubt God and His blessed Word.   He is faithful in the past, now in the present and soon in the future.  There is never a time when He is not faithful.  We may be steadfast for the future if we dwell on the past.  That is, didn't you first trust Christ in the past?  In other words, Paul says about his past in a paraphrase, "I know whom I have believed and I am persuaded that He will keep that which I have committed against the Day of Judgment."  We see that Samuel remembered the Lord's work because He acknowledged the Lord's help.  We ought always to confess the Lord's work in how He helps us to give Him alone the glory and the honor and the praise.

19.  We need God as the font of every blessing in our Christian lives.  We need His Spirit to tune our hearts to sing of God's awesome grace.  We are sheep going astray and wandering from the fold of God.  We are prone to wander and we know it.  We are prone to leave the God we love so dear.  We fall into sin and rebel, but He is always there ready to forgive us.  The Christian loves His Redeemer and Creator.  The "Ebenezer" is a reminder to God's utter and very faithfulness in Christ to help the people of Israel.  If we remember God's work of faithfulness since we first trusted Christ as Lord and Savior, it will no doubt strengthen our faith before God and we will grow in His Word by edification, knowledge and wisdom.  We see that God's love has blessed us and God has brought us to where we are.  He will bring us safely home by His all-true and all-dominating grace.   We ought to remember God's faithfulness to us.  It is always good to count our every blessings in prayer because it enriches our prayer time, life and conversation to God.  Have you remembered God's faithfulness to you?  Maybe it is good to keep reminders of His blessed faithfulness to you, because we easily forget. 

20.  We have not been saved from a human enemy like the nation of Israel concerning the Philistines.  We have been saved from the Father's wrath.  The Father's wrath in eternal hell is far worse than any human enemy.  We ought to praise the Father of lights that He sent His only begotten dear Son in whom He was solely well-pleased to die a death of a sacrificial atonement to remit the sins of God's people through Christ alone and pay for divine satisfaction for our sins.   We ought to tenderly dwell upon His atoning death through the Lord's Supper.  He was lifted up in our behalf.  He is with us now in fellowship and communion, but He will also come again.  We remember that He is with us now and will come again in the future.  In the days of Samuel God was opposed to the Philistines all the days of Samuel.  God is opposed to the non-elect and hates them.  He hates them and He is angry with them everyday because they do not have the Christ-covering of the divine Savior of the Cross.  Israel was restored what the Philistines had taken.  God restores to us what was taken from us by our enemies.  Its like a person who has been raped.  That is, if they come to Christ and He washes them clean from the defilement of the world, they are purer than when they first begun.  God also brings peace between enemies when our ways are pleasing to Him.  I would like to point out that there was peace between Israel and the Amorites.  God is the first cause to bring about peace through His outstretched providential hand.  God the Father, the only Holy Father, made peace with Himself through Jesus our Savior and Lord in earning salvation for us in His sinless life in living in our behalf and dying an efficacious propitiatory death in our behalf.  Jesus said of Himself that the Son of Man must be lifted up.  That is, the Son of Man must be crucified.  He called Himself the "Good Shepherd" because He lies down His life for the sheep.   It was said by a Catholic theologian on EWTN that none of the people that saw Jesus' death knew that Jesus was offering Himself as sin offering to God to atone for sin of His people because it all appeared outside the walls of Jerusalem, outside the temple and with no priest.  I suggest to you that He clearly said He was the Good Shepherd and the Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.  The people that treasured His words knew actually what was going on at the Cross of Calvary.  That is, surely His mother knew this was the very reason He was born!  I have a Savior that needs no additions or subtractions.  Why, He is perfect just the way He is for us!   Don't you see that Jesus is the perfect Savior?  Dwell much on this in these dark days.

Grace and peace!

Repentance Leads to Restoration: Being Right With God, Pt 5

14.  We see that the nation of Israel was afraid.  Do you trust God when you are afraid?  Do you trust God's Word concerning His very promises in truth and spirit?  Have you backslided in your life?  Have you taken proper measures to amend your life before God and man according to His written Word?  Do you find yourself complaining of your providential ordering of your circumstances?  Remember everything is ordained for our good according to His good will.  Are you in despair or buckle under distress?  Remember the trust and courage of David in the Old Testament.  We are threatened by sin and death and pain.  What should we do?  We ought to trust God alone and His Word.

15.  The spiritual test is placed before us just like it was placed before the nation of Israel during Samuel's time.  Do you observe a life of faith and trust in the promises of Christ?  Do you instead walk by sight and ignorant human wisdom and worldly advise?   Do you realize that if you forsake certain sin you will be happier?  Do you know the Bible present's the only way to discipline our children?  Will good works here on earth grant me a better place in heaven as a reward?  Have you been persecuted?  Do you know you are blessed?   Have you understood that God blesses prayers?  Is it true that it is better to give than to receive?  Will people without the gospel suffer in eternal hell?   If so, what have you done to fix it?  Do you use your spiritual gifts?  God promises deliverance for the nation of Israel if they simply repent.  The question remains, did the nation of Israel believe God could grant deliverance through their trust of Him alone?

16.  The nation of Israel passed the spiritual test.  They sought the favor of God.  I suggest to you that God moved their hearts to respond.  They prayed, fasted and made public confession.  It was a test or question of sheer faith.  It was their trust that saw the evidence of a God who keeps His promises and delivers them.  They were a desperate people.  We saw that king Saul was desperate and consulted a medium.  Sometimes when sinners are desperate they do wrong things before God and man.  Sometimes they turn to the occult.  No one should ever turn to the occult.  We ought instead be armed with the weapon of prayer and always turn to the Lord alone.  The Israelites were living a Godward way of life and this was the time they were threatened.  I suggest to you that in the Christian life we can become more like Satan by sinning in rebellious idolatry or become more like Christ through the Spirit and Word imparting His divine grace to be obedient in all good works.   We cannot earn our salvation in any sense.  Satan meant to destroy the nation of Israel, but God had meant it for their good.  God fought for them and went ahead of them regarding fighting for His ultimate cause.  The people asked Samuel to cry out to the Lord their God for them.  He offered a burnt offering for the people and cried to the Lord alone.  God fulfilled His promise and His Word, helped the people and encouraged them and fulfilled His ultimate promise to them in a direct fashion.  The Lord helped the nation of Israel.

17.  The result of repentance is God confirming His Word.  It is about His Word being kept and the complete and divine encouragement for us.  It is a fulfillment of His great salvational promise.  God blesses His people with forgiveness, mercy and pardon when they repent.  He surely delivers His people when they repent.  Through the all-sufficient and all-exclusive atonement of our Lord Jesus, He remits all our sins because the blood of Jesus is enough to take us to heaven without anything else.  We ought to continue to repent and believe the gospel.  Never give up!  No matter what.  Never give up!  The result of repentance is eternal joy and gladness and rejoicing.  It is a furtherance of a greater obedience to God.  Repentance is not some kind of self-torment but it is confession to God in a contrite manner.  The result of repentance is forgiveness because it is through the once-and-for-all atonement of Jesus.  Amen.

Repentance Leads to Restoration: Being Right With God, Pt 4

10.  The Lord would let the nation of Israel's enemies defeat them in battle because of their disobedient way of life and unrepentant hearts.  We see God saying that He would deliver them if they turn from their abominable iniquity because they have offended God.  We must be a humble people (2 Chronicles 7:14).  We must seek the face of God.  That is, we must seek His favor and divine grace.  The grace of Christ is His life and death alone.   We must turn from our evil ways to the Lord.  The Lord will respond with forgiveness and redemptive healing.  The Book of 1 Samuel is not only historical but it is also theological.  God blesses His covenant people who turn from their sin and return to the Lord.  Have you turned from your sin and returned to the Lord?  Have you forsaken your idols and embrace the simplicity of the gospel of Jesus?  Do you chose graven images over the written Word which was the most primitive form of worship for God's ancient people?  Do you have God's Spirit directing you to serve God alone?  Paul says in Romans 15:4 that the OT was written for our divine and holy instruction.  We have divine hope through the sacred Word.  We ought to have perseverance and encouragement through the blessed Word.

11.  We see that God is tender and forgiving in His divine character.  God still blesses godly living and holy obedience.   We ought to realize that we will still sin in a godly life.  It is true that saints even sin.  Luther referred to the way of a Christian is at the same time just and sinner.  Saints will sin but they repent and believe the gospel.  Repentance is a doctrine that we must always practice in the Christian life.  Are you aware that there is constant sin in your life before your very eyes but sometimes you cannot see it?  We ought to mediate on God's holy character because in it we find a rich testimony of awesome holiness, goodness and greatness.  If people understood God's character, they would sin less.  True repentance always gets God's mercy and forgiveness.  Again, we ought to return to the Lord our God.  He is full of graciousness and compassion.  He is slow to anger and abundant in goodness, lovingkindnesses and relenting of evil as it says in Joel 2:13 and Exodus 34:6.  He is always waiting to be gracious for His elect alone.  I suggest to you that the wicked are hateful and angry at God by nature.  No one loves God by nature because we are conceived in original sin.  We are actual transgressors and we have spiritually failed.  However, we are spiritually saved by grace alone.  It is enough to save His people alone.  It is all-sufficient.  The divine grace we need comes from God's holy character.

12.  Samuel proclaimed the divine message of repentance and the people of God repented.  Sometimes the holy message of divine repentance falls on deaf ears because they do not have ears to hear.  We ought to remember that repentance must be true to God, sincere to His commandments and a loving loyalty to Christ alone.  We ought to remove our idols and serve the Lord alone.  An idol could be an image of a saint or it could be a statue or it could be selfishness or sexual evil or TV.  Sin is elusive and seeks to find a way to grab you by the throat to destroy and ruin you.  The battle is the "enemy within."  The danger of the flesh is a denial of total devotion to the Lord.  If we do not have total allegiance or devotion to God through His dear Son, we will not authentically repent.  Repentance is costly.  It is a way to remove our sins and worship the Lord alone.  Everyone needs reformation by divine grace.  There may be an area of your life that is not up to God's standard.  Mediate on God's promises and seek to conquer the sin through the very victory of the Cross.  Let us mediate and dwell on the Cross of Jesus!  It is where the character of God is revealed.  In the Cross it is all about holiness, forgiveness, divine virtue imparted to us, and unparalleled restoration.  This can only happen through the divine Redeemer and Savior and God!  There is not many redeemers.  Some say that we suffer redemptive suffering but this is a denial of the all-exclusivity concerning redemptive agony of the Cross of Jesus Christ.  We repent to apprehend the redemptive benefits of the Cross in a spiritual sense.

13.  We ought to fast from sin by reading the Word and hearing sermons.  Sermons will never change us unless we have the divine grace of the Spirit and Word.  Are you willing to resign your will to God alone?  Are you seeking His face?  We ought to provide a testimony of our confession of sin.  We sometimes excuse and justify our sin.  This is not true repentance.   We should not make excuses or justify our sin.  If we do, we may have a mistaken view of the nature of man.  What do you suppose is the teaching of the nature of man in light of the Bible alone?  Man is not good in anyway but he is radically corrupt and wholly depraved.  Man-made tradition says that man is somehow good.  I suggest to you that man is not good in any sense whatsoever.  If you make excuses you may think you are good in some way.  The Bible says in Romans 3 that none of us are good or righteous, but if there is any goodness that we do as fruit of the Spirit of God it is by God alone through us.  We see those who claim some kind of goodness that commit rape (such as the Church of Rome).  I understand this sin is not merely limited to Rome.  I would like to point out that it is evidence for the nature of man as totally depraved.  Isn't their behavior evidence (or consequence of their evil thought life) enough that they are clearly mistaken about the very nature of man?  I simply suggest to you that sexual sin has grabbed Rome by the throat but they still think that they are somehow or in some sense "good."  God help them!  We ought to acknowledge our profound and total guilt before God.  We ought to cast ourselves on the divine mercy of God through His all-precious Son.  Are you willing to receive reproof, correction and instruction?   Some are so radically stiff-necked and thoroughly stubborn they cannot endure the instruction of the divine Word.  I suggest to you that you need to soften your heart before God by His all-pervasive grace.  God delivers His people when they repent.  Have you experienced God's deliverance?  Do you practice constant repentance?  Ask God to search your heart to find more sin to repent of because we sometimes miss hidden sin.  Do not be ashamed of Jesus who bled and died so that you would be rescued.  What would we be like without a all-true, all-awesome and all-sufficient Savior?  It is the Savior that saves us not our repentance. 

Repentance Leads to Restoration: Being Right With God, Pt 3

7.  We disagree on "how" repentance comes about.  Is it merely through the libertarian freedom of the will in cooperation with divine grace?  Or, is it through the Spirit of God and the Word of God alone?  The question should be asked, can man even cooperate in light of the fact that he is dead in sin and iniquity?  I suggest to you that a person cannot repent through the spiritual cooperation of their free will with divine grace, because the apostle Paul says that man is no good and nothing in him dwells what is good.  We ought to understand that all sin is against the Lord.  I remember when I encountered the Jesus of the Bible.  "Do you mean that all your sin means that you want to belong to Me?"  The Lord turns sin on its head and leads us back to Him alone.  We ought to understand, however, that all sin is ultimately opposed to the Lord because He is holy and just.  We are not holy and just by nature.  We are sinful and polluted by nature.  Iniquity causes a wall between us and a holy God.  It breaks up our spiritual relationship.  We ought to mourn for the harmed we have caused.  If we mourn over the pain we have caused in our sin, we begin to see what repentance is because we turn and return to God alone for His spiritual forgiveness.  We ought to have a broken and contrite heart.  I suggest to you that God will not despise a broken and contrite heart.   He welcomes us with a broken and contrite spirit.  We draw nigh unto God for comfort.  He provides us with comfort.  He gives us forgiveness and restoration.  We ought to turn to the Holy Spirit because He enables us to forsake sin.  We ought to mend our broken and shattered relationship with God through our Savior Jesus alone by heeding to the divine command of repentance by His hyper-grace.  The essence or core of repentance is asking for forgiveness because we have offended God.   If we have harmed someone else, we ought to apologize.  However, if we get right with God all things fall into place.  We ought to have a right heart attitude before God and man.  God says to return to Him with all our hearts.  He wants us to fast from the world, weep over sin because we have offended God and mourn over sin because it has broken our relationship with God.  We ought to rend our hearts by His Word and Spirit.  People will continue to sin even until death, but the question is what do you do with your sin before God?  His written Word says to repent and believe the good news.  Its not that repents saves us but only the Holy Trinity in His spiritual work in our souls. 

8.  People struggle with sin in their daily walk with God.  There is no doubt that there are different sins that we struggle with.  Someone may struggle with stealing or lust or coveting.  Whatever sin we struggle with, we ought to bring it before God in contrite prayer.  We ought to forsake our sin. Watch out! Your sin may sneak up on you and grab you by the throat!  You must rule over it and master it by His divine grace. You ought to never hate our neighbor or gossip about our enemies or our friends.  There is no doubt that everyone has sinned.  I would like to point out that we have all sinned against a holy God.  It profits no one to compare our sinful natures with each other, because the Bible says that everyone has fallen short of the glory of God.  If we did compare our sinful natures, we would discover that we are sinners.  There is no doubt that some are great sinners and some are small sinners.  Whatever the case, no one is better than another because none of us are good and none of us are righteous.  Jesus says to repent or perish in Luke's Gospel.  We ought to give God total allegiance and not to our ourselves or to some ungodly world system.  Sin at its basic level is all about idolatry.  We love things over God's absolute holiness, justice and righteousness.  My friends, I suggest to you that this should not be so!  We ought to cherish God's character over our sins.  However, I am personally convinced that there is no sin that God will not pardon through His Son's Cross. 

9.  We see that the nation of Israel struggled with idolatry or the worship of graven images.  They loved other "gods" or images.  Indeed, they worshiped other images of stone and wood.  People involved in the occult practice serious immorality.  The nation of Israel practiced Baal worship and corrupt sexual rituals.  The Canaanite religion in the nation of Israel involved "sexual rites" with "ritualistic worship."  We ought to never justify sexual immorality.  If we do, we have sinned a great sin.  The nation of Israel had a wandering heart, because they served Ashtaroth and Baal.  People nowadays do not practice this occultic activity anymore.  However, immorality and impurity is still around that rises its ugly head in our culture.  God blessings us with the human responsibility to repent because He will control the outcome of spiritual consequences.  If Israel obeys, He makes them have victory over the Philistines.  He will give us victory over Satan and human enemies if we repent because we have offended Him.  I would like to ask, do you love God because of His benefits or because of His holy character?  Where is your allegiance before God and man?  I suggest to you that you ought to repent to be restored!  Watch out for idolatry.  It comes against us at elusive times and uses its strangle hold upon us, but we assuredly have His Spirit and Word to guide and direct us into all spiritual obedience in repentance and faith in the glad tidings of the gospel of His imputed merit.  Amen.

Repentance Leads to Restoration: Being Right With God, Pt 2

4.  Conservative Arminians and Calvinists agree that sinner's must repent because it is a command of God.  However, some say it is an invitation instead of a divine command.  The Bible clearly says that "contrite repentance" is not merely an invitation but a divine command that all human beings must do in order to be right with God.  However, many "repent" to a false "god."  We must repent to the God of the Old and New Testaments!  The God of the Bible is the Blessed and Holy Trinity.  He alone deserves our worship and service and adorable love.  I would like to point out that many people do not understand that it takes the awesome power of the Word and the Spirit to bring someone to spiritually rebirth.  How can someone repent?   Does a person repent by their own spiritual freedom and the liberty of their wills?  I suggest to you that people repent because it is a gift of God and the divine work of God the Spirit and His matchless Word.  I remember when I was spiritually dead in sins and transgresses.  I tried to lift myself up through my own boot straps but I was spiritually unsuccessful.  I could not repent in and of myself though I gave it my best shoot.  It means that we cannot spiritually avail ourselves to authentic repentance unless God changes our stoney hearts.  We may have the spiritual freedom to choose what work we do for employment or what we eat for dinner or the person we marry, but I suggest to you that we do not have the spiritual freedom to repent unto remission because we were born with a spiritually dead condition before God and man!

5.  We ought to concern ourselves with the "recipe" for true and authentic repentance.  What is God-honoring repentance?  We can see what God-honoring repentance is by taking a look into the life of Samuel of the Old Testament.  I suggest to you that true repentance is the Spirit and the Word at work in us to mourn over our sin, misery and guilt.  We should not be afraid of God's punishment because all punishment was taken upon Jesus at His bloody Cross.  Are you grieved over your sin and guilt?  Do you know that if you mourn over sin you are blessed?  I would like to point out that the sons and daughters of Adam have different degrees of grieving.  We ought to have a sense of grieving over sin and felt need for Jesus Christ in our hearts.  This can only come about by God's absolute and divine intervention!  I suggest to you that any amount of contrite mourning is spiritually acceptable to God through His dear Son alone.  Those who mourn will be comforted.  We see that Esau mourned over his sin of selling his birthright to Jacob but could not truly repent.  He could not repent because it was something of his flesh.  He only could yield a attrition repentance.  I suggest to you that this kind of repentance is no repentance at all.  Do not grieve over consequences of sin because it is a worldly sorrow.  We must grieve over offending God alone.  We must be spiritually broken in our hearts before Him.  We see that Israel rebel against a holy God but they lamented after God in godly contrition.

6.  We see that Samuel speaks of true and authentic repentance.  God does not only require a emotional response but a godly sorrow in Christ.  True repentance always leads to godly sorrow and fruits of godly repentance.  Samuel proclaimed that they must return to the Lord.  Repentance is returning to the Lord and turning away from sin and evil.  Do you sin?  Turn away to the Lord!  We ought to turn from sin and return to the Lord.  The Lord requires holiness because He is holy.  We ought to be like the Lord.  However, we are sinners but we need His divine guidance in His written Word alone in order to walk worthy of the gospel in all good works.  God desires your ultimate and unqualified allegiance!  Does He have it?  Does He have your loyalty?  Have you forsaken your sin and returned to God?  Have you repented with all your heart as best as you know how to the God of the Bible alone?  We ought not to rely on our own understanding but on God's written Word alone.  We ought to hate what we once loved concerning our detestable iniquity.  Do you want the pleasures of sin or the obedience to God?  Do you seek the pleasures of God at His right hand?  We all must direct our hearts and minds to the good Lord and serve the Lord.

Repentance Leads to Restoration: Being Right With God, Pt 1

1.  If we repent we will enter into God's blessings, because repentance is restoration with God.  It means someone is getting right before God.  It means someone is making "peace" with God.  Repentance is not a meritorious good work.  We only repent because it is a gift to us by the Spirit and the Word that changed our hearts in rebirth.  We have corrupt and depraved and polluted natures of sinfulness.  We cannot "repent" on our own or according to libertarian free will, because the Bible clearly says that there is nothing good in us.  I think there is a "repentance" of the flesh but it is according to attrition.  We ought to understand that "repentance" is rarely taught these days.  The minister does not want to offend anyone, but the Bible clearly teaches that human beings are in original sin and totally corrupt and radically depraved.  We do not have the spiritual ability to repent because our free will is totally hindered to apprehend God's gift of faithful repentance.  What do we need?  We desperately need the regenerating power of the Spirit and the Word.  Our free wills cannot grasp a faithful and contrite repentance.  I suggest to you that this is how the heart is changed from a stoney heart to a heart of flesh by spiritual rebirth!  We ought to understand that repentance is a blessings from God that leads to restoration with God.  If we confess our sins to a brother or sister in Christ, he or she may pray for us so we may be healed. 

2.  If we look in the Old Testament we see God's people engaging in rebellion unto explicit idolatry, and worshiping foreign gods or images and practicing evil things of the occult.  The nation of Israel had fallen into difficult times.   The people of Israel needed God's doctrine and practice of repentance in their daily lives.  We see them worship images that cannot speak, walk, hear, or think.  We see them engage in worship of strange gods and surrender their lives to them like the "queen of heaven."  The right solution is contrite repentance for any nation under God's wrath.  The nation of Israel was under God's wrath or fallen into difficult times (1 Samuel).  We see that thousands have been killed in battle.  We see that the Philistines populated the land.  We see that the Ark of the Covenant was captured, but it was returned because it posed a liability or threat to Israel's enemies.  Chapter 7 of I Samuel reveals that all of the house of Israel cried after the Lord, because the tabernacle was destroyed and the glory departed.  It is said that historians know that this was the most hard time in the nation of Israel's history. 

3.  Sometimes in the Christian life we experience gloom and depression.  We see a picture of hope because of the OT prophet Samuel.  He was obedient, faithful and courageous.  May we all strive to be like Samuel!  Israel reached a point of "desperation" and Samuel came to their aid.  Samuel came in the midst of extreme suffering.   We ought to see that the hope of the nation of Israel was through the contrite hope of repentance!   We ought to understand when we have committed sin.  Sometimes it is so elusive that we do not see it in our lives, but delayed obedience is disobedience!  We have a fallen nature that wants nothing to do with faith and repentance.  It is true that Satan provides us with more bondage, but if we were left to ourselves we still could not repent.  I suggest to you that we need the Holy Ghost and the Holy Word to change our hearts.  Many rely on the flesh where there is no good thing to repent and believe.  This is known as decisional regeneration.   I would like to point out that if we are left to ourselves no one would ever repent toward God.  The Bible clearly teaches that the nation of Israel needed the divine intervention of God Himself and the all-overcoming power of the written and divine Scriptures!  Do you see that your free will only leads you to rebellion against God like Adam and Eve?  Do you see that you need a new nature in Christ that only God can provide through His Spirit and Word?