Extremely Prominent? (Repent 3)

It is represented many, many times in God's cry to his people, but it specifically shows up regarding the coming new covenant in Isaiah.

"The voice of one crying in the wilderness, 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight, every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall become straight, and the rough places shall become level ways, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God' ". Isaiah 40:3-5


It shows up immediately in the New Testament as God introduces his new covenant.  Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, pronounces these words over his infant son as he was "....filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying..."

"...And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace." 
Luke 1:76-79

When this child became a man and made his public appearance to Israel, this was his message,

"And he went into all the region around Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins."  Luke 3:3

When large crowds appeared, he did not exactly seek to make them feel warm and cozy. 

"He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, 'You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?  Bear fruits in keeping with repentance.  And do not begin to say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our father.  For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.  Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees.  Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire."  Luke 3:7-9

But...he did not leave them with a curse, but WHEN THE PEOPLE ASKED, he gave them hope and instruction...

"And the crowds asked him, 'What then shall we do?' And he answered them, 'Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.'  Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, 'Teacher, what shall we do?'  And he said to them, 'Collect no more than you are authorized to do.'  Soldiers also asked him, 'And we, what shall we do?'  And he said to them, 'Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.' " Luke 3:10-14

People were thinking this dude might be THE dude, so to speak.

John made it clear that he was not and pointed them, instead, to Jesus.  What was Jesus's message?  Upon emerging from his time of testing in the wilderness after being baptized by John, Matthew 4:17 says, "From that time Jesus began to preach saying, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."

After Jesus's ascension into heaven in the clouds, he told his disciples to wait for the power that was to come from on high.
When that power came in the person of the Holy Spirit, there was a very first sermon preached by Peter.  What did he say?  "...'Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you have crucified.'  Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, 'Brothers, what shall we do?'  And Peter said to them, 'Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.' " Acts 2:36-39

Finally, Paul makes it clear in a couple of places in Acts.  "The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."  Acts 17:30-31  

He also gave what he viewed was a summary of the various times and places he had presented the gospel in his farewell to the Ephesian elders.  "You yourselves know how I lived among you the whole time from the first day that I set foot in Asia, serving the Lord with all humility and with tears and with trials that happened to me through the plots of the Jews; how I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that was profitable, and teaching you in public and from house to house, testifying both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance toward God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ." Acts 20:18-21

If repentance plays such a crucial, central, and foundational role in every phase of the gospel's presentation in scripture by John the Baptist, Jesus, Peter, and Paul, how can we feel ANY sense of peace if it is not an extremely prominent role in our thoughts and presentations of the gospel?  Is it extremely prominent in your mind?  Do you understand that turning from a self centered existence to a Christ centered existence is THE chief fruit that we should all expect to see in our lives if we claim to be born again?  I am not telling you this to condemn.  This is a sobering reality for me as well.  All I ask is that if you cannot honestly say yes to sensing and pursuing a life that is Christ centered, ASK HIM to make that a reality for you.  It flows mostly from a genuine appreciation and awareness of his gift of forgiveness and how that genuinely redefines our lives.  Again, if you struggle to appreciate that fully (as I do many times), JUST ASK and cry out to Him for the kind of awareness of this that He truly longs for you to have.

Wretch (Repent Part 2)

The first instalment of these posts regarding repent...

http://defenselessagainstsuffering.blogspot.com/2015/06/repent.html


I recommend reading the repent posts in order if you have not had a previous opportunity to do so.  I mentioned Deuteronomy 9:5 in passing. I want to circle back around to this verse and the verses that come directly after this to begin this post.

"It is not because of your righteousness or your integrity that you are going in to take possession of their land; but on account of the wickedness of these nations, the Lord your God will drive them out before you, to accomplish what he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.  Remember this and never forget how you provoked the Lord your God to anger in the desert.   From the day you left Egypt until you arrived here, you have been rebellious against the Lord.  At Horeb you aroused the Lord's wrath so that he was angry enough to destroy you."   Deuteronomy 9:5-8

I was raised in a loving, Christian home.  My parents are currently both alive and kicking and love Jesus just as much now as they ever have.  I am deeply grateful for them.  Growing up in this household, it was a little tricky for me to grasp what it meant that I was a sinner.  On the one hand, our denomination was very strong about talking about sin and the reality of evil and sin.  If anything, I would say it may have even been a bit heavy handed.  However, the focus seems to me to be on sinful actions and guarding against the dangers of "slipping into dangerously sinful activities".  This is NOT going to be a post that slams my previous churches, however.  Their willingness to clearly acknowledge the reality of sin will reappear later in this post as a major positive.  My point is that teaching people about their true nature of sinfulness outside of Christ is a tricky business to say the least.  

A helpful thing to look at are two wrong extremes to get us started.  One is some version of the monks who use the whips to beat themselves into "submission to God" or to punish themselves when they sin.  The other is the pastor and church who refuse to even mention the word sin within their messages.  "It is too negative of a term and has been mentioned enough in the past."  The fascinating thing is that BOTH of these exist.  How can we look at the same scriptures and have wrong extremes that are this widely apart?  One answer is that neither of these practices are based on any scriptural teaching.  Instead, they are reactions against some experiences and practices they have seen.  They are pendulum swings that are motivated by their OWN WISDOM to either deal with their own sinfulness and a lack of others to acknowledge it or to deal with others who have mishandled the reality of sinfulness and caused great hurt. 

This is where this gets very personal.  Growing up, I reached an age where one very specific category of sin(if I should even use that term) began to make me very aware of the reality of sin within my life.  It was sex.  In my early teen years, I began to realize that sex had a major hold in my life.  This was something I wrestled with and even reached out to important adults within my life for help.  In spite of this, it derailed my attempts to live a life devoted to God again and again.  As I got older, it got darker.  I rode a roller coaster of sin and repentance for many, many years.  At many points, I walked away from even trying to break free from this part of myself and tried to blaze some sort of a new trail that was not centered around Christ.  It was misery.   I want to camp out there for just a few minutes.....misery.  Words cannot describe roughly a decade that I put God, those closest to me, and myself through.  Even now as I write this, it is hard to revisit it.  I don't revisit it very often.  Misery is too small a word.  All the words in the thesaurus that mean the same thing as misery could NOT capture the essence of the level of shame, disgust, frustration, and hurt I felt for falling from walking with Him and having good relationships with Him and my family and friends to what I had become.....MISERY.  I cannot bring myself to wish this on anyone else.....BUT, consider this.

"Now one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, so he went to the Pharisee's house and reclined at the table.  When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee's house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, and as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears.  Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.  When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, 'If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is --that she is a sinner.'  Jesus answered him, 'Simon, I have something to tell you.' 
'Tell me, teacher,' he said.
'Two men owed money to a certain moneylender.  One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty.  Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the debts of both.  Now which of them will love him more?'
Simon replied, 'I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled.'
'You have judged correctly,' Jesus said.  Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, 'Do you see this woman?  I came into your house.  You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair.  You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered has not stopped kissing my feet.  You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet.  Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven--for she loved much.  But he who has been forgiven little loves little."   Luke 7:36-47

This period of my life and the years immediately after it where I began again to seek to break free from the power of sin and give my whole heart to Christ was used by Him to push me towards becoming a little more like this woman.  This is THE KEY!  It is strange to say, but God WANTS us to understand our sinfulness.  I do not believe He intends for us to become aware of it the way that I did.  I believe only He is able to simultaneously open our eyes to the true nature of our own bottomless pit of self centeredness in what ever form it takes WHILE simultaneously using that to drive us to worshipping him for freeing us from the crushing burden of sin.  We CANNOT go the route of denying sin, and I would even pray the strange prayer that we genuinely become more aware of our real nature in and of ourselves and how miserable it is.  I don't want this to crush us, but I do believe we must be broken by it.  You do not wash Jesus's feet with your tears if you do not truly recognize from what it is that you have been freed from.  I pray that we would all find ourselves weeping at His feet.  Thank you, Jesus!

Repent

In Deuteronomy 4:15-28, Moses makes it clear to the Israelites that they are to STAY away from idols and corrupting the clear teachings of how they were to worship and live with God in the promised land.  He also makes it clear, in this section, what the repercussions will be if they OR their children’s children disobey and disregard this warning.

In Deuteronomy 7:1-11, he further stresses the importance of the people to do this, AND he even makes it clear to them they are in no way to intermingle with the people or culture of those with whom they are dispossessing.

Is this relevant to us today and if so, how?

I will quote these next two verses in my posts again and again because I believe they are two of the most important but overlooked scriptures in the New Testament.

“You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life.  These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” (Jesus speaking about the OLD TESTAMENT)

John 5:39-40

“Now these things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come.” (Paul speaking regarding several examples from the Israelites in the wilderness.)

I Corinthians 10:11

The point I am making with these two passages is that the Old Testament has a purpose for us that is primarily to give us profound insights into our pursuit of Christ and how we as Christians are to live.  It is often relegated to the status of second class scripture by many of us, and this is tragic.  OK, back to the Deuteronomy point…..how is this relevant to us?

This relates to the role of repentance and obedience in the life of the believer. The Israelites did not get the promised land BECAUSE of their obedience. Moses makes this clear in Deuteronomy 9:5. It is also made abundantly clear in numerous New Testament passages that we are never to believe that we somehow gained our salvation due to our own obedience.  However, what is made equally clear in the previously mentioned passages and many, many others is the CRUCIAL role that their (and our) initial repentance and obedience plays as each generation lives in the land given to them.

I heard a great analogy about this from a pastor I respect named Paul Mowery.  He gives the analogy of an owner of a strip mall who has leased out the various stores to a certain group.  Over time, this group has taken these individual stores in the strip mall and made them into adult bookstores, liquor stores, strip clubs, businesses that are a front for meth and heroine dealing, and other activities that are increasingly not only counter to the agreed upon terms when the lease was signed but types of business that are patently illegal.  The owner of the strip mall has repeatedly tried to get these tenants to return to the agreed upon usage of this space.  It is located directly in the center of preschools, elementary schools, and high schools, as well as residential neighborhoods.  Finally, after much attempt on his part to get them to simply return to the terms of the lease, their lease is revoked, and the people are removed from the premises by force.  He has adopted some kids.  These kids are not saints by any stretch of the imagination.  They have a history of immoral behavior, violence, and all sorts of crime themselves, but he is seeking to teach them the next step in living a life that is both beneficial to the community that they live among as well as a bright future for them and their families in the future.  He allows them to take over the now vacant shops.  There is one CRUCIAL catch.  They must, must, MUST go in and empty out ALL the corrupting contents and COMPLETELY destroy all remnants of what these stores have been allowed to become. WHY? This question wouldn’t even be asked because the answer is so obvious, BUT I want to take a minute and consider it. The obvious part of the answer is that if they don’t remove these things, they themselves will quickly become tempted by and almost surely begin engaging in the same kinds of immoral activities.  This is especially true given their background.  However, perhaps a more thoughtful reason to ask WHY might be, “Why wouldn’t the owner/adopted father just go himself or send someone else in to clear it out instead of getting them to do it given their existing predisposition for criminal activity?”  My answer to this is that this is a crucial turning point for them.  Consider this.  If they were not willing to do this simple and straightforward task in the face of such an amazing gift when the benefits and reasons to do this are
SO obvious, why would we think that they would have stayed away from the criminal path over the long run?? 

I believe this is a great analogy to help us understand the mandate given to the nation of Israel by God by way of Moses.  It also sheds great light on how we can recognize the crucial role that initial repentance and ongoing obedience plays in our lives as believers.

Just as Moses warned the Israelites, John finishes his book 1^st John with the warning to “…keep yourselves from idols.”  I fear we have largely removed the word repent from its inextricable link with the gospel.