Repentance in Christian preaching is the heartfelt turning away from sin and returning to God, marked by genuine sorrow and a change of life (Acts 3:19). Illustrations often use images of cleansing, restoration, and renewed commitment, emphasizing personal examination, acknowledgment of guilt, and the hope found in God’s mercy (2 Corinthians 7:10).
Repentance is a gift from God brought by the Spirit's renewing work in the heart.
John Wesley, that preacher of repentance, sings:
“Lord, I despair myself to heal, I see my sin but can not feel; I can not till thy Spirit blow, And make the obedient waters flow. Speak, gracious Lord, my sickness cure, Make my infected nature pure; Peace, righteousness and joy impart, And pour thyself into my heart.”
Report of Truman Dollar's fall into sexual sin. Refers to editorial in June edition, page 8. Quotes H. A. Ironside, "Better that 'the cause of Christ' be disgraced before the world than that His people be permitted to go on in sin. God will vindicate His name in His own way and time."
Three reasons for exposing sin:
1. It's better for the cause of Christ.
2. It warns the unwary of having a "disqualified brother" in to preach.
3. They had exposed others like Bakker and Swaggart.
[Dollar went through a restoration process (Leadership Journal, Winter 1992, page 106, with his response), but committed suicide in March 1996. See also #416]
Sermon series on Old Testament Heroes: Manasseh.
========================== 2 Chron 33
WHEN REPENTING IS TOO LATE
==========================
I. Is it ever too late to turn to God?
II. The reign of Manasseh: too much, too late.
A. Manasseh had a lot going for him.
B. Perverted religion.
C. Unparalleled violence. 2 Kings 21:16
D. Eternal ramifications.
III. What God will do to get your attention.
A. God's justice in Manasseh's life.
B. God's mercy in Manasseh's life.
C. God prefers to deal with us in love, but he can deal otherwise.
IV. Deathbed conversions.
A. It is human to want to wait to the last minute.
B. Deathbed conversions don't seem fair.
V. What heritage do we leave behind?
A. Manasseh changed at the end, but not soon enough to save nation.
B. Saved, but as by fire? 1 Cor 3:12-26
#2467
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Catholics are encouraging visible confessions in the pastor's office. However, half of all Catholics still prefer anonymity. They either confess behind a screen or go to a priest who does not know them.
Gordon Liddy is a prime example of true meaning of repentance. He followed Nietzsche in his philosophy of “will to power” to overcome fear; he ate a rat to get over his fear of rats. He succeeded in life rapidly with notoriety gained through Watergate; he even had a Miami Vice appearance. When David Letterman asked him, “What happens after we die?” Liddy responded, “We are food for the worms.” His answer gave him a sense of inner unease so he sought out former FBI friends who invited him to a Bible study. He went because he had a historical interest in the Bible but came to see the Bible as God’s communication to man. He had a “rush of reason” and became a Christian.
[Liddy has disputed this account of his conversion but he is a convinced Catholic]
Back when Billy Graham first began his crusade ministry, a notorious gangster named Mickey Cohen attended one of the meetings in Beverly Hills. The meeting was being led by the young evangelist himself.
Very few people had heard of Billy Graham at this point. Mickey Cohen was much better known. Mickey was attracted to what he heard at the meeting. Afterwards, Billy and some of the others talked to him about salvation, but he made no commitment at that time.
A while later a Christian friend read Revelation 3:20 to him - "Behold, I stand at the door...." The friend then asked Mickey if he wanted this salvation. He said, "Yes, I do." The news of his conversion made quite a sensation, and the ministry of Billy Graham became known across the nation.
There was only one small problem - nothing in Mickey Cohen's life changed. When his friend confronted him about it, Mickey complained: "You didn't tell me I would have to give up my work!" [Mafia] "You didn't tell me I would have to give up my friends!" [criminals]
Mickey had heard that so-and-so was a Christian athlete, and so-and-so was a Christian actress, so he thought he could be a Christian gangster.
==========================
Another version, by Rev. Tim Roddick, derived from Chuck Colson's book "Loving God":
One of the most recognizable evangelists over the past century has been Billy Graham. His ministry has touched the lives of countless people across the world, but what happens to these people’s lives after they leave the stadium? It’s no longer Billy Graham challenging that person, the work that he may have started or initiated by sharing God’s Word is then turned over to God and the Holy Spirit. I can stand up here and talk until I’m blue in the face, but in order for my words to impact you; in order for God’s truth to infiltrate your lives, you’re going to need the Holy Spirit working in you. But once again, God has left that choice to respond to His message, to respond to the work of the Spirit, entirely up to you. You and you alone are responsible for making a decision about your salvation. It’s your choice to make!
One such person who thought he was ready to respond was Mickey Cohen. In his book, “Loving God,” Chuck Colson recounts the story of this man, a renowned and notorious gangster of the 1940s. Close to six decades ago, Cohen rubbed shoulders with celebrities and movie stars, never missing an opportunity to place himself inside the spotlight – he even took part in a “Life magazine” pictorial of “American Gangsters”. On another occasion, during an interview with Mike Wallace, Cohen proudly proclaimed, “I have killed no man that in the first place didn’t deserve killing by the standards of our way of life,” implying that those he had killed, deserved it.
In 1949, one of Cohen’s “associates,” a wiretapper for the mob by the name of Jim Vaus attended a Billy Graham crusade in Los Angeles and as a result, he committed his life to Jesus Christ. Immediately afterwards, he contacted Cohen so that he might share the “good news” with him. Invited over to the gangster’s mansion late at night, Jim and his wife sat in front of the mob boss as he shared about his life-changing conversion. Following which, he resigned from Cohen’s employment, renounced his life of crime, and even repaid $15,000 in stolen electronic equipment that he had taken. And later, when times were rough, he refused to accept Cohen’s offer of a car, stating that he would not willingly take anything that was acquired illegally. Vaus later wrote of his life story in the book, “Why I Quit Syndicated Crime,” which in 1955, was adapted into a movie called, “Wiretapper,” in which Billy Graham made a rare film appearance as himself.
But let’s get back to mobster, Mickey Cohen. More of his friends began to share with him similar stories of their faith, and eventually Cohen asked Vaus to arrange a meeting for him with “that guy who’s converting all those famous folks.” A meeting was arranged, and along with a few others, Mickey Cohen sat and listened to Billy Graham preach the gospel. It is said, that he even raised his hand at the end of the message in a show of interest. But his life of crime continued and Cohen, much like another notorious crime boss, Al Capone, landed himself in prison for charges of tax evasion. After getting out of jail, Bill Jones, a Christian layman in Los Angeles, made it a personal mission to lead Cohen to Christ, and upon hearing a simple gospel presentation, Cohen repeated a prayer with Jones. The evangelist was elated and word soon spread that Mickey Cohen, the once dangerous mobster, had turned his life over to Christ. Hallelujah!!!
But Mickey seemed to be more interested in portraying the image of a “nice guy” Christian than in actually living the life of one. He soon lost touch with Jones, and began to hang around with his old buddies from the criminal underworld. The perplexed and disheartened Jones confronted Cohen to tell him that as a Christian, he needed to put distance between himself and his old cronies in crime. Puzzled, Cohen responded, “Jones, you never told me that I had to give up my career. You never told me that I had to give up my friends. There are Christian movie stars, Christian athletes, Christian businessmen. So what’s the matter with being a Christian gangster? If I have to give up all that – if that’s Christianity – then count me out” [Chuck Colson, Loving God, 81-93].
Two men, one chose to change his life following his conversion; the other chose to remain unchanged. We all laugh at his simplicity, but how much different are we than Mickey?
In Jules Verne’s novel The Mysterious Island he tells of five men who escape a Civil War prison camp by hijacking a hot-air balloon. As they rise into the air, they realize the wind is carrying them over the ocean. Watching their homeland disappear on the horizon, they wonder how much longer the balloon can stay aloft.
As the hours pass and the surface of the ocean draws closer, the men decide they must cast overboard some of the weight, for they had no way to heat the air in the balloon. Shoes, overcoats and weapons are reluctantly discarded, and the uncomfortable aviators feel their balloon rise. But only temporarily. Soon they find themselves dangerously close to the waves again, so they toss their food. Better to be high and hungry than drown on a full belly!
Unfortunately, this, too, is only a temporary solution, and the craft again threatens to lower the men into the sea. One man has an idea: they can tie the ropes that hold the passenger car and sit on those ropes. Then they can cut away the basket beneath them, As they sever the very thing they had been standing on, it drops into the ocean, and the balloon rises.
Not a minute too soon, they spot land. Eager to stand on terra firma again, the five jump into the water and swim to the island. They live, spared because they were able to discern the difference between what really was needed and what was not. The “necessities” they once thought they couldn’t live without were the very weights that almost cost them their lives.
The writer to the Hebrews says, “Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles."
In religious terms, glasnost must be understood, in part, as "repentance".
In the fall of 1988, in the city of Rostov on the Don River in southern Russia, a man approached an evangelist and pleaded for forgiveness. The Pentecostal preacher, Joseph Bondarenko, did not understand what the man was talking about. Then the stranger reached into his pocket and pulled out his KGB identification: "I am the one who put you behind bars. Please forgive me!"
At another service, a young man came forward, accepted Christ, then turned to the congregation and made the following remarkable statement: "I am the editor of an atheist paper. People, I have been deceiving you. Please forgive me. God is real!"
#1517
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In July 1976, Israeli commandos made a daring raid at an airport in Entebbe, Uganda, in which 103 Jewish hostages were freed. In less than fifteen minutes, the soldiers had killed all seven of the kidnappers and set the captives free.
As successful as the rescue was, however, three of the hostages were killed during the raid. As the commandos entered the terminal, they shouted in Hebrew, "Get down! Crawl!" The Jewish hostages understood and lay down on the floor, while the guerillas, who did not speak Hebrew, were left standing. Quickly the rescuers shot the upright kidnappers.
But two of the hostages hesitated - perhaps to see what was happening - and were also cut down. One young man was lying down and actually stood up when the commandos entered the airport. He, too, was shot with the bullets meant for the enemy. Had these three heeded the soldiers' command, they would have been freed with the rest of the captives.
Salvation is open to all, but we must heed Christ's command to repent and make him Lord. Otherwise, we will perish with the judgment meant for the enemy.
"Repentance is for little children." Adolf Eichmann
"Unless you become as a little child you
will not enter into the kingdom of heaven." Jesus of Nazareth
#2010
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For years, the opening of The Wide World of Sports television program showed "the agony of defeat" of a painful ending to an attempted ski jump. The skier appeared in good form as he headed down the jump, but then, for no apparent reason, he tumbled head over heels off the side of the jump, bouncing off the supporting structure.
What viewers didn't know was that he chose to fall rather than finish the jump. Why? As he explained later, the jump surface had become too fast, and midway down, he realized if he completed the jump, he would land on the level ground, beyond the safe landing area, which could have been fatal.
As it was, the skier suffered no more than a headache from the tumble.
To change one's course in life can be a dramatic and sometimes painful undertaking, but change is better than a fatal landing at the end.
#2035
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Sermon on Accepting Sinners, and Rejecting Sin. John 8:1-11
========================
HOW WE DEAL WITH SINNERS
========================
I. Whatever happened to Sin?
II. Sin is real.
III. How Jesus deals with sinners. John 8
IV. How Christians usually deal with sinners.
A. Churches are not very good at it.
B. We are just as uncomfortable around sinners as the Pharisees.
C. Bible truth: all of us are sinners.
D. Churches should be open to all sinners.
V. Accepting sinners while rejecting sin.
A. Most sinners are desperately seeking love and inner peace.
B. Our most powerful witness is to offer it to them.
VI. Go and sin no more. John 8:11
A. Forgiveness is wonderful, but it doesn't operate in a vaccuum.
B. Forgiveness demands repentance, a change in life.
C. Repent, before it is too late.
#2515
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Concerning the sinfulness of man, the Puritan William Beveridge wrote:
I cannot pray,
except I sin.
I cannot preach,
but I sin.
I cannot administer, nor
receive the holy sacrament,
but I sin.
My very repentance needs
to be repented of;
And the tears I shed
need washing in the
blood of Christ.
Is God's love unconditional? The Cross shows us the true nature of love - and its breathtaking cost.
Many people, probably even many Christians, think God's love is unconditional. And insofar as God extends his love to all people without distinction, it is true. But many have bought into the sentimental notion of unconditional love evidenced in the old popular song, "Though it makes him sad to see the way we live, he'll always say, 'I forgive.'" This is fuzzy romanticism and cheap grace, not the good news of Jesus Christ.
Is unconditional love the loftiest form of love? Consider three cases:
A mother is having a test of wills with her two-year-old. The young boy wants to continue playing, but it is time for bath and bed. Mom has already given him a five-minute grace period. Now she insists he will do as she says. If the child could speak articulately, he might say, "If you really loved me, you'd let me do what I want." As adults, we can identify with Mom here. She is expressing love, but is it unconditional? Yes, in the sense that she will love her son even if he disobeys. But no, in the sense that she is requiring conditions.
A harder case. Dick and Jane have been married for almost 20 years. But Jane has discovered that her husband has committed adultery, and Dick wants to continue the relationship. He also wants his wife to accept it and continue the marriage. What does real love mean for Jane in this situation? If she loves him unconditionally, won't she accept her husband on his terms as an expression of her love? Or will genuine love require Jane to say, "It's either me or her"? Authentic love requires conditions.
So we come to the third and ultimate case: the love of God, "greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell." Surely God's love is unconditional, right?
Yes, but...Yes, God loves all of humanity and offers salvation to all without conditions of merit or worth. But God's love has conditions. When God created humanity, conditions were there from the start. "You are free...But you must not..." (Gen. 2:16-17). God's love requires conditions, and in this sense it is misleading to call it "unconditional."
The same conditionality underlines the interrelationships of the three Persons of the Trinity. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit love each other unreservedly and without limit. But the condition for their aggregate love is their mutual submission and self-giving. This is the profoundest, but most glorious and most hopeful reality in the universe. In fact, it defines love.
The good news is: God loved our sinful race so much that he sent his Son. He will not, cannot, forgive and accept us except on the basis of Jesus' sacrifice. To do otherwise would betray the integrity of God's own holy character. The condition for God's love to reach us was the Cross.
True love is impossible without the potential for freely given response. The reason for this is that love is about relationship, about reciprocity. Genuine love is a relationship of mutuality between "sovereign" persons, meaning that if love is compelled, it ceases to be love.
If God loved unconditionally in the Rogerian sense of offering unconditional positive regard, he would forgive and accept every person no matter what, requiring no Cross. But then the Christian message would be logically incoherent. It would be as shallow as the love of a person who always accepts another's destructive behavior without ever calling him or her to account.
Why does God not simply accept people (sinners) on the basis of Jesus' sacrifice, irrespective of their responses? Again, the answer lies in the nature of love itself. Without repentance, faith, and discipleship, a woman or man cannot know God's love in its redemptive and transforming power. Without such a response, what a person is conscious of is something less than God's love. It may be relief, psychological peace, or even a (false) sense of security. But it is not God's transforming love, and therefore not salvation.
God's love has conditions, not because he is a tyrant, but because God is love. To those who say this is outmoded mythology, I would say it is moral and psychological necessity. It is grounded in God's character as demonstrated in his acts in history.
If Jesus' Cross was necessary, then so is ours. To rely on God's "unconditional love" apart from Jesus Christ, or even in him but apart from personal faith and discipleship, is to trust in mushy sentiment. The good news is that God's love in Christ forgives, transforms, and empowers for righteous, compassionate living. These are the two essential conditions for experiencing God's love: Jesus' death on the cross (costly grace) and our self-committing trust (genuine faith).
Apart from God's grace, we can do nothing to save ourselves. Our works can never save us (Titus 3:5). But this does not mean salvation is unconditional. Jesus shows us the true nature of love-and its breathtaking cost.
________
Howard A. Snyder is Heisel Professor of Evangelization and Church Renewal at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. His latest book is "EarthCurrents: The Struggle for the World's Soul" (Abingdon).
Copyright (c) 1995 Christianity Today, Inc./CHRISTIANITY TODAY Magazine ctcurrmrw5T8030576b
According to an Associated Press account, in September 1994 Cindy Hartman of Conway, Arkansas, walked into her house to answer the phone and was confronted by a burglar. He ripped the phone cord out of the wall and ordered her into a closet.
Hartman dropped to her knees and asked the burglar if she could pray for him. "I want you to know that God loves you and I forgive you," she said.
The burglar apologized for what he had done. Then he yelled out the door to a woman in a pickup truck: "We've got to unload all of this. This is a Christian home and a Christian family. We can't do this to them."
As Hartman remained on her knees, the burglar returned furniture he had taken from her home. Then he took the bullets out of his gun, handed the gun to Hartman, and walked out the door.
Praying for our enemies is incredibly disarming.
Evangelist Billy Graham told "Today" show viewers Thursday morning that he forgives President Clinton because Graham knows the frailty of human nature. Clinton has such a tremendous personality that Graham thinks the ladies just go wild over him.
Several things need to be said about this and other remarks. First, in offering Clinton "forgiveness," Graham is suggesting there is something to forgive. Clinton has stated publicly he "never had a sexual relationship with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky." He said the same in his deposition to Paula Jones' attorneys.
So for what exactly is Graham forgiving the President? Is it the sex? Is it lying under oath? Is it blanket forgiveness that also covers illegal campaign contributions, purloined FBI files, suborning of perjury and the cover-up of these and other "sins," or is it a limited immunity? At what point would Graham point his finger and, like the prophet Nathan, say, "Thou art the man"?
On a theological level, surely Graham knows that only God can forgive sins and that forgiveness does not precede acknowledgment of wrongdoing and repentance. In the biblical story of the woman taken in adultery, Jesus tells her to "go and sin no more." Clinton could take Graham's forgiveness (which is really absolution) and see it as permission to go and sin some more.
Furthermore, Clinton's offenses were not committed against Graham. The Jews have a saying about the Holocaust: Only the dead can forgive. But in a generation that rarely goes beyond the superficial and focuses on feelings and emotions, we want to appear noble - so we dispense forgiveness unasked.
Graham, who used to decry cultural decline in sermons that reminded people of the consequences of sin, said on "Today," "We're living in a whole different world today, and the pressure on anybody today is difficult." Try this line on your wife if she catches you in a compromising position with another woman: "Honey, you know what difficult times we live in. Even Billy Graham says so."
In 1 Corinthians 10:13, Paul writes: "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out that you can stand up under it."
Graham wasn't through, unfortunately. He said Clinton would make a good preacher. Like Jimmy Swaggart? What could he possibly mean? Is he speaking only about the President's oratorical skills, or should a preacher have some personal integrity behind his message?
In the spirit of bipartisan absolution, Graham said he also forgave Richard Nixon, even though he was shocked by Nixon's language on White House recordings. He didn't mention the greater sin of trying to undermine the Constitution. Nevertheless, Nixon was a "pal" and a "personal friend" and great on foreign policy. This will be good news to Clinton's defenders, who claim only the economy and foreign affairs matter, not personal affairs or integrity.
In the 1980's, a lot of preachers were compromised because they preferred access to accountability. The White House is a powerful seduction, spurring people to avoid saying what they should say in order to maintain access. But they deceive themselves if they believe there is a higher purpose to be achieved in communing with the President.
I've known Billy Graham for nearly 30 years and have written of his supreme integrity. Now that he is in the twilight of his life, at age 79, and suffering from Parkinson's disease, perhaps he and all preachers should impose a moratorium on schmoozing with presidents and focus solely on building the kingdom of God, which is not of this world.
--------------
Cal Thomas is a Washington-based columnist.
#4305
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"True repentance is to cease from sin."
-- Ambrose of Milan; Brett Blair's weekly email
"True repentance hates the sin, and not merely the penalty; and it hates the sin most of all because it has discovered and felt God's love."
-- W. M. Taylor; Brett Blair's weekly email
“A Christian is not one who never goes wrong, but one who is enabled to repent and begin over again after each stumble — because of the inner working of Christ.”
-- C. S. Lewis
All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance.
God... commands all people everywhere to repent. Repent, and believe the good news. Remember then what you received and heard; obey it, and repent. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
Yet even now, says the LORD,
return to me with all your heart...
Return to the LORD, your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,
and relents from punishing.
Cast away from you all the transgressions that you have committed against me, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Turn, then, and live. Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.
[The Lord] does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.
For as the heavens are high above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west
so far he removes our transgressions from us.
Seek the Lord while he may be found,
call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake their way,
and the unrighteous their thoughts;
let them return to the Lord,
that he may have mercy on them,
and to our God,
for he will abundantly pardon.
So they [the disciples] went out and proclaimed that all should repent... They should repent and turn to God and do deeds consistent with repentance.
Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin.
Create in me a clean heart, O God.
Romans 3:23; 1 John 1:8,9; 2 Peter 3:9; Acts 17:30; Mark 1:15; Revelation 3:3; James 4:10; Joel 2:12-13; Ezekiel 18:31,32; Acts 3:19,20; Psalm 103:10-12; Isaiah 55: 6,7; Mark 6:12; Acts 26:20. Psalm 51:1,2,10.
.....
A COMEDIAN, Dan Leno, used to open his act saying, 'Ah, what is man? Wherefore does he why? Whence did he whence? Whither is he withering?'
Who am I? As our first three chapters disclose, I am a special person made in the image of God, but whose image has been scarred. I am like God, and like the devil. I am good... and bad. I am a delight, but my sins are a horror, both to God and to myself.
How bad am I? There are two opposite errors in some replies to this question. 'Too bad' you might say. Wrong. 'Not bad enough' - again, wrong. Pascal once wrote: 'There are only two kinds of people - the righteous who believe themselves sinners; the rest, sinners who believe themselves righteous.'
We are all are equally guilty - not just those the law calls 'criminals'. Indeed it's people who think they're good enough who are in the greatest peril. Most people in the Bible who were asked to repent were religious people. We cannot offer our righteousness to God (we'll never have enough), only our penitence.
You will sometimes read about the doctrine of 'total depravity' in connection with our sin. This doesn't mean that humans are as bad as they can be, but rather that no part of us has escaped the pollution of sin.
C.S. Lewis explains the old prayer-book phrase about being 'miserable offenders' by analyzing the situation of those who don't realize they're miserable. Passengers on two trains speeding towards each other on the same track may be reading magazines, dozing over a drink, or laughing boisterously. They don't feel miserable. But in fact their situation can be described as utterly miserable. Tell them they're miserable and they'll laugh at you.
John Bunyan's classic Pilgrim's Progress opens with 'a man clothed with rags standing in a certain place with his face from his own house, a book in his hand and a great burden upon his back.' 'How camest thou by thy burden?' this pilgrim was asked by his companion, Mr. Worldly Wiseman. He replied, 'By reading this book in my hand.'
The book, of course, was the Bible, a book with an accurate diagnosis and cure for the human condition. The problem: you are a sinner. Cure: 'Repent!' If you check a concordance you'll find 'repentance' is an idea mentioned as often in the Old as in the New Testaments (eg. Ezekiel 18:31, Luke 13:3, Acts 3:19). Jesus' first recorded preaching was about repentance, so was his last.
So repentance isn't funny, like the little old men in cartoons with sandwich boards shouting 'Repent, the end is nigh!' Or the mourners' bench in Charlie Chaplin films. Byron was wrong in his opinion that 'The weak alone repent'.
And the cynic who said...
Christians are people who feel
Repentance on a Sunday
For what they did on Saturday
And intend to do on Monday
...could not be more wrong!
Repentance is about radical change. It means coming to your senses, waking up to yourself! It means turning from your sins to God.
Repentance isn't the same as 'doing penance': inflicting pain on yourself isn't the way to go. Christ died for your sins: his sacrifice was sufficient. Repentance is more than feeling sorry, though it includes sorrow. Judas felt remorse for betraying Jesus, but apparently he didn't truly repent. (His greater sin was not to betray our Lord, but to refuse to go to Calvary for a pardon). Repentance is more than feeling guilty: guilt can be a form of self-hatred. You should hate your sins, not yourself.
And repentance is not superficial. The bucks stops with you, the penitent. You can't blame anyone but yourself. Repentance has no room for excuses, putting the blame somewhere else. Sigmund Freud, probably more than anyone else in the twentieth century, has done a lot to help us understand ourselves. He located many of our personality disorders in the early experiences of infancy. These, he said, are repressed into our subconscious and come back later to haunt us. Now this may be true, but it could lead to a 'blame-oriented' approach to life. Many who have never heard of Freud still blame their parents for who they are. Repentance is the opposite of blaming. It's you taking responsibility for who you are and what you've done.
Repentance involves a radical change of heart, and mind, and behaviour. It is a U-turn, not merely a course correction. The story of the prodigal son and the waiting father (Luke 15:11-32) is about repentance. The boy felt sorry for himself, then sorry that he'd wronged his dad, so he decided to go to his father and confess: 'I have sinned against God and against you'. He was instantly forgiven, welcomed back into the family, and his homecoming was the occasion for great rejoicing. There's feasting in heaven, Jesus said, whenever a sinner repents. If you have repented did you know you caused the angels to throw a party?
The Bible encourages us to confess our sins to God and to another human being (1John 1:9, James 5:16). Be careful to whom you confess: that person must be able to keep a confidence, and to pray a healing prayer for you.
You are saved from the penalty of your sins (though their effects may lnger). So confess them and forsake them and then don't carry their guilt with you: 'own and disown' them. God has truly, completely forgiven you. It's like being sick, then well: don't keep thinking about your sickness; enjoy your health!
A Christian evangelist was asked, 'How is it that your religion has been around for 2000 years and hasn't influenced more people?' His reply: 'How is it that water has been around for thousands of years and many people are still dirty?'
A final serious word: the refusal to repent is worse than the sin for which one ought to repent. The question really isn't 'Shall I repent?' but 'Shall I repent now, when it may save me?' Jesus had some awesome things to say about one's repentance being one's punishment... So...?
.....
The biblical view of the history of mankind and of each individual is contained in the first three chapters of Genesis. We are created to serve God by loving him and each other in freedom and joy, but we invariably choose bondage and woe instead as prices not too high to pay for independence. To say that God drove Adam and Eve out of Eden is apparently a euphemism for saying that Adam and Eve like the rest of us made a break for it as soon as God happened to look the other way. If God really wanted to get rid of us, the chances are he wouldn't have kept hounding us every step of the way ever since.
[Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking, London, Collins, 1973, p.55-56.]
I went back to the New Testament, to the Acts and the epistles, to Peter and Paul, who were the first ones to preach the gospel to a pagan world. What does it mean to preach the Christian gospel to such a world...?
Christ, after his resurrection, said... `Now that the resurrection is a reality, now that forgiveness of sins is accomplished in this new covenant, go out to all the earth and preach the good news of the forgiveness of sins to all the nations'...
That is good news, to the Masai, to the guilty man cast out of his community, to the sinful son and to the offending family. I do not have to convince them of sin. They know of sin. What they did not know of was forgiveness. It has touched the earth. This is where Christianity parts company from Judaism and from Hinduism and from paganism. Sin is a conquered thing. This is a redeemed world. One wonders if one should dare talk to pagans about sin - apart from Christ, until they know Christ.
The job of a missionary, after all, is... to teach the forgiveness of sin.
[Vincent J Donovan, Christianity Rediscovered, London, SCM, 1985, p.61-62.]
Jesus describes sinfulness as more than just doing wrong things. When we fail to do what's right, it's as bad as doing wrong. You can be totally law-abiding and not give a thought for anyone else. Sin is basically four things: 1. Failing - in our thinking, saying and action - to do what is right. 2. Trying to find meaning and fulfillment without God's love, relationship and guidance. 3. Rejecting and rebelling against God. 4. Missing out on the full and creative life God intends for us...
[Repentance] begins with being sorry enough to quit the past... It begins with: * changing directions * changing sides * changing what is important to us * changed alliances * changed intentions * changed commitments... There should be changes everywhere - enough for it to be noticeable: * at home * at work * at sport * in relationships * in lifestyle * in attitudes * in thinking.
[John Smith]
Sin incriminates. To be a sinner means to be guilty before God. Guilt is that aspect of sin which belongs to the past, and is well expressed in the words from Fitzgerald's Omar Khayyam,
The Moving Finger writes; and having writ
Moves on: nor all thy piety nor wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.
As Paul would say, 'the handwriting is against us', and this is something that no merely human means can ever remedy...
The late Archbishop Temple once wrote, 'A great deal too much attention has been given to sins as compared with sin. And so, if it happens that I cannot think of any particular wrong thing that I have done, or any particular good thing that I might have done and neglected, yet still I must ask God to be merciful to me a sinner, for I share the common sin of [humankind] and make myself in a host of ways the centre of the world. I think like a human and not like God.'
[James Philip, Repentance: Its Meaning and Implications, London: the Tyndale Press, 1963, pp. 12-13,20.]
Your intellect says, 'I accept Christ,' your emotions say, 'I love Christ,' and your will says 'I will follow Christ.' In true repentance all your powers are diverted and channeled through Christ. It is not just giving mental assent, it is not just an act of volcanic emotion, nor is it an act of will power alone. True repentance is bringing all of our being - mind, heart and will - under the control of Christ.
[Billy Graham, 'The Meaning of Repentance', a sermon preached on 'The Hour of Decision', Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Box 779 Minneapolis, Minnesota 55440, 1967, pp. 8-9.]
Repentance must not be mistaken for remorse. It does not consist in feeling terribly sorry that things went wrong in the past; it is an active, positive attitude which consists in moving in the right direction. It is made very clear in the parable of the two sons (Mt. 21:28) who were commanded by their father to go to work at his vineyard. The one said 'I am going,' but did not go. The other said, 'I am not going,' and then felt ashamed and went to work. This was real repentance, and we should never lure ourselves into imagining that to lament one's past is an act of repentance. It is part of it of course, but repentance remains unreal and barren as long as it has not led us to doing the will of the father. We have a tendency to think it should result in fine emotions and we are quite often satisfied with emotions instead of real, deep changes.
[Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh, 'Meditation and Worship', in John Garvey (ed.), Modern Spirituality: An Anthology, London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1986, pp. 35-36.]
Ignatius sums up as one single and fundamental principle (in other words, his First Principle and Foundation): our end is God; therefore what helps towards God is good, what gets in the way is bad. Things are not good or bad in themselves, but only in the effect they have on our relationship with God. We can recall Augustine's classic, rule-defying pronouncement: `Love, and do what you will'.
[Margaret Hebblethwaite, Finding God in All Things, London, Fountain Paperbacks, 1987, p.35]
Repentance is a gift... I do not have to live into fearful defensiveness in relation to my past... I can learn things today that shed a whole new light on yesterday's conclusions, and this is precisely what I hear Jesus encouraging us to do in his call for us to repent and believe the Good News. He is affirming that God is more interested in growth than innocency, in how much we have learned from our mistakes rather than how many mistakes we have made. Is not that the crucial point in the way the father of the prodigal son responded to his return from the far country? He was more concerned about what the lad had gained in terms of self-understanding than about the money and time he had lost in coming to that wisdom.
[John Claypool, 'Growing and the Gift of Repentance', a sermon preached in Northminster Baptist Church, 3955 Ridgewood Rd., Jackson, Mississippi, on August 31, 1980.]
Repentance, metanoia, is the turning of the mind, and with the mind the imagination, the affections and the will, away from self and sin and towards God. It is within an act of Godward-turning that our self-examination happens. We look towards God in gratitude for his loving-kindness, towards Jesus in his death for our sins, towards our own true self in what it is meant to become. The examining of our consciences will be thorough, and while it means a looking into ourselves it will not be an introspective self-scrutiny, for it will be mingled with the looking up towards God and the exposing of the self towards him. But the preparation will be thorough. It is not a matter of naming those sins which seem to be 'big' or which worry us specially, for it is necessary to confess all the ways in which our attitudes and actions have been contrary to the Christian way. That is important. It is a confession of the whole self, and the attitudes and actions which we may sometimes think to be small may be a decisive part of the self's orientation.
[William Ramsay, Be Still and Know: A Study in the Life of Prayer, London: Collins (Fount paperbacks), 1982, pp. 107-8.]
Oh the comfort,
the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person,
Having neither to weigh thoughts or measure words
but pour them all out just as they are
Chaff and grain together,
and a faithful hand will take them and sift them,
keep what is worth keeping,
and with the breath of kindness blow the rest away
-- Dinah Maria (Mulock) Craik, in her novel “A Life For A Life” (1859)
[often falsely attributed to George Eliot, which is the pseudonym of
Mary Ann Evans, English Victorian novelist (1819-1880)
The most noble strategy for dealing with guilt is the way of self-punishment. Do you remember how T.S.Elliot's Celia said, `I feel I must atone for this'? This is a very deep impulse of the human spirit - to conclude that because a wrong has been done, some price needs to be paid or some equivalent action taken. At least in this approach there is a recognition of the seriousness of the situation and of the individual's responsibility. However, the problem with self-punishment is that one never knows how much is enough; we can spend all our lives scourging ourselves and still feel no sense of absolution. Soren Kierkegaard's father, as a shepherd lad out on the freezing Danish slopes, once cursed God, and the memory of that act of blasphemy haunted the man for the rest of his life. He never stopped punishing himself for this misdeed. He gave lavish sums of money to the church, even lacerated his own body, but he was never able to believe that the debt had at last been paid. Any attempt to design or effect our own atonement is bound to end in uncertainty and failure. [John Claypool, The Light Within You, Texas: Word, 1983, p.188.]
The practice of confession and absolution is central to the teachings of the Christian church. Throughout the pages of Holy Scripture the reader encounters a variety of forms and procedures reflecting an understanding of and support for confession and forgiveness.
Luther struggled to restore the proper practice of individual confession and absolution to the church... His writings reveal that he allowed... six types of confession:
(1) confession in the heart (secret confession)
(2) general or public confession in the liturgy
(3) public confession made by an individual before an assembled congregation
(4) reconciliatory confession (based on Matthew 5:23-24))
(5) the 'mutual consolation of the brethren'
(6) private (individual) confession.
[Walter J. Koehler, Counseling and Confession: The Role of Confession and Absolution in Pastoral Counseling, St. Louis: Concordia, 1982, pp. 38, 39.]
Confessing one's sins to another human being... makes a public expression of my sorrow... It is an act of humility wherein I accept the authority of the Church as guardian and guide to the holy things of God. I accept my fellow human being as someone better able than myself to make a judgment of where I stand, of my guilt - and of my goodness; and I accept through his word the promised forgiveness of God, who knows me through and through. This practice brings peace of mind and soul, a deeper trust in God, and a facing of the reality of sin in my life as something to be tackled in the future, once it is clear that the past is no more a burden, that guilt does not remain, that there is nothing to hold me back.
Michael Hollings, Hearts Not Garments, London, Darton, Longman and Todd, 1982, p.50.
The seven capital sins are pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and sloth...
What am I proud about?
What are my ambitions?
What does sex mean for me?
Have I shown anger and if so was it constructive?
Have I suppressed anger in any areas of my life, and if so is it doing
damage?
What am I dependent on in food and drink?
Have I got professional jealousies, or jealousies in relationships?
What am I lazy about?
Or, if we turn our minds to the corresponding positive qualities:
What is the gift of humility?
What would it be like to be less concerned with better status and
possessions?
What would it mean to have a sexual drive directed towards the real
purpose of sex?
What is the virtue of gentleness?
What is best for my health in eating and drinking?
What would it be like to desire the well-being and success of others
without envy?
For what causes would it be good to be able to work tirelessly...?
`God works with those who love him... and turns everything to their good' (Romans 8:28). And St Augustine adds, `even my sins'.
[Margaret Hebblethwaite, Finding God in All Things, London, Fountain Paperbacks, 1987, pp.158, 142.]
.....
O Lord, our God, grant us the grace to long for you with our whole heart, and that so longing we may seek and find you; and that so finding you we may love you; and that so loving you we may hate those sins from which you redeemed us for the sake of Jesus Christ.
[Anselm, cited in Praying with the Saints, Dublin, Veritas Publications, 1989, p.12.]
Lord, your 'need' is to love, mine to be loved by you. Your 'need' expressed itself in my creation, my being made an object of your love. I am a masterpiece of spiritual, emotional and physical engineering, with a spirit yearning to relate to you, the living God; a soul and mind and heart and will to relating lovingly to others, and a body to relate to a dynamic cosmos.
Your love, Lord, expressed itself ultimately in the life of Jesus, and now in the life of Jesus-in-me.
Lord, when I think back on my sins, my feelings range from sadness (for what might have been) through regret (either that I was found out by others or found out who I was really was myself) to anger (that I could have been so destructive and stupid). Perhaps also fear: what will almighty God do to me for what I've done?
So out of my darkness, sorrow and night, Jesus, I come to you. I receive your gift of forgiveness, and ask for your help to live in the future a life of commitment to yourself and obedience to your word.
I am not worthy to come to you, or belong to your eternal family, Lord. But apparently that's not the point: your invitation is not conditional upon my goodness, but simply upon my acceptance of it.
I accept!
.....
A Benediction: May God, who in your conscience has already graciously given you an awareness of your sins, give you also grace to repent, grace to accept his complete forgiveness, and then grace to forgive yourself! Amen.
.....
[John Smith, 'When Love Comes to Stay', Care and Communication Concern, 1990, pp. 5,7.]
*
Again, the Kingdom of Heaven is like a hospital.
One looks around in vain to find anyone who is intact and perfect. Everyone here is damaged. Not a single one is unimpaired or without blemish. The wounds are fresh and visible on some. There are old but ugly scars on others.
Hospitals are not for healthy people, though, but for sick ones. And the church is not for flawless people but for sinners.
Everyone here has the disease. All have been infected with sin in one form or another. Some embraced it. Others were overcome without meaning to be. Nobody had immunity, and nobody could cure himself.
The treatment method here is radical. There are no fees for therapy, but everyone would be happy to pay a premium instead of going through the painful process of cure. Some insist, in fact, on trying the self-help approach. They pretend to be healthy. They flex their muscles and do good deeds around the hospital. All the while, however, they become weaker and sicklier. Everyone sees their decline except them.
Treatment always begins with a painful procedure called repentance. Some have likened it to cutting off a hand or even to plucking out an eye. It is always the major hurdle for every patient, for attachments to evil things and wicked people are strong. Addictive. Enslaving.
Having come through the first stage of therapy, then comes the part that makes patients queasy. It involves blood-and a heart transplant. It is the point in treatment where the patient dies. That's right. The old person dies. His old heart is removed and replaced with a new one, and the blood of Jesus infuses new life into him. By the Spirit of God, he is then quickened and made alive.
All of us here are in various stages of recovery. The frightful possibility that one of us could suffer a relapse or reject the new heart is always present. So there are no wards for the “totally cured” and no place for anyone to taunt others who are still at the early, critical stage. We are all still sinners, and we can only be sympathetic with someone whose plight at the moment is worse than our own.
There is great camaraderie here. We are all in this together, so we love and support one another. Yet this is not a gloomy place. The atmosphere is charged with hope, for every patient is in the hands of The Great Physician. And no one remaining under his care has ever been lost.
Rubel Shelly in LoveLines 15 (Aug. 2, 1989)
Not to long ago basketball star Dennis Rodman made the headlines when he kicked a cameraman during a basketball game. Luckily for Rodman, he escaped criminal charges and got by with just an 11 game suspension and a $200,000 payout to his victim. A few days after the incident Rodman discussed the event in an interview, and his attitude reflected anything but a change of heart. In fact, he insisted that what he had done wasn't all that bad. He said that he himself was the victim in this whole ordeal, since he was being
forced to pay money only because he's rich. After all, he said, he just gave the guy a little tap. He must have forgotten that everyone saw the footage of the assault. The bottom line was, even after the payout and the suspension, Dennis Rodman didn't believe he had done anything wrong.
Julius Caesar set out to conquer England. After landing his army he did something unexpected. He had his army march to the edge of the Cliffs of Dover and to look down. Below them they could see the 11 ships that had brought them across the channel. Every one of them was ablaze! Julius Caesar made an irrevocable decision and destroyed any other option.
{see #15692 for fuller variant}
Burn the Ships
In the spring of 1519 a Spanish fleet set sail
Cortez told his sailors this mission must not fail
On the eastern shore of Mexico they landed with great dreams
But the hardships of the new world made them restless and wake
Quietly they whispered, "Let's sail back to the life we knew"
But the one who led them there was saying
Chorus:
Burn the ships, we're here to stay
There's no way we could go back
Now that we've come this far by faith
Burn the ships, we're passed the point of no return
Our life is here
So let the ships burn
In the spring of new beginnings a searching heart set sail
Looking for a new life and a love that would not fail
On the shores of grace and mercy we landed with great joy
But an enemy was waiting to steal, kill and destroy
Quietly he whispers, "Go back to the life you knew"
But the one who led us here is saying
Repeat Chorus
Bridge
Nobody said it would be easy
But the one who brought us here
Is never gonna leave us alone
Repeat Chorus
We're here to stay
There's not way we could go back
Not that we've come this far by faith
Burn the ships, we're passed the point of no return
Our life is here
So let the ships burn
So let the ships burn
So let the ships burn
So let the ships burn
Written by Steven Curtis Chapman and James Isaac Elliott; 1994 Sparrow
Song (a div. of The Sparrow Corp.)
Pig & Sheep were walking down a wet, muddy, slippery road. Both slipped, fell into a muddy ditch. Pig: stayed there. Sheep: Got up, shook herself off, went on her way. When Christians fall, they get back up--they don't just lay there! That's what it means to "walk in the light as he is in the light."
Bob Russell, who preaches for a church in Louisville, Kentucky, tells of a Saturday in his youth when his older sister Roseanne was graduating from a college several hundred miles away. His parents were driving there and wanted Bob to come along. But Bob had an important baseball game that day and his parents let him make the decision. It was agonizing, but he decided to stay and play baseball. As soon as his parents left the driveway he realized he had made the wrong decision. Knowing that his parents would be stopping at an Aunt's on the way, he rushed inside and called and spoke with his mother. "Tell Roseanne I'm sorry for what I've done." Then his mother said, "I understand, we'll come back for you." Bob said, "I'm sorry, but not that sorry!" That's NOT repentance!
Repentance is the story of Julius Caesar when he set out to conquer England. When he landed on the beach with his well-armed legions he marched them to the edge of the Cliffs of Dover and ordered them to look down on the ships that had brought them there. Every one of them was on fire! Caesar had cut off the possibility of turning back. That's repentance.
SPEECHWRITING IN THE FAR COUNTRY (By Ken Durham)
Home is still afar off, but you need to get on with it. You have a speech to compose. And it had better be good, if you are going to get out of this royal mess you have made. The question is, what strategy are you going to employ in this speech?
Perhaps a good alibi. "Dad, you wouldn't believe the recent downturn in the Far Country economy. Not long after I got there this famine hit and people started going bankrupt all over. Lots of unemployment. I was sort of involved in pork bellies work for a time, but that didn't work out ... "
Or maybe the victim approach, sure to arouse sympathy. "Dad, I've become so disenchanted with people. When I got to the Far Country, I made some friends ... at least, I thought they were my friends. But what did they do? They used me, Dad, took advantage of my generosity ... "
How about the reversal-of-blame tactic. "You know, Dad, you really shouldn't have let me leave home that way, with my share of the estate. I know I was pretty insistent, but I had no idea what a cruel place that Far Country is. If you had only made it clear to me...
Then again, a straight coverup might work. "Hi Dad, I'm home. No, everything's fine. The Far Country was great. What a wild and crazy place! But, I just decided to come home and see how everybody's doing. All I need is a shower and a good night's sleep. Otherwise I'm okay, really ... "
No, this is no good. Blaming everything and everybody else. That's just not the truth of it. You messed up big-time, and you know it. And your father deserves something better than your lame fictions; he deserves to know the truth. Sure, he might send you out to work with the hired hands (if you're lucky), but better to be home near him than living a lie in the Far Country, right?
So how do you say this? "Father, mistakes were made." No. "It seems that I have mismanaged my income." No. "In spite of good intentions, I fear that I have been led astray by my misguided youthful exuberance." No, no, no! Come clean, man, it's the only way.
Okay, here goes: "Father, I have sinned, against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men."
T'here it is. Now, was that so hard? Yes, as a matter of fact, it was. But it's the only way to make a fresh start at things. - Be- accountable Own up. Say it straight. Your father always treasured a few honest and forthright words over long speeches of self-justification. And he is, as everyone. knows, a father of extraordinary compassion. Who knows, he might even be glad to see you come home.
The story is told by Leo Dobratz of San Jose, California that he was
able to stop the birds from stealing his fruit by taking tin cans and
tying them to the limbs of the fruit trees. The reflection off the
lids, swinging in the breeze, not only frightened the birds and saved
his fruit, but it frightened the birds so bad that they got under
conviction and brought back the fruit that they had stolen the year
before.
Now that's a tall story if I ever heard one, but it does describe
the change in behavior that really does take place in the heart of a
sinner when he/she places their faith in the Lord Jesus!
- THE TAMPA TRIBUNE, June 1, 1962. Referred to by Robert G.
Lee, SERMONIC LIBRARY, pp. 11-12.
Onetime there were two brothers. One was an outstanding citizen and
the other was a convict. The convict brother killed a man, was
convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. His brother who was
well respected went to his friend the governor and pleaded for a
pardon for his brother. Since the governor respected the murderer's
brother he issued the pardon and gave to his friend. The brother went
to the prison and visited with his sibling.
He asked him, "What would you do if you were to escape or get
released?" His brother replied from his cell, "First, I would kill
the judge, then I'd murder the chief witness against me." Upon hearing
this his brother ended the conversation, walked out of the prison with
the pardon in his pocket and gave it back to the governor.
You see his brother hadn't repented. He hadn't had a change of
heart.
- S. Toussaint
The thief had nails through both hands, so that he could not work; and a nail through each foot, so that he could not run errands for the Lord; he could not lift a hand or a foot toward his salvation, and yet Christ offered him the gift of God; and he took it. Christ threw him a passport, and took him into Paradise.
-- D. L. Moody, from "Day by Day with D.L Moody," Moody Press.
When I was in South Africa, a fine, handsome Dutchman came into my
service, and God laid His hand on him and convicted him of sin. The next morning he went to the beautiful home of another Dutchman and
said to him, "Do you recognize that old watch?"
"Why, yes," answered the other. "Those are my initials; that is my
watch. I lost it eight years ago. How did you get it, and how long
have you had it?" "I stole it," was the reply. "What made you bring it back now?" "I was converted last night," was the answer, "and I have brought it
back first thing this morning. If you had been up, I would have
brought it last night." --Gipsy Smith, The Bible Friend
The clock of life is wound but once,
And no man has the power
To tell just when the hands will stop.
At late or early hour.
To lose one's wealth is sad indeed.
To lose one's health is more.
To lose one's soul is such a loss
That no man can restore.
Thirty-nine people died while you read this short poem.
Every hour 5,417 go to meet their Maker. What are YOU doing to help reach them with the Gospel before they are cast into Hell?
Several years ago a man and his wife were found frozen to death in
their car. A blizzard had dumped tons of snow in the area, burying
their vehicle. Before she died, the woman scribbled a note on a piece
of paper and stuffed it in the glove compartment. The note read: "I
don't want to die this way." Tragically, less than six feet from their
icy grave was a stranded bus, whose festive passengers remained warm
throughout the night. Today in the Word, October, 1990, p. 28
I read a story, a long time ago, having in it a moral that pleased
me. It represented our heavenly Father as telling a man, if he would
bring up to the gate of heaven the most precious thing that could be
found in this world, it would gain his admittance into heaven.
"Then I am sure of heaven," he said. "I know what the most precious
thing in the world is."
He went to a mint where the best specimens of gold could be found,
and obtaining the purest piece possible, flew up to the gates of
pearl, sure that heaven would be opened to him, but found the gates
closed and bolted against him. He was told that was not the most
precious thing; that their streets are paved with gold, as it were
transparent glass.
He came again. This time he obtained the most exquisitely beautiful
specimen of jewelry; nothing richer or more beautiful on earth of its
kind. He carried this up, but found the door still shut against him.
He was told that no one used jewelry there. It was really of no value
in heaven. He must go again.
This time he was walking on the beach, under the shade of beautiful
trees, thinking over what that most precious thing could be, when his
attention was attracted to a beautiful little child lying on the grass
under the shade of these trees, with its innocent face upturned
towards heaven, in a sweet sleep. Just then a robber came to this
little child, and stood over it for a moment, apparently in deep
thoughtfulness, gazing on its innocent face, the child unconscious of
any danger. The robber, reviewing his own life in his guilt and
wickedness, and contrasting it with the innocence of that little
child, drew a deep sigh of regret and sorrow over his life of sin,
when a tear of penitence dropped from his eye. The man in search of
earth's most precious thing, caught this tear, and flew up to heaven's
gate with it, when he found the gates thrown wide open to him, with a
hearty welcome from the heavenly ones, saying:
"Yes, you have brought the most precious thing that can be found on
earth the Tear of Repentance."
So, dear friend, if your bosom sighs over a life of sin, and the
tear of penitence moistens your cheeks, do not wipe it away, or bide
it, but let it dry on your face, for no earthly jewelry could so adorn
your person. -- A. B. Earle, From: "Incidents Used ... In His
Meetings," published in 1888
There sat one day upon the platform of the Bethany Sunday School an
Englishman who told the story of the young girl who had gone away from
her home to live a life of sin. Her broken-hearted mother came to the
home of the rector of this Englishman and besought him to help her
find her child. He said, to her, "If you will bring me every picture
you possess I will do my best." The pictures were brought and the
clergyman wrote underneath the face in red ink just two words: "Come
back." These pictures were placed in the mission stations and the
haunts of vice. Weeks passed by until at last one day the young girl
was passing into a place of sin when she saw this face of her mother.
She paused to look, and the tears so blinded her eyes that she could
not for a moment see the words. Then, brushing the tears away, she saw
the invitation; turned her face toward her home on the edge of London.
She reached her home in the night time, put her hand upon the latch of
the door, and behold, it yielded to her touch. She had no more than
crossed the threshold when she found herself in her mother's arms,
greeted with this salutation, "My dear child, the door has never been
fastened since you went away."
And this is God's message to his wandering children, to those who
have forgotten him and yielded themselves up to the life of sin: "The
door has never been shut since you turned away; return unto me, and I
will have mercy upon you. Come back to me and I will abundantly
pardon." -- J.W.C.
By J. Wilbur Chapan, "Present Day Parables."
OBSERVATION "He who neglects the present moment throws away all he has." That observation by Johann Friedrich von Schiller, a great German historian and playwright, holds much truth for all of our lives. THROWING IT ALL AWAY Early one morning fire broke out in a house on a narrow street. The fire spread quickly, and flames were leaping high into the air before the fire engines could get to the scene. A young man appeared at an upper window in his pajamas. Firefighters quickly placed a ladder against the burning building, but the man refused to come down. Instead, he yelled that he had to get dressed first. The firefighters pleaded, "Come as you are! Come as you are!, but to no avail. The firefighters tried to climb the stairs from below, but they were turned back by the flames. When a rescuer tried to enter through a lower window, the heat and smoke forced him away. Suddenly the walls and roof fell in. The man waited too long, and was buried under the ruins. HOW DOES THIS APPLY TO OUR LIVES? The man refused to immediately do what was best for himself because of what someone might say about his appearance later. Thus, the young man literally threw his life away. We can make the same foolish mistake. I read about an experiment in which a rat was placed in a box and shocked until it huddled in a particular corner. To avoid future shocks, the rat soon learned to run to that corner as soon as it was placed in the box. How much of your life is spent avoiding the disapproving "shocks" of those around you? Do you disregard your own beliefs, and compromise who you are as a person, so others will like you? That is easy to do, especially in matters of faith. Many people do not live according to their beliefs because they are concerned about what others will think or say. If that includes you, then in effect you are throwing away the most significant part of yourself -- your spiritual life. Instead of trying to become someone others will like in the future, focus on God's love for you right now. Live each day according to God's standards, no matter how people may react. Because some things are too important to throw away -- including yourself.. "Your love is ever before me, and I walk continually in your truth." Psalm 26:3
A soap manufacturer and a pastor were walking together down a street in a large city. The soap manufacturer casually said, "The gospel you preach hasn't done much good has it? Just observe. There is still a lot of wickedness in the world, and a lot of wicked people, too!" The pastor made no reply until they passed a dirty little child making mud pies in the gutter. Seizing the opportunity, the pastor said, "I see that soap hasn't done much good in the world either; for there is much dirt, and many dirty people around." The soap man said, "Oh, well, soap only works when it is applied." And the pastor said, "Exactly, so it is with the gospel."
On his program last Wednesday, Larry King asked his guests, the heads of four religious groups, myself included, "You preach forgiveness. The president has said he sinned. Why don't you let it go?" A fair question, and one that lots of folks are asking. My answer was, "One condition for forgiveness is repentance."
What Clinton has done, I said, is give a defiant speech in which he blamed Ken Starr for his problems. I pointed out that President Clinton is making the identical mistakes made by the president I served: Richard Nixon. When President Clinton addressed the nation three weeks ago, everything in his words and body language spelled not contrition, but defiance. Just the attitude Nixon maintained to the end. Clinton could have told all, asked forgiveness -- genuinely -- and the entire scandal would be over. Just as with Nixon.
The tawdry behavior of the President with Monica Lewinsky is reprehensible, but not in itself impeachable. If Starr reports anything to the Congress, it will not be about sex, it will be about perjury, obstruction of justice, abuse of power -- and as I told Larry King -- the very same offenses that sank Nixon.
And there's one more impeachable offense already committed, the most serious perhaps. Clinton has lied to the American people, breaking the fragile bond of trust between himself and the people - a bond that gives legitimacy to any presidency. There have been rogues in the White House before, and people have forgiven their abuses. But people don't forgive a President looking into the camera and telling them a bald-faced lie. That's what brought Nixon down. Remember, lying to the American people was one of the specific counts in the Bill of Impeachment of Richard Nixon.
"But what about forgiveness?" King insisted. Well, this scandal has revealed, not only the President's moral weakness, but our own weakness in understanding repentance. Admittedly the President has made one or two lukewarm apologies in recent days. And he says he's asked for forgiveness, though I haven't heard him ask it of the American people. And he still maintains that attitude of defiance.
But what Mr. Clinton and the nation need to understand is the true meaning of the word "repentance." The Greek word for repentance is metanoia. Meta means "to change or shift" and noia means "perspective." It literally means a change in the way one views things. Repentance means not only saying you're sorry, it means you are going to genuinely change and mend your ways -- which brings me back to the perils of Nixon and Watergate. Nixon could never bring himself to level with the people and amend his ways.
President Clinton may still have time to do what Nixon did not -- come clean. But he needs to forthrightly repent. That's what millions of Americans are waiting for. Then forgiveness and healing would be possible. So, if I could say anything to the President it would be this: Apologize to your family; to the loyal minions you sent out to lie for you; to the people you lied to; even to Mr. Starr, whom you have maligned. And when you do it, let the people see genuine repentance so it will restore the moral authority of the office you hold.
Jesus' words say it best: The truth will make you free. And, the longer you wait, Mr. President, the more likely that the parallels with the Nixon presidency will be carried to their ultimate conclusion. There are only two honorable choices, sir: repentance or resignation.
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Copyright (c) 1998 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.
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BreakPoint Commentary - October 2, 1998 Changed Hearts, Changed Lives Daniel Crocker's Repentance by Charles W. Colson You can hardly turn on the television these days without hearing the word "repentance." It's become, thanks to the Washington scandal, a hot topic. And pastors all over the country are being asked, "How do you know when someone is truly repentant?" Well a few days ago, a Virginia man answered that question more eloquently than all the pastors combined. On the surface, Daniel Crocker was the typical suburbanite. He had a wife and two kids and a good job as a warehouse manager. But Crocker had a dark secret: Nineteen years ago, he had taken the life of a Kansas woman named Tracy Fresquez. Over the years, the burden of this secret became intolerable. Eventually, Daniel Crocker turned to God for forgiveness, became a Christian, became active in an evangelical church, and he and his family grew wonderfully in their faith. But he could not bring himself to tell the police about his terrible crime. It was when Daniel began ministering to a prison inmate that he came under conviction. One day after Daniel returned home from a prison visit, he prayed with his wife, Nicolette. Daniel then began planning how to go about surrendering to the authorities. For assistance, he turned to the Reverend Al Lawrence, a Prison Fellowship staff member and assistant pastor of a local church. Lawrence is an ex-offender himself, and he counseled Crocker and helped prepare him for prison life. Lawrence told the Washington Post why Crocker was taking this extraordinary step: "[Crocker's] faith," he said, "told him he had to deal with that part of his life that he's been skirting over the years." For Crocker, the hardest part was telling his children, nine year-old Isaac and eight-year old Analiese, why he had to leave them. As the children tearfully begged him not to go, Crocker, himself in tears, told them: "I have to do this. I'd be a hypocrite if I raised you by the Word of God and I didn't [turn myself in]." So last week Crocker boarded a plane for Kansas where he was met by startled prosecutors and charged with first-degree murder. Prosecutor Paul Morrison says that while Crocker will receive credit for turning himself in, "he also did a horrible thing" for which he ought to be held accountable. The apostle Paul writes that "godly sorrow leads to salvation and brings no regret." By contrast there's "worldly sorrow": grief over being caught, not over having sinned. Paul warns that this kind of sorrow "produces death." The Crockers' remarkable story is a timely lesson in what it means to repent. The kind of repentance Paul describes produces changed hearts and changed lives. It doesn't ask "what can I get away with?" but rather "how do I make things right?" I talked with Nicolette, and her faith is rock-solid. She will hold that family together while Daniel's away. But they need our prayers and support. If you'll call Breakpoint we'll tell you how you can write to the family if you wish. And you can surely pray for them. You also might want to share this extraordinary story with your neighbors. At a time when words no longer seem to mean what they used to, the Daniel Crocker story will help people understand the difference between bogus repentance ... and the real thing. (c) 1998 Prison Fellowship Ministries Copyright notice: We encourage liberal distribution of these transcripts through email and print. Please do not post on the world wide web or use this content for profit.
Patrick Reynolds has signed on to help the American Lung Association's anti-smoking campaign. So what? He is the grandson of the founder R. J. Reynolds. Reason -- to "make up for the damage my
family has done."
Do not try a deathbed repentance, my brother. I have stood by many a deathbed, and few indeed have there been where I could have believed that the man was in a condition physically (to say nothing of anything else) clearly to see and grasp the message of the Gospel. I know that God's mercy is boundless. I know that a man going -- swept down that great Niagara -- if, before his little skiff tilts over into the awful rapids, he can make one great bound with all his strength and reach the solid ground, I know he may be saved.
It is an awful risk to run. A moment's miscalculation, and skiff and voyager alike are whelming in the green chaos below, and come up mangled into nothing far away down yonder over the white turbulent foam. “One was saved upon the cross,” as the old divines used to tell us, “that none might despair, and only one, that none might presume.”
A Sunday School teacher once asked a class what was meant by the word "repentance." A little boy put up his hand and said, "It is being sorry for your sins." A little girl also raised her hand and
said, "It is being sorry enough to quit."
There is a time, we know not when,
A point we know not where,
That marks the destiny of men,
To glory or despair.
There is a line by us unseen,
That crosses every path
The hidden boundary between
God's patience and His wrath.
To pass that limit is to die:
To die as if by stealth:
It does not quench the beaming eye,
Nor pale the glow of health.
The conscience may be still at ease,
The spirits light and gay;
That which is pleasing still may please,
And care be thrust away.
He feels, perchance, that all is well,
And every fear is calmed;
He lives, he dies, he wakes in hell
Not only doomed but dammed.
Oh, where is that mysterious morn
By which our path is crossed;
Beyond which God himself hath sworn,
That he who goes is lost?
An answer from the skies is sent
Ye who from God depart,
While it is called today repent,
And harden not your heart.
John Hardonk, while on ship board, dreamed one night that the day
of judgment had come and that the roll of the ships crew was called,
except his own name, and that this crew were all banished; and in his
dream he asked the reader why his own name was omitted; and he was
told it was to give him more opportunity for repentance. He woke up a
different man. He became illustrious for Christian attainment. --T. De
Witt Talmage
Reformation is no more the whole of Christianity than cultivation constitutes the whole of successful farming. A farmer may plow and harrow his ground every day of the summer, and not permit a single weed to grow; that would be a high state of cultivation; but if he plants no seed in this field, he will gather no crop in the autumn.
Simply ridding your life of the weeds of undesirable habits without planting the seeds of Christianity in your heart-garden is as great a folly as for a farmer to cultivate his ground all summer and sow no seed. Repentance pulls up the weeds now growing and plants the seeds of righteousness. The man who attempts to improve by reforming is whitewashing his life, while the one who repents washes white his life, and there is a vast difference between the two processes.
Morality can never save anybody. Painting the pump does not kill the typhoid germs and purify the water in the well. You may have literary circles and culture clubs, Carnegie libraries and schools of art, but this city will never be won to Christ until there is brought about an old time revival of genuine repentance.
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O. A. Newlin
Thomas Cranmer was the archbishop of Canterbury from 1532 until 1556. During his tenure he strongly promoted the translation and dissemination of the English Bible. When he offended Queen Mary I, she had him tried as a heretic, excommunicated, and burned at the stake. Prior to his death Cranmer recanted of his convictions, but when tied to the stake at Oxford he strongly disavowed his earlier action. So deep was Cranmer's regret at having signed the recantation that he promised that the hand which had signed the document would be the first to burn.
The brave archbishop kept his promise, holding his right hand steadfastly in the flames.
The last time I was at Baalbek, that most imposing and stupendous
monument of the ancient world, I recalled Hood's story "Paradise and
the Peri." The peri had been promised that she could get back into
paradise if she brought to the gates of heaven that which was most
precious to God. All over the world, she searched for that treasure.
She brought first the last drop of blood from a dying patriot's heart,
and then a maiden's kiss of sacrificial love implanted on the brow of
her dying lover. But the gates of heaven opened not. Her gifts were
refused. Then, near the ruins of Baalbek, she saw a child kneeling in
prayer by a fountain. As the child was praying, a man rode up on his
horse and dismounted to quench his thirst at the fountain. On his
face, was stamped all manner of iniquity and coarseness and crime. But
as he stooped to lift the water to his lips, he saw the child kneeling
in prayer. In a flash, the hard face softened and changed and a tear
flowed down his cheek; for he recalled the day when he too was as
innocent as the child and prayed for himself as the child was now
praying. It was that penitential tear that opened the gates of
paradise to the lost spirit. --McCartney
"For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to
be regretted. \reference{2 Corinthians 7:10}{2 Corinthians 7:10} A
small boy dialed "0" and asked the operator to call a number for him.
He didn't speak clearly, so she couldn't understand him. After
repeating it four times, he blurted out, "You operators are dumb, "
and slammed down the receiver. Hearing this, his mother was shocked.
She called the operator and made the boy apologize. Later, when his
mother left the house, the lad got on the phone again. "Is this the
same operator I talked to a little while ago?" "Yes, " came the reply.
"Well, " said the boy, "I still think you're dumb!" That boy's apology
reminds me of a missing ingredient in the lives of many professed
Christians--genuine repentance. Facing up to sin is often forced on
them by getting caught or by embarrassing circumstances, but there's
no change of mind, no new action, no new motivation. Biblical
repentance reestablishes our credibility with the world and renews our
fellowship with the Lord. The seven "whats" of \reference{2
Corinthians 7:11}{2 Corinthians 7:11} are seven marks of godly sorrow:
(1) Earnestness to do the right. (2) Eagerness to clear oneself
through apology. (3) Indignation against sin. (4) Fear of God. (5)
Intense desire to see right accomplished. (6) Zeal to correct what's
wrong. (7) Readiness to see that wrongdoing is punished.
George Truett, who for many years was an effective preacher in
Dallas, became a changed man through a terrible misfortune. In his
youth he accidentally shot and killed a close friend while hunting.
The shock of what he had done weighed heavily upon him, but he refused
to let it defeat him. He determined to live for God and endeavored to
do the work of two men. People who knew him said that his early
experience was one of the reasons he glowed with a passion for the
lost and gave himself so unstintingly to God's service.
Life is full of turning-points, from bad to good, from good to bad,
or from bad to worse, from good to better, in choosing or changing an
occupation or in preparing to make our calling the greatest possible
success:
Are there not, dear Michael,
Two points in the adventure of the diver:
One, when a beggar, he prepares to plunge?
One, when a prince, he rises with his pearl?
Festus, I plunge.
Two paths lie open for each life;
One leads through danger, toil and strife,
But upward goes
To shining heights whose rising sun,
When once the lofty steep is won,
No setting knows.
The other path, vine-clad and green,
Scarce lets its gentle slope be seen
But downward goes
To depths unknown, whose setting sun,
In baleful shadows dark and dun,
No rising knows.
--E. J. B.
Writing to friends from his Minnesota prison cell, Jim Bakker has denounced the riches-through-faith creed that fueled the rise and fall of his PTL empire.
Fifteen years after founding the religious-entertainment complex near Fort Mill, S. C., and three years after going to prison for defrauding many of those who followed him there, Bakker now admits God doesn’t just bless the rich.
“If that be the case,” Bakker wrote recently, “then gambling casino owners and drug kingpins and movie stars are blessed of God.... I have asked God to forgive me and I ask all who have sat under my ministry to forgive me for preaching a gospel emphasizing earthly prosperity.”
The former televangelist, who is serving an 18-year sentence for bilking followers out of millions of dollars, had apologized previously only for hurting those who trusted him.
________
Columbus Dispatch
==================================
From "Jim Bakker," Wikipedia.org:
In his 1996 book, I Was Wrong, former television evangelist Jim Bakker admitted that the first time he actually read the Bible all the way through was while he was in prison, and that it made him realize he had taken certain passages out of context — passages which he had used as “proof texts” to back up his prosperity teachings. He wrote:
“The more I studied the Bible, however, I had to admit that the prosperity message did not line up with the tenor of Scripture. My heart was crushed to think that I led so many people astray. I was appalled that I could have been so wrong, and I was deeply grateful that God had not struck me dead as a false prophet!” [1]
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1. Jim Bakker, I Was Wrong (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 1996), p. 535.
In "The Silence of Dean Maitland," the author tells how the dean
fell into sin and then committed one sin after another to cover up his
first sin; and worst of all permitted an innocent man to be punished
and imprisoned in his stead. All kinds of temporal adversities broke
over him. He lost his wife and children; his home became a wilderness;
yet he would not repent. He said, "I cannot, I will not, I dare not, I
must not, repent." But at length, the man, who had spent a great part
of his life in prison for the other's crime, wrote him a letter
telling him of his forgiveness. It was that letter that broke his
heart and brought him to repentance. "God called to me," he said,
"through many years, by many judgments; but I repented not--until I
was forgiven." --McCartney
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