MikeLigalig.com

C.H. Spurgeon once made the statement: "Brethren, we shall not adjust our Bible to the age, but the age to the Bible."

We are living in a day and age where man is taught to think good thoughts, high thoughts, wonderful thoughts about himself. Within the last 20 years or so there has been a covert invasion in Christianity in America without hardly a whimper of protest. This invasion can best be described as "Christian" psychology, which is nothing more than watered-down humanism. While there are millions of people searching for answers to their complicated problems created by their increasingly complex lives, psychology comes along and attempts to answer and solve man's sin problems and its consequences through the building up and restoration of man's self-esteem and self-image. We are told today to get in touch with our inner self and ask the question: "How do you feel about yourself?" The bottom line is, it doesn't amount to a hill of beans what we think or feel about ourselves, but what does the Bible say and teach.

This matrimony between psychology and Christianity has created an unholy alliance which is producing some strange children that are permitting, promoting, and preaching deceiving, dangerous, and damnable false doctrines. This diabolical psychobabble of self-love is sweeping through churches today among self-seeking men in a self-centered society whose greatest problem is a desire to worship at the altar of self. The apostle Paul warned us that one of the characteristics of the last days would be that "men shall be lovers of their own selves" (2 Tim. 3:2).

I'm afraid many so-called fundamental/evangelical churches and preachers have fallen into the trap of teaching this mushy self-worth propaganda that seeks to camouflage itself in robes of charity and tolerance. Churches and preachers alike are abandoning their God-called purpose of holding up the mirror of God's Word and graphically revealing to man what he really looks like in the sight of a holy God. The missing message in modern-day preaching is the Biblical doctrine of repentance, where a sinner is convinced and convicted of his exceeding sinfulness and lost condition.

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All Sinners Are Condemned

Everyone knows they are not perfect, but for most sinners that is consolation, not condemnation. But the Bible declares all sinners are already condemned:

"For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God" (John 3:17-18).

The problem is "all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Rom.3:23). Man, in his lost, sinful, condemned state, has failed to glorify God. Until a person becomes personally exceedingly sinful in his own eyes, he will never see his need for repentance. Eph.2:1 says man is spiritually dead; Rom.3:10 and Isa.64:6 tells us no one is righteous before a holy God; Rom.3:19 says all stand guilty and condemned before God; Eph.4:18 declares all sinners are separated from God whose hearts and minds are blinded so that they cannot understand God or the things of God.

Repentance basically involves two facts: the fact of sin and the fact of God's grace. If a person is not a sinner, he would not need to repent, and if God was not the God of all grace, it would do no good to repent. Repentance implies sin, sorrow for it, and a changed attitude towards God about it.

It should also be stressed that repentance itself is not a human act, but comes only from God (Rom.2:4) -- it is a divine gift of God (Acts 5:31; 11:18; 2 Tim. 2:25).

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Why Did Jesus Come?

"... I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance" (Matt. 9:13).

The reason Jesus came to this earth was to call sinners to repentance. Those who did not see themselves as sinners, deserving God's wrath, were not candidates for God's salvation. The sinner must reject his own righteousness, because Jesus did not come to call the righteous, not even the self-righteous. The only way a sinner will come to reject his own righteousness is by coming face to face with his own wickedness. You can take it from the lips of Jesus Himself as a settled issue that He will not call the righteous. Only those to whom it is revealed (by God's Spirit) that they are lost, depraved, ungodly sinners will respond to the calling of the Saviour in salvation.

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1. WORLDLY REPENTANCE

Turn your Bible to Exodus Read Chapter 9:

9:1 This was the fifth time God impelled Moses back to Pharaoh with this demand, “Let my people go!” Moses may have been tired and discouraged, but he continued to obey. Is there a difficult conflict you must face repeatedly? Don’t give up, don’t quit, when you know what is right to do. Moses discovered, persistence and patience is a virtue of God and God will reward obedience.

9:12 God gave Pharaoh numerous opportunities to observe Moses’ warnings. But in the end God seemed to say, “All right, Pharaoh, have it your own way,” and Pharaoh’s heart developed into permanently hardened. Did God deliberately harden Pharaoh’s heart and make null and void his free will? No, he merely confirmed that Pharaoh wholeheartedly chose and preferred a life of resisting God. Likewise, after a lifetime of resisting God, people may possibly find it impossible to turn to him. Don’t delay until just the right time before turning to God. Act now as you still have the opportunity. If you persistently ignore God’s voice, eventually you will be unable to hear God’s call at all.

Focus: 9:27-34 After promising to let the Hebrews go, Pharaoh immediately broke his promise and brought even more trouble upon the land. His actions reveal that his repentance was not real. We do damage to ourselves and to others if we pretend to change but don’t mean it

Pharaoh represents the world’s type of repentance. Pharaoh cried out to Moses’ and said he repented but as soon as the plague or hardship was removed he returned to the same sin. How many times have been guilty of refusing to obey God’s word and asking for forgiveness and shortly after the hardship is over we return to the same sin or thing that brought us into bondage in the first place. Pharaoh experienced the power and might of the one true living God and the world of Pharaoh would learn about the Lord through these experiences. Pharaoh represents the natural or physical mans reasoning against the word of God or the spiritual conflict between man and God. Natural disasters can cause us to call out in fear and helplessness; along with hardships or difficulties man cries out but this is not the same as true repentance but arises from the terror of the difficulty or hardship. Man will return to his sin when this type of repentance or bargaining is done. Pharaoh feared the hardships of the plagues but he did not fear or turn to the Lord with a true heart repentance.

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Repentance from Sin and Accepting / Entrusting to CHRIST JESUS all worries and all problems is the first step.
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1 Thessalonians 5:9 – “For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain
salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

2 Timothy 2:10 -  â€œTherefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect,
that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal
glory.”

Acts 4:12 – “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other
name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."

Romans 1:16 -  â€œFor I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of
God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the
Greek.” [Gospel means the good news that in Christ we may have forgiveness
of our sins.]

2 Corinthians 7:10 -  â€œFor godly grief produces a repentance that leads to
salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.”

Hebrews 2:9-10 -  â€œBut we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the
angels, now crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death, so that
by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. In bringing many sons
to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything
exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through
suffering.”

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