True Repentance - Step Four

Repentance is a foregone conclusion. If you don't do it BEFORE the conclusion of life on earth the opportunity will be GONE. Sometimes the opportunity to change your mind about sin, which is the essence of repentance, comes and goes in this life before the undertaker calls. One cannot shove out of the mind that reminder of Esau's mistake in Hebrews 12. The twin brother of Jacob sold his birthright, which was his rights of inheritance to his father's estate, for a mess of pottage. We read the heartsinking words, "for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears." In death or in life, repentance must not be put on an installment plan or rescheduled for convenience sake. How many have reaped the whirlwind despite given opportunities and calls to repentance, yet still remained in a stubborn condition. Even a car can pass one too many gas stations and be found dead on the road.

To conclude by review, the idolatry of the human heart must be shocked at God's view of the sin. Secondly, repentance cannot be rushed to save face. Grinding the golden calf to pulverized powder is necessary that the transgressor faithfully faces his/her guilt before God. Even the minutest speck of the filth of our hearts must be seen under God's holy magnification to leave no doubt about the abhorrence of the sin. Thirdly, strow it upon the water. Lay it out in such a way before God's redeeming blood that you forthrightly conclude no effort of your own hides or removes the sin. Last, but not least, the children must drink the concoction. It is not an emulsion for such a combining of the ingredients through an emulsifying process would leave neither one distinct. This heavenly concoction leads to genuine repentance when the sinner can honestly and humbly partake of both the shame of the sin and the removing Agent. The latter is harder to swallow than the first. Hasty attempts to avoid contemplation of what it cost the darling Saviour to purchase our perpetual forgiveness in His blood taints the activity of repentance and leaves the sinner at least highly vulnerable for repeated downfalls if not entirely shackled to the damaging effects of that which he is repenting. It was a bitter solution to swallow. It always is but mandatory for real deliverance. In summary, God has drawn the portrait at the base of Sinai for true and complete repentance to follow: great recognition for the destruction of sin, great consternation for the participation in sin, great appreciation for the cure of sin, and great absorption of the bitterness of sin.

True Repentance - Step Three

Charles Spurgeon said, "Those who repent in mimicry shall go to hell in reality." Of course, he is referring to the repentance unto salvation. What about false repentance for transgressions in the family of God? Paul has the answer to that question. Hebrews 10:26-27 says, "For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries." There will be most certainly a retribution for grievous, willful sin committed by the believer who does not take the holiness and grace of God seriously in this life. I remember a man who came to viciously and verbally attack his pastor. He was warned not to lay his hand against God's anointed. He became angry and threatened the pastor. What was it all about? The pastor had refused to lie on a document that said the man's son and others were attending the church faithfully according to the church's stipulations for playing on the church basketball team when his son only attended two Sunday Schools per month. The father put vilifying words on the pastor's answering machine one night while the man of God was in church preaching the word and the man was at home plotting mischief. Many other ill words were said in church. The outcome: within six months this man in an unrepentant state of godless anger against the servant of the Lord contracted pancreatic cancer, suffered greatly for a year, and died a horrible death. Did the man soften in that year of battling illness? No, for every time the pastor and the chairman of the deacons drove by his house, if he was out in the yard he made a point to give a "thumbs-down" to them with a scowl on his face. And we read two verses later in the Hebrews text, "Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

Moses was standing in the gap, interceding vociferously for the lives of the children of Israel who had slapped God in the face by golden calf worship. The priest in Moses went to God for the people in prayer. The prophet in Moses went to the people for God and commanded them to do four things for repentance. Hear it again:

"And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strowed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it."

The third step of repentance will leave no doubt in the mind of the confessor that without the Forgiver all groanings in the contrition of repentance, be they of such agony, finds no relief. Once the idol has been burned and ground into the powder the third measure of repentance MUST take place. The minute particles of the idol were "strowed" on the water. It might seem so logical that the transgressor could not ingest the dry ingredients without liquid infusion of some kind, yet I have watched many a traveler swallow a dry pill without benefit of water. Let us not miss the significance of this curious instruction from Moses. The powder of their iniquity was strowed upon the surface of the water that it did not sink but floated. You can throw your sin in the greatest of efforts away from you but it still remains on the surface of the water when repentance is construed to be a self-effort alone. The Hebrew word for "strowed" also means "winnowed" as in the chaff of wheat so small and light, thrown to the wind, disappears. In this instance, on water, it is so finely ground that it cannot sink beneath the surface. The sight of its buoyancy does not leave until swallowed. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn forth from Immanuel’s veins. True repentance must leave the lasting impression on the sorrowful and stricken heart of the sinner that no matter how meticulous we may grind our sin in humble contrition it still takes the blood of Jesus Christ to float the sin into the oblivion of God’s forgetfulness.

True Repentance - Step Two

Repentance is nearly obsolete in the Christian vocabulary. But whereas it is obsolete for the Christian it is absolute for God. "And they went out, and preached that men should repent" (Mark 6:12). " The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel" (Mark 1:15). "Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord" (Acts 3:19). God told five out of the seven churches in Asia (Revelation 2 and 3) to repent. The message was "repent or else". America does not want the "else". However, I fear she is beginning to face some of the "sparks of Sodom" for her rebellion against God. It calls to mind 1 Peter 4:17, "For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?"

Yesterday, we discovered the first step for true repentance. Burn the calf of idolatry! Reduce it under the white hot wrath of God for sin till it holds no more fascination for the lust of the eyes. Check out the second step:

"And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strowed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it" (Exodus 32:20).

The shapeless, molten idol without form and void, now cooled from time out of the fire, must then be ground into pieces, even the tiniest specks, for eventual consumption without the prospect of choking and regurgitating the abhorrent thing once worshiped. Some people attempt repentance in the outset and fail in the onset. Looking backwards through this step we observe that many will fail in repentance because of unwillingness to swallow their transgression. They prefer to choke by equivocation, calling it something besides sin such as an adulteress refers to her "past indiscretions" which likely under that terminology are perhaps not past. Others choke by hesitation, preferring to wallow the particles of their putrid practice around in their mouth pretending to swallow but all the while contemplating a return engagement if they can just rework the dirty pill. Still others cannot dissect, distinguish, and denounce each piece of the whole sin episode with the same contempt found in the mind and heart of God. The whys, wherefores, whats, and whenevers get in the way and cloud the sinner’s mind compounding his sin, thereby rendering whatever attempts at repentance invalid. God’s holiness will not be trifled with. Grinding sin into powder takes time, time for the fires of God’s wrath to subside. After the initial notice of God’s indignation against the sin, faithfully delivered by the Holy Spirit, the sinner must wait in what might be termed the cooling period as it was in this text. This is not the kind of waiting that disengages the attention or ignores the realities of what is before us to turn our attention to more pleasant thoughts about our self. So many miss repentance in this interim by walking away from the unattractive guilt that lays heavy on our soul as we are compelled to behold the panorama of destruction. Obedience to the lawgiver’s solution at this point is crucial and could be summed up in that penitential confession of David, "I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears" (Psalm 6:6).

True Repentance - Step One

In the greatest book ever given to man these words appear:

"And he took the calf which they had made, and burnt it in the fire, and ground it to powder, and strowed it upon the water, and made the children of Israel drink of it." Exodus 32:20

America is steeped in idolatry which one would expect for a world of lost humanity. The human race worships pleasure, power, pride, and preeminence over God. One would not expect this kind of behavior in the church but idolatry even abounds in the least expected camp. Moses is inducing the purest form of repentance for Israel to propitiate the wrath of God for their brazen idolatry. Four prescriptions were induced to bring repentance to completion. First, the calf was burned with fire. Before the eyes of the idolater that which is sinfully attractive must become shockingly abhorred. The false beauty of sin must lose its form in the eyes of the sinner for repentance to have taken the first step. That is only possible when the transgression is viewed under the contempt and fiery wrath of God burning its essence to mere uselessness. The wrath of God is not missing. The apostle Paul made that clear: "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness" (Romans 1:18) What is missing is not heavenly retribution but human repentance and retreat from sin. The golden calf must assume a new shape in men's eyes. It must become gravel in their teeth rather than candy for their palate. Repentance is the ingredient that will save the world. "Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish" (Luke 13:5). It is not the most palatable message but government, the war machine, Wall Street, nor thousands of Universities have solved the problems that threaten the annihilation of man. Tomorrow we will view step two in the upward staircase to right relationship with God.