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 But whereas it is obsolete for the Christian it is absolute for God.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).