It is time for all Christians to clean house. As we approach a new year, and are reminded that God has called us to “number our days” and to “redeem the time,” perhaps the most important thing we can do is to repent over sin. As one of our staff explained at the end of the year Thanksgiving party for Vision Forum: “Those who desire to be bold for Christ must remember that you can not be bold until you are righteouss.”
Sin is the great impediment to victory. With this in mind, both at Vision Forum and in my local church, we have spent the last month taking a good hard look out ourselves as individuals. We are now about the business of confessing sins and recommitting all of our ways to the Lord. There have been rich blessings from this sort of soul-searching. We are in awe of the grace of God and His mercy. We dream big things for our families, for this culture, for our local churches and for this nation, which is why we boldly covet the favor of the Lord in 2005.
Our assembly follows the biblical pattern of weekly breaking bread. God gives but one command in Scripture concerning the observance of a day of rememberence for the saints gathered together in local body worship, and that command centers around the Christian Sabbath and the Lord’s Table. It, not the Anglican or Roman liturgical calander, is the biblical focal point of corporate worship throughout the year. This weekly celebration is commanded in the context of rememberence, rejoicing, redemption and repentance.
With these thoughts in mind, one of our local church leaders, Bob Sarratt, shared some of the following insights and quotes (edited and abbreviated for this blog)with our body this Sunday in preperation for taking the Lord’s Table. Please take the time and read these rich insights:
Biblical Repentance and the Lord’s Table
Each week as we approach the Lords Supper we should remember that we must come to the Table in obedience to our Lord with understanding, with faith, with reverence, and with godly fear. We understand that the Scripture’s teach that the Lord’s Table is for all who profess faith in Christ and who have demonstrated obedience through the waters of baptism. The Scriptures also teach that all who come to the Lord’s Table are to examine themselves. Even though redeemed, we are liars if we deny that we are sinful people regularly in need of repentance. The Apostle Paul said: “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.” Concerning the greatness of his mercy, Paul writes in Titus 3:3: “For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another. But after that the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost.”
A Confessional Testimony Concerning Repentance
Without faith (which is the unearned gift of God) a man can not even recognize his own need to repent! Our confession puts it this way:
“Whereas there is none that doth good and sinneth not, and the best of men may, through the power and deceitfulness of their corruption dwelling in them, with … temptation , fall into great sins and provocations; God hath, in the covenant of grace, mercifully provided that believers so sinning and falling be renewed through repentance unto salvation. This saving repentance is an evangelical grace, whereby a person, being by the Holy Spirit made sensible of the manifold evils of his sin, doth, by faith in Christ, humble himself for it with godly sorrow, detestation of it, and self-abhorrency, praying for pardon and strength of grace, with a purpose and endeavor, by supplies of the Spirit, to walk before God unto all well-pleasing in all things. As repentance is to be continued through the whole course of our lives, upon the account of the body of death, and the motions thereof, so it is every man’s duty to repent of his particular known sins particularly. Such is the provision which God hath made through Christ in the covenant of grace for the preservation of believers unto salvation; that although there is no sin so small but it deserves damnation; yet there is no sin so great that it shall bring damnation on them that repent; which makes the constant preaching of repentance necessary.”
Thomas Watson on the Doctrine of Repentance
The Puritan theologian Thomas Watson believed the two great graces essential to the believer are faith and repentance and that they should be exercised daily by believers. In his book “the Doctrine of Repentance”, he described six aspects of the biblical concept of repentance. They are: awareness of sin, sorrow of sin, confession of sin, shame of sin, hatred of sin, and turning from sin to God.
Watson makes a distinction between true and false repentance: “There is a type of false repentance called attrition. Attrition is an incomplete repentance motivated by fear of punishment. The sorrow in attrition is the sorrow for being caught and the desire to escape punishment. The sorrow is not motivated from a sense of sorrow for being disobedient, but from fear of punishment. True repentance or contrition is a godly sorrow for sin while false repentance is a sorrow of the world, which is more a regret for the consequences of sin. 2 Corinthians 7:10 ‘For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.’”
“The world sorrows over the inconvenience of sin and the trouble it produces. This grief is selfish. It is motivated by self-interest, not for concern about the offense against God. By putting his own interests above the honor of his Creator he only adds to his condemnation. The lost want to be free from the consequences of sin, not from the guilt of sin or from the offensive desires and acts themselves for God’s sake. Godly sorrow sees the evil of sin in its offense against God. The redeemed soul understands that sin is wrong, not just that it produces unpleasant results in his life and circumstances. He sees the fleeting pleasures of sin as having no appeal to him at all when considered in the light of God’s honor. His inner convictions reveal the moral weakness of his own soul which he wants changed. The regenerate want to be free from sin and its bondage, rather than just from its personal consequences. He sees his condemnation as just and only removed by the merits of Jesus Christ.”
“Repentance is not arbitrary. It is not left to our choice whether or not we will repent, but it is an indispensable command. God has enacted a law in the High Court of heaven that no sinner shall be saved except the repenting sinner, and He will not break His own law. Isaiah 55:7 states: ‘Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.’”
“There are two sorts of persons who will find it harder to repent than others: Those who have sat a great while under the ministry of God’s ordinances but grow no better. Those who have sinned frequently against the convictions of the Word, the checks of conscience, and the motions of the Spirit.”
Repentance: A Daily Practice
Besides a person’s initial repentance in conversion, a searching of the heart, confession of sin, and a trust in God for forgiveness in Christ should be a daily practice of the believer. The promise of God is forgiveness and restoration for those who trust in Christ and truly repent.
In Psalm 51:10, 17: David prayed “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. . . The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise.”
1 John 1:9 &10 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”
Spurgeon on True Repentance
“When we are accepted of the LORD and are standing in the place of favor, and peace, and safety, then we are led to repent of all our failures and miscarriages toward our gracious God. So precious is repentance that we may call it a diamond of the first water, and this is sweetly promised to the people of God as one most sanctifying result of salvation. He who accepts repentance also gives repentance; and He gives it not out of “the bitter box” but from among those “wafers made with honey” on which He feeds His people. A sense of blood-bought pardon and of undeserved mercy is the best means of dissolving a heart of stone. Are we feeling hard? Let us think of covenant love, and then we shall leave sin, lament sin, and loathe sin; yea, we shall loathe ourselves for sinning against such infinite love. Let us come to God with this promise of penitence and ask Him to help us to remember, and repent, and regret, and re- turn. Oh, that we could enjoy the meltings of holy sorrow! What a relief would a flood of tears be! LORD, smite the rock, or speak to the rock, and cause the waters to flow! God loves to be longed for, He loves to be sought, for He sought us Himself with such longing and love: He died for desire of us, marvellous thought! And He longs for us now to be with Him above. Close fellowship with the living God is the calling and privilege of every Christian. Christians are beloved of him, and he of them, and their deepest desire is to commune with him in love. This is their right, purchased at the high cost of the blood of Jesus. A polluted sinner may love the perfect Savior, for there is no word in Scripture to forbid..Suppose yet once again that, though we loved, and rightly loved, and actually possessed the beloved object, yet our affection was not returned. Alas, misery, to love and not be loved! Blessed be God, we can not only sing, ‘My Beloved is Mine,’ but also, ‘I am his.’ He values me, he delights in me, he loves me!....The truth that Jesus calls me his, is enough to make a man dance and sing all the way between here and heaven. Realize the fact that we are dear to the heart of our incarnate God, and amid the sands of this wilderness, a fountain of overflowing joy is open before us. “