Wednesday, May 30, 2012

True and False Repentance (Part 1 of 4)


"Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death" 2 Corinthians 7:10

Why do so many, who are still impenitent sinners, get the idea that they have repented? The only logical reason is that within the church in America there is a wholesale lack of instruction and discernment respecting true and false repentance. Thus I begin a short series on repentance, touching on four aspects of repentance


I.              What is true repentance?

The short one paragraph definition of True Repentance would be that TRUE REPENTANCE involves a complete change of opinion on the nature of sin, and this change of opinion is followed by a corresponding change of feeling towards sin.  Feeling is the result of thought, not emotion; and when this change of opinion produces a corresponding change of feeling, if the opinion is right (as defined by God) and the feeling corresponds, this is true repentance.  The opinion now adopted, by the sinner would align with the opinion that God holds respecting sin.  Godly sorrow, such as God requires, must spring from such views of sin as God holds, nothing less.

First.  There must be a change of opinion in regard to sin.

To someone who truly repents, sin looks like a very different thing from what it does to someone who has not repented. Instead of looking like a thing that is desirable or fascinating, it looks the very opposite, it is repulsive and detestable, and she is astonished at herself that he ever could have desired such a thing.  She looks at her own conduct as perfectly hateful; she looks back upon it and exclaims, "How hateful, how detestable, how worthy of hell, such and such a thing was in me."

Impenitent sinners might look at sin and see that it will destroy them, because God will punish them for it. However, it appears so desirable. They love it. They roll it under their tongue, savor it in their mouth. If it could end in happiness, they never would think of abandoning it.

Sinners do not see why God threatens sin with such terrible punishment. They
love it so much themselves, that they cannot see why God should look at it in such
a light as to think it worthy of everlasting punishment.  When they are strongly
convicted, they see it differently, and as opinion is concerned, they see it in the same light as a true Christian does, then they only want a corresponding change of feeling to become Christians.

Many a sinner sees their relation to God to be such that they deserve eternal death, but her heart does not go with her opinions.  This is the case with the devil and wicked in hell.  Therefore; a change of opinion is indispensable to true repentance, and always precedes it. The heart never goes out to God in true repentance without a previous change of opinion.  There may be a change of opinion without repentance, but no genuine repentance without a change of opinion.

The unrepentant sinner has almost no right ideas, even so far as this life is concerned, respecting the sin. Suppose she admits in theory that sin deserves eternal death, she does not believe it. If she believed it, it would be impossible for her to remain an unrepentant sinner.  She is deceived, if she supposes that she honestly holds such an opinion that sin deserves the wrath of God forever. However the truly convicted sinner has no more doubt of this than she has of the existence of God. She sees clearly that as a simple matter of fact, sin must deserve everlasting punishment from God.

Secondly.   In true repentance there must be a corresponding change of feeling.

The individual who truly repents, not only sees sin as detestable, vile and worthy of abhorrence, but she genuinely hates it in her heart.  A person may see sin to be hurtful and abominable, yet her heart loves it, desires it and clings to it (you know the person who says adultery is a sin, yet keeps doing it). But when she truly repents, she reels backwards in repulsion of it and renounces it.

The individual who truly repents feels sin as it is.  When she views sin in its tendencies, it awakens a vehement desire to stop it, and to save people from their sins, and roll back the tide of death.  When the Christian sets her mind on this, just as if she saw all the people taking poison which she knew would destroy them; she lifts up her voice to warn them to BEWARE.

She has not only an intellectual conviction that sin deserves everlasting punishment, but she feels that it would be right, reasonable, and just for God to condemn her to eternal death, that so far from finding fault with the sentence of the law that condemns her, she thinks it the wonder of heaven, a wonder of wonders, if God would forgive her.  Instead of thinking it hard, or severe, or unkind of God, that unrepentant sinners are allowed to sent themselves to hell, she is full of adoring wonder that she is not sent to hell herself.  It is the last thing in the world she would think to complain of, that all sinners are not saved, but, it is a wonder of mercy that the entire world is not damned.  And when she thinks of such a sinner's as herself being saved, she feels a sense of gratitude that she never knew anything until she was a Christian.


Sunday, May 20, 2012

Gay Marriage, - The President verses Manny Pacquiao


‘Dear friends, I had been eagerly planning to write to you about the salvation we all share. But now I find that I must write about something else, urging you to defend the faith that God has entrusted once for all time to his holy people.  I say this because some ungodly people have wormed their way into your churches, saying that God’s marvelous grace allows us to live immoral lives. The condemnation of such people was recorded long ago, for they have denied our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ…. And don’t forget Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighboring towns, which were filled with immorality and every kind of sexual perversion. Those cities were destroyed by fire and serve as a warning of the eternal fire of God’s judgment.’  Jude 1:3-4, 7

I do not on this blog involve myself with politics. While it may appear at first glance that I am breaking with that on this post, it is only because so many within our country are working to make a morality issue, a political issue, and for the most part they have succeeded.  The issue at hand has nothing to do with politics, even though political parties, politicians, celebrities and the like are all driving the issue; rather the issue is a clear cut morality issue.  It did not begin with the current topic that is being thrown around Washington, and the rest of the country, nor will it end with it.   The people of this country began this journey long ago, they just didn’t realize it, where it ends up – personally I do not think that it does end.  As a nation and a people we just keep sinking lower   the outcome within this country is already a forgone conclusion. However, victory does not make the victors correct, or those who appear to have lost this battle – wrong.  

Recently the President of the United States announced that he was in favor of gay marriages. Previously the Vice-President said that he was “absolutely comfortable with gay married couples”.  Celebrities (i.e. Hollywood) across the country jumped at the opportunity to chime in their support for gay marriage, and to state how proud they were of the President for switching his previous position in opposition to gay marriage.  Then something curious happened, Manny Pacquiao (the first 8 division world boxing champion) and one of the most well liked sports celebrities in the world stated simply that gay marriage was against God’s law.  The torrent of hate and anger that was poured out at Mr. Pacquiao for his comments was relentless, even from those who profess to the world that they are Christian. 

Now before I go on to the central point of this posting, you need to stop and re-read that last paragraph, and think about it, I mean really think about it.  A man, who is obviously following God’s word, gets blasted by those within a “Christian Nation” for saying that the President of the United States is wrong and that gay marriage violates God’s word.  Hmmm…. so much for the President's claims to be a Christian, perhaps yours as well.  But what is really amazing is that those who scream the loudest for ‘tolerance and acceptance’ are the most intolerant when someone disagrees with them, guess it makes them happy to berate someone with a different opinion.   As a side note Mr. Pacquiao is absolutely correct, the Bible is absolutely clear on the issue.

This is the jest of why the president and those who support gay marriage say that they support gay marriage – ‘Everyone has the right to be happy’.  That’s it, nothing deeper than that, nothing more profound - just the time honored argument that has been used through the ages to commit unspeakable sins, “just do what makes you happy”.

I am not going to argue the morality of the issue, my opinion does not matter, any more than yours does; God has already decided the morality of it, and regardless of what you and I think, He isn’t going to change His opinion (and His is the only one that counts).  What I am going to discuss is the glaring flaw in the argument used by the President and those who use that argument to advance causes that will make a particular segment of the population ‘happy’.

Simply stated, once you sign off on the argument that a particular  segment of the population is entitled to do what they believe will make them happy, there is no going back from it.  There is no end to it.  You can not (without being a hypocrite) state in the future that others can not do what will make them happy, regardless of what you think is the morality of it.   It was that exact fatal flaw that gay activist used to silence those within the church.  The church and professing Christians had signed off on heterosexual couples divorcing for any reason and remarrying (in direct violation of God’s word) all under the guise of ‘God just wants you to be happy’ so don’t worry you are forgiven.  The Church took the first bite of the apple years ago.  

I am not going to make a long winded argument to support my position; instead I am going to ask you to think about a several questions.

Should a woman be allowed to marry her brother?  How about her father?

Is committing adultery with your neighbor’s husband okay? How about your neighbor’s 17 year old daughter? 

Is premarital sex something that you want your 13 year old daughter to engage in?
Is it alright for a 50 year old man to marry a 17 year old girl? How about 16, 15, 14, 13 (you know they do grow up faster these days)? 

Is it morally acceptable to divorce your wife because you found a newer younger model?

For that matter, why do we make such a big deal out of prosecuting those who have more than one wife? 

If you agree to the argument that gay marriage is not a sin and should be allowed because everyone has the right to do what they think will make them happy, then what are you going to say to those who tell you in the future that doing any of the above is what makes them happy.  How do you tell them that they can not do what makes them happy, when you are already doing the same.  Who are you to judge?  Sing off on one, and you have signed off on all of them.

Let me be perfectly clear, I am against gay marriages, I am also against divorce, adultery, fornication, child molestation, incest, polygyny etc. etc.  I do not distinguish between any of them, neither does God.  Each is a sin, and those who commit them, or encourage others to do so, will ultimately face the wrath of God.

America, if it doesn’t already, will soon make Sodom and Gomorra pale in comparison.

“If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet. Truly I tell you, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.”  Matthew 10:14-15


Monday, May 14, 2012

Follow Your Heart..... (Otherwise know as the Path to Hell)


I interact a lot with those who are either going through a divorce or who are thinking about one.  On a daily basis I witness the worst in people.  I listen to their excuses, their selfishness, their lies. Which make the conversation I recently had with a woman no different then the one I have had a hundred times over.    She was thinking of divorcing her husband ,  and in the depth of  the conversation she revealed that  she was having an affair with another woman’s husband.  Which if you do not know, is a sin, which I in a direct manner pointed out to her.  Needless to say she wasn't very happy with me for saying that, so I asked her if she thought she was a Christian.

"Of course I do," she said.

To which I responded "do you believe the Bible is true?"

Imagine my surprise when she said, "Absolutely."

So then I quoted  verse after verse that identified what she was doing as a sin. She told me, "That is your opinion. That's your interpretation. You just don't understand and besides you are not suppose to judge and God forgives everything."  Like I haven’t heard that before.  Interesting how people always tell you that you are not suppose to judge, when they are committing the evilest of sins. 

In the end  I simply told her the truth, “You will do what is right or you will do what you want.  However, they are not the same and whichever course you choose you will reap what you have sowed.” 

Which brings me to this point:  Do what your heart tells you is a creed believed by millions today.  It is one of the great cultural myths of the Western world, a gospel proclaimed in movies, songs, television programs and stories.  Heck I have even heard pastors say it.  But the truth is, if you want to stamp your ticket to hell, then just follow your heart.  However, don’t be surprised at your final destination. 

The Bible is very clear on the matter,  "The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?" (Jeremiah 17:9).  

Adultery, Divorce, Fornication, Gay marriage, the list goes on and on; as long as it doesn’t intrude on me, live and let live… you just don’t understand.  To which I reply “No, you do not understand. Your opinion, your desires, do not alter God’s laws, they have been, are and always will be the same.”  If you need proof that you will reap what you sow, just look around, look at the decline of America. 

We need a higher standard of authority than our heart, a higher standard of authority than mere opinion, and that is the Word of God.  

The problem we have today is a watered-down gospel and because of that, many have a watered-down Christian life.  We have Christians who have become so much like the world that the world doesn't want to become like them.  What is considered normal Christian living in the first century would be considered radical by today's standards. But that is what we need: radical Christianity. To put it another way, we need biblical Christianity.

Instead of trying to accommodate the Word of God to our changing culture, we need to accommodate our culture to the unchanging Word of God.

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

What is a Christian?


Three ‘Christians’ go to church each week, one volunteers in the nursery, one is an Elder, the other a member of the choir.  Each has their own story, each continues in their chosen sin unabated.  Which leaves this question?  Is the woman who is having an affair with her best friend’s husband a Christian?  Is the man who sells illegal drugs to pay for his daughter’s education a Christian?  Or what about the man, who divorced his wife because he wasn’t in love with her anymore, is he a Christian? 

What is a Christian?  If you were to ask 100 “Christians” you would get 100 different answers.  I think the reason for that, is partly because we have a lot of anemic, shallow preaching today, which has left the church with a generation of people who think they are Christians but really are not.  These are people who have been told to believe, but they have never been told to repent. They have been promised heaven, but they have never been warned of hell.  They have been told that God wants them to be happy, but they have never heard that God wants them to be holy.  I wonder whether a lot of these people even know what the genuine gospel message is. Recently there was a survey that revealed that 7 in 10 American adults have no clue what John 3:16 means “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” (As I have pointed out before believes means to obey, for even the devil believes, yet he is doomed)  

The same study also revealed that barely one-third of all adults know the meaning of the term, "the gospel."  Thus it should not surprise us that the fact is, what is considered as Christianity by many today would not even qualify as such in the first century.  However the Bible is very clear about who is a Christian.  According to the apostle Paul, a Christian is someone who has put his or her faith in Jesus Christ, and Christ alone, as Savior and Lord and God.  A Christian is someone who has turned from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God “to open their eyes, so they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God.  Then they will receive forgiveness for their sins and be given a place among God’s people, who are set apart by faith in me.’Acts 26:18.

It is not for me or you to decide who is a Christian and who is not. That is ultimately up to God.  We are told however that we will recognize them by their fruit.  I do know one thing, what we don't need more of today are 'sort-of Christians'. What we need are 'no-doubt Christians'—people about whom you could say, "There is no doubt in my mind that person is a follower of Jesus Christ."  Could you say that about the three individuals mentioned above, could you say that about those you know, more importantly would they say that about you?  


Saturday, May 5, 2012

Rules for Life - Six Little Words


I was reading an essay by a noted author the other day on the rules for life, and he had come up with over 100 of them.  So I started searching and discovered that tens of thousands of “authorities’” have written up "their" rules for life (a Google search turned up over 937 million pages).  Which got me thinking, what are the rules for life in their most fundamental form?  Amazingly they come down to six little words.  If you don’t get these six correct, every other list that has ever been devised is meaningless.  Six simple words …

It does not matter if you choose to have faith in God or not,

“He is”

It does not matter if you seek to know His word or not,

“It is”

It does not matter if you like or obey His rules on life or not,

“They are”

What matters is what you do with those simple six little words in your life,

“He is, it is, they are”

Because at the end of your life there are two more words that apply to everyone, regardless of what you did with those six little words in your lifetime.

“He judges”


Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Entitlement = Resentment = Anger = Death (Part 5 of 5)


This is the final destination of resentment.  You don’t have to have read the headlines about the studies showing dangerous ill-health effects of anger; some call it the heart attack emotion.  Instinctively you know it is true.  But here is what you miss; this is what the articles don’t point out, what they usually don't tell you is that the harmful effects of anger come not from their frequency or intensity.  Rather they come from duration: how long it lasts.  Unhealthy levels of anger are those that last longer than a few minutes.  In other words, the real culprit is the seed of resentment, which quiets now and then but never stops.

For a model of how anger is supposed to function (in a normal well adjusted person), you need look no further than common house cats.  When your cat gets angry, he'll arch his back, hiss, slash at the drapes, run through the house, jump off the walls, etc.  However, within five minutes, he's licking himself like it never happened; if he was angry at you, he'll rub your legs and purr.  The animal responds to his perception of a noxious stimulus in the environment.  Following his natural instincts about anger, he either corrects his perception (there's not really a threat) or adapts to it - the dog has to live here, too. As quickly as it came over him, the anger is completely gone.

But we don't do anger that way.  We think about it afterwards.  We dwell of how things should be and how unfair they are, how we were disregarded, devalued, disrespected, or wrongly rejected.  We fantasize about things didn't happen: "When he said that, I should have said this.  Then he would have said that, and I would have said this!  He would have replied with...and I would have...." Such imaginary dialogue can recur, off and on, for days, months or even years.

The end result of this is predictable, long-lasting resentment can cause depression and lower immune system efficiency - if you're resentful a lot you probably experience lots of little aches and pains - headaches, stomachaches, muscle pain, difficulty sleeping, etc.  You may get frequent colds and bouts of flu.  Admit it, you know someone like that, it might even be you.  Left to go its course, chronic resentment puts you at higher risk of hypertension, stroke, heart disease, and cancer.

But that isn’t the worst of it, the resentment-laden consciousness cries out to be altered by something - a drink, drug, someone else’s wife or husband,  large doses of caffeine or nicotine, or some compulsive behavior that will ease the tension, dissipate the sour feeling, energize the tiredness, or relieve the leaden mood, because after all “you deserve it”.  Affairs, drinking and drugging, new toys, new thrills create an illusion of power that mitigates the powerlessness of resentment.  It is this illusion of power that twelve-step programs target as the primary barrier to recovery - the first "Step" is admitting to powerlessness over the drug.  

It is the illusion of power and entitlement that traps you into a lifestyle of unrepentant sin, a lifestyle that becomes progressively more self-center, and more destructive to yourself and those around you.  As opposed to reality and truth, resentment greatly distorts thinking - through oversimplification, confirmation bias, inability to grasp other perspectives, and an inability to distinguish thoughts from reality.  Over time, resentment becomes a world view and a way of life.  Because the resentful have to devalue others to protect their fragile egos, resentment inevitably leads to some form of verbal or emotional abuse and, eventually to contempt and disgust.  In the end is the illusion of power that traps you into fooling yourself that you are somehow owed all that you steal, that you are somehow entitled.  When in reality and more importantly in God’s eyes, it is your lifestyle that has become contemptible and disgusting.  

For the originator of entitlement simply look at Satan, he believes he is entitled, is that really who you want to pattern your life after, all the while professing to believe in God?   Entitlement, such a dangerous thought, the seed of much of the sin that you choose to commit begins with one simple thought, "I am entitled".  Painful as it is to admit, you are not entitled, no more than Satan is.  Don't let that truth get too far away from you in life, or you will receive in death exactly what you are entitled to.