True Repentance
“And
saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” Matt.
3:2
"Are
you the teacher of Israel, and do not understand these things?” John 3:10 NASB
Repentance is directed towards the Kingdom of God with
implication of the rights of God, and the rebellion of man.
John had no Gospel to preach; he preached repentance. No man is ready
for the Gospel until he has heard this; and no man can receive the benefit
which the Gospel provides until he has obeyed this fundamental word.
Christ was calling men to enthrone the exiled God. Men are being taught
wrong conceptions concerning God and His kingdom (Nicodemus [John 3:10] – “the” teacher of Israel), which issues in wrong conduct, which
results in wrong character. This is not the gospel and there is no gospel to
give until men repent first. Men have been taught today evolutionary thinking
instead of revolutionary thoughts. God has rights over the individual life in
its entirety, over social life in all its inter-relationships, over national life
in its purposes and its policies. God has rights over all the affairs of men.
A man needs to become conscious of the act
of sin, and of the fact of sin abounding everywhere in our day even though it
is accepted and disregarded by our society, by making wrong right and right
wrong. Then he needs to recognize the fact of sin in himself and his need of
repentance. He also needs to recognize his inability to stop those acts and to
find the way of remission and renewal. Too many in the church have said they have
found the power over stopping sin and continue with that supposed new found
power. They fool only themselves. Truly repentance turns from those sins and
walk the other direction, the very meaning of the word.
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