FIVE PRINCIPLES OF TRUE REPENTANCE

John the Baptist was chosen and anointed by God to be his prophet to usher in the time of Messiah. It was John the Baptist who for six months preached a message that was created to prepare the hearts of the people to receive Jesus Christ as Lord. What was his message? His message was simply a call to repentance. Day after day, week after week, and month after month John preached that the Kingdom was coming and that men everywhere should repent. This was the message of John the Baptist and it certainly should be the message of every man that is called by God to preach. Seeing how John the Baptist was one of the greatest prophets there ever was, we should by studying his message learn what true repentance consists of. I believe there are at least five principles of true repentance as given by John, let's examine these together.

#1. ONE MUST REALIZE HIS SIN.

Luke 3:4-6 As it is written in the book of the words of Esaias the prophet, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth; And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

The first call is to make the pathway of the Lord straight. What pathway is he talking about? Spiritually the pathway is through the wilderness of the heart. The imagery is speaking of the wickedness of man's heart.

The valley that must be filled is the base and dark things of the heart, and they must be brought up to the light of the Gospel.

The mountains and the hills are the high things of the heart that exalts it's self against God: pride, self-will, self-seeking, self-exaltation, greed and covetousness. All of these things must be brought low.

Then you have the crooked things, which represents things that are perverse, twisted, deceitful, and devious in our life. And these things must be made straight.

All these things must be dealt with, every thing must be cleared out of the way for the Lord's entrance into the heart. And thus by the preaching of John men would search their own heart, and they would consider their own sin. And after searching their hearts they would see the monstrosity of their sin, which hinders them from receiving the good things of God.

True repentance requires a complete and full admission of one's sinfulness, when one does this he will not say, "I have sinned a little" but rather, "I am a very great and wicked sinner". And that's essential to real repentance. Sin in all of its darkness must be recognized in one's own life.

#2. ONE MUST REALIZE THE WRATH OF GOD AGAINST SIN.

Luke 3:7 Then said he to the multitude that came forth to be baptized of him, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?

Luke 3:9 And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: every tree therefore which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

John now calls the group of men who came to be baptized of him a "generation of vipers", why? He is still pushing them to do an honest search of their heart. They must be sure that they realize who they are. They are not 'saved', they are not the children of God, they are not 'good', they are the children of the serpent, their father is the devil, they are children of wrath by nature and by choice.

And except their sin is dealt with they shall be hewed down and cast into the fires of hell. He wanted them to know that they needed to flee the wrath that was to come, for the wrath of God was being stored up against them. And God would soon wet his glittering sword and punish them for their wicked sins.

John is saying: Deal with your sin because it has awful and eternal consequences. Men do not seek a Savior until they realize they need saving! Men do not come to true repentance until they learn to fear the divine wrath. It is the grace of God that teaches the heart of men to fear hell.

All the prophets preached judgment. John preached judgment. Any true preacher preaches judgment. And when you give a witness for Christ to another individual, you have to talk about the wrath to come. The wrath to come is speaking of the final eternal judgment. Jesus made hell a theme of His preaching. He preached more on hell than He did on heaven. He preached more on hell than anybody ever preached on hell. Why? Because He wanted to warn sinners. And one of the things that you must preach when you preach true repentance is the seriousness and the suffering of hell. There is a hell, it is a like of fire and it alienates you from God forever. And that's what makes forgiveness good news. Thus for there to be true repentance one must realize his sinful condition, and he must realize that wrath is coming upon him.

#3. ONE MUST REJECT RITUALS AND GENEALOGY

Luke 3:8 Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance, and begin not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, That God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.

Now the Jews of Christ's day knew the preaching of John was true. They had read in Malachi about the day of Judgment that was coming, that would burn like an oven, and many people came to John willing to be baptized by him. You know when there is a forest fire the creatures usually run toward the nearest river. The snakes crawl out of their dens and they squirm down to the water. When John saw this great crowd it reminded him of that and he wanted them to know that merely being baptized by him would not save them from the fires that were coming.

There is no right, there's no ceremony, there's no ritual, there's no baptism that can save anybody from wrath. There's no salvation in baptism then and there's none in it now. Jesus taught in Mark 16:16 that you may be baptized and still be damned, if that baptism is not accompanied with saving faith.

In fact, when Jesus preached His great Sermon on the Mount Jesus destroyed all their hope in ritual. He attacked their prayers and said it's nothing but vain repetition. He attacked their alms giving and said it's nothing but parading your self-
righteous pride. He attacked their sacrifices. He attacked their oaths. He attacked their vows. He attacked everything they were ceremonially and ritualistically hanging on to. And in a sense He said to them, "All of that stuff is manure."

The churches are full of people who are depending on rituals to be saved. People who were baptized as babies, people who were baptized as young people, people baptized as adults. There are people who go to the church and go through whatever ordinances their churches call for them to go through. They get confirmed, they say so many 'Hail Marys'. They pray their beads, they cross their chest, they eat their wafers, they bow to images, they wear certain clothes, they light candles, burn incense, they do penance and the list goes on and on. Yet in the end it has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with gaining salvation.

YOUR ANCESTORS CANNOT SAVE YOU.

Not only are rituals powerless to save you, but your ancestry cannot save you. As John told the Jews, "Don't think that because you are descended from Abraham that you are going to be saved".

The Jews thought that they didn't have anything to fear from the wrath to come, because they were the children of Abraham. They thought that salvation was genetic! That it got passed down from one generation to another. And that is a false doctrine, and if you trust in your ancestry you will be damned.

God said this about ancestry:

Ezekiel 18:4 Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.

Ezekiel 18:20 The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.

You have to come to the place if you want to truly repent where you don't base your relationship to God on any ritual or anything ancestral. It doesn't matter what your father believes or what your mother believes, their salvation doesn't pass to you. I don't think there are people who understand that. There's a whole world of Greek orthodox people, a whole world of Russian orthodox people who believe that salvation is generationally passed down. There are people in the Reform Movement, people in the Roman Catholic Cult, who believe somehow that rites which they engaged in as infants passed salvation down from the parents to them. They actually think at infant baptism the parents' faith is counted for the salvation of the infant. My friends to come to repentance we must reject all these things. We must count all these things as dung.

#4. REPENTANCE IS REVEALED BY YOUR WORKS.

Luke 3:8 Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance

How do we know our repentance is real? It is by our fruits. John is telling us that if the repentance is real it will show up in your conduct, it will show up in your behavior, it will show up in your life style. It will show up in your attitudes. It will show up in your actions. John wanted to see the fruit.

Some men may say that is 'works', that that isn't a part of the Gospel of Christ, but my friends it certainly is! Paul said that he preached this message to the Gentiles:

"that they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance." – Acts 26:20

If your repentance is real then let's see it manifest in your life. If your repentance is real then it is a work of God; God leads men to repentance and grants men repentance, and regenerates men at repentance. Where there is true salvational repentance there must also be regeneration, and regeneration is reflective in the new life and the new attitude and the new conduct of the one who believes.

The Jews understood this, just listen at what God said to them through Isaiah.

"Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow." – Isaiah 1:16-17

You also have the call to repentance found in 2nd Chronicles 7:14 which reads: "If My people who are called by My name would humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways. Then I will hear from heaven and will heal their land."

It's when there's a turning. It's when there's a rejection of sin and there's a pursuit of righteousness that there is evidence of the real working of God.

One other passage along this line is Ezekiel 33:19 which reads: "When the wicked turns from his wickedness and practices justice and righteousness, he will live."

And this is what John was preaching, this is what Paul was preaching! Notice the directions of John.

Luke 3:10-14 And the people asked him, saying, What shall we do then? He answereth and saith unto them, He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise. Then came also publicans to be baptized, and said unto him, Master, what shall we do? And he said unto them, Exact no more than that which is appointed you. And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages.

True repentance is always shown in these things. Let's start from the bottom: There is contentment [content with wages], there is honesty [no false accusations], there is gentleness [no violence], there is equity [exacting no more], there is sympathy, and most of all there is love that is shown in our deeds [giving to the needy]. When God is doing the work of conversion, transformation, and regeneration, the repentance is going to show up in changed life. Repentance is revealed in spiritual transformation.

#5. RECEPTION OF CHRIST AS LORD AND SAVIOR.

Luke 3:15-16 And as the people were in expectation, and all men mused in their hearts of John, whether he were the Christ, or not; John answered, saying unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire:

So we have seen that in true repentance you find: #1. Realization of sin. #2. You realize the wrath of God. #3. You have a rejection of rituals and genealogy. #4. You have a changed life.

And yet there is one other thing missing. And the one thing missing is the fifth and final element in true repentance, which is we must receive the true Messiah. We must receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

Some men may say that we have the order reversed, that one must receive Christ before he can repent. Yet according to the Bible saving faith in Christ cannot be born without repentance.

Jesus said: "repent ye, and believe the gospel." – Mark 1:15

Paul said: "repent and turn to God". – Acts 26:20

Peter said: "Repent ye therefore, and be converted" – Acts 3:19

How can we receive Christ as Lord if we are bound and determined to reject his Lordship? How can we be saved from sin, if we are determined to continue in our sin? It isn't possible. Thus we must repent and trust in Christ.

Yet without Christ all the rest is insufficient. Without receiving Christ personally as Lord and Savior, the most moral life will be condemned as pure wickedness. There is but one name under heaven whereby men must be saved, and that is the name of Jesus Christ. He is the way, the truth and the life, and no man can come to the Father but through him.

Dear soul have you repented of your sins? Have you turned from your idols to trust the true and living God and to wait for his Son who shall come from heaven? Or have you simply mouthed a prayer, simply gone through a ritual, without ever having a heart transplant? God wants you to turn to him in humility and brokeness over your sins, God wants you to turn from your sins and to ask Jesus to save you from them, to forgive you for them, and to come and abide in your heart. Will you do that? If will you escape the wrath to come, then you must.