.  Living Hope Fellowship Church....Sermons by the Pastor 

TRUE REPENTANCE (Part 2)

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

            2 Timothy 3:1-7 tells us that in the last days perilous times shall come, and during this time some will have a form of godliness, but they will deny the power of God.  He said from such turn away. 

            We need to be in the place to where God can come nigh, and that is only through repentance.  Repentance is not just saying, I’m sorry enough times. 

            Psalm 53:2-3 says, “God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God.  Every one of them is gone back: they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.”

            Ezekiel 22:30 tells us that God sought for a man to stand in the gap before Him for the land.  He is looking for Christians who will stand in the gap for sinners, but many times God doesn’t fit in our schedule.  God tries to get our attention.  Job 33:19 says, “He is chastened also with pain upon his bed, and the multitude of his bones with strong pain:”

            I have preached funerals for the young and the old, sinners and saints.  There are only two places you can go when you go into eternity.  You will go to heaven or to hell, and you are going there forever.  Repentance makes the difference in where you spend eternity.  There is a transformation that comes upon a soul when they genuinely cry out to God when He deals with them. 

            Some people demand to keep their ability to sin and stay saved, but excuses don’t stand before God.  The standard is higher than what is being taught, preached, and exemplified by most Christians.

            2 Corinthians 6:17-18 says, “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.”

             1 Peter 4:18 says, “And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?”  Children of God pray for sinners that God would deal with them, so they can cry out to God with a broken heart, with repentance, and be saved.  If it wasn’t for God sending His Son, no man would have hope whatsoever! 

            Stay until you have prayed through.  Stay until the burden is gone, and stay until the joy comes.  Then God will answer.  When you repent, God will change you.  He wants to do something supernatural in you.  Then you will love everybody, pray for everybody, believe Him for anything, and then miracles will happen.  It won’t happen until the hardness of your heart is broken, and your priorities are not the things of this world.  Don’t wait until your finances are straight and your body is well before you seek God!  (See Matthew 6:33.)

            Isaiah 55:6 says, “Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:”  That tells me that He can’t always be found, and He is not always near.  We need to get desperate before God.  Most people don’t want Jesus as bad as they want their own way!  Some even find scripture to help them have their way. 

            Do you know down in your heart that everything is right before God?  Someone may have had a part in your sin, but they don’t make you keep the sin.  You have to repent, and you have to forgive and let it go.  Jesus said in Matthew 6:15, “But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

            Think about the martyrs of the Lord who loved not their lives unto death.  Following Jesus was more important to them than worldly pleasures and their own plans.  Some died just to get the Word of God to us.  They were convinced that it was the truth, and it would make men free.  You have to be fully persuaded.  It isn’t a whim or an intellectual thing. When you commit your mind, body, soul, and spirit to it, you know that you know.

            The Bible says that the power of God is still operational, because it says in Hebrews 13:8, “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.”  God still does what His Word says He will do.  The counsel, the admonition, the warning, the blessing, and the promises of Almighty God are still fresh, because our God is the same God that He was then!  Malachi 3:6 says, “For I am the LORD, I change not. . . .”

            Repentance is being sorry and doing something about it.  The Lord showed me that repentance was a turning.  If you try to run the race backwards or in a partially turned position, you will lose.

            Repentance isn’t confession only.  It is getting down and letting God bruise you and break you to where there is nothing alive in you to rise up and do it again.  You must break the power that is working in your life so that you will never rise again, but Jesus Christ will rise up in you.  There must be brokenness of self, crumbling, and destruction.  You can’t serve God and the world.             

            A double-minded person is unstable in all of his ways.  A double-minded person classifies most Christians.  The world is not double-minded; they serve the devil fully.  You need to be crucified and let God’s power come upon you to destroy your old nature that draws you back into sin.  Let the Spirit of God destroy your desire for sin!  Jesus didn’t come to send peace in your sin.  He brought the Word, a Sword to sever you, to cut you off from every entanglement of this world. 

            Jesus prayed it through for you and me.  Isaiah 53:5 says, “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” 

            We are in the day of the great falling away and great delusion.  Psalms 78:34-35 tells us that when God slew them, “. . . they remembered that God was their rock, and the high God their redeemer.”  Psalms 78:36-37 says, “Nevertheless they did flatter him with their mouth, and they lied unto him with their tongues.  For their heart was not right with him, neither were they stedfast in his covenant.”

            I have seen people get just enough relief to go out and sin again!  God does not heal you so you can continue to live in sin.  We need to repent for letting the world and its priorities rule us (see Mark 4:19).

            The unprofitable servant is the same as the lukewarm servant and has the same destination as the unbeliever.  A Christian can backslide and go to hell.  A sinner has to go where the devil leads him, which is hell.  Hypocrites go to hell.  Christianity is not automatic.  We have to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling (see Philippians 2:12).

            Follow the Lord Jesus.  Read the Bible and pray.  Be filled with the Holy Ghost and pray in the Spirit.  God can do anything, and He wants to do it with you and me, but we have to come out from the world, our coldness, and indifference.   

            If you continually ask God to forgive you for the same thing over and over, there is dominance in your life that must be broken.  You need to fast, and pray, and seek God until God answers and removes it!  You do not have to sin.  God hears people who love Him and obey Him. 

            1 John 2:1 says, “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:” 

            God’s Word still simply and powerfully says in Mark 1:15, “. . . repent ye, and believe the gospel.”