Living Hope Fellowship Church

SORROW TO REPENT

Training Material

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

Preface

(Sorry enough)

          Sin brings death, but the Bible declares if we are sorry and come to repentance, something takes place in the human soul that God alone can do!       

          If you are really sorry, that’s it. You are not sorry because it’s convenient to be sorry, but being sorrowful unto repentance means you do the things that are necessary for repentance.

          True repentance, sorrowfulness that causes you to quit what you’re doing and causes you to do that which God has showed you to do, is difficult sometimes. 

          The forgiveness we obtain from our repentance is worth all we go through in this life.  In John 10:28 Jesus said, “And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.”

SORROW TO REPENT

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

          Joel 2:12-13 says, “Therefore also now, saith the LORD, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning:  And rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.”

          We find out that we grow during times of sorrow and hard times.  Greater faith comes at the end of a difficult time.  There are better blessings after hardships then there are after joyous times.  You see this all through the Bible, and if you have lived for Jesus Christ any time at all you see it in your own life.

          We do in this life have sorrow!  John 16:33 says, “. . . In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.”

          The Lord said we would have hard times.  Psalm 34:19 says, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all.”

          2 Timothy 3:12 says, “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.”

          We are going to have sorrow and hard times with hurt feelings and hurt body, but Joel tells us to rend our hearts.  James 4:8-10 says, “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.  Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.  Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.”

          A lot of people are sorry because they got caught, rather than being sorry for what they did.  The law, biblically as well as naturally, demands retribution (punishment) if we are caught in sin or failure.  Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

          Sin brings death, but the Bible declares if we are sorry and come to repentance, something takes place in the human soul that God alone can do!  An awesome supernatural work goes on when a soul is convicted by the Spirit of the Lord and their own conscience as the Lord deals with them.  God forgives you, gets you out of sin, and gets you into the things of God. You become a new creature.

          CI offended a man, but I told him I was really sorry about it.  He proceeded to put me down with colorful adjectives, and being a sinner then, I began to match him word for word.  I told him I changed my mind and I wasn’t sorry! 

          If you are really sorry, that’s it. You are not sorry because it’s convenient to be sorry, but being sorrowful unto repentance means you do the things that are necessary for repentance. 

          Let’s say that you’re having an argument with your spouse or a friend, and suddenly you feel the conviction of the Lord to line things up.  You say that you are at fault, and you apologize.  When they keep right on chewing, it’s hard to stay apologetic!  However, 2 Timothy 2:3 says, “Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.”

          True repentance, sorrowfulness that causes you to quit what you’re doing and causes you to do that which God has showed you to do, is difficult sometimes.

          Hebrews 12:14 says, “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:” After you get saved, you’ve got to stay saved. You have to go on into sanctification. 

          Philippians 3:14 says, “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”  You will learn again and again about repentance as you press on for God.  It isn’t the repenting of old sin.  I’m talking about being purged and going on anyway. When God starts lopping off all the weights, you don’t get mad at Him and go get some more!  Instead, you say, Yes Lord.  Not my will but thine be done.

          Nobody in their right mind is going to be sorry without a reason.  If you fast, and pray, and seek God He’ll start showing you what’s wrong. When you seek God with a humble and contrite heart, it can be broken.  Psalm 51:17 says, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.”  This is how we progress in the Lord.

          Proverbs 15:13 says, “A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance: but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken.”  You can come to the point that sorrow will actually break your heart.  When you came to the Lord there was conviction and wrestling as God dealt with you that certain things weren’t right. There was a war between God dealing with you on the outside and the devil on the inside not wanting to let go of you.  Do you remember the struggle?  Something broke by an act of your own free will.  When you came to the Lord, you sorrowed unto repentance - you were sorry enough to quit sin.

          As you go on in Christ unto sanctification there will still be struggles between the flesh, the world, and God in you.  I see Christians come under conviction, but many times they are not sorry enough to obey God.  When you get sorry enough, it breaks you; something inside snaps, and you say Yes, Lord.  Not my will but thine be done.  The church of Jesus Christ has to come to the place that they will go on for God no matter what.

          1 Peter 5:6 says, “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:” God will not exalt someone who’s proud, arrogant, or cocky. God doesn’t even like a high look! 

          Isaiah 53:3 tells us that Jesus was, “. . . despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. . . .”

          We are not supposed to go around with a long face, because the joy of the Lord is our strength.  However, as we yield ourselves to God with a humble and contrite heart, we allow him to break our hearts.  He gives us a brand new heart of flesh that will pump the blood of the Lamb.  Then you should go on to receive the Holy Ghost baptism.  John 7:38 says, “He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.”

          Some people believe that if a person is broken he’s automatically melancholy. That is not Bible.  The devil will try to give you that type of spirit and your flesh may feel like going that way, but you have a choice.  When you’re under pressure, you can go melancholy, or you can say, Yes, Lord Jesus, thy will be done.  You won’t stay on the fence long, because God will cause something to come along and MOVE you one way or the other!  God is breaking you bit by bit to serve him no matter what. 

          We jump, and shout, and stuff ourselves with the good blessings of God.  God sends peace, rest, and joy in the Holy Ghost.  Then there are days that God deals with us, breaking us, putting us under a load!  He moves in our hearts saying, Now what are you going to do?  I’m talking about what God does with us in the Spirit. 

          What ARE you going to do?  I thought I was threatening God one time and said, God if you don’t do something. . . .  Let’s see.  I could threaten him with back sliding!  The only problem is that I’d go to hell.  I don’t want to go to hell.

          We’ve got to listen to Him and obey Him even when it’s tough to serve Him.  That’s part of being broken and yielded to God.  God has had me do some things that I did not enjoy doing!  To this day I have not seen anything good come out of it.  However, I know that something is laid up in heaven for me. 

          Something about this purging from God makes us unhappy.  If you are not a Christian, tribulation is the wage of sin; you earned it.  Sometimes tribulation comes to a Christian just because they are living for God!

          Jesus gave everything to God. He yielded himself completely, allowed himself to be crucified, and He died.  God reached down and raised Him from the dead on the third day. Now he’s sitting at the right hand of the Father making intercession for you and me.  Great things happen when you say yes to the Lord no matter what!

          When God starts working on you, it can get miserable. God is a consuming fire, and He burns out anything that gets in the way of His Holiness, His Glory, and His passion for man to do the works of God! 

          Let’s look at what seemed to be the worst time for Jesus.  Luke 23:44-45 says, “And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.  And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst.”

          The veil of the temple was rent.  God opened up the Holy of Holies to mankind.  Mark 15:38 says the veil was, “. . . rent in twain from the top to the bottom.”  That means God tore it. It was a type of circumcision. It was also a rending of the heart of Jesus.  Luke 23:46 says, “And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.”

          An important thing happened here.  The veil of the temple was rent at the same time that Jesus died.  The barrier to God was destroyed at the very same moment that the carnal man died!  When we yield to the dealings of the Spirit of God, it opens the veil for us to go into the holy of Holies that God has made!

          2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”  The old things died!  At the very moment that our old nature dies, the door to heaven opens wide. Yield over to the Lord small things, big things, people, and everything!  Even if you are going through trouble because of it, continue to yield to the Lord, and the wall between you and God will be systematically torn down! 

          At that point you won’t be serving God because it’s convenient, or because of what He can give you.  You’ll be serving God when it’s no fun, and it doesn’t feel like you are going to get anything, but all you want is more of God!  If that’s what it takes to get more of God, you are going through. That is when you get closest to God.

          My wife is a great cook, but I didn’t marry her for that.  I married her because I love her. We’re supposed to serve God because we love him.  We serve God, because he saved us from the wretchedness of hell. God provided Jesus to make the perfect sacrifice for us.  Jesus took away our sins, washed us in His blood, and opened the door where we can get a hold of God!  

          In the last days, a lot of things will be taken away from people.  Your dependency can’t be on the goods of the state or the country or the people around you.  It must be set on God. If your refrigerator was bare, and the state was bankrupt, and somebody told you where you could get a good meal, would you compromise to get it?

          Some people feel deprived if they don’t have a full refrigerator or a full wardrobe.  They think they are going through hard times.  The only thing that gets you to heaven is to have the blood of Jesus wash away every sin, and you live right until he comes again or you die in the Lord.  Nothing else counts; if we don’t go God’s way, we aren’t going!!

          If you are hungry, you’ve still got to serve God.  If you’re full, you’ve still got to serve God!  Some people get full, then sleepy and lazy, and they forget God.  Some say, God, give me, give me, give me.  God give me.  You have to serve God regardless.  Jesus saved your soul, and His Spirit is living in your heart.  That’s your reason for going on.  If you sin, you need it cleaned out.  

          God gives us wonderful blessings, and I praise Him for that, but God wants us to do more than show people what He has given us in the natural.  He wants His church to rise up and show what He has given us in the Spirit.

          Sometimes sorrowful things, hard things, happen to us, and it breaks your heart.  Somebody said, It got so bad it drove me to my knees!  If you’d been on your knees already, that trouble might not have been there.  I’ve got a sign in my office that says, It is hard to stumble when you are on your knees.  It is not so hard to wonder why so and so can’t clean up their life, whenever God is dealing with you about something, and you haven’t quit yet.  It is hard to be cocky and arrogant when you are sick in your body and you are flat on your back.  Every thing has a purpose.

          Job was perfect in all his heart.  He didn’t sin, He feared God, and he hated evil.  He was so upright that God bragged on him to the devil.  The devil told God to put some trouble on him and see what he’d do. 

          Does God brag on some of you, how you used to live for the devil and now you live for God?  The devil would like to give you some trouble with your finances, or your livestock, or your body.  God only lets the devil go so far and no further. 

          Some say, Oh God, What is happening?  I am praying, and it is hitting the ceiling and coming back.  I can’t get anybody to listen to me.  I’ve got about as much joy as a pancake under a steam roller.  I have a headache, and I feel sick to my stomach right now.  The devil is eating me alive.  My wife is mad at me, and my finances are shot to pieces.  The bankers hear my name and laugh.

          You are trying to bail yourself out man’s way.  The devil is pounding you something fierce.  Maybe it is a family struggle or persecution just for being a Christian.  Maybe it is something else.

          I found out I was having a lot of trouble, because I wasn’t trying hard enough.  I wasn’t living it straight enough.  He put more trouble on me so I’d live it or get out.  You will get a lot better or you will get a lot worse.  God doesn’t want us down the middle.  The devil hit Job all over the place, and then he came back to God.  God told the devil even though he afflicted Job without reason he still served God.  He mocked the devil over one of His servants! 

          The devil was hot by that time, and asked God if he could have his body.  God thought about it.  Job had been in this thing long enough to learn to pray through.  God said he could go so far and no further.  He couldn’t have his life.  While he was tearing his body apart, he was also tearing his marriage apart.  His wife told him to curse God and die.  Job was low that day.  Many have said, This is what I get for serving God?  It wasn’t this bad in the world.

          There is a reason for each of us going through our troubles.  The devil knows this, so he invented a doctrine where people deny they are even going through anything.  Then God won’t get the glory after the person comes through.

          Some look up and say, My God, can it get any worse!  It can’t get any worse than God allows it.  With that temptation, trouble, destruction, purging, affliction, or hammering of the devil that you are going through, there is always a way to escape.  God will open the door.  It may seem closed for a while.  Have you ever prayed, and it seemed God wasn’t home?  You were praying and pounding.  Nothing was getting through.  You’re sick of hearing your own voice.  The devil was in the one ear, and the counsel of a person who wasn’t quit prayed through yet was in the other ear.

          God I know the way, and I’m trying to walk it, but where are you?  God is still God.  It doesn’t matter what the devil says, because God said the devil can come thus far and no further.  When we get the victory, we will say, Thank you Lord.  Thank you Lord. Thank you Lord.  The eyes are looking up, but the head is dropped down.  No flesh will glory in God’s presence.

          Romans 8:22-23 says, “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.  And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.”  Even Christians groan and travail in pain!

          Romans 8:11 says, “But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.”  That is the redemption of our body.

          Romans 8:24 says, “For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?”  Many times people quit praying when their prayers are answered.  A relief comes, but you don’t stop praying!  That is why sorrow comes to even Christians, so they will go further in the Lord.  Romans 8:25 says, “But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.”

          Isaiah 40:31 says, “But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength. . . .”  The quiet, complacent peace you have after trouble is greater than the joy you had before you went through that trouble, because you’ve grown a little, locked in a little more to God.  Your faith is stronger.

          God wants us hot for Him.  Revelation 3:16 says, “So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.”  If he has to spue you out, you were in the lord but you sat!  A Christian can’t just sit.  There are times of rest where you can get your breath.  God will give you rest from your enemies, and He will give you peace, joy, and strength.  However, use that strength to go on. 

          When a chick is hatching out, if it is not allowed to fight through the shell, and you help him out, he can’t stand on his own.  We get mad at God, when all the time these things are for our strength.  There is no limit what God can do with you or me.  None. 

          Peter was an old cursing fisherman till God saved him and filled him with the Holy Ghost.  Then his shadow healed the sick.  Paul assisted in the murder of martyrs for Christ, but he turned into one of the most awesome apostles in the Word of God.

          Romans 12:1 says, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”

          If you are down and out or in trouble, get down and start praying in tongues if you have the baptism of the Holy Ghost.  If you don’t know how else to pray, let the Holy Ghost take over, and He will pray according to the will of God and get around your old natural way straight to heaven.

          Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”   God is not an abusive Father.  God has a purpose for everything, and it is for our good and for His glory!

CONTACT INFORMATION:

PASTOR KEVIN BADGLEY

LIVING HOPE FELLOWSHIP, P. O. BOX 111, GRAND CHAIN, IL  62941

CHURCH / FAX (618) 634-2541

E-mail  livinghopefellowship@lazernetwireless.net

These condensed Bible studies have been published to help new Christians in their new walk with the Lord.  Kevin Badgley, the author, is the pastor of Living Hope Fellowship Church.

This is a Living Hope Fellowship publication.