(this sermon is part of a
book entitled, "Enemies of Soul Winning" by Dr. Jack
Hyles, originally published in 1993)
Over and over again the
question is asked me, "Is repentance necessary for
salvation?" Of course, this is of utmost importance.
Anything that deals with the way a person can escape
the fires of eternal Hell and go to Heaven to live
forever is of vital importance. In this chapter, we
will address this most important question.
1. FIRST, WE NEED TO FIND
WHAT MAKES ONE LOST. Please notice John 3:18, "He
that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that
believeth not is condemned already, because he hath
not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of
God." It is very plain in this verse what makes a
person lost. Notice the words, "he that believeth
not is condemned already." A person who does not
believe is condemned, so not believing is what makes
a person lost.
Bear in mind, the word
"believing" is the Greek word which means "to rely
upon." When one believes on Christ, he simply relies
on Him to save him and take him to Heaven when he
dies. It is very plain here that what condemns a
person is believing not. Then notice it says,
"because he hath not believed in the name of the
only begotten Son of God." Once again, we are told
what makes a person lost-- because he has not
believed in the name of the only begotten Son of
God. It is as simple as that.
Now look at John 3:36, "He
that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but
the wrath of God abideth on him." Again, we are
trying to decide and determine what makes one lost.
It is very plain here. Notice the word believeth,
"and he that believeth not the Son shall not see
life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." What
keeps a person from seeing life? Believing not! What
makes the wrath of God abide on a person? Believing
not! So, from what must a person repent in order to
be saved? He must repent of that which makes him
lost. Since "believing not" makes him lost,
"believing" makes him saved. The repentance there is
a turning from the thing that keeps him from being
saved to the thing that saves him. So, yes, there is
a repentance from unbelief in order to believe. It
is simply a change of direction. It means a turning
around. You are going away from believing, and you
decide to turn around and believe. You change your
direction; you change your mind. With your will you
believe and rely upon Christ to save you. In order
to believe, you have to repent of unbelief. That
which makes a man lost must be corrected.
Now turn to John 5:40, "And
ye will not come to me, that ye might have life."
Oh, how simple this is, and yet how plain! Why does
a person not have life, according to this verse?
Because he will not come to Christ. So, if a person
is going away from Christ, he must turn around and
come to Christ, which is a change of direction of a
change of mind. This is repentance-- repenting of
the thing that keeps one from being saved, repenting
from "going away" to "coming to".
Notice Isaiah 53:6, "All we
like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every
one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him
the iniquity of us all." Especially notice the
words, "we have turned every one to his own way."
That's what not being saved is-- turning to our own
way. Now if we turn to God's way, which is putting
our faith and trust in Jesus, we turn around from
going our own way to going His way, from unbelief to
belief. This is Bible repentance. Bear in mind, it
is the faith that saves. The turning around is
necessary in order to put our faith in Christ. One
must repent from that thing that keeps him from
being saved in order to be saved.
If a person were saved by
good works, then he would have to repent of bad
works, or of not doing good works, in order to be
saved. If a person were saved by quitting his
sinning, then he would have to repent of his sinning
in order to be saved. A person is saved by
believing, so he repents of his belief or turns from
his unbelief in order to be saved.
Let us look at the verses
that teach us we are saved by belief.
John 3:15, "That whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal
life."
John 3:16, "For God so
loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish,
but have everlasting life."
John 3:18, "He that
believeth on him is not condemned: but he that
believeth not is condemned already, because he hath
not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of
God."
John 3:36, "He that
believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he
that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but
the wrath of God abideth on him."
Acts 16:31, "And they said,
Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be
saved, and thy house."
There are those who say we
have to repent of our sins in order to be saved. No,
we have to repent only of the thing that makes us
unsaved, and that is unbelief. If a person needs to
turn from his sins in order to be saved, what sins
does he turn from? Does he turn from pride? Does he
turn from selfishness? Does he turn from
covetousness? The truth is, nobody can turn from all
of his sins until he is raptured and he receives a
body like the body of the Saviour. I John 3:2,
"Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth
not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that,
when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we
shall see him as he is." According to Psalm 19:12,
we do not even know all of our sins. David said,
"Cleanse thou me from secret faults." What he is
talking about here is being cleansed from faults he
doesn't even know he has. A person, when he is first
saved, does not know all the things that he is doing
that are wrong, and if a person has to repent of all
his sins, where is growth in grace? Where is being a
babe in Christ? Where does the carnal Christian fit
in here?
Now don't misunderstand me.
I am certainly for separation and for living a godly
life, but the cleansing of our lives is not done by
us any more than salvation is done by us. Salvation
is simply repenting of unbelief, and believing, and
letting Christ save us. We yield to Him to save us;
He does! Immediately the Holy Spirit comes in to
live. The Holy Spirit begins His work of cleansing
in our lives. He is the one Who points our sins out
to us after we are saved just as He is the one Who
saves us when we are saved.
This chapter is being
dictated in San Antonio, Texas. I am sitting in a
Holiday Inn. Tommorow morning early I will catch a
plane for Chicago. Let's suppose I get on that
plane, and I am trusting the pilot to take me to
Chicago. I do not know how to operate the plane, nor
do I know the route to Chicago by air. There is
nothing I can do to get myself to Chicago by that
plane. I trust the pilot to get me there. So, we get
up in the air thousands of feet high, and let's
suppose I get a knife and cut up the seat in front
of me. Now, where I am going? I'm still going to
Chicago. Why? I repented of "not trusting the plane
to take me" to "trusting the plane to take me."
The stewardess comes and
says, "Mr. Hyles, what are you doing back here?" I
say, "I'm just cutting up a little bit!"
Then suppose I reach up and
cut off a lock of her hair. Now where am I going?
I'm going to Chicago. You see, how I behave on the
flight does not determine my destination.
So, the stewardess goes to
the pilot and says, "Mr. Hyles, back in seat 14A is
causing some disturbance. Look at my hair. Go back
and look at the seat." The pilot leaves the plane in
the hands of the co-pilot and comes back to seat 14A
and says, "Mr. Hyles, what are you doing back here?"
He looks at the seat I've cut up, he sees the lock
of hair that I've cut off the stewardess, and I
reach out and cut off his tie. Now where am I going?
I'm going to Chicago. That was all determined when I
got on the airplane. Now the truth is, I will not
enjoy Chicago as much as I would have enjoyed it,
nor will I go to the part of Chicago I'd planned to,
but I'm still going to Chicago.
When we put our faith and
trust in Christ, and repent of unbelief, and
believe, God's Holy Spirit comes in to live and
begins to straighten us out. He points out our sins,
and as we yield to Him, He cleanses us from our
sins. If we misbehave on the journey, we are still
going to Heaven, because we go to Heaven by trusting
Christ to take us there. The Holy Spirit Who came in
to live begins to point out things that we should
and should not do. If we do not obey Him, if we
misbehave on the journey, we will still go to
Heaven; we simply will not enjoy it as much as we
would have had we behaved, just as I would not enjoy
Chicago as much as I would had I behaved.
I know a young man who
recently got married. He got an apartment several
months before he got married and lived there alone
until the wedding took place. What a mess that
apartment was! His pants were hung on the bedpost,
his shoes were left on the floor beside the bed, and
the bed was never made. Then one day he got married.
Now how did he get married? He got married by
turning from being single to being married. He
repented of not being married and got married. When
he took his new bride to the apartment, she was
aghast, but immediately SHE began to straighten
things up. She put his shoes in the closet, took his
shirt off the chair, removed his clothes off the
bedpost, and made a lovely little apartment out of
the mess that he had made. Now he was not married
because he cleaned up his apartment; he was married
because he repented of that thing that kept him from
being married. He repeated the vows and accepted her
as his wife. It was then that she came in; it was
then that his apartment began to get clean!
Practically every false
doctrine comes from getting things out of order.
God's divine order is salvation, then change; not
change and then salvation! If one has to be changed
to be saved, that's salvation by works. It is also
salvation by the flesh. The truth is, one is
cleansed from the sins of the flesh just as he is
saved; by yielding to the Holy Spirit and letting
Him do His work.
2. YOU CAN REPENT OF
SOMETHING OTHER THAN SIN. Matthew 27:3, "Then Judas,
which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was
condemned, repented himself, and brought again the
thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and
elders." Notice that Judas repented. Now what does
it mean? It means he repented about keeping the
money. He had sold our Saviour for thirty pieces of
silver; he changed his mind and took the silver
back. A change of mind and change of direction took
place, but it had nothing to do with salvation. He
had made a bad deal; he regretted he had made that
bad deal, and he tried to correct it.
Everyone who lives in sin
eventually repents, but they do not repent of
unbelief. They change their mind about sin. No one
lives in sin without realizing later that it did not
bring the joy, happiness, peace and contentment that
it claimed to bring. I talk to people every week who
are tired of their sin, unhappy in their sinful life
or living a miserable, wretched life because of the
results of sin. What have they done? They have
changed their mind about sin, and in some cases,
they even quit their sin-- at least that sin which
was most predominant in their lives. You can repent
of sin without repenting of unbelief. Such was the
case with Judas. No doubt he repented that he had
done wrong. He certainly repented of the bad deal he
had made. He turned around, changed his mind and
brought the money back, but he did not repent of
that thing from which he must repent in order to be
saved, and that his unbelief.
3. GOD REPENTS. Notice
Genesis 6:6, "And it repented the LORD that he had
made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his
heart." Bear in mind, the word "repent" means
"change of mind." God made man and wished He hadn't.
He was grieved because of what man had done, and He
repented that He had made man. This does not mean
that God repented from sin, because God could not
sin; He simply changed His mind, which He does
often. Basically, that is what answered prayer is
much of the time.
Now notice I Samuel 15:35,
"And Samuel came no more to see Saul until the day
of his death: nevertheless Samuel Mourned for Saul:
and the Lord repented that he had made Saul king
over Israel." God had made Saul king over Israel.
The truth is that God did not want to do so, but
Israel clamored for a king. Saul was chosen to be
that king, but it then did not turn out as it should
have. So, in this verse it simply says that God
repented that He had made Saul king. He changed His
mind.
What I'm saying is, there
is repentance other than repentance from sin. A lady
can change her mind about the kind of perfume she
wears. He can change his direction concerning his
manners. You can repent from discourtesy to
courtesy. You can repent from stubbornness to
leniency. You can repent from impatience to
patience, but those things don't save. Repenting
from the thing that makes you lost is the thing that
makes you saved, and that is, repenting of your
unbelief.
Now notice Exodus 32:9-14,
"And the LORD said unto Moses, I have seen this
people, and, behold, it is a stiffnecked people: Now
therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot
against them, and that I may consume them: and I
will make of thee a great nation. And Moses besought
the LORD his God, and said, LORD, why doth thy wrath
wax hot against thy people, which thou hast brought
forth out of the land of Egypt with great power, and
with a mighty hand? Wherefore should the Egyptians
speak, and say, For mischief did he bring them out,
to slay them in the mountains, and to consume them
from the face of the earth? Turn from thy fierce
wrath, and repent of this evil against thy people,
Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants,
to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and saidst
unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of
heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will
I give unto your seed, and thy shall inherit it for
ever. And the LORD repented of the evil which he
thought to do unto his people."
Let me paraphrase the
story. God said to Moses, "I'm sick and tired of the
people and their rebellion. Get out of the way so I
can consume them." Moses came to God and said,
"Lord, don't do that. You're the One Who brought the
people out of the land of Egypt, and if You consume
the, the heathen people are going to criticize You.
Not only that! You promised Abraham, Isaac and Jacob
that you would multiply their seed and that You
would give them the land of Canaan for an
everlasting possession." Moses pleaded his case
before God, reminding God what God had promised.
Then verse 14 simply says, "The LORD repented of the
evil which he thought to do unto his people." The
word "evil" here means something that would cause
them pain; it's not talking about sin.. God decided
not to hurt them after all. He decided not to
consume them after all. He changed His mind, but He
did not change His mind concerning a sin, because
God cannot sin.
Not turn to Jonah 3:9, 10,
"Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn
away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? And
God saw their works, that they turned from their
evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had
said that he would do unto them; and he did it not."
God was going to punish
Nineveh. Jonah had preached in Nineveh and had
warned the people that destruction was coming. The
people believed God, turned from their unbelief to
belief, and God changed His mind about punishing the
people. In verse 10 the Bible says, "And God
repented of the evil that he had said he would do
unto them; and he did it not." Again, God simply
changed His mind and changed His direction. He was
going to punish; they believed; He decided not to
punish. He changed from the direction of punishing
to the direction of not punishing. This is
repentance, but not repentance from sin, because God
cannot sin.
Look at Amos 7:3, "The Lord
repented for this: it shall not be, saith the Lord."
Amos 7:6, "The Lord
repented for this: This also shall not be, saith the
Lord God."
So, repentance does not
always deal with salvation and sin; it is simply a
change of direction or a change of mind.
4. NOW WE CONSIDER
REPENTANCE AND SALVATION. Look at Acts 3:19, "Repent
ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may
be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall
come from the presence of the Lord."
Peter is preaching here. He
tells the people to repent and be converted. Now we
have to go back to what saves. John 3:14-16,18,36,
"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the
wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted
up: That whosoever believeth in him should not
perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the
world that he gave his only begotten Son, that
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but
have everlasting life. He that believeth on him is
not condemned; but he that believeth not is
condemned already, because he hath not believed in
the name of the only begotten Son of God. He that
believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he
that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but
the wrath of God abideth on him." Acts 16:31, "And
they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and
thou shalt be saved, and thy house."
So these people had to
repent from not believing and believe in order that
they might be converted. They had to change
directions, change their minds.
Let me say again that I do
not believe for a second that Christian people
should live like the Devil. No preacher preaches
separation more than I do. I simply believe that
that separation is a work of the Holy Spirit just
like regeneration is a work of the Holy Spirit, and
it starts after one has repented from that which
makes him lost, and that is unbelief. When this is
done, he believes, he is saved. Then the Holy Spirit
comes in and begins to tell the Christian what sins
from which he should repent. The man changed his
mind about unbelief. The Holy Spirit directed him
there. Now the Holy Spirit comes in to live and
begins to change his mind about other things.
Now look at Acts 2:38,
"Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized
every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the
remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of
the Holy Ghost."
Peter is saying, "Change
your mind and be baptized." Now, about what did they
change their minds? This is answered in verse 41.
Look at what they did in response. They gladly
received His Word, and then they were baptized. So
what was this repentance? It was repentance from not
receiving His Word to receiving His Word. That's all
Peter was saying. He was saying, "Change your mind
about receiving the Word," which states that you
must believe and repent from unbelief in order to be
saved.
Now turn to Acts 17:30,
"And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but
now commandeth all men every where to repent."
Notice God commandeth all men every where to repent.
Repent from what? Repent from the thing that keeps
them lost, and that's unbelief. What corrects this?
Look at Acts 17:34, "Howbeit certain men clave unto
him, and believed: among the which was Dionysius the
Areopagite, and a woman named Dammaris, and others
with them." Notice it said, "certain men believed."
So, when he said, "repent," he was saying "repent
from unbelief and believe," because just as in Acts
2:38 and 41 a command was given to repent, and the
believing was the obedience to that command. They
changed their mind about belief. They decided to
believe instead of not believe.
Now look at Mark 1:15, "And
saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of
God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel."
Jesus Himself is saying
repent, and notice immediately He says, "repent, and
believe." What He was saying is, "Quit unbelieving,
and believe. Quit not believing, and believe."
Again, I'm not saying a Christian should live like
the Devil, but I am saying that changing your life
does not save you. That's salvation by works. Faith
is what saves you. You turn from unbelief to belief;
from no faith to faith, and then repentance from
sins begins, because He Who convicted you from the
sin of unbelief to believing now lives in you. How
easy it is now for Him to convict you day by day of
other things from which you can repent and about
which you can change your mind.
5. REPENTANCE FROM SIN IS
DIRECTED TO GOD'S PEOPLE. Revelation 2:5, "Remember
therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent,
and do the first works; or else I will come unto
thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of
his place, except thou repent."
Here is a case of a church
that was a good church. It was a church that worked.
It worked hard. It hated sin. It was doctrinally
sound. Revelation 2:2, "I know thy works, and thy
labour, and thy patience, and how thou hast tried
them which say they are apostles, and are not, and
hast found them liars." It was a patient church. It
was a church that believed in the name of Jesus and
did not faint in their standing for that. Revelation
2:3, "And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my
name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted."
However, it was a church that had left its first
love. It does not say that the church lost its first
love, but they left their first love. When you lose
something, you don't know where to find it. When you
leave something, you know where to find it. It does
not say that this church did not love any more. The
truth is they did love. Love is what made them
faithful, what made them work, what made them have
patience, what made them hate sin, what made them
stand for the name of Jesus, what made them hate
false doctrine. This was a church of people who
loved God, but they had left their first love-- that
first sweet love-- maybe more shallow than the love
they had then.
It does not say that they
loved Him less. The truth is they probably loved Him
more, but God is saying, "I want both. I want the
deep, mature love that you have now and the sweet
expressive love that you used to have.
The only sin this church
had committed was the sin of leaving their first
love-- that "Amen!" love, that "Hallelujah!" love,
that "Glory to God!" love, that sweet, expressive
love. Nevertheless, they sinned, and God told them
to repent. Repent from what? Repent from drinking?
No. Repent from adultery? No. This is not the
subject here. It's repenting from not loving Christ
with the first love.
This same type repentance
was commanded to the church in Pergamos. Revelation
2:16, "Repent; or else I will come unto thee
quickly, and will fight against them with the sword
of my mouth." The same thing was said to the church
at Thyatira in Revelation 2:21,22, "And I gave her
space to repent of her fornication; and she repented
not. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them
that commit adultery with her into great
tribulation, except they repent of their deeds." The
church in Sardis was told likewise to repent in
Revelation 3:3, "Remember therefore how thou hast
received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If
therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee
as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will
come upon thee." The church at Laodicea received the
same command in Revelation 3:19, "As many as I love,
I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore and
repent."
So you can see that God
tells individuals to repent; He also tells groups to
repent. He tells nations to repent. Time and time
again He called Israel to repentance.
Now let us review, as
follows:
1. GOD SAYS TO THE UNSAVED,
"REPENT OF YOUR UNBELIEF." It is very interesting
that in I John the word "repentance" is never
mentioned, and yet the purpose of I John was to give
people the assurance of salvation. I John 5:13,
"These things have I written unto you that believe
on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that
ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the
name of the Son of God." Of course, repentance is
certainly implied throughout the entire book,
because the book tells us that what saves is
believing on Christ (or relying on Him) to save,
which, of course, implies that that person must
repent of what makes him lost, which is unbelief.
2. GOD SAYS TO THE SAVED
PEOPLE, "REPENT OF SIN." This is done by the Holy
Spirit as He comes in to live to remind us to take
the clothes off the bedpost, the shirt off the
chair, put the shoes into the closet, etc.
3. IF A PERSON MUST REPENT
OF HIS SINS TO BE SAVED, OF WHAT SINS MUST HE
REPENT? Can he repent of all of them? Isn't that
sinless perfection or holiness? Isn't that salvation
by works? Of what sin must one repent? He must
repent of the sin that makes him lost, and that's
the sin of unbelief.
4. IF TURNING FROM SINS
WOULD GET YOU SAVED, THEN TURNING BACK TO SINS WOULD
GET YOU LOST. In Acts 16:30 the very simple question
is asked, "What must I do to be saved?" This is the
one time in the Bible where this question is asked.
Now the answer to this question must be what saves a
person. Acts 16:31, "And they said, Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy
house." There's the answer-- belief. There is
nothing about repentance here, except, yes, there is
something about repentance, because you can't
believe without repenting from unbelief.
5. IF A PERSON AS TO CLEAN
UP HIS OWN LIFE BEFORE HE GETS SAVED, WE ARE BACK TO
ARMINIANISM OR SALVATION BY WORKS.
6. WE CANNOT DO WHAT THE
HOLY SPIRIT CAN DO. The Holy Spirit first convicts
us of our sin of unbelief to bring us to Christ.
Once He brings us to Christ, He comes in us to live.
Romans 8:9, "But ye are not in the flesh, but in the
Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in
you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ,
he is none of his." I Corinthians 6:19,20, "What?
know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy
Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye
are not your own? For ye are bought with a price:
therefore glorify God in your body, and in your
spirit, which are God's."
Then when the Holy Spirit
is in us, He begins to convict us of things in our
lives that should be changed. Then the Christian
life becomes a constant repenting until we wake in
the likeness of Christ.
Sourse:
http://www.jackhyles.com/
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