Key Principle #4: Repentance (part 2)
11 Now as the lame man who was healed held on to Peter
and John, all the people ran together to them in the porch which is called
Solomon's, greatly amazed. 12 So when Peter saw it, he responded to the people:
"Men of Israel, why do you marvel at this? Or why look so intently at us,
as though by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? … 19 Repent
therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of
refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord…”
Acts 3:11-12, 19
Repentance Is Transformational
When we are
saved, we undergo a transformation. Peter had denied Christ only a few months
earlier but now was boldly preaching in the temple. It’s more than just a
change in our attitude or outlook on life. It is a total transformation of our
mindset.
When I was
in school, there was a paddle that one of my teachers had (this was in the day
when corporal punishment was not an optional choice to be made by the parents
and even if it were, most parents would have opted for it). The teacher called
it an “attitude adjustment” board.
The teacher
told the story about the farmer who also had an attitude adjustment board in
his mule-driven cart. The farmer got married and as they were coming home from
the church, the mule stopped abruptly in the road, jerking the farmer and his
bride suddenly forward. “Now, Mule, that’s one,” the farmer said and the mule
looked back and then went forward. A few minutes later, the mule stopped
suddenly again and the farmer said, “Now, Mule, that’s two.” The mule looked
back and then started clopping down the road. Sure enough the mule jerked to a
stop for no reason, and the farmer took the “attitude adjustment” board down
off the wagon, went to the mule and “BAM!” The farmer had swung the board as
hard as he could at the head of the mule, and said, “Mule, that’s three.”
The newlywed
bride was aghast as the farmer’s sudden temper and his poor treatment of the
mule. She started yelling at her groom, saying didn’t he know how cruel he was
and how much they needed that mule and how he could have killed the poor
animal. The farmer looked at his wife, and said to her quietly, “Honey, I love
you, but woman, that’s one!”
Repentance
is not an attitude adjustment. It
is not a result of the “board of
education applied to the seat of knowledge.” It is a change in your heart and
spirit, resulting in a change of your minds, which leads to a change in your
actions. It literally means to “think again” and actually comes before, during
and after salvation. You can no more have salvation without repentance than a
company of soldiers can have an “about face” without changing directions.
I hesitate
to say repentance comes after salvation because then would imply that
repentance is somehow optional for the believer. But I also am reluctant to say
it comes as a part of salvation, for that would imply that we are saved by
something meritorious that we do to earn or deserve our salvation. And I recoil
at saying it comes prior to salvation, as we who are dead in our trespasses and
sins have no inclination in our fallen state to repent or to be converted. Therefore
(have you ever noticed we never say
therefore unless we are doing a Bible study…but I digress) Therefore, I say
that repentance comes before, during and after our salvation!
Perhaps the
best thing to say is that if you think you are saved, but you do not have a change
in your heart and mind, which is repentance, to the point where your actions
and lifestyle is changed, which is conversion, then you are no more saved than
the lame man was healed if he refused to rise up and walk, though God gave him
strength to do so. What would happen to such a man? His healed feet would
atrophy to the point that they would do him no good.
In fact, you
may be worse than such man. What if you only thought you were healed, errantly supposing that at any time you could
simply rise up and walk, but didn’t because you feared losing your income as an
alms collector. You rather like being carried around by others and the
familiarity of your regular spot at the Temple. So you continue to be carried
by others and never make use of your feet, never testing the strength of your
ankles. You would be delusional, thinking, “Someday, when I’m good and ready,
I’ll rise up and walk,” but in reality, your legs, ankles, and feet are a lame
as that of a rubber duck.
Such is the
case of a professed Christian man or woman who is a Christian in name only, but
has no works or only nominal works to show for the praise of others in this
life. Such a woman may think she has “repented” when in reality, she will die
in her sins. “One of these days, I’ll surprise you, preacher, and I’ll come to
church,” such a man may say. Such a woman may even get baptized, but not
because she has truly repented of her sins and had them washed away, but
because she thought it was what all good people were supposed to do or because
her friends, her husband, her boyfriend or her children did so.
Such a person
may be like the person Jesus spoke of in that day of judgment in the greatest
sermon ever given, found in Matthew 7. Such unrepentant persons will call out
to the Lord Jesus Christ, only to hear Him whom they called Lord, but never obeyed
Him as Lord, declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice
lawlessness.”
Are you being
transformed? If not, you likely have not repented and you therefore have not
been saved from your sins, your spiritual lameness.
