Hello, this is Brother Denny.
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Well, praise God.
Greetings again tonight in the name of Jesus.
He truly is worthy to be blessed and
to be glorified, and we rejoice in the
opportunity to be gathered together here again this
evening.
In the course of meetings like this, one
of the things that we like to do
in some of the opening meditations, and maybe
it's been mentioned before, is to give a
little bit of a teach, some teaching sometimes
concerning revival or some of the fundamentals of
the faith, and bring these issues up and
look at them because they are so pertinent
to our very situation.
Tonight, turn with me to John chapter 3,
and I will read verse 1 through 8
for one of the most profound foundations of
the Christian faith.
John chapter 3.
There was a man of the Pharisees named
Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.
The same came to Jesus by night and
said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou
art a teacher come from God, for no
man can do these miracles that thou doest
except God be with him.
Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily,
I say unto thee, except a man be
born again, he cannot see the kingdom of
God.
Nicodemus said unto him, How can a man
be born when he is old?
Can he enter the second time into his
mother's womb and be born?
Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee,
except a man be born of the water
and of the spirit, he cannot enter into
the kingdom of God.
That which is born of the flesh is
flesh, and that which is born of the
spirit is spirit.
Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye
must be born again.
The wind bloweth where it lifteth, and thou
hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell
whence it cometh and whither it goeth.
So is every one that is born of
the spirit.
One of the things that I'd like to
do in the new birth, or the matter
of the new birth experience, is I know,
Brother Denny and I were just talking about
today, how that it seems like no two
experiences are identical.
And we recognize that.
One man comes up to me and he
says, Well, I travailed for months, you know,
before I finally found the answer for my
life.
And another one says, Well, I didn't even
know there was anything wrong.
And I stumbled into a meeting, and it
was a hot meeting, and a man preached
the word.
And I got so under conviction in an
hour's time that I hit the altar and
got converted and changed by the power of
God that night.
And we know that there are many differences
of experience, and so I do not allow
myself or anyone else in my own theology
to allow you or myself to take the
new birth experience and put it in a
box.
That you don't do it this way, you
don't have it.
So I don't want to do that, because
I don't believe in it.
But one of the things I'd like to
do is to take it, and because I
know it happens sometimes in ten minutes and
sometimes in a half an hour and sometimes
in weeks that it takes for a person
to work through and prevail and pray and
cry out for mercy.
But I would like, if I could, just
to take the experience apart for the sake
of looking at it a bit tonight to
see whether we have truly had a new
birth experience.
Now you might say, Well, why do you
question?
Here's the reason I question.
Everywhere we go across the United States and
other parts of the world the same, we
would have to say is that there are
multitudes of people who seem to have had
something in their Christian life and experience, but
they don't seem to have the miracle working
power of Jesus Christ that has turned them
and changed them from the power of sin
and made them a brand new person and
creature in Christ Jesus and with the power
of the Spirit of God within to walk
in newness of life.
Back home, we have many traditional churches.
They raise their hand in a revival meeting
or stand to their feet and sit right
back down again.
Somebody takes them to the basement afterwards, and
I've known of cases where they first sing
a song and lead in prayer and make
announcements and all of that and then dismiss.
And the one who stood in prayer or
stood at the invitation is playing and chumming
around with his friends.
And finally the father and the minister come
and tap him on the shoulder, take him
into a room and begin to talk to
him as to his decision, apparently for church
membership and baptism.
There's no repentance virtually.
There's hardly any praying.
And there's no tears and no travailing and
no crying for mercy.
And that individual goes out of there and
I'll tell you what, he's not sure whether
he's born again or not.
He seems to have wanted something.
He's empty.
You know, he wanted something in his life,
but he's not sure what happened.
So many times we find ourselves occupied in
a situation like that where we have to
take him back around again, as we said,
and make sure that the thing sticks this
time.
So that's why we have done this many
times.
Others, I actually believe, they had some tears.
They said, I accept Jesus Christ as my
personal Savior, but they never took issue with
the sins of our flesh.
They never repented.
They never even confessed them.
In fact, they were probably too embarrassed to.
If you don't have the humility to confess
your sins, I doubt what you're going to
get.
So that's the reason that we would like
to.
We would like to make this thing clear
to you here in Colorado, that when we
say, when Jesus said to Nicodemus, and we
read this scripture, that ye must be born
again, you know what we mean.
There's a little bit of a discussion there
between Jesus and Nicodemus, too, until they figured
out what each other meant.
Or until Nicodemus found out what Jesus meant.
And so, I think it is many times
with us.
And I just feel sorry for what we
call many times, they're getting a five and
ten cent conversion.
It's about what they get these days.
It looks something that they get down to
five and ten cents in the nickel and
dime store.
But we don't want that.
We want something that changes men's lives, that
is life-changing, that is transforming, that is
rejuvenating and regenerating, and all the other eatings
you can put in there, because we want
it to do its job.
Well, I have found out one thing.
Sometimes when we go witnessing the people, they
say, Well, no, I'm not interested in getting
converted right now.
I don't want to get saved tonight.
Well, why not?
Well, I'm not ready yet.
Once I get ready, then I'll get saved.
Well, I have to tell you tonight that
you will not get saved when you want
to get saved.
You will get saved when the God of
heaven begins to draw you, because no man
cometh unto the Father except the Father draw
him.
And unless the mercies of God are in
your life, you can howl all night, it
seems, and you're not going to get anywhere,
because there needs to be a drawing of
the Spirit of God.
And it seems like we see that sometimes,
where there are people who have put it
off too long and said, God, I'm not
interested now.
I want to have my fun.
I want to go out with a crowd.
And then they end up sometime in an
accident, and oh, they cry for the mercies
of God, and He's silent from heaven, because
He's spurned the opportunities that they had at
one time.
All right, I'd like to say that you
cannot just come when you're ready, but when
God tells it's your heart, that is the
time to respond and to come toward Him.
The next thing I'd like to look at
is conviction or travail.
When we look at a birth, and most
of you are childbearing age around here, and
you know what the travail is, and most
of you men know what it is too,
because you accompany your wives in birth.
Well, a good old-fashioned new birth experience
should have some soul travail in it.
It ought to have going down through the
birth canal, as we'd call it, where the
squeeze is on you, so to speak, and
you are going through great difficulty and pain.
I think in that pain there needs to
be the pain of despair, the pain of
lostness, and the pain of despair should grip
on your heart.
I am lost.
I'm on my way to hell, and if
I don't get something from God, that's where
I'm going to be.
There ought to be a travail of failure.
My ship is sinking.
I am high and dry.
I don't have it.
I thought I had the world by the
tail, and I had a good job, and
I had this and I had that, but
I have nothing.
There should be a despair, and a travailing
in despair like that concerning the failures of
our life.
There ought to be a travail of guilt.
Oh, the miserable guilt of sins.
They come before our hearts and eyes, and
we remember the time we stole that thing,
and we remember the time we committed fornication,
and we remember the time we rebelled against
father and mother, and spoke hard words directly
into their faces, and scoffed at them, and
went out and did our own thing.
And the guilt of that should just, I
mean, make the chills go over us.
We should suffer the pain of guilt and
travail.
And then we should also suffer the travail
of misery.
I always appreciated when young people get up
to give their testimony, and they said, Oh,
miserable!
And that's a good word in that soul
travail, going through that birth canal, that there
is a point of misery.
I can't stand it when the eyes are
totally dry, and somebody just nonchalantly comes along
and wants to become a Christian.
There needs to be a forsaking of sin
in our own way.
I believe one of the mistakes that many
people make in their attempts to be born
again is that they want Christ added to
their plans and their life.
But I believe it's time that we understand
that to be born again, we forsake our
way and take His way.
Brother John D.
Martin, our local Bible school teacher every year,
he says, It's like a blank sheet of
paper.
You sign your name and upon it, you
give it to Jesus and say, Fill it
in.
I'll obey and do it.
I like it.
I like the picture.
It's a despair which lets him be the
Lord and say, I've tried to go my
way.
I've tried to run my life, and I
can't do it.
I'm going to let you run it.
Here, I sign my name.
I'll do what you tell me.
Go ahead and fill it in.
But oh, there's not many conversions that way
today.
There's not many that look at it like
that.
They want to fit this Jesus into their
program, into their future, into their education, into
their spare time, and all these kind of
things.
And you find out they end up with
a five and ten cent store religion, which
does not do the job it needs to
do.
I personally believe there should be a confession
of major sins and a true repentance in
the heart of them.
I know there are people who get saved
who just simply weep and break before God
and say, I am a sinner.
I am a mess.
And they never mention one of them, and
God takes them as He sees their heart.
And that's the reason people get saved, because
God sees their broken heart.
But I find myself occupied in over fifty
percent of the time working with people in
that I find out that they have major,
blatant sins against the God of heaven that
they have never bowed their heart and confessed
before a man anywhere, or before God.
They have just hoped they would run off
like water off of a duck's back, and
they have never confessed and specifically repented of
major sins.
And oh, they go flip-flopping in their
Christian lives, and it's up, and it's down,
and it's up, and it's down, and no
victory, no power, no joy.
And a lot of times when we go
back around again, we say, Okay, now let's
clean the slate, and let's confess your sins
and forsake them, and repent of them, and
name them, and humble yourself before a brother
or a sister or a couple of them,
and simply dump the bucket.
And we find out that that gets results
in men's lives.
The new birth, one of the words that
is given to us in Titus, and also
in another place, but Titus 2, where it
says, not by the washing of regeneration, or
it's by the washing of regeneration or renewing
of the Holy Ghost.
And I'd like to emphasize that word, regeneration.
Now, the only way I know to describe
that word is to refer to your water
softener, if you have one, when you regenerate
your water softener.
But what it is that there is a,
there is a, something in there that attracts
the ions of the water, or the minerals
and the deposits and all this stuff, and
holds it in there.
And then when you regenerate your water softener,
you take a saline solution through all that
stuff, and just flush it all out of
you.
All out of the water softener.
And we call that regenerating the water softener.
And I like that picture, that there needs
to be a miracle working power of the
Spirit of the living God, that literally a
supernatural power that regenerates your life like that,
and all the filth and the accumulation for
years is flushed out of you by the
power of the Spirit of God, and you
become regenerated.
It is the work that is not done
by yourself.
Let me tell you that the new birth
tonight is not reforming.
The new birth is not to be able
to quit drinking, and to be able to
quit smoking, and to be able to quit
running.
It's not just that.
Some of those things are accomplished in men's
lives without being born again.
But a miracle working supernatural power to transform
your life by the power of Jesus Christ
through His Holy Spirit.
It's the work of the Holy Spirit.
Your new birth experience tonight, if you have
it, needs to save you from the love
and the practice of sin.
I actually believe that there are times that
men weep, men repent, men do a lot
of things and never stay and wait long
enough for the regenerating power of Jesus Christ
to come in and to make the transforming
experience on the inside of them, and therefore
they have never been able to really shake
off the sin in their life.
Because you and I, my friend, will not
shake off sin on our own accord.
We will not deliver ourselves.
We will not set ourselves free.
The Bible says, If the Son shall make
you free, ye shall be free indeed.
And we need the Son of God to
make us free from the power and dictate
and slavery and bondage and chains of sin.
That's the new birth.
I believe the new birth should be the
power to obey God's commandments.
Many people say, I'm in Romans 7, the
things that I want to do I can't
do, and the things that I don't want
to do I find myself doing, chasing after
my former sins, chasing after the world, and
I've got that inner drive in me and
I can't help myself.
But I believe that one who has been
regenerated has the power in his or her
life to obey God's commandments, and his commandments
will not be grievous.
Thank the Lord Jesus.
Regeneration or the new birth is not only
a repentance or a tearing down work, but
it needs to be a constructive work, a
building up work in your and my life.
Yes, we through repentance and confession of sin,
we tear the old house down, but then
through the power of the Holy Spirit, we
build a new house up, and we have
power, and we have life, and we have
living water flowing from within.
Yes, a river of it flowing out of
the throne of God through our lives and
out and touching the lives of other people.
A constructive work, not just a destructive work
of repentance.
It's a recreating and a renewing work.
Supernatural.
A change of heart, just like it says
back in Ezekiel chapter 36, verse 25, Then
will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and
ye shall be clean from all your filthiness,
and from all your idols will I cleanse
you.
A new heart will I give you, also
will I give you, and a new spirit
will I put within you, and I will
take away the stony heart of your flesh,
and I will give you a heart of
flesh.
Isn't it true that many people that have
been a hot-tempered angry person need a
new spirit within in order to change their
character, in order to change their way?
Yes, I believe if you're going to let
God change you and give you a supernatural
new birth experience, you can let that anger
behind.
You can let those things of the dictates
of the flesh that drive you and embarrass
you in front of people all the time,
you can let it behind and God will
bring up a welling up of love.
The love of God shall be brought in
our hearts by the Holy Ghost.
Yes, we need a change of heart and
we need a change of spirit and that's
what the new birth is.
A man cannot do it with hands.
In Colossians 2.11 it says, a circumcision
not made with hands.
Nobody's going to come down there and cut
something out of you.
It's the spiritual experience where the finger of
God through the spirit will cut out the
old heart and throw it away and put
a new heart down on the inside and
change your way.
The new birth experience.
The Bible says that we have a new
spiritual nature to do spiritual things.
We are able to be a spiritual person
and we have a spiritual nature to do
spiritual things.
They are not hard.
They are not impossible.
They are not a burden.
We are able to do them.
Ephesians 2.10 says, for we are His
workmanship.
He has reshaped the clay.
We are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus.
And there needs to be a liberation from
sin.
Oh, so many times I'm so puzzled with
this one.
Here they come with the chains still hanging
on them.
Having joined the church and accepted Christ as
their Savior so-called 30 years ago.
And the old chains are still hanging on
them.
And they're still bound and they're held back
and there's a hook in their jaw, like
the brother said.
And they can't go forward.
They can't open their mouth and testify.
What's wrong?
Simply because there has not been a liberation
from sin.
But if a person is born again by
the power of Jesus Christ, there is a
liberation from sin.
The Bible says in 1 John 3.9,
Whosoever is born of God does not commit
sin for his seed remains in him and
he cannot sin for he is born of
God.
And I believe that means practicing sin over
and over and over and over again.
Being a slave to sin.
Being ruled by it.
Liberation from sin.
Another thing is the victory over the world.
And I failed to have this in my
message last night, but it fits well here
where in 1 John 5.4 it says,
Whosoever is born of God overcometh the world.
Have you overcome the world?
Have you overcome sin?
Are the chains gone?
Are they cut?
Is the umbilical cord of this world cut?
And you don't need it anymore because you
have life within yourself from God.
That's a question we need to ask ourselves
tonight when we look at the new birth.
Whosoever is born of God overcometh the world.
And this is he that overcometh the world,
even our faith.
It's our faith in Jesus Christ that is
able to give us victory over this present
evil, sinful world.
This corrupting evil that is in this world.
Well, we must ask you tonight again now,
have you been born again?
Have you been born again?
Have you not only tore down the old
house, but has a new house been built
up inside of you?
Have it changed your heart?
You used to go this way and now
you go this way.
You have truly repented and you hate and
are sorry for the sins that you have
committed in your past life.
And there's a fire inside of you burning
and a river of water.
Like the Bible says, he that believeth on
me as the Scripture has said, out of
his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
And this comes from the throne of God.
He puts this inside of us when we've
been born again.
Changed by his power.
Oh, I would like to appeal to you
tonight to not settle for that five and
ten cent stuff that is being sold in
the marketplaces, but go for the gold and
the silver that is able to transform and
to change and to regenerate you and quicken
your inside, quicken the mortal part of you
and able to direct you and bring the
body and the spirit and your character under
its control and under its obedience.
And then you'll walk by God.
That is the new birth experience and that's
what you need and I pray don't stop
until you have enough of that, that that
works in your life and you have the
fruit of that in your life.
Not in every area of perfection, but truly
the generalities of this thing must be there.
The fruit of the spirit must be there.
If it's not, start over.
That would be our request here tonight.
Nicodemus, he so clearly says, or Jesus tells
him, that this is an absolute must.
And I have to give it to you
tonight.
It's your only way to heaven.
It's your only way.
Except you become born again, you'll never see
the kingdom of heaven.
You'll never see the glories up there.
You'll never experience them.
You'll never hear, come, come ye blessed of
the Lord, well done, all those beautiful words
that Jesus said.
Come and inherit the kingdom that was provided
from the foundation of the world.
We will not hear that unless we've been
born again.
And I would just ask you tonight to
consider your theology and what it has done
for you and answer the questions according to
what was given here tonight.
Shall we stand together for a word of
prayer before we go on?
Dear God, we pray.
Truly we say to tonight, why not tonight?
Why would anyone shirk an experience an absolute
like that in his life?
Yes, we know.
Why did we wait so long?
We wonder too.
And many times it was because of ignorance
and many times because of the wickedness which
examines and makes them something that will go
on and on past a week from now.
Living a vibrant, personal, intimate relationship with our
Lord Jesus Christ.
Standing against sin and living a holy life
in this, our generation.
This is in the midst of an evil
and a crooked world.
Lord, we pray.
Bless Brother Denny tonight.
Anoint him with the Holy Ghost to preach
forth a clear, sounding trumpet message from God
again that we might hear and do the
things that you would have us do.
We pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Alright, tonight we greet you in Jesus' name
and it's our desire to once again to
take an issue of revival or that surrounds
revival and give a little teaching on it
at the beginning of a service like this.
Tonight, it's on repentance.
Now, we have used this word throughout the
week.
We would like to specifically look at this
matter of repentance.
If your ears are open tonight and you
get this secret of your life and how
to find a deliverance from many of your
sins and problems and even how to get
converted in the first place for your friends
or how to lead people through, this is
a clear key that we all need.
It's the issue of repentance.
There are those who teach there are twelve
steps to salvation.
And others that teach there are eight steps
to overcome bitterness.
But I would like to say that we
have found that all of those steps are
brought together pretty close together into one package
when we understand repentance.
In other words, if a man has bitterness
in his heart, we find there's basically two
things that the man has to do and
that is to repent of his bitterness and
forgive the individual and he's free.
No eight steps to overcoming bitterness.
But just simple Bible repentance.
Simple Bible repentance.
So we'd like to teach this to you
because here's why.
This is not only a one-time thing
when we originally get converted, but as we
go through the Christian life and find ourselves
slipping or making a mistake, the way to
get out of it is once again repentance.
You know, the interesting thing that stood out
to me last week in looking to the
remedy that Christ gave through the Apostle John
in Revelation to the church of Ephesus, the
first of the seven churches of Asia, He
said, Repent and what?
Do the first works.
Well, what are our first works?
Well, you humble yourself, you bow your hearts,
you confess your sin, you repent, you know,
for the fact that you lose your first
love.
And that was their problem.
And the way back to God is repentance.
Well, now I want to show you some
differences here, how the word is used.
In Matthew 27, verse 3, we have this
verse, That 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, saying,
I have sinned in that I have betrayed
innocent blood.
And they said, What is that to us?
We will see thou to that.
And he cast down the pieces of silver
in the temple, and departed, and went and
hanged himself.
Now, the Bible says here that Judas repented
himself.
But it's evident that he repented himself about
the same way that the thief repents when
he's caught stealing.
He's sorry for the situation he got into.
He's sorry he got caught.
But there had not been a 180 degree
turn in his life in the fact that
he was willing to totally admit what he
had done and declare himself in a remorseful
way a repentant before God.
And that says a lot of people, they
are sorry to get caught.
They are sorry that they get found out.
They are sorry for the fine.
They are sorry for the sentence they got
into and the trouble that they brought upon
themselves and their family.
But that's not repentance.
Let's go on.
Matthew 4, 17.
Back in the book of Matthew, chapter 4,
17.
From that time, Jesus began to preach and
to say, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven
is at hand.
And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee,
saw two men, Simon called Peter, and Andrew,
his brother, casting a net into the sea,
for they were fishers.
I only wanted the one verse there, verse
17.
This word, repentance, means a compunction upon our
lives and is to think different about the
matter.
Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at
hand.
Jesus was saying, it is time to think
different about your matters.
And that means that something has to happen
in one's life.
There are such, once again, if we can
use the expression, such cheap repentances today, such
5 and 10 cent store repentances, that are
not doing the work in the heart of
man.
And we'd like to show you the difference
between those.
Now, in the Old Testament, so we notice
that Jesus preached repentance.
John the Baptist preached repentance.
And Peter preached it at Pentecost, as soon
as the Holy Ghost was come.
So it's a message that finds its way
through the Scriptures.
But in the Old Testament, the word repent
means to part, to sigh or groan, to
turn or return.
Interesting, isn't it?
To part, to sigh or groan, to turn
or return.
Old Testament meaning of repentance.
And from the Hebrew, New Testament, to care,
to be concerned, to change the mind radically
toward sin and to God.
To change the mind radically concerning sin and
turn it to or toward God.
To turn over or unto repentance.
So radical and deep a change so as
to affect the entire personality.
Now look at some things there.
The intellect must function because we must have
the knowledge that we have sinned.
Somehow we have to find out that we
have not done right.
We have gone the wrong way.
So the intellect must function and get knowledge
from somewhere that we are not doing right.
We are going the wrong way.
We have sinned.
We have rebelled.
We have grieved God.
The emotions should be aroused because that is
a powerful impulse to turn.
The emotions should be aroused in repentance because
that will give you an impetus to turn
around.
For instance, if I would stand up here
and say, I repent that I have said
a lie.
You know, in a dry way, you would
wonder, did he?
But if I stand up here and it
is hard for me to talk and the
tears are streaming down my faces, over my
face, and I am all broken up and
I said I am sorry, I repent that
I said a lie.
See, when the emotion is aroused there, it
gives an impetus to turn.
A better impetus to turn than just a
dry nonchalant, I am sorry.
That is like Brother Denny was talking about
John 1.9. John 1.9. John 1
.9. No, we must repent of our sins.
Alright, so the emotions should be aroused to
turn there.
It is good to have tears and groanings
in repentance.
The will must act.
There must be a determined abandonment.
Just for instance, again, if I could take
a smoker with his pack of cigarettes, I
will tell you what I like to see
when he gets the repentant body smoking habit.
I like for him to take the leftover
pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and
swallow them around.
He is sick of it.
I mean, he wants to get out of
it.
Instead, there are people that take the pack
of cigarettes and lay it on the counter
there and say, Lord, deliver me from my
cigarettes.
They keep on struggling with the thing.
But if somehow, a holy indignation and anger
can rise up in an individual emotionally and
spiritually and powerfully upon his being and says,
I am sick of this thing.
I am going to get real of it
and throw it on the ground.
That is repentance.
We all must act.
And that is a determined abandonment of sin
and a return to God.
I am going to leave it.
I am going to walk away from that
place.
I can't stand it.
I will not go near the bar anymore.
I will stay away from those evil houses.
I will stay away from my buddies that
always drag me into those things.
And you turn around and say, I am
going to do something else with my life.
Repentance.
All right.
Let's look at 2 Corinthians 7.
Verse 9-11.
Now I rejoice not that ye were made
sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance, for
ye were made sorry after a godly manner,
that ye might receive damage by us in
nothing.
For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation, not
to be repented of, but the sorrow of
the world worketh death.
Now this is a good verse.
Let me show you tonight that there are
two sorrows.
You can have a sorrow under repentance, or
you can have a sorrow of the world
that works death.
And here is the difference.
The sorrow of sin that works repentance, or
the godly sorrow that works repentance makes you
terribly embarrassed and sorry for the sin you
have committed, but something wells up within you
with a tremendous fire and determination that I
will change and do right and I'll find
my way out of this hole.
The sorrow of the world works depression and
suicide.
Death, the Bible says.
The sorrow of the world works death.
And that's why people get down into the
same pit who don't look at repentance right,
but look at godly sorrow, look at the
mess I'm in.
My family is all ruined.
You know, I'm a convict in prison perhaps.
I have messed up my life.
There is no reason for me to be
here anymore.
And they think up of ways of how
to destroy their life.
The sorrow of the world works death.
And I think if we would be able
to talk to many people before they commit
suicide, that's what happens.
They get into a pit, into a funnel,
and they actually are convinced and persuaded by
the devil.
There is no way out, no way of
return.
Nothing can be done.
And it's happening to sixteen and twelve year
old young people that are committing suicide because
of the trouble they get into in school
with their friends and on drugs and trouble
with girlfriends and boyfriends and all this gives
them such a hopeless situation they decided there
is no way out I may as well
destroy myself.
But the repentance, that godly sorrow that works
repentance gives a glorious hope.
Hey, there is a way out.
I will quit this.
I will leave this place.
I will not come back here.
I will turn and return unto the God
of Heaven.
And it wells up within.
And oh, the difference is as great as
day and night between the two.
Bible repentance.
Next verse.
For behold, this selfsame thing that ye sorrowed
after a godly sort, look what it does
when you sorrow after a godly sort.
What carefulness it wrought in you!
What clearing of yourselves!
Yea!
What indignation!
Yea!
What fear!
What vehement desire!
Yea!
What zeal!
Yea!
What revenge!
In all these things you have approved yourself
to be clear in this matter.
And this simply says if I find myself
and I have met people who have been
guilty when they have come up under conviction
who have been guilty of two hundred robberies
only caught for three of them.
But when a man repents of the whole
thing he gets a fire in him.
He gets a zeal.
He gets a vehement desire.
He has a desire to clear himself.
Oh, it makes him careful.
I will be different.
I will change.
I will find my way out of it.
And it says what indignation, what vehement desire.
Yea!
What revenge!
He is angry.
The devil tricked me.
I am through with him.
I am not going to give him any
time anymore.
I am getting my way out of here.
I am going to find the Godliest man
I know and I am going to get
to him and I am going to have
him help me find my forgiveness in Jesus
Christ and fall upon my knees and confess
my sins.
But too many times it is well, sorry.
Sorry.
Didn't do very good there, did I?
And that kind of repentance and it will
not turn you.
It won't do the job.
We have named sin.
We have new names.
You know it.
Adultery is just a womanizing now or an
extramarital affair.
So we don't have the sin of adultery
on our conscience.
Stealing.
Well, he has a little long fingers, we
say.
Instead of saying he is a thief and
a robber.
And what we have done is rotted down
sin and we can't get out of it
because of the fact that we do not
understand repentance.
But I would like to give you courage
tonight in this message not to condemn you
with this one but to tell you that
if you are caught in anything there is
hope.
There is a way out because there is
a fountain open for sin and for uncleanness
and the God of heaven has made a
way for the most wicked, wretched sinner in
the world to get repentance through Jesus Christ
and forgiveness of his sins that the blood
of Jesus Christ washes them away.
If he just repents that will make the
change.
That will make the difference.
Some of you are familiar in your background
with some of the Protestant churches or whatever
you want to call them where you have
just run to the altar and the people
are committing sins every day or every week
and they are living in sin and they
run to the altar suddenly and pray a
little prayer Dear Lord, forgive me and run
back home again and when they run they
have absolutely no intentions to quit it.
That's not repentance.
They don't even touch it.
That altar running is worthless.
Worthless.
Repentance is a determination and a clear informing
of the intellect that I am guilty before
the God of heaven I have sinned I
have gone the wrong way and I am
going to stop this business and I am
going to turn around and I am going
to give my life to Jesus Christ.
That will make a difference.
That will change your life.
And like I say it's needed through the
Christian life because you have the scripture that
says let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness
of the flesh and perfect holiness in the
fear of God.
You have scriptures about let us lay aside
every weight and the sin that does so
easily beset us.
How?
Through repentance.
So simple.
We are Christians.
We actually were born again but we got
lost and we went after the things of
the world and finally the light has gone
dim and there is sin in our life
there is dirt in our cup and we
want to know what to do.
Repentance.
And it's amazing to me I don't know
but so many times it's hard for a
person to get that all clear in his
closet.
I don't know if it's because we are
so proud and so low key but it
seems like it works a lot better if
an individual walks up to another individual to
help that happen.
And he humbles himself and says can you
help me repent?
I am in the wrong.
I have sinned.
I am going the wrong way.
Can you help me repent?
Now I would say also I would like
to tell you tonight that you cannot say
tonight that this is the way I am.
This is the way my father was.
This is the way I am and that's
just I'm sorry that's just the way it
is.
You can alter your character through repentance.
You can alter your habits.
You can alter your lifestyle.
You can alter your some of your even
the like the genetic tendencies that have come
down through your family line which is hot
tempered for instance or something like that.
You can through thorough repentance even get rid
of that one.
Yes you can.
Look at the example of Zacchaeus.
Oh I love that one.
When that man repented.
Tell me what to do and I'll do
it.
Those men that I've wronged restore them fourfold.
Half of my goods I sell to bestow
on the poor.
I mean when that man repented he repented.
And he wanted to make sure that he
did it right.
Instead of this cheap stuff that people do
today.
And call it repentance?
It's not repentance.
I encourage you not even to embarrass God
with it.
He knows it isn't any good.
You can't do it with a broken heart
and a real desire to get out of
your situation.
I don't believe it's any good.
The Apostle Paul.
Look at him on the road to Damascus.
My!
That man was repentant.
Look at him when he comes over to
Damascus and the people are scared of him.
Who?
Well this guy.
We've heard of his reputation.
We don't trust him.
But I'll tell you when that man repented
he was done with the chains and the
handcuffs to bind men and women and take
them down to Jerusalem.
He never picked another one up in his
life.
No he didn't.
He had repented.
Instead he joined the crowd and was beaten
and buffeted and handcuffed and chained for the
gospel sake from then on.
That's repentance.
Once he was catching Christians and taking them
to prison and just upon repentance he became
one of them preached just like them and
he was buffeted and caught and handcuffed and
chained and what have you.
That's repentance.
Peter after he had denied the Lord Oh!
What did he do?
Sorry Lord.
Sorry.
I shouldn't have done that.
No he did not.
He wept.
What is the word?
Bitterly.
Oh God!
What have I done?
Is there any possibility that I could ever
be forgiven?
Treat things like that you'll get over them.
You can get rid of them.
I don't care what they are.
How deep a groove they have in your
life.
So that's my message here tonight as we
use the word we have quickly gone by
it and haven't stopped and looked at the
doctrine of repentance by itself.
I just want to lift this up.
This is the tool.
No it's not 12 steps to salvation.
No it's not 8 steps to overcome bitterness.
No it's not 10, 13 steps for this
and for that.
It's repentance from sin coming to God broken
ready to take His word and His direction.
All right.
Bless the Lord again tonight for the opportunity
to pray.
Shall we once again as we have taught
you before to just turn around your chair
and kneel down and pray here before we
go on.
Shall we pray?
We bless Your name tonight.
We praise You would teach us all the
doctrines of the Word of God this way.
Show us what You meant, Lord.
Teach us these tremendous truths.
How that we can sorrow after our godly
and sort over our sins.
How to be broken into weep and mourn
over the grief that we have caused You
with our own wretched ways.
And help us, Lord, that we might be
angry against sin and to cast it from
us with great strength and vehemence.
Oh God, I pray.
I pray You'd teach us all these things,
Lord.
We are living in a day when so
many of them have been watered down.
Help us to bring them back again where
they belong.
Where You intended for them.
And then I pray that God's blessing upon
our brother Denny as he comes up here
to preach the Word of God.
Will you fill him tonight, Lord, with the
Spirit of the Living God to preach another
message.
A life-changing message to those that are
seeking to get delivered.
And that the captives can get set free.
And the blind can receive sight.
And the lame can walk again.
Oh God, spiritually speaking, that's our heart's desire
tonight.
We pray in Jesus' name.
Amen.