Brother Rubin has used the term repentance, and
of course it is a term of great
consequence, much neglected.
I was in some meetings in the Omaha
area some time ago when at the end
of the meetings three of the men were
driving me to the airport and they said
to me, did you realize that you have
contradicted much of what we believe?
Well, I said, that certainly doesn't concern me.
But what in particular are you agitated about?
Well, they said what you said about repentance.
You don't seem to understand that repentance is
a work, and we're not saved by works,
but by faith.
Why, we just completed a training course in
evangelism, and in the training manual it said
don't ever mention the word repentance when you're
witnessing to people, because it will only confuse
them, lead them to think there's something they
must do, when in truth we are saved
solely by faith in what Christ knows.
If there were just one or two people
in the world that believed such wickedness as
that, it would be a relief, we could
shrug our shoulders and pass it off and
think nothing more of it.
But the sad truth is that a very
substantial percentage of the Church in America do
not believe that repentance has anything to do
with salvation.
They say that has to do with the
Christian life, that it's an optional matter, that
if one wants to become really serious and
go deep into the things of God, then
they have to consider repentance.
But to be saved, no mention of repentance
is appropriate.
Do you think I made that up?
I wished I did.
It is so perfectly absurd that I would
like to think that someone who was just
fooling, just kidding around, came up with ridiculous
viewpoint.
But you see, part of the problem is
that there are many who don't understand that
there is an unbreakable faith.
It is impossible to believe without repentance.
And it is absurd to repent and not
believe, for repentance is turning from, and faith
is turning toward.
And the two must be kept together.
And no one can embrace Jesus Christ in
faith and do so without that
any of you give
me opportunity to
feel the liberty to.
Now I am getting old.
Now did you hear what I said?
We are in danger of surely, but
to repent of sin is not.
We are also to repent of dead works.
Let me draw your attention straightway this morning
to the book of Hebrews, chapter 6.
Admittedly a most difficult passage for many.
But look, if you will please, at this
passage, and let me draw something very specific
pertaining to repentance to your attention.
While you are turning to Hebrews 6, may
I take a moment to an explanation, but
it is immensely helpful.
With the law given by angels, with
Moses and the whole Mosaic covenant, with Abraham,
with the priesthood, with the sacrificial system, even
with angels.
I have not given those several words in
proper sequence in Hebrews, just suggesting everything.
He is contrasting.
Theological.
I remember the first time we sent out,
and he was telling the
author of Hebrews, opinionated on the matter.
But he is under an immense burden for
the people to whom, and
the interruptions all take the form, let
me call your attention with a bit of
care here, to this process that I have,
how Christ is with angels.
But when you come to chapter 2, before
he has completed this contrast, we must take
closer when
the doctrinal portion, that
a good beginning in the Christian life is
everything.
But that is a falsehood, straight from hell.
It doesn't much matter how you start.
It's how you finish that really counts.
And we have literally millions who appear to
have made a good beginning, who do not
make a good ending.
But you see, they have been led to
think that having started well, all is well.
Now the point is quite clear.
Hebrews is written to a body of Jewish
believers, who have made a wonderful beginning.
But some of you who have been students
of Hebrews are aware of the fact that
they came under tremendous persecution.
We know many things that literally were happening
at the time.
We know that while these professed believers were
attending the Christian meetings, their homes were being
ransacked systematically by the opponents.
We know that Nero would take these Christians
in groups and he staged these huge and
lavish gardens.
And we know that he would mount them
on crosses and then cover them
at his garden part.
We know that many of these Jewish believers
came and the families were saying to them,
for you to abandon the old.
Hebrews makes it plain that the old were
a type.
Had they gone back, they would have gone
back to nothing.
But now that's
desperately needed in our day.
And that basic understanding that I've suggested, that
it doesn't matter how you start, but how
you finish the Christian life.
But I give you that as background to
what we're going to read now in the
third warning.
Now just for the sake of...
was hateful as a son over his house.
Whose house we are.
Now get this.
Whose house we are if we hold
fast our confidence and the boast of our
hope firm until the end.
Did you get those words?
We are of Christ household if, and let's
be sure we understand what follows the word
if.
If we hold fast our confidence and the
boast of our hope firm until the end.
And that word confidence, hold fast our refers
to the bold open ongoing proclamation Jesus Christ
is Lord.
Now you see there are many who have
been taught that if we believe in our
hearts that Jesus Christ is Lord and confess
with our mouths we're saved.
And what they are led to believe is
an error in connection with that biblical statement.
They are led to believe that if once
they believe in their heart and once they
confess with their mouth they're saved.
But that's not true.
The faith that saves is not faith that
once grips us, but faith that grips us
throughout the remainder.
The confession of the mouth is not a
one-time, this is the baptismal pool over
here sir, it's not a one-time dip
in the pool.
But it can't end in the waters of
baptism or it can't end with the first
testimony.
There has to be, if
we were to speak correctly, those where
their present life has nothing to do with
that past experience and they named some time
when they had this.
The point is that the book of Hebrews
is a book that is making it crystal
clear it doesn't matter how you start it,
it's how you finish that counts.
Now in the second warning we have
become partakers of if we hold fast
the beginning of our assurance firm until the
end.
So the great focus of the second warning
is the mandatory nature of pressing on, pressing
on, pressing on unceasingly in the pursuit.
But I began these brief words about Hebrews
by telling leaving
the elementary teaching about Christ.
Now I should tell you that the third
warning begins in chapter 5 and continues through
verse 12 of chapter 6.
So in short, the
elementary teaching about the Christ, let us press
on to maturity, not laying again a foundation
of repentance from dead works and
of faith toward God, of instruction and
washing and laying on of hands and the
resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.
He singles out six foundational doctrines.
But we concern ourselves now with only one,
repentance from from dead works.
How many of you men who preach have
preached upon repentance from dead works?
Well one, another, thank God several.
That's encouraging.
I've been in places where it appears that
nobody ever even heard of the matter, let
alone preached upon it.
Now what would be an illustration of a
dead work to be repented of?
Yes, absolutely sister, something done in the energy
of the flesh.
For instance, a man could lead in a
public prayer meeting and he could be prayed
and he would need to repent of that
dead work.
Others, if they were to repent of dead
works, would need to repent.
Now listen carefully lest you go away saying
that poor Mr. Roberts is to be pitied
and inherited.
For many, when they say they have accepted
Christ, all they've done is to acknowledge historic
fact.
Now Christ does not require my my great
burden ought to be his acceptance of me.
It's vastly more important that he accept me
than that I give mental ascent to him
and accept the facts about him.
There are some who deliberately have accepted Christ,
as they say, as their savior, and yet
they have willfully, and
yet they think they can be saved from
hell by, well
it's not my purpose, all of the realms
in which, but even worship can be a
dead work.
Whole crowd can fill this sanctuary and have
a wonderful time, just go away glowing with
joy, and even
came near him.
There is that possibility, isn't there?
Have you not yourself some, so
there has been in our day preaching on
repentance from that
a grievous error, or a grievous area, I
meant to say, where repentance is false from
erroneous doctrine.
Much of what is being taught and proclaimed
in our day.
Last evening, some of you were here, I
indicated that back in the 1800s, a viewpoint
began to develop, grievously
wrong viewpoint, said that revived, plows
the field, and then he plants the seed,
and he cultivates, and then at the appropriate
time, he leaves the harvest.
And what he said was that as I
pointed out last night, revival comes from the
sovereign hand of God.
There is nothing any of us can do
to force.
There are things for us to do.
We can repent, we can pray, we can
pour out our hearts longing to the Lord.
But if revival comes, it will come because
he determines to send it, not because we
determine to have it.
Now this may not seem consequential, it has
been said of our day, of our generation,
that we have lost because we do not
know history.
Let's go back to the earliest days in
which our forefathers were populating this continent.
I don't want to take advantage of you
by exalting my own position, but I happen
to be, and you may want to forgive
me for this, I happen to be a
Congregationalist.
Now that may not mean a thing to
some of you, but to others of you,
you know that the people who settled in
New England, the pilgrims, were Congregationalists.
They fled the old country because of the
terrible persecution of Christians, and because they were
not, and so they
landed on the shores of the Plymouth
Bay colony.
And in their hearts they thought they were
establishing a nation in covenant relationship with God.
That was in their hearts.
You read the early documents from the 1600s,
it's crystal clear.
They didn't consider themselves the equal of old
Israel, but they felt themselves called of God
to establish a new Israel, a nation under
God.
They sought the face of God.
They practiced fasting and prayer.
Every time there was some registration of God's
anger against them, a fire, a flood, a
great storm, the death of some young prominent
leader, whatever the incident, every time they thought
that God was registering his anger against them.
That began, as I implied, in the 1600s
before the nation was established.
I know that this won't interest most of
you, but it may interest a few.
If you were to study the books and
the pamphlets published from the earliest days of
the founding of the Massachusetts Bay colony, you
would see that an amazing percentage of those
books and pamphlets were devoted to the theme
of the solemn assembly.
Now I don't know how many of you
understand the biblical concept of the solemn assembly,
so I'm going to take a moment to
fill.
I've spoken to you, but
I need now to add this important.
We must learn to see the difference sin
and corporate repentance of corporate sin.
I know some of you have been exposed.
We later published, it
is a corporate, is
that person, well no one could read that
with any care, and who are
called by my, you
go all the way through that passage, and
you'll see that it is clearly a passage
dealing with the nation.
Now that is not to say that there
is no personal aspect to revival.
It is only to say to focus on
the person.
But you see, many many churches have never
faced the problem of their corporate sins.
They have never practiced corporate repentance.
Now I don't speak belittlingly or critically.
Well there's certainly a time and a place,
but if that's as far as it ever
goes, we have missed something of tremendous consequence.
If you study the judgments of God as
they are revealed in the scriptures, it is
more.
So as we're approaching this theme of revival,
we've got to have it clear in our
minds that we need revival not merely, but
what we need is corporate revival.
I don't think I'll offend the pastor by
saying this church needs revival, and
woe to us if we do not do
these things.
So I've suggested to you, and
if it is not corporate, then it will
be vastly less consequential than what is so
desperately needed.
Now the sense that I have is that
the understanding of revival that exists among us
here, and certainly that exists in the church
across the land, is much too low.
We've taken a position that is inconsequential in
comparison with the immensity of the need.
And so for a few moments what I'd
like to do, I've brought along some notes
to help me to do this in a
system.
I don't think you would be here if
you didn't have some, but I do think
it's possible to be.
Now the degree to which we feel the
need is definitely going to affect our prayer
and our promotion of this theme.
So what I've done, as I implied a
moment ago, is to put in front of
me a list of terms that have been
used in the church on this wonderful theme
of revival.
Now I don't need to tell those of
you who love the Lord how precious such
words as grace, forgiveness, justification, redemption,
propitiation, blood atonement, mercy seat, throne of grace,
and many others like them are.
Don't you find those wonderful terms?
Doesn't it delight your soul to just teach
upon the language?
We have a book that Reuben has been
offering for sale in this area entitled, Salvation
in Full Covenant.
And what it is, is a group of
20 sermons that I selected, not my sermons,
but sermons that I selected from the period
that we call the Great Awakening period in
America, from the 1740 period, essentially.
And they're sermons having to do with the
great words of salvation.
Now some of you wouldn't consider it a
great word, but shame on you, election.
Some of you are troubled by that word.
You just struggle with it.
But that's to your shame.
It's a biblical word.
No man made it up.
Atonement, regeneration, repentance,
which I've stressed, faith, adoption.
Oh, what a lovely time we could have
just thinking together about the biblical theme of
how those of us who were aliens from
God, strangers and outcasts, have been adopted into
the family of God and made joint heirs
with Jesus Christ.
Well, that book, as I said, takes 20.
Well, readily we delight in such terms, those
of us who love the Lord.
And I repeat what I said already.
I'd just like to hope that your heart
will swell with anticipation and joy and enthusiasm,
as you consider the language that has been
used.