True and False Repentance (Part 4 of 4)

“Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.  See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter.”  2 Corinthians 7:10-11  

In concluding this 4 part series on true and false repentance, the distinction between them is the difference between light and darkness.   Perhaps the simplest test to ask of yourself is this:  Are you ashamed to have any person talk with you about your sins?  If you are, all you have accomplished is to experience worldly sorrow, the effects of which are short lived and contrary to what you may think, act only to drive you further from Jesus and forgiveness, then you were before.  Why then do so many, who are still unrepentant sinners, get the idea that they have repented?  The only logical reason is that within the church in America there is a wholesale lack of instruction and discernment respecting true and false repentance. 

I. What true repentance is:

II. How it may be known:

III. What is false and counterfeit repentance:
IV. How it may be known: 

How will false repentance be known? 

1.    It leaves feelings unchanged:  the disposition to sin remains unbroken within the heart.  The feelings as to the nature of sin are not changed, but rather the individual still feels a desire for sin. He abstains from it, only from the dread of the consequences of it.

2.    It leads to hypocritical concealment: The individual who has exercised true repentance is willing to have it known what he has repented.  He who has only false repentance, resorts to excuses and lies to cover his sins, he will cover up his sins with a thousand apologies and excuses, trying to smooth them over, and minimize their enormity.  He commits one sin to cover up another.  Instead of that genuine, open-hearted breaking forth of honesty and frankness, you see a smooth-tongued, half-hearted mincing of words that is intended to answer the purpose of a confession, and yet to confess nothing.  He is ashamed to have anyone talk with him about his sins, his sorrow is only a worldly sorrow, and works only death.

3.    False repentance produces only a partial reformation of conduct:  The change that is produced by worldly sorrow only extends to those things of which he has been strongly convicted of.  The nature of his heart remains unchanged.  He will only avoid those cardinal sins, about which he has been humiliated by.  He has no desire to alter or even recognize the pervasiveness of the sinful life that he lives.   Overtime you will witness that he continually relapses into his old sins. The reason is, the disposition to sin is not gone, it is merely restrained by fear, and as soon as he has a hope and is in the church, he gets bolstered up so that his fears are allayed, you see him gradually wearing back, and presently returning to his old sins.  They love to call this ‘backsliding’, or something in that vein; but the truth is, they always loved their sin, and when the occasion offered, they returned to it.

4.    Lastly false repentance leads to a hardened heart:  The individual who has this type of repentance grows harder in proportion to the number of times he is sorrowful.   If he has strong feelings of conviction, and his heart does not break in response to his guilt, the fountains of those feeling dry up, and his heart more and more difficult to be reached.   Not so a true Christian, take a real Christian, one who has truly repented, and every time the truth bears down upon him, it crushes him before God and he becomes more mellow, more easily affected, excited and broken under God's word. His heart gets into the habit of going along with the convictions of his understanding, and he becomes as teachable and as a child born again.

True and False Repentance (Part 3 of 4)

“Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.  See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter.”  2 Corinthians 7:10-11  

Why do so many, who are simply filled with regret and remorse get the idea that they have repented? The only logical reason is that within the church in America there is a wholesale lack of instruction and discernment respecting true and false repentance. This is the third part of a four part series on repentance, touching on four aspects of repentance

I. What true repentance is:

II. How it may be known:

III. What is false and counterfeit repentance:

IV. How it may be known:

This is not difficult, yet so many of us seem intent on making it so. In America today even the clergy seem to have diluted repentance down to regret.  However, just because you call a sparrow an eagle does not make it so.  So what is false repentance?  False repentance is said to be worldly, the sorrow of the world, that is, it is sorrow for sin, arising from the worldly considerations and motives connected to your present life, or at most, has respect to his own happiness in a future world, and has no regard to the true nature of sin.

1. It is not founded on such a change of opinion as I have specified to belong to

true repentance, there has been no change in the mind in regards to sin.  As such the  change is not on fundamental points.

A person may see the evil consequences of sin in a worldly point of view, and it may fill him with anxiety. He may see that it will greatly affect his character, or endanger his life; that if some of his concealed conduct is found out, he would be disgraced, and this may fill him with fear and anguish, but it does not alter his conduct, his disposition, nor does it lead to any restitution to those whom he has sinned against.  It is very common for a person to have this kind of worldly sorrow, when some worldly consideration is at the bottom of it all.

2. False repentance is founded in selfishness.

It may be simply a strong feeling of regret, in the mind of the individual, that he has done what he has, because he sees the evil consequences of it to himself, because it makes him unhappy, or exposes him to the wrath of God, or injures his family or his friends, or because it produces some injury to himself in his lifetime or in eternity. All this is pure selfishness.  

He may feel remorse of conscience--biting, consuming REMORSE—and yet no true repentance. It may extend to fear--deep and dreadful fear--of the wrath of God and the pains of hell, and yet be purely selfish, and all the while there may be no such thing as a hearty abhorrence of sin, no change of conduct, no restitution, no altering of his character;  and no feelings of the heart going out after the convictions of the understanding, in regard to the infinite evil of sin.  You know this person, it might even be you, the person who regrets their sins, the one who feels deep sorrow and remorse for what he has done, but does not turn away from his choice, rather he tells you that God has forgiven him, while he fashions the noose around his neck  (so to speak).   

Judas regretted what he did, Judas felt deep sorrow and remorse for his betrayal of Jesus.  Judas hung himself in remorse.  But Judas was not repentant, and he took his sin with him into hell.   

True and False Repentance (Part 2 of 4)

“Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.  See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter.”  2 Corinthians 7:10-11  

Why do so many, who are still unrepentant sinners, get the idea that they have repented? The only logical reason is that within the church in America there is a wholesale lack of instruction and discernment respecting true and false repentance. This is the second part of a four part series on repentance, touching on four aspects of repentance

I. What true repentance is:

II. How it may be known:

III. What is false and counterfeit repentance:

IV. How it may be known:

II. How will true repentance be known? 

It is the purpose of this post to show you what are the works of true repentance, and to make it so clear to you, that you will know without any question whether you have repented or not. You must possess all 5 qualities below to have truthfully repentant, 4 out of 5 simply means that you are lying about the other 4.

1. If your repentance is genuine, there is in your mind a conscious change of views and feeling in regard to sin.  On this you will be just as conscious of this change of viewpoint as your are about any change of view and feelings on any other subject. Can you honestly say this? Do you know, that on this point there has been a fundamental change within you, that the old things are done away with and all things (meaning your viewpoint towards not only the sins you are guilty of, but all sin) have become new?

2. Where repentance is genuine, the disposition to repeat sin is gone.

If you have truly repented, you do not now love sin; you do not now abstain from it through fear, and to avoid punishment, but because you hate it.  How is this with you? Do you know that your predisposition to commit sin is gone?  Look at the sins you used to practice before you ‘repented’.  How do they appear to you now?  Do they look pleasant, or merely acceptable given the right ‘excuse’, would you be willing to commit them again or still, if you knew no one would know?  --If they do or you would, then you are only convicted. Your opinions of sin may be changed, but if your willingness remains to commit that sin remains, you are still an unrepentant sinner; and you are not forgiven, and you are right to fear the punishment that awaits.

3. Genuine repentance works a reformation of conduct.

This to be the idea chiefly intended in scripture, where it says "Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death...” 2 Corinthians 7:10  Godly sorrow produces a change of conduct.  What the Apostle Paul is speaking of was a change of mind that produces a change of conduct, ending in salvation. So again, let me ask you, are you really reformed?  Have you forsaken your sins? Or, are you practicing them still? Here is the big point in case you like so many in our society seem to want to overlook, anything that first begins as a sin, will always be a sin, it does not matter how long you do it, or even if you attempt to make it look right in man’s eyes; for example if you were to divorce your spouse for another woman that you have been having an affair with {Adultery} and then marry that woman a couple of years later, it remains Adultery, you are still a sinner. While you may have changed your mind, about your sin, if it has not brought a change of conduct, an actual reformation, it is not godly repentance, or such as God approves, merely worldly sorrow.

4. Repentance, when true and genuine, leads to confession and restitution. The thief has not repented, while he keeps the money he stole. He may have conviction, but no repentance. If he has repentance, he will go and give back the money and be willing to accept whatever the consequences are for his sin. If you have cheated anyone, and do not restore what you have taken unjustly; or if you have injured any one, and do not set about it to undo the wrong you have done, then your claim of repentance is a lie, you have not truly repented.  You may be convicted, you may feel worldly sorrow, but you do not have Godly sorrow within you as God demands before He will forgive of your sins.

5. True repentance is a permanent change of character and conduct.  Scripture says it is repentance unto salvation that leaves no regret.  What the apostle Paul means by that expression is that true repentance is a change so deep and fundamental that the person never changes back again?  What the scripture means is that repentance that will not be regretted, so thorough is the repentance, that there is no going back (there is no possibility of backsliding) the love of sin is truly abandoned. The individual, who has truly repented, has so changed his views and feelings that he will not change back again, or go back to the love of sin.  Keep this in mind, that the truly repentant sinner now exercises feelings and beliefs of which he will never regret. The scripture says it is "unto salvation." In other words his repentance goes with him all the way to heaven. The very reason why it ends in salvation is because it is such as will not be regretted.  True repentance is such a thorough change of feelings and beliefs that the individual who exercises it comes to hate sin that they will persevere, and not go and take back all his repentance and return to sin again.