Repentance Idols Forsaken

For years, I didn't know what repentance was, because I grew up in the day of modern evangelism and they only believed gospel was prominent. If a pastor mentioned repentance, it was just in passing because he felt obligated to throw it in there. A man's duty of repentance was seldom pressed on people, people who were guilty sinners in need of pardon for sin.

We were told only to believe and to receive Jesus as our personal savior, but that won't cut the mustard on judgment day, friends, for a holy and righteous God demands that men repent. God's word declares in the book of Acts and the times of this ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent. I had to learn, friends, that repentance meant the love of sin dies.

Well, we are in our preaching series on the great doctrines of the gospel. So far, we have preached on ruin, redemption, regeneration, and today we will cover the doctrine of repentance. Repentance is the missing doctrine in the modern church today.

It's seldom mentioned because we live in a politically correct society and many preachers are afraid to lose their job, so they just preach nice little sermons that don't upset anybody. Why set a fire under the good deacons if you don't have to? Because if you preach man's duty of repentance, then you are forced to preach against sin, and if you preach on sin, then you must preach about a future judgment where God will punish sin. I believe the Bible says if you die outside of Christ, then you'll be cast into a lake of fire, and if you preach on repentance and sin and a future judgment, then you must warn folks not to go to a burning hell, and then you've just opened up a can of worms in your church because most folks will be disturbed by that.

Well, I want to be true to your soul, friend, and it's my duty to warn you to repent or just go on to hell. The title of my message today, friends, is Repentance, Idols Forsaken. Most church folks don't like to be disturbed while they are turning and flopping in their filthy pig pens, clinging to their pet idols of sin, and they sure as shooting don't want a God that gets in the way of their daily living.

So most folks in our churches today have just gotten out their pocket knives and have carved out for themselves a God they can live with. Their God will never send anyone to hell. Their God will never punish sin, but the God of the Bible will because he is God who will and must punish sin.

Calvary was a clear demonstration that God is a God who must punish sin. When the Son of God was nailed up on that cross to be crucified for sin, every stroke of the Roman's hammer was an explanation point that God must punish sin. God must punish sin.

God must punish sin. Listen, friends, I know I am a sinner and I need a substitute for sin, and so do you, friend, so do you, because every mother's son will one day be held up against the strictness and severity of God's unbending law, and every man will fail that test. God requires perfection to get to his holy heaven, and no man is perfect for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

If you stand there in your own merits against God's strict law, you will be found guilty, guilty, guilty. You must stand there in the merits of another, the Lord Jesus Christ, the only hope, poor little E.A. Johnston has, is that Christ's life is laid down and applied to me, and you, friend, have no hope of staying out of the devil's hell unless you get your sins washed in Christ's blood. In Revelation chapter 1, we read unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood.

Listen, friends, no matter what modern evangelism tells you, God's holy demands have not been lightened. Men are still called upon to repent toward God and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Sin is the transgression of the law.

All men are guilty sinners who have committed treason against the sovereign. One must come to a bloodstained Christ and stack arms and throw down your shotgun of rebellion at its nail-pierced feet and surrender there your most beloved idols. For repentance means that the love of sin dies.

The word of God speaks of a cross and about taking it up and denying self and following a crucified Christ. If you preach a man's duty of repentance in churches today, you'll have a fight on your hands for sure. The most hot water I've gotten in was when I hit the doctrine of repentance hard and it upset the good deacons.

I've had a deacon face me with fire in his eyes and smoke coming out of his ears because I dared to tell him he must repent or just go on to hell. People in our church today hate the doctrine of repentance because it demands that they break off and forsake their most beloved idols of sin. John the Baptist preached repentance and it cost him his head and I have preached it and it has cost me the support of my ministry.

But I will preach it till I go to my grave and if you fail to obey it, friend, it will cost you your soul. Except you repent, ye shall all likewise perish and that means you, friend, even if you are the chairman of the deacons. I think we've gotten off track in some of our churches today.

Men don't need to hear the doctrine of election as much as they need to repent. Our churches today are hotbeds of immorality pinned between two extremes. You have the Pharisees in one corner wrapped in their long robes of legalism, thanking God they are not as others.

And in the other corner stands the profligates, sinning all they can because of abandoned grace. It's a tug of war between legalism and antinomianism. But you better listen to me, friend.

You must repent or you will die in your sins and go down to a bottomless pit of a smoking hell. Repentance means idols are forsaken and you make a clean break with sin. That doesn't mean you will no longer sin.

It means you will no longer love to sin. You will love Jesus more than you love sin. If you're not safe, friend, and if God has been dealing with your soul through this message, then I want you to have an opportunity to come to Christ and lay your sin burden down at his nail-pierced feet.

The gospel is for the hungry, the weary, and the thirsty. Let me ask you, friend. Are you hungry for God? Are you weary of your sins? Are you thirsty for Christ? Then come to him and believe on him.

Come throw down your shotgun of rebellion and surrender all you are to all he is. Well, I'm gonna sing a hymn, friend, and I want you to come to Christ for forgiveness of sin. You come as I sing.

My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly on Jesus' name. On Christ the solid rock I stand.

All other ground is sinking sand. All other ground is sinking sand.