Number 24, when John had first preached before his coming,
talking about Jesus Christ,
the baptism of repentance to all the people of Israel.
And as John fulfilled his course, he said,
Whom think ye that I am? I am not he.
But behold, there cometh one after me,
whose shoes of his feet I am not worthy to loose.
Men and brethren, children of the stock of Abraham,
and whosoever among you fearth God,
to you is the word of this salvation sent.
Now, when he says that John preached the baptism of repentance,
keep your finger there, go to Acts 19.
Acts chapter 19, you're in chapter 13.
See, there's a false doctrine today that we're always faced with,
where people try to say that in order to be saved,
you have to repent of your sins.
You know, now that phrase is never found in the Bible.
And when you ask someone to show you that in the Bible,
you know, you'll say to them,
Hey, show me in the Bible where I have to repent of my sins to be saved.
What they'll do is they'll take you to tons of verses that say repent,
but conveniently, they don't say the words repent of your sins.
They just say repent.
So, the word repent doesn't mean repent of your sins,
because there are actually 46 verses in the,
I'm sorry, 36 times in the Bible,
the verses are talking about God repenting.
Out of all the mentions,
I think 105 verses that mention repentance,
36 of them mention God repenting.
Of course, if you're reading the NIV, New King James,
ESV, or any other of these modern versions,
they completely take out God repenting,
because they want to prop up this false doctrine.
They take out Judas Iscariot repenting.
They take out Paul repenting,
when he decided he was going to write a letter and then change his mind about it.
You know, they take that out.
And they try to say,
Well, every time the Bible says repent, it means repent of your sins.
Well, that's a lie.
And so, whenever somebody's trying to show you a scripture on this,
make sure it actually says of your sins.
And then, guess what?
It won't be there, because there's no such verse.
So, when the Bible's talking about repentance,
it's just talking about some kind of a change, okay?
Now, that change could be a change in what you believe.
It could be a change of mind.
It could be a change of action.
It could be all manner of different things.
You have to read the context to figure out what is changing, okay?
There are people who are lukewarm in Revelation 3.
They needed to change.
So, what needed to change?
The fact that they were lukewarm.
In 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, they're worshiping idols.
They needed to change and worship the true and living God,
the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, look at Acts chapter 19,
and we can figure out the context of the baptism of repentance.
Look at Acts 19, 4.
It says, Then said Paul,
John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance.
So, we see that exact statement there,
the baptism of repentance that we saw back in Acts 13.
And by comparing spiritual with spiritual,
we can see what that baptism of repentance was.
It says he baptized with the baptism of repentance,
sang unto the people that they should repent of their sins,
and start living a Christian life.
No, he says he preached the baptism of repentance,
sang unto the people that they should believe on him,
which should come after him,
that is, on Christ Jesus.
When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus,
back to Acts 13.
And so, sometimes repentance could be talking about turning from a sin,
but whenever it's talking about salvation,
it's always talking about changing what you believe.
And if it's not talking about changing what you believe,
then it's not talking about salvation,
because the only thing that has to change in order for you to get saved
is your faith, your belief,
not your lifestyle,
because if your life had to change in order for you to get saved,
that would be salvation by works.
If you had to make some change in your actions,
some change in your lifestyle,
that would be salvation by works.
But if it's just believing on Christ,
well, that's by faith.
And so, if a person is not saved,
something has to change,
and that something is what they believe.
I mean, it's pretty simple to understand.
It's not hard to see.
If somebody's Islamic,
something's going to have to change.
You know, they're going to have to believe on Jesus Christ
and forsake that false religion.
If somebody's a Catholic,
you know, they're trusting in their works to save them,
that's going to have to change.
And they're going to have to change from that
and put all their faith on the Lord Jesus Christ
in order to be saved.
And by the way, when you're out soul winning,
if you knock on a door,
and you preach unto that person,
and when you leave the door,
that person still believes the same thing
that they believed when you got there,
that person didn't get saved.
Either one of two things is true.
Either they were already saved,
or they're still not saved.