Amen, so I'm preaching tonight on the subject of two world religions, two world religions,
and really when you think about it in this world, there's only two types of religion.
Of course we know there's different major world religions, we're going to talk about
those a little bit here in the beginning, but really when you just boil it down, you
get down to brass tacks, there really are only two religions in the world.
And you kind of get a feel for that here in Genesis chapter 4, it says in the process
of time in verse 3, it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground for an
offering unto the Lord, and Abel he brought also the firstling of his flock and the fat
thereof.
So you have these two men that are bringing these two different offerings, and we know
the story and we're going to look here in a minute, if you want to go over to Hebrews
chapter number 12, that each one of those offerings represented something.
One represented one man's attempt to please God and to approach unto God, and then the
other one represented another man's attempt to approach unto God.
Now one was right and one was wrong, as we read in the story there.
The Lord rebuked Cain for what he did and blessed Abel, because he brought the right
thing, he brought the first thing of the flock, whereas Cain, he brought what?
The fruit of the ground.
He brought the fruit of the ground.
And there's a lot of symbolism in this, we could spend time on this just talking about
this, but there's something else I kind of want to get to, but just briefly, when you
think about the two offerings that they brought, the lamb that was brought, the firstling of
the flock, that's kind of something that grows of itself, isn't it?
You'd say, well you know, he did put work into that, because obviously the two religions
are grace and works, those are the two religions.
And when you have Abel, you have that symbolizing the religion that is by grace, being saved
by grace through the lamb.
And of course, the other picture there is that that lamb that he brought, that was something
that he didn't grow that, whereas Cain, he's the one that had to till the ground, plant
the seed, weed the garden, water it, harvest it, there was a lot of his own work that went
into it.
The lamb was just born of its own, and he just simply took it and brought that to God.
So there's even a deeper level of symbology there, even within those offerings.
But the fruit of the ground, that is the works of Cain, that's what he brought, and that's
really the only two religions there are in this world.
It's works and faith.
You either believe that salvation's entirely by grace, it's completely by faith, it's not
of works, or you believe that works has some part into it, to do with it.
And look, if you believe that works has anything to do with going to salvation, you believe
in a works-based salvation.
And today these lines are just being blurred more and more as we go out door-knocking and
talking to people, you're running into a lot of more people that are saying, oh yeah, it's
by faith, but you gotta do the works too.
It's by faith, but you also gotta live a good life, or you gotta repent of your sin, or
you gotta keep the commandments.
They wanna blur these lines, and it's our job to make sure that we address the issues
of our day, and this is a major issue.
This doctrine of salvation, it always has been.
And today it just seems like a lot of these false doctrines are creeping in, even into
Baptist churches.
And look, there's only two religions in this world, it's either by works or it's by grace.
And of course Cain there represents the religion of works.
It says in 1 John 3, I'll read to you, not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew
his brother, and wherefore slew he him, because his own works were evil, and his brother's
righteous.
Now notice there, it says that, of Cain's works, that they were evil.
Now it didn't say that the work that he did, that when he slew evil, that's not what he
said was evil.
Okay?
Because you gotta get their wording there.
It says, he was of that wicked one, and he slew his brother, and wherefore slew he him.
Right?
Past tense, because his own works were evil.
So it's not saying that the evil work that he did was the murder that he committed, he's
saying that him bringing the fruit of the ground is the evil work that he did.
Now of course the murder was evil, right?
But he slew Abel, Cain slew Abel because his own works were evil, and he was envious, we
just read the story.
Does that make sense?
It wasn't just that, you know, he's not condemning the murder here in 1 John 3 that Cain committed,
what he's condemning is the fact that his own works were evil.
Now of course we're gonna talk a little bit here also, the other religion, you know, is
by grace, right?
That would be the opposite of what Cain brought to the table.
He brought the firstling of the flock, which is the grace, right?
And if you're there, did I have you go to Hebrews 12?
Is that where you are?
Hebrews 12?
I'm gonna go back to Hebrews 11 real quick, you can in verse 4, it says,
So the Bible's telling us here that the offering that Abel brought was more excellent than
the offering that Cain brought.
You know, God doesn't, he only accepts a certain offering.
You know, we could sit here and say, well, you know, humanly speaking, is it really that
big of a deal?
Well, it doesn't really matter what we think.
You know, our philosophy, our opinions on these matters don't really matter at all.
What matters is what does God think?
What offering is God going to accept?
You know, it doesn't matter if I approve your offering, it doesn't matter if some pope somewhere
approves your offering, or what you think it takes to get to heaven, what matters is
what does God want for sin?
What does God want?
What is the atonement that God is going to accept?
And it's not works.
You know, it's not gonna be our works that we're gonna hold up before God and say, this
is good enough.
God says, no, it's not good enough.
In fact, he says it's wicked, he calls them evil.
And he says that the right offering, the offering that Abel brought was what the more excellent
sacrifice, it was a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained a witness
that he was righteous, that he was righteous and that Cain was condemned.
God testifying of his gifts and by it he being dead yet speaketh.
Go to Hebrews chapter 12, verse 22, Hebrews chapter 12, verse 22, begin reading in verse
22, it says, but you're come unto Mount Zion and unto the city of the living God and the
heavenly Jerusalem and to an innumerable company of angels to the general assembly of the church
of the firstborn, which are written in heaven and to God, the judge of all and to the spirits
of just men made perfect and to Jesus, the mediator of the new covenant and to the blood
of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that of Abel.
Now, when it says that it speaks better things than that of Abel, it doesn't mean that what
Abel spoke back then was wicked or bad or wrong.
It's just saying that, you know, what he spoke was what Jesus is the mediator of the better
covenant that speaketh better things than even what Abel brought.
And what Abel brought was right.
We read that, that what he, that he was righteous for what he brought.
He obtained witness that he was righteous by bringing that sacrifice.
And yet we have Jesus Christ, who's the mediator of which of a covenant, which speak of better
things than that of Abel, okay?
Because again, it's the picture, you know, he's picturing the first thing, the first
thing of the flock, you know, that's a picture of Christ that should come, right?
Now, the Christ that actually came is a better covenant, isn't it?
You know, the picture is a good thing, but you know what?
Him being the mediator of fulfilling that covenant, that's better, okay?
That's what Abel's offering represented.
That's what it spoke, the salvation that is through the blood of the lamb.
And that's what he did with that first thing of the flock.
He slew it and he killed it and he offered it upon the altar.
And we know that that's how we're saved, right?
It's for as much as you know that you're not redeemed through with comfortable things as
silver and gold from your vain conversation received by the tradition of your fathers,
but with the precious blood of Christ.
That's what that lamb represented, the precious blood of Christ.
And that's important to keep in mind because anytime you want to add something to salvation,
you want to say, well, it's by grace, but it's also by this.
You're attempting to add to the precious blood of Christ.
I mean, what else are you going to add to the precious blood of Christ?
What other work could you come up with that's going to be on par with that better covenant?
There's nothing.
Everything else pales in comparison to the better covenant, the precious blood of Christ,
which was as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.
Go over to Luke.
Actually, don't go to Luke.
Go to Matthew chapter 7.
Matthew chapter 7, look at a familiar passage.
So we see that in this world, since the beginning of time, since the very beginning,
there have been two types of religion in this world.
There's been religion, which is based upon works, and the true religion,
which is based upon grace through faith in the blood of Christ.
That's the only two religions that have ever existed.
And of course, there are many variations of that.
There's many different manifestations of works in this world.
The devil has used a lot of different religions, but they're all promoting the same thing.
At the end of the day, they're all a works-based salvation.
You think of Buddhism, Muslims, they all believe that they're going to get to heaven
or whatever they perceive as heaven through their own good deeds.
The Buddhists, they're going to ascend to heaven through karma.
And you know what?
They don't even believe that that's a permanent thing.
They believe that you're in there until you burn up all that karma,
like you use up your credits.
Then you've got to come back down into this world and earn more karma.
You've got to refill the gift card or whatever.
It's like when someone gives you a refillable debit card, you have a limit, right?
Well, the Buddhists, that's what they have spiritually.
And they come down here, and them doing all their good deeds, and they're all works,
that's them reloading the card and earning enough karma to spend some time in heaven.
And ultimately, the goal is to break free of that cycle and to achieve nirvana, as they call it.
But what are they teaching, basically?
You have to earn your way there.
You have to work.
You have to work to refill that card.
You have to earn those credits, those karma credits, to get yourself back into heaven.
Same thing with Muslims.
They're going to reach jhana through the deeds of this life.
That's how they're going to get there, through all their various good deeds.
The Hindus, they're going to achieve what they call maksha.
Excuse me if I'm mispronouncing it.
No offense to any of the Hindus in the room.
But that's done through a series of good deeds.
Again, it's karma.
And these are the seven major religions in the world.
You hear people say things like, oh, there's so many religions in the world.
Not really.
There's really only seven.
And really, when you look at what they're all teaching, there's really only two.
Because all these religions are teaching a workspace salvation.
They're all teaching.
It's all through the deeds of this life.
The Taoists, which is another major religion,
Taoism and Confucianism aren't really religions.
They're more of probably a philosophy.
The Taoists, they want to just achieve eternal life in this body.
And they have a lot of weird beliefs.
And good luck with that.
The fact that that's never happened should clue you in on the fact that it's not possible.
And they say, well, it's really hard to do.
Yeah, it's so hard that no one's ever done it.
Maybe the problem is that you believe in a false religion that you need to repent of.
Confucianism, which is more of like a humanistic philosophy.
I don't want to go on and on about it.
But even Judaism, people say, oh, well, the Jews, they believe in the Bible.
No, they don't.
They don't.
A lot of them don't even believe in an afterlife.
Even in Jesus' state, that was the difference between the Pharisees and the Sadducees,
who would both claim to be followers of the Old Testament,
to some degree, that would claim the religion of Judaism.
Sadducees, they didn't believe in the Spirit.
They didn't believe in angels.
They didn't believe in the resurrection.
They didn't believe in the immortality of the soul.
Even in his day, they were already denying the literal account of the Scripture.
And that's the same today.
The Judaism, the Jews, they do not believe the Bible.
New Testament or old.
They believe in their own writings.
And then we have, of course, the other, you know, seventh major religion in the world,
which is Christianity.
You know, I say Christianity because Christianity today is obviously,
it's a very wide umbrella that has a lot of different denominations within that.
You know, when we say Christianity, we're going to talk about,
we're talking about Catholicism.
We would even say Mormons.
You know, the world today, we would say, well, they're not Christians.
Yeah, but I'm speaking in terms of that the world is using.
The world's going to say, oh, Mormons are Christian.
JWs are Christian.
Catholics are Christian.
Now, if you find some, you know, like the Catholics we've got around here in Tucson,
like the old school Catholics, they won't say that.
That's when you know you're in that old school Catholic neighborhood.
You know, it's not just the Mary statues.
It's when you say, are you a Christian?
They're like, I'm Catholic.
They know there's a difference.
And that used to be the way it always was.
But even today you'll run into Catholics will say, yeah, I'm Christian.
It's all, you know, if you read, if you read, you know, the catechism,
they consider all the writings, you know, the pope calls himself Christian.
So when I say Christian, obviously I'm not just talking about independent fundamental
Bible believing Baptists that believe in salvation by grace through faith.
I'm talking about that whole umbrella of Christianity.
And here's the thing.
Underneath that umbrella on this, you have works-based salvation.
Works-based salvation is like this interdenominational doctrine that just,
it crosses all, all, you know, it goes into every single one of these denominations.
And that's why, and that's, and it's important to preach this because of the fact that
we're seeing more and more of this cross over into different denominations.
I mean, we're running into Baptists now who are saying things like,
oh, you know, you got to do works.
You got to live a good life.
You know, you got to repent of your sins, right?
We'll talk about that in a minute.
You got to do all these other good works to earn your way.
Yeah, it's by faith.
But he also, you know, I'm hearing Protestant people and even Baptists who are saying,
you know, well, faith without works is dead.
I'm like, are you Mormon?
That's what Mormons say.
Or Mormons say repent of your sins.
Mormons say that, you know, faith without works is dead.
That you have to have faith plus works.
Well, that's not by grace then.
It can't be both.
You know, if it's both, then, you know, if it be grace, then it is no more of works.
Otherwise grace is no more grace.
But if it be of works, then it is no more of grace.
Otherwise work is no more work.
I mean, Paul just makes it clear in Romans chapter 11, verse 5.
He just says, look, it's either by grace or it's by works, but it can't be both.
So when you hear somebody that's saying, hey, it's by grace and by works, they're wrong.
That is unscriptural.
It's one or the other.
And we know Galatians 2, that we're saved by grace through faith and that not ourselves.
It is the gift of God, not of works.
We know that Abraham was justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
It's without works.
Works has nothing to do with your salvation.
But those are the two major religions that are in the world today.
You have that which is by faith and that which is of works.
And one particular, you know, doctrine that I want to touch on tonight
is this doctrine of repenting of your sins.
Repent of your sins is a work-based salvation.
Now let me just go ahead and put a little asterisk on that.
Not every person that says the words you have to repent of your sins is unsaved.
I don't believe that for several reasons.
One, a lot of them don't even know what they're saying.
A lot of people are just repeating that phrase.
They just heard it so many times from pulpits.
They've heard it from so many different places that when you say, hey, what do you got to do
to go to heaven?
They'll say, well, you got to believe on the Lord and repent of your sin.
They don't even understand the words that are coming out of their mouth.
They're just saying that, okay?
Now there are people out there that say, yeah, you have to repent of your sin.
People that say, well, you know, I would lead this guy to the Lord,
but, you know, he's got multiple wives.
And so until he's ready to give up his multiple wives,
I'm not going to lead him to the Lord.
You know, that's kind of foreign to us here.
But, you know, over in other countries, that's something you have to deal with.
Say, oh, I would lead this guy to the Lord, but, you know, he's a drunk.
So, you know, I'm just going to step back and let the Holy Spirit minister until he's
ready to quit his sin, and then I'll preach him the gospel.
People that believe that, that you have to give up some sin
in order to get saved are not saved.
That is a false gospel.
That's not the gospel.
The gospel is by belief.
I mean, that is the book of John.
I mean, the book of John is a book that's given to us that we might believe.
These things were written unto us that we might believe.
And we might have salvation.
And that's a book that doesn't have anything to do with repent.
It doesn't even mention the word.
And then people say, well, you can't just isolate one book.
Well, what about if I, you know, what if it's a book that's specifically said
that it's written so that we might be saved?
I mean, don't you think John kind of dropped the ball if he forgot to mention repentance
when he's writing a book about how to get saved?
And we'll look at the other scriptures.
We'll look at some of their favorite passages that a lot of them just, you know,
knee jerk return to and quote and just say, oh, it says repent there.
You know, obviously it means repenting your sins.
That's not a phrase that's found in scripture, first of all.
You know, you have to understand repentance within the context of scripture,
the context within which it is used.
You can't just, you know, say repent and say,
well, it means you got to repent of your sins.
That's not true.
It's not true.
For example, if you want to go over to, let's see where should Abby go.
Go over to Jonah chapter three, Jonah chapter three.
Jonah chapter number three.
Look, if you're going to say repenting your sins,
you have to understand that what you're teaching is,
is that there's something you have to do besides believe in order to get saved.
That there's some sin you have to give up and say,
well, the Bible teaches repent.
The Bible uses the word repentance.
Yeah, no one's denying that.
No one's denying that.
People say, well, John, you know, John the Baptist, he preached repentance.
Jesus, he preached repentance.
Paul, he preached repentance.
You know, Peter, all of them.
Amen.
They did.
I'm not afraid of that word because I understand how it's used in scripture
and what it actually means.
It doesn't mean repent of your sins every time it just says repent.
For example, you know, God does and does not repent.
You know, God does repent and there's also passages where God does not repent.
It says in Numbers 23, God is not a man that he should lie,
neither the son of man that he should repent.
You know, God's not, he's not one that should repent.
Hath he said that he shall not do it or hath he spoken that he shall not make it good?
There's a lot of times when God has said,
look, I'm going to do evil, but I'll repent.
Or I'm doing evil and I'll repent of the evil and I'll do you good.
That's all throughout scripture.
Deuteronomy 23, for the Lord shall judge his people and repent himself of his servants.
So here's two passages where you have where God is repenting
and where God is not repenting.
So which is it?
Well, it all depends on the context.
And, you know, God repents more than anybody in scripture.
I mean, go look up the repent and see who's doing the repenting the most in the Bible.
So it cannot mean that every time you just turn to the word repent,
that means that it's some kind of sorrow for sin,
for this deep remorseful, you know, feeling for sin.
And look, people get carried away with this stuff.
You get into these holiness preachers from the back in the 1800s
where they think that if you want to get saved, you have to come to the front row
and you have to sit on this wooden bench called the mourner's bench.
And you have to sit there until we feel like, you know, you've done enough penance.
What are we, Catholics now?
It's ridiculous.
And people want to lift up these guys like Charles Finney.
Like they're some great hero of the Baptist faith.
They're not even Baptist.
They want to get up in their pulpits, independent fundamental Baptists.
They want to get up in their pulpits and start reading people like Leonard Ravenhill,
a holiness preacher who's a Pentecostal, tongue-tucking Pentecostal,
that's hanging out in some seminary in Texas somewhere just writing a bunch of books
from his ivory tower about how holy he is and how everybody else just needs to get holy.
It's a bunch of garbage.
They're selling this junk in their Bible colleges, in their bookstores,
and they're teaching rank heresy that is not biblical.
I reject it out of hand.
You'll never convince me that a person has to repent of some sin in their life
in order to get saved.
It's not in scripture.
It might be in your book that some heretic wrote.
It might be in your book, you know, your favorite Pentecostal author might have written it,
but it's not in the Bible, friend.
You know, God repents more than anybody, and so what does it mean?
If God's doing all the repenting, what does that mean?
It means we must understand, we have to understand what does that word repent even mean?
You know, it's not a word we use a lot.
It used to be, you know, with something that was in the modern vernacular a little bit more,
but it simply means to turn.
And look, I don't feel like this is a very hard concept to grasp.
Repent means to turn.
Can we close our Bibles and go home?
You know, once you go home and read your Bible and with that understanding,
it's pretty obvious, you know, that salvation is by grace,
that you don't have some great conflict in the scripture, some contradiction.
I know, where did I have you go?
You went to Jonah?
You know, turn back with me to Exodus chapter 13.
Exodus chapter 13.
Keep something in Jonah, we'll go there, but go to Exodus chapter 13.
Repent simply means to turn.
Let's look at the first instance in which the word is used.
You know, that's a great way to study your Bible.
If you're struggling with the word, just look it up.
You know, we've all got these smartphones with Bible concordances on them.
We've got software that can just look up any word, any rendering of a word that you want.
Repent, repentance, repenting, repented.
You can look these things up in a matter of minutes and understand what they say.
And a great thing to do is just to go back and look at the Bible's built-in dictionary
and just go to the law, you know, obey the law of first mention.
How did the Bible use this word and the first time you used it?
And that usually, you know, gives you a good understanding of what that word means.
So let's look at repent.
It says in Exodus chapter 13 verse 17,
and it came to pass when Pharaoh had let the people go,
that God let them not through the way of the land of the Philistines,
although that was near.
Why did God not let them go through the land of the Philistines?
He's saying, look, that would have been convenient.
That would have been easy.
Just go up through the land of the Philistines, right?
For God said, lest peradventure, that when the people repent, when they see word.
I thought God wanted everybody to repent because repenting,
you know, repent just means turn from your sins.
We all know that, right?
Yeah, here's a verse where God's saying he did not want the people to repent.
That's because repent doesn't mean repent of your sins.
It means turn, that's it.
To turn back, to turn around, repent.
Lest the people, peradventure, the people repent when they see war
and they return to Egypt.
Go to Exodus chapter 32, Exodus chapter number 32.
The Bible says in Jeremiah 4,
for thus saith the Lord, the whole land shall be desolate,
yet I will not make a full end.
For this shall the earth mourn and the heavens above be black,
because I have spoken it, I have purposed it and will not repent,
neither will I turn back from it.
So there's another great verse in the Bible that shows us
that the word repent simply means to turn.
It simply means to turn.
It's not this, everyone wants to tag on these words on the end of this word repent.
Repent of your sins.
They just want to read the scripture and every time the word repent is there,
they just think, oh, it means repenting of your sins.
Yet God is doing the most repenting than anybody
and we've got these passages that are showing us clear as day
that repent is just somebody turning back from the direction that they were going.
You're in Exodus chapter 32, look at verse 12.
He said, wherefore should the Egyptians speak and say for mischief did he bring them out
to slay them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth?
Turn from thy fierce wrath and repent of this evil against thy people.
So here he's telling God to turn from his fierce wrath, to turn and to repent.
So it's that simple, folks.
Has everybody got it?
Has everyone grasped that?
I mean, do we need to go on and on about what it actually means?
Say, well, that's Old Testament.
You know, the New Testament, all these Baptist, you know, not Baptist,
all these preachers, you know, they preached repentance from sin.
Well, let's look what they actually preached.
Let's look at the context of scripture and get what it actually is saying.
In Matthew chapter three, it says in verse one, did I have you go there in Matthew three?
You need to go there if you're not there.
Matthew chapter three and verse one.
They'll say, oh, well, you know, again, we're not against preaching against,
we're not against repentance.
Look, do I think people should repent from sin?
Sure, I do.
I think we should all do it every day of our life.
We got some sin in our life, we need to turn from that sin.
We need to repent from it.
You know, we need to walk in holiness and newness of life.
We need to live for the Lord.
We need to get the sin out of our life.
We need to repent.
But do I think that we need to repent in order to be saved, in order to go to heaven?
No, I do not believe that.
The Bible doesn't teach that.
Now, you know, the Mormon writings, they teach that.
You need to repent of your sins.
You'll find that phrase in their writings.
Matthew chapter three, verse one, it says in those days came John the Baptist
preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying,
Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Aha!
See, there, now we got you.
John preached repentance.
Got you, right?
Well, go to Matthew 21.
What exactly was John preaching when he preached repentance?
So was he saying turn from your sin?
And it turns into this really gray area when you start to say things,
well, you got to repent to your sin.
Well, how much sin do I have to repent of?
What specific sins do I need to repent of?
Well, if you're drunk, you got to quit drinking.
Well, what if I just, you know, drink every once in a while?
Is that enough repenting?
It turns into this gray area, okay?
Now, John did preach repent, didn't he?
He said that word, repent.
But let's define his preaching.
What was it that he preached?
Look at Matthew 21.
Is that where you are?
Matthew 21 and verse 28.
But what think ye?
A certain man had two sons and he came to the first and said,
Son, go to work today in my vineyard.
And he answered and said, I will not.
But afterward he repented and went.
It's another great definition of that word.
He was going one way and he repented and went the other way.
Okay, that's all it means.
And he came to the second and said, likewise.
And he answered and said, I go, sir, and went not.
Whether of them twain did the will of his father.
They say unto him, the first, Jesus saith unto them,
verily I say unto you that the publicans and the harlots
go into the kingdom of God before you.
And what I always love about this is that
that's what Jesus calls them in the present tense.
He didn't say those that used to be publicans
and those that were harlots until they got right with God.
He says, no, they are publicans and they are harlots
and they are going into the kingdom of God before you.
Why?
Why are these wicked people with these sins,
these wicked sins, I mean, a harlot, that's pretty wicked.
Why is she going to go ahead into the kingdom of God
ahead of the Pharisees against these religious people
who trust in their own works that they're righteous?
It's because they believed the preaching of John the Baptist.
They believed and understood what it meant to repent,
biblically.
He said there, verily I say unto you that the publicans
and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you,
for John came unto you in the way of righteousness
and ye believed him not.
So they heard the preaching of John and they believed him not.
That there was one coming after him that was mightier than he.
That he was prepared, he was the voice of the one crying
in the wilderness, making the path of the Lord straight.
He didn't believe that he was prophesying of Christ,
that he was the one that was to come before the Messiah.
They didn't believe that.
That's what they rejected.
They rejected his preaching.
They did not believe him, for John came unto you
in the way of righteousness and ye believed him not.
But the publicans and the harlots believed him
and ye, when ye had seen it, when they said,
when you came and you saw the preaching of John the Baptist
and you saw the harlots and the publicans believe him,
it says there, when ye had seen it, repented not afterward
that what?
That you might believe.
Now who had the most sin?
I mean just reading this on the surface,
if you just didn't really know a lot about the Pharisees
and things like that, if you're just kind of reading over this,
who do you think had more sin to repent of?
The harlots or the religious crowd?
You would probably say the harlots, wouldn't you?
Wouldn't you think that they would be,
if you're a harlot, that's probably not the only thing
you're into.
You know, if you're a publican and just stealing and robbing
and cheating people and lying, you know,
you're probably into some other stuff.
You probably got a lot of other sin in your life.
A little leavened, leavened at the whole lump.
But he's saying, look, they repented and when ye saw that,
that their repentance, ye repented not afterward
that what?
That you might believe him.
Do you see how the repentance that needs to take place there
is not repentance of sin, but it's repentance of having
to believe what he said, to believe the preaching of John?
So when John came and preached the gospel of repentance,
what was he preaching?
Get the sin out of your life or was he preaching,
believe on Christ?
Because again, there's only two religions in this world,
faith and works.
That's it.
Those are the only two religions in the world.
A lot of, you know, a lot of religions fall under that
umbrella of works, but when you boil it all down,
it's really just Cain and Abel.
It's the work of the field, the work of Cain's hands,
and Abel's offering, which is the offering of the blood
of the lamb.
It's two work.
It's two religions.
That's it.
Go to Acts chapter 19.
We'll keep looking at John's preaching.
John's definition of repent.
What was he preaching when he preached that people needed
to repent?
That they needed to quit going to the bar.
Now, look, should people quit going to the bar?
Yeah, they should.
Should people quit being harlots and quit being thieves
and quit being drunks and quit being adulterers
and fornicators?
Yeah, and, you know, we get accused of this all the time.
Oh, you preach that easy believism.
Well, last I checked, believing was pretty easy.
And you throw that back in their face and they go,
oh, what I meant was you believe in this quick prayerism.
No, we don't.
How do you know that?
Do you follow me around when I go soul winning?
Now, are there people out there that preach, you know,
a one, two, three, repeat after me gospel?
Yeah, but it's not me.
It's not how we train people in this church.
We're thorough.
We'll take 10, 15, 20, 30.
I've seen people 45 an hour long to take somebody aside
and show them from the Bible that they need to believe on Christ.
Make sure they understand that they're a sinner,
that they deserve to go to hell, that Jesus is God,
that he died for their sins, was buried and rose again,
that once they're saved, they're always saved,
that they can't lose it.
You know, a lot of Baptists like to tag that on after the fact.
We're even more thorough than them.
So no, we don't believe in a quick prayerism.
I mean, yeah, we pray a brief prayer with people that believe,
that have changed their mind.
You know, I always ask the question, you know,
what do you believe you have to do to go to heaven?
And a lot of times people change their mind.
They say, well, when you got here,
I believe that it was by being a good person,
by keeping the commandments.
But from what you showed me in the Bible,
I think it's just all by faith.
Well, let's pray.
I mean, how long a prayer do I have to pray with that person?
Is there like a certain amount?
We need to start a stopwatch?
Do I get to get my silent partner a stopwatch
and like let it count down?
Ding, ding, ding, ding.
That's enough prayer.
We want to be accused of quick prayerism.
Look, if it's from the heart, you know,
what do the public can say?
Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.
One sentence.
Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.
That sounds like a good prayer to me.
Are you in Acts 19?
Acts 19, verse one.
And it came to pass that while Paul was at Corinth,
Paul having passed through the upper coast came to Ephesus
and finding certain disciples, he said unto them,
have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed?
And they said unto him, we have not so much as heard
whether there be any Holy Ghost.
And he said unto them, unto what then were you baptized?
And they said unto John's baptism.
Then said Paul, so he got the apostle Paul,
who's going to define for us what John the Baptist preached
when he preached the baptism of repentance.
John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance,
saying unto the people that they should believe on him
which should come after him.
That is on Christ Jesus, period.
That was what he preached.
That is the repentance that he preached.
To go from not believing on Christ to believing on Christ.
That's the only repentance that needs to take place
in a person's heart in order for them to get saved.
Otherwise salvation is not by grace.
Otherwise it is by works.
But you can't have both, okay?
Because if there's something I have to do
in order to go to heaven besides believe,
then it's by works.
You know, we use the illustration all the time.
Hey, if I gave you this as a gift, this Bible's a gift,
but I only asked for a penny, is it a gift?
No, I mean it's leather bound, it's nice.
Might be a good deal.
It's not a gift, okay?
Go over to Acts chapter 20, Acts chapter 20.
Mark chapter one, the Bible reads,
now after that John was put in prison,
Jesus came into Galilee and preaching the gospel
of the kingdom of God saying,
the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand,
repent ye.
And a lot of people just like put a period there
and just say, well, there you have it.
Jesus preached repentance.
We clearly, we all have to turn from our sin to be saved.
No, he said repent ye and believe the gospel.
And that repentance that has to take place
is believing the gospel.
I mean, is that what we just read in these other passages?
That they needed to turn and to believe on Christ?
But a lot of preachers I've heard,
they wanna get up and they wanna separate that
into two different things.
They would say, oh, it's all by faith,
but you also have to repent.
It's the same thing.
The repentance that has to take place is belief.
Going from unbelief to belief is the repentance
that needs to take place in a person's heart
in order to get saved.
Acts chapter 20, verse 20.
And now I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you,
but have showed you and have taught you publicly
and from house to house, testifying both to the Jews
and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God
and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
And it's amazing to me how many,
I've heard preachers turn to this passage and say,
well, see, it's two different things.
You gotta believe,
but you gotta have repentance towards God.
They wanna separate the repentance towards God
and the faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
Well, here's the thing.
If you wanna separate faith and repentance
into two different things,
what else are you gonna separate in this passage?
Should we say separate God from the Lord Jesus Christ?
Should we say those are two different things?
That's the same logic you're using.
You're reading that into the scripture.
Well, that's two different things.
Okay, well, what's next, Jesus Christ isn't God?
They would never deny that, right?
They would say, amen, yeah, he is God.
But look, if repentance and faith aren't the same thing,
what's next, Jesus and God aren't the same thing?
No, the repentance toward God
is the faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's what the repentance towards God is.
To say I don't believe the record
that God gave us of his son
to I do believe the record that God gave us of his son.
Go over to Luke chapter 13, Luke chapter 13.
And I'm gonna touch on this one before I wrap up
just because I hear these guys that wanna promote
a false gospel of repenting your sins
and they wanna criticize people that preach
what I'm preaching right now.
And they turn to this passage
and the fact that they cannot grasp
what this passage is saying
just tells me that they're not saved.
It just tells me that they have not the spirit of God
because this is such a basic thing.
And okay, we'll just read it before I go off here.
Luke chapter 13, there verse one.
Therefore, there were present at that season
some that told him of the Galileans
whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.
Now the Galileans were just people
that were from the region of Galilee, right?
Like Jesus of Galilee, right?
It was just that northern portion of Palestine.
So these are Jews.
And he told them of the Galileans whose blood,
so Pilate took the blood of these people.
We don't know the whole story here
but it sounds pretty gruesome, doesn't it?
Pilate takes their blood that was mingled
and mingles it with their sacrifices.
And he's basically just committing abomination.
He's just defiling, just mocking their religion, right?
It's a pretty wicked thing to do.
And Jesus answering and said to them,
suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners
above all, were above all,
suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners
above all of the Galileans
because they suffered such things?
I tell you nay, but except ye repent,
ye shall all likewise perish.
And people wanna turn that and say, aha.
See, if you don't repent, you're going to perish.
And he says, or those 18 upon whom the tower in Siloam
fell and slew them, think ye that they were sinners
above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem?
I tell you nay, but except they repent,
ye shall all likewise perish.
Now there's one little word in this passage
that you have to get and it's likewise.
It's the word likewise.
That's a significant word in this passage.
The word likewise is significant
because of the fact all it means is in the same manner.
In the same manner.
He's saying, look, if you don't repent,
ye shall in the same manner perish.
Now how did these people that they're referring to perish?
How did the Galileans perish?
How did those upon whom the tower in Siloam fall perish?
They were killed by the Romans, right?
That's what happened there.
The Galileans had their blood mingled
with their sacrifices by Pilate, the Roman,
the Roman ruler.
Those in the tower in Siloam, it fell and slew them.
They were killed by Romans.
And he's talking specific about the tower falling
and the bricks crumbling.
Then Jesus prophesied that there should not one stone
be left upon another.
And he talked about that temple.
And he's saying, except ye repent,
ye shall all likewise perish, your whole nation.
You think that just the people in Galilee were bad
and that that's the only reason it happened?
He's saying, look, your whole nation's
going to be destroyed, except ye repent and do what?
And believe on me.
Not, oh, you're such a bad sinner and if you don't repent
of that sin, you're going to perish.
What he's saying in this passage is that if these people
in Jerusalem did not believe on Christ,
that God was going to judge their city and destroy it.
And that's exactly what happened.
The Romans came in 70 AD and spilled their blood
and tore down their temple.
Just like the tower of Siloam and just like the Galileans
who had their blood shed.
That's what the word likewise means in the same manner.
And look, people, they can't grasp what this passage
is saying and hopefully I'm doing a good enough job
of explaining it, but I think it's pretty basic.
It's a pretty simple thing.
And I've had people look at me and I've explained this to,
I've said, well, what about, they said, well,
except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
And I've said, well, this is what it means likewise.
And they just go, let me just give you a look like this,
like this condescending, puffed up, arrogant look.
Like you idiot.
I'm thinking you idiot.
Don't you know what likewise means?
Don't you understand that it means in the same manner?
Is this really that hard to grasp?
And look, when people want to stick to their guns on this
and they read that and they can't understand
that likewise means in the same way,
they can't grasp what Jesus is saying here,
that if they don't repent and believe on Christ,
that they're all gonna likewise perish?
You know what that tells me is that they're probably
in all likelihood just not even saved.
You say, well, what makes you say that?
Because unsaved people can't hear God's word.
I mean, that's what Jesus said.
That's what 1 Corinthians said,
but the natural man receiveth not the things
of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them,
for they are spiritually discerned.
They are foolish to son to him, the Bible says.
Neither can he know them,
because they are spiritually discerned.
The Bible teaches you have to have
the Spirit of God to understand it.
And when someone turns to a passage like that
that we just read about that, you know,
likewise perish, and they say,
they choke on that, I'm going, that is so simple.
You can't grasp that, I wonder if you're even saved.
We say, well, I don't know about that.
Well, Jesus said, why do you not even understand my speech?
Even because he cannot hear my word.
Jesus said there's some people that cannot hear his word.
Because they have no light in them.
He said, my sheep hear my voice,
and I know them, and they follow me.
So there you have another, you know,
example where people want to just take this word repent,
and rip it out of the context,
and just attach these magical words of
repent of your sin to it.
When we actually start to look at the context
and see what it says, the Bible's very clear
that repent just means turn.
And we all understand that to be saved,
all you have to do is to believe.
That's the repentance that has to take place
in a person's life.
You know, and I'm glad for that.
You know, and you say, well,
that must mean you like living a wicked life.
You must like sin so much you don't want to give up.
Actually, it's quite the opposite.
Actually, it makes me love God so much more
that I want to live for him so much more
that God made, for God so loved the world
that God commended his love toward us.
And that while we were yet sinners,
God didn't sit around and say,
clean up your life and I'll love you.
He said, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
And I say, man, the grace of God is so good.
God loves me so much that I don't have to repent of anything
that all I have to do is believe and he'll save me.
And that makes me want to live a godly life.
That makes me want to serve God.
Not out of some sense of, well,
I just don't want to go to hell.
I better work hard enough to make sure I don't go there.
I'm going to make sure I repent enough sin
so I don't go to hell.
I don't believe that for a second.
I want to serve God and love God because he died for me,
because he saved me out of his own grace
and by his own mercy,
and that there's nothing that I have to do
in order to go to heaven other than believe.
It makes me love God more, not less.
Makes me want to get more sin out of my life.
I've probably repented of more sin
than these Baptist preachers that want to get up
and preach this nonsense than they have.
I've seen these guys preach this stuff.
They end up committing adultery with their own church members.
They end up being drunks and washouts.
It's a joke.
I've repented of more sin from them.
I don't even believe you got to repent of your sin
to go to heaven.
A bunch of garbage.
And people want to throw, you say you're fired up,
but yeah, because that's the criticism
that gets leveled at us.
That we get told we're preaching a false gospel.
You know, we're out there spending hours.
We got guys going out today, 111 degrees,
going out into neighborhoods
that other people don't even want to go near,
that aren't interested in, that they don't care about,
knock on their doors, sweating,
trying to preach them the gospel of salvation.
And you're going to tell me that's a false gospel.
I'm going to stand up for the gospel
that we preach in this church.
Let's go over to Isaiah chapter 64.
We'll wrap it up there.
Isaiah chapter 64.
Because this is the thing about this
repent your sin doctrine that really gets me going
is that when you really boil it down
and you see that there's two,
there's basically two religions in this world.
There's people that believe it's all by grace
and there's people that believe it's by works.
And when people are saying that there's some kind of work
that you have to do to go to heaven,
you're sitting there, you're going to say,
like I mentioned earlier,
you're going to add something to the blood of Christ.
Well, I know the blood of Christ, you know,
was shed for my sins,
but let me just add something to it.
That's so proud, that's so proud, proudful, prideful.
There's so much pride in that statement.
So they're saying,
I'm going to add something to what Christ did for me.
You know what it is?
It's a filthy rag.
And if people want to believe
that you got to repent your sins and go to heaven,
you know what, go ahead and believe that.
And on the judgment day,
I'll stand before almighty God and just say,
you paid it all, you paid it all.
And people can hold up whatever filthy rag they want
and say, well, I quit drinking.
Oh, I quit looking at porn.
Oh, I quit, you know, smoking.
You can hold up whatever filthy rag you want
in front of God and say, and blood of Christ.
And just insult God.
Isaiah chapter 64 verse six.
But we all are as an unclean thing.
You know, we're already unclean.
You know, we're already condemned.
We're already condemned because we're sinners.
How are you going to outwork all the sin you already did?
And that's what people are saying.
I'm going to repent of my sin.
Oh, you're going to outwork all the other sin
that you've already committed.
But we are all as an unclean thing
and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.
Every little thing that you can hold up and say,
oh, this is my righteousness,
God looks at it and says, filthy rag.
You know, even the good things that we do,
even if you want to just be honest,
when you want to talk in terms of comparison,
my Bible reading compared to the precious blood of Christ,
filthy rag.
My prayer life compared to the precious blood of the lamb,
filthy rag.
My, you know, my soul winning, my church attendance,
my clean life compared to the land that was slain
before the foundation of the world, filthy rag.
I'm not going to stand in front of God on judgment day
and test, you know, wave some rag in front of him
and say, well, thanks for the blood,
but I got a little something too for you.
I brought a little something to the table, God.
Nonsense.
You know, and I just wanted to preach that
because, you know, this is something that's taking off.
You know, we're seeing more and more of it
as we go out there.
And it used to be you just heard it from the Mormons.
It used to be you just heard it from the Catholics.
You got to repent.
But now I'm, you know, I'm in the Bible belt the other day
out in, you know, Oklahoma of all places.
And I'm talking to people who claim to be Baptists
who believe that salvation is all by grace through faith.
And now they're starting to say things like,
well, faith without works is dead.
Oh, you got to repent of your sin.
You know, that's why we need to preach this.
You know, get up and we, you know,
we need to not let these things slip.
We need to stand for, you know, the true gospel.
Because it's, you know, the devil is attacking.
He wants to snuff out the light of the gospel in this world.
He doesn't want people to get saved.
He doesn't want them to go to heaven.
He wants to take them to hell.
So what's he going to do?
He's going to mix a little bit of air
in with the truth, isn't he?
You know, rat poison is 99% harmless.
It's that little bit that gets you.
So that's why we need to preach it, you know.
And thank God, thank God that my salvation
has nothing to do with my own works.
Otherwise, you know, if it was about me repenting of sin,
I'd never make it.
Because every day I wake up, I have sin to repent of.
Every day I get out of bed, there's some sin
that I have to get, you know, I have to turn from.
And we should do that, you know, to live a godly life
and God can bless us.
But you know what, when it comes to heaven,
God already knows that none of us could.
You know, people are going to say,
oh, you got to repent of your sin.
It's like, you know they've got sins
they haven't repented of.
Let's go ahead and pray.