(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Alright, so I'm continuing to do sermons that are on core doctrines. Tonight I'm going to be doing a sermon that's dealing with the peculiar people, as I mentioned before, continuing on along those lines. But this morning, or this afternoon, we're gonna be, I'm gonna be preaching or teaching on the subject of salvation again. Now I taught on once saved always saved a few weeks back, and of course that's a very critical doctrine, but another doctrine that goes hand-in-hand with that is this the concept of repentance and what repel repentance relates to salvation. And there's a lot of confusion about this, so there's a lot of heresy and false teaching out there regarding this subject. Now you may be thinking, Pastor Berzins, I know this inside and out. I know the repentance issue, and amen and amen. I just want to mention this right off the bat because especially as we're going through some of the fundamental doctrines, if you're, if you're more spiritually grown, you've been around for a while, you know, you can't expect to just hear something brand-new like every time you come to church. And actually if you did, I'd be a little bit worried about what that church is teaching because you don't want to go somewhere where everything's just brand new. Wow, I've never heard that before, never heard that before, right? Because that's how you're gonna find yourself in false doctrine and false teaching. These are very old ancient truths. They're established, they're tried, they're true. These are real fundamental and basic, but one thing hopefully you could get away from this is just some extra verses, maybe something you haven't really thought of before, or at the very least you can use your notes on the back and just mark down a couple of references that I'm gonna go to because we've got lots of places in the Bible to prove this. And this is actually a very big hang-up for a lot of people when you're out preaching the gospel. I just experienced this yesterday. Now thankfully the guys I preached to, he ended up getting saved. But one of the things that he brought up was this repentance issue. And he kind of gave the right answer at first, but then he was like, you know, when I gave him an example of what happens if somebody puts their faith in Christ, but then later on they sin, they do something real bad, and they die. And he's like, well, you know, they would have needed to repent of that. They need to repent of that sin or else they're not going to make it to heaven. And this is a common belief that a lot of people have. And I'll tell you right now, if someone believes that you have to repent of any sins of, you know, specific sins or really bad sins, that person is not saved. And I'm going to prove it to you this afternoon that that is a works-based salvation. And we're going to use the Bible as our source. The Bible is our definition for these words. And we want to be very careful that we're always using very clear terminology when we preach the gospel and very accurate terminology for that matter as well. You know, a lot of people use phrases like, oh, I invited Jesus into my heart. Now, that can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people. It's not very clear. Now, if someone uses that terminology, especially when I'm out soloing, I mean, it's not like it's just awful. But we just want to be very careful that we are going to be very clear when we try to present the gospel to other people. And you always need to make sure when someone makes a statement like that that you dig deeper and try to figure out what is it exactly that they mean by that. And even as we go through this, if someone tells you you have to repent of your sins to be saved, dig deeper. Because there's actually a lot of people who are saved that will say that statement. They'll make that statement because they've heard it over and over and over and over and over and over again. But when you really ask them what their beliefs are, they don't believe that you have to like give up your sins in order to be saved. They don't think you have to do that. They are actually trusting in Jesus Christ. But when you hear something that's repeated, repeated, repeated, it's gonna get drilled into your head, you end up repeating a lot of the things that you hear. So we're gonna dig into this. We're starting off here in Genesis chapter 6. It's actually the very first mention of repent or repented or repenting, you know, any form of the word repent in the Bible is found here in Genesis chapter 6. And it's very interesting because the very first mention, it's talking about God repenting. I think the most common misconception that people have about the word repent is that they automatically assume if you just ask someone to define repent, just your average person out there, average churchgoer, what they're gonna probably tell you is to turn from your sins. Define repent for me. Turn from your sins. And they automatically associate the word repent with turning from sin. And that's false. The word repent most basically and literally means to rethink. And I brought this up in a previous sermon, you know, if you know any other foreign languages, there's a root word has come from that pent. And like in Spanish it's pensar. And I know there's other languages, Germanic languages, that'll have a similar type of a root to it. I'm not fluent in any other languages. But I've seen them before. I've seen the references and they all mean to think. Like in Spanish I know pensar means to think. And here even in English if someone's a pensive person, it means they're thoughtful. So the root word of this just is from to think. And when you repent, you're rethinking. You're thinking, again, you're changing your mind about something. Now depending on how you use it in the context, repentance is necessary for salvation. We're gonna get into that in a little bit. But I want to start just kind of showing you that in order to understand what this word means, we always have to get it in context. And try to stress that when you if you have to explain this to somebody who believes you have to return from their sins or repent of their sins. That because it's been drilled into their heads so much that repent means turn from sins, you have to show them no, repent by itself doesn't have anything to do with sin. In some contexts it does have to do with sin, but in many contexts it has nothing to do with sin. And in Genesis chapter 6 is one of those instances it has nothing to do with sin. Look at verse number 6. The Bible says and it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him at his heart. So in Genesis 6 we start to see, you know, people becoming wicked. He created Adam and Eve and they have their generations and generations are passing now in between Adam and Eve and Noah. And during this time span people are getting really wicked in their heart. They're only doing wicked kind of like continually. They're having just evil thoughts and they've turned really wicked in a relatively short period of time. Just hundreds of years are going by and God's just kind of upset now. He's grieved. He's upset. He's sad and he's thinking like, I shouldn't have even made man. I shouldn't even created man because this is what's happening. That's the way the Word is being used. It repented the Lord. He's kind of changing his mind now like, I almost wish I didn't make man because this is what's happening. This is what they're turning out to do. Verse number seven says, And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast and the creeping thing and the fowls of the air. For it repenteth me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. And I think this is very interesting that the very first mention of usage of repent, first of all, it's God that's repenting. It's God that's changing his mind. But the other thing is that it's it's also associated here with grace, and it's not associated with it, but it's contrasted with grace. It's not that repentance and grace are being tied together. It's that Noah is someone who's receiving grace. He's receiving grace by definition means it's something that you don't deserve, but you're given anyways. It's something that's extended to you. It's given to you undeservedly, unmeritedly. It's just offered for free, usually out of love or out of concern or, you know, just to do something nice. Just like when, you know, many of you have bills to pay, probably all of you have bills to pay, and usually with whatever bill it is you have to pay, whether it be a mortgage or rent or, you know, a utility bill, they give you a due date of, like, you know, the first of the month. But then they extend a grace period unto you that says, well, you know, we're not gonna charge you any extra fees. We're not gonna penalize you in any way during this grace period. So really you have until, like, the 14th or the 15th of the month or something like that, however long they want to extend to you, that's just grace. It's due on the first. You're supposed to have it in there on the first. But, you know, we're gonna allow you a little bit of extra time and just show you some grace. That's what grace is and what God's doing here. He's extending grace unto Noah and saving him because he wants to destroy all of mankind, but to Noah he's going to extend grace upon him. Now turn, if you would, over to Exodus chapter 13. We're gonna look at a few different usages of the word repent to help us to try to get a good solid definition. You say, Pastor Burns, I don't know if you're right about that that pensar thing and repent and rethink. Well, let's just look at these various usages in the Bible when it uses the word repent and see if it matches up with that definition, see if it actually holds water, if it makes sense. We already saw from this very first mention that turning from sin doesn't make sense as a definition because God is the one repenting and we know that God doesn't sin. The Bible says that the Lord is holy. Exodus 13 verse number 17, the Bible says, And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. For God said, lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt. What's interesting about this is that in this situation repentance actually would have been a bad thing. It's not a positive thing, it's not a good thing, it's not something he wanted them to do. And in the context we see what's happening in Exodus, the book of Exodus, it is the mass exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt. That's why it's called Exodus because it's all about Moses leading the children of Israel out of Egypt in the book of Exodus. This is after now all the plagues, you know, they've been delivered from Egypt and they're headed to the Promised Land. And the Bible's stating here, you know what, there was a path that was a much more direct route to get into the land of Canaan, but they would have had to go through the land of the Philistines. And you see basically what he's saying is here is that it was a lot closer, it would have been more convenient to go through the land of the Philistines, but since the children of Israel were so weak, they've been under the bondage, they've had all the stuff going on, he's saying I didn't want them to just be confronted with war right away after they've just gotten out of the slavery, you know, they've had all these these struggles, these difficulties, and now they got a face of battle. It's gonna be overwhelming for them and I don't want them just to say, well, instead of fighting this war and getting involved in this fight, we're just gonna go back into Egypt because at least we don't have to fight these big battles, we'll just go back into being slaves. And that's what it means, that's exactly what he's talking about where he says the people repent when they see war and they return to Egypt. So right now they have a mind of following the Lord and wanting to go on to the Promised Land, but if they were confronted with a war, God's saying, you know what, they might change their mind, they might repent and say, no, we're gonna go back this way, we're headed this way, now we're gonna go we're gonna go back over there. That would have been a bad thing. Turn if you go to Jeremiah chapter 4, and again in that Exodus 13, if the people were repenting, if they would have repented, they were not repenting from sin. They actually would have been repenting to sin because they'd be going back into Egypt. In Jeremiah chapter 4, there's another reference here that also has nothing to do with sin. Now there's a lot of references to the word repent, so don't worry, we're not going to go through all of them, there's over a hundred references, and it's a very interesting word study. And you know, I encourage you to do this if you want to learn more about particular subjects, word studies are great. You always got to be careful with that. I don't recommend if you've never even read through the Bible cover to cover one time, read the Bible first, you know, get through, make sure you understand, you understand context of what you're reading, and then start getting into the more deep studies. But if you've already been through your Bible, it's kind of familiar to you, you know, you know what each book is generally about, you know what the stories are, you could, you want to learn something about, you know, dig a little deeper, start doing, you could do start doing some of these studies and see for yourself all the various mentions and start to learn just more about them. Jeremiah 4 27, the Bible says, For thus hath the Lord said, so these are the words of God. Thus hath the Lord said, The whole land shall be desolate, yet will I not make a full end. For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens above be black, because I have spoken it. Who has spoken it? The Lord. I have purposed it. Who has purposed it? The Lord. And will not repent, neither will I turn back from it. So here's another example of God speaking, and he's saying, I will not repent. Is he talking about turning from his sins? No. Again, God doesn't have sins. He says, I have purposed it and will not repent. So he said, I've spoken it, this is my intention, this is my purpose, this is my mind, I'm headed this way, and I'm not gonna change my mind. I'm not gonna repent. I'm not gonna turn back from this direction, from this thought, from this plan. That is his purpose. So turn, if you would, now to Matthew chapter 3. We're gonna get into the New Testament. I just wanted to point out a few, and there's lots of examples very similar to these few that I pointed out. There's a lot more that basically will teach the same exact thing, but I didn't want to get, you know, just beat a dead horse, as it were, with with these examples, because you can you can get the concept very quickly. But the reason why I'm making an effort to teach on this subject is because there's a lot of people out there that teach you must repent in order to be saved. And then they'll tell you that repent means you're turning from your sin. And we've already demonstrated that now, definitely from the Old Testament, that just the word repent by itself doesn't mean you're turning from your sin. And I'm showing you that you have to watch out for this heretical false teaching and study the scripture to see if that's actually correct. It doesn't matter how many times someone repeats a phrase. You have to repent of your sins, repent of your sins, repent of your sins. It doesn't matter how many times they say it. What does the Bible say? That's what's the most important. What does scripture actually say? And the reason why people get away with this for so long is because the vast majority of people don't want to read their Bible. It's actually work to check on if what you're hearing is true or not. It requires effort on your part, but you know what doesn't require effort? I mean it requires very minimal effort just showing up to church and just let someone else just tell you everything about what the Bible says. And then you can just go home and just believe, well that person, you know, whatever they said I'm gonna believe it. They're the expert. Just they said it so it must be true. And you know this goes for not just Christianity, not just the Bible. I don't trust anybody inherently. You're gonna get yourself into trouble when you start just just trusting any so-called expert about anything. Now it doesn't mean that every expert's a liar, but there are liars out there. There are people who are misled. There are genuinely you know sincere people that are misled. I know what my own thoughts are on medical care and things like that. There are people out there that I believe are very sincere in what they prescribe as as you know good health, in medications and other things. They're very sincere. They wholeheartedly believe what they're trying to do for you, but I believe that in many cases they're actually harming you and not doing you good. This is one example why I don't always just trust an expert, a so-called expert, because they may be misled. You can have someone that might be a relative or a family friend that's a pastor or a preacher of a church and you might know them and be like, this person's sincere. It may be your own parent and they say they would never want to lead me astray and you know what I might believe that they might not want to lead you astray. There may be some very sincere Muslims in this world that actually love their children and they think they're doing good by teaching them Islam. I'm sure there's people out there like that. There's many Catholics out there that have this sincere belief. They think it's right. They think it's true, but they're wrong. They're deceived. It's not the truth. So you can't just go and trust what anybody says just because they're your mom or just because they're your dad or just because they're an expert or just because they're a priest or just because you know whatever it is. We need to do our best and do our diligence to search things out for ourself. Now obviously there's only so many hours in a day and there's only so much you can really check on every single thing that you hear. That's why you need to prioritize what are the most important things and I would say you know health is pretty important but your soul and your spirit and what's gonna happen that's the most important. You're teaching what what's right and wrong. Morality, heaven, hell. These are the most important things in this life because it's gonna affect you for eternity. So we need dead sure need to make sure that we're that we're getting this right that we're right on this. Not only are there some people who are confused that are sincere but there's also a lot of people who are wicked people and I don't care about you. They don't care about other people. They care about themselves only. There's a lot of wolves out there that wear sheep's clothing. They try to look real good on the outside but on the inside they're full of wickedness and evil and destruction and all they care about is themselves and they don't care who they hurt in the process but they're gonna put up the front as long as they can to make more money to deceive people. They don't care. They're wicked people and they exist and they go out and they spread these damnable heresies because they don't care. They have no integrity. They don't care about God. They actually many of them hate God and they're gonna lie to you for their own agenda. Another reason why you can't just accept everything that you hear. Check it out. Do a little bit of work. How important is it to you to just know what's right and wrong when it comes to these especially very important things like God and morality. What's right and what's wrong. Check it out for yourself. Now many people will hear sermons preached. They'll go to church and they'll say, oh well there's this guy he preached you have to repent of your sins to be saved and he used the Bible to do it. And again that'll be good enough for them. Now normally I've heard sermons like this. Usually you'll hear one verse or two verses and just a lot of talking. We're gonna look at a lot of verses today and I'm gonna bring up some of the verses that these people will use. But we're gonna look at it in context and especially the context of the whole Bible. Just about anything in the world can be taught out of the Bible when you just yank a verse here or yank a verse there and don't touch any of the surrounding context at all. You could practically make it say whatever you want it to say. There's enough written to be able to do that. But not when you look at it in context. You can't do it. We need to watch out for the fast talkers and let's get everything in context. It should be clear that just because the word repent is used it does not automatically have to do with sin. We've already established that. Now look at Matthew chapter 3. We're gonna look at some of these verses that the false prophets will use in order to say see look the Bible says you got to repent of your sins in order to be saved. You got to turn from all your sins in order to be saved. You say well where does the Bible say you have to do that? And they'll say well look at Matthew chapter number 3. John the Baptist taught this. Jesus taught this. They all taught you you have to repent of your sins and be saved. There are hard preachers out there. You have to repent of your sins. And they'll get people worked up and they'll repent of your sins and repeat it over and over again. And then they'll turn to Matthew 3 and say look at verse number one. The Bible 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. See John the Baptist taught you got to repent. Repent the kingdom of heaven is at hand. You got to turn from all your sins. And they'll add that in there over and over. See you got to repent. You got to turn from your sins. And they'll define it for you that way because they're deceiving you. Does that say anywhere there you have to turn from all your sins and be saved? Nope. When you look at what the scripture actually literally says, what did he say? Repent ye which means all of you. You do need to repent. Why? For the kingdom of heaven is at hand. What you don't see is what the repentance is in this context. So all by itself we're not given all of the information to understand the full context until you start reading and seeing what was John the Baptist ministry about? What was Jesus saying? What were they actually teaching? You take one sentence that says repent ye. You know it's easy to just throw in any context you want to say oh he's talking about your sins. But it doesn't say that. Turn over to Matthew chapter 4. Same page next page over. Matthew chapter 4. Look at verse number 17. Because they'll turn to this verse too. John the Baptist taught repentance and Jesus teaches repentance. Look at verse 17. From that time Jesus began to preach and say repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It's basically the same thing that John the Baptist said. They're saying the same thing and they are saying to repent. Now people who want to attack churches like ours and what we believe will say oh that's right they don't believe in repentance. I'll tell you right now I do believe in repentance. I absolutely believe in repentance but I believe in not being deceitful about what repentance even means and looking at the context about who we're talking about and what it and what it's referring to. One I believe in repenting of sins. I do. I believe everybody should repent of their sins. I believe everybody should live a righteous life. I believe everyone should follow all the commandments of the Lord perfectly without fail. I believe everyone should do that. But you know what I don't believe? I don't believe that any of that is required in order to be saved and go to heaven. Everybody should be perfect. That's why God gave commandments. He didn't give suggestions. He gave commandments because He expects us to do them and He wants us to do them and I want to do them and hopefully you want to do them too. I do believe when I do something wrong that I should I should not want to do that anymore and I should turn from that and try to do what's right. I believe in that but I don't believe that that's what's required in order to be saved, in order to receive eternal life, in order to receive everlasting life. And as we get in this we'll see exactly why and you know what I believe is that is exactly what the Bible says that in order to be saved you have to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. We use a very clear verses that literally will just tell you exactly what's required as opposed to verses that just say repent ye. It doesn't even it doesn't even say repent ye in order to go to heaven or repent ye in order to have eternal life. It doesn't even say that but even if it said that I wouldn't say that that's false but it doesn't even say that it just says repent ye because the kingdom of God's at hand. That's it. But they automatically are just going to tell you that means salvation they're automatically going to tell you that that means giving up a sinful life when it doesn't mention that at all in context. Turn to Matthew chapter 9. This is not now to get way more strong and from their perspective. Matthew chapter 9 we're gonna start reading verse number 10. And I have no problems turning to any scripture ever about what anyone teaches because I believe the whole Bible is true and I don't believe there's any contradictions so I'm not afraid to go to certain verses you know like if someone wants to try to teach you salvation by works and they want to turn to James chapter 2 and be like oh no I can't turn to James chapter 2 because that actually teaches work. No it doesn't. No it doesn't. I'm not afraid to teach to turn to any passage. I actually prefer to show the passages that people try to use to teach you false doctrine so that you could just hear it and see for yourself and just see oh yeah now if someone tries to come at me with this I actually have heard this before I understand the context I could see this and be like no you're not going to deceive me with with this teaching on repentance because that's not actually what the Bible is teaching right there. Matthew chapter 9 look at verse number 10 the Bible says it came to pass as Jesus sat at meat in the house behold many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples. So Jesus is having a meal with his disciples. Other people show up. Republicans, sinners, common people. Verse number 11 when the Pharisees saw it they said unto his disciples why eateth your master with publicans and sinners but when Jesus heard that he said unto them they that be whole need not a physician but they that are sick but go ye and learn what that meaneth I will have mercy and not sacrifice for I am not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. See he taught repentance. Yeah he did he did teach repentance and he is teaching repentance here but again does that say that he's telling these sinners that they have to turn from all of their sins in order to go to heaven because I don't see that in the scripture. He did preach repentance and he does you know what Jesus believed that they should turn from their sins he told the woman that was taken in adultery remember when when they were trying to trip Jesus up with his doctrines and his beliefs and then they're trying to get him to say something false and try to get him worth something they can accuse him by they brought this woman who is you know taken in adultery in the very act they're saying you know hey Moses said that she should be put to death but what do you say and they're trying to get them to do I'm not gonna get all that we're trying to get him to say that she should be stoned because the Roman government wouldn't let them execute people and put him to death and they're trying to then get him arrested by commanding that she should be put to death because it would have it would have been outside of their their realm of authority then they could have stopped Jesus by getting him arrested or they wanted to get him to say don't stoner and then say well now he's going against scripture that was their catch-22 they're trying to get him caught up and put him in a situation that he has no way out of but how did he answer them he said hey well he didn't say don't sorry says you that was out sin among you cast the first stone now obvious there's a lot my getting all the teaching about that and everything you can learn from that but he didn't say not the stoner he actually said in a way to do it but in a way not to do it he says okay go ahead and anyone of you without sin go ahead and cast the first stone go ahead and do it it was very wise thing for him to answer because he's not breaking God's laws and that's not why he came anyways into this world he didn't come to be the judge when Jesus Christ was on his earth he came to save to seek and save that which was lost that was his purpose that was his mission he didn't come to set up his kingdom he didn't come to establish all of God's laws and be the executor of those laws that's not why he came that wasn't his purpose and he wasn't gonna let anyone else derail him from what he was here to do now he is coming back and he is gonna set up his kingdom and his laws will be carried out and they will be executed as he commands them to be but that's not why he came the first time he came to be the Savior of the world he didn't come to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved again that's what the scripture says but what did he say to that woman when everyone left he said you know he says his no man condemned me she said no man he says go and sin no more Jesus taught for her not to sin anymore but just because he said that does that mean that well Jesus said not to sin anymore so that's what you have to do in order to be saved and go to heaven he didn't say that he didn't say you have to sin no more in order to heaven he said don't sin anymore which is good which is right which is true context is everything if you understand God's Word we have to understand the context so when he's sitting with people here in Matthew chapter 9 and they're sinners they need repentance they ought to stop sinning they ought to live righteously they need repentance and if you're talking about repentance of their sin that may not even be what he's referring to and I don't even think it is but even if you want even if you're using it in that capacity of saying well they need they need repentance because they're sinners and in regards to turning from their sin he still doesn't say they have to turn from all their sins in order to go to heaven in order to have eternal life it's not there another verse they'll use is in Mark chapter 6 or if you would to Luke 13 I want to explain Luke 13 real briefly because these are all passages that the the workspace salvation crowd is going to try to teach you mark 6 12 says and they went out and preached that men should repent again no context of what the repentance is from or anything like that just says men should repent okay amen Luke 13 Jesus gives an example here of some things that were happening at the time some some recent events that had happened in explaining a truth on that so look at verse number one of Luke 13 the Bible says there were present at that season some that told him of the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices so Pilate had done something apparently very wicked he's he's mixing the blood of these these people from Galilee they're Galileans right that's also where Jesus's disciples are from they're from Galilee they were Galileans right you remember in Acts chapter 2 when they're speaking with these other languages these other tongues and they're saying well wait a minute how can these people speak you know Arabia how could any of these people speak any of these other languages there aren't they all Galileans so they're bringing up he says look there were some Galileans that Pilate mix their own blood with their sacrifice like they're making these sacrifices and apparently Pilate killed them and mingled their blood with these sacrifices and just totally you know did abominable things and verse number two it says in Jesus answering said unto them suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans because they suffered such things so he's making a point unto me saying so are you telling me this because you think that those people they were just really wicked sinners that's why they had these bad things happen to them because that's basically what they're saying that's what they were thinking they're they're bringing up these examples and he's saying you know they had this thought that only you know only bad things are gonna happen to really wicked people and if you're doing what's right and good then nothing bad will ever happen it's the same mindset that job's friends had with job because job was going through all these bad things and he's bad events and he's the old curses are happening in his life his friend is a well you must be in some kind of wicked sin to be going through all this stuff you could apply the same answer from Jesus do you think that job was was more wicked than than any of the other people because that happened to him and then he answers on verse number three says I tell you nay so he said I tell you no they weren't any more wicked than anybody else when those events happen to them and he says but except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish first number four he continues or those 18 upon whom the tower and Siloam fell and slew them think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem I tell you nay but except ye repent you shall likewise perish and what's funny about this passage is that the people who believe you have to turn from all your sins to be sable look at Luke 13 see he's telling them if you don't repent then you're gonna perish you're gonna die and go to hell did he say that these people died and went to hell no use the word perish again the word perish in the context sometimes it's talking about people going to hell but the word perish literally by itself just is to die or to expire right I mean we have we have non perishable foods right those are foods that basically be preserved without dying without expiring without without going bad as opposed to perishable foods the word perish just literally means that to die to expired and to be no good any longer and what he says in this verse he says except you repent you shall likewise perish was likewise mean in the same manner in the same manner you say unless you repent that's gonna happen to you because they were thinking they were better than these other people saying no you're just as wicked as they were so unless you pretend this is gonna happen to you too again no mention of eternal life no mention of eternal damnation no mention of what it takes to be saved as far as your soul being saved now turn it to a mark chapter 1 I brought up some of these verses in the beginning about John the Baptist preaching repent ye and Jesus preaching repent ye for the kingdom of heaven is at hand we're gonna see in mark chapter 1 something very similar but then we're gonna also see an explanation a more detailed account of what exactly he was meaning and what exactly he was saying when he was preaching for them to repent mark 1 verse number 4 the Bible says John did baptize in the wilderness and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins so now you can look at that you have a little bit more evidence they see he was preaching repentance for your sins to be remitted for your sins to go away for that for salvation there's more evidence they're solid saying you see what he was preaching with repentance has to do with being saved but when we jump down a little bit further in the context now this passage look at verse number 14 the Bible says now after that John was put in prison Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God and saying the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand repent ye and believe the gospel the repentance that was required is you need to believe the gospel now flip over if you go to Acts chapter 19 because I want to cover this real quick before I get into explaining the rest of mark 115 there because Paul explains very clearly what the baptism of repentance literally is that John the Baptist was preaching when he said repent ye for the kingdom of heaven is at hand this is what he was saying acts 19 and you might want to make note of this or highlight this if anyone wants to try to tell you because they'll tell you well Jesus and John the Baptist preach repentance acts 19 verse 4 Paul tells you exactly what he was preaching acts 19 for the Bible says then said Paul John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance is that what John was doing we saw in mark one four and preach the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins so what John the Baptist was preaching in his baptism of repentance for the remission of sins is what Paul is about to say here in Acts 19 for John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance saying unto the people this is what he said they should believe on him which should come after him that is on Christ Jesus so when John preached the baptism of repentance he said you need to believe on Jesus Christ that's what it meant that's that's what his baptism of repentance meant in order to be saved in order for your sins to be remitted you need to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ now doesn't that match up perfectly with what everything else in the Bible already says doesn't that match up with what Jesus said when he says repent ye and believe the gospel you say but within what why does it say repent I don't understand it's because you're still thinking that repent has to do with sins remember at the beginning of the sermon I explained the word repentance means you're changing your mind about something the reason why people need to repent in order to believe the gospel in order to believe on Jesus Christ is because they weren't already believing on Jesus to be saved they were believing in something else if you believe today that you have to be a good person to go to heaven in order for you to be saved and go to heaven you need to repent you need to rethink you need to change your mind and say you know what no that's not gonna get me to heaven because I'm a sinner no amount of good works that I do is gonna get me to heaven you need to change your mind and understand and admit I need a Savior my works won't cut it I'm gonna change my mind and I'm gonna put all my faith now in Jesus Christ because he paid for my sins now I'm believing something different than I was before I've changed my mind I've repented now I believe in Jesus Christ now you're saved whether it be Islam Catholicism whatever idolatry false religion the religion of the Pharisees Judaism in order to be saved you have to repent of that belief and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ fill in the blank of whatever it is anybody's trusting to be saved and believe on Jesus Christ that's what repentance is in regards to being saved so depending on the context sometimes repentance or the word repent has nothing to do with salvation but when we see it used specifically in the context of being saved as in John the Baptist preach a gospel of the repentance baptism of repentance for the remission of sins remission of sins okay yeah we're talking about salvation we're talking about your sins being remitted they're being paid for well that specifically is you need to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and that is spelled and defined very clearly from Scripture acts 19 for Paul stated unequivocally that's what John taught that's what he said that's what the baptism of repentance is matches up perfectly with act 16 30 and 31 which very explicitly says sirs what must I do to be saved what must I do what do I have to do I want to be saved believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved in thy house very clear verses we're not talking about some parable we're not talking about people perishing at the tower Siloam and you know all this other stuff we're talking about someone asked a question hey I want to be saved what do I have to do and very clear answer believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved very clear Scripture John 3 16 for God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life everlasting life is brought up obviously we're talking about salvation for God sent his son in the world not to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved he that believeth thy name is not condemned but he that believeth not as condemned already because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God you notice what we're not hearing in that verse at all turning from your sins repent of your sins live a good life do what's right make Jesus the Lord of your life follow his commandments none of that but in context are those verses salvation absolutely they are very clearly they are John 336 he that believeth on the son hath everlasting life not he that believeth and turns from his sins he that believeth he that believeth not the son shall not see life but the wrath of God abideth on him through to Jeremiah chapter 18 we're almost done Jeremiah chapter 18 this next passage because as I mentioned there's there's over a hundred verses that'll use the word repent in the Bible or some form of it and there are a few I didn't get to today because I did there's just not enough time to cover everything about the subject by trying to give you the most clear verses where there's not as much wiggle room not as much doubt on what is this actually teaching it's very clear it's very concise because we can use the clear verses to understand the rest of them that maybe aren't quite as clear there's a couple passages though that people will try to turn to to say no no no see you need to turn from your wicked ways in order to be saved in order to go to heaven and look this is what the Bible says here now hopefully I've already demonstrated that the Bible teaches very clearly that's not a requirement but we also need to understand I mean the Bible doesn't contradict itself oftentimes when it when I try to persuade someone on a particular belief or doctrine or salvation people will that disagree oftentimes will want to get in a tit-for-tat of like well what about this verse you say well what about this verse and what about this verse as if they're like saying different things but they're not if the Bible contradicts itself it's not the Word of God because God doesn't contradict himself God doesn't you know in like is schizophrenic and in that he's believing one thing and another thing and you know like he doesn't that's not God all of God's words are true they all line up and match perfectly and all the teachings work together without any problems whatsoever so Jeremiah 18 kind of holds the key to the certain other paths and passages that you might find in Ezekiel and a few other places that'll teach you that you need to turn from your wickedness in order to be saved which is repenting of sin but the salvation that it's referring to is not your soul going to heaven and you need to understand that look at Jeremiah chapter 18 verse number 7 spells this out very clearly about says at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom to pluck up and to pull down and to destroy it if that nation against whom I have pronounced turn from their evil I will repent of the evil that I fought to do unto them and at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation and concerning a kingdom to build and to plant it if it do evil in my sight that it obey not my voice then I will repent of the good wherewith I said I would benefit them there are times in Scripture where God is addressing an entire nation entire group of people and the way that God judges people as in a group of people as in a nation is based on their works when God chooses to destroy a nation or a large group of people physically from the earth it's because of their sins which is completely separate from a person's individual soul being saved and going to heaven and he spells it out in Jeremiah 18 there he says look concerning a nation concerning a kingdom if that nation gets right if they turn from their evil they turn from doing bad things God will spare them but if they do wickedly he's gonna destroy him we saw in Genesis what did he do he destroyed the nation whatever the people that existed because they were doing wicked things Noah got grace but he he destroyed this mass group of people and you know what he how he destroyed them physically it doesn't mean that every single soul went to hell when people died in the flood but the whole group of people overall died they were destroyed turn if you would the last place I'll be turn is Jonah chapter 3 because in Jonah the book of Jonah's real short four chapters and most people remember Jonah because you think of Jonah and the whale right a lot of children hear this growing up I know I teaches my kids they love the story they hear about Jonah he's you know God commands him to go out and preach and he's he's being disobedient he doesn't want to do what God tell him to do so he gets in the boat tries to run away try to run away from God and he's on this boat and there's this big storm comes right and they throw Jonah overboard and then God had prepared this great whale to come and the whale swallows him up so he spends three days and three nights in the heart of a way in the in the belly of the whale so he's swallowed up right then he gets spit back out up on land and kids love this story because it's a pretty cool story anyways I think it's a cool story pretty exciting right guy gets swallowed up can't imagine what that must have been like inside of a whale's belly but it's definitely not what the cartoons depict it to be it's not some fun thing where you just like light a torch and he's kind of floating on a raft I guarantee it wasn't like that for Jonah but you might remember this story but his whole job his whole mission was to go into Nineveh and Nineveh was a really wicked city at this time and his job was to preach against the city as a whole and to preach a message of warning that God was going to destroy that nation that city so remember we saw in Jeremiah 18 concerning a nation concerning a kingdom if you do wickedly he's going to destroy you and if you do right if you get right if you repent if they turn from their wickedness he'll spare that nation this is exactly what happens in Jonah look at verse number four of Jonah chapter 3 Jonah 3 verse number 4 that was in Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey and he cried and said yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown that's his message God's gonna overthrow this city he's gonna destroy you in 40 days you've got 40 days and God's gonna wipe out Nineveh but look at what happens in verse number five so the people of Nineveh believed God so right off the bat it starts off they believe them they hear the Word of God and they believe it and proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them even to the least of them for the Word came unto the king of Nineveh and he arose from his throne and he laid his robe from him and covered him with sackcloth and then sat in ashes and if you're not familiar with the Bible and scripture what they're talking about sackcloth and ashes is is an outward sign of you being very sorry and repentant in your heart towards God that you put on basically like like really just just not fancy clothing at all just just a sackcloth it's a kind of a cloth as a covering and ashes and you know you're you're just kind of real down and humbling yourself and making yourself really low in the sight of God in the hopes that God will show mercy because you're getting your heart right with him and you're gonna stop doing the things that you're doing that we're making God angry as a whole as a people all the way up to the king the people received this message verse number seven says and he caused it to be proclaimed and published throughout Nineveh by the decree of the king and his noble saying let neither man nor beast heard nor flock taste anything let them not feed nor drink water so he declares a fast because they're trying to get right with God verse number eight but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth and cry mightily unto God yea let them turn everyone from his evil way and from the violence that is in their hands they recognize now what they were doing was wicked and it was wrong and they're gonna say you know what we're done with that we're gonna get right with God verse number nine and this is still their thought process who can tell if God will turn and repent and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish not just saying who knows let's try let's humble ourselves let's stop doing this wickedness maybe God will change his mind maybe God will repent and he won't destroy us as he said he would because the message that Jonah was given hey you're gonna be destroyed so they get right they turn from their evil way as a nation so what happens God spares Nineveh as a whole does that mean every single person in Nineveh got saved because they believed on the Lord no that's not reasonable to think that every single individual in that in all of Nineveh all got saved all on that day or in those short days no way but as a whole the nation decided to stop doing their wickedness that mean they're all perfect and they never sin anymore no of course not but they stopped being really grievous in their sins to God and God decided to spare them in verse number 10 spells it all out and if you don't have this verse memorized I suggest memorizing this because this is key to to explaining this this concept to people who are who are backwards on it the Bible says and God saw their works that they turned from their evil way and God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them and he did it not so God repents he changes his mind he doesn't destroy the city why because he saw their works and what's so important about this verse is it defines turning from your evil way as works God calls that works you turn from your sin you turn from your evil way you you stop sinning and you turn over a new leaf and you start doing good congratulations God wants you to do that but you know what you're doing you're doing good works and if that's what you're trusting in to be saved and go to heaven you're gonna go to hell when you die because the Bible says in Ephesians chapter 2 verses 8 & 9 for by grace remember Noah was saved by grace for by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God not of works lest any man should boast if turning from your evil way is a work according to God you cannot trust in that to be saved and go to heaven it's not about you when you believe that your efforts and your works and your doing right has anything to do with you going to heaven what you're doing is you're stealing the glory from Jesus Christ or you're suggesting that what he did when he died on that cross and rose again from the dead was not enough to pay for your sins it was not enough to save your soul and that you need to add your own works to it and you're bringing down the name of Jesus Christ instead of just accepting that free gift and oftentimes people unwittingly unknowingly are buying into this repent of your sins for salvation because they haven't thought it all the way through because it hasn't been explained to them they haven't seen everything in context they've only heard a couple of very vague verses being preached and a preacher just found out repent of your sins repent of your sins you got repent of your sins and be saved it's not what the Bible teaches if you're a nation that's what the Bible teaches America as a whole if America turns and repents of its wickedness God will spare the United States of American any nation for that matter if the nation as a whole turns to the Lord and says God we've sinned we repent we are right with you God could hold off and stay as judgment if a person tries to do that in order to gain access into heaven not gonna happen Matthew 7 teaches us many shall say to me in that day Lord Lord have we not prophesied in thy name let me get I don't have it I don't have the whole thing memorized exactly word perfect out the suit did not everyone that saith unto me Lord Lord shall enter in the kingdom of heaven but he that do with the will my father which is in heaven many will say to me in that day Lord Lord have we not prophesied in thy name and in thy name have cast out devils and in thy name have done many wonderful works there's someone who's trusting in their works trusting in their reformed life trusting in their repentance of sin to get in heaven and then what's God gonna say unto them then will I profess unto them I never knew you depart for me that were iniquity I don't know you I never knew you and you're not saved and you're not getting into heaven because you think it's your good works that are getting you here instead of what Jesus Christ did for you very very critical doctrine and one that's been under attack for a long time and taught falsely for a long time in a lot of churches and unfortunately this one very thing is keeping a lot of people out of heaven because they're trusting in their works I want to make sure everybody here is very crystal clear on this subject and understands what they believe and why they believe it and can defend it from the scriptures and can turn to passages to show other people why salvation is truly a free gift and has nothing to do with your own works at all no matter how you slice it it's completely free that is critical to the core faith of this church and it's a core faith that you have to have in order to be saved it's power as that word of prayer to your heavenly father Lord we thank you so much for the clear teaching from your word dear God I pray to you please help us to be diligent in our own studies in our own search in our own just making sure that what we hear what we what we believe is all based on your words and that we should go back and check these things out and read everything in context Lord and we pray that you would please guide us into all wisdom and in all knowledge and God I pray that you would please help us to teach these great truths under the loss under the people who don't know these things Lord and pray to please use our church mightily Lord help us all to be strengthened and encouraged and edified and God I pray to you please help us not to be discouraged by other things that might have happened I know there's gonna be a lot of attacks on this church the more people that we lead to Christ the more that there's going to be potential setbacks and people trying to be just being attacked from trying to do what's right Lord and I pray to you please strengthen us all that are that are here and here to love you and want to do your work it's in Jesus name we pray