Repent!
Repent! Repent and live! This is God’s call to his people throughout the Bible and to us today. We hear this call especially from the prophets. Let us look at one example, Ezekiel 18. This passage begins with God saying, “All souls are mine … the soul who sins shall die.” And the one who “has done what is just and right and has been careful to keep all my decrees, he will surely live. The one who sins is the one who will die.” Next God compares the life of the righteous with that of the wicked. And then in verses 21-32 comes the call to repentance. The Hebrew word for repent, to turn away from, is repeated here nine times.
“But if a wicked person turns away from all the sins they have committed and keeps all my decrees and does what is just and right, that person will surely live; they will not die. None of the offenses they have committed will be remembered against them. Because of the righteous things they have done, they will live. Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign LORD. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live? “But if a righteous person turns from their righteousness and commits sin and does the same detestable things the wicked person does, will they live? None of the righteous things that person has done will be remembered. Because of the unfaithfulness they are guilty of and because of the sins they have committed, they will die. “Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Hear, you Israelites: Is my way unjust? Is it not your ways that are unjust? If a righteous person turns from their righteousness and commits sin, they will die for it; because of the sin they have committed they will die. But if a wicked person turns away from the wickedness they have committed and does what is just and right, they will save their life. Because they consider all the offenses they have committed and turn away from them, that person will surely live; they will not die. Yet the Israelites say, ‘The way of the Lord is not just.’ Are my ways unjust, people of Israel? Is it not your ways that are unjust? “Therefore, you Israelites, I will judge each of you according to your own ways, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent! Turn away from all your offenses; then sin will not be your downfall. Rid yourselves of all the offenses you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, people of Israel? For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live!”
Both John the Baptist and Jesus preached, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” For us today, the call is, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come. It is hear in Jesus Christ.” In Revelation 2-3, Jesus wrote letters to seven churches. Five of these churches need radical change, and four of them specifically are called to repent.
“Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lamp stand from its place” (Rev 2:5) “Repent therefore! Otherwise I will soon come to you and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth” (Rev 2:16). “Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you.” (Rev 3:3) “Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest and repent. Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.” (Rev. 3:19-20)
What is repentance? Repentance is not only the sorrow or remorse we feel because of our sin. That is certainly part of it, but at the heart of repentance is action. It is something we do. We turn around, turn away from our sin, and turn to God. It involves a radical, total change in our thinking and actions.
Why should we repent? When we come face-to-face with the holiness of God, we discover our own unholiness. Repentance helps us to turn away from our unholiness toward holiness. When we remember the work of Jesus Christ on the cross and our calling to be kingdom people and priests, we need to repent. Because many times we walk away from holiness. Many times we disobey our Lord. We have an ongoing need to repent, refocus, and be renewed. If we do not repent there will be dire, disastrous, terrible consequences.
2. From What Should We Repent?
We should repent from our individual, personal sins as well as our corporate, social sins. God’s Word, and especially the Prophets, the Sermon on the Mount, and Jesus’ letters to the seven churches give us a framework to guide our repentance. When we compare our lives to God’s justice, righteousness, and holiness so vividly described by the prophets, we realize that we have fallen short, and we are not walking in God’s ways. When we compare our lives to the Sermon on the Mount, we realize we disobeyed our Lord and we are not living the kingdom life He requires of us.
In his letters, Jesus confronts the self-motivated actions, the self-reliance and self-sufficiency, the complacency and compromise of the churches. He warns against self-pity that might come into the churches because they are persecuted, suffering, feeling poor and weak. He calls them to repent, to reject false teachings, stop being immoral, and to wake up to their mission. He encourages them to be courageous, faithful, endure, and persevere in their mission.
We should repent from our idols. We all have idols in our lives. Jesus tells the Ephesus church that they have forsaken their first love. Idols replace Jesus as our first love and Lord. The Bible exposes the idols of greed, sex, arrogance, pride, and the abuse of political and economic power. These idols are still active and alive today in our lives.
Even good things can become idols. My ministry becomes an idol when it is all about my achievements, success, name, and fame. My theological doctrines become an idol when I impose them on others in unloving, unChristianly, divisive ways. Sports become an idol when it prevents me from coming to church on Sundays. Tim Keller—“For Christians just to completely hook up with one party or another is really idolatry. … It’s also reducing the Gospel to a political agenda.” My politics become an idol when I turn a blind eye to and even participate in the sins, injustices, and lies of my party and leaders. Nationalism and patriotism become an idol when these cause me to disobey the truth and teachings of Jesus Christ, our Lord; when we forget that we are first and foremost kingdom citizens.
We must repent because we are no longer a people of truth. We have fallen prey to post-modernism, relativism, and a post-truth culture. We no longer pursue truth as facts. Our feelings and passions determine what is truth. We accept as truth only the narratives that support and fit our views. We reject as fake news anything we disagree with. We don’t want to hear truth because the truth is inconvenient, uncomfortable, and hurts. When we listen only to those news media and social media that proclaim what we believe, what we want to hear, we are no longer a people of truth. We accept or turn a blind eye to misinformation and lies. We chase after every conspiracy theory. We believe lies just because the Internet or so and so said so. We no longer practice intellectual integrity and honesty. We are not seeking wisdom anymore. We have become foolish. We are not of sound mind anymore. We must repent.
Then, we must repent from the corporate, social injustices and sins in our churches, society, and land. When we turn a blind eye to them, remain silent, we are as guilty as if we have done those sins ourselves. We failed to fulfill our calling to be the salt of the earth. I am amazed to hear and read how Christians, with convoluted arguments and intellectual gymnastics try to say that there is no systemic sins, no political, economic, and social injustices, no racism. And I wonder, what Bible are they reading, and what world are they living in? When I talk about social justice, I am talking about how the Bible defines and explains what social justice is; not how the liberals and conservatives define it. They are both wrong because they base their definitions on politics and personal views, not the Bible.
When God requires of us to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with our God (Micah 6:8); when He tells us, “Learn to do right, seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow” (Is 1:17), He speaks about and requires of his people social, economic, legal, and political justice. Please, read the previous verses in Ezekiel and the rest of the prophets and you will see how God judges and condemns his people not just for spiritual or religious sins, but for the sins, the injustices that they and their leaders were committing in the courts of justice, in their political, economic, and social lives, not just their spiritual lives.
Systemic sin, social injustices, racism, exploitation, and oppression are real and alive. All human institutions, organizations, systems, structures, ideologies, policies, and yes, even the church, all are sinful and broken because they are created by broken and sinful people. We cannot say that these do not exist just because we do not practice them or experience them in our own lives or communities.
We must repent because we have given in to fear. We have replaced faith with fear, and put our hope and trust in human princes, leaders, political parties, in ourselves, our money and guns to save us. As a nation, and as God’s people, we are helplessly divided, entrenched, angry, unloving, and unrepentant. These are all characteristics that the Bible characterizes as “the world.” That is the state of reality that is opposed to God’s kingdom. We have conformed to the world. We have given in to our passions and idols.
But the bottom line is this. We must repent because we have failed to follow our Lord Jesus into all areas of our lives. We disobeyed our calling to be His witnesses in this land; to be the salt and the light. Instead of being peacemakers, we stoke conflict and divisions. We failed to live the kingdom life. And the most tragic of all, the heartbreaking reality is that we have disobeyed the Greatest Commandment of all. We do not love God because we do not love others. We just love ourselves above God and others. We must repent. Only then will God heal our land.
3. The Log-and-Speck Principle
But here is the problem. We point fingers and say, “Yes, they, the others, should repent.” How easily do we forget our Lord’s teachings? “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” (Mt 7:1-5)
Before we can criticize, attack, point out the wrongs and sins of the other person, group, church, news media, or party, we must look very hard and with brutal honesty at ourselves. We must first deal with the logs, the sins, the injustices, in ourselves, our group, church, news media, or party before we point them out in the others. And don’t say there are no logs in our eyes. That is a lie and denial. We are all sinful. No one is perfect. If we refuse to deal with the logs in our own eyes first, then we should remain quiet. Then we should not judge, point fingers, blame or try to take the speck out of the eyes of the others. Because if we do not practice the log and speck principle, we will be hypocrites. What we accuse others of, is usually what we do ourselves. We must repent, and we begin with first removing the log from our own eyes.
4. Jesus’ Letter to Us
Reading the letters in Revelation I wondered — if Jesus were to write a letter today to our church here, and to the church in America, what would He write? And then it dawned on me. He has written us a letter, His Word, the Bible. This is His love letter to us, and we don’t need any other letter. This letter tells us how He loves us. It tells us clearly how to love the Lord, how to love others, and how to live the kingdom life. Jesus is standing at the door and knocking, crying out to us, “Repent, turn away from your wicked ways, and come back to me!” Are we going to listen, hear his voice, repent, and open the door? Will we, God’s people, who are called by His Name, will we humble ourselves, pray and seek His face, and turn from our wicked ways?
During these 40 Days of Prayer let us take up our crosses daily, die to ourselves and all our idols. With God’s Word in hand allow God to examine our hearts, every nook and corner. Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to us our idols and sins so that we can repent from them, turn away from them, and turn to God. Because God is the only One who can fully forgive and deliver us from our sins. When we repent, God will hear us. He will forgive us, cleanse us, fill us with His Spirit, empower us for holy living, and heal our land. So let our cry and prayer during these 40 days be, “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Ps 139:23-24).