What repentance is not

I have found that in most churches in the USA today the word repentance is seldom if ever mentioned.

It’s a word that has been dropped from the Christian vocabulary because it is a little too harsh, like the word sin.

Having grown up in a nominal church, I had no idea what repentance meant because it was never mentioned.

In the spring of 1971, Ruth, the boys, and I were living in Southern California where I was teaching school. I had been a Christian for about four years and had felt a stirring that the Lord was somehow encouraging me to devote my life to missions. We had applied to Wycliffe Bible Translators to study linguistics at the University of Washington, Seattle that summer.

The classes were taught by Bible translators who came home from their mission fields for the summer to teach at the University. The teachers as well as the students lived in a couple of sorority houses just across the street from the campus. I can still remember listening to some of the stories that the teachers would tell as we took our meals together and fellowshipped together.

One missionary from Southern Mexico told a story one evening that I never forgot.

He had translated the book of Luke and had the translation ready to go to the printer. He was reading back some of the portions of the book to his helper who was a native from a tribe who spoke the language he was translating. He came to the word that he had chosen for the word repentance and he asked his language helper to tell him what this word meant. The native said that this word meant when a man was walking down a jungle trail and he hears that up ahead along the trail some men are lying in ambush waiting to kill him. Upon hearing this, the man turns around and goes back the other way.

This is the word that he had used to translate repentance. Suddenly he realized that he had chosen the wrong word. He called and had the printing process stopped so he could edit it.

Now, I have thought a lot about that story over the years and I have come to the realization that what most Christians believe repentance is relates to the man walking down the jungle trail.

Repentance means to turn your life around and in effect follow the Lord, but not for the above reason.

I believe that real repentance is when one comes to the realization that he or she is indeed going down the wrong path in life and they are living in sin. Their sins have separated them from God and they need to turn away from them and ask Jesus to forgive them and now serve Him instead of serving themselves.

I don’t believe that anyone gets saved because of his or her fear of going to hell. Hell, fire, and damnation preaching never saved anyone for the reason just given.

In Revelation 21:8 we have a list of those people who will not be in Heaven and the first one on the list is the “Fearful.” I honestly believe that the reason that some churches are full of people is because of the threat of Hell that the church holds over them. So are these people attending church because they have truly repented, or are they fearful of the punishment for not being there?

Repentance is when we come to the realization that our life and the direction of our life are not pleasing to God and then we turn around and after asking forgiveness serve Him and His agenda and no longer pursue ours.

Is this a one-time thing? Absolutely not, we need to make frequent corrections as we walk down the trail that we call life.

As always scripture says it best. IICor. 7:10 tells us, “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.”

Jesus primary purpose in coming was not to save us for Heaven, as most Christians believe, but to save us from SIN. Heaven is a benefit that comes with having repented.

Did God create Evil?

DID GOD CREATE EVIL?


There is an ongoing debate being carried out these days among those who seemingly have little to else to do but to try to bring God down to their level.

Let me fill you in on their line of reasoning.

We are seeing so many events being carried out in the world that are bad or evil. Things like sickness, immorality, hatred, murders, and even the killing of children and babies not to mention wars.

Evil seems to be running rampant and yet God has made everything.

The scoffers are quick to tell you that if God created everything, then God created evil. According to the principle that our works define who we are, then God must be evil.

As we address these serious charges, let’s do it in a way that both theologians and children will be able to understand.

We all know about something that we call heat. We can have a little heat, some heat, lots of heat, red heat, white heat, and we all know about the super heat that is in the sun.

On the other hand we can have very little heat or even no heat which the scientists call absolute zero which is the coldest that it can get. Absolute zero or no heat is minus 458 degrees.

Interestingly, there is no such thing as cold, if there was we could find temperatures less than – 458 degrees.

Cold is only a word that is used to describe the absence of heat.

What about darkness? Is it something, or is it a word that we use to describe the absence of something else?

We can have dim light, normal light, bright light, or even blinding light. Darkness exists only in the absence of light. If you have even been in a cave in what we refer to as pitch darkness, you know that darkness cannot get any darker.

Death is much like darkness. When life departs from a body the result is death. It is not the opposite of life; it is the absence of life.

Lets get back to our original question, which was did God create evil? Is the violence that we see in the world the manifestation of evil? If it is, then evil must exist unto itself.

Evil, like darkness, does not exist unto itself; it is simply the absence of God. Evil is a word that we use like darkness or cold, or death. It is the absence of something.

God did not create evil, it is the result when man does not have God’s love present and at work in his life.

When there is no heat, cold is the result. When there is no light, darkness is the result. When there is no life, death is the result. When God’s love is not present in man’s heart, evil is the result.

I think that the Apostle John summed it up best when he said, “The way we know we’ve been transformed from death to life is that we love our brothers and sisters. Anyone who doesn’t love is as good as dead. Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know very well, that eternal life and murder don’t go together.”

Taken from the Bible: IJohn 3:14-15

Remember this: Sin is never accidental, it is always intentional.

One more very sobering thought. Not only is evil the absence of God, but the indescribable suffering and anguish that the condemned will experience in HELL will be because of the absence of God.

Something to think about.