THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM

WBS.007

THE GOSPEL OF THE KINGDOM

REPENTANCE

Matthew 4:17  From that time Yahushua began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

In our last lesson, I suggested a project that I call doing “The Lists.”  You were to populate the following three categories with everything you could think belongs on the list.

1.     Whatever is in your life that you KNOW is displeasing to the Father.  

2.     Whatever is currently in your life that you would resist if the Father required it of you. 

3.     Whatever is currently NOT in your life that you would resist if the Father required it be brought into your life. 

Once the lists were complete, you were to work through the items on the list one by one; removing each item from your list when you arrived at a place where you knew you would no longer resist the will of Elohim.  If you have taken up this task in earnestness, you have already discovered how extraordinarily revealing this project can be.  You have been shocked to see how easy it has been in your life to call Him your Master, but how little practical application of that relationship actually existed.  For some, just the thought of doing this task brought rushing to the front of your brain, things that you immediately realized you did not want Him touching.  Far from simply being a place of resistance to His will, you discovered you just absolutely did not want even to allow Him opportunity to speak into your life regarding certain things.  Some of you have discovered the shameful façade of your own commitment of faith.  What you need to understand is that you are not alone.  Most pastors and teachers and leaders in the church would have the exact same reaction to this task; and the majority of the church would never even take it upon themselves to allow an opportunity for such self-incrimination.

I recall an event in my life when I was a teenage boy.  I was alone with my girlfriend; and she said, “Let’s pray together.”  It was like dumping a bucket of ice water on me; because, as one might imagine, praying together was not on my agenda at that moment; and the very thought of praying brought Elohim into a place I did not want Him at the time.  An experience similar to this has now become common to all who have taken it upon themselves to do the Lists.  We have learned that there are many places in our lives where we would not want to invoke the Father’s presence, as that would upset the “balance of power.”  You know what I mean.  There are things over which we freely allow IAUE to be the authority, as long as we, too, have our own domain where we retain the right of control.

There are many benefits from doing the Lists; but the one I want to identify in this lesson is this.  Being awakened to see the extent that our hearts will go to resist the will of the one we say we serve and love, demonstrates in a very practical way the fact that we have never properly responded to the gospel.  By this, I am not saying that you do not have a relationship with Messiah or Elohim.  You very likely would not be reading this if you did not already have a fervent commitment to Messiah.

Last week’s lesson was about how to move from an academic understanding of doctrinal truths to possessing the revelation of those truths.  Paul tells us that “The letter kills. The spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:6). Doctrine alone does not give us the power to change our lives.  It is the revelation of that teaching that imparts the power to change us on the inside.  Anyone can act good on the outside.  IAUE wants our hearts. 

If you have been following this blog from the beginning, you may have noticed that I often contrast my words against the experience within “contemporary Christianity.”  In fact, the purpose of this blog is to identify and assist that handful of believers in every church that know deep within themselves that their church experience cannot be what Messiah died to produce.  So, you are already aware within yourselves that contemporary Christianity is sorely lacking in something.  You may not know just what that something is.  Well, it begins here.  The gospel of the modern church is not the gospel of the early church. 

When John (Yohannes) was raised up to prepare the way of the Messiah, this is what he preached:

Matthew 3:1  In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea,
2  And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

When Messiah was revealed to Israel at his baptism, shortly afterward, he was led into the wilderness for 40 days and nights, where he was tempted by Satan.  The Scripture says that when he returned from the wilderness, he returned in the power of the Spirit (Luke 4:14); and:  

Matthew 5:17  From that time Yahushua began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

When Yahushua sent his disciples out two-by-two, empowering them to minister the gospel with power, what did they preach?

Mark 6:12  And they went out, and preached that men should repent.

After Messiah had been impaled, buried and resurrected; before he returned to the right hand of the Father, what did he tell his disciples to preach?  What was the charge he gave to his followers?

Luke 24:45  Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures,
46  And said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved Messiah to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day:
47  And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.

On the day of Pentecost, when Peter preached the very first message of “the church age” to the Jews in Jerusalem, what did he preach?

Acts 2:37  Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?
38  Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Yahushua Messiah for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

When Paul spoke the gospel to the gentiles, what did he preach?

Acts 17:30  And the times of this ignorance Elohim winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:

When Paul made his defense to King Agrippa as to why he was being held captive in Caesarea, what did he say he had been doing when he was arrested?

Acts 26:20  But shewed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judaea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to Elohim, and do works meet for repentance.

In its purest essence, the gospel is this:  “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”  The good news is that through repentance we may access the grace and goodness of Elohim and escape the execution of the just sentence upon man’s rebellious and resistant heart, and enter into a vibrant relationship with our Master and our Elohim right now.  The gospel declared by the church, today, is an invitation to accept a free gift and secure a place in Heaven when we die.  The gospel preached by Yohannes, Yahushua, and the apostles, was not an invitation, but a command to repent.  That message was not encapsulated in a declaration of wonderful promises and glorious things that we would inherit if we prayed “the magic prayer.”  There were no such enticements to the lost to accept Messiah.  All of that is the “children’s bread.”  To the lost, the message was, “repent.” 

Today, the church finds repentance an inconceivable message that would bring the lost to the Master.   We live in an age where the choice to be made must come with better benefits than what we are currently experiencing. What passes for the gospel, today, is not much different than an invitation to take a new job.  It had better be a job with better pay and better benefits if you expect someone to leave their current job for it.  A command to repent because the Master is soon to return in the power of his kingdom simply does not seem a wise message to us.  Our church pews could never be populated with people responding to that message…at least that is what we think.  But then…

Proverbs 14:12 and 16:25  There is a way that seemeth right to a man; but the end thereof are the ways of death.

There are two words in the Greek New Testament for “repent.”  One means to “feel sorry for, to experience remorse.”  The other means “to change your mind, to change the way you think about something.”  The repentance that is common to the contemporary church is nothing more than the natural response to feelings of guilt.  It produces such comments as, “I knew better than to do that.” and, “I am so sorry for having done that.”  Even deep remorse that produces what I call “a balancing act” is not genuine repentance.  It is a natural instinct within man to want to do an equal amount of good to balance out the bad that he has acknowledged he has done.  Whole lives have been dedicated to missions or good deeds in an effort to balance out sins that are deemed to have been severe or even “disqualifying.”  All such repentance has value in the eyes of man, but is worthless in the eyes of IAUE, because it does not deal with the way you think about sin. 

Genuine repentance produces a change in thought.  With genuine repentance we learn to hate what IAUE hates and love what IAUE loves.  We can never be free of a sin that we still love; and we can only love sin if we think wrongly about it.  Someone once told me, “If our eyes could see the hulking demon lurching over us, laughing at us as we enjoy the sin he has enticed us to commit; we would never go there again.” If you have been working through your “Lists,” you have come to understand the nature of your resistance to the will of Elohim; and it is changing the way you think about the luxuries you have retained while still professing to be the servant of the Most High.

For those of you who have taken “the Lists” seriously, you know only too well that the gospel of repentance was missing from your life.  You now know why the Sunday sermons and even your daily Bible study were not providing you with the power to change your life on the inside.  Your head knowledge was in conflict with your experience. Like Paul’s testimony in Romans 7, you knew to do good, but the performance of it was not in you.  Believers around the world have been living their lives to look good on the outside with constant conflict on the inside.  It has produced secret lives in many believers…lives they would be ashamed of having exposed…lives, hopefully, that you have enumerated on “the Lists” and are now experiencing the grace of IAUE empowering you to repent and to be free on the inside.