Conditions for True Repentance
Notes
Transcript
Introduction:
1 “If you return, O Israel, declares the Lord, to me you should return. If you remove your detestable things from my presence, and do not waver,
2 and if you swear, ‘As the Lord lives,’ in truth, in justice, and in righteousness, then nations shall bless themselves in him, and in him shall they glory.”
3 For thus says the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem: “Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns.
4 Circumcise yourselves to the Lord; remove the foreskin of your hearts, O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn with none to quench it, because of the evil of your deeds.”
Pray
What are the conditions for true repentance.
1. Return with Sincerity (v.1)
1. Return with Sincerity (v.1)
1 “If you return, O Israel, declares the Lord, to me you should return. If you remove your detestable things from my presence, and do not waver,
This part of Jeremiah’s prophecy occurs during the reign of Josiah
Josiah was a good king and truly repented when the book of the Law was found, but many others only returned in pretense because the King said they should
It is like children who go to church and are religious because their parents make them, but whenever they leave for college, they never return again.
After Josiah died, his sons were not faithful to follow in his footsteps and this led to the exile of Judah and the destruction of Jerusalem
God calls them out on their hypocrisy and tells them to return in truth and sincerity and not pretense
Application
God is ready and willing to forgive us if we will truly repent.
It is much more in the nature of God to be merciful than to be wrathful
As Thomas Watson writes:
The Select Works of the Rev. Thomas Watson, Comprising His Celebrated Body of Divinity, in a Series of Lectures on the Shorter Catechism, and Various Sermons and Treatises The Mercy of God
God is more inclinable to mercy than wrath. Mercy is his darling attribute, which he most delights in,
18 Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love.
However, when we return with sincerity, we must make sure that we don’t fool ourselves and that we truly are returning to God from a heart of conviction and not just going through the outward motions.
Jonathan Edwards warns us against showing these false religious affections by saying:
False affections, if they are equally strong, are much more forward to declare themselves, than true: because it is the nature of false religion, to affect show and observation; as it was with the Pharisees.
Jonathan Edwards (American Evangelical Preacher)
What he is saying is that it is easy to play the part than it is to be the man.
What about you? We know that we have all sinned against God, but do you sincerely repent when you’ve sinned?
Are you playing games with God?
2. Remove Sin (v.1)
2. Remove Sin (v.1)
Not only must we turn back to God in sincere repentance, but we must also remove the sin that caused us to need to repent in the first place.
Look again at v.1
1 “If you return, O Israel, declares the Lord, to me you should return. If you remove your detestable things from my presence, and do not waver,
God says to remove the detestable things from His presence.
What were these things?
Idolatry
Sexual Immorality
Injustice
Hatred toward the poor and needy
Judah had gone through a revival and with that came a time of blessings so that many people felt that the judgment of God was over.
Josiah would eventually lead a campaign to get rid of the idols and the high places
Turn to 2 Chronicles 34 for just a moment and let’s look at what it looks like to sincerely repent and remove the detestable things from our lives.
1 Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned thirty-one years in Jerusalem.
2 And he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, and walked in the ways of David his father; and he did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left.
3 For in the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet a boy, he began to seek the God of David his father, and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem of the high places, the Asherim, and the carved and the metal images.
4 And they chopped down the altars of the Baals in his presence, and he cut down the incense altars that stood above them. And he broke in pieces the Asherim and the carved and the metal images, and he made dust of them and scattered it over the graves of those who had sacrificed to them.
5 He also burned the bones of the priests on their altars and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem.
6 And in the cities of Manasseh, Ephraim, and Simeon, and as far as Naphtali, in their ruins all around,
7 he broke down the altars and beat the Asherim and the images into powder and cut down all the incense altars throughout all the land of Israel. Then he returned to Jerusalem.
There is one thing that is said about many of the kings of Judah, even the good ones. It is said that they did good and followed in the ways of David their father.
However, there is a line that has always disturbed me and it is a sign of bad things to come in future generations. It says, “but they did not remove the high places...”
This is not said of Josiah. Josiah went on an all out campaign against idol worship and even fulfilled the prophecy of the man of God against King Jeroboam in the northern kingdom of Israel.
The key thing for you and I to remember is that we must completely remove the Detestable things.
Illustration
There is a story told of a man who sold his house, but asked to keep control of one nail in the house if he agreed to sell it for half the price.
The buyer agreed and later the seller changed his mind and wanted the house back. The buyer would not agree to give the house back, so the original owner found a carcass of a dead dog and hung it on the nail over the door that was his in the house.
Before long the carcass stunk so bad that everyone had to leave the house and sell it back to the owner of the nail.
This is a trite illustration but it is a powerful reminder that we cannot give one square inch to the devil. We have to completely turn from our sin if we want to keep the old man from coming back.
Application
What sins are you hanging on to?
What are your high places that need to be torn down?
3. Live As a Covenant People (v.2)
3. Live As a Covenant People (v.2)
The next thing God instructs the people to do is live as His covenant people.
2 and if you swear, ‘As the Lord lives,’ in truth, in justice, and in righteousness, then nations shall bless themselves in him, and in him shall they glory.”
Remember that they were living a lie. Their lifestyle did not match up to the covenant people they claimed to be.
We also must live as Christ’s covenant people that He purchased with His body.
If Israel had obeyed, all the nations of the world would be blessed. They were supposed to represent God to the world.
We are called to take up that mantle as the Church. We take the gospel to the nations, but if we live like the world, our gospel has no power.
4. Soften Your Hearts (vv.3-4)
4. Soften Your Hearts (vv.3-4)
The last thing the people must do is to soften their hearts.
3 For thus says the Lord to the men of Judah and Jerusalem: “Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns.
4 Circumcise yourselves to the Lord; remove the foreskin of your hearts, O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go forth like fire, and burn with none to quench it, because of the evil of your deeds.”
If you are going to plant a field, you don’t just go and scatter seed on the ground.
You must first till it up or the seed won’t penetrate the soil and germinate into a crop.
Sometimes we need the soil of our heart plowed up. We become hardened and need it tilled.
What does it look like to plow up the heart:
To be broken by conviction
God’s word cuts to the heart
To have the desires of our hearts changed to desire God
Thomas Chalmers was a preacher in Britain during the late 1700s-early 1800s. He preached a sermon called “The Expulsive Power of a New Affection” where he wrote:
“The only way to dispossess the heart of an old affection is by the expulsive power of a new one.”
In other words, we have to replace the old cravings with new ones.
We have to become disillusioned with the things of the world
1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
This can hurt. It hurts to be operated on sometimes.
Puritan John Flavel writes:
The Whole Works of the Reverend John Flavel, Volumes 1-6 Application
The plow pierces deep into the bosom of the earth, makes, as it were, a deep gash or wound in the heart of it. So doth the Spirit upon the hearts of sinners, he pierces their very souls by conviction.
He continues....
The Whole Works of the Reverend John Flavel, Volumes 1-6 Application
The plow rends the earth in parts and pieces, which before was united, and makes those parts hang loose, which formerly lay close. Thus doth the Spirit of conviction rend asunder the heart and its most beloved lusts.
Even though it hurts to have the plow run over the soil of your heart, remember that no matter how bad it may hurt to be operated on by the Holy Spirit, there is always healing that results from it.
John Blanchard wrote:
It is never true to say that something ‘hurts like hell’. Nothing hurts like hell.
John Blanchard
Once the heart is plowed up, it is time to sow the good seed. If you don’t sow good seed, the weeds will just return.
You also do not sow a field by trying to save as much of your seed as you can.
You must sow bountifully and you will reap bountifully.
We are called to sow the seed of God’s Word.
Jeremiah tells the people not to sow among thorns.
That means the heart has been broken up and the weeds cleared and now we are ready to receive the word and not have it choked out by the cares of this world.
Application
What are the competing priorities for God’s Word in your heart?
What does God need to remove in order that you might be healed?
Conclusion
I have this hoe that I use in my garden called a stirrup hoe. It slices through the soil and cuts the weeds off if they are young or it can rip them out if they are larger.
It’s always more traumatic for the plants if I wait to weed with this thing. I run the risk of harming the roots.
If I stay on top of things and get the weeds while they are small and I frequently use the hoe, the other plants will thrive.
I love this hoe because I don’t have to keep chopping like I do with a traditional hoe, but I won’t lie. It isn’t as effective as hand pulling weeds and getting all of the roots.
What I notice though is that the more often I cultivate with it, the less strength remains in that week that tries to pop back up. Eventually it will give up the ghost.
At the beginning of the growing season, we had a clean patch that we planted potatoes in. We frequently ran the hoe through it.
However, we got lazy. More weed seeds blew in and by the time harvest came, we had no crop worth harvesting.
Now, there sits a big patch of grass where we once had well-cultivated soil.
Israel and Judah did not abandon the Lord overnight. It took time and neglect.
You may have been neglecting your heart and if you have, it’s time to get out the big tractor and plow it under.
Go to the Lord. He is the International Harvester and He will get you back to growing in no time.
God is warning us. Sometimes the field gets so bad it has to be burned to start over.
God is calling us to repentance and He delights in sincere hearts that are turned towards Him.
Let’s turn tonight.
