The Prodigal Son.
The religious gospel with its law keeping, its rule and ritual keeping is man's search for God.
The Grace gospel with its trust in God, with its total dependence on God is God's search for
man.
In reading the story of the cross, what do you find that Christ didn't do that religion asks of men to do? Maybe you will get it from this statement; “NOBODY asked Jesus to FORGIVE them of their SIN! Instead Jesus said, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). Jesus did not give an alter call to the men He chose as disciples before He called them to follow Him, He said; “follow me and I will make you fishers of men.” This action by the men who became His disciples is a foreshadow of how all people are to come to Christ because His finished work on the cross is finished. Their repenting is to turn from following the ways of man and turn to following Him...forsaking all other means to get to Him and follow Him only.
It was solely Jesus' action on His own initiative that brought about the forgiveness of man! Man did NOTHING nor can do ANYTHING to bring about his salvation, JESUS did it ALL, and ALL to Him I owe, that fact is the reason I have a relationship with the divine.
What does the story about the “prodigal son” (I think it is a story that reflects the heart of our LOVING FATHER more than about the wayward son) teach us about this fact as recorded by Luke 15:11-32? The account gives a perfect picture of Father God's attitude toward lost people this side of the cross. The youngest son had taken his inheritance and blew it wastefully, bringing shame to His father and family. Without a penny to call his own...he is down and out...In order to stay alive he accepts a job that is on the lowest scale possible for a Jew, feeding the pigs. But what is his father's attitude? Did he write the boy off, did he demand a return of the money, did he demand the young man to repent,? No. The father didin't looking down the road with a big stick in hand to beat upon the lad for choosing the wrong path to make him pay for what he had done. You can tell the father's attitude by his response when he saw his sinner son afar off.
But while he was a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him (Luke 15:20).
The father then throws a big come home party that had nothing to do with demanding the young man repent of his waywardness.
Now get the picture here. When the boy was squandering away his inheritance, when the boy was in the hog slop of the pig pen, what stood in the way of his returning to his father? Was the father waiting for him to repent before his coming home? No, Was there a barrier to His coming home on the father's part? If repentance was necessary the father would have waited until he repented before standing daily to gaze down the road in hopes of seeing his boy. The only thing that kept the boy from his father was his own decision to stay in the hog slop and not make a decision to go home.
Today God is calling people that He has forgiven to come home, just like the father longed for his prodigal wayward boy to do. This is a result of Of Jesus' finished work on the cross. Jesus did ALL that was necessary to remove the disease of sin, when a sinner turns from his selfish ways and turns to God he falls into the arms of a loving Father he is accepted as he is...not for saying some “sinner's prayer”. He comes home to life and living because hr is restored to life and living.
Here is an example of how we can tell the false grace message from the real. False grace preachers will take a portion of Scripture and because something is not mentioned in this portion they try to say it is not needed even though it is mentioned elsewhere hundreds of times.
ReplyDeleteIn this portion, it is true repentance is not mentioned but it doesn`t mean it is not a true Biblical doctrine.
The false grace teachers doesen`t like the idea that we have repent of wrongdoing because they say it makes us sin consious and that if we have to repent of something, then we have to do something and there are no do`s and don`s under grace.
I`ll quote one example because I have his book. Here is what Paul Ellis says:
Religious people often complain that we grace preachers don’t emphasize repentance sufficiently. It’s true. I hardly emphasize it at all. But then neither did the Apostle John. You’d think if salvation hinged on our repentance then it would be in the gospels but John says nothing about it. Not one word. Neither does he mention repentance in any of his three letters. I guess John must’ve been a grace preacher.
I got news for Paul. After Christ went back to heaven the early Church preached more on repentance than anything else.The true grace preacher Paul vs the false grace preachers of our day also preached repentance. And so did Christ after He assended up to heaven when He gave the Revelation to John on Isle of Patmos.
I`ll just quote a few examples to back up what I`m saying.
I like what John MacArther says:
Clearly, from the beginning of the Book of Acts to the end, repentance was the central appeal of the apostolic message. The repentance they preached was not merely a change of mind about who Jesus was. It was a turning from sin (3:26; 8:22) and a turning toward the Lord Jesus Christ (20:21). It was the kind of repentance that results in behavioral change (26:20). The apostolic message was nothing like the no-lordship gospel that has gained popularity in our day.
I am deeply concerned as I watch what is happening in the church today. Biblical Christianity has lost its voice. The church is preaching a gospel designed to soothe rather than confront sinful individuals. Churches have turned to amusement and show business to try to win the world. Those methods may seem to draw crowds for a season. But they're not God's methods, and therefore they are destined to fail. In the meantime, the church is being infiltrated and corrupted by professing believers who have never repented, never turned from sin, and therefore, never really embraced Christ as Lord or Savior.
We must return to the message God has called us to preach. We need to confront sin and call sinners to repentance--to a radical break from the love of sin and a seeking of the Lord's mercy. We must hold up Christ as Savior and Lord, the one who frees His people from the penalty and power of sin. That is, after all, the gospel He has called us to proclaim.
Acts 3:19-21King James Version (KJV)
19č˝Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.art
Repentance was always at the heart of Paul's evangelistic preaching. Many would accuse Paul of preaching a law Gospel. What did Paul the real grace preacher preach?
ReplyDeleteActs26:
19 Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision:
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 God, and do works meet for repentance.
Paul the real grace preacher was the strongest I could find on repentance. He even said it is not enough to just repent of your wrong doing but you also need to do works for repentance. If Paul was living today I`d say he would have a book out exposing the false grace teachers of our day who doesn`t believe in doing anything.
I also like what the late David Wilkerson said in a sermon called, “Whatever happened to repentance?”in 1999.
Some Christians believe repentance means simply to "turn around" and go in the opposite direction. But the Bible tells us repentance is much more than this.
I once heard a man say, "I'm so glad I know New Testament Greek. It translates the word 'repent' as meaning, 'to change one's mind.'"
No -- this man doesn't know his Greek! The full, literal meaning of the word "repent" in the New Testament is "to feel remorse and self-reproach for one's sins against God; to be contrite, sorry; to want to change direction." The difference in meanings here rests on the word "Want." True repentance includes a desire to change!
Moreover, simply being sorry doesn't constitute repentance. Rather, true sorrow leads to repentance. Paul states, "Godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death" (2 Corinthians 7:10).
Paul is speaking here of a sorrow that's without regrets -- one that's genuine, that "sticks" in the life of the repentant person. This kind of godly sorrow naturally produces a repentance that includes a hatred for sin, a righteous fear of God and a desire to right all wrongs.
It shouldn't surprise us, then, that Paul preached repentance to believers. He delivered a strong message of repentance to the Christians in Corinth. The Corinthian believers had been richly blessed by God, having sat under mighty teachers of the word. Yet their congregation remained rife with sin.