My last message on Revelation 9 closed with a reminder that we all know that God exists, as Romans 1:18-32 & 2:14-16 explain.

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1 They Did Not Repent Revelation 9: /15/2016 Copyright by Mark Vaughan 5/2016 We return to our study in Revelation today & we pick up at the end of chapter 9 where I quickly finished off before a Mothers Day break. As I thought over the end of chapter 9, I wanted to circle back to what was there for more consideration & application. To review where we were, turn to Revelation 9 & let s begin by reading what we ve covered let s read Revelation 9:1-21. [READ] Remember that we re learning about the future, about God s predictions for a future 7-year Tribulation period on the earth. He will begin that judgment on those who dwell on the earth after removing the church from the earth. The church which is all believing people on the planet will be taken up & then God will begin pouring out wrath. God will still offer salvation in Christ to those left behind because Revelation 6 & 7 mention Christian martyrs in that future period. And 144,000 from the 12 tribes of Israel will come to faith in Christ & will be sealed & protected by God. But most people will not trust Christ & will face increasing torment that will later be followed by eternal torment in the lake of fire. The 7 seals of the scroll given to Jesus showed the Apostle John the first grouping that we learned from. Then the 7 th seal unveiled the 7 trumpet judgments & we ll see later that the 7 th trumpet announces 7 bowls of wrath to come. Revelation 9 described the 5 th & 6 th trumpet judgments. My last message on Revelation 9 closed with a reminder that we all know that God exists, as Romans 1:18-32 & 2:14-16 explain. We know God is eternal & powerful & holy & that He has a moral law by which we will all be judged. The only way to escape that judgment is to have Jesus death be counted as paying the punishment that our sins deserve. The only way to achieve God s required righteousness is for Jesus life to be credited to our spiritual account. We gain that assurance of heaven & not hell by grace through faith in Christ alone & not by any works we can do to get us right with God. But faith is more than merely agreeing with the fact that Jesus is the Lord & Savior that He claims to be. The faith that brings us into a right relationship with God is more than merely knowing & stating that God is real & that Jesus is the Savior. We know that because the people who are lost at the end of chapter 9 know those truths & agree to them. The people at the end of chapter 9 continue to face judgment on earth & they will also face final judgment in the lake of fire. So we need to ask what the difference between them believing the truth about God & Christ & you or I believing the truth about God & Christ in a way that assures us of heaven. As I meditated upon this & prayed for us, I feared that it s easy to miss when our lives are so comfortable & following Christ costs so little. And since I don t want any of you to face judgment, I wanted to circle back to these last 2 verses of chapter 9 to help us be sure we are not missing something. 1

2 It may be easy to read Revelation & get to the end of chapter 9 & point to those who will dwell on the earth in that time as really thick-headed. It may be easy to look at them & wonder why they would remain in rebellion against God who is so obviously in charge. It may be tempting to read of them with scorn & sadness as if we can t understand why they would continue to remain God s enemy. But there s a key word in this passage that is also a key doctrine that is absent in much of the evangelical church today. It is a word & doctrine that is absent not only in mainline liberal churches who do not believe the Bible. It is also lost in Gospel presentations by children s ministries & para-church organizations & popular churches & movements. You may hear accurate truths about the Person & work of Christ as paying for our sins to be our Savior, but you will not hear this term. This neglected word is repentance the call to Christ by both repentance & faith, by both repenting of sin & trusting Christ. And I didn t want to skim over this without explaining its importance. You see, many are accustomed to thinking that following Jesus is easy & that most people around us are Christians. Or others view repentance as unnecessary or as only for really bad people or as a ritual or one-time act. So I want to strengthen your grasp of & commitment to a biblical understanding of repentance. I don t want you to fall short of true conversion or interpret true conversion in the wrong light & share it wrongly with others. That s why I thought it was worth spending some time instructing you & reminding you about repentance. Look at Revelation 9:20-21 with me again where we see this. [READ] I felt like I rushed through these 2 verses when I covered them before & I m not sure we could see our own hearts in them. When we read twice in verses that the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues did not REPENT, what does that mean? We do not want to be guilty of the same lack of repentance. You may have complete knowledge that God is the sovereign Ruler & judge & you may see the Bible as God s Word & agree that Jesus is the God-man & only Savior, but these rebels had all that too. As James 2 describes, the demons also believe the right theology & they even tremble in fear. But like these remaining earth-dwellers in Revelation 9:20-21, the demons do not & cannot repent. What can make you & me different is whether we repent. If you understand & experience biblical repentance, then you are different from the rest who will face judgment. That distinction is true today as it will be in the Tribulation. So I m going to offer a 3-step explanation of biblical repentance from what we read in Revelation 9: We ll find one step in verse 20 & the next steps in verse 21 to draw out the heart & implications of true repentance. 1 st note with me that repentance is first about worship & faith. 2

3 Point #1 repentance is first about worship & faith. Repentance does affect behavior & we ll get to that, but a proper perspective & pursuit of repentance must start with worship & faith. I say that because worship & faith are about God those are relational terms in response to God as a Person. That s why the descriptions here in verses are synonymous with saying that the rest of mankind did not turn to Christ in faith. Saying they did not repent is the same as saying they did not trust Christ & therefore were not saved. Since you breathe the air of our anything-goes culture, you likely feel a little unsettled about using this word repentance. We all may be a little reticent to look someone in the face & say, God calls you to repent or Friend, you need to repent. Maybe we ve cringed hearing an angry screaming call to repent that sounded more like a venting rage than a welcome to salvation. And such real or imagined bad examples may tempt us to shrink back from usually this biblical word. But another word for believers is repenters in other countries & that is in agreement with how the Bible uses it. Rather than shying away from this term, Scripture uses repent where we could substitute the word faith or believe. That s evident here in Revelation 9:20 & I don t want us to miss that. The rest of mankind did not repent, which means they did not turn away from their false gods & false trusts & sins in such a way that they turned to God by faith in Christ. So repentance is not an option for believers to add on to fix their lives up a bit more if they wish to do so. Repentance is not an optional accessory you can invest in if a holier life seems more desirable to you. No. To repent is to turn from sin to faith in Christ to be saved. We see that consistently through Jesus ministry. To begin His ministry, Matthew 4:17 says, Jesus began to preach and say, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." [cf. 11:20] Similarly, in Luke 13:3&5, Jesus said, "I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. In Luke 24:46-47 described Gospel proclamation like this: that the Christ would suffer & rise again from the dead the third day, & that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. And that s why Luke 15:10 says that there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. Similarly, Acts 2:38 & 3:19 record Peter s preaching & Acts 14:15; 17:30; & 20:21 report of Paul preaching all with a call to repent. So as we preach the Gospel & believe the Gospel, let s be sure it s a Gospel that includes repentance in its proper place. Acts 17:30 says God is commanding all everywhere to repent. Repentance has that central place because it s about what or whom we worship, about what or whom we trust & follow & treasure as the God we follow. Read Revelation 9:20 again.[read] 3

4 The works of their hands are described in the next phrase as idols of gold & silver & bronze & stone & wood. So this is a repentance of worship, a turning of trust from false promises of idols to what the true God promises & provides. They did not repent of living for gold & silver & bronze & stone & wood all stuff that cannot see nor hear nor walk. Worship is ascribing worth & honor & repentance is turning away from giving such value & trust to idols of any kind. Those idols may be material or immaterial. But even the immaterial ones have some image & treasure in this material world, some promise they offer. And the word repent or repentance means a turning from those idols & lies of this world to God & His truths. The NT term means a changing of mind, a transformation from a wrong way of thinking to the right way of thinking. That thinking is the heart worship & faith connection. 1 st Thessalonians 1:9 is a fabulous description of this change when it say they turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God. They did not turn from one idol to another, from one vice or worldly passion to another socially acceptable one. They didn t stop immorality to serve their pride or quit gluttony to bow at the altar of appearance or cease sloth in order to love money. They turned from such idols to a new direction of service. Repentance sees all such wrong pursuits are subtle lies of the devil, as schemes of Satan s world system to deceive & destroy. We see that in how these future people in Revelation 9:20 are described as failing to cease worshipping demons. They would not stop all the manifestations of demonic heresy. They would not stop serving them & begin worshipping the true God as revealed in Christ & reached by grace. So again, this teaches us that repentance is about worship & faith. Turning away from sin & self & Satan & every worldly error is turning to God in faith in Christ. To truly turn away, we must also turn TO God. To turn away from lies, we must turn to truth. That turning is both repentance AND faith such that repentance & faith are two sides of the same coin, two parts of the same whole. Sometimes repentance is spoken of as doing a 180, a 180- degree turn from one direction to head the opposite direction. And that s true & helpful but faith is that same 180-degree turn. You might say repentance is the first 90-degrees & faith is the other 90 degrees, but it s probably best to view them together as the same 180-degree turn, as the same reversal of directions. It s a reversal of worship from treasuring a relationship with some other person or thing or idea to honor in a relationship with God. That s what s implied by not worshipping demons in verse 20. That reality of entering a worship relationship with God is why true repentance & faith are more than mere knowledge like demons have. 4

5 Repentance involves more than merely knowing what sin is & knowing that it is worthy of death, as Romans 1:32 says that unbelievers do & still practice & praise those things. That s why repentance involves more than conviction of sin like Judas had in sorrow over his sins without truly repenting. Matthew 27:3-5 says that when Judas, who had betrayed Him [Jesus], saw that He had been condemned, he felt remorse & returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests & elders, saying, "I have sinned by betraying innocent blood." But they said, "What is that to us? See to that yourself!" 5 And he threw the pieces of silver into the temple sanctuary and departed; and he went away and hanged himself. Judas felt remorse but he was not moved to repentance. He even felt so bad that he hanged himself but Matthew 26:24 says it would ve been better for Judas if he d never been born. So Judas s sorrow did not lead him to repentance & salvation. Instead, he felt sorrow for himself, sorry for the mess he d made of his life, sorry for the guilt over him, maybe even sorry for the consequences he knew he would one day face. He was sorrowful, but not repentant. And that is vital lest you think conviction in your conscience or feeling sad over sin s earthly troubles is equal to repentance. Sorrow & guilt CAN lead to repentance but sorrow & guilt alone do not equate with genuine repentance. Turn to 2 nd Corinthians 7:8-11 where Paul clarified that. Paul had written the Corinthians a letter that caused them sorrow over the areas they needed to correct & change. So as he wrote again, he was glad his letter had caused not just sorrow, but sorrow in relation to God that led to repentance. Read 2 nd Corinthians 7:8-11 with me to see that. [READ] Kids it s one thing for your parents or church leaders to hear something wrong you say & you feel bad that you got caught. Adults, it s one thing to get caught & lost trust & have uncomfortable consequences or strained relationships that make you feel bad. It s one thing to feel sorry you ve hurt other people or made life difficult for those close to you or others. That s all fine & good & we should feel some measure of such sorrow. But unbelievers feel that kind of sorrow. And in recent decades the idea arose that you need to forgive yourself because of how you ve hurt yourself & that has absolutely nothing to do with biblical repentance or anything biblical at all. Sin is against God & others, not against ourselves & the idea of forgiving yourself is self-absorbed psychobabble that snuck into the church with the lies of self-esteem & self-love. When I sin, it s my fault not anyone else s & I don t need to forgive myself as if I was better than that. No. Instead, my sins show me how bad I actually am & how desperately I need God to forgive me & change me. Always in Scripture, the pleas for forgiveness are toward God & others and they are requests humbly asked not demands made. We put our confessions & petitions for God s forgiveness with faith that He promises to forgive if we are trusting Christ. 5

6 We claim promises like 1 st John 1:9 that He is faithful & righteous to forgive us our sins & to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We do so when we feel the sorrow that 2 nd Corinthians 7:9-10 describe as sorrow according to the will of God or literally, sorrow according to God. This godly sorrow is the guilty, broken, contrite feeling that our sins were not first & foremost against people in this material world. Our sins first & foremost are offenses against the God who made us & who has put the knowledge of His existence & His law in our hearts & yet we ve rebelled against Him. Sorrow according to God says what King David said in Psalm 51:4, Against you, Lord, & you only, I have sinned, & done what is evil in your sight so that the primary focus is the relationship with God. That example of David s repentance in Psalm 51 is a great place to go to meditate & pray for our own hearts to respond to God in a similar God-centered path of repentance. And what we ll also find in Psalm 51 is an incredible joy & relief & hope & boldness & gratitude & purpose that flows from repentance. Again, I m saying this because the future saints of Revelation 9:20 do not repent in a way leading to worship & faith. They had plenty of evidence, plenty of sorrow over their plight in life, but they refused to give up other trusts & treasures. And since I don t want that for any of us, I remind you & I remind myself that repentance is 1 st about worship & faith. It s about admitting that God is God & you are not, that He is right & true & wise & good & loving & perfect in all His ways & that you are not, that you are sinful & broken & needy & wrong. But in that confession to God, you turn to Christ in all His trustworthy mercy instead as worthy to follow. You believe He is the God-man who came to earth to live perfect righteousness & to die to pay sin s penalty & to rise again in victory. So you trust Him you spiritually lean on Him & rest in Him. Repentance is not fixing our lives up on your own because the messy stuff of our lives flows from the messed up stuff in our hearts. So what we first need is a turning from the misguided, sinful trusts & treasures of our hearts to value & follow Jesus instead. And because of all that Jesus has revealed of Himself as the Lord & Savior who will grant His life & death to count for our rescue & redemption, then we can approach Him knowing He will answer. We can approach Him as beggars asking for what He promised to give to those who repent & trust Him. We can seek Him knowing that even repentance is a gift that God grants as 2 nd Timothy 2:25 & Acts 11:18 reveal. Coming to Him in confession seeking His promised grace then helps us realize that repentance is not a self-help project. It s a surrender to receive the free divine help that comes through faith in Christ & it then begins a long-term transformation project guided by God s Word & empowered by His Spirit. And that leads to our 2 nd step about repentance today. 1 st we said that repentance is first about worship & faith. That doesn t mean we instantly worship God perfectly or that our faith is exercised fully or effectively at all times. 6

7 Ephesians 6, for example, tells us that we enter a spiritual war of faith, an ongoing battle to turn from lies to trust & follow God & His truth. Luke 17:3-4 is the parallel to Matthew 18:15-18 where Jesus taught on restoring a brother or sister who strays into sin & what the church is to do with one who continues in sin. And He said clearly in Luke 17:3-4 that if your brother repents, then forgive him, which Christians will continue repenting throughout life. The more we see our sin, the more we ll need to repent. Also when we stray into sin we knew was wrong, we ll need to repent. So we should expect to repent in coming to Christ initially & we should expect to keep on repenting as we become aware of more sin in our hearts & lives as we study God s Word. And as we do so, then our inward repentance will show itself outwardly in our works & fruit. It will still continue to work inside out, but the external deeds & evidences of genuine repentance will show. So then our 2 nd step about repentance to learn today is that repentance is next about works & fruit. 1 st we said repentance is 1 st about worship & faith & now #2, repentance is next about works & fruit. We want to get this order right because true repentance starts in the affections & values & trusts of the heart. But then inevitably as a connected consequence out of the repentant heart will flow a changed life, a pattern of works that is different from what had previously characterized that person. We know that from passages like James 2 that teach that a faith that produces no works is a dead faith & useless profession. We know it from Jesus words in Matthew 7 that teach us to know a person by the product of their lives like we know a tree by its fruit. We also know this truth from Revelation 9:21 so turn back there to see wrong worship linked to wrong behavior. The behavior was not mentioned first because their heart is first, but out of the heart flows the behavior. So now read Revelation 9:21 to see this next point. [READ] If you know some deed is sin it s wrong according to God s Word then to repent means to turn away from the deed & from what fed it. It means to turn away from the act itself & from the beliefs that valued & fueled the pursuit of it. Being repentant does not mean we ll never struggle again or that believing & acting rightly will be automatic. Some areas may change easily & automatically while other areas may require more in the daily fight of faith. But the clearly listed transgressions of God s law will be turned away from in contrast to what s said of the lost souls of Revelation 9:21. They did not repent of murder, sorceries, immorality & thefts, which are all clearly condemned in the OT & the NT. So the works or fruit of the lives of these future rebels against God will continue to prove that they deserve judgment. Their lives will continue to evidence their distrust of God s goodness & their rejection of His love & grace. 7

8 Characteristic & life-dominating sins like these in Revelation 9:21 are clear indicators of an unrepentant & unregenerate heart. People devoted to & unrelenting in such sins are lost. We don t need to dance around that reality by claiming we can t judge their hearts or don t want to be judgmental. It s plain that the sins of some men are quite evident, going before them to judgment, as 1 st Timothy 5:24 puts it. When people s lives are marked by murders, sorceries, immorality, or thefts, then their works prove they are headed for judgment. In contrast, those whose lives are changed by God s Spirit & made new by the Gospel are proven also by their fruit. True believers are shown to be genuinely repentant by the good fruit that grows in & from them. Their faith is demonstrated by the good works God prepared beforehand that they walk in, as Ephesians 2:10 says. That s the encouragement & assurance we long for in our souls so it s something to take seriously. That s the 2 nd step in identifying & experiencing repentance we learn that repentance is next about works & fruit. It is 1 st about worship & faith & it is next about works & fruit. That s true for the lost soul we re seeking to lead to Christ & it s true for the Christian striving to biblically change. We as believers even need to meditate on why we do what we do & what s behind our failures to see it in relation to God. Our change will be superficial if it s not oriented God-ward. If we re not motivated to trust & treasure God above whatever else we re seeking & serving, our change is not deep enough. And I realize this is not quick & easy because I had some opportunities to practice it this week while I was preparing. When our family of 8 is trying to get somewhere & we all have our agendas, it can just get ugly & I have my battles in how I respond. But in those & all times, we must see what we re believing & loving more than God so we can take steps of repentance. So start your evaluation of your repentance with your heart. And then focus appeals for others repentance on their hearts. Begin with the internal & essential place of worship & faith. Then from inside move out next to works & fruit, to applying clear commands to change the behavior & actions. Don t stop short of either of these areas give serious attention to them because they are not only about fixing relationships in this life. Quickly & lastly today I want us to note as a 3 rd point that repentance is eternally about heaven & hell. Repentance 1 st & next in this life is important because repentance, 3 rd ly, is eternally about heaven & hell. Turn to Revelation 21:8 to see that further. [READ] Not repenting of life-dominating character sins is what clearly defined these souls as unbelievers & their end will be in the lake of fire. Similarly, turn to Revelation 22:14-15 & read that. [READ] 8

9 Again the unbelievers are marked by their deeds. Being unrepentant of such sins is not to be overlooked or redefined as an addiction or an identity crisis or any other blame-shifting label or redefinition of right & wrong. We must speak like the Lord did through His prophet in Isaiah 5:20 & say, Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; & then we must clearly call people to repent of evil. We must let God s Word define good & evil & call those in obvious patterns of sin to repent. And the promise of the Gospel is that with repentance comes the power to change-as Titus 2 teaches, the arrival of grace brings change. As Romans 6 teaches, grace is not a reason to keep on sinning. We don t write books & write & sing songs of free grace forever as a cover for a failure to repent ever. Some respected authors & speaks have come dangerously close to that kind of antinomianism & easy-believism again lately. So this text is a timely reminder that by repentance & faith we become new people who will imperfectly but perceptibly be changed. 2 nd Corinthians 5:17 says we become new creatures in Christ; & we must not stop calling for repentance that produces that. Then no one needs to be deceived over whether they are headed for heaven or not if they observe the sins in lists like we ve read today. Listen to a similar warning from 1 st Corinthians 6:9-11 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. You can be washed clean, fully forgiven, in Jesus because His death has paid the full punishment for sin for His followers. And you can be sanctified, set apart as holy to Him to grow increasingly in that practical holiness by His grace. That s the heart & proof of repentance. Examine your understanding & experience of repentance. Do not be deceived or confused because repentance is eternally about heaven & hell. And that s why Jesus said in Matthew 9:43 that if your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life crippled, than having your two hands, to go into hell. He meant that whatever is in the way of your repentance, whatever is hindering or impeding or derailing or distracting your repentance from sin to trust & follow Jesus, get rid of it. Whatever sinful habit or secret or treasure or trust you hold dearer than Christ is not worth keeping when it will take you to hell with it. It is far better to confess it & call to God & others for help & throw yourself on the mercy of Christ for forgiveness instead. That is biblical repentance & it is first about worship & faith, next about works & fruit, & eternally about heaven & hell. If we can lead you in that kind of repentance, please come talk with us after the service & we ll be delighted to help you. Let s pray that we ll all enjoy & evidence such biblical repentance. 9