Counterfeit Repentance

Last week we looked at the necessity of repentance. We sought to press upon you the burden of Scripture, the emphasis of our Lord Jesus in His ministry on repentance, the emphasis of the apostles that they should preach repentance, and then, of course, the example, especially that found in Acts 17, where God now commands all people everywhere to repent.

We come this evening to look at counterfeit repentance. A number of passages may be considered, but I turn your attention to Matthew 27. There is a tragedy here that cannot be measured, and we want to seek to learn from it.

So let us read from Matthew 27, verse 1.

“When the morning was come, all the chief priests and elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death:

“And when they had bound him, they led him away, and delivered him to Pontius Pilate the governor.

“Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders,

“Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that.

“And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.

“And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood.

“And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter’s field, to bury strangers in.

“Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day.

“Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value;

“And gave them for the potter’s field, as the Lord appointed me.”

Amen. We will end with the reading of God’s Word at that juncture. And what you have heard, beloved, is the Word of the eternal God, which you are to receive, believe, and obey. And the people of God said, Amen.

Let us pray.

Lord, Thou hast been very careful in what Thou hast inscripturated. We believe the Holy Spirit is behind the very words that we read, that He governs, and what is put here and how it is recorded for us. There is no error therein, and it is here for our learning. Lord, there are things that we need to learn, things we need to relearn. Thou knowest every heart. Thou knowest my heart. I pray give that heart that can be taught to everyone here. We do not want to be unteachable. We do not want to be hard. We do not want to be indifferent. We do not want to be deluded.

So I pray for all. Please, Lord, open the truth to us by the ministry of the Spirit. Give the Holy Spirit. Give deliverance from every opposition against the truth of Thy Word. Give the Holy Spirit in great measure and save all who are not saved. Have mercy, O God, we pray in our Saviour’s name. Amen.

In his work on evangelical repentance, the Scottish divine John Colquhoun spoke of some, and I quote, “persuading themselves that they have already repented, they compose themselves to sleep on the pillow of carnal security.” And they will not believe that any of the dreadful threatenings denounced in Scripture against impenitent sinners belongs to them. Thus, many go down to the grave with a lie in their right hand.

Many go down to the grave with a lie in their right hand. They believe they have repented, but it is a lie.

It is not my business to disturb the God-given gospel rest of the child of God. That is not my intent. However, it is important that we all acknowledge, I think you would agree, that none of us wish to live a lie, to go down to the grave with a lie in their right hand.

It is possible for a man to feel genuine anguish over sin, to confess it as sin, to acknowledge it, and to give evidence of something going on in the heart and life that others can observe and attribute to genuine repentance, and yet still to come up short.

Therefore, dealing with counterfeit repentance appears to me to be a necessary part of a series, even though it is relatively short, on the subject of repentance. And a number of the older works do give some attention to this, dealing with the subject of counterfeit repentance.

So I want you to look with me at Matthew 27, and the account in verses 3 through 5, especially relating to Judas.

“Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself.” He brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, “I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood.” And they said, “What is that to us? see thou to that.” “And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.”

I do not need to emphasize to you the horror of this scene and the way God’s Word presents in a concise manner the tragic end of the life of one of the twelve. Here is a man who walked with Jesus, who served as one of the twelve, who preached sermons that may have led others to genuine repentance and faith. He performed miracles that undoubtedly caused those who received them and their loved ones to feel lasting gratitude.

Yet he is a picture, an example, of counterfeit repentance.

As we consider this subject, first, counterfeit repentance may involve deep remorse. The word used here in relation to the repentance described in verse 3—“repented himself”—can denote remorse or a feeling of regret.

The word itself does not necessarily reveal the shallowness of Judas’ repentance, if we may use that term. What it describes here is not fully revealed by the word alone, but when considered in context, it falls short. Judas is not turning to God, as we will see. He is turning inward upon himself. Although he feels the anguish of what he has done and returns the silver, he lacks the grace of genuine repentance. He feels deep remorse, and there is no doubt about that.

But there is no repentance leading to life, as the Shorter Catechism states. As we reflect on this, first, remorse may awaken the conscience without renewing the heart. Remorse may awaken the conscience without renewing the heart.

There may be a combined experience in which the feeling of remorse occurs together with an awakened conscience. Yet the heart remains unrenewed. There is no imparting or experience of life within the soul. And so a man may tremble. His conscience may be arrested. He understands the hazard of what he has done and where he stands. He does not deny the reality of death, of judgment. His sin is exposed, and he may agree to it, and he may acknowledge that there is rightful ruin at the end of it.

And yet at such a moment in that experience, deeply felt, it may appear to that man or to others that there is a real repentance going on, and yet it comes up short. There may be terror, and yet not the grace of life.

This is the kind of terror that may come upon a man when he knows or believes he has been caught in a crime. Consider the person who has become accustomed to petty theft. As he becomes more and more bold in that theft, he may experience a moment in which he begins to believe that he has been caught. Whether or not this is certain, there is a feeling that will descend upon him in that moment, a fear or terror that will affect his heart and may even change his behavior.

I know this from personal experience. I committed a small act of theft during my early teens. Items such as confectionery and other small things that seemed appealing to me in stores around my town became more frequent. I remember the first time I believed I had been caught. It turned out I was not. But I thought the woman in the store had seen what I had done. The fear that entered my heart was so great that I never again committed such an act.

You may be curious to know that after I was converted, about six years later, during a time in my Christian experience when I was praying before the Lord, this memory of my past life returned to me with such clarity that I could find no peace in His presence until I had done what I could to make amends. I went to three different locations in that town, contacted the owners, spoke with them, and gave money that I believed would more than cover what I had taken in those years.

A person may feel a sense of fear. A sense of dread may come upon his heart. Yet this is not true repentance.

Ahab illustrates this point. Go and read the life of Ahab. You will find that he was humbled, and judgment was announced. He expressed humility. Yet this was not genuine repentance, but the fear of consequences. It was the dread of what would happen.

Therefore, remorse may awaken the conscience without renewing the heart. It may cause sorrow over the pain or the results of sin without sorrow over sin itself. It may grieve over the consequences or the feelings associated with them, but not over sin as sin.

This is an important point. If mere sorrow over what had been done, or sorrow over the emotional experience itself, were sufficient, then the place where one would find the clearest expression of repentance would be in hell. For hell is filled with people who live in the horror of the consequences of their sins, and their anguish is unmistakable. But this is not true repentance. It may even include tears, but it is not repentance.

And so it is really about making a distinction between a sense of consequences or the pain that is felt and seeing the wrongness of sin or disliking it, in contrast to merely recognizing the problem of sin as sin. The sinfulness of sin is not the consequences. It is not just what may happen or how I feel about what has been done, but the actual recognition of the horror of sin itself.

So what does my grief truly reach? Does it reach the consequences? Does it hate what I perceive to be the things I regret and what I have done? Or does it hate that I ever sinned in the first place? Does it hate the sin?

Cain, in Genesis 4, you will remember the well-known statement recorded: “My punishment is greater than I can bear.” Here is a man who killed his own brother. Driven from the presence of God, he says, “My punishment is greater than I can bear.” But his burden was the consequence, not the sin itself. He was not grieved that he had killed his brother. He was grieved at what it would cost him now that he is driven away.

So remorse may feel a sense of something being wrong and perhaps be grieved that it ever took place, but it does not understand that I have sinned. I have made a breach of the law of God. I have gone contrary to what God has stipulated, what God requires. I have opposed His will. I have expressed rebellion directly against God Himself.

Counterfeit repentance may feel deep remorse.

In the second place, counterfeit repentance may make a true confession. It may make a true confession. Judas confessed, and his confession is remarkable, if you look at it, because there is accuracy and specificity in his confession.

“I have sinned.” “I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood.” So he calls it what it is, not merely that I did wrong or made a mistake. There was an error of judgment here. “I have sinned.” And he sees what he has done in terms of the victim of the sin, the Lord Himself, who is innocent. So he does not try to make it vague. He does not try to cover it up. He does not use the language of our day that all people make mistakes, that everyone makes mistakes, and try to take away or diminish or dilute the language of sin. Judas did none of these things.

Many of our confessions may be far more evasive than the language Judas uses. When you think about it, consider some recent instance of wrongdoing between you and another person, whether you are confessing or the other person is confessing, or think about your prayers before God. Do you use evasive language? Is there a shying away from calling it what it truly is?

Lord, I’ve made a mistake again. No, you have sinned. Use the proper terminology. Judas did.

He is not alone. The Egyptian pharaoh did the same. In Exodus 9, verse 27, you see a true confession. He says, “The Lord is righteous, and I and my people are wicked.” Could he have spoken more truthfully? Could he have been more precise? I have sinned. The Lord is righteous, and I and my people are wicked. I could not improve on that. If you want a summary of what is happening, Pharaoh, you have stated it accurately. You have sinned. God is righteous. And you and your people are wicked.

But when the plague was removed and the pressure of that was lifted from him, again his heart hardened. And so you see there is a shallowness to the confession. It is not real. It is not genuine. It does not come from repentance that leads to life. It is counterfeit.

Counterfeit repentance may include a true confession. So how do we understand then how that may appear, and gain clarity on this?

Well, first, confession may acknowledge guilt without seeking pardon in Christ. It may acknowledge guilt without seeking pardon in Christ.

So that is what Pharaoh did. He acknowledged guilt. This acknowledgment was temporary and did not lead him to seek mercy at the feet of the Lord. The same is true of Judas. He named his sin accurately and precisely, but he did not seek pardon for his sin before the Lord.

King Saul did something similar in the account given concerning him at first. The king of Israel, in 1 Samuel 15, when he was confronted by the prophet, said, “I have sinned. I have sinned.” But what follows is a request he makes in verse 30: “Yet honour me now, I pray thee, before the elders of my people.” “Honour me now, I pray thee, before the elders of my people.”

It was not the matter of what God thought. It was the matter of what the people might think. It was about maintaining appearances. He acknowledged his guilt, but he did not go to seek pardon before the Lord in the way that he ought.

As I say, Judas is the same.

Here is what you need to understand. Confession in and of itself is not an end. Confession in and of itself is not an end. It is part of a journey. If confession does not lead you to the feet of Christ, to the cross, to trusting in the merit of Christ, to believing in the blood of Christ, to looking to the sufficiency of Christ, and to resting in all that He has done, then it falls short.

Confession in and of itself is not an end. It is part of the process. It is a piece of the puzzle. But it does not terminate there.

If we are to be saved and have repentance leading to life, if we are to have that evangelical repentance that is truly experienced by those who are the people of God, then it must, it must reach all the way to Christ and secure pardon by faith alone.

So confession may acknowledge guilt without seeking pardon in Christ, and confession must come to God and own the heart behind the act. It must come to God and own the heart behind the act.

Now, the old writers often spoke of the fountain, sin in the fountain. This is old language referring to the heart or the nature. It is the source. Where does this come from? Why have I sinned? Some people will say, I have sinned because this person did that. What I have done is because you said the other. But they are not acknowledging, to use the old language, the fountain. They are not acknowledging why they did it.

You did it because of your heart. Your nature is the problem. That is why you sinned. I know the environment may play a part, but you sin because of your nature. Our Lord Jesus was in an environment surrounded by sin, and He did not sin. Neither was guile found in His mouth. There was no flaw in Him at all. Judas was wrong. He was not innocent, because his nature was not pure, impeccable.

So we must come to God and acknowledge our nature. We are not here to come before God and again say to Him that this is the reason why I did this. Confession must come to God and acknowledge the heart behind the act or the nature behind the act. It will particularize the sin, as Judas did. He stated what he had done, but we also acknowledge the nature behind it.

It is not just I have failed. I have sinned. I am a sinner before God. I have sinned, and I am a sinner before God. It is coming into God’s presence with this mindset: it is not just the specific thing I am mentioning before God. It is me. I am the problem. And this is laid bare before God.

Remember the prodigal son in Luke 15, how it is described, where he says, “I have sinned against heaven, and before thee,” and I am no longer worthy to be called thy son. See, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and I am no longer worthy. There is a sense of identity in the problem of himself. I have no worth. I am a sinner.

True confession does not merely state what happened. It goes before God, recognizing the full nature of our sinfulness and seeking pardon.

In the third place, counterfeit repentance may attempt real reformation. It is possible to exhibit some form of reform and yet not have genuine repentance. I am speaking of my own life, a brief glimpse into my past, in which, if you assessed the immediacy of the change that occurred, you might think that man must have had some spiritual experience. But I did not, not at all. It was merely a sense of terror and fear of consequences.

Judas came before the priests and returned what he had gained. He did not merely come to say, “What I did was wrong.” He brought back the money he had received and sought to make some kind of restitution.

How do I put this right? I want to put this right. Take this silver back. He was trying to undo it. He did not want to profit from it. And this is Judas, remember Judas. The entire reason, if I am reading the Gospels correctly, as I have said to you before, for the betrayal at the moment it occurred was because he could not accept that Mary had broken the alabaster jar and poured out the perfume. The value of that perfume was 300 denarii, and he would have preferred if she had simply given it to him. Mary, I would have sold it, used the money for good purposes, and kept a portion for myself. It was the loss of that opportunity that caused him, at that moment, to betray the Lord.

So he is seeking to get the little bit that he thought he had lost. And so there is this great change, this radical expression of reform. This is Judas, whose god is gold. He is not just someone who has received money. He went because that was the objective. I want to fill my own pockets with more. Here is my opportunity. So he seeks to undo it.

Counterfeit repentance may attempt real reformation. So how do we think through this? Well, again, in the first place, reformation may change conduct without changing masters. It may change conduct without changing masters.

Judas changes in his conduct. He does not want to have anything to do with what he has done, and he is trying to cast the silver away. But he is not. The master of his heart is still the same.

You know, a prodigal—if I may not speak specifically of the example in Luke 15, but if I may take the context of the parable there, that part of the parable that Jesus narrates to us of the two brothers—it is quite possible for a prodigal to receive his inheritance, go out into the world, and waste his substance with reckless living, and then at some point in his life come to himself, become aware of the folly of his ways, and return home and become like the elder brother.

You see, what joined the two brothers was the fact that they both had the wrong master of their lives. Both of them served self, one self-righteous, one self-indulgent, but they did not have the Lord crowning their heart. They were not given to a complete allegiance to the living God and love for His Son, Jesus Christ.

So there can be reformation, which is a change of conduct, but there is not a change of who is in control, who is governing.

I do not know all that may have occurred during the time that John the Baptist preached before Herod. Mark’s account tells us that John was arrested, not just kept in prison, but it also tells us, if I am remembering correctly, that Herod frequently had John brought to him to preach.

John may have addressed many things that Herod needed to hear, and Herod may have changed in some of his ways. Yet the master of his heart never changed. He had a pet sin—Herodias—and that was off limits. So John may have addressed various matters and instructed the conscience of Herod to such a degree that it was possible for Herod to go through a certain reform, listening to John, enjoying hearing what he said, receiving it with some pleasure and delight. But as soon as John approached that matter, it was, “No, that is off limits.” This was the proof that there was never, ever a real change in Herod’s heart.

The beloved sin often reveals where we truly are. The beloved sin of the sinner is the reason why the church struggles and will always struggle with the existence of hypocrisy. People come in and they agree with this, they agree with that, and they give their reasons why they appreciate this place. Of course, people may come in and like the fact that it is more traditional, more conservative, more this, that, and the other. They give their reasons why they really appreciate this place compared to another. We may think, given the fact that, you know, where the church is in America today and how far off many places are, that this is a good sign that they truly know the Lord.

But it is not evidence.

The question for all of us is this: Does the Lord have mastery over my entire heart and life? Have I relinquished all control? Have I invited and received gladly His exploration of my heart? And do I delight in His exposure of any and all remaining sin?

Reformation may change conduct without changing masters. Therefore, reformation must break with the dominion of sin. To state this positively, reformation must break with the dominion of sin.

Again, to emphasize a great difference: there is an eternal difference between hating the consequences of sin and hating sin itself. It is not merely asking, what will this cost me? It is asking, what is this before God?

You remember Joseph, the great example of this. Young Joseph, in the torment of his master’s wife, who came and made an appeal to him. We often pass through this passage quickly, without understanding the dynamic: she was his superior, he was her inferior, and she was pressing him, and all the rest of it. And he, as a young man, was responding to her in that context. For him to stand resolved was not simply because, if my master finds out, it will be the end of my life. No, that was true.

But his response reflected genuine evidence of a heart that belonged to God. “How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” That is the difference. The struggle is not, how can I do this in secret? It is, how can I do this before God?

True forsaking of sin does not make peace with it. It runs from it. It breaks with it. It seeks deliverance from the dominion of sin. This is the promise of the gospel: sin will not have dominion over us. The child of God will seek that liberty and plead for it. Give me liberty here, not merely because of the fear of consequences, but because of what the action is before God. It is sin. It is wickedness.

In the fourth place, counterfeit repentance may remain legal rather than evangelical. Counterfeit repentance may remain legal rather than evangelical.

Again, John Colquhoun, to quote him, deals with this matter of legal repentance. It is very insightful, not something I had given much thought to. But he says, in one place, that legal repentance is a feeling of regret produced in a legalist by the fear that violations of the divine law, especially his gross sins, expose him to eternal punishment.

He goes on to elaborate, but if I may summarize briefly, he says the person is extremely sorry not because he has transgressed the law, but because the law and justice of God are so strict that they cannot allow him to sin with impunity. End quote.

So he is not sorry that he has transgressed the law, but sorry that the law is so strict and the consequences so severe. This produces in him something that appears to be repentance, a change of mind.

The legal penitent, if we can describe him in this way, feels the indictment of the law, knows he deserves the wrath of God, and may resolve to make himself better. He may pray, weep, and endeavor to change. He may turn over a new leaf. He may speak of Christ and acknowledge Him, yet secretly hope that the entire process—his tears, his duties, his acknowledgment, his honesty, his reform—will be sufficient to meet his need before God. It is his own experience, his works, and his recognition of his sin that he depends upon. God will see how sorry I am. God will see the tears I have shed. Surely that will be enough.

It is a dependence on oneself. To elaborate further, we may say that legal repentance may turn sorrow into payment. Legal repentance may turn sorrow into payment. It is an attempt to see value in the repentance itself, standing alone.

Our confession warns about this in chapter 15, where it states that repentance is not, quote, “any satisfaction for sin, or any cause of the pardon thereof.” Repentance is not any satisfaction for sin or any cause of the pardon thereof.

Thus, it is self-righteous. This is why he is referred to in this way, why Colquhoun refers to him as legal repentance. It is the legalist expressing it. Repentance, nowhere, is safe from being captured by the legalist and distorted—even repentance.

Again, this returns to what I said earlier. Repentance is not an end in and of itself. Evangelical repentance, therefore, must come to Christ for grace. Evangelical repentance, in contrast to legal repentance, must come to Christ for grace. It must lead there. It must lead there.

The horrors of trying to manufacture some kind of religious experience, even in relation to repentance, and believe it is sufficient. See that as sufficient. Be content with that.

I was truly sorry that day. I shed many tears at that time. Surely that must make it real. Do you not see how Satan distorts and how he may use this to feed us with a sense of contentment over the depth of an experience? And yet it does not lead us to Christ.

Perhaps you have had this experience, even the most sincere among us. I imagine that if you look back, you will be able to say, I think I can say I have gone through that experience. You have sinned greatly. Your heart was deeply moved. You were in tears over it. You made amends with others. There were many tears shed, and much emotion involved. And there is a little voice that follows up on the heels of it, in which there is some contentment. The Lord has done, must have done, a real work in me there, because I really felt that.

It is all works. If that is where it leads us and that is where it ends, it all works.

God does not save you and pardon you because of the fullness and perfection of your repentance or the depth of your sorrow. May there be sorrow, of course. May it be felt profoundly, and may many tears be shed, absolutely. But if you do not come to Christ, it is counterfeit.

There are people—certainly not in these circles, I do not believe—but there are people, some I have ministered to, who have fixated on repentance. They have been taught or have formulated a way of salvation in which there is an assessment of repentance, and they are looking for it. They are actually examining whether this expression of repentance, as they measure it, is deep enough. They are asking whether it gives an indication that they are truly one of the Lord’s. They are looking at it as a mark of election. They have been told that, you see. They have been told that the depth and sorrow for sin is a mark of the elect.

And so, having been told that, all their focus is on the expression, the depth, or the emotion tied to repentance. But there is no salvation there. There is no salvation there. It must lead to Christ.

Better the man who is unsure of the depth of his repentance, unsure of how sorrowful he may feel, but brings that uncertainty and that query to the Lord and says, Lord, I am not even sure. I do not even know if I feel what I should feel about this sin. And I struggle to truly repent. Give me repentance. Help me to understand, but whatever happens, let me be found at Your feet. Let me receive Your pardon.

Finally, counterfeit repentance will end in despair. Counterfeit repentance will end in despair.

The whole problem for Judas is that he went to the chief priests and elders. His first action upon recognizing what he had done was not to seek the Lord. How do I get to Him? I know that the Lord was arrested at this time, and access to Him may not have been possible, but to see any sign of understanding about where he needed to go, he did not seek Christ. So there is real despair here, but he does not go where he needs to go.

We might say, in the first place, that despair may magnify sin above the Savior. It may magnify sin above the Savior.

I wonder whether this is not what is happening in Judas’ heart—that he feels his sin, he feels the horror of what he has done, and all of this appears to be humility. Yet although there is humility, and although there is acknowledgment, and although he calls it sin for what it is, and although he is specific in his confession, all of this still lacks faith. His heart is filled with unbelief, and it may be that he does not believe the Lord would ever receive him.

The theologically astute may begin to say, well, you know, the Lord had already declared what would happen to him, and he was fulfilling prophecy, and so on. You know, the child of God, even in the face of a prophetic announcement, will do what is right, even if it seems to contradict the prophetic announcement.

What do I mean? If you had a clear indication that there was no hope for you at all, and it was revealed to you prophetically that there was no hope, it would still be right to pursue mercy from the Lord. It would not be right to sit back and say, this pronouncement has been made, therefore I cannot do anything about it. If heaven opened and an angel with a 12-foot wingspan came to you and said, you can never be saved, still the right thing for you would be to come before God and plead for mercy.

David was told what would happen to his son. And yet he still prayed that God might show mercy. He still prayed. Whatever may be true about Judas, whatever hope or hopelessness may have been his circumstances, Judas ought to have run to the Lord and cried out for mercy.

But I think it may be, I cannot say for certain, that there was certainly unbelief in his heart, obviously. Yet that unbelief may have been expressed as a feeling that there was no way he could ever be received. Instead of going to the Lord, you may feel that way. You may have reached a point in your life where you believe there is no way you could ever be saved. The things you have done, the life you have lived, there is no way you could ever be forgiven.

The devil wants you to think that way. You need to think scripturally. You need to think biblically. You need to consider the call that was given last Lord’s Day, that God now commands all people everywhere to repent. The door is open. The invitation is real. It is sincere. It is genuine. Respond to the invitation. Seek the Lord for mercy.

True repentance returns to God through Christ. I emphasize this again.

There is a great similarity between Judas and Peter. Peter sinned greatly in his denial, with oaths and curses. At the very same time, Judas was committing his sin, or at least around the same time. The difference between them is not that what Peter did was less serious. There may be some way to measure that, but I do not think that is the point. The difference is that Peter remained near Christ, and when Christ looked at him, he responded. He was restored.

Am I the only one who could?

Counterfeit repentance. It ought to strike fear into every one of us. The fact that it exists, the fact that it is real, the fact that Scripture tells us of many—whether it be Cain, King Saul, Judas, or others that could be listed—stands as a warning to us.

I have a number of things I wanted to say, but I will leave it and summarize it in this way: If there is a treasured sin in your life, the existence of that sin while you try to live as a Christian ought to raise the alarm more strongly than anything I have said tonight. The treasured sin, the pet sin, the sin that is excused—this ought to raise the alarm.

Because Christ is in the business of conquering every area of your life. And where are you to go? How do I know my repentance will be thorough? When you reach the point where you say exactly what God says about your sin, and you are in full agreement with God. You give it up. And your dependence is entirely in the person of God’s Son.

You are not received on the basis of a perfect repentance, but on the basis of faith that trusts entirely, solely, and exclusively in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. In Him, you find forgiveness for all your sins. In Him, you find forgiveness even for the imperfection of your repentance.

Because if all your religious experience does not lead you to Christ and keep you there for the rest of your life, it is counterfeit. It is a sham.

Let us bow together in prayer.

If you are a Christian, let me remind you that repentance is not something to fear. It is a blessing. It is something to be part of your life every day. It is included in the Lord’s Prayer for a reason: “Forgive us our debts.” Acknowledging our sin is an evidence of grace. It is an act of faith. Never be afraid of deepening repentance.

And if you are not saved or are unsure, I invite you to come and speak with me. I would be happy to respond to your questions and pray with you.

Lord, hear our prayer. Answer. You know every heart. You know what is at stake. We do not need to tell You how important it is that each of us be rightly related to You. Do the work that only You can do. Take away all deception.

Please let everyone here know true peace through Christ alone. Grant Your mercy to us, and deepen Your work of grace in every life. And as one prayed earlier before the meeting, may we know the grace to keep short accounts before God and walk in step with our Master, doing all Your will. Hear us, and bless our fellowship. Strengthen the church for the week ahead. Empower us by the Spirit. May the grace of our Lord Jesus, the love of God our Father, and the fellowship of the Spirit of God be the portion of every Christian, now and evermore. Amen.