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BIBLE STUDY – TUESDAY 28TH JUNE 2016

PREFACE:
It is catastrophic to go to the house of God without writing anything down. You should not go to church to gather head knowledge rather you should go there in order to receive instruction that is to be entrenched in your heart. It is the amount of the word of God in your heart that determines your victory.

Many people don’t know what repentance is but only see it as religion taught them. They only possess head knowledge about repentance based on what they are told and not what they know. What you know gives you confidence to confront the devil and empowers you to be able to liaise with God.

A classical example is King Hezekiah whom Prophet Isaiah delivered a message of death to as sent by God in respect of his sickness. Hezekiah’s personal relationship with God and his knowledge about God empowered him to turn around the message of death God sent to him through Prophet Isaiah.

When you become genuinely and soundly born again, you will do everything you do within the confines of the kingdom of God and not outside it. Your choice of friends, partner in marriage, business partners and any form of relationship or association will be within the jurisdiction of the kingdom of God.

If you break the law of nature, you will die before your time! So also, if you break spiritual laws, you will reap the consequences. The followers of the devil don’t rebel against him. The reason is because they know that the consequence of such rebellion is death and that there’s no mercy in the kingdom of satan. It is God that is very patient with you and will sometimes come to you, pleading with you and showing you the consequences of the action you are about taking. It is when He sees that your mind is made up that He now leaves you with the decision you have made.

Many people don’t like the sound teaching of the word of God to be preached to them. They cringe at such teachings. The teaching of the truth is not to cow, scare or cage you but to show you the guaranteed freedom that Jesus has provided for you. “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:32).

TOPIC: WHAT REPENTANCE ENTAILS
Text: Matthew 3:8 “Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance.”

If I claim I have repented, what does it entail?

INTRODUCTION
Every of your thoughts are with a motive. God knows your thoughts, not your thoughts alone but also the motive behind those thoughts. If everything you do goes outside the purpose for which God created you, you have made yourself an enemy of God.

What John the Baptist said in the above verse (Matthew 3: correlates with what Jesus said in Matthew 7:20 which is, “Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.” If I say I am born again, there are fruits that will differentiate me from every other person. Whatever you have knowledge about and are convinced about it, you carry it about with confidence.

It baffles me when preachers say we should soft pedal on the issue of sin so that people will not feel guilty. It means if I am a policeman, I should not use my gun when I see a thief but should rather pamper him. What will that make me? An accomplice of the thief! It is therefore erroneous to say that the issue of sin should be soft pedaled and not hammered thoroughly.

Nobody has ever changed as a result of pampering, rather pampering will make such person become rotten. It’s better you shoot the bullet of the truth at that person without holding anything back. Your hate for the truth cannot change the truth. The more you continue to hate the truth, the more you continue to be injured because once you begin to remember it, it continues to pierce and grieve your heart. The patience of God has a limit with every person. When the door of God’s patience closes, you will have yourself to blame in eternity as there will be no room for repentance anymore.


Matthew 3:8
Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance

If you say you have repented, let the fruit reflect as a student, in your workplace and anywhere you find yourself. If you say you are born again, let the fruit of your repentance reflect. The devil will threaten the truth you want to obey. Damn the consequences! The devil will not want you to restitute, simply damn the consequences and then you will experience the peace and joy of God than ever before.

Your repentance must be backed up with certain truths. It is what will give credibility to your repentance. Your repentance is inward but it is accorded with certain actions because every tree has its fruits.

Acts 17:30-31
And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.

God commands you to right the wrong. The times of your ignorance when you did not know they were wrong have been overlooked by God. Repentance is an active word; a word of action and when it truly becomes evident, there are some decisions you will take without thinking about the repercussions. Even if the repercussion will claim your life, you know that you are going to make heaven.

Hosea 14:2
Take with you words, and turn to the LORD: say unto him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously: so will we render the calves of our lips.

Many people praise the Lord but their praise is an abomination to God because the “The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD: …” (Proverbs 15: Anyone who allows self image to rise up in his heart will not allow his knees to bow before the word of God and obey it accordingly.

I don’t deceive people; I give them the word of God raw so that in case they don’t accept it and the consequences arise in the future, they will remember that a particular man warned them about their actions.

Every genuine servant of God hears God every day. Any secretary in any organization sees and converses with the boss everyday so also a genuine servant of God whom God calls is a P.A. (Personal Assistant) to God. There are some servants of God who just love the job and get into it but are not called by God.

What Repentance Is not?
- It is not feeling guilty.
- It is not being nice or being a good person.

Repentance is;
- Being sorry to God for your sins.
- Being truthful.
- Hating your sin: If you truly repent, you will hate your sin. There’s no one who after going to the toilet uses his hand to stir the faeces to find out the nutrients that are contained therein. Some even close the toilet seat immediately as they don’t even want to set their eyes on what just came out from their body.

WHAT REPENTANCE ENTAILS
1. Complete and outright u-turn away from sin: Zechariah 1:4 “Be ye not as your fathers, unto whom the former prophets have cried, saying, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Turn ye now from your evil ways, and from your evil doings: but they did not hear, nor hearken unto me, saith the LORD.” Repentance is a total boycott of your former life: Ephesians 5:5-6 “For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. 6 Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.”

Relationship entails a complete breakup from your past life. I have come across genuine Christians whom when they became born again, they resigned their appointments in the brewery where they worked not minding the amount of money they were being paid.

2. A person who is born again will separate from the pleasure and the aggrandizement of the world. James 4:4 “Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.”

John 15:18-19
If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.

1st John 2:15-17
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever. The world that the bible is talking about here is the system of the world, sometimes called the tradition or custom of the world.

Repentance is the platform on which God will begin to reveal the demonic traditional veil that has blindfolded your ancestors including yourself, and the closer you move to God, the more He will remove these demonic veils layer by layer.

3. Repentance entails turning from yourself: Many people are the rulers of their own lives but when problems come, they want God to intervene. If you know yourself and think that you are more than able to run your own life, why then do you want to depend on God when things go wrong? Luke 14:26 “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.” Repentance makes you see yourself as God’s property and not your own.

Romans 12:1
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.”

Is it possible you offer a sacrifice to an idol and then go back to the next day to claim back a part of it? No! If not, why then do you say you repent and yet there is a part of your life you say God is not supposed to be concerned about e.g. your manner of dressing, your ungodly relationship, your manner of communication, etc. If you say you have repented, your life is no longer your own. 2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”

Once you repent, you become an ambassador of Christ and you represent Him anywhere. If you say you have repented, you have turned your back to the devil and now in God’s kingdom. Would you now say you want to borrow something from the devil’s kingdom to do God’s work? No! Let it be known to you that God will not borrow anything from the kingdom of darkness to do His work. You therefore need to examine the originality of the so-called repentance you carry about. Is it genuine or fake?

If you say Christ is alive in you, you will not dance to the tune of your personal opinion rather you will submit to Christ to lead you in all you do.

4. There will be an outright and total turning from the devil: Many people say they have repented yet they are still being dominated by the spirit of witchcraft, familiar spirit, water spirit, etc. They know it but they don’t want to drop it. If you say you repent, you will drop every property of the devil. 99% of the people inside the church will not hear the sound of the trumpet when rapture occurs. This is because they are still in possession of demonic properties which they hold so dear to their hearts.

Repentance is the only gateway into God’s kingdom. It is the key that grants you access to the gifts and the abundance of God’s kingdom. The bible says, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Matthew 6:33).

Many people are only church goers but they are not in God’s kingdom. When the trumpet sounds, they go nowhere.

Acts 26:18
“To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.”

Repentance makes you resign your membership from satanism. Some of us know what our parents dedicated us to yet we don’t want to drop it as we think it is our only means of protection. Many have used this so-called protection to damage the lives of others. Do you think you will make heaven with all these in your life without completely dropping them off you?

Make no delay to repent. Tonight may be the final night. Every prediction of the bible have all come to pass. What remains is for the trumpet to sound. You will be risking your life if you decide to delay your repentance. No matter the ridicule you face here on earth, it will matter no more when you make heaven as your sorrow will be wiped away. You might be childless here on earth, without a spouse, poor, wretched, etc. yet when the trumpet sounds and you are raptured, the joy of making heaven will be more than enough to erase all your earthly shame and disgrace.

Spending donkey years in the church does not make you born again. Many people just go to church because of the power of God and the miracles they stand to get from God and not because they want to make heaven.

If you truly repent, your life is no longer yours so also is your money. In fact, nothing you have is yours anymore. If you also want to give anything to anybody, you will not allow that thing to be a problem to that person. Many give out their old problematic cars to others but don’t put it in good and working condition before they give it out. Such gifts now become a thorn in the flesh of whom they gave it to. This is not the bible’s standard. Don’t make the gifts you give another person become a problem to him or her.

Check up your heart. What kind of heart do you have, a penitent heart or a hardened heart?

5. Repentance is complete turning to God: Zechariah 1:3 “Therefore say thou unto them, Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Turn ye unto me, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will turn unto you, saith the LORD of hosts.


6. Repentance is turning to right living: You turn away from the wrong to the right thing. Romans 6:13 “Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.”

Conclusion
Joshua 24:15
And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

If Jesus tarries, next week, we will be looking at the topic, “The Dangers Of A Non-Penitent Heart”

Wow.... So Interestin

U're so on point @Op......