Mark 1:14-15; Matthew 11:20-24. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on October 10, 2021.
Repentance in the Bible is not just a word that means to change your mind. The etymology of the word breaks down into that concept, but the biblical texts make it clear that a change in mind needed to include a change in action, i.e., a real change of mind that involved remorse over error and desire for the righteousness of God.
When we think about the Garden of Eden, we see that Adam and Eve are place in a paradise and have perfect fellowship with God. However, they are cast out of this paradise because they rebelled against God. On top of this separation, a curse is placed upon the world, Adam and Eve, as well as the devil. The Bible calls mankind to repentance, and proper repentance will involve turning away from our ways, and back to God and His ways. When we do that, God helps us to get back “home.” Yes, a person may have never been a believer when they turn to faith in Christ, but in a very real sense, salvation is coming back home where we were meant to be and what is good and right. Only God can help us know how to get back home as an individual or humanity as a whole.
Easier said than done, eh? Let’s look at our first passage today.
When Jesus started preaching, he called people to repentance (vs. 15). In fact, repentance was the core of the message that he proclaimed. He is essentially saying, “Change your mind and believe God’s Word!” We will come back to this in a moment.
First, let’s ask ourselves, “How many things am I doing because I don’t really believe what God’s Word says?” This is important because many people who say they believe in God’s Word fail to actually do what it says. When you ask them why, it always boils down to some kind of excuse. “God can’t expect me to …” Anything that follows those words is just me rejecting God’s Word. Let’s put that on the back burner for a bit and let it simmer.
In the first century AD, the times were changing. They were changing specifically because God was beginning to do something different. Israel’s service under the law was coming to an end. They needed to step into a “mature son” status. You see, God’s goal is not for mankind to be laboring under 613 laws on into eternity. Like parents giving their children a bed time, it is not their intention that their kids will always go to bed at 9 PM, or whatever, when they become adults. Instead, they hope to train them in good habits so that they can make good decisions for themselves later. This is the picture of a mature son, one who is able to step into the family business and even run it, without running it into the ground.
The times were changing for the Gentiles too. For over a millennium, they had been stumbling in the dark of false religion, worshipping false gods, and chasing false hopes.
How did they get in that situation? When 8 humans stepped off Noah’s ark, all mankind knew the truth of God. Over the years, different families began to wander away from the truth of God, until they were seduced to reject God’s command and build a tower to the heavens. In an attempt to connect with “gods” other than the true God, they rebelled against the King of Heaven. This brought judgment and scattering. Like the casting out of the original parents, the Gentiles are cast out of favor with God. He gives them over to their faulty thinking, and the doctrine of demons. They end up in a place of letting go of the truth and embracing lies, walking in darkness, and their minds debased. God was gearing up to change this through Jesus.
Israel and the Gentiles were actually in the same boat spiritually. We would expect the Gentiles to be lost and far from God, but Israel had the truth of God and gave lip service to it. Yet, Israel had become lost like the blind nations around them. They did so by layering their own reasoning over the top of God’s Word. Little by little they had created a false system that only paid precious little tribute to the blazing truth delivered by Moses. Yet, despite this, God was ready to bring the grace of truth to them. Always remember this, in your life, or the life of a nation, the world, there always comes a day when God steps in. He does so to change the situation. The question is, “What will you do in that critical time?” Listen, friend, none of us can change ourselves, but we can believe God when He purposes to change us. This is what Jesus, and John the Baptist, were doing. They were telling people to come and receive from God the grace of the changing of their situation. They could go from being lost without hope, eating pig slop, in destitution, to coming home to the Father where they belonged.
Jesus tells us to repent, and believe in the Gospel. The Gospel, the good news, is that both Jews and Gentiles can now enter into the Kingdom that God had promised through the prophets. It was happening in their day! Imagine how incredible this must have sounded. For 400 years before John the Baptist, Israel had not had a true prophet give them a new word from God. For 600 years, they had been under the thumb of the Gentile powers. Even before that, their kings had been mostly evil and the nation languished under the lack of righteousness and favor from God. It was during this time that God promised Israel through His prophets that an Anointed King would come forth to save Israel and even the Gentiles. He would fix all that is wrong with the world under the administration of a global messianic kingdom. However, precious few qualified to enter this kingdom because most people had quit truly believing.
Israel and the Gentiles represent two classes of people. Those who have the truth, some believing, but most not. And, those who are trapped in the lies and ignorance that they have inherited from their father, who inherited it from their father, on and on. Both classes can be boiled down to the essential problem: they are not believing God. So, the bad news is that our sins separate us from God and His coming Kingdom, but the good news is that we can participate in it if we will repent.
The key to the Kingdom promised by God is to repent and believe Him. Change your mind about all the ways in which you have not believed Him, and start believing Him in your life.
Repentance is a little different for each one. A gentile would have to leave his religion and embrace a new religion, the truth. Whereas, an Israelite would have to let go of some tradition, but others they would keep. In essence, they would get back to the simple truth of God’s Word instead of following the human reasoning of rabbis.
In the first century AD, God was giving a new prophecy, a new decree. The Law of Moses was ending with its sacrificial system, dietary laws, and laws of cleansing. It was time to enter the Kingdom of God. No one would get in (gets in) because of their race, religion, or pedigree. Jew and Gentile alike can only get in through repentance and believing God’s call to enter the Kingdom. Particularly, He requires all men everywhere to believe that Jesus was sent by Him to be the Anointed King over that Kingdom. To believe this is to become something radically different than you were the day before.
Now, let’s go to Matthew 11:20-24.
When you don’t take advantage of grace, you don’t realize how important it was when you had it. Like the prodigal son, most in Israel had wasted the immense grace that God had given them as a people. They were headed the wrong way and would miss out on the Kingdom if they didn’t change.
Jesus points out that the cities of the Galilee had received a large measure of grace in the fact that Jesus did most of his ministry and miracles in them. If you were to plot the ministry of Jesus geographically and by amount of time, you would see that the cities of the Galilee received the lion share of it. Why? Most likely because Jerusalem rejected him and tried to kill him when he went to it and its surrounds. The grace of God was there for them, but they kept pushing it away, and therefore others received more grace than they would have.
It is not enough to be the recipient of a lot of grace. We can make our prayers focus on asking for more grace, but we should be careful. What are you doing with the grace that He is giving you? Are you pushing it away like Jerusalem, or are you sucking it up like the cities of Galilee and yet not truly believing in Jesus? The cities of Galilee were fortunate because of the hardness of other cities, but that just puts them in a place of being even more accountable.
Jesus warns Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum that they are headed for a harsh judgment. There are two aspects to the judgment of God. There are temporal judgments that happen throughout life and attempt to draw us back to God. Like a shot across the bow, they are to get our attention, and warn us of a greater judgment looming over us. The second aspect is eternal judgment. This is a final judgment and it is too late to repent when you receive it.
These temporal judgments are times when God holds us accountable for our choices, good or bad. I believe that America is in such a time. We are under the temporal judgment of God. What we do today, repent or continue in obstinacy, will determine what we experience next. Yes, this is a dangerous time because choices have consequences. However, even now God is offering us grace by showing us how great our sin has become.
Clearly, Jesus is looking ahead to the eternal judgment because he speaks of Sodom. Sodom was no longer in existence. There could be no more temporal judgments for Sodom. She was in Hades awaiting the Judgment Day in which they would receive their eternal judgment.
So, what is meant by this statement? “It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you.” I believe it is left cryptic on purpose. It is intended first to shock the hearer, and second to warn them of harsher judgment. How could it be harder for a person from Capernaum to survive The Judgment Day than a person from Sodom? And, what would that look like; what does that mean? Again, it is not spelled out. However, the power is in neutralizing that inane ability of people to look at others and think they are better than them for all the wrong reasons. Sodom is surely in big trouble when it comes to The Judgment Day, but Capernaum was in even bigger trouble. Are the cities of America in any less trouble?
We didn’t have the physical ministry of Jesus like they did, but we have received far more grace than Sodom, and many other cities of this world. In fact, we should not take credit for the great amount of grace we have received. Like Capernaum, we have received such great grace because it was actively being rejected and pushed away by other places. To have received great grace is to be held to a much higher standard at Judgment Day because God is just and hands down judgments that are righteous.
Repentance is better late than never. We have received a great light. The Gospel has been powerfully preached all across this great land. However, we have been rejecting the truth of Christ and his rule. We have been refusing to enter the Kingdom of God as decreed by the Father, and we have attempted to blaze our own path to an alternate Kingdom of our own making.
The Kingdom of God is both present and not yet. Those who truly believe can participate spiritually in the Kingdom of God, while we await the physical return of Jesus. Meanwhile, we live out our faith in Jesus through daily repentance. To enter the people of God is to join a group of repenters, penitents. The problem is that we are blind to all the ways we are rebelling against God’s truth. In His grace, He works by His Holy Spirit to open our eyes. Thus, we are to be walking in repentance daily. Always humbly keeping our eyes on Him.
I hope that you are part of the repentant remnant in this land that is believing God. The beauty is that during temporal judgments you can still repent and believe God. If you tarry too long, temporal judgments become eternal judgments for some. Even now, many are dying and entering into eternity. What will their judgment be? Those who believe God will do the works of faith, the works of God. May the Lord help us!