Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

• 1 John 1:8

In the fifty-second year of Azariah king of Judah, Pekah son of Remaliah became king of Israel in Samaria, and he reigned twenty years. He did evil in the eyes of the Lord. He did not turn away from the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, which he had caused Israel to commit.

• 2 Kings 15:27-28

The Lord warned Israel and Judah through all his prophets and seers: “Turn from your evil ways. Observe my commands and decrees, in accordance with the entire Law that I commanded your ancestors to obey and that I delivered to you through my servants the prophets.”

• 2 Kings 17:13

Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.

• Job 42:6

“The Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who repent of their sins,” declares the Lord.

• Isaiah 59:20

In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is he who was spoken of through the prophet Isaiah:
“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
    make straight paths for him.’”

• Matthew 3:1-3

From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

• Matthew 4:16

They went out and preached that people should repent. They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.

• Mark 6:12-13

Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance?

• Romans 2:4

Boilerplate

I’m Harold Dykstra.  I’m retired, but I go to food bank distributions all over Tracy and talk to people that need someone who will listen to their story.  My time is well spent.  A police lieutenant suggested that I write down the conversations that I had with an angel.  I did not know she was an angel at the time.  The angel, for a little over a year, indwelled a life-sized posable action figure my children bought me, so that I would not be perceived as travelling alone.  And in a way, she was training me for what I do while talking to the needy.  She probed my heart to find out what I believed and how I express love for others.  She changed my life.  Oh, excuse me, angels have no gender, but the angel indwelled a doll named Bountiful Babs.  After seeing the angel in that form for over a year, I cannot see her in my mind in any other form.

This Week’s Question

In the last episode, Babs babysat some children at the hotel.  We then discussed the discipline of children.  Of course, her being ‘other living’, she just made eye contact with each child and each child responded with love, affection, and obedience.  I would have not had that response.

We were on our way home for the first time.  I only had three or four sales calls to make on our way home.  Odd, thinking of home, it was my home, not a home for Babs.  And I have no idea what will happen if my children see a strange woman in the house, a woman that looks just like the doll that Morrie bought.

We were taking a day off at the hotel, so after breakfast, I pulled the desk chair over to the table next to the easy chair.  She was wearing a pair of my reading glasses that I wear when doing computer work.  She said that when guys in the breakfast area would try to make a pass at her, she would lower the glasses to the tip of her nose, look over the glasses at the guy and say, “Excuse me, I’m reading.”  According to her, the guys would swallow really hard, excuse themselves and walk away.  A breakfast lady saw that once, and laughed, saying that the guy was probably reminded of a teacher that had a way of keeping the guy straight.  With me, it was just a comical look for Babs.

She said, “I have no idea what you wanted to study today, but I was talking to this guy in the breakfast area.  He was relentless in his pick-up lines, and the reading glasses thing had no effect on him.   The subject got around to why I was not interested in him.  And I said that I was a Christian, and if he wanted to know about Jesus, he could sit down and we could talk, but no, I would not like to play patty-cake with him.  I get the feeling that he was not talking about the children’s game.  But he said that it would not take me long to talk about repentance, and he thought repentance was an Old Testament concept.  He did not have to repent of anything, and he would never consider it.  Harold, you mention it all the time.  I am ‘other living.’  I am not human, but I am living.  I do not have a sin nature, thus, I have nothing of which to repent.  You have tried to cover this sin nature thing, which I just cannot understand, but can you come at it from the angle of repentance?  Is it an Old Testament thing?  Is there a need for repentance?”

She lowered her reading glasses to the tip of her nose.  She looked over the glasses into my eyes, she fluttered her eyelashes, and she said, “Teach me, Harold.”

“Wow!” I said, “You caused my heart to skip a beat that time.  Maybe the glasses have a delayed effect on me.”  She snickered.

I shrugged, “Okay, repentance it is.  Repentance is not an Old Testament thing.  It is a God thing.  God allowed man to make a choice, and mankind chose to sin.  We have a sin nature, but when we come to God, He gives us a new nature.  Our flesh still wishes to sin, but we have a desire within us, because God is within us, to not sin.  So, we could just ride a roller coaster between those two things, but that gets us nowhere.  So, when we feel the desires of the flesh, God places within us the desire to repent and the power to resist the temptation, turning from that sin.  John says in 1 John 1:8 that if we say we have no sin, the truth is not in us.  I think that applies to those people that claim that their sin is not bad or this thing that they say, do, or think is not sin.  If we do not take the Bible at what it says, then we are creating our own personal Jesus that does not fulfill the Law.  Jesus did not replace or destroy the Law.  He fulfilled it.  Now, that basically answers your question, but I know you.  You want more information.”

She giggled and nodded.

I nodded in return. “Okay, let’s look at the NIV and the word ‘repent.’  The word is mentioned about 78 times in various forms of the verb and as repentance.  Two thirds of those mentions are in the New Testament.  So, you might think with the Old Testament having a lot more books, a lot more chapters, and such, that it is a New Testament thing instead of an Old Testament thing.  But to repent means to turn around.  So, when we look at verses with the words ‘turn’, ‘from’, and ‘evil’, all but one instance is in the Old Testament.  Leaving off ‘evil’ and you get a lot more verses, mostly in the Old Testament, and many that use other words other than evil that convey the same message.  Let’s look at 2 Kings 15:27-28.  This is one of many in 2 Kings that speak of kings of Israel and Judah who did not repent.  They did not turn from the sins of previous generations.  The word ‘repent’ is not in these verses, but the message is the same.  Looking at 2 Kings 17:13 you see that God sent prophets to give a message of repentance, but the kings did not repent.  Occasionally, in Judah, you had a good king, but rarely did those kings make a clean sweep of all the bad things the people were doing.  They did this and that, but they left something of that sinful life behind.  This led to God sending them into exile.”

Babs asked, “But what about Job?  He was such a Godly man.  Did he repent?”

I smiled, “Some people think that Job was an allegory.  Some people think that when it says that Job was blameless, they were talking about the New Testament concept in Paul’s letters to Timothy and Titus that church leaders needed to be blameless.  This does not mean without sin, but a life such that if they were taken to court and their past thoroughly investigated, there could be no blame cast upon them.  But I look at the first six verses of the last chapter of Job.  Regardless of how blameless Job might have been, when Job came into the presence of God, Job exclaims that he repents and that he hates himself.  All of us humans will stand before God one day, and I do not feel we will stand for long.  We will probably get weak in the knees very quickly.  How did the Apostle John react on Patmos?  He fell on his face like he was dead.  God’s glory will shine so bright that we will wonder how it is that we can even be in his presence.  We will all be like Job one day.  But in the fact that Job repented, he knew he had things that needed repentance in his life.”

Babs scrunched her nose, which caused her glasses to fall off.  She took a few seconds to find the glasses in the chair cushions and place them on the table.  “I’m sorry.  The glasses routine does not work with you anyway.  But how does repentance in the Old Testament relate to the teachings of Jesus?”

I was laughing from her little problem with the glasses.  “Let’s look at Isaiah 59:20.  The Redeemer will come to the people of Jacob, those who repent.”

Babs asked, “Did not Jesus come for the whole world?”

I smiled, “He came so that all could accept, but in the role of Redeemer, only those that gain that changed nature, that nature that no longer likes the sin in our lives.  Those people are redeemed.  And who is that Redeemer?”

Babs asked, “Jesus?”

“Wow, Babs!  You got it on the first guess.  But it wasn’t a guess.  Was it?”  I replied.

She giggled, “No!  That was an easy question.  So, did Jesus tell people to repent?”

I nodded, “It started with John the Baptist.  Then Jesus’ message was to repent.  Then, when he sent out His disciples, their message was to repent.  And why repent?  We were to make way for the Messiah, the King of kings.  Repentance paves the way for Jesus to work within each of us.”

I continued, “So in our little lesson, we started with the fact that the truth is not in us if we think we do not sin, and let us end with Romans 2:4.  How does that tie everything together?”

Babs scrunched her nose.  She closed her eyes for a few seconds and then she smiled.  “God’s kindness is supposed to lead to repentance.  God gives you life and salvation through faith, and that kindness from God leads to repentance?”

“That was a very good answer, Babs!” I said, “Yes, God loves us while we are yet sinners, but He does not want us to stay that way.  C. S. Lewis, and I cannot remember which book, said that when God enters our heart, His first bit of cleaning up our lives are things that we knew we needed to be rid of, so we welcome the change.  But then, God starts knocking down walls and expanding the place.  That might not be that comfortable of a change, but we must endure it, because God is creating a mansion.  So, we must repent.  When we accept Jesus into our lives, the change is a gradual one, as we love God more and are willing to leave this world behind more.  After all, if we cannot love God and desire more of Him here on earth, would we wish to spend eternity with God in Heaven?”

Babs giggled, “I cannot think of anything other than spending eternity with God in Heaven.  That idea of making our mansion here on earth is a human thing.”

I kissed her on the forehead, “How right you are, Babs. And remember, Babs, God pursues us. When we stop chasing the things of this world, and turn around, we fall into His arms.”

Credits

All these conversations remind me of my conversations with my wife.  We would talk about anything and everything.  And most of the time, it sounded like a discussion in a Sunday school class.

The concept of repentance has been the excuse some do not come to Jesus, but Jesus changes your nature at the moment of acceptance.  I have conversed with people who claim a belief in Jesus and no need to repent.  They do not understand.  No one who is not willing to give up their life can save it on their own merit.  And of course, we have those that when backed into a corner, simply redefine the language.  God does not play those games.  He is waiting for us to love Him enough to turn from our sinful lives and leave that life behind.  Then, He gives us the tools to accomplish it, one bit at a time.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.