It is the Sinner Who Repents

Mark 2:17

Jesus came to call sinners to repentance (Mark 2:17). The Greek word for “repent” means “a change of mind” and that definition is universal throughout the New Testament. When the Word speaks of repentance it is talking about man changing the way he thinks or the way that he views a situation.

We often interpret “repentance” as an emotional experience. We think that someone has truly repented if they cry or feel bad, and we often accept their repentance if we see those emotional outbursts; and we reject it if they don’t “show repentance”.

As we have seen, the New Testament version of repentance is to change how you think. If you are a sinner then you are being called to accept Jesus Christ as your savior. You need to change your mind, which thinks that you are able to save yourself. Your mind is convinced that you are fine and that you do not need a Savior. If you are a sinner, your thinking about eternity and salvation is all wrong and you need to change your mind. In other words, you need to repent.

Saints should often repent as well, but not in the manner in which it is often preached and taught. Christians have no need of an emotional breakdown when they fail, characterized by lamenting and fasting, begging God for forgiveness. We are the righteousness of God in Christ, and when we fail, we do not cease to be the righteousness of God. However, many of us feel that we are failures and that we owe God something. Repent of this! Change your mind and realize that you are just as saved after you fail as you were before it. Change your mind about the fact that you are a son and not a slave and when your mind lines up with whom you are in Christ; your lifestyle is soon to follow.

Jesus stated that He came, “not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Mark 2:17). If Jesus specifically mentions that He is not calling the righteous to repent, why are we always calling on the righteous to repent? His call was to sinners, and He said it because the religious world was frustrated with His constant fellowshipping with the lost. Jesus did not become like the sinner in order to win the sinner, but He did present a different view of God to the sinner so that they would change their mind about who God was and how He thought of them.

Many sinners think that God is angry with them and that He is about to send them to hell at any moment. By conversing with and eating with sinners, Jesus was changing the perception that the sinner had of who God was. Jesus made God personable and loving, and sinners felt themselves opening up to the Son of God. The call of repentance came next, with sinners responding in droves because Jesus had convinced them that they were wrong about how the Father felt about them.

Consequently, this verse also shows us that Jesus is not against people going to the doctor if they are sick. Some say that visiting a physician is a lack of faith. If that were the case then Jesus would not have said that those who need a physician are the sick. While He is not advocating sickness or disease, He is using it as an example as to who needs His salvation power.

What Makes God Sick?

Revelation 3:15, 16

The messages to the seven churches of Asia are messages from Jesus to the church ages. Each church listed existed in the world of that day, but their order speaks to the different era that the body of Christ has gone through since Pentecost. We are now in the final era, listed as the church of Laodicea. Each era overlaps the other, and actually, each era does not end until the rapture of the church.

When Jesus delivers the message to Laodicea, He says that their works are neither cold nor hot (verse 15), and that He would rather them be cold or hot. For most of my life, I heard this passage preached as a warning to “get off the fence” and “stop being apathetic”. Preachers, myself included, denounced any semblance of lukewarm activity, going so far as to say, “Either get fired up for Jesus, or go ahead and backslide”!

I always had a problem with that message, even while I was preaching it. It seemed pretty bad to be lukewarm, neither on fire for God nor all the way backslid from Him, but it certainly seemed better than not even being saved. I could understand God wanting the church to get “on fire”, but to tell them that He would rather them be “cold” seemed a far cry worse than at least having some heat.

When you are fed an interpretation of scripture, you often swallow it and don’t pay much attention to the questions that arise in your heart. You just assume that you are missing some deep theological point that surely time and experience will bring out, even though the text certainly needs more consideration. Finally, as God began to open my heart more and more to the message of His grace and goodness, things like Revelation 3:16 began to clear up.

The hot and the cold are descriptions of temperature. Both are symbolic of something else. The “hot” is equated with fire, and the Holy Spirit fits this description. Jesus is the baptizer with “fire” and the Holy Spirit sat on them at Pentecost as “cloven tongues like as of fire” (Acts 2:3). Anything associated with the New Covenant is of the ministry of the Spirit, thus “hot” (2 Corinthians 3:8).

The “cold” is equated with death, just as a corpse goes cold when it sits, or a stone left alone will retain no heat. The Ten Commandments were written and engraved in stone, thus the “cold” is anything associated with the Old Covenant, or the ministry of death (2 Corinthians 3:7).

Jesus is ministering to Laodicea of its obvious mixture of the Covenants. They are preaching a portion of the New Covenant with God’s grace and love but then trying to balance it with the hammer of the law. What man calls “balance”, God calls “mixture”, and while trying to strike a balance with the Old and the New Covenants, the end result will be a lukewarm mixture that turns the stomach of God.

Jesus declared that you cannot put new wine into old wineskins, for the old wineskins will not hold the new wine (Luke 5:37, 38). The new wine is the New Covenant, with the old wineskin being the Old Covenant. To place the glory of God’s grace within the container of Mosaic Law is to ruin the taste of God’s grace. It is our habit however, because we often prefer works to grace to actually like the sound of the law being preached, over the sound of grace (Luke 5:39).

Either embrace God’s grace which leads to victory or embrace God’s law which will serve as your schoolmaster to lead you to Christ (Galatians 2:24), but never mix the two. This gospel is too important to be lukewarm.

It is the Sinner Who Repents

Mark 2:17

Jesus came to call sinners to repentance (Mark 2:17). The Greek word for “repent” means “a change of mind” and that definition is universal throughout the New Testament. When the Word speaks of repentance it is talking about man changing the way he thinks or the way that he views a situation.

We often interpret “repentance” as an emotional experience. We think that someone has truly repented if they cry or feel bad, and we often accept their repentance if we see those emotional outbursts; and we reject it if they don’t “show repentance”.

As we have seen, the New Testament version of repentance is to change how you think. If you are a sinner then you are being called to accept Jesus Christ as your savior. You need to change your mind, which thinks that you are able to save yourself. Your mind is convinced that you are fine and that you do not need a Savior. If you are a sinner, your thinking about eternity and salvation is all wrong and you need to change your mind. In other words, you need to repent.

Saints should often repent as well, but not in the manner in which it is often preached and taught. Christians have no need of an emotional breakdown when they fail, characterized by lamenting and fasting, begging God for forgiveness. We are the righteousness of God in Christ, and when we fail, we do not cease to be the righteousness of God. However, many of us feel that we are failures and that we owe God something. Repent of this! Change your mind and realize that you are just as saved after you fail as you were before it. Change your mind about the fact that you are a son and not a slave and when your mind lines up with whom you are in Christ; your lifestyle is soon to follow.

Jesus stated that He came, “not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Mark 2:17). If Jesus specifically mentions that He is not calling the righteous to repent, why are we always calling on the righteous to repent? His call was to sinners, and He said it because the religious world was frustrated with His constant fellowshipping with the lost. Jesus did not become like the sinner in order to win the sinner, but He did present a different view of God to the sinner so that they would change their mind about who God was and how He thought of them.

Many sinners think that God is angry with them and that He is about to send them to hell at any moment. By conversing with and eating with sinners, Jesus was changing the perception that the sinner had of who God was. Jesus made God personable and loving, and sinners felt themselves opening up to the Son of God. The call of repentance came next, with sinners responding in droves because Jesus had convinced them that they were wrong about how the Father felt about them.

Consequently, this verse also shows us that Jesus is not against people going to the doctor if they are sick. Some say that visiting a physician is a lack of faith. If that were the case then Jesus would not have said that those who need a physician are the sick. While He is not advocating sickness or disease, He is using it as an example as to who needs His salvation power.

What Makes God Sick?

Revelation 3:15, 16

The messages to the seven churches of Asia are messages from Jesus to the church ages. Each church listed existed in the world of that day, but their order speaks to the different era that the body of Christ has gone through since Pentecost. We are now in the final era, listed as the church of Laodicea. Each era overlaps the other, and actually, each era does not end until the rapture of the church.

When Jesus delivers the message to Laodicea, He says that their works are neither cold nor hot (verse 15), and that He would rather them be cold or hot. For most of my life, I heard this passage preached as a warning to “get off the fence” and “stop being apathetic”. Preachers, myself included, denounced any semblance of lukewarm activity, going so far as to say, “Either get fired up for Jesus, or go ahead and backslide”!

I always had a problem with that message, even while I was preaching it. It seemed pretty bad to be lukewarm, neither on fire for God nor all the way backslid from Him, but it certainly seemed better than not even being saved. I could understand God wanting the church to get “on fire”, but to tell them that He would rather them be “cold” seemed a far cry worse than at least having some heat.

When you are fed an interpretation of scripture, you often swallow it and don’t pay much attention to the questions that arise in your heart. You just assume that you are missing some deep theological point that surely time and experience will bring out, even though the text certainly needs more consideration. Finally, as God began to open my heart more and more to the message of His grace and goodness, things like Revelation 3:16 began to clear up.

The hot and the cold are descriptions of temperature. Both are symbolic of something else. The “hot” is equated with fire, and the Holy Spirit fits this description. Jesus is the baptizer with “fire” and the Holy Spirit sat on them at Pentecost as “cloven tongues like as of fire” (Acts 2:3). Anything associated with the New Covenant is of the ministry of the Spirit, thus “hot” (2 Corinthians 3:8).

The “cold” is equated with death, just as a corpse goes cold when it sits, or a stone left alone will retain no heat. The Ten Commandments were written and engraved in stone, thus the “cold” is anything associated with the Old Covenant, or the ministry of death (2 Corinthians 3:7).

Jesus is ministering to Laodicea of its obvious mixture of the Covenants. They are preaching a portion of the New Covenant with God’s grace and love but then trying to balance it with the hammer of the law. What man calls “balance”, God calls “mixture”, and while trying to strike a balance with the Old and the New Covenants, the end result will be a lukewarm mixture that turns the stomach of God.

Jesus declared that you cannot put new wine into old wineskins, for the old wineskins will not hold the new wine (Luke 5:37, 38). The new wine is the New Covenant, with the old wineskin being the Old Covenant. To place the glory of God’s grace within the container of Mosaic Law is to ruin the taste of God’s grace. It is our habit however, because we often prefer works to grace to actually like the sound of the law being preached, over the sound of grace (Luke 5:39).

Either embrace God’s grace which leads to victory or embrace God’s law which will serve as your schoolmaster to lead you to Christ (Galatians 2:24), but never mix the two. This gospel is too important to be lukewarm.

It is the Sinner Who Repents

Mark 2:17

Jesus came to call sinners to repentance (Mark 2:17). The Greek word for “repent” means “a change of mind” and that definition is universal throughout the New Testament. When the Word speaks of repentance it is talking about man changing the way he thinks or the way that he views a situation.

We often interpret “repentance” as an emotional experience. We think that someone has truly repented if they cry or feel bad, and we often accept their repentance if we see those emotional outbursts; and we reject it if they don’t “show repentance”.

As we have seen, the New Testament version of repentance is to change how you think. If you are a sinner then you are being called to accept Jesus Christ as your savior. You need to change your mind, which thinks that you are able to save yourself. Your mind is convinced that you are fine and that you do not need a Savior. If you are a sinner, your thinking about eternity and salvation is all wrong and you need to change your mind. In other words, you need to repent.

Saints should often repent as well, but not in the manner in which it is often preached and taught. Christians have no need of an emotional breakdown when they fail, characterized by lamenting and fasting, begging God for forgiveness. We are the righteousness of God in Christ, and when we fail, we do not cease to be the righteousness of God. However, many of us feel that we are failures and that we owe God something. Repent of this! Change your mind and realize that you are just as saved after you fail as you were before it. Change your mind about the fact that you are a son and not a slave and when your mind lines up with whom you are in Christ; your lifestyle is soon to follow.

Jesus stated that He came, “not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Mark 2:17). If Jesus specifically mentions that He is not calling the righteous to repent, why are we always calling on the righteous to repent? His call was to sinners, and He said it because the religious world was frustrated with His constant fellowshipping with the lost. Jesus did not become like the sinner in order to win the sinner, but He did present a different view of God to the sinner so that they would change their mind about who God was and how He thought of them.

Many sinners think that God is angry with them and that He is about to send them to hell at any moment. By conversing with and eating with sinners, Jesus was changing the perception that the sinner had of who God was. Jesus made God personable and loving, and sinners felt themselves opening up to the Son of God. The call of repentance came next, with sinners responding in droves because Jesus had convinced them that they were wrong about how the Father felt about them.

Consequently, this verse also shows us that Jesus is not against people going to the doctor if they are sick. Some say that visiting a physician is a lack of faith. If that were the case then Jesus would not have said that those who need a physician are the sick. While He is not advocating sickness or disease, He is using it as an example as to who needs His salvation power.

What Makes God Sick?

Revelation 3:15, 16

The messages to the seven churches of Asia are messages from Jesus to the church ages. Each church listed existed in the world of that day, but their order speaks to the different era that the body of Christ has gone through since Pentecost. We are now in the final era, listed as the church of Laodicea. Each era overlaps the other, and actually, each era does not end until the rapture of the church.

When Jesus delivers the message to Laodicea, He says that their works are neither cold nor hot (verse 15), and that He would rather them be cold or hot. For most of my life, I heard this passage preached as a warning to “get off the fence” and “stop being apathetic”. Preachers, myself included, denounced any semblance of lukewarm activity, going so far as to say, “Either get fired up for Jesus, or go ahead and backslide”!

I always had a problem with that message, even while I was preaching it. It seemed pretty bad to be lukewarm, neither on fire for God nor all the way backslid from Him, but it certainly seemed better than not even being saved. I could understand God wanting the church to get “on fire”, but to tell them that He would rather them be “cold” seemed a far cry worse than at least having some heat.

When you are fed an interpretation of scripture, you often swallow it and don’t pay much attention to the questions that arise in your heart. You just assume that you are missing some deep theological point that surely time and experience will bring out, even though the text certainly needs more consideration. Finally, as God began to open my heart more and more to the message of His grace and goodness, things like Revelation 3:16 began to clear up.

The hot and the cold are descriptions of temperature. Both are symbolic of something else. The “hot” is equated with fire, and the Holy Spirit fits this description. Jesus is the baptizer with “fire” and the Holy Spirit sat on them at Pentecost as “cloven tongues like as of fire” (Acts 2:3). Anything associated with the New Covenant is of the ministry of the Spirit, thus “hot” (2 Corinthians 3:8).

The “cold” is equated with death, just as a corpse goes cold when it sits, or a stone left alone will retain no heat. The Ten Commandments were written and engraved in stone, thus the “cold” is anything associated with the Old Covenant, or the ministry of death (2 Corinthians 3:7).

Jesus is ministering to Laodicea of its obvious mixture of the Covenants. They are preaching a portion of the New Covenant with God’s grace and love but then trying to balance it with the hammer of the law. What man calls “balance”, God calls “mixture”, and while trying to strike a balance with the Old and the New Covenants, the end result will be a lukewarm mixture that turns the stomach of God.

Jesus declared that you cannot put new wine into old wineskins, for the old wineskins will not hold the new wine (Luke 5:37, 38). The new wine is the New Covenant, with the old wineskin being the Old Covenant. To place the glory of God’s grace within the container of Mosaic Law is to ruin the taste of God’s grace. It is our habit however, because we often prefer works to grace to actually like the sound of the law being preached, over the sound of grace (Luke 5:39).

Either embrace God’s grace which leads to victory or embrace God’s law which will serve as your schoolmaster to lead you to Christ (Galatians 2:24), but never mix the two. This gospel is too important to be lukewarm.

The Righteous Judgment of God

2 Thessalonians 1:4-12

Much is made in the pulpit of the “righteous judgment of God”. It is often preached as a warning against sin in the church, stated that it will come, “and that right early”, if we do not remove sin from the camp.

The statement is used twice in the entire Word of God, coming first in Romans 2:5, “But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.” The context of this usage is that if you “obey the truth” (verse 8), you will be spared, but if you do not, then God will judge both Jew and Gentile with “no respect of persons” (verse 11). Simply stated, Paul is talking to sinners.

The second and final usage of “the righteous judgment of God” is found in 2 Thessalonians 1:5. In other places, this same Greek word for “judgment” is rendered “damnation”, “accusation” and “condemnation”. We know that there is no condemnation to the believer because of their faith in Jesus Christ (Romans 8:1), and we know that God cannot be righteous if He condemns a Christian (Romans 3:26). Therefore, we must look at the context to see if it is the believer that is being judged.

Paul starts by speaking of the persecutions and tribulations that the church had been enduring (verse 4), and then verse 5 says, “Which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God”. Look closely at your Bible, as the words “Which is” are italicized, meaning that they were added by the translators. These two words seem to emphasize the persecutions and tribulations as being from God as judgment to the believer, however, the next verse tells us that “it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you” (2 Thessalonians 1:6). God’s righteousness is not in judging the saint with persecutions and tribulations; that is the job of “them that trouble you”. God is righteous however, in paying back those who trouble you, for “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord” (Romans 12:19).

By verse 8, Paul is now showing us the wrath of God towards them who reject Him. Even this judgment is not until the return of Christ, but it includes “flaming fire”, and “everlasting destruction” (verse 9). None of these judgments are aimed at the believer. In fact, Christ will come to “be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe” (1:10).

Believer, do not blame your sickness, or your problems on the righteous judgment of God. He is not “putting you through it” to teach you a lesson. These lies about God have been spread for centuries by Satan, who wants the believer to doubt that God loves them and that He is truly on their side. He has prepared all good things for you, not wicked things. He does not hurt, maim and kill His children so that they will obey Him. You wouldn’t do these things to your child, and God will not do these things to you.

If you are in the midst of persecutions and trials, appeal to your Father for rest and comfort, but do not condemn yourself, believing that God is paying you back. You may very well be suffering for the kingdom’s sake, but that is because the enemy hates you, and does not want you free.
Take your stand in the liberty of Christ today, confident that God is not against you, but for you!