Repent or Perish!
February 22, 2004
Luke 13:1-5

Many people know that Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the door of the Wittenberg church on October 31, 1517, but may not know anything about the content of those theses. They were statements of challenge against the Roman church (what we call today the Roman Catholic Church), condemning the practice of the selling of indulgences. In those days, remission of sins was offered for a price. You could buy pardon either for yourself or for a deceased relative from a cleric. These were called indulgences.

Luther condemned this practice in the strongest of terms, complaining that it was destructive to the Gospel. Here are a few examples of his theses:

62. The true treasure of the church is the most holy gospel of the glory and grace of God.

92. Away, then, with all those prophets who say to the people of Christ, "Peace, peace," and there is no peace! (Jeremiah 6:14)

When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, "Repent" (Matthew 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.

Repent! is a command that others need to hear, we usually think. But the great reformer said that it is a word for everyone, believers included, and that it has to do not only with a one-time admission of guilt or prayer for salvation, but that it is to be a part of one’s whole life. Was he right?

I would have to say yes, based on the teachings of Christ.

For the past six weeks my sermons have been based on the 12th chapter of Luke in which we’ve dealt with some tough words, such as,

Sell your possessions and give to the poor. v.33

That servant who knows his master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows v. 47

Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. v. 51

Hypocrites: You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time? v.56

Where is “gentle Jesus, meek and mild?” Is he in chapter 13? Actually, no, but the true Jesus, called by Philip Yancey “the Jesus I never knew,” is there. And he continues on with his tough teachings.

Read 13:1-5

If you can imagine, while Jesus was teaching, some members of the Jewish media came to him, breaking a news story. The dreaded Pilate has just murdered some Galilean Jews while they were worshiping at the temple, then mixed their blood with their sacrifices. “Jesus, what do you think about that?”

The Lord discerned the reason for their question. They must have assumed that an awful thing like that was allowed to happen because God was angry with those worshipers. They must have done something really bad to deserve such a fate, didn’t they? But Jesus answered in uncharacteristic fashion for a Jewish rabbi. No, they were not worse sinners than others. Then, very pointedly, he demands repentance from those very persons who brought the news flash.

The Lord does more than that. He produces an example from Jerusalem. Eighteen people were killed when a tower fell on them. Did that happen because they were so bad? Again he says no. Again, he demands repentance. Twice, in just a few verses, Jesus says, “Unless you repent, you too will all perish.”

Do you get the feeling that Jesus would have failed if he were running for office?!

In these two examples, Jesus included all of the “good” Jews. If he had complained that the Samaritans needed repentance, or the Romans, everyone would have applauded. But instead he said that all the good Jews needed to repent, and warned them in the strictest of terms of the consequences if they did not.

So I say that Dr. Luther was right. Repentance is God’s will for believers. Let’s make an application of this.

There is a story in the Old Testament about gross immorality. On one occasion, a group of women, prostitutes really, were involved in a sex-and-worship cult, worshiping Baal of Peor, an idol. I’ll spare you the details, but say that if it were legal today it would be very
popular. The guilt for this activity was not only on the shoulders of the women who were involved but on the men too, of course, who were having sex with them. And the men were all Israelites! What’s worse, it was a Hebrew prophet of the Lord who had incited all of it – Balaam. Balaam knew all the right words to say and boasted, “I cannot say anything except what the Lord God tells me to say,” but he had a sinister nature.

The men who had gotten involved in this sin had sworn their allegiance to Jehovah God. He had freed them from their Egyptian captivity, and was bringing them to a wonderful new promised land that would be all their own. But along the way the men learned of this sex church, so to speak, and they got involved. We’re not told how many, but there must have been a lot of them. And the practice became common enough that one day an Israelite man paraded a Midianite woman right past his family and friends, and even Moses himself, and into his tent. And everyone knew they weren’t going in there for Bible study!

Why would such a thing happen? I say, because they apparently thought that there were no consequences. First, maybe one or two men went over to the Midianite camp and took in the pleasures of a worshipful orgy, maybe secretly. And lightning didn’t strike them, so they went back and took friends along. Gradually, the practice became routine to the point where there was no longer anything to hide.

I suppose it seemed that God was asleep at the wheel.

I think that people in San Francisco this week have been thinking the same thing. As of Wednesday over 2,700 gay and lesbian couples obtained wedding licenses and were officially joined in marriage, with the blessing of the mayor of San Francisco, breaking both state and moral law. They noticed that lightning didn’t strike them when they first experimented with gay sex. Now they have come out of the closet in droves, in flagrant defiance. They must think that there are no consequences.

I agree with Rabbi Daniel Lapin who says that when you begin re-defining marriage as anything other than the union of one man and one woman (neither otherwise married) there is no limit to the madness. What’s to say that three people can’t be married, or a dog and a cat, or a dog and its owner, or a human and a eucalyptus tree? Soon, marriage will mean nothing at all, which is distressing given the fact that Scripture says marriage is an illustration of Christ and the church. No wonder the enemy pounds away at it relentlessly!

Are there really no consequences? Getting back to the Bible story, let me finish it. After the Israelite man paraded the Midianite woman through camp, in front of the eyes of Moses, and took her into his tent, Phinehas, son of the high priest, followed the two into the tent, along with a spear, and drove the spear through both of them. What’s more, a horrible plague consumed 24,000 Israelites.

No, repentance is not a word just for those bad guys out there who don’t believe in God. It is a word for all of us.

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (II Peter 3:9)

Here is a verse which is routinely applied to unbelievers, and I think mistakenly so. The verse needs to be interpreted in light of its context, which is always the rule. II Peter is a book all about the judgments of God.

The letter is written to Christians who are in danger of polluting themselves with the ways of the world, and the author’s point is to warn them against such things.

Peter tips his hand in the opening verses where he writes,

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. (II Peter 1:3,4)

The apostle doesn’t want his readers to slip back into the kinds of sins they were saved out of.

Throughout the letter he draws a sharp distinction between the righteous and the unrighteous, warning that you can’t always distinguish them based on what they say, but rather by how they live, and explaining that the severest judgment awaits unbelievers because of their godlessness. He also says that it will be even worse for unbelievers who have masqueraded as true believers. He says,

It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. Of them the proverbs are true: “A dog returns to its vomit,” and, “A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud.” (II Peter 2:21,22)

That’s the context of verse 9 and chapter 3 where he writes, “[The Lord] is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”

The threat is not that true believers, because of sin, might get condemned to Hell with unbelievers. There are other ways to perish.

The apostle Paul wrote a grim word to the Corinthians, informing them that because they had desecrated the Lord’s table many in the church were ill and some had even died.

I was told the story this week about a young man who lived in this neighborhood who had become a Christian. His life was truly changed and Christ was obviously a part of it. He witnessed to others about his faith and really seemed to be on his way. Then he got caught up in a crystal-methamphetamine addiction and, to the horror of those who knew him, one day died of an overdose. He perished – not eternally if his heart truly belonged to God, but he perished nonetheless.

This coming Wednesday is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, a date on the Christian calendar not usually even mentioned among Presbyterians. On this date, in some church traditions, the palm branches from the previous year’s Palm Sunday, are burned, and a bit of ash is smeared on the foreheads of worshipers. This is symbolic of repentance.

The reason that most Protestants don’t recognize the date is probably because of the abuses associated with it, specifically the gluttony of Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) which is always the day before. Unfortunately, some so-called Christians feel they have the right to sin flagrantly on Mardi Gras so that they have something to repent of on Ash Wednesday.

We do not practice the smearing of ashes, but let’s let the occasion remind us of the solemn words of Martin Luther, “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent’ (Matthew 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance,” and the words of Jesus: “Unless you repent, you too will all perish.”