The evangelical church and its preachers and teachers have no concept of true Biblical Repentance and Faith. According to Mike Desario and his research team, you can determine their stance on this issue by asking just a straightforward question. This obviously assumes that you understand repentance and faith, having come to salvation in the God ordained proper manner. It’s essential to recognize at this point that you are being led by the Spirit of Truth, not the spirit of error in these matters. You will need that confidence and courage. Otherwise, you will never be able to discern the difference between True and False Repentance, and Saving Faith versus a Dead Faith.
Mike recommends that you ask your Christian friends and your Pastor the following question exactly as he has laid it out and see what they say in response.
“Does a person have to stop sinning to receive Jesus?”
If the person you are asking immediately presumes that you are asking: “Does a person have to stop sinning and then get saved?” You immediately know they have no concept or a flawed understanding of biblical repentance, according to Mike. If the person immediately assumes that you are suggesting that a person must become perfect before they are saved, you know they do not understand Biblical repentance. Only sinners must repent, and sinners are by definition not perfect. Biblical repentance is about sinners forsaking their sins. It is about getting clean, not perfection. In addition, this suggests that they do not believe it is possible for an unbeliever to stop sinning before being saved. Therefore, they will think you are crazy, and illiterate in addition to being a heretic. They will also be thinking only of the confession of sin, for that is all that non-Christians are capable of before they get saved. After they are saved, they have been taught to believe that as a Christian, they will continue to sin, but now they will struggle with it. As a Christian, they are saved in their sins, not from their sins. They are still thinking of their obligation to confess their sins, not to forsake them.
But in Proverbs 26:12, we read, “He who confesses and forsakes their sins will find mercy.” Only those who confess and forsake sins are forgiven of those sins. Confession alone is not enough.
Asking another or different question makes no difference either, but only allows them to mold words and make it sound as though they are agreeing that sin must be forsaken when they don’t actually believe it. Remember, when they speak of forsaking sin, they mean gradually over time, not all at once, and not all sin. They have been taught that God is responsible for cleaning them up, so they are waiting on God to do His work. We certainly do not want to take the work of God out of His hands, do we? But in true repentance, the sinner understands that he or she must not only confess their sins but also forsake their sins. They know this is their duty, which they are responsible for. They also know that God will help them.
You might find this statement interesting and challenging. In my book on theology, When Lies Become Truth, I made the statement that the Bible never once instructs us to repent of sins over a long period. To the woman caught in adultery, Jesus said Go and sin no more. He called for the immediate cessation of sin right then and now. Ezekiel 18 and 33 make the same command. Sin must be given up now, not later. Anything less than that makes no sense whatsoever.
How could God forgive sins if people continue to commit the same sins that they are asking God to forgive? It makes no sense. A criminal who continues to commit crimes remains a criminal, regardless of their profession of faith and repentance. It’s absurd to believe that God will forgive your sins as you confess them but refuse to forsake them. What do you think?
The Biblical Characteristics of True Repentance, as taught by early church and Apostles and articulated in 2 Corinthians 7:10-11 is this, “For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death. For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner: What diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication! In all things you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter.” NKJV.
According to Mike, for true repentance to have taken place, the following must have occurred:
1) A season of deeply felt Godly sorrow for sin. (Invoked by Spirit of Truth working, John 16:8)
2) A Crisis of Conviction that Cuts to the heart! (Sin is already being forsaken!)
3) A Zeal to CLEAR oneself of all wrongdoing against God. (Make restitution if necessary)
4) Indignation and Fear that leads to Vehement Desire to STOP Sinning!
5) Vindication and finally, purity of heart.
To that list, I would add that true repentance involves choosing a new purpose in life, a new end for which we live. This new purpose in life is to please God, which means, by definition, that we stop doing whatever He hates and we start doing whatever He likes. It is to stop living for our self-gratification supremely. Christian, remember that you are bought with a price. You are no longer your own. He who will save his life, shall lose it, but he who loses his life for Jesus Christ’s sake, will find it.
Every incident of true repentance in Scripture follows this process. Don’t let anyone tell you it doesn’t, and they will most certainly try, according to Mike. The sin stops in true repentance. This is where the Old Man dies and the flesh is crucified. This is where the new man begins to live, not afterwards. The desires and conduct are changed in true repentance, not at a much later date or gradually over time. Repentance is a unit. It is not possible to repent of some sins and not repent of other sins. We either repent of all our sins or we do not repent. The Old man or woman dies in genuine repentance, or they never die.
Obedience to God follows in the newness of life, and all things become new. Romans 6:4-6, 2 Corinthians 5:17. If you have not experienced this and have no idea what it means, you are not yet born of the Holy Ghost and new creation in Jesus Christ. You may indeed have ‘Received Christ’, ‘Trusted Christ’ or ‘Believed on Christ’ or “Accepted Jesus”, and ‘Believed on His Name’; and even prayed confessing your sins, but you have not actually repented of your sins and are still lost. You may think that all that is necessary is that you believe in Jesus Christ, for that is what most evangelicals believe. But remember that the Devil also believes, as James 2:19 states. If a person is saved by what they do and not by faith alone (as James affirms in 2:24), then what they must do starts with repentance from sin. Almost the entire evangelical community will call me a heretic for making the Biblical assertion that saving faith is never alone or that we are not saved by faith alone but by works as well. Faith without faithfulness is not saving faith, and that is what most evangelical churches peddle.
“I preached that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds!” Acts 26:20. Does ongoing sin prove repentance? Does the continuation of a sinful life demonstrate that you are a Christian, or does it indicate that you are a deceived hypocrite? If you believe that all Christians continue to live in sin, you are in great danger. If your preachers and teachers do not understand and preach this kind of repentance, run, don’t walk.
