The Place: Mobile, Alabama
The pastor has prepared his Sunday morning sermon. It's typed and ready to go. It took 13 pages and 7,425 words. Sunday morning has come. The choir has sung beautifully, as usual. The announcements are over, the offering received. The pastor strides to the pulpit, ready, confident, and polished. He begins his sermon and one and all note once again that their pastor is a good speaker.
Time passes as the clock ticks its way toward noon, lunch, and the NFL. The pastor now comes to page 12, nearing the end, at which time the choir will sing all four verses of "Just As I Am" as the pastor stands at the front of the auditorium inviting people to come forward to be saved, to rededicate their lives, to be baptized, and to join the church.
Coming to the climax, of the day and his week, he says:
"The word 'repentance' means 'a change of mind.' But, biblically, it encompasses more than that. According to Scripture, repentance includes three necessary components —a change of mind, a change of heart, and a change of will—leading to a change of life and a change of eternal destiny.
"Reversing the effects of human depravity, repentance is a deep work of God’s Spirit which turns the heart away from all false gods, false beliefs, and false hopes in order to exercise faith in the finished work of Christ alone.
"No longer married to the world, a sudden divorce has occurred with all one’s idols. Believers are separated from previous allegiances, whether they be religious, secular, material, or otherwise. In genuine conversion, Christ becomes one’s newly recognized Lord who allows no rival loyalties or divided affections. Such radical repentance ushers in a complete commitment to Christ of those who genuinely belong to Him."
Seated in the section just to the left of the speaker, the fifth pew from the front, was John Bookman, a visitor that Sunday, who's been listening intently. But Mr. Bookman, new to church circles and churchspeak, begins to have a problem with what he'd just heard. Something didn't make sense. He went over it in his mind: "Did I hear this right? Didn't he just say, "The word 'repentance' means 'a change of mind.'" But didn't he go on to say in the very next sentence, "Biblically, it encompasses more than that"?
John started to think about what he'd just heard from the standpoint of logic. "It sounds like he's saying, 'Repentance means X, but it doesn't mean X," he thought to himself. "How can repentance mean a change of mind, but not mean a change of mind?"
This puzzled John, so he made sure he picked up a copy of the sermon the church always made available after the service in the foyer on a CD, a DVD, as well as in print. John Bookman made sure to got the print version, because he wanted to really get into the sermon.
That Sunday, after lunch and after watching the Dallas Cowboys, John sat down at his desk with the sermon and started to read over it quickly until he got to page 12, then he slowed down and noticed some things. The first thing he noticed was that the pastor had said, "The word 'repentance' means 'a change of mind.'" He'd heard that part right.
Reading on, he found that the pastor said "repentance" means "a change of mind, heart and will, leading to a change of life. . it means no rival loyalties or divided affections . . . a complete commitment to Christ, a sudden divorce, if his conversion is genuine. Yes, he had heard the pastor correctly; that's what he said.
John became despondent. He knew that he had never given Christ his full loyalty and he had some those divided affections. The idea of complete commitment bothered him to no end, as did the need of a sudden divorce from from previous allegiances, whether they be religious, secular, material, or otherwise. How "sudden" is "sudden?"
John began to doubt his salvation because he knew that his commitment wasn't anywhere near a complete one, he had rival loyalties from time to time, the divorces the pastor spoke of wasn't sudden by any means; it was still in progress.
John didn't like this doubt, but what else was he to do? The only thing he could think of was that in the future, he'd try harder to be a good Christian, one who gave evidence of the genuine conversion the pastor was talking about.
From that day forward, John spent the rest of his life examining his works, just to make sure that he was saved, but he never found any assurance in those. At times, John could be most carnal and he knew it. He lived the rest of his life always looking over his shoulder at his deeds. When it was all said and done, Bookman concluded, "Christianity isn't like they said; it's not joy, peace, stability, and happiness. It's made me miserable."
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The portion of the sermon included above is verbatim, a sermon by a pastor given in the time period specified. John Bookman is fictional, but what happened to him isn't. His name is legion. What John had run into was a pastor who packed "repentance" with the baggage of complete commitment, works, and no rival loyalties. What John had heard was a speaker who talked about the finished work of Christ, only to go on and say it really wasn't finished, because you have to add all the works he mentioned to it.
The pastor was right when he said that "repentance" means "a change of mind," but then he went on to say that it doesn't mean that. John caught the logical problem, but few do.
Repentance is a change of mind about who Christ is, that is, He's the God-Man who died for our sins, rose from the dead and promises everlasting life to all who trust Him and Him alone for salvation from the guilt and penalty of sin. That's why it's called the "gospel," the "good news."
What John heard wasn't good news, it was news that tormented him for the rest of his life because works for salvation is never good news. All the works the pastor had mentioned have nothing to do with salvation; they have to do with discipleship. He mixed the two and thus the confusion. Why did he do that?
For many, faith alone is too simple. They'll say, "There's just got to be more than faith; you've got to do something," not realizing that "more than that" and "you've got to do something, mean works and the addition of just one work crushes grace. "More than that" and "you've got to do something changes grace into works. "More than that" and "you've got to do something" take the focus off Christ and place it on me and my commitment, my deeds, my allegiances, my sudden divorces. In short it puts the focus on the life I live, not the death He died.
John Bookman eventually quit, not only that church, but also all "church." He was just too miserable; he couldn't take it any more.
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