“Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.” – Isaiah 55:7
HE WILL ABUNDANTLY PARDON YOU, dear reader. Though at present you are the servants of sin, and condemned to eternal damnation in the Lake of Fire, my God will abundantly pardon you if you to come to him through Jesus Christ. “Come now, let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool” (Isaiah 1:18 – all Scripture citations are only from the King James Bible).
“But,” you protest, “I am so utterly wicked, that a holy God would never have mercy upon me.” Not so, dear reader. I give you Ezekiel 33:11: “Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live…” God is “not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). Though his wrath abides upon you because of your unbelief (John 3:36), he loves you so much that he sent his only begotten Son to die on the cross for your sins (John 3:16). He does not want you to die in your sins and spend eternity amidst everlasting fire. He wants you to believe on his Son, so that you may be with him in heaven for eternity.
Before I go any further, I must clarify what this term “repentance” means. A great many, ignorant of this word, will wrest the Scriptures unto their own destruction by insisting you must turn from your sins and follow Jesus as your “Lord” in order to be saved. But, however popular this teaching may be, and however many “great” preachers declare it, the only teachings you should be concerned with are those found in the Bible. This accursed false gospel of “turn from your sins”, sometimes accompanying the accursed false gospel of “Lordship Salvation”, is not only alien to the Scriptures, but is a well-traveled path to hell (Matthew 7:21-23).
You see, my friend, “getting religion” is not how you obtain salvation, because “religion” and salvation are at odds with each other. Religion is little more than man trying to earn his salvation by living in a way he thinks will “impress” God. Unfortunately for those who believe they can work their way to heaven, nothing about you “impresses” God, because even the best of your own righteousnesses are as filthy rags in his sight (Isaiah 64:6). You can get religious, and claim to do good works in Jesus’ name, and pray, and read the Bible, and go to church, and be baptized, and help others, but if you are relying on self-reformation to save you, you will go to hell when you die. No degree of sincerity or earnestness can negate the plain truths of Scripture.
No, the answer does not lie in self-improvement and personal reformation, but in REGENERATION. “Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). To go to heaven, you must be regenerated, not reformed; redeemed, not retooled; justified, not improved. When the Scripture says, “Let the wicked forsake his way,” it does not mean to “give up his sins”, because no person, living or dead, has ever “given up his sins.” The apostle Paul, perhaps the greatest Christian ever, referred to himself as the chief of sinners (1 Timothy 1:15), because he understood that even though he had the spirit of God dwelling within him upon his trusting Christ, he nevertheless retained the carnal, fleshly nature which every man inherits from Adam. Therefore, he struggled with sin (Romans 7:14-25).
Dear reader, God is not asking you to give up your sins and turn from your wicked ways to be saved, because that would be WORKS (Jonah 3:10), and the Bible makes it abundantly clear that salvation is NOT of works (Romans 4:5, Ephesians 2:8-9, Galatians 2:16, Titus 3:5). Rather, he is instructing you to “repent”, which is the Greek verb metanoeo, “a change of mind”. In this case, it is a change of mind from whatever you heretofore have believed about God and salvation, to what the Bible says you must do to be saved. And to be saved, you must simply, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 16:31).
I realize dictionaries often provide religious definitions for “repent”, which characterize it as “feeling sorry for sins”, or “turning from sins”, or something to that effect, but I am not concerned with religions definitions; I am concerned with Bible definitions. And the Bible definition for “repent” is markedly differently than the religious definition.
Genesis 6:6: “And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.”
In this example, the wickedness of mankind had become so depraved that God regretted making man in the first place. He did not “turn from his sins”, since he has no sin; he simply changed his mind. Therefore, when God calls you who are unsaved to “repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15), he is not asking you to give up your sins and be sorry for the wicked life you have hitherto led. He is not asking you to turn from your iniquitous deeds and faithfully serve him the rest of your days. He is simply asking you to CHANGE YOUR MIND by ceasing from believing whatever you have heretofore believed about salvation, and instead believing what he tells you to believe: that you are a sinner who is condemned to hell for sinning against him, and that Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay for your sins, was buried, and bodily resurrected three days later. The moment you trust Christ as your Savior, you are saved forever. Your lifestyle and habits have no bearing on the matter, because salvation is a free gift (Romans 5:15-18), and NOT a reward. As the succinct saying goes, “Salvation is not a reward for the righteous; it is a gift for the guilty.”
Consider the thief on the cross. In a matter of hours, he would be dead. He did not have time to turn over a new leaf and clean up his life. He did not have time to submit himself entirely to Christ as “Lord” and commit to follow him forever. He did not even have time to be baptized. He simply looked to Jesus and believed on him, to which Jesus responded, “Verily I say unto thee, To day, thou shalt be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). And, lest you respond that “God made an exception for him,” I will remind you that God is no respecter of persons (Romans 2:11), and makes exceptions for nobody.
Now, the votaries of Lordship Salvation may attempt to counteract this truth by asking, “You mean a person can get saved and still live however he wants?” Yes, that is exactly what I mean. A person who trusts Christ can be saved and still live however he wants, because how we live our lives has absolutely NOTHING to do with whether we go to heaven or hell. It is only the blood of Jesus Christ which washes away our sins (1 Peter 1:18-19, Revelation 1:5), and not our good works or self-reformation. That being said, the wicked man who loves his sins will never come to Christ in the first place, “lest his deeds should be reproved” (John 3:20). No man who loved iniquity ever wanted to come to Christ for salvation, because, in his mind, he had nothing to be saved from. Only when a man is under the conviction of the Holy Spirit, and he realizes his need for a Savior, will he come to Christ (John 6:44). Once he does come to Christ, he is a new creature (2 Corinthians 5:17), and, if he grows in grace, he will lose his desire for those wicked things which formerly pleased him.
Therefore, sinner, if you seek to come to Christ, you have already turned from your wicked way by acknowledging that wicked way could never give you salvation. Now, all you must do is believe that you are a sinner (Romans 3:23), that sinners who do not believe on Christ will die in their sins (John 8:24) and be punished for eternity in the Lake of Fire (2 Thessalonians 1:8-9, Revelation 20:15). And then, believe that your only hope for salvation lies in Jesus Christ, the virgin-born (Isaiah 7:14), sinless (Hebrews 4:15), only begotten Son of God (John 3:16), who died on the cross to pay for your sins with his precious blood (Ephesians 1:7, Romans 5:9), was buried, and was bodily resurrected three days later (1 Corinthians 15:1-4) unto your justification (Romans 4:25). Now, if you believe this, and simply receive Jesus Christ as your Savior (John 1:12), you will be saved immediately and permanently (John 10:28).
“But,” you wonder, “must I persist in holy living to be saved, lest I lose my salvation?” The answer is absolutely not! Your salvation cannot be “lost” by you, any more than it was “won” by you, because you have no part in your salvation except to believe on Jesus Christ. Consider Abraham’s nephew, Lot. Lot did not preserve in holy living. He did not faithfully follow Jesus as his “Lord”. A cursory reading of Genesis 18-19 discloses that Lot was carnal, worldly, and foolish, dwelling in the abominable city of Sodom and interacting daily with sodomites. Yet 2 Peter 2:7-8 says this of Lot:
“And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly; And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds; ).”
Three times in this passage, the terms “just” or “righteous” are applied to Lot – terms which the Bible only applies to saved people. If salvation were dependent upon living a holy life and surrendering entirely to Christ’s “Lordship”, why in the world would the Bible call Lot “just” and a “righteous man” with a “righteous soul”? Lot failed miserably in serving Christ, yet he was nevertheless just and righteous only because he had believed on him who is just and righteous – the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, dear reader, the second you decide to trust Jesus as your Savior, he not only washes all of your sins away with his precious blood (Revelation 1:5), he also imputes his perfect righteousness on your behalf (Romans 3:21-26, Philippians 3:9), thereby making you righteous, though you remain a sinner. Whether you serve God, or serve yourself as Lot did, Christ’s righteousness remains, for he did not impute it because you were worthy, but because you, who are unworthy, received him as Savior.
CONCLUSION
Dear reader, if you desire to come to Christ, do not hesitate to come! “Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out” (John 6:37b). Do not be dissuaded by how sinful and wicked you are. “In due time, Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6). God is willing to save them that believe (1 Corinthians 1:21). Do you believe? Do you believe you are a sinner? Do you believe that sinners are condemned to spend eternity in hell? Do you believe that Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, died on Calvary’s cross to pay for your sins, was buried, and was bodily resurrected three days later unto your justification? No matter how vile and wretched you may be, if you will come to God as a lost sinner, and take Jesus Christ as your Savior, he will save you forever. Please, come to Christ. I pray that you do so. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.”
Recommended reading: https://www.jesus-is-savior.com/BTP/Dr_Harry_Ironside/another_gospel.htm