12 What is Biblical Repentance? (Isaiah 55:6-13)

Krisan Marotta: This is the Wednesday in the Word podcast, and I'm Krisan Marotta. Thanks so much for joining us today. This is the last talk in our series on the servant songs from the Old Testament book of Isaiah. It is our 12th talk. We are looking at Isaiah chapter 55, verses 6 through 13. You can find the lecture notes for today's talk on our website, which is wednesdayintheword.com slash servant songs 12. Glad to have you alone. Well, this is our last day in Isaiah, and let me summarize where we've been so far and how it wraps it up. God gave Isaiah the servant songs in part to comfort the exiled Israelites during their Babylonian captivity. He wrote these songs before the captivity began, but he wrote them as if the captivity was already happening. During the captivity the Israelites would lose everything they held dear. They lost their temple, their land, their seed because their numbers were reduced to a remnant. And in addition to losing everything, they would be captive in an idolatrous, materialistic nation, and they would lose their relationship with God. Into this abandonment and loss come the words of Isaiah, and the promise of a servant who will bear their iniquities and be everything the nation was meant to be. So the promise of a servant who would restore their kingdom, but he's not going to restore it from the ground up, he's going to restore it from heaven down. He will restore their relationship with God, but this time not only is the past forgiven, the future is forgiven and secured as well. He will restore their loyalty and obedience to God, only this time the people won't turn away from God because God is writing the law on their hearts. And we know from our perspective in history that this servant is none other than Jesus Christ. In chapter fifty-three we saw the cross and resurrection of Jesus described. Then in chapter fifty-four we hear the shout of joy as this messianic king inaugurates a new covenant, and this new covenant is compared to the old covenant, the seed, the land, the city, and the relationship with God, and we are told that it far surpasses the old covenant. And then in the first part of chapter five, which we looked at in our last session, Isaiah describes the glorious and abundant banquet that God has prepared in the gospel and bids everyone to attend to enter, both Israel and the Gentile nations. This banquet is the gospel, the life offered through the work of the servant Jesus Christ. It is more satisfying and fulfilling than anything we can imagine. It is offered to all who hunger and thirst, free of charge, and the only entrance requirement is come, listen and eat. And Isaiah is astonished that anyone would refuse such an offer, and we're going to pick up that last theme today. We saw that the way into the feast was to listen and believe, but today we're going to see that listening and believing involves repentance, and that people refuse the banquet because they don't want to repent. They don't want to turn from their old ways. So let's start with verse six and seven, which is in a way the definition of repentance. Repentance is a turn and return. It is a hundred and eighty degree turning from our old habits and ways and turning toward God. Many people have a faulty definition of repentance. We think repentance is feeling sorry for our actions because of the consequences of our actions, but we're not really sorry for the actions themselves, for our sin or for our sinfulness. We would gladly and eagerly pursue the sin, but we just don't want the hurtful consequences. We don't want to get caught. That's not really repentance. You can see this attitude in King Saul. He's kind of the Clint Eastwood of the Old Testament. The prophet Samuel rebuked him for failing to obey the Lord in his mission to destroy the Amalekites. Saul had been told not to take any plunder, and yet he did take plunder. And when Samuel can the prophet confronted Saul with his sin, Saul at first denied that he'd done anything wrong. Then he admitted to taking some of the spoils of battle, but he tried to blame it on the people. And finally he admitted to the sin, but he asked Samuel to still honor him in front of the people. So he just wanted to avoid the consequences of his actions. He wasn't truly sorry for what he had done. He didn't want to do anything differently. He just wanted to avoid the consequences. And that incident is recorded in 1 Samuel 15, if you want to look it up sometime. What Saul did was not repentance. Repentance has nothing to do with consequences of sin, and nor is it wallowing in self-pity. It is a return, a turning. The Hebrew word which is used three times in our passage today is turn. It means to turn 180 degrees. So it's the return in verse 7, let him return to the Lord. It's this complete turning from one road and turning toward another. And notice it's in parallel with the word forsake here. Let the wicked forsake his way, which means to abandon. It's the same word that's used in Genesis 2 of definition of marriage, instructing a man to forsake his father and mother and cleave to his wife. It's a strong abandoning. We see then that repentance is a complete turning and abandoning of the former path. So negatively, repentance is turning from our old ways, and positively it is turning back to the Lord. Look at fifty-five, six and seven again. Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near, let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord, and he will have compassion on him, and implied return to our God and he will abundantly pardon. So repentance is turning from our old ways, forsaking our old ways, and actively seeking God. Seeking is doing something. It's starting your feet, moving on the right path toward the Lord, seeking fellowship with other believers, attending a place where the word is taught, moving God's direction. Calling is seeking a relationship with God, not just learning about Him, but seeking to learn from Him and to know Him. I'm sure there are many scholars out there who know a lot about God, but they don't really know God. They've never called to Him to try to know Him. So repentance is also not mere sorrow. It's not distress over the consequences of our sin or self-pity because of the consequences of our sin. Repentance is an active abandoning of our old way of thinking, our old way of acting, followed by an active pursuit of God through His Word and prayer. Now one more warning. One of the mistakes we make is correctly understanding that repentance is a turning from and a turning to, but we can go wrong in seeing repentance as a work we do to please God so that He'll accept us. Repentance is not something we do on our own power in order to gain God's favor. It is a response to seeing the depth of our sin and the glory of the grace of God which He has offered us freely in Christ, or in the banquet that we talked about in the first part of this chapter. So repentance is a response to grace, it's not a cause of it. Also remember that the comfort is more than double the sin. We talked about this in our very first week in Isaiah. Some people feel that their past sins are so deep that there is no way God could forgive them. And we all feel that way. We all have that thing that we have said or done that we hope no one finds out about because we think that was just too horrible. That created just too much rubble and destruction, and it's just impossible to find a clear pathway back to God. I expect the exiles felt this way. How could they ever go home again? So much had been lost, so much had been destroyed. They'd turned away from God for so long, how could he ever take them back? And notice that Isaiah speaks to those doubts right here. He says, God is accessible and near. Verse 6, seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near. God may be found and he is near. Even though the exiles were thousands of miles from Jerusalem, that didn't limit God. He was near. There were no obstacles too great for him to overcome. Call on him because he is near and he can be found. And that while he may be found and while he is near, I think is a reference to the fact that God was not always accessible. There were times in the Old Testament where God abandoned his people to their idols and turned away from them and left them to their false gods. But his abandonment was a discipline and it was temporary. He turned his back in order that they might learn, that they might see how much they needed him. He turned away to encourage their repentance. Hosea describes this in chapter five. This is Hosea five five. Moreover, the pride of Israel testifies against him, and Israel and Ephraim stumble in their iniquity. Judah also has stumbled with them. They will go with their flocks and their herds to seek the Lord, but they will not find him. He has withdrawn from them. They have dealt treacherously against the Lord, for they have borne illegitimate children. Now the new moon will devour them with their land. And then skipping down to verse fourteen, God is speaking. He says, For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, and like a young lion to the house of Judah. I, even I, will tear to pieces and go away. I will carry away and there will be none to deliver. I will go away and return to my place until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face. In their affliction they will earnestly seek me. So Isaiah is speaking about God turning away from his people and not letting them find him because he wants them to acknowledge their guilt and seek his face. God was not always accessible to his people. Sometimes he turned away from them. But remember what we learned from chapter fifty-four. In the new covenant, in the age following the servant, God will be easily accessible and near to everyone who seeks him. Remember this was Isaiah 54 starting in verse seven. For a brief moment I forsook you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In an outburst of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting loving kindness I will have compassion on you, says the Lord your redeemer. For this is like the days of Noah to me when I swore that the waters of Noah would not flood the earth again, so I have sworn that I will not be angry with you, nor will I rebuke you, for the mountains may be removed and the hills may shake, but my loving kindness will not be removed from you, my covenant of peace will not be shaken. The days of God turning his back on his people are over. He is now accessible and near because of the servant. But even this accessibility will end when history comes to a close. So there is still a warning, call on him now while the door is open, because one day it will be too late to repent. Did you know that Moses predicted the exile and he also predicted the return? This is in Deuteronomy chapter four. Listen to these words. I'm going to start in verse twenty seven. The Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the Lord drives you. There you will serve gods the work of men's hands, wood and stone, which neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell. But from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find him if you search for him with all your heart and all your soul. When you are in distress and all these things have come upon you, in the latter days you will return to the Lord your God and listen to his voice. For the Lord your God is a compassionate God, he will not fail you, nor destroy you, nor forget the covenant with your fathers which he swore to them. Again, the same point God is accessible and near and forgiving. He came to Babylon and He has come to us. All we have to do is listen and believe and repent. But that does leave one question. How do we know God will truly forgive us? Doesn't he have like Santa Claus a list of who's naughty and nice, a list of all our sins? How can he truly forgive? Well notice Isaiah speaks to that objection in verse seven. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord, and he will have compassion on him. That is, the Lord will have compassion on the one returning to him, and turn to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. Compassion is the Hebrew word that's often used for the womb. The idea here is compassion is that like that overwhelming feeling of a nursing mother that she has for her helpless infant. She's moved to compassion to help one who is so utterly helpless and dependent. Well, in that same way God loves us. When the wicked repent, we won't find a condemning judge, but a loving father who has been waiting for us to return. Like the parable of the prodigal son, the father hikes up his tunic and comes running to greet his prodigal, something Middle Eastern men did not do was run in public. But that father ran to embrace his long lost son and gather him back in. Pardon means unmerited forgiveness. The concept is so radical that it was never used in the Old Testament of the way people treat other people, because we flawed human beings are reluctant to forgive, and when we do forgive, we sometimes secretly keep score. But not so with God, he offers us complete and total and wholly undeserved forgiveness because of the work of his servant, Jesus Christ. If you want an example of this, think about the story of Manasseh. Manasseh was one of the most wicked kings in the history of Israel. He rebuilt the high places which his father Hezekiah had torn down, he erected altars to Baal, he made Ashera poles, he worshipped the stars, he built altars to idols in God's temple, he made his sons pass through fire, he practiced witchcraft, he consulted mediums, and if that wasn't enough, he carved an ashera pole and put it in the holy place of the temple. Now in the ancient Near East, the view of Asherah was that he was an old man who lacked energy, and he needed to be stimulated through lust. So they would place a carved image of a female in front of him to stimulate him so that he would bring them rain and productivity and a harvest. And by placing these images in the holy temple, Manasseh was claiming that the God of Israel was like that, that he had to be manipulated and bribed in some way. And of all of that wasn't enough. He led the nation to participate in child sacrifice. They burned their firstborn child as an offering to a false god. And so God judged him. He was carted off to Assyria, but then we learn, this is 2 Chronicles chapter 33, starting in verse 12. I'm going to replace the pronouns with who they're referring to because in listening it's without the context of reading, it's a little hard to know who the he's and the hymns are. So 2 Chronicles 33, verse 12, when Manasseh was in distress, he entreated the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. When Manasseh prayed to the Lord, the Lord was moved by Manasseh's entreaty and heard Manasseh's supplication and brought Manasseh again to Jerusalem to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God. So Manasseh, the most wicked king in the history of Israel, or one of the most wicked kings in the history of Israel, repented, and he was forgiven. He removed all the high places, he restored the house of God. If you doubt that God can forgive you, sometime go read the story of Manasseh. There are no obstacles to repentance. That leaves another question. Isn't there another way? Do I really have to repent? Isn't there another way to heaven? Well, that is answered in our next section, verses eight and nine, which are the necessity of repentance. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. So remember this these two verses are coming in the context of a call to repentance. He's saying, Man does not act like God, nor does man think like God. I always thought that this verse meant that we couldn't understand what God was doing. Whenever something happened that we didn't understand, an event or a tragedy or of some kind, I'd hear this verse quoted by way of explanation. But now that I've seen it in context, I don't think that's quite right. He's talking about repentance and holiness and sin, and I think what he's saying is the holiness of God is profound. The difference between God's holiness and man's sinfulness is greater than the chasm between heaven and earth. The only way back to him is repenting. How could we possibly relate to God without first repenting? He says, My thoughts are not your thoughts. That word refers to the way the human mind thinks and weighs and evaluates and makes rational assignments of place and rank. It's not just the ideas themselves, but the whole process, the whole way we process information. We don't think like God. We don't see the world and the way he sees it. We see the world through our broken, sinful minds. So we don't see it properly. We don't see the way God sees because our mind is clouded and marred by sin. And there are just hundreds of examples of this in the Old Testament. When Hannah was pouring out her distress before God in the temple, Eli the priest saw her and thought she was drunk. When Judah saw his daughter-in-law Tamar in the street, he thought she was a harlot. When God told Samuel to anoint a new king, he looked to David's handsome older brothers. He didn't think to consider the youngest the runt of the litter and how that would be God's choice. And then of course, as we saw in chapter fifty-three, the nation looked at the servant and esteemed him worthless. They saw him and said he doesn't measure up to our expectations, and so they despised him because he didn't look like the king of Israel was expected to look. We just don't see the world the way God does. Just turn on the TV and listen to any sitcom and you'll see what I mean. If you want further proof, consider Israel's burning of their children on the altars to the god Moloch. They thought they would do this great sacrifice and it would be an act of worship pleasing to God. But here's what God thinks of it. This is Jeremiah 19 5. They have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, a thing I never commanded or spoke of, nor did it ever enter my mind. He said God wouldn't even consider such a perversion. We think we're doing something heroic that will please God, and God says, I would never ask that. I would never ask that of you. This is why repentance is necessary. We don't see the world the same way. We don't understand how sinful we are and how holy God is. The chasm between us is great because he is so holy and we are not. When he was little, my son once asked me, How did I know that the Bible was true and not just a book someone wrote? And how did I know that Jesus was really the Messiah? Couldn't some other religion be right? Well, being the researcher that I am, I did all this research, I checked out all these books from the library, I read about how we know evidence for God, because I really wanted to be prepared for all his objections and to answer all his questions. So I told him I was working on an answer, and after a few weeks of research, I was ready to tackle the subject with him. But before I could get to that, we were folding clothes and sitting on the floor of his room and he asked and he said, Mom, you know, you never answered my question. And I said, Well, I'm working on it. He said, But how did you know? And I said, Well, for me it was the problem of sin. I am a failed perfectionist. Once I saw how truly sinful I am and I tried everything I possibly could to make myself better, and I kept Failing. I knew I had a problem, and no other religion solves the problem of sin. All the others talk about nirvana or divine spark or enlightenment, but it all boils down to working your way to heaven, to making yourself better, doing something to make yourself better. And Christianity is the only religion that solves that problem. It's the only religion that says, you know what, you're right. You can't make yourself better by yourself, but Jesus can do it for you. He died to make that possible. So it's the only religion that solves the problem of our sin. Well, a few weeks later I sat down with him with all my notes and my outlines and said, Okay, you want to talk about your questions now? And he said, No, thanks, Mom. What you said the other day was just fine. I should have taken a clue from Isaiah. Reconciliation with God is not possible without solving the problem of our sin, and that necessitates repentance. How do we know it will be different this time? We understand repentance, we know we need to repent, but how do we know it will work? What if we just fail and fail and turn away again? And Isaiah tells us that God is ready to bring about a whole new creation by the power of his word and not by the feeble efforts of his people. And this creation, which results from the work of the servant, will give us a new heart so that we can dwell in God's holy presence. In other words, he's going to solve the problem of our slavery to sin. If we return to the Lord, the Lord will send his word to us, like rain which does not return without making the earth fertile, so God's word will not return to him without accomplishing his purpose in leading his people out of bondage to sin and into this new covenant, this new creation we've been talking about. First, Isaiah describes this using the metaphor of rain in ten through eleven, and then in twelve through thirteen he gives us the reality. If we return to the Lord, the Lord will send his word to us, and like rain which does not return without making the earth fertile, so God's word will not return to him without accomplishing his purposes. So let's look first at verse ten. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there without watering the earth and making it bare and sprout, and furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so will my word be which goes forth from my mouth. It will not return to me empty without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it. I love this metaphor because we're helpless to control the weather. Think of all the floods, the droughts, the tornadoes, the hurricanes, the blizzards, the thunderstorms that come along. We try to predict them, but even our predictions are faulty, and we and when we do predict them, we can't do anything to stop them. We are helpless to make the land fertile. The rain descends from heaven according to God's command and does not return without accomplishing its purpose. It makes the ground fertile and causes the ground to bear fruit. And Isaiah says God's word is like that, it won't return empty. Look again at eleven through thirteen. So will my word be, which goes forth from my mouth. It will not return to me empty without accomplishing what I desire and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it. For you will go out with joy and be led forth with peace. The mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands, instead of the thorn bush the cypress will come up, and instead of the nettle the myrtle will come up, and it will be a memorial to the Lord for an everlasting sign which will not be cut off. Notice how each line is intensified here as it describes the power of God's word. First he says it won't return empty, then without accomplishing what God desires, then without succeeding in the matter for which he sent it. And what is God's purpose? What did he send his word to do? To change the wicked hearts of sinful people into fertile ground that bears fruit, to write the law in our hearts, to replace our hearts of stone with hearts that know the Lord, love the Lord, and have the law written on them. So the dry, barren soul which formerly could only be a slave to sin and bear no fruit, which could not respond to God, will be changed into a heart that longs for and indeed will be righteous, and from which will spring forth abundant life. In other words, he's going to solve the problem of our slavery to sin. And the implication here is that we can have absolute utter confidence in the hope of our repentance because God has promised that he will accept our repentance and have compassion on us. Everything God has promised through the work of his servant will come about, not abstractly, but in reality, in the hearts of sinful people like you and me. So let's just review what we learned from these songs. We saw in chapter forty that there is comfort because our past has been dealt with, and that the grace God is offering through his servant is more than double our sins. We saw in chapter forty the second part that God who measures the waters in the palm of his hand is too great to fail, and he cares for you by name. Then in forty-two, the servant's task is to bring true justice, freedom from a sinful heart, and he will succeed in that task. In forty-nine, the servant had confidence that God was faithful to his promises, even when he saw no external physical evidence. And that we saw that God had a bigger plan in mind for the servant than just regathering Israel, that he was going to regather people from all nations. In chapter fifty, we saw trust in everything you know about God, and he will get you through the school of suffering, just as he did the servant. And in fifty-two and fifty-three we saw that Israel will reject the servant while the nations will embrace him, but the servant would willingly suffer death for us, and God will exalt him and vindicate him because of it. Then in chapter fifty-four, because of the servant's work, God will establish a new covenant with a new land, a new seed, and a new city which far surpasses the old covenant. It will be based on God's resources, it will be initiated by God, and will be based on God's love, which is greater than his judgment. And that God's new city will be secure based on righteousness and and the victory is guaranteed because God will never again turn his back on his people. Then finally in chapter fifty-five, we saw God invite us to partake in this banquet, this life offered through the gospel, which was accomplished by the work of his servant. It's glorious, it's free, it's available, and it will truly and completely satisfy the deepest longings of your soul because it will solve the problem of your sin. To enter the banquet, we need only turn and repent, turn from our sins and return to God. God is accessible, he is near, he will have compassion on us, and we can have utter confidence that all he's promised will come to pass. Thank you for joining me today for the Wednesday in the Word podcast. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is Serious Bible Study Applied to Real Life. This is the podcast where we explain not only what a passage means, but try to show you how we know. If you've been blessed by this podcast, please do me a favor and take two minutes to leave a rating on Apple Podcast. It really does help people find the podcast. Our theme music is graciously provided by Reggie Cooks of Heartfeltmusic.org. I'm Krisan Marotta, and thank you for listening to Wednesday in the Word.