Why Repentance is Crucial for Christians

SPEAKER 01 : 0:06

Welcome to Victorious Faith. We believe you will be blessed, encouraged, and receive fresh faith to begin your day as you listen to today’s message with international missionary and Bible teacher, Cherri Campbell.

SPEAKER 02 : 0:21

Good morning. Praise the Lord. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Welcome to Victorious Faith. I’m Cherri Campbell. This morning I’m going to continue sharing with you the message I began sharing with you last week. That is message three in a series of messages that I preached in our Victorious Faith services called What Made David a Man After God’s Own Heart. So join with me now in our live service for the continuation of message number three in this series. What Made David a Man After God’s Own Heart. But you can have a heart that is wholly committed and fully committed and fully devoted to the Lord. And so David, he was not faultless. He was not flawless. But he did keep a clean and pure heart before God because he repented regularly. And we gave several psalms for that. He said, create in me a clean heart. And he said, cleanse me and purify my heart. So he repented. Repentance is… is what keeps your heart clean. Repentance is what keeps your heart clean. And I’m going to stop right there a moment, and I’m going to go back to something that I have shared on the radio. I don’t know that I’ve said it in our service before, but there is a false doctrine of demons going around the body of Christ that says Christians, once you’re born again, No longer need to repent. After you’re saved, you’re saved. And no repentance is ever needed again. That is a doctrine of demons. What they base that on is grace. There’s the false interpretation of grace. But that grace covers you after you’re saved. And so if you mess up, you don’t need to repent. There’s no repentance needed after you’re saved. Well, I’ve got multiple scriptures for that. First of all, in the book of Revelation. Is the book of Revelation in the New Testament? Yes. Is it written to churches? Yes. And we’ve got the book of Revelation chapter 2 and 3. And I don’t have them underlined here, so I’m just going to summarize. Revelation chapter 2 and 3, the angel of the Lord comes to John and he gives him messages for seven New Testament churches. And these were real churches in real cities. They really existed. And did you realize that to five out of seven, the angel’s message from the Lord, it says these are the words of him. These are the words of the Lord. And to five of the seven churches, he told them to repent. He told churches to repent. He told church people to repent. That is the strongest evidence that repentance is still necessary after you’re saved, after you’re a born-again Christian. Because to five of the seven churches in the book of Revelation, the Lord Jesus himself commanded the churches to repent. Five out of seven. That means repentance is still necessary after you’re born again. And then also to the church at Corinth in 2 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians, Paul’s letter was full of correction and rebuke. You did this wrong. Straighten this up. Straighten this up. You have this going on. You have this going on. You read the book of 1 Corinthians and it’s correction, correction, correction, correction. And then in the book of 2 Corinthians, Paul said, my first letter brought you sorrow. But I’m glad because godly sorrow leads to repentance. And you repented and So he commended the church at Corinth that when they read his first letter, all the things that they were doing wrong, they corrected, but they repented for what they had done. And then Paul said, godly sorrow leads to repentance and it brings life. And so you want repentance after you’re born again. So every time you mess up, Quickly repent. Repentance is what gets rid of that sin and frees you from it. It breaks its power off of you. And it breaks the curse that it could open up to off of you. I mean, that’s enough reason right there. Because… Going back to sin came, in the book of Romans it says, sin came and then death by sin. So when sin comes, death comes. And people think, well, Adam and Eve didn’t drop dead and I didn’t drop dead. It’s not an instant dropping dead. What it is, is it is the curse of death, the curse of sin and death. comes in to begin stealing, killing, and destroying in your life in whatever way it can worm its way. It can start trying to destroy your relationships, your health, your finances get attacked, your job gets attacked, your mind, your peace, your sanity, your emotions. That is the curse of sin and death. How does it have access… to our lives through sin. Sin is what produces the curse of sin and death. And so repentance of sin, and repentance means turning away from it with your heart and then going the other direction and walking away from the sin. In other words, you’re not fooling God any. You don’t just say you’re sorry and keep doing it. Now, God has mercy when you fall into temptation, when you try to do it right, but you mess up. There’s mercy there. But you certainly cannot intentionally continue doing wrong. Because then there’s no more repentance left if you intentionally do wrong. But… When you repent is when you close the door to the curse. Repentance is actually a gift from God that we should be thankful for the opportunity to repent. Because Paul writes in another place, you know, this is not in my notes, so I don’t have the scripture reference on the top of my head. But he writes in one place that the Lord would grant repentance to the people he was talking about, the wicked. But Paul writes about God granting repentance. What is a grant? A grant is a gift. I think every one of us needs to look at repentance in a different way. Instead of thinking, oh, I mean, you think I should repent, huh? Yeah. But you should be glad and grateful for the grant, the opportunity that you can repent before it’s too late. Because there’s coming a day, whether it’s you dying or the end of all things, when judgment comes. And not only that, what I’m talking about here, as soon as you sin, you have given the devil access. Always. When you speak evil, you open the door. When you judge and criticize others, you open the door to Satan and the curse to steal, kill, and destroy. It might attack your family, your relationships. It might attack your health, your body. It might attack your finances or your job. Whatever the sin is, in Romans, again, sin came and death by sin. And I know I need to give you references for these. That’s Romans 5. Since I’m not using any kind of a smartphone up here to quickly pull up a scripture reference, you’ll find it. Sin came, death by sin. That’s the curse of sin and death. It’s not instant death dropping dead. Adam didn’t drop dead. You and I, we’ve not dropped dead yet. We’re still here. But what it does is it opens the door to Satan to have access and for the curse of sin and death to have access. That’s what sin does. And so even back to the grace message, for people who want to abuse grace, that’s really what it is. Well, I’m under grace so I can do anything. You are abusing the grace of God. But what you don’t understand is is that, yeah, you’re under grace, but that does not stop sin from producing death. It still produces death. It still produces a curse. Every time, it opens the door. When you sin, speak evil, do evil, disobey. When you know you’ve done it, Immediately say, Lord, forgive me. I’m sorry. I repent. I strive to do better by your spirit, your empowerment. That’s what grace is, empowerment. then that slams the door to that sin access, that open door. Sin opens the door. Repentance slams it closed. That’s why, first of all, you don’t want to sin, but if you do, quickly repent. God has given you, granted you the gift of repentance that slams the door closed so that you cannot reap the curse. The curse will not have any open door. And so, yes, Christians repent. Back to the main line, talking about David. He was a man who repented. Yes, he had faults. Yes, he messed up big. Really big. But he repented big. He repented wholehearted for every one of his mess-ups. Every time he did wrong, he repented wholeheartedly. And then he said, Lord, keep a clean and pure heart in me, O Lord. And then he had God looking at the heart. A man after God’s own heart. He loved God. And I gave you scripture, Psalm 18, Psalm 116. I love the Lord. I love you, O Lord. And then he loved God’s word. God and his word are one. In the beginning was the word. The word was with God. The word was God, John 1.1. John 1.14, the word became flesh and dwelt among us. If you don’t love the word, the written word, the preached word, then you don’t really love God. There’s a lot of Christians who, with their mouth, they say they love God, but they don’t care anything about the word. Well, you can’t know God without the word and you can’t love God without loving the word because he and his word are one. What you just heard was the continuation of message number three in a series of messages that I preached in our victorious faith services called what made David a man after God’s own heart. And we will continue this message again tomorrow. So join me again tomorrow. And remember, God loves you. You are blessed and highly favored by the Lord.

SPEAKER 01 : 13:30

We’re glad you joined us today for Victorious Faith with Cherri Campbell. We invite you to visit our website at victoriousfaith.co where you can listen to the Victorious Faith radio broadcast, find biblical study helps, contact Cherri and make donations. You can also email us at info at victoriousfaith.co or write to us at Victorious Faith, P.O. Box 509, Eastlake, Colorado, 80614. We would love to hear from you how this ministry is blessing you. Victorious Faith is a God and Partners supported ministry. As you sow seed and partner with this ministry, we believe God with you for the full harvest of victory you need in your life. Please join us again Monday through Friday at the same time. And remember, faith is the victory that overcomes the world.

SPEAKER 1 : 14:26

Thank you.