The conversation explores various biblical figures who demonstrated repentance without having faith initially. The speakers reference stories from Acts, illustrating how individuals like Cornelius and Lydia embodied repentance and God-fearing lifestyles before fully embracing belief. This episode is a thought-provoking examination of how pastors might address repentance in their sermons and the balance between teaching scripture and evangelistic outreach.
The following is a listener-supported ministry from the Grace Evangelical Society. Find out more about us at our website, faithalone.org. We would also love you to tune in to our YouTube channel, YouTube Grace Evangelical Society. There we release two or three short videos per week, and we’d love for you to view them and like them. Once again, our website, faithalone.org. Now, with today’s question and answer discussion, here are Bob Wilkin and Ken Yates.
SPEAKER 03 :
Bob, we got a, I think, a very interesting question from Tom. Okay. And, well, it’s really kind of in two parts. But the first, he makes a statement and then a question, really. He makes a statement that unbelievers… cannot turn from sin. And I’m assuming that what he means is they have no life or, you know, some people would say… They lack the power to do it. They can’t do it, right? They’re just in the flesh, okay? They cannot please God, right? Romans 8, you know, the one in the flesh cannot please God. And then he, it’s more of a question here, shouldn’t pastors then stop or should not tell unbelievers to turn from their sin. In other words, should pastors, or we might say evangelists, tell unbelievers to turn from their sins? And his point is, the answer to that question is obviously no, because you’re asking them to do something that’s impossible. And there’s a number of issues that are involved in this question. One of them, I think, is We need to make a distinction between telling an unbeliever, for example, what may be beneficial for him and telling an unbeliever what he needs to do to receive eternal life.
SPEAKER 02 :
Right. So let me give an example for Tom. Let’s say Tom has three children. And let’s just say hypothetically, two of his children are walking with the Lord. But the third child has not yet come to faith and is not walking with the Lord. And they’ve now moved out of the household. They’ve graduated from college and they’re in their mid-20s. But this person has a drug problem, is a drug addict. And so they’re high all the time. They’re losing jobs. They’ve been gone through a divorce, etc. Would you as dad tell them to turn from that sin?
SPEAKER 03 :
Sure. Yeah. And then the question is, could they? Because he makes a statement that they can’t. Okay.
SPEAKER 02 :
So I’ve been to 12-step meetings before. Not many, but one or two. And if you’ve ever been to a 12-step meeting, there are people there who are unbelievers. They don’t believe Jesus is the Messiah. They don’t believe in him for eternal life, but they do believe in a higher power, right? Some generic God or something. But yet these people have been sober for six months, a year, five years, 10 years, whatever. And so unbelievers are capable of stopping drinking. They’re capable of stopping other sins, right?
SPEAKER 03 :
And there’s so many examples of that. I mean, you hear unbelievers all the time, for example, in our day and age who are addicted to pornography, and they see what it’s doing to them, and they see what it’s doing to their marriage or whatever, and they stop. Right. Right. And so they say, yeah, I’m going to stop doing this.
SPEAKER 02 :
So the question is, of course, some people would say that’s not repentance because that’s just repenting of one sin.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right.
SPEAKER 02 :
But they need to repent of all sin. But in Scripture, you find that for the most part, repentance is a turning from sin, turning to God. Think of the Ninevites. And by the way, There’s an example of a whole lot of unbelievers who turn from their sins. And as a result, even though Jonah had been sent to say 40 days and then judgment is coming, instead God relented and didn’t bring the judgment. And you remember in Genesis 18, when Abraham is meeting with the pre-incarnate Lord Jesus Christ and he’s bargaining with him. What if there’s 50 people in Sodom? Will you not destroy it? Okay, 40, 30, 20. How about 10? So the Lord’s like, okay, you get 10 righteous people. Well, what that’s basically saying is, If there are ten people who have repented and are righteous, then I won’t destroy them.
SPEAKER 03 :
Whether they’re believers or unbelievers.
SPEAKER 02 :
Right, it didn’t matter. Ten righteous people. And there weren’t, and so God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. And the examples could be multiplied. You remember that Paul said, Acts 17.30, God commands all men everywhere to repent. So it wasn’t just the Jewish people he was calling to repent. And, of course, he was calling the Jewish people to repent. So was John the Baptist. Matthew 4, 17 is Jesus began to say, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, that’s, you know, the example that you give of John the Baptist when he’s called in the nation to repent. Right. That would have included unbelievers. It would have. All the nation. Right.
SPEAKER 02 :
Now, eventually, of course, if they had repented, they would have come to faith. Because with Israel, once the entire nation was believing and repentant, the kingdom would come. And so this is a guess on my part, but my guess is if they were all believing, they would get in fellowship with God. And if they were all repenting, They would come to faith.
SPEAKER 03 :
They would believe, right.
SPEAKER 02 :
Because they would believe that this is the Messiah. In other words, we’re repenting because we know the kingdom is at hand and we know this is the king. And we know that he’s given us eternal life because that’s what he promises. So I would say that, yeah, that’s an issue regarding the Jewish people. But Acts 1730 is all men everywhere to repent. And if you think of Cornelius in Acts chapter 10, he’s called a devout man. And the reason God sent an angel to him is because his prayers and alms had descended to God. Well, so we’re not told that he was a repentant man, but it seems pretty clear he was. And yet he wasn’t born again yet.
SPEAKER 03 :
And he also has a soldier that works for him that’s described in very similar terms. So it seems like he had an impact on those around him. And certainly when Peter comes to his house, his house is full of his friends. Right. So he’s not the only one.
SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 02 :
Well, and think about Lydia in Acts 16. She’s at the place of prayer. She’s called a God-fearer. She’s a Gentile who worships. They don’t have a synagogue because they don’t have 10 Jewish men to worship. So they instead meet down by the riverside, and she’s there.
SPEAKER 03 :
She seems to be a repentant woman. Well, and also in the book of Acts, the God-fearers, that’s a common theme. And certainly, I guess some could say, well, these God-fearers were Old Testament believers in the sense that, particularly if they were older people, they had believed in the coming Messiah.
SPEAKER 02 :
But certainly among these God-fearers, you have unbelievers who are— We know that in the case of Lydia, because God opened Lydia’s heart to heed the things Paul and Silas, and the same thing with Cornelius.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. As I recall in Acts, Cornelius is not specifically called a God-fearer, but he is. That’s what he is. He fits the pattern there in the book of Acts of a non-Jew who’s going to the synagogue, is interested in the God of Israel. And you’re right. In Acts 10, he’s not a believer. But he’s a God-fearer, so he’s certainly the picture of someone who has turned from what we would say is paganism, and he’s called a devout man, and God says, I’ve heard your prayers, you know, through the angel. And so here is another example of an unbeliever who has turned from his sins.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, so let me come back to Tom’s earlier questions. Should a pastor tell unbelievers to turn from their sins? Well, it seems to me what pastors should do, for the most part, is preach the Bible. I know that sounds radical, but our motto when we were at Dallas Seminary was, which means preach the Word, 2 Timothy 4.2. Preach the Word in season and out of season. And so we should be preaching the Bible and we should be giving the sense of it and going verse by verse. Now, it’s okay to do some topical messages. So if a pastor gave a topical message on repentance, it wouldn’t make much sense to only talk about repentance for believers because the Bible talks about the repentance of all men and of unbelievers. And so if you’re going to be accurately teaching what the Bible has to say about repentance, you would talk about it. For example, if I was preaching through Jonah, I’d have to say that the nation repented, but that doesn’t mean they were all born again.
SPEAKER 03 :
It’s about the nation of Nineveh.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. Well, it’s a city-state, but still, Nineveh was a big city. It was like a three-day journey across, which we don’t know what that means exactly, but it means it was big. a huge city, and they all repented, even the animals. They put sackcloth on the cows and ashes on the cows, and they fasted. They even kept the animals fasting, and they were crying out to God for mercy, and God spared them. They may have come to faith after. So my point is, should a pastor tell unbelievers to repent? Well, I think he should teach, like I have a book called Turn and Live the Power of Repentance. That’s from Ezekiel chapter 18 and Ezekiel 31, where the prophet Ezekiel says, turn and live. God doesn’t want the death of the wicked, therefore turn and live. That was true for believers and unbelievers in Israel. And the same thing is true. You’re doing a commentary on Proverbs. Proverbs is calling for people to turn away from the harlot and turn away from wickedness.
SPEAKER 03 :
The path of the fool. You’re on a pathway of foolishness to turn to the path of wisdom.
SPEAKER 02 :
Right. The idea of repentance, shuv is the Old Testament word for turn. It’s very common. That’s why I call my book Turn and Live the Power of Repentance. So, yeah, it seems to me if we’re teaching through the Bible, the pastor is occasionally going to have to talk about the repentance of unbelievers. But here’s the point, Ken, and I think you’d agree with me. Don’t you think pastors should be speaking to believers, that the messages should be directed toward the people in their congregation?
SPEAKER 03 :
Sure, in which case there’s going to be many times you’ll talk about repentance. Right. Five of the seven churches in Revelation two and three.
SPEAKER 02 :
Right. You’re not normally your messages aren’t evangelistic. You aren’t preaching to unbelievers, but you may talk about unbelievers. But the other part of it is, what about if a pastor is giving an evangelistic message or what if an evangelist is speaking? You and I were talking. Didn’t you say you thought it would be dangerous to talk about repentance because it would confuse people?
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, if you’re telling a person what they need to do to receive eternal life, if you bring in repentance and turning from sin, that’s going to be very confusing.
SPEAKER 02 :
Even if you said, now look, you don’t need to turn from your sins in order to be saved, but it’s still a good idea. And I would recommend you turn from your sins and believe in Jesus. You’ve now muddied the water, right?
SPEAKER 03 :
And I think that might be what Tom’s point, part of what Tom’s point is saying here, that pastors need to stop doing that. I think that’s what he’s worried about.
SPEAKER 02 :
And I think the key, Tom, is if you look at the Gospel of John, which is the only evangelistic book in the Bible, John 20, 31, that he’s writing to unbelievers that they might believe in Jesus for everlasting life, it never once mentions repentance.
SPEAKER 03 :
Never once, the verb or the noun. No. Well, Tom, we appreciate that question. We hope this puts some clarity on it. It’s a great question. And remember, folks, to keep grace in focus.
SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 03 :
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