I don’t know if Paul considered this meeting before Agrippa and Festus as a trial, a church service, or some- thing in between.
But he might have pictured it as an hearing before an appeals court.
And when he wasn’t vindicated here, he felt obligated to take it to the Supreme Court of Rome.
Already there had been several trials, not the least of which took place in the courtyard of the temple.
At that time the prosecuting Jews wanted nothing less than the Death Penalty for the preaching of Christ.
Paul said that the Jews caught him and went about to kill him “for these causes.”
What were the causes that was he talking about?
He specifically mentioned three things, which actually boil down into just one:
That he urged both Jews and Gentiles to repent, to turn to God and to do deeds indicative of repentance.
In other words, the Jews were seeking to kill Paul for preaching “repentance.”
Again, I point out that it is almost as interesting to notice what Paul didn’t say, as what he did say.
Although the Lord Jesus spoke about “faith that is in me,” Paul didn’t refer to faith at this point.
It wasn’t that he was avoiding the subject, because he mentioned it in the commission Christ gave him moments before.
And as we review Paul’s ministry from Damascus to Derbe and from Corinth to Caesarea,
urging sinners to cast aside their idols and to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
So the Jews sought the death penalty for a man who preached repentance and godly living.
What is this insane world coming to when it is unlawful to urge sinners to live humbly before God?
To those Jew’s way of thinking, the illegality of Paul’s ministry was in two areas:
First it was in urging sinners to come to God through the Lord Jesus.
It’s not the idea of turning to God that is so offensive to the wicked.
It’s telling the sinner that it must be through one Means, one Door, one Pperson – Christ Jesus.
Acts 4:12 is a very offensive verse to the majority of the people of this world:
“Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”
Paul’s second capital offense was in giving the Gentiles the same opportunity for salvation as he was giving to the Jews.
But stop for just a moment and think about the logic of this:
If the Jews were offended that Paul preached salvation through Jesus of Nazareth….
If they believed that Jesus was a lunatic, an heretic, and a demoniac….
Then why were they upset that Paul preached Jesus to the despised Gentiles?
Logically, those Jews should have picked one or the other, but not both “these causes.”
According to the testimony of Paul, his primary message to both Jews and Gentiles was “repentance.”
Once again, I take up an old, old theme, and I do so without the slightest embarrassment or regret.
Repentance has been one of the primary themes of every true servant of God who ever graced a pulpit.
It was theme of Enoch and Noah in the early days; and of John, Jesus, and James in the Gospels.
The greatest servants of God since the close of gospel era have all preached “repentance.”
Imagine Noah standing on the bow of the nearly finished Ark preaching, “Something good is going to happen to you today.”
Picture Jeremiah just before they threw him into the pit, preaching “I’m OK; you’re OK.”
And there’s Jonah at the gates of Nineveh with a big placard, “Smile, God loves you!”
Or the two witnesses of the Tribulation saying, “Possibility thinking will move mountains.”
These and a hundred other Biblical prophets of God preached “repentance toward God and faith toward the Lord Jesus Christ.”
“The times your ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth ALL men everywhere to repent.”
I am not ashamed to urge you to repentance, because of its IMPORTANCE IN HEAVEN ITSELF.
What do suppose is most attractive object on earth to residents of Glory?
It’s not our architectural wonders: the Empire State Building, Solomon’s temple, the Golden Gate Bridge.
And it’s certainly not our cathedrals – whether Catholic or Protestant.
It’s not our athletic feats; our music; our scientific advances or technology that the angels enjoy.
But not a single angel can pass by a human spirit panting in pain over its sin.
“There is joy in presence of angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.”
I am not disturbed to teach once again about repentance because it brings good hearts great joy.
Rowland Hill used say that there was only one thing on earth that he would miss when he got to Heaven.
He correctly believed that once he reached Glory he would be completely without sin.
And if a person has no sin and does not sin, he will never need to repent again.
Hill said that when he entered Heaven he’d miss that sweet, lovely sorrowful grace of repentance.
And Spurgeon said the same sort of thing: “I’m never more happy than when I am weeping for sin at foot of cross.”
It doesn’t bother me to preach a subject again that is so essential to our soul’s salvation.
Some half-witted preachers rightly declare again and again the necessity of faith in Christ.
And that is absolutely true, but what about the other?
Faith and repentance are only two sides of one coin.
To preach faith but not repentance is like trying to fly a Boeing 747 with only one wing.
If those preachers refuse to proclaim or to correctly teach repentance, they destroy the truth of faith as well.
As we have often said, faith and repentance are siamese twins.
If one is sick, the other of necessity cannot be well; they live one life.
If one goes to the Doctor, so does the other.
If one is glorified, then so is the other.
Unfortunately, there are many people who think that they have repented of their sin, but who have not.
It’s because their understanding and definition of the subject are wrong.
There are many things thought to be repentance, which are not:
For example WORLDLY SORROW must not be confused with true repentance.
By “worldly sorrow,” I refer to remorse or regret that some sin was committed or discovered.
Of course, the classic example this kind of repentance is be found in Judas in Matthew 27:3-5.
“Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders,
Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that.
And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.”
How close does this come to Bible repentance . . .
The kind of which the Lord Jesus said, “Except ye repent ye shall all likewise perish”?
First, it was Judas’ acknowledgment of his sin, which is good.
That he committed a crime worthy of hellish punishment there can be no doubt.
He gave the Son of God over into the hands of murderers and blasphemers.
He was right to acknowledge that he had sinned.
But simply to acknowledge sin is not repentance.
Actually according to scripture, true confession of sin comes as product of repentance.
One is the child of the other; sorrow and confession are born of repentance.
For example, when some of the Jewish leaders came to John to be baptized, he replied:
“O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance.”
(Notice how closely this resembles the language of Paul before Agrippa.)
When the Jews did display evidence of repentance, which included confessing their sins, then John baptized them.
True gospel preachers refuse to baptize people who are not already repenting and showing repentance’s fruit.
And a part of that fruit is sorrow for sin.
Worldly sorrow is not repentance because it comes from the wrong source.
It comes out of the conscience of the sinner and usually only because he has been caught.
True repentance, on the other hand, is a working of the Holy Spirit of God.
Paul counseled Timothy to be the kind of servant that God could use in the ministry.
He said, “the servant of the L must not strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach …
In meekness instructing those oppose themselves, if God peradventure will give them repent.”
Repentance that comes from any other source but the Lord himself is not true repentance.
“Know ye not that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?” – Romans 2:4.
What’s more is that worldly sorrow actually produces death – not eternal life.
That was all that it did for Judas, who went out and hanged himself.
Very closely related to worldly sorrow, is GODLY SORROW, and that isn’t repentance either.
Paul wrote to the Corinthians:
“For though I made you sorry with a letter, I do not repent, though I did repent: for I perceive that the same epistle hath made you sorry, though it were but for a season.
Now I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance: for ye were made sorry after a godly manner, that ye might receive damage by us in nothing.
For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.”
These three verses give us a short study in several things, including the definition of “repentance.”
We notice that verse ten says that godly sorrow, not to be confused with worldly sorrow, produces repentance.
Obviously, that means that godly sorrow is not the same thing as repentance.
Again a father and his son are not the same person.
It’s similar to the scripture which says, “Tribulation worketh patience.”
“Sorrow worketh repentance” in much the same way that “tribulation worketh patience.”
Godly sorrow is what the Holy Spirit produces in us as He convicts us of our sinfulness.
It is one of the steps that leads to repentance and faith in Christ.
Do you parents remember how your kids used to stumble over words and the pronunciation of words?
Maybe you even remember how even your own ear couldn’t distinguish between similar words.
I remember very little from my early childhood, but I do remember when I was about 5 or 6 arguing with some neighbor boys.
My father was President of the Renfrew Community Association in Calgary,
and so I took great personal pride in the ice skating rink that was built in the park behind our house.
When some of the neighbors were talking about that rink, I tried to tell them that my father was “Present” of the association that built the rink.
Those other kids laughed me to scorn, but I couldn’t hear the difference between “present” and “president” until months later.
I mention this because there are millions of people who can’t seem to hear the difference between “repentance” and “penance.”
PENANCE AND REPENTANCE are two entirely different things.
The Lord Jesus never said, “Except ye perform acts of PENANCE, ye shall all likewise perish.”
He said, “Except ye REPENT ye shall all likewise perish.”
Not even my dusty Catholic Bible has word “penance” in it, as far as I could find.
The difference between “penance” and “repentance” lies in the location of their source.
“Repentance” is a work of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the sinner; it is internal.
“Penance” on the other hand are acts of “self-discipline designed to repair the damage that sin has done.”
Those words are out of Bible study course that I took under Joseph Cardinal Ritter.
It has the imprimatur of the Archbishop of St. Louis.
I graduated from that course high enough to be told that I would make a fine Roman Catholic.
According to Catholic doctrine, “penance” has to do with our actions in order to remove the stain of sin.
It is often the infliction of punishment on human flesh.
It comes upon the orders of men and cannot to be found anywhere in the Bible.
It is a work of the flesh.
But “repentance,” on the other hand, is the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the sinner.
Fourth, repentance is not any kind of REFORMATION OR RESTITUTION.
When Paul said that he telling both Jews and Gentiles that “they should do works meet for repentance,”
he was talking about reformed lives as proof of repentance.
Although a cleaned-up life is not repentance, it can be the result of repentance.
When Jonah went to Nineveh, he preached judgment, and the Lord gave repentance to those people.
When it had done its work the people had changed lives to prove it.
“So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.
For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water:
But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.”
And as I preached back in May, another illustration of the results of repentance is seen in Acts 19:18-19:
“And many that believed came, and confessed, and shewed their deeds.
Many of them also which used curious arts brought their books together, and burned them before all men: and they counted the price of them, and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver.”
Similarly restitution is just another kind of reformation and result of repent and salvation.
After Zaccheus had repented he said, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor,
and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him four-fold.”
We could go on describing different types of Satanic pseudo-repentances . . .
But let me describe the true repentance which Paul had been preaching around the Mediterranean.
And this is something which God demands.
“God hath commanded all men everywhere to repent.”
No one can build a big house on a little foundation.
The idea of trying to be a Christian without repentance, is like trying to steer a 1000 ton diesel/electric Burlington Northern engine across the mountains without any tracks.
First of all repentance is SPIRITUAL.
It is a part of the new creation that only the omnipotence of God can produce.
As a dead man cannot run, jump or play volleyball, neither can the spiritually dead truly repent.
There must be the working of the grace of the Lord – first.
How essential it is that Christians pray for the Lord to work in hearts of specific lost people.
Second, repentance is always POINTED TOWARD GOD, to nothing and no one else.
In the question of salvation, everything depends on “from what” and “to Whom.”
Some think that repentance has reference to the Law of God.
No, no the law is the instrument that Holy Spirit uses to show us that we have offended Jehovah.
Our repentance must be toward the Lord, and not the law.
Even liberal old Henry Ward Beecher, could see that.
He said, “One might as well repent toward the jaws of crocodile, as to the Law.
What would repenting towards crocodile mean? It would mean death.
I don’t care if you are submissive and sorrowful before that man-eater.
Or if you have a stick as big as Jack Pine tree – all that crocodile wants do is eat you,
So it is with the law of God; it’s designed to eat you, not cure you.”
Our repentance is towards the Lord God, Who designed that law to condemn us.
Then third, repentance involves a CHANGE OF MIND – a change of attitude about sin, self and God.
That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have a spiritual nature to it, and it doesn’t mean that it isn’t God-produced.
But it is more than an emotional outburst, it is at the very heart of the word “conversion.”
Fourth, repentance leads to Christ by way of the road called “FAITH.”
Although no man will see God in any attitude but wrath unless he repents –
repentance, good or bad, has never saved single soul.
My commission before you is to exhort you to repent toward God and to have faith towards the Lord Jesus Christ.
By grace are ye saved, THROUGH faith, which of necessity is built upon the preparatory work of repentance.
“If you from sin are longing to be free, look to the Lamb of God.”
But make sure that lookout position is distinctly on the grounds of repentance.
And finally, repentance PRODUCES ACCEPTABLE FRUIT in the repentant person’s life.
Fruit such as confession of sin and changes of course in the direction of that person’s life.
Fruit like the forgiveness of others who have trespassed against us.
Fruit such as humility before God, and before the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
And true repentance produces more repentance, and more repentance.
By that I mean that repentance is not a one time thing.
We are permitted to quit repenting the moment we quit sinning, and that isn’t going to happen this side of Heaven.
Is person saved by a single act of faith?
Actually he isn’t really saved because of his faith at all.
He is saved by grace through faith,
and when saving faith is given, it is never withdrawn, used up or replaced.
The Christian will live by faith and trust the Saviour for the rest of his earthly life.
And if some professed believer, at some point in time, says that he has stopped trusting Christ,
then it’s not that he has lost his salvation,
it’s proof that he never was a saved – he never was a child of God.
But getting back to repentance –
“It is to leave the sin we loved before,
And show that we in earnest grieve, by doing so no more.”
Have YOU ever heard the message of the Apostle Paul?
Have you turned from your sin?
Have you turned to face the Lord?
Are there works in your life “meet,” or worthy of, repentance?
I don’t care how much you talk about trusting Jesus,
if these are not found in your life and soul,
then you are yet in your sins, and you are bound for eternal judgment.
You need to come to Christ in repentance and faith.
For these things the Jews sought to kill Paul.
For these things Christians thank Paul, and praise God.