What Will It Take To Get People To Repent?

Today’s Reading: Revelation 9

Not only was Thomas Jefferson our third president, in his retirement, he also founded the University of Virginia. Believing that students would take their studies seriously, he encouraged a more lax code of discipline. Unfortunately, some students took advantage and misbehaved, which turned into a riot. Professors who tried to restore order were attacked. The following day the university’s board, of which Jefferson was a member, held a meeting with the defiant students. Jefferson began by saying, “This is one of the most painful events of my life,” but couldn’t continue because he was overcome by emotion and burst into tears. Another board member asked the rioters to come forward and give their names. Nearly everyone did. Later, one of them confessed, “It was not Mr. Jefferson’s words, but it was his tears that broke us.”

Just as the students were moved by Jefferson’s brokenness, so is God by ours. When we are truly broken and sorry for our sins, this leads to repentance. William Taylor describes true repentance like this: “True repentance . . . hates the sin, and not simply the penalty; and it hates the sin most of all because it has discovered God’s love.”
The last few verses of today’s chapter contain a response from mankind that still has me shaking my head, even though I have read this many times before. It leaves me dumbfounded.

Let me explain with the background. When the seventh seal was broken in Revelation 8, there came out of that seal seven angels with seven trumpets with the most horrific judgment coming on the earth. Each trumpet was relegated for a disaster to judge mankind. Revelation 9 has the fifth and the sixth trumpet. The fifth plague on the earth came directly from the bottomless pit of hell. It was five months of absolute terror on the planet. It would be so bad that men would want to die, but John says these sobering words, “They will long to die but death flees from them.” The sixth trumpet is an angel of death who kills a third of mankind. These trumpets are horrifying.

Why would this be important to describe and detail in this chapter? It’s what happens at the end that is most mindboggling. Let’s read what happens to two-thirds of the planet’s population who are still alive after experiencing the judgments of trumpets six and seven:

“The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood—idols that cannot see or hear or walk. Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts.” (Revelation 9:20-21, NIV)

Twice it says that mankind still did not repent. The brazenness and the hardness of humans that the worst tragedy can hit the planet and yet they will still refuse to turn to God. Can love for sin be that strong that people will not even repent? Puritan writer Thomas Watson reminds us of the mistake of repentance: “Many think they repent, when it is not the offense, but the penalty troubles them.” Watson wants us to know that repentance has to do with wanting to stop sinning, but many just want the penalty and result of their sin to stop. What will it take to get someone to repent? Based on Revelation 9, I know it’s not catastrophe because it doesn’t get more catastrophic than these trumpets.

Look what happened to people after September 11, 2001. The churches were filled, but it didn’t last. Tragedy is not what makes people repent of their sins.

Repentance is a word not used much, if ever anymore, today in churches. If people would hear the word repentance, they might see it as puritanical or legalistic, when it is a surrendered will to God that hates sin so much that they want nothing to do with it, that there is a 180-degree turn from any known sin. No one described a repentant heart better than nineteenth-century orphanage director George Müller: “There was a day when I died . . . died to George Müller, his opinions, preferences, tastes and will—died to the world, its approval or censure—died to the approval or blame even of my brethren and friends—and since then I have studied only to show myself approved unto God.” That is a repentant and changed man.

Repentance, by definition, means a change of heart or to turn from. Repentance turns from the direction of sin and starts traveling toward God’s direction. It seems that humanity in Revelation 9 wanted to continue in their sin more than turning toward God. Their murders, thefts, magic arts, and sexual immorality were worth continuing while still under judgment than asking God for mercy and grace. Sin is powerful!

How powerful? One Puritan writer said sin is so powerful that it made the devil the devil.
These men in Revelation 9 are not just men in the tribulation who refuse to repent. I’ve seen it happen today. Where people hate the consequences but not the sin that caused it, so they don’t repent. But if when you sin, your heart is broken, then there is hope.

Have you ever been going to a place where you needed the help of your GPS to speak the directions to you? The part I love about my phone’s maps is that when I have been distracted or unfamiliar with an area and miss my turn, the voice doesn’t say, “You are so dumb. I’m through helping you. Find someone else. Do what you want and stay lost if you’re not going to listen.” No, my GPS says, “Turn around when possible.” And that’s exactly what I do. And that’s exactly what repentance is—we get to turn around when possible.
If you feel the Holy Spirit’s conviction, turn around. It’s possible.


Excerpt from:
Dilena, Tim. The 260 Journey. Colorado Springs, CO, Book Villages, 2001.
260journey.com