Recently, I read a letter from a lady in Queensland, Australia, that was amazingly similar to a letter I had just read from someone in Nigeria. Another letter from a man in Indianapolis, Indiana, was almost the same. They were all saying, “I want to love God, and I want to walk the Christian way. I am trying to lead a good moral life, but what is the matter with me?” In each case the writers of the letters desperately wanted to serve God, but their lives seemed empty and cold, and they could not see the manifestation of God in their personal situations. Each one literally broke my heart.
Each letter also had another similarity. All of the writers wrote that they had said the sinner’s prayer many times (one even wrote that she had prayed it about fifty times), but they had not seen any results from their prayers. Their lives seemed to just go on as
before with no real life, no hungering for the Word of God or the things of God, and they were as defeated as they had been before the prayers.
In Matthew 4:17 we read, “From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”
(emphasis added). That is the important step the people from Australia, Nigeria, Indiana, and all over the world have missed in entering into the type of Christian life the Word of God exemplifies.
Mark 1:14-15 says the same thing. It states, “Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel”
(emphasis added). Once again the Word of God instructs us in the process of spiritual growth. Not only did Jesus say to repent, but also to believe.
Repentance
The dictionary defines repentance as, “to feel pain, sorrow, or regret for something that one has done, or left undone; to be conscience stricken or contrite; to change one’s mind about some past action, intention in consequence, or regret or dissatisfaction.”
It goes on to say that the theological meaning of the word is, “to feel sorrow for sin as leads to amendment of one’s ways, to be penitent.”
Let me show you what the Word of God says about repentance.
Researching the word repentance in Hebrew and Greek, I found there are eight words describing repentance. These eight words, four in Hebrew and four in Greek, give us the total picture of true Bible repentance. There are different places in Scripture where each of these meanings is used for a specific purpose.
The first repent in Hebrew is nacham, which means “to sigh or to breathe strongly or to be sorry.” In this type of repentance, one is sorry for something he has done. For example, if you put your life’s savings in a particular stock that had shown tremendous gain, only to suddenly see it go right down to the bottom and be
worthless, you would be very sorry. You would regret having put all of your money into what turned out to be a bad investment. This is a form of repentance, by avoiding something because you have discovered by experience that it wasn’t a wise thing to do.
Another Hebrew word for repentance is shuwb, which means “to turn back.” It means not repeating something because you have learned that there is a consequence to it, such as touching a hot stove. Any young child can testify to that kind of repentance. Once he has been burned, he will be careful to avoid contact with the flame so that it won’t happen again.
The third Hebrew word for repentance, nocham, is particularly interesting. It means “to regret” rather than repent.
The sorrow is connected with being found out rather than for committing the sin.
An excellent example of nocham is a person who robs a bank. If he successfully accomplished the robbery, made a fast getaway, leaving no fingerprints or identification behind, and lived his life in prosperity to the end of his days, there would be no repentance.
But if the person was caught and sent to prison, he would
“regret” his action. This is proven by the fact that many prisoners repeat their crimes as soon as they are released, which indicates no repentance or turning away, but a desire to do it again and not get caught!
Compassion is the meaning of the fourth Hebrew word for repentance. It is nichum and is an emotional concern for other people. When we acquire the nature of God, because we have been created in the very image of God, we should acquire the compassion of Jesus. But just because you feel sorry for someone else does not mean you truly repent for what you have done in your life. There are a lot of organizations that are not Christian, but operate out of compassion for other people. Many collect food and clothing and give away Christmas baskets and toys because of their compassion. That type of compassion is admirable, but it is not repentance.
In the Greek language the word metanoa means “to change your mind for the better or to change your attitude toward sin.” This is
strictly a mental change of mind. It is “sense” knowledge that says,
“I am going to straighten up my life. It is not good for me to be smoking cigarettes, because the Surgeon General’s report said it could be harmful, so I am going to quit smoking.” It means to change your own mind.
Someone who is poor might say, “I have lived in poverty long enough. I don’t like poverty, so I am going to be something different from now on. I am going to make some money for myself.”