The best illustration that I can give you of repentance is from my own personal salvation testimony. As a lad, I was a bit troublesome. I remember before I got saved, sassing my mother and having no awareness of God in my life. I attended several different Sunday Schools at various churches as a youth with my mother. I was enrolled in multiple religious schools as a child. Yet, I was not saved. I had heard lots of stories from the Bible, but I had never comprehended the Gospel (and I don't ever remember hearing it taught). If my Christian parents shared the Gospel with me, I don't remember it. That all changed when I was 13-years-old. For the first time in my life I was enrolled in an Independent Fundamental Baptist Church and school on Chicago's Northside (our church later moved to the Southside). I thank God for my home church and friends of youth. I miss them all dearly.
One particular Sunday morning, I heard the church pastor preach something like, “If you don't have the Holy Spirit indwelling you, convicting you about sin, you are not saved!” I knew I wasn't saved, because I didn't have the Holy Spirit or His conviction. So at invitation time, from my pew, I received the Gospel and was saved. I don't remember the date or even year. But I do remember the moment. I began reading my King James Bible, having a new desire to learn God's Word. I didn't decide to change my ways or change my direction; but I did hear that still small convicting voice (not audible) of the Holy Spirit in my soul, saying, “I don't want you to talk that way (sassing) your mother anymore.” I remember my mother saying to me, “You've changed” (in a positive way). You see, I didn't commit to changing my ways when I got saved; but rather, it was the presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit that began working on my life. That's how salvation works! All these corrupt preachers today don't understand what it means to “repent,” nor do they understand the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Despite the Bible's plain definition of repentance as “a change of mind,” many preachers today cannot grasp how this relates to a Christlike testimony that every believer ought to exemplify. They are confused between salvation verses discipleship.
Here is one of the best quotes that I've found on repentance, by Dr. Harry A. Ironside (1876-1951):
“Which comes first, repentance or faith? In Scripture we read, 'Repent ye, and believe the gospel.' Yet we find true believers exhorted to 'repent, and do the first works.' So intimately are the two related that you cannot have one without the other. The man who believes God repents; the repentant soul puts his trust in the Lord when the Gospel is revealed to him. Theologians may wrangle over this, but the fact is, no man repents until the Holy Spirit produces repentance in his soul through the truth. No man believes the Gospel and rests in it for his own salvation until he has judged himself as a needy sinner before God. And this is repentance.” ('Except Ye Repent,' p. 16)We learn from Matthew 7:21-23 and Luke 13:23-34 that many religious people (who do “MANY WONDERFUL WORKS”) are not saved and consequently, they are going straight to Hell when they die! There are far more religious people who DO GOOD, THAN BAD, who are unsaved and going to Hell. The point being, neither good works nor bad works are conclusive evidence that a person is either saved or unsaved. The evidence of the new birth is the presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit (and that is something that only God can see). If it weren't for 2nd Peter 2:6-7, we'd never know that Lot was saved, whose own family laughed in his face when he tried to warn them of the coming destruction of Sodom (Genesis 19:14). Proverbs 25:19, “Confidence in an unfaithful man in time of trouble is like a broken tooth, and a foot out of joint.”
The truth is that getting saved does not change a person's personal character one iota. Not one bit! The only difference is that the Holy Spirit has come to live inside the body of every believer (1st Corinthians 3:16-17; 1st John 3:34; Romans 8:9). You don't have to “decide to change” nor have a “change of direction” to be saved. Respectfully, I hear errant preachers attempting to use the Epistle of 1st John to teach that a person is not saved if they're still living a deathstyle of sin. 1st John 3:8, “He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.” This means that a person committing wickedness is of the Devil, but the Bible doesn't say they are not saved. Even the apostle Peter was called “Satan” by the Lord, for thinking contrary to the Scriptures (Matthew 16:23).
Dr. Jack Hyles personally witnessed to Elvis Presley in Texas, and was fully convinced of his salvation; yet Elvis was clearly of the Devil, living a shameful life of adultery, covetousness, worldly music, selfishness and sinful pride. You see, Elvis' salvation was based upon God's faithfulness, and not Elvis' faithfulness. Eternal life is a gift (Romans 6:23). The Epistle of 1st John was written to help professed believers “KNOW that ye have eternal life” (1st John 5:13), but the emphasis is upon the presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit (1st John 3:24), and not upon living an upright life. If a person is living in habitual sin, then they need to, “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you” (2nd Corinthians 13:5). Again, the focus is upon whether or not you have the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ in you (Romans 8:9). Receiving the gift of eternal life does not require a change of direction, nor a decision to change; but rather, an admitted sinner need only receive the Gospel to be saved (Galatians 3:2).
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