Pastor Jack Hyles' “repent of my sins” Error In His 1962 Book: "Let's Go Soulwinning"

Acts 16:28-32, “But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm: for we are all here. Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house.”

1st Corinthians 15:1-4, “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:”

Pastor Jack Hyles (1926-2001) wrote his popular book: "Let's Go Soulwinning" back in 1962. Brother Hyles changed some of his doctrinal positions decades later when he grew in knowledge. Here is page 28 from his book, in which he errantly teaches lost sinners to 'repent of my sins' to get to Heaven...

Dr. Hyles' Heresy On Repentance in 1962

Biblically, the Bible does not contain the phrases: “repent of my sins” or “turn from your sinful ways.” Corrupt preachers added these words. Proverbs 30:5-6, “Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.” No doubt, Pastor Hyles was sincere in his words.

Likewise, I was shocked when I discovered some damnable heresy preached by Pastor Danny Castle nearly 40 years ago. Thankfully, today Pastor Castle has changed, and today only preaches a free grace Gospel. Brother Castle no longer preaches damnable heresy. As I said, preachers learn and change, for which I commend them. The same is true of myself. The biggest threat to young preachers today are the apostate Bible colleges, where they are indoctrinated to deny the inspiration of the Holy Bible, wickedly taught a counterfeit gospel of Lordship Salvation, and wickedly brainwashed with a wrong meaning of repentance. Ironically, the greatest threat to a man's faith is Bible college.

Pastor Hyles stopped teaching that heresy years later. In the following chapter titled: "Misunderstood Repentance," from Pastor Hyles' 1993 excellent book, "Enemies Of Soul Winning," he boldly exposes the false idea that a person must turn away from sinful behavior to get to Heaven. Here we clearly see that Brother Hyles no longer preached the heresy that he did back in 1962. It is wrong for critics to go around misinterpreting Dr. Hyles, accusing him of preaching heresy, when for the past 30 years of his ministry he preached a true meaning of repentance. People change. Preachers hone their doctrinal knowledge and change. Brother Hyles taught me to always be willing to move to the right, but never to the left. That is, always be willing to admire that you were wrong, and move to a better position; but don't ever compromise your moral standards or convictions if you know you're in the right.

Dr. Hyles had three mentors (heroes) of the faith: Lester Roloff (1914-1982), Lee Robertson (1909-2007) and John R. Rice (1895-1980). All of these men were respectively: 14, 17 and 31 years older than Brother Hyles. Dr. John R. Rice rice taught (in his religious tract titled: "What Must I Do To Be Saved?") that a person must turn away from sin with all their heart to be saved. This has confused millions of people. Dr. Rice unwisely chose to use those words "turn away from sin." Albeit, I do know that Dr. Rice was saved, from reading his other writings.

Dr. Rice plainly teaches that the man who BELIEVES has repented...

There are those hyper-dispensationalists who think that John the Baptist preached a different Gospel from Christ when he commanded repentance (Matt. 3:2). But it is the same repentance Jesus commanded in Matthew 4:17, in Luke 13:3 and 5, and the same repentance that Paul preached in Athens that God “now commandeth all men every where to repent” (Acts 17:30 31). Repentance is not a different plan of salvation from having faith: it is part of the same plan of salvation. Or rather repentance is simply another way of describing or looking at the plan of salvation. One who turns from sin to God has done so by trusting in Jesus Christ. A change of mind toward sin is necessarily involved in saving faith.

Everyone who genuinely repented under the preaching of John the Baptist put his trust in the Saviour John the Baptist preached, and was regenerated. There is no such thing as being “a disciple of John the Baptist” in any honest sense without being a disciple of Jesus, that is, without trusting Christ for salvation. [emphasis added] 

SOURCE: Evangelist John R. Rice, “Acts: Filled With The Spirit,” pp. 251-252; Sword Of The Lord, Murfreesboro, Tennessee; ©1963

Amen, that is correct! The man who BELIEVES on Jesus Christ has turned from his sins. And that is the ONLY extent to which a man must turn from his sins to be saved, by BELIEVING ON THE LORD JESUS CHRIST (Acts 16:30-31). Nothing else is required nor permitted in God's simple plan of salvation.

There is a change of mind toward sin in repentance, but ONLY to the degree that a man acknowledges that he is a guilty needy sinner in the sight of a holy God. Romans 3:19-20 teaches that the LAW of God was given that every mouth would be stopped of self-righteous boasting, and that all the world would become GUILTY BEFORE GOD. Verse 20 says the law as given to humanity to give them THE KNOWLEDGE OF SIN. That is, the law was given to show mankind that we are all desperately wicked and need the Savior, Jesus Christ.

So repentance does in fact involve a change of mind toward sin, but only that we admit we are guilty sinners in need of redemption, lest we receive our just wages in the Lake of Fire for our sins. John 3:20 says that whosoever doeth evil (deliberate sin), refuses to come to the light of the truth of the Gospel to be saved. John 3:21, the next verse, says: "But he that DOETH TRUTH cometh to the light). The Bible didn't say, "But he that turns away from his sins." Repentance is acknowledging THE TRUTH that we are a guilty sinner in God's sight, thus seeing our need, the law then brings us to CHRIST to be saved by grace through faith in Him (Galatians 3:24-26). ...

Romans 3:19-22, “Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:”

Boy, I just love those Bible verses! Did you understand Romans 3:19-22 dear reader? All of the Old Testament prophets (including the Jews' greatest prophet, Moses) peached the Bible truth that we are saved by faith alone in the Messiah, the Christ. The imputed righteousness of God is WITHOUT the law! By “law,” the Bible is referring to all the laws which Jews were required to keep to please God (there were approximately 720 laws—including moral, ceremonial and civil laws). The Apostle Peter called trying to keep all those Old Testament laws—“a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?” (Acts 15:10b). Thank God that His wonderful plan of salvation is WITHOUT the law.

And for that matter, God's plan of salvation has always been WITHOUT the law, even for those Old Testament Jews living in Palestine who were commanded by God to keep the law. What saith the Scripture? Acts 10:43, “To him give all the prophets witness, that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins.”

Having said that, it is clear to me that John R. Rice was saved. He at times was careless in his words. We read in Acts 15:5 that a certain sect of Pharisees BELIEVED. They were believers. But they told the Gentiles who just got saved that they were required to observe Jewish traditions of circumcision and keeping the law of Moses. The Apostle Peter sets them straight, as well as James later in the chapter (verse 24). Peter tells these confused saved Pharisees that the law was a burden, bondage (slavery) for those who tried to obey it, and couldn't.

Peter teaches that in fact, the Gentiles DON'T have to be circumcised or keep the law of Moses. It is clear to me that the false teachers in Acts 15:1 were not saved at all, because they required words to be saved. But the saved group of Pharisees in Acts 15:5 were just confused, and needed to be corrected in their doctrine. So, likewise, Dr. Rice needed to be corrected in his doctrine, which unfortunately doesn't seem to have happened. Dr. Rice is still one of the most widely recognized scholars of his generation, but he was still just a flawed man, fully capable of doctrinal error, and he would have bene the first to admit so.

The phrase "repent of your sins" in itself doesn't make a man unsaved. I don't think that a preacher should use those words, since they are nowhere found in the inspired Holy Bible. Pastor Curtis Hutson (1934-1995) addresses this very phrase, "repent of your sins," explaining that it all depends on what the speaker means by using the phrase. If the preacher means to forsake your sinning, then he is a damnable liar and false prophet; but if he means that you must realize you are a guilty sinner condemned under God's law, then I agree.

Dr. Rice meant the latter, which is evident from the earlier quote I shared with you. And because Dr. Rice was one of Pastor Jack Hyles' mentors, and Dr. Hyles preached 2,200 revival meetings together with Dr. Rice over a 20 year period, Dr. Hyles picked up on things that John R. Rice said from the pulpit (and vise versa). So this, in my humble opinion, is what happened. But, as I have shown you, Dr. Hyles was one of the biggest opponents of the heresy that a person must “turn away from their sinful ways” to be saved.

Dr. Hyles considered it an enemy of soulwinning, because you cannot get saved that way. That is, by trying to give up your sinning. That is a false gospel. Turning from your evil ways is WORKS! Jonah 3:10, “And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.” The people of Nineveh didn't get saved, but because they turned away from their evil ways God changed His mind about destroying Nineveh (the capital city of Assyria).

Dr. Rice's use of the phrase "turn from your sin" in itself doesn't mean that he wasn't saved. As I mentioned, it depends on what he meant by the phrase. As we learned from the preceding quotes, Brother Rice didn't believe that repentance means to forsake a lifestyle of sinning, which would be WORKS. In my humble opinion, Dr. Rice foolishly chose his words, as ALL preachers do from time to time, including myself.

What bothers me is that the internet is full of critics, who have never preached a single sermon, never shared the Gospel with one lost person, never built a hotdog stand; yet they will scrutinize and teardown every preacher they possibly can, cherry picking single statements without doing their homework to see what the man really believes.

I know for a fact that John R. Rice and Jack Hyles believed that the man who believes has also repented. These faithful men of God didn't view repentance as something separate from faith that you must do. Check out this religious infidel, Ray Comfort, who teaches that repentance is something entirely different from faith that a person must do, which is blasphemy against the Word of God.

You'll never read any place where I tell people to "repent of your sins" or to "turn away from your sinful ways" to be saved, because those statements utterly confuse people. Dr. Hyles is right—the only sin that we literally need to turn away from to get to Heaven is UNBELIEF, because unbelief is the only sin which can keep a person from entering into Heaven. Every preacher must choose his words very carefully, lest they be misconstrued and misinterpreted by the audience. This has never been more apparent than in our generation today, where the masses hinge upon every word from preacher's mouths. The inspired Word of God should be our only authority, and we should be diligent to rightly divide the Word of Truth.

The bottom line is that nowhere in the inspired Holy Bible do we find the phrases “repent of your sins” or “turn away from your sins.” Preachers who choose to use these unbiblical phrases, do their victims an injustice by confusing them, leaving them wondering what it means to repent of your sins. Obviously that phrase means different things to different people. I encourage you to read our text passages again, so you can see God's simple plan of salvation...

Acts 16:28-32, “But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm: for we are all here. Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house.”

1st Corinthians 15:1-4, “Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:”

God's simple plan of salvation, is that you acknowledge before a holy God that you are a guilty needy sinner, and by childlike faith receive Christ's sacrifice on the cross as payment for your sins, believing that He was buried, but then raised up from the dead three days later. If that is your only hope for Heaven, you are saved dear friend. You don't have to give up your sinning to be saved; God sent His only begotten Son into the world to die on a cross to pay for your sins. Who can give up their sinning? That's right, no one! Eternal life is a free gift from God, which Jesus has already paid for with His precious blood.