How To Get Someone Saved Wrongly Part 4

How To Get Someone Saved Wrongly Part 4

The Gospel that Jesus preached can be found in Mark 1:14-15, “𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐝, and 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐝𝐨𝐦 𝐨𝐟 𝐆𝐨𝐝 𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐭 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝; 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐨𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐥.”

Repentance is central to the Gospel message, because the Gospel is about the revealing of His Kingdom, represented by Jesus and demonstrated by His works.

The word “repent” means “to change one’s mind, with reference to acceptance of the will of God.” A genuine change in a person’s mind will produce a change in his life and conduct.

One must turn away from his former belief (which translates to his life and conduct) and believe in the New & Living Way (Heb 10:20) under the Kingdom. That is repentance.

The idea of repentance is not new in the Bible. The Bible is not many different stories put together by different people. It is ONE CONNECTED STORY inspired by God through different people. If we don’t understand how they are correlated, we will definitely interpret passages out of context.

The Hebrew understanding of repentance is represented by ‘shuv’ and ‘nacham’, which means ‘to return’ and ‘to feel sorrow’ respectively. Throughout the Old Testament, you can see that repentance always includes sackcloth and ashes (to feel sorrow), and returning to God.

Before Christ came, God already spoke through various prophets, calling His people to repent and return to Him (Joel 2:13; Hosea 14:1; Zech 1:3; Neh 1:9; Jer 3:12; 3:14; 3:22; 4:1; Isa 31:6; Mal 3:7). His voice had been echoing through the prophets He sent before He sent His own Son (Matt 21:33-44).

His original intent & purpose for humanity is found in Gen 1:28. That is what living under His kingdom would look like. That is what earth would look like if Adam had trusted and obeyed Him.

Romans 3:23, however, was the result of Adam living apart from His kingdom (distrust & disobedience), thus, all of humanity needs redemption (Rom 3:24-26).

If we don’t understand why God wants the message of the Gospel of the Kingdom to be preached, we will not understand why repentance is central to the Gospel and why repentance is such good news.

Having said that, it is one thing to repent and believe in the Gospel, it is another to continue in obedience towards the King. Jesus’ disciples failed to walk it out until the Day of Pentecost.

This is why Jesus had to be crucified, died, raised and ascended, without which, no one is able to live out the Kingdom.

In the next part, we will look at the continued message of the Gospel that His disciples preached after His death, resurrection and ascension.