We are continuing our study together in our Confession of Faith, the London Baptist Confession of 1689. Would somebody get Gary a copy? Do you have a copy, Gary, there? Good. Okay, excellent. Yeah, we're on Chapter 15. And this is our church's doctrinal statement. And in this chapter, we're dealing with the subject of repentance unto life and salvation. We began our study of this chapter by considering together the recipients of repentance in paragraphs one and two. And then more recently, we have been considering together in paragraph three, the nature of repentance. And we have looked at the source of repentance and we have seen that it is an evangelical grace, that it is something that is brought to us as a benefit and blessing and gift of the gospel of the saving work of Jesus Christ. And then we saw that it was wrought by the Spirit of God. And so in paragraph three, it says of chapter 15, the saving repentance is an evangelical grace. That is, it comes to us through Christ's saving work as a gift of his grace, whereby a person being by the Holy Spirit made sensible of the manifold evils of his sin, And so we saw this then was the source of repentance. It was an evangelical grace. It was wrought by the Spirit in which we were made sensible of the manifold evils of our sin. And then we considered together the basis of repentance that this person does, by faith in Christ, engage in repentance. If there is no faith in Christ, there can be no true repentance. And we see this, we saw this in our previous studies in the example of Judas Iscariot, who was certainly sorry for what he had done. And he certainly did turn away from his sin, but he never did turn to Christ. He never had any hope or faith in Jesus Christ. And so whatever sorrow or repentance he had, it was incomplete. It terminated upon himself. It resulted in despair. And as a result, he went out and hanged himself. On the other hand, we looked at the example of Peter who went out and wept bitterly, and we see him going to Christ, not away from Christ, and resting and relying upon Christ, and going on forward with Him. So, there is a necessity of faith in Christ. Without a knowledge of the atonement provided by Christ, there is no hope for forgiveness. And so, repentance is always incomplete. And then, more recently, we've been considering together the process of repentance. We began to study this last Lord's Day. And the process of repentance is described in the latter half of the paragraph. It says, he doth by faith in Christ. Now, here's the process. It says, he humbles himself for it with godly sorrow, detestation of it, and self-abhorrency, praying for pardon and strength of grace with a purpose and endeavor by supplies of the Spirit to walk before God and to all well-pleasing in all things. And so we have been considering together these three steps described here in the process of repentance. And we said, first of all, and we begin to consider this last week, the first step in the process of repentance is that it involves a humbling of ourselves and a hatred of our sins. It says we humble ourselves for it with godly sorrow. We have an attitude of self-abhorrency, and that is our attitude towards ourselves, a humbling of ourselves and a self-abhorrency. And then our attitude regarding our sin, a detestation of it. Now we all know what godly sorrow is, right? Notice what it says here, humbles himself for it with a godly sorrow. And we just expressed the verse that contains that concept as our memory verse. That was by design. I asked Canette to pick that one. So she did. But nevertheless, last time we began to talk about the fact that it involves a humbling of ourselves. and a hatred of our sins. So in regard to ourselves, we saw that it involved a humbling of ourselves, which involves a lowering of ourselves before God. And then we said that it involved a self-abhorrence, and we looked at the example of Job, where he says, behold, I am vile, I abhor myself, I repent in dust and ashes. So part of repentance is repenting with reference to what we are. And what we are as people is that we are fallen creatures. And what we have as redeemed people is the flesh. And because there is within us that which still longs after sin, that which still loves sin, and that which still desires sins, we abhor ourselves in relationship to those longings and lustings after evil. And so we considered together those passages, and then we saw the prayer of Daniel in Daniel chapter 9, how that he spoke regarding himself and his people, and how that they had done wickedly because they were wicked people. And so, part of repentance is a recognition, not that I just got fooled and made a mistake, but that I still possess, even as a redeemed person within myself, capacities for evil and desires for evil which are to be abhorred and I am to humble myself in relationship to those. And so oftentimes we see people are told, well, you just need to just feel good about yourself. And the Bible tells us otherwise. We've looked at previous passages in Ezekiel 36, 24 through 32, where God himself tells us that we are to loathe ourselves in relationship to our sinful behavior and our wrongdoing. So, there needs to be an anger at ourselves and a hostility towards the remaining sin that is within us that was the occasion for our falling into sin. Now, this is where we concluded last time. Are there any questions about that aspect of the teaching? Okay, well let's pick up on some new material today then. And we want to look at the second aspect. Not only does it involve a humbling of ourselves, but it also involves a hatred of our sins. So, regarding ourselves, there is a lowering of ourselves before God. There is a self-abhorrency regarding our sin. Our confession says there is a detestation of it. And so there's a humbling of ourselves for what we are. There's also a hatred for what we have done. So what we are and what we have done, we must have an attitude of rejection towards both of those things. Because if we wind up excusing ourselves and saying, well, you know, it's really not my fault, the devil made me do it or something like that, there's not true repentance. Or if we minimize the evil of our sin and say, well, it really wasn't all that bad, then there's also not a repentance either. Now let's look at a number of passages that talk about what our attitude towards sin should be. And the Bible takes a very aggressive attitude towards the whole subject of sin. Turn to the book of Psalms, Psalm 119, and we'll just survey through a number of passages that describe for us what our attitude towards sin should be. Psalm 119, and we'll look at verse 104 to start out with. Psalm 119 and verse 104. It says, Through thy precepts I get understanding, therefore I hate every false way. Now you see those especially in the homosexual community holding up signs saying hate is not a family value. Well, if you're in the family of God, it is. There is to be a hatred. And the psalmist is saying here that he has a hatred. And he says he hates every false way. And a false way is anything, any way that's contrary to the truth. And he says, I am at war with any way that is a false way that is not the way of God. All right. Turn back to Psalm 97 and verse 10. Here's a commandment. Psalm 97 and verse 10. It says, You that love the Lord hate evil. He preserveth the souls of His saints. He delivers them out of the hand of the wicked. So once again, we have the example of the psalmist, and now we have the command that we are in fact to hate evil. And if you turn to Psalm 101, verse 3. Once again, the same terminology. Psalm 101, verse 3. I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes. I hate the work of them that turn aside. It shall not cleave to me. So these commandments are repeated and we could multiply examples. There are numbers of these commandments in which we are commanded to hate evil and to hate the false way and to hate the work of those who turn aside. And of course, when we turn aside, we need to hate our own works as well. That is the thing that we did. Now turn to Psalm 36 and verse four. Psalm 36 and verse 4. And as I say, I want to just survey through these passages and give us a little flavor for the general tone of the Scriptures in regard to evil acts. Psalm 36 and verse 4. Here is the indictment of the wicked man and what his problem is. In Psalm 36 and verse 4, it says, He devises mischief upon his bed, That is, while he's laying there at night, staring at the ceiling, he's thinking about the evil things that he can do. He setteth himself in a way that is not good. That is, he sets himself on a course of action that is not good. Now notice the indictment. He abhorreth not evil. There's his problem. He doesn't hate evil. And that's the reason why he plans on doing evil and sets himself in a course of action to engage in it. Now turn to Proverbs 8 and verse 13. The fear of the Lord is something that all Christians are commanded to have and which all Christians possess. And here we have a definition of some of what constitutes the fear of the Lord. In Proverbs 8, verse 13, it says, the fear of the Lord is to hate evil. Pride and arrogancy in the evil way in the froward mouth do I hate. We don't just hate that stuff in others, we hate it in ourselves. And when we see pride rising up in ourselves, or arrogancy rising up in ourselves, or some evil way, or some perverse speaking, we hate it in ourselves as much as we hate it in other people. And then let's turn to Amos 5 and verse 15, the book of Amos chapter 5 and verse 15. Hosea, Joel, Amos. Here, the prophet is exhorting Israel and, We'll start out at verse 12, Amos 5 and verse 12. Notice here their problem. Amos 5, 12, for I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins. Isn't that quite the description? Manifold transgressions and mighty sins. They afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right. Therefore the prudent shall keep silence in that time, for it is an evil time. And now here is his counsel. Seek good and not evil, that ye may live. And so the Lord, the God of hosts, shall be with you as you have spoken." Now here's our verse, verse 15. Hate the evil and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate. It may be that the Lord of hosts will be gracious unto the remnant of Joseph. And one final passage, Romans 12 and verse 9. Book of Romans chapter 12 and verse 9. Romans 12 and verse 9 says, let love be without dissimulation or hypocrisy. Now notice, abhor that which is evil. Cleave to that which is good. Now, in all of these passages, what we begin to pick up is the degree of intensity that we should have towards sin. in terms of our rejection of it, in terms of our hostility towards it, in terms of setting ourselves against it. And the problem is that we are altogether too friendly and too tolerant of our own sins. And so as a result, we tend to minimize them. We tend to think that they are something that we can live with. We tend to think that there's something that we can tolerate. And when we have that attitude, guess what? We never really repent of them. And of course, what our confession of faith is talking about here is it's talking about repentance and the nature of true repentance. And when we looked at our memory verse this morning, 2 Corinthians 7 and verse 11, For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation. That's a word of hostility. We are indignant with our own sins. What fear that we would ever fall into this. What vehement desire. What zeal. What revenge. Those are very strong words. They describe very intense, focused, emotional, and personal reaction to the sins that we have committed. And the problem is we're just not hostile enough as Christians You probably never thought you'd ever hear a preacher say that. They're always saying, we need to be loving. Well, we do. We need to love biblically. But we also need to have a dimension of hostility in us towards our sins. And if we don't, we're never going to part ways with them because they cling to us powerfully and we have to drive them off with a stick and be completely inhospitable in every respect to these sins. So this then is the first step in the process of repentance. It involves a humbling of ourselves and a hatred of sin, a recognition of what we are, that we are evil people and what we've done, we have done evil things and so we have an attitude of hostility towards the remaining sin that is in us, we have an attitude of hostility towards the particular sins that we commit as expressed in 2nd Corinthians 7 and verse 11 and as a result there is a very vigorous and aggressive dealings with ourselves and with our sins in terms of an attitude of rejection towards those things, which then is the first step in repentance. Alright, are there any questions, comments, observations, or objections about this first step in relationship to repentance? Marvin? You've probably said this a number of times, but it just strikes me again It's impossible to truly love God, who is all good, and not hate evil, which is all bad. The two have to go together. Yeah, they're mutually exclusive, aren't they? Sin and God are mutually exclusive. And to the extent that we're loving sin, to that extent, we're not loving God. And to the extent that we love God, to that extent that we're going to have a set hostility towards those things that are contrary to Him. And I think that's what the psalmist means in Psalm 139. He says, Lord, do not I hate them that hate Thee? I hate them with a perfect hatred. I count them my enemies. And basically what he's saying is that, you know, my love for God causes me to be hostile towards anything that's hostile towards God. And while certainly we have to love our enemies, there's also a sense in which we hate them because of their hatred of God, though we show love to them in the sense that we try to bring the gospel to them and bring them to saving faith in Christ. you know, when you look at the description of heaven, within is what? God and light, and without are the dogs, and the sorcerers, and the whoremongers, and the idolaters, and everyone who loves and makes a lie, and all those things. And there's no sin in heaven whatsoever. And Christ is bringing us to heaven, and so our whole disposition should be that if the place we're going is not going to have any sin, then we need to be doing everything we can to rid ourselves of it at this point in time. And so there's lots and lots of motives for getting rid of sin, but your point is very clear and very accurate, very well taken that to the extent we have any affection for sin at all, to that extent, we do not have affection for God. And we're to love the God, the Lord, our God with what? All of our heart and soul and mind and strength, which means there's no love for sin because all of our love is given to God. All right, good. Anything else? Max. Right. So what you're saying is that when you're tempted, if you already have a fixed attitude of hostility and hatred towards it, it makes it a lot easier to resist. Okay, I think that's a very, very valid point. And let's talk for a minute, okay, if hatred of sin helps us resist falling into sin, how might we cultivate this hatred? Isn't that a great topic? We ought to put that on the marquee out there. How to cultivate hatred this week. Okay, but there is something we're supposed to hate, right? We're supposed to hate sin. All right, so how might we cultivate a hatred of sin? What would some of the things be that would help us to have and maintain a high level of hostility towards it in ourselves? Joe? Okay, when we look at what is good and we see that sin ruins that and we see the value of what is good, then certainly, you know, if you knew that you had something that was valuable and something was going to come along and damage it all the time, you would want to get that damaging thing away from that which you had, which was good. Okay, Max? Right. When we see what sin did to our Savior when He took upon Himself the guilt and the punishment of it, you know, if someone came along and injured your wife, how would you feel towards that person? you would have a great deal of hostility towards them because they had grievously injured someone that you loved. And so we see what sin did to our Savior, what our sins did to our Savior, then that should certainly cause us to hate them for having wounded the one that we love so dearly, so deeply, as a result of being under the wrath of God for them. Okay? What else might we do to cultivate a hatred of sin, Brent? Right. So the closer we walk with Jesus, the more personal our relationship with Him, the greater is going to be our hostility towards that which He's hostile towards. And so if we're putting on Christ, we're not going to be making provisions for the flesh. And so you can't have both Christ and sin in your life at the same time, right? So the closer you walk with Christ and the nearer you are to Him, then the more you're going to despise and turn away from those fleshly things. Okay, good. What else might we do to cultivate a hatred of sin? Marvin? One of the verses you read a while ago, the fear of the Lord is to hate evil. Sure. When we fear God, we have an attitude of reverence towards Him. We have an attitude of a desire for his smile. We have a dread of his frown. This might touch on the area of consequences of sin. God will not allow his children to go on in sin, and if they persist, he will bring chastisement upon them. And certainly the fear of God's chastisement would cause us to hate that, which would bring that chastisement upon us. Okay? So, that would certainly be a means of cultivating hatred for sin, is to recognize the evil that it produces in our lives. It causes God to bring chastisement upon us, and certainly that's something that we want to avoid. So, if we fear God, then we're going to, just in the process of doing that, cultivate a hatred for sin. Alright? Good. How else? Brent? Right. Very good. So if we think about the consequences of sin or where sin is going to lead us and leave us, then that would cause us to hate sin. Right. Excellent. Okay, Max. Right. We tend to look at people who are in unfortunate circumstances in life and we tend to just feel sorry for them rather than realize, okay, you know, after talking over 15 minutes, you can add up this and plus this and plus this and plus this and brings them right to where they are. You know, it's important to understand in just everyday work life, the people that we're around, the people that we interact with, that want you to pity them, why they're really there, and what it takes to get there, namely just by disobeying your basic commandments of God. Right, right. Right. Right, exactly. I think one of the things we also need to be careful of, and that is we need to avoid exposing ourselves to that which would desensitize us to sin. The world is always presenting sin as glamorous and as exciting and as enjoyable, and so in much of the entertainment, the movies and the magazines and those types of things, one of the things that we read about the psalmist is that he said he would set no evil thing before his eyes. Well, why wouldn't you want to set evil things before your eyes? There's a variety of reasons, but one of the reasons why is so that you would not become desensitized to them. One of the things that one of the strategies of those who try to push the moral envelope of our society further and further is to have such a constant drumbeat of the mentioning of abhorrent practices to the point that people just become hardened to them and they think that that's just old hat and it becomes a bore and it becomes a yawn and and they become completely desensitized to wrongdoing. And so I think what we need to do is to not allow ourselves to be exposed to things that would cause us to have a ho-hum attitude towards sin or be exposed to things that would cause us to think that sin could have some glamour or some beneficial outcomes because that's often the way it's presented in the fantasy world of entertainment. And so I think that what we have to do is, like Brent was saying, is put before our eyes the true consequences of sin as they are declared in the scripture. And as Max was saying, the true consequences of sin as we see them played out in the lives of the people that we know, that's reality. Okay. And that then will help unmask the lie, the deceit of sin that says, if you do this, you're going to be rich, famous, and have a good time. And, uh, so all of these things help us to cultivate a hatred of sin. And, uh, it's something that we need to constantly do because the world's constantly trying to talk us out of the fact that sin is as bad as it really is. And what we have to do is realize how bad it is. We have to have an attitude of undying hostility towards it. And this attitude of undying hostility towards it will cause us to fight it instead of give into it because we recognize the evil that it produces. And that's what our confession says. The spirit makes us sensible of the manifold evils, all the various evil aspects of our sin. And then of course, when we realize what it did to our lovely Lord Jesus and the price he had to pay, we have a hymn in our hymnal that says, if you want to rightly estimate the nature of sin, go to the cross. I can't quote the hymn exactly. I think I read it to you guys not too long ago. And it, what is it? Yes. nor suppose the evil great. Yeah. Guilt may estimate. Yeah, good. Excellent. That's it. That's it. Yeah. Good. Okay, well, our time is gone. Let us pray together and seek God's help in these matters. Our Father, we thank you that there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared. And our Father, we thank you that you have delivered us from the manifold evils of sin and the death of your son. And yet, Father, you've seen fit to leave a struggle with remaining sin. And our Lord, we pray that we might not ever have the attitude that it doesn't matter or that somehow there is some benefit there. Lord, help us to have an undying hostility and hatred of sin in ourselves. Father, how easy it is to become indignant with others in our culture and society who are worse than we. But Father, help us to realize that any sin is an affront to God. And may we have more hostility towards our own sinfulness and our own sin than we would pour out upon others around us. May we be hard on ourselves. and may we be compassionate towards others. Father, give us grace to cultivate and maintain a fear of the Lord and a hatred of sin and a love for Christ that we would not make provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof. Lord, we pray that you might sanctify us and that you might continue that good work which you have begun in us. May we be holy vessels who are fit for the Master's use. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.