If you and I could be transported back to the time in which John begins his prophetic preaching of repentance and judgment, what kinds of things would we see God’s people doing, and involved with? You would see a nation lacking repentance, a corrupted priesthood, a lack of sound doctrine, routine useless worship, divorce was widespread; social justice was being totally ignored, and God’s people generally could care less about one another, let alone the world around them. Sound familiar? How did this happen?
You see, the Jews John was exhorting to repent had, as Paul would put it, “The appearance of godliness, but denied its power.” (2Tim 3:5) You see, these are a people who have been exposed to God, His Word, and have built for themselves forms of godliness that contain no power. The reality is, that exposure to God’s Word does not mean experience of God’s power in your life practically. You can go to church as the Jews above were doing. You can worship. You can listen to teaching after teaching, exposing yourself to God’s Word. But exposure doesn’t equal experience. So how do we gain, and experience the reality of what God’s Word says? It’s the same thing that John says, and Jesus will say, “Repent, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand!”
The only way to really experience God’s power in your life, is to live a life of repentance of sin, turning away from the sin, and allowing the wondrous grace and mercy of Jesus Christ to overwhelm the heart and constrain the actions.
So the question for you is this: “What forms of godliness in your life is Jesus pointing out that need to be repented of?” Paul would go on to say about the people in the last days that they are, “Always learning and never able to arrive at the knowledge of truth.” Have you spent an inordinate amount of your life simply being exposed to God’s Word, and have thought in error that it equates to experience? The word to us is repent. Seek Jesus today. Seek to experience the reality of what His Word declares!
Prepare the way if the Lord!
