Marcos 1

Marcos 1

Morgan has a convicting comment on believe IN the Gospel - “There are many people who believe the Gospel, but they do not believe IN it. It was an appeal not only to accept it as an intellectually accurate statement; but to rest IN it, to repose IN it. It was a call to let the heart find ease IN it.” Gospel (2098) see note above on euaggelion. Repeated for emphasis. QUOTES ON REPENTANCE D L Moody rightly said "Man is born with his back toward God. When he truly repents, he turns right around and faces God. Repentance is a change of mind. . . . Repentance is the tear in the eye of faith." Beware of procrastinating regarding repentance for as J C Ryle said "There is one case of death-bed repentance recorded—the penitent thief—that no one should despair; and only one, that no one should presume." Thomas Fuller adds "You cannot repent too soon, because you do not know how soon it may be too late." A. W. Tozer wrote that "God will take nine steps toward us, but he will not take the tenth. He will incline us to repent, but he cannot do our repenting for us." Robert Smith - True repentance has a double aspect; it looks upon things past with a weeping eye, and upon the future with a watchful eye. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote that "Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our church… Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance." George Whitefield - Our repentance needs to be repented of, and our tears washed in the blood of Christ. J. Edwin Orr writes that "The word “repentance” or “repent” is used in the writings of Paul to the Romans, the Corinthians, and to Timothy, and by the writer to the Hebrews as well as by Peter. It occurs ten times in the Book of the Revelation of John. In all of the New Testament it appears more than fifty times. Hebrews lists it as an elementary doctrine of Christ, a foundation. How serious then is the condition of a professing church where repentance is missing from its elementary evangelism or church growth? In his book I Surrender, Patrick Morley writes that the church’s integrity problem is in the misconception “that we can add Christ to our lives, but not subtract sin. It is a change in belief without a change in behavior.” The subject of repentance is found in nearly every book of the Bible, just as sin is found in nearly every book of the Bible. And where there is sin, there must be either judgment or repentance and forgiveness. There is no third way. Lowell