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Repent: The Key to
Healing and Miracles
Message
from Mark Scherer on November 19,
2002
Proverbs 25: 25 says,
Like cold water to a weary soul so is
good news from a far country.
Good News From a Distant Land
As many of you know, that far
country is Ukraine. I came back from my third trip this year a couple days ago and I came
back with lots of good news. But
the main news I have for you is that I got to
see a miracle happen in
somebody's life. The intern I took over with
me, Katie Starke, has had a condition since she was 12 years old called OCD
(Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). She would
wash her hands until they bled. Her life was
full of these things.
Katie brought a whole plastic shopping
bag full of pills with her to
Ukraine. She had to take seven prescriptions
daily. Roger and I explained to
her before she went that if she was truly
called to full-time missions work, she would be challenged by the
church there to be healed. We knew that she could not do life-long missions work
6000
miles from home and be dependent on a bag full
of pills.
When she got there, right away Pastor
Oleg asked, "Do you want to be healed?" She started
becoming defensive. Yes, she wanted to
be healed, but she needed her
medication! When I came back to the States in
September and left her there
alone, stuck with all these people who wanted
her healed, I was afraid she
might not make it.
Sure enough, on October 31 and I went
back and Katie was gone! Rather, the
old Katie was gone, and there was a new
Katie in her place. On Oct. 22, she
had gone down to the Kniper River by
herself and she had found the faith to
pray, "Lord, I repent for not having the
faith and believing that
you could, would and wanted me healed." She
walked back to the apartment and
she never touched her pills again. I watched
her sit in the church office,
open up all her bottles, dump them into the
plastic bag that held her bottles and gave the little
bottles to one of the Sunday school teachers so
they could rinse them out and use them
for holding crayons. That is the new
Katie.
That night, I began to get frustrated. I
laid in bed and I became angry. I
said "God why is it every time I come over
here, I have seen something like this happen either with Americans or with some of the
Ukranians?" Why is it that we spend $1200 to
go on a missions trip so that we can
travel to former Soviet Union and
become healed and come home again? I got
up at three o' clock that morning and I
prayed the rest of the night. I believed the Lord showed me
something I need to share with the American
church.
The Key to Healing and Faith
The Ukrainian church goes through a
different process to bring people to the
Lord. When they make their altar call at
the end of the service, they don't
have a call for those persons "who want to
accept Jesus;" they make the call for
those "who would like to repent now," to come forward.
Repentance was the key to healing and
faith. My first five years in the church (in a
different church), I never heard the "R"
word one time. I came to Community
Christian Church of Northern Kentucky (our
mother church) and I heard it
often there, but I thought, what's that have to
do with me? I don't need that, I've already been
baptized. I don't need repentance, that's one of
those other steps for Catholics or
something. I had been five years baptized
and did not know what repentance was. I
had skipped from belief to baptism,
and then went on with the Christian
life. We don't preach the "R" word here
because we think it's uncomfortable,
it's bad, it's unnecessary, it's judgmental, and it's legalistic.
And we don't get healed.
Then it became clear to me that
repentance was the key to the healing that I
see every time I go there. Why can't we
do that here? It's the same God, the
same Holy Spirit, the same Jesus Christ.
But there in Ukraine, repentance comes after belief and before baptism. The
church there is full of people
you would never guess: mafia thugs, KGB
members, heroine
addicts, people who upon repentance (not upon
coming up out of the water)
are healed. There is not a cigarette smoker in
the church, and the vast majority of Ukranians smoke
cigarettes. Wow!
We are a
brand new congregation, and we have a
chance to preach a message of
repentance right from the start. Repentance is
not a one-time thing, but it is constant--daily, sometimes by the hour, and I
have been in places where it's by the minute.
What is Repentance?
To repent literally means to
"turn away from." What's the opposite of "turn
away?" The Lord showed that the opposite
of to turn away from is to 'face'. So
the picture is: We believe, we turn away
from our sin, we are baptized, we
come up, (whoosh) and the sin is gone. But if
we accept Christ without repentance, (he showed me this
mental picture) we go into the water, then we
come out still 'facing' our sin. We try
to get around it, but our vision
is blocked because our sin is still in the way.
You can't start walking the Christian life if you haven't
turned away yet. How many American Christians
are running around who've never
repented, ever!
What the Bible Says About
Repentance
I went all over the Bible, New Testament
and Old Testament. It's mentioned 110
times in the Bible. Here are
a few:
Acts 2:37-38 says, "Now when they heard
this, they were cut to the heart
and said to Peter and the apostles, "Men,
brethren, what shall we do?" Peter
said to them "Repent, let every one of you be
baptized in the name of Jesus
Christ for the remission of sin and you shall
receive the Holy Spirit."
Likewise, in
Matthew 3:2, John the
Baptist's first word to people was, "REPENT, for the
kingdom of heaven is at hand."
My 19-year-old translator, Ivan, and I
became friends quickly because we share
the same past of drugs, alcohol and
promiscuity, etc. He said "Mark, without
repentance, baptism is like taking a
shower in your apartment, nothing
more." He said, "Repentance, most important;
baptism, secondary." I thought,
"I don't know, let me see it biblically." He
related the men hanging to Jesus'
right or left; one was cursing, and one was
saying, "I deserve to be here, I am
guilty of my crimes." He was making his
confession right there and a confession of faith. The Lord
took that as his repentance and said, "I tell
you today you will be in paradise with
me." That man was never baptized, he hung there and died and went straight to
heaven with Christ. I thought, Ivan
was right.
Luke 15:7 - "I say to you that likewise
there will be joy in heaven over one
sinner who REPENTS than over 99 just
persons who need no repentance." So
there is great joy in heaven when one
person REPENTS.
What did Ninevah do when Jonah finally
preached to them? They finally
stopped and listened.
Matthew 12:41 says, "and
all of Ninevah REPENTED at the preaching of Jonah."
2 Peter 3:9, "The Lord is not slack
concerning his promise as some count
slack, but is long suffering for us not
willing that any should perish but
that all should come to REPENTANCE. Notice that
it doesn't say God's will is that all should come to
baptism. Again, REPENTANCE is the key to our salvation.
Acts 26: 20 - "but declare first to
those in Damascus and in Jerusalem and
throughout the region of Judea and then
to the Gentiles that they should
REPENT and turn to God, and do works benefiting
repentance". There's
repent two times in the same sentence.
Acts 8:20-22-"Peter said to him "your
money perish with you because you
thought the gift of God could be purchased with
money, you have neither part
nor portion in this matter for your heart is
not right in the sight of God.
REPENT therefore of this wickedness and pray
therefore that the thought of
your heart may be forgiven you."
Acts 5:31, and
2 Timothy 2:25 speaks of
God GRANTING repentance! So
not only do we repent, but God GIVES us
the gift of repentance, like he gives us
everything else.
A Vision for the Church
In the Ukraine, they repent publicly.
They have no shame, they come forward,
they turn and face the congregation,
they confess and turn from their sins.
They will say, "I'm a thief. I steal in
the market." We don't have to be like the Ukrainians, but we do need to do
what the Bible says, and do it the way
Scripture calls us to.
One lady on the trip with us this time
had a different standard than what
God has led me to have. All she could think
about the whole trip was if we
were going to have time to pick up some vodka.
Now, I do not condemn people who drink alcohol, though
obviously the Bible speaks against being drunk.
But she has been a believer for 56
years, and my translator Ivan kept
saying, "I cannot mix this in my mind." He
truly didn't understand why she
had to have the liquor. He truly was not being
judgmental, he just did not understand why she didn't get
delivered of ever wanting vodka gain. The Lord wants to grant repentance, and he
wants to deliver people!
Katie's faith rose enough to say, "God,
I repent for not having any faith. I
repent for saying you won't heal me".
But when Katie repented of her lack of faith, she was
healed. In the Ukrainian church, a
miracle is a weekly occurrence, sometimes
a daily occurrence. Katie is a miracle.
She had no withdrawal symptoms. God
works when God works, why God works,
where God works, for the reasons that God works.
I have a great feeling that people from
this neighborhood will be flooding
in here. This summer, when the doors are open,
and we have music playing and
hot dogs cooking, people will be out
witnessing. It's going to be a great thing! I can see people
gathering out
front. I was sitting out there this morning
early and I could just see that
side walk area filled with people from this
neighborhood. Those people will
want to know about salvation in Jesus, and we
have to be ready for them.
But let's be ready with the proper doctrine.
The proper doctrine is
believe,
repent, baptize, live the obedient life.
Bad New, Good News
I have bad news -
Luke 13; 3, 5 says, "I
tell you no but unless you REPENT
you will all perish." It is said twice in the
same passage. He tells them
they're all going to perish.
But the good news is found in
2 Cor.
7:10- "for Godly sorrow produces
REPENTANCE leading to salvation. Not to be
regretted, but the sorrow of the
world produces death. For observe this very
thing, that you sorrowed in a godly
manner: What diligence it produced in you, what clearing
of yourselves (which is a clearing of the
conscience and turning of idols), what
indignation, what fear, what vehement
desire, what zeal and what vindication."
Proverbs 25:25 says, "As cold water to a
weary soul, so is good news from a
far country." That good news is that repentance
leads to deliverance and
healing. I pray that the Lord brings that good
news from Ukraine and blesses
this community with it.
Slava bogu. Praise the Lord. |
