(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.) pastor rick de michael has been pastoring treasure valley baptist church since 1984 through his many years of faithful service pastor de michael has preached the sound doctrine of god's word faithfully as he had been taught and has demonstrated its power to not only exhort but also convince those that would oppose christianity today we're taking under consideration bible salvation what does the bible say about being saved what does it mean to be saved how can you know how can i know that i have a right relationship with god that my sins are forgiven and have assurance of salvation and know for sure that i'm going to heaven we can't even go to the second point which is repentance and for that i'm going to invite you to turn to acts chapter 20 and we're going to look at verse 21 the apostle paul says that his message was testifying both to the jews and also to the greeks repentance toward god and faith toward our lord jesus christ now what does repentance mean repentance is a very misunderstood term it simply means to turn to turn away from something towards something else paul says repentance toward god and faith toward our lord jesus christ in other words we're turning away from our sin and we're turning toward god now don't misunderstand repentance doesn't entitle you to a pardon we haven't gotten there yet but repentance qualifies you for a pardon so ever shall call upon the name of the lord shall be saved at that point i call out to god and repentance and i say lord i know i'm a sinner lord i want to turn from my sin today and lord i believe that jesus christ died for my sins he is sufficient to save me i now receive him just like john chapter one says i now receive him is my personal savior i'm putting faith in what god said no i looked it up in the dictionary it says you have to turn from sins so i went home and i looked up the webster's uh dictionary definition here's what it says it says the definition of repent the first thing it says to turn from sin and dedicate oneself to the amendment of one's life and then like a sub definition it says to feel regret or contrition and then three it says to change one's mind okay now the question that you need to have in your mind this morning is is that true is the dictionary correct i'll tell you right off the bat that it's not correct now their logic most people's logic you know whether they've ever been to church or not is this idea that okay i know i'm not perfect i know that i'm a sinner i know that god hates sin so in order to get to heaven i have to stop sinning even though we all know that's impossible that's stupid logic that's the same kind of logic is what i'm about to read you here a firefighter friend of ours shared this with me his name's brother scott and it's the answer to a question why are fire trucks red so just listen to this fire trucks are red because they have eight wheels and four people on them and four plus eight makes 12 and there are 12 inches in a foot and one foot is a ruler and queen elizabeth was a ruler and queen elizabeth was also a ship and the ship sailed the seas and there were fish in the seas and fish have fins and the fins fought the russians and the russians are always red and red trucks are always rushing around so that's why fire trucks are red okay that is stupid that is silly logic but that's actually when you think about it that is better logic than saying that jesus christ came to this earth to live a perfect life to die on the cross to be buried go to hell for three days three nights to pay for your sins raised from the dead so that you could stop sinning for the rest of your life and go to heaven that's dumber logic than what i just read for you i would rather believe this about the fire trucks than i would that garbage that most people out there are believing today and so this is why we have to preach this stuff all the time regularly because it's the hottest battle that we will ever fight okay listen to this here now right off the bat you will never find the phrase repent of your sins in the bible it doesn't exist now if you have this book called the nlt okay and i call it a book they claim it's a bible if you go down to your your local uh christian bookstore right the bail might bookstore you're going to find the nlt version of the satanic bible basically you know what it what it's what the nlt stands for is not legit translation but anyways if you buy that book or you go online just go to bible gateway and select the nlt and type in repent of your sins and it pops up all over the place right so what does that tell you that tells you that they've obviously got an agenda going on there so you're there in mark chapter 2 look at verse 17 it says when jesus heard it he saith unto them they that are whole have no need of the physician but they that are sick i came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance so what are you going to do if somebody brings this verse to you and says see right there jesus didn't come come to call the righteous meaning he didn't come to call the people that turn from all their sins he came to uh to preach repentance unto sinners that's how a lot of people will put this verse to you but that's not what it's talking about at all the first thing you need to ask yourself is what does that mean i came not to call the righteous well if you'll remember in romans chapter 3 the bible says as it is written there is none righteous no not one so what does that mean when jesus said i came not to call the righteous well let's take a look at it go to matthew chapter 5 in verse 20 because you have to be righteous to go to heaven right that's what the bible says i'm going to show you that here in a second so jesus says that he did not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance well the bible also says that none of us are righteous we are not righteous of our own accord so if you're there in matthew 5 look at verse 20 jesus lays out the requirements to get into the kingdom of heaven here he says for i say unto you that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and pharisees you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven look sooner or later somebody's going to come at you with these two verses and you've got to know what's going on you have to know how to explain it now go to romans chapter 4 so what have we learned so far right jesus said he didn't come to call the righteous what does that mean he didn't come to call the righteous the bible says that none of us are righteous the bible says that we have to be righteous to go to heaven well here is your answer in romans chapter 4 look at verse 6 romans chapter 4 verse 6 says even as david also describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom god imputeth righteousness without works so how do we get that righteousness it comes from god that word imputeth there look what take off the i am and what would it say it would say putteth right god puts that on you god imputes that on you god gives that to you when you call on him when you get saved he places that righteousness on you right you have to know that you have to know how to turn here you have to know how to explain this in order to understand what jesus said in mark chapter two i came not to call the righteous because once you're righteous you're always righteous because god gave that to you without you turning from your works and then what do we read in romans chapter 4 verse 7 says saying blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered they're in the bag like moses preached on friday right your sins are in the bag they're sealed up forever and ever and yes we'll have the video out today has been we've been busy so back that was just a little commercial break for men's preaching night which which was great by the way so romans chapter 10 verse 10 says for with the heart man believeth unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation so jesus came not to call the righteous because when people get saved god gives them that righteousness it's a gift without the deeds of the law so when somebody says you have to be righteous to go to heaven you know that's what the street preachers will be out there yelling right you have to be righteous they got their bull horns and look i've seen them i've hung out with these people in the past i know how they do things i know their business you have to without if you're not righteous you're not going to heaven what they don't understand is that god gives you that righteousness when you decide to call upon the name of the lord it says in romans 10 10 for man believeth with the heart with the heart man believeth unto righteousness that is your key so go back to mark chapter 2 he says when jesus heard it he saith unto them they that are whole have no need of the physician but they that are sick so if you are saved today you don't need to keep asking for that righteousness because you already have it you're sealed unto the day of redemption and then he says i came not to call the righteous but sinners to repent so what he's saying there is i didn't come to call the people that are already saved and on the way to heaven i came to call those who have not yet repented meaning turning from not trusting in god to trusting on his son that is all that means here in mark chapter 2 sinners have to repent they have to turn to god remember romans chapter 4 and this also proves that repentance as far as salvation is concerned is a one-time act it's a one-time deal once you repent once you turn from trusting in yourself or another god or whatever it is to the lord jesus christ he gives you that repentance you're born again you're saved sealed till the day of redemption it is a done deal it is a one-time act luke chapter 15 verse 7 says i say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth more than over 99 just persons which need no repentance so the bible says here very clearly when somebody gets saved when they repent meaning one time right you repent one time you're done you turn unto the lord it's forever you're you're sealed no man can pluck you out of his hand it's a done deal god says that the angels in heaven rejoice and they are happy because now you can join that 99 persons which need no justification or no repentance so the people of Nineveh believed god and proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth from the greatest of them even to the least of them so before we read about what they the Ninevites did in jonah 310 you need to understand that in verse 5 they believed god they believed first and then they decided to get right and that is how it should be right you know that after a person gets saved we should exhort edify one another so that they stop sinning that's why you come to church because you we you know god obviously wants us to hold fast our profession of faith he wants us to live right he wants us to be a peculiar people he wants us to be sanctified but nonetheless none of that stuff is what's going to get you saved nor keep you saved and you can even read that in here i mean what does it say right verse four jonah began to preach verse five the people of Nineveh believed god you have to understand that first because people will use this to turn it on you and you have got to be smarter than them we need to know the bible better than the people that we're talking to here so just realize when somebody comes at you with this stuff that they believed first okay that's what it says they believe first and then jump down to verse 10 it says and god saw their works now hopefully you have this highlighted and you can remember to come back to this because if somebody's genuinely hung up on this a lot of times this is a great verse to explain what the word repent means so jonah 3 verse 10 says and god saw their works now we know we are not saved by works i think we've beaten that to death right but you know what as much as we've beaten that to death we're going to have to keep doing it because we are literally almost alone in this doctrine here salvation apart from works but nonetheless is and god saw their works that they turned from their evil way so what do you learn there right what does that teach us that teaches that turning from sins turning from your wicked ways is works and you know it is right it's gonna take a lot of work for me to not get mad at people that have that are driving slow in traffic i mean it's gonna it looks some of you you know like talk to mike and rick okay and you know that it is work to get right with god okay right and talk to their wives they know you know i mean they have to put up with it you know it's it's a hard thing to turn from evil ways but nonetheless and god saw their works that they turn from the evil ways so you know that is a good way to explain it now read the rest of the verse and god repented of the evil that he said he would do unto them and he did it not so the order of events jonah goes to nedova he preaches they decide okay whoa not only do we not want to get destroyed we're gonna believe god we're gonna we're gonna get right so they believe god and then afterwards they say okay you know what we're gonna turn from our sins we're gonna we're gonna repent of our sins even though that's not what it says they turn from the evil ways but that's the same thing and what i'm saying is that is works they decided okay you know i'm all in we're gonna just do the works here and then who repents in the verse who repents here god does right and god repented of the evil all that saying is that god was gonna destroy them they did something and god said okay now i'm not gonna destroy you that is the perfect verse to explain to somebody repentance because you get a lot in here right you get the definition of turning from your sins which is works you get the definition of repentance which is turning and then hopefully you can remember what the word evil means in the bible and that is simply to hurt and just say hey look all this means is that god was going to do something and he decided not to so we can see that turning from your evil ways is sins i i'm turning from your evil ways or your sins is works and we are not saved by works you you