THE TWO WORDS OF SALVATION

Dr. W. A. Criswell

Acts 20:20-21

11-19-78

 

So thank thee.  Thank thee, Handel in heaven up there sitting with the angelic choir.  Thank thee, orchestra and all of the sweet wonderful people who make our growing and enlarging choir.  And once again welcome to the uncounted thousands and thousands who share this hour with us on radio and on television.  Wherever you are, may God bless the message from the Bible to your heart.  This is the First Baptist Church in Dallas.  This is the pastor bringing the message entitled THE TWO WORDS OF SALVATION.  In our preaching through the Book of Acts we are in chapter twenty.  In the middle of the chapter beginning at verse seventeen, Acts 20:17:

And from Miletus”—which is a town down on the seashore—“Paul sent to Ephesus, and called for the pastors, the elders, the bishops of the church. 

And when they were come to him, he said unto them, You know, from the first day that I came into Asia, after what manner I had been with you in all seasons, 

Serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and with many tears and trials. . . . 

And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have showed you, and have taught you publicly, and from house to house, 

Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ [Acts 20:17-21]. 

These are the two words that define the gospel, the way of salvation—“repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” [Acts 20:21].  The two words of salvation are “repentance” and “faith.”  Words can be dynamic and moving and even inflammatory.  When you read the history of the French Revolution, their watchword aroused a whole nation to fanatical fury—“Liberty, equality and fraternity.”  Or, even here in Texas, when we read about the war for our independence, the watchword for the battle cry was, “Remember the Alamo.”  But words also can lose their dynamic and their moving and inflammatory appeal.  If I were to stand any where in France today and announce and proclaim that battle cry of the Revolution—”Liberty, equality and fraternity”—I suppose those citizens over there would look upon me as being a strange kind of an aberration.  Or, if I were to stand up some where in Texas and say, "Remember the Alamo," why I suppose that the people who hear me would think I was referring to some kind of a tourist attraction down there in the southern part of our state.  Words can lose their dynamic and moving appeal.  In fact, you can pervert them, and they lose even their content and connotation. 

I listen to these modern theological liberals and read what they write.  And they will use the same nomenclature that we use—the same language exactly—but they empty it of its content.  [It] doesn't mean anything at all to them what it means to somebody like us.  [It is the] same way with the communists.  They will take our words and they will use them, but they mean an altogether different thing in their nomenclature and in their context.  They will use the word “democracy”; they will use the word “republic”; they will use the word “social righteousness”; they will call it the “People's Republic of China”; they will call it the “Democratic Republic of East Germany”; and yet, when they use those words “peace and justice and democracy,” there is no even approach to the meaning that we use them for.  Words can change and words can be perverted.  And words can lose their content and connotation altogether. 

Well, there are two words of salvation.  And when they were first used, oh, with what brilliant announcement did it bear a message of glory and salvation to a waiting world.  The gospel begins like this—Mark says, “After John was cast into prison, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel. . . . And saying”—what is the gospel and this marvelous new announcement that Jesus made to the world?—“The time is at hand; the kingdom of God is here; Repent ye” [Mark 1:14, 15].  That is the first word.  And “believe the gospel”—that is the second word.  When those words were first used, Oh, with what moving brilliance did God anoint them.  And with what dynamic meaning did the people listen to them.  So, Paul says in this marvelous Ephesian ministry, “remember, that by the space of three years” [Acts 20:31], “I was testifying to the Jews, to the Greeks, . . . publicly, and from house to house, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ” [Acts 20:20, 21]. 

Now, in our modern day, those are philosophical speculative descriptions.  “Repentance”—now, just exactly what is that?  And “saving faith”—just exactly what is that?  Well, when they were first used, they were dynamic and not lethargic; they were active and not passive; they were moving and marching and not sedentary words.  So, let us see if we can recapture in our present moment and in this holy hour some of the meaning that God poured in to those two words of salvation—how to be saved; the way we are saved—two words. 

The first one, metanoia, translated “repentance”; metanoia—a plain simple Greek word that means actually and exactly “change your mind.”  And as we would apply it in its use, metanoia refers to a change of attitude, a change of purpose, a change of lifestyle, a change, a turning around.  Here in the twelfth chapter of the Book of Matthew, the Lord says, “The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment upon this generation, and condemn it: because they metanoia; metanoia—they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and, behold, a greater than Jonah is here” [Matthew 12:41].  Well, what is that?  What happened back there in Nineveh?  Jonah came preaching saying, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be destroyed” [Jonah 3:4].  And when the king heard it and when the city heard it, they set in ashes and in sackcloth from a king down to the most menial servant.  They even put sackcloth on their beasts of burden.  And when God looked down from heaven, it says, “and God repented him of the evil, that he had purposed to do against Nineveh” [Jonah 3:10].  That is, when Nineveh repented, God repented.  That is, when Nineveh changed, God changed.  God is unchanging only in his character.  He is the same God for ever.  But God changes toward us when we change.  And when Nineveh changed, repented; God changed, repented.  You have an exact definition of that word in the life of our Lord, in Matthew 21—“What think ye?”—He says—“A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work today in my vineyard.  And he answered and said, I will not; but afterward he repented, and went” [Matthew 21:28, 29].  He changed and went; he turned around and went.  Then the father came to the second and said, Go work in my vineyard. “And he said, I go sir: and he did not go. Now, which have those two,” says the Lord, “did his Father's will?” [Matthew 21:30, 31].  Of course, the first one did.  Then the Lord says, “John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him; but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and you, when you saw it, repented not afterward, that you might believe him” [Matthew 21:32].  So, that metanoia; “repentance” is a plain and simple thing referring to a change, a turning around in a man's life—in his mind, in his attitude, in his purposes.  I have changed; that is, I have repented. 

I remember when I was going to school, all the pulpits of the land were filled with pacifists.  They did not believe in bearing arms or defending their country.  Pacifism was a fad in the gospel ministry when I was growing up as a boy and going to school.  Then the seventh day of December 1941, came and the Japanese attacked the American navy station in Pearl Harbor.  And then pacifism went out the window.  I hardly heard it.  “I have changed.  I believe in defending our country.  I have repented from my old attitude.  I believe in bearing arms.”  Would to God we would stay that way.  This world and this nation as built by God, it is worth defending.  It is worth living for.  It is worth dying for.  Well, this thing of a change in my mind—I have turned around. 

I remember a man in Kentucky who was very, very sympathetic with all of those distilleries there.  I lived in a county one time that had a distillery behind every hill, and then a moonshine aggregate behind every bush.  Well, this fellow was a large defender of the liquor industry.  And upon a day, he helped pry up a man out of a ditch—one of the men there in our community.  He had been in a bar—been in a bar and stayed in the bar; stayed on drinking.  And finally, the bar keeper, when the fellow became an offense in his drunkenness, pushed him out.  So, the drunk staggered around and finally fell in a ditch and froze to death that cold, cold winter snowy night.  And this man that I am talking about helped find him and pried him up.  And he said to me, "When I pried him up out of the ditch and stood him up, a stiff there frozen before me with the mud all over his face,” he said, "I changed.  I am no longer a wet.  I am a dry.  Any thing that would do that," he said to me, "to a man made in the image of God, I am against it."  That is what repentance is—I have changed; I have repented. 

I remember a fellow giving a testimony.  And he said, "All these years of my life I have been a professional gambler.  I made my living gambling."  Then he said, "One time I happened to see a ragged, poor half-starved boy, and I started talking to him.  And I listened to that boy describing his home and his mother and his brother and sisters, and that boy, so ragged and poor and hungry."  And the man said, "The night before I had, in a gambling game with that boy's father, I had won all of his money, all of his salary, all of it.  And the father of that little family, instead of taking his wages home and buying food and clothing and fuel and shelter, he had been gambling with that man."  And this professional gambler had won everything that the father had in his check.  And he said in that testimony, he said, "Looking at that hungry and ragged boy, I said, I have gambled my last time.  I have changed.  For me to do something that results in that, I am done."  That is repentance—I have changed.  I have turned around.  I am going in another direction. 

Now, when we take that plain Greek word and apply it to us today, it means the same when it is used—eis; toward God; “repentance toward God—eis.  Eis is a moving word.  It is a dynamic word.  It is repentance toward God—turning around facing God.  If a man said that in Ephesus, he would be like this.  All these years of my life, I have been a devotee of Artemis of Diana, worshiping her in this beautiful Ephesian temple; but I have changed.  I am now a Christian and I follow in the footsteps of the Lord Jesus.  That is repentance—I have changed.  Or, take another instance; in that world in which Paul lived, there were Greek sophists everywhere.  They were supposed to be men of superior intelligence and superior training.  And they spoke in philosophical and metaphysical terms.  And they just discussed everything.  And those people, those Greek sophists were every where.  So, I could easily imagine a Greek sophist saying:  In these years past, I have been speculating about the other world, this world, the values of life, all those things that Greek philosophers talked about.  I have been a sophist, but I have changed.  I am now a Christian.  And I believe in the revelation of the true God in Christ Jesus.  And I am a follower of the Lord.  I have changed. 

That is exactly what it is today.  I have passed by the church, and I passed by the people of God, but I have changed.  I now love the Lord and God's people.  And I look forward to those beautiful hours when we can gather together in the Lord's house and sing and pray and listen to an exposition of the Holy Scriptures together.  I have changed.  I have said no to God, but now I say yes.  When the Lord makes appeal, my heart is open heavenward.  I listen now to the voice of the Spirit in my soul.  I have changed.  I am somebody else.  I remember a man in this church.  He had two grocery stores.  And oh, that was before he joined our church.  He was a fine man.  But out there you know, to make money with his grocery stores, he had big signs on his stores—Open Sundays;  Open Sundays.  Well, the Lord got hold of that man.  And he came down this aisle and became a fellow member of our church.  And the next week when I passed by his beautiful grocery stores, he had a sign up there—Closed Sundays; Closed Sundays.  I have changed.  I have turned around.  I am doing something else. 

I remember the story of an infidel who in a hotel lobby was talking to a preacher.  And he was scoffing at the preacher, making fun of him and ridiculing.  And among the things the infidel was saying to the preacher, "You pray.  You pray.  Bah," he said, "you might as well be talking to the wind.  Prayer does not change any thing, and it certainly could not change me." 

Now, the preacher said to him, "Would you be seated here?  Would you be kind enough to be seated here?  I am going to kneel down by your side and pray for you." 

And the infidel laughed, that is the biggest joke he ever heard in his life—“Pray for me.  Bah.  Ridiculous.  Inanity." 

The minister said, "Would you be seated here?" 

And the fellow said, "Well, yeah.  I will be seated."  So, he sat down there in a chair in the lobby and the preacher knelt down by his side and prayed for him.  And when the preacher got through praying for him, the infidel laughed and said, "See there.  I haven't changed.  Prayer has not changed anything at all." 

And the minister said, "But God is not done yet.  God is not done yet."  And did you know there came a day when the newspapers had an article about a great revival in another city.  And when you read the newspaper, guess who was leading it?  It was that fellow.  It was that infidel.  That is repentance.  Prayer changes things—namely me.  Metanoia; I changed my mind.  I have been going this way; I am going to turn around; I am going this way.  I have been passing God by.  Now, I listen to his voice and follow after.  I have been saying no to the invitation of the pastor.  I have changed.  I have changed. 

Preacher, if you will just get through preaching and sing that hymn, I will be right down that aisle.  I have changed.  And this is a commandment of the Lord.  This is a commandment of God.  It is not optional that I do that feeling; or my wanting or my any thing.  It is a mandate under which I am born.  I am commanded of God to repent.  In the seventeenth chapter of the Book of Acts, out of which I am preaching, when Paul preached his sermon on Mars’ Hill to the Areopagus—the supreme court of the Athenians, he said, “God overlooked our ignorance in these days past, but now God commandeth all men every where to repent, to turn. [Acts 17:31].  In the passage I had you read in the thirteenth chapter of Luke:  All of us are commanded to repent.  If you do not repent, if you do not change, you will all likewise perish [Luke 13:3].  That is God.  And the Lord demands an answer.  I am to return an answer to the Lord regarding my attitude, and my mind, and my way of life toward Him and toward His people in the earth.  I remember one of the most dramatic stories I ever heard in history.  Antiochus Epiphanes, in about 165 B.C., was trying to make Greeks, and especially Greek religionists, out of the Jews in the little country of Judea.  So, he rededicated the temple of God in Jerusalem to Jupiter—to Jove.  And he boiled a swine—a sow and took sow’s juice and spread it all over the altar of the sacred vessels of the sacred temple in order to defile it.  And he was making with the pain of death, he was making those Jews bow down and worship before Jupiter—before Jove.  Well, that is who Antiochus Epiphanes was.  And that monarch king of Assyria’s capitol, up there in Antioch, began to make war against all of the countries around him and add him to his empire.  So, he took his army down into Egypt.  And he was conquering Egypt, and his army was laying siege to the city of Alexandria.  Now, as long as he was way over there in the East, that little fledgling empire called Rome did not pay any attention to him.  But when Antiochus Epiphanes lead his army down into Egypt, he was touching the bread basket of Rome—the granary of Rome, because Rome depended upon the grain and the Nile valley to feed her people.  So, the Roman Senate sent Gaius Laenas Popilius to confront Antiochus Epiphanes before the walls of Alexandria.  And when the Roman legate stood in front of the king, he delivered the message—the mandate of the Roman Senate to Antiochus Epiphanes.  And the message said, “You will desist from this campaign.  And you will cease from this war.  And you will lift this siege of Alexandria.  And take your army out.  Or, you will face war with the Roman legions.  And you tell me the answer.”  The history book said that Antiochus Epiphanes, when he was faced with that alternative, that he demurred and asked for time to consider it.  And when he did, Gaius Laenas Popilius, the Roman legate, took his staff and drew a circle around him in the sand and then said, “Sir, you will give me an answer before you step out of that circle,” that I can bear back to the Roman Senate.  And of course, Antiochus Epiphanes, fuming and fussing and furious, raised the siege and went back to Antioch.  And on the way did an awesome thing in the destruction of Judea. 

But I think of that so often times.  God says:  I am to turn from sin and from the world.  It is not how I feel about it.  It is not a question debatable.  It is a mandate.  I am to turn.  It is a decision I am to make in my heart.  And God demands an answer.  I want to illustrate that to you how that is the beginning of God's dealings with us in my repentance, in my turning.  Let us say there is a little boy.  And he plops down in the living room on the sofa looking at a comic book.  And the father to the boy, he says, "Son, I want you to run this errand for Daddy."  And the boy stands up and he slams that book down on the floor and he says, "Every time I sit down, some body says get up and do some crazy thing."