The Blame Game Versus Real Repentance, Saul or David

When someone repents, he doesn't blame his sin on someone else.  I'm not saying that he can't consider what he thinks helped move things the wrong way, but in the end, it was his fault.  When someone stops sinning, which is part of repentance, he isn't going to talk about stopping because it helped himself.  He talks about God, how he offended God, well, like David does in Psalm 51 and 32.  When he sins, he's not a victim.  No one made him do it.  He did it because he wanted to do it, and especially if he is a believer, he has power not to sin, so when he sins, he chose to sin and he sinned.

If you are a drunk, practice regular drunkenness, it wasn't "trauma" from childhood, which itself could be a lie, and it wasn't because you had a harder life due to circumstances.  It wasn't because you were stressed by school or work and alcohol could help you block it out.  No, you chose to drink and then you got drunk, when God commands in Proverbs 23, don't even look at alcohol, reinforced by many other passages.  1 Corinthians 6:9-10 say that the drunkard will not inherit the kingdom of God.

If you fornicated, you did that, not because you were looking for acceptance or approval you didn't get from your parents.  That kind of Freudian psychobabble rebels against biblical teaching.  The cause looks instead like evil concupiscence, inordinate affections, defrauding your parents, not abstaining from fleshly lust in the way of music, entertainment, and naked pictures.  If you are going to watch all of Game of Thrones with rapt attention, it's no wonder you objectify women and treat them like orifices to satisfy your lust.  If you are going to listen to music that celebrates fornication and treats it like a permissible alternative, it's no wonder you would both drink and fornicate.  Saying it was those things, instead of not making a covenant with your eyes (Job 31:1), then you are not taking responsibility and you are not on your way to repentance.  You will not find fulfillment or completeness in Christ.

What I'm writing about is the difference between the faux or no repentance of King Saul and the true repentance of King David.  Both sinned.  Saul blamed other people.  Adam blamed Eve.  Eve blamed the serpent.  Cain blamed his brother Abel.

The blame doesn't stop there.  Especially today, the sinner blames theology.  He didn't receive unconditional love.  He did, but love is not cheap.  It isn't grace that is an occasion for the flesh.  It isn't grace that sins so that grace will abound.  It doesn't say, I have an advocate with the Father, so I can keep sinning and that's actually walking in the light.  No, it is walking in the darkness.

A slew of new books bring artificial comfort, faux comfort, to the sinner.  It's the Jesus Plus Nothing, Scandalous Grace group, the antinomians.  I wrote this is a few months ago.

Someone "sleeps with someone."  [He] didn't use either the word fornication or adultery.  The next morning that person who just slept with someone needs to be thinking that he is exactly the same before God as he was before he fornicated (my word).  That's how this fornicator, according to [him], needs to look at the grace of God.  This is why it is "scandalous."  Instead, someone should ask if this is a person who has never been converted, and if he professes faith, how this even squares with the grace of God, rather than giving credit to "scandalous grace."  With that illustration, I understood the attraction of this particular view of grace, which again, isn't new.  This is also what Peter describes in 2 Peter 2 (v. 19):

While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.

He promises liberty to those who are servants of corruption and they are brought into bondage with this teaching.  In Peter's description, it is the way to apostasy.

This is rampant in the Southern Baptist Convention and varied related forms of new evangelicalism.  It violates or contradicts so many different passages of scripture and doesn't have a single verse to stand upon.  It conflicts with true repentance that Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 7:9-11:

9 Now I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance: for ye were made sorry after a godly manner, that ye might receive damage by us in nothing.  10 For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death. 11 For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge! In all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter.

What's missing?  To start, the excuses and blame and even self-pity doesn't even say, I'm sorry.  I'm sorry for getting drunk.  I'm sorry for using women and sometimes against the will of either set of parents, acting like a free agent.  I'm sorry for dishonoring and disobeying my parents in an ungrateful, rebellious way, and blaming it on them.  God warned against this in Ezekiel 18:20:

The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.

Most often, "I'm sorry" isn't even heard, even if it is sorrow that isn't even repentance.  However, there is a godly sorrow that works "repentance to salvation."  What is it like?  It isn't crying over not receiving the necessary love or an environment without stress.  What about the unconditional love of Jesus Christ?  Isn't that enough?  Unrepentant sin doesn't get comfort from Jesus Christ.  Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish (Luke 13:3, 5).

The sorrow from the unrepentant often is self-pity, feeling sorry for himself.  He's not sorry for sinning.  He doesn't show remorse for offending God.  He feels sorry that his circumstances weren't more to his favor.  He didn't like how he was treated.  When he sinned, his correction was too harsh.  He was loved greatly, but it still didn't go far enough, because it didn't accept or approve of his sin.  It expected obedience, which means it was "transactional."  He would still have sinned, because he's not sorry over sin, just sorry for himself.

There is not a way forward to the person who keeps making excuses for his sin.  He needs sorrow after a godly sort, which looks first like "carefulness."  He's careful, which means he doesn't hang out at bars with his "friends" and make constant mentions of alcohol.  He is careful to remove himself from all of the ways he is sinning. This is Paul's instruction in 1 Corinthians 10, that he that thinks he stands, he needs to take heed lest he fall.  He stays away from it, because it dishonors God, it causes others to stumble, it is a bad testimony for Jesus Christ, and it will cause him to sin.

Godly sorrow, actual sorrow, wants to be "clear."  It wants space between the last time he sinned in this manner, and you know someone has repented, when he stops the activity.

Godly sorrow, actual sorrow, is indignant about sin.  That's a no-go for the one, who still wants to sin.  He isn't angry about sin.  He's angry about the judgment of sin.  He's angry if he is judged as a sinner.  He is sorry that others don't accept his sin, which he think isn't unconditional love.  No, true love rejoices not in iniquity.  Be angry and sin not.  This is not angry with preaching, which works not the righteousness of God, but angry at yourself because you've displeased God.

Paul uses other terms to indicate true repentance, true godly sorrow, but these are a start for someone who is serious.  David was God's choice, not because he was sinlessly perfect, but because, when he sinned, he didn't blame it on other people.  He turned back to God in a way after God's own heart.  Saul, on the other hand, expounded his own wisdom, really a vain philosophy or psychology in the realm of science falsely so-called.  When David sinned, he repented and God welcomed Him, so that David could say, that when he awoke, he would be satisfied in God's presence (Psalm 17:15).  He wrote in Psalm 32:1:

Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

The blessing of forgiveness far outweighs the cheap imitation of excuses and blame.