AT THE HEART OF JESUS’ MESSAGE

Repentance was at the heart of the very first sermon after Christ’s resurrection. Peter told the crowds gathered at Pentecost, “Jesus of Nazareth . . . ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain” (Acts 2:22-23).

When the people heard this, they fell under powerful conviction. The preached Word pricked their hearts, because the Holy Spirit had come in all His power. And according to Jesus, that’s precisely the Spirit’s work. He said the Holy Ghost comes to “reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment” (John 16:8).
The crowds were so stirred, they couldn’t move. Suddenly, before them were the very issues of life and death. So they cried out to Peter, asking what they should do. He answered, “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. . . . Save yourselves from this untoward generation” (Acts 2:38, 40).

This passage illustrates the repentance at the heart of Jesus’ message. If there is no conviction in the message—no truth about sin and guilt, no smiting of the heart—then the Holy Ghost simply isn’t in it. He’s simply not present in such preaching.

Peter wasn’t interested in offending those crowds at Pentecost. His only purpose was to show them the truth, and when the Holy Spirit reveals the truth, it convicts. It goes down deep and roots out every area of the heart.

Sadly, this isn’t happening in many churches today. Our ministry receives letter after letter echoing the same refrain: “I have a neighbor I have witnessed to for months. I take him to church, hoping he’ll hear a word about his condition and his need for the Lord. But my pastor never says a word about sin. There’s never a word that brings conviction, that spells out the need for Jesus’ cleansing, freeing power. So my neighbor leaves even more comfortable in his sin.”

What a tragedy! How grievous it must be to God that more people are affirmed in their sins inside churches than outside of them.

According to Jesus, no one can be delivered from sin—no one is ever faced with truth—without the convicting presence and power of the Holy Spirit.