A Notorious Repentance

Ours is not an age known for noteworthy demonstrations of repentance. In response to the preaching of Jonah, The King of Nineveh left his royal throne, removed his royal robes, put on sackcloth, sat down in the dust, and ordered everyone else to do the same. In addition, he ordered them not to eat or drink, call urgently upon God and turn from their evil ways and violence (Jonah 3:6,7). The Ephesians responded to the preaching of Paul by bringing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of books on sorcery and burning them publically in the city square (Acts 19:19). Accounts and descriptions of the Great Awakening in America include numerous examples of significant public displays of contrition and confession. In our day, when a public figure falls from grace, they hire a team of PR experts to manage the fall out with carefully crafted and strategically placed words of apology primarily intended to soften the impact on their favorability ratings and commercial endorsements. As a result, few have even an inkling of the nature of true repentance. Paul’s urgent message of concern to the Corinthians had elicited a response of contrition and change, to such a depth and degree, that not even Paul himself had been fully prepared to receive it. In 2 Corinthians 7:2-16, Paul gratefully and joyfully recounts that response, in a valuable and much-needed example we’ll consider together this morning, in a message entitled “A Notorious Repentance”.