Repentance is When the Cows Come Home

Repentance is observable

“Do you mortify; do you make it your daily work; be always at it whilst you live; cease not a  day from this work; be killing sin or sin will be killing you.”

John Owen, Overcoming Sin and Temptation (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2006), p. 50, here is the pdf. This volume is edited by Kapic and Taylor.

The reformed church must always take practical steps to kill sin. Practical steps. I heard a strange word this morning, actionable. Repentance entails actionable, visible change. We, reformed, struggle with this. We are much more given to mental action, not observable. The mind is our specialty, not hands and feet. The 16th Reformation was a seismic shift, mentally. Luther nailed 95 theses; he did not begin a soup kitchen. As a corollary, we who have come to embrace the doctrines of grace, listened and read—or it was a combination of these two—in order to come to a cognitive rest. “Oh, OK. Now I see total depravity.” We wrestled mentally. We are too easily satisified with things like: opening the Word, listening to sermons and participating in a Bible study—we think, therefore we think we repent. Reformation, 99% of the time, is first read and heard, before it is seen.

This is why when we hear of our sin, we wrongly believe that we have repented. When we understand the preacher’s illustration of wrong-doing or doing that is left undone, we believe that we have repented.

Repentance is when the cows come home, not when the cows are thinking about going home.

“Lord, what I just did in this post was mental, give me legs and feet. I want to follow the cows home.”

G. Mark Sumpter

The Two Angels and Resurrection Farming—Heaven’s Harvest

From the 1920’s Dutch teacher, professor and writer, Geerhardus Vos

Vos explores Mary’s sorrow; it’s John 20, where she weeps at the vacant tomb in the garden. Appearing at the head and feet where the body of Jesus had been lying, the angels speak to her.

Here’s part of his sermon, “Rabboni!”

“Not forever could she stand weeping, forgetful of what went on around her. ‘As she wept she looked into the tomb, and she beholdeth two angels in white sitting one at the head and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain.’ It was a step in the right direction that she roused herself from her inaction. Still, what strikes us as most characteristic in this statement is its implying that even the vision of angels did not sufficiently impress her to raise the question, to what the appearance of these celestial messengers might be due. Probably this was the first time she had come in direct contact with the supernatural in that particular form. The place was doubtless charged with the atmosphere of mystery and wonder angels bring with themselves when entering into our world of sense. And yet no tremor seems to have run through her, no feeling of awe to have made her draw back. A greater blindness to fact is here than that which made her miss the sign of the empty grave. What more convincing evidence of the truth of the resurrection could have been offered than the presence of these two angels, silently, reverently, majestically sitting where the body of Jesus had lain? Placed like the Cherubim on the mercy-seat, they covered between themselves the spot where the Lord had reposed, and flooded it with celestial glory. It needed no voice of theirs to proclaim that here death had been swallowed up in victory. Ever since the angels descended into this tomb the symbolism of burial has been radically changed. From this moment onward every last resting-place where the bodies of believers are laid is a furrow in that great harvest field of Christ whence heaven draws upward into light each seed sunk into it, whence Christ himself was raised, the first fruits of them that sleep.”

From burial place to furrow—there you go. The bodies of believers are planted in the soil, and it’s harvest time!

Lives again our glorious King; Alleluia!
Where, O death, is now thy sting? Alleluia!
Once he died, our souls to save; Alleluia!
Where thy victory, O grave? Alleluia!

Soar we now where Christ has led, Alleluia!
Following our exalted Head; Alleluia!
Made like him, like him we rise: Alleluia!
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies. Alleluia!

Go here for the entire sermon.

G. Mark Sumpter

Saved by Faith

Grace vs. Merit

“But that in the law [practically the same as ‘by means of the law’] no one is justified before God is plain, because [as Scripture says, Hab. 2:4] ‘the just shall live by faith.’ But the law is not of faith [does not partake of the nature of faith], but [as Scripture says, Lev. 18:5] ‘he who has done them [the commandments] shall live in [or ‘by’] them,’ Paul means to say, ‘describe the nature of the law.’ It requires doing something. But faith is the opposite of doing. So when the Scripture says that a man is justified by faith, that involves saying that he is not justified by anything that he does. There are two conceivable ways of salvation. One way is to keep the law perfectly, to do the things which the law requires. No mere man since the fall has accomplished that. The other way is to receive something, to receive something that is freely given by God's grace. That way is followed when a man has faith. But you cannot possibly mingle the two. You might conceivably be saved by works or you might be saved by faith; but you cannot be saved by both. It is ‘either or’ here not ‘both and.’ But which shall it be, works or faith? The Scripture gives the answer. The Scripture says it is faith. Therefore it is not works.”

Historic Christianity: Selections from the Writings of J. Gresham Machen, Page 62

HT: Reformation INK

G. Mark Sumpter

Bulimia Matters. 23

All to Him I Owe

“For, until men feel that they owe everything to God, that they are cherished by his paternal care, and that he is the author of all their blessings, so that nought is to be looked for away from him, they will never submit to him in voluntary obedience; nay, unless they place their entire happiness in him, they will never yield up their whole selves to him in truth and sincerity.”

—John Calvin, Institutes, Book 1, Chapter 2

G. Mark Sumpter

Bulimia Matters.22

C.H. Spurgeon on discouragement

“O brethren, be great believers. Little faith will bring your souls to heaven, but great faith will bring heaven to your souls.”

Cited in Dallimore’s book, SPURGEON, p. 187.

What is great faith? It's living in and through Christ---putting into practice God's gracious and glorious promises, acting on His commands, heeding His warnings, anticipating His presence.

G. Mark Sumpter

Bulimia Matters.21

The Bible talks right at us

“The Bible is brutally honest, presenting people and situations with a candor we probably would have softened had we written it. It refuses to gloss over sin’s impact on us and our world. But it is also honest for another reason: to demonstrate how the wisdom of the Lord and the transforming grace of Christ are powerful enough to address the deepest issues of human experience. If you read Scripture carefully, you will never get the idea that the work of Christ is for well-adjusted people who just need a little redemptive boost. It never presents any human condition or dilemma as outside the scope of the gospel. Redemption is nothing less than the rescue of helpless people facing an eternity of torment apart from God’s love.”--Paul Tripp

Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands, p. 195, Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Co, 2002.

G. Mark Sumpter

Bulimia Matters.20

Is public worship purely our response to God?

“Well, what's wrong with saying that worship is for God? For starters, it implies that worship is purely our response to God. It presents this picture: Somewhere, outside a worship service, God saved me. Having been saved, I have a duty to gather with God's people to thank him for his mercy and praise him for his greatness. Outside the church door, I sought and found God's grace. Once inside, I am not a seeker after grace, but a giver of praise. It is impossible, however, for any human action to be a response pure and simple. To entertain that possibility is to assume we can be autonomous, independent of God: once God has worked in us, we can respond to him without having to rely on his continual working in us. That, of course, is exactly what Reformed theology denies.


Scripture does not merely say that God works first, and then we respond. It says that our response is yet another work of God. It says that even when we give, we are simultaneously, and primarily, receiving. Thus, it is not as if we are recipients of grace until we walk through the door. We rely on God's work in us in worship as much as anywhere else, and it is only because we are acting by the power of the Spirit that our actions in worship bring honor to God.”

Peter Leithart from the OPC’s New Horizons magazine, April 2002

G. Mark Sumpter

Bulimia Matters.19

Circumstances and Commentary about John Calvin and Frequent Communion

“The cause for conflict that eventually led to Calvin's expulsion from Geneva lay in the Lord's Supper. Calvin wanted it to be celebrated on a weekly basis. As the sign and seal of the Word, it was only to be expected that the Word would be followed by the sacrament. This had been a tradition established for centuries, so why should it be changed? The city council, however, considered this too radical a departure from what Bern and Zurich were accustomed to. They also thought it a little too ‘Romish,’ and feared the people might get the same impression. Calvin cleverly suggested instead that the Lord's Supper be celebrated once every four weeks, rotating among the four churches in Geneva. The council saw right through this proposal, however, and the syndics and councilors of Geneva decided that four celebrations per year would suffice. The millions of Reformed believers throughout the world who continue to uphold this practice are thus out of line with Calvin and are actually defending the position of the much less Reformed politicians of sixteenth-century Geneva.”


Herman J. Selderhuis (John Calvin: A Pilgrim's Life, 2009, 79-80)

HT: PCA Pastor, Jon Payne

G. Mark Sumpter

Bulimia Matters.17

Word and Sacraments, Week by Week

Faith is the knowledge of what God has done for us in Christ, the confidence that this is a true, historical fact, and the assurance that, by this saving work of Christ in history, we are accepted before God apart from anything that we have done. This is why God gives us the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper to confirm our faith in his gospel and to seal us in its promises.

From Michael Horton's In the Face of God, p. 99

G. Mark Sumpter

Bulimia Matters.16

“Everybody feels good about their relationship with God while Western Civilization falls to pieces.”

From the Internet Monk, Michael Spencer

G. Mark Sumpter

Bulimia Matters. 15

Grace Right Alongside of Law--Amen!

From J.G. Machen:

When I come thus to Jesus as a sinner, confessing that I have not obeyed His commands, confessing that I have nothing to offer to Him, but am utterly unworthy and utterly helpless, has He anything to say to me? Does He say merely: You have heard my high commands; that is all that I have to say; that is all the gospel that I have to give you; that is all the doctrine you can have.

No, thank God, that is not all the He has to give me--that cold comfort of a command that I have not kept and cannot keep. He gives me something more than that. He gives Himself. He offers Himself to me in the Bible as my Savior who died for me on the Cross and who now lives as the one whom I can trust. He offers Himself to me in great doctrines of His person and work. If He were some other, He could not save me and I could not trust Him to save me. But because He is very God, He could save me and did save me and I have been united to Him by the Holy Spirit through faith.

Do you not see, my friends? That is the reason why the Christian clings to the doctrine of the deity of Christ.

Meat and potatoes from the New Testament Professor’s, The Christian View of Man, pp. 22-23, from the Banner of Truth, the British edition, 1965.

G. Mark Sumpter

Bulimia Matters.14

Seizing and Living By Truth

“Feeling sorry for yourself is one of the strongest, most addictive narcotics known to man. It feels so good to feel so bad. Self-pity arises so easily, seems so plausible, and proves so hard to shake off.”

See the Journal of Biblical Counseling, David Powlison, Vol. 25, Num 3., p. 7

G. Mark Sumpter

Bulimia Matter. 13

Church, Your Labor is Not in Vain

C.H. Spurgeon, 1834-1892, comment on Psalm 86:9

David was not a believer in the theory that the world will grow worse and worse, and that the dispensations will wind up with general darkness, and idolatry. Earth's sun is to go down amid tenfold night if some of our prophetic brethren are to be believed. Not so do we expect, but we look for a day when the dwellers in all lands shall learn righteousness, shall trust in the Savior, shall worship thee alone, O God, and shall glorify thy name. The modern notion has greatly dampened the zeal of the church for missions, and the sooner it is shown to be unscriptural the better for the cause of God. It neither consorts with prophecy, honors God, nor inspires the church with ardor. Far hence be it driven.

Just what the doctor ordered.

G. Mark Sumpter

Bulimia Matters.12

“Does the Bible begin with exhortation; does it begin with a program for life? No, it begins with a doctrine. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. That is the foundation doctrine upon which everything else that the Bible says is based.

The Bible does present a way of life; it tells men the way in which they ought to live. But always when it does so it grounds that way of life in truth.”

J. Gresham Machen in his The Christian Faith in the Modern World, p. 98

G. Mark Sumpter

Bulimia Matters.11

“It is Satan's practice to go over the hedge where it is lowest.”

--Puritan Pastor, Richard Sibbes


G. Mark Sumpter

Bulimia Matters. 10

“The ability to make righteous moral choices requires righteous desires and inclinations. Without a righteous inclination to the good, no one can choose the good. Our choices follow our inclinations. For man to be able to choose the things of God, he must first be inclined to choose them. Since the flesh makes no provision for the things of God, grace is required for us to be able to choose them. The unregenerate person must be regenerated before he has any desire for God.”

In Grace Unknown by RC Sproul, pp. 135-136


G. Mark Sumpter

Bulimia Matters.9

“Those who have been baptized into Christ really are new creatures—right now. They are defined by the resurrection as well as the cross and are no longer under the dominion of sin, Paul says in Romans 6. But lest anyone fall into the opposite error of some sort of triumphalistic perfectionism, chapter 7 reminds us that we are still sinners who do what we do not want to do and end up failing to do what we agree is good. Romans 8 ties it all up by concluding that one day we will not live in this in-between tension, but until then we patiently wait. ‘Who hopes for what he already has? (Romans 8:24).’”

From Michael Horton's A Better Way, p. 132

G. Mark Sumpter

Bulimia Matters.8

“An enormous amount of research has been carried on within the Darwinian paradigm over the past century and a half, yet success has been limited to changes within those ‘fixed limitations,’ like mutations in fruit flies. Research has cast virtually no light on the really important questions, like how there came to be fruit flies in the first place. As one wag put it, Darwinism might explain the survival of the fittest, but it fails to explain the arrival of the fittest.”

From Total Truth, p. 161, author Nancy Pearcy

G. Mark Sumpter

Bulimia Matters.7

“Music and theology alone are capable of giving peace and happiness to troubled souls. This plainly proves that the devil, the source of all unhappiness and worries, flees music as much as he does theology.”

16th Century Reformer Martin Luther in a letter he penned while in prison.

G. Mark Sumpter

Bulimia Matters.6

Yes, surely the wicked actions of men have a place in God’s eternal purpose. The Bible makes that abundantly clear. Wicked men may not think they are serving God’s purposes: but they are serving His purposes all the same, even by the most wicked of their acts.

At that point, however, serious questions might seem to arise. If wicked actions of wicked men have a place in God’s plan, if they are foreordained of God, then is man responsible for them, and is not God the author of sin?

To each of these questions the Bible returns a very unequivocal answer. Yes, man is responsible for his wicked actions; and No, God is not the author of sin.

That man is responsible for his wicked actions is made so plain from the beginning of the Bible to the end that it is quite useless to cite individual proof texts. But it is equally clear in the Bible that God is not the author of sin. That is clear from the very nature of sin, as rebellion against God’s holy law. It is also expressly taught. Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God, says the Epistle of James: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempts He any man: but every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.

J.G. Machen in The Christian View of Man, p. 43

G. Mark Sumpter