Signs of the Times
Where do we go from here?
(cont. from p.4)
and psychologists.
Many people today have a variety of mental problems including anxiety and depression. Without realizing it, they are burdened down with guilt for their wrong-doings and are overwhelmed with fear because they dread the consequences of their sins. They desperately need a means of relief. They need to be able to unburden themselves. They need someone to show them the way to get cleansing and forgiveness.
Real repentance is not replaceable. It is the God-given way for mankind to be cleansed and forgiven. Forgiveness is life's greatest cathartic experience and is the greatest relief-giver known to mankind. Everybody needs it and desires it. That's the only way to replace panic with peace.
Everyone needs assurance that their sins are forgiven.
Repentance includes two necessary steps. One must confess one's sins and ask for forgiveness and then turn and do what one should do in the place of sin. Turning from and turning to are both required if repentance is to be effective in obtaining forgiveness from God.
There are many who deceive themselves by vain flattery, making themselves believe that it is enough if they condemn their vices, though they continue to persist in them, or rather, if they give them up for a time, they return to them immediately after. True repentance is firm and constant, and makes us war with the evil that is in us, not for a day or a week, but without end and without intermission.
A key factor, that works well and helps one overcome his faults, is to sublimate them, replace any condemned or questionable ideas or actions with something better.
A PERSONAL WORD
The command of the Lord to repent is presented so dramatically, repeatedly and impressively, following each of the many natural disasters, that it should startle and convict every one of us and lead us to repentance.
I, personally, have become so very concerned and deeply impressed by the events we are facing today that I reverently and prayerfully reviewed my whole life and became convicted and aware that I must humble myself and genuinely repent to God for my accumulated sins of commission and my many sins of omission.
When measuring myself against the authoritative Christian standards set out in the Bible, (the Ten Commandments, the Teachings of the Law and the Prophets, The Sermon on the