Did you repent before you received a new heart?

Did you repent before you received a new heart?

...and by that I mean biblical repentance.

If you repented first and later received a new heart, you would also have to believe these conclusions...

1. You produced the fruit of godly sorrow in your flesh from a stony heart.

Is this conlusion unscriptural?
2Co 7:10 For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.
Eze 36:26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.
Eze 36:31 Then shall ye remember your own evil ways, and your doings that were not good, and shall loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations.

2. In your stony heart condition which preceded the new heart, you had good ground. (you understood... prior to newness of life.)

Is this conclusion unscriptural?
Mat 13:23 But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some a hundredfold some sixty, some thirty.
Rom 3:11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.

Biblical Conclusion:

The new heart and new will came from God by His mercy and grace through the gospel. Thus, you then naturally hated sin and loved righteousness and as a result of God's mercy upon you. Godly sorrow... came from a godly heart. The purity of confession... came from a pure heart. The holiness of prayer... came from a holy heart. The zeal to destroy and burn idols... came from zealous heart. The passion of love that drove you to give God all the glory... came from a loving and God-centered heart. Amen! The heart that does these things is a new heart... not a stony heart. In ezekiel we learn that God gives the new heart. Therefore He is sovereign and none else.

Now learn a parable...

Luk 5:36 And he spake also a parable unto them; No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; if otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old.
Luk 5:37 And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish.
Luk 5:38 But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved.
Luk 5:39 No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better.

God bless you! -Abraham

I was too full of guilt and endless, hopeless striving after perfection, (from a child) to understand true repentance at first! Coming to the Lord was through awareness of need, of a huge emptiness in my heart, and realising I HAD to have Him, whatever the cost.

Repentance didn't figure in it at all - or not at first. I remember reading in the Beatitudes, "blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled". How great was the hunger and thirst! How I longed for that righteousness - even before being born again...

In fact it was the kind of preaching that said you had to have a "pure new heart" or you weren't born again, that brought me to utter despair about 16 years later. I felt so filthy. Was the cry in my heart, "Abba, Father", not true after all? For a terrible but mercifully short time it seemed so. Had the Lord deceived me?

Eventually I learned to tell the difference (most of the time) between the true conviction of the Spirit that leads to repentance and the crippling guilt that was so often my companion.

It is only a year or two ago that the Lord finally dealt with that guilt, and some of the other associated things.

It could and should have happened sooner, but maybe I couldn't open that hurting part of my heart fully enough before - fear of failure, rejection, guilt, self-condemnation...

True repentance isn't a feeling of sorrow and guilt but a turning away from sin when the Lord exposes it.

I'm not saying my experience was how it should be, or the norm, just that's the way it was.

Blessings

Jeannette

God doesn't will that any man abide in lies and decieve himself. God hates lies, He hates a lying tongue, and He will judge liars. God delights in the truth, He desires truth on the inward parts, and He is the truth.

This verse could simply be refering to God's goodness towards all men (if it is refering to every single person). The preceding verses read...
1Ti 2:1 I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men;
1Ti 2:2 For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.

So it seems to be refering to everyone. I know some of the brothers believe it's refering to only the elect. Perhaps that is a possibilty in the context of eternity and God's sovereign will. I know in 2 Timothy, Paul wrote... "Therefore I endure all things for the elect's sakes, that they may also obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory." [2Ti 2:10] No doubt, Paul is following the Lord's example. (enduring all things for the elect's sake.)

I take it as... Pray for everyone. Do it for the elect's sake. We don't know who the elect are (until they obey the gospel). We love our enemies. So, pray for everyone. pray that God will take away the stony heart and give them a new heart. Let us weep and beg God to make them new creatures. I believe it was Paul Washer who said, "Every person you meet is a potential brother or sister in Christ..."

You can listen to a short comp with this clip in it. It's a powerful clip! The comp is on Sermonindex, here's a link to it:

Somebody Prayed (compilation)

Back to your question from the beginning, "Why God doesn't give new heart to all men, so everyone might repent and be saved?"

Rom 9:18 Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.
Rom 9:19 Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?
Rom 9:20 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
Rom 9:21 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?
Rom 9:22 What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:
Rom 9:23 And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory,
Rom 9:24 Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?
Rom 9:25 As he saith also in Hosea, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.
Rom 9:26 And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people; there shall they be called the children of the living God.
Rom 9:27 Isaiah also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved:
Rom 9:28 For he will finish the work, and cut it short in righteousness: because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth.

Thanks Jeannette for sharing that testimony.

The sorrow that God wants us to have is not a condemnation sorrow. Rather it comes from a revelation of who God is (His holiness and goodness). It comes when we realize that it was Jesus who we sinned against... we are deeply grieved with tears... knowing that we have crucified the blessed Lord Jesus and it was Him who was crucified for our justification. We hear Him praying for us, " Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." ...and we hear His voice say our name, as he says to us, "why persecutest thou me?"

Godly sorrow is an expression of Love to God. God I want to express my love to you by weeping over my sins against you. Amen!

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This is the danger of telling men they must clean themselves up before they can be born again. It is much like telling fish to gut themselves before they can be caught.

Amen. So true... so true.

I've been saved for about 3 1/2 years and there was an occassion about a year and a half ago. I was being taught that if a Christian sins, even one idle or vain thought he will go to hell at that moment... If he dies or the rapture happens. Also, along with this I was being taught that you had to be perfect in every possible way, to remain being saved, or you will lose your salvation and go to hell. At the time, I actually believed you could lose your salvation. I was so afraid I would end up in hell. I was afraid God might change His mind and Hate me by casting me into hell forever. Not because I was living in sin. But, because I knew that some times I would not be as fervent in prayer as I ought to be or I wasn't as zealous in good works as I ought to be. I was being led astray back into "the fear of death." The fear of death should never be the motivation for doing good works. Rather we should be motivated by "the mercy and love of God" who saved us from our sins and the fear of death.

Ahhh... I praise the Lord for Romans, Galatians and 1 John. Those books smashed that devil of false doctrine that was tormenting me for weeks.

I praise the Lord for His sweet doctrines of Grace. I used to be a Weslyan (a confused Calvinist) in my theology. God bless John Wesley and his followers. Some time last spring God revealed to me the greatness and depths of His mercy through that little book Song of Solomon and since then I've held to the doctrines of Grace.

-Abraham

(edited for minor spell checks)

A repentant heart is a new heart. A new creature is one who repents and believes.

It is not that you are born again and then repent, but it happens at all once when man yeilds his freewill to the Spirit of God.

As soon as a man's heart repents and believes he is a born again, new creature. The one who repents is born again. And the one who is born again has repented. Regeneration/conversion is when a sinner repents and believes, when a sinner yeilds to the Spirit of Truth.

It is not that you are regenerated and then after that get saved. Or that you get born again and then after that repent. But the one who is regenerated is saved. The one who is born again has repented.

Regeneration/Conversion/New Birth/ are all discribing the same thing: when a sinner repents and believes from the heart as He is taught to do by the Holy Spirit. The one who repents and believes from the heart is regenerated/converted/born again.

From my own experience, I first repented and believed, and the man I was after that was therefore a new creature, I was born again.

The Spirit leading a sinner into repentance and faith is the birth procedure which results in a man being born again with a new heart. Regeneration/Conversion/New Birth all come about by the Spirit teaching man to repent and believe, and the man actually doing it.