Richard Owen Roberts - Repentance: The First Word of the Gospel

Richard Owen Roberts

FOREWORD BY HENRY T. BLACKABY

Have you ever heard the voice of the "weeping prophet"? If not, you will as you read this book! These two words, "weeping" and "prophet," appear contradictory at first glance. However, they are merely a paradox of terms both compatible and correct. Every true prophet of God shares with Him the pain of a broken heart for the people of God. First, he cries toward God, and with God, in the knowledge of what could have been. Then, he laments with Him over the peoples' terrible blindness and hardness of heart, with its accompanying tragic loss amidst the immeasurable blessings that are assured by God Himself.

Given the nature of sin, God, in His justice, could simply judge His people completely and immediately. But He, in love, desires to extend His mercy, forgiveness, and restoration to all of His people in the hope that they will repent and return to Him. In fact, the first word from the heart of God, revealed from Genesis through Revelation, is His urgent and loving call: "Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand!" Repentance from the beginning of time to the present hour has been, and remains, the most positive word from the heart of God!

To know God is to love, trust, and obey Him in an immediate and spontaneous way. But the very sinfulness of sin and its effect on every person necessitates a maximum word of God. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are working all the time to call and to draw people back from their sin to a full relationship with Himself. This word "repentance," expressed by Richard Owen Roberts in his book, Repentance, is a most timely and greatly needed message for God's people today. Roberts's message is both intensive and comprehensive, and is presented in a completely compelling and urgent way! This word from the heart of God must once again become the first word from God to this generation. It must be clearly and persuasively taught and preached and urged among God's people, and then, to an eternally destined lost world.

Roberts does not claim to be a "theologian," but he is a true prophet to our generation. To me, a theologian is one who receives a "word Ilogosj from God Itheosl." Too often self-proclaimed theologians, even those recognized by their peers as such, do not have an urgent or relevant word from God to their generation. Too often they speak from "tradition" or perhaps what is of interest to themselves. To me, true theologians are those who have been in the awesome presence of God and who have a clear word from the immediate heart of God to their generation. Richard Owen Roberts is, in my judgment, such a spokesman for God. He has a word from God on repentance that is both thorough and thoroughly relevant to our generation!

This word of repentance has, likewise, served as the heart cry for my own ministry for over forty-five years. Since I was a teenager, Godsent revival has been on the "front burner" of my life-message, and the clarion call of revival is, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!" With this work Richard Owen Roberts has sent an urgent call to my own heart and ministry that I find to be very timely. I think you will too! I pray-earnestly pray-this word from God, Repentance, will have an immediate and whole circulation, especially among serious pastors and key leaders of God's people. The hour is late! The signs are ominous and threatening! There is a divine urgency in the air! Repentance by God's people is our only hope for any future for this generation.

I believe three things characterize this urgency today:

1. The incredible sin in God's people, with little sign that they understand the seriousness of sin. With this is a terrible loss of the fear of God, and this has historically always been fatal.

2. An emerging, and possibly fatal, ignorance of Scripture and a consequent turning to the hooks written by man-God's people, therefore, are turning to the reasoning of man rather than to the clear revelation of God.

3. The much needed spiritual leadership, to an astounding degree, is missing. We seem to have spiritual "politicians" in the place of spiritual "statesmen." We desperately need men of integrity and spiritual power before God and men. When leaders depart from an intimacy with God, the people soon follow this departure. Their ears become dull of hearing from God and their hearts become hard and heavy, so they will not hear, "lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should he converted, and [Gods should heal them" (Matthew 13:15, KJV, quoted by Jesus from Isaiah 6:10).

My prayer continues to he, 0 Lord, may there increase in great number those in our day who are like Jesus' disciples to whom He said, "Blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear.... therefore Ihearl ... the word of the kingdom" (Matthew 13:16, 18-19, K,IV).

The thoroughness of this book is not only refreshing but incredibly convicting. Both are greatly needed today! Too much preaching and teaching today seems to avoid and even hide the truth of God as revealed here, lest I offend someone. Sadly, everyone seems to demand that the Word of God be "user-friendly." However, truth clearly stated from God's heart is always "user-friendly"-as God would define it! In our day we are told rather forcefully that no one is to relate to others in a way that might offend them. Everyone, they exclaim, must he free to do what is right in their own eyes. So it is that we are fast approaching a dangerous spiritual anarchy that will ultimately become our spiritual demise!

Our spiritual survival, therefore, depends on sound teaching and preaching that is clearly recognized as from the heart of God. Such preaching will be honored by the Holy Spirit and made effective in the hearts and lives of God's people. Genuine repentance and a return to God on God's terms has an opportunity to be personally and corporately transforming. This will create a "highway" of holiness (Isaiah 35:8) over which God goes to His people, and through them, to a lost world. And once again, God's people can "come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away" (Isaiah 35:10, KJV).

Our prayer today echoes the same heart cry as that of God's servant, David:

Have mercy on us, 0 Lord, according to the multitudes of Your tender mercies, blot out our transgressions. Wash us thoroughly from our iniquity, and cleanse us from our sin. Against You and You only have we sinned and done evil in Your sight. You desire Truth in the inward parts. You make us to know wisdom. Purge us! Wash us! Make us to hear joy and gladness once again! Hide Your face from our sins, and blot out our iniquities. Create in us clean hearts, 0 God, and remain a steadfast spirit within us. Do not cast us away from Your presence and do not take Your Holy Spirit from us. Restore to us the joy of Your salvation and uphold us by Your generous Spirit. Then we will teach transgressors Your ways, and sinners shall be converted to You. 0 Lord, Your sacrifices are a broken spirit and a contrite heart. These, 0 God, You will not despise. Do good, in Your good pleasure, to Your people, and build them up once again into a "royal priesthood and a holy nation." Make us once again Your own special people! (See Psalm 51; 1 Peter 2:9-10.)