Repentance is a word that you don’t hear a lot of these days. One preacher referred to repentance as “the vanishing essential”. The word might be vanishing from our vocabulary, but it is still a major, essential theme in the Bible.

The prophets of the Old Testament often called upon the people to repent. When John the baptizer came along to prepare the way for Jesus his preaching was heavy on repentance. In Matthew’s gospel, the very first word Jesus uttered after he began to preach was, you guessed it, “Repent” (Matt.4:17).

The ministry of Jesus had many occasions when he called for people to change their ways and repent of their sins. He told the rich young ruler that he must abandon his greed and replace it with generosity. He implored the woman caught in adultery to go and leave her life of sin. When his disciples lobbied for high positions in Jesus’ kingdom he exhorted them to give up their pride and humble themselves like little children.

In the early part of Luke 13, Jesus drives home the necessity of repentance. Twice he says in verses 3-5, “unless you repent, you too will all perish”. The following verses say, “Then he told this parable: ‘A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’

‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’” (vv.6-9).

The plain teaching in this and many other Scriptures makes it plain that repentance is not some quaint, outdated notion. Far from it! Repentance is an essential doctrinal truth that is consistently found throughout the Bible. Repentance is a godly sorrow that leads to a change of heart and a change of direction, and Jesus expects to see the fruit of repentance in the lives of his followers.

Why then do so many churches fail to give repentance the proper emphasis, if they choose to mention it at all? Part of the answer is that many Christians and churches have fallen into the trap of desiring to please people rather than please God. They would rather scratch the itching ears of their attenders than make disciples by proclaiming the truth. And the truth is, repentance is necessary.