They Refused to Repent

 

The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk, nor did they repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts. (Revelation 9:20-21 ESV).

 

God’s great story has a single purpose: to grow faith in the truth that he teaches so that people can have full life with him. It is not enough that we listen to the story or that we even know the story well. We need God to change and shape us through His grace and the redemptive work of Christ. The Bible calls this change repentance. The need for us to repent is so essential that we hear it again in our reading for today. Tragically, the end of this story is the refusal of the people to repent. They loved the status quo more than they did the hope of a change. It is not an unusual story of human nature; however, it is particularly tragic in the fact that it is a last chance for many.

 

Perhaps the most encouraging truth for us today is found in how it helps us to consider how hard it is to repent and how costly it is to refuse the call to repentance. As difficult as it is to listen to the events unfold after each of the trumpet calls in the Revelation story, there is this sad and puzzling recognition that “the rest of mankind … still did not repent.”

 

We cannot escape the truth that sin is addictive and deceiving. We desperately want to hold on to our “idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood.” Today these are all kinds of things that distract us from paying attention to God and that we think will make us great or give us happiness. We hold on to these lifeless things rather than letting go to receive life from God. They may be relatively benign at first, though they always end in our destruction.

 

What will you do as Jesus calls for repentance? He invites each of us to respond in faith to his promise when he says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). Are you ready for such a change in your life?