Fruitpickers

As we move into prayer for our city, the Lord has been revealing to me why repentance is so core to the Gospel message – and how we should pray accordingly.

In both Luke’s and Mark’s Gospel, Jesus speaks of the unforgiveable sin;

And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.

The context of this is important. Jesus is performing incredible miracles that clearly demonstrate the power of God and, amongst the elites of the day especially, God is being denied. The pharisees and lawyers are saying this is not of God, but worse, it is of the devil. In Jesus’ response, he references that good cannot co-exist with evil, and vice versa, or else the “house will fall.” But, they have become so infuriated that they are unable to see good even when it comes directly from God. Good has become evil, and evil has become good in their eyes.

Paul incidentally, picks this theme up in Romans 1, where again he says much the same as Jesus and it is this; there is a line in the sand that God draws, and one he warns us not to cross. If we continually practice evil, we can no longer see the difference between good and evil. If we cannot see when we are sinning or not, God does not block us out – we block ourselves from being able to repent.

Our society, Australia (and other Western countries) in particular is living in such times. The concept of evil is missing in our time. The last time this happened was 100 years ago, and it led to horrendous conflict and breakdown around the world. It would seem then, that we urgently need God’s intervention now, before we get to this point again. We need the Holy Spirit to break through into people’s conscience, so they can understand good and evil.

In doing so, ultimately we are praying for repentance. A turning away in our society from evil, towards a God who is good, who accepts us and who alone makes us righteous, through Jesus alone.