"Why Is It Hard to Repent?" RESCUE RADIO with Marjorie Cole

0:00 I have an emergency. What is your location? Rescue Radio. 'Cause there's a war for your soul. Yes, Father God, we thank you, Lord, for the deliverance, the healing, the revelation, the restoration, and your return. We thank you, Jesus, that your kingdom come, your will be done in and through us indeed, even as it's being done and declared in heaven, that you've chosen to use us as your method, your instruments of righteousness to bring the kingdom back to the earth. And Lord God, bring righteousness and truth. So God, give us wisdom, give us eyes to see, ears to hear, all of us today that are listening, hearts to walk in the fullness of the power to which you have appointed and anointed us.

1:03 I thank you, Jesus, for being so willing to lay down your life and do the hard thing, give your blood, your sacrifice for our blood, for exchanging your life for ours in that wonderful act of love and sacrifice on the cross. And we thank you, Lord, that if there's anyone listening today that doesn't have and accepted that free gift of salvation and are still trying to buy your way into heaven, Give your heart to Jesus right now and settle it and go forward with life eternal instead of just temporary life. And Father, I thank you also that you've given us power over all the power of the enemy, that nothing shall by any means hurt us. We bind the powers of darkness today, those that would interfere with this beautiful day that you've given us to accomplish your work. We declare your kingdom come in the lives of others and that the protections of the Holy Spirit be upon all of your people, Father God.

1:58 Give us your wisdom. Now you said, if any man likes wisdom, let him ask of God. We need wisdom for everything, Lord. We can't figure anything out without you. And we pray now that you'd cover us and keep us in the promise of your blood covenant over us, that no weapon formed against us will prosper. No word said, deed done, or action taken against us will be used by the enemy, will be able to be used by the enemy, that he cannot move forward with his agenda, his plans against us or our families. Or those who work for us, pray for us, love us, or come to us for help, that they will all be filled with your revelation, your truth, and your wisdom, your repentance and your goodness. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Well, so, you know, one of the things that's always been a question in my mind is when you work with people, is it— why is it so hard for them to repent? Why was it so hard for us to repent? I think it's a process, obviously, of coming into the place of revelation and, oh, you know, I can't do this on my own. Oh, there's something missing.

2:57 Oh, you know, my great and grand and wonderful and young life is getting older. So what's going to be the end of all of this? And so at some point people begin to maybe ask those questions, but why is it so hard for us to admit even in the present moment that we're wrong? Say for example, Jerry, when some people are confronted with their their sin or with the scripture. Um, they, they hold to their own kind of— they stiffen, they stubborn stiffen their neck. They kind of dig in their heels and they don't want to, um, give into the fact that we could actually have been being lied to all these days or years, not only by our churches, but by our government, by everything.

3:40 We could have been lied to. This whole thing, this whole thing that we've been believing is the truth, could have been truly a setup, and we've been— but why is it so hard to surrender to the truth? Well, God, he's frustrated with that situation. I don't know if he gets frustrated, but he does get angry about things. I think so. In the Old Testament, we see that constantly over and over and over and over again. The truth was brought and people didn't want to accept the truth. And God said in Jeremiah 3:13, only acknowledge your iniquity. That you have transgressed against the Lord your God and have scattered your charms to alien deities under every green tree, and that you have not obeyed my voice, says the Lord.

4:27 And it's— what does that mean? Every green tree, scattered your charms. What, what is God referring to there? Idolatry. They had idols, you know. They were not worshiping the Lord their God. They were submitting to pagan idols. Now, we have our idols here. We don't necessarily bow down to statues, but we have images of people, people that we worship, things that we worship, fear that we worship. Yeah, fear, big one. Uh, you know, rebellion, all that. And it's interesting here too, I want to just read this from Hosea, uh, the book of Hosea. Chapter 5, verse 15, God says, I will return again to my place till they acknowledge their offense. Then they will seek my face. In their affliction, they will earnestly seek me. So the affliction is what brings us back into that place of earnest, sincere seeking of God. You know, in Deuteronomy 28:32, he— Moses is giving his final discourse, his final farewell to the people because after that he speaks 32. He goes, he's been told to go up onto the mountain and die. Interesting. Well, you just go up there and lay down and die. That's what God said. But anyway, in Jeshurun, in 32:15, it says, but Jeshurun, that's referring to the children of Israel. Israel, yes. Grew fat and kicked. They grew fat. They grew thick.

5:56 Grew thick. You have covered— you are covered with fat. Then he forsook God who made him and scornfully esteemed the rock of his salvation. They provoked him, God, to jealousy with foreign gods. With abominations they provoked him to anger. They sacrificed to demons, not to God, to gods they did not know, new gods, new arrivals that your fathers did not know. In other words, they're forsaking the God, the traditions, the commandments God had given them. And so they have all forgotten the God who fathered you. So this is kind of a position where I think all human beings and every individual kind of comes to. You either don't know about God in the beginning, or you find him and then forsake him. This seems to be kind of the pattern. So he was— these children who were perverse. They were a perverse generation, children in whom is no faith. They have provoked me to jealousy by what is not God. They have moved me to anger by their foolish idols.

7:04 Yeah, and God again, and Hosea chapter 5, verse 15, God says, okay, really, I'm not gonna do much. I'm gonna return to my place. I'm just gonna, I can't really do much for you until you acknowledge your offense. Yeah, until you recognize it, exactly. And that's really true. Until, you know, adversity brings us to that place a lot of times of recognizing. And sometimes, you know, we just have to stew in our own juice, so to speak, for a while until we realize, man, this is not working. It's like the prodigal son, you know. He came to the place of acknowledging his sin. He said he was so— yeah, he was empty, he uncomfortable, he was pain— in pain, he was abandoned, he was lost, starving.

7:50 And he came to the place, he— it says he came to himself, which means like, oh my, what am I doing here in the pigpen? I'm, I'm eating stuff that the pigs won't even eat just to survive. So many people are just— all they're trying to do is survive. It seems like the world is just kind of in an ebb and flow of evil, prosperity, repentance. Idolatry kind of go— it's like a cycle, you know. When you, when you mentioned about Jeshurun growing, becoming fat and kicked, rebellion came in, their blessings turned to curses. They were so blessed they thought, oh man, you know, we're okay, we can do what we want to do, and, and it's not gonna, you know, affect us. Now it's not really gonna— well, it's like, it's where we kind of sometimes feel like we've arrived, we're comfortable, we're satisfied in our own strength, we're confident. In our own achievements.

8:46 We have found the good life of our hand and do not realize that we're poor, wretched, blind, and naked. We've become deceived by our own achievements and blessings. Isn't that crazy that we can actually be deceived by our own, by the blessings that God has given us rather than giving God the glory and being thankful? You know, Romans chapter 1, it talks about the downfall of mankind was that they knew God, but they were not thankful. You know what? This piece on thankfulness is really important because I think it's an antidote to becoming lethargic and fat and lazy. Because, you know, when you, when you don't thank God, you're not acknowledging the source of your blessings. Then it's, you're tempted to become tricked into believing it's mine. I did, I deserved it. I earned it. It's mine. You know? And so we hold, We don't, we are not thankful. So I'm going to tell you something. Here's a key to your long life. Here's a key to a good day.

9:45 Here's the key to a better relationship with your wife or husband or your child is to be thankful out loud in acknowledging, not in a sarcastic way, but in a way of, God, you've got this. God, I am thankful. God, thank you. Because when you're doing that, you're reconnecting. Like you said in Romans 1, they were not thankful. But they, they, they lost their connection with God and they became vain in their imaginations and they were in their foolish hearts were darkened. So thankfulness is a way to stay connected, but there's also other things that go on, I believe, in our lives that we don't realize something there that, that it's making it hard for us to admit or repent or confess or admit we're wrong or apologize, um, or, or lay down our weapons, so to speak. There's something, inside that actually people don't realize they're being set up. They're being imitated. There's a set of spirits inside that impersonate us and they match us. They make us think that what we're thinking is our own thoughts, but they're actually tempting us to agree with what they have put in our mind. For example, I am sad. I am depressed. I'm never going to make it.

10:57 I'm left out. No one loves me. All of these thoughts that go into your mind, aren't coming from the Holy Spirit. They're not coming from the Word of God. They're coming from a set of spirits that are designed to take you out. These are the deceivers. Um, for we do not— the Bible says we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities. These entities that do not want you to discover who you really are, they set up their activities within our minds, within our hearts to block the work of the Holy Spirit, to block our consciences, to try to persuade us to stay stiffened and stubborn and self-indulgent or self-supplying our own things. They don't want us to soften or repent or turn and be saved. Jeremiah 8:5, the question is asked, Why has this people slidden back?

11:57 Jerusalem, that may be the people of God, the city of God, a perpetual— in a perpetual backsliding. They keep going the wrong direction. They keep going backwards. Why is it? And the answer is there, given in that verse. They hold fast to deceit. Deceit. Yeah, they refuse to return. They refuse to admit that they're wrong. They refuse to admit they're going the wrong way or that they've been deceived. In verse 6, it says, no man repented of his wickedness saying, what have I done? Everyone has turned to his own course as the horse rushes into the battle. Right. And, and you know, the thing is we don't realize we're running into a battle.

12:39 We don't realize that we've taken the bit into our own teeth and that we're doing our own thing and driving our own lives. And ultimately driving your own life by another force other than God is going to end up in a crash somewhere, some type of thing. But that's the mercy of God. Because if God would let you just go headlong into your destruction with no barriers, no resistance to that, no way to turn around, then we would be completely lost. So the deceitfulness of sin hardens us. It actually makes us bullheaded. It makes us stubborn. It makes us unwilling to hear what God is saying. 3:13 warns us that any one of us would be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. The deceitfulness of sin hardens our hearts. And it's interesting, uh, in Jeremiah again, chapter 9, verse 6— well, verses 5 and 6— everyone will deceive his neighbor and will not speak the truth. They have taught their tongue to speak lies.

13:45 They weary themselves to commit iniquity. And verse 6, your dwelling place is in the midst of deceit. Right. Through deceit they refuse to know me, says the Lord. God in Deuteronomy is very graphic about this. In 32:33, he says, their wine is the poison of serpents and the cruel venom of cobras. What we're drinking is the, the poison of the lies of the serpents who have turned— the serpent who has turned against God and is trying to turn us against God. It's like we have to— we've been poisoned. We've been tranquilized. We have been in this trance. We need to wake up from this enchantment, this trance. So until— unless we get fully taken over, given over to the thoughts and the plans of evil, You know, we are by nature children and naive. We are by nature dull and deceived and uninterested in the pursuit of anything other than our own selves. This is where self becomes God, where your plan, your empire, your goal, or your drug, or your fear, or your whatever becomes the motivating force in your life. And I think for some people, It's hard to admit you're wrong because here's, I always say this, if you admit you're wrong, then you're not right. And if you're not right, then you're wrong. And we don't want to be wrong. So we want to push our agenda, our interpretation

15:19 of what is going on out there, that we have got it. We've got it all figured out. We know that we're the foundation of truth in our own selves. And we refuse to take the correction. We refuse to take the instruction. Of the Word of God, or even as the Word of God is sent to us through the prophets, through the Holy Spirit, through other faithful servants of the Lord. And so many of us think, nobody's gonna tell me what to do. Nobody's gonna, not even God. I'm just gonna do my own deal. And it's basically, it's what we just read here. It's about deception. There's a deception. We think that we've got it together. You know, we think we're our own people. We're— we have— we're our own. We have our own lips, our own tongue. We're going to say what we're going to say. We're going to do what we're going to do.

16:09 And, and we're not going to turn away from that. And, and it's, it's a, it's a stubbornness. It's a rebellion that we just keep pushing, pushing, pushing in the wrong way. We've been lied to so much by the enemy. And we get so bullheaded in pushing forward with our ways. Yeah. But the thing is, you know, and sometimes when we're pushing like that, um, it is really, we're pushing against God's remedy for our, for our liberation. You know, people are struggling in, um, you know, their calamities and their troubles and their conundrums and their difficulties, their health issues, their child situations, their, their every, you know, everything seems to be difficult and hard.

16:55 And, and, The more it gets, the worse it gets, the more we seem to tighten our grip on the lie instead of saying, what can I, what is going on here? Why is this happening? What is the Lord trying to get to me and say to me? And can, where is humility? Where is the gift of revelation and repentance that causes us to have that aha moment? Oh, wait a minute here. Sometimes it's a gradual revelation. Like the sun rising up in the morning. And sometimes it's like a sudden burst. But the thing is, you know, if your life is not going well, if everything seems to be so hard, too hard, and you're running out of your own strength to make it work or to figure it out or to fix it, the best thing you can do, the wisest thing you can do is actually stop trying to fix your life and surrender it and say, Lord, what do I need to know here? Something is not working.

17:51 You know, it's like an old car that you keep trying to drive. And every time you try to start it, it just doesn't work or kills on the way to wherever. And you just, you just don't say, well, what's wrong here? You just kind of keep driving that old car. Let's ask the Lord, what is going on in my life? Why is my life so hard? Why is it that everybody else seems to be doing well and I get beat up all the time with all these bad things, this bad luck, this misfortune, this injustice, whatever. That's not God's plan for your life, that you should be so struck down. God's plan is to bless you with abundance. But many of us, the bullhead, he has to allow the calamity and the trouble. And that's what the whole history of mankind has been, is it's an ebb and flow. They love God, they serve God, they follow God, and then boom, they're going, then they're good on their top of the mountain.

18:40 And so then they begin to take matters into their own hands. And then we sink down back into that idolatry. And Satan is just there to, to manipulate all of these seasons and cause us to drift away from God so that he can take over. So, you know, the best thing you can do for yourself is stop and say, ask a question. What's going on here? Why is my life like this? Why is it so difficult? Or why is it that I have no joy? I've got all these things. I'm fat and well-supplied, and yet I have no joy. I have no motivation. Nothing is enough. I always got to go get something else to be happy for a moment. These two, opposites are the same thing.

19:23 You don't have the thankfulness. You don't have the gratitude. You don't have the wisdom. You don't have the revelation of God. So it can be, you know, we just don't want to hear the word. And then the other thing is I'm afraid if I listen to someone, I'm going to be deceived. They're going to lie to me. They're going to trick me. They're going to pull me into their religion. They're going to pull me into their position. And I don't want anybody else's position. I want my own. But the thing is that the, irony is most of us are not even, don't even know who we are to begin with. And so we're not even listening to ourselves when we think we are actually listening to those impersonators of us, as Paul said, the ones, something inside of me that's causing me to do what I don't want to do. And yet he's believing, deceiving you into believing that's what you want to do.

20:03 Do you want to drink yourself to death? Do you want to die of overdose? Do you want to, do you want to, um, you know, have your children leave and never talk to you again? Do you want these things? No. But, but we have to say, okay, wait a minute, then something is not working here because with God, when we're going God's way, there is blessing. Thing. The blessings come through thanksgiving. They come through health. They come through opportunities. They come through knowing that you are loved. And I want to just read out of the book of Proverbs for a minute. This is kind of interesting too. Wisdom, chapter 9, talking about wisdom has built her house and then goes down to verse 9. And she says, come— and verse 4, whoever is simple, Let him turn in here. So she's offering this banquet. As for him who lacks understanding, she says to him, come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine which I have prepared or mixed. Forsake foolishness and live and go in the way of understanding.

21:03 Then we have an interesting set of verses next. In verse 7, he who reproves a scoffer gets shame for himself. He who rebukes a wicked man gets himself a blemish. Okay. What's she saying there? You know, he who reproves, you who correct a scoffer, someone who thinks they know it all, someone who thinks they've got it all together. Um, that person that you're reproving or correcting is going to find fault with you, cast it back on you, accuse you of something, get shame. So he's going to put shame back on you because he doesn't want to hear what you're saying. And he who rebukes a wicked man gets a blemish himself. So rebuking a wicked man, they're going to retaliate.

21:46 You deal with a witch and they're going to retaliate. You deal with people who don't want to hear the truth and they're going to find something wrong with you. So most of us then, we don't even say anything. We don't, we just, and it's okay sometimes not to say something, but when the Holy Spirit says to do it, then do it. Say it. He says, forsake foolishness and live, and go in the way of understanding. Next verse. Do not reprove a scoffer lest he hate you. Rebuke a wise man and he will, he will love you. So he's saying do and don't. He's saying, if you reprove a scoffer, he's going to find something wrong with you. If you rebuke a wicked man, he's going to point out your fault. And then it says in verse 8, do not reprove a scoffer lest he hate you. So in other words, There's a time to say nothing. There's a time to say something. So when you have this place, this situation, the scoffer is not ready to hear, then be wise and don't say anything. But if you rebuke a wise man or correct a wise man or instruct a wise man, he will love you. He will say, thank you.

22:52 So if you're teaching a wise man, he will appreciate what you're instructing him. To do. Give instruction to a wise man, he will be wiser still. Teach a just man and he will increase in learning. So wisdom and justice allow you to receive good instruction. So if you're seeking wisdom, the Bible says ask and you shall receive. Seek wisdom, then you're going to increase in learning. Then verse 10, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The fear of the Lord, not, not fear of man. Not trying to please man. Um, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. For by me, wisdom, your days will be multiplied and the years of your life will be added to you. If you are wise, you are wise for yourself. If you scoff, you alone will bear it. So if you don't receive correction, instruction, and wisdom, then you're going to bear the fruit of that scoffing and of that rebellion and that rejection. Yeah, exactly. And so there is a time— there's some of the other Proverbs that talk about you know, rebuke a scoffer lest he be wise in his own conceits.

23:59 So, so there's two sides of a coin. There's time, there's time to rebuke a scoffer and there's times not to. Right. So we, we have to know what time it is, what time it is. But there's, there's something that just— there's something in the heart of man that just wants to rebel and resist the truth. And that is not you, because you're not built to resist the truth. You're built by God to love the truth. So if that resistance is in you and that, you know, you know, I understand many of us have been betrayed, tricked, lied to, and there is a, there's a sense of caution, but you also have the Holy Spirit inside of you who wants to lead you into all truth. So connect with him, consult the Holy Spirit inside of you and your conscience and the Holy Spirit and the word of God will always, you know, bear witness with the truth. Um, unless of course your conscience has been seared and that's a possibility, but the Holy Spirit is never hardened.

24:56 He's never seared and the word of God does not change. So in all these things, we need to understand that God has a path for us and the path is wisdom and the path is truth and the path is freedom and the path is blessing. And trust the Holy Spirit. Don't resist the Holy Spirit. Lean not unto your own understandings. Stephen, before he was martyred in the book of Acts, We see that he said, you always— he was rebuking these hard religious people. He said, you always resist the Holy Spirit. Don't resist the Holy Spirit. Resist the spirit of darkness. Recognize the enemy that's just lying to you and dragging you through the weeds.

25:39 And acknowledge the Lord and acknowledge the Spirit of God. And the thing is too, is this whole deal about acknowledging, you know, what does it mean to acknowledge our sin? You know, David acknowledged his sin of adultery. Psalm 51, that's a good one to read. He said he humbled himself. He says, I have trespassed. He just fully admitted, didn't try to cover it up. He tried to cover it up at first, and then finally he came to a place of saying, you know what, I have sinned. Forgive me, cleanse me, and everything. So what— Can I say something about David? So because of that moment of repentance, the kingdom was kept. He kept the kingdom. He didn't lose the kingdom.

26:25 Saul, his predecessor, when he was confronted with his sin, didn't repent and he lost the kingdom. So David, in that moment of vulnerability and penitent heart, Uh, confession actually saved the kingdom and saved God's plan. He said, um, he says in verse 3, he says, for I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is always before you. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done this evil in your sight, that you may be found just when you speak and blameless when you judge. And he goes on, he said, you desire truth in the inward parts. And in the hidden parts you make me to know wisdom. New wisdom.

27:12 And basically what the acknowledgment is, is simply knowing and recognizing that, hey, I've missed it here, or I've been lied to. I've been lied to. And admit it. Yeah. And you don't have to, you know, you don't have to confess, right? And confess it. In other words, you come into an agreement. Yes, that's wrong. I agree that I messed up here. And then to turn from it and turn to God. So just sometimes people confess their sins all the time. They confess, confess, confess, but they don't repent or turn around. Yeah, so it's turning from that, confessing, admitting, confessing, turning from that. And you know what, it's like this too. When you repent, you know, you're actually betraying the betrayer. So Satan lied to you, said you could do it yourself, You got your own, you know, don't, don't trust in God, be your own man, whatever. So when you repent, you're actually moving from a position of defending the lie and the liar to rebuking him. So Father God, we thank you for the courage, the courage to stand and having done all to stand, to cry out for wisdom so that we will not be ashamed on that day of reckoning, that we will be mighty warriors and faithful. You said that you are faithful, but we are also called to be faithful to you. So Father, this is our opportunity. This is our wonderful life to give it back to you, to see what you can make of it when we've messed it all up. So Father, I thank you for giving us courage to repent and to be wise and to walk in the fullness of your

28:45 freedom. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Well, you've got a lot of tools, a lot of weapons that can help. And what about the original? Let's go back to the original book that you wrote, Taking the Devil to Court. Tell us about that. Oh yeah, that's many years ago. It's still true. Every bit of it's still true. I went to revise it, revise it, and there was nothing to revise. All I had to do is add some more stuff that I'd learned on the way. But Taking the Devil to Court came out of my, my first counseling Um, uh, experiences working with people who are very addicted, demonized, full of witchcraft. And so deliverance, inner healing. And so God was teaching me through those counseling sessions what was really going on in the people's lives.

29:36 And it was tremendous revelations for me and I think very helpful for the people. So Taking the Devil to Court is like, I call it a primer, you know, there's the primer and then you start with your reading books. It's the beginning. It's the, it's the foundation for what all comes after it. So Taking the Devil to Court, you can find it on liferecovery.com or on Amazon. Amazon. Okay. So thank you guys for joining us today. Be blessed. And we pray that you would have victory over the darkness in your life this day and in the days to come in Jesus' name. Yes. Amen. Be encouraged in the Lord our God. Yes. I have an emergency. What is your location?

30:23 Rescue Radio, 'cause there's a war for your soul.