Okay! REPENT means to “turn 180°,” to return to the beginning, to go back to your foundation.

Jacob was a Jew, so his foundation was Abraham. When he repents, it’s not to the Law but to the Abrahamic covenant. Through this repentance, he discovers Christ and becomes a believer, because Abraham was made righteous by faith.

Brother Bode and Sister Kay, who were both born into Muslim homes, would have to return to Islam if they were told to repent to their beginning. Someone who worships idols would have to return to idol worship if told to repent to their beginning since they had no covenant with God from the start.

For such people, repentance means confessing, believing, and accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior to be saved. Romans 10:9-10 says, “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

No matter how much you pray, just saying “Save me!” won’t save you. You can’t simply repent of your sins and be saved—salvation is not repentance alone. A sinner cannot repent. Jesus told the Jews to repent because they already had a covenant with Jehovah. Gentiles, pagans, and heathens did not have a covenant with Jehovah, so how could they repent? Repent of what? Where would they turn back to?

They were estranged from the covenant of promise, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, having no hope and without God in the world (Ephesians 2:12). They cannot repent.

Repentance is not part of the gospel for sinners. A sinner—one who is not born again—has not heard the gospel. A transgressor is one who has heard the gospel and rejected it.

To repent means to turn away from wrongdoing to do right. A sinner cannot do this because if they could, they would never have needed redemption. You can’t just tell someone to change. Jesus didn’t have to die on the cross if repentance was enough.

Jesus said that repentance and remission of sins must be preached in His name to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem (Luke 24:47). Peter preached repentance to the children of Israel because they were God’s covenant people who had gone astray. He was telling them to turn back to Jehovah.

A sinner who is not born again cannot repent because, in God’s eyes, they are dead. What a sinner needs is new life; they need to be recreated in Christ Jesus. They must be born again, becoming a new person.

So when people say, “We are calling Nigeria to repentance,” it’s a mistake because Nigeria as a nation has never had a covenant with Jehovah.

Here is how God describes a sinner in Ephesians 2:1-3: dead in trespasses and sins, walking according to the course of this world, following the devil, fulfilling the desires of the flesh, and being by nature children of wrath.

Those not born again are still dead spiritually. Ephesians 2:12 says they are without Christ, alienated from the covenant of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

Do you know what it means to be without God? They may use His name, but God calls them strangers from the covenant, aliens.

Hell is not the final destination for sinners (the unregenerate). Hell is a place of suffering, but eventually, it will be cast into the Lake of Fire, which is worse.

Ephesians 2:13 says that through Christ’s blood, those who were far off are now brought near. We are no longer far away or hopeless; we are now family with God.

So, is this knowledge worth more than the money spent? I don’t know, but I would have paid much more to make sure you understand it.

I love you all, family.