Category: M. Basilea Schlink

Only those who are alive can bring life to others. The spiritually dead are unable to generate life, because there is no life in them. They cannot be a testimony to others by their deeds. They are simply dead. Whoever does not live in repentance belongs to the spiritually dead, who cannot bring anyone to life. But the penitent are full of life, divine life; and they can bring others to life. Whenever someone repents, he scarcely needs to say a word. He doesn’t need to preach at others. Rather, when he lies prostrate before God and man and confesses with a broken and contrite heart, “I have sinned; I am guilty,” his words have the power of life. They can open the hardest hearts and bring to life the spiritually dead.

Everyone hungers for a foretaste of heaven. The word “heaven” strikes a note in everyone’s heart, for all men are Adam’s children, driven out of paradise, but still cherishing a deep desire for the lost paradise.

Repentance is the gateway through which the Gospel can come to us. Repentance is the gateway to a joy-filled life with Christ, for it is the prerequisite for attaining forgiveness, and wherever forgiveness is received, there is salvation and joy.

Sinners with broken and contrite hearts have but one desire. Filled with thanksgiving, they want to love Him who loved them so much. They are so overwhelmed that He has borne their sins and carried them away. When we receive forgiveness, our hearts are so filled with joy that we cannot help but love Him with a lavish love. We cannot help but give our lives to Him who gave His life for us and set us free from the prison of sin. We cannot stop thanking Him, and so we do everything possible to bring Him joy and to bestow our gifts upon Him, serving Him with all our talents and strength. And this is what heaven is all about: centering upon Jesus and loving Him above all else.

This sin weighs heavily upon the Body of Christ and will call down the judgment of God. In Germany there is an even greater sin weighing upon us Christians and that is the crime our nation has committed against Israel, God’s chosen people.Six million Jews were killed; because of this the wrath of God is upon us. As Christians we are especially to blame. For when the terrible crime occurred and millions of Jews were tortured with inhuman cruelty and killed at the hands of German people, the Church in our country remained silent.The Christians did not stand up as the Danes did and protest the injustice. With the exception of a number of individuals the church members were not driven by the desire to help the Jews at all costs. Nor did they ring the church bells the night the synagogues were burnt down.The Church gave no reaction – an indication that she was dead. Because we were silent, we heaped guilt upon ourselves, and we were struck by the judgment that later descended upon our nation.Our churches were destroyed. Germans were killed by the thousands in bombings. Refugees thronged the streets, and the Iron Curtain divided our country.

By our everyday actions, by our unwillingness to admit our mistakes and sins, we Christians have declared God dead – perhaps without even realizing it. For is we no longer want to humble ourselves before God and man, acknowledging our sins, if we no longer want to repent, we do not need a living Savior.

The spirit of contrition and repentance has by and large become foreign to us. Repentance implies a turning to God. Instead of repenting, however, we demand that God adjust to our modern concepts.Because the spirit of contrition and repentance is missing, church services , evangelizations and other Christian meetings often lack power and cannot move the listeners to tears of contrition. How very much we, the members of the Body of Christ, have hardened our hearts!We no longer want to see sin for what it is. When God is dishonoured and blasphemed and His commandments are abandoned, we do not regard it as such. Nor do we see that when God Himself is declared dead in His Church and His commandments are no longer regarded as binding, these are the signs of the times that Jesus said we should watch for.

The increasing lawlessness and the fact that love has grown cold – signs that Jesus specifically named for the end times (Matthew 24:12) – are put aside by the Church as being of no great importance, although the unprecedented facts and examples are alarming. We need to call to mind certain trends in the past years.The soaring crime rate. The glorification of brutality and perverse forms of sex. The increase in drugs, which have already claimed millions of addicts. The alarming growth of involvement in occult activities, and in spiritism and even satanic cults.And all this is taking place in “Christian” nations, yes, mainly in these countries, and even in their churches. Who takes this as a challenge to pray, fast and repent?

We are apathetic and indifferent towards our sins, and we are usually not disturbed by them at all. We are more likely to weep over what is done to us, or over difficult leadings. We weep over our sorrows, troubles and disappointments. Each one of us does so, for this is our human nature.But not everyone comes to the point of true contrition and repentance and weeps over his sins. Such reactions are foreign to human nature. The human heart has a way of thinking that it is always in the right and has no need to weep over its sins. By nature, we are self-confident and impenitent. We blame others or even accuse God when we do not understand His ways.

The human heart has a way of thinking that it is always in the right and has no need to weep over its sins. By nature, we are self-confident and impenitent. We blame others or even accuse God when we do not understand His ways.

If we are discouraged because we lack repentance and excuse ourselves by saying that it does not lie in our power to obtain a contrite heart, because repentance can only be granted as a miracle of the Holy Spirit, it is a sign that our thinking has been clouded by the Enemy.

Only penitent sinners, who are granted forgiveness, are set on fire with love for Jesus. So I can testify how impoverished a life without daily repentance is. Heaven does not draw near. The radiance of joy is missing. There is no adoration or songs of praise. Love for Jesus is not burning in one’s heart. There is no power in one’s ministry, and it bears no fruit.