Read the transcript below.
Keywords
spirituality, repentance, faith, end times, Jesus, transformation, Babylon, spiritual warfare, awakening, Christian teachings
Summary
In this conversation, Alan Wartes introduces the concept of radical repentance as a transformative journey for believers in the context of the end times. He emphasizes the urgency of awakening from spiritual complacency and the need to actively disengage from the influences of the world, referred to as Babylon. Wartes invites listeners to join him in seeking deeper understanding and answers to these pressing spiritual questions.
Takeaways
Radical repentance demands a complete transformation of life.
Confession is the first step, but repentance leads to transformation.
Many believers are spiritually asleep and need to awaken.
The church often teaches a diluted version of repentance.
We must actively come out of the world’s ways to be ready for Jesus’ return.
The battle against spiritual complacency is crucial in these times.
Babylon symbolizes the kingdom of Satan and its influence.
Jesus calls us to be either hot or cold, not lukewarm.
Our faith is a battlefield against the enemy’s influence.
Seeking God together is essential for understanding our spiritual journey.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Spiritual Dispatches
02:37 Understanding Radical Repentance
05:50 The Call to Wakefulness
08:18 The Battle Against Babylon
11:01 Seeking Answers Together
Transcript
Welcome to Dispatches from the Spiritual Front. After weeks of preparation, I’m finally ready to go for launch! I’m excited to write and speak out about the breathtaking — Scandalous! — grace, peace and love God has offered us in Jesus. Truly, it’s the best news anyone can utter.
But there is more to the call to believe and follow Jesus than receiving the Father’s infinite love. There is also the part we are called on to play as the story reaches its long-awaited climax in these end times.
In these dialogues, I’ll refer to that as “radical repentance.” I’ll say that again: radical repentance.
It’s radical because it leaves nothing untouched in our lives. It goes beyond how we behave and demands we surrender to a whole new way of thinking and being. That we submit to death and rebirth as something entirely new.
The word repentance means to “turn around” and “go the other way.” The church today mostly teaches a watered-down version of that. We’ve been taught that repentance is when you sin, as we all do, and then you tell God how bad you feel about it and ask for forgiveness.
The problem with that is that it’s a pattern that can repeated endlessly for a whole lifetime — and for many it does exactly that. I read recently where a writer described that as like sitting in a rocking chair — lots of motion, but no movement.
Also, that version confuses confession with repentance. Confession is step one. Repentance is what comes next. It’s meant to lead to the kind of, well, radical transformation that is spoken of on nearly every page of the Bible.
To truly turn around and walk in exactly the opposite direction from the way the world has trained us to go — not just once in a while, or in certain parts of your life, but as a way of life — is what it means to “take up your cross” and follow.
I’ll tell you right up front, I’m not a theologian. I’m a writer and musician. I don’t have any degrees that might matter in this work. Until recently I was the owner and publisher of a small town newspaper in Colorado. Trust me when I say that profession is very much on the front line. Maybe I’ll share more about that as we go.
Technically, I’m retired from that, but here I am, prepared to devote my time and energy to this conversation with you about the end times we live in and how believers must respond to that with radical repentance. Now. Urgently, and with all our hearts.
Here’s the crux of why I’m here: I love Jesus. A friend of mine recently described my spiritual journey as lots of “zigs and zags.” He was right. I’ve looked for truth in a lot of far flung places. But that search has finally brought me back to where I began — to faith in Jesus as my Lord and savior.
Furthermore, I know — as so many of you do — that He is coming back, as promised, and soon. I believe it matters very much whether we are awake and ready.
The truth is, many who claim to follow Jesus have fallen asleep at the gate, tired of waiting. The evidence for that is plain to see in the world. We’ve made convenient bargains with our enemies, with God’s enemies. That’s true of whole congregations and denominations, not just individuals.
That way of living is all we’ve ever known. We’ve made a comfy home in the world instead of seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness — and it shows!
Righteousness. We’ve become confused about what that word even means.
Neither hot nor cold
The Bible is very clear what happens to those who go on sleeping through our Lord’s arrival. I don’t want that for anyone. In Revelation 3:15-18, Jesus said of us:
“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm — neither hot nor cold — I am about to spit you out of my mouth. You say ‘I am rich, I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. I counsel you to buy gold from me refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.”
Is that not the most heartbreaking thing you’ve ever heard? Do you not want to weep on hearing it, at the possibility he’s talking to you?
I do.
So, this is the very first installment in what I pray will be a long and fruitful conversation about these things. What it will not be is comfortable or easy and that’s as true for me as it is for anyone.
But, these are not normal times. We live in the midst of spiritual war like nothing the world has ever seen. I chose the title of this publication on purpose:
Dispatches from the Spiritual Front. Where the action is. Where the stakes are high and the battle is won or lost. This ancient war spanning heaven and earth is approaching its final and decisive battle.
Make no mistake, Jesus won this war on the cross and in His conquest of death. But scripture is clear that the enemy has not yet been driven from the earth or dethroned of his rulership of it. Only the Father knows why. It is for us to trust His purpose and His timing. Still, Jesus told us to watch the signs — and they could not be more obvious.
So here it is: The end approaches and there is work for us to do to be ready and girded for battle.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus called us to radical, unheard of, repentance. You could say He was putting meat on the bones of a command given through the prophet Jeremiah:
“Come out of her, my people! Run for your lives!
Run from the fierce anger of the Lord. Do not lose heart or be afraid when rumors are heard in the land; one rumor comes this year, another the next, rumors of violence in the land and of ruler against ruler.
For the time will surely come when I will punish the idols of Babylon; her whole land will be disgraced and her slain will lie fallen within her” (Jerimiah 51:45-47).
He was speaking of the kingdom of Satan in this world, foreshadowing Revelation 18:4-5, where John tells how he heard a voice cry out in heaven:
“Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues; for her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her crimes.”
Let’s be clear: Babylon is not just a city, or a nation. It isn’t only historical or metaphorical. It is Satan’s kingdom. It is visible everywhere you look in the world we live in.
We make ourselves dressed ready not just by believing this, but by coming out of Satan’s twisted, inverted kingdom. Out of the world’s way of doing … everything.
Come out! Don’t walk, run!
We must run for our lives, because if we don’t, we are in danger of sharing in the sins and plagues and mighty judgment God has decreed against Satan’s kingdom, Babylon. We’re in danger of sleeping through the coming of our Lord because we are too comfortable in Satan’s world.
To come out of Babylon strikes a severe blow against the enemy. Why? Because we are the battlefield. Satan and his kind rejected God, even after having seen Him plainly in their former place in heaven.
By coming out, we declare our love for Him and praise Him by faith alone, even if it leads to our death. Every mortal person who believes and chooses to follow Jesus decisively condemns God’s enemies.
To come out is to claim the victory our Lord won!
Alright, but I know you want to bring up the elephant in the room (because so do I).
“How, exactly?”
I’m glad you asked. Finding every possible answer to that question is what Dispatches from the Spiritual Front is all about.
I’m on that journey too. I’m no expert, but God is. Let’s seek Him and figure it out together.
