Sermon: Why Repent?

Why Repent?Sermon preached at Mt Olive in Lincoln, NE by Pastor Julius Buelow on February 18, 2016 for Ash Wednesday.Sermon text: Zechariah 1:1-6 In the eighth month of the second year of Darius, the word of the LORD came to the prophet Zechariah son of Berekiah, the son of Iddo.2The LORD was very angry with your forefathers. 3Therefore, now you are to tell this people that this is what the LORD of Armies says to them.Return to me, declares the LORD of Armies, and I will return to you, says the LORD of Armies. 4Do not be like your forefathers, to whom the earlier prophets proclaimed, “This is what the LORD of Armies says. Return, return from your evil ways and from your evil deeds.”But our forefathers did not listen, nor did they pay attention to me, declares the LORD. 5Your forefathers—where are they now? And those prophets—did they go on living indefinitely? 6But my words and my statutes, which I commanded to my servants the prophets, caught up with our forefathers, didn’t they?Then they returned and said, “Because of our ways and our deeds, the LORD of Armies has done to us just as he planned to do to us.”Holy Bible: Evangelical Heritage Version (Milwaukee, WI: Northwestern Publishing House, 2019), Zec 1:1–6.