What sets Christianity apart from all other religions in the world? What one characteristic marks the beginning of every great revival? What was the purpose of the Old Testament law, and what do these questions have to do with each other? The answer, as presented in this sermon on John 4:27–30 titled “The Need for Repentance,” is the conviction of sin. Using the woman at the well as an example, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones shows that the beginning of Jesus’s message is to convict of sin and for all to agree with the woman who said, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did.” Throughout the Bible, people who are brought into the presence of God are first convicted of their sin. Jacob feared and Isaiah confessed in their encounters with the most Holy God. This conviction is not hopeless, but is the mode in which the Christian is brought to the necessary hatred and repentance of sin. Dr. Lloyd-Jones reminds that if one has not been brought to a place of repentance, then they are in a religion without Christ and one that ends in hellfire. For those who have repented, their conviction of sin is an assurance that they are God’s people.

http://www.mljtrust.org/sermons/the-need-for-repentance/