Be Quick to Repent
Acts 8:22 Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee.
This is referring to Simon the Sorcerer who got born again and water baptized (Verse 13). Simon was intrigued by the signs and wonders done by Philip, the evangelist, that had caused him and the whole city to turn to God, get saved, and baptized. Simon began to follow Philip everywhere he went because of these signs and wonders.
When Peter and John came down to help Philip get the people filled with the Holy Ghost, Simon got into a lot of trouble offering the Apostles money for the ability to lay hands on people and see the power. Simon had reverted back to his old ways, thinking he could buy the power of God instead of realizing that now that he was a believer, he too had this ability to administer the power of God. There was something of the old man still lingering in Simon, maybe because he had not had time to get his mind renewed and get rid of that kind of thinking. The point is, the Word says that he must repent. Repent of what? The wickedness that was still in his heart. Simon needed God’s forgiveness and the only way for that to happen was through Simon repenting. Be careful today when you hear people say, “As a believer, you are no longer required to repent if you get into sin.” This is not scriptural.
When we know we have sinned or when sin has been pointed out to us by the Word of God, the Holy Spirit, someone over us in the Lord, or someone close to us, we need to truly be sorry towards God and repent. Simon was born again, but wickedness was found in his heart, so he needed to repent of it. As we grow in God and get our minds renewed and change our character to match God’s character, there will be mistakes and sins along the way that we will need to repent of. Don’t think of it as failure when you have to repent, but rather think of it as growth. The failure only comes when we do not repent because that sin will lead us to death. I don’t know if Simon ever repented. The Word goes on to say that Simon was full of bitter jealousy because he was used to being the spiritual leader of these people. Simon did ask Peter to pray to God for him so nothing would happen to him, but I don’t know if that was enough because Simon had a problem that he needed to deal with. I trust that because Simon was born again and probably filled with the Spirit that he was able to repent and be used of God instead of the devil. Repentance is a gift to every born-again believer. Without that gift we would be stuck in the sin we committed.