How does repentance lead to reformation?

David Eddy explains in this video that reformation begins with repentance. It always has and always will. Reformation and repentance are two sides of the same thing. Reformation can occur on a personal level and it can occur on a much larger scale when a group of people repent for their sin.

For Martin Luther, reformation began with repentance. It began with a personal realization that he was wrong. God sometimes does this work in the lives of multiple people. When a group of people repent, there is reformation.

2 Chronicles 7:14 (NKJV) – “[I]f My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

Reformation begins with repentance. It always has and it always will. And I, that's probably why the questions are put together the way that they are is realizing that that's the case. That reformation and repentance are two sides of the same thing. In fact, what I would say is that reformation is an organizational repentance.

So Reformation is saying the way we're doing things, we are doing things is wrong. Repentance is the way I'm doing things is wrong. Reformation is the way we're thinking is wrong. Repentance is the way I'm thinking is wrong. And so Luther, and of course you think about Luther, he grew up in the Roman Catholic Church, he was a monk, he was dedicated to following under his system, not the Lord, but the Church.

And suddenly he's confronted with, he's teaching scripture, he's going through the book of Romans, he's confronted with God's word in a way that he really never had before. And so for him, Reformation began with repentance. It began with the personal realization, I'm wrong. And I think that in most cases, well I would say in all cases, that is how it starts. Now, God often in times of reformation does that work in many people's lives simultaneously.

And often the historians will call those awakenings, whether great, not so great, or whatever, but that's often what they'll call them. But the Reformation is usually when a group of people all at the same time, as a work of the Holy Spirit, say, we're wrong, they repent, and reformation occurs as they band together and try to change the organization, not just their own individual life. You