What leads to true repentance in the life of an individual?

David Eddy explains in this video that real repentance requires the work of the Holy Spirit. The Reformers taught that man is wrong, in sin, and is spiritually dead. This contradicted the belief that man was basically good or neutral. 

God uses different ways to bring about repentance. Sometimes, He uses a friend to come alongside you, open up Scripture, and rebuke you. Ultimately, it takes a work of God to change the heart for the heart indeed is "desperately wicked" (Jeremiah 17:9). 

Jeremiah 13:23 (NKJV) – “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard its spots? Then may you also do good who are accustomed to do evil.” 

Well, I believe real repentance requires the work of the Holy Spirit. And so, you know, And that's, you go back to some of the ways where things were an important aspect of repentance, indeed an important aspect of the Reformation, was a change from man is basically good or man is basically neutral to man is basically evil and sinful. And so the Reformers would teach man is, you know, he's, you are wrong to begin with and you've got to figure that out and you've got to, you know, get that right. Well how does that, but the problem is is that wrongness? In Scripture is called spiritual deadness.

And so how do you get a dead person to respond to medical treatment? Well, you have to have Jesus come in and say, you know Lazarus come forth. That's That's the ultimate beginning of that process. Obviously there's a lot of other things that are part of it and you can be a believer, alive to Christ and have an area in your life where you are not repentant and you need some brother to come alongside, put his arm around your shoulder and open up scripture and point out where you're wrong. I think that there's a real place for secondary modes, but I think the primary has got to be the Holy Spirit.

The heart's desperately wicked and it takes God to change the heart.