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SUBJECT: 58 LUK 24:47 Christ's First and Last Subject
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Christ's First and Last Subject
August 19th, 1860
by
C. H. SPURGEON
(1834-1892)
"From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say,
Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at
hand"-Matthew 4:17.
"And that repentance and remission of sins should
be preached in his name among all nations,
beginning at Jerusalem"- Luk_24:47.
It seems from these two texts that repentance was the
first subject upon which the Redeemer dwelt, and that
it was the last, which, with his departing breath, he
commended to the earnestness of his disciples. He
begins his mission crying, "Repent," he ends it by
saying to his successors the apostles, "Preach
repentance and remission of sins among all nations,
beginning at Jerusalem." This seems to me to be a very
interesting fact, and not simply interesting, but
instructive. Jesus Christ opens his commission by
preaching repentance. What then? Did he not by this act
teach us how important repentance was-so important that
the very first time he opens his mouth, he shall begin
with, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."
Did he not feel that repentance was necessary to be
preached before he preached faith in himself, because
the soul must first repent of sin before it will seek a
Saviour, or even care to know whether there is a
Saviour at all? And did he not also indicate to us that
as repentance was the opening lesson of the divine
teaching, so, if we would be his disciples, we must
begin by sitting on the stool of repentance, before we
can possibly go upward to the higher forms of faith and
of full assurance? Jesus at the first begins with
repentance,-that repentance may be the Alpha, the first
letter of the spiritual alphabet which all believers
must learn; and when he concluded his divine commission
with repentance, what did he say to us but this-that
repentance was still of the very last importance? He
preaches it with his first, he will utter it with his
last breath; with this he begins, with this he will
conclude. He knew that repentance was, to spiritual
life, a sort of Alpha and Omega-it was the duty of the
beginning, it was the duty of the end. He seemed to say
to us, "Repentance, which I preached to you three years
ago, when I first came into the world, as a public
teacher, is as binding, as necessary for you who heard
me then, and who then obeyed my voice, as it was at the
very first instant, and it is equally needful that you
who have been with me from the beginning, should not
imagine that the theme is exhausted and out of date;
you too must begin your ministry and conclude it with
the same exhortation, 'Repent and be converted, for the
kingdom of heaven is at hand.'" It seems to me that
nothing could set forth Jesus Christ's idea of the high
value of repentance, more fully and effectually than
the fact that he begins with it, and that he concludes
with it-that he should say, "Repent," as the key-note
of his ministry, preaching this duty before he fully
develops all the mystery of godliness, and that he
should close his life-song as a good composer must,
with his first key-note, bidding his disciples still
cry, "Repentance and remission of sins are preached in
Jesus' name." I feel then that I need no further
apology for introducing to your solemn and serious
attention, the subject of saving repentance. And oh!
while we are talking of it, may God the Holy Ghost
breathe into all our spirits, and may we now repent
before him, and now find those blessings which he hath
promised to the penitent.
With regard to repentance, these four things:-first,
its origin; secondly, its essentials; thirdly, its
companions; and fourthly, its excellencies.
I. Repentance-ITS ORIGIN.
When we cry, "Repent and be converted," there are some
foolish men who call us legal. Now we beg to state, at
the opening of this first point, that repentance is of
gospel parentage. It was not born near Mount Sinai. It
never was brought forth anywhere but upon Mount Zion.
Of course, repentance is a duty-a natural duty-because,
when man hath sinned, who is there brazen enough to say
that it is not man's bounden duty to repent of having
done so? It is a duty which even nature itself would
teach. But gospel repentance was never yet produced as
a matter of duty. It was never brought forth in the
soul by demands of law, nor indeed can the law, except
as the instrument in the hand of grace, even assist the
soul towards saving repentance. It is a remarkable fact
that the law itself makes no provision for repentance.
It says, "This do, and thou shalt live; break my
command, and thou shalt die." There is nothing said
about penitence; there is no offer of pardon made to
those that repent. The law pronounces its deadly curse
upon the man that sins but once, but it offers no way
of escape, no door by which the man may be restored to
favour. The barren sides of Sinai have no soil in which
to nourish the lovely plant of penitence. Upon Sinai
the dew of mercy never fell. Its lightnings and its
thunders have frightened away the angel of Mercy once
for all, and there Justice sits, with sword of flame,
upon its majestic throne of rugged rock, never
purposing for a moment to put up its sword into the
scabbard, and to forgive the offender. Read attentively
the twentieth chapter of Exodus. You have the
commandments there all thundered forth with trumpet
voice, but there is no pause between where Mercy with
her silver voice may step in and say, "But if ye break
this law, God will have mercy upon you, and will shew
himself gracious if ye repent." No words of repentance,
I say, were ever proclaimed by the law; no promise by
it made to penitents; and no assistance is by the law
ever offered to those who desire to be forgiven.
Repentance is a gospel grace. Christ preached it, but
not Moses. Moses neither can nor will assist a soul to
repent, only Jesus can use the law as a means of
conviction and an argument for repentance. Jesus gives
pardon to those who seek it with weeping and with
tears; but Moses knows of no such thing. If repentance
is ever obtained by the poor sinner, it must be found
at the foot of the cross, and not where the ten
commandments lie shivered at Sinai's base.
And as repentance is of gospel parentage, I make a
second remark, it is also of gracious origin.
Repentance was never yet produced in any man's heart
apart from the grace of God. As soon may you expect the
leopard to regret the blood with which its fangs are
moistened,-as soon might you expect the lion of the
wood to abjure his cruel tyranny over the feeble beasts
of the plain, as expect the sinner to make any
confession, or offer any repentance that shall be
accepted of God, unless grace shall first renew the
heart. Go and loose the bands of everlasting winter in
the frozen north with your own feeble breath, and then
hope to make tears of penitence bedew the cheek of the
hardened sinner. Go ye and divide the earth, and pierce
its bowels with an infant's finger, and then hope that
your eloquent appeal, unassisted by divine grace, shall
be able to penetrate the adamantine heart of man. Man
can sin, and he can continue in it, but to leave the
hateful element is a work for which he needs a power
divine. As the river rushes downward with increasing
fury, leaping from crag to crag in ponderous cataracts
of power, so is the sinner in his sin; onward and
downward, onward, yet more swiftly, more mightily, more
irresistibly, in his hellish course. Nothing but divine
grace can bid that cataract leap upward, or make the
floods retrace the pathway which they have worn for
themselves down the rocks. Nothing, I say, but the
power which made the world, and digged the foundations
of the great deep, can ever make the heart of man a
fountain of life from which the floods of repentance
may gush forth. So then, soul, if thou shalt ever
repent, it must be a repentance, not of nature, but of
grace. Nature can imitate repentance; it can produce
remorse; it can generate the feeble resolve; it can
even lead to a partial, practical reform; but unaided
nature cannot touch the vitals and new-create the soul.
Nature may make the eyes weep, but it cannot make the
heart bleed. Nature can bid you amend your ways, but it
cannot renew your heart. No, you must look upward,
sinner; you must look upward to him who is able to save
unto the uttermost. You must at his hands receive the
meek and tender spirit; from his finger must come the
touch that shall dissolve the rock; and from his eye
must dart the flash of love and light that can scatter
the darkness of your impenitence. Remember, then, at
the outset, that true repentance is of gospel origin,
and is not the work of the law; and on the other hand,
it is of gracious origin, and is not the work of the
creature.
II. But to pass forward from this first point to our
second head, let us notice the ESSENTIALS of true
repentance. The old divines adopted various methods of
explaining penitence. Some of them said it was a
precious medicine, compounded of six things; but in
looking over their divisions, I have felt that I might
with equal success divide repentance into four
different ingredients. This precious box of ointment
which must be broken over the Saviour's heard before
the sweet perfume of peace can ever be smelt in the
soul-this precious ointment is compounded of four most
rare, most costly things. God give them to us and then
give us the compound itself mixed by the Master's hand.
True repentance consists of illumination, humiliation,
detestation, and transformation.
To take them one by one. The first part of true
repentance consists of illumination. Man by nature is
impenitent, because he does not know himself to be
guilty. There are many acts which he commits in which
he sees no sin, and even in great and egregious faults,
he often knows that he is not right, but he does not
perceive the depth, the horrible enormity of the sin
which is involved in them. Eye-salve is one of the
first medicines which the Lord uses with the soul.
Jesus touches the eye of the understanding, and the man
becomes guilty in his own sight, as he always was
guilty in the sight of God. Crimes long forgotten start
up from the grave where his forgetfulness had buried
them; sins, which he thought were no sins, suddenly
rise up on their true character, and acts, which he
thought were perfect, now discover themselves to have
been so mixed with evil motive that they were far from
being acceptable with God. The eye is no more blind,
and therefore the heart is no more proud, for the
seeing eye will make a humble heart. If I must paint a
picture of penitence in this first stage, I should
portray a man with his eyes bandaged walking through a
path infested with the most venomous vipers; vipers
which have formed a horrible girdle about his loins,
and are hanging like bracelets from his wrists. The man
is so blind that he knows not where he is, nor what it
is which he fancies to be a jewelled belt upon his arm.
I would then in the picture touch his eyes and bid you
see his horror, and his astonishment, when he discovers
where he is and what he is. He looks behind him, and he
sees through what broods of vipers he has walked; he
looks before him, and he sees how thickly his future
path is strewed with these venomous beasts. He looks
about him, and in his living bosom looking out from his
guilty heart, he sees the head of a vile serpent, which
has twisted its coils into his very vitals. I would
try, if I could, to throw into that face, horror,
dismay, dread, and sorrow, a longing to escape, an
anxious desire to get rid of all these things which
must destroy him unless he should escape from them. And
now, my dear hearers, have you ever been the subject of
this divine illumination? Has God, who said to an
unformed world, "Let there be light," has he said, "Let
there be light" in your poor benighted soul? Have you
learned that your best deeds have been vile, and that
as for your sinful acts they are ten thousand times
more wicked than ever you believed them to be? I will
not believe that you have ever repented unless you have
first received divine illumination. I cannot expect a
blind eye to see the filth upon a black hand, nor can I
ever believe that the understanding which has never
been enlightened can detect the sin which has stained
your daily life.
Next to illumination, comes humiliation. The soul
having seen itself, bows before God, strips itself of
all its vain boasting, and lays itself flat on its face
before the throne of mercy. It could talk proudly once
of merit, but now it dares not pronounce the word. Once
it could boast itself before God, with "God, I thank
thee that I am not as other men are"; but now it stands
in the distance, and smites upon its breast, crying,
"God be merciful to me a sinner." Now the haughty eye,
the proud look, which God abhorreth, are cast away, and
the eye, instead thereof, becomes a channel of
tears-its floods are perpetual, it mourneth, it
weepeth, and the soul crieth out both day and night
before God, for it is vexed with itself, because it has
vexed the Holy Spirit, and is grieved within itself
because it hath grieved the Most High. Here if I had to
depict penitence, I should borrow the picture of the
men of Calais before our conquering king. There they
kneel, with ropes about their necks, clad in garments
of sackcloth, and ashes cast about their heads,
confessing that they deserve to die; but stretching out
their hands they implore mercy; and one who seems the
personification of the angel of mercy-or rather, of
Christ Jesus, the God of mercy-stands pleading with the
king to spare their lives. Sinner, thou hast never
repented unless that rope has been about thy neck after
a spiritual fashion, if thou hast not felt that hell is
thy just desert, and that if God banish thee for ever
from himself, to the place where hope and peace can
never come, he has only done with thee what thou hast
richly earned. If thou hast not felt that the flames of
hell are the ripe harvest which thy sins have sown,
thou hast never yet repented at all. We must
acknowledge the justice of the penalty as well as the
guilt of the sin, or else it is but a mock repentance
which we pretend to possess. Down on thy face, sinner,
down on thy face; put away thine ornaments from thee,
that he may know what to do with thee. No more anoint
thine head and wash thy face, but fast and bow thy head
and mourn. Thou hast made heaven mourn, thou hast made
earth sad, thou hast digged hell for thyself. Confess
thine iniquity with shame, and with confusion of face;
bow down before the God of mercy and acknowledge that
if he spare thee it will be his free mercy that shall
do it; but if he destroy thee, thou shalt not have one
word to say against the justice of the solemn sentence.
Such a stripping does the Holy Spirit give, when he
works this repentance, that men sometimes under it sink
so low as even to long for death in order to escape
from the burden which soul-humiliation has cast upon
them. I do not desire that you should have that terror,
but I do pray that you may have no boasting left, that
you may stop your mouth and feel that if now the
judgment hour were set, and the judgment day were come,
you must stand speechless, even though God should say,
"Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire in hell."
Without this I say there is no genuine evangelical
repentance.
The third ingredient is detestation. The soul must go a
step further than mere sorrow; it must come to hate
sin, to hate the very shadow of it, to hate the house
where once sin and it were boon companions, to hate the
bed of pleasure and all its glittering tapestries, yea,
to hate the very garments spotted with the flesh. There
is no repentance where a man can talk lightly of sin,
much less where he can speak tenderly and lovingly of
it. When sin cometh to thee delicately, like Agag,
saying, "Surely the bitterness of death is past," if
thou hast true repentance it will rise like Samuel and
hew thy Agag in pieces before the Lord. As long as thou
harbourest one idol in thy heart, God will never dwell
there. Thou must break not only the images of wood and
of stone, but of silver and of gold; yea, the golden
calf itself, which has been thy chief idolatry, must be
ground in powder and mingled in the bitter water of
penitence, and thou must be made to drink thereof.
There is such a loathing of sin in the soul of the true
penitent that he cannot bear its name. If you were to
compel him to enter its palaces he would be wretched. A
penitent cannot bear himself in the house of the
profane. He feels as if the house must fall upon him.
In the assembly of the wicked he would be like a dove
in the midst of ravenous kites. As well may the sheep
lick blood with the wolf, as well may the dove be
comrade at the vulture's feast of carrion, as a
penitent sinner revel in sin. Through infirmity he may
slide into it, but through grace he will rise out of it
and abhor even his clothes in which he has fallen into
the ditch (Job_9:31). The sinner unrepentant, like the
sow, wallows in the mire; but the penitent sinner, like
the swallow, may sometimes dip his wings in the limpid
pool of iniquity, but he is aloft again, twittering
forth with the chattering of the swallow most pitiful
words of penitence, for he grieves that he should have
so debased himself and sinned against his God. My
hearer, if thou dost not so hate thy sins as to be
ready to give them all up-if thou art not willing now
to hang them on Haman's gallows a hundred and twenty
cubits high-if thou canst not shake them off from thee
as Paul did the viper from his hand, and shake it into
the fire with detestation, then, I say, thou knowest
not the grace of God in truth; for if thou lovest sin
thou lovest neither God nor thyself, but thou choosest
thine own damnation. Thou art in friendship with death
and in league with hell; God deliver thee from this
wretched state of heart, and bring thee to detest thy
sin.
There lacks one more ingredient yet. We have had
illumination, humiliation, and detestation. There must
be another thing, namely, a thorough transformation,
for-
"Repentance is to leave
The sins we loved before,
And show that we in earnest grieve
By doing so no more."
The penitent man reforms his outward life. The reform
is not partial, but in heart, it is universal and
complete. Infirmity may mar it, but grace will always
be striving against human infirmity, and the man will
hate and abandon every false way. Tell me not,
deceptive tradesman, that you have repented of your sin
while lying placards are still upon your goods. Tell me
not, thou who wast once a drunkard, that thou hast
turned to God while yet the cup is dear to thee, and
thou canst still wallow in it by excess. Come not to me
and say I have repented, thou avaricious wretch, whilst
thou art yet grinding thine almost cent, per cent, out
of some helpless tradesman whom thou hast taken like a
spider in thy net. Come not to me and say thou are
forgiven, when thou still harboureth revenge and malice
against thy brother, and speaketh against thine own
mother's son. Thou liest to thine own confusion. Thy
face is as the whore's forehead that is brazen, if thou
darest to say "I have repented," when thine arms are up
to the elbow in the filth of thine iniquity. Nay, man,
God will not forgive your lusts while you are still
revelling in the bed of your uncleanness. And do you
imagine he will forgive your drunken feasts while you
are still sitting at the glutton's table! Shall he
forgive your profanity when your tongue is still
quivering with an oath? Think you that God shall
forgive your daily transgressions when you repeat them
again, and again, and again, wilfully plunging into the
mire? He will wash thee, man, but he will not wash thee
for the sake of permitting thee to plunge in again and
defile thyself once more. "Well," do I hear you say, "I
do feel that such a change as that has taken place in
me." I am glad to hear it, my dear sir; but I must ask
you a further question. Divine transformation is not
merely in act but in the very soul; the new man not
only does not sin as he used to do, but he does not
want to sin as he used to do. The flesh-pots of Egypt
sometimes send up a sweet smell in his nostrils, and
when he passes by another man's house, where the leek,
and garlic, and onion are steaming in the air, he half
wishes to go back again to his Egyptian bondage, but in
a moment he checks himself, saying, "No, no; the
heavenly manna is better than this; the water out of
the rock is sweeter than the waters of the Nile, and I
cannot return to my old slavery under my old tyrant."
There may be insinuations of Satan, but his soul
rejects them, and agonizes to cast them out. His very
heart longs to be free from every sin, and if he could
be perfect he would. There is not one sin he would
spare. If you want to give him pleasure, you need not
ask him to go to your haunt of debauchery; it would be
the greatest pain to him you could imagine. It is not
only his customs and manners, but his nature that is
changed. You have not put new leaves on the tree, but
there is a new root to it. It is not merely new
branches, but there is a new trunk altogether, and new
sap, and there will be new fruit as the result of this
newness. A glorious transformation is wrought by a
gracious God. His penitence has become so real and so
complete that the man is not the man he used to be. He
is a new creature in Christ Jesus. If you are renewed
by grace, and were to meet your old self, I am sure you
would be very anxious to get out of his company. "No,"
say you, "no, sir, I cannot accompany you." "Why, you
used to swear"! "I cannot now." "Well, but," says he,
"you and I are very near companions." "Yes, I know we
are, and I wish we were not. You are a deal of trouble
to me every day. I wish I could be rid of you for
ever." "But," says Old Self, "you used to drink very
well." "Yes, I know it. I know thou didst, indeed, Old
Self. Thou couldst sing a song as merrily as any one.
Thou wast ringleader in all sorts of vice, but I am no
relation of thine now. Thou art of the old Adam, and I
of the new Adam. Thou art of thine old father, the
devil; but I have another-my Father, who is in heaven."
I tell you, brethren, there is no man in the world you
will hate so much as your old self, and there will be
nothing you will so much long to get rid of as that old
man who once was dragging you down to hell, and who
will try his hand at it over and over again every day
you live, and who will accomplish it yet, unless that
divine grace which has made you a new man shall keep
you a new man even to the end.
Good Rowland Hill, in his "Village Dialogues," gives
the Christian, whom he describes in the first part of
the book, the name of Thomas Newman. Ah! and everyman
who goes to heaven must have the name of new-man. We
must not expect to enter there unless we are created
anew in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath
before ordained that we should walk in them. I have
thus, as best I could, feeling many and very sad
distractions in my own mind, endeavored to explain the
essentials of true repentance-illumination,
humiliation, detestation, transformation. The endings
of the words, though they are long words may commend
them to your attention and assist you to retain them.
III. And now, with all brevity, let me notice, in the
third place, the COMPANIONS of true repentance.
Her first companion is faith. There was a question once
asked by the old Puritan divines-Which was first in the
soul, Faith or Repentance? Some said that a man could
not truly repent of sin until he believed in God, and
had some sense of a Saviour's love. Others said a man
could not have faith till he had repented of sin; for
he must hate sin before he could trust Christ. So a
good old minister who was present made the following
remark: "Brethren," said he, "I don't think you can
ever settle this question. It would be something like
asking whether, when an infant is born, the circulation
of the blood, or the beating of the pulse can be first
observed"? Said he, "It seems to me that faith and
repentance are simultaneous. They come at the same
moment. There could be no true repentance without
faith. There never was yet true faith without sincere
repentance." We endorse that opinion. I believe they
are like the Siamese twins; they are born together, and
they could not live asunder, but must die if you
attempt to separate them. Faith always walks side by
side with his weeping sister, true Repentance. They are
born in the same house at the same hour, and they will
live in the same heart every day, and on your dying
bed, while you will have faith on the one hand to draw
the curtain of the next world, you will have
repentance, with its tears, as it lets fall the curtain
upon the world from which you are departing. You will
have at the last moment to weep over your own sins, and
yet you shall see through that tear the place where
tears are washed away. Some say there is no faith in
heaven. Perhaps there is not. If there be none, then
there will be no repentance, but if there be faith
there will be repentance, for where faith lives,
repentance must live with it. They are so united, so
married and allied together, that they never can be
parted, in time or in eternity. Hast thou, then, faith
in Jesus? Does thy soul look up and trust thyself in
his hands? If so, then hast thou the repentance that
needeth not to be repented of.
There is another sweet thing which always goes with
repentance, just as Aaron went with Moses, to be
spokesman for him, for you must know that Moses was
slow of speech, and so is repentance. Repentance has
fine eyes, but stammering lips. In fact, it usually
happens that repentance speaks through her eyes and
cannot speak with her lips at all, except her
friend-who is a good spokesman-is near; he is called,
Mr. Confession. This man is noted for his open
breastedness. He knows something of himself, and he
tells all that he knows before the throne of God.
Confession keeps back no secrets. Repentance sighs over
the sin-confession tells it out. Repentance feels the
sin to be heavy within-confession plucks it forth and
indicts it before the throne of God. Repentance is the
soul in travail-confession delivers it. My heart is
ready to burst, and there is a fire in my bones through
repentance-confession gives the heavenly fire a vent,
and my soul flames upward before God. Repentance,
alone, hath groanings which cannot be
uttered-confession is the voice which expresses the
groans. Now then, hast thou made confession of thy
sin-not to man, but to God? If thou hast, then believe
that thy repentance cometh from him, and it is a godly
sorrow that needeth not to be repented of.
Holiness is evermore the bosom friend of penitence.
Fair angel, clad in pure white linen, she loves good
company and will never stay in a heart where repentance
is a stranger. Repentance must dig the foundations, but
holiness shall erect the structure, and bring forth the
top-stone. Repentance is the clearing away of the
rubbish of the past temple of sin; holiness builds the
new temple which the Lord our God shall inherit.
Repentance and desires after holiness never can be
separated.
Yet once more-wherever repentance is, there cometh also
with it, peace. As Jesus walked upon the waters of
Galilee, and said, "Peace, be still," so peace walks
over the waters of repentance, and brings quiet and
calm into the soul. If thou wouldst shake the thirst of
thy soul, repentance must be the cup out of which thou
shalt drink, and then sweet peace shall be the blessed
effect. Sin is such a troublesome companion that it
will always give thee the heartache till thou hast
turned it out by repentance, and then thy heart shall
rest and be still. Sin is the rough wind that tears
through the forest, and sways every branch of the trees
to and fro; but after penitence hath come into the soul
the wind is hushed, and all is still, and the birds
sing in the branches of the trees which just now
creaked in the storm. Sweet peace repentance ever
yields to the man who is the possessor of it. And now
what sayest thou my hearer-to put each point personally
to thee-hast thou had peace with God? If not, never
rest till thou hast had it, and never believe thyself
to be saved till thou feelest thyself to be reconciled.
Be not content with the mere profession of the head,
but ask that the peace of God which passeth all
understanding, may keep your hearts and minds through
Jesus Christ.
IV. And now I come to my fourth and last point, namely,
the EXCELLENCIES of repentance.
I shall somewhat surprise you, perhaps, if I say that
one of the excellencies of repentance lies in its
pleasantness. "Oh"! you say, "but it is bitter"! Nay,
say I, it is sweet. At least, it is bitter when it is
alone, like the waters of Marah; but there is a tree
called the cross, which if thou canst put into it, it
will be sweet, and thou wilt love to drink of it. At a
school of mutes who were both deaf and dumb, the
teacher put the following question to her pupils:-"What
is the sweetest emotion"? As soon as the children
comprehended the question, they took their slates and
wrote their answers. One girl in a moment wrote down
"Joy." As soon as the teacher saw it, she expected that
all would write the same, but another girl, more
thoughtful, put her hand to her brow, and she wrote
"Hope." Verily, the girl was not far from the mark. But
the next one, when she brought up her slate, had
written "Gratitude," and this child was not wrong.
Another one, when she brought up her slate, had written
"Love," and I am sure she was right. But there was one
other who had written in large characters,-and as she
brought up her slate the tear was in her eye, showing
she had written what she felt,-"Repentance is the
sweetest emotion." And I think she was right. Verily,
in my own case, after that long drought, perhaps longer
than Elisha's three years in which the heavens poured
forth no rain, when I saw but one tear of penitence
coming from my hard, hard soul-it was such a joy! There
have been times when you know you have done wrong, but
when you could cry over it you have felt happy. As one
weeps for his firstborn, so have you wept over your
sin, and in that very weeping you have had your peace
and your joy restored. I am a living witness that
repentance is exceeding sweet when mixed with divine
hope, but repentance without hope is hell. It is hell
to grieve for sin with the pangs of bitter remorse, and
yet to know that pardon can never come, and mercy never
be vouchsafed. Repentance, with the cross before its
eyes, is heaven itself; at least, if not heaven, it is
so next door to it, that standing on the wet threshold
I may see within the pearly portals, and sing the song
of the angels who rejoice within. Repentance, then, has
this excellency, that it is very sweet to the soul
which is made to lie beneath its shadow.
Besides this excellency, it is specially sweet to God
as well as to men. "A broken and a contrite heart, O
God, thou wilt not despise." When St. Augustine lay a-
dying, he had this verse always fixed upon the
curtains, so that as often as he awoke, he might read
it-"A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not
despise." When you despise yourselves, God honours you;
but as long as you honour yourselves, God despises you.
A whole heart is a scentless thing; but when it is
broken and bruised, it is like that precious spice
which was burned as holy incense in the ancient
tabernacle. When the blood of Jesus is sprinkled on
them, even the songs of the angels, and the vials full
of odours sweet that smoke before the throne of the
Most High, are not more agreeable to God than the
sighs, and groans, and tears of the brokenhearted soul.
So, then, if thou wouldest be pleasing with God, come
before him with many and many a tear:
"To humble souls and broken hearts
God with his grace is ever nigh;
Pardon and hope his love imparts,
When men in deep contrition lie.
He tells their tears, he counts their groans,
His Son redeems their souls from death;
His Spirit heals their broken bones,
They in his praise employ their breath."
John Bunyan, in his "Siege of Mansoul," when the
defeated townsmen were seeking pardon, names Mr. Wet-
eyes as the intercessor with the king. Mr. Wet-
eyes-good Saxon word! I hope we know Mr. Wet-eyes, and
have had him many times in our house, for if he cannot
intercede with God, yet Mr. Wet-eyes is a great friend
with the Lord Jesus Christ, and Christ will undertake
his case, and then we shall prevail. So have I set
forth, then, some, but very few, of the excellencies of
repentance. And now, my dear hearers, have you repented
of Sin? Oh, impenitent soul, if thou dost not weep now,
thou wilt have to weep for ever. The heart that is not
broken now, must be broken for ever upon the wheel of
divine vengeance. Thou must now repent, or else for
ever smart for it. Turn or burn-it is the Bible's only
alternative. If thou repentest, the gate of mercy
stands wide open. Only the Spirit of God bring thee on
thy knees in self-abasement, for Christ's cross stands
before thee, and he who bled upon it bids thee look at
him. Oh, sinner, obey the divine bidding. But, if your
heart be hard, like that of the stubborn Jews in the
days of Moses, take heed, lest,-
"The Lord in vengeance dressed,
Shall lift his head and swear,-
You that despised my promised rest,
Shall have no portion there."
At any rate, sinner, if thou wilt not repent, there is
one here who will, and that is myself. I repent that I
could not preach to you with more earnestness this
morning, and throw my whole soul more thoroughly into
my pleading with you. the Lord God, whom I serve, is my
constant witness that there is nothing I desire so much
as to see your hearts broken on account of sin; and
nothing has gladdened my heart so much as the many
instances lately vouchsafed of the wonders God is doing
in this place. There have been men who have stepped
into this Hall, who had never entered a place of
worship for a score years, and here the Lord has met
with them, and I believe, if I could speak the word,
there are hundreds who would stand up now, and say,
"'Twas here the Lord met with me. I was the chief of
sinners; the hammer struck my heart and broke it, and
now it has been bound up again by the finger of divine
mercy, and I tell it unto sinners, and tell it to this
assembled congregation, there have been depths of mercy
found that have been deeper than the depths of my
iniquity." This day there will be a soul delivered;
this morning there will be, I do not doubt, despite my
weakness, a display of the energy of God, and the power
of the Spirit; some drunkard shall be turned from the
error of his ways; some soul, who was trembling on the
very jaws of hell, shall look to him who is the
sinner's hope, and find peace and pardon-ay, at this
very hour. So be it, O Lord, and thine shall be the
glory, world without end.
Provided by:
Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
internet: hyperlink
Box 318
Columbus, NJ 08022