Charles Spurgeon turns to Acts 20:21 for the inspiration of his sermon
below
emphasizing repentance and faith.
May God bless,
Carl
my website -- http://www.nettally.com/saints/
my blog -- http://www.anniemayhem.com/cgi-bin/wordpress/
---
Two Essential Things
By Charles Spurgeon
"Testifying both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward
God,
and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ."-Acts 20:21
This was the practical drift of Paul's teaching at Ephesus, and everywhere
else. He kept back nothing which was profitable to them; and the main
profit
he expected them to derive from his teaching the whole counsel of God was
this, that they should have "repentance toward God, and faith toward our
Lord Jesus Christ." This was the great aim of the apostle. I pray that it
may be so with all of us who are teachers of the Word: may we never be
satisfied if we interest, please, or dazzle; but may we long for the
immediate production, by the Spirit of God, of true repentance and faith.
Old Mr. Dodd, one of the quaintest of the Puritans, was called by some
people, "Old Mr. Faith and Repentance," because he was always insisting
upon
these two things. Philip Henry, remarking upon his name, writes somewhat
to
this effect-"As for Mr. Dodd's abundant preaching repentance and faith, I
admire him for it; for if I die in the pulpit, I desire to die preaching
repentance and faith; and if I die out of the pulpit, I desire to die
practising repentance and faith." Some one remarked to Mr. Richard Cecil,
that he had preached very largely upon faith; but that good clergyman
assured him that if he could rise from his dying bed, and preach again, he
would dwell still more upon that subject. No themes can exceed in
im****tance
repentance and faith, and these need to be brought very frequently before
the minds of our congregations.
Paul testified concerning "repentance toward God, and faith toward our
Lord
Jesus Christ"; by which I understand that, as an ambassador for Christ, he
assured the people that through repentance and faith they would receive
salvation. He taught in God's name mercy through the atoning sacrifice to
all who would quit their sin and follow the Lord Jesus. With many tears he
added his own personal testimony to his official statement. He could truly
say, "I have repented, and I do repent"; and he could add, "but I believe
in
Jesus Christ as my Saviour; I am resting upon the one foundation, trusting
alone in the Crucified." His official testimony, with its solemnity, and
his
personal testimony, with its pathetic earnestness, made up a very weighty
witness-bearing on the behalf of these two points-repentance toward God,
and
faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Beloved friends, we cannot at this time do without either of these any
more
than could the Greeks and Jews. They are essential to salvation. Some
things
may be, but these must be. Certain things are needful to the well-being of
a
Christian, but these things are essential to the very being of a
Christian.
If you have not repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus
Christ, you have no part nor lot in this matter. Repentance and faith must
go together to complete each other. I compare them to a door and its post.
Repentance is the door which shuts out sin, but faith is the post upon
which
its hinges are fixed. A door without a door-post to hang upon is not a
door
at all; while a door-post without the door hanging to it is of no value
whatever. What God hath joined together let no man put asunder; and these
two he has made inseparable-repentance and faith. I desire to preach in
such
a way that you shall see and feel that repentance toward God and faith
toward the Lord Jesus Christ are the two things which you must have; but
even then I fail, unless you obtain them. May the Holy Spirit plant both
these precious things in our hearts; and if they are already planted
there,
may he nourish them and bring them to much greater perfection.
I. Let me observe, in the first place, that THERE IS A REPENTANCE WHICH IS
NOT TOWARD GOD. Discriminate this morning. Paul did not merely preach
repentance, but repentance toward God; and there is a repentance which is
fatally faulty, because it is not toward God.
In some there is a repentance of sin which is produced by a sense of
shame.
The evil-doers are found out, and indignant words are spoken about them:
they are ashamed, and so far they are repentant, because they have
dishonoured themselves. If they had not been found out, in all probability
they would have continued comfortably in the sin, and even have gone
further
on in it. They are grieved at having been discovered; and they are sorry,
very sorry, because they are judged and condemned by their fellows. It is
not the evil which troubles them, but the dragging of it to light. It is
said that among Orientals it is not considered wrong to lie, but it is
considered a very great fault to lie so blunderingly as to be caught at
it.
Many who profess regret for having done wrong are not sorry for the sin
itself, but they are affected by the opinion of their fellow-men, and by
the
remarks that are made concerning their offence, and so they hang their
heads. Truly, it is something in their favour that they can blush; it is a
mercy that they have so much sense left as to be afraid of the observation
of their fellows; for some have lost even this sense of shame. But shame
is
not evangelical repentance; and a man may go to hell with a blush on his
face as surely as if he had the brazen forehead of a shameless woman. Do
not
mistake a little natural fluttering of the heart and blu****ng of the face,
on account of being found out in sin, for true repentance.
Some, again, have a repentance which consists in grief because of the
painful consequences of sin. The man has been a spendthrift, a gambler, a
profligate, and his money is gone; and now he repents that he has played
the
fool. Another has been indulging the passions of his corrupt nature, and
he
finds himself suffering for it, and therefore he repents of his
wickedness.
There are many cases that I need not instance here, in which sin comes
home
very quickly to men. Certain sins bear fruit speedily: their harvest is
reaped soon after the seed is sown. Then a man says he is sorry, and he
gives up the sin for a time; not because he dislikes it, but because he
sees
that it is ruining him: as sailors in a storm cast overboard the cargo of
the ****p, not because they are weary of it, but because the vessel will go
to the bottom if they retain it. This is regret for consequences, not
sorrow
for sin. Ah, look at the drunkard, how penitent he is in the morning! "Who
hath woe? who hath redness of the eyes?" But he will get a hair of the
dog's
tail that bit him, he will be at his cups again before long. He repents of
the headache, and not of the drink. The dog will return to his vomit.
There
is no repentance which only consists of being sorry because one is
smarting
under the consequences of sin. Every murderer regrets his crime when he
hears the hammers going that knock the scaffold together for his hanging.
This is not the repentance which the Spirit of God works in a soul; it is
only such a repentance as a dog may have when he has stolen meat, and is
whipped for his pains. It is repentance of so low a sort that it can never
be acceptable in the sight of God.
Some, again, exhibit a repentance which consists entirely of horror at the
future punishment of sin. This fear is healthful in many ways, and we can
by
no means dispense with it. I do not wonder that a man who has lived a
liar,
a forger, and a perjurer, should, in the hour of his discovery, put an end
to his life. If he accepts modern theology, he has escaped, by this means,
from the hand of justice: the little pretence of punishment which
deceivers
predict for the next world no man need be afraid to risk rather than
subject
himself to a felon's fate. According to current teaching, it will be all
the
same with all men in the long run, for there is to be a universal
restitution; and therefore the suicide does but rationally leap from
pursuit
and punishment into a state where all will be made happy for him
by-and-by,
even if he does not find it altogether heaven at first. He escapes from
punishment in this life, and whatever inconvenience there may be for him
in
the next life he will soon get over it, for it is said to be so trivial
that
those who keep to Scripture lines, and speak the dread truth therein
revealed, are barbarians or fools. Many men do, no doubt, repent truly
through being aroused by fear of death, and judgment, and the wrath to
come.
But if this fear goes no further than a selfish desire to escape
punishment,
no reliance can be placed upon its moral effect. If they could be assured
that no punishment would follow, such persons would continue in sin, and
not
only be content to live in it, but be delighted to have it so. Beloved,
true
repentance is sorrow for the sin itself: it has not only a dread of the
death which is the wages of sin, but of the sin which earns the wages. If
you have no repentance for the sin itself, it is in vain that you should
stand and tremble because of judgment to come. If judgment to come drives
you, by its terrors, to escape from sin, you will have to bless God that
you
ever heard of those terrors, and that there were men found honest enough
to
speak plainly of them; but, I pray you, do not be satisfied with the mere
fear of punishment, for it is of little worth. The evil itself you must
lament, and your daily cry must be, "Wash me thoroughly from mine
iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin."
Another kind of repentance may be rather better than any we have spoken
of,
but still it is not repentance toward God. It is a very good counterfeit;
but it is not the genuine article. I refer to a sense of the unworthiness
of
an ill life. I have known persons, upon a review of their past, rise above
the grovelling level of absolute carelessness, and they have begun to
enjoy
some apprehension of the beauty of virtue, the nobleness of usefulness,
and
the meanness of a life of selfish pleasure. A few of those who have no
spiritual life, have, nevertheless, keen moral perceptions, and they are
repentant when they see that they have lost the op****tunity of
distingui****ng themselves by noble lives. They regret that their story
will
never be quoted among the examples of good men, who have left "footprints
on
the sands of time." Musing upon their position in reference to society and
history, they wish that they could blot out the past, and write more
worthy
lines upon the page of life. Now, this is hopeful; but it is not
sufficient.
We are glad when men are under influences which promise amendment; but if
a
man stops at a mere apprehension of the beauty of virtue and the deformity
of vice, what is there in it? This is not repentance toward God; it may
not
be repentance at all in any practical sense. Men have been known to
practise
the vices they denounced, and avoid the virtues they admired; human
sentiment has not force enough to break the fetters of evil. Repentance
toward God is the only thing which can effectually cut the cable which
holds
a man to the fatal shores of evil.
Once more, there is a repentance which is partial. Men sometimes wake up
to
the notice of certain great blots in their lives. They cannot forget that
black night: they dare not tell what was then done. They cannot forget the
villainous act which ruined another, nor that base lie which blasted a
reputation. They recall the hour when the inward fires of passion, like
those of a volcano, poured the lava of sin adown their lives. At the
remembrance of one gross iniquity, they feel a measure of regret when
their
better selves are to the front. But repentance toward God is repentance of
sin as sin, and of rebellion against law as rebellion against God. The man
who only repents of this and that glaring offence, has not repented of sin
at all. I remember the story of Thomas Olivers, the famous cobbler
convert,
who was a loose-living man till he was renewed by grace through the
preaching of Mr. Wesley, and became a mighty preacher, and the author of
that glorious hymn, "The God of Abraham Praise." This man, before
conversion, was much in the habit of contracting debts, but could not be
brought to pay them. When he received grace, he was convinced that he had
no
right to remain in debt. He says, "I felt as great sorrow and confusion as
if I had stolen every sum I owed." Now, he was not repentant for this one
debt, or that other debt, but for being in debt at all, and, therefore,
having a little coming to him from the estate of a relative, he bought a
horse, and rode from town to town, paying everybody to whom he was
indebted.
Before he had finished his pilgrimage, he had paid seventy debts,
principal
and interest, and had been compelled to sell his horse, saddle, and
bridle,
to do it. During this eventful journey he rode many miles to pay a single
sixpence: it was only a sixpence, but the principle was the same, whether
the debt was sixpence or a hundred pounds. Now, as he that hates debt will
try to clear himself of every sixpence, so he that repents of sin, repents
of it in every shape. No sin is spared by the true penitent. He abhors all
sin. Brethren, we must not imitate Saul, who spared Agag and the best of
the
sheep. He had been told to destroy all, but he must needs spare some. Agag
must be hewn in pieces, and the least objectionable of sin, if such there
be, must be at once destroyed. Grace spares no sin. "Oh," saith one man,
"I
can give up every sin except one pleasure. This I reserve: is it not a
little one?" Nay, nay; in the name of truth and sincerity, make no
reserve.
Repentance is a besom which sweeps the house from garret to cellar. Though
no man is free from the commission of sin, yet every converted man is free
from the love of sin. Every renewed heart is anxious to be free from even
a
speck of evil. When sin's power is felt within, we do not welcome it, but
we
cry out against it, as Paul did when he said, "O wretched man that I am!
who
shall deliver me from the body of this death?" We cannot bear sin: when it
is near us, we feel like a wretch chained to a rotting carcass; we groan
to
be free from the hateful thing. Yes, repentance vows that the enemy shall
be
turned out, bag and baggage; and neither Sanballat, nor any of his
trumpery,
shall have a chamber or a closet within the heart which has become the
temple of God.
II. I have said enough to show that there is a repentance which is not
toward God; and now, secondly, let us observe that EVANGELICAL REPENTANCE
IS
REPENTANCE TOWARD GOD. Lay stress on the words, "toward God." True
repentance looks toward God. When the prodigal son went back to his home,
he
did not say, "I will arise, and go to my brother; for I have grieved my
brother by leaving him to serve alone." Neither did he say, "I will arise
and go to the servants, for they were very kind to me. The dear old nurse
that brought me up is broken-hearted at my conduct." "No," he said, "I
will
arise and go to my Father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned
against heaven and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy
son."
Our Lord's picture of a returning sinner is thus drawn in very clear
colours, as a return to the Father, a repentance toward God. You are bound
to make humble apology and ample compensation to everybody you have
wronged;
you are bound to make every acknowledgment and confession to all whom you
have slandered or misrepresented: this is right and just, and must not be
forgotten. Still, the essence of your repentance must be "toward God"; for
the essence of your wrong is toward God. I will endeavour to show you
this.
A boy is rebellious against his father. The father has told him such a
thing
is to be done, and he determines that he will not do it. His father has
forbidden him certain things, and he therefore defiantly does them. His
father is much grieved, talks with him, and endeavours to bring him to
repentance. Suppose the boy were to reply, "Father, I feel sorry for what
I
have done, because it has vexed my brother." Such a speech would be
impertinence, and not penitence. Suppose he said, "Father, I will also
confess that I am sorry for what I have done, because it has deprived me
of
a good deal of pleasure." That also would be a selfish and impudent
speech,
and show great contempt for his father's authority. Before he can be
forgiven and restored to favour, he must confess the wrong done in
disobeying his father's law. He must lament that he has broken the rule of
the household; and he must promise to do so no more. There can be no
restoration of that child to his proper place in the family till he has
said, "Father, I have sinned." He is stubborn, unhumbled, and rebellious
till he comes to that point. All the repentance that he feels about the
matter which does not go toward his father, misses the mark: in fact, it
may
even be an impudent aggravation of his rebellion against his father's rule
that he is willing to own his wrong toward others, but will not confess
the
wrong he has done to the one chiefly concerned.
O sinner, you must repent before God, or you do not repent at all; for
here
is the essence of repentance. The man repenting sees that he has neglected
God. What though I have never been a thief nor an adulterer; yet God made
me, and I am his creature, and if throughout twenty, thirty, or forty
years
I have never served him, I have all that while robbed him of what he had a
right to expect from me. Did God make you, and has he kept the breath in
your nostrils, and has he kindly supplied your wants till now, and all
these
years has he had nothing from you? Would you have kept a horse or a cow
all
this time, and have had nothing from it? Would you keep a dog if it had
never fawned upon you? never noticed your call? Yet all these years God
has
thus preserved you in being, and blessed you with great mercies, and you
have made no response. Hear how the Lord cries, "I have nourished and
brought up children, and they have rebelled against me!" This is where the
sin lies.
Further than that, the true penitent sees that he has misrepresented God.
When he has suffered a little affliction, he has thought God was cruel and
unjust. The heathen misrepresent God by wor****pping idols: we misrepresent
God by our murmurings, our complainings, and our thought that there is
pleasure in sin, and weariness in the divine service. Have you not spoken
of
God as if he were the cause of your misery, when you have brought it all
upon yourself? You talk about him as if he were unjust, when it is you
that
are unjust and evil.
The penitent man sees that the greatest offence of all his offences is
that
he has offended God. Many of you think nothing of merely offending God:
you
think much more of offending man. If I call you "sinners" you do not repel
the charge; but if I called you "criminals" you would rise in indignation,
and deny the accusation. A criminal, in the usual sense of the term, is
one
who has offended his fellow-man: a sinner is one who has wronged his God.
You do not mind being called sinners, because you think little of grieving
God; but to be called criminals, or offenders against the laws of man,
annoys you; for you think far more of man than of God. Yet, in honest
judgment, it were better, infinitely better, to break every human law, if
this could be done without breaking the divine law, than to disobey the
least of the commands of God. Knowest thou not, O man, that thou hast
lived
in rebellion against God? Thou hast done the things he bids thee not to
do,
and thou hast left undone the things which he commands thee to do. This is
what thou hast to feel and to confess with sorrow; and without this there
can be no repentance.
Near the vital heart of repentance, right in its core, is a sense of the
meanness of our conduct toward God. Especially our ingratitude to him,
after
all his favour and mercy. This it is that troubles the truly penitent
heart
most: that God should love so much, and should have such a wretched
return.
Ingratitude, the worst of ills, makes sin exceeding sinful. Sorrow for
having so ill requited the Lord is a spiritual grace. A tear of such
repentance is a diamond of the first water, precious in the sight of the
Lord.
True repentance is also toward God in this respect, that it judges itself
by
God. We do not repent because we are not so good as a friend whom we
admire,
but because we are not holy as the Lord. God's perfect law is the
transcript
of his own perfect character, and sin is any want of conformity to the law
and to the character of God. Judge yourselves by your fellow-men, and you
may be self-content; but measure yourselves by the perfect holiness of the
Lord God, and oh, how you must despise yourself! There is no deep
repentance
until our standard is the standard of perfect rectitude, till our judgment
of self is formed by a comparison with the divine character. When we
behold
the perfection of the thrice holy Jehovah, and then look at ourselves, we
cry with Job, "Mine eyes seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent
in
dust and ashes."
To sum up: evangelical repentance is repentance of sin as sin: not of this
sin nor of that, but of the whole mass. We repent of the sin of our nature
as well as of the sin of our practice. We bemoan sin within us and without
us. We repent of sin itself as being an insult to God. Anything short of
this is a mere surface repentance, and not a repentance which reaches to
the
bottom of the mischief. Repentance of the evil act, and not of the evil
heart, is like men pumping water out of a leaky vessel, but forgetting to
stop the leak. Some would dam up the stream, but leave the fountain still
flowing; they would remove the eruption from the skin, but leave the
disease
in the flesh. All that is done by way of amendment without a bemoaning of
sin because of its being rebellion against God will fall short of the
mark.
When you repent of sin as against God, you have laid the axe at the root
of
the tree. He that repents of sin as sin against God, is no longer s****ting
with the evil, but has come to stern business with it; now he will be led
to
change his life, and to be a new man: now, also, will he be driven to cry
to
God for mercy, and in consequence he will be drawn to trust in Jesus. He
will now feel that he cannot help himself, and he will look to the strong
for strength. I can help myself toward my fellow-man, and I can improve
myself up to his standard; but I cannot help myself toward God, and cannot
wash myself clean before his eye; therefore I fly to him to purge me with
hyssop, and make me whiter than snow. O gracious Spirit, turn our eyes
Godward, and then fill them with penitential tears.
III. Thirdly, I am going to throw in a bit of my own. I confess that it
does
not rise to the glorious fulness of the text, but I use it as a
stepping-stone for feeble footsteps. I thus apologize as I say-THOSE WHO
HAVE EVANGELICAL REPENTANCE ARE PERMITTED TO BELIEVE IN JESUS CHRIST. Paul
says that he testified of "repentance toward God, and faith toward our
Lord
Jesus Christ"; and, therefore, where there is repentance, faith is
allowable. O penitent sinner, you may believe in the Saviour! While you
are
labouring under your present sense of guilt, while you are loathing and
abhorring yourself, while you are burdened and heavy laden with fears,
while
you are crushed with sorrow as you lie before the Lord, you may now trust
the Lord Jesus Christ. Before you have any quiet of conscience, before any
relief comes to your heart, before hope ****nes in your spirit; now in your
direct distress, when you are ready to perish, you may at once exercise
faith in him who came to seek and to save that which was lost. There is no
law against faith. No decree of heaven forbids a sinner to believe and
live.
You may pluck up courage to believe when you remember this-first, that
though you have offended God (and this is the great point that troubles
you)
that God, whom you have offended, has himself provided an atonement. The
sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ is practically a substitution presented
by God himself. The Offended dies to set the offender free. God himself
suffers the penalty of his law, that he may justly forgive; and that,
though
Judge of all, he may yet righteously exercise his fatherly love in the
putting away of sin. When you are looking to God with tears in your eyes,
remember it is the same God who is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, and this offended God, "so loved the world, that he gave his only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have
everlasting life."
Recollect, also, that this atonement was presented for the guilty: in
fact,
there could be no atonement where there was no guilt. It would be
superfluous to make expiation where there had been no fault. For man, as a
sinner, Christ died. "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all
acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." I
pray
you, then, the more deeply you feel your sinner****p, the more clearly
perceive that the sacrifice of Calvary was for you. For sinners the cross
was lifted high, and for sinners the eternal Son of God poured out his
soul
unto death. Oh that my hearers, who mourn over sin, could see this, and
rejoice in the divine method of putting sin out of the way!
But, remember, you must, with your repentance, come to God with faith in
his
dear Son. I have said that you may do so; but I apologize for so saying,
for
it is only half the truth. God commands you to believe. The same God that
says, "Thou shalt not steal," is that God who says, "Believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." This is his commandment, that you
believe on Jesus Christ, whom he hath sent. Faith is not left to your
option, you are commanded to accept the witness of God. "Believe and
live,"
has all the force of a divine statute. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
and thou shalt be saved." Therefore, if thou art already a rebel, do not
go
on rebelling by refusing to believe in the Lord's own testimony.
Remember that there can be no reconciliation made between you and God
unless
you believe in Jesus Christ, whom he has given as a Saviour, and
commissioned to that end. Not believing in Jesus is caviling at God's way
of
salvation, quarrelling with his message of love. Will you do this? You
have
done wrong enough by fighting against Jehovah's law, are you going to
fight
against his gospel? Without faith it is impossible to please him; will you
continue to displease him? Disbelief in Christ is on your part casting a
new
dishonour upon God, and thus it is a perseverance in rebellion of the most
aggravated form. By refusing his unspeakable gift, you do, as it were, put
your finger into the very eye of God. To refuse the Son is to blaspheme
the
Father. "He that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he
believeth not the record that God gave of his Son." Come, poor soul, be
encouraged. Clearly, if you have repentance toward God, you are allowed to
believe in Jesus. Upon the drops of your repentance the sun of mercy is
****ning; what a rainbow of hope is thus made!
Do not hesitate. You would fain be washed, for you mourn your defilement;
yonder is the cleansing fount! You are pained with the malady of sin;
there
stands the healing Saviour, cast yourself at his feet! No embargo is laid
upon your believing. God has not even in secret said to you, "Seek ye my
face in vain." Come, I pray you, and fear not.
We testify to you "repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus
Christ." But that faith must be toward the Lord Jesus Christ. You must
look
to Jesus, to the substitute, to the sacrifice, to the mediator, to the Son
of God. "No man cometh unto the Father," saith Jesus, "but by me." No
faith
in God will save the sinner except it is faith in God through our Lord
Jesus
Christ. To attempt to come to God without the appointed Mediator, is again
to insult him by refusing his method of reconciliation. Do not so, but let
your repentance toward God be accompanied with faith toward our Lord Jesus
Christ; you are warranted in thus believing.
IV. And now I come to my last point. Oh that I might be helped by the Holy
Ghost! Here I come back to the text, and get on sure ground. EVANGELICAL
REPENTANCE IS LINKED TO FAITH, AND FAITH IS LINKED TO REPENTANCE. We
testify
not only of repentance toward God, but of faith toward our Lord Jesus
Christ.
Repentance and faith are born of the same Spirit of God. I do not know
which
comes first; but I fall back on my well-worn image of a wheel-when the
cart
starts, which spoke of the wheel moves first? I do not know. Repentance
and
faith come together. Perhaps I may say that repentance is like Leah, for
it
is "tender eyed"; and faith is like Rachel, fairer to look upon. But you
cannot take Rachel to yourself unless you will have Leah also; for it is
according to the rule of the gospel that so it should be. The Old
Testament,
with its law of repentance, must be bound up in one volume with the New
Testament of the gospel of faith. These two, like Naomi and Ruth, say to
each other, "Where thou dwellest I will dwell." There are two stars called
the Gemini, which are always together: faith and repentance are the Twins
of
the spiritual heavens. What if I liken them to the two valves of the
heart?
They must be both in action, or the soul cannot live. They are born
together, and they must live together.
Repentance is the result of an unperceived faith. When a man repents of
sin,
he does inwardly believe, in a measure, although he may not think so.
There
is such a thing as latent faith: although it yields the man no conscious
comfort, it may be doing something even better for him; for it may be
working in him truthfulness of heart, purity of spirit, and abhorrence of
evil. No true repentance is quite apart from faith. The solid of faith is
held in solution in the liquid of repentance. It is clear that no man can
repent toward God unless he believes in God. He could never feel grief at
having offended God, if he did not believe that God is good. To the dark
cloud of repentance there is a silver lining of faith; yet, at the first,
the awakened soul does not know this, and therefore laments that he cannot
believe; whereas, his very repentance is grounded upon a measure of faith.
Repentance is also greatly increased as faith grows. I fear that some
people
fancy that they repented when they were first converted, and that,
therefore, they have done with repentance. But it is not so: the higher
the
faith, the deeper the repentance. The saint most ripe for heaven is the
most
aware of his own shortcomings. As long as we are here, and grace is an
active exercise, our consciousness of our unworthiness will grow upon us.
When you have grown too big for repentance, depend upon it you have grown
too proud for faith. They that say they have ceased to repent confess that
they have departed from Christ. Repentance and faith will grow each one as
the other grows: the more you know the weight of sin, the more will you
lean
upon Jesus, and the more will you know his power to uphold. When
repentance
measures a cubit, faith will measure a cubit also.
Repentance also increases faith. Beloved, we never believe in Christ to
the
full till we get a clear view of our need of him; and that is the fruit of
repentance. When we hate sin more we shall love Christ more, and trust him
more. The more self sinks, the more Christ rises: like the two scales of
balance, one must go down that the other may go up: self must sink in
repentance that Christ may rise by faith.
Moreover, repentance salts faith and sweetens it, and faith does the same
to
repentance. Faith, if there could be true faith without repentance, would
be
like the flowers without the dew, like the sun****ne without shade, and
like
hills without valleys. If faith be the cluster, repentance is the juice of
the grape. Faith is dry, like the fleece on the thre****ng-floor, receptive
and retentive; but when heaven visits it with fulness, it drips with
repentance. If a man professes faith, and has no sense of personal
unworthiness, and no grief for sin, he becomes a man of the letter, sound
in
the head, and very apt to prove his doctrine orthodox by apostolic blows
and
knocks. But when you add to this the mollifying effects of true
repentance,
he becomes lowly, and humble, and easily to be entreated. When a man
repents
as much as he believes, he is as patient in his own quarrel as he is
valiant
in "the quarrel of the covenant." He holds his own sinner****p as firmly as
he holds the Lord's Saviour****p, and he frequents the Valley of
Humiliation
as much as the hills of Assurance.
If there could be such a thing as a man who was a believer without
repentance, he would be much too big for his boots, and there would be no
bearing him. If he were always saying, "Yes, I know I am saved; I have a
full assurance that I am saved"; and yet had no sense of personal sin, how
loudly he would crow! But, O dear friends, while we mourn our sins, we are
not puffed up by the privileges which faith receives. An old Puritan says,
that when a saint is made beautiful with rich graces, as the peacock with
many-coloured feathers, let him not be vain, but let him recollect the
black
feet of his inbred sin, and the harsh voice of his many shortcomings.
Repentance will never allow faith to strut, even if it had a mind to do
so.
Faith cheers repentance, and repentance sobers faith. The two go well
together. Faith looks to the throne, and repentance loves the cross. When
faith looks most rightly to the Second Advent, repentance forbids its
forgetting the First Advent. When faith is tempted to climb into
presumption, repentance calls it back to sit at Jesus' feet. Never try to
separate these dear companions, which minister more sweetly to one another
than I have time to tell. That conversion which is all joy and lacks
sorrow
for sin, is very questionable. I will not believe in that faith which has
no
repentance with it, any more than I would believe in that repentance which
left a man without faith in Jesus. Like the two cherubs which stood gazing
down upon the mercy-seat, so stand these two inseparable graces, and none
must dare to remove the one or the other.
I have almost done; but the thought strikes me, Will these good people go
home, and remember about repentance and faith? Have I so talked that they
will think of me rather than of the points in hand? I hope it is not so. I
do pray you, throw away all that I may have said apart from the subject;
cast it off as so much chaff, and keep only the wheat. Remember,
"repentance
toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ." Let each one ask
himself, Have I a repentance which leads to faith? Have I a faith which
joins hands with repentance? This is the way to weave an ark of bulrushes
for your infant assurance: twist these two together, repentance and faith.
Yet trust neither repentance nor faith; but repent toward God, and have
faith toward the Lord Jesus. Mind you do this; for there is a sad aptitude
in many hearers to forget the essential point, and think of our stories
and
illustrations rather than of the practical duty which we would enforce. A
celebrated minister, who has long ago gone home, was once taken ill, and
his
wife requested him to go and consult an eminent physician. He went to this
physician, who welcomed him very heartily. "I am right glad to see you,
sir," said he; "I have heard you preach, and have been greatly profited by
you, and therefore I have often wished to have half an hour's chat with
you.
If I can do anything for you, I am sure I will." The minister stated his
case. The doctor said, "Oh, it is a very simple matter; you have only to
take such and such a drug, and you will soon be right." The patient was
about to go, thinking that he must not occupy the physician's time; but he
pressed him to stay, and they entered into pleasant conversation. The
minister went home to his wife, and told her with joy what a delightful
man
the doctor had proved to be. He said, "I do not know that I ever had a
more
delightful talk. The good man is eloquent, and witty, and gracious." The
wife replied, "But what remedy did he prescribe?" "Dear!" said the
minister,
"I quite forget what he told me on that point." "What!" she said, "did you
go to a physician for advice, and have you come away without a remedy?"
"It
quite slipped my mind," he said: "the doctor talked so pleasantly that his
prescription has quite gone out of my head." Now, if I have talked to you
so
that this will happen, I shall be very sorry. Come, let my last word be a
repetition of the gospel remedy for sin. Here it is. Trust in the precious
blood of Christ, and make full confession of your sin, heartily forsaking
it. You must receive Christ by faith, and you must loathe every evil way.
Repentance and faith must look to the water and the blood from the side of
Jesus for cleansing from the power and guilt of sin. Pray God that you
may,
by both these priceless graces, receive at once the merit of your Saviour
unto eternal salvation. Amen.
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