Two Essential Things
IT pear both to the Fews, and also to Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward ee Lord Jesus Christ. Acts 20: 21.
TITAN PREACHER’S SOBRIQUET. — THE DOOR AND DOOR- POST. i A REPENTANCE NOT TOWARD GOD. — PRODUCED BY SHAME.: aa BY PAINFUL CONSEQUENCES. — BY DREAD OF HELL. — BY A aie SENSE OF THE UNWORTHINESS OF AN ILL LIFE. — PARTIAL Prices REPENTANCE. — A COBBLER’S DEBTS PAID. — II. REPENTANCE aes TOWARD GOD. — CONSCIOUSNESS OF NEGLECTING GOD. — OF OFFENDING HIM. — OF SIN AS SIN. — III. REPENTANT SINNERS. PERMITTED TO BELIEVE, — IV. REPENTANCE LINKED TO FAITH. — THE RESULT OF AN UNPERCEIVED FAITH. — THE GEM- - INI OF THE HEAVENS. — GROW TOGETHER. — INCREASE EACH OTHER. — A FORGETFUL MINISTER.
es Tuts was the practical drift of Paul’s teaching at ee Ephesus, and everywhere else. He kept back noth- “(27% ing that was profitable to them; and the main profit = he expected them to derive from his teaching the — a whole counsel of God was this, that they should have — - — «repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord P Jesus Christ.” This was the great aim of the apostle. + ae 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 ae by the Spirit of God, of true REPENTANCE AND FAITH. or
-» Old Mr. Dodd, one of the quaintest of the Puritans,
Bas called by some people “Old Mr. Faith and Reabundant 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 practicing repentance and faith.”
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. 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 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.
Ce ee ee among neciae it is not Bee ts wrong. ot ie, but it is considered a very great fault to. He so + nderingly as to be caught at it. Many who profess — ret for having done wrong are not sorry for the jae itself, but they are affected by the opinion of ne
- Don not mistake a little natural fluttering of the hear and blushing of the face, on account of being found out in sin, for true repentance.
ai and ue money is gone; ae now he Pa that fie has played the fool. Another has been indulging % the passions of his corrupt nature, and he finds him- — self suffering for it, and therefore he repents of his. ee wickedness. There are many cases that] need not a instance here, in which sin comes home very quickly i 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 foratime; not because he dislikes it, but because he sees that it is ruining him: as sailors in a storm cast overboard
: a the cargo of the ship, not because they are weary of a Gt, but because the vessel will go to the bottom if they oe retain it. This is regret for consequences, not sorrow ae the nape he es Goa me Ss A Beek Sohal again, exhibit a. repentance which
7 This eas is iealthiat in many ways, and we can b no means dispense with it. But if this fear goes” further than a selfish ae ait DESIRE TO ESCAPE PUNISHMENT,
no reliance can be placed upon its moral effect.
such persons would continue in sin, and not only be content to live in it, but be delighted to have it so.
wages of sin, but of the sin which earns the wages.. If you have no repentance for the sin itself, it is in ae vain that you should stand and tremble because of judgment to come.; 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 ave a NOT THE GENUINE ARTICLE, Pec
o ok I refer to a sense of the unworthiness of an ill life. I a 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. They — regret that their story will never be quoted among the examples of RECOH men, who have left “footprints
5 societ and Noes they wish ae wey
( lot out the. past, and write more worthy lines the page of life. Now, this is hopeful; ‘but iis.’ 4 Repentance toward God is the only a
g pick can effectually cut the cable which boi nan to the fatal shores of evil.
: ir 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
man who only repents of this and that glaring offence, has not repented of sin at all. I remember the story
etace through thie preechine 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. q 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 oe one debt or that other debt, but for being i in debt at all, and, therefore, having a little coming to him from the estate of a relative, he bought a horse, and rode oe kom 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 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.
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.
II. I have said enough to show that there is a repentance which is not toward God; and now let us observe that repentance is
REPENTANCE TOWARD GOD. Lay stress on the words, “toward God.” True repentance looks toward God. I will endeavor 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 endeavors to bring him to repentance. ‘Suppose the boy were to reply, ‘Father, I confess that I am sorry for what I have done, because it has deprived me of a good deal of pleasure.” That would be a selfish and impudent speech, and show the wrong done in ec ee ta his Scher law. 2 - mu8t lament that he has broken the rule of the 1A household; and he must promise to do so no more.; 2 There can be no restoration of that child to his -pro-. we per place in the family till he has said, “Father, i ade sinned.” He is stubborn, unhumbled, and: rebellious till he comes to that point. ise Oh sinner, you must repent before God, or you me “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 jae! never served Him, I have all that while robbed Him «of what He had a right to expect from me. Hear how the Lord cries, “I have nourished: and brought. Be sup children, and they have rebelled against me.” ‘That is where the sin lies. (a eee The penitent man sees that Be THE GREATEST OFFENCE + sof all his offences is that he has offended God. Nowe -of you think nothing of merely offending God; you ne think much more oe 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 on who has offended his fellow man; a -ginner is one who has wronged his God. You do not. “4 mind being called sinners, because you think little of Ae PAS a
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 break-. ing 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.
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. 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 ax at the root of the tree.
III. Thirdly, 1 am going to throw in a bit of my own. I confess that it does not rise to the glorious. fullness of the text, but I use it as a stepping-stone:
faith.
Poe here eg = Pee
PERMITTED TO BELIEVE Jesu Christ. Paul obs that he testified of en
sus Pirise and, eis here ees 1S ae:
ance, faith is allowable. O penitent sinner, you may believe in the Saviour! While you are laboring
nder your present sense of guilt, while you are loath-
with sorrow as you lie before the Lord, you may now S f 2 trust the Lord ee Christ. Before you have ane eh
care before hope shines 1 in your spirit; now in your direst 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.
You may pick 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 puting 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.”
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 substitnte, 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: you ‘are warranted in thus believing.
IV. And now! 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. Repentance is linked to faith, and
FAITH 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. 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.”
ther; faith and enone are é the’ é ‘spiritual heavens. What if I liken them to the ‘2 valves of the heart? They must be both in — ction, or the soul cannot live. They are born: gether, and they must live together. ik Repentance is the result of an Ee faith. 3
When a man repents of sin, he does inwardly believe, Be in a measure, although he may not think so. There:: is such a thing as latent faith; although it yields the: me man no conscious comfort, it may be doing something te even better for him; for it may be working in him truthfulness of heart, purity of soul, and abhorrence of evil. No true repentance is quite apart from faith. — To the dark cloud of repentance there isa 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 they repented when,: they were first converted, and that, therefore, they I 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. in 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.
If there could be such a thing as a man who was a.
on a full assurance cae Iam ee ant yet had - no sense of personal sin, how loudly he would crow! a ,; ‘Faith cheers repentance, and repentance sobers faith.: The two go well together. Faith looks to the throne, — cand 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 — ag back to sit at Jesus’ feet. I will not believe in that faith which has no repentance with it, any more than ie would believe in that repentance which left a man without faith in Jesus.
I have almost done; but the thought strikes nee Will these good people go home, and remember. about repentance and faith? Let each one ask him- «self, Have I a repentance which leads to faith? Have. Ta faith which joins hands with repentance? Mind = - + -you do this; for there is a sad aptitude in many hearers to forget the essential point, and think of 9 ae ‘our stories and illustrations rather than of the practical duty which we would enforce. A celebrated minister, who has long gone home, was once taken ill, and his wife requested him to go and consult an eminent physicean. 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
an If I can ao Seles oe oe Tam n sure
h, -it is a very. simple matter; you have only to
he patient was about to go, thinking that he must
joy what a delightful man the doctor had proved to delightful talk. The good man is eloquent and witty
- did he prescribe?” “Dear!” said the minister, “1 quite forgot 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 a pleasantly that his prescription has quite gone out of
-will happen, I shall be very sorry. Come, let my last word be a repetition of 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.
The minister stated his case. The doctor said, ike such and such a drug, and you will soon be right.’ a - 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 — x.
be. He said, “I do not know that I ever had a more
and gracious.” The wife replied, “But what remedy —
“4. my head.” Now, if I have talked to you so that this
Gospel remedy for sin. Here it is. Trust in the