Godly Sorrow, and Its Precious Fruit

“For godly sorrow worketh. repentance to salvation, not to Le repented of.” —

2 Cor. vii. 10,

Here godly sorrow and repentance stand to each other in the relation of cause and effect. We shall consider them in their order, following each into its subordinate branches and practical results: —

I. The godly sorrow which works repentance.
II. The repentance which godly sorrow works.

I. Godly sorrow; Its nature, and its origin.

1. The nature of godly sorrow. As long as my audience consists of human beings in the body, it is not necessary to explain what is meant by sorrow. Every one knows, but none can tell, what it is. The heart knoweth its own bitterness. Men are born to trouble at first, and exercised in it all their days. There is a cry at the beginning of life, and a groan at its close.

Sorrow, the generic, is known to all; the specific, godly sorrow, needs definition and description. We habitually and universally assume that all understand what is meant by a flower: we never define it. The genus is so common, and so widely spread over the earth, that every human being is familiar with its name and nature. But there are some species of flowers “which few have ever seen, and which the more experienced, accordingly, describe to the multitude. In order to convey an accurate conception of a rare exotic, it is usual to compare and contrast it with some plant that is common and indigenous. The new species is best understood when we have learned wherein it is like, and wherein it is unlike one that is found on every wayside.

It is thus that we must deal with godly sorrow, a precious seed brought- from heaven to human hearts, and struggling through an unkindly soil. In the immediate context it is directly contrasted with a commoner kind, called” the sorrow of the world.’’ Although affliction Cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground (Job v. 6); yet sorrows do spring in the lot of man, a braird as thick and close and constant as the grass. The low-growing species, godly sorrow, may be found here and there on the plain, rarer and sweeter than violets among the herbage of summer.

The sorrow of the world, though it seem a thick homogeneous covering over all human life, is yet made up of as many different kinds as that carpet of green which covers the earth. Here, it is chiefly the pain of a diseased body; and there, the eating canker of a discontented mind. At one time the loss of property, at another the loss of friends, is the more immediate cause of grief. Some are distressed because they cannot get this world’s good, and others because they must soon part with that which they have gotten. These and all other kinds of grief which have respect only to the present life, are slumped together, and denominated “the sorrow of the world,” although they consist of kinds various and numerous as the herbs that clothe the ground. Alone, on the other side, and in contrast with them all, stands that one peculiar species, “sorrow towards God.”’ It is like the rest, inasmuch as it is sorrow: it is unlike the rest, inasmuch as it springs, not out of the sufferer’s connection with the earth and time, but out of his connection with God and eternity.

The expression clearly intimates that the attitude of the soul must be changed ere it can be sensible of this sorrow. Away from the world, with its hopes and fears, the man must turn, and open his inmost being towards God. Let the Father of our spirits come into immediate communion with the spirit which he has made. The creature, absorbed by the presence of its Maker, becomes in a manner unconscious of temporal things. He has been lifted up, in spirit, from the earth, so that for the time its attractions and repulsions do not sensibly affect him. He is alone with God; and God is near. Now, what will the sensation be in that human heart? It is not love, pure and full, as of angels and spirits of men made perfect; it is not despairing hate like that of devils; it is, — if the communion which has begun be with the Father, through the Son, by the ministry of the Holy Spirit, — it is sorrow; but it is a sorrow diverse from all the sorrows of the world. It is a new thing. It is an affection which the carnal mind never knew. It is in no sense or measure dependent on the good things of this world. The want of them will not produce it; the possession of them will not take it away.

“When the human spirit has been led aside into the Father’s presence, — when a conference is held on the border between the tenant of time and eternity’s Almighty Lord, old things that were wont to control the emotions are left behind, and new things from the other side come in to mould with supreme authority the affections and the will. Towards God, — when the soul is turned in that direction, and the Father’s countenance, like the sun in his strength, shines directly in, — towards God there would be no sorrow, if there were no sin. Sometimes in our latitudes vapours rising from the ground, and hanging in the atmosphere, change the white brightness of the sun into a jaundiced yellow or a fiery red. A shade that seems to take the mirth out of both man and beast then lies upon the world. Thus passions, issuing like mist from the soul itself, darken the face of God, hiding his tenderness, and permitting only anger to glance through.

It depends on the work of the Spirit in the man whether the result of that disturbance shall be dislike of God’s holiness, or sorrow for his own sin. One of these it must be. When with a broken, teachable heart you turn in that direction, you will attribute the dimness to its true cause. You find fault, not with God because there is a frown on his countenance, but with yourself, because your sins have hid his face. When the sun is half-hidden, and the rays that do penetrate are of a livid, lurid hue, we know well, we know all that there is nothing the matter with the sun — that the sole reason of the dimness and dread is the vapour that springs from the earth, and hovers near its surface. If we were as knowing and as

S04j godly sorrow, and its precious fruit.

true in spiritual as we are in natural affairs, we would understand, and confess, and feel, that when a human heart is turned toward God its own sin is the only impediment to peace. Our concern, our dislike, our revenge would be directed, not against the Holy One who refuses to smile upon the impure, but a,gainst our own impurities, which bar the approaches of his love. The resulting emotion would be, not impotent enmity upward, but sorrow turned in.

We approach here the very hinge of the difference between the carnal and the spiritual mind. The one is enmity against God for his righteousness; the other, sorrow for its own sin. Two persons, imbued respectively with these opposite spirits, may both be painfully sensible of an obstruction preventing peaceful communion between themselves and God: the one is sorry that the Judge will not come down to his standard; the other, that his own attainments have not been brought up to the standard of the Judge. The true wish of the one man’s heart is, that there were less of holiness in God; the true wish of the other man’s heart is, that there were more in himself. The two griefs and the two desires lie as far apart from each other as light and darkness, — as life and death.

2. We shall be better able to understand what sorrow towards God is, if we proceed now to examine more exactly how it is produced. Its immediate cause will throw light upon its specific character.

A cognate text in Rom. ii. 4 will help us here. These two allied but distinct intimations may be placed in parallel lines, and treated like an equation; thus: — “The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance.”

“Godly sorrow worketh repentance.”

We learn, as the result of the comparison, that the goodness of God leads to repentance by the way of godly soiTOW. The series of cause and effect runs thus: goodness of God; godly sorrow; repentance. The same conclusion is brought out with much fuller illustration in a preceding section of the same epistle. Perhaps there is no other portion of Scripture in which the goodness of God is more articulately pronounced, or more vividly displayed. “Come out from among them, and be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty” (vi. 17, 18). In the next verse (vii. 1) we learn what effects are expected to spring from such an outpouring of paternal tenderness: “Having, therefore, these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” The undeserved and unexpected display of fatherly kindness penetrates like sunlight into the dark chambers of an alienated heart. That heart, thereupon, startles and stands aghast at its own pollutions. It is amazed at its own ingratitude, now discovered. Its instant, instinctive, vehement cry is, “Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness.” This is a most instructive example, in the moral department, of effect following cause. The sorrow for sin was not felt until God’s goodness aroused it; and that sorrow once aroused, instantly manifests true repentance, in an eager effort to put sin away.

Nothing will make us turn until we be grieved for our sins; and nothing mil make us grieve for our sins but the goodness of God. Do not mistake; a fear of hell is not sorrow for sin: it may be nothing more than a regret that God is holy. Dread of punishment may indeed be employed to produce the commotion in which a purer affection begins, but in itself it neither pleases God nor purifies man. As an instrument wherewith the peace of spiritual death may be disturbed, the Lord employs it, and, therefore, we should neither despise nor discard it; but it lies very low, and cannot carry us far in an upward movement. It is worthless unless it quickly merge in the higher, and truer, and purer, affection — sorrow for sin. When a man, touched by God’s goodness, takes God’s side with his whole heart, as against himself in the matter of his own guilt, — this is the turning point.

I am aware that some will acquiesce in this exposition as far as it goes, and complain that precisely at the place where it stops their difficulty lies. They know that to themselves belongs sin, and to God righteousness. They know that they ought to be grieved for the wickedness of their own hearts, but in point of fact they are not grieved. They would like to possess this godly sorrow, but they do not possess it. They cannot attain it. What shall be done for these? How shall you comfort them?

I shall not try to comfort them. Their complaint about the want of godly sorrow, and their expressed desire to attain it, is in most cases, I suspect, rank self-deceiving. They have admitted into their understandings the knowledge that this gr?<ie of the Spirit is necessary; but this grace of the Spirit their hearts do not desire; for if they desired it, they would obtain it. The promise is absolute, Ask, and ye shall receive. The Promiser is true; the lie will be found on the other side.

Look to the expression; it is not merely the generic sorrow; it is the specific” sorrow toward God.’’ They who do not turn in that direction cannot possibly experience that sorrow. It is like Nelson’s bold expedient at Copenhagen, when holding the telescope to his blind eye, he declared he did not see the signal for retreat, and pressed forward to the battle. If you keep the seeing eye of your soul open upon the world, and turn a blind eye towards God, whatever emotions may be kindled by the aspect of temporal things, towards God there will be neither grief nor joy. It is mere hypocrisy to complain that you are not tenderly affected by the sight of certain objects, if on these objects you seldom look, and never gaze.

Suppose I were shut up within a round tower, whose massive wall had in some time of trouble been pierced here and there for musketry; suppose, further, that, by choice or necessity, I am whirled rapidly and incessantly round its inner circumference, will I appreciate the beauties of the suiTOunding landscape, or recognise the features of the men who labour in the field below? I will not. Why? Are there not openings in the wall which I pass at every circuit? Yes; but the eye, set for objects near, has not time to adjust itself to objects at a distance until it has passed the openings; and so the result is the same as if it were a dead wall all round. Behold the circle of human life! of the earth earthy it is, almost throughout its whole circumference. A dead wall very near and very thick obstructs the view. Here and there, on a Sabbath or other season of seriousness, a slit is left open in its side. Heaven might be seen through these; but, alas, the eye which is habitually set for the earthly cannot, during such momentary glimpses, adjust itself to higher things, Unless you pause and look steadfastly, you will see neither clouds nor sunshine through these openings on the distant sky. So long has the soul looked upon the world, and so firmly is the world’s picture fixed in its eye, that when it is turned for a moment heavenward, it feels only a quiver of inarticulate light, and retains no distinct impression of the things that are unseen and eternal.

Those who devote all their time and energy to the afiairs of this life, and complain that they cannot attain a vivid sense of sin, are deceiving themselves. Be as diligent in this business as in others, and you will succeed as well. If you bestow only languid, superficial, momentary thoughts upon your greatest interests, you have no right to expect that they will prosper.

Moreover, when you do turn your mind, and turn intently, toward God, you must open on his goodness. His wrath, when you gaze on it, may make you afraid of punishment, but has no power to make you sorry for sin. So hard is a heart long accustomed to evil, that nothing can melt it but goodness; and no goodness but God’s; and no goodness of his but the greatest. Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift. “Looking unto Jesus” is the grand specific for producing godly sorrow in a human heart. It was a hard heart that quivered under the beams of his loving eye on the threshold of Pilate’s judgment hall. When Jesus looked on Peter, Peter went out and wept. Emmanuel’s love has lost none of its melting power; the hardest hearts laid fairly open to it, must ere long flow down. God’s goodness, embodied in Christ crucified, becomes, under the ministry of the Spirit, the cause of godly sorrow in believing men. “Consider Him;” it is by meditating much on the stupendous cure which divine mercy has provided that you will learn to estimate aright the depth of the disease. Sweet sense of pardon has, as its other side, bitter grief for sin. Mere sweetness soon palls upon the taste: acids sweetened give more lively and more lasting pleasure. To a thirsty soul cold water conveys a measure of delight which is not inherent in its own nature. Sinners forgiven must relish a holy heaven, in a manner and measure which unfallen angels do not know. “Thou hast washed us from our sins in thy blood’’ gives zest to the songs of heaven. Such and so great a gladness they could not have enjoyed unless they had tasted grief

II. The repentance which godly sorrow produces. It is a change of mind which imparts a new direction to the whole life, as the turning of the helm changes the course of the ship. God’s goodness, flashing in upon the heart, made it ashamed of its own rebellion; this shame, so produced, turns the whole being round; the life so turned flows amain in the channel of obedience.

Two things are said in the text about this turning:

1, Ifc is unto salvation; and 2, It is not to be repented

of-

1. It is “repentance -unto salvation,” The man’s former

course led to perdition; it has been reversed, and therefore now leads to life.

Conversion is a common word in our language, and in our day. It means a turning, — that radical, and total, and permanent revolution in human life, which, beginning with conviction of sin in the heart, issues in pardon and holiness. In time of war a feeble pioneer band is feeling its way forward in a hostile country. Their own belief, taken up at hazard in the absence of information, and confirmed by the cunning of hostile spies, is that the path which they follow will lead to safety. Suddenly, and almost too late, a faithful messenger meets them with the decisive report that the enemy in force is immediately in front, and that a few paces more will plunge them into the jaws of death. They halt, wheel round, and retrace their steps. They never swerve from the track, and never lie down to rest until they reach, and touch, and are absorbed again into the mighty army of their king; as a detached drop, trickling down a blade of grass, gently, safely disappears when it comes in contact with the stream.

We are dealing here with matters on which our own life or death eternal depends; it behoves us to understand clearly, and speak plainly. ALL men are at the first and by nature moving downward through sin to death, as rivers flow toward the sea; unless we turn we shall die. In the words of our Chief Teacher:” Except a

man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God,” As surely as the waters, once disengaged from the mountain, find their way to the sea, so surely do the tastes and habits of the fallen gravitate farther and farther out from God. It is only when that course is absolutely arrested and turned back that the wanderer enters the path of life. It is the turning round that becomes salvation. They who turn not are not saved:” turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die V

2. It is a “repentance not to be repented of” The change is decisive and final. Your attitude is fixed, your portion chosen for life, — for ever. When in godly sorrow you have turned your face to Christ, and consequently your back on all that grieves him, you will never need to make another change; you will never repent of that repentance.

This seems so obvious that we are surprised to find it formally expressed. Perhaps the design is to suggest silently other choices which must be repented of. Many turns are made in life which demand another turning. That turning was “unto salvation;” there was no salvation in any other. They turned and lived; this one is the last, although the pilgrim after making it should sojourn on earth a hundred years. There may be many crooks in the Christian’s lot, but there will henceforth be no turning in his path till he reach his happy home. That youth who closed with Christ before his disease began, whose eyes are beaming with hope on the verge of the grave, whose feeble lips are framing themselves into a smile as the spirit is departing, does not then and there repent of his repentance. Falsehood is manifold; truth is single. Idols are a multitude; God is one. Each cistern that a thirsty soul turns to, is another that he must turn from, until he taste the fountain of living water. He who drinks the water that Christ gives him shall never thirst again.

The saved, as he enters among the undefiled, washed like them in the blood of the Lamb, and takes his place unchallenged in the circle of those that stand round the throne, does not rue the choice he made, and the point it turned on, and the new path it opened, when, yet in his youth, melted by God’s goodness, he sorrowed for sin and sought the Saviour, — when in the souls inmost thought, and the lip’s bold confession, and the life’s resolute course, in spite of indolence within and scorners without, he turned his back on a tempting world, and fully thenceforth followed the Lord. That turning was salvation, and he never needed to turn again.

It is recorded of a man, that in the body on the earth he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears. In heaven it will be equally impossible to find a place of repentance, with this difference that none will seek one there. Considering how many repentings are in human life, and how painful they are, it is a gladsome feature of the better land that it knows them not for ever. Even the last great turning of the saved, although a salutary, was a painful change. Birth pangs give Borrow, though they usher in life. To discover danger and rue the past is agony to a human soul. These experiences lead to safety, but they do not constitute rest. In the rest that remaineth these turnings will no more be known. In the aggregate of human suffering on earth how large a portion consists of regrets! A correspondingly important element in the joy of the redeemed is that they will have none. Even in man’s best estate here, the review of each day as it fades away into the past, supplies material of new repentings. But as one object very near you hides from view a thousand that lie behind, this grace of the Spirit — “repentance unto life” — lies so close and bulks so largely in the eyes of the risen saints when they look back toward the world, that it covers the manifold minor regrets which dotted all their history. The repentance which led unto salvation is the only repentance which the saved see in the memory of the past, and of that repentance they will never, never repent. Never in earth or in heaven will Christians repent of that turning which, whatever it tore them from, brought them to Christ. It is a pressing practical thing. How close it comes! — how great it is! To you, brother, is the word of this salvation sent. This day Christ, and in him pardon and eternal life, are offered free to you. Close with this offer without reserve, without delay. Come to Christ, letting go all that you cannot carry into his bosom. This choice, — this turning, in time or eternity, you will never rue.