Part 6 (1/2)
When I was in Baltimore I used to preach every Sunday in the Penitentiary to nine hundred convicts. There was hardly a man there who did not feel miserable enough: they had plenty of feeling. For the first week or ten days of their imprisonment many of them cried half the time. Yet, when they were released, most of them would go right back to their old ways. The truth was, that they felt very bad because they had got caught; that was all. So you have seen a man in the time of trial show a good deal of feeling: but very often it is only because he has got into trouble; not because he has committed sin, or because his conscience tells him he has done evil in the sight of G.o.d. It seems as if the trial were going to result in true repentance; but the feeling too often pa.s.ses away.
Once again, Repentance is not _fasting and afflicting the body_. A man may fast for weeks and months and years, and yet not repent of one sin. Neither is it _remorse_. Judas had terrible remorse--enough to make him go and hang himself; but that was not repentance. I believe if he had gone to his Lord, fallen on his face, and confessed his sin, he would have been forgiven. Instead of this he went to the priests, and then put an end to his life. A man may do all sorts of penance--but there is no true repentance in that. Put that down in your mind. You cannot meet the claims of G.o.d by offering the fruit of your body for the sin of your soul. Away with such a delusion!
Repentance is not _conviction of sin_. That may sound strange to some. I have seen men under such deep conviction of sin that they could not sleep at night; they could not enjoy a single meal. They went on for months in this state; and yet they were not converted; they did not truly repent. Do not confound conviction of sin with Repentance.
Neither is _praying_--Repentance. That too may sound strange. Many people, when they become anxious about their soul's salvation, say, ”I will pray, and read the Bible;” and they think that will bring about the desired effect. But it will not do it. You may read the Bible and cry to G.o.d a great deal, and yet never repent. Many people cry loudly to G.o.d, and yet do not repent.
Another thing: it is not _breaking off some one sin_. A great many people make that mistake. A man who has been a drunkard signs the pledge, and stops drinking. Breaking off one sin is not Repentance.
Forsaking one vice is like breaking off one limb of a tree, when the whole tree has to come down. A profane man stops swearing; very good: but if he does not break off _from every sin_ it is not Repentance--it is not the work of G.o.d in the soul. When G.o.d works He hews down the whole tree. He wants to have a man turn from every sin. Supposing I am in a vessel out at sea, and I find the s.h.i.+p leaks in three or four places. I may go and stop up one hole; yet down goes the vessel.
Or suppose I am wounded in three or four places, and I get a remedy for one wound: if the other two or three wounds are neglected, my life will soon be gone. True Repentance is not merely breaking off this or that particular sin.
Well then, you will ask, what is Repentance? I will give you a good definition: it is ”right about face!” In the Irish language the word ”Repentance” means even more than ”right about face!” It implies that a man who has been walking in one direction has not only faced about, but is actually walking in an exactly contrary direction. ”Turn ye, turn ye; for why will ye die?” A man may have little feeling or much feeling; but if he does not turn away from sin, G.o.d will not have mercy on him. Repentance has also been described as ”a change of mind.” For instance, there is the parable told by Christ: ”A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work to-day in my vineyard. He answered and said, I will not” (Matt. xxi.
28, 29). After he had said ”I will not” he thought over it, and changed his mind. Perhaps he may have said to himself, ”I did not speak very respectfully to my father. He asked me to go and work, and I told him I would not go. I think I was wrong.” But suppose he had only said this, and still had not gone, he would not have repented.
He was not only convinced that he was wrong; but he went off into the fields, hoeing, or mowing or whatever it was. That is Christ's definition of repentance. If a man says, ”By the grace of G.o.d I will forsake my sin, and do His will,” that is Repentance--a turning right about.
Some one has said, man is born with his face turned away from G.o.d.
When he truly repents he is turned right around towards G.o.d; he leaves his old life.
Can a man at once repent? Certainly he can. It does not take a long while to turn around. It does not take a man six months to change his mind. There was a vessel that went down some time ago on the Newfoundland coast. As she was bearing towards the sh.o.r.e, there was a moment when the captain could have given orders to reverse the engines and turn back. If the engines had been reversed then, the s.h.i.+p would have been saved. But there was a moment when it was too late. So there is a moment, I believe, in every man's life when he can halt and say, ”By the grace of G.o.d I will go no further towards death and ruin. I repent of my sins and turn from them.” You may say you have not got feeling enough; but if you are convinced that you are on the wrong road, turn right about, and say, ”I will no longer go on in the way of rebellion and sin as I have done.”
Just then, when you are willing to turn towards G.o.d, salvation may be yours.
I find that every case of conversion recorded in the Bible was instantaneous. Repentance and faith came very suddenly. The moment a man made up his mind, G.o.d gave him the power. G.o.d does not ask any man to do what he has not the power to do. He would not command ”all men everywhere to repent” (Acts xvii. 30) if they were not able to do so. Man has no one to blame but himself if he does not repent and believe the Gospel. One of the leading ministers of the Gospel in Ohio wrote me a letter some time ago describing his conversion; it very forcibly ill.u.s.trates this point of instantaneous decision. He said:
”I was nineteen years old, and was reading law with a Christian lawyer in Vermont. One afternoon when he was away from home, his good wife said to me as I came into the house, 'I want you to go to cla.s.s-meeting with me to-night and become a Christian, so that you can conduct family wors.h.i.+p while my husband is away.' 'Well, I'll do it,'
I said, without any thought. When I came into the house again she asked me if I was honest in what I had said. I replied, 'Yes, so far as going to meeting with you is concerned; that is only courteous.'
”I went with her to the cla.s.s-meeting, as I had often done before.
About a dozen persons were present in a little school-house. The leader had spoken to all in the room but myself and two others. He was speaking to the person next me, when the thought occurred to me: he will ask me if I have anything to say. I said to myself: I have decided to be a Christian sometime; why not begin now? In less time than a minute after these thoughts had pa.s.sed through my mind he said, speaking to me familiarly--for he knew me very well--'Brother Charles, have you anything to say?' I replied, with perfect coolness, 'Yes, sir. I have just decided, within the last thirty seconds, that I will begin a Christian life, and would like to have you pray for me.'
”My coolness staggered him; I think he almost doubted my sincerity.
He said very little, but pa.s.sed on and spoke to the other two. After a few general remarks, he turned to me and said, 'Brother Charles, will you close the meeting with prayer?' He knew I had never prayed in public. Up to this moment I had no feeling. It was purely a business transaction. My first thought was: I cannot pray, and I will ask him to excuse me. My second was: I have said I will begin a Christian life; and this is a part of it. So I said, 'Let us pray.'
And somewhere between the time I started to kneel and the time my knees struck the floor the Lord converted my soul.
”The first words I said were, 'Glory to G.o.d!' What I said after that I do not know, and it does not matter, for my soul was too full to say much but Glory! From that hour the devil has never dared to challenge my conversion. To Christ be all the praise.”
Many people are waiting, they cannot exactly tell for what, but for some sort of miraculous feeling to come stealing over them--some mysterious kind of faith. I was speaking to a man some years ago, and he always had one answer to give me. For five years I tried to win him to Christ, and every year he said, ”It has not 'struck me' yet.”
”Man, what do you mean? What has not struck you?” ”Well,” he said, ”I am not going to become a Christian until it strikes me; and it has not struck me yet. I do not see it in the way you see it.” ”But don't you know you are a sinner?” ”Yes, I know I am a sinner.” ”Well, don't you know that G.o.d wants to have mercy on you--that there is forgiveness with G.o.d? He wants you to repent and come to Him.” ”Yes, I know that; but--it has not struck me yet.” He always fell back on that. Poor man! he went down to his grave in a state of indecision.
Sixty long years G.o.d gave him to repent; and all he had to say at the end of those years was that it ”had not struck him yet.”
Is any reader waiting for some strange feeling--you do not know what?
Nowhere in the Bible is a man told to wait; G.o.d is commanding you now to repent.
Do you think G.o.d can forgive a man when he does not want to be forgiven? Would he be happy if G.o.d forgave him in this state of mind?
Why, if a man went into the kingdom of G.o.d without repentance, heaven would be h.e.l.l to him. Heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people. If your boy has done wrong, and will not repent, you cannot forgive him. You would be doing him an injustice. Suppose he goes to your desk, and steals $10, and squanders it. When you come home your servant tells you what your boy has done. You ask if it is true, and he denies it. But at last you have certain proof. Even when he finds he cannot deny it any longer, he will not confess the sin, but says he will do it again the first chance he gets. Would you say to him, ”Well, I forgive you,” and leave the matter there? No! Yet people say that G.o.d is going to save all men, whether they repent or not--drunkards, thieves, harlots, wh.o.r.emongers, it makes no difference.
”G.o.d is so merciful,” they say. Dear friend, do not be deceived by the G.o.d of this world. Where there is true repentance and a turning from sin unto G.o.d, He will meet and bless you; but He never blesses until there is sincere repentance.