08. Chapter Eight
Chapter Eight 8. EXHORTATIONS TO SPEEDY REPENTANCE The second branch of the exhortation is to press persons to speedy repentance: “now God commands all men everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30). The Lord would not have any of the late autumn fruits offered to him. God loves early penitents that consecrate the spring and flower of their age to him. Early tears, like pearls bred from the morning dew, are more lustrous and beautiful. O do not reserve the dregs of your age for God, lest he reserve the dregs of his cup for you! Be as speedy in your repentance as you would have God speedy in his mercies: “the king’s business required haste” (1 Samuel 21:8). Therefore repentance requires haste.
It is natural for us to procrastinate and put off repentance. We say, as Haggai did, “The time has not come” (Haggai 1:2). No man is so bad that he does not purpose to amend; but he adjourns and delays so long, until at last all his purposes prove abortive. Many are now in hell that purposed to repent. Satan does what he can to keep men from repentance. When he sees that they begin to take up serious thoughts of reformation, he bids them wait a little longer. If this traitor, sin, must die (says Satan), let it not die yet. So the devil gets a reprieve for sin; it shall not die this session. At last men put it off so long that death seizes them, and their work is not done. Let me therefore lay down some cogent arguments to persuade you to speedy repentance:
1. Now is the season of repentance, and everything is best done in its season
“Now is the accepted time” (2 Corinthians 6:2); now God has a mind to show mercy to the penitent. He is on the giving hand. Kng set apart days for healing. Now is the healing day for our souls. Now God hangs out the white flag and is willing to parley with sinners. A prince at his coronation, as an act of royalty, gives money, proclaims pardons, and fills the conduits with wine. Now God promises pardons to penitent sinners; now the conduit of the gospel flows with wine. Now is the accepted time. Therefore come in now and make your peace with God. Break off your iniquities now by repentance. It is wisdom to take the opportunity. The husbandman takes the seasonal opportunity to sow his seed. Now is the seedtime for our souls.
2. The sooner you repent the fewer sins you will have to answer for At the deathbed of an old sinner, where conscience begins to be awakened, you will hear him crying out, “Here all my old sins have come around me, haunting my deathbed like so many evil spirits, and I have no discharge from them. Here is Satan, who was once my tempter; now he has become an accuser, and I have no advocate. I am now going to be dragged before God’s judgment-seat where I must receive my final doom!” O how dismal is the case of this man. He is in hell before his time! But those o fyou who repent early of your sinful courses, this is your privilege: you will have less to answer for. Indeed, let me tell you that you will have nothing to answer for. Christ will answer for you. Your judge will be your advocate (1 John 2:1). Father, Christ will say, here is one that has been a great sinner, yet a broken-hearted sinner; if he owes anything to your justice, set it on my score.
3. The sooner we repent, the more glory we may bring to God
It is the purpose of our living, to be useful in our generation. Better to lose our lives than the purpose of our living. Late converts who have for many years taken pay on the devil’s side, are not in a capacity to do much work in the vineyard. The thief on the cross could not serve God as St. Paul did. But when we do turn from sin early, then we give God the firstfruits of our lives. We spend and are spent for Christ. The more work we do for God, the more willing we will be to die, and the sweeter death will be. Someone who has worked hard at day-labor is willing to rest at night. Those who have been honoring God all their lives, how sweetly they will sleep in the grave! The more work we do for God, the greater our reward will be. Christ not only commended the one whose pound had gained ten pounds, but he promoted him: “Have authority over ten cities” (Luke 19:17). By late repentance, even though we do not lose our crown, we make it lighter.
4. Putting off repentance any longer has dangerous consequences
Mora trahit periculum.58 Delay is dangerous if we consider what sin is: sin is a poison. It is dangerous to let poison lie long in the body. Sin is a bruise. If a bruise is not soon cured, it gangrenes and kills. If sin is not soon cured by repentance, it festers the conscience and it damns the soul. Why should anyone love to dwell in the tents of wickedness? They are under the power of Satan (Acts 26:18), and it is dangerous to stay long in the enemy’s quarters.
It is dangerous to postpone repentance, because the longer any go on in sin, the harder they will find the work of repentance. Delay strengthens sin and hardens the heart and gives the devil fuller possession. A plant at first may be easily plucked up, but when it has spread its roots deep in the earth, a whole team cannot remove it. It is hard to remove sin once it comes to be rooted. The longer the ice freezes, the harder it is to break. The longer a man freezes in security, the harder it will be to break his heart. The longer anyone travails with iniquity, the sharper pangs he must expect in the new birth. When sin has gotten a haunt, it is not easily shaken off. Sin comes to a sinner as the elder brother came to his father: “Look, these many years I have serve you, and I never transgressed your commandment” (Luke 15:29), and will you throw me out now? What, in my old age, after you have had so much pleasure by me? See how sin pleads it is accustomed, and that it is a leopard’s spot (Jeremiah 13:23).
It is dangerous to prorogue and delay repentance because there are three days that may soon expire:
(1) The day of the gospel may expire. This is a sunshiny day. It is sweet but swift. Jerusalem had a day but lost it: “but now they are hidden from your eyes” (Luke 19:42). The Asian churches had a day, but at last the golden lampstand was removed.59 It would be a sad time in England to see the glory departed. With what hearts could we follow the gospel to the grave? To lose the gospel would be far worse than to have our city charter taken from us. “Gray hairs are here and there” (Hosea 7:9).1 will not say the sun of the gospel is set in England, but I am sure it is under a cloud. That was a sad speech, “The kingdom of God shall be taken from you” (Matthew 21:43). Therefore it is dangerous to delay repentance, lest the market of the gospel should be removed and the vision cease.
(2) A man’s personal day of grace may expire. What if that time should come when God says the means of grace shall do no good: ordinances will have “a miscarrying womb and dry breasts” (Hosea 9:14)? Is it not sad to adjourn repentance till such a decree is given? It is true, no man can justly tell that his day of grace is past, but there are two shrewd signs by which he may fear it:
(a) When his conscience is done preaching. Conscience is a heart-preacher. Sometimes it convinces; sometimes it reproves. It says, as Nathan said to David, “you are the man” (2 Samuel 12:7). But a man may imprison this preacher; and God may then say to his conscience, preach no more: “Let the one who is filthy remain filthy!” (Revelation 22:11). It is a fatal sign that a man’s day of grace is past.
(b) When a person is in such a spiritual lethargy that nothing will work upon him or make him sensible. There is “the spirit of deep sleep poured out upon you” (Isaiah 29:10). This is a sad presage that his day of grace is past. How dangerous then is it to delay repentance when the day of grace may so soon expire!
(3) The day of life may expire. What security do we have that we shall live another day? We are marching quickly out of the world. We are going off the stage. Our life is a candle soon blown out. Man’s life is compared to the flower of the field which withers sooner than the grass (Psalms 103:15). Our age is as nothing (Psalms 39:5). Life is but a flying shadow. The body is like a vessel filled with a little breath. Sickness broaches this vessel; death draws it out. O how soon the scene may alter! Many a virgin has been dressed the same day in her bride-apparel and her burial gown! How dangerous then is it to adjourn repenting when death may so suddenly make a thrust at us. Do not say not that you will repent tomorrow. Remember that speech of Aquinas: “God who pardons the one who repents has not promised to give him tomorrow to repent in.”60 I have read of Archias, a Greek king from Laconia, who was partying when someone delivered him a letter; he desired the king to read the letter immediately, because it was about serious business. He replied, “seria eras” (“I will mind serious things tomorrow”); and on that day he was slain. Thus, while men think to spin out their silver thread, death cuts it off. Olaus Magnus61 observes of the birds of Norway that they fly faster than the birds of any other country. It is not that their wings are swifter than others, but by an instinct of nature, knowing the days in that climate are very short (not above three hours long), they therefore hasten to their nests. So we, knowing the shortness of our lives and how quickly we may be called away by death, should fly so much faster on the wing of repentance to heaven. But some will say that they do not fear a sudden surprise; they will repent on their sickbed. I do not much like a sickbed repentance. The man who risks his salvation in the space of a few short minutes runs a desperate hazard. You who put off repentance till sickness, answer me these four queries:
(a) How do you know that you will have a time of sickness? Death does not always shoot its warning-piece by a lingering consumption. Some it arrests suddenly. What if God should quickly send you a summons to surrender your life?
(b) Suppose you should have a time of sickness; how do you know you will have the use of your senses? Many are unbalanced on their sickbed.
(c) Suppose you should have your senses; still, how do you know your mind will be in a fit state for such a work as repentance? Sickness so discomposes body and mind that you may be unable at such a time to care for your soul. In sickness, a man is scarcely fit to make his will, much less to make his peace. The apostle said, “Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church” (James 5:14). He does not ask, “Is he sick? Let him pray,” but “Let him call for the elders that they may pray over him.” A sick man is most unfit to pray or repent; he is likely to make sick work of it. When the body is out of tune, the soul must jar in its devotion. Upon a sick bed, a person is more fit to exercise impatience than repentance. We read that at the pouring out of the fourth vial, when God struck the inhabitants and scorched them with fire, that “they blasphemed the name of God, and did not repent” (Revelation 16:9). So when the Lord pours out his vial and scorches the body with a fever, the sinner is better fit to blaspheme than to repent.
(d) How do you, who put off everything until a sickbed, know that God will give you in that very juncture of time, the grace you need to repent? The Lord usually punishes neglect of repentance in time of health, with hardness of heart in time of sickness. You have in your lifetime repulsed the Spirit of God, and are you sure he will come at your call? You have not taken the first season, and perhaps you will never see another springtide of the Spirit again. Considering all this, may hasten your repentance. Do not lay too much weight upon a sickbed. “Be diligent to come before winter” (2 Timothy 4:21). There is a winter of sickness and death coming. Therefore make haste to repent. Let your work be ready before winter. “Today, hear God’s voice” (Hebrews 3:7).