07. Chapter Seven
Chapter Seven 7. POWERFUL MOTIVES TO REPENTANCE To make the exhortation to repentance more lively, I will lay down some powerful motives to excite us to repentance.
1. Sorrow and a melting heart will fit us for every holy duty A piece of lead, while it is in the lump, can be put to no use. But melt it, and you may then pour it into any mold, and it is made useful. So a heart that is hardened into a lump of sin is good for nothing; but when it is dissolved by repentance, it is useful. A melting heart is fit to pray. When Paul’s heart was humbled and melted, then “behold, he prays” (Acts 9:11). It is fit to hear the word; now the word works kindly. When Josiah’s heart was tender, he humbled himself and rent his clothes at hearing the words of the law (2 Chronicles 34:19). His heart, like melting wax, was ready to take any seal of the word. A melting heart is fit to obey. When the heart is like metal in the furnace, it is facile and malleable to anything: “Lord, what will you have me do?” (Acts 9:6). A repenting soul subscribes to God’s will and answers his call, just as an echo answers the voice.
2. Repentance is highly acceptable When a spiritual river runs to water this garden, then our hearts are a Garden of Eden, delightful to God. I have read that doves delight to be about the waters. And surely God’s Spirit, who descended in the likeness of a dove, takes great delight in the waters of repentance. The Lord does not regard any heart as sound except the broken heart: “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit” (Psalms 51:17). Mary stood at Jesus’ feet weeping (Luke 7:38). She brought two things to Christ, said Augustine, unguentum and lachrymas (ointment and tears). Her tears were better than her ointment. Tears are powerful orators for mercy. They are silent, yet they have a voice: “the Lord has heard the voice of my weeping” (Psalms 6:8).
3. Repentance commends all our services to God
What is seasoned with the bitter herbs of godly sorrow is God’s savory meat. When we are pricked at the heart, hearing the word is good, (Acts 2:37). Prayer is delightful to God when it ascends from the altar of a broken heart. The publican struck upon his breast saying, “God be merciful to me, a sinner.” This prayer pierced heaven: “he went away justified rather than the other” (Luke 18:14). No prayer touches God’s ear except what comes from a heart touched with the sense of sin.
4. Without repentance nothing will avail us
Some bless themselves that they have a stock of knowledge; but what is knowledge good for without repentance? It is better to mortify one sin than to understand all mysteries. Impure speculators only resemble Satan transformed into an angel of light. Learning and a bad heart is like a fair face with cancer in the breast. Knowledge without repentance will only be a torch to light men’s way to hell.
5. Repenting tears are delicious
They may be compared to myrrh which, though bitter, has a sweet smell and refreshes the spirits. So repentance, though it is bitter in itself, yet it is sweet in its effects. It brings inward peace. The soul is never more enlarged and inwardly delighted than when it can kindly melt. Alexander, upon the safe return of his admiral Nearchus from a long voyage, wept for joy.54 How often the saints fall, weeping for joy! The Hebrew word for “repent” signifies “to take comfort.” There is none so joyful as the penitent! Tears, as the philosopher notes, have four qualities: they are moist, salty, hot, and bitter. This is true of repenting tears. They are hot, to warm a frozen conscience; moist, to soften a hard heart; salty, to season a soul putrefying in sin; bitter, to wean us from the love of the world. And I will add a fifth. They are sweet, in that they make the heart inwardly rejoice: “and sorrow shall be turned into joy” (Job 41:22). Let a man, said Augustine, grieve for his sin and rejoice for his grief. Tears are the best pastry. David, who was the great weeper in Israel, was the sweet singer of Israel. The sorrows of the penitent are like the sorrows of a travailing woman: “A woman when she is in travail has sorrow, but as soon as the child is delivered, she remembers no more the anguish, because of her joy that a man is born into the world” (John 16:21). So the sorrows of humbled sinners bring forth grace, and what joy there is when this man-child is born!
6. Great sins repented of shall find mercy
Mary Magdalene, a great sinner, obtained pardon when she washed Christ’s feet with her tears. Some of the Jews who had a hand in crucifying Christ, upon their repentance, the very blood that they shed became a sovereign balm to heal them: “though your sins are as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow” (Isaiah 1:18). Scarlet in Greek is called “dibasson,” because it is “twice dipped,” and the art of man cannot wash out the dye again. But though our sins are scarlet, God’s mercy can wash them away. This may comfort those who are discouraged by the heinousness of their sin, as if there were no hope for them. Yes, upon their serious turning to God, their sins will be expunged and done away with.
“Oh, but my sins are sinful beyond measure!” Do not make them greater by not repenting. Repentance unravels sin and makes it as if it had never been.
“Oh, but I have relapsed into sin after pardon, and surely there is no mercy for me!” I know the Novatians held that after a lapse there was no renewing by repentance; but doubtless that was an error. The children of God have relapsed into the same sin: Abraham twice equivocated; Lot committed incest twice; Asa, a good king, sinned twice by creature-confidence, and Peter sinned twice by carnal fear (Matthew 26:70; Galatians 2:12). But for the comfort of those who have relapsed into sin more than once, if they solemnly repent, a white flag of mercy will be held out to them. Christ commands us to forgive our trespassing brother seventy times seven in one day, in case he repents (Matthew 18:22). If the Lord bids us do it, will he not be much more ready to forgive us upon our repentance? What is our forgiving mercy compared to his? I do not say this to encourage any impenitent sinner, but to comfort a despondent sinner who thinks repentance is in vain, and that he is excluded from mercy.
7. Repentance is the inlet to spiritual blessings
It helps to enrich us with grace. It causes the desert to blossom as the rose. It makes the soul like the Egyptian fields after the Nile overflows: flourishing and fruitful. Never do the flowers of grace grow more than after a shower of repentant tears. Repentance causes knowledge: “When their heart turns to the Lord, the veil will be taken away” (2 Corinthians 3:16). The veil of ignorance which was drawn over the Jews’ eyes will by be taken away repentance. Repentance inflames love. Weeping Mary Magdalene loved much (Luke 7:47). God preserves these springs of sorrow in the soul to water the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22).
8. Repentance ushers in temporal blessings The prophet Joel, persuading the people to repentance, brings in the promise of secular good things: “rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn to the Lord ... the Lord will answer and say to his people, Behold, I will send you corn, and wine, and oil” (Joel 2:13; Joel 2:19). When we put water into the pump, it fetches up only water, but when we put the water of tears into God’s bottle, this fetches up wine: “I will send you wine, and oil.” Sin blasts the fruits of the earth: “You have sown much, and bring in little” (Haggai 1:6). But repentance makes the pomegranate bud and the vine flourish with full clusters. Fill God’s bottle and he will fill your basket. “If you return to the Almighty, you will lay up gold like dust” (Job 22:23-24). Repenting is returning to God, and this brings a golden harvest.
9. Repentance staves off judgments from a land When God is going to destroy a nation, the penitent sinner stays his hand, as the angel did Abraham’s (Genesis 22:12). The Ninevites’ repentance caused God to repent: “God saw that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the disaster he said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it” (Jonah 3:10). An outward repentance has adjourned and kept off wrath. Ahab sold himself to work wickedness; yet upon fasting and rending his garments, God said to Elijah, “I will not bring the evil in his days” (1Kng 21.29). If rending the clothes kept off judgment from the nation, what will rending the heart do?
10. Repentance makes joy in heaven The angels, as it were, keep a holy day: “There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repents” (Luke 15:10). As praise is the music of heaven, so repentance is the joy of heaven. When men neglect the offer of salvation and freeze in sin, this delights the devils. But when a soul is brought home to Christ by repentance, this makes joy among the angels.
11. Consider how dear our sins cost Christ
Considering how dearly our sins cost Christ may cause tears to distil from our eyes. Christ is called the Rock (1 Corinthians 10:4). When his hands were pierced with nails, and the spear thrust in his side, then this Rock was struck, and water and blood came out. And all this Christ endured for us: “the Messiah shall be cut off, but not for himself” (Daniel 9:26). We tasted the apple, and he tasted the vinegar and gall. We sinned in every faculty, and he bled in every vein: Cernis ut in toto corpore sculptus amor. 55 Can we look upon a suffering Savior with dry eyes? Will we not be sorry for those sins which made Christ a man of sorrow? Will not our enormities, which drew blood from Christ, draw tears from us? Will we play any more with sin and so scrape Christ’s wounds? Oh that by repentance we could crucify our sins afresh! The Jews said to Pilate, “If you let this man go, you are not Caesar’s friend” (John 19:12). If we let our sins go and do not crucify them, we are not Christ’s friends.
12. This is the purpose of all afflictions which God sends,
Whether it is sickness in our bodies or losses in our estates, God would awaken us from our sins and make the waters of repentance flow. Why did God lead Israel on that march in the wilderness among fiery serpents except to humble them (Deuteronomy 8:2)? Why did he bring Manasseh so low, changing his crown of gold into fetters of iron except that he might learn repentance? “He humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord was God” (2 Chronicles 33:12-13). One of the best ways to cure a man of his lethargy, is to push him into a fever. Likewise, when a person is stupefied and his conscience has grown lethargic, God puts him under extremes. He brings one burning calamity or another to cure the person of this disease – to startle him out of his security and make him return to God by repentance.
13. The days of our mourning will soon be ended
After a few showers that fall from our eyes, we will have perpetual sunshine. Christ will provide a handkerchief to wipe off his people’s tears: “God will wipe away all tears” (Revelation 7:17). Christians, you will shortly put on your garments of praise. You will exchange your sackcloth for white robes. Instead of sighs you will have triumphs; instead of groans, you will have anthems; instead of the water of tears, you will have the water of life. The mourning of the dove will be past, and the time of the singing of birds will come. Volitant super aethera cantus.56 This brings me to the next point.
14. The happy and glorious reward that follows upon repentance
“Being freed from sin, you have your fruit unto holiness, and the end, everlasting life” (Romans 6:22). The leaves and root of the fig tree are bitter, but the fruit is sweet. Repentance to the fleshy part seems bitter, but behold sweet fruit: everlasting life. The Turks fancy that after this life there is an Elysium or paradise of pleasure, where delicacies will be served, and they will have gold in abundance, silken and purple apparel, and angels will bring them red wine in silver cups, and golden plates. Here is an epicure’s heaven. But in the true paradise of God there are astonishing delights and rare foods served, which “eye has not seen, nor have entered into the heart of man” (1 Corinthians 2:9). God will lead his penitents from the house of mourning to the banquet house. There will be no sight there but of glory, no noise but of music, no sickness unless of love. There shall be holiness unspotted and joy unspeakable. Then the saints shall forget their solitary hours and be sweetly solacing themselves in God and bathing in the rivers of divine pleasure.
O Christian, what are your duties compared with the recompense of reward? What an infinite disproportion there is between repentance enjoined and glory prepared. There was a feast day at Rome, when they used to crown their fountains. God will crown those heads which have been fountains of tears. Who would not be willing to be awhile in the house of mourning, and to possess the glory that put Peter and John into an ecstasy to see it even darkly, shadowed and portrayed in the transfiguration (Matthew 17)? This reward which free grace gives is so transcendently great that if we could have but a glimpse of glory revealed to us here, we would need patience to be content to live any longer. O blessed repentance, that has such a light beside the dark, and has so much sugar at the bottom of the bitter cup!
15. The next motive to repentance is to consider the evil of impenitence A hard heart is the worst heart. It is called a heart of stone (Ezekiel 36:26). If it were iron, it might be mollified in the furnace; but a stone put in the fire will not melt; it will likely fly in your face. Impenitence is a sin that grieves Christ: “being grieved for the hardness of their hearts” (Mark 3:5). It is not so much the disease that offends the physician as the contempt of his medicine. It is not so much the sins we have committed that so provoke and grieve Christ, as that we refuse the medicine of repentance which he prescribes. This aggravated Jezebel’s sin: “I gave her space to repent, and she did not repent” (Revelation 2:21). A hard heart receives no impression. It is untuned for every duty. It was a sad speech Stephen Gardiner 57 uttered on his deathbed: “I have denied my Master with Peter, but I cannot repent with Peter.” Oh the plague of an obdurate heart! Pharaoh’s heart turned into stone was worse than his waters turned into blood. David had his choice of three judgments: plague, sword, and famine; but he would have chosen them all rather than a hard heart. An impenitent sinner is neither allured by entreaties nor frightened by menaces. Those who will not weep with Peter will weep like Judas. A hard heart is the anvil on which the hammer of God’s justice will strike to all eternity.
16. The last motive to repentance is that the Day of Judgment is coming This is the apostle’s own argument: “God commands all men everywhere to repent; because he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world” (Acts 17.3031). The Day of Judgment has what may make a stony heart bleed. Will a man go on thieving when the courts are near? Will the sinner go on sinning when the Day of Judgment is so near? You can no more conceal your sin than you can defend it. And what will you do when all your sins are written in God’s book and engraved on your forehead? O direful day, when Jesus Christ, clothed in his judge’s robe, says to the sinner, “Stand forward; answer to the indictment brought against you. What can you say for all your oaths, adulteries, and your desperate impenitence?” O how amazed and stricken with consternation the sinner will be! And after his conviction he must hear the sad sentence, “Depart from me!” Then, the one who would not repent of his sins will repent of his folly. If such a time is coming, in which God judges men for their impieties, then what an incentive this should be to repentance! For the penitent soul at the last day will lift up his head with comfort, and have his discharge papers, signed in the Judge’s own hand.