79 Sermon Illustrations on Repentance Needed

“God requireth that which is past.” Ecclesiastes 3:15

A solemn instance of the danger of neglecting salvation came to my notice sometime ago. It is absolutely authentic.

An earnest evangelist, a personal friend of mine, was holding a series of meetings in a city in western Michigan. One night his text was Ecclesiastes 3:15. Faithfully he sought to show his hearers the impossibility of putting themselves right with God by reformation or human merit. Let the future be as it might, the past would have to be faced at the Great White Throne. Sin must be atoned for, and the guilty one could never atone for his own iniquity. He went on to show that God, in grace, had given Jesus to die, that His precious Blood was shed to put away sins, that all who trusted Him could say, “I have settled with God about my past now, for Jesus died for me. My sins are gone. He paid my debt. God requireth that which is past; but He has required it of Jesus, and my soul is set free.”

In the audience sat a lady who listened with deepest interest. The day after the meeting she expressed herself as being concerned and anxious about her soul, but like many others, she procrastinated; and, instead of settling the matter at once, she chose to go on unsaved.

The next day she was drawing some gasoline for a customer in the little store where she worked. A lamp was near. Suddenly there was an explosion and then a mass of flame! She ran from the place, screaming for help. Neighbors came to her rescue, but it was too late to save her life. Conveyed to a hospital, she lingered some twenty-four hours and then passed into eternity.

As she lay in the ward, she was heard wailing hour after hour, “My sins! My sins! I haven’t settled with God about my past!” Christian friends were there to point her to Jesus, who even now would save her if she accepted Him; but her agony was so great, none could tell whether she looked to Him or not. While hoping she had a saving glimpse of the One who died to redeem her, her loved ones could only leave her with God.

The incident illustrates the grave danger of refusing to close at once with Christ.

Have you settled with God about your past? Are your sins washed away in His precious blood? If called as suddenly as she to face eternity, would your cry perhaps be as hopeless as hers? Oh, be persuaded, “God is not mocked: For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” The loss of your soul is too terrible to be unconcerned.

“To lose your wealth is much;

To lose your health is more;

To lose your soul is such a loss

As no one can restore.”

Come now to Jesus with all your sins, and owning your lost condition, trust in Him while grace is free. “He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy” (Proverbs 29:1).

If you have got a good excuse don't give it up for anything I have said; don't give it up for anything your mother may have said; don't give it up for anything your friend may have said. Take it up to the bar of God and state it to Him; but if you have not got a good excuse--an excuse that will stand in eternity--let it go to-night, and flee to the arms of a loving Saviour.

When I was a young boy--before I was a Christian--I was in a field one day with a man who was hoeing. He was weeping, and he told me a strange story, which I have never forgotten. When he left home his mother gave him this text: "Seek first the kingdom of God." But he paid no heed to it. He said when he got settled in life, and his ambition to get money was gratified, it would be time enough then to seek the kingdom of God. He went from one village to another and got nothing to do. When Sunday came he went into a village church, and what was his great surprise to hear the minister give out the text, "Seek first the kingdom of God." He said the text went down to the bottom of his heart. He thought that it was but his mother's prayer following him, and that some one must have written to that minister about him. He felt very uncomfortable, and when the meeting was over he could not get that sermon out of his mind. He went away from that town, and at the end of a week went into another church and he heard the minister give out the same text, "Seek first the kingdom of God." He felt sure this time that it was the prayers of his mother, but he said calmly and deliberately, "No, I will first get wealthy." He said he went on and did not go into a church for a few months, but the first place of worship he went into he heard a third minister preaching a sermon from the same text. He tried to drown--to stifle his feelings; tried to get the sermon out of his mind, and resolved that he would keep away from church altogether, and for a few years did keep out of God's house. "My mother died," he said, "and the text kept coming up in my mind, and I said I will try and become a Christian." The tears rolled down his checks as he said, "I could not; no sermon ever touches me; my heart is as hard as that stone," pointing to one in the field. I couldn't understand what it was all about--it was fresh to me then. I went to Boston and got converted, and the first thought that came to me was about this man. When I got back I asked my mother, "Is Mr. L-- living in such a place?" "Didn't I write to you about him?" she asked. "They have taken him to an insane asylum, and to everyone who goes there he points with his finger up there and tells him to "seek first the Kingdom of God." There was that man with his eyes dull with the loss of reason, but the text had sunk into his soul--it had burned down deep. Oh, may the Spirit of God burn the text into your hearts to-night. When I got home again my mother told me he was in her house, and I went to see him. I found him in a rocking chair, with that vacant, idiotic look upon him. Whenever he saw me he pointed at me and said: "Young man, seek first the kingdom of God." Reason was gone, but the text was there. Last month when I was laying my brother down in his grave I could not help thinking of that poor man who was lying so near him, and wishing that the prayer of his mother had been heard, and that he had found the kingdom of God.

"A Roman bragged 'that he had never been reconciled with his mother'; implying that he had never disagreed with her. So, some say they were never comforted, they never needed it;—they lay nothing to heart." Of this company are those who were born free, and were never in bondage to any man, and yet, by their boastings, set the fetters of their pride a-clanking. Those who were never wounded, and therefore have never been healed, may glory in their state, but the time will come when they will wish it were otherwise with them, and envy the very least of those broken-hearted ones whom Jesus has bound up. A day shall dawn when the self-righteous, who are now at ease in Zion, would gladly exchange places with those whom they now despise as morbid and melancholy. Lord, let me be among those who confess that they were once thine enemies, and have been reconciled to thee by the death of thy Son. Let me be numbered among those who were the servants of sin, but have, through thy grace, obeyed from the heart the doctrine of thy word. Let me ever vividly perceive that I have undergone a radical change, which I greatly needed, and without which I should have been an heir of wrath, even as others.

"A sick man thinketh to have ease in another bed, in another room: carry him thither, his pain continueth. If a carnal man had lived in the prophets' times or the apostles' times, he would have been the same as now, see Matt. xxiii. 29, 30. A briar is a briar wherever it groweth; change of times will not avail without a change of heart. Adam sinned in Paradise; the apostate angels in heaven; Lot was unchaste in the mountains, where were none but his own family; in a howling wilderness where they had no outward enticements, the Israelites were given to fleshly lusts. This is a needful rebuke of a very common folly, let the reader see that he fall not into the error. We ought not blame our occupation, but our disposition. We may not saddle our poverty or our wealth with the sin which is purely of ourselves, for this is only an oblique way of blaming God for our faults. Change of place is not wanted, but change of heart. If, dear friend, you are unholy where you are, you would be the same in any other position in life. The fault is not in your stars, but in yourself, that you are still an impenitent sinner. Lay this to heart; abandon all idle excuses and seek your Saviour.

"Tf an unregenerate man should leave off sin under fear of death or hell, it would not be out of hatred to sin, but out of the fear of the punishment, as the bird is kept from the bait by the scarecrow." Much of this scarecrow work is going on around us, and if it prevents the stealing of the wheat we may be glad of it. Still, it is a poor state of things for a man to refrain from sin merely and only because he is afraid of smarting for it. If the heart would, but the hand dares not, the person will be judged by what he desires rather than by his actions. We are before God what in our hearts we wish to be. The raven is not a dove so long as it longs for carrion, even though it may sit in a cage, and act like the gentlest of birds. Christ did not come to scare us from sin, but to save us from it. Even if there were no hell, true saints would hate sin, and strive after holiness.

ON THE TREE AND IN THE STILL. "The rose is not so sweet on the tree as in the still." Yes, Mr. Manton, it is just as sweet, but it does not so fully pour forth its perfume. Thanks to the fire, the fragrance cannot lie latent when the leaves are distilled. Thus is it with the believing soul under adversity, the heart then yields up to God the sweetness which else had lain dormant. Some of us owe more than we can tell to what Manton calls "the still." The furnace, the anvil, and the hammer have been the making of our lives under the guiding wisdom of the great Worker's hand. We cannot enjoy the process while we undergo it; but the results are such that we are ready to fall in love with suffering. O rose, were it not for the still, thine essence had not made fragrant the robes of queens; but now art thou in king's palaces, and a drop of thy soul's inmost ichor is of more worth than gold. Even so, we had never been so near our Lord, the Prince Immanuel, had we not, after our measure, been made to drink of his cup, and to be baptized with his baptism. We bless thee, O Lord, for all that thou doest, whether thou load us with favour till we are as flowers gemmed with dew, or pluck away our beauty, and sever us from our delights till we are as roses cut off and cast into the still. All that thou doest is good, and for all thou shalt be extolled.

Dr. Todd visited a young lady who was very sick, and fearful of death. She was rational, had strong convictions of sin, and, after a few days, passed into a state of delightful Christian hope. It seemed one of the clearest cases of sick-bed repentance. She recovered, and, strange enough, remembered nothing of her sick-bed experience.

A hermit was conducted by an angel into a wood, where he saw an old man cutting down boughs to make up a burden. When it was large, he tied it up, and attempted to lift it on his shoulder, and carry it away; but, finding it very heavy, he laid it down again, cut more wood, and heaped it on; and then tried again to carry it off. This he repeated several times; always adding something to the load, after trying in vain to raise it from the ground. In the mean time, the hermit, astonished at the old man's folly, desired the angel to explain what this meant. "You behold," said he, "in the foolish old man an exact representation of those, who, being made sensible of the burden of their sins, resolve to repent, but soon grow weary, and, instead of lessening their burden, increase it every day. At each trial, they find the task heavier than before; and so put it off a little longer, in the vain hope that they will by and by be more able to accomplish it. Thus they go on adding to their burden till it grows too heavy to be borne; and then, in despair of God's mercy, and with their sins unrepented of, they lie down and die. Turn again, my son, and behold the end of the old man whom thou sawest heaping up a load of boughs." The hermit looked, and saw him in vain attempting to remove the pile, which was now accumulated far beyond his strength to raise. His feeble limbs tottered over their burden; the poor remains of his strength were fast ebbing away; the darkness of death was gathering around him; and, after a convulsive and impotent attempt to lift the pile, he fell down and expired.

Pardon is sometimes granted to the criminal at the place of execution, but so rarely, that it cannot be depended upon: no more can death-bed repentance and death-bed pardon.

As men do not give alms to a stout beggar, who, though needy, will not confess it, nor ask favor; no more will the Lord give us forgiveness of sins unless we humble ourselves before him, with true feeling of our poverty and misery.

— Cawdray

A runagate son, leaving his father, and living in foreign countries, was brought to want, and driven to work for his living. Soon he grew rich, became a merchant, and dealt in traffic with divers nations, and, among the rest, with some of that nation where his father lived. Hearing how opulent his father had grown, he resolves to steer his course thitherward. Four businesses he put into his head: one was to congratulate with his friends and allies; another, to be merry with his old companions; the third, to gather up his debts; the last, and principal, to be reconciled to his father. Being arrived there, he follows his three former employments close; he fails in none of them: but these did so wholly take up his time, that he quite forgot the main, — the reconciliation to his father. The mariners, on a sudden, call all aboard, the tide tarries for no man; presently he must be shipped, and so leaves that business utterly undone. This is a parable common in life.

Sir Thomas More, while a prisoner in the Tower, would not suffer himself to be trimmed, saying, "There was a controversy between the king and him for his head; and, till that was at a happy end, he would be at no cost about it." The first work of man should be to settle the controversy between himself and God concerning his soul.

A pauper lay dying in the poor-house, and was urged repeatedly to ask God for mercy. To the suggestion of the possibility of salvation, he replied, "It was true once of me; but now it is too late." To every promise and invitation, to every encouragement and hope, the dying man opposed these two dreadful syllables, "Too late!" He was heard in a faint whisper, just before he died, saying, "Too late!"

The way to begin a Christian life is not to study theology. Piety before theology. Right living will produce right thinking. Yet many men, when their consciences are aroused, run for catechisms and commentaries and systems. They do not mean to be shallow Christians. They intend to be thorough, if they enter upon the Christian life at all. Now, theologies are well in their place; but repentance and love must come before all other experiences. Beecher.

Thales, one of the Grecian sages, being urged by his mother to change his condition in life, told her it was too soon; and afterwards, being again urged, he said it was too late. A Roman gentleman who had squandered a great estate applied to Tiberius for relief in his poverty, but was dismissed with the answer, "You are risen too late." Such will be the fate of neglecters of repentance.

There is a story of a man who gave much alms to the poor, who, walking one day very solitary, an angel met him in likeness of a man, and, walking with him, brought him at last to a deep valley, where was a pit burning with fire and brimstone, and therein three gibbets: upon one of them did hang a man by the tongue, upon another a man by the hands, and on the third hung no man at all. The good man, much marvelling at the strangeness of such a sight, asked the angel what the men were that hanged in those tormenting flames. He told him that he which hanged by the tongue was his grandfather, who purchased the land and house wherein he now dwelt by false oaths, lying, perjury, and was therefore hanged by the tongue; and that the other was his own father, who by strong hand kept that which his father before him had wickedly gotten; and that the third gallows was prepared for him unless he made restitution: and so the angel vanished. The man, being left alone, went sadly home, and, the next day, sent for the true owners, and restored the lands unto them; whereat his wife and children were much amazed, saying that he would make them all beggars. "Oh!" says he, "it is better to beg a little while in this world than to burn forever in the world to come; better to lose house and lands here than to be deprived of God and goodness hereafter." Spencer.

There is a story told, that, in the olden times, Artaxerxes and another great king were engaged in a furious fight. In the middle of the battle, a sudden eclipse happened; and such was the horror of all the warriors, that they made peace there and then. Oh, if an eclipse of trouble should induce you to ground arms, and seek to be reconciled unto God! Sinner, you are fighting against God, lifting the arm of your rebellion against him. Happy shall you be if that trouble which is now fallen upon you should lead you to throw down the weapons of your rebellion, and fly to the arms of God.

After an absence of several years an American sailor, profane and wicked, returned to his native land, and sought his widowed mother's residence. He knocked, but no one bade him enter. He called, but no answer was returned save the echo of his own voice. It seemed like knocking at the door of a tomb. The nearest neighbor hearing the noise, came and found the youth sitting and sobbing on the steps of the door. "Where," cried he with eagerness, "where is my mother and my brother? Oh, I hope they are not!"—

"If," said the stranger, "you inquire for Widow —, I can only pity you. I have known her but a short time; but she was the best woman I ever knew. Her little boy died of a fever a year ago, and in consequence of fatigue in taking care of him, and anxiety for a long absent son at sea, the good widow herself was buried yesterday."

"O, heavens!" cried the youth, "have I staid just long enough to kill my mother! Wretch that I am—show me the grave—I have a dagger in my bundle—let me die with my mother—my poor, broken-hearted parent!"

"Hold, friend!" said the astonished neighbor, "if you are this woman's eldest son, I have a letter for you, which she wrote a few days before she died, and desired that you might receive it should you ever return."

They both turned from the cottage, and went to the house of the neighbor. A light being procured, the young man threw down his bundle and hat, and read the following short letter, while his manly cheeks were covered with tears.

"MY DEAREST, ONLY SON.—When this reaches you, I shall be no more. Your little brother has gone before me, and I cannot but hope and believe that he was prepared. I had fondly hoped that I should once more have seen you on the shores of mortality; but this hope is now relinquished. I have followed you by my prayers through all your wanderings. Often, while you little suspected it, even in the dark cold nights in winter, have I knelt for my lost son. There is but one thing that gives me pain at dying; and that is, my dear William, that I must leave you in this wicked world, as I fear, unreconciled to your Maker. I am too feeble to say more. My glass is run. As you visit the sods which cover my dust, Oh, remember that you too must soon follow. Farewell! The last breath of your mother will be spent in praying for you, that we may meet above."

The young man's heart was melted, on reading these few words from the parent whom he so tenderly loved; and this letter was the means, in the hands of God, of bringing this youth to a saving knowledge of the truth "as it is in Jesus," and he became a very respectable and pious man.

### 58. The Bereaved Rebuked.

Says a correspondent of a Religious Tract Society:—On board a vessel at Horsleydown, I found only an old shipkeeper. I asked him whether he could read; he replied, he could. On asking him what books he read, his reply was, "The Bible." I then gave him two tracts, and remarked that I had sometimes seen parts of the Bible in cheesemongers' shops, which I thought very wrong. He said he differed from me: on asking his reason, he stated that he was formerly a great smoker, and on going to purchase some tobacco, it was put up in a part of the Bible. One verse struck him very forcibly; and he was induced to purchase a Bible, and has read it daily to the present time; and, said he, "Blessed be God, I would not part with it, and the hopes I have of salvation, for ten thousand worlds."

A lady, who was actively engaged in the distribution of the Holy Scriptures and religious tracts, went, on one occasion, to the quay at Plymouth, and requested permission of a captain to go on board a man-of-war, in which were about eight hundred men, and many dissipated females. The captain said, "Madam, it will be of no avail; you will only meet with abuse." She answered, "With your leave I'll go." "Certainly, madam," he replied; and she went. Something occurred during the time, which irritated the captain, who swore a most dreadful oath. The lady said, "Sir, as you have granted me one favor, I hope you will confer another." "Certainly, madam," was the reply. "It is then, sir, that you will please to keep from swearing while I am in your ship;" this he complied with. After the lady had gone round the ship, and given away some tracts, (and, to the honor of British sailors be it spoken, they treated her with the greatest respect,) she returned to the captain, who was standing at the entrance of the vessel. She thanked him kindly, and said, "I have yet one more favor to ask of you, sir, which I hope you will comply with." "Yes, certainly, madam," was the reply. "It is this," she said, presenting him with the New Testament, "I desire you will read it through twice." He replied, "I will, madam, for my word's sake."

Some years afterwards, when on a visit to a place about five miles from Plymouth, on the Lord's day, she went to church, where she heard an excellent sermon. As she was returning through the churchyard, a gentleman accosted her, and said, "Do you remember, madam, giving to a captain a New Testament, after distributing some tracts on board a man-of-war, and desiring him to read it twice?" "Yes, sir," she replied. He added, "I am the man to whom you gave it, and I have been preaching to you to-day. Through your instrumentality God has brought me to love that book which once I despised."

Two aged disciples, one eighty-seven years old, one day met. Well, inquired the younger of his fellow-pilgrim, how long have you been interested in religion? "Fifty years," was the old man's reply. Well, have you ever regretted that you began so young to devote yourself to religion? "O no," said he, and the tears trickled down his furrowed cheeks; "I weep when I think of the sins of my youth. It is this which makes me weep now."

Another man of eighty, who had been a Christian fifty or sixty years, was asked if he was grieved that he had become a disciple of Christ. "O no," said he; "if I grieve for any thing, it is that I did not become a Christian before."

A Christian friend visited a woman of ninety, as she lay on her last bed of sickness. She had been hoping in Christ for half a century. In the course of conversation she said, "Tell all the children that an old woman, who is just on the borders of eternity, is very much grieved that she did not begin to love the Savior when a child. Tell them youth is the time to serve the Lord."

Said an old man of seventy-six, "I did not become interested in religion till I was forty-five; and I often have to tell God, I have nothing to bring him but the dregs of old age." 124-126

DECREES, DIVINE--DELAY OF REPENTANCE.

# ES, DIVINE.

knotty questions on the Divine decrees, and such other topics. Thomas Orr, a person of a very different character, was sitting at his bedside, endeavoring to turn his attention to his more immediate concerns. "Ah, William," said he, "this is the decree you have at present to do with, 'He that believeth shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned.'"

# REPENTANCE.

Said another man, between sixty and seventy years of age, "I hope I became a disciple of the Lord Jesus when I was seventeen," and he burst into tears as he added, "and there is nothing which causes me so much distress as to think of those seventeen years—some of the very best portion of my life—which I devoted to sin and the world."

# 136. Hardens the Heart.

“Bishop Jewel,” says Fuller, “being by the violence of popish inquisitors, assaulted on a sudden to subscribe, he took a pen in his hand, and said, smiling, ‘Have you a mind to see how well I can write?’ and thereupon underwrit their opinions.” Jewel, however, by his cowardly compliance, made his foes no fewer without, and one the more, a guilty conscience, within him. His life being way-laid for, with great difficulty he got over into Germany. Having arrived at Frankfort, by the advice of some friends, he made a solemn and affecting recantation of his subscription, in a full congregation of English Protestants, on a Sabbath morning, after having preached a most tender, penitential sermon. “It was,” said he, “my abject and cowardly mind and faint heart, that made my weak hand commit this wickedness.” He bitterly bewailed his fall; and with sighs and tears, supplicated forgiveness of the God whose truth he had denied, and of the church of Christ, which he had so grievously offended. The congregation were melted into tears, and “all embraced him as a brother in Christ; yea, as an angel of God.”

# ENCE ON GOD.

Christ, the first and only Christian friend I had any acquaintance with for several years, that I wished I had borne the burden and beat of the day like him. His usual reply was, that so long as I feared, and was humbly dependent upon God, I should never fall, but certainly prevail. I have found it so. O, blessed be the Lord, that I can now raise up my Ebenezer, and say, “Hitherto hath the Lord helped me.”

A society of men, who may properly be termed "haters of God," were in the habit of meeting together on Sabbath mornings, to ridicule religion, and to encourage each other in sin. At length they agreed to burn the Bible! They had lately initiated a young man into their awful mysteries, who had been brought up under great religious advantages, but had misimproved them, and now, throwing the holy book into the flames, he declared he would never go to a place of religious worship again. He was soon afterwards taken ill, and was visited by a pious man, who found him in great mental agony. In reference to his conduct, the young man remarked, it all did well enough while in health, and while he could keep off the thoughts of death: but when the Redeemer was mentioned to him, he hastily exclaimed, "What's the use of talking to me about mercy?" When recommended to look to Christ, he said, "I tell you it is of no use now; 'tis too late, 'tis too late. Once I could pray, but now I can't." He frequently repeated, "I cannot pray, I will not pray." When two of his former companions in sin entered his room, and attempted to rally him from his despondency by some of their blustering expressions, he raised himself on his bed, and, with his hands lifted up, invoked the curse of God upon them. Others of the same party afterwards came to see him; but the sight of them could then give him no pleasure. He repeated, and that in a way which no one could hear without shuddering, the same dreadful imprecations.

As death drew near, he lay as if insensible to any thing that was said to him, only rolling about on his bed, and now and then saying, "My Bible! oh the Bible!" He then concealed his face became violently convulsed, groaned and expired.

How unspeakably awful to reject the word of God! "The wicked is driven away in his wickedness; but the righteous hath hope in his death."

Dr. Chalmers, who preached the liberal system twelve years, and after this the evangelical, says, "I cannot but record the effect of an actual though undesigned experiment which I prosecuted for upwards of twelve years among you. For the greater part of that time, I could expatiate on the meanness of dishonesty, on the villany of falsehood, on the despicable arts of calumny, in a word, upon all those deformities of character which awaken the natural indignation of the human heart against the pests and disturbers of human society. Even at this time I certainly did press the reformations of honor, and truth, and integrity, among my people; but I never once heard of any such reformations having been effected amongst them. If there was any thing at all brought about in this way, it was more than ever I got any account of. I am not sensible, that all the vehemence with which I urged the virtues and proprieties of social life, had the weight of a feather on the moral habits of my parishioners. And it was not until I got impressed by the utter alienation of the heart in all its desires and affections from God, it was not till reconciliation to Him became the distinct and prominent object of my ministerial efforts, it was not till I took the scriptural way of laying the method of reconciliation before them, it was not till the free offer of forgiveness through the blood of Christ was urged upon their acceptance, and the Holy Ghost given through the channel of Christ's mediatorship to all who ask him, was set before them as the unceasing object of their dependence and their prayers; it was not, in one word, till the contemplations of my people were turned to these great and essential elements in the business of a soul providing for its interest with God, and the concerns of its eternity, that I ever heard of any of those subordinate reformations which I aforetime made the earnest and zealous, but I am afraid, at the same time, the ultimate object of my earlier administrations."

The venerable Bede tells us of a certain great man, who was exhorted to repent of his sins, during a season of illness: he answered that he would not repent yet; for, should he recover, his companions would laugh at him on account of his religion. Getting worse, the subject was again pressed on his attention, when he replied, "It is too late now, for I am judged and condemned."