_REPENTANCE AND RESTITUTION_.
"God commandeth all men everywhere to repent."--Acts xvii. 30.
Repentance is one of the fundamental doctrines of the Bible. Yet I
believe it is one of those truths that many people little understand
at the present day. There are more people to-day in the mist and
darkness about Repentance, Regeneration, the Atonement, and such-like
fundamental truths, than perhaps on any other doctrines. Yet from our
earliest years we have heard about them. If I were to ask for a
definition of Repentance, a great many would give a very strange and
false idea of it.
A man is not prepared to believe or to receive the Gospel, unless he
is ready to repent of his sins and turn from them. Until John the
Baptist met Christ, he had but one text, "Repent ye; for the kingdom
of heaven is at hand" (Matt. iii. 2). But if he had continued to say
this, and had stopped there without pointing the people to Christ the
Lamb of God, he would not have accomplished much.
When Christ came, He took up the same wilderness cry, "Repent; for
the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matt. iv. 17). And when our Lord
sent out His disciples, it was with the same message, "that men
should repent" (Mark vi. 12). After He had been glorified, and when
the Holy Ghost came down, we find Peter on the day of Pentecost
raising the same cry, "Repent!" It was this preaching--Repent, and
believe the Gospel--that wrought such marvellous results then. (Acts
ii. 38-47). And we find that, when Paul went to Athens, he uttered
the same cry, "_Now_ God commandeth _all men, everywhere_, to repent"
(Acts xvii. 30).
Before I speak of what Repentance _is_, let me briefly say what it
_is not_. Repentance is not _fear_. Many people have confounded the
two. They think they have to be alarmed and terrified; and they are
waiting for some kind of fear to come down upon them. But multitudes
become alarmed who do not really repent. You have heard of men at sea
during a terrible storm. Perhaps they have been very profane men; but
when the danger came they suddenly grew quiet, and began to cry to
God for mercy. Yet you would not say they repented. When the storm
had passed away, they went on swearing the same as before. You might
think that the king of Egypt repented when God sent the terrible
plagues upon him and his land. But it was not repentance at all. The
moment God's hand was removed Pharaoh's heart was harder than ever.
He did not turn from a single sin; he was the same man. So that there
was no true repentance there.
Often, when death comes into a family, it looks as if the event would
be sanctified to the conversion of all who are in the house. Yet in
six months' time all may be forgotten. Some who read this have
perhaps passed through that experience. When God's hand was heavy
upon them it looked as if they were going to repent; but the trial
has been removed--and lo and behold, the impression has all gone.
Then again, Repentance is not _feeling_. I find a great many people
are waiting for a certain kind of feeling to come. They would like to
turn to God; but think they cannot do it until this feeling comes.
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 God. It seems as if the trial were going to result in true
repentance; but the feeling too often passes 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 God 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 God a great deal, and yet never repent. Many people
cry loudly to God, 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 God in the soul. When God 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 ship 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, God 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 God 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 God.
When he truly repents he is turned right around towards God; 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 shore, 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
ship 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 God 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 God, 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, God gave him the power. God 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 illustrates 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
class-meeting with me to-night and become a Christian, so that you can
conduct family worship 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 class-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 passed 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 passed 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 God!' 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 God wants to have mercy on you--that there is
forgiveness with God? 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 God 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; God is commanding you now
to repent.
Do you think God can forgive a man when he does not want to be
forgiven? Would he be happy if God forgave him in this state of mind?
Why, if a man went into the kingdom of God without repentance, heaven
would be hell 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 God is going to save all men, whether they repent or
not--drunkards, thieves, harlots, whoremongers, it makes no difference.
"God is so merciful," they say. Dear friend, do not be deceived by
the god of this world. Where there is true repentance and a turning
from sin unto God, He will meet and bless you; but He never blesses
until there is sincere repentance.
David made a woful mistake in this respect with his rebellious son,
Absalom. He could not have done his son a greater injustice than to
forgive him when his heart was unchanged. There could be no true
reconciliation between them when there was no repentance. But God
does not make these mistakes. David got into trouble on account of
his error of judgment. His son soon drove his father from the throne.
Speaking on repentance, Dr. Brooks, of St. Louis, well remarks:
"Repentance, strictly speaking, means a 'change of mind or purpose;'
consequently it is the judgment which the sinner pronounces upon
himself, in view of the love of God displayed in the death of Christ,
connected with the abandonment of all confidence in himself and with
trust in the only Saviour of sinners. Saving repentance and saving
faith always go together; and you need not be worried about
repentance if you will believe."
"Some people are not sure that they have 'repented enough.' If you
mean by this that you must repent in order to incline God to be
merciful to you, the sooner you give over such repentance the better.
God is already merciful, as He has fully shown at the Cross of
Calvary; and it is a grievous dishonor to His heart of love if you
think that your tears and anguish will move Him, not knowing that
'the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance.' It is not your
badness, therefore, but His goodness that leads to repentance; hence
the true way to repent is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, 'who
was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our
justification.'"
Another thing. If there is true repentance it will bring forth fruit.
If we have done wrong to any one we should never ask God to forgive
us, until we are willing to make restitution. If I have done any man
a great injustice and can make it good, I need not ask God to forgive
me until I am willing to make it good. Suppose I have taken something
that does not belong to me. I have no right to expect forgiveness
until I make restitution.
I remember preaching in one of our large cities, when a fine-looking
man came up to me at the close. He was in great distress of mind.
"The fact is," he said, "I am a defaulter. I have taken money that
belonged to my employers. How can I become a Christian without
restoring it?" "Have you got the money?" He told me he had not got it
all. He had taken about $1,500, and he still had about $900. He said
"Could I not take that money and go into business, and make enough to
pay them back?" I told him that was a delusion of Satan; that he
could not expect to prosper on stolen money; that he should restore
all he had, and go and ask his employers to have mercy upon him and
forgive him. "But they will put me in prison," he said: "cannot you
give me any help?" "No, you must restore the money before you can
expect to get any help from God." "It is pretty hard," he said. "Yes.
it is hard; but the great mistake was in doing the wrong at first."
His burden became so heavy that it got to be insupportable. He handed
me the money--950 dollars and some cents--and asked me to take it
back to his employers. The next evening the two employers and myself
met in a side room of the church. I laid the money down, and informed
them it was from one of their _employes_. I told them the story, and
said he wanted mercy from them, not justice. The tears trickled down
the cheeks of these two men, and they said, "Forgive him! Yes, we
will be glad to forgive him." I went down stairs and brought him up.
After he had confessed his guilt and been forgiven, we all got down
on our knees and had a blessed prayer-meeting. God met us and blessed
us there.
There was a friend of mine who some time ago had come to Christ and
wished to consecrate himself and his wealth to God. He had formerly
had transactions with the government, and had taken advantage of
them. This thing came up when he was converted, and his conscience
troubled him. He said, "I want to consecrate my wealth, but it seems
as if God will not take it." He had a terrible struggle; his
conscience kept rising up and smiting him. At last he drew a check
for $1,500 and sent it to the United States Treasury. He told me he
received such a blessing when he had done it. That was bringing forth
"fruits meet for repentance." I believe a great many men are crying
to God for light; and they are not getting it because they are not
honest.
I was once preaching, and a man came to me who was only thirty-two
years old, but whose hair was very grey. He said, "I want you to
notice that my hair is grey, and I am only thirty-two years old. For
twelve years I have carried a great burden." "Well," I said, "what is
it?" He looked around as if afraid some one would hear him. "Well,"
he answered, "my father died and left my mother with the county
newspaper, and left her only that: that was all she had. After he
died the paper begun to waste away; and I saw my mother was fast
sinking into a state of need. The building and the paper were insured
for a thousand dollars, and when I was twenty years old I set fire to
the building, and obtained the thousand dollars, and gave it to my
mother. For twelve years that sin has been haunting me. I have tried
to drown it by indulgence in pleasure and sin; I have cursed God; I
have gone into infidelity; I have tried to make out that the Bible is
not true; I have done everything I could: but all these years I have
been tormented." I said, "There is a way out of that." He inquired
"How?" I said, "Make restitution. Let us sit down and calculate the
interest, and then you pay the Company the money." It would have done
you good to see that man's face light up when he found there was
mercy for him. He said he would be glad to pay back the money and
interest if he could only be forgiven.
There are men to-day who are in darkness and bondage because they are
not willing to turn from their sins and confess them; and I do not
know how a man can hope to be forgiven if he is not willing to
confess his sins.
Bear in mind that _now_ is the only day of mercy you will ever have.
You can repent now, and have the awful record blotted out. God waits
to forgive you; He is seeking to bring you to Himself. But I think
the Bible teaches clearly that there is _no repentance after this
life_. There are some who tell you of the possibility of repentance
in the grave; but I do not find that in Scripture. I have looked my
Bible over very carefully, and I cannot find that a man will have
another opportunity of being saved.
_Why should he ask for any more time?_ You have time enough to repent
now. You can turn from your sins this moment if you will. God says:
"I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth; wherefore turn,
and live ye" (Ezek. xviii. 32).
Christ said, He "came not to call the righteous, but sinners to
repentance." Are you a sinner? Then the call to repent is addressed
to you. Take your place in the dust at the Saviour's feet, and
acknowledge your guilt. Say, like the publican of old, "God be
merciful to me a sinner!" and see how quickly He will pardon and
bless you. He will even justify you and reckon you as righteous, by
virtue of the righteousness of Him who bore your sins in His own body
on the Cross.
There are some perhaps who think themselves righteous; and that,
therefore, there is no need for them to repent and believe the
Gospel. They are like the Pharisee in the parable, who thanked God
that he was not as other men--"extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or
even as this publican;" and who went on to say, "I fast twice a week;
I give tithes of all I possess." What is the judgment about such
self-righteous persons? "I tell you this man [the poor, contrite,
repenting publican] went down to his house justified rather than the
other" (Luke xviii. 11-14). "There is none righteous; no, not one."
"All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God" (Rom. iii. 10,
23). Let no one say _he_ does not need to repent. Let each one take
his true place--that of a sinner; then God will lift him up to the
place of forgiveness and justification. "Whosoever exalteth himself
shall be abased: and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted" (Luke
xiv. 11).
Wherever God sees true repentance in the heart He meets that soul.
I was in Colorado, preaching the gospel some time ago, and I heard
something that touched my heart very much. The governor of the State
was passing through the prison, and in one cell he found a boy who
had his window full of flowers, that seemed to have been watched with
very tender care. The governor looked at the prisoner, and then at
the flowers, and asked whose they were, "These are my flowers," said
the poor convict. "Are you fond of flowers?" "Yes, sir." "How long
have you been here?" He told him so many years: he was in for a long
sentence. The governor was surprised to find him so fond of the
flowers, and he said, "Can you tell me why you like these flowers so
much?" With much emotion he replied, "While my mother was alive she
thought a good deal of flowers; and when I came here I thought if I
had these they would remind me of mother." The governor was so
pleased that he said, "Well, young man, if you think so much of your
mother I think you will appreciate your liberty," and he pardoned him
then and there.
When God finds that beautiful flower of true repentance springing up
in a man's heart, then salvation comes to that man.