The Apostle takes it for granted that a recognition of our own evil, and
a consequent penitent regretfulness, lie at the foundation of all true
Christianity. Now I do not insist upon any uniformity of experience in
people, any more than I should insist that all their bodies should be of
one shape or of one proportion. Human lives are infinitely different,
human dispositions are subtly varied, and because neither the one nor
the other are ever reproduced exactly in any two people, therefore the
religious experience of no two souls can ever be precisely alike.
We have no right to ask--and much harm has been done by asking--for an
impossible uniformity of religious experience, any more than we have a
right to expect that all voices shall be pitched in one key, or all
plants flower in the same month, or after the same fashion. You can
print off as many copies as you like, for instance, of a drawing of a
flower on a printing-press, and they shall all be alike, petal for
petal, leaf for leaf, shade for shade; but no two hand-drawn copies will
be so precisely alike, still less will any two of the real buds that
blow on the bush. Life produces resemblance with differences; it is
machinery that makes facsimiles.
So we insist on no pedantic or unreal uniformity; and yet, whilst
leaving the widest scope for divergencies of individual character and
experience, and not asking that a man all diseased and blotched with the
leprosy of sin for half a lifetime, and a little child that has grown up
at its mother's knee, 'in the nurture and admonition of the Lord,' and
so has been kept 'innocent of much transgression,' shall have the same
experience; yet Scripture, as it seems to me, and the nature of the case
do unite in asserting that there are certain elements which, in varying
proportions indeed, will be found in all true Christian experience, and
of these an indispensable one--and in a very large number, if not in
the majority of cases, a fundamental one--is this which my text calls
'godly sorrow.'
Dear brethren, surely a reasonable consideration of the facts of our
conduct and character point to that as the attitude that becomes us.
Does it not? I do not charge you with crimes in the eye of the law. I do
not suppose that many of you are living in flagrant disregard of the
elementary principles of common every-day morality. Some are, no doubt.
There are, no doubt, unclean men here; there are some who eat and drink
more than is good for them, habitually; there are, no doubt, men and
women who are living in avarice and worldliness, and doing things which
the ordinary conscience of the populace points to as faults and
blemishes. But I come to you respectable people that can say: 'I am not
as other men are, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican'; and
pray you, dear friends, to look at your character all round, in the
light of the righteousness and love of God, and to plead to the
indictment which charges you with neglect of many a duty and with sin
against Him. How do you plead, 'guilty or not guilty, sinful or not
sinful?' Be honest with yourselves, and the answer will not be far to
seek.
Notice how my text draws a broad distinction between the right and the
wrong kind of sorrow for sin. 'Godly sorrow' is, literally
rendered,'sorrow according to God,' which may either mean sorrow which
has reference to God, or sorrow which is in accordance with His will;
that is to say, which is pleasing to Him. If it is the former, it will
be the latter. I prefer to suppose that it is the former--that is,
sorrow which has reference to God. And then, there is another kind of
sorrow, which the Apostle calls the 'sorrow of the world,' which is
devoid of that reference to God. Here we have the characteristic
difference between the Christian way of looking at our own faults and
shortcomings, and the sorrow of the world, which has got no blessing in
it, and will never lead to anything like righteousness and peace. It is
just this--one has reference to God, puts its sin by His side, sees its
blackness relieved against the 'fierce light' of the Great White Throne,
and the other has not that reference.
To expand that for a moment,--there are plenty of us who, when our sin
is behind us, and its bitter fruits are in our hands, are sorry enough
for our faults. A man that is lying in the hospital a wreck, with the
sins of his youth gnawing the flesh off his bones, is often enough sorry
that he did not live more soberly and chastely and temperately in the
past days. That fraudulent bankrupt who has not got his discharge and
has lost his reputation, and can get nobody to lend him money enough to
start him in business again, as he hangs about the streets, slouching in
his rags, is sorry enough that he did not keep the straight road. The
'sorrow of the world' has no thought about God in it at all. The
consequences of sin set many a man's teeth on edge who does not feel any
compunction for the wrong that he did. My brethren, is that the position
of any that are listening to me now?
Again, men are often sorry for their conduct without thinking of it as
sin against God. Crime means the transgression of man's law, wrong means
the transgression of conscience's law, sin is the transgression of God's
law. Some of us would perhaps have to say--'I have done crime.' We are
all of us quite ready to say: 'I have done wrong many a time'; but
there are some of us who hesitate to take the other step, and say: 'I
have done sin.' Sin has, for its correlative, God. If there is no God
there is no sin. There may be faults, there may be failures, there may
be transgressions, breaches of the moral law, things done inconsistent
with man's nature and constitution, and so on; but if there be a God,
then we have personal relations to that Person and His law; and when we
break His law it is more than crime; it is more than fault; it is more
than transgression; it is more than wrong; it is sin. It is when you
lift the shutter off conscience, and let the light of God rush in upon
your hearts and consciences, that you have the wholesome sorrow that
worketh repentance and salvation and life.
Oh, dear friends, I do beseech you to lay these simple thoughts to
heart. Remember, I urge no rigid uniformity of experience or character,
but I do say that unless a man has learned to see his sin in the light
of God, and in the light of God to weep over it, he has yet to know 'the
strait gate that leadeth unto life.'
I believe that a very large amount of the superficiality and
easy-goingness of the Christianity of to-day comes just from this, that
so many who call themselves Christians have never once got a glimpse of
themselves as they really are. I remember once peering over the edge of
the crater of Vesuvius, and looking down into the pit, all swirling with
sulphurous fumes. Have you ever looked into your hearts, in that
fashion, and seen the wreathing smoke and the flashing fire there? If
you have, you will cleave to that Christ, who is your sole deliverance
from sin.
But, remember, there is no prescription about depth or amount or length
of time during which this sorrow shall be felt. If, on the one hand, it
is essential, on the other hand there are a great many people who ought
to be walking in the light and the liberty of God's Gospel who bring
darkness and clouds over themselves by the anxious scrutinising
question: 'Is my sorrow deep enough?' Deep enough! What for? What is the
use of sorrow for sin? To lead a man to repentance and to faith. If you
have as much sorrow as leads you to penitence and trust you have enough.
It is not your sorrow that is going to wash away your sin, it is
Christ's blood. So let no man trouble himself about the question, Have I
sorrow enough? The one question is: 'Has my sorrow led me to cast myself
on Christ?'
II. Still further, look now for a moment at the next stage here. 'Godly
sorrow worketh repentance.'
What is repentance? No doubt many of you would answer that it is 'sorrow
for sin,' but clearly this text of ours draws a distinction between the
two. There are very few of the great key-words of Christianity that have
suffered more violent and unkind treatment, and have been more obscured
by misunderstandings, than this great word. It has been weakened down
into penitence, which in the ordinary acceptation, means simply the
emotion that I have already been speaking about, viz., a regretful sense
of my own evil. And it has been still further docked and degraded, both
in its syllables and in its substance, into _penance_. But the
'repentance' of the New Testament and of the Old Testament--one of the
twin conditions of salvation--is neither sorrow for sin nor works of
restitution and satisfaction, but it is, as the word distinctly
expresses, a change of purpose in regard to the sin for which a man
mourns. I cannot now expand and elaborate this idea as I should like,
but let me remind you of one or two passages in Scripture which may show
that the right notion of the word is not sorrow but changed attitude and
purpose in regard to my sin.
We find passages, some of which ascribe and some deny repentance to the
Divine nature. But if there be a repentance which is possible for the
Divine nature, it obviously cannot mean sorrow for sin, but must signify
a change of purpose. In the Epistle to the Romans we read, 'The gifts
and calling of God are without repentance,' which clearly means without
change of purpose on His part. And I read in the story of the mission of
the Prophet Jonah, that 'the Lord repented of the evil which He had said
He would do unto them, and He did it not.' Here, again, the idea of
repentance is clearly and distinctly that of a change of purpose. So fix
this on your minds, and lay it on your hearts, dear friends, that the
repentance of the New Testament is not idle tears nor the twitchings of
a vain regret, but the resolute turning away of the sinful heart from
its sins. It is 'repentance toward God,' the turning from the sin to the
Father, and that is what leads to salvation. The sorrow is separated
from the repentance in idea, however closely they may be intertwined in
fact. The sorrow is one thing, and the repentance which it works is
another.
Then notice that this change of purpose and breaking off from sin is
produced by the sorrow for sin, of which I have been speaking; and that
the production of this repentance is the main characteristic difference
between the godly sorrow and the sorrow of the world. A man may have his
paroxysms of regret, but the question is: Does it make any difference
in his attitude? Is he standing, after the tempest of sorrow has swept
over him, with his face in the same direction as before; or has it
whirled him clean round, and set him in the other direction? The one
kind of sorrow, which measures my sin by the side of the brightness and
purity of God, vindicates itself as true, because it makes me hate my
evil and turn away from it. The other, which is of the world, passes
over me like the empty wind through an archway, it whistles for a moment
and is gone, and there is nothing left to show that it was ever there.
The one comes like one of those brooks in tropical countries, dry and
white for half the year, and then there is a rush of muddy waters,
fierce but transient, and leaving no results behind. My brother! when
your conscience pricks, which of these two things does it do? After the
prick, is the word of command that your Will issues 'Right about face!'
or is it 'As you were'? Godly sorrow worketh a change of attitude,
purpose, mind; the sorrow of the world leaves a man standing where he
was. Ask yourselves the question: Which of the two are you familiar
with?
Again, the true means of evoking true repentance is the contemplation of
the Cross. Law and the fear of hell may startle into sorrow, and even
lead to some kind of repentance. But it is the great power of Christ's
love and sacrifice which will really melt the heart into true
repentance. You may hammer ice to pieces, but it is ice still. You may
bray a fool in a mortar, and his folly will not depart from him. Dread
of punishment may pulverise the heart, but not change it; and each
fragment, like the smallest bits of a magnet, will have the same
characteristics as the whole mass. But 'the goodness of God leads to
repentance' as the prodigal is conquered and sees the true hideousness
of the swine's trough, when he bethinks himself of the father's love. I
beseech you to put yourselves under the influence of that great love,
and look on that Cross till your hearts melt.
III. We come to the last stage here. Salvation is the issue of
repentance. 'Godly sorrow worketh repentance unto salvation not to be
repented of.'
What is the connection between repentance and salvation? Two sentences
will answer the question. You cannot get salvation without repentance.
You do not get salvation by repentance.
You cannot get the salvation of God unless you shake off your sin. It is
no use preaching to a man, 'Faith, Faith, Faith!' unless you preach
along with it,'Break off your iniquities.' 'Let the wicked forsake his
way and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him turn unto the
Lord.' The nature of the case forbids it. It is a clear contradiction in
terms, and an absolute impossibility in fact, that God should save a man
with the salvation which consists in the deliverance from sin, whilst
that man is holding to his sin. Unless, therefore, you have not merely
sorrow, but repentance, which is turning away from sin with resolute
purpose, as a man would turn from a serpent, you cannot enter into the
Kingdom of Heaven.
But you do not get salvation for your repentance. It is no case of
barter, it is no case of salvation by works, that work being repentance:
'Could my zeal no respite know,
Could my tears for ever flow,
All for sin could not atone,
Thou must save, and Thou alone.'
Not my penitence, but Christ's death, is the ground of the salvation of
every one that is saved at all. Yet repentance is an indispensable
condition of salvation.
What is the connection between repentance and faith? There can be no
true repentance without trust in Christ. There can be no true trust in
Christ without the forsaking of my sin. Repentance without faith, in so
far as it is possible, is one long misery; like the pains of those poor
Hindoo devotees that will go all the way from Cape Comorin to the shrine
of Juggernaut, and measure every foot of the road with the length of
their own bodies in the dust. Men will do anything, and willingly make
any sacrifice, rather than open their eyes to see this,--that
repentance, clasped hand in hand with Faith, leads the guiltiest soul
into the forgiving presence of the crucified Christ, from whom peace
flows into the darkest heart.
On the other hand, faith without repentance is not possible, in any deep
sense. But in so far as it is possible, it produces a superficial
Christianity which vaguely trusts to Christ without knowing exactly what
it is trusting Him for, or why it needs Him; and which has a great deal
to say about what I may call the less important parts of the Christian
system, and nothing to say about its vital centre; which preaches a
morality which is not a living power to create; which practises a
religion which is neither a joy nor a security. The old word of the
Master has a deep truth in it: 'These are they which heard the word, and
anon with joy received it.' Having no sorrow, no penitence, no deep
consciousness of sin, 'they have no root in themselves, and in time of
temptation they fall away.' If there is to be a profound, an
all-pervading, life-transforming-sin, and devil-conquering faith, it
must be a faith rooted deep in penitence and sorrow for sin.
Dear brethren, if, by God's grace, my poor words have touched your
consciences at all, I beseech you, do not trifle with the budding
conviction! Do not seek to have the wound skinned over. Take care that
you do not let it all pass in idle sorrow or impotent regret. If you do,
you will be hardened, and the worse for it, and come nearer to that
condition which the sorrow of the world worketh, the awful death of the
soul. Do not wince from the knife before the roots of the cancer are cut
out. The pain is merciful. Better the wound than the malignant growth.
Yield yourselves to the Spirit that would convince you of sin, and
listen to the voice that calls to you to forsake your unrighteous ways
and thoughts. But do not trust to any tears, do not trust to any
resolves, do not trust to any reformation. Trust only to the Lord who
died on the Cross for you, whose death for you, whose life in you, will
be deliverance from your sin. Then you will have a salvation which, in
the striking language of my text, 'is not to be repented of,' which will
leave no regrets in your hearts in the day when all else shall have
faded, and the sinful sweets of this world shall have turned to ashes
and bitterness on the lips of the men that feed on them.
'The sorrow of the world works death.' There are men and women listening
to me now who are half conscious of their sin, and are resisting the
pleading voice that comes to them, who at the last will open their eyes
upon the realities of their lives, and in a wild passion of remorse,
exclaim: 'I have played the fool, and have erred exceedingly.' Better to
make thorough work of the sorrow, and by it to be led to repentance
toward God and faith in Christ, and so secure for our own that salvation
for which no man will ever regret having given even the whole world,
since he gains his own soul.