repentance

A Soul-Saving Repentance

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out… – Acts 3:19

Some of our Hyper-Calvinist friends have said that the repentance to which men are here exhorted is but an outward repentance. Does a merely outward repentance bring with it the blotting out of sin? Assuredly not. The repentance to which men are here exhorted is a repentance which brings with it complete pardon-“that your sins may be blotted out.” And, moreover, it seems to me to be a shocking thing to suppose that Peter and John went about preaching up a hollow, outward repentance, which would not save men…Brethren, it was a soul-saving repentance, and nothing less than that, which Peter commanded of these men. We tell men to repent and believe, not because we rely on any power in them to do so, for we know them to be dead in trespasses and sins; not because we depend upon any power in our earnestness or in our speech to make them do so, for we understand that our preaching is less than nothing apart from God; but because the gospel is the mysterious engine by which God converts the hearts of men, and we find that, if we speak in faith, God the Holy Ghost operates with us, and while we bid the dry bones live, the Spirit makes them live; while we tell the lame man to stand on his feet, the mysterious energy makes his ankle-bones to receive strength; while we tell the impotent man to stretch out his hand, a divine power goes with the command, and the hand is stretched out and the man is restored. The power lies not in the sinner, not in the preacher, but in the Holy Spirit, which works effectually with the gospel by divine decree, so that where the truth is preached the elect of God are quickened by it, souls are saved, and God is glorified. God has promised to make His gospel the power to save, and so it shall be down to the world’s end. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0804.cfm

Man’s Duty and the Spirit’s Work

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, promises, repentance, salvation, The Holy Spirit Leave a comment

And when He comes, He will convict the world of its sin, and of God’s righteousness, and of the coming judgment. – John 16:8

Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out… – Acts 3:19

The apostle Peter, addressing the crowd, said to them, “Change your minds; be sorry for what you have done; forsake your old ways; be turned; become new men.” “And yet,” say you, “and yet the apostle Peter actually says to us, ‘Repent, and be converted!’ That is, you tell us with one breath that these things are the gift of the Holy Spirit, and then with the next breath you read the text, ‘Repent, and be converted.'” Ay, I do, I do, and thank God I have learned to do so. But you will say, “How reconcile you these two things?” I answer, it is no part of my commission to reconcile my Master’s words: my commission is to preach the truth as I find it-to deliver it to you fresh from His hand. I hold as firmly as any man living, that repentance and conversion are the work of the Holy Spirit, (and) that it is the duty of men to repent and to believe. “Repent and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out.” If men will not receive truth till they understand it, there are many things which they never will receive. Ay, there are many facts, common facts in nature, which nobody would deny but a fool, which yet must be denied if we will not believe them till we understand them. The power lies not in the sinner, not in the preacher, but in the Holy Spirit, which works effectually with the gospel by divine decree, so that where the truth is preached the elect of God are quickened by it, souls are saved, and God is glorified. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0804.cfm

Repent and Convert

Sherry Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, repentance, salvation Leave a comment

“Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.”- Act 3:19

Repent signifies, in its literal meaning, to change one’s mind. It has been translated, “after-wit,” or “after-wisdom;” it is the man’s finding out that he was wrong and rectifying his judgment…Repentance is a discovery of the evil of sin, a mourning that we have committed it, a resolution to forsake it. It is, in fact, a change of mind of a very deep and practical character, which makes the man love what once he hated, and hate what once he loved. Conversion, if translated, means a turning round, a turning from, and a turning to-a turning from sin, a turning to holiness-a turning from carelessness to thought, from the world to heaven, from self to Jesus-a complete turning. The word here used, though translated in the English, “Repent and be converted,” is not so in the Greek; it is really, “Repent and convert,” or, rather, “Repent and turn.” It is an active verb, just as the other was. “Repent and turn.” When the demoniac had the devils cast out of him-I may compare that to repentance; but when he put on his garments, and was no longer naked and filthy, but was said to be clothed and in his right mind, I may compare that to conversion. When the prodigal was feeding his swine, and on a sudden began to consider and to come to himself, that was repentance. When he set out and left the far country, and went to his father’s house, that was conversion. Repentance is a part of conversion. It is, perhaps, I may say, the gate or door of it. It is that Jordan through which we pass when we turn from the desert of sin to seek the Canaan of conversion. Regeneration is the implanting of a new nature, and one of the earliest signs of that is a faith in Christ, and a repentance of sin, and a consequent conversion from that which is evil to that which is good. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/0804.cfm

Prodigal, God Loves You Still

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, repentance, The Father Leave a comment

 “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” – 1 John 2:1

The motive power which draws back the backslider is the cord of love, the band of a man, which makes him feel he must go back to God with weeping and repentance, because God loves him still. What man among you hath a son who has disobeyed him and gone from him, and is living in drunkenness, and in all manner of lust? If you have in anger told him, so that he doubts it not, that you have struck his name out of your family, and will not regard him as a child any longer, do you think that your severity will induce him to return to you in love? Far from it. But suppose instead thereof, you still assure him that you love him; that there is always a place at your table for him, and a bed in your house for him, ay, and better still, a warm place in your heart for him; suppose he sees your tears and hears your prayers for him, will not this draw him? Yes, indeed, if he be a son. It is even thus between thy God and thee, O backslider…Surely, if anything will draw you back, this will. “Ah !’ saith the wandering son, “my dear Father loves me still. I will arise and go to Him. I will not vex so tender a heart. I will be His loving son again.” God does not say to you prodigals, who once professed His name, “I have unchilded you, I have cast you away,” but He says, “I love you still; and for My name’s sake will I restrain My wrath that I cut you not off.” Come to your offended Father, and you shall find that He has not repented of His love but will embrace you still. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1008.cfm

Go to Christ Himself at Once

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, prayer, promises, repentance, salvation Leave a comment

Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings. 

Behold, we come unto Thee; for Thou art the LORD our God. – Jeremiah 3:22

“Return, ye backsliding children, and I will heal your backslidings.” Can you hear these words without emotion? Backslider! I pray thee take the wings of God’s love to fly back to Him with. But I hear you enquiring, Will He still receive me? Shall I be once more-

“To the Father’s bosom pressed,
Once again a child confessed.”

It shall be so. Does He not declare that He is God and changes not, and therefore you are not consumed? Rekindled are the flames of love in the backslider’s bosom when he feels all this to be true; he cries, “Behold, we come to Thee for Thou art the Lord our God.” I pray you, then, any of you who are conscious of gross derelictions of duty, and wanderings of heart, do not ask Moses to lead you back to Christ, he knows the way to Sinai’s flames, but not to Calvary’s pardoning blood. Go to Christ Himself at once. If you go to the law and begin to judge yourself, if you get the notion that you are to undergo a sort of spiritual quarantine, that you must pass through a mental purgatory before you may renew your faith in the Saviour, you are mistaken. Come just as you are, bad as you are, hardened, cold, dead as you feel yourselves to be, come even so, and believe in the boundless love of God in Christ Jesus. Then shall come the deep repentance; then shall come the brokenness of heart; then shall come the holy jealousy, the sacred hatred of sin, and the refining of the soul from all her dross; then, indeed, all good things shall come to restore your soul, and lead you in the paths of righteousness. Do not look for these first; that would be looking for the effects before the cause. The great cause of love in the restored backslider must still be the love of God to him, to whom he clings with a faith that dares not let go its hold. – C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1008.cfm

Return to Your Lord, Backslider

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, confession of sin, prayer, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God 1 Comment

…but thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to Me, saith the LORD. – Jeremiah 3:1

It is sadly probable that there are some who once loved God very earnestly, but now they have declined and become grievously indifferent; God’s love to us never changes, but ours too often sinks to a low ebb. Perhaps some of you have become so cold in your affections that it is difficult to be sure that you ever did love God at all. It may be that your life has become lax, so as to deserve the censure of the Church. You are a backslider, and you are in a dangerous condition; yet, if there be indeed spiritual life in you, you will wish to return. You have gone astray like a lost sheep, but your prayer is, “seek Thy servant, for I do not forget Thy commandments.” Now, note well, that the cause which originated your love is the same which must restore it. You went to Christ as a sinner at first, and your first act was to believe the love of God to you when there was nothing in you that evidenced it. Go the same way again. Do not stop, my dear brother, to pump up love out of the dry well within yourself! Do not think it possible that love will come at your bidding. If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned. Think of the Lord’s unchanging grace, and you will feel the spring-time of love returning to your soul. Still doth the Lord reserve mercy for the sinful, still He waiteth to be gracious; He is as willing to receive you now that you have played the prodigal, as He was to have retained you at home in the bosom of His love. Many considerations ought to aid you, backslider, to believe more in the love of God than ever you did. For think what love it must be that can invite you still to return; you, who after knowing so much have sinned against light and knowledge; you, who after having experienced so much, have given the lie to your profession…But thus saith the Lord, “Thou hast played the harlot with many lovers, yet return unto Me.” What matchless love is this. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1008.cfm

Trust Christ

Sherry Attributes of God, Character of Jesus, Christian Life, promises, repentance, salvation, Sovereignty of God Leave a comment

That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. – John 3:15

“Whosoever believeth in Jesus Christ shall not perish, but have everlasting life;” believest thou this? Canst thou now believe in Jesus; that is, trust Him? Then, Christ died for thee; Christ the Son of God, in thy stead, suffered for thy guilt. God gave His only Son to die for thee. “Oh,” saith one, “if I believed that, how I would love God!” Yes, indeed, thou wouldst, and that is the only consideration which can make thee do so. Thou, a sinner, must take Christ to be thy Saviour, and then love to God shall spring up spontaneously in thy soul, as the grass after showers. Love believed is the mother of love returned. The planet reflects light, but first of all it receives it from the sun; the heliotrope turns its face to the orb of day, but first the sunbeams warm and woo it. You shall turn to God, and delight in God, and rejoice in God; but it must be because you first of all believe, and know, and confide in the love of God to you. “Oh,” saith one, “it cannot be that God should love an unloving sinner; that the pure One should love the impure, that the Ruler of all should love His enemy.” You think that God loves men because they are godly but listen to this: “God commendeth His love towards us, in that, while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” “He came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” “While we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” Think of His “great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses and sins.” God has love in His heart towards those who have nothing in them to love. He loves you, poor soul, who feel that you are most unloveable; He loves you who mourn over a stony heart, which will not warm or melt with love to Him. Thus saith the Lord: “I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, thy transgressions, and, as a cloud, thy sins; return unto Me; for I have redeemed thee.” O that God’s gracious voice might so call some of His poor wandering ones that they may come and believe His love to them, and then cast themselves at His feet to be His servants for ever. ~ C.H. Spurgeon

https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/spurgeon_charles/sermons/1008.cfm