HOW REPENTANCE IS GIVEN
TO RETURN to the grand text: "Him hath God exalted with his
right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance
to Israel, and forgiveness of sins." Our Lord Jesus Christ has
gone up that grace may come down. His glory is employed to give
greater currency to His grace. The Lord has not taken a step
upward except with the design of bearing believing sinners upward
with Him. He is exalted to give repentance; and this we shall see
if we remember a few great truths.
The work which our Lord Jesus has done has made repentance
possible, available, and acceptable. The law makes no mention of
repentance, but says plainly, "The soul that sinneth, it shall
die." If the Lord Jesus had not died and risen again and gone
unto the Father, what would your repenting or mine be worth? We
might feel remorse with its horrors, but never repentance with
its hopes. Repentance, as a natural feeling, is a common duty
deserving no great praise: indeed, it is so generally mingled
with a selfish fear of punishment, that the kindliest estimate
makes but little of it. Had not Jesus interposed and wrought out
a wealth of merit, our tears of repentance would have been so
much water spilled upon the ground. Jesus is exalted on high,
that through the virtue of His intercession repentance may have a
place before God. In this respect He gives us repentance, because
He puts repentance into a position of acceptance, which otherwise
it could never have occupied.
When Jesus was exalted on high, the Spirit of God was poured
out to work in us all needful graces. The Holy Ghost creates
repentance in us by supernaturally renewing our nature, and
taking away the heart of stone out of our flesh. Oh, sit not down
straining those eyes of yours to fetch out impossible tears!
Repentance comes not from unwilling nature, but from free and
sovereign grace. Get not to your chamber to smite your breast in
order to fetch from a heart of stone feelings which are not
there. But go to Calvary and see how Jesus died. Look upward to
the hills whence comes your help. The Holy Ghost has come on
purpose that He may overshadow men's spirits and breed repentance
within them, even as once He brooded over chaos and brought forth
order. Breathe your prayer to Him, "Blessed Spirit, dwell with
me. Make me tender and lowly of heart, that I may hate sin and
unfeignedly repent of it." He will hear your cry and answer you.
Remember, too, that when our Lord Jesus was exalted, He not
only gave us repentance by sending forth the Holy Spirit, but by
consecrating all the works of nature and of providence to the
great ends of our salvation, so that any one of them may call us
to repentance, whether it crow like Peter's cock, or shake the
prison like the jailer's earthquake. From the right hand of God
our Lord Jesus rules all things here below, and makes them work
together for the salvation of His redeemed. He uses both bitters
and sweets, trials and joys, that He may produce in sinners a
better mind toward their God. Be thankful for the providence
which has made you poor, or sick, or sad; for by all this Jesus
works the life of your spirit and turns you to Himself. The
Lord's mercy often rides to the door of our hearts on the black
horse of affliction. Jesus uses the whole range of our experience
to wean us from earth and woo us to Heaven. Christ is exalted to
the throne of Heaven and earth in order that, by all the
processes of His providence, He may subdue hard hearts unto the
gracious softening of repentance.
Besides, He is at work at this hour by all His whispers in
the conscience, by His inspired Book, by those of us who speak
out of that Book, and by praying friends and earnest hearts. He
can send a word to you which shall strike your rocky heart as
with the rod of Moses, and cause streams of repentance to flow
forth. He can bring to your mind some heart-breaking text out of
Holy Scripture which shall conquer you right speedily. He can
mysteriously soften you, and cause a holy frame of mind to steal
over you when you least look for it. Be sure of this, that He who
is gone into His glory, raised into all the splendor and majesty
of God, has abundant ways of working repentance in those to whom
He grants forgiveness. He is even now waiting to give repentance
to you. Ask Him for it at once.
Observe with much comfort that the Lord Jesus Christ gives
this repentance to the most unlikely people in the world. He is
exalted to give repentance to Israel. To Israel! In the days when
the apostles thus spoke, Israel was the nation which had most
grossly sinned against light and love, by daring to say, "His
blood be on us and on our children." Yet Jesus is exalted to give
them repentance! What a marvel of grace! If you have been brought
up in the brightest of Christian light, and yet have rejected it,
there is still hope. If you have sinned against conscience, and
against the Holy Spirit, and against the love of Jesus, there is
yet space for repentance. Though you may be as hard as
unbelieving Israel of old, softening may yet come to you, since
Jesus is exalted, and clothed with boundless power. For those who
went the furthest in iniquity, and sinned with special
aggravation, the Lord Jesus is exalted to give to them repentance
and forgiveness of sins. Happy am I to have so full a gospel to
proclaim! Happy are you to be allowed to read it!
The hearts of the children of Israel had grown hard as an
adamant stone. Luther used to think it impossible to convert a
Jew. We are far from agreeing with him, and yet we must admit
that the seed of Israel have been exceedingly obstinate in their
rejection of the Saviour during these many centuries. Truly did
the Lord say, "Israel would none of me." "He came to his own and
his own received him not." Yet on behalf of Israel our Lord Jesus
is exalted for the giving of repentance and remission. Probably
my reader is a Gentile; but yet he may have a very stubborn
heart, which has stood out against the Lord Jesus for many years;
and yet in him our Lord can work repentance. It may be that you
will yet feel compelled to write as William Hone did when he
yielded to divine love. He was the author of those most
entertaining volumes called the "Everyday Book," but he was once
a stout-hearted infidel. When subdued by sovereign grace, he
wrote:
The proudest heart that ever beat
Hath been subdued in me;
The wildest will that ever rose
To scorn Thy cause and aid Thy foes
Is quell'd my Lord, by Thee.
Thy will, and not my will be done,
My heart be ever Thine;
Confessing Thee the mighty Word,
My Saviour Christ, my God, my Lord,
Thy cross shall be my sign.
The Lord can give repentance to the most unlikely, turning
lions into lambs, and ravens into doves. Let us look to Him that
this great change may be wrought in us. Assuredly the
contemplation of the death of Christ is one of the surest and
speediest methods of gaining repentance. Do not sit down and try
to pump up repentance from the dry well of corrupt nature. It is
contrary to the laws of mind to suppose that you can force your
soul into that gracious state. Take your heart in prayer to Him
who understands it, and say, "Lord, cleanse it. Lord, renew it.
Lord, work repentance in it." The more you try to produce
penitent emotions in yourself, the more you will be disappointed;
but if you believingly think of Jesus dying for you, repentance
will burst forth. Meditate on the Lord's shedding His heart's
blood out of love to you. Set before your mind's eye the agony
and bloody sweat, the cross and passion; and, as you do this, He
who was the bearer of all this grief will look at you, and with
that look He will do for you what He did for Peter, so that you
also will go out and weep bitterly. He who died for you can, by
His gracious Spirit, make you die to sin; and He who has gone
into glory on your behalf can draw your soul after Him, away from
evil, and toward holiness.
I shall be content if I leave this one thought with you;
look not beneath the ice to find fire, neither hope in your own
natural heart to find repentance. Look to the Living One for
life. Look to Jesus for all you need between Hell Gate and Heaven
Gate. Never seek elsewhere for any part of that which Jesus loves
to bestow; but remember,
Christ is all.