There
is no rowing to paradise except upon the stream of repenting tears.
Till sin be bitter, Christ will not be sweet. Why are the wells of
repentance stopped? Do not the sinners of the land know that they
should repent? Have they no warning? Have not God's faithful messengers
lifted up their voice as a trumpet and cried to them to repent? But
many of these tools in the ministry have been spent and worn out upon
rocky hearts. Do we think that God will always put up with our
affronts?
Some bless
themselves that they have a stock of knowledge, but what is knowledge
good for without repentance? Learning and a bad heart is like a fair
face with a cancer in the breast. Knowledge without repentance will be
but a torch to light the way to hell. Repentant tears may be compared
to myrrh, which though it is bitter in taste, has a sweet smell and
refreshes the spirit. So repentance, though it is bitter in itself, yet
it is sweet in the effects. It brings inward peace.
We
are to find as much bitterness in weeping for sin as ever we found
sweetness in committing it. Surely David found more bitterness in
repentance than ever he found comfort in Bathsheba. Tears have four
qualities: they are moist, salt, hot, and bitter. It is true of
repenting tears, they are hot to warm a frozen conscience; moist, to
soften a hard heart; salt, to season a soul decaying in sin; bitter, to
wean us from the love of the world. And I will add a fifth, they are
sweet, in that they make the heart inwardly rejoice. David, who was the
great weeper in Israel, was the sweet singer of Israel. The sorrows of
the repentant are like the sorrows of a travailing woman: "A woman when
she is in travail hath sorrow, but as soon as she is delivered of the
child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born
into the world". (John 16:21).
Be
as speedy in your repentance as you would have God be speedy in His
mercies. Many are now in hell that purposed to repent. Satan does what
he can to keep men from repentance. When he sees that one begins to
take up serious thoughts of reformation, he bids them wait a little
longer. It is dangerous to procrastinate repentance. The longer any go
on sinning, the harder they will find the work of repentance. Delay
strengthens sin and hardens the heart and gives the devil fuller
possession. A plant at first may be easily plucked up, but when it has
spread its roots deep in the earth, a whole team cannot remove it. It
is hard to remove sin when it comes to be rooted. The longer the ice
freezes the harder it is to be broken. The longer a man freezes in
security, the harder it will be to have his heart broken.
Presuming
upon God's mercy can be eternally fatal. Many suck poison from this
sweet flower. Oh, one says, "Christ has died; He has done all for me;
therefore I may sit still and do nothing." Thus they suck death from
the tree of life and perish by a savior. So I may say of God's mercy,
it accidentally causes the ruin of many. Because of mercy, some men
presume and think they may go on sinning. But should a king's clemency
make his subjects rebel? The psalmist says, "there is mercy with God,
that he may be feared," (Psalms 130:4) but not that we may sin. Can men
expect mercy by provoking justice? God will hardly show those mercy who
sin because mercy abounds. Many would rather go sleeping to hell than
weeping to heaven.
In the Friday, February 23rd edition of The Wall Street Journal, there was a very interesting piece on an upcoming movie depicting the life of William Wilberforce. Here is a short excerpt:
