Judgments and No Repentance–Repentance and No Salvation

Judgments and No Repentance–Repentance and No Salvation

PREACHED AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON,

BY C. H. SPURGEON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST 25, 1887.

"They repented not to give Him glory." Revelation 16:9.

IN reading this chapter, dear Friends–this very terrible chapter–you
must have been struck, I think, with the forces of God. How great are
the armies of the Lord of Hosts! As the mighty Jehovah smote Pharaoh
with overwhelming plagues, so does the Lord in this awful portion of
the Apocalypse deal with the ungodly. Seven angels stood forth, each
one with his vial full of the wrath of God, to be poured out upon the
earth. Seven executioners were needed and seven were present–a perfect
number for the accomplishment of the Divine purpose.

Behold, the angels of God are innumerable! "The chariots of God are
twenty thousand, even thousands of angels: the Lord is among them, as
in Sinai, in the holy place." Our Lord Jesus Christ, even in His
humiliation, said, "Think you that I cannot now pray to My Father and
He shall presently give Me more than twelve legions of angels?" The
shining ones march in great armies and God accomplishes many of His
purposes by them, without our observing it. Are not their great doings
all written in the book of the wars of the Lord, which as yet no man
has read? If there were no other powers at His disposal, Jehovah, as
the Lord of all angels, would still be fitly called the Lord of Hosts.

What power resides in these mysterious beings! With what energy does
the Lord clothe them! They are made to fly swiftly on the errands of
His wisdom. "He makes His angels spirits and His ministers a flame of
fire." Here we find one of these angels pouring his bowl upon the earth
and causing a noisome and grievous sore upon men. Another empties his
vial on the sea and it becomes as the blood of a dead man. A third
angel pours out his bowl upon the rivers and the fountains of waters
are stained as with blood.

Here one ventures to pour his bowl upon the golden sun–that orb which
is of this great world both eye and soul– and the sun, as though its
flame were re-fed with the most brilliant oil, burns with greater fury
than ever. And we read, "Men were scorched with great heat and
blasphemed the name of God, which has power over these plagues." What
power, then, has God to accomplish His purposes when a single angel can
do as much as this–and the Lord has myriads of them waiting to do His
bidding?

Note yet again, how all men are within the reach of the Divine
judgments. They proudly fancy that they can escape from God. Many a
little Pharaoh says, in the hardness of his heart, "Who is the Lord,
that I should obey His voice?" Boastful worldlings dream that they, at
any rate, are beyond punishment. They reason their careful forethought
will secure them against the calamities which others bring upon
themselves. They are ungodly but still they take good care of
themselves and keep clear of vice and extravagant wastefulness.

They are far too prudent to involve themselves in the perils of the
gamester or the profligate. They prefer safer sins and so they fancy
that they are out of harm's reach–though they do not acknowledge God.
Poverty cannot reach them, for they have filled their houses with
hidden treasure. Sickness cannot hurt them, for they have a vigorous
constitution. They defy dangers which have thrown down others. They
boast themselves in the glory of their strength and in the hardness of
their hearts. These are the men who sit aloft, beyond the reach of the
arrows of Jehovah.

What folly! No man is at any moment beyond the reach of vengeance. The
Lord has but to remember the callous and secure, and immediately the
joints of their loins shall be loosed and fearfulness shall take hold
upon them–their proud hearts can fail them in a moment, even though no
outward sorrow afflict them. In Providence the detectives of God never
fail to find out the guilty. This angel, you perceive, poured his vial
on the sun and by way of the sun, with his scorching heat, the proudest
sons of men were visited. The noble and the great, the rich and the
healthy, could not bear the increased solar heat–for the day burned as
an oven.

We know not by how many doors God can come at the guilty, but come at
them He will when once His arm is bared for war. When He says, "Ah, I
will ease Me of My adversaries," who shall withstand Him? This land is
exceedingly haughty and some of its inhabitants talk as if they were
demigods. Our insular pride makes us fancy that we shall prosper, come
what may. But it is not so–we are great debtors to Divine favor and if
we cease to acknowledge the Lord's hand in our prosperity He may teach
us humility by sharp methods. God's right hand can find out His
adversaries.

And He will punish sin in Britain as surely as He punished sin in Rome,
or in Nineveh. If Jerusalem did not escape, shall London last forever?
No country, no city, and no man, however rich, or strong, or great, can
climb beyond the reach of the Divine hand. In the height or in the
depth, God is equally present in power–in this state or in the
next–He is equally able to dispense justice. No ivory throne can lift
a monarch above Jehovah's rod. No pillar of fame can place a mortal
beyond His sword. Oh that all of you would have the sense to see this!
And as you cannot fly from God, fly to Him. As you cannot resist the
power of His justice, flee to the power of His mercy.

When He stretches out His arms and invites you to come, turn not your
backs. Come, like the prodigal, saying, "Father, I have sinned," and He
will graciously receive you. This terrible chapter takes away all hope
from men as to their escaping from God when once He girds Himself with
vengeance and sits down upon His Throne of Justice, to execute
punishment. Then shall His right hand find out His enemies and overturn
them with swift destruction.

One Truth of God, however, comes out of this passage more plainly than
any other, to my mind. And that is, that judgments, even the most
terrible of them, do not, in themselves, produce a satisfactory
repentance in the minds of men. Let me read you two or three verses and
you will see how clearly this is the case. The punishment drove men
into still more furious rebellion. In none did it subdue and sanctify
them. "And men were scorched with great heat and blasphemed the name of
God, which has power over these plagues: and they repented not to give
Him glory.

"And the fifth angel poured out his vial upon the seat of the beast.
And his kingdom was full of darkness. And they gnawed their tongues for
pain and blasphemed the God of Heaven because of their pains and their
sores and repented not of their deeds." The twenty-first verse is to
the same effect–"And there fell upon men a great hail out of Heaven,
every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God
because of the plague of the hail." The terrors of the Lord produced
blasphemy but they did not produce repentance.

I. In considering this subject, by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, I
would begin by saying that JUDGMENTS, APART FROM DIVINE GRACE, MAY
PRODUCE A KIND OF REPENTANCE. It is repentance after a fashion but it
is not of that holy, healthy, heavenly sort which is worked in the
renewed heart by the Holy Spirit.

Judgment may produce a carnal repentance–a repentance that is of the
flesh and after the manner of the sinful nature of men. In this
repentance the depravity of the heart remains the same in essence,
though it takes another form of showing itself. Though the man changes,
he is not savingly changed–he becomes another man but not a new man.
The same sin rules in him but it is called by another name and wears
another coat. The stone is carved into a more sightly shape but it is
not turned into flesh. The iron is cast into another image but it is
not transformed into gold.

This carnal repentance is caused by fear. Does not every thief repent
of robbery when he is convicted and sent to jail? Does not every
murderer repent of his crime when he stands under the fatal tree? This
is the kind of repentance which the terrors of the Lord will work in
men's minds unless they are altogether hardened and under the special
dominion of the devil. Travelers in great storms will tremble and,
trembling, will confess their guilt and begin to pray. But when the
tempest is over, their trembling, their confession and their prayers
are also, all over. They shake because of their sins but they are not
shaken out of their sins.

Mariners far out at sea, when the laboring boat threatens to go down to
the bottom, will repent. But such repentance is only a few qualms of
conscience because they are in dread of death and judgment and Hell. So
men that lie upon a bed of sickness–when their bones ache and their
hearts melt and the grave yawns beneath their couch–will often repent.
And yet, if they could be raised up, they would return to their sins as
the dog returns to his vomit. This is wretched work. This repentance
gives no glory to God and leads to no saving and lasting deliverance
from sin.

It is fallen nature washed and brushed and rouged–but allowed to
remain fallen nature, still. The heart is not renewed, the life is not
regenerated, the mind is not changed. And, therefore, little is done
that is worth doing. The leopard is caged but there are the spots. The
Ethiopian is scrubbed but his skin is as black as ever. This repentance
is the outcome

of nature under terror and not the fruit of Divine Grace. The thunders
and the storms and the hail and the noisome sores can produce in men
nothing more than a fleshly repentance. And flesh repenting is still
flesh and tends to corruption.

And hence, again, it is but a transient repentance. They repent but for
a season. While they see the immediate evil of their sin in its results
they cry out as if they really hated sin. But their hatred is only a
little tiff, which lasts for a while and then they make friends with
their sins, as Pilate made friends with Herod. Their goodness is as the
morning cloud. And as the early dew it passes away. Even Ahab once
repented. But, oh, what a poor and short-lived repentance it was! We
find men turning away from their sin for a time but then going back to
it with a greater gusto, as men may abstain from food for some hours in
order to increase their appetite for the banquet which is being
prepared.

Beware of that repentance which is not better than the vomit of a
dog–how can it be acceptable with God? Beware of that repentance which
comes ofyourself–for it comes of the flesh. And that which is born of
the flesh is flesh and not better. That which is of the flesh is a mere
flash–no sooner has it come than it is gone. "All flesh is grass" and
the flower of it soon withers away. When the Spirit of the Lord blows
upon the fairest flower of our poor nature it immediately withers
up–how could it be otherwise with grass?

It is well that it should be withered up by the Spirit of God. For,
left to itself, it will wither in a worse style and our destruction
will be sure. "The Word of the Lord abides forever," but all the
comeliness of man passes away. Beware, then, of a repentance which
springs alone from terror–comes up in a night and withers in a
night–appears and promises but promises only to delude.

Such a repentance is superficial. It only affects the surface of the
man. It does not go to the heart, it is hardly more than skin deep. How
often have we been greatly grieved when we have seen persons in
poverty, or in sickness, or in some great fright, or under some other
form of excitement who have professed repentance and avowed it very
loudly, too? But yet you could see that the repentance did not go deep
enough to make them give up their sin! Herod was exceedingly sorry that
he had made an oath which bound him to give John's head in a platter to
the daughter of Herodias–but he was not so sorry as to break loose
from his wicked pledge. No. He committed the murder–though he said he
was exceedingly sorry for it.

How many there are that are hand and glove with Satan yet speak against
him, so as to keep up a fair show before others! They take the
sweetness and the profit of an evil trade and yet condemn the trade
itself. They derive rent from an ill house but, of course, they are
grieved that people should use their property for such a purpose! Such
repentance as that is, to a large extent, sheer hypocrisy. It gives to
men a kind of rest of conscience, which rest of conscience is injurious
to them, since it lulls them to sleep and enables them to wake and
return to their sin as if nothing had happened.

That repentance which is worth having turns a man inside out and purges
the innermost part of the soul–killing the love of sin so that even if
sin could be made profitable and sweet to the man–he could not abide
it. If sin were buttered and sugared on both sides the true penitent
would not have it. For he has found that there is a deadly poison in
its sweetness and therefore he loathes it and leaves it. The really
repentant one hates sin as sin and turns from it with purpose of heart.
Beware of a superficial repentance, for the Lord abhors it. God is not
mocked. He sees the loathsomeness of the ulcer through the film which
seeks to hide it.

Once again–the awful fear of God may produce a despairing repentance.
This is deep enough but then it lacks the element of bringing glory to
God. It has in it no trace of submission, no touch of faith, no breath
of love. There is nothing evangelical about it–it is legal all
through–and therefore, worthless for salvation. It is a kind of
anticipation of the endless judgment and the wrath to come. But it is
not a deliverance from there. Take Judas as an example. "I have
sinned," says he. He flings down the accursed silver for which he had
sold his Master and his own soul but he goes out to hang himself.

What an awful thing it is when the Law of God and the terrors of God
work upon the conscience and arouse all a man's fears and yet he will
not fly to Christ! The man is so overcome with horror at the prospect
of the world to come that, like a fool, he rushes upon his fate, even
as the moth dashes into the flame of the candle. To escape from death,
he flies to death. To escape from the wrath of God he puts an end to
his last hope of mercy and rushes into the presence of an angry God.
This is a dreadful repentance, from which I pray God to save you. It
works death even in this life and it works the second death in the
world to come.

If any of you are under the power of despair at this moment, I pray
you, do not rest in it. For it is no more a place to rest in than Hell
itself. The satisfaction of despair, grim and dreadful thing as it is,
has a sort of fascination for some minds and they begin to be at peace
in the midnight of hopelessness. They say there is no hope and
therefore they may as well sin up to the full and get some sort of
enjoyment out of their rebellion. Under this mad impulse they go from
bad to worse and sin more than ever. O my Hearer, may God save you from
this and bring you to be touched with a sense of the love and of the
Grace of God, wherein there is hope, lest you repent hopelessly and
unbelievingly and perish in your repentance!

II. So you see, my Brethren, judgments may produce a certain likeness
of repentance–but then, secondly, THEY

DO NOT AND THEY CANNOT OF THEMSELVES PRODUCE A REPENTANCE SUCH AS GIVES
GOD GLORY.

"They repented not to give Him glory."

Now, not giving God glory is a very important omission and one which
corrupts the whole matter. I would dwell upon it for a minute or two,
that you may see how great is the failure. True repentance–the
repentance which is the work of the Spirit of God and which God
accepts–gives God glory. Here are scales and balances for you
wherewith you may weigh your repentance before God. Do so with great
care and jealousy. True repentance gives God glory. And it glorifies
God in many ways, of which I have not time to tell you in full.

But I can tell you enough to help you in self-examination. Is yours
true repentance or not? That is the question. I believe that true
repentance has as pure and sincere a worship in it as the anthems of
the glorified above. It is a form of adoration as suitable to sinners
as the eternal hallelujahs are suitable for perfect beings.

First, it reverences and adores God's omniscience. It is a confession
of the fact of God's knowledge and the truthfulness of His statements.
The man says, "O Lord, I am what Your Word says I am. I am a sinner
through and through. And I know while I confess my sin that You know
more about my sin than I do. I lay bare my soul but it never was
possible for me to hide it from Your inspection. You have seen my
thoughts and the secret intents of my heart. Before You have I sinned.
In Your sight have I done evil. You know me altogether and I adore Your
omniscience."

Every true penitent is conscious of the Divine eye resting upon him.
And he, in lowly manner, acknowledges the piercing and discerning power
of that eye. The real penitent asks that the Lord would reveal to him
more and more of his true condition–that he may not cloak his sin, nor
deceive himself in any way–but may be honest and upright before God.
Such repentance gives glory to the omniscience of God.

Next, the truly penitent gives glory to the righteousness of God in His
Law. The man that really hates sin says, "Lord, I do not quarrel with
Your Law. Your Law is holy and just and good–the fault is with me, for
I am carnal, sold under sin. No Law could be more exactly right and
just than Your Law is and in having transgressed against it I am deeply
guilty and I acknowledge my folly and crime. Whatever becomes of me, I
dare not impugn the Law which condemns me. I adore its infinite majesty
and purity." Impenitence rails at the Law as too severe, speaks of
transgression as a trifle and of future punishment as cruelty. But the
truly repentant soul admires the Law and champions it even against
himself! Do you know all this in your own heart?

Next, the sincerely penitent also adores and glorifies the justice of
God in His punishment of transgression. I know that when I was under a
sense of sin I felt that if God did not punish me He ought to do so. I
could not see how God could be the Judge of all the earth if He did not
visit my transgressions with infinite wrath. I had no quarrel with the
most stern Word either of the Old or of the New Testament. I was bound
under my sense of guilt to bare my back to its scourges and to lay my
neck upon its block. I said in so many words–"And if my soul were sent
to Hell, Your righteous Law approves it well."

This is real penitence–when the man gives glory to the justice of
God–even though it condemns him. O my Hearer, do you thus repent? Is
sin really sinful to you? Do you see its desert of Hell? If not, your
repentance needs to be repented of.

And next, true repentance glorifies the sovereignty of God in His
mercy. The man who is deeply conscious of his guilt, says, "Lord, I
have no claim on You. I have no rights but the right to be punished. I
have forfeited all claim to favor and reward. If You will freely
forgive me, if You can justly do so, I will forever adore You for so
doing. But I cannot say that I have any right thereto. If You will
pardon me, it must be Your own act and deed, performed on grounds
within

Yourself. I know that You have a sovereign right, as King of kings, to
execute the sentence of the Law, or to condone my offense, if you can
do it in consistency with justice. I must leave myself absolutely in
Your hands."

That man truly, deeply, sincerely, repents who perceives that there is
justice in the declaration of God, "I will have mercy on whom I will
have mercy and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion."
How some people bite their lips when they hear this sentence! And yet
they are the very voice of Jehovah, the God whom I adore. He claims to
be absolute in the realm of Grace, doing as He pleases with His own.
Let Him do as He wills, for His will is holy love. We can trust
absolute authority with Him who is the infinitely good and just. In the
absolute sovereignty of God there is hope for the most guilty of men.
We do not fully repent of sin until we feel that it is so and confess
that the Lord has a right to do as He pleases in this matter, whether
He justly destroys us or graciously saves us.

Further, I believe that the man has repented to the glory of God when
he spies out that there is a way by which God can be just and yet the
justifier of the ungodly–when he sees the Lord Jesus Christ, the
adorable Son of God coming in our human nature and becoming the
Substitute for sinners and the Sacrifice for sin. That is true
repentance which washes the Redeemer's feet with her tears and wipes
them with the hairs of her head. Those dear feet had not been pierced
when the woman thus washed them–but they have been pierced now. Let us
wash the nail-prints with the tears of our repentance at this hour!

Do you rejoice in Jesus crucified? Do you love Christ? Do you trust
Him? Do you leap for joy at the very thought that God has set Him forth
to be a propitiation for sin? This is repentance after a godly sort.
This is repentance that needs not to be repented of. Repentance makes a
rainbow with her tears of grief for sin and her glances of hope at the
love of Christ and His great finished work. Repentance stands at the
Cross and sees sin forgiven and then repents more than she ever did
when she could not spy out forgiveness. She says of her sins–

"I know they are forgiven,

But now their pain to me

Is all the grief and anguish

They laid, my Lord, on You."

Sin in the anguish of conviction does not so effectually break a heart
as sin forgiven. A sense of blood-bought pardon soon dissolves a heart
of stone. Hannibal, it is said, dissolved the rocks of the Alps with
vinegar. But Christ dissolves our hearts with love. He tells us, "I
have blotted out your sins. I bore on the Tree the ransom for you. I
have poured out My heart's blood that you might live." And then it is
that we hate sin with a perfect hatred and are full of mourning because
we pierced the Lord. Because evil is so hateful to the heart of Jesus
we loathe it intensely. This is the repentance which glorifies God. The
Lord grant such repentance to every one of us!

Mark you, it glorifies God in one other way–by setting the sinner ever
afterwards craving after holiness. "The burnt child dreads the fire."
And the sinner dreads sin when he has been delivered from the flame of
it by the Lord Jesus. Because Jesus suffered so bitterly, he feels that
he himself suffered and so feels as much dread of sin as if he had
himself been made to die through it. The man who knows that his sins
have been forgiven will never be satisfied with any degree of
sanctification short of being made like unto Him who took his sin away.
"He was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God
in Him," and to this result we press forward.

While that passage relates mainly to our justification, yet the Lord
Jesus Christ has also an eye to our sanctification. He has redeemed us
that we may be a people zealous for good works and may in all things
serve Him who has redeemed us–not with corruptible things, as silver
and gold–but with His own precious blood. Perfect holiness is our
aspiration. Oh that it were our attainment! But the very aspiration
gives glory to the thrice holy God whom we desire to imitate.

Now, beloved Friends, the judgments of God in and of themselves can
never work evangelical repentance in a single human heart–

"Law and terrors do but harden,

All the while they work alone;

It is a sense of blood-bought pardon

That dissolves the heart of stone." You see, then, how a gracious
repentance glorifies God–do you know anything of such a repentance?
Answer, I pray you, as before the Lord, whom no man can deceive.

III. But now, thirdly, I go a step further–THE JUDGMENTS OF GOD APART
FROM DIVINE GRACE, MAY, THROUGH OUR HARDNESS OF HEART, INVOLVE US IN
GREATER SIN.

Listen to me, any of you that have been much tried and afflicted and
yet have never come to Jesus. I tell you, if God has chastened you very
much until He is saying tonight, "O Ephraim, what shall I do unto you?"
then all this chastening which you have despised involves you in deeper
sin–because you now sin with a clearer knowledge of what sin really
is.

A young man came to London and he fell into vice. He has had to suffer
very grievously for it and if he has not heartily repented–if he goes
back again to his folly–there will be sevenfold damnation about his
evil way in the future. Let him remember this. He cannot sin cheaply
now. He knows what he is doing and his offense will be distinctly
willful and therefore rankly offensive. You scarcely knew that it was
fire at first but you know now–if you go and put your finger into the
fire again you deserve to be burned.

A man that has suffered Divine judgment and yet goes back to sin
increases his guilt because there is the element of defiance in his
obstinacy. He has come to be like Pharaoh who stoutly resisted Jehovah
and His Commands. Let the Lord send His plagues–Pharaoh will brazen it
out with Him. O dear Friend, I hope that you have not yet reached such
a fearful state of mind. I hope you are not bent on war with the
Almighty! I trust you will not dash upon the bosses of His shield. Do
not say, "Sickness may follow sickness but I shall not yield. Loss may
follow loss but I will not turn from my ways. I am of too tough metal
to care for such things."

If so, you have deliberately thrown down the glove of battle to the
Lord of all the earth. Think of the conflict–do no more. Shall the
string contend with the fire? Yet such is your ignorant pride in thus
defying God. This must be the case when judgments do not bring
repentance for they introduce the element of defiance into the man's
impenitent perseverance in evil and so make him doubly guilty.

Moreover, to many lives judgments also introduce the element of
falsehood. The man vowed that if he recovered from sickness he would
fear God. He was sick and a saint he would be. But when he got well,
ah, how much of a saint was he? You know the old Proverb. I need not
quote it further. Yes, many have lied unto God. Hear it. They have not
lied unto men but lied unto God in this matter till now their life is a
continued provoking of God by broken promises and disregarded
covenants. Ah me, this blackens a life. What? Has your whole life
become an elaborate lie? Are you every moment acting falsely? Are you
every hour violating vows and promises made to your God? O Man, what
will become of you when the God of Ananias and Sapphira comes to deal
with you?

I do fear that there are some whose conduct has in it the element of
deliberate hatred of God. For these have had time now to see which way
evil goes and yet they follow it. They love sin as sin. They have been
losers by their misconduct and yet they pursue it. We have often seen
persons reduced to rags and beggary by their folly and vice and we have
helped them to begin life again. But in a few days they have been in
the same destitution through the same drunkenness, or vice, or idleness
which brought them to the dogs before. They seem incorrigible,
obstinately set on their iniquities. And all that can be done for them
by the scourges of God's hand does not affect them in the least for the
better.

In this there is an aversion to goodness, a love of evil and a hatred
of God. "They say unto God, Depart from us. For we desire not the
knowledge of Your ways." This introduces the element of presumption, of
deliberation, of resolve. And when men sin so, there is a talent of
lead in the measure of their iniquity and it weighs exceeding heavily.
Sins of impetuous passion and of wild juvenile haste are bad enough.
But there is not in them the element of intense wickedness which is
evidently present in the deliberate pursuit of sin in the teeth of
suffering, or in the continuance in evil when its results are daily
felt.

On such evenings as these it is strange what sorts of people make up
the congregation at the Tabernacle. I may be speaking tonight–I do not
doubt I am–to some that, year after year, against a mother's tears and
the importunities of friends and the advice of those who have wished
them well–have still kept on and on in a sinful course which they
themselves condemn. Knowing better, they persist in wrong. Knowing what
the end will be, they are madly set upon their own ruin. O Sirs, if you
choose your own delusions, if you will ride steeplechase to Hell over
hedge and ditch, if you will be damned–who is to stand in your way and
what shall be said by way of pity for you?

O God, have mercy upon such! Many in this city are breaking a father's
heart and bringing a mother's gray hairs with sorrow to the grave.
After all they have endured they still cling to their filthy idols and
go after their impure lusts. And they will do so until God shall end
their days in His wrath and summon them to His bar. My heart breaks at
the

thought of some of you! Will you never repent and give God glory? Will
you pursue your follies even into the unquenchable fires? Now this is a
dreadful thing–that the judgments of God should, through the
wickedness of men–even lead them to still greater sin.

IV. Therefore, in the last place–and with this I finish–THE JUDGMENTS
OF GOD ARE TO BE VIEWED

WITH GREAT DISCRETION. He who studies them must do it with solemn care.

Judgments tend to good. Do not forget that. They ought to tend to good
to you who are exercised by them. How many are aroused to think of
better things by sickness in their own persons, or sudden death in
others! National judgments are frequently a ministry of Divine Grace.
The first year in which I came to London I was greatly struck with the
access that one had at all hours of day and night to people's houses,
into which no ministers of Christ had never been welcomed before. I
remember, at two o'clock one Monday morning, I was in a house, now
pulled down, close to London Bridge, to see a man who had spent the
Sunday at Brighton and had come home to die with the cholera.

Yes, they sent for me at the dead of night often, then. And rich and
poor–it mattered not, if they found someone willing to come and visit
them–were eager for you to read and pray with them. Death was all
around us, making havoc in these streets. Thus did cholera arouse our
neighbors that they flocked to hear the Word out of very fear, but they
are not so eager for a visit now. Thus, much benefit may there be in
the plagues which are shot from the quiver of Providence.

And judgments do impress some men. Many will come to hear a sermon just
after a dear baby has died, or a brother, or father has been taken
away. Death whips the careless into thought. Then there is an
impression. So far so good, if God makes use of it by His Spirit.
Judgments may be black horses upon which Christ rides triumphantly to
the doors of men's minds. Some, no doubt, are sweetly subdued by
judgments when these are qualified with Grace. The Grace of God working
with their afflictions, they bow themselves beneath the chastening
hand. And when they do this, it is good for them that they are
afflicted. God has sent the black dog to fetch the wandering sheep into
the fold and it runs to the shepherd through fear of the dog. Thus,
judgments may do great good by humbling, softening and bringing down. O
Lord, use them to this end among the afflicted ones around us!

But still, let it be remembered that these things will not work good of
themselves. I want you to remember this, because I have known people
say, "Well, if I were afflicted I might be converted. If I lay sick I
might be saved." Oh, do not think so! Sickness and sorrow of themselves
are no helps to salvation. Pain and poverty are not Evangelists.
Disease and despair are not Apostles. Look at the lost in Hell.
Suffering has effected no good in them. He that was filthy here is
filthy there. He that was unjust in this life is unjust in the life to
come. There is nothing in pain and suffering that, by their own natural
operation, will tend to purification.

Place no hope in that direction. If there were a "purgatory" of years
of pain, it would be only purgative in name, for suffering cannot
cleanse from sin. Think of the many who are every day suffering as the
result of their sinful conduct. And yet the more they suffer the more
they sin. We know many such. You need not take your walks far abroad
before you will find men plunged in poverty, whose poverty is traceable
distinctly to their own fault. And in that fault they still continue
and even grow worse and worse for all they suffer.

So it is with men that lie dying. You must not suppose that their pain
is any help to them towards repentance. Poor souls, their anguish
drives good thoughts out of their minds. Deathbed repentances are hard
to estimate–we must leave them with God. But it is a sorrowful fact
that those which seemed to be deathbed repentances have seldom turned
out to be worth anything when the men have recovered. In fact, I do not
remember a case in which the person who recovered has been at all what
he said he would be when he thought that he was on the borders of the
grave. So you see, suffering is no help to repentance and it may be a
hindrance.

Now, what I have to say to you is this–oh, that God would lead you to
repent now–before any of His judgments fall upon you! Why should we
not repent at once? Surely we ought to repent of doing wrong when we
perceive that we are wronging so good a God. He has not cut you
down–He has not taken away your wife–is this a reason for being
hard-hearted? It ought to be the other way. He has spared that
fair-haired child of yours. He has not allowed your business to be
ruined by your neglect. He has helped you although you have been
hurting yourself. Well, then, turn to Him.

Drawn by His love, turn to Him. Say in your heart, "I cannot offend any
more. I cannot sin against so good, so kind a God as this." Permit me
also to say to you how much nobler and sweeter a thing it is to be
drawn than to be driven.

How much better to come cheerfully and willingly, led by motives of
love to God, than to be like the bullock that is forced to bear the
yoke, or the "horse, or the mule, which have no understanding: whose
mouth must be held in with bit and bridle." Must you be beaten to
Christ? How much more honorable to turn to God in the cheerful bright
days that are now yours. Oh, that I could persuade you! If there is any
right principle in you, you will yield and glorify God by hearty
repentance.

And then, again–remember you can repent now so much more clearly than
in the hour of sickness. God helping you, this is a very good hour for
repenting. I find that when I am in great pain, I cannot work out a
case, I say to people, "Oh, don't come to me with your questions.
There, go and do whatever you like. I shall be sure to say the wrong
thing– my judgment is not clear–I am in too much pain." How will you
acceptably repent when you can hardly keep from crying out with agony?
How will you rightly repent when the head is aching, when the heart is
palpitating, when you are gasping for breath, when the death-sweat
beads your brow? Oh, that you would think of these things now, while
your intellect is clear and your body is not racked and tortured! God
help you to do so!

And do you not see how much more likely it is to be genuine
repentance–if it is rendered freely? You are not frightened now, and
are more likely to be your honest self. You are not under terror now,
and therefore you are not so likely to play the hypocrite. Tonight you
have come into this place in good health. Happy and cheerful–and God
has made everything bright about you. What can I better commend to you
than immediately to seek the Lord? Does not wisdom, herself, speak and
cry aloud to you now? Forsake sin and turn with purpose of heart to
Jesus Christ the Savior, whose Spirit is even now working with you
while these words are being spoken.

Yield to the sacred pressure of the Spirit of God. That which now
inclines you to relent is the good Spirit of love and mercy. Bow
yourself before it, as the wheat ripened for the sickle bows before the
wind. Give glory to God by yielding to the movements of His Spirit. Cry
out, I pray, "Lord, I believe. Help You mine unbelief. I would quit my
sin. Help me to quit it now for Jesus' sake and to give You glory."
Amen.