Preface
For more than a century, Charles Haddon Spurgeon's sermons have been
consistently recognized, and their usefulness and impact have continued to the
present day, even in the outdated English of the author's own day.
Why then should expositions already so successful and of such stature and
proven usefulness require adaptation, revision, rewrite or even editing? The
answer is obvious. To increase its usefulness to today's reader, the language
in which it was originally written needs updating.
Though his sermons have served other generations well, just as they came from
the pen of the author in the nineteenth century, they still could be lost to
present and future generations, simply because, to them, the language is
neither readily nor fully understandable.
My goal, however, has not been to reduce the original writing to the vernacular
of our day. It is designed primarily for you who desire to read and study
comfortably and at ease in the language of our time. Only obviously archaic
terminology and passages obscured by expressions not totally familiar in our
day have been revised. However, neither Spurgeon's meaning nor intent have been
tampered with. –Tony
Capoccia
Turn or Burn
(Turn from your sins or Burn for your sins)
by
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
(1834-1892)
© Copyright 2004 by Tony Capoccia. This updated file may be
freely copied, printed out, and distributed as
long as copyright and source statements remain intact, and that it is not
sold. All rights reserved.
Verses quoted, unless otherwise noted, are taken from the HOLY
BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION
©1978 by the New York Bible Society, used by permission of Zondervan Bible
Publishers.
"NASB" indicates the Scripture text is taken from the New American
Standard Bible,
used by permission of the Lockman Foundation, a corporation not for profit, La
Habra, California.
This sermon, preached by Tony Capoccia, is now available on Audio
Cassette or CD: www.gospelgems.com
"If a man does not repent, He will sharpen his sword; He has bent His
bow and
made it ready."--Psalm 7:12 (NASB)
"If the sinner does not turn from his wicked ways, God will sharpen His
sword." So, then, God has a sword, and He will punish man on account of
his sins. This evil generation has labored to take away from God the sword of
His justice; they have endeavored to prove to themselves that God will
"clear the guilty," and will by no means "punish evil,
disobedience, and sin." Two hundred years ago the predominant subject of
the pulpit was one of terror; it was like Mount Sinai, it thundered out the
dreadful wrath of God, and from the lips of a Baxter or a Bunyan, you heard the
most fearful sermons, full to the brim with warnings of judgment to come.
Perhaps some of the Puritan fathers may have gone too far, and have given too
great a prominence to the terror of the Lord in their ministry; but the age in
which we live has tried to forget those terrors altogether, and if we dare to
tell men that God will punish them for their sins, we are then accused of
trying to frighten them into religion, and if we faithfully and honestly tell
our listeners that sin will bring certain judgment, it is said that we are
attempting to scare them into goodness. Now we don't care what men mockingly
accuse us of; we feel it is our duty, when men sin, to tell them that they will
be punished; and so long as the world will not give up its sin, we feel we must
not cease our warnings. But the cry of the age is, that God is merciful, that
God is love. Yes, who said He wasn't?
But remember it is equally true, God is just, severely and inflexibly just! He
would not be God, if He were not just; He could not be merciful if He were not
just, for punishment of the wicked is demanded by the highest mercy to the rest
of mankind. Rest assured, however, that He is just, and that the words I am
about to read you from God's word are true: "The wicked return to the
grave, all the nations that forget God;" "God is a righteous judge, a
God who expresses His wrath every day;" "If a man does not repent, He
will sharpen His sword; He has bent His bow and made it ready. He has also
prepared for Himself deadly weapons; He makes His arrows fiery shafts"
(NASB).
Because this is a wicked age, it will not accept the idea of a real hell; and
because it is hypocritical, it will speak of hell, but only with fictitious
punishment. This doctrine is so prevalent as to make even the ministers of the
gospel flinch from their duty in declaring the day of wrath. How few there are
who will solemnly tell us of the judgment to come. They preach of God's love
and mercy, as they ought to do, and as God has commanded them; but what good is
it to preach mercy unless they preach also the doom of the wicked? And how
shall we hope to carry out the primary purpose of preaching unless we warn men
that if they "Don't repent of their sin, God will sharpen His sword in
judgment?"
I fear that in too many places the doctrine of future punishment is rejected,
and laughed at as a fantasy and a fire-breathing monster of our imagination;
but the day will come when it shall be known to be a reality. Ahab scoffed at
the prophet Micaiah, when he said he (Ahab) would never come back alive; the
men of Noah's generation laughed at the foolish old man (as they thought him),
who urged them take heed, for the world would soon be drowned; but when they
were climbing to the treetops, and the floods were following them, did they
then say that Noah's prophecy was untrue? And when the arrow was
sticking in the heart of Ahab, and he said to his chariot driver, "Wheel
around and get me out of the fighting. I've been wounded," did he then
think that Micaiah had spoken an untruth? And so, it is now.
You tell us that we speak lies, when we warn you of judgment to come; but in
that day when your trouble shall fall on you, and when destruction shall
overwhelm you, will you say we were liars then? Will you then turn around and
scoff, and say we did not speak the truth? Rather my hearers the highest honor
will be given to him who was the most faithful in warning men concerning the
wrath of God. I have often trembled at the thought, that, here I am standing
before you, and constantly engaged in the work of the ministry, and what if,
when I die, I should be found unfaithful to your souls, how sorrowful will be
our meeting in the world of spirits? It would be a dreadful thing if you were
able to say to me in the world to come, "Sir, you flattered us; you did
not tell us of the solemnities of eternity; you did not rightly dwell upon the
awful wrath of God; you spoke to us feebly and weakly, you were somewhat afraid
of us; you knew we could not bear to hear of eternal torment, and therefore you
kept it back and never mentioned it!" Why, I believe that if you were able
you would look me in the face and curse me through all of eternity, if that
would have been my conduct. But, by God's help, it shall never be.
Come what may, when I die, I shall, with God's help, be able to say "I am
innocent of the blood of all men." So far as I know God's truth, I will
endeavor to speak it; and though criticism and censure be poured on my head a
hundred times, I will welcome it, if I may but be faithful to this unstable
generation, faithful to God, and faithful to my own conscience. Let me, then, endeavor,
and, by God's help, I will do it as solemnly and as tenderly as I can, to
proclaim to you that have not yet repented, most affectionately reminding you
of your future doom, if you should die without repenting of your sins. "If
a man does not repent, He will sharpen His sword."
In the first place, "what is the repenting here mean?" In the second
place, let us dwell on the "necessity there is for men's repenting,
otherwise God will punish them;" and then, thirdly, let me remind you of
the "means whereby men can be turned from the error of their ways, and the
weakness and frailty of their nature amended by the power of divine
grace."
I. In
the first place, my listeners, let me endeavor to explain to you the NATURE OF
THE REPENTING. It says, "If a man does not repent, He will sharpen His
sword."
To begin, then: the repenting here meant is genuine, not artificial--not that
which stops with a bunch of promises and vows, but that which deals with the
real acts of life. Possibly one of you will say, this morning, "Look, I
will turn to God; from this time forward I will not sin, but I will endeavor to
walk in holiness; my vices shall be abandoned, my evil will be thrown the
winds, and I will turn to God with a sincere heart;" but, maybe tomorrow you
will have forgotten this; you will weep a tear or two under the preaching of
God's word, but by tomorrow every tear shall have been dried, and you will
utterly forget that you ever came to church at all.
How many of us are like men who see their faces in a mirror, and walk away and
forget what we looked like! Yes, my friends, it is not your promise of
repentance that can save you; it is not your vow, it is not your solemn
declaration, it is not the tear that is dried more easily than the dew-drop by
the sun; it is not the momentary emotion of the heart, which constitutes a real
turning to God. There must be a true and actual abandonment of sin, and a
turning to righteousness in real act and deed in everyday life. Do you say you
are sorry, and repent, and yet go on from day to day, just as you always have
before? Will you now bow your heads, and say, "Lord, I repent," and
in a little while commit the same acts of sin again? If you do, your repentance
is worse than nothing, and will make your punishment even more sure; for he
that makes a promise to his Maker, and does not keep his promise, has committed
another sin, in that he has attempted to deceive the Almighty, and lie to the
God that made him. Repentance, to be true, to be evangelical, must be a
repentance which really affects our outward behavior.
Next, repentance to be true "must be total." How many will say,
"Lord, I will give up this sin and the this other one; but there are
certain favorite lusts which I must hang on to." O friends, in God's name
let me tell you, it is not the giving up of one sin, nor fifty sins, which is
true repentance; it is the serious giving up of every sin. If you conceal one
of these accursed vipers in your heart, then your repentance is nothing but a
fake. If you indulge in only one lust, and give up every other, then that one
lust, like one leak in a ship, will sink your soul. It is not sufficient just
to give up your outward sins; it is not enough just to give up the most wicked
sin of your daily life; it is all or nothing which God demands
"Repent" He says; and when he commands you to repent, He means,
repent of all your sins, otherwise He never can accept your repentance as being
real and genuine. The truly repentant person hates all of their sins, not just
certain ones. He says, "Cover yourself with the finest gold, O sin, I will
still hate you! Yes, cover yourself with pleasure, make yourself flashy, like
the snake with its turquoise scales--I still hate you, for I know your venom,
and I run from you, even when you come to me in the most elusive
clothing." All sin must
be given up, or else you will never have Christ; all evil must be renounced, or
else the gates of heaven must be locked to keep you out forever. Let us,
remember, then, that for repentance to be sincere, it must be total repentance.
Again: when God says, "If a man does not repent, He will sharpen His
sword," He means "urgent" repentance. You say, when we are
nearing the end of our mortal life, and when we are entering the borders of the
thick darkness of the future state, then we will change our ways. But my dear
listeners, do not delude yourselves. Few have ever changed after a long life of
sin. "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?"
If so, let him that is accustomed to doing evil learn to do well. Put no faith
in the repentance which you promised yourselves that you would declare on your
death beds. There are ten thousand arguments against one, that if you do not
repent in health, you will never repent in sickness.
Too many have promised themselves a quiet time before they leave the world,
when they could turn their face to the wall and confess their sins; but how few
have found that time of silence! Don't men drop dead in the streets--yes, even
in the church pew? Don't they die at their places of employment? And when death
is gradual, it offers only a feeble time for repentance. Many a Christian has
said on his death bed, "O! if I had to now seek my God; if I had to now
cry to Him for mercy, what would become of me? The pain of death is enough,
without the agony of repentance. It is enough to have the body tortured with
the often pains of death, without having the soul torn with sorrow."
Sinners! God said, "Today, if you hear my voice, do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion, during the time of testing in the desert, where
your fathers tested and tried me."
When God the Holy Spirit convinces men of sin, they will never talk of delays.
You may never have another day to repent in. Therefore, says the voice of
wisdom, "repent now." The Jewish rabbis said, "Let every man
repent one day before he dies; and since he may die tomorrow, let him take heed
to turn from his evil ways today." Even so we say, immediate repentance is
that which God demands, for He has never promised you that you will have any
other hour to repent in, except the one that you now have.
Furthermore; the repentance described here as being absolutely necessary is a
sincere repentance. It is not a phony tear; it is not hanging out the banner of
grief, while you have frivolity in your hearts; it is not having a bright light
within, and closing all the blinds on the windows by a pretended repentance. It
is the putting out the party candles in the heart; it is sorrow of soul, which
is true repentance. A man may renounce every outward sin, and yet not really
repent. True repentance, is a turning of the heart, as well as of the life; it
is the giving up of the whole soul to God, to be His forever and ever; it is a
renunciation of the sins of the heart, as well as the corruptions of the
life.
Yes! dear listeners, let none of us dream that we have repented when we have
only made a false and make believe repentance; let none of us take that to be
the work of the Spirit which is only the work of poor human nature; let us not dream
that we have turned to God in true salvation, when, perhaps, we have only
turned to ourselves. And let us not think that it is enough to have turned from
one vice to another, or from vice to virtue; let us remember it must be a
turning of the whole soul, so that the old man is made new in Christ Jesus;
otherwise we have not answered the requirements of the text--we
have not turned to God.
And lastly on this point, this repentance must be "perpetual." It is
not my turning to God today that will be a proof that I am a true convert; it
is the forsaking of my sin throughout my entire life, until I am laid in the
grave. You need not dream that to be moral for a week will be proof that you
are saved; it is a continuous rejection of evil. The change which God works is
neither a momentary nor a superficial change; not a simple cutting of the top
of a weed, but a complete eradication of it; not the sweeping away of the dust
of one day, but the taking away of that which is the cause of the defilement.
In olden times, when rich and generous kings came into their cities they made
the fountains run with milk and wine; but the fountain was not therefore a
fountain of milk and wine forever; tomorrow it will run with water as
before.
So today you may go home and pretend to pray; you may today be serious,
tomorrow you may be honest, and the next day you may pretend to be devout; but
if you return, as Scripture says it, "A dog returns to its
vomit," and, "A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the
mud," your repentance will but sink you deeper into hell, instead of being
a proof of divine grace in your hearts.
It is very hard to distinguish between legal repentance and evangelical
repentance; however, there are certain marks by which they may be distinguished,
and at the risk of tiring you, we will just notice one or two of them; and may
God grant that you may find them in your own souls! Legal repentance is a fear
of damning; evangelical repentance is a fear of sinning.
Legal repentance makes us fear the wrath of God; evangelical repentance makes
us fear the cause of that wrath--sin. When a man repents with that grace of
repentance which God the Spirit works in him, he repents not of the punishment
which is to follow the deed, but of the deed itself; and he feels that even if
there were no pit of Hell for the wicked; if there were no ever-gnawing worm of
torment, and no everlasting fire, he would still hate sin. It is such
repentance as this which every one of you must have, or else you will be lost.
It must be a hatred of sin. Do not suppose that because when it is your time to
die that you will be afraid of eternal torment, therefore that will be
repentance. Every thief is afraid of the prison; but he will steal tomorrow if
you set him free. Most men who have committed murder tremble at the sight of
the electric chair, but they would murder again if they were allowed to live.
It is not the hatred of the punishment that is repentance; it is the hatred of
the sin itself. Do you feel that you have such a repentance as that? If
not, these thundering words must be preached to you again--"If a man does
not repent, He will sharpen His Sword" (NASB).
But one more point. When a man is possessed of true and evangelical repentance,
I mean the gospel repentance which saves the soul-he not only hates sin for its
own sake, but despises it so extremely and utterly that he feels that no
repentance, of his own can help to wash it out; and he acknowledges that it is
only by an act of sovereign grace that his sins can be washed away. Now, if any
of you suppose that you repent of your sins and yet imagine that by a life of
holy living you can blot them out; if you suppose that by walking uprightly in
the future you can obliterate your past sins, you have not yet truly repented; for
true repentance, makes a man feel that
Could his zeal no rest know,
Could his tears forever flow,
All for sin could not atone;
Christ must save, and Christ alone.
And if your sin is so killed in you that you hate it as a corrupt and
abominable thing, and you would bury it out of your sight, and feel that it
could never be buried, unless Christ Himself shall dig the grave, then you have
repented of sin. We must humbly confess that we deserve God's wrath, and that
we cannot prevent it by any works of our own; and we must put our trust solely
and entirely in the blood and accomplishments of Jesus Christ. If you have not
repented in this way, again we shout in the words of David, "If a man does
not repent, He will sharpen His sword."
II. And now the second point: it is even a more terrible one to dwell upon, and
if I went by my own feelings I would not even mention it; but we must not
consider our feelings in the work of the ministry, any more than we should if
we were physicians of men's bodies. We must sometimes use the knife, when we
feel that they would die without it. We must frequently make sharp gashes into
men's consciences, in the hope that the Holy Spirit will bring them to
life. We declare, then, that there is a NECESSITY that God should
sharpen His sword and punish men, if they will not "turn" from their
sins. Earnest Baxter used to say, "Sinner! turn or burn; it is
your only alternative; TURN, or BURN!" And it is true. I think I can show
you why men must "turn" from their sins, or else they will
"burn" for their sins.
1. First, we cannot expect that the God of the Bible would allow sin to go
unpunished. Some may imagine it; they may dream their intellects into a state
intoxication, so as to fantasize a God apart from justice; but no man who has
any common sense, can imagine a God without justice. You cannot conceive of a
good king or of a good government that could exist without Justice, much less
of God, the Judge and King of all the earth, without justice in His heart. To
imagine Him all love, and no justice, would be to make Him less than God. He
would not be capable of ruling this world if He had not justice in His heart.
There is in man a natural perception of the fact, that if God exists, He must
be just; and I can cannot imagine that you can believe in a God, without
believing also in the punishment of sin. It would be difficult to imagine Him
elevated high above His creatures, seeing all their disobedience, and yet
looking with the same composure upon the good and upon the evil; you cannot
imagine Him giving the same reward of praise to the wicked and to the
righteous. The idea of God, assumes justice; and when you say the word
"justice" it would be the same as saying the word "God."
2. But to imagine that there will be no punishment for sin, and that man can be
saved without repentance, is to deny all the Scriptures. What! are the records
of divine history nothing? And if they be true, then God must have God changed
drastically, if He no longer punishes sin? What! did He once rebuke Eden, and
drive our parents out of that happy garden, on account of a little theft, as
man would class it? Did He drown the world with water and inundate creation
with the floods that He had buried in the heart of the earth? And will He not
punish sin?
Let the burning fire which fell on Sodom testify to you that God is just; let
the open mouth of the earth which swallowed up Korah,
Dathan, and Abiram, warn
you that He will not spare the guilty; let the mighty works of God which He did
in the Red Sea, the wonders which He brought on Pharaoh, and the miraculous
destruction which he brought on Sennacherib, tell you that God is just. And
would it be out of place for me to mention in the same argument the judgments
of God even in our own age; but have there never been such? This world is not
the dungeon where God punishes sin, but still there are instances in which we
cannot but believe that He actually did avenge it. I do not believe that every
accident is a judgment; I am far from believing that the death of men and women
in a burning theater building is a punishment upon them for their sin, since
the same thing has occurred in divine service, to our perpetual sorrow.
I believe judgment is reserved for the next world; I could not account for
providence, if I believed that God punishes here, "Those eighteen who died
when the tower in Siloam fell on them--do you think they were guiltier than all
the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no!" It has injured religion
for men to say, for instance, that because a boat capsized and the people in it
were drowned on the Lord's Day that it was a judgment on those persons. We
assuredly believe that it was sinful to spend the day in pleasure rather than
being with God's people in fellowship in the church, but we deny, that it was a
punishment from God. God usually reserves His punishment for a future state;
but yet, we say, there have been a few instances in which we cannot but believe
that men and women have been punished for their sins in this life through God's
providence.
I remember one which I hesitate to relate to you. I saw the wretched creature
myself. He had dared to call down on his head the most awful curses that man
could utter. In his rage and fury he said that he wished his head were twisted
on one side, that his eyes were put out, and that his jaws were locked: a
moment afterward the lash of his whip--with which he had been cruelly treating
his horse--entered his eye, brought on first inflammation, and then lock-jaw,
and when I saw him he was just in the very position in which he had asked to be
placed, for his head was twisted around, his eyesight was gone, and he could
not speak except through his closed teeth.
You will remember a similar instance happening at Davises, where a woman
declared that she had paid the price of a sack of grain, when in fact she had
the money hidden in her hand, and she immediately fell down dead on the spot.
Some of these may have been singular coincidences; but I am not so naive as to
suppose that they were brought about by chance, I think the will of the Lord
was in it. I believe they were some faint indications that God was just, and
that although the full shower of His wrath does not fall on men in this life,
He does pour a drop or two on them, to let us see how He will one day punish
the world for its sin.
3. But why do I have to bring these arguments to you, my listeners? Your own
consciences will tell you that God must punish sin. You may laugh at me, and
say that you have no such "belief." I did not say you had, but I said
that your conscience tells you so, and conscience has more power over men than
what they think to be their belief. As John Bunyan said, "Mr. Conscience
had a very loud voice, and though Mr. Understanding shut himself up in a dark
room where he could not see, yet he used to thunder out so loudly in the
streets, that Mr. Understanding used to shake in his house through what Mr.
Conscience said." And it is true so often. You say in your understanding,
"I cannot believe God will punish sin;" but you know He will. You
don't want to confess your secret fears because to do so would be to give up
what you have so often most bravely asserted. But because you assert it with
such boasting and high-sounding words, I think you don't really believe it, for
if you did, you would not need to look so big while saying it. I know this,
that when you are sick or hurt that you cry out for mercy. I know that when you
are dying you will believe in a hell. Conscience makes cowards of us all, and
makes us believe, even when we say we don't, that God must punish sin.
Let me tell you a story; I have told it before, but it is a striking one, and
sets out in a true light how easily men will be brought in times of danger to
believe in a God, and a God of justice too, though they have denied Him before.
In the backwoods of Canada there lived a good minister, who one evening went
out to meditate, as Isaac did, in the fields. He soon found himself on the
borders of a forest, which he entered, and walked along a path which had been
walked on before him; meditating, and still meditating, until at last the shadows of twilight gathered around him, and he
began to think how might have to spend the night in the forest. He trembled at
the idea of remaining there, with the poor shelter of a tree that he would be
compelled to climb.
All of a sudden, he saw a light in the distance, among the trees, and thinking
that it might be from the window of some cottage where he would find a
hospitable retreat, he hurried to it, and, to his surprise saw a space cleared,
and trees laid down to make a platform, and upon it a speaker addressing a
multitude. He thought to himself, "I have stumbled on a crowd of people,
who in this dark forest have assembled to worship God, and some minister is
preaching to them, at this late hour of the evening, concerning the kingdom of
God, and His righteousness;" but to his surprise and horror, when he came
nearer, he found a young speaking loudly against God, daring the Almighty to do
His worst upon him, speaking terrible things in anger against the justice of
the Most High, and venturing most bold and awful assertions concerning his own
disbelief in a future state.
It was altogether an extraordinary scene; it was lighted up by a fire of
pine-knots which cast a glare here and there, while the thick darkness in other
places still reigned. The people were intent on listening to the speaker, and
when he sat down thunders of applause were given to him; each one seeming to emulate
the other in his praise. The minister thought to himself, "I must not let
this pass; I must rise and speak; the honor of my God and His cause demands
it." But he was afraid to speak, for he did not know what to say, having
come there suddenly; but he would have spoken anyway, had not something else
occurred. A man of middle age, robust and strong, rose, and leaning on his
staff, he said: "My friends, I have a word to speak to you tonight. I am
not about to refute any of the arguments of the speaker; I shall not criticize
his style; I shall say nothing concerning what I believe to be the blasphemies
he has uttered; but I shall simply relate to you a fact, and after I have done
that you shall draw your own conclusions."
"Yesterday I walked by the side of the river over there; I saw on its
waters a young man in a boat. The boat was out of control; it was going fast
toward the rapids; he could not use the oars, and I saw that he was not capable
of bringing the boat to the shore. I saw that young man wring his hands in
agony; in a little while he gave up the attempt to save his life, kneeled down
and cried with a desperate sincerity, 'O God! save my soul! If my body can't be
saved, save my soul.' I heard him confess that he had been a blasphemer; I
heard him vow that if his life were spared he would never be such again; I
heard implore the mercy of heaven for Jesus Christ's sake, and earnestly plead
that he might be washed in His blood. These arms saved that young man from the
river, I dove in, brought the boat to shore, and saved his life. That same
young man has just now addressed you, and cursed his Maker. What do you say,
Sirs?"
The speaker sat down. You may guess what a shudder ran through the young man
himself, and how the audience in one moment changed their mind, and saw that
after all, while it was a fine thing to brag and boast against Almighty God on
dry land, and when danger was distant, it was not quite so grand to think spiteful
of Him when near the verge of the grave. We believe there is enough conscience
in every man to convince him that God must punish him for his sin; therefore,
we think that our text will awaken an echo in every heart. –"If
a man does not repent, He will sharpen His sword" (NASB).
I am tired of this terrible work of endeavoring to show you that God must
punish sin; let me just speak a few of the declarations of His holy word, and
then let me tell you how repentance is "obtained." O, sirs, you may
think that the fire of hell is indeed a fiction, and that the flames of the pit
that lies beneath the earth's surface are but someone's dreams; but if you are
believers in the Bible you must believe that hell is real. Did not our Master
say: "Where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched?"
You say it is metaphorical fire. But what did He mean by this: "Be afraid
of the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell." Is it not written,
that there is reserved for the devil and his angels dreadful torment? And do
you not know that our Master said: "They will go away to eternal
punishment;" "Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal
fire, prepared for the devil and his angels?" "Yes," you say,
"but it is not philosophical to believe that there is a hell; it does not
match with reason to believe there is." However, I would like to act as if
there were, even if there is no such place; for as a poor and pious man once
said to a person who did not believe in hell, "Sir, I like to have two
strings to my bow. If there should be no hell then I shall be as well off as you
will be; but if there should be a hell then it will be terrible for you."
But why do I need to say "if?" You know there is.
There is not a man who has been born and educated in this land whose conscience
does not know that the existence of hell is a reality. All I need to do is to
press upon your anxious consideration this thought: Do you feel that you are a
fit subject for heaven now? Do you feel that God has changed your heart and
renewed your nature? If not, I beg you lay hold of the thought, that unless you
are born again then all that can be dreadful in the torments of the future
world must inevitably be yours. Dear listener, apply it to yourself, not to
your fellow men, but to your own conscience, and may God Almighty make use of
it to bring you to repentance.
III. Now, briefly, what are the MEANS of repentance? Most seriously I say, I
do not believe any man, in himself, can repent with evangelical repentance. You
ask me then for what purpose was the sermon I have just endeavored to preach,
proving the necessity of repentance? Allow me to make the sermon of one
purpose, under God, by its conclusion.
Sinner! You are so desperately set on sin, that I have no hope that you will
ever turn from it of yourself. But, listen! He who died on Calvary is exalted
on high "to give repentance and forgiveness of sin." Do you this
morning feel that you are a sinner? If so, ask Christ to give you repentance,
for He can work repentance in your heart by His Spirit, though you can't work
it there yourself. Is your heart like iron? He can put it into the furnace of
his love and make it melt. Is your soul like a very hard rock? His grace is
able to dissolve it, like the ice is melted before the sun. He can make you
repent, though you can't make yourself repent. If you feel your need of
repentance, I will not now say to you "repent," for I believe there
are certain acts that must precede a sense of repentance. I advise you to go to
your homes, and if you feel that you have sinned, and yet cannot sufficiently
repent of your sin, bow your knees before God and confess your sins; tell Him
you cannot repent as you should; tell Him your heart is hardened; tell Him it
is cold as ice. You "can" do that if God has made you feel your need
of a Savior. Then if it should be laid on your heart to endeavor to seek after
repentance, I will tell you the best way to find it. Spend an hour first in
trying to remember your sins; and when conviction has gotten a firm hold on
you, then spend another hour--where? At Calvary, my listener. Sit down and read
that chapter which contains the history and mystery of the God that loved and died;
sit down and think you see that glorious Man, with blood dripping from His
hands, and His feet gushing rivers of blood; and if that does not make you
repent, with the help of God's Spirit, then I know of nothing that can. An old
preacher once said: "If you feel that you do not love God, love Him till
you feel you do; if you think you cannot believe, believe Him till you feel you
believe." Many a man says he cannot repent while he is repenting. Keep on
with that repentance, till you feel you have repented. Only acknowledge your
sins; confess your guiltiness; admit that He would be just if He should destroy
you; and say this, solemnly,
My faith lay its hand
On that dear head of yours,
While, like a penitent, I stand,
And there confess my sin.
O! what would I give if one of my listener should be blessed by God to go home,
and repent! If I had worlds to buy one of your souls, I would readily give
them, if I might but bring one of you to Christ. I shall never forget the hour
when God's mercy first looked on me. It was in a place very different from
this, among a despised people, in an insignificant little chapel of a peculiar
sect. I went there bowed down with guilt, laden with sins. The minister walked
up the pulpit stairs, opened his Bible, and read that precious text: "Turn
to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I
am God, and there is no other;" and, as I thought, fixing his eyes on me,
before he began to preach to others, he said: "Young man! Turn! Turn!
Turn! You are one of the ends of the earth; you feel you are; you know your
need of a Savior; you are trembling because you think He will never save you.
He says this morning 'Turn!'"
O how my soul was shaken within me then! What! I thought, does that man know
me, and all about me? He seemed as if he did. And it made me "look!"
Well, I thought, lost or saved, I will try; sink or swim, I will run the risk
of it; and in that moment by His grace I turned to Jesus, and though
desponding, downcast, and ready to despair, and feeling that I would rather die
than live as I had lived, at that very moment it seemed as if a new heaven had
had its birth within my conscience. I went home, no longer cast down; those who
saw me, noticing the change, asked me why I was so glad, and I told them I
had believed in Jesus, and that it was written, "Therefore, there is
now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ
Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and
death." O! if one such person like I was should be here this morning.
Where are you, you chief of sinners, you vilest of the vile? My dear listener,
you have never been in church perhaps these last twenty years; but here you are
covered with your sins, the blackest and vilest of all! Hear God's Word. "Come
now, let us reason together, though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be
as white as snow; though they are as red as crimson, they shall be like
wool." And all this for Jesus' sake; all this for His blood's sake!
"Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved;" for His word and
mandate is: "Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever
does not believe will be condemned."
Sinner, TURN from your sins or BURN for your sins!
Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "Spurgeon Collection" by:
Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
Box 4337
Winchester, VA 22604
Our websites: www.biblebb.com and www.gospelgems.com
Email: tony@biblebb.com
Online 24/7 since 1986