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Hope Unlimited
Chapter 15: How Repentance Is Given
TO RETURN to the grand text: "God exalted him to his own right hand
as Prince and Savior that he might give repentance and forgiveness
of sins to Israel." 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 sins, 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 repent of it without pretense." 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 rooster, 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.
Jesus 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 Jesus 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 the 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 for 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's Gate and Heaven's Gate. Never seek elsewhere
for any part of that which Jesus loves to bestow; but remember,
Jesus is
all.
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