Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2743
“Then you will remember your evil ways, and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves in your own sight for your iniquities and for your abominations.” Ezekiel 36:31.
We noticed, in our reading, in what a kingly style the Lord speaks all through this chapter. He does not say “if or “but,” but He says, “you will”and “you shall”and this teaches us that God is Omnipotent even in the regions of free agency. It would be preposterous to say that man is not a free agent! There are some who, in order to glorify the Grace of God, have sought to deny the free agency of man—I do not mean that they have done it in so many words, but, practically, the effect of their language has been to deny it. But man is perfectly free and God violates not the human will—yet I cannot explain to you how it is—He is as much able to rule perfectly free agents as He is to control the atoms of inert matter. It is Omnipotence which compels yonder starry orbs to obey the laws which God has made and to travel in their appointed courses, but, to my mind, it is even more marvelous Omnipotence which leaves men free agents and controls not their will, but yet sweetly triumphs over them and wins for God the accomplishment of His Divine Purposes!
Will you attempt to exclude God from the realm of mind? Do you dare to think that He has not all power there? Then, your god is not mine, for my God “does according to His will in the army of Heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay His hand or say unto Him, “What are You doing?” The operations of His Grace are attended with such Omnipotent energy that He is able to say to men, “A new heart, also, will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put My spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you shall keep My judgments, and do them.” Yet, while the Lord speaks thus to them, they are still men—as much men as they were before and, indeed, their manhood is more perfect than it was before—yet God wins His way and does with them according to His own will.
Yet the Lord is pleased, in some cases, to explain to us the processes by which He works. For instance, in the production of the repentance described in this chapter, He tells us that it is the result of His superabundant love. By lavishing His goodness upon undeserving persons who willfully rejected His authority and despised His vengeance, He at last brought them to submission. They smarted for their sin, yet they sinned on—and then God dealt with them in another fashion—He blessed them and pardoned them. He gave them back the mercies He had withdrawn from them. He gave them more, and more, and more, and more, until, by the wondrous power of His Grace, He slew their enmity and caused love to take its place! He conquered their love of sin and then a hatred of the sin which had grieved their God sprang up in their minds. This is a very blessed process and in every phase it magnifies the love and goodness of the Lord. So, while we think and speak of it, we bless and praise and magnify the name of the Most High whose love is thus manifested to the unworthy.
That is not, however, quite the subject on which I am going to speak at this time, although it leads up to it. There are many persons who are truly awakened and anxious about their souls and who are really seeking to be reconciled to God, but there is a great difficulty in their way. They say that they cannot repent. I am frequently receiving letters of this kind—“I want to become a Christian. I am anxious to be reconciled to God. I do, I think, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, but my faith is feeble and I am afraid I am not saved because I cannot feel that sorrow for sin which I would like to
feel. If I could, I would break my heart and weep for my iniquities, but, alas, I do not find myself to be of an emotional character and I cannot stir my soul to that intense anguish of which I have heard some speak. May I still hope that faith will save me? May I come and trust in Jesus Christ, for I do not feel that I have the repentance I ought to feel?” So many are these cases that I thought I would devote the sermon of this evening to them and see if, in some way or other, by God’s gracious guidance, I may not roll away the stone which has long been in the way of true seekers after Christ.
I shall deal, first, with some mistaken ideas of what repentance is. Then, with some mistaken ideas of the place which repentance occupies. And lastly, with some mistaken ideas of the way in which repentance is produced in the heart I. Many persons have MISTAKEN IDEAS OF WHAT REPENTANCE IS.
Some confuse it with morbid self-accusation. It must have struck you, in reading the autobiographies of certain good men, that in the description of their lives before conversion, they put the coloring on very heavily. I do not think they are always wise in so doing, but it must not be forgotten that very often they write their own biographies in later years when, through having seen much of God’s love, they get a clearer apprehension of what sin really is. They do not write their life history when its various events occur and I do not suppose that, at the time, they regarded themselves as being such sinners as they afterwards believed themselves to have been.