METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE PULPIT
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APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION
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A Sermon
Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, April 5th, 1868, by
C.H. SPURGEON,
At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
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"Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted
out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the
Lord."--Acts 3:19.
AFTER the notable miracle of healing the lame man, when the wondering
people clustered round about Peter and John, they were not at all at a
loss for a subject upon which to address them. Those holy men were
brimful of the gospel, and therefore they had but to run over
spontaneously, speaking of that topic which laid nearest to their hearts.
To the Christian minister it should never be difficult to speak of
Christ; and in whatever position he may be placed, he should never have
to ask himself, "What is an appropriate subject for this people?" for the
gospel is always in season, always appropriate, and if it be but spoken
from the heart, it will be sure to work its way. Turning to the assembled
multitude, Peter began at once to preach to them the gospel without a
single second's hesitation. Oh! blessed readiness of a soul on fire with
the Spirit, Lord, grant it to us evermore. Observe how earnestly Peter
turns aside their attention from himself and his brother John to the Lord
Jesus Christ. "Why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power
or holiness we had made this man to walk?" The object of the Christian
minister should always be to withdraw attention from himself to his
subject, so that it should not be said, "How well he spake!" but, "Upon
what weighty matters he treated!" They are priests of Baal, who, with
their gaudy dresses, and their pretensions to a mysterious power, would
have you look to themselves as the channels of grace, as though by their
priestcraft, if not by their holiness, they could work miracles; but they
are true messengers of God who continually say, "Look not on us as though
we could do anything: the whole power to bless you lies in Jesus Christ,
and in the gospel of his salvation."
It is noteworthy that Peter, in addressing this crowd, came at once
to the very essence and bowels of his message. He did not beat the bush;
he did not shoot his arrow far afield, but he hit the very centre of the
target. He preached not merely the gospel of good news, but Christ, the
person of Christ; Christ crucified--crucified by them, Christ risen,
Christ glorified of his Father. Depend upon it, this is the very strength
of the Christian ministry, when it is saturated with the name and person
and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Take Christ away, and you ungospelise
the gospel, you do but pour out husks such as swine do eat, while the
precious kernel is removed, seeing you have taken away the person of the
Lord Jesus Christ. If there was ever an occasion when a preacher of the
gospel might have forgotten to speak of Christ, it was surely the
occasion on which Peter spake so boldly of him. For, might it not have
been said, "Talk not of Jesus; they have just now haled him to the death:
the people are mad against him; preach the truth, but do not mention his
name; deliver his doctrine, but withhold the mention of his person, for
you will excite them to madness; you will put your own life in jeopardy;
you will scarcely do good while they are so prejudiced, and you may do
much mischief"? But, instead of this, let them rage as they would, Peter
would tell them about Jesus Christ, and about nothing else but Jesus
Christ. He knew this to be the power of God unto salvation, and he would
not flinch from it; so to them, even to them, he delivered the gospel of
our Lord Jesus Christ, with a pungency as well as a simplicity scarcely
to be rivalled. Notice how he puts it: "Ye" have slain him; "ye" have
crucified him; "ye" have preferred a murderer. He is not afraid of being
personal; he does not shirk the touching of men's consciences; he rather
thrusts his hand into their hearts and make them feel their sin; he
labours to open a window into the darkness of their spirits, to let the
light of the Holy Ghost shine into their soul. Even thus, my brethren,
when we preach the gospel, must we do: affectionately but graciously must
we deal with men. Far hence be all trimming and mincing of matters.
Accursed let him be that takes away from the gospel of Jesus Christ that
he may win popular applause, or who bates his breath and smoothes his
tongue that he may please the unholy throng. Such a man may have for a
moment the approbation of fools, but, as the Lord his God liveth, he
shall be set as a target for the arrows of vengeance in the day when the
Lord cometh to judge the nations. Peter, then, boldly and earnestly
preached the gospel--preached the Christ of the gospel--preached it
personally and directly at the crowd who were gathered around him.
Nor did Peter fail, when he had enunciated the gospel, to make the
personal application by prescribing its peculiar commands. Grown up among
us is a school of men who say that they rightly preach the gospel to
sinners when they merely deliver statements of what the gospel is, and of
the result of dying unsaved, but they grow furious and talk of
unsoundness if any venture to say to the sinner, "Believe," or "Repent."
To this school Peter did not belong--into their secret he had never come,
and with their assembly, were he alive now, he would not be joined. For,
having first told his hearers of Christ, of his life and death and
resurrection, he then proceeds to plunge the sword, as it were, up to the
very hilt in their consciences by saying, "Repent ye therefore, and be
converted, that your sins may be blotted out." There, I say, in that
promiscuous crowd, gathered together by curiosity, attracted by the
miracle which he had wrought, Peter felt no hesitation, and asked no
question; he preached the same gospel as he would have preached to us
today if he were here, and preached it in the most fervent and earnest
style, preached the angles and the corners of it, and then preached the
practical part of it, addressing himself with heart, and soul, and
energy, to every one in that crowd, and saying, "Repent ye therefore, and
be converted, that your sins may be blotted out."
Now there are four remarks which will make up the discourse of this
morning, when they are enlarged.
I. And the first is this, that THE APOSTLE BADE MEN REPENT AND
BE CONVERTED. Of this our text is proof enough without our going afield for
other instances. Repent signifies, in its literal meaning, to change
one's mind. It has been translated, "after-wit," or "after-wisdom;" it is
the man's finding out that he was wrong, and rectifying his judgment. But
although that be the meaning of the root, the word has come in scriptural
use to mean a great deal more. Perhaps there is no better definition of
repentance than that which is given in our little children's hymnbook--
"Repentance is to leave
The sins we loved before,
And show that we in earnest grieve,
By doing so no more."
Repentance is a discovery of the evil of sin, a mourning that we
have committed it, a resolution to forsake it. It is, in fact, a change
of mind of a very deep and practical character, which makes the man love
what once he hated, and hate what once he loved. Conversion, if
translated, means a turning round, a turning from, and a turning to--a
turning from sin, a turning to holiness--a turning from carelessness to
thought, from the world to heaven, from self to Jesus--a complete
turning. The word here used, though translated in the English, "Repent
and be converted," is not so in the Greek; it is really, "Repent and
convert," or, rather, "Repent and turn." It is an active verb, just as
the other was. "Repent and turn." When the demoniac had the devils cast
out of him--I may compare that to repentance; but when he put on his
garments, and was no longer naked and filthy, but was said to be clothed
and in his right mind, I may compare that to conversion. When the
prodigal was feeding his swine, and on a sudden began to consider and to
come to himself, that was repentance. When he set out and left the far
country, and went to his father's house, that was conversion. Repentance
is a part of conversion. It is, perhaps, I may say, the gate or door of
it. It is that Jordan through which we pass when we turn from the desert
of sin to seek the Canaan of conversion. Regeneration is the implanting
of a new nature, and one of the earliest signs of that is, a faith in
Christ, and a repentance of sin, and a consequent conversion from that
which is evil to that which is good.
The apostle Peter, addressing the crowd, said to them, "Change your
minds; be sorry for what you have done; forsake your old ways; be turned;
become new men." That was his message as I have now put it into other
words.
Now, brethren, it has been said, and said most truly, that
repentance and conversion are the work of the Holy Spirit of God. You do
not need that I should stop to prove that doctrine. We have preached it
to you a thousand times, and we are prepared to prove that if anything be
taught in Scripture, that is. There never was any genuine repentance in
this world which was not the work of the Holy Spirit. For this purpose
our Lord Jesus has gone on high: "He is exalted on high to give
repentance and remission of sins." All true conversion is the work of the
Holy Ghost. You may rightly pray in the words of the prophet, "Turn thou
us, and we shall be turned;" for until God turn us, turn we never shall;
and unless he convert us, our conversion is but a mistake. Hear it as a
gospel summons--
"True belief and true repentance,
Every grace which brings us nigh;
Without money
Come to Jesus Christ and buy."
"And yet," say you, "and yet the apostle Peter actually says to us,
'Repent, and be converted!' That is, you tell us with one breath that
these things are the gift of the Holy Spirit, and then with the next
breath you read the text, 'Repent, and be converted.'" Ay, I do, I do,
and thank God I have learned to do so. But you will say, "How reconcile
you these two things?" I answer, it is no part of my commission to
reconcile my Master's words: my commission is to preach the truth as I
find it--to deliver it to you fresh from his hand. I not only believe
these things to be agreeable to one another, but I think I see wherein
they do agree, but I utterly despair of making the most of what is
written in Scripture, and to accept it all, whether we can see the
agreement of the two sets of truths or no--to accept them both because
they are both revealed. With that hand I hold as firmly as any man
living, that repentance and conversion are the work of the Holy Spirit,
but I would sooner lose this hand, and both, than I would give up
preaching that it is the duty of men to repent and to believe, and the
duty of Christian ministers to say to them, "Repent and be converted,
that your sins may be blotted out." If men will not receive truth till
they understand it, there are many things which they never will receive.
Ay, there are many facts, common facts in nature, which nobody would deny
but a fool, which yet must be denied if we will not believe them till we
understand them. There is a fish fresh taken from the sea: you take it to
the cook to serve it on the table. You eat salt with it, do you? What
for? You will have it dried and salted, but what for? Did not it always
live in the salt sea? Why then is it not salt? It is as fresh as though
it had lived in the purling brooks of the upland country--not a particle
of salt about it--yet it has lived wholly in the salt sea! Do you
understand that? No, you cannot. But there it is, a fresh fish in a salt
sea! And yonder are an ox and a sheep, and they are eating in the same
meadow, feeding precisely on the same food, and the grass in one case
turns to beef, in the other case to mutton, and on one animal there is
hair and on the other wool. How is that? Do you understand it? So there
may be two great truths in Scripture, which are both truths, and yet all
the wise men in the world might be confounded to bring those two truths
together. I do not understand, I must confess, why Moses was told to cut
down a tree and put it in the bitter waters of Marah; I cannot see any
connection between a tree and the water, so that the tree should make it
sweet, but yet I do believe that when Moses put the tree into the water
the bitterness of Marah departed, and the stream was sweet. I do not know
why it is that Elisha, when he went to Jericho, and found the water
nauseous, said "Bring me a cruse of salt;" I do not know why his putting
the salt into the stream should make it sweet--it looks to me as if it
would operate the other way; but I believe the miracle, namely, that the
salt was put in, and that it was sweetened. So I do not understand how it
is that my bidding impenitent sinners to repent should in any way be
likely to make them do so, but I know it does--I see it every day. I do
not know why a poor weak creature saying to his fellow men, "Believe,"
should lead them to believe, but it does so, and the Holy Spirit blesses
it, and they do believe and are saved; and if we cannot see how, if we
see the fact, we will be content and bless God for it. Perhaps you may be
aware that an attempt has been made by ingenious expositors to get rid of
the force of this text. Some of our Hyper-Calvinist friends, who are so
earnest against anything like exhortations and invitations, have tried by
some means to disembowel this text if they could, to take something out
and put something else in; they have said that the repentance to which
men are here exhorted is but an outward repentance. But how is it so,
when it is added, "Repent and be converted, that your sins may be blotted
out"? Does a merely outward repentance bring with it the blotting out of
sin? Assuredly not. The repentance to which men are here exhorted is a
repentance which brings with it complete pardon--"that your sins may be
blotted out." And, moreover, it seems to me to be a shocking thing to
suppose that Peter and John went about preaching up a hollow, outward
repentance, which would not save men. My brethren who make that remark
would themselves be ashamed to preach up outward repentance. I am sure
they would think they were not ministers of God at all if they preached
up any merely outward virtue. It shows to what shifts they must be driven
when they twist the Scriptures so horribly with so little reason.
Brethren, it was a soul-saving repentance, and nothing less than that,
which Peter commanded of these men. Now, let us come to the point. We
tell men to repent and believe, not because we rely on any power in them
to do so, for we know them to be dead in trespasses and sins; not because
we depend upon any power in our earnestness or in our speech to make them
do so, for we understand that our preaching is less than nothing apart
from God; but because the gospel is the mysterious engine by which God
converts the hearts of men, and we find that, if we speak in faith, God
the Holy Ghost operates with us, and while we bid the dry bones live, the
Spirit makes them live--while we tell the lame man to stand on his feet,
the mysterious energy makes his ankle-bones to receive strength--while we
tell the impotent man to stretch out his hand, a divine power goes with
the command, and the hand is stretched out and the man is restored. The
power lies not in the sinner, not in the preacher, but in the Holy
Spirit, which works effectually with the gospel by divine decree, so that
where the truth is preached the elect of God are quickened by it, souls
are saved, and God is glorified. Go on, my dear brethren, preaching the
gospel boldly, and be not afraid of the result, for, however little may
be your strength, and though your eloquence may be as nought, yet God has
promised to make his gospel the power to save, and so it shall be down to
the world's end.
See then, ye that are unsaved, before I leave this point, see what
it is we are bound to require of you this morning. It is, that ye repent
and be converted. We are not satisfied with having your ear, nor your
eyes; we are not content with having you gathered in the house of
worship--it is all in vain that you have come here, except you repent and
be converted. We are not come to tell you that you must reform a little,
and mend your ways in some degree: except you put your trust in Christ,
forsake your old way of life, and become new creatures in Christ Jesus,
you must perish. This--nothing short of this--is the gospel requirement.
No church-going, no chapel-going, will save you; no bowing of the knee,
no outward form of worship, no pretensions and professions to godliness-
ye must repent of your sins and forsake them, and if ye do not this,
neither shall your sins be blotted out. Thus much, then, on the first
point: the apostle commanded men to repent and be converted.
II. In the second place, THERE WAS GOOD REASON FOR THIS COMMAND.
The text says, "Repent ye therefore." The apostle was logical: he
had a reason for his exhortation. It was not mere declamation, but sound
reasoning. "Repent ye therefore." What, then, was the argument? Why,
first, because you, like the Jews, have put Jesus Christ to death. This
was literally true of the people to whom he spake: they had had a share
in Christ's execution. And this is spiritually true of you to whom I
speak this morning. Every sin in the essence of it is a killing of God.
Do you comprehend me? Every time you do what God would not have you do,
you do in effect, so far as you can, put God out of his throne, and
disown the authority which belongs to his Godhead; you do in intent, so
far as you can, kill God. That is the drift of sin--sin is a God-killing
thing. Every violation of law is treason in its essence--it is rebellion
against the lawgiver. When our Lord Jesus Christ was nailed to the tree
by sinners, sin only did then literally and openly what all sin really
does in a spiritual sense. Do you understand me? Those offendings of
yours which you have thought so little of, have been really a stabbing at
the Deity. Will you not repent, if it be so? While you thought your sins
to be mere trifles, light things to be laughed at, you would not repent;
but now I have shown you (and I think your conscience will bear me out)
that every sin is really an attempt to thrust God out of the world, that
every sin is saying, "Let there be no God." Oh! then there is cause
enough to repent of it. Come hither and reason with me, thou who hast
broken God's law. Suppose the principle of thy disobedience were carried
out to the full, would not all laws be disregarded, and moral government
subverted? And why not, since what one may do another has clearly the
same right to do? What, then, if the authority of God should be no more
owned in the universe--where should we all be? What a hell above ground
would this world become! What a moral chaos and den of beasts! Do you not
see what a mischievous thing, then, your iniquity has been? Repent and
turn from it. If you can really believe this morning that though you did
not nail Christ to the cross, nor plait the crown of thorns and put it on
his head, nor stand and mock him there, yet that every sin is a real
crucifixion of Christ, and a mockery of Christ, and a slaughter of
Christ. Then, truly, there is abundant reason why you should repent and
turn from it.
The apostle also used another argument, namely, that he whom they
had slain was a most blessed person--one so blessed that God the Father
had exalted him. Jesus Christ came not into this world with any selfish
motive, but entirely out of philanthropy, full of love to men; and yet
men put him to death! Now, every sin is an insult against the good and
kind God. God does not deserve that we should rebel against him. If he
were a great tyrant domineering over us, putting us to misery, there
might be some excuse for our sin, but when he acts like a tender father
to us, supplying our wants day by day, and forgiving our offenses, it is
a shame, a cruel shame, that we should live in daily revolt against him.
You who have not believed in Christ, have mighty cause for repenting that
you have not believed in him, seeing he is so good and kind. What hurt
has he ever done you that you should curse at him? What injury has Jesus
done to any one of you that you should despise him? You deny his Deity,
perhaps; or, at any rate, you despise the great salvation which he came
into this world to work out. Does he deserve this of you? Prince of life
and glory, King of angels, the adored of seraphs, art thou despised of
men for whom thy blood was shed? Oh, what an accursed thing, then, sin
must be, since it treats so badly so kind and blessed a person! This
ought to make us melt, this should make us shed the drops of pity and of
grief; we ought, indeed, to turn from our idle and evil ways when against
Jesus we have so offended.
Moreover, Peter used another plea, that while they had rejected the
blessed Christ they had chosen a murderer. Sinner, thou hast despised
Christ, and what is it thou hast chosen? Has it been the drunkard's cup?
Oh, what a bestial thing to prefer to Christ! Or has it been thy lust?
What a devilish thing to set in the place of Christ! Man, what have thy
sins done to thee that thou shouldst prefer them to Jesus? Have you lived
in them for years? then what wages have you had? what profit have you
had? Tell me now, you that have gone the farthest in sin, tell me now,
are you satisfied with the service? Would you wish to go over again the
days you have lived, and to reap in your own bodies the fruit of your
misdeeds? Nay, but you serve a hard master; a murderer from the beginning
is that devil to whom you surrender your lives. Oh, then, this is a thing
to be repented of--that you have cast Christ away, but have chosen a
murderer. "Not this man," say you, "but Barabbas." You will take this
murderous world, this killing sin, but the blessed Saviour, you let him
go. Is not there good argument here for repentance and conversion? Surely
there is.
Peter clenches his reasoning with another argument, bringing down,
if I may so say, the big hammer this time upon the head of the nail. It
is this, that the Lord Christ, whom you have hitherto despised, is able
to do great things for you. "His name through faith in his name hath made
this man strong, whom ye see and know." Christ then, by faith in him, is
able to do for you all that you want. If you will trust Jesus today, all
your iniquities shall be blotted out; the past shall not be remembered;
the present shall be rendered safe, and the future blessed. If thou
trustest in Christ, there is no sin which he will not forgive thee, no
evil habit the power of which he will not break, no foul propensity the
weight of which he cannot remove. Believing in him, he can make thee
blessed beyond a dream. And is not this cause for repentance, that thou
shouldst have slighted one who can do thee so much good? With hands
loaded with love he stands outside the door of your heart. Is not this
good reason for opening the door and letting the heavenly stranger in,
when he can bless you to such a vast extent of benediction? What, will
you reject your own mercies? Will you despise the heaven which shall be
yours if you will have my Master? Will you choose the doom from which
none but he can rescue you, and let go the glory to which none but he can
admit you? When I think of the usefulness of Christ to perishing sinners,
there is indeed abundant cause for repentance that you should not have
closed with him long ago, and accepted him to be your all in all. Thus
you see the apostle argued with them by that word "Therefore."
There was one other plea which he used, which I would employ this
morning. He said, "Brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it." As
if he would say, "Now that ye have more light, repent of what you did in
the dark." So might I say to some here present. You had not heard the
gospel, you did not know that sin was so bad a thing, you did not
understand that Jesus Christ was able to save to the uttermost them that
came unto God by him. Well, now you do understand it. The times of your
ignorance God winks at, but now, "commandeth all men everywhere to
repent." Greater light brings greater responsibility. Do not go back to
your sin, lest it become tenfold sin to you; for if you do in the light
what once you did in the darkness, he who winked at you when you knew no
better, may lift his hand, and swear that you shall never enter into his
rest, because you sinned presumptuously, and did despite to the Spirit of
his grace. I charge every unconverted man here to mind what he is at in
future. If he did not know that Jesus was able to save him before, he
knows it now; if he was in the dark till this morning, he is not in the
dark any longer. "Now ye have no cloak for your sin." Therefore, because
the cloak is pulled away, and you sin against the light, I say as Peter
did, "Repent and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out."
III. But now, our third remark shall be given with brevity, and it
is this, THAT WITHOUT REPENTANCE AND CONVERSION, SIN CANNOT BE PARDONED.
The expression used in the text, "blotted out," in the original may
be better explained in this way. Many Oriental merchants kept their
accounts on little tablets of wax. On these tablets of wax, they indented
marks which recorded the debts, and when these debts were paid, they took
the blunt end of the stylus or pencil, and just flattened down the wax,
and the account entirely disappeared. That was the form of "blotting out"
in those days. Now, he that repents and is pardoned, is, through the
precious blood of Christ, so entirely forgiven, that there is no record
of his sin left. It is as though the stylus had levelled the marks in the
wax, and there was no record left. What a beautiful picture of the
forgiveness of sin! It is all gone, not a trace left. If we blot out an
account from our books, there is the blot: the record is gone, but there
is the blot; but on the wax tablet there was no blot--it was all gone,
and the wax was smooth. So is it with the sin of God's people when
removed by Jesus' blood, it is all gone and gone for ever. But rest
assured it cannot be removed except there be repentance and conversion as
the result of faith in Jesus. This must be so, for this is most seemly.
Would you expect a great king to forgive an erring courtier unless the
offender first confessed his fault? Where is the honour and dignity of
the throne of God, if men are to be pardoned while as yet they will not
confess their sin? In the next place, it would not be moral; it would be
pulling up the very sluices of immorality to tell men that they could be
pardoned while they went on in their sins and loved them. What, a thief
pardoned and continue to thieve! A harlot forgiven and remain unchaste!
The drunkard forgiven and yet delight in his tankards! Truly, then, the
gospel would be the servant of unrighteousness, and against us who preach
it morality should make a law. But it is not so, impenitent sinners shall
be damned, let them boast what they will about grace. My hearer, thou
must hate thy sin, or God will hate thee. Thou must turn or burn. Thou
canst not have thy sins and go to heaven. Which shall it be? Wilt thou
leave thy sins and go to heaven, or hold thy sins and go to hell? Which
shall it be, for it must be one or the other; there must be a divorce
between us and sin, or there cannot be a marriage between us and Christ.
Does not conscience tell us this? There is not a conscience here that
will say to a man, "You can hope to be saved and yet live as you list."
Some have said this--I query if any have believed it. No, no, no, blind
as conscience is, and though its voice be often very feeble, yet there is
enough of sight about conscience to see that continuance in sin and
pardon cannot consist, and that there must be a forsaking of iniquity if
there is to be a forgiving of it. But, my hearer, whether your conscience
shall say so or not, God says it; "He that confesseth and forsaketh his
sin shall find mercy," but there is no promise for the unrepenting. God
declares that he that repents shall be forgiven. "To this man will I
look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at
my word;" but for haughty Pharaoh, who says, "Who is the Lord, that I
should obey him?" there is nothing but eternal destruction from the
presence of the Lord. He who goeth on in his iniquity and hardeneth his
neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy. Ah! I have no
pardons to preach to you who settle your minds to continue in sin, no
gentle notes of love at all, nothing but a fearful looking for of
judgment and of fiery indignation. But ah! if you loathe your sins, if
God's Holy Spirit has made you hate your past lives, if you are anxious
to be made new men in Christ Jesus, I have nothing but notes of love for
you. Believe in Jesus, cast yourself on him, for he has said, "Him that
cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out." "Though your sins be as
scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson,
they shall be as wool." The door is shut and fast bolted to every man who
will keep his sin, but it is wide open even to the biggest sinner out of
hell, if he will not leave his sin and lay hold of Jesus and put his
trust in him.
IV. The last remark is this--REPENTANCE AND CONVERSION WILL BE
REGARDED AS PECULIARLY PRECIOUS IN THE FUTURE, for my text says, "That
your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come
from the presence of the Lord."
A very difficult passage indeed. Its meaning is scarcely known.
Three or four meanings have been attached to it. In the first place, I
think it means this--he that repents and is converted, shall enjoy the
blotting out of sin in that season of sweet peace which always follows
pardon. After a man has been thoroughly broken down on account of sin,
God deals with him very tenderly. Amongst the very happiest parts of
human life are the hours immediately after conversion. You know how we
sing--
"Where is the blessedness I knew
When first I saw the Lord?"
When the broken bone begins to heal, David puts it, "Thou makest the
bones which thou hast broken to rejoice." When the prisoner first gets
out of prison, when the fetters for the first time clank music as they
fall broken to the ground! when the sick man leaves the sick chamber of
his convictions to breathe the air of liberty, and to feel the health of
a pardoned sinner! Oh, if you did but know what a bliss it is to be
forgiven, you would never stay away from Christ! But you do not know, and
cannot tell how sweet it is to be washed in the precious blood, and
wrapped about with the fair white linen, and to have the kiss of the
heavenly Father on your cheek! O "repent and be converted, that your sins
may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the
presence of the Lord."
Perhaps these "times of refreshing" may also relate to times of
revival in the Christian church. The only way in which you, dear friends,
can share in the refreshment of a revival, is by your own repenting and
being converted. A revival is a great refreshment to the church. I pray
that a mighty wave may sweep over Great Britain, for much we need it. But
of what use is a revival to an unpardoned sinner? It is like the soft
south wind blowing upon a corpse--it can bring no genial warmth
therewith. If you repent, and be converted, then, amidst the general joy
of the revival, you shall have this joy, that your sins have been blotted
out. What a mournful cry is that, "The harvest is past, the summer is
ended, and we are not saved!" I think I hear that cry from some in the
Tabernacle this morning. Oh, that blessed month of February and the
beginning of March! It was to us like a harvest and a summer. What
prayers, what tears, what cries! How full this house was to pray! How all
day long from before the daystar shone til long after sunset we continued
in prayer! But you are not saved, some of you. The harvest and the summer
is ended, and you are not saved. Ah! I have been praying to God that you
may yet be saved now. I am unable to achieve a purpose which has been hot
upon my heart--to go and preach to a greater congregation in the
Agricultural Hall during the next month: I find myself restrained by the
Master's hand. Ill-health has returned to me, and most probably there are
months of weariness and pain awaiting me; but I have prayed that if I may
not cast the net in the greater place, I may have the more of you here.
We cannot have a larger congregation, but I would fain have more
conversions. It is hard preaching, it is dull working, unless there be
results. We must have conversions. As that woman of old said, "Give me
children or I die," so is it with the preacher: he must have sinners
saved, or he prays to die. Dear hearer, if these times of refreshing may
come, our prayer is that you may repent and be converted, that your sins
may be blotted out, and so may partake to the full in the priceless
blessings of the season.
Once more, the text means, according to the context, the second
advent. Jesus is yet to come a second time, and like a mighty shower
flooding a desert shall his coming be. His church shall revive and be
refreshed; she shall once again lift up her head from her lethargy, and
her body from her sepulchre. But woe unto you who are not saved when
Christ cometh, for the day of the Lord will be darkness and not light to
you. When Christ cometh to the unconverted, "the day shall burn as an
oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be
stubble." "But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand
when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers'
soap: and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall
purify the sons of Levi." Oh, if ye repent and be converted, ye shall
stand fully absolved in the day of his coming, when heaven and earth do
reel, when the solid rock begins to melt, and the stars, like fig-leaves
withered, fall from the tree, when the trumpet sounds exceeding loud and
long, "Awake, ye dead and come to judgment," when the grand assize is
sitting, and the Judge shall be there--the Judge of quick and dead, to
separate the righteous from the wicked. The Lord have mercy upon you in
that day; and so he shall if his grace shall make you obedient to the
words of our text, "Repent and be converted, that your sins may be
blotted out, when times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the
Lord."
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Files of the Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit are provided to ICLnet and
the internet community by the Bath Road Baptist Church, Kingston, Ontario,
Canada. The sermons are available in booklet form at the following address.
There is no charge for this service: Spurgeon Ministries
P.O. Box 1673
Kingston, Ontario
Canada
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file: /pub/resources/text/history/spurgeon: ss-0008.txt
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