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- D.L. Moody - Repentance
"Repentance" by D.L. Moody
 You will find my text tonight in the seventeenth chapter of Acts,
part of the thirtieth verse: "And now commandeth all men everywhere
to repent." I have heard a number of complaints about the preaching
here in the Tabernacle, that repentance has not been touched upon.
The fact is that I have never had very great success in preaching
upon repentance. When I have preached it people haven't repented.
I've had far more success when I've preached Christ's goodness. But
tonight I will preach about repentance, so you will have no more
cause of complaint. I believe in repentance just as much as I
believe in the Word of God.
When John the Baptist came to preach to that Jewish nation his one
cry was "Repent! Repent!" But when Christ came He changed it to "The
blood of the Lamb taketh away the sin of the world." I would rather
cry "The blood of the Lamb taketh away the sin of the world," then
talk about repentance. And when Christ came we find Him saying
"Repent ye," but He soon pointed them to something higher - He told
them about the goodness of God. It is the goodness of God that
produces repentance. When upon the Day of Pentecost they asked what
to do to be saved, we find Him telling men, "Repent, every one of
you." When Christ sent His disciples out to preach, two by two, we
find the message He gave them to deliver was, "Repent ye, for the
Kingdom Of Heaven is at hand." It is clearly preached throughout the
Scriptures.
There is a good deal of trouble among people about what repentance
really is. If you ask people what it is, they will tell you "It is
feeling sorry." If you ask a man if he repents, he will tell you,
"Oh, yes; I generally feel sorry for my sins." That is not
repentance. It is something more than feeling sorry. Repentance is
turning right about and forsaking sin. I wanted to speak on Sunday
about that verse in Isaiah, which says, "Let the guilty forsake his
way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts." That is what it is. If a
man don't turn from his sin he won't be accepted of God, and if
righteousness don't produce a turning about - a turning from bad to
good - it isn't true righteousness.
Unconverted people have got an idea that God is their enemy. Now,
let me impress this, and I told you the same thing the other night,
God hates sin with a perfect hatred; He will punish sin wherever He
finds it, yet He at the same time, loves the sinner, and wants him
to repent and turn to Him. If men will only turn they will find
mercy, and find it just the moment they turn to Him. You will find
men sorry for their misdeeds. Cain, no doubt, was sorry, but that
was not true repentance. There is no cry recorded in the Scriptures
as coming from him, "O my God, O my God, forgive me." There was no
repentance in his only feeling sorry. Look at Judas. There is no
sign that he turned to God - no sign that he came to Christ asking
forgiveness. Yet, probably, he felt sorry. He was, very likely,
filled with remorse and despair; but he didn't repent. Repentance is
turning to him who loved us and gave Himself for us.
Look at King Saul, and see the difference between him and King
David. David fell as low as Saul and a good deal lower - he fell
from a higher pinnacle, but what was the difference between the two?
David turned back to God and confessed his sin and got forgiven. But
look at King Saul. There was no repentance there, and God couldn't
save him till he repented. You will find, all through the
Scriptures, where men have repented God has forgiven them. Look at
that publican when he went up to pray; he felt his sin so great that
he couldn't look up to Heaven - all he could do was to smite his
heart and cry "God forgive me a sinner." There was turning to God
-repentance, and that man went down to his home forgiven. Look at
that prodigal. His father couldn't forgive him while he was still in
a foreign land and squandering his money in riotous living, but the
moment he came home repentant, how soon that father forgave him -
how quick he came to meet him with the word of forgiveness. It
wouldn't have done any good to forgive the boy while he was in that
foreign country unrepentant. He would have despised all favors and
blessings from his father. That is the position the sinner stands
toward God. He cannot be forgiven and get His blessing until he
comes to God repenting of all his sins and asking the blessing.
Now, we read in Scripture that God deals with us as a father deals
with a son. Fathers and mothers, you who have children, let me ask
by way of illustration, suppose you go home, and you find that while
you have been here your boy has gone to your private drawer and
stolen $5 of your money. You go to him and say: "John, did you take
that money?" "Yes, father, I took that money," he replies. When you
hear him saying this without any apparent regret you won't forgive
him. You want to get at his conscience; you know it would do him an
injury to forgive him unless he confesses his wrong. Suppose he
won't do it. "Yes," he says, "I stole your money, but I don't think
I've done wrong." The mother cannot, the father cannot forgive him,
unless he sees he has done wrong, and wants forgiveness.
That's the trouble with the sinners in Chicago. They've turned
against God, broken His commandments, trampled His law under their
feet, and their sins hang upon them; until they show signs of
repentance their sin will remain. But the moment they see their
iniquity and come to God, forgiveness will be given them and their
iniquity will be taken out of their way. Said a person to me the
other day, "It is my sin that stands between me and Christ." "It
isn't," I replied, "it's your own will." That's what stands between
the sinner and forgiveness. Christ will take all your iniquities
away if you will. Men are so proud that they won't acknowledge and
confess before God. Don't you see on the face of it, if your boy
won't repent you cannot forgive him, and how is God going to forgive
a sinner if he don't repent? If He was allowing an unrepentant
sinner into His Kingdom, there would be war in Heaven in twenty-four
hours. You cannot live in a house with a boy who steals everything
he can lay his hands on. You would have to banish him from your
house.
Look at King David with his son Absalom. After he had been sent away
he gets his friends to intercede for him to get him back to
Jerusalem. They succeeded in getting him back to the city, but
someone told the King that he hadn't repented, and his father would
not see him. After he had been in Jerusalem some time, trying his
best to get into favor and position again without repentance, he
sent a friend, Joab, to the king, and told him to say to his father:
"Examine me, and if you find no iniquity in me, take me in." He was
forgiven, but the most foolish thing King David ever did was to
forgive that young prince. What was the result? He drove him from
the Throne. That's what the sinner would do if he got into Heaven
unrepentant, He would just drive God from the throne - tear the
Crown from Him. No unrepentant sinner can get into the Kingdom of
Heaven.
Alas, some people say, "I believe in the mercy of God; I don't
believe God will allow one to perish; I believe everyone will get to
Heaven." Look at those antediluvians. Do you think He swept all
those sinners, all those men and women who were too wicked to live
on earth - do you believe He swept them all into Heaven, and left
the only righteous man to wade through the flood? Do you think He
would do this, and yet many men believe all will go into Heaven. The
day will come when you will wake up and know that you have been
deceived by the devil. No unrepentant sinner will ever get into
Heaven, unless they forsake their sin they cannot enter there. The
law of God is very plain on this point: "Except a man repent."
That's the language of Scripture. And when this is so plainly set
down, why is it that men fold their arms and say, "God will take me
into Heaven anyway."
Suppose a governor elected today comes into office in a few months,
and he finds a great number of criminals in prison, and he goes and
says: "I feel for those prisoners. They cannot stay in jail any
longer." Suppose some murders have been committed, and he says: "I
am tender hearted, I can't punish those men." and he opens the
prison door and lets them all out. How long would that governor be
in his position? These very men who are depending on the mercy of
God would be the first to raise their voice against that governor.
These men would say, "These murders must be punished or society will
be imperiled; life will not be safe"; and yet they believe in the
mercy of God whether they repent or not. My dear friends, don't go
on under that delusion; it is a snare of the devil. I tell you the
Word of God is true, and it tells us "Except a man repent" there is
not one ray of hope held out. May the Spirit of God open your eyes
tonight and show you the truth - let it go into your hearts. Let the
wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous his thoughts.
Now, my friends, repentance is not fear. A great many people say I
don't preach up the terrors of religion. I don't want to - don't
want to scare men into the Kingdom of God. I don't believe in
preaching that way. If I did get some in that way they would soon
get out. If I wanted to scare men into Heaven I would just hold the
terror of hell over their heads and say, "go right in." But that's
not the way to win men. They don't have any slaves in Heaven. They
are all sons, and they must accept salvation voluntarily. Terror
never brought a man in yet.
Look at a vessel tossed upon the billows, and sailors think it is
going to the bottom and death is upon them. They fall down on their
knees, and you would think they were all converted. They ain't
converted; they're only scared. There's no repentance there, and as
soon as the storm is over and they get on shore, they are the same
as ever. All their terror has left them - they've forgotten it, and
they fall into their old habits. How many men have, while lying on a
sick bed, and they thought they saw the terrors of death gathering
around them, made resolutions to live a new life if they only get
well again; but the moment they get better they forget all about
their resolutions. It was only scare with them; that's not what we
want to feel. Fear is one thing, and repentance is another. True
repentance is the Holy Ghost showing sinners their sin. That's what
we want. May the Holy Ghost reveal to each one here tonight out of
Christ their lost condition unless they repent.
If God threw Adam out of Eden on account of one sin, how can you
expect to get into the Heavenly paradise with ten thousand? I can
imagine someone saying, "I haven't got anything to repent of." If
you are one of those Pharisees, I can tell you that this sermon will
not reach your heart. I would like to find one man who could come up
here and say, "I have no sin." If I was one of those who thought I
had no sin to repent of, I'd never go to Church: I would certainly
not come up to the Tabernacle. But could you find a man walking the
streets of Chicago who could say this honestly. I don't believe
there's a day passed over my head during the last twenty years but
when night came I found I had some sin to repent of. It is
impossible for a man to live without sinning, there are so many
thing, to draw away the heart and affections of men from God. I feel
as if I ought to be repenting all the time.
Is there a man here who can say honestly, "I have not got a sin that
I need ask forgiveness for, I haven't one thing to repent of"? Some
men seem to think that God has got ten different laws for each of
those ten commandments, but if you have been guilty of breaking one
you are guilty of breaking all. If a man steals $5 and another
steals $5OO, the one is as guilty of theft as the other. A man who
has broken one commandment of God is as guilty as he who has broken
ten. If a man don't feel this, and come to Him repentant and turn
his face from sin toward God there is not a ray of hope. Nowhere can
you find one ray from Genesis to Revelation. Don't go out of this
Tabernacle saying, "I have nothing to repent."
I heard of a man who said he had been converted, A friend asked him
if he had repented. "No," said he, "I never trouble my head about
it." My friends, when a man becomes converted the work has to be a
little deeper than that. He has to become repentant, and try to
atone for what he has done. If he is at war with anyone he has to go
and be reconciled to his enemy. If be doesn't his conversion is the
work of Satan. When a man turns to God he is made a new creature - a
new man. His impulses all the time are guided by love. He loves his
enemies and tries to repair all wrong he has done. This is a true
sign of conversion. If this sign is not apparent his conversion has
never got from his head to his heart. We must be born of the spirit,
hearts must be regenerated - born again. When a man repents, and
turns to the God of Heaven, then the work is deep and thorough. I
hope that everyone here tonight will see the necessity of true
repentance when they come to God for a blessing, and may the Spirit
move You to ask it tonight.
I can imagine some of You saying now, am I to repent to-night?" My
friends, there are only two parties in the world. There has been a
great political contest here today, and there have been two sides.
We will not know before forty-eight hours which side has triumphed.
There is great interest now to know which side has been the
stronger. Now, there are two parties in this world - those for
Christ and those against Him, and to change to Christ's party is
only moving from the old party to the new. You know that the old
party is bad, and the new one is good, and yet you don't change.
Suppose I was called to New York tonight, and went down to the
Illinois Central Depot to catch the ten o'clock train. I go on the
train, and a friend should see me and say, "You are on the wrong
train for New York. You are on the Burlington train." "Oh, no," I
say, "you are wrong; I asked someone and he told me this was the
right train." "Why," this friend replies, "I've been in Chicago for
twenty years, and know that you are on the wrong train," and the man
talks, and at last convinces me, but I sit still, although I believe
I am in the wrong train for New York, and I go on to Burlington. If
you don't get off the wrong train and get on the right one you will
not reach Heaven. If you have not repented, seize your baggage
tonight and go to the other train.
If a man is not repentant his face is turned away from God, and the
moment his face is turned toward God peace and joy follow. There are
a great many people hunting after joy, after peace. Dear friends, if
you want to find it tonight, just turn to God, and you will get it.
You need not hunt for it any longer; only come and get it. When I
was a little boy I remember I tried to catch my shadow. I don't know
if you were ever so foolish: but I remember running after it and
trying to get ahead of it. I could not see why the shadow always
kept ahead of me. Once I happened to be racing with my face to the
sun, and I looked over my head and saw my shadow coming back of me,
and it kept behind me all the way. It is the same with the Sun of
Righteousness, peace and joy will go with you while you go with your
face toward Him, and these people who are getting at the back of the
Sun are in darkness all the time. Turn to the light of God and the
reflection will flash in your heart. Don't say that God will not
forgive you. It is only your will which keeps His forgiveness from
you.
My sister, I remember, told me her little boy said something naughty
one morning, when his father said to him, "Sammy, go and ask your
mother's forgiveness." "I won't," replied the child. "If you don't
ask your mother's forgiveness I'll put you to bed." It was early in
the morning - before he went to business, and the boy didn't think
he would do it. He said "I won't" again. They undressed him and put
him to bed. The father came home at noon expecting to find his boy
playing about the house. He didn't see him about, and asked his wife
where he was. "In bed still." So he went up to the room, and sat
down by the bed, and said: "Sammy, I want you to ask your mother's
forgiveness." But the answer was "No." The father coaxed and begged,
but could not induce the child to ask forgiveness. The father went
away, expecting certainly that when he came home that night the
child would have got all over it. At night, however, when he got
home he found the little fellow still in bed. He had lain there all
day. He went to him and tried to get him to go to his mother, but it
was no use. His mother went and was equally unsuccessful. That
father and mother could not sleep any that night. They expected
every moment to hear the knock at their door by their little son.
Now they wanted to forgive the boy. My sister told me it was just as
if death had come into their home. She never passed through such a
night. In the morning she went to him and said: "Now, Sammy, you are
going to ask my forgiveness." but the boy turned his face to the
wall and wouldn't speak. The father came home at noon and the boy
was as stubborn as ever. It looked as though the child was going to
conquer. It was for the good of the boy that they didn't want to
give him his own way. It is a great deal better for us to submit to
God than have our own way. Our own way will lead us to ruin; God's
way leads to life everlasting. The father went off to his office,
and that afternoon my sister went in to her son about four o'clock
and began to reason with him, and, after talking for some time, she
said, "Now, Sammy, say "mother." "Mother," said the boy. "Now say
'for." "For." "Now just say 'give." And the boy repeated "give."
"Me," said the mother, "Me," and the little fellow fairly leaped out
of bed. "I have said it," he cried; "take me down to papa, so that I
can say it to him." Oh, sinner, go to Him and ask His forgiveness.
This is repentance. It is coming in with a broken heart and asking
the King of Heaven to forgive you. Don't say you can't. It is a lie.
It is your stubborn will - it is your stubborn heart.
Now let me say here tonight you are in a position to be reconciled
to God now. You are not in a position to deny this reconciliation a
week, a day, an hour. God tells you now. Look at that beautiful
steamer Atlantic. There she is in the bay groping her way along a
rocky coast. The captain don't know, as his vessel plows through
that ocean, that in a few moments it will strike a rock and hundreds
of those on board will perish in a watery grave. If he knew, in a
minute he could strike a bell and the steamer would be turned from
that rock and the people would be saved. The vessel has struck, but
he knows now too late. You have time now. In five minutes, for all
you and I know, you may be in eternity. God hangs a mist over our
eyes as to our summons. So now God calls - now everyone repent, and
all your sins will be taken from you. I have come in the name of the
Master to ask you to turn to God now. May God help you to turn and
live. Let us pray.
Dwight L. Moody
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