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Psalm 7:12 - "If he turn not, he will whet
his sword; he hath bent his bow and made it ready."
Turn or Burn
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Turn or Burn
(Turn from your sins or Burn for
your sins)
by
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
(1834-1892)
"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.
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11 God judgeth the
righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day.
12 If he turn not, he
will whet his sword; he hath bent his bow, and made it ready. – Psalm 7: 11-12
(KJV)
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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 spoke 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
every day 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 illusive
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."
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"Repentance means you realize you’re guilty; a vile sinner in the
presence of God. That you deserve the wrath and punishment of God,
that you’re hell bound. It means that you begin to realize that this thing
called sin is in you, and you long to get rid of it, and you turn your back on
it in every shape and form. You renounce the world whatever the cost, the world
is in its mind and outlook as well as its practice, and you deny yourself and
take up the cross and go after Christ.Your nearest and dearest in the whole
world may call you a fool or say you have religious mania. You may have to
suffer financially, but it makes no difference; that is repentance.” - D Martyn
Lloyd Jones, Out of the Depths: Restoring Fellowship with God
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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."
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Does
God hate sinners?
Answer:
Yes, Everyday!
5 The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou
hatest all workers of iniquity. 6 Thou shalt
destroy them that speak leasing: the LORD will abhor the bloody and deceitful
man. – Psalm 5: 5-6 (KJV)
11 God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry
with the wicked every day.
12 If he turn not, he will whet his sword;
he hath bent his bow, and made it ready.
13 He hath also prepared for him the
instruments of death; he ordaineth his arrows against the persecutors.
14 Behold, he travaileth
with iniquity, and hath conceived mischief, and brought forth falsehood.
15 He made a pit, and
digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which
he made.
16 His mischief shall
return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own
pate.
– Psalm 7: 11-16
(KJV)
The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked
and him that loveth violence his soul hateth. – Psalm 11: 5
(KJV)
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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 th 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 more guilty
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 Davizes,
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.
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Charles
Spurgeon and Martyn Lloyd-Jones
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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 a 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
ill 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).
 |
“Turn to Jesus or Burn in hell.”
Luke 13:1-5 King James Version (KJV)
13 There were present at that
season some that told him of the Galilaeans, whose blood Pilate had mingled
with their sacrifices.
2 And Jesus answering said
unto them, Suppose ye that these Galilaeans were sinners above all the Galilaeans,
because they suffered such things?
3 I tell you, Nay: but,
except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
4 Or those eighteen, upon
whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners
above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem?
5 I tell you, Nay: but,
except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.
[PHOTO SOURCE: https://coryball.wordpress.com/2011/04/26/repent-or-burn-really/]
|
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
some 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!
Do not sit down and try to pump up repentance
from the dry well of a corrupt nature. It is contrary to the laws of your 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. However, if
you believingly think of Jesus dying for you, repentance will burst forth. - Charles Spurgeon
[PHOTO
SOURCE: https://www.azquotes.com/quote/503525]
Do not sit down and try to pump up repentance
from the dry well of a corrupt nature. It is contrary to the laws of your 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. However, if
you believingly think of Jesus dying for you, repentance will burst forth. - Charles Spurgeon
[PHOTO
SOURCE: https://www.azquotes.com/quote/503525]
Turn or Burn! - Charles Spurgeon Sermon
Published
on Jun 27, 2017
Turn or Burn! -
Charles Spurgeon Sermon Psalm 7:12 If he
does not relent, he will sharpen his sword; he will bend and string his bow.
VIDEO SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syTmmOPS8q0&t=13s
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