My God and My Country

Repentance Towards God

Part 4.2a

By John Gill – Theologian

Edited & Prefaced by Doktor Riktor Von Zhades

Brethren:

The very nature of word repentance is defined as;

The act of repenting, or the state of being penitent; sorrow for what one has done or omitted to do especially, contrition for sin. It is the relinquishment of any practice from the conviction that it has offended God. Sorry, fear, and anxiety are properly not parts, but adjuncts of repentance; yet they are too closely connected with it to be easily separated [from it]. - Source Websters Dictionary Ed. 1913

My friends, we seek forgiveness from our Creator and as He has done so through the sacrifice of His Son Christ Jesus, we are given mercy and grace; for as the prophet Isaiah wrote in Chapter 1 verse 18;

“Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins were as crimson, they shall be made white as snow: though they were red like scarlet, they shall be as wool.”

The next part is up to us, and that is to be truly repentant. This is the more difficult part, for we must forsake our old ways and be renewed [ Read 2 Corinthians 4:16; Ephesians 4:23; Colossians 3:10] in our minds to the lifestyle, that God has ordained and commanded for us to follow. Remember and consider this fact that our righteousness is not of our own making, for as the Psalmist wrote in Chapter 14 verses 2-3;

“2 The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that would understand, and seek God. 3 All are gone out of the way: they are all corrupt: there is none that doeth good, no not one.”

And likewise as the Apostle Paul wrote;

24 But also for us, to whom it shall be imputed for righteousness, which believe in him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead 25 Who was delivered to death for our sins, and is risen again for our justification.

Therefore our justification of righteousness is come from God, and not from the good works that He has commanded us to perform. Nay, that are because of that righteousness, that we perform them as our good service to He that has saved us from curse of death.

Doktor Riktor Von Zhades – Devoted Servant of the Lord Jesus Chirst

The nature and kinds of repentance [is not] in men making themselves, or in others making them, public examples in such a way; which though it may be called repentance before men, it is not repentance towards God, nor does it answer the end vainly intended by it, making satisfaction for sin; nor is an external reformation of life and manners repentance in the sight of God. Men may be outwardly reformed, as the Pharisees were, and yet not repent of their sins, as they did not (Read Matthew 21:32; 23:28), and after such an external reformation men may return to their former sinful course of life, and their last end be worse than the beginning; besides there may be true repentance for sin where there is no time and opportunity for reformation, or showing forth a reformation of life and manners, as in the thief ([Read Luke 23:32, 39-42]) upon the cross and others, who are brought to repentance on their death beds; and reformation of life and manners, when it is best and most genuine, is the fruit and effect of repentance, and a bringing forth fruits meet for it, as evidences of it, and so distinct from that itself.

There is a natural repentance, or what is directed to by the light of nature, and the dictates of a natural conscience; for as there was in the heathens, and so is in every natural man, a knowledge of good and evil, of the difference in some respects between moral good and evil, and a conscience which, when it does its office, approves of what is well done, and accuses for that which is ill; so when conscience charges a man with doing an ill thing, and he is convinced of it, the light of nature and conscience direct him to wish he had not done it, and to repent of it, and to endeavour for the future to avoid it; as may be seen in the case of the Ninevites, ([Read Jonah 3:4-10]), who being threatened with the destruction of their city for their sins, proclaimed a fast, and issued out an order that everyone should turn from his evil ways, in hope that the wrath of God would be averted from them, though they could not be fully assured of it. The Gentiles laid great stress upon their repentance to conciliate the favour of God unto them; for they thought this made complete satisfaction for their sins, and wiped them clean, so that they imagined they were almost if not altogether pure and innocent: there is a repentance which the goodness of God in providence might or should lead men unto, which yet it does not, but after their hardness and impenitent heart treasure up wrath against the day of wrath, and righteous judgment of God (Read Romans 2:4,5)

There is an external repentance, or an outward humiliation for sin, such as was in Ahab, which, though nothing more, it was taken notice of by the Lord, "Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me?" and though it lay only in rending his clothes, and putting on sackcloth, and in fasting, and in a mournful way, yet the Lord was pleased to promise that the evil threatened should not come in his days ( Read 1 Kings 21:29). And such is the repentance Tyre and Sidon would have exercised, had they had the advantages and privileges that some cities had, where Christ taught his doctrines, and wrought miracles; and of this kind was the repentance of the Ninevites which was regarded of God (Read Matthew 11:21; 12:41).

[Finally], there is an hypocritical repentance, such as was in the people of Israel in the wilderness, who when the wrath of God broke out against them for their sins, "returned" unto him, or repented, but "their heart was not right with him" (Read Psalm 78:34-37), so it is said of Judah, she "hath not turned unto me with her whole heart, but feignedly, saith the Lord"; and of Ephraim, or the ten tribes, "they return, but not to the Most High, they are like a deceitful bow" (Read Hosea 7:16), who turned aside and dealt unfaithfully.