"Why Don't You Preach Repentance?"
By R. F. Cottrell
It frequently happens, after we have spent weeks in a place preaching a message that bears upon its very front the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus Christ, showing that the moral law is the knowledge of sin, that the only way of pardon is through Jesus Christ, and exhorting men to turn to God by forsaking every sin and obeying every precept of the divine law, and seeking pardon for the past through the atoning blood that was shed on Calvary, and so be prepared to escape the wrath that is soon to come, that the leading religionists of the place will advise us to change our mode of preaching and go to preaching repentance and faith, and thus labor for the salvation of sinners. If we would do so, they would be happy to unite with us in the work of saving souls. They would rather, I suppose, that we would preach repentance to other sinners besides themselves. But we are not content to engage in bringing men up to the low level of those who openly and persistently break the law of God from week to week, if not from day to day. What seems to make our preaching objectionable is that we insist that men should turn from every sin—the237popular and fashionable, as well as the low and degrading ones which it is fashionable to condemn. We would like to know whether John the Baptist met with such objections as we meet with. When he laid the ax to the root of every sin, told the eminent professors of religion of his time not to rest in fancied security, because they were Abraham's children and members of the church, and boldly insisted that they should do works meet for repentance and escape the wrath about to come upon the Jewish people in consequence of their rejection of the promised Messiah, did they object and say to him, You had better quit this, and go to preaching repentance? Had they, too, greater anxiety to save other sinners than to save themselves?