CALLED TO REPENTANCE

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 24, 1898

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 47.

CALLED TO REPENTANCE.

“I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”—Jesus.

What comfort and encouragement for every straying child of Adam are contained in the above assurance! No one is so low that the grace of God may not reach him, no one so hardened that the love of God may not soften him.

But what is the first thing to which the sinner is called?—Repentance. To repent is defined: “To feel such sorrow for sin as leads one to turn from it and seek forgiveness.” Thousands have passed through this experience, and have realized the joy of forgiveness and the God-given strength which has enabled them to triumph over their besetments. They have had the love of sin uprooted from their hearts, and the love of God so placed there that it has become their greatest desire to do His will. Nor did they have to wait until they had formed perfect characters before counting themselves “heirs according to the promise.”

Nevertheless, I do believe that the Gospel is sometimes presented in such a way that its office is not properly comprehended by its hearers.

I speak of what I know when I say that children and older people have listened to the preaching of certain evangelists, and professedly obtained a Christian experience, while repentance was left entirely out of the question. Such persons have openly expressed the sentiment, “It is no matter what I do now; I am saved anyway; we are all sinners, and one sin is just as bad as another;” and this theory has been followed by a rapid declension in morals.

Is this the legitimate fruit of the Gospel? Are not these poor souls deluded, and leaning upon a false hope? Has not the first step in the Christian life been omitted? Should any person who has arrived at the age of accountability be encouraged to hope in Christ without having at least a desire to depart from evil? Perhaps the force of wrong habit may cause many a stumble; the moral perceptions may be naturally weak, and paralyzed by inaction: time may be required to arouse them; yet in every soul truly born of God, is there not an earnest striving after the perfect Pattern, a desire to keep from sinning against God or man?

The legality which leads one to try to become good enough to be saved and prevents his rejoicing in hope because he still sees defects in himself, is a divergence on one side of the cross; while the idea that the Gospel means license to sin, is as widely a divergence on the other side. Between these two paths lies the straight and narrow way which leads to life.

The Gospel is the same to-day that it was 1,800 years ago; and no doubt it has been both correctly and incorrectly presented all the way along. Great patience should be exercised, and much delicate discernment shown, by those older in experience, toward those entering the Christian pathway, lest the smoking flax be quenched; yet this indulgence should not be exercised in a way to strengthen “the hand of the wicked, that he should not return from his evil way, by promising him life.” May God grant that every earnest soul may “feel such sorrow for sin as leads one to turn from it and seek forgiveness,” which is easily and readily obtained from Him who came to seek and to save that which was lost.

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