Genuine, spiritual mourning for sin is the work of the
Spirit of God. Repentance is too choice a flower to
grow in nature garden. Pearls grow naturally in
oysters, but penitence never shows itself in sinners
except divine grace works it in them. If thou hast one
particle of real hatred for sin, God must have given it
thee, for human nature's thorns never produced a
single fig. ;That which is born of the flesh is flesh.
True repentance has a distinct reference to the Savior.
When we repent of sin, we must have one eye upon
sin and another upon the cross, or it will be better still
if we fix both our eyes upon Christ and see our
transgressions only, in the light of His love.
True sorrow for sin is eminently practical. No man
may say he hates sin, if he lives in it. Repentance
makes us see the evil of sin, not merely as a theory,
but experimentally—as a burnt child dreads fire. We
shall be as much afraid of it, as a man who has lately
been stopped and robbed is afraid of the thief upon
the highway; and we shall shun it—shun it in
everything—not in great things only, but in little
things, as men shun little vipers as well as great
snakes. True mourning for sin will make us very
jealous over our tongue, lest it should say a wrong
word; we shall be very watchful over our daily actions,
lest in anything we offend, and each night we shall
close the day with painful confessions of
shortcoming, and each morning awaken with anxious
prayers, that this day God would hold us up that we
may not sin against Him.
Sincere repentance is continual. Believers repent until
their dying day. This dropping well is not intermittent.
Every other sorrow yields to time, but this dear sorrow
grows with our growth, and it is so sweet a bitter, that
we thank God we are permitted to enjoy and to suffer
it until we enter our eternal rest.
From Spurgeon's Morning & Evening
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