Why do you need to repent?
consider these three reasons to turn from sin to god.
by Thomas Boston
“I tell you, Nay: but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.”
—Luke 13:5
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Few people consider that they need to repent of their sins. Jesus Christ spoke the words above. It may be helpful to understand what repentance is by considering a brief definition from the Westminster Shorter Catechism:
“Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavor after, new obedience.”
To encourage you to repent, we provide you with three reasons from a sermon preached by Scottish minister, Thomas Boston (1676–1732). His sermon on Luke 13:5 is titled “The Necessity of Repentance,” which we have lightly edited for readers in the 21st century.
consider ye must die
Heb. 11:27, “It is appointed unto men once to die.” Death is certain, and therefore repentance is necessary. Oh, if men would realize death to themselves, sinners would soon find it necessary to turn a new leaf. One hearing Gen. 5 read in the church was so impressed with the thoughts of death that he presently betook himself to a new course of life that he might die well. We must all meet with death, lie down in the grave; let us view it aforehand and see how it calls us to repent. Look to thy dying hour and to thy grave, impenitent sinner, and consider these few things.
1. Would you be content to die as you live? You live in your sin without God; would you desire to die so? Many indeed entertain Balaam’s wish for the death of the righteous while they care not for their life. Num. 23:10, “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.” But remember, he did not get it. Numbers 31:8, “Balaam also the son of Beor they slew with the sword.” And while death is so uncertain, it is the hanging of an eternal weight on a hair to look to get matters mended then that are not mended now.
2. Consider what will a sinful life look like on a deathbed? How will you be able to look your unrepented-of guilt and a long eternity in the face together? Ezek. 22:14, “Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong in the days that I shall deal with thee? I the Lord have spoken it, and will do it.” Sin sits easy now on a sleepy conscience while health and strength last, and death appears not. But when death stares you in the face, and the awakened conscience flies upon you, it will cut you to the heart that you have not repented before.
3. What will it be to die and go to another world with a load of unrepented-of guilt on your back? Look to your grave aforehand; think with yourselves how will it be to lie down there with your bones full of your iniquity? Is it not best now to shake off and cast away your transgressions, knowing that however you may live with them, you cannot die with them well?
4. At a dying hour, you must part with the world and the enjoyment of your lusts. The foul feast you sit at now, death will overthrow the table, and the sad reckoning for it comes in then and continues forever. O rise up now and leave it by repentance. Part with these things at God’s call, which you must part with before long, whether you will or not.
5. Lastly, there is no repentance in the grave, Eccles. 9:10. You must repent, or you perish, and it is now or never… You shall never be able to mend them more. The working time and time of trial is over then. If the brittle thread of life were broke, which may be snapped asunder in a moment, then you are beyond the line of mercy. The candle burnt to snuff shall be as soon brought to burn again, as time shall be recalled.
take a view of the tribunal of god,
before which thou must appear
2 Cor. 5:10–11, “We must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.” O sinner, know you not that there is a judgment to come, and how this calls you to repent? Acts 17:30–33, “God commandeth all men every where to repent: because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained: whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.” Were men to lie forever neglected, without a future reckoning, as the beasts that perish, they might live as they desire, the hazard of condemnation for an eternity would not press them. But it is not so: Heb. 9:27, “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” Consider,
1. While you are going on in sin, your debt to the divine justice is increasing, the accounts are swelling, and the reckoning for them before the tribunal will be terrible, however little you think of them now, Eccles. 9:9. They may fall out of thy memory, but they will not fall out of the book of God’s remembrance, Hos. 12:12. But now is the time to get them laid over on the cautioner’s score.
2. Though you will not seek them out now to mourn over them and turn from them, they will find you out before the tribunal of God. Happy would the sinner be if his sins would part with him at the grave, but they “shall lie down with him in the dust,” Job 20:11: or if they would lie down with him there if they would lie still and never rise again; but “God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil,” Eccles, 12:14. The Judge is all-knowing, nothing can be hidden from him, he is not capable to forget the least injury which the sinner has done to his glory; all must come into the account.
3. When you see Christ come again and his throne set for judgment, when the trumpet shall blow, and the dead arise, and made to appear before that tribunal, when the heavens and earth shall pass away, what will be your thoughts of staving off repentance?
4. Lastly, your state for eternity will be determined there according to your deeds done in the flesh. Impenitent sinners will get a long eternity to rue their obstinacy in, while those that repented in time shall be happy forever.
to move you to repentance,
consider the sufferings of christ
A Roman senator intending to provoke the people to revenge the death of Caesar killed by Brutus, brought forth his bloody robe and cried, “Here is the robe of your late emperor.” And O will ye look to the bloody robe of Christ, hung up on the pole of the gospel, to move you to repentance? Zech. 12:10, “They shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him,” etc. And learn here,
1. How dreadful must God’s indignation against sin be, which is written with the blood of Christ, pierced with the sword of justice. Is it not “a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God?” And shall we continue in sin, against which such indignation appeared?
2. Sin appeared terrible in Sodom when in flames but yet more terrible in Mount Calvary, where the justice of God pursued the Son of God with the sword of vengeance. A spectacle of amazement, the Son of God set up for a mark to the arrows of God! Do you not ask into the cause of all this? It was sin. The children ate the sour grape, and the father’s teeth were set on edge. They contract the debt, justice lays hold on him, and he “restores what he took not away,” Ps. 69:4. The elect took on the debt jovially, but he is put to tears and strong cries in the paying of it. And will we not hate and loath sin?
3. Many waters cannot quench love; neither can the floods from above nor from below drown it. “Behold how he loved you.” He might have been happy in his Father’s love, though mortals had never shared of it with him. But such was his love to sinners, as made him lay down his life for them, that so a way might be paved for the egress of his Father’s love towards them. And will ye not hate and loathe sin which was the cause of his death? Is this your kindness to your friend?
4. “When Christ suffered, the earth quaked, rocks rent, the dead arose, the sun was struck blind with the sight, and hid his face for shame: and how can we stand unmoved, who were the first movers of the bloody tragedy, whose sins furnished a Judas to betray him, a Pilate to sentence him, etc.? Look here, and mourn for, and turn from sin.
5. Lastly, did he not suffer enough? Must he suffer more still, even in his state of exaltation? Will you grieve his Spirit, trample on his laws, yea and his blood, continuing impenitent in your sins? ❦
The Rev. Thomas Boston was a widely influential church leader, theologian, and philosopher in Scotland in the early 18th century.