2. Secondly, that repentance must be practical.
Note how John put it: “Produce fruit in keeping with repentance” [Matthew 3:8]—evidences of true repentance is a new life. It is no use feeling sorry for yourself and crying, and praying a prayer of salvation with a lie in your right hand, and then going home to swear and drink, or to avoid Sunday worship, and to live as you like, and all the while still hoping to enter heaven. No, sin and you must part, or else Christ and you can never keep company. Do you remember that message that John Bunyan thought he heard in his head when he was playing sports on Sunday morning. He suddenly stood still with the stick in his hand, for he thought he heard a voice saying to him, “Will you turn away from your sins, and go to heaven, or keep your sins, and go to hell?” That is the alternative which both the law and the gospel put before men and women. “Flee from the coming wrath;” but there is no fleeing from wrath except by repentance of sin, which will be evidenced by the fruits of repentance: a real change of heart and life.
3. Then John went on to say to the Pharisees and Sadducees that they must give up all the false hopes which they had cherished: “Do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.”
Those Pharisees said, in deed, if not in word, “It really doesn’t matter if we act like hypocrites, for Abraham is our father;” and the Sadducees said, in effect, “Though we are unbelievers, it is no big thing, for Abraham is our father.”
“No,” answered John, “you must abandon all such false hopes as that.” And if any of you, dear friends, have said, “We will be okay, because we are regular church people;” or if you have said, “We are okay, for we are Baptists, we are Independents; our father and mother, and our grandfather and grandmother were good Christian people.” Ah, yes! and so may your great grandfather and great grandmother have been, but your pedigree will avail you nothing unless you personally repent of your sins, and lay hold of Christ as your Savior. Nor is there anything else upon which you can depend for salvation. Your baptism, your church-going, your taking of the Lord’s supper, your reciting of church prayers, your family prayers, your giving of your money, everything of your own put together will all be less than nothing, and vanity, if you trust in it. You must flee from all such false hopes as that, and get a better hope, even that of which my second text speaks: “That by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us” [Hebrews 6:18].
John the Baptist did not tell his listeners all this, for he did not come to preach the gospel to them. He came to preach the law, but he did sufficiently indicate where they must go, for he said to them, “Among you stands one you do not know” [John 1:26]. “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire” [Matthew 3:11]. It is to him, even to Jesus, that you must flee; if you would be saved, you must be among those who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before you. That is the real refuge for sinners—laying hold of Christ, getting a faith-grip on Jesus as the one and only atoning sacrifice, looking to him with tearful but believing eyes, and saying, “Jesus, Son of God, I trust in you; I put myself into your hands, and leave myself there, that you may deliver me from the coming wrath.”
I pray, brothers and sisters, whoever you are, you who think you are so good, be anxious to get rid of all that fancied goodness of yours. I beg you, if you have any self-righteousness about you, to ask God to strip it off of you at once, I would like you to feel as that man did, who had a forged bank note and some counterfeit coins in his possession. When the policeman came to his house, he was anxious not to have any of it near him; likewise, shake off your self-righteousness. You will be as surely damned by your righteousness, if you trust in it, as you will be by your unrighteousness. Christ alone, the gift of free grace from God, this is the gate of heaven; but all self-satisfaction, all boasting, all exaltation of yourself above your fellow-men, is wicked and disastrous, and will surely be deadly to your spirit for ever.
How does Christ deliver us from “the coming wrath?” He does it by putting himself into our place, and putting us into his place.
Oh, this blessed plan of salvation by substitution—that Christ would take a poor, guilty sinner, and set him up there in the place of acceptance and joy at the right hand of God, and that, in order to be able to do so, Christ would say, “Here comes the great flood of almighty wrath; I will stand right where it is coming, and let it flow over me” And you know that it did overflow him until he sweat, as it were, great drops of blood, and more, until he cried aloud, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” and still more, until he cried, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head, and gave up his spirit.
“He bore, that you might never bear,
His Father’s righteous ire;” —
and so, suffering in your place, and putting you into the place of acceptance which he himself so well deserves to occupy, he saves you from “the coming wrath.”
I used to think that, if I ever had a chance to share this wondrous story of “free grace and dying love,” everybody would believe it; but I have long since learned that the heart of man is so hard, that he will sooner be damned than be saved by Christ. Well, you must make your choice, you must make your choice for yourselves; only do me this one favor, when you have made your choice, do not blame me for having tried to persuade you to act more wisely than I fear your choice will be. I sometimes tremble as I think of the account I have to give concerning the many thousands who crowd this place to listen to my voice. What if my Master should say to me, at the end, “You flattered them; you tried to run with the times; you didn’t dare to preach to them the old-fashioned gospel, and to tell them of hell, and of judgment, and of atonement by blood?” No, my Master, you will never be able to say that to me. With all my faults, and weaknesses, and imperfections, I have sought to declare your truth, so far as I knew it, to men and women. Therefore, my dear friends, I shake my clothes, free of your blood. If any one of you will reject Christ, I will have nothing to do with your damnation. Commit spiritual suicide if you will; but I will not be the murderer of your soul, nor will I act like Saul when he asked his armor-bearer to kill him. I implore you to “flee from the coming wrath.” Escape by repenting of your sins, and by believing in Jesus Christ; and do it this very moment, for you may never have another opportunity to do so. May the Lord, in his infinite mercy, grant you grace to trust in Jesus! Amen and Amen.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
