Repentance and Restitution
“God commandeth all men everywhere to repent.”
Repentance is one of the fundamental doctrines of the Bible. Yet I believe it is one of those truths that many people little understand at the present day. There are more people today in the mist and darkness about Repentance, Regeneration, the Atonement, and suchlike fundamental truths, than perhaps on any other doctrines. Yet from our earliest years we have heard about them. If I were to ask for a definition of Repentance, a great many would give a very strange and false idea of it.
A man is not prepared to believe or to receive the Gospel, unless he is ready to repent of his sins and turn from them. Until John the Baptist met Christ, he had but one text, “Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2). But if he had continued to say this, and had stopped there without pointing the people to Christ the Lamb of God, he would not have accomplished much.
When Christ came, He took up the same wilderness cry, “Repent; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). And when our Lord sent out His disciples, it was with the same message, “that men should repent” (Mark 6:12). After He had been glorified, and when the Holy Ghost came down, we find Peter on the day of Pentecost raising the same cry, “Repent!” It was this preaching—Repent, and believe the Gospel—that wrought such marvellous results then. (Acts 2:38–47). And we find that, when Paul went to Athens, he uttered the same cry, “ Now God commandeth all men, everywhere , to repent” (Acts 17:30).
Before I speak of what Repentance is , let me briefly say what it is not . Repentance is not fear . Many people have confounded the two. They