Repentance has also been described as “a change of mind.” For instance, there is the parable told by Christ: “A certain man had two sons; and he came to the first, and said, Son, go work today in my vineyard. He answered and said, I will not” (Matthew 21:28–29). After he had said “I will not” he thought over it, and changed his mind. Perhaps he may have said to himself, “I did not speak very respectfully to my father. He asked me to go and work, and I told him I would not go. I think I was wrong.” But suppose he had only said this, and still had not gone, he would not have repented. He was not only convinced that he was wrong; but he went off into the fields, hoeing, or mowing or whatever it was. That is Christ’s definition of repentance. If a man says, “By the grace of God I will forsake my sin, and do His will,” that is Repentance—a turning right about.
Someone has said, man is born with his face turned away from God. When he truly repents he is turned right around towards God; he leaves his old life.
Can a man at once repent? Certainly he can. It does not take a long while to turn around. It does not take a man six months to change his mind.
There was a vessel that went down some time ago on the Newfoundland coast. As she was bearing towards the shore, there was a moment when the captain could have given orders to reverse the engines and turn back. If the engines had been reversed then, the ship would have been saved. But there was a moment when it was too late.
So there is a moment, I believe, in every man’s life when he can halt and say, “By the grace of God I will go no further towards death and ruin. I repent of my sins and turn from them.”
You may say you have not got feeling enough; but if you are convinced that you are on the wrong road, turn right about, and say, “I will no longer go on in the way of rebellion and sin as I have done.”