Sorrow and Sorrow

Time was when inner experience was considered to be everything, and experimental preaching was the order of the day.

Now it is apt to be too much slighted.

Introspection was formerly pushed to the extreme of morbid self-searching; yet it ought not now to be utterly abandoned.

A correct diagnosis of disease is not everything, but yet it is valuable.

A sense of poverty cannot by itself enrich, but it may stimulate.

Sinners were unwisely influenced by certain ministries to look to their own feelings, many began to seek comfort from their own misery.

Now it is “only believe.” And rightly so: but we must discriminate.

There must be sorrow for sin working repentance.

Upon this point we must—

I. REMOVE CERTAIN ERRONEOUS IDEAS WITH REGARD TO REPENTANCE AND SORROW FOR SIN.

Among popular delusions we must mention the suppositions—

1. That mere sorrow of mind in reference to sin is repentance.

2. That there can be repentance without sorrow for sin.

3. That we must reach a certain point of wretchedness and horror, of else we are not truly penitent.

4. That repentance happens to us once, and is then over.

5. That repentance is a most unhappy feeling.

6. That repentance must be mixed with unbelief, and embittered by the fear that mercy will be unable to meet our wretched case.

II. DISTINGUISH BETWEEN THE TWO SORROWS MENTIONED IN THE TEXT.

1. The godly sorrow which works repentance to salvation is—

   • Sorrow for sin as committed against God.
   • Sorrow for sin arising out of an entire change of mind.
   • Sorrow for sin which joyfully accepts salvation by grace.
   • Sorrow for sin leading to future obedience.
   • Sorrow for sin which leads to perpetual perseverance in the ways of God. The ways of sin are forsaken because abhorred.
   • This kind of repentance is never repented of.

2. The sorrow of the world is

   • Caused by shame at being found out;
   • Is attended by hard thoughts of God;
   • Leads to vexation and sullenness;
   • Incites to hardening of heart;
   • Lands the soul in despair.
   • Works death of the worst kind.
   • This needs to be repented of, for it is in itself sinful and terribly prolific of more sin.

III. INDULGE OURSELVES IN GODLY SORROW FOR SIN.

Come, let us be filled with a wholesome grief that we

1. Have broken a law, pure and perfect.

2. Have disobeyed a gospel, divine and gracious.

3. Have grieved a God, good and glorious.

4. Have slighted Jesus, whose love is tender and boundless.

5. Have been ungrateful, though loved, elected, redeemed, forgiven, justified, and soon to be glorified.

6. Have been so foolish as to lose the joyous fellowship of the Spirit the raptures of communion with Jesus.

Let us confess all this, lie low at Jesus’ feet, wash his feet with tears, and love, yes, love ourselves away.

For Discrimination

A cognate text in Romans 2:2, 4, will help us here. These two allied but distinct intimations may be placed in parallel lines, and treated like an equation; thus—

“The goodness of God leads you to repentance.” “Godly sorrow works repentance.”

We learn, as the result of the comparison, that the goodness of God leads to repentance by the way of godly sorrow. The series of cause and effect runs thus: goodness of God; godly sorrow; repentance.

Do not mistake; a fear of Hell is not sorrow for sin: it may be nothing more than a regret that God is holy.

So hard is a heart long accustomed to evil, that nothing can melt it but goodness; and no goodness but God’s; and no goodness of his but the greatest. Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift. “Looking unto Jesus” is the grand specific for producing godly sorrow in a human heart. It was a hard heart that quivered under the beams of his loving eye on the threshold of Pilate’s judgment hall. When Jesus looked on Peter, Peter went out and wept. Emmanuel’s love has lost none of its melting power; the hardest hearts laid fairly open to it must before long flow down. God’s goodness, embodied in Christ crucified, becomes, under the ministry of the Spirit, the cause of godly sorrow in believing men.—William Arnot.

The mind that broods o’er guilty woes, Is like the scorpion girt by fire; In circle narrowing as it glows, The flames around their captive close, Until inly searched by thousand throes, And maddening in her ire, One sad and sole relief she knows, The sting she nourished for her foes,

Whose venom never yet was vain, Gives but one pang and cures all pain, And darts into her desperate brain; So do the dark in soul expire,

Or live like scorpion girt by fire.

So writhes the mind Remorse has riven, Unfit for earth, undoomed for Heaven, Darkness above, despair beneath,

Around it flame, within it Death.—Byron.

Once a mother told her pastor that she was troubled about her daughter, who was going to join the church. “She has not conviction enough,” was the complaint; “and yet I have talked to her about her sins over and over again, setting them all in order before her until both of us were in tears; oh, what can I do more?” Then he gave her in her own hands a Bible, and he read aloud to her slowly Isaiah 6:1–5. She saw, without any word of his, that the prophet became intelligent as the sight of God flashed upon him, and grew penitent at the moment when the seraphim cried “Holy.” Then he turned to Job 42:5, 6. She saw in silence that the patriarch repented, not when his exasperating friends pelted him with accusations, but when his eyes were opened to see God. She went away quietly to talk, with a wondering and awestruck heart, about the holiness of Jehovah; thus her child melted into contrition before the vision, and wept.—C. S. Robinson.

Sin, repentance, and pardon are like to the three spring months of the year, March, April, and May. Sin comes in like March, blustering, stormy, and full of bold violence. Repentance succeeds like April, showering, weeping, and full of tears. Pardon follows like May, springing, singing, full of joys and flowers. Our eyes must be full of April, with the sorrow of repentance; and then our hearts shall be full of May, with the true joy of forgiveness.—Thomas Adams.