J. N. Darby
In Luke 24:4747And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. (Luke 24:47), we are told “that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” There can be no question about that, but what has enfeebled preaching is, there has been such a sense that repentance is preliminary to faith.
We are all apt to topple over from one side to another, and so the true place of repentance has got obscured and its presentation enfeebled. This is mischievous for this reason, the claim of God is left out or enfeebled by it. But God is now gathering His own in, if I may so speak, in haste. The Lord is coming, and woe be to us if we say, He delays His coming.’
He now calls on “all men everywhere 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.” Repentance is God’s claim upon people, and if in preaching I merely say God loves you and you are a poor sinner, but there is grace for you,’ (and that I surely would say) and then leave repentance out, it is leaving the man’s conscience out.
Repentance is the judgment we have passed upon ourselves, as to all that we have done and been, in God’s presence under grace. Even now, as under grace, there may be a legal repentance, but if it is put before faith, it unsettles the whole ground we stand upon before God, it is then something I am doing in my own heart, and that will not do. When I preach repentance, therefore, I must preach it in Christ’s name, and so I said “under grace”: but if I carry God’s message, I must carry God’s claim, and I say, if you don’t repent and turn to Him, you will be lost.’
Yet if I call on people to repent, in the name of Christ, they must believe on Christ in order to repent. As a man you have to say to God: and what state are you in before God? And if I call on man to be in God’s presence with God’s claim upon him, and that in grace — perfect grace — then if he returns, he returns to God. Repentance ought to be preached as God’s claim, but putting in that claim in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.
God calls on all to repent, but if they don’t, they must come under judgment — you cannot have your eye open on the Lord Jesus Christ and not hate yourself as a sinner.
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Our works are to be works which nothing but faith can accomplish, and which are infallible proofs that the man who works them is in living fellowship with the living God.
God may have many faithful servants where we may imagine there are none.
Elijah cried out “I only am left,” at the very time that there were seven thousand in Israel, who abhorred idols. A consideration like this should enlarge our charity, and encourage the expectation that there is much more real piety than may have fallen under our notice.