Morning and Evening

October 13, Morning

C. H. Spurgeon · Modern retelling

"Godly sorrow worketh repentance." — 2 Corinthians 7:10 · KJV

Genuine, spiritual mourning for sin is the work of the Spirit of God. Repentance is too choice a flower to grow in nature's garden. Pearls grow naturally in oysters, but penitence never appears in sinners unless divine grace works it in them. If you have one particle of real hatred for sin, God must have given it you, for the thorns of human nature never produced a single fig — "that which is born of the flesh is flesh." True repentance has a distinct reference to the Savior. When we repent of sin, we must have one eye on sin and another on the cross; or better still, fix both eyes on Christ and see our transgressions only in the light of His love. True sorrow for sin is eminently practical. No man may say he hates sin if he lives in it. Repentance makes us see the evil of sin, not merely as a theory, but by experience — as a burnt child dreads fire. We shall be as afraid of it as a man lately stopped and robbed is afraid of the highwayman, and we shall shun it — shun it in everything, not in great things only but in little things, as men shun little vipers as well as great snakes. True mourning for sin will make us very watchful over our tongue, lest it say a wrong word; watchful over our daily actions, lest in anything we offend; and each night we shall close the day with painful confessions of shortcoming, and each morning wake with anxious prayers that God would hold us up that day, that we may not sin against Him. Sincere repentance is continual. Believers repent until their dying day; this dropping well is not intermittent. Every other sorrow yields to time, but this dear sorrow grows with our growth; and it is so sweet a bitter that we thank God we are permitted to enjoy it and suffer it until we enter our eternal rest.

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