::R0747 : page 8::

WORKS AND REPENTANCE

WHAT are “works meet for repentance”? What are works answerable to amendment of life? “Be renewed in the spirit of your mind.” “Put off … the old man, which is corrupt, [and] put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man the truth. … Let him that stole steal no more; but rather let him labor, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good. … Let all bitterness and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you; … and be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” Eph. 4:22-32. Here, among other things, it is said, “Let him that stole steal no more.” But that is not all. He must give back that which he stole. “When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die, if he turn from his sin, and do that which is lawful and right; if the wicked restore the pledge, give again that he had robbed, walk in the statutes of life, without committing iniquity; he shall surely live, he shall not die.” Eze. 33:14,15. “Then it shall be because he hath sinned, and is guilty, that he shall restore that which he took violently away, or the thing which he hath deceitfully gotten, or that which was delivered him to keep, or the lost thing which he found, or all that about which he hath sworn falsely; he shall even restore it in the principal, and shall add the fifth part more thereto, and give it unto him to whom it appertaineth, in the day of his trespass offering. … And the priest shall make an atonement for him before the Lord, and it shall be forgiven him.” Lev. 6:4-7. Such are works which show amendment of life. Such show that the heart has been touched, and wishes to stand right with God and man. Godly sorrow for the wrong, turning from the wrong, and then, as far as possible, making the wrong right—that is repentance.—Sel.

====================

— April, 1885 —