This morning, I ask you to turn in your Bibles to the book of Psalms, to Psalm chapter 7, verses 11 through 13. Please listen as I read. God is a righteous judge, a God who expresses his wrath every day. If a man does not repent, God will sharpen his sword. He will bend and string his bow. He has prepared his deadly weapons. He makes ready his flaming arrows. Now my friends, the gist of these verses is this. If a sinner does not turn from his wicked ways, God will sharpen his sword of judgment. So we can see that God has a sword and that he will punish man on account of his sins. This evil generation has worked very hard to take away from God the sword of his justice. They have attempted to prove to themselves that God will clear the guilty and will not under any circumstances punish evil, disobedience, and sin. It was only a few centuries ago that the predominant subject of the pulpit was one of terror. It was like Mount Sinai. It thundered out the dreadful wrath of God. And from the lips of the preachers of that day, you heard the most fearful sermons which were full to the brim with warnings of judgment to come. Now, perhaps some of the Puritan fathers may have gone too far and have given too great a prominence to the terror of the Lord in their ministry. But the age in which we live has tried to forget these terrors altogether. And if we dare tell men that God will punish them for their sins, we are then accused of trying to frighten them into religion. And if we faithfully and honestly tell our listeners that sin will bring certain judgment, it is said that we are attempting to scare them into righteousness. Now, we don't care what men accuse us of. We feel it is our duty when men sin to tell them that they will be punished. And so long as the world will not give up its sin, we feel that we must not cease our warnings. But the cry of this age is that God is merciful and that God is love. Yes, who said he wasn't? Yes, God is merciful and yes, God is love. But remember, my friends, it is equally true that God is just, severely and inflexibly just. He would not be God if he were not just. He could not be merciful if he were not just. Because God has shown mercy on those who repent and believe in Jesus, therefore he must punish those who refuse to repent. Now we can rest assured that God is just. The very words of scripture declare his justice. Listen as I read, the wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forget God. God is a righteous judge. A God who expresses his wrath every day. If a man does not repent, God will sharpen his sword. He will bend and string his bow. He has prepared his deadly weapons and he makes ready his flaming arrows. Oh, my dear friends, what a wicked age we live in. An age that will not accept the idea of a real hell. Oh, it will speak of a hell, but only of a hell without real punishment. This belief is so prevalent that it even makes the ministers of the gospel shrink back from their duty to declare the day of wrath. How few preachers there are today who will solemnly tell us of the judgment to come. They preach of God's love and mercy as they ought to do and as God has commanded them. But what good is it to preach mercy unless they also preach the doom of the wicked? And how can we ever hope to carry out the primary purpose of preaching unless we warn men that if they don't repent of their sin, God will sharpen his sword in judgment? I fear that today many have rejected the doctrine of future punishment. They have laughed at it. saying that it is nothing but a mere fantasy of our imagination. But the day will come, my friends, when it will be known to be a reality.

Ahab scoffed at the prophet Micaiah when he said to Ahab that Ahab would never come back alive from battle. The men of Noah's generation laughed at the foolish old man, as they thought he was, who urged them to repent, for the world would soon be drowned. But when they were climbing to the treetops, and the floodwaters were rising up around them, did they then say that Noah's prophecy was untrue? And when the enemy's arrow was sticking into the heart of Ahab, did he then think that Micaiah had spoken an untruth?

And so it is today. You tell us that we speak lies when we warn you of judgment to come. But in that day when calamity comes your way and when destruction overwhelms you, will you then say that we were liars? Will you then turn around and scoff and say that we did not speak the truth?

Rather, my friends, the highest honor will be given to him who has been the most faithful in warning men concerning the wrath of God. I have often trembled at the thought that here I am, standing before you, and constantly engaged in the work of the ministry. And what if, when I die, I should be found unfaithful to your souls? How sorrowful will be our meeting in the world of the spirits!

It would be a dreadful thing if you were able to say to me from the fires of hell, Sir, you flattered us. You didn't tell us of the seriousness of eternity. You didn't clearly dwell upon the awful wrath of God. You spoke to us in a feeble and weak manner. You were afraid of us. You knew we couldn't bear to hear of eternal torment, and therefore you kept it back and never mentioned it. Why, I believe that if you were able, you would look me in the face and curse me throughout all of eternity, if that would have been my conduct.

But by God's help it will never be. Come what may, when I die, I will, with God's help, be able to say that I am innocent of the blood of all men, for I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God. So far as I know God's truth, I will endeavor to speak it. And though criticism and censure be poured out of my head a hundred times, I will welcome it if only I may be faithful to this unstable generation. faithful to God, and faithful to my own conscience.

Let me then endeavor, and by God's help, I will do it as solemnly and as tenderly as I can, to proclaim to those of you that have not yet repented, reminding you of your future doom if you should die without repenting of your sins. Remember, if a man does not repent, God will sharpen his sword.

Now in order for us to understand repentance, we need to look at three things. First, what does it mean to repent? Secondly, why is it necessary to repent? And thirdly, how to repent?

In the first place, my friends, let me endeavor to explain to you what it means to repent. The Bible says, if a man does not repent, God will sharpen his sword." The repentance called for here must be genuine, not artificial. Not that kind of repentance which stops with a bunch of promises and vows, but rather a repentance that deals with the real acts of life. Possibly, one of you will say this morning, I will turn to God. From this time forward, I will not sin. I will endeavor to walk in holiness. I will abandon my vices, I will turn away from my evil, and I will turn to God with a sincere heart. But then tomorrow you will have forgotten these promises. Today you will weep a tear or two under the preaching of God's word, but by tomorrow every tear shall have been dried, and you will utterly forget that you ever came to church at all. How many of us are like people who see their faces in a mirror and then walk away and forget what we look like? Yes, my friends, it is not your promise of repentance that can save you. It is not your vow. It is not your solemn declaration. It is not the tear that is dried more easily than the dew dropped by the sun. It is not the momentary emotion of the heart which constitutes a real turning to God. There must be a true and actual abandonment of sin and a turning to righteousness in all the areas of our lives. Do you say you are sorry and repent, and yet go on from day to day just as you always have before? Will you now bow your heads and say, Lord, I repent, and in a little while commit the same acts of sin again? If you do, Your repentance is worse than nothing and will make your punishment even more sure. For he that makes a promise to God and then does not keep his promise has committed another sin, in that he has attempted to deceive the Almighty and lied to the God that made him." Repentance to be true, to be evangelical, must be a repentance which really affects our outward behavior. Next, we must see that for repentance to be true, that it must be total. It must be total. How many will say, Lord, I will give up this sin and I will give up this other one, but there are certain favorite lusts of mine which I must hang on to. Oh, my friends, in God's name let me tell you, it is not the giving up of one sin nor 50 sins which is true repentance. It is the serious giving up of every sin. If you conceal one of these accursed vipers in your heart, then your repentance is nothing but a fake. If you indulge in only one lust and give up every other, then that one lust, like one leak in a ship, will sink your soul. It isn't sufficient just to give up your outward sins. It is not enough just to give up the most wicked sin of your daily life. It is all or nothing which God demands. Repent, he says, and when he commands you to repent, he means repent of all your sins. Otherwise, he never can accept your repentance as being real and genuine. The truly repentant person hates all of their sins, not just certain ones. All sin must be given up or else you will never have Christ All evil must be renounced, or else the gates of heaven will remain locked to you forever. Let us remember, then, that for repentance to be sincere, it must be a total repentance. Again, when we hear God say that if a man does not repent, he will sharpen his sword, he means an urgent repentance, an urgent repentance. You say, when you are near the end of your life, and when you are entering the borders of the thick darkness of the valley of death, then you will change your ways. My dear listeners, do not deceive yourselves. Few have ever changed after a long life of sin. The Bible declares that the Ethiopian cannot change the color of his skin, nor the leoparded spots Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil. Put no faith in the repentance which you have promised yourselves that you would declare on your deathbeds. Odds are that if you do not repent when you are healthy, you will never repent when you are sick and dying. Too many people have promised themselves a quiet time of prayer and repentance before they leave this world. When they can close their eyes and confess their sins, But oh, how few have found this time of silence.

Look around you and observe that many people die suddenly due to accidents and heart attacks. They die at home, they die at work, and they die as they are traveling. And even when death is gradual, people are often too weak to repent. Many a Christian has said to me on his deathbed, Oh, if I now had to seek my God, if I now had to cry to him for mercy, what would become of me? The pain of death is enough without the agony of repentance. It is enough to have the body tortured with the often pains of death without having the soul torn with sorrow.

Oh, sinners, God has declared, today, if you hear my voice, do not harden your hearts. When God the Holy Spirit convinces men of sin, they will never talk of delays. You may never have another day to repent in. Therefore says the voice of wisdom, repent now.

The Jewish rabbis used to say, let every man repent one day before he dies. And since he may die tomorrow, let him take heed to turn from his evil ways today. Even so, we say, immediate repentance is that which God demands, for He has never promised you that you will have any other day to repent in except the one that you now have.

Furthermore, my friends, the repentance described here as being absolutely necessary is a sincere repentance. It is not a phony tear. It is not hanging out the banner of grief while you have a fickled heart. It is the removing of the party attitude of the heart. It is sorrow of the soul, which is true repentance.

A man may renounce every outward sin and yet not really repent. True repentance is a turning of the heart as well as of the life. It is the giving up of the whole soul to God to be his forever endeavor. It is the abandonment of the sins of the heart as well as the vices of life. Yes, dear listeners, let none of us dream that we have repented when we have only made a false and a make-believe repentance. Let none of us take that to be the work of the Spirit, which is only the work of poor human nature. Let us not dream that we have turned to God in true salvation when perhaps we have only turned to ourselves. And let us not think that it is enough to have turned from one vice to another, or from vice to virtue. Let us remember it must be a turning of the whole soul so that the old sinful self is abandoned and we are made new in Christ Jesus. Otherwise, we have not answered the requirements of the text. We have not repented and turned to God.

Now lastly, on this point, this repentance must be perpetual. It must be perpetual. It is not my turning to God today that will be a proof that I am a true convert. It is the continual forsaking of my sin throughout my entire life until I am laid in the grave. Do not kid yourself by believing that to be moral for a week will be proof that you are saved. Rather, it is the continuous rejection of evil that gives evidence of a changed heart. The change which God works is neither a momentary nor a superficial change. Not a simple cutting off of the top of a weed, but a complete eradication of it. Not the sweeping away of the dust of one day, but the taking away of that which is the cause of defilement. In olden times, when rich and generous kings came into their cities, they made the fountains run with milk and wine. But the fountain was not a fountain of milk and wine forever. Tomorrow it will run with water as before. So today you may go home and pretend to pray. You may today be serious. Tomorrow you may be honest. And the next day you may pretend to be devout. But if you return like a dog that returns to its vomit, or like a pig that is washed and goes back to a wallowing in the mud, then your repentance will only sink you deeper into hell instead of being a proof of divine grace in your hearts. It is very hard to discern between legal repentance and evangelical repentance. However, there are certain marks by which they may be distinguished. and at the risk of tiring you, I will just mention one or two of them, and may God grant that you may find them in your own souls. Legal repentance is a fear of being damned. Evangelical repentance is a fear of sinning. Let me say that again. Legal repentance is a fear of being damned. Evangelical repentance is a fear of sinning. Legal repentance makes us fear the wrath of God. Evangelical repentance makes us fear the cause of that wrath, sin. When a man repents with that grace of repentance which God the Spirit works in him, he repents not of the punishment which is to follow the sin, but of the sin itself. and he feels that even if there were no pit of hell for the wicked, if there were no eternal torment and no everlasting fire, he would still hate sin. It is exactly this kind of repentance which every one of you must have or else you will be lost forever. It must be a hatred of sin. Do not suppose that when it is your time to die that you will be afraid of eternal torment, therefore you will repent. Every thief is afraid of prison, but he will steal tomorrow if you set him free. Most men who have committed murder tremble at the thought of the executioner, but they would murder again if they were allowed to live. It is not the hatred of the punishment that is repentance. It is the hatred of the sin itself. Do you feel that you have such a repentance as that? If not, those thundering words must be preached to you again. If a man does not repent, God will sharpen his sword. Now let me share one more thought before moving on. When a man is possessed of true and evangelical repentance, I mean the gospel repentance which saves the soul, he not only hates sin for its own sake, But he despises his sins so much that he feels that no repentance of his own can help wash it out. And he acknowledges that it is only by an act of sovereign grace that his sins can be washed away. If any one of you claim that you have repented of your sins and yet still think that by living a holy life the sin can be blotted out, If any of you think that by walking uprightly in the future you can obliterate your past sins, you have not yet truly repented. For true repentance makes a man feel that it is impossible for him to atone for his sins, because it is only Christ you can save, and Christ alone. And if your sin is so dead in you that you hate it as a corrupt and abominable thing and you want to bury it out of your sight and realize that it could never be buried unless Christ himself should dig the grave, then you have repented of your sin. We must all humbly confess that we deserve God's wrath and that we cannot prevent it by any works of our own. And we must put our trust solely in the blood and accomplishments of Jesus Christ. If you have not repented in this way, again we shout the words of the scriptures, if a man does not repent, God will sharpen his sword.

And now let us move on to our next major point. It is even a more terrible one to dwell on. And if I went by my own feelings, I would not even mention it. But we must not consider our feelings in the work of the ministry any more than we would if we were surgeons of men's bodies. We must sometimes use the knife when we feel that they would die without it. We must frequently make sharp gashes into men's consciences in the hope that the Holy Spirit will bring them to life.

We declare, then, that it is absolutely necessary that God should sharpen his sword and punish men if they will not turn from their sins. That great preacher Richard Baxter used to say, sinner, turn or burn is your only alternative. Turn or burn. And it is true. I think I can show you why men must turn from their sins or else they will burn for their sins.

First, we cannot expect that the God of the Bible would allow sin to go unpunished. Some may imagine it. They may dream their intellects into a state of intoxication so as to fantasize a God apart from justice. But no man who has any common sense can imagine a God without justice. You cannot conceive of a good king or of a good government that could exist without justice, much less of God, the judge and king of all the earth, without justice in his heart. To imagine God all love and no justice would be to make him less than God. He would not be capable of ruling this world if he did not have justice in his heart.

There is in man a natural understanding of the fact that if God exists, he must be just, and I cannot imagine that you can believe in a God without believing also in the punishment of sin. It would be difficult to imagine God elevated high above his creatures, seeing all of their disobedience and yet looking with the same composure upon the good and upon the evil. You cannot imagine him giving the same reward of praise to the wicked and to the righteous. The idea of God assumes justice. And when you say the word justice, it would be the same as saying the word God. But to imagine that there will be no punishment for sin and that man can be saved without repentance is to deny the scriptures.

Do the records of divine history mean nothing? History reveals a God of justice who punishes sin, and to say today that God no longer condemns the sinner is to say that God must have changed drastically. Did not God once rebuke Eden and drive our parents out of that blissful garden on account of a little theft of fruit, as man would class it? Did not God drown the world with water, killing millions of men and women, And will we still say that God does not punish sin?

Let the burning fire which fell on the wicked city of Sodom testify to you that God is just. Let the open mouth of the earth, which swallowed alive Korah, Dathom, and Abiram, and all of their wives and children, warn you that He will not spare the guilty. Let the miraculous judgments which he brought on Pharaoh, to include the drowning of the entire Egyptian army in the Red Sea, tell you that God is just. And would it be out of place for me to mention in the same argument the judgments of God even in our own age?

This world is not the dungeon where God will punish all sin. But still there are instances in which it is obvious that he is actually avenging sin I do not believe that every accident is a judgment. I am far from believing that the death of men and women in a burning building is a punishment on them for their sins. I believe final judgment is reserved for the next life. Jesus said of those who died when the Tower of Siloam fell on them, Do you think that they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you no. But unless you repent, you too will all perish. It has injured Christianity for men to say, for instance, that because a boat capsized and the people in it were drowned on the Lord's day, that it was a judgment on those persons. We certainly believe it was sinful to spend the day in pleasure rather than being with God's people in fellowship in the church, but we deny that it was a punishment from God. God usually reserves his punishment for a future state. But yet, we say this, that there have been instances in which we must believe that men and women have been punished for their sins in this life through God's providence. I remember one instance which I hesitate to relate to you. I saw the wretched creature myself. He had dared to call down on his head the most awful curses that man could utter. In his rage and fury, he said that he wished his head were twisted on one side and that his eyes were put out, and that his jaws were locked. A moment afterward, the lash of his whip, with which he had been cruelly treating his horse, entered his eye, brought on first inflammation and then locked jaw. And when I saw him, he was just in the very position in which he had asked to be placed, for his head was twisted around, his eyesight was gone, and he could not speak except through his closed teeth. You will remember a similar instance where a woman declared that she had paid the price for a sack of grain, when in fact she had the money hidden in her hand, and she immediately fell down dead on the spot. Now some of these may have been unusual coincidences, but I am not so naive as to suppose that they were all brought about by chance. I think the will of the Lord was in it. I believe they were a faint indication that God was just, and that although the full shower of His wrath does not fall on men in this life, He does pour out a drop or two on them to let us see how He will one day punish the world for its sin. But why do I have to make these arguments to you, my listeners? Your own consciences will tell you that God must punish sin. You may laugh at me and say, you believe no such thing. I did not say you did, but I said that your conscience tells you so. And conscience has more power over men than what they think it does. To paraphrase what John Bunyan once said, Mr. Conscience has a very loud voice. And though Mr. Understanding attempts to ignore him, yet Mr. Conscious will thunder out so loudly that Mr. Understanding will shake in absolute fear over what Mr. Conscious says. And it is so often true. You say in your understanding, I cannot believe God will punish sin, but you know he will. You do not want to confess your secret fears that he will punish sin because to do so would be to give up what you have so often boldly asserted. I know this, that when you are sick or hurt, that you will cry out for mercy. I know that when you are dying, you will believe in a hell. Conscious makes cowards of us all and makes us believe, even when we say we do not, that God must punish sin. Let me tell you a true story. I have told it before, but it is a striking one, and sets out in a true light how easily men will be brought, in times of danger, to believe in a God, and a God of justice too, though they may have denied him before. In the backwoods of Canada there lived a good minister who one evening went out to meditate. He soon found himself on the borders of a forest which he entered. and walked along a path which had been walked on before him, meditating and still meditating, until at last the shadows of twilight gathered around him, and he began to think how he might have to spend the night in the forest. All of a sudden, he saw a light in the distance, among the trees, and thinking that it might be from the window of some cottage where he might find hospitable shelter, he hurried to it. And to his surprise, he saw a space cleared in the forest and trees laid down to make a platform. And upon it, a speaker was addressing a multitude. He thought to himself, I have stumbled onto a crowd of people who in this dark forest have assembled to worship God. And some minister is preaching to them concerning the kingdom of God and his righteousness. But to his surprise and horror, When he came nearer, he found a young man speaking loudly against God, daring the Almighty to do his worst to him, speaking terrible things in anger against the justice of the Most High, and venturing most bold and awful assertions concerning his own disbelief in a future state of judgment. It was quite an extraordinary scene. It was lit up by a fire of pine which cast a glare here and there while the majority of the area was still in thick darkness. The people were intent on listening to the speaker. And when he sat down, thunders of applause and praise were given to him. The minister thought to himself, I must not let this pass. I must rise and speak. The honor of my God and his cause demands it. but he was afraid to speak, for he did not know what to say. But he would have spoken anyway had not something else occurred. A middle-aged man, vigorous and strong, rose and said, my friend, I have a word to speak to you tonight. I am not about to refute any of the arguments of the speaker. I will not criticize his style. I shall say nothing concerning what I believe to be the blasphemies he has uttered, but I will simply relate to you a fact, and after I have done that, you must draw your own conclusions. Yesterday, I walked by the side of the river over there. I saw on its waters a young man in a boat. The boat was out of control. It was moving fast towards the rapids. He could not use the oars, and I saw that he was not capable of bringing the boat to shore. I saw that young man wring his hands in agony. In a little while, he gave up the attempt to save his life. He kneeled down and cried with desperate sincerity, oh God, save my soul. If my body cannot be saved, save my soul. I heard him confess that he had been a blasphemer. I heard him vow that if his life were spared he would never blaspheme again. I heard him beg for the mercy of heaven for Jesus Christ's sake and earnestly plead that he might be washed in his blood. These arms saved that young man from the river. I dove in, brought the boat to shore, and saved his life. That same young man has just now addressed you and cursed his maker." The speaker sat down. You may guess what a shudder ran through the young man himself and how the audience in one moment changed their mind and saw that after all, While it was a fine thing to brag and boast against Almighty God when standing on dry land and when danger was not near, it was not quite so grand to speak ill of God when near the edge of the grave.

I believe there is enough conscience in every man to convince him that God must punish him for his sin. Therefore, I think that our text will awaken an echo in every heart If a man does not repent, God will sharpen his sword.

My friends, I am tired of this fearful work of endeavoring to show you that God must punish sin. Let me speak just a few declarations of his holy word, and then let me tell you how repentance is obtained.

O dear people, you may think that the fire of hell is nothing but fiction. and that the flames of the pit that lies beneath the earth's surface are but someone's dreams. But if you are believers in the Bible, you must believe that hell is real. Did not our Master reveal to us that the wicked are in agony in the fire and the fire is never extinguished?

You say, it is not a real fire. But what did Jesus mean by this when he said, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in hell? Is it not written that there is reserved for the devil and his angels dreadful torment? And do you not know that our master said, my friends, that they will go away to eternal punishment? Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels?

Yes, you say. But it is not intellectual to believe that there is a hell. It does not match with reason to believe that there is. Oh, my listener, I would like to act as if hell were real, even if there were no such place. For as a poor and pious man who believed in hell once said to a person who did not believe in hell, sir, if there is no hell, then I shall be as well off as you will be. But if there is a hell, then it will be terrible for you. But why do I need to say if, you know there is? There is not a man who has been born and educated in this land whose conscience does not know that the existence of hell is a reality.

All I need to do is to press upon your anxious consideration this thought. Do you feel that you are a fit subject for heaven now? Do you feel that God has changed your heart and renewed your nature? If not, I beg you lay hold of the thought that unless you are born again, that all that can be dreadful in the torments of the future world must inevitably be yours.

Dear listener, apply it to yourself, not to your fellow man, but to your own conscience. And may God Almighty make use of it to bring you to repentance.

Now briefly, our last point, how does a person repent? In all seriousness I say, I do not believe any man, by himself, can repent with true evangelical repentance. You ask me then, for what purpose was the sermon I have just endeavored to preach proving the necessity of repentance? Allow me to make the sermon of some purpose under God by its conclusion.

Sinner, you are so desperately set on sin that I have no hope that you will ever turn from it yourself. But listen, he who died on Calvary is exalted on high to give repentance and forgiveness of sin. Do you this morning feel that you are a sinner? If so, ask Christ to give you repentance, for he can work repentance in your heart by his Spirit, though you cannot work it there yourself. Is your heart like iron? He can put it into the furnace of His love and make it melt. Is your soul like a very hard rock? His grace is able to dissolve it like the ice that is melted before the sun. He can make you repent, though you cannot make yourself repent.

I advise you to go to your homes, and if you feel that you have sinned and yet cannot sufficiently repent of your sin, Bow your knees before God and confess your sins. Tell Him you cannot repent as you should. Tell Him your heart is hardened. Tell Him it is as cold as ice. You can do that if God has made you feel your need of a Savior.

Then if it should be laid on your heart to endeavor to seek after repentance, I will tell you the best way to find it. Spend an hour first in trying to remember your sins. And when conviction has gotten a firm hold on you, then spend another hour, where? At Calvary, my listener, at Calvary. Sit down and read that chapter which contains the history and the mystery of the God that loved and died. Sit down and think you see that glorious man with blood dripping from his hands and his feet gushing rivers of blood. And if that does not make you repent with the help of God's Spirit, then I know of nothing that can.

An old preacher once said, if you feel that you don't love God, love Him until you feel that you do. If you think you can't believe, believe Him until you feel that you believe. Keep on with that repentance. Keep on until you feel that you have repented. Acknowledge your sins, confess your guilt, and admit that God would be a just God if he should punish you forever in the fires of hell.

Oh, what I would give if one of you would be blessed by God to go home and repent. If I had worlds to buy one of your souls, I would readily give them if I might but bring one of you to Christ.

I will never forget the hour when God's mercy first looked on me. It was in a place very different from this, in a small little chapel. I went there bowed down with guilt, laden with sins. The minister walked up to the pulpit, opened his Bible, and read that precious text.

Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth, for I am God and there is no other. And as I sat there and thought, he fixed his eyes on me before he began to preach to others. And he said, young man, turn, turn, turn. You are one of the ends of the earth. You feel you are, you know your need of a savior. You are trembling because you think he will never save you. He says to you this morning, turn.

Oh, how my soul was shaken within me then. What, I thought, does that man know me and all about me? He seemed as if he did, and it made me look. Well, I thought, lost or saved, I will try. Sink or swim, I will run the risk of it. And in that moment, by his grace, I turned to Jesus. And though desponding, downcast, and ready to despair, and feeling that I would rather die than live as I had lived before, at that very moment it seemed as if a new heaven had made its birth within my soul.

I went home, no longer cast down. Those who saw me noticing the change asked me why I was so happy, and I told them that I had believed in Jesus, and that it was written, therefore there is now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus, the law of the spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.

Oh, if one such person like I was should be here this morning. Where are you, you chief of sinners, you vilest of the vile? My dear listener, you have never been in church perhaps these last 20 years, but here you are covered with your sins, the blackest and vilest of all, Listen to God's words. Come, let us now reason together, He says. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they are as red as crimson, they shall be like wool. And all of this for Jesus' sake. All this for His blood's sake. Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. For His word and His mandate is, whoever believes and is baptized will be saved. But whoever does not believe will be condemned. Sinner, turn from your sins or burn for your sins.