Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary: Collated from his Diary by Benjamin FunkKline, John
Religion
Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary: Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk
Kline, John
Kline, John, 1797-1864
But to-night I wish to speak on just one thing that Paul said in that
sermon, and these are the words: "God commandeth all men everywhere to
repent." When we are commanded to do something, we like to know what
it is we are commanded to do. Now I will tell you. It is to repent.
But you may say, "I do not exactly know what that means." I will now
tell you about all I know of the meaning of the words repent and
repentance. The Lord Jesus knew exactly what these words mean, and I
will give you his definition. He said to the Jews: "The men of Nineveh
repented at the preaching of Jonah." Now let us turn to the book of
Jonah in the Old Testament and see what the men of Nineveh did at the
preaching of Jonah, and we will then understand what the Lord meant
when he said they _repented_. You must know what Jonah's sermon was.
It was so plain that all could understand it, and so short that all
could remember it, This is the sermon: "Yet forty days and Nineveh
shall be destroyed." The city had more than a hundred and twenty
thousand people in it; and it took Jonah three days to go from one end
to the other with his message of destruction; but at the end of the
first day "the people of Nineveh believed God; and when the word came
unto the king of Nineveh he arose from his throne, and laid his robe
from him, and put on sackcloth, and sat in ashes and said: Let man and
beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily to God; yea, let
them turn, every one from his evil way. And God saw their works, that
they turned from their evil way."
Now, notice, when God commands all men everywhere to repent, he means
for them to do what the Ninevites did, but in a more spiritually
enlightened way. They believed God. This is the first step in
repentance, as this same apostle says: "He that would come unto God
must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that
diligently seek him." The Ninevites had no written word as we have,
that gives us intelligent knowledge of God as he is revealed in the
face of his Son Jesus Christ. All they knew of him was from tradition,
and what they could see of him in his works. But they believed God,
and gave proof of it by turning from their evil way. Now, friends,
this is just what God commands all men to do. This is what he commands
every impenitent man and woman in this house to do to-night.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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