Jeremiah 3:10 - Homiletics

Insincere repentances.

I. REPENTANCE IS INSINCERE WHEN IT DOES NOT POSSESS THE WHOLE HEART . Judah is accused of being "false," and of turning to Jehovah "feignedly," because she did not turn "with her whole heart."

1. True repentance must be found in the heart . Mere confession with the lip without a change of feeling is a mockery ( Isaiah 29:13 ). Simple amendment of external conduct is no repentance unless it is prompted by a sincere desire to do better, by a return to the love of goodness.

2. True repentance must possess the whole heart. It is not consistent with a lingering affection for sin. The penitent must not look back regretfully, like Lot's wife, on the pleasant things he is renouncing. Repentance must be for sin, not for certain sins selected from the rest for condemnation; it means the desire to abandon all wickedness. People sometimes repent insincerely by confessing and abandoning trifling faults, while they cling to greater evils. A right repentance searches the dark depths of the soul and brings forth old buried sins, forgotten but not yet forgiven, darling bosom sins which have grown into the very life and can only be torn out from a bleeding heart, common sins which are classed among a man's habits and which he excuses to himself as being "his ways." Such repentance is no superficial emotion, no sentiment of the hour stirred in the church only to be forgotten as soon as a man re-enters his worldly associations. It must be thorough, profound, overwhelming. Yet it is not to be measured by the number of tears shed, but by its practical fruits, the solid proofs of a desire for a better life ( Luke 3:8-14 ).

II. INSINCERE REPENTANCE CANNOT BE ACCEPTED BY GOD .

1. Such repentance is inexcusable . Judah had failed to profit by the solemn lessons of her sister's sin and ruin. In face of such terrible warnings, how foolish to cling still to the old life even while pretending to turn from it!

2. Such repentance is only self-deceiving . The hypocrite would deceive God, but failing to do this he deceives himself. He is the dupe of his own design. For he imagines that his fraud will serve him some good purpose, whereas it is detected by God and frustrated from the first.

3. Such repentance is useless . Judah gains no deliverance by her feigned repentance. God is Spirit, and can only be approached in spirit ( John 4:24 ). Any other pretended return to him is no return. We do not come to God by simply entering a church, nor please him by the mechanical observance of an external service ( Isaiah 1:11-15 ). The insincere repentance is a double mistake, its trouble is all wasted, its tears all shed to no purpose, and the falsehood of it is a new offence increasing guilt before God. To turn to God only with the lip is thus not merely not to turn to him at all, it is to wander still further from him. Let us beware, therefore, of using the familiar language of confession if we are not really desiring to renounce sin and be reconciled to God. Let repentance, of all things, be true and whole-hearted.