Impenitence

When the claims of God are revealed to the mind, it must necessarily yield to them, or strengthen itself in sin. It must, as it were, gird itself up, and struggle to resist the claims of duty. This strengthening self in sin under light is the particular form of sin which we call impenitence. ~ Charles Grandison Finney

Impenitence is the characteristic of being impenitent, of not being regretful of wrongs done.

Quotes

• When the claims of God are revealed to the mind, it must necessarily yield to them, or strengthen itself in sin. It must, as it were, gird itself up, and struggle to resist the claims of duty. This strengthening self in sin under light is the particular form of sin which we call impenitence.
  • Charles Grandison Finney, Lectures on Systematic Theology (1878), p. 369

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).

• It is not sin that kills the soul, but impenitence.
  • Bishop Hall, p. 339.

• He that has no present Christ has a future, dark, chaotic, heaving with its destructive ocean; and over it there goes forever— black-pinioned, winging its solitary and hopeless flight, the raven of his anxious thoughts, and finds no place to rest, and comes back again to the desolate ark with its foreboding croak of evil in the present and evil in the future.
  • Alexander Maclaren, p. 340.

• Oh, prodigal, you may be wandering on the dark mountains of sin, but God wants you to come home. The devil has been telling you lies about God; you think He will not receive you back. I tell you, He will welcome you this minute if you will come. Say, " I will arise and go to my Father."
  • Dwight L. Moody, p. 340.

• You admit there is a God; yet you offer Him no homage; you never worship Him. You admit that you are a sinner; yet you exercise no repentance; you make no effort to become holy; you make no use of the means to secure pardon, and to avoid the wrath to come. You admit that you can be saved only by the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ; yet you are not seeking to obtain an interest in His blood. You profess to believe that there is a heaven; yet you are making no efforts to secure it; a hell, yet you make no efforts to avoid it.
  • Albert Barnes, p. 340.

• Ye will not pray; ye will not shun temptation; ye will not renounce known sin; ye will not fight against evil habits! Are ye stronger than God? Can ye contend with the Eternal One? Have ye the nerve which shall not tremble, and the flesh which shall not quiver, and the soul which shall not quail, when the sheet of fire is round the globe, and thousand times ten thousand angels line the sky, and call to judgment?
  • Henry Melvill, p. 340.

• We pray for those who have ceased to pray. We pray for those that need prayer more than ever, that have fewer and fewer seasons even of thought, that grow hard with years, that are less and less troubled by sin, and that are more and more irreverent of religion. We pray for the children of Christian parents who sometimes weep at the memory of father and mother, but who never have thought of God.
  • Henry Ward Beecher, p. 341.

• Staying where you now are, you must perish; coming to Christ, you can but perish; coming to Christ, no one ever did perish; while you sit still and starve, there is bread enough and to spare in your Father's house. Will you return?
  • Samuel I. Prime, p. 341.

• He that forgets his friend is ungrateful to him, but he that forgets the Saviour is unmerciful to himself.
  • John Bunyan, p. 341.

• There is a test point about you somewhere. Perhaps it is pride; you cannot bear an affront; you will not confess a fault. Perhaps it is personal vanity, ready to sacrifice every thing to display. Perhaps it is a sharp tongue. Perhaps it is some sensual appetite, bent on its unclean gratification. Then you are to gather up your moral forces just here, and, till that darling sin is brought under the practical law of Christ, you are shut out of Christ's kingdom.
  • Frederic Dan Huntington, p. 341.

• God calls you — alike by Scripture, by your reason, by your conscience, by the events of His providence, by heavenly influences— to consecrate all you have to His service and the good of man; Heaven appeals to you, and the world appeals to you, not to live in vain.
  • Albert Barnes, p. 342.

• Be reconciled to God. Distinctly and deliberately devote yourself to His service. Lead a life of daily devotion. Renounce besetting sins. Make the Lord's service your study.
  • James Hamilton, p. 342.

• God is summoning you. Angels are summoning you. The myriads who have gone before are summoning you. We are surrounded by a "great cloud of witnesses." The battlements of the sky seem thronged with those who have fought the good fight of faith. They bend down from the eminence, and bid us ascend, through the one Mediator, to the same lofty dwelling.
  • Henry Melvill, p. 342.

• Thirsty, weary, dissatisfied in this sultry life, come as you are; come at once; come because you are invited; as you would not do affront to infinite Generosity, come, and drink, and live forever.
  • William Adams, p. 342.

• Time flies, death urges, knells call, heaven invites, hell threatens!
  • Edward Young, p. 342.

• I bring you to the dead body of Christ. I ask you to look at the wounds in His hands and feet, and the wound in His side. And I ask you, " Will you not be reconciled? "
  • Dwight L. Moody, p. 342.

• Go to Jesus, O sinner, this day, this moment, with all thy sins about thee. Go just as thou art, for if thou wilt never apply to Him till thou art first righteous and holy, thou wilt never be righteous and holy at all.
  • Philip Doddridge, p. 343.

• Ah, sinner, may the Lord quicken thee! But it is a work that makes the Saviour weep. I think when He comes to call some of you from your death in sin, He comes weeping and sighing for you. There is a stone that is to be rolled away — your bad and evil habits — and when that stone is taken away, a still small voice will not do for you; it must be the loud crashing voice, like the voice of the Lord which breaketh the cedars of Lebanon.
  • Charles Spurgeon, p. 343.

• Sinner, listen now. Christ knocks again. Here, in the hush of this still hour, He waits to be received and welcomed. Peace like a river, joy such as angels do not know, hopeful of an ever-brightening and evermore blessed immortality — all heavenly benedictions would be thine—"if thou knewest the gift of God."
  • Herrick Johnson, p. 343.

• There the patient hand still knocketh,
  And with every patient watching,
  With the sad eyes true and tender,
  With the glory-crowned hair,—
  Still a God is waiting there.
  • Mrs. H. B. Stowe, p. 343.

• It is a very solemn thought that God will excuse you if you want to be excused. He does not wish to do it, but He will do it
  • Dwight L. Moody, p. 343.

• A brother in the Lord could never get a young lady to think about eternity until he quoted this text: "The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God." That word forget seemed to haunt her. May it haunt you, dear reader.
  • William Paton Mackay, p. 344.

• Let no time be spent in arguments. I believe that is a work of the devil, to take off attention, and cause delay. If a man comes to argue, we should go down on our knees, pray with him, and then let him go.
  • Dwight L. Moody, p. 344.

See also

• Penance
• Repentance

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