Delaying Repentance

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In a recent conversation someone related to me a conversation she (a Christian) had with someone about Christianity. The person she was talking to told her that he was not a Christian but it was something that he would consider later in life. After relating the details of the conversation to me my friend shrugged and asked, “What do you say to that?”

This attitude—that a person can decide when they’re going to flick the switch of belief—is not new. Thomas Boston, a pastor in rural Scotland in the 18^th century, encountered it too (and many more before him). Boston preached a sermon on  “The Danger of Delaying Repentance”, based on Proverbs 6:10, 11. In the sermon Boston lists nine common reasons why people delay repentance:

1. Satan actively works to delay repentance in men and women.
2. People are distracted by the business and busyness of everyday life.
3. People love what is easy. Repentance ain’t easy, but often times it is the difficult things in life that are most valuable precisely because it was not easily gained (i.e. the kid who values the stereo he saved up to buy with his own money versus the kid who is given all sorts of new toys but has no sense of their worth). 
4. People love sin. They don’t want to repent because it would mean they have to turn away from the sin they take pleasure in. Boston says that to these people “…the parting with sin is like the cutting off of a member of the body.” Yet Jesus says that it is far better to leave sin than to enjoy it for a few fleeting years and then go to hell (Matthew 5:27–30).
5. Apart from God graciously giving us a new heart, repentance is not attractive to us. In our sin, we are not righteous, we do not know God, nor do we seek after God (Romans 3:9f).
6. People hope that repentance will be easier to do when they’re older. “When I’m older I won’t want to do x anyway, so then I’ll say I’m sorry…” But there are no guarantees that it will be easier and it is far better to give the Lord your best days—the days of your youth (Ecclesiastes 12:1)—than your tired, worn out days (though he does want those too!).
7. People assume they have a lot of life yet to live. The wonderfully advanced medicine and technology we have in the 21^st century only further this assumption; however, Jesus teaches in the parable of the rich fool that we do not know the time God has allotted to us or when we shall be required to give an account for what we’ve done (Luke 12:13–21).
8. People think too lightly of belief and repentance. Believing and repenting are thought to be easy things to be done on a whim, but Scripture says that the way of salvation is hard and not easily found (Matthew 7:14).
9. People think too highly of their own abilities. People assume they are smart enough and able enough to believe whenever they want to. Yet Scripture says that we are unable to come to God by our own strength and abilities, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John 6:44).