Divine Judgment Never Produces Repentance
Rev. 16:8-11
Don Fortner
I do not say that God
never uses providential acts of judgment to arouse, impress, subdue and humble
his elect and bring them to repentance. He often uses outward, temporal acts of
judgment to graciously bring sinners to Christ (Psa. 107:1-31; Luke 15:11-20).
But I do say that Divine judgment, in and of itself, will never produce
repentance in the heart of a man.
Many who live in
poverty, with sickness and disease, and suffer earthly hardships of every kind,
are hardened against God rather than helped by his judgments of providence. The
heart of man is so obstinate, proud and hard that even the torments of hell
will never cause the damned to repent. They gnaw their tongues for pain. But
they will not shed a tear for the cause of their pain. And if there is no
repentance in hell, where God's greatest judgments are executed, the lesser
judgments of providence certainly will not change the sinner's heart and
produce repentance. Judgment does not soften the sinner's heart, it hardens it.
Wrath will never convert a man. It is grace that saves.
Any repentance that is
produced by God's acts of providential judgment, or by
legal fear is a false repentance. Cain, Pharoah, Herod and Judas all repented
of the evil they had done, because they saw the judgment of God upon them. But
they were not saved. They all perished under the wrath of God.
Only the revelation of
Christ in the heart can produce true repentance (Zech.