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Moses is here dealing with the signs of "repentance," which begin in the humiliation of the heart, and end in the reformation of the life. In the New Testament there two words translated by our English word "repentance": one of them conveys specially the notion of changing one's mind as to things — seeing things in a different light, and then shaping one's conduct accordingly. But it is necessary for us to distinguish even between sorrow for sin and repentance. Sorrow has two results; it may end in spiritual life or in spiritual death; and, in themselves, one of these is as natural as the other. Sorrow may produce two kinds of reformation — a transient or a permanent one. Sorrow is in itself, therefore, a thing neither good nor bad; its value depends on the spirit of the person on whom it falls. Fire will inflame straw, soften iron, or harden clay; its effects are determined by the object with which it comes in contact. Warmth develops the energies of life, or helps the progress of decay. It is a great power in the hothouse, a great power also in the coffin; it expands the leaf, matures the fruit, adds precocious vigour to vegetable life; and warmth, too, develops with tenfold rapidity the weltering process of dissolution. So too with sorrow. There are spirits in which it develops the seminal principle of life; there are others in which it prematurely hastens the consummation of irreparable decay. Repentance is a state of mind and heart, but it may be merely a cherished sentiment, in which, as a mere sentiment, the man hopes to find his satisfaction. Such repentance is, and it always must be, ineffective. It is self-centred; it is disguised pride. By its fruits you must know it. The repentance that does nothing is nothing. This is our constant difficulty — men are perpetually trying to sever sentiment from con-duet. They want to keep the two spheres separate, and hope to be right towards God in heart, and to do what they like in their life. This self-delusion God's Word persistently resists. Religion cannot keep only in the heart sphere. It must come out and show itself in the life. It will be white and frail as a plant growing in a dungeon if it be kept wholly within. Every element of the religious life must act, must speak. Shut it up and it will fade away. And now let us see if we can trace the stages of the Divine dealing still, with individuals, in Moses' foreshadowings of God's dealings with His people Israel.

1. God's will, as He has been pleased to reveal it, controls heart and conduct; and enables each man to judge and appraise himself. When Job came into the full sense of God, what could he do but exclaim, "I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes."

2. Man's self-will, resisting the Divine will, brings man into sin. Pollok pictures, in his poem, the misery of lost souls as this, that they see the words wherever they turn, "Ye knew your duty, and ye did it not." That is sin.

3. Sinful man comes under Divine discipline, which may take the ordinary forms of the natural consequences of transgression, or which may be special afflictive Divine dispensations. The prodigal son only came into the sufferings and humiliations that always follow a life of vice.

4. The aim sought to be reached by Divine discipline is the conviction of sin, self-humiliation on account of sin, and the earnest desire to recover from sin. The sufferings following sin may bring remorse, but that is no holy feeling. God would work the godly sorrow of repentance. Remorse keeps a man away from God, hugging to himself his bitterness. Repentance leads a man to God, dissolves him in the tears of confession, and yet kindles a new hope in the soul. And now —

5. We come to the point of our text. When a penitent comes back to God, He looks for the signs of the penitence. He finds them partly in that very return to seek His forgiveness; but He looks for it also in the steadfast endeavour of the penitent henceforth to obey.

(The Weekly Pulpit.)

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KJV: And shalt return unto the LORD thy God, and shalt obey his voice according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thine heart, and with all thy soul;

WEB: and shall return to Yahweh your God, and shall obey his voice according to all that I command you this day, you and your children, with all your heart, and with all your soul;