The Rarity of Repentance

An epitaph in a Spanish evangelical church to Percy Buffard, the Englishman who founded the Spanish Gospel Mission 100 years ago, quotes Malachi 2:6. This reads: “True instruction was in his mouth, and no wrong was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity” (ESV). To say that a man not only introduced people to Christ but “turned” them “from iniquity” is quite striking. I have found that it is one thing for people to turn to Christ and quite another for them to turn away from old, bad attitudes and habits of mind.

Puritan author Thomas Watson once wrote, “Greater power is put forth in conversion than in creation. When God made the world, he met with no opposition; as he had nothing to help him, so he had nothing to hinder him; but when he converts a sinner, he meets with opposition. Satan opposes him, and the heart opposes him; a sinner is angry with converting grace. The world was ‘the work of God’s fingers’. Psalm 8:3. Conversion is ‘the work of God’s arm’. Luke 1:51. In the creation, God wrought but one miracle, he spake the word; but, in conversion, he works many miracles; the blind is made to see, the dead is raised, the deaf hears the voice of the Son of God. Oh the infinite power of Jehovah!”

I say a hearty Amen. For someone to be a new creation in Christ is an even greater wonder than the original creation. It is often maintained that there are more connections in the human brain than there are particles in the visible universe. To get through all those trillions of connections, fundamentally to change the mindset of a human person, seems a tall order indeed. Yet God did it in the Lord Jesus Christ, He still does it today, and He uses many remarkable people as His agents in this precious work.

Even so, there is today a great deal of self-deception around the whole area of conversion. A person may claim to have had a converting experience and even be able to point to the date. Yet the bad side of his or her old life continues to flourish unchecked. There is the semblance of conversion but no repentance. The person has not turned from iniquity. Maybe there is no godly leader around to point out to that person, courteously and humbly, that his or her attitude and way of life does not match up to their claim of conversion.

If there was ever a man whose whole outlook on life encouraged people to turn from iniquity, it was Percy Buffard. Born in the late 1800’s in modest circumstances in England, he was headed for a professional career but developed a passion for evangelising Spain. On visiting there he found a prevailing church riddled with worldliness and superstition. After determined and patient work selling Bibles and Christian literature, and setting up a health care ministry, he was able to assemble groups of people and instruct them in God’s word. He made a particular study of Colossians, the letter of Paul which sets out the great aim of that apostle: “Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ” (Colossians 1:28 ESV).

To this day the churches of the Spanish Gospel Mission are earnest in instructing their people about the gospel and the impact it should have on a man’s or a woman’s lifestyle, a credit to the founder under God.

Thank God for Christian leaders of vision and principle who do not merely notch up a tally of conversions. Their heart is to see their audiences depart from iniquity and become fully mature in Christ.