16. The last motive to repentance is that the Day of Judgment is coming
A hard heart is the worst heart. It is called a heart of stone (Eze 36.26). If it were iron, it might be mollified in the furnace; but a stone put in the fire will not melt; it will likely fly in your face.
Impenitence is a sin that grieves Christ: "being grieved for the hardness of their hearts" (Mar 3.5). It is not so much the disease that offends the physician as the contempt of his medicine. It is not so much the sins we have committed that so provoke and grieve Christ, as that we refuse the medicine of repentance which he prescribes.
This aggravated Jezebel's sin: "I gave her space to repent, and she did not repent" (Rev 2.21). A hard heart receives no impression. It is untuned for every duty. It was a sad speech Stephen Gardiner
uttered on his deathbed: "I have denied my Master with Peter, but I cannot repent with Peter." Oh the plague of an obdurate heart!
Pharaoh's heart turned into stone was worse than his waters turned into blood. David had his choice of three judgments: plague, sword, and famine; but he would have chosen them all rather than a hard heart. An impenitent sinner is neither allured by entreaties nor frightened by menaces. Those who will not weep with Peter will weep like Judas. A hard heart is the anvil on which the hammer of God's justice will strike to all eternity.
16. The last motive to repentance is that the Day of Judgment is coming This is the apostle's own argument: "God commands all men everywhere to repent; because he has appointed a day in which he will judge the world" (Act 17.3031). The Day of Judgment has what may make a stony heart bleed. Will a man go on thieving when the courts are near? Will the sinner go on sinning when the Day of Judgment is so near? You can no more conceal your sin than you can defend it. And what will you do when all your sins are written in God's book and engraved on your forehead? O direful day, when
Jesus Christ, clothed in his judge's robe, says to the sinner, "Stand forward; answer to the indictment brought against you. What can you say for all your oaths, adulteries, and your desperate impenitence?" O how amazed and stricken with consternation the sinner will be! And after his conviction he must hear the sad sentence, "Depart from me!" Then, the one who would not repent of his sins will repent of his folly. If such a time is coming, in which God judges men for their impieties, then what an incentive this should be
to repentance! For the penitent soul at the last day will lift up his head with comfort, and have his discharge papers, signed in the Judge's own hand.