Without Repentance, Sinners Will Perish

The Scriptures tell us that God isn’t willing that any perish, but is patiently waiting for all to come to repentance:

The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9)

Without repentance, sinners will perish. Look at the fate of those who refused to repent:

But the rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons, and idols of gold, silver, brass, stone, and wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk. And they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts. (Revelation 9:20,21)

“Mercy comes when we confess and forsake our sins (repent).”

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The Scriptures say, “He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy” (Proverbs 28:13). Mercy comes when we confess and forsake our sins (repent). Jesus tells us that Heaven rejoices when a sinner obeys the command to repent: “There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:10). If there is no repentance, there is no joy because there is no salvation.

General William Booth warned that the time would come when forgiveness would be offered without repentance:

The chief danger of the 20th century will be . . . forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and Heaven without Hell.

John Wesley believed that there is no justification without repentance:

God does undoubtedly command us both to repent, and to bring forth fruits meet for repentance; which if we willingly neglect, we cannot reasonably expect to be justified at all: therefore both repentance, and fruits meet for repentance, are, in some sense, necessary to justification.5

Matthew Henry said, “If those who have lived a wicked life repent and forsake their wicked ways, they shall be saved . . .”

A.W. Pink wrote in Studies on Saving Faith:

Something more than “believing” is necessary to salvation. A heart that is steeled in rebellion against God cannot savingly believe: it must first be broken. It is written “except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3). Repentance is just as essential as faith, yea, the latter cannot be without the former: “Repented not afterward, that ye might believe” (Matt. 21:32).

Spurgeon added, “Offend or please, as God shall help me, I will preach every truth as I learn it from the Word; and I know if there be anything written in the Bible at all it is written as with a sunbeam, that God in Christ commands men to repent, and believe the gospel.”

Another argument some give for not preaching repentance is that the Gospel of John doesn’t even mention the word “repentance” once. But neither do any of the other three Gospels mention the need to be born again, nor do Mark or John mention the virgin birth.