A Spur to Repentance

It is better to go with difficulty to heaven, than with ease to hell. We should repent now, that we have sinned so much and wept so little, that God's bag has been so full and His bottle so empty (Job 14:17). We should repent now that we repented no sooner. We should repent now that we have loved Christ no more, that we have fetched no more virtue from him and brought no more glory to him. It should be our grief on our death-bed that our lives have had so many blanks and blots in them, that our duties have been so fly-blown with sin, that our obedience has been so imperfect, and we have gone so lame in the ways of God.

Many are now in hell that purposed to repent. Satan does what he can to keep men from repentance. When he sees that they begin to take up serious thoughts of reformation, he bids them wait a little longer...
It is dangerous to procrastinate repentance because the longer any go on in sin the harder they will find the work of repentance. Delay strengthens sin and hardens the heart and gives the devil fuller possession...
Certain people conceive it an easy thing to repent, but a belief in the easiness of repentance is a great hindrance to it. This opinion makes a person bold in sin. When a man thinks he can lash out in sin as far as he wishes and then with ease pull himself back to repentance when he pleases, this emboldens him to more wickedness...
Delighting in sin hardens the heart. In true repentance there must be a grieving for sin, but how can one grieve for that which he loves? He who delights in sin can hardly pray against it. His heart is so inveigled with sin that he is afraid of leaving it too soon. Indeed, if prayer does not make a man leave sin, will make him leave prayer...
O dreadful day, when Jesus Christ, clothed in his judge's robe, shall say to the sinner, 'Stand forth; answer to the indictment brought against you. What can you say for all your oaths, adulteries, and your desperate wickedness?'
O how amazed and stricken that sinner will be! And after his conviction he must hear the sad sentence, 'Depart from me you workers of lawlessness, I never knew you!'
What a spur to repentance this should be! ~Thomas Watson