In Matthew xv. 25: “Then came she, and worshiped Him, saying, Lord, help me!”
There are many other passages; but I give these as sufficient in my opinion to prove beyond any doubt the Divinity of our Lord.
In the 14th chapter of Acts we are told the heathen at Lystra came with garlands and would have done sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas because they had cured an impotent man; but the evangelists rent their clothes and told these Lystrans that they were but men, and not to be worshipped; as if it were a great sin. And if Jesus Christ is a mere man, we are all guilty of a great sin in worshipping Him.
But if He is, as we believe, the only-begotten and well-beloved Son of God, let us yield to His claims upon us; let us rest on His all-atoning work, and go forth to serve Him all the days of our life.
[CHAPTER VI.]
REPENTANCE AND RESTITUTION.
“God commandeth all men everywhere to repent.”—Acts xvii. 30.
Repentance is one of the fundamental doctrines of the Bible. Yet I believe it is one of those truths that many people little understand at the present day. There are more people to-day in the mist and darkness about Repentance, Regeneration, the Atonement, and such-like fundamental truths, than perhaps on any other doctrines. Yet from our earliest years we have heard about them. If I were to ask for a definition of Repentance, a great many would give a very strange and false idea of it.
A man is not prepared to believe or to receive the Gospel, unless he is ready to repent of his sins and turn from them. Until John the Baptist met Christ, he had but one text, “Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. iii. 2). But if he had continued to say this, and had stopped there without pointing the people to Christ the Lamb of God, he would not have accomplished much.
When Christ came, He took up the same wilderness cry, “Repent; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. iv. 17). And when our Lord sent out His disciples, it was with the same message, “that men should repent” (Mark vi. 12). After He had been glorified, and when the Holy Ghost came down, we find Peter on the day of Pentecost raising the same cry, “Repent!” It was this preaching—Repent, and believe the Gospel—that wrought such marvellous results then. (Acts ii. 38-47). And we find that, when Paul went to Athens, he uttered the same cry, “Now God commandeth all men, everywhere, to repent” (Acts xvii. 30).