Athens, the capital of Greece, was a large city. It was noted as the chief seat of Grecian learning, refinement of taste, cultivation of genius, and skill in the production of almost everything belonging to the fine arts. It had its philosophers, statesmen, orators, lawyers, priests, poets and painters. It had its high and low orders in society. But when Paul beheld the city his spirit was moved in him, for he saw that it was wholly given to idolatry. Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers encountered him and said: "He seemeth to be a setterforth of strange gods." They said this among themselves, because he preached unto them Jesus and the resurrection. But they did not seem inclined to do him injury as the Jews had done in some other places, but gave him a chance to speak in the Areopagus, a large building in the city called the Hill of Mars, or Mars' Hill. In this building Paul preached a wonderful sermon, the whole of which you may read in Acts seventeenth chapter.

But to-night I wish to speak on just one thing that Paul said in that sermon, and these are the words: "God commandeth all men everywhere to repent." When we are commanded to do something, we like to know what it is we are commanded to do. Now I will tell you. It is to repent. But you may say, "I do not exactly know what that means." I will now tell you about all I know of the meaning of the words repent and repentance. The Lord Jesus knew exactly what these words mean, and I will give you his definition. He said to the Jews: "The men of Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonah." Now let us turn to the book of Jonah in the Old Testament and see what the men of Nineveh did at the preaching of Jonah, and we will then understand what the Lord meant when he said they repented. You must know what Jonah's sermon was. It was so plain that all could understand it, and so short that all could remember it, This is the sermon: "Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be destroyed." The city had more than a hundred and twenty thousand people in it; and it took Jonah three days to go from one end to the other with his message of destruction; but at the end of the first day "the people of Nineveh believed God; and when the word came unto the king of Nineveh he arose from his throne, and laid his robe from him, and put on sackcloth, and sat in ashes and said: Let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily to God; yea, let them turn, every one from his evil way. And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way."

Now, notice, when God commands all men everywhere to repent, he means for them to do what the Ninevites did, but in a more spiritually enlightened way. They believed God. This is the first step in repentance, as this same apostle says: "He that would come unto God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." The Ninevites had no written word as we have, that gives us intelligent knowledge of God as he is revealed in the face of his Son Jesus Christ. All they knew of him was from tradition, and what they could see of him in his works. But they believed God, and gave proof of it by turning from their evil way. Now, friends, this is just what God commands all men to do. This is what he commands every impenitent man and woman in this house to do to-night.

But some of you may say: "I have no evil way from which to turn. I do an honest business; I lead a sober life; I am true to my marriage vows, and live a moral and orderly life generally. What lack I yet?" Let me ask you: Why do you live in this orderly and consistent way? Is it because you love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength, and your neighbor as yourself? If you can truly say that this love is the hand that leads and draws you in your good life, I say, Thank God! I have found a brother of whom I am not ashamed. But anything short of this love is short of what God requires, and you with the rest are called upon to repent. You still have a way that is evil in God's sight. That way is the love of self and the love of the world. The Pharisees were just as particular and careful in regard to their moral or outside life as you can ever be; and still the Lord said to his disciples: "Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye can in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven." Their righteousness proceeded all from the love of self and the world. Their ambition culminated in the honor, respectability, credit and wealth such a life procured for them; and on this account the Lord Jesus said of them: "Verily, they have their reward."

But our blessed Lord says again: "Except a man deny himself, and take up his cross daily, he cannot be my disciple." This means repentance. It is commendable in the eye of society of almost every grade to live a decent, orderly, virtuous life; but if this sort of life be led from any motive short of the love of God, what is said of the Pharisees must also be said of this: "Ye make clean the outside of the cup and the platter, but the inside is full of hypocrisy and deceit." Now, true repentance makes clean the inside of the cup and the platter, "that the outside may be clean also."

"Repentance is to leave

The things we dearly love;

And o'er our sins to grieve,

And seek the things above."

After meeting we go to David Beichley's, and stay fourth night.