I. Men commonly think a sin to be cancelled when it is done and over; or, in other words, that amendment is an expiation. They do not take the trouble to repent. Regret, vexation, sorrow, such feelings seem to this busy, practical, unspiritual generation as idle; as something despicable and unmanly, just as tears may be. They areunbelieving, they areirrational, if they are nothing more than remorse, gloom, and despondency. Such is "the sorrow of the world," which "worketh death." Yet there is a "godly sorrow" also; a positive sorrowing for sin, and a deprecation of its consequences, and that quite distinct from faith or amendment; and this, so far from being a barren sorrow, worketh, as the Apostle assures us, "repentance to salvation, not to be repented of."
II. When Christians have gone wrong in any way, whether in belief or in practice, scandalously or secretly, it seems that pardon is not explicitly, definitely, promised them in Scripture as a matter of course; and the mere fact that they afterwards become better men, and are restored to God's favour, does not decide the question whether they are in every sense pardoned; for David was restored, and yet was afterwards punished. It is still a question whether a debt is not standing against them for their past sins, and is not now operating, or to operate, to their disadvantage. What the payment consists in, and how it will be exacted, is quite another question, and a hidden one. God may spare us, He may punish. In either case, however, our duty is to surrender ourselves into His hands, that He may do what He will.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermons,vol. iv., p. 94.
References: Micah 7:8. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. v., p. 32; J. Keble, Sermons from Easter to Ascension Day,p. 220. Micah 7:9. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. xi., p. 210; J. H. Evans, Thursday Penny Pulpit,vol. ii., p. 145.Micah 7:18. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. ii., p. 259; H. W. Beecher, Sermons,1870, p. 489. Micah 7:18-20. G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons,p. 169. Micah 7:19. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxvii., No. 1577.