God has created all things to enjoy and glorify Himself (Rev 4:11). He created human beings in His own image to do all for His glory (Rom 3:23; I Cor 10:31). The purpose of the salvation of human beings is to manifest the glory of God (Eph 1:5-6; 2:4-10). The enemy of God, named Satan, is not so much out to deceive people into doing obviously evil things as he is to steal the glory of God. Satan hates God and desires the glory for himself. The real battle for the souls of human beings is a battle over the glory of God. Satan wants to hide the glory of God from souls and trick them into settling for something less. II Corinthians 4 points to this with what might appear as brutal reality: “And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 4 in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (vv. 3-4). The Gospel is veiled to some, but it is Satan who has blinded them. His blinding work is so that they will “not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ.” This text does not tell us that he works in order to keep people from hearing the words of the Gospel, but of seeing the glory of the Gospel. A so-called gospel with nothing of the glory of God converting souls to love His glory is no Gospel at all.
The reason that the evil one does not want people to see the glory of the Gospel is because it is in the shining forth of that glory that souls are converted. “For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (II Cor 4:6). The God who converts souls is the God that converts them by shining Himself into their hearts and giving the Light of the knowledge of His glory. It is when God shines in their hearts that they know His glory and see that glory in the face of Christ. They see His glory in the face of Christ because Christ is the very outshining of the glory of God (Heb 1:3). We can only know the Father if we know the Son and know the Father if we know the Son. A converted soul, then, is not just a soul that believes some facts about God and then stops some external sin, but it is a soul that has the very indwelling glory of God. The converted soul is one that beholds the glory of God and is changed into the image of that glory. But it is so easy to fall short of these things. It is so easy to be deceived by the evil one who longs to fill hell with those who hate God. What follows are excerpts from two sermons by Charles Spurgeon. In these sermons he is warning us not to be deceived. We must know that Jesus meant what He said when He said that a soul must be born again to enter the kingdom (John 3:3-5) and that a soul must be converted and become like a child to enter (Mat 18:3). He really spoke reality. Since Jesus meant what He said as He spoke truth, we must examine our hearts according to the words of Jesus rather than according to our own wishes and desires. If we have only believed some facts and have made some moral changes, regardless of how long we have attended church, we have done no more than Judas did for a while. Judas followed Jesus for quite a while, but he was never converted. He even wept over his sin, but he was never converted. Esau wept over his sin, but he was never converted. This is not a game that we can smile and start over at a different point as we please. If we are not truly converted before we die, we will spend eternity under the wrath of God on our unconverted souls.
A Persuasive to Steadfastness: February 1872
Are we made partakers of Christ? Many think they are who are not. There is nothing more to be dreaded than a supposed righteousness, a counterfeit justification, a spurious hope. Better, I sometimes think, to have no religion than to have a false religion. I am quite certain that the man is much more likely to be saved who knows that he is ‘wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked’, than the man who says, ‘I am rich and increased with goods’. It is infinitely better to take the road to heaven doubting than to go in the other direction presuming. I am far more pleased with the soul that is always questioning. ‘Am I right?’ than with him who has drunk the cup of arrogance till he is intoxicated with self-conceit and says, ‘I know my lot; the lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; there is no need for self-examination in my case.’ Brethren, be assured of this; all are not partakers of Christ; all the baptized are not partakers of Christ; all churchmen are not partakers of Christ; all dissenters are not made partakers of Christ; all members of the church are not made partakers of Christ; all ministers, all elders, all bishops are not made partakers of Christ. All apostles were not made partakers of Christ. One of them, Christ’s familiar friend, who kept the little purse which held all the Master’s earthly store, lifted up his heel against him, betrayed him with a tender treacherous kiss, and became the son of perdition. He was a companion of Christ, but not a partaker of him. Am I made a partaker of Christ? Multiply the question till each individual among you makes it his own… Not every one who addresses Jesus as Lord and claims to serve him is the genuine article (Matthew 7:21-23).
REPENTANCE UNTO LIFE: SEPTEMBER 23, 1855,
There are many men who when they hear a faithful gospel sermon, are exceedingly stirred and moved by it… I have seen some men, while the truths of Scripture have been sounded from this pulpit, whose knees have knocked together, whose eyes have flowed with tears as if they had been fountains of water. I have witnessed the deep dejection of their spirit, when-as some of them have told me-they have been shaken until they knew not how to abide the sound of the voice, for it seemed like the terrible trumpet of Sinai thundering only their destruction. Well, my hearers, you may be very much disturbed under the preaching…yet you shall not have that “repentance unto life.” You may know what it is to be very seriously and very solemnly affected when you go to God’s house, and yet you may be hardened sinners.
Further still. It is quite possible that you may not only tremble before God’s Word, but you may become a sort of amiable Agrippa, and be “almost persuaded” to turn to Jesus Christ, and yet have no “repentance;” you may go further and even desire the gospel; you may say: “Oh! this gospel is such a goodly thing I would I had it. It ensures so much happiness here, and so much joy hereafter, I wish I might call it mine.” Oh! it is good, thus to hear this voice of God! …you may say, “I think it is true;” but it must enter the heart before you can repent. You may even go upon your knees in prayer and you may ask with a terrified lip that this may be blessed to your soul and after all you may be no child of God. You may say as Agrippa said unto Paul, “Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian;” yet, like Agrippa, you may never proceed beyond the “almost.”… Now, how many of you here have been; almost persuaded” and yet you are not really in the way of eternal life. How often has conviction brought you on your knees and you have “almost” repented, but you have remained there, without actually repenting. See that corpse? It is lately dead…the color is still life-like. Its hand is still warm; you may fancy it is alive, and it seems almost to breathe. Every thing is there-the worm hath scarcely touched it dissolution hath scarcely approached; there is no foeted smell [foul odor]-yet life is gone; life is not there. So it is with you: you are almost alive; you have almost every external organ of religion which the Christian has; but you have not life. You may have repentance, but not sincere repentance. O hypocrite! I warn you this morning, you may not only tremble but feel a complacency towards the Word of God, and yet after all not have “repentance unto life.” You may sink down into the pit that is bottomless, and hear it said, “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil.”
Yet, again, it is possible for men …to humble themselves under the hand of God, and yet they may be total strangers to repentance. Their goodness is not like the morning cloud and the early dew that passeth away, but when the sermon is heard they go home and commence what they conceive to be the work of repentance, they renounce certain vices and follies, they clothe themselves in sack-cloth, their tears flow very freely on account of what they have done; they weep before God; and yet with all that, their repentance is but a temporary repentance, and they go back to their sins again. It is possible that you may confess your sins, and yet may not repent. You may approach God, and tell him you are a wretch indeed; you may enumerate a long list of your transgressions and of the sins that you have committed, without a sense of the heniousness of your guilt, without a spark of real hatred of your deeds. You may confess and acknowledge your transgressions, and yet have no abhorrence of sin; and if you do not in the strength of God resist sin, if you do not turn from it, this fancied repentance shall be but the guilding which displays the paint which decorates; it is not the grace which transforms into gold, which will abide the fire. You may even, I say confess your faults, and yet have not repentance. You may do some work meet for repentance, and yet you may be impenitent… Judas betrayed his Master; and after having done so, an overwhelming sense of the enormous evil he had committed seized upon him. His guilt buried all hope of repentance, and in the misery of desperation, not the grief of true regret, he confessed his sin to the high priests, crying, “I have sinned, in that I have betrayed innocent blood.”…Whereupon he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple…left them there. He went out, and was he saved? No. “He went out and hanged himself.” And even then the vengeance of God followed him: for when he had hanged himself he fell from the height where he was suspended, and was dashed to pieces; he was lost, and his soul perished. Yet see what this man did. He had sinned, he confessed his wrong, he returned the gold; still after all that, he was a castaway. Does not this make us tremble? You see how possible it is to be the ape of the Christian so nearly, that wisdom itself, if it be only mortal, may be deceived.
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