God Loves… Himself

As we continue on with conversion, it is useful to note again the necessity of the work of God in the conversion of the soul. A soul that is dead cannot make itself alive; He who is life itself must give that soul life. A soul that hates God and has a strong aversion to holiness and true love cannot just make a choice to love holiness. This takes the work of a God who is love and holy, holy, holy to work this in a soul. The soul that has a deformed image cannot transform that image to be created like God from its own power, but instead the God of all power can alone take a soul and convert it to be like Himself. The soul that hates the glory of God cannot just decide to love the beams of glory that shine forth from God in Christ. The soul must undergo a complete transformation and be converted in order to become an instrument to receive the glory of God and out of love shine forth that glory. In looking at some of the pictures that Scripture gives it speaks of the soul as having an eye. Of course the soul does not have a literal, physical eye, but the Scripture gives us this in order to communicate some very important teachings.

Scripture speaks of the eye of the soul being the lamp of the soul. “The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” (Matthew 6:22-23). What the eye looks at the body is full of because the body receives what the eye looks at. When the eye itself is bad, it receives is darkness. When darkness is thought to be light, there is a great darkness in the soul. If the eye pictures the understanding of the soul, then the unconverted soul can receive no understanding but darkness though it is very religious. The understanding of the soul is necessary to spiritual life and light. If it is only darkness in its fallen state, then all it understands and receives is nothing but darkness. The soul that has nothing but darkness in its understanding and receives nothing but darkness into the understanding is a soul that must be converted or it is nothing but darkness.

The eye lamp of the soul (the eye) is either humble or proud. Scripture teaches us that God hates haughty eyes. Proverbs 21:4 tells us this: “Haughty eyes and a proud heart, The lamp of the wicked, is sin.” The eye that is guided by pride is not changed by a decision, but instead can only be changed by the converting actions of the living God in changing a soul from darkness to light. Proverbs 6:16 tells us what things the LORD hates: “There are six things which the LORD hates, Yes, seven which are an abomination to Him.” Then verse 17 tells us what those things are: “Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, And hands that shed innocent blood.” Note that haughty eyes is on this list as one of those things. Proverbs 21:4 (given above) connects haughty eyes with a proud heart. There can be no haughty eyes without a proud heart and if one has a proud heart one will have haughty eyes. These things are the lamp of the wicked. These are the guides of the unconverted person and that is to be in great darkness.

Let us look at Matthew 6 again. “The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” (Matthew 6:22-23). This is a verse that should chill us to the depths of our souls. The Pharisees were very religious and very moral in the externals, yet their eyes were bad and they were full of darkness. Here we had, at least in terms of profession and externals, the most religious people of their day. Yet these words were spoken by Jesus in the context of having a righteousness that surpassed that of the Pharisees (Mat 5:20, the Sermon on the Mount). It matters not how religious a person is or can be or even how religious they will become, but a person must be converted so that they have an understanding of light. If a soul is never turned from being darkness, it will never even see the light despite all of its religion, morality, and even ministry.

Ephesians 4:18 speaks of “being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart.” These people (the unconverted) are excluded from the life of God because of this ignorance that is in them that comes from being darkened in their understanding. If eternal life is to know God as John 17:3 tells us, then a darkened understanding will exclude one from the life of God. A darkened understanding is one that has pride and haughty eyes as its light rather than Christ Himself. A heart that does not have the life of God is a heart that is full of darkness and is being given over to more and more to a hardened heart. This is a heart that does not need to be better, but to be totally converted.

Romans 1 shows us how this hardness of heart works: “For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures” (vv. 21-23). The heart has some aspect of information about God in it by reason of the fact that God has created it as one that bears His image in some ways. But the dark soul does not want the honor of God but instead wants the honor for itself. So this is a heart that is given over to futile speculation. While those speculations may come from brilliant men, they are nothing but the speculations of darkened hearts and that leads to more darkness. This futility in their speculations leads them even farther down the path: “And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper” (Romans 1:28). A sinful life is the demonstration of a heart that has not acknowledged God and has been given over to a depraved mind.

What we see, then, is that the understanding of a soul that is blinded by its own haughty eyes and pride is a soul that is descending in its darkness. It is the wisdom of God to hide Himself from the wisdom of men. “For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God.” The world sees the Gospel of the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ as utter foolishness. Even worse, in their 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” (2 Cor 4:4). The devil is at work to blind the minds (eye of the soul) of the unbelieving because he does not want them to see the light of the Gospel. The eye that is darkness and fills the soul with more and more darkness will stay that way if the devil blocks the light. But God can overwhelm the devil and bring the light of His glory to a soul. “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” (2 Cor 4:6).

Ephesians 4:23 tells us something of how this works. “That you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, 24 and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.” The spirit of the mind must be made new in conversion. The old self must be put aside and the new self be created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. But this can only be done by God. It is God alone who can do this work of creation. As Ephesians 2:10 puts it: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” The new soul is the direct work of the living God in giving it a new eye and a new understanding. This new soul is now light in the Lord. “For you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord” (Ephesians 5:8). The soul that used to be all darkness has been changed by the light of the knowledge of the glory of God who has made it a new creature that is now light.

The mind of the unnatural man’s mind is darkness and ignorance. Christ is the light and it takes the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ to be saved (II Cor 4:6). Christ is the light but it takes the work of the Spirit to illuminate the light or for us to be able to see the light. The mind must be converted in order for the eye to be full of light and then for the body to be full of light. The mind must be converted or the light that the eye sees will be nothing but darkness. Religious people will be religious but will not see the light of the glory of God apart from a converted mind. Nice people will be nice but will not see what true love is until they have converted minds. For a soul to be converted the aspects of the soul must also be converted. An intellectual understanding of the Bible and of many issues of Christianity can be attained to by the natural man and the natural mind, but to have a spiritual understanding of these things a mind must be converted.

We must begin to understand salvation in terms of conversion. Men, women, and children are dead in their trespasses and sins. They have hearts full of darkness and eyes that are bad and so see nothing but darkness. Paul, in recounting his conversion and then call to Agrippa, said this: “to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me” (Acts 26:18). This is what Paul was called to. He was not called to talk people into praying or making decisions, but to be an instrument of the Gospel which opens eyes and turns from darkness to light. A soul is not saved until it has had its eyes opened and it has been turned from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan (darkness) to God (Light). Until a proud heart is humbled, it will be in the darkness of the devil and pride. It must be broken from living in the lamp of its own haughty eyes and pride in order that it may deny self and follow Christ. For true conversion the understanding must be converted as well. The eye of the soul must be able to see and receive light for the soul to be light in the Lord. It is pride that holds the soul in the grip of the darkness of self and pride. That bondage must be broken by the light of the knowledge of His glory in order that it may know Him which is eternal life.

In the last newsletter we began to look at the purpose for conversion in terms of what God purposes or intends by converting sinners. Conversion is clearly the work of God alone and He only converts sinners by His grace and according to His eternal purposes. So many errors arise when we look at conversion from man-centered or man-focused way. Man desires to be free from hell and have a good life. So if a person says a prayer and seems to be blessed of God, that person will think that s/he is converted. It does not take much to get some people to say a prayer and then to lead something of an externally moral life. When they think of themselves as being blessed of God both now and in eternity, it is easy for them to think of themselves as saved or converted. But if we try to understand conversion as the work of God and its purpose being assigned to it by God, then everything changes.

In the last newsletter one aspect of glorifying God was mentioned that will be the focus of this newsletter. The Bible is clear that we are to live to the glory of God which means that we are to do all to the glory of God. But what is not so clear in our day is the meaning of that. If we think of doing something to His glory and all we mean by that is that we mention His name in what we do, then that is quite easy. If we mean by that we do things in order to make God look good (though we may state it differently), then as long as we do things that we think make God look good we are doing fine. If by that we mean that what we do honors God, then what we do that we think honors Him makes us think we am fulfilling the command quite well. But the problem is that none of those things really make sense in light of Scripture as a whole. It is true that at times we think of God being glorified when someone does something that honors Him, but that is not the pinnacle of partaking in His holiness. How we perceive or understand this has massive ramifications for the Gospel, worship and for daily life.

In the last newsletter I wrote this: “We must not imagine that human beings can glorify God by their own strength and wisdom. We think that we can do things to glorify Him, but we can’t. We may think we glorify God if we are moral and do religious things, but that is the creed of the Pharisees. We must begin to understand that God’s glory belongs to God alone. In the past the glory of God was spoken of as ad intra and then ad extra.” The following quotes are aimed at trying to understand these things more.

“When He is said to seek His own glory, it is, indeed, nothing else but to ray and beam forth, as it were, His own lustre…God does then most glorify and exalt Himself in the most triumphant way that may be, ad extra, or out of Himself, if I may so phrase it, when He most of all communicates Himself, and when He erects such monuments of His own majesty, wherein His own love and goodness may live and reign. And we then most of all glorify Him, when we partake most of Him; when our serious endeavours after a true assimilation to Him, and conformity to His image…The Divine love, according to those degrees by which it works upon the souls of men, in transforming them into its own likeness, by the same renders them more acceptable to itself, mingleth itself with, and uniteth itself to, them.” (John Smith, Select Discourses).

“We cannot see Divine things but in a Divine light; God only, who is the true light, and in whom there is no darkness at all, can so shine out of Himself upon our glassy understandings, as to beget in them a picture of Himself, His own will and pleasure, and turn the soul, as the phrase is, like wax or clay to the seal of His own light and love…Many are apt to misapprehend the notion of God’s glory, and flatter themselves with their pretended and imaginary aiming at the glory of God…A man does not direct all his actions to the glory of God by forming a conception in his mind, or stirring up a strong imagination upon any action, that that must be for the glory of God; it is not the thinking of God’s glory that is glorifying of Him…We rather glorify God by entertaining the impressions of His glory upon us, rather than by communicating any kind of glory to Him… It is His own internal glory that He most loves, and the communication thereof which He seeks… Though God cannot seek His own glory as if He might acquire any addition to Himself, yet He may seek it so as to communicate it out of Himself…As God’s seeking His own glory in respect of us, is must properly the flowing forth of His goodness upon us; so our seeking the glory of God is most properly our endeavouring after a participation of His goodness, and an earnest incessant pursuing after Divine perfection…God seeks no glory but His own; and we have none of our own to give Him…Salvation is nothing else but a true participation of the Divine nature.” (John Smith, Select Discourses).

Isaiah 42:8 might point to a problem: “I am the LORD, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another” However, God’s not giving His glory to another is different than His shining out in sinners and making them partakers of His glory. It is still His glory. Conversion is not a person making a change and then working to make God look good, but it is God making the soul a partaker of His Divine glory. We partake as God shines out of Himself into us continually and the sinner becomes like God as s/he is transformed by that glory (II Cor 3:18). God is not giving the sinner something that becomes his or hers, but He is sharing Himself in such a way that the sinner becomes like Him more and more. But the glory is always His. Thus we can see how it is that God opposes the proud and yet gives grace to the humble. The proud want to use the things of God for their own glory and welfare so God does not share Himself with them. The humble see and know that they are to be emptied of self and so receive all from Him and that it is His glory that is shining through them. The glory of God, then, shines in and through these people and He delights Himself and His own glory as it transforms them and shines through them.

“So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, 18 being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; 19 and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. 20 But you did not learn Christ in this way, 21 if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught in Him, just as truth is in Jesus, 22 that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, 23 and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, 24 and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth” (Ephesians 4:17-24).

The text above also points us to many things about conversion. Unbelief is to live in the futility of a mind that is darkened and excluded from the life of God. Unbelief has to do with ignorance and hardness of heart which leads to sensuality. But learning Christ (not just doctrine, but to know Him in the depths of the soul) is to lay aside the of the old self and to put on the new self. The new self has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth. The new self is created in God or in the likeness of God. This is what John Smith (from above) is referring to when he speaks of a Divine light that begets a picture of Himself. In other words, conversion is not just some mechanical operation that God does upon the soul, but it is the activity of God that takes sinful creatures and makes them like Himself. In the Trinity God shines out the Lord Christ Jesus which is the shining forth of His glory (John 1:14-18; Heb 1:1-3). This is simply how the triune God functions. When God shines out in a sinner’s soul, He shines out in Christ and that glory is a creating glory which takes a sinner and transforms him or her. It is that glory that takes a person and transforms him or her to be like Him from one degree of glory to another (II Cor 3:18).

God is perfectly holy and perfectly beautiful. His great love is within the Trinity and He cannot love another unless it is out of love for Himself. When He sets His love on a sinner, He gives that sinner what is best and that is Himself. But to do that He must change the sinner from the inside out which is conversion. He must change sinners so that they can receive the shining forth of His glory and be changed to where they love His glory and desire that glory to shine forth from them. He must change their minds, their hearts, their loves, and therefore their wills. God’s purpose in saving sinners is to manifest the glory of His grace (Eph 1:5-6; 2:4-10). He does not save them just so they can escape hell, but in order that they would manifest the glory of His grace for eternity. But we must also remember that believers are temples of the glory of God now. When the Bible tells us that we are saved to the glory of His grace, this is not to be understood as meaning that we are inactive. It means that we are now to be those that have the glory of God dwelling in us and that glory is to change us and then shine through us.

As John Smith said, “God seeks no glory but His own; and we have none of our own to give Him.” For a sinner to glorify God it is God that must seek His glory through that person. It is God that changes the sinner to see and love His glory. It means that the sinner is a dwelling place of that glory. It means that the sinner does not seek his or her own way, but the life that they now have (Christ, the glory of God) lives in them and makes them partakers of His glory. As they behold His glory they are changed more and more to become like Him and to partake of the Divine glory. It is then that His glory shines out through them because it really is His glory shining through them. It is always His glory and yet we glorify Him because we are converted to His image of glory. Conversion is God taking a soul and making it like Him in seeking His glory as He shines out in His glory. That is a radical change.

One thing that can help us understand conversion is to look at its purpose. If a person is building a house, it has a different purpose than if one is building a warehouse or a public playground. The purpose for a structure determines the nature of the structure. It is also true in automobiles. If a company wants to build a vehicle to haul heavy objects and pull trailers, they will not build a small vehicle with no room in the back. It is also true that if they want to build a vehicle that gets great gas mileage, the end result will not be a large truck with a large motor. So in looking at the purpose God had in creation and then in conversion will help us to see His purpose and the nature of true conversion. We must also fight to keep ourselves thinking in a God-centered way. The purposes of conversion must be God-centered rather than man-centered. If we think that the main purpose God has is to rescue sinners from hell, then we are thinking in terms of man’s need rather than the purposes of God.

Ephesians 3 gives a piece of the puzzle: “To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, 9 and to bring to light what is the administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things; 10 so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. 11 This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, 12 in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him.” Paul saw his position and privilege as a preacher was not just to tell people things to make them comfortable, but it was to declare the eternal purposes of God hidden for ages. This eternal plan of God was from the eternal wisdom of God who created all things. Colossians 1:16 tells us that the Savior who saves sinners is also the One that all things were created through and for: “For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities– all things have been created through Him and for Him.” Whatever there is in all creation it was created through and by Christ. God’s eternal purpose begins to shine as we see that from eternity all things were created through and by Christ. Salvation should be seen as having eternal purposes from within the Godhead as well.

Revelation 4:11 tells us that God created all things for His own glory and pleasure: “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created” (KJV). This should not surprise us at all. Before there was a beginning of creation for eternity past God existed in eternal pleasure and joy within the Trinity. He could have no other purpose for creation that would be fitting other than His own glory and pleasure. He could have no greater or higher purpose than Himself in creation and so it would be against His holiness and justice if He had another reason to have created. He also could not have any higher reason to save sinners who are His creation than to save them for the purposes of His glory. There is no higher purpose than the glory of God and so the purpose of converting sinners must be the glory of His name.

As we look at what human beings are commanded to do, we are commanded to love God with all of our being. That is simply to be like God who is perfect and infinite love within the Trinity. He perfectly loves Himself as triune. We are also commanded to do what love would demand from us: “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31). Ephesians 1:6 tells us the purpose of salvation when it says that we are saved “to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.” Ephesians 2:5-7 shows this with even more clarity: “even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” It is simply impossible to escape the conclusion that sinners are saved by and for the purposes of God to manifest His glory. We must see this from a God-centered viewpoint or we will miss the reasons and purposes for conversion and therefore the nature of true conversion.

Let us look at two more verses of Scripture that teach this. “Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him” (Eph 1:4). “Also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will” (Eph 1:11). God has purposes for human beings in saving them. He has had purposes from eternity for them and those purposes are for His glory. In order to convert a soul to fit it as an instrument for His purposes that soul must be made fit to be an instrument though which His glory would shine through. A soul is not just saved from hell, but it is saved to be an instrument through which the glory of God would shine through. It must be converted to do that.

Romans 3:23 gives us a definition of sin: “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 1:21 also sets out this same truth: “For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” The word translated as “honor” is the same root word we translate as “glory” Romans 3:23 and other places. Another definition for sin is given in I John: “Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness” (3:4). God exalts the Law, but man violates the Law. Jesus came to fulfill the Law out of love for the Father, but man breaks the Law out of enmity toward the Father. Sinners are full of pride and self-centeredness as they live for their own honor making their own laws. Despite the religiosity of the Pharisees, that describes them exactly. For a person to be turned from seeking his or her own honor and violating the Law of God out of enmity toward Him, that person must be converted to one that lives for the glory of God and loves Him and His Law. That requires a total change of the inner person.

The unconverted mind is in darkness and must be converted to receive the light of the glory of God shining out in Christ and the Gospel. The affections of the unconverted go after the things of the world and of the flesh and must be converted to love spiritual things and the glory of God. The unconverted will always chooses the things of the flesh and must be converted in order to pursue God and the things of God in the pursuit of His glory as the chief love. True conversion will not be understood until we understand these things to some degree. Jesus Christ Himself is the very temple of the glory of God (John 1:14) and is the outshining of the glory of God (Heb 1:3). The sinner must be converted so the life of Christ is his or her life. The life of Christ is the shining forth of the glory of God and when Christ lives in a soul that soul will live to the glory of God. The Gospel consists of what Christ has done so that God would shine in hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of His glory in the face of Christ (II Cor 4:6). The souls of sinners must be converted in order to see and love this glory and then be instruments by which the glory of God that shines in Christ would now shine in and through sinners so His glory would be manifested.

We must not imagine that human beings can glorify God by their own strength and wisdom. We think that we can do things to glorify Him, but we can’t. We may think we glorify God if we are moral and do religious things, but that is the creed of the Pharisees. We must begin to understand that God’s glory belongs to God alone. In the past the glory of God was spoken of as ad intra and then ad extra. Those are ways of speaking of the glory of God as being within Himself and then the glory shining out of Him. We must understand that apart from Jesus Christ (the outshining of the glory of God) we cannot glorify God. We must understand that we can do nothing spiritual apart from the Holy Spirit. A sinner has no power within himself to reach out and take glory from the inner character of God and then shine it for others to see. What must happen is that the sinner must be humbled and empty so that God will manifest His glory through the sinner. It is God alone who can take His inner glory and manifest it. It is God alone who can take a fallen sinner and make a new creature out of that sinner who will then live to the manifestation of the glory of His name. It is God alone who can manifest His glory through a human being.

Conversion can only be seen in light of God’s purpose(s). The one purpose of God is expressed to us as purposes. Humans were created (all creation) to be instruments of His glory, but man fell into sin and is now opposed to the glory of God in all parts. This is total depravity. There is nothing in man that is not opposed to God’s glory. Man is now dead in sin which is to be spiritually dead. That is when the Spirit is not working spiritual things in man. To save sinners, grant them His presence, and to make them instruments of His glory God has to convert them from what they were to instruments that can receive and love His glory. If a human being cannot love His glory, then that human being will never see or live for His glory. The New Covenant teaches that God lives in sinners: “I WILL PUT MY LAWS INTO THEIR MINDS, AND I WILL WRITE THEM ON THEIR HEARTS. AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE” (Heb 8:10). The Law can only be kept out of love for God and His glory from the heart. That only happens when God is dwelling there and manifesting His glory in and through the sinner. “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love.” In this we see that the work of the Holy Spirit in the inner man is necessary so that Christ would dwell in a heart by faith so that a person is grounded in love. Conversion is when sinners are changed by the Spirit and made into dwelling places of the living God. Conversion is the Spirit applying what Christ purchased so that Christ would dwell in and manifest or shine the Father’s glory through them. Conversion is God changing sinners by the work of Christ through the Spirit to be instruments of His glory.

In the past four newsletter articles we have looked at the author of conversion, the reason or motive for conversion, and then the means of conversion. The Holy Spirit is the author and power in conversion and grace is the only motive that God has. Since those two things are true, we must use the means that God has set out for the Church to use in conversion. Since the Holy Spirit is the One that converts the soul and He only does it by grace, it only follows that the Spirit will use the words He inspired and then commanded to be preached as His method of converting sinners. 1 Timothy 4:16 has massive ramifications for us if we will only listen and take heed: “Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in these things, for as you do this you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you.”

It is vital to the salvation of others and ourselves to take pains with our doctrine (objective content of the teaching). The Gospel is a Gospel of truth and the Holy Spirit uses the truth to convert souls. We are not playing (to paraphrase John Gerstner from memory) with tinker toys like nuclear weapons; we are dealing with the Gospel of God and souls that are headed to eternity. If a soul is not truly converted while on this planet, that soul will spend eternity in hell. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not just one road to heaven; it is the only way to heaven. We can make every effort to be gracious and kind and all of that, but at some point we need to be faithful to God to deal with human souls according to their sin and the truth of the Gospel. If we want to be nice to human beings, it will be nice according to human standards. If we want to be kind according to biblical standards the greatest kindness we can do is to be faithful to God about human souls according to the truth of God. Preaching the truth of the glory of God in the Gospel is not the same thing as going to a youth conference and playing games. It is about being broken for our sin and turning from all trust in our own sufficiency and relying totally upon the grace of God in Christ Jesus. The Gospel is all about a gracious God that saves sinners from hell but also from sin and themselves. He changes their hearts and dwells within them in order to be their life. It is not a simplistic message that a person responds to with a simple prayer, but is the message about how God actually converts people. The hope is not in self to respond to a message, but the hope is in God who converts souls and makes new creatures in Christ.

It is easy enough to intellectually believe in certain things that are from the Bible and think that we believe in the Gospel because we have an intellectual belief in some things that are in the Bible. It is easy to think that evangelistic campaigns are great things. But if those who go out have a truncated message that is not the Gospel then the evangelistic campaign in simply spreading non-truth and perhaps confirming souls in their damnation. All that is called evangelism does not have the evangel or the good news of the Gospel. Before we send out the youth and before we send people out to do evangelism, we must make sure that the Gospel message is understood. If the churches are full of unbelievers, then we can be sure that there are many who are only too happy to go out and do works through the church to ensure their salvation. But that is not the Gospel. I have had many people come up to me and try to tell me the Gospel, but not one person that has “evangelized” me has ever told me with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I have only heard the good news of how great that I am and what would happen if I would do something, but I never heard the good news of what God does to convert sinners.

Galatians 1:6-10 should be enough to wake us up and quit playing with a man-centered and watered down message some refer to as the Gospel. We must become acutely cognizant and then broken over the fact that it is not only others that have misunderstandings of the Gospel, but it could be those close to us or even us. We all have to examine our own hearts and doctrine as well. Ministers must become students of the Gospel and of the Gospel of the glory of God in order that they are not sending people out with a false message. Just because people can tell people a few things about the cross of Christ does not mean that they are telling them about the Gospel.

“I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel; 7 which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed! 9 As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed! 10 For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ.”

Paul himself had preached the Gospel to the people at Galatia. Now others were there and were disturbing the same people by distorting the Gospel of Christ. It is hard for a person to examine his own message and come to a realization that s/he is not teaching the biblical Gospel, but it must be done. Beyond question the United States is under the judgment of God and spiritual darkness is descending upon us at a rapid rate. The Church was meant to be salt and light with the Gospel and it has not. Something is terribly wrong and it is not just with everybody else. Paul’s words need to light a fire under our souls. We can just go along assuming that we are orthodox and have the Gospel or we can read Galatians 1:6-10 and ask the Lord, as the disciples did when He told them that one of them was going to betray Him, “surely not I, Lord.” When the text tells us that if anyone is preaching a gospel contrary to what Paul taught them, then that man was to be accursed. That text tells me that if I am preaching a gospel contrary to what Paul taught then I am accursed. That text tells me that if you are preaching a gospel contrary to the one Paul taught then you are accursed. There must be a great brokenness of our hearts and a crying out to God if the Gospel is going to return to our churches in power.

Verse 10 of Galatians 1 is a very sobering passage. Paul said that if he sought the favor of men then he was not a bond-servant of Christ. That again tells us the position of a true minister of the Gospel. The Gospel is not about going out to please men and talk them into praying a prayer; it is about a man that lives in the presence of God and bound to Christ as his absolute Lord who will take the message and demands of God to human beings. There is no middle ground. The Gospel must be preached and declared in truth whether men or women like it or not. The Gospel must be preached and declared in truth whether ministers are fired or not. Ministers are not to be hirelings of a particular people; they are to be servants and bond-slaves of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Gospel cannot be preached by those who are driven by desires to please men because they will inevitably water things down to make it more palatable or easy. The Gospel of God which is about how God converts souls is a message of the work of God and what He must do by grace alone to men and women who have sinful natures. If ministers try to please men, though they may try to maintain orthodoxy too, they will soften things. But in softening things a poison is being added to a pure Gospel and it is no longer the gospel of God. That poison of a softened Gospel is also one, which according to Galatians, declares that the one who is preaching a different gospel is accursed.

In our day the Gospel itself is no more than a sedative for the troubled consciences of human beings. Instead of faith being that which God gives and receives grace alone, it is now something that I must produce or exercise in order to obtain grace. In other words, faith has become a work of sorts that God responds to and saves the sinner. Rather than that, however, the Gospel tells about a God who converts souls and it is the converted soul that has the life of Christ in it and believes in Christ alone for salvation. Repentance is not the action of a natural soul turning from external sin, but it is what a converted soul does. A converted soul turns from outward and inward sin because it has been turned or it has been converted. A converted soul is now a repenting and believing soul because it is now alive in Christ Jesus and has life. When one has life, that one turns from the things of death and turns toward the springs of living water. The Gospel of Jesus Christ tells sinners about how God converts sinners rather than how sinners need to convert themselves.

The gospel that is so often declared today depends on unenlightened minds that are dead in darkness understanding spiritual things which men are dead to. It depends on a person that is dead in sins and trespasses making him or herself alive and doing what God commands. It depends on a person that loves sin to leave that sin and love God who the person hates. The Gospel, on the other hand, comes to those with unenlightened minds, dead in sins and trespasses, who love sin, and hate God. It comes to them with the power of the living God who does not expect them to do the work of the Gospel, because that is His work. The Holy Spirit has been purchased by the work of Christ and He is given to do the work of the New Covenant that man cannot do. It is the Spirit who enlightens men’s minds through His illuminating work. It is the Spirit that raises those dead in sins and trespasses from their deadness and regenerates them and unites them to Christ who is eternal life itself. It is the Spirit who works faith in the soul. It is the Spirit who works in the soul of believers and writes the law in their hearts and minds. It is the Spirit that works in believers and causes them to obey His law: “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances” (Ezekiel 36:27). The Gospel is about God and His work in and on human beings. Human beings have to be broken and humbled in order to turn from trying to do it or merit it themselves. The true Gospel is all about the work of Christ who purchased the Holy Spirit to work salvation in the souls of sinners by grace alone. The true Gospel is all about the real conversion of sinners.

The teaching of Scripture on conversion must determine the way evangelism is done and even our preaching. The mindset for evangelism and preaching must be that a person must be converted and not just pray a prayer. It is not that a person must be convinced of facts to be believed, but that the person must be converted from an unbelieving soul to a believing soul. The soul must not just say the words of a prayer, but the words must be from a soul that has been converted and are the true expression of the heart. Preaching the good news is not just about hell, it is about a Savior “who gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil age” (Gal 1:4). Unless one is delivered from this present evil age that person has not been converted and not saved from eternal death. What follows is a Scripture that gives a mindset that is necessary for biblical preaching on conversion.

Ezekiel 37:1 – “The hand of the LORD was upon me, and He brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of the valley; and it was full of bones. 2 He caused me to pass among them round about, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley; and lo, they were very dry. 3 He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord GOD, You know.”4 Again He said to me, “Prophesy over these bones and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD.’ 5 “Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones, ‘Behold, I will cause breath to enter you that you may come to life. 6 ‘I will put sinews on you, make flesh grow back on you, cover you with skin and put breath in you that you may come alive; and you will know that I am the LORD.'”

The LORD took Ezekiel by the Spirit into a valley of bones. The question was “can these bones live?” He was told to prophesy over the bones. We can imagine what was going on in the mind of Ezekiel then. Why would God command him to prophesy to a bunch of dead bones? But notice what happens in verses 5-6. Ezekiel is to tell the bones that God will cause breath to enter them and come to life. This is very instructive on how to preach. Sinners cannot make themselves alive; they are utterly dependant on the LORD. As God commanded Ezekiel to preach to dry bones, so He commands preachers to proclaim His Word to dead sinners. As Ezekiel realized it was God who raised dead bones and gave them life, so preachers must realize that God alone can make dead sinners alive by grace. Dead sinners must be made alive and be converted, but it is God alone who can do the work. Preaching must point to this rather than the ability of a human being to make themselves alive. Preaching must point to the utter need for a true conversion to occur by the hands of the living God and not the abilities or power of the human will.

7 So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and behold, a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to its bone. 8 And I looked, and behold, sinews were on them, and flesh grew and skin covered them; but there was no breath in them. 9 Then He said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD, “Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they come to life.”‘” 10 So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they came to life and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army (Ezekiel 37).

Ezekiel did not fully understand why he was to prophesy to dead bones, but he obeyed. Verse 7 shows he did what he commanded and prophesied to dead bones. As he prophesied he told dead bones that God would breathe on them and make them alive. The bones came together and the flesh grew but there was no life. What did he do? Did he change the method from what He had been commanded? No, he prophesied as God had commanded him (v. 10) and the breath came into them. We must learn that preaching is commanded, but the method and message of preaching are also from God. While the working of the Spirit is mysterious (John 3:3-8), that does not mean that preachers are not to preach that conversion is a work of the Spirit. We must not preach to dead sinners that they have the power to pray a prayer or to believe in their own power, but we must preach that the power of God is in His Word and used by the Spirit. When we resort to human means, powers, or abilities; we are turning from the power of God in converting sinners and relying on the arm of man to do what only God can do. In our day we have been given over to methods and all that human wisdom can contrive in order to get people in the doors of the building and to get people to make professions of faith. But dead sinners must be made alive by God! Dead sinners will only be made alive by the Spirit of the living God. Dead sinners must be preached to and the words of the living God declared to them because it is the words of God that are used by God. Human methods are dead and will not raise the dead. The Word of God is alive and the Spirit of God can use it to make sinners alive.

In our day preaching has either become the simple teaching of the facts of the Bible or it has become another method of self-help. But true preaching must be more than just instructive, it is a declaration of the living Word of the living God. It is preaching the living word to dead sinners knowing that the living God can make the dead come to life. Preaching is not just informing people of the facts and then urging them to make up their minds on the information, it is declaring the words of God to the dead bones that He can make them alive. It is declaring to sinners that God makes the dead come to life. But this would mean that we must preach to sinners that they are dead in their sins and trespasses so that they can know what it means to be made alive (Eph 2:1-4). Until one realizes that s/he is dead, that person will not understand the nature of true life.

Sinners are in spiritual death and they must have spiritual life. It is foreign to people to think much less understand that they are dead. But if they do not understand something of their deadness then they do not understand that they need to be made alive by the Spirit of the living God. That is one reason why so many people are deceived in our day. They don’t understood what spiritual death is and so they make a decision about Christ and think that in some way they are alive. There are so many who have made decisions and lead religious lives that do not understand the basics of spiritual death. They go from service to service and from one social activity to another while thinking that they have life. Yet, sadly, they are nothing more than dead bones. They have not been made alive by the Spirit of the living God. As such, they have not been converted by God and they are not new creatures in Christ Jesus.

We are trying to talk people into doing things that they can do in their fallen nature. This is trying to get the dead to give themselves life. The Word of God must be proclaimed to them so that they may live rather than just get along in the religious world. A truly converted sinner is alive to God in Christ Jesus, but the non-converted person can be extremely religious and to some degree devout. But they are not converted people and they are not the temple of the living God. It is only when dead sinners have been made alive and have life Himself dwelling in them can they be said to have eternal life which is true life indeed. For some reason God uses preaching to bring this about as pictured by Ezekiel 37. Romans 10:17 teaches us that faith comes by hearing: “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.” Yet two verses just before that (Romans 10:14-15) tells us how people hear: “14 How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, “HOW BEAUTIFUL ARE THE FEET OF THOSE WHO BRING GOOD NEWS OF GOOD THINGS!”

Preaching the Word of God is not something to be done lightly. It is not to be done with nothing but illustrative stories and jokes. It is not to be done in just an informative way so that people will live better lives. In preaching there is to be an encounter between sinners and the living God. In preaching there is to be the proclamation of the sinfulness and deadness of human beings and the power of God to make dead sinners alive. It is through the preaching that dead sinners are made alive. But it is not by what goes as preaching today, it is by a true declaration of the words of the living God to sinners. This is not to denigrate all the evangelistic efforts and methods, but it is to say that they must be aimed at getting sinners to hear biblical preaching. As one goes through the book of Acts one is pressed quite hard to find any evangelism in it other than what is built around the preaching of the Word of God. That is because people looked to conversion in those days and not just getting people to agree to some facts.

This may be offensive to many, but the doctrine of conversion does not fit with much of the evangelism being practiced today. The Word of God tells us of the importance of preaching and we must have our beliefs and practices shaped by Scripture. We are commanded to preach the Word (II Tim 4:2). Just before that verse we have the teaching of Scripture as being breathed by God (II Tim 3:16). The natural result of having the words of God is that they must be proclaimed in the way He says they are to be proclaimed. He has sent the Word according to His eternal purpose and He knows how it is to be carried out. He uses His proclaimed Word to convert sinners, not just convince them to pray a prayer and become more moral. If we believe in biblical conversion, we must use the means He has given. He who brings dead bones to life when Ezekiel prophesied can and will bring dead sinners to life when His Word is preached as He has commanded. But we must preach it in truth looking to the true conversion of sinners and as to what it will take for them truly to be brought to life. Preaching the Word of God as the Word of God is vital to the conversion of sinners as it is how God brings the spiritually dead to life. It may be easier to preach easy sermons with jokes and stories or to simply teach the facts of the Bible, but that is not what God has commanded in terms of bringing sinners to life. We must preach the Word or we are not really preaching.

In the two previous newsletter articles we looked at the agent of conversion and then the only reason for conversion. The agent of conversion is the Holy Spirit and the reason for conversion is grace. It is the Holy Spirit that works in the soul to convert it from its sinful and fleshly nature to a spiritual and holy nature. The Holy Spirit will only work for holy purposes and goals. The only reason that the Holy Spirit would have in converting sinners is the praise of the glory of His grace (Eph 1:5-6). The only primary reason that could move God is Himself and so the reason for conversion is the grace of God. In this article we will look at the means of conversion.

What are men supposed to do in order for themselves and others to be converted? We see and hear of all kinds of shenanigans and entertainment venues that people offer in order to do what they call evangelism. However, if we remember that the only agent of conversion is the Holy Spirit and that the only reason for conversion is grace, these things must have a determining factor upon our methods of evangelism. An evangelism that does not take those two things seriously will always be an evangelism that is not in accordance with Scripture and the character of God. We are not to do evangelism just to talk people into things, but they are to be truly converted by the Holy Spirit. There is nothing they can do to move the Holy Spirit into converting them, but instead they must begin to see themselves as those who need the grace of God alone.

Since the Holy Spirit is the agent of conversion because He alone can do the work of converting the soul and not the human soul that needs conversion, the unconverted person must give up trying to convert him or herself. This type of person must be turned from pride and begin to see and experience the work of the Spirit upon and in him or her. Since the Holy Spirit only operates according to grace, this person must be turned from his or her pride in order to see self according to Scripture. But even then the Spirit must work this conviction of sin in the soul. That is part of the work of the Holy Spirit in converting a soul (John 16:8). It is only when a person sees the nature of pride and self that a person will see the need of a perfect grace to save it. The soul must become something like Isaiah in Isaiah 6:5 when he began to see himself as utterly undone because of his sin. Why is that? Until a soul sees that it will never understand the utter need for it to give up all of its own efforts to look to grace alone. Until a soul sees that it will not look away from its own merit and worth and so look to grace alone.

The methods of Scripture are hard for people to hear. I Timothy 4:16 gives us a method that we don’t like in our day: “Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in these things, for as you do this you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you.” The word for “teaching” is didaskali,a (didaskalia). The word that the NAS translates as “teaching” is the same word translated as “doctrine” in several passages from the Pastoral Epistles. That includes one from the very context of I Timothy 4:16 itself.

1 Timothy 4:6 In pointing out these things to the brethren, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, constantly nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound doctrine which you have been following.

1 Timothy 6:1 All who are under the yoke as slaves are to regard their own masters as worthy of all honor so that the name of God and our doctrine will not be spoken against. 3 If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness,

2 Timothy 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires,

Titus 1:9 holding fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, so that he will be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict.

Titus 2:1 But as for you, speak the things which are fitting for sound doctrine.

Titus 2:7 in all things show yourself to be an example of good deeds, with purity in doctrine, dignified,

10 not pilfering, but showing all good faith so that they will adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in every respect.

What the Bible teaches about the salvation of people is that the preachers of the word are to pay close attention to themselves and to their teaching (content of) which includes the doctrine of it. Here is a good quote that points to what is needed and yet is so neglected in our day:

In the oft-cited words of the puritan Thomas Goodwin: “God has only one Son, and he made him to be a preacher!” Goodwin’s point was to emphasise the nobility of a preacher’s calling. In days when preaching is devalued and, in some quarters, despised, the reminder that our Lord was a preacher is timely and reassuring. In these days, we need all the reassurance about the value of preaching that we can get. (Preaching: The Man, The Message, The Method)

True preaching is despised in our day. This is seen in one sense by just how little preaching there is. Sure there are many people delivering words and some even with the Bible open. But there is a massive difference between talking in a religious or moral way and true preaching. I have heard many do what is known as expository preaching and it was little more than a running commentary on a text of Scripture. It is easy to give a man-centered message about how we are to do something for God or to be better. But a preacher of the words of God is one that must declare the truth of God. He must declare the truth of who God is and of who man is. A preacher is one who preaches in order to establish the kingdom of God in the souls of men (Cotton Mather). A preacher is one that is to declare the truths of God to people who are to receive the truth of God and submit to Him.

But why is this even brought up in this particular series on conversion? It is because of its relation to the agent of conversion and the reason for conversion. When salvation is thought to be nothing more than an intellectual belief and an act of a free will, then the preaching that results is directed to convince people of intellectual information or to get them to make a choice or pray a prayer. But the preaching that realizes that the Holy Spirit must actually convert a person and make that person a new person in Christ will preach the truth of God and strive for people to be utterly dependant on the grace of God for conversion.

This is one reason why true doctrine is so important in preaching. The truth of who God is and the truth of the depravity and inability of man are important teachings that need to be preached over and over again. The truth of conversion by the work of the Holy Spirit must be taught over and over. The truth of the reason for salvation as being grace and grace alone must be demonstrated and stressed on a constant basis. By definition proud and self-centered hearts will shut their ears and refuse to hear the truth about God and themselves. Preachers must never get away from preaching and teaching sound doctrine. Yet doctrine can also be taught in a way that people think they have it if only they can grasp the information with the intellect. The doctrine must be taught in a way that gets to the deepest levels of the soul.

We read what the apostle thought was important in Acts 6:4 and its context: “But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” When they were encouraged to get involved in an important ministry, they declined in order to be given to prayer and the ministry of the word.” Jeremiah 23:22 gives us another reason for this: “But if they had stood in My council, Then they would have announced My words to My people, And would have turned them back from their evil way And from the evil of their deeds.” Preaching doctrine is utterly vital. A doctrine is a truth that is taught. In order to have biblical truth a person must have biblical doctrine. In order for a person to be biblically converted, a person must have biblical doctrine. Biblical doctrine must be preached!

Paul commanded Timothy to preach the word (II Tim 4:2). Why did he do that? It was for the reason that he gave in the following verses: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, 4 and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.” When people will not endure sound doctrine about conversion, they will turn aside their ears from the truth and will turn to myths about conversion. They will accumulate for themselves teachers who will tickle their ears and tell them about a conversion that is according to their own desires. For true conversion to be taught there must be true doctrine taught. For the truth of conversion to be taught, the truth of the work of the Holy Spirit as the agent of conversion must be taught and people must come to an experiential understanding of that which means that the Spirit must work these things in their hearts. They must come to understand from the depths of their being what it means to be saved by grace which is to have hearts changed and the life of Christ in them. True doctrine is necessary to true conversion. Let us preach true doctrine.

Last week we looked at the agent in conversion and that agent is the Holy Spirit. Indeed Christ has purchased sinners, but He also purchased the Holy Spirit and the application of the Holy Spirit to the souls of sinners. It is not just that God does something to the soul using a secondary source, but in conversion it is God Himself by the Holy Spirit taking a human soul and converting it. There is no greater work in all of history than this conversion. God’s creating the world from nothing but Himself was an act that no human mind can understand. But even creation pales in contrast with the Holy Spirit taking sinners and making them into new creations in Christ Jesus.

It is certainly easy enough to state the biblical fact that the Holy Spirit is the agent of change in the transformation of the human soul, but it is so hard for the human soul to come to a deep distrust of self and a trust in God for that work. The natural soul is full of self and its own strength which leaves that soul in the deepest parts of its own self-sufficiency. The self-sufficient soul will always think of itself as being able to love God apart from grace. It may have a theology that is different than what it is really trusting in, but in the inner depths of that soul it is trusting in its own sufficiency or something of self. It must be broken from its own strength in order to love from the love of God put in the humbled soul. The self-sufficient soul will trust in its own interpretation of the world and of Scripture. In other words, it must be broken from its pride in its own wisdom to look to Christ and rest in His wisdom and in His sufficiency. The proud soul will look to something of self and trust in its own righteousness rather than to rest in the righteousness of Christ. The proud soul will trust in its own works and efforts in order to be holy and to do what it thinks is grow in sanctification.

The great battle in the human soul is not just to overcome a particular sin, but for the proud and self-centered heart which is sin itself to be overcome. That will only happen when the soul submits to the living God and the true King reigns in it. That only happens when the Spirit of the living God engages to do battle in the soul and overcomes that soul by the work of conviction and humiliation. But people says this: “We are justified by faith alone. All we have to do is believe.” Indeed, but apart from humility there is no faith. A soul trying to believe without true humility is like trying to love without any love at all. There can be no faith in Christ as long as the proud and self-centered heart trusts in self. There can be no living by faith as long as the soul trusts in its own sufficiency.

The agent for conversion is the Holy Spirit. But why does the Holy Spirit transform and change sinners? What purpose and reason does He have for doing what He does? The reason for conversion is grace and not the merit, worth, works, righteousness, nor any other thing that a sinner is or has done. The sinner always wants to look to self in order to provide God a reason to show him or her grace or to obtain some good. That is the worst thing that a person can do. God operates by grace and grace alone. The sinner, then, must not only come to an understanding that it is the Holy Spirit who must change him or her, but the sinner must also come to the understanding that there is nothing that he or she can do to move the Holy Spirit to the work of conversion. The Holy Spirit in conversion changes the sinner by grace and only by grace. There is no reason that a person is converted other than grace.

Romans 3:24 being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; 25 whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed, 26 for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. 27 Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith.

Romans 4:16 For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,

Romans 11:6 But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace.

Galatians 2:21 “I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.” 5:4 You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.

Ephesians 1:6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. 7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace.

Ephesians 2:5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), 7 so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.

These verses are sufficient to show the reason that a sinner is converted. In Romans 3 it tells us the very motive of God in saving sinners. That motive and reason is not found in the sinner, but is found in God Himself and in God alone. God justifies sinners on the basis of Christ and nothing in the sinner is found to move Him to do so. Christ alone is all that is needed. The sinner needs to have his sin taken away, but there is nothing the sinner can do to merit the slightest sin to be taken away. But God provides the propitiation in the person of Jesus Christ who bore His wrath for sinners. He did not do that because the sinner was worth it, but because the Father was worth it. He did this to demonstrate the righteousness of the Father and not for the slightest bit of good in the sinner. He did this so that the Father could be just and the justifier, not because the sinner had any reason in self for saving him or her. There is utterly no room for boasting at all in the sinner because the sinner did nothing to save himself and there was no reason to save him or her. The only reason was and is within the Godhead and salvation is all of grace.

Some still think that conversion and salvation is because of their faith, but Romans 4:16 should dispel that notion. Salvation is by faith in order that it would be by grace. The biblical teaching of faith has no idea that faith is a human work, but instead it is the way God saves so that it would be totally of grace. Faith is an instrument given by and used by God to save by grace. Whatever work a human being tries to bring into the situation simply makes salvation to be something other than by grace alone which spoils the whole thing. One work of the sinner makes grace to be no longer grace. One act of faith if it is a work of the human flesh spoils the whole teaching of justification by grace alone through faith alone. The Holy Spirit’s reason for His work in conversion is grace.

Galatians 2:21 shows us that the work of Christ is the source of the grace shown to sinners. It is not as some try to show in the modern day that God can show grace apart from Christ, but that in some way grace is connected to the death of Christ. If grace can come to us by works or by a work then there was no need for the death of Christ. The death of Christ on the cross was moved by grace and is His purchasing grace for sinners. Galatians 5:4 then shows us the result if we try to find a reason within ourselves if we look to our own efforts. To the degree we look to our works or the Law as a way of being justified, it is to that degree that we fall from grace as the way of salvation. This is why we must teach people to look to God alone and not to themselves. It is not until a person has been broken from his or her self-sufficiency that the person will look and trust totally in the sufficiency of Christ and to the Gospel of grace alone. If God’s reason for converting sinners is Himself, that is, grace and grace alone, then the sinner must be broken from any idea that he can do anything of himself for salvation.

Ephesians 1:6 shows us the motive God has in salvation: “to the praise of the glory of His grace.” God saves sinners to the glory of His grace. This is in Ephesians 2:5-8 as well. God takes dead sinners who have no good in them and no ability to please or give Him a reason to save them and makes them alive in order to display the surpassing riches of His grace. Whenever a sinner tries to find a reason in self for God to save him, that sinner is fighting grace which is the only reason God has for saving sinners. It is grace that displays the very beauty and glory of God in the Gospel. It is grace that shines forth the mercy and love of God. It is grace that shows the sovereignty of God. It is grace that is the only real hope for sinners. The sinner must be stripped of all hope in his own works and look to the Holy Spirit as the agent of salvation. The sinner must be stripped of all hope in finding any reason for salvation in self so that s/he could look to grace alone for salvation. In conversion the Spirit pours out the love of God in the soul and now the sinner loves God. When we love God in truth, we love Him more than ourselves. We should desire that we would be saved to the glory of His name rather than anything found in us or done by us. A soul that is saved by grace delights in the glory of that grace rather than self. God finds reasons within Himself to save us. That is grace and that is why salvation is by grace alone. Oh the glory of it all!

In the teaching of salvation in the modern day the focus is on getting human beings to do something. It may be to make a decision or to walk an aisle. It may be to look to Jesus for something in general or perhaps for forgiveness of sins in particular. Even when people are told to look to Jesus they are usually told to look to Him in such a way that it is contingent upon them doing something. They are told that Jesus will forgive them if they will pray a prayer or that if they will simply believe in Him He will save them from hell. Perhaps we tell others that they must repent and believe in order to be saved. That is very true and the Bible uses those very words. But what do we mean when we use those words? Do we mean that a person has the strength from self to just repent of external and internal sin? Do we mean that a person simply must make a choice to believe and that belief is the deepest belief of his or her soul that controls all other beliefs?

As mentioned in the last newsletter, some people try to educate others about the Gospel of justification and then get them to believe that the Gospel is true. Satan believes that the Gospel is true, but he is not a converted being. The intellectual belief that the Gospel is true does not mean that a person is a true believer of the Gospel. If a belief in the Gospel is only intellectual, then a mere change in the intellect means that a person does not now believe in the Gospel. If we move on to assurance with only an intellectual belief, then we have the absurd conclusion that many have taught. A person may be a believer at one point (intellectual belief in the Gospel) and yet can fall away and be an unbeliever or even an atheist and still be converted. The problem with that position is that it uses the biblical terms of “believe” or “faith” without the biblical meaning of them. The Bible does not refer to saving faith as an intellectual belief alone, but to the soul as converted and therefore in a state of being a believing soul.

The agent of conversion is not that of the human soul, but is God. Jesus taught that the soul must be born from above in order to enter the kingdom (John 3:3). But He also taught who that agent of change was. He taught us that it was the Holy Spirit (John 3:8). Some hear these things often and put them into a different category or simply have lost the ability to hear. While a person must believe in Jesus Christ in order to be truly converted, that person must be born from above and it is the Holy Spirit that does that. It is not that a person changes him or herself, but a person that is going to be truly converted must be converted by the agency or working of the Holy Spirit.

Pelagian thinking doesn’t really allow much for the Holy Spirit because it focuses on the moral power of man to do what is right. Arminian thinking allows for the Holy Spirit but in the end it is the human being that must make the choice. In modern versions of Reformed thinking the Holy Spirit is a doctrine but not a reality. So if we can convince a person to be more moral, to make a choice, or to believe a doctrine they must be converted. But conversion is of God as triune and is not the work of human beings. The Scriptures refer to the actions and workings of the Holy Spirit as the One who works in time and as the One who regenerates and converts souls. Apart from the work of the Holy Spirit there is no conversion.

4 But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, 5 He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, 6 whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life (Titus 3:4-7)

These verses can be rather shocking if we look at them from a God-centered point of view. We notice in verse 4 that it is the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind that appears. We can read that rather casually and know that He saves us, but how does He save us? The only Savior who is God saves not on any other basis but His own mercy and grace. There is nothing within the sinner and there is nothing the sinner can do in his or her own power to save self. This is the work of the living God. So how does this Savior save sinners? He saves them “by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit.” The only Savior, according to this text, saves by the work of the Holy Spirit in regenerating and renewing souls. Where is the cross? Where is the imputed righteousness of Christ in this text? They are not in this text, but that does not mean that they are not true. It is just that this text has a different focus. What did Christ purchase for sinners? We say that the Holy Spirit is a blessing and we are correct. Could it be that Christ purchased the Spirit and His work for His people at the cross?

Before the last question is answered, let us look again at Titus 3:4-7. God is the only Savior and He saves sinners by His mercy and grace. He does not save them because they repent or because they work up morality or faith. He saves sinners because of who He is and not because of anything found in them. He finds them hateful and hating one another living in all manners of vile sin (Titus 3:3). All of salvation can only be moved on the basis of God’s grace and mercy rather than anything that a vile sinner can do. God saves sinners by the work of the Holy Spirit. Sinners are not saved until they are regenerated and renewed by the Holy Spirit. But this work of the Spirit comes through Jesus Christ. It is Christ who is called Savior in verse 6 while God is called Savior in verse 4. But the text tells us that the Holy Spirit is poured upon us. The word for “upon,” when preceded by the accusative case, can also mean “in.” The Holy Spirit was not just poured on the outside, but He was given in order to change the inner person. This can be seen from Romans 5:5: “and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”

Surely it is obvious at this point that being saved is not just a matter of uttering a prayer, making a decision, or of being intellectually convinced. It is only when God saves sinners through Christ by pouring out the Holy Spirit in sinners who regenerates and renews them. The end result, then, is that the sinner is justified by grace (Titus 3:7). It is not that grace saves sinners and leaves them as they are, but the grace that flows from the throne of God is a grace purchased by Christ and poured out to and in sinners by and in the Person and work of the Holy Spirit. We should also notice how this text connects regeneration and justification. It is only when a sinner is regenerated by the Spirit can the sinner be said to be justified before God by grace. By the grace of God the sinner is changed from a state of unbelief to a state of belief by the regenerating power of the Spirit. A person is not declared just because the person has come up with something called belief or faith, but because the Spirit has regenerated the person and now the person is in a state of a continual belief or faith.

Now we are in a better position to answer the previous question: Could it be that Christ purchased the Spirit and His work for His people at the cross? See what Galatians 3:12-14 has to say about this:

12 However, the Law is not of faith; on the contrary, “HE WHO PRACTICES THEM SHALL LIVE BY THEM.” 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us– for it is written, “CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO HANGS ON A TREE “– 14 in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

This text tells us without any equivocation at least one reason that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law by becoming a curse for us. He did this so that in Christ Jesus the blessing promised to Abraham would not only come to the Jews but to the Gentiles. That blessing is that the promise of the Spirit would be received through faith. The promise of the Spirit is spoken of many times in the Old Testament and then by Jesus. We are told in the Old Testament (Ezekiel 36) what God is going to do in the New Covenant:

26 “Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances. 29 “I will not hide My face from them any longer, for I will have poured out My Spirit on the house of Israel,” declares the Lord GOD.

The promise seen in the Old Testament is that God will give people a new heart. His Spirit would be put within them and they would be caused to walk in His statutes. God would no longer hide His face from them. Now we see that in Christ the Spirit has been purchased and is sent to regenerate and renew the souls of sinners (Titus 3:3-7). Now we see that believers are the temple of the living God and of the Holy Spirit (I Cor 3:16-16; 6:19). The very life of the believer is Christ and the believer has been baptized into Christ by the Spirit (I Co 12:13). It is Christ who looses us from our sins by His blood (Rev 1:5), but it is the Spirit who cleanses us in the inner person. For Christ to save sinners in the biblical way, which is to regenerate them and cleanse them from sin, then He had to purchase all those things for them. For Him to purchase all of those blessings for them, He had to purchase the Spirit who works those things and applies them. Conversion, then, is truly all of grace since God alone can do this work of regenerating and renewing. The agent of a salvation that is all of grace has to be God and not a human being. The agent of conversion is the Holy Spirit who was purchased by Christ. Humility is the proper response.

The words of Jesus Christ must become that which drives the way we think of salvation as a whole: “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3). It is so easy to take the meaning of what Jesus said and turn the meaning into something else. We may try to make that passage fit with other passages that we think we know but we may have swallowed a wrong meaning to that as well. We must not just believe some words of Jesus given in Matthew 18:3, we must believe what Jesus meant by those words. We must not only believe what Jesus meant by those words, but what Jesus meant by those words must happen to us if we are going to enter the kingdom of heaven. We cannot just know that He said the words, but what He meant must have happened to us or we are still in our sins.

The same thing is true of justification by faith alone. There has been a lot of squabbling within the professing Church over the meaning of justification in the history of the Church. However, a man or a woman can know the true doctrine down to the smallest teaching and still be a stranger to justification itself. It is possible, and appears to happen on a regular basis, for a person to be very close to being perfectly orthodox in the intellectual grasp of justification by faith alone and yet not be justified. A person must not just believe the doctrine of justification by faith alone as true, but a person must actually be justified by grace alone through faith alone. This is a pernicious thing that the devil has done. He deceives people into thinking that they are justified because they have an intellectual belief in justification. Paul never said that a person is justified if the person believes in justification by faith part from works, but that a person is actually justified by faith apart from works. Jesus never said that a person is converted if that person believes that a person must be converted or just believe that He can convert a person, but that a person must actually be converted in order to enter the kingdom of God.

Let us think of some examples in this regard. We would not let a doctor perform surgery on us if a man or woman believed that s/he could perform surgery and yet had never actually done it before. We would think a person would have mental issues if that person believed that his or her appendix had actually been removed just because the person believed that the doctor could do that type of surgery. There is a large difference between believing that something is needed rather than that something actually happening. There is a massive difference between believing that someone can do something and that something actually happening. There is also a huge difference between believing that something is true and that something actually occurring in or to me. We must get beyond thinking that conversion is something that has happened to us if we just believe that it is true. Conversion is something that must actually happen to us or we are lost. We must actually be converted from one thing to another.

There are many things that we convert from one use to another in the world. We even buy conversion kits to change things from what they are so that they will function in another way and be useful in that other way. I ran a search on eBay and found 77,627 items under “conversion.” There were conversion vans. There were kits to convert vehicles from gasoline to diesel and also kits to change motorcycles to tricycles. There are conversion kits for cars, planes, trucks, axles, reels, motorcycles, guns, motors, and on and on. We have some understanding of what conversion means, but we want to settle for something far less in the realm of Christianity. Let us not forget the words of Jesus: “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3). People must not only be converted in a way we or they have come up with, but they must be converted from what they are by nature to become like a child in the meaning of Jesus. There must be a real change in the soul from one thing to another or that person is not truly converted.

Instead of a real change in our day we say that a person must believe. It is true that the Bible declares to us that we must believe. But what does it mean by that? Does the Bible mean that we believe in something and then God gives us salvation because we have believed? Does it mean that we believe and that a true conversion of the soul does not happen? Could it mean that a soul must be converted to truly believe? What can an intellectual belief do to convert a person or to change the person’s heart? What can repeating a prayer do to change the heart? It is not by believing something as true that the soul is changed, but it is only if God changes the heart is there a change and the soul can be a believing soul. The work of conversion is the work of God. The whole soul is what must be converted from a state of unbelief to a state of belief. The act of belief is not just an intellectual one, but it is a belief that comes from a soul that has been changed. We must be converted to truly believe from the whole soul. A true faith or a true belief is when faith comes from a truly converted soul.

A soul is born a child of wrath (Eph 2:3) and must be converted to be a child of the love of God (I John 3:1). A soul is born dead in sins and trespasses (Eph 2:1-3) and must be converted in order to be made alive. A soul is born into a fleshly state (John 3:3-8) and must be converted to become a spiritual being. A soul is born as a child of the devil (John 8:44) and must be converted to become a child of the living God (Eph 1:5). A soul is born entirely full of pride and self-centeredness (II Tim 3:2) and must be converted to become humble and God-centered. A soul is born in bondage to sin (Rom 6:16-20) and must be converted to be a slave of Christ. A soul is born in the kingdom and dominion of darkness (Colossians 1:13) and must be converted to be in the kingdom of Christ where He reigns in the hearts of His people. A soul is born hating God and at enmity with Him (Gen 3:15) and must be converted to live in love for Him. A soul lives in hatred of others (Titus 3:3) until it is changed and loves its neighbor as itself. These are not things that we just believe facts about; but the soul must be converted for these things to be true in that soul. Conversion is something real that God works in the soul and changes it to be His dwelling place. Conversion changes the very loves and desires of the soul. We must become new creatures in Christ Jesus or we will perish forever (II Cor 5:17). We must be cleansed and changed to be temples of the living God.

There appears to be a lot of confusion about salvation and conversion in the modern day. It appears to be the massive majority that says that a person must simply believe in order to be saved. In one sense it is true that a person must believe in order to be saved. But there is a lot more that goes on as well. We must not bury the doctrine of true conversion and leave salvation in the realm of intellectual belief alone. It is a converted soul that truly believes rather than a soul that believes a fact and makes changes. We are told that Jesus died for us and if we will but believe that we will be saved. But what happened to conversion as Jesus and Paul taught? Did Jesus teach conversion at one point and then teach that a person must believe at another point as if there were and are two different ways? When we focus on belief apart from biblical conversion we are no longer talking about a biblical form of belief. We end up thinking that if we can talk a person into saying a prayer or intellectually convince someone then that person will be saved. Jesus said that we must be converted or we will not enter the kingdom and that we must be born from above. He also said that we must believe. We must not dismiss any of these teachings.

It is dangerous to tell souls that they must pray a prayer or confess with their mouths apart from teaching them the utter necessity of conversion. The unregenerate soul can do any external thing that a believer can. If we do not get into the nature of the soul and the necessity for it to be converted we will be teaching people a false gospel. A soul that is saved by grace through faith is the soul that has been converted by grace alone. A person with Pelagian doctrine (whether actual or practical Pelagianism) is confident that the power of salvation is in his or her own hands. A person that is Arminian (whether actual or practical) will believe that salvation is up to his or her choice in the matter. Certain kinds of Reformed people believe that God will save no matter what and they don’t need to worry about it while other Reformed people believe that if they have come to believe certain doctrines then they are saved. But all of these people in some way would deny (whether actual or practical) the biblical doctrine of conversion. God must change the soul at His mere pleasure and by His grace. He does so not based on whether a person believes it or not, but by His grace. A person will come to a belief from the depths of their changed heart when they are converted, but just because a person intellectually believes is not an infallible sign of conversion.

The Pelagian person may think that by being morally good and doing certain religious things that s/he will be saved. The Arminian person will think that s/he can say a prayer or do some act of the will and so be saved. One Reformed person sits around in sin waiting on God to save him or her from the sin while another Reformed person believes that if one believes in justification by faith alone one will be saved. The differing camps may even argue about justification and free-will along with other teachings. Meanwhile they are all thinking of something other than conversion. We speak against the traditions of others, but some of the deadliest of traditions are those that sneak in and take hold in the realm of salvation. Those traditions are among us today and we must get back to Scripture. Unregenerate souls that are given over to love of self (regardless of their theology) will do anything to be saved from hell while keeping their pride and self-love. Modern theology and evangelism are designed to do exactly that. The Bible, however, says that a person must repent of self (Luke 9:23-26) and that God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble. Pride is opposite to faith (Hab 2:4) and so to truly have faith or to truly believe the proud soul must be converted by God to be humble. While some argue that this sounds like works, it is exactly the opposite. It delivers from works. God must humble the soul and God must break the soul from its pride or the soul will not be truly converted. Conversion by the hand of God is needed for the soul to be saved from self.

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.