Provocation to Prayer, Part 20

December 25, 2009

The following is from Glory Filled the Land, published by International Awakening Press on the 1904-1905 Welsh revival. This section is by G. Cambell Morgan who originally spoke and then wrote after going to Wales to “examine” the revival. You can detect a note of amazement or admiration in his “voice” as you read.

THE ORIGIN OF THE MOVEMENT
You cannot trace it, and yet I will try to trace it tonight. Whence has it come? All over Wales-I am giving you roughly the result of the questioning of fifty ore more persons at random in the week-a praying remnant have been agonizing before God about the state of their beloved land, and it is through that the answer of fire has come. You tell me that the revival originates with Roberts. I tell you that Roberts is a product of the revival. You tell me that it began in an Endeavor meeting where a dear girl bore testimony. I tell you that it was part of the result of a revival breaking out everywhere. If you and I could stand above Wales, looking at it, you would see fire breaking out here and there, and yonder, and somewhere else, without any collusion or prearrangement. It is a divine visitation in which God-let me say reverently-in which God is saying to us, “See what I can do without the things you are depending on;” “See what I can do in answer to a praying people;” “See what I can do through the simplest who are ready to fall in line and depend wholly and absolutely upon Me.”

A CHURCH REVIVAL
What is the character of this revival? It is a church revival. I do not mean by that merely a revival among church members. It is that, but it is held in church buildings. I have been saying for a long time that the revival which is to be permanent in the life of a nation must be associated with the life of the churches. What I am looking is that there shall come a revival breaking out in all our regular church life. The meetings are held in the chapels, all up and down the valleys. Revival began among church members, and when it touches the outside man it makes him into a church member at once. I am tremendously suspicious of any mission or revival movement that treats with the contempt the Church of Christ, and affects to despise the churches. Within the last five weeks twenty thousand have joined the churches. I think more than that have been converted, but the churches in Wales have enrolled during the last five weeks twenty thousand new members.

STRIKING CASES OF PERSONAL INFLUENCE
First of all, it is turning Christians everywhere into evangelists. There is nothing more remarkable about it that that, I think. People you never expected to see doing this kind of thing are becoming definite personal workers… The movement is characterized by the most remarkable confessions of sin-confessions that must be costly. I heard some of them, men rising who have been members of the Church and officers of the Church, confessing hidden sin in their heart, impurity committed and condoned, and seeking prayer for putting it away. The whole movement is marvelously characterized by a confession of Jesus Christ, testimony to His power, to His goodness, to His beneficence, and testimony merging forevermore into outbursts of singing.

This whole thing is of God; it is a visitation in which He is making man conscious of Himself without any human agency. The revival is far more wide spread than the fire zone. In this sense you may understand that the fire zone is where the meetings are actually held, and where you feel the flame that burns. But even when you come out of it, and go into railway trains, or into a shop, a bank, anywhere, men everywhere are talking of God. Whether they obey or not is another matter. There are thousands not yielded to the constraint of God, but God has given Wales in these days a new conviction and consciousness of Himself. That is the profound thing, the underlying truth.

In our day (2009 almost 2010) we must seek the Lord for these things. We must learn from Him by practice what prayer and life are that are totally dependent on God for all things. We must learn what it means to work though the Churches because the Church is the body of Christ. We must learn to confess sin and seek God for the power to put it away. We must seek God for a fire in our hearts, churches, nation, and then world. A fire (!!!) like Pentecost.

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Conversion, Part 47 – The Conversion of Paul, Part 2

December 24, 2009

In this article we will look at Saul’s conversion to a new creature in Christ who became the apostle Paul and compare it to some of his writings. In modern America we tend to think of conversion as something that just happens rather than striving to know how conversion really happens. The theology of the apostle Paul is not something distinct from his conversion, but instead his theology explains his conversion. Saul did not become Paul just because he intellectually understood some facts about grace, but because the grace of God overcame his heart and he became a new creature because of who God was and not because of what Saul/Paul had done. We must learn to drink at the well of living water rather than just read about it. A human being can die of thirst on the shores of a large body of water if s/he does not drink. So just reading about grace and the theology of grace can leave a soul with a lot of information but without the life of God in the soul.

“Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, 2 and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. 3 As he was traveling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him; 4 and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” 5 And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” And He said, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting, 6 but get up and enter the city, and it will be told you what you must do.” 7 The men who traveled with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one. 8 Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; and leading him by the hand, they brought him into Damascus. 9 And he was three days without sight, and neither ate nor drank” (Acts 9:1-9).

One of the passages that Paul wrote about was drilled home to the heart of Paul. “What shall we say then? Is the Law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, “YOU SHALL NOT COVET” (Rom 7:7). While it may sound strange to some, covetousness is the command that reaches the heart with all of the other commands. It is the grasping and covetous heart that desires to be god rather than bow to God. It is the covetous heart that wants to worship as it wants to worship rather than as God commands. It is the covetous heart that desires its own name to be honored rather than not take God’s name in vain. It is the covetous heart that does not keep the Sabbath holy and the one that follows its own heart rather than honor its parents. It is the covetous heart that is describes as lusting for other people, the property of other people, and will lie to cover its own tracks. When the light shone on Paul and then in Paul, he knew then who and why he was persecuting. He was persecuting Jesus Himself in persecuting Christians and that meant that he was an idolater who was coveting honor for himself.

Paul found out what the teaching of grace really is. He knew that he was dead in his trespasses and sins and even while he was very religious he was following the ways of self and the world. He knew that nothing would have turned him from his very religious and self-centered course other than grace. He was “breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.” He was intent on what he was doing and it was grace that took Paul from his route to Damascus and changed his heart. It was grace that took a man who was so covetous in heart and made him a man that loved the Lord and His followers. Paul was a man committed to his good works and to zeal for the Lord (he thought) in his ways according to the Pharisees. But he later knew that it was “by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph 2:8). Paul’s conversion was such that it demonstrated that he was saved by grace and grace alone.

When the light shone around Paul on the road to Damascus and he heard that the one shining the light was Jesus whom he was persecuting, Paul saw his own heart. What he later wrote in Romans 8 is likely what he felt deep in his soul then as he looked back on being an unbeliever: “For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, 7 because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, 8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (8:6-8). He knew that in what he thought was service to God he was acting with hostility to God and had no ability to keep the law. The truths of Romans 8 had been felt by Paul and he was writing true theology but also what he had felt in his own soul. As he wrote about the inability of man to keep the law and the hostility of the heart toward God, the anguish was probably in his own heart because he was describing himself when he was Saul.

Rom 9:14 – “What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! 15 For He says to Moses, “I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY, AND I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOM I HAVE COMPASSION.” 16 So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “FOR THIS VERY PURPOSE I RAISED YOU UP, TO DEMONSTRATE MY POWER IN YOU, AND THAT MY NAME MIGHT BE PROCLAIMED THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE EARTH.” 18 So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.”

Earlier in Romans 9 Paul had been talking about his kinsman according to the flesh. He moved on to speak of the Old Testament blessings that belonged to Israel. He talked about how it is not the children of the flesh who are children of Abraham and of God, but those who are children of promise. He then spoke of the glory of God shown to Moses when God told Moses that He would have mercy on whom He would have mercy. Paul was not running toward God, but away from the true God in his hostility and hatred for Him. It does not depend on the man who wills to be saved or runs in order to be saved, but instead it depends totally on God. God has mercy on whom He desires because no one deserves the mercy of God, and Paul thought of himself as especially unworthy of mercy. There could be no doubt in the case of Paul that he was saved apart from his good works and apart from his own seeking of God. It was God who decided to show mercy to Paul and save his wretched soul by grace alone. There is nothing in Acts 9 that teaches of anything but the grace and love of God set on Paul and drawing Him to Himself. Paul was dead in sin, hated God, and was persecuting the Church of the living God. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us (Eph 2:4). There is no explanation for the salvation of Paul but God who set His love on Paul because He decided to have mercy on him. Paul wrote about the doctrine of election because he saw this as salvation by grace alone. He had been arrested by God while he (Saul) was in mad pursuit of his hatred of God. Paul knew that election was true or he (Paul) would never have been saved.

Rom 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.”

Paul saw so clearly that the cause of justification is the grace of God and not himself. What cause or goodness can we find in Paul from Acts 9? What cause can we find in Paul for God to justify Paul? There was no cause at all for Paul to be justified other than the causes that God found in Himself. God saved Paul because God found causes within God to save Paul. Paul was bent on causing Christians in Damascus to suffer and die out of hatred for the true God. What did God find in Paul to cause Him to set His love on Him? It could only have been His own purposes. Paul was full of nothing but hatred for God and had a covetous heart that sought himself rather than God. In the justification of Paul, it was easy for him to write that he had nothing to boast of and that God saved him (Paul) to demonstrate His own righteousness. Paul said that he boasted in nothing but the cross (Gal 6:14) and he learned that by his theology, the Gospel, and his own heart from which he was saved.

There is much to learn from the conversion of Saul to Paul. If men will but see their own hearts and their hatred and enmity toward God, they will understand the truth of salvation by grace alone. When men see that in their hearts there is a desire to be against true Christians, they will see their own hearts and know that it is grace alone that will save them. When men see their own hearts as dead in sins and trespasses, they will know that nothing but the grace of God can bring their dead souls to life. When men understand that they are as bad as Saul and the worst of sinners, they will understand that there is nothing but the electing love of God that can raise them from the spiritual dead. When men feel the weight of their sin in their hearts and know the depravity that is twisted in with their every thought, desire, motive, and intent; they will know that they must be saved by grace or they will not be saved at all. When men begin to understand that God has no obligation to save them but is just in treating them as He treated Pharaoh, then they will understand that it means to be saved by grace alone. Saul was not saved by a choice of his will or anything else he wanted, desired, or did. But the grace of God took him and changed his heart. What he once hated and persecuted he became. The city he went to in order to persecute he was led by the hand to enter and receive the Holy Spirit. The persecutor became the persecuted because God saved him by grace alone.

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Humility, Part 42

December 21, 2009

We are plodding through a few statements of Jonathan Edwards on humiliation of the soul in the context of humility. We have to constantly remind ourselves that humility is not something that self can carry out on itself, but instead it is the work of God in bringing the soul to the end of self. As Edwards points out, there is a way that souls are brought to be humbled in an external sense before God but they do not love that. On judgment day every soul that has ever been created will indeed bow before God in utter helplessness, but all those without eternal life dwelling in their soul will hate ever second of it. So there must be something beyond that. Edwards calls that evangelical humiliation and it is when the soul is broken from its own works and its own ability to do for God but also it loves to abase itself and be in the dust before God out of a sense of His beauty and glory. The soul that has been humbled like this is emptied of self and delights itself in the beauty and honor of God rather than of self.

The quote from below is from Jonathan Edwards’ Religious Affections and the longer quote can be read in the BLOG Humility 36.

“In a legal humiliation men are made sensible that they are nothing before the great and terrible God, and that they are undone, and wholly insufficient to help themselves; as wicked men will be at the day of judgment; but they have not an answerable frame of heart, consisting in a disposition to abase themselves, and exalt God alone. This disposition is given only in evangelical humiliation, by overcoming the heart, and changing its inclination, by a discovery of God’s holy beauty. In a legal humiliation, the conscience is convinced; as the consciences of all will be most perfectly at the day of judgment; but because there is no spiritual understanding, the will is not bowed, nor the inclination altered. In legal humiliation, men are brought to despair of helping themselves; in evangelical, they are brought voluntarily to deny and renounce themselves; in the former, they are subdued and forced to the ground; in the latter, they are brought sweetly to yield, and freely and with delight to prostrate themselves at the feet of God.”

This disposition of the soul to abase itself and even to delight in the abasement of self, though not as the Pharisees would do it, is a sign of new life in the soul. When Christ lives in the soul, it is His life that comes out rather than the self life of the human being. When a soul is convinced of sin, the disposition of the soul determines (in a sense) what will happen after the soul comes to an understanding of its sin. The conscience is convinced in some, but they have no spiritual understanding, their will is not broken from self, and the inclination of the heart is not changed. The heart that loves itself in its natural understanding, hardened heart of self-will, will only love itself and when it sees something of its bondage in sin it hates it. This does not make the soul love God and it does not lessen the love of the soul for itself. So men are inclined to fight and hate the work on the conscience in bringing conviction. The soul may indeed see some sin because of its conscience and it may even become very religious. This is the kind of soul that may change its belief system and be very faithful in church attendance and even in church activities. But it has not learned to hate self and it has not truly learned to love God. This soul may think that it loves God because it thinks that God loves it. After all, the natural man loves those who love him (Luke 6:32). So we must be careful of ourselves and others who think that they love God only because He loved them first. That in fact is a teaching of Scripture, but it is changing what Scripture teaches on the subject. An unbroken heart will think it loves God if it thinks that God loves it. That can be nothing more than a form of self-love and is not the heart that is broken and is not the heart that has evangelical humiliation.

This teaching of Edwards is utterly vital. It is not vital because he taught it, but because he has captured the biblical teaching on the subject. There is so much deception in the world, the devil is called the deceiver, and then our own hearts deceive us. People latch on to false hopes of salvation quite easily and those who come along with the truth are not viewed too kindly. We are warned to beware of false prophets and they are likened to wolves. We are warned to be careful of those who try to deceive us (see I John and Acts 20:29ff for this too). It is not just any person that realizes that s/he is a sinner and wants to be saved from hell that can be saved, but instead these people have to be broken from all hope in themselves in order to be saved. It is not just any love for God that is a sign of salvation, but instead it must be a love that comes from God and is in the soul. As long as people go around telling others that God loves them and then that will be saved if they believe what was said, we are teaching a false gospel. That is nothing but a person loving what s/he thinks is God because s/he thinks that this God loves them. A person must be broken from loving things because of what it will do to self to loving God because of the glory and beauty that shines out of Him in Christ. This, of course, takes a broken heart and the grace of God to accomplish.

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Humility, Part 41

December 19, 2009

Humility is not just something that people may or may not have as they go on their merry Christian lives, but it is something that they must have. Edwards tells us that this is not an option. A humbled heart is something that is a necessary condition for being a Christian rather than just something that may or may not happen. Again, it is not that a person can work up this humbled heart or evangelical humiliation by his or her own strength and power, but this is a work of grace in the heart. It is a work of grace that God always does to hearts that He is going to dwell in. By definition a believing heart is one that loves God, yet without humility and humiliation of the heart a person will not love God but will instead do all from the love of self and the glory of self.

The quote from below is from Jonathan Edwards’ Religious Affections and the longer quote can be read in the BLOG Humility 36.

“In a legal humiliation men are made sensible that they are nothing before the great and terrible God, and that they are undone, and wholly insufficient to help themselves; as wicked men will be at the day of judgment; but they have not an answerable frame of heart, consisting in a disposition to abase themselves, and exalt God alone. This disposition is given only in evangelical humiliation, by overcoming the heart, and changing its inclination, by a discovery of God’s holy beauty. In a legal humiliation, the conscience is convinced; as the consciences of all will be most perfectly at the day of judgment; but because there is no spiritual understanding, the will is not bowed, nor the inclination altered. In legal humiliation, men are brought to despair of helping themselves; in evangelical, they are brought voluntarily to deny and renounce themselves; in the former, they are subdued and forced to the ground; in the latter, they are brought sweetly to yield, and freely and with delight to prostrate themselves at the feet of God.”

Despite the widespread and modern notion that humility only comes from a sight of sin, that was not the teaching of Scripture or all the older writers. It must be admitted that a sight of sin accompanied by grace can lead to a kind of humility, but since Jesus was perfectly humble we can know that there is a humility that is not directly related to sin. We are to be humble simply as created beings. But another reason for this is that true evangelical humiliation comes when the heart is changed and it discovers God’s holy beauty. Until the heart is changed, it will never see the glory of God in its beauty. Only the heart that is spiritual can see the kingdom of God and the spiritual heart is also the only kind that can see the beauty and glory of the kingdom of God. The heart with spiritual sight is enabled to behold the glory of God: “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit” (II Cor 3:18). The discovery of the beauty of God is not by an intellectual argument or deduction, but by the tasting of the Lord that He is good (Psa 34:8). This is the soul that now beholds the beauty of the glory of His grace (Eph 1:5-6) and is simply ravished by that beauty. This is the soul that does not resist humility, but instead desires to be in the dust and admire His glory of free grace apart from the interests of self. But this is also the soul that desires to be full of His glory so that His beauty may be manifested through it.

Edwards’ quote points to the hearts of the men in Scripture. The heart that has evangelical humiliation desires to be lowly and to abase itself, but not for the virtue of it but so that the beauty of God would be seen. Many have seen their helplessness before God and how they are vile and guilty wretches before His glory, but their hearts have not loved that but instead have been forced to it. Instead of being like John the Baptist who tells us that he must decrease and Jesus must increase (John 3:30), these souls love themselves and their honor but simply know that they cannot do as they please. They dislike their helplessness and their inability to do things for God. They dislike the fact that they cannot serve Him and absolutely hate the fact that they are under His wrath. They are humbled in one sense of the word but they have not been emptied of self. But those who have evangelical humiliation have such a love for God and His glory that they have a disposition in the heart to abase themselves in order to exalt God alone. These are the ones that have been brought to an end of their external selves in legal humiliation and then have had their hearts changed so that now they behold the beauty of God. When they see the beauty of God in His holiness and glory, they see the depths of their being a creature and then of being a sinner. They now see that what they love to do is to abase self so that the glory of God will be exalted in themselves. They see that they can no longer seek their own honor if they are going to seek His, so they bow in brokenness before Him as empty vessels. Paul was utterly broken and so sought the glory of God in Christ rather than His own. In our day we are too full of ourselves to be full of the living God. How desperately we need to be humbled.

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Conversion, Part 46 – The Conversion of Paul, Part 1

December 18, 2009

The biblical record of the conversion of Saul to Paul in Acts 9 is demonstrative evidence of the glory of God’s sovereign grace in the salvation of sinners. The description of the conversion of Paul is that of grace from beginning to end. True enough it was a bright light from heaven flashing around, but the glory of God’s grace in saving Paul is the brightest light in this passage. It is certain that Paul was there when Stephen was stoned (Acts 7:58 in its context) and so had heard something of the Gospel. But other than that, we don’t have any real evidence of human activity in this conversion. We have God choosing to save a man and make him a choice servant of His. We have God taking a man who was actually causing a lot of suffering to the Church with the intent of causing much more and changing this man’s heart so that he was now willing to himself suffer for the cause of the Gospel. This is the display of the self-sufficient grace of God purchased by Christ toward Saul who became a new creature known as Paul. Read the text of Saul’s conversion to Paul with an eye toward the glory of the grace of God in action.

“Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, 2 and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. 3 As he was traveling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him; 4 and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” 5 And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” And He said, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting, 6 but get up and enter the city, and it will be told you what you must do.” 7 The men who traveled with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one. 8 Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; and leading him by the hand, they brought him into Damascus. 9 And he was three days without sight, and neither ate nor drank. 10 Now there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias; and the Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” and he said, “Here I am, Lord.” 11 And the Lord said to him, “Get up and go to the street called Straight, and inquire at the house of Judas for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying, 12 and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him, so that he might regain his sight.” 13 But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much harm he did to Your saints at Jerusalem; 14 and here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on Your name.” 15 But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel; 16 for I will show him how much he must suffer for My name’s sake.” 17 So Ananias departed and entered the house, and after laying his hands on him said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road by which you were coming, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” 18 And immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he regained his sight, and he got up and was baptized.” (Acts 9:1-18).

Saul was a man who was greatly learned in the Old Testament. He had heard the Gospel from the preaching of Stephen (and possibly others) who set out the Old Testament in a prominent way in his preaching before he was stoned to death (Acts 7). Saul heard the Gospel set out in its Old Testament setting and surely this provoked something in his thinking. He was not ignorant of the things that had occurred in Jerusalem concerning Jesus a relatively short time before. The ones who were stoning Stephen laid their coats at the feet of Saul showing that he was a leader in this. Acts 8:1 tells us that “Saul was in hearty agreement with putting him to death.” At least part of the great persecution of the Church was instigated and propagated by Saul (Acts 8:1-3 and 9:1ff). He was on his way to Damascus to carry out his hatred against the Church, but then something happened that changed Saul completely.

What is going on with the heart of Saul? He hated Jesus Christ and he hated the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Though he was very religious and a very devout Pharisee, he hated God. If a person would have walked up and “shared the Gospel” with him, that person would have been put in prison and perhaps stoned. His heart was hard and he was set on stomping out this wild fire of false religion. He was not ready to pray a prayer and he was not ready to walk an aisle. He was not ready to read any literature and most likely would not have debated with anyone on the issue. Saul was not likely to have been considered a good choice for a second visit on some evangelism profile. He was openly hostile to the Gospel. While Paul was not a good candidate for modern evangelism, God has His own ways.

What we see here is God’s way of bringing a man to humility and brokenness before Himself. While Saul would not go hear the Gospel of his own accord, God brought him to hear it from Stephen while Stephen was being tried and then stoned. If we could ask Stephen if it was worth being stoned so that Saul would hear the Gospel, without doubt he would say that it was. God’s method of evangelism to Saul was to send a servant who would die preaching the Gospel. Stephen’s evangelistic method was to stand firm for the Gospel and die a painful death. He did not practice any form of evangelism other than his love for God was greater than a fear of man and his message was the truth of the Gospel. But know that it is the Gospel that is the power of God unto salvation (Rom 1:16). It is the Gospel that God uses to change hearts that hate Him and make them into lovers of God. It does not take methods or pleas to the will of man to be saved, but instead it takes the Gospel in the hands of the living God and applied by Him to the heart.

It is the Gospel of Jesus the Messiah and the Gospel of the glory of God that must be preached. It is not the Gospel of say a prayer or the Gospel of make a choice, it is the Gospel of God. The method of the Gospel is to preach the glory and character of God, it is not to try to talk and manipulate human beings into making choices. The method of the Gospel is against trying to manipulate men to make choices since the Gospel looks to the grace of God alone in saving sinners. The sinner must not look to his own will to make a choice since it is that very will that must be changed. The sinner must not look to his own ability since it is the ability of Christ alone that will save. That is what the conversion of Saul to Paul teaches us. Preach the Gospel and look to God to do the work of changing hearts. Sinners cannot change their own hearts and that includes those who evangelize. In our day, however, and has been this way for a long time, we have changed to look to men in evangelism. This is true in Reformed circles as well.

“There is another variety of postredemptionism, however…This variety, which became dominant among the New England Congregationalist churches about the second third of the nineteenth century e.g. N.W. Taylor, d. 1858; C.G. Finney, d. 1875…), attempted, much are the manner of the “Congruists” of the Church of Rome, to unite a Pelagian doctrine of the will with the Calvinistic doctrine of absolute predestination. The result was, of course, to destroy the Calvinistic doctrine of “irresistible grace,” and as the Calvinistic doctrine of the “satisfaction of Christ” was also set aside in favor of the Grotian or governmental theory of atonement, little was left of Calvinism except the bare doctrine of predestination. Perhaps it is not strange, therefore, that this “improved Calvinism” has crumbled away and given place to newer and explicitly anti-Calvinistic constructions of doctrine” (B. B. Warfield).

As we look at the conversion of Saul who became Paul, we see irresistible grace at work. As we look on the modern scene of evangelism, however, we see human beings at work doing their preaching and evangelism in ways that certainly appear to be apart from a reliance on irresistible grace though some lip service may be given to it. Indeed the conversion of Saul to Paul was a remarkable case, but then again every true conversion is just as remarkable if we could but see what goes on. Sure there was a physical light that blinded Saul so that he fell to the ground and an audible voice that struck those with him speechless, but in any Gospel applied by God there is an inner light that shines as well. Any true conversion is a supernatural work of God in shining the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ (II Cor 4:6). When our methods of evangelism take on man-centered ways and methods, we may have nothing more than the bare doctrine of predestination and call ourselves orthodox. We may have high numbers of those making professions of faith, but when we leave the truth of the power of the Gospel and take it into our own hands by man’s ways and man’s methods, there is no power of God and the Gospel attending our preaching.

The contrast between the conversion of Saul to Paul and our modern day methods are striking. The reason for that is that Saul was converted by the Gospel as worked into the heart of Saul by God alone. The external bright light that flashed around did not convert him though it certainly obtained his attention. It was the inward light of the glory of God that converted him and it is that same inward light that converts souls today. When men, whether professing Calvinists or not, try to manipulate and use the methods of men to extricate a prayer or a choice out of men, the light of the Gospel is not there. When men, even if they do profess to believe in election, use means that deny irresistible grace, the light of the Gospel is not there. R.C. Sproul has said that we “are in the Pelagian captivity of the Church.” Many professing Reformed in doctrine have capitulated to Finney in the practice of evangelism. In doing so the light of the glory of the Gospel has virtually been extinguished in our day. God will not give His glory to another in the Gospel, yet in evangelism that is what we have done. A Gospel of grace alone is of His glory alone in irresistible grace. Is that the Gospel that you preach? Do you look to man’s will to choose or to God’s to convert?

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Provocation to Prayer, Part 19

December 18, 2009

Prayer is often conceived of and practiced as a work of man rather than a work of grace in the heart of man. God has created the human mind to think in terms of causation, which is insight into reality and enables man to trace all things to the Divine cause, but since the Fall we are inclined to look at human causation and not see the Divine. So when we see in history that men have prayed before God acts we think that God responded to prayer. But the heart that is truly praying does not correspond to spontaneous combustion in the natural realm as if a truly praying heart came from no cause, but instead it has a Divine cause. The heart that is broken from self and is truly praying is also not the work of the self as that would be just another level of praying from self-centeredness. True prayer is the fruit of the Spirit because there can be no true prayer apart from the love of God and there is no love but that which is from God. There is nothing good in the physical or spiritual realm that does not ultimately come from the working of God as the First Cause. All spiritual good that comes to human beings only come on the basis of grace.

Even those who are Reformed and think of the word “grace” a lot tend to make the means of grace into a work. We think of prayer as a means of grace and so we “pray” to receive grace. But if think of it just a little more, we will see that if we pray as a means of grace thinking that God will give grace if we pray, then we turn prayer into a work. God does not give grace because of works. It is true that prayer is a means of grace, but it is still grace. God is under no obligation to dispense grace just because a human being is doing a “means of grace.” God does give grace through prayer, but just because it is a means of grace does mean it automatically brings grace. By no means is this true. Instead we must “use” the means of grace to seek grace itself and as if it comes totally without cause on account of the works or merits of men. True prayer is when sinful men come to God in order to be made broken and humble instruments of grace. The grace of God will make its instruments of grace before it bestows grace. Grace is always given to the praise of His glory and men who think that they can dispense grace to themselves by using the means of grace are trying to obtain grace for selfish purposes and don’t understand biblical grace at all.

Prayer must always be going to the throne of grace to receive grace. We must never think of prayer as anything else. It is not what God responds to because we do it, but God responds to prayers for grace when He has broken and humbled the heart to receive grace. By definition it is pride to think that I can do anything to cause God to respond to me that is not of His own work in the soul. That would be a sinful human being having the power to manipulate God and put the grace of God in the hands of men to dispense it. How we want to dispense grace to ourselves as we please, and so we use the means of grace to get grace for ourselves. Oh how the proud human heart will trick itself into thinking that it can obtain grace because of its own efforts and not seeing how despicable it is in doing so. Our proud prayers, though perhaps orthodox, are opposed by God because the Scriptures tell us with a great deal of clarity that God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble (James 4:6; I Peter 5:5).

When we pray in solitary or in groups for revival what we must know that revival only comes as grace. Revival is not something that God responds to men when they work hard for it, but it is the pouring out of God’s grace in pouring out Himself into human souls. God never gives Himself on the basis of works, but only by grace. Revival must be sought with broken hearts that truly desire God’s glory shining in Christ. Revival must be sought as grace because true revival is grace. God will only bring revival when He has worked His desire for His glory in His people. His desire in revival is to manifest the beauty of the glory of His grace. Do we desire revival in our hearts for His glory alone? Can we desire the God’s grace and expect it to come to us because we have performed certain actions? Oh no, that is to want something from God because of what we do and that is something other than grace.
What a great need there is for the soul to be humbled before it prays and to ask for humility while it prays. There is no true prayer apart from humility because God will not give grace to the proud.

Hebrews 4:16 – “Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

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Humility, Part 40

December 16, 2009

Humility is not just an outward act, but rather it must come from a disposition of the heart. The natural man can feign and copy an external form of humility, but he cannot change his heart to a true disposition which loves God and abases self. He does not have that heart and so all he does from pride and self. The natural man can know that he is undone and can do nothing to save himself, but he cannot love that from his proud heart. The heart must be changed so that there is a disposition to abase self and exalt God. After all, a true love for God will lead one to repent of all that stands in the way of His glory even if it is the deepest love of self. But a new heart with the disposition to do this is an utter necessity and that is something that must come from God alone. The quote from below is from Jonathan Edwards’ Religious Affections and the longer quote can be read in the BLOG Humility 36.

“In a legal humiliation men are made sensible that they are nothing before the great and terrible God, and that they are undone, and wholly insufficient to help themselves; as wicked men will be at the day of judgment; but they have not an answerable frame of heart, consisting in a disposition to abase themselves, and exalt God alone. This disposition is given only in evangelical humiliation, by overcoming the heart, and changing its inclination, by a discovery of God’s holy beauty. In a legal humiliation, the conscience is convinced; as the consciences of all will be most perfectly at the day of judgment; but because there is no spiritual understanding, the will is not bowed, nor the inclination altered. In legal humiliation, men are brought to despair of helping themselves; in evangelical, they are brought voluntarily to deny and renounce themselves; in the former, they are subdued and forced to the ground; in the latter, they are brought sweetly to yield, and freely and with delight to prostrate themselves at the feet of God.”

In the quote above we will see some vitally important truths regarding true humility, but also things that relate to true conversion and true evangelism. Remember, from the longer quote, that Edwards says that “This is a great and most essential thing in true religion. The whole frame of the gospel, every thing appertaining in the new covenant, and all God’s dispensations towards fallen man, are calculated to bring to pass this effect. They that are destitute of this, have no true religion, whatever profession they may make, and high soever their religious affections may be.” In other words, evangelical humiliation or true humility is utterly necessary for a person to be a Christian. The disposition of the heart is changed in evangelical humility which overcomes the sinful heart of pride and self and changes its very inclinations. The unbelieving heart, even if very religious and devoted to outward works and morality, does not love to abase self and so does not love the true glory of God. But the believing heart or the heart that has been born from above has new inclinations. The heart is now inclined away from the love of self and the glory of self to a heart that loves God and His glory. The new heart is now inclined to abase self rather than exalt self as it previously did. It does this, not because it is forced to do so by some external power, but because it has now discovered the glory of God’s holy beauty. It is now ravished by true beauty and glory which is God alone.

In legal humiliation all the efforts at humility and religion still come from the old nature of pride and self. Many are too enlightened and proud to be caught up in crass immorality, so they get involved in high society, become religious, or various things that are socially acceptable. But they are still in the bondage of pride and self. All that they do comes from self. So if that heart is enlightened to some degree and that soul sees itself in bondage and sin, it will try to do certain things in order to attain to salvation. But all those are still the efforts of self and all those are still from the natural man with a natural self. All of those things are from the pride and love of self. That old heart in its pride and love of natural self must be overcome and only grace can do that. That old heart must have its disposition and its inclinations changed. In order to do that, however, the heart itself must be changed. A person must become a new creature in Christ and must become a spiritual being. This will only happen when the glory and beauty of God’s glory and holiness are seen. The natural man has no higher motive and affections than self. The spiritual man has seen the true beauty of the glory of God and so now sees the motives and affections of self as truly despicable and hideous. The spiritual one has a heart that is full of God and is ravished by Him. Surely, then, the Gospel of grace alone and the method of evangelism can be seen. If we use the methods of men in evangelism, we will end up with nothing but the natural man living the natural religious life with the old nature of pride and the inclinations of self. The Gospel is good news to those who see the sin of self because it promises a new heart by which they can love God and be turned from that hideous thing in them that is full of pride and self. If ever God opens the eyes of a soul to the horror of its pride and self, they will not be satisfied with a religion of self but will desire to be free from that and to have one that is full of God and His glory.

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Humility, Part 39

December 14, 2009

In the last BLOG we looked at some distinctions between legal humiliation and evangelical humiliation. The main difference that was set out is the sight and sense of the beauty of the holiness of God and His Law. The natural man can have a legal humiliation because he can see that he has broken the Law of God and then fear His wrath. But the spiritual man can have an evangelical humiliation because from a sight and sense of the holiness of God and His Law this person will turn against self rather than against God. The one that has seen God will take the side of God against self. The one that has seen God will adore God and abhor self. The quote from below is a part of a quote taken from the Religious Affections of Jonathan Edwards. The whole quote can be seen in Humility 36.

“In a legal humiliation men are made sensible that they are nothing before the great and terrible God, and that they are undone, and wholly insufficient to help themselves; as wicked men will be at the day of judgment; but they have not an answerable frame of heart, consisting in a disposition to abase themselves, and exalt God alone. This disposition is given only in evangelical humiliation, by overcoming the heart, and changing its inclination, by a discovery of God’s holy beauty. In a legal humiliation, the conscience is convinced; as the consciences of all will be most perfectly at the day of judgment; but because there is no spiritual understanding, the will is not bowed, nor the inclination altered. In legal humiliation, men are brought to despair of helping themselves; in evangelical, they are brought voluntarily to deny and renounce themselves; in the former, they are subdued and forced to the ground; in the latter, they are brought sweetly to yield, and freely and with delight to prostrate themselves at the feet of God.”

In this section of the quote Edwards opens up a few other points about the distinction between legal humiliation and evangelical humiliation. We could also look at this as the distinction between the unbeliever’s humility (legal) and the true believer’s humility (evangelical). While it is the case that for Edwards and virtually the whole Reformed world prior to the mid 1800’s that a sinner must be totally undone within themselves and before God in order to be saved, this is not true in our day. Yet clearly in this point Edwards is saying that people can be sensible of being nothing before God, totally undone, and utterly and wholly insufficient to help themselves and still be unconverted. While these are things that must be done, they are not things that actually convert the person. They are still consistent with having an unconverted nature as can be seen as this is the state of those on judgment day just before they are thrown into the lake of fire.

While these people are made sensible or aware with corresponding affections about what they are sensible of regarding their undone state and their inability to help themselves, they do not have “an answerable frame of heart.” While the person with legal humiliation is “forced” to see self and recognize that s/he is utterly undone and insufficient to save self or help self, their hearts do not love to be humbled before God in that way. Their hearts are still full of pride and self and they do not like to see self in a place that hurts their pride and makes them feel so helpless. But the one that has received an answerable heart is one that corresponds to seeing what it is and loves to humble self before God. The heart that has been humbled in the evangelical humiliation way is a heart that has the disposition to abase itself and to exalt God. This is true humility. It is the very disposition or nature of a heart that has a spiritual nature to love to abase itself in order that God will be exalted.

This does not sound attractive to the modern man and seems so out of touch. However, it is biblical. Those who have no righteousness in themselves or claim to it are truly blessed. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mat 5:3). Those who are attacked and yet return love are the ones truly blessed. “Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth” (Mat 5:5). Those who see the glory and holiness of God see themselves in truth. “Then I said, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts” (Isa 6:5). The contrite and lowly are those God dwells with and that is the true blessing. “For thus says the high and exalted One Who lives forever, whose name is Holy, “I dwell on a high and holy place, And also with the contrite and lowly of spirit In order to revive the spirit of the lowly And to revive the heart of the contrite” (Isa 57:15). Those who have a heart to love God and His glory understand that it is their own proud and selfish hearts that keeps them from seeing His glory. They desire His glory and not their own so they live and pray to that end: “Not to us, O LORD, not to us, But to Your name give glory Because of Your lovingkindness, because of Your truth” (Psa 115:1). He is their true love and that which prevents the manifestation must go, even when it is self. That is a disposition of the heart that loves God.

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Humility, Part 38

December 12, 2009

We continue to explore the writings of Jonathan Edwards on this vital subject of humility and humiliation of the soul. This is not what modern people focus on, but it is what the older Reformed writers focused on as they looked to the work of God in the souls of human beings. Christianity is not just about being able to come to a point about believing certain things that are true, but it is about those things that are true being worked in and living in the heart of the believer. Those things are what the spiritual heart consists of. But until a sinner has been broken from his or her own sufficiency and knows from the depths of his or her heart that apart from Christ s/he can do nothing (John 15:5), that person is living by the strength of self. The whole quote from Edwards is given in a previous BLOG, Humility 36. What follows is a short quotation from the larger quote.

“Evangelical humiliation is a sense that a Christian has of his own insufficiency, despicableness, and odiousness, with an answerable frame of heart. There is a distinction to be made between a legal and evangelical humiliation. The former is what men may have while in a state of nature, and have no gracious affection; the latter is peculiar to true saints. The former is from the common influence of the Spirit of God, assisting natural principles, and especially natural conscience; the latter is from the special influences of the Spirit of God, implanting and exercising supernatural and divine principles…

In the former, a sense of the awful greatness of his law, convinces men that they are exceeding sinful and guilty, and exposed to the wrath of God, as it will convince wicked men and devils at the day of judgment; but they do not see their own odiousness on account of sin; they do not see the hateful nature of sin; a sense of this is given in evangelical humiliation, by a discovery of the beauty of God’s holiness and moral perfection.”

The last BLOG (Humility 37) was spend in looking at what evangelical humiliation is in terms of what a Christian has of his own insufficiency, despicableness, and odiousness. Legal humiliation, however, can be confused for the true evangelical humiliation. A person may have aspects of evangelical humiliation but only have the outward aspects of it and not have true evangelical humiliation. In the modern day the external things are seen as what is true. Yet there are things, according to Edwards, that are peculiar to true saints. Gracious affections are what true saints have, though they may be confused by some of the externals with legal humiliation. The Spirit of God does give legal humiliation but in that there is nothing more than what can be done with the natural man. These things are common because many people have them. Natural conscience can go a long way in legal humiliation. But in evangelical humiliation there is the special influence of the Spirit and this goes far beyond what the natural man can do. In this the Spirit actually implants and exercises supernatural and divine principles. In legal humiliation the Spirit works on the conscience of man, but in evangelical humiliation the Spirit implants the divine life in the soul of man. The soul is humbled and broken from self and becomes united to Christ and the Spirit dwells in that soul. That soul then bears the fruit of the Spirit and Christ lives in and through that soul. It has the divine life in it.

In legal humiliation it is possible to see something of the greatness of God and to have a sense of the awful greatness of His law. The natural man can have a sense of what it is to break a law and then of the terrible danger that he is in because of what justice will do. The natural man can have great terrors in thinking of the wrath of God to come. It does not take a new heart and a spiritual discernment to understand that we have broken the law of God in some way and to fear the punishment to come. As Edwards points out, wicked men and the devils will know on judgment day that they have sinned against God and will suffer His wrath forever. They will have a great fear and their affections will be at a great height at that time. But they do not have a sense of their own odiousness because of sin, but it is the punishment for sin that is odious to them. The natural man will hate the punishment that sin brings, but he will not see the hateful nature for sin itself. The natural man only sees things according to his natural state and so he really views sin in terms of what it does for him or to him. The spiritual man, who has evangelical humiliation, has a sense and sight of the beauty of God in His infinite and perfect holiness. The spiritual man sees sin as it is against God and against the beauty of His holiness. The spiritual man has a sense of his own odiousness because of sin rather than just the odiousness of the punishment for sin. The spiritual man takes the side of God and pronounces judgment on self rather than on God and His holy Law. Only the spiritual person has evangelical humiliation because only the spiritual person can see the beauty of God’s holiness. This is to say that only those who have a new heart and a sense of the holiness and glory of God will have true humility. Humility is to be empty of self and then to be full of the glory and presence of God. It is truly beautiful.

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Provocation to Prayer, Part 18

December 11, 2009

“He that moves and acts according to a law of his own, offers a manifest wrong to God, the highest wisdom and chiefest good; disturbs the order of the world; annuls the design of the righteousness and holiness of God. The law of God is the rule of that order he would have observed in the world; he that makes another law his rule, thrusts out the order of the Creator, and establishes the disorder of the creature. But this will be more evident in the fourth thing. (4) Man would make himself the rule of God, and give laws to his Creator. We are willing God should be our benefactor, but not our ruler; we are content to admire his excellency and pay him a worship, provided he will walk by our rule. This commits a riot upon his nature; to think him to be what we ourselves would have him and wish him to be. Psal 50:21. We would amplify his mercy and contract his justice. We would have his power enlarged to supply our wants, and straitened when it goes about to revenge our crimes. We would have him wise to defeat our enemies, but not to disappoint our unworthy projects; we would have him all eye to regard our indigence, and blind, not to discern out guilt; we would have him true to his promises, regardless of his precepts, and false to his threatenings. We would form anew the nature of God according to our models, and shape a God according to our fancies, as he made us at first according to his own image; instead of owning and obeying him, we would have him obey us; instead of owning and admiring his perfections, we would have him strip himself of his infinite excellency, and clothe himself with a nature agreeable to our own. This is not only to set us self as the law of God, but to make our own imaginations the model of the nature of God.” (Stephen Charnock)

This paragraph serves as an excellent mirror for people to hold their hearts before and see what their motives and intents are in prayer. We are so used to thinking that we do God a favor when we do our religious duty of going before Him and asking Him to do things for us according to the desires of our selfish hearts. However, we don’t see anything like that in the teachings of Jesus on prayer. We are told that we are to pray according to His will (I John 5:14). We are told in John 15:7 what to do before we obtain what we ask for: “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” Yet if we are only asking for things according to our own wills and they are not aligned with His, regardless of how much we want them and how much we think of our desires as coming from Scripture, we are praying according to a law of self rather than His wisdom and rather than according to the Chief Good. It is possible, and most likely the vast majority of prayer is performed in this way, to make ourselves the one that sets out the rule and then try to get God to conform to us.

When we go to prayer we know that we want God as our benefactor, yet while we tell children that they should not whine if the parent says no, yet we whine when God does not give us the answer our selfish hearts desire. We will happily worship and pray as long as God gives us the desires of our hearts. But surely this shows us that something is wrong. It does not take a lover of God to pray to a benefactor and ask for things or to adjust circumstances so that they are favorable to me, it only takes a heart that is dead in sin and self to do that. It is easy to have pleasant and joyful affections and so think we worship God when things are going according to the desires of self. But are we so ready to worship when things are not pleasant? Are we so ready to pray for His will to be done when His will is for us to suffer? It is easy to pour out platitudes to Jesus for saying “yet not My will, but Yours be done” (Luke 22:42) in the Garden when facing the cross. It is easy to preach to others what they should do. But how hard it is to worship/pray when life is hard and the heavens seem like brass. Job bowed in worship when all things were taken away, yet we want God to do our own will instead of ours bowing to Him. True prayer involves our bowing to God and asking Him to work His will in us. True prayer involves seeking the will of God as our desire and truly seeking for His will to be done. True prayer is to come to Him with broken hearts so indeed we will not be asking Him to obey us but instead we are asking Him to work obedience to Him in us. If our hearts are not broken when we pray, and we are not seeking broken hearts in order to pray, our prayers are nothing more than an expression of the idol self and we are asking God to bow down before us. Let us not imagine that prayer is a simple little thing that can easily be performed. Self must be denied or our prayers are not to God but are to the idol of self.

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