Conversion, Part 31

September 3, 2009

In looking at the conviction of sin in terms of conversion, it might strike modern people as rather odd. But this is the position of the 1689 Confession, the Westminster Confession, and it was the position of the Puritans. It might seem to some that there is a conflict with the free offer of the Gospel, but that is not how the Confessions looked at it. Let me once again quote from Chapter 7 of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith.

“It pleased the Lord to make a covenant of grace, wherein he freely offereth unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in him, that they may be saved; and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto eternal life, his Holy Spirit, to make them willing, and able to believe.”

Q. 30. How does the Holy Spirit apply to us the redemption Christ bought? A. The Spirit applies to us the redemption Christ bought by producing faith in us and so uniting us to Christ in our effective calling.

Q. 31. What is effective calling? A. Effective calling is the work of God’s Spirit, Who convinces us that we are sinful and miserable, Who enlightens our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and Who renews our wills. This is how He persuades and makes us able to receive Jesus Christ, Who is freely offered to us in the gospel. (Westminster Shorter Catechism in Modern English)

Q. 72. What is justifying faith? A. Justifying faith is a saving grace, wrought in the heart of a sinner by the Spirit and word of God, whereby he, being convinced of his sin and misery, and of the disability in himself and all other creatures to recover him out of his lost condition, not only assenteth to the truth of the promise of the gospel, but receiveth and resteth upon Christ and his righteousness… (Westminster Larger Catechism)

The free offer is the proclamation of the Gospel to all men. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is to be proclaimed to all people. However, this does not mean we are to proclaim the Gospel as if it depended on man to comply with the demands of the Gospel. Men are born dead in sins and trespasses and they must be made willing and able to believe by the work of the Holy Spirit. B.B. Warfield wrote about the real or primary issue with Calvinism. It is not the doctrine of election in and of itself, but it is the effectual call. In other words, people can have some form of belief that they are Calvinists and believe in the doctrine of election, but the real issue is what they believe about irresistible grace. That is perhaps the main issue that separates Calvinism from Arminianism.

“Thus it comes about that the doctrine of monergistic regeneration-or as it was phrased by the older theologians, or “irresistible grace” or “effectual calling.”-is the hinge of the Calvinistic soteriology, and lies much more deeply embedded in the system than the doctrine of predestination itself which is popularly looked upon as its hall-mark. Indeed, the soteriological significance of predestination to the Calvinist consists in the safeguard it affords to monergistic regeneration-to purely supernatural salvation. What lies at the heart of his soteriology is the absolute exclusion of the creaturely element in the initiation of the saving process, that so the pure grace of God may be magnified. Only so could he express his sense of man’s complete dependence as sinner on the free mercy of a saving God; or extrude the evil leaven of Synergism (q.v.) by which, as he clearly sees, God is robbed of His glory and man is encouraged to think that he owes to some power, some act of choice, some initiative of his own, his participation in that salvation which is in reality all of grace. There is accordingly nothing against which Calvinism sets its face with more firmness than every form and degree of autosoterism. Above everything else, it is determined that God, in His Son Jesus Christ, acting through the Holy Spirit whom He has sent, shall be recognized as our veritable Saviour. To it sinful man stands in need not of inducements or assistance to save himself, but of actual saving; and Jesus Christ has come not to advise, urge, or induce, or aid him to save himself, but to save him. This is the root of Calvinistic soteriology; and it is because this deep sense of human helplessness and this profound consciousness of indebtedness for all that enters into salvation to the free grace of God is the root for its soteriology that to it the doctrine of election becomes the cor cordis of the Gospel. He who knows that it is God who has chosen him and not he who has chosen God, and that he owes his entire salvation in all its processes and in every one of its stages to the choice of God, would be an ingrate indeed if he gave not the glory of his salvation solely to the inexplicable elective love of God.” (Calvin and Calvinism, B.B. Warfield)

What you see lined up one after the other are Reformed Confessions and then the powerful point by Warfield that irresistible grace or the effectual call is really the true hall-mark of Calvinism. Monergistic regeneration is the real issue at hand. Monergism simply has the idea of one worker or a solo worker. Monergistic regeneration is when God is the sole worker in regenerating souls. A lot of non-Reformed thinking about irresistible grace and mondergistic regeneration can be hidden underneath a claim to believe in election. But far more serious than that, is the fact that if we are not clear to some degree on this we will leave those we evangelize trusting in themselves to some degree. The Westminster Larger Confession speaks of man “being convinced of his sin and misery, and of the disability in himself and all other creatures to recover him out of his lost condition.” Can a person really believe in Christ alone until a person sees that s/he has no ability in self and no one else does either to rescue him or her from that lost condition? Can a person truly understand the effectual call or irresistible grace unless s/he understands his or her own inability? Can salvation by grace alone be consistently proclaimed apart from teaching the inability of man to save himself or contribute to salvation anything at all?

As we have seen in previous newsletters, conviction of sin is not the work of man or something man must do himself in order to be saved. A true conviction of sin is the work of the Holy Spirit. A true conviction of sin is one of the steps of the Holy Spirit in the souls of those He is applying the redemption of Christ and Christ Himself in. The Spirit begins with a soul that is dead in sins and trespasses and works in it so that it will receive and partake of the life of God. That is eternal life. The soul that is dead in sins must see that it is dead in order to see what true life is and how that is to be sought. If men are not convicted of their sinful nature, then they will not be convicted of the true nature of sin. It is not just that the inability of the soul is a teaching that may or may not be taught, but it is what the nature of sin is. Jesus told us that the soul that everyone that commits sin is a slave to sin (John 8:34). Those words mean something and they get to the real heart of sin. As long as we withhold the information from people that they are in bondage to sin, they will not truly be convicted of sin as it is and of their lost condition. If they are not convicted of their truly lost and helpless condition, they will not understand the import of the Gospel of life. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is for dead sinners and it brings the life of God to and in the soul.

The Puritan John Flavel wrote a book entitled The Method of Grace. This series of articles has spoken about the methods and steps of the Holy Spirit. The two ideas are synonymous rather than contradictory. In the first section Flavel covers The Nature of the Spirit’s Application of Christ to Men. In this he deals with the effectual application of Christ to men, union with Christ, saving faith, and fellowship with God. In the second section he deals with the Subject Applied in a Solemn Invitation to Come to Christ, with Motives from His Titles and Benefits. In the third section, he gets to the subject we are dealing with. Remember that the title of the book is The Method of Grace. We are looking at how grace does the job of applying the redemption of Christ. The titles of the four chapters in this section are as follows: 1) Necessity of being slain by the law. 2) Necessity of being slain by the law,–Continued. 3) Necessity of being “taught of God.” 4) Necessity of being “taught of God,”-continued.

Here is one Puritan outlining the steps of the Holy Spirit of the method that God takes in His grace of applying salvation. This is in direct correlation with the Westminster Confession and the 1689 Baptist Confession. Flavel and the Confessions did not look at being slain by the law as anything but a necessity. Romans 7:9, the text that Flavel used, says this: “I was once alive apart from the Law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died.” Until we see the judgments of the Law weighing on our hearts and the Spirit brings this conviction to the depths of the soul, we will not die to self and the life of Christ is not in our souls. The Law brings us to the death of self and our own self-righteousness and all our efforts so that we will be like the tax collector who did nothing and trusted in nothing of self but was left with nothing but a cry to God for mercy (Lk 18:13). Until we feel the weight of the Law and its judgment on our souls and the death of our sinful natures, we will not know what it means to be weary and heavy laden. After all, it is only the weary and the heavy laden that Christ calls to Himself (Mat 11:25ff). Jesus did not come to call the righteous, but only the sinners (Mat 9:13). Until a person is broken from his own strength and his own righteousness, s/he will not look away from self to Christ for life. Until that death to self occurs, people look to themselves in some way rather than to Christ alone. Until we see ourselves as dead and helpless before God, we will not look to the Spirit to work monergistic regeneration in our souls.

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Pride, Part 67

August 31, 2009

In the last BLOG the focus was on some words of A.W. Tozer about how much Christianity had departed from a high view of God in his day. While things have changed since his day, instead of changing for the better things have gotten even worse. Our day is a day that still has a lot of religion, but it is not of a God-centered God who brings sinners to Himself and makes them truly God-centered as well. A brand of Christianity that is not God-centered is not Christianity at all. As said before, there is not one theological position that has been stated by man that cannot be held by man-centered people with their own honor or benefit in mind. The heart must be turned from its self-centered pride to centeredness on God in order to truly repent of the sin of the heart.

“In Luther, the theocentricity of primitive Christianity returns; and it is the determining factor of his whole outlook. His opposition to Catholicism is due ultimately to nothing else but this. In the Catholic conception of Christianity, it is in the last analysis man who occupies the centre of the religious stage; in Luther’s reforming conception it is God. Luther seeks to eradicate every vestige of the egocentric or anthropocentric tendency from the religious relationship. There is no place for the slightest degree of human self-assertion in the presence of God. Here, man must be content to receive undeserved the gifts God wills to bestow on him, and to obey without thought of reward the commandments God pleases to give him. In other words, he must let God really be God, the center around which his whole existence moves. This theocentric emphasis can be described as the fundamental motif of Luther’s entire thought.” (Let God Be God! An Interpretation of the Theology of Martin Luther)

Notice that the quote above speaks of what must happen in the presence of God. When a soul realizes who He is and what the human soul is in light of whom He is, the soul must turn from any self-assertion. Instead of what Roman Catholicism taught and teaches, which is that man must assert himself in order to be saved; Luther taught a Gospel of grace which man must come to the point of denying any self-assertion or ability. It is only when a person arrives at the point of not asserting self and looking to receive grace if God wills rather than willing it by self that salvation is by grace alone. Ephesians 2:1-3 speaks of how man is dead in sins and trespasses and by nature is a child of wrath. Verses 4-8 is how God raises sinners from the dead by grace alone. There is no self-assertion by a dead person. Those who are dead and who are raised by God have received what He was pleased to give and not because they asserted themselves.

It is also the case that Luther focused on the fact that man must come to the place where he is content to receive the undeserved gifts of God and that solely because it pleased God to do so. This is simply putting an explanation on what it means for a person to come to the place where s/he does not trust in self but looks to the grace of God to do it all. After all, we are told that God “predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will” (Eph 1:5). The “kind intention of His will” should be interpreted more literally which has the idea of “to the good pleasure of His will.” We then move to verse 6 which tells us that God saves “to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved” (Eph 1:6). It is hard to imagine anything more beautiful than the sheer and utter grace of God that saves sinners to the praise of the glory of His grace and according to His pleasure.

Man is also to obey God without thought of an earthly reward. Man’s reward in obedience is God Himself. So man is to obey the commands of God out of love for God. This shows, then, that in salvation and in sanctification man is moved by the grace of God. In this God is truly God in that He is the center of the whole existence of man. For Luther God was the center of it all. The opposite of that is pride. It was nothing but pride and self-centeredness that was the cause of Roman Catholicism. It was nothing but pride and self-centeredness that is the cause of the man-centeredness that is rampant in the United States today. In any local assembly where the focus is man, we can know that pride is right there. God opposes pride because it opposes the glory of His grace. Man wants to assert self in some little way in order to maintain some form of control, but that is nothing but pride in the face of the living God. Pride and God-centeredness are opposites. Pride and grace are opposites because sheer and utter grace is always opposed by man-centeredness and because pride will not receive grace. Pride wants grace to help, but pride refuses to bow in the dust and be totally at the mercy and grace of God. When men leave salvation to be by the will of man, that is self trying to assert itself at the throne of grace. Grace will save alone or not at all.

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Pride, Part 66

August 29, 2009

What is popularly known as Christianity in our day bears little resemblance to the Christianity of the New Testament and of the theology and practice of believers in the time of the Reformation. What is thought to be conservative Christianity in our day is far below what the New Testament prescribes and what the Reformation shone forth. We have many intellectuals and seminary presidents analyzing the situation, but they must be careful or they will (have?) fall into the same trap at a different point than those they are analyzing. The goal of Christianity must always be the glory of God as God means that. The problems that come from Christianity always come from a low view of God and of pride. A.W. Tozer made some massively important points in his very good and helpful book, The Knowledge of the Holy. In the preface he said this:

“The Church has surrendered her once lofty concept of God and has substituted for it one so low, so ignoble, as to be utterly unworthy of thinking, worshiping men. This she has done not deliberately, but little by little and without her knowledge; and her very unawareness only makes her situation all the more tragic. The low view of God entertained almost universally among Christians is the cause of a hundred lesser evils everywhere among us. A whole new philosophy of the Christian life has resulted from this one basic error in our religious thinking.”

When we hear man-centered sermons and man-centered methodologies we are hearing what the norm is in our day. When we hear people crying out against man-centeredness we are often hearing a protest of a wrong kind of man-centeredness and the people want to replace it with another kind of man-centeredness which is just a different type of wrong. The lofty concept of God that dominated the Reformation and the theology of those that followed it for a while has been utterly lost. Tozer was writing in the 1950’s and would utterly despair if he lived in our day. The God of Scripture is rarely exalted in the modern day from the pulpits of this land. Where do we hear of the God who is so holy that He cannot be seen or approached? Where do we hear of the God that is so holy that angelic beings must hide their eyes and face from His presence?

5 “I am the LORD, and there is no other; Besides Me there is no God. I will gird you, though you have not known Me; 6 That men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun That there is no one besides Me. I am the LORD, and there is no other, 7 The One forming light and creating darkness, Causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these. 8 “Drip down, O heavens, from above, And let the clouds pour down righteousness; Let the earth open up and salvation bear fruit, And righteousness spring up with it. I, the LORD, have created it. 9 “Woe to the one who quarrels with his Maker– An earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth! Will the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you doing?’ Or the thing you are making say, ‘He has no hands’? 10 “Woe to him who says to a father, ‘What are you begetting?’ Or to a woman, ‘To what are you giving birth?'” 11 Thus says the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker: “Ask Me about the things to come concerning My sons, And you shall commit to Me the work of My hands. 12 “It is I who made the earth, and created man upon it. I stretched out the heavens with My hands And I ordained all their host (Isa 45:5-12).

The pride of man is so vile that it wants to attribute all things to nature and natural causes rather than God. The pride of man is so great that he will quarrel with God and even question God and His rights. But as Tozer said, this has happened little by little. Through the pride of man more man-centeredness has come in and we even think of God as being man-centered in our day. When we look out upon the barren landscape of our day, the real problem is that of a low view of God and a high view of man. A low view of God and a high view of man will lead to errors in all things having to do with God. All thinking leads from one or perhaps a very few foundational issues. If God is not the center of our thinking, as indeed He is the center of all things in reality, then this one basic error will lead us far astray in all things. If God is not the center of our thinking, then we have the wrong source of thinking and the wrong goal in thinking. We will go nowhere good in our thinking when that is true. Since pride is man essentially trying to take the place of God and exalting himself into the place of God, it can be seen how horrid pride is. Pride will remove the thinking and the foundation of all thought and knowledge from the heart of man. Luther and Tozer agree that we must strive to get man-centeredness out of our thinking at all costs. It is not just a thought here and there; it is the essence of God-centered Christianity.

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Provocation to Prayer, Part 3

August 28, 2009

For a condensed version of Jonathan Edwards’ call to prayer see http://www.sbaoc.org/blog/?page_id=762 or go to www.sbaoc.org and go to “BLOG” and then “a call to prayer.”

James 5:16 The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. 18 Then he prayed again, and the sky poured rain and the earth produced its fruit.

We all want to have effective prayers, but few are willing to pray the price to obtain a righteous heart that will pour forth effective prayers. It is not that a righteous heart can be obtained by the works of man, but we must see the need for a righteous heart and seek the Lord for one. How many of us really desire to have a pure heart? No, I am not meaning the standard heart that flees from outward sins, but a heart that desires to be wholly the Lord’s. Do we really want a heart that is broken and weaned from all that is not seeking the Lord? Do we want hearts that breathe forth the heart of Augustine? In a bit of a paraphrase, he said that we love the Lord too little if we don’t love all things for His sake. Do we really love our wives, children, churches, hobbies, and so on for His sake? We think that a good Christian refrains from certain things and perhaps does others. Oh no, if we are going to see a true reformation and revival in this land it will only come if there are righteous hearts praying to the Lord for it. But again, these hearts do not come by works and they do not occur overnight. The Lord will send fiery trials to burn the dross from our hearts and purify out loves and desires so that they are for His sake. We must stop playing religious games by playing church that is not truly out of love for Him and His sake. We must stop thinking of revival as anything but for the sake of His name. If we want one simply as a church growth method, even if that is hidden from all others, we will not see a true revival and we will not see the glory of the Lord we claim to love above all things. Are we willing to be nothing for His sake? Are we willing to be nobodies for His sake? Are we willing to be shamed and cast out of churches and denominations for His sake? Until we do, we are not serious about true reformation and true revival. Let us seek the Lord for broken hearts in order to seek Him for His sake.

Various thoughts on Prayer by Anonymous Authors:
 I have knocked on the door a long time for an answer to prayer. Indeed, but are you at the right door?

I have prayed for years for God to answer this prayer. But have you really prayed to God out of a desire for Him and are you seeking the answer to your prayer for His sake? I have prayed for years for God to answer my prayer. Have you sought the Lord so that the desire of prayer actually came from Him and is according to His will?

There is a difference between internal and external prayers. External prayers are simply words that are not really from the heart. External prayers are those prayers that can be very religious and ask the right things, but the heart does not really desire them. Internal prayers are those affections and desires that are the wings of the soul that take it to the presence of God whether they are verbalized or not.

One sign of an internal prayer is that the one that is uttering the words is willing to do what it takes for that prayer to be answered. It is easy to ask God to do things and yet be unwilling to be the means by which He will answer the prayer. This shows that we don’t truly desire what we ask.

A heart that desires God and breathes after Him in prayer is one that does not desire self. This is a heart that is willing to suffer to be done with self so that it can seek the Lord and His presence in true prayer. A heart that is seeking the Lord in prayer is seeking to be done with self and is at war with self so it can continue to seek the Lord out of true love. Loving prayer to God can only be done in denying self and taking up the cross to seek Him in prayer. Denying self and taking up the cross is the only way to follow Christ in prayer. Let us be done with the thought that there is such a thing as easy prayer. Prayer is costly and requires the death of self because a soul cannot seek God and the self at the same time. A desire of true prayer is always “death to self” because self is constantly hindering the soul as it seeks the Lord.

*** Do we really desire revival? Do we really want to count the cost and also pay the cost of our very selves? If not, we are not really praying for revival yet. May the Lord teach us how to truly pray from righteous hearts.

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Conversion, Part 30

August 27, 2009

We are looking at the glorious doctrine of conversion. Conversion is not the work of the human soul, though we are to use the means of grace. We are tracing the steps of the Holy Spirit in His work in conversion. As a sinner is not converted by his own works, so neither are sinners converted by the work of an evangelist. The soul must be changed and transformed by the Holy Spirit. The evangelist brings the message of the Gospel and proclaims to the sinner the good news that God may convert him or her according to grace and not according to the merit or works of the sinner. Here are some words from Thomas Hooker from his book The Soul’s Humiliation:

“Do you think that a few faint prayers, and lazy wishes, and a little horror of heart can pluck a dead man from the grave of his sins, and a damned soul from the pit of hell, and change the nature of a devil to be a saint? No, it is not possible; and know that the work of renovation, is greater than the work of they creation; and there is no help in earth, either go to Christ, or there is no succour for thee. We can pity poor drunkards, and sorrow for them; but we are as able to make worlds, and to pull hell in pieces; as to pull a poor soul from the paw of the devil. Nay, he is a devil, and a damned devil, as you have heard; if this were well considered; it would dash in pieces, all those carnal conceits of a great many which make nothing of turning a devil to be a saint.”

It is the work of the Holy Spirit to convict the sinner of sin. Until the sinner realizes the depths of sin, conversion will be thought of as a small thing. Until true conviction is brought to the soul, the sinner will be full of pride and self-sufficiency. People differ in thinking about what conviction of sin really is. We can think of this in terms of a court of law. The accused is brought before the judge to have the crimes that s/he is charged with read. The accused can plead guilty or not guilty. If the accused pleads not guilty, then a date trial is set. But if the accused pleads guilty, s/he must understand what s/he is being accused of and what the punishment for each crime is. The accused criminal cannot just shrug his or her shoulders, say the words “I am sorry,” and then just walk off. The accused cannot admit guilt to lesser crimes than being charged with if the judge insists on the accused admitting to the crimes before sentence is passed. The judge will also want the accused to know that each crime has a certain punishment and that the sentence will be passed according to certain guidelines before the plea is accepted.

The Holy Spirit operates much like the practices of a court (in the sense above). He works in the hearts of sinners to bring them to a realization of their sin to show them what they are guilty of and what the punishment for their crime really is. Until a sinner realizes from the depths of the soul that s/he is worthy of God’s wrath for eternity the sinner has not truly been convicted of sin. Until a sinner reaches the point that David reached in Psalm 51, that sinner has not truly confessed the guilt of sin. The word “confession” has the idea of “to speak the same as.” When a judge reads the crime against the accused that person is said to confess only if the confession agrees that what the judge said the accused is guilty of. The Holy Spirit works in those who are criminals against God and His Law so that they agree with what God’s Law says against them, know the punishment prescribed by that Law. Only then can they be said to agree that they are worthy of the punishment prescribed. Below is David’s confession:

Psalm 51:1 For the choir director. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba. Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; According to the greatness of Your compassion blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity And cleanse me from my sin. 3 For I know my transgressions, And my sin is ever before me. 4 Against You, You only, I have sinned And done what is evil in Your sight, So that You are justified when You speak And blameless when You judge.

David saw that his sin was so great that whatever God as punishment would be just. He saw that his sin was so great that his only plea was to God for His lovingkindness and His compassion. That is the point that sinners must come to. They must not only feel some conviction for sin in the sense that they must feel bad, but they must see that they are guilty of violating the Law of God and that they deserve the punishment that the Law prescribes against them. It is only when they see something of the depths of their sin that they are truly convicted of sin which is to say that they see themselves as standing before the Judge who is also the Jury and that they know that they have been convicted of all the crimes against them. For the sinner to be convicted of sin is to know that s/he is now righteously exposed to eternal hell as a just punishment for sin. It is to be in the presence of God and declared guilty by Him as the Judge and to hear (so to speak) the sentence passed. It is to know and to feel the weight of the crimes and to realize that one is guilty as charged. It is to feel in the soul the hideous nature of sin and to know that “I” am guilty of all that and deserve nothing but hell as the worst miscreant on the planet.

In our day it is taught that a sinner admitting to a wrong or sin is enough to be called conviction of sin. However, we have to keep in mind the quote from Thomas Hooker that conversion is harder than the creation of the human being. Conversion is to be changed from a devil to a saint and to be translated from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. It is to be changed from being a child of the devil to be a child of God. A conversion like that is not possible for a human to do, but only the Holy Spirit. The conviction the Spirit brings is a true conviction of sin that comes to the whole soul. The soul that is truly convicted is pictured to us in Scripture in several places. We have men crying out to the apostles on multiple occasions wondering what they were to do. They did not just nod their head and agree to something, but when the Holy Spirit worked in them they were acutely aware of their sin.

The following is from last week’s newsletter:

“The text (Acts 2:37) tells us that “they were pierced to the heart.” The Greek transliteration of the word for “pierce” is katanusso. This is a word that is made up of the preposition kata and the word nusso. In John 19:34, while Jesus was on the cross, “one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out.” The Greek word used in John 19:34 is nusso. Some of the meaning seems to be immediately clear, but to expand on it some it has the idea of to pierce with compunction [sorrow] and pain of heart. It is a feeling of sharp pain connected with anxiety and remorse and it is to be deeply moved. This is something of what David mean when he said that he knew his sin (Psa 51:3-4). This is the anguish of soul felt by Job (42:1-6) and Isaiah (6:1-6). It seems to be parallel to what Isaiah felt in his soul when he saw God and the weight of his sin became unbearable.”

In Acts 2 the Holy Spirit brought a true conviction of sin through the preaching of Peter. It was not just a head knowledge of sin that the Spirit brought, but it was such an acute sense of sin that the Holy Spirit (Who breathed forth Scripture) used and uses the same word for it as He did in speaking of the spear that was thrust into the side of Jesus. True conviction of sin, when brought to the soul by the Holy Spirit, brings pain into the soul that He describes His own work as a spear thrust into the side and up into the heart. Conviction of sin is not a comfortable thing but it is to know that one is worthy of eternal death in the presence of a thrice holy God. It is not possible for the soul to feel nothing when its sin is discovered in the presence of God. We should not assume that people have been convicted of sin by the Holy Spirit if they are casual about it. The older writers taught that people should seek the Lord and pray for a true conviction of sin. In our day the avoidance of preaching about sin or even preaching about sin as nothing more than a violation of moral actions leads to a hardening of the heart rather than a true conviction of sin. For a sinner to be truly converted by the Holy Spirit, the first step is a true conviction of sin.

There are arguments given against this, usually based on one of two points: 1) That they do not want to put anything between the sinner and Christ. 2) This sounds like works as though the sinner could work up conviction of sin and prepare himself for salvation. I would like to point out, however, that these arguments also argue against the historical Confessions of the Church. In response to the first point, the answer is simply that we are not putting anything between the sinner and Christ, but instead are pointing out what is already there. What is already there is a heart full of pride and self and a heart that needs to be converted from those. In answer to argument 2, let me quote from Chapter 7 of the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith: “It pleased the Lord to make a covenant of grace, wherein he freely offereth unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in him, that they may be saved; and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto eternal life, his Holy Spirit, to make them willing, and able to believe.” The good news of the Gospel is not that Christ has accomplished salvation and leaves it to the sinners to do with it what they will, but that He promises to give the elect the Holy Spirit to make them willing and able to believe. That is the promise of the Gospel according to the Confession. That is also what Acts 2:37-39 is teaching as well. The work of conviction, as seen in the 1689 in Chapter 8:8-10 and 10:1-2, teaches that it is the Holy Spirit who converts sinners and part of that conversion is His convicting them of sin. Sinners are convicted, converted, and are “made willing by His grace.” The work of the Holy Spirit in converting sinners starts with a deep conviction of sin and that is grace too. The Holy Spirit works in effectual calling to bring sinners to a deep conviction of sin so that they will no longer trust in themselves but in Christ alone. The Spirit brings sinners to a deep humility because God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. The work of the Spirit is by grace and prepares the soul for grace. This is a Gospel of grace from beginning to end.

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Pride, Part 65

August 26, 2009

Pride likes to hide itself in ways so as not to see itself in all of its horror. But pride must be exposed in order for Christianity to be centered upon God and to receive all from God as free grace. Pride likes to dress itself in the garb of religion and morality, but even there it is still pride. Pride hides itself in religion and morality by taking what was God-centered in all ways and simply changing a few things at a time until things are now man-centered. Pride hides itself under the guise of the language and perhaps the theology of what was once God-centeredness, but it has gutted the heart from it and turns it into man-centeredness with the language of God about it.

“In Luther, the theocentricity of primitive Christianity returns; and it is the determining factor of his whole outlook. His opposition to Catholicism is due ultimately to nothing else but this. In the Catholic conception of Christianity, it is in the last analysis man who occupies the centre of the religious stage; in Luther’s reforming conception it is God. Luther seeks to eradicate every vestige of the egocentric or anthropocentric tendency from the religious relationship. There is no place for the slightest degree of human self-assertion in the presence of God. Here, man must be content to receive undeserved the gifts God wills to bestow on him, and to obey without thought of reward the commandments God pleases to give him. In other words, he must let God really be God, the center around which his whole existence moves. This theocentric emphasis can be described as the fundamental motif of Luther’s entire thought.” (Let God Be God! An Interpretation of the Theology of Martin Luther)

If the Reformation is thought of in terms of God and His glory versus man-centeredness of the slightest degree of human self-assertion, then everything takes on a different picture. It is no longer just a certain theology that the Reformers held that we must return to, because that theology itself can hide human self-assertion as does Arminianism. While Catholicism was inundated with human self-assertion, it hid it very well from most people in the language of theology and religious rituals that were said to bring grace. We live in a day where human self-assertion is rampant in all brands of theology. Clearly, or at least it seems to be so, that what is needed is a new Reformation that sweeps human self-assertion off its legs of pride and fights for a thorough God-centeredness in all things. In the quote above it is said that Luther sought “to eradicate every vestige of the egocentric or anthropocentric tendency from the religious relationship. There is no place for the slightest degree of human self-assertion in the presence of God.” These are the marching orders of a new Reformation. Human self-assertion is nothing but pride and is puny man trying to assert himself into the things of God. This must be eradicated.

Catholicism used the word “grace” a lot, but it was not biblical grace. It was a grace invented by men so that they could dispense it as they willed rather than proclaiming the grace of God who gives grace at His good pleasure. Romans 3:24 is quite clear that we are justified by a grace that is a free gift. What it really means is that the grace that saves finds no reason or cause to save a person in the person. The reason or cause of salvation is found in God. Catholicism did not use grace like that, but rather human self-assertion had made grace available to man by the works, merit, or even money of man. Arminianism has human self-assertion in that salvation is left up to the free-will of man which is to say that grace is available to a human being when it is willing to assert itself to do so. Ah, but Reformed theology has its own problems. It many corners it seems to have a grace available as long as people are baptized. In other circles it seems that grace is available to those that will believe certain things. But where is human pride denounced and trounced on so that the freeness of God can be seen in showing grace to whom He pleases? Oh no, we are told, we should not talk like that because it will run people away. Jesus talked like that and He ran almost everybody off too. If we don’t make clear what the term grace really means and who the God is that shows grace according to His own pleasure, we leave the door open to human self-assertion.

It is true that life may be easier in many ways when we allow the foot of human self-assertion in the door, but that is nothing but allowing pride to come in the door in disguise. Where there is pride grace will go the other way. If we would rather be nice and gracious (in a manner of speaking) and get along with everybody, we will be found to be the enemies of grace while we hide ourselves with the words. The Reformation was a time when men stood up and gave their lives in an effort to stamp out human self-assertion in Christianity. This is why we must follow Scripture alone and why we must preach a Gospel of grace alone that God shows as He pleases. We may lose friends and money, but our true goal must be to love God and His glory above all things.

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Pride, Part 64

August 24, 2009

While Luther found no real grounds of unity with Catholicism because of the difference between God-centeredness and man-centeredness, that difference has been shrinking for many years. John Owen and many others thought of true Arminianism as being the heart of Catholicism and so fought Arminianism as a step back toward Rome. Some did not see a major distinction between Arminianism and Pelagianism. Today we think of people who fight against Arminianism as something less than gracious or charitable. The majority view seems to be that Arminians and Calvinists preach the same Gospel but have differing distinctives. Perhaps, however, the real issue is God-centeredness and it has dropped out because man-centeredness has taken over again. Pride can seek unity under the name of charity and graciousness as well.

“In Luther, the theocentricity of primitive Christianity returns; and it is the determining factor of his whole outlook. His opposition to Catholicism is due ultimately to nothing else but this. In the Catholic conception of Christianity, it is in the last analysis man who occupies the centre of the religious stage; in Luther’s reforming conception it is God. Luther seeks to eradicate every vestige of the egocentric or anthropocentric tendency from the religious relationship. There is no place for the slightest degree of human self-assertion in the presence of God. Here, man must be content to receive undeserved the gifts God wills to bestow on him, and to obey without thought of reward the commandments God pleases to give him. In other words, he must let God really be God, the center around which his whole existence moves. This theocentric emphasis can be described as the fundamental motif of Luther’s entire thought.” (Let God Be God! An Interpretation of the Theology of Martin Luther)

Luther thought of Catholicism as being man-centered in its theology and practice. If we take away certain rituals of Catholicism, does it really differ from Arminianism at its heart? If we take away the veneer from a lot of Reformed theology, does it differ in the essence from the man-centeredness of Catholicism and Arminianism? What is the essence of Arminianism if it is not free-will? Yet for Luther this was nothing less than human self-assertion in the presence of God. The Gospel of grace alone is a Gospel that looks to God to bestow repentance and salvation on human souls apart from anything they can offer in terms of merit or worth. Luther would have looked on our day and have seen very little but human self-assertion in Arminian and Reformed theology. Faith is that which receives grace from God and it is not that which does things on its own power. Faith receives grace from God because that is the only thing it can do when the soul is emptied of all of its power and merit of man-centeredness.

As we look out upon the landscape of all that is Christianity in name today, we see a religion that has all but been swallowed up by man-centeredness. This may sound like the words of one in despair, but it is a settled belief. There is a lot going on in the name of God and of Christianity, but that does not mean that proud hearts have been broken and God is living in those hearts. There was a lot going on in the name of Christ in the days prior to the Reformation as well. But Luther saw how man-centered it was and began a battle against man-centeredness until his dying day. Well, one might say, this sounds like the beginning of a diatribe against Arminianism. No, whatever else this is it is an effort to point out the pride of the human heart and how we must be centered upon God. Much if not most of what is going on under the guise of Reformed theology today also has a lot of man-centeredness in it as well. The pride of the human heart can find places to hide among all branches of theology. The pride of the human heart can find words like humility to hide behind as well.

It is not humility that looks at Arminianism and Catholicism wants to be friendly with them. It is not humility to want to be friends with Calvinism either. All of those can be nothing but pride hiding under the guise of humility and graciousness. If we want to seek the living God in truth and love, we must be prepared to fight man-centeredness wherever it is found. We must be prepared to fight “the slightest degree of human self-assertion” if we truly desire God-centeredness in our own hearts, churches, and then our land. We must be prepared to fight with traditional language or against traditional language. Man-centeredness will hide in our own hearts and in the theology and practices of ourselves and others unless we become ruthless to our own hearts and to all man-centeredness no matter what dress it has clothed itself in. Pride, however, will say that we must be like Jesus and be gracious in all ways. Humility, however, will say we must be like Jesus in denouncing the proud in religion too. Jesus fought tenaciously against pride and man-centeredness in religion. It costs a lot to deny self and follow Jesus.

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Conversion, Part 29

August 23, 2009

In the last article we took a rather broad look at the work of the Holy Spirit by looking at the words of the Westminster Shorter Catechism. We traced the work of the Holy Spirit by looking at how the Spirit applied redemption to souls by producing faith and uniting sinners to Christ in the effective call. This effective call is the Spirit’s work of persuading and making sinners able to receive Christ by convincing them of sin, enlightening their minds, and then renewing their wills. This call is effective because the Spirit makes it effective in the soul to bring the sinner to Christ. We will begin to focus on some of the individual works of the Holy Spirit in converting souls. At this point, however, I would like to remind us of some questions that I raised back in Conversion 26:

“One, who is it that applies redemption? Two, if the soul has to be converted by the Spirit, then what does that mean? Three, could it be that our day has confused what the Bible means by faith and believing with nothing more than an intellectual act that an unregenerate person can do? Four, does believing the Gospel only mean believing the facts of the Gospel or does it mean that the soul has been changed by the Spirit and so one from a spiritual nature believes what has truly happened to the soul? Five, what is the distinction between believing that the doctrine of justification by faith alone is true versus actually being justified by grace alone through faith alone? Six, is there an activity of the Spirit in conversion to tear those souls from their own sin and self-righteousness?”

It is utterly vital to come to grips with who applies the redemption purchased by Christ. There are perhaps three major options that are taught today. One, the sinner applies redemption to himself when he believes. Two, redemption is applied when a minister applies the sacraments. Three, the Holy Spirit alone applies redemption to the sinner. The position of this series of articles is that it is the Holy Spirit that applies redemption. This leads us to question six (above) which asks about the activity of the Spirit in conversion in tearing souls from their own sin and self-righteousness. What does the Holy Spirit have to do to rescue sinners from their love of sin and self-righteousness in pride and self-love? Can a soul simply trust in Christ alone when the soul is full of pride and self? Can a soul that loves itself simply turn to love Christ with all of the heart? Can a soul that is full of trust in self-sufficiency simply make a choice to lean on the self-sufficiency of God? Can a proud soul that believes in self just choose to humbly lean on Christ? Can a soul that is spiritually dead in sins and trespasses make a spiritual choice to make itself alive in Christ? Surely we must give a resounding no to all of those questions and look at what the Holy Spirit must do to take sinners from their pride, self-sufficiency, and self-love that they may rest in Christ alone. The soul believes and trusts what it trusts in according to what it is. The soul that is dead in sin is alive to self and that trust in self must be torn from the firm grasp of the sinner so that it may look to Christ alone.

The Spirit must work conviction in the sinner of sin in a way that correlates with the Gospel of grace and the self-sufficiency of God. In other words, the sinner must not just come to a conscious awareness that s/he has sinned, but the awareness must be at the deepest levels of the soul. In Peter’s sermon in Acts 2 we see something of this deep conviction. In verse 36 we see Peter’s preaching going to the heart: “Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ– this Jesus whom you crucified.” It is like he pointed his finger and told them in the same manner Nathan did to David, “You are the man.” His words penetrated to the depths of their souls and they cried out, “Brethren, what shall we do?” In verse 37 of the text we are told why this cry came from their lips. When they heard the words of Peter “they were pierced to the heart.” This piercing is a deep conviction of sin and the anguish of soul that the Spirit has worked that in.

The word choice of this passage is quite interesting. The text (Acts 2:37) tells us that “they were pierced to the heart.” The Greek transliteration of the word for “pierce” is katanusso. This is a word that is made up of the preposition kata and the word nusso. In John 19:34, while Jesus was on the cross, “one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out.” The Greek word used in John 19:34 is nusso. Some of the meaning seems to be immediately clear, but to expand on it some it has the idea of to pierce with compunction [sorrow] and pain of heart. It is a feeling of sharp pain connected with anxiety and remorse and it is to be deeply moved. This is something of what David mean when he said that he knew his sin (Psa 51:3-4). This is the anguish of soul felt by Job (42:1-6) and Isaiah (6:1-6). It seems to be parallel to what Isaiah felt in his soul when he saw God and the weight of his sin became unbearable.

Jesus taught us in John 16:8 that that very work of the Holy Spirit would be to “convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.” The word for convict has the idea of exposing and convicting. The biblical idea of conviction is not just a cool and calculated agreement that the person has broken a law of God, but the idea of a piercing conviction of sin where the person’s sin becomes exposed to his own eyes and he now sees himself as a vile lawbreaker in the presence of a perfectly holy and just God. To be awakened to see sin as it is to any real degree means that the person now sees that all of his sin is against God (Psa 51:4). As David cried out in his confession of sin regarding Bathsheba and Uriah her husband, “Against You, You only, I have sinned And done what is evil in Your sight, So that You are justified when You speak And blameless when You judge.”

The Father is spirit and in His Divine nature the Son is spirit as well. Both the Father and the Son are also perfectly holy. But the third Person of the Trinity is called the Holy Spirit. It is part of His very name by which He is called repeatedly. When the Holy Spirit works on unholy sinners and begins to open their eyes to their sin, it is that of the Holy One who is doing the work. The Holy Spirit works holiness in the hearts of His people, but before they become His people in salvation He is doing the holy work of showing them their unholiness. So many just want to be saved from hell today, but once the Holy Spirit works in the heart and shows a person the nature of the sin of his or her heart that person wants to be saved from sin as well. There would be no hell apart from sin and the degree of hell is in exact proportion to the proportion of sin. The Spirit who is holy will work holiness in a heart and before that He will be working to show a person the degree and nature of sin in that heart.

What we are doing at this point is tracing the work of the Holy Spirit in the human heart as He works to convert a soul. God will not dwell in a filthy temple and the soul must be brought to see its filth in order that it may be cleansed. This is not a system of works of the human being that guarantees salvation, but it is the work of the Holy Spirit to convict the soul of sin. We have examples of this in the Old Testament and we have examples of this in the New Testament. But what we must see is how the Holy Spirit applies redemption in the soul of sinners. This is, after all, what the older Confessions teach. One of the problems people have with this position is that they think it is a work. But this is the work of the Holy Spirit. No human being can produce a conviction in his own soul like we see in Scripture. Another reason this seems like a work is because sin is seen as an external problem, and so as long as a person stops the external acts a person is said to have repented. But sin is of the heart and all sin flows from the heart. Matthew 12:34 puts it this way: “You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart.” Matthew 15 states it graphically: “But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man. 19 “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders. 20 “These are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile the man.”

Conviction of sin must reach the depths of the heart or it is not true conviction. We can preach against external sin and even teach people to turn from that sin, but if we do not preach to the heart they may be doing nothing but hardening people in the pride of their hearts. A self-centered and proud heart can turn from external sin in its own power and that leads to nothing but more pride. A true conviction of sin can only be worked in the heart by the Holy Spirit and when He does these things, the heart is convicted of its pride and its self-reliance. The heart that is truly convicted from its depths is a heart that is sick of self and sick of its own pride. It is like David in Psalm 51:4 and realizes that God is just regardless of what He does to him. It is like the tax-collector in Luke 18:13 who was so convicted of his sin that he beat on his breast because there was pain there. The conviction of sin was so great that he could do nothing but cry for mercy: “But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, the sinner!’

According to the Confessions, the teaching and the examples of Scripture the Holy Spirit applies redemption to sinners and not themselves or anything else. His first step in this is to bring them to a deep conviction of their sin and even more of their hearts. A true conviction must happen or there will never be a true repentance and a true faith in Christ alone. This conviction is not just something that may happen or is good to happen, it is utterly necessary in how the Spirit applies redemption to souls. Until the sinner is acutely aware of his sin he will not see how utterly unable he is to save himself. Until the sinner sees his own inability, he will not look to Christ and His grace alone for salvation. “So long as the creature is puffed up with a sense of his own ability to respond to God’s requirements, he will never become a suppliant at the footstool of divine mercy” (A.W. Pink).

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Pride, Part 63

August 22, 2009

The Reformation brought back a true theocentric theology and practice of Christianity from the man-centered ways of Rome. It was not just a Reformation of theology and morality; it was God bringing Himself to the center. Today certain aspects of the theology of the Reformers some forms of morality are being revived, but we will not be like the Reformers unless our pride is repented of and God is the true center of it all. The real issue of the Reformation was God Himself and how He was to be the core and center of all things. It was not just that He was to be focused on, but all things were to come from Him and the glory of His grace. One can have the academic theology of Luther or Calvin and still be full of pride and not know the God that Luther and Calvin knew. Our day must see its pride in its theology and in the churches in order to be on our faces before God. Being on our faces will earn nothing before God if we just drop down and do it, but it is where we belong as sinners before a holy, holy, holy God. Even the angelic beings who have never sinned shield their eyes before the glory of God. Yet in our day we think we can pal around with God. This demonstrates nothing but pride and blindness to spiritual things.

“In Luther, the theocentricity of primitive Christianity returns; and it is the determining factor of his whole outlook. His opposition to Catholicism is due ultimately to nothing else but this. In the Catholic conception of Christianity, it is in the last analysis man who occupies the centre of the religious stage; in Luther’s reforming conception it is God. Luther seeks to eradicate every vestige of the egocentric or anthropocentric tendency from the religious relationship. There is no place for the slightest degree of human self-assertion in the presence of God. Here, man must be content to receive undeserved the gifts God wills to bestow on him, and to obey without thought of reward the commandments God pleases to give him. In other words, he must let God really be God, the center around which his whole existence moves. This theocentric emphasis can be described as the fundamental motif of Luther’s entire thought.” (Let God Be God! An Interpretation of the Theology of Martin Luther)

We have looked at, though not at length, how Luther’s opposition to Catholicism was due to its man-centeredness. Luther’s magnum opus was his volume on The Bondage of the Will. He was very clear in that work that justification by faith alone needed to be explained in order for the Gospel to be by grace alone. He was also very clear by what he said and the way he went about it that he was defending the Gospel because the Gospel was of God. Luther was so concerned about the Gospel because in it the glory of God is seen in saving sinners. He defended Scripture alone because it was the words of God. Luther did no just oppose Catholicism because he was an academic who disagreed with them, but he disagreed with them because Catholicism was man-centered in all that they did versus Scripture which set things out as God-centered.

Has Catholicism changed? Not really, but Protestants have changed. The Confessions and Creeds are the same for the most part for Protestants, but the more man-centered Protestants have gotten the less they have disagreed with Rome. Many adherents of Reformed theology have never discovered the real and driving truth of Reformed theology which is that God Himself is the center of it all. It is not enough to know a few doctrines in the head, but one must have the glory of God in the heart as the chief love. It is easy enough for a proud heart to learn some knowledge of the Scriptures and know a few doctrines. It is easy because it is easy on the pride to do so. Knowledge makes arrogant (I Corinthians 8:1) and so proud hearts are not disturbed but are encouraged to grow in their pride if all they are gaining is knowledge. The Pharisees and the Scribes knew a lot, but they were proud people before they learned and became even prouder as a result of their learning.

Unregenerate people will always put man first because that is a way of self being at the center of all things. God will be served as long as it can be with self in control in some way and self gaining an advantage in some way. How wicked a proud heart can be in its self-service and that includes the things of religion. Catholicism was a very man-centered religion in the time of the Reformation and continues so until this day. The Reformation brought back a God-centeredness in fact and in theology and life. While the theology of the Reformers may be making a comeback of sorts, it still seems to be devoid of the driving God-centeredness of the Reformers. When we oppose Catholicism because of theology alone, we are simply fighting their man-centeredness with our own. We must go beneath the theology to see that God must be the true center of all things or our pride will be.

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Provocation to Prayer, Part 2

August 21, 2009

For a condensed version of Jonathan Edwards’ call to prayer see http://www.sbaoc.org/blog/?page_id=762 or go to www.sbaoc.org and go to “BLOG” and then “a call to prayer.”

The following statement is the doctrine from a sermon preached by Jonathan Edwards:

“However hypocrites may continue for a season in the duty of prayer, yet it is their manner, after a while, in a great measure, to leave it off.”

James 5:16 – “The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. 18 Then he prayed again, and the sky poured rain and the earth produced its fruit.”

Romans 12:12 – “rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer”

Ephesians 6:18 – “With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints,”

Colossians 4:2 – “Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving;”

Prayer may be thought to be an act by which souls repeat words to God. Prayer is thought to be repeating words following a list of things needed by self or others. It can be considered a method by which people obtain things from God. Imagine if our children came to us with a method or ritual to obtain things from us. However, what we need in order to truly pray are hearts that desire God Himself. We need to have hearts that love God and His glory so that our desires will be for Him and His glory. A heart that does not desire the glory of God out of love for God is not a heart that is truly praying. We need someone to teach us to pray, but that does not mean just to give us a method or the words to utter. What we need to be taught is for the heart to pray and to seek the Lord.

Luke 11:1 is very instructive in this: “It happened that while Jesus was praying in a certain place, after He had finished, one of His disciples said to Him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray just as John also taught his disciples.'” What follows is what is popularly known as the “Lord’s Prayer.” Jesus taught the disciples an outline of words to say, but the words are no more than sounds in the air if the heart is not in them. First and foremost, then, we must learn from the teaching of the sovereign Lord that the heart must pray. We cannot just utter words and think we have prayed. Jesus must teach us to desire and long for the things we ask so that we may truly pray from the heart.

Before we can pray the Lord’s Prayer we must begin asking God to put in our hearts the desire for the things in that prayer. We must come to Him broken and simply ask Him to fill us. He does, after all, oppose the proud but gives grace to the humble. We must begin at the beginning and simply ask the Lord to teach our hearts how to long for Him and to desire what He desires in order that we may truly pray. If our hearts are not tender and broken before Him, then we are not asking from a heart that is ready to pray. Let us learn to sit before Him in silence asking Him to teach our hearts the true language of prayer. The true believer wants God above all and will learn through patience and perseverance to seek the Lord in prayer as his or her chief love. Prayer for reformation and revival may take our entire lives. But what else is worthy to live for?

Prayer is the soul’s breathing itself into the bosom of its heavenly Father (Thomas Watson).

You can do more than pray, after you have prayed, but you cannot do more than pray until you have prayed (John Bunyan).

The angel fetched Peter out of prison, but it was prayer [that] fetched the angel (Thomas Watson).

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