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THE GOOD NEWS BULLETIN
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Charles Finney on Revival
“Make you a new
heart and a new spirit, for why will you die?”
Ez. 1831
CONVERSION IS
NOT A PHYSICAL CHANGE
When Ezekiel spoke to This command to the Israelites is binding upon every unrepentant sinner who hears the Gospel. We are required to perform the duty or suffer the same penalty. We should fully understand and immediately obey the demand.
What does it mean to make a new heart? A reflecting mind naturally asks the following: What does it mean to make a new heart and a new spirit? Is it reasonable to require this on the risk of suffering eternal death? How is this requirement consistent with the often repeated declarations of the Bible that a new heart is the gift and work of God? Does God require us to perform this duty without expecting its fulfillment, merely to show us that we are powerless and dependent upon Him to perform it?
Although the Bible was not given to teach us philosophy or
philosophy we may rest assured that all its declarations are in
accordance with the true philosophy of mind. In the Bible, words are
sometimes used to mean different things in different contest. We must
understand this, For example, the term
spirit is used in different
senses. Sometimes it means a spiritual being or moral agent. In other
places spirit is used in the sense we often use it causally: speaking of
the temper, disposition or character of a person.
Evidently, spirit is used in this sense in Ezekiel’s command. The term heart is also employed in various senses. Sometimes it appears to be synonymous with soul. At times it expresses the sense of natural emotions or social affections. At other times heart evidently means either the will or the conscience. But sometimes it seems so extensive as to cover all the moral movements of the mind. The particular senses in which the heart and spirit are to be understood in any place may easily be determined by the context in which they stand. Our present business is to understand these words of Ezekiel; for it is in this sense that we are required to make ourselves a new heart and a new spirit. In our text, heart does not mean the fleshly heart, that bodily organ which is the seat of physical life. To make a new heart does not mean a new soul—we have one soul, have no need of another, and cannot make another. To make a new heart does not mean we are required to create any new faculties of the body or mind. We now have all the powers of moral agency we need. We are just as God made us, without need of any alterations in the substance of our soul or body. We are not required to add to the constitution of our mind or bodies any new principle or desire. Those who have a new heart have not had any constitutional alterations of their powers. They are the same people they were before, as far as both body and mind are concerned. The alteration lies in the manner in which they actually employ their moral and physical powers. A constitutional change, either in body or mind, could destroy personal identity. If this took place in conversion, one who has a new heart would not be the same individual that he was before with regard to his powers of moral agency. Neither would he have the same responsibilities. A constitutional or physical alteration of a person by the implantation of a new principle in his soul (or diffusing a new desire which is incorporated with and becomes an essential part of his being) would destroy all the virtue of his obedience. It would make obedience to God the mere satisfying of an appetite or emotions in which there would be no real virtue, just as in eating when we are hungry or drinking when we are thirsty. The implantation of a principle of holiness in the mind or the creation of a constitutional taste for holiness , if such a thing were possible, would render the perseverance of the saints physically necessary, make falling from grace a natural impossibility, and would thus destroy all the virtue of perseverance.
A Physical Change Would Dispense With the Spirit A constitutional change would dispense with the need of the Holy Spirit’s agency in us after conversion. A re-creation of a person’s faculties, the implantation of a holy desire in his mind, would plainly dispense with any other agency on God’s part in later life, except that of keeping a person in existence and giving him power to act. When obeying the laws of his renewed nature or satisfying his new desire, he would obey God by necessity and not by choice. But we know by experience that the special influence of the Holy Spirit in later life are necessary. Those who have a new heart find that His constant agency is as indispensable to their perseverance in holiness as it was in their conversion. Also, the idea of a constitutional change is inconsistent with the Bible’s warnings against backsliding. For if the mind were changed and a desire for holiness and obedience were implanted in the substance of the soul, it is obvious that the fall from grace would be as naturally impossible as to altar the desires of the body. A constitutional change is necessary in conversion. Some suppose that the motives of the Gospel will not move the mind to obedience to God unless something is implanted in the mind that will respond to the outward motive and the Gospel as it is presented. In other words, since the motives of the Gospel are holy, there must be a holy desire or principle implanted in the substance of the mind before these motives can act at all; for response requires that there be a desire in the mind of the same nature as the outward motive. Those who believe this teach that if the motive is holy, the constitutional desire must be holy; if the motive is sinful, the constitutional desires must be sinful. But this absurd idea is contrary to experience. Under this principle, I would ask how it was possible that holy Adam sinned. Did God or the devil first implant a constitutional sinful desire within him corresponding to the outward motive? How could the holy angels sin? Did God Also implant a sinful principle or desire in them? Or were Adam and “the angels that kept not their first estate” originally created with sinful desired similar to those outward motives to sin? If so, they were sinners by creation. Who then is the author of sin and responsible for this wickedness?
It is true that the constitution of the mind must be suited to
the nature of the outward motives; for there must be such an adaptation
of the mind to the motive and the motive to the mind, so as to produce
the desired action of the mind. But it is absurd to say that this
unconstitutional adaptation must be a holy principle, desire or craving
after obedience to God.
CONVERSION IS A VOLUNTARY CHANGE All holiness in God, in angels, or in human beings must be voluntary or it is not holiness. To call anything that is a part of the mind or body “holy”—to speak of it as holy (unless it is in the figurative sense)—is to talk nonsense. Holiness is virtue. Holiness is something that is praiseworthy. Therefore, it cannot be a part of the created substance of body or mind. Holiness consists of voluntary obedience to the principles of eternal righteousness. The necessary adaptation of the mind to the outward motive lies in the powers of moral agency which every human being possesses. We have understanding to perceive and decide. We have conscience to weigh the nature of moral opposites. We have the power and liberty of choice. Since we, as moral agents, possess these faculties, the motives of the Gospel are addressed to these faculties. Plainly, there is a natural tendency in the weighty considerations of the Gospel to influence us to obey our Maker. The Bible often speaks of the heart as a fountain from which flows the moral affections and actions of the soul: “out of the heart proceeds evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies” MT. 15: 18. The term heart as applied to the mind is figurative, and recognizes an analogy between the heart of the body and the heart of the soul. The fleshly organ of the body called the heart is the seat and fountain of physical life, and its constant actions diffuses life through the physical system. The spiritual heart is the fountain of spiritual life. It is that deep-seated but voluntary preference of the mind which lies behind all its other voluntary affections and emotions, and from which they take their character. I understand the term heart to be used in this sense in the text. The spiritual heart is something over which we have control; something for which we can be blamed, and something we are bound to alter. Now, if we were required to make some constitutional change in the substance of our body or mind, it is evident that the command to change our hearts would be unjust. Since obedience would be impossible, the requirement would be infinite tyranny.
The Supreme Object of the Sinner’s Pursuit Must
Change Obviously, we are required to change our moral character, our moral disposition. We are required to change that abiding preference of our minds which prefers sin to holiness and self-satisfaction to the glory of God. A change of heart, as the term is used here, is just what we mean by a change of mind with regard to the supreme object of pursuit. A change of heart is a change of the choice of an end, not merely in the choice of a means. And individual may change his mind and still prefer different means at different times, but the means are always to accomplish the same end. A person who proposes to make his own happiness the supreme object of his pursuit may imagine that his highest happiness lies in the possession of worldly goods. In pursuit of this end, he may give himself wholly to the acquisition of wealth while constantly changing his choice of means. He may at onetime pursue a business, at another the profession of law, and still later the profession of medicine; however, all these are only changes of mind with regard to the means of accomplishing the same selfish end. Eventually he may see that his happiness does not consist in material wealth. He may reason that since he is to exist forever, he has higher interest in the things of eternity than in those of today. Accordingly, he may enlarge his selfish aims, carry forward his interest into eternity, and propose as the supreme object of the pursuit the salvation of his soul. He now has an eternal interest instead of a temporal end. But still the goal of his pursuit is his own happiness. His purpose for living is substantially the same: it is only the exercise of selfishness on a wider and extended scale. Instead of being satisfied with the happiness of today, selfishness aims at securing the bliss of eternity. When we confine our views and desires to the acquisition of worldly goods, we aim at employing the affections, the services, the honors and the wealth of the world. Yet, we can lengthen the cords and strengthen the stakes of our selfishness. We can carry out our aims, desires, and exertions toward eternity. We can set ourselves to pray, to read the Bible, and to become marvellously religious. We could willingly enlist the affections, the powers and the services of all Heaven, even those of the eternal God, to achieve our selfish end. While our views were confined to worldly things, we were satisfied that people should be our servants; but now, in the selfish pursuit of our eternal happiness, we would willingly call on the attributes of God to serve us. But in all this there is no change of heart. We may often change our choice of means, but our end has always been the same; our own happiness has been our idol. A change of heart, then, consists in changing the controlling preference of the mind; choosing a new goal to pursue. The selfish heart prefers self-interest to the glory of God and His kingdom. A new heart chooses the glory of God instead of one’s own happiness. In other words, a change of heart is a change from selfishness to benevolence, from having a supreme regard for one’s own interest to an absorbing and controlling choice of the happiness and glory of God and His kingdom.
We Work for the Ruler We Choose. A change of heart is necessary in the choice of a Supreme Ruler. Unrepentant sinners demonstrate that they prefer Satan as the ruler of the world; they obey his laws, campaign for his election and are zealous for his interest—even to martyrdom. They sacrifice both body and soul to promote his interest and establish his dominion. A new heart chooses God as supreme governor of the universe.
The world is divided into two great political parties. One party
chooses Satan as the god of this world, yields obedience to his laws and
is devoted to his interest. Selfishness is the law of his empire. The
other party chooses the eternal God for its governor and consecrates all
its interest to His service and glory. But changing parties, from
Satan’s to God’s does not imply an alteration of the parts or powers of
body or mind any more than a change of mind with regard to the form or
administration of human government requires a physical change of mind or
body. The act is accomplished by choice alone; by a change of heart. CONVERSION IS A
CHANGE OF PREFERENCE We understand some things about the mind by experience. For instance, we know by experience that it is the nature of the mind to be controlled by a deep-seated disposition or preference for a particular goal. It is not necessary here to enter into the philosophy of this fact, but simply to recognize the fact itself. When Adam was first created and awoke into being, before he had disobeyed his Maker, he could have had no moral character at all. He had exercised no affection, no desires nor made any choices. In this state he was a complete moral agent, and therefore in the image of his Maker. But as yet he had no moral character. Moral character cannot be created, since it attaches to voluntary actions. Do you understand me to affirm that any considerable time elapsed between the creation of Adam and his possessing a moral character? As soon as he awoke into being and had knowledge of the existence and character of his Maker, the evidence of which doubtless shone all around him, he chose God as his Supreme Ruler and voluntarily dedicated all his powers to His service. Adam’s preference for God and His glory and service over his own self-interest and everything else constituted his disposition or his moral character. He had a perfectly holy heart. Out of this heart, or preference, flowed the pure waters of obedience. All the subordinate movements, affections, choices, purposes of the mind and all the outward actions flowed from this strong governing preference for God and His service. Thus he went forth to dress God’s garden and keep it.
Our Preference Directs Our Feelings and Comfort For a time, Adam’s preference was strong enough to insure perfect obedience in all things, since the mind will follow an abiding preference according to the strength and permanence of the preference. For example, the preference that a man may have for home may forbid entertaining and thought of going abroad. His preference for his wife may prevent his consenting to any improper intimacy with other women. The probability, and I say possibility, of acts of infidelity against his wife depends upon the strength and abiding energy of his choice for her above all women. So while the supreme choice of Adam remained unshaken, its energy gave direction and character to all his feelings and conduct. That which must stamp perfection upon obedience in Heaven is the great strength and continuously abiding energy of the saints’ preference for God and His service. The holiness of God flows from this same fountain. It does not consist in the substance of His nature, but in His constant preference of right. His holiness must be voluntary. His preference of right is infinitely strong, so strong and so abiding as never to admit any change or allow conduct inconsistent with it. Adam was perfectly holy, but not infinitely so. It was possible that he might change. We have the melancholy fact revealed on ever side of us, which cannot be misunderstood, that an occasion occurred in Adam which actually changed his preference. Satan, as the serpent, presented a very peculiar temptation. It was addressed to the constitutional desires of both soul and body” to the bodies desire for food and to the mind’s desire for knowledge. These desires were a part of who he was as created by God. They were not in themselves sinful, but their unlawful indulgence would be sin. The proposal of the serpent was that Adam should change his mind with regard to the supreme end of his pursuits, and thus change his heart or his whole moral character.
The Foundation of Adam’s Holiness Was His Holy
Preference. Now, the foundation of holiness in Adam, and that which constituted his holy heart, was the supreme choice that God should rule: the supreme preference of God and His glory to his own happiness or interest. Therefore, the aim of the serpent was to affect a change in the supreme end or goal of pursuit. The serpent wanted Adam and Eve to pursue their own satisfaction rather than obedience to their Maker, to become gods themselves instead of obeying God, to pursue as a supreme end their own self-satisfaction instead of the glory of God. When they yielded to this proposal and changed their minds upon this fundamental point, they changed their own hearts (or that controlling preference which was the foundation and fountain of all obedience). They gave up perfectly holy hearts for perfectly sinful ones. There was no constitutional change, no change in the substance of either body or mind. It was not a change in the powers of moral agency, but simply in the use of it—in consecrating their energies to a different end.
Suppose God had said to Adam, “Make you a new heart, for why will
ye die?” Could Adam have justly answered, “Dost thou think that I can
change my own heart?” Might not the Almighty have answered him in words
of fire, “Rebel, you have just changed your heart from holiness to sin,
now change it back from sin to holiness!”
CONVERSION IS A CHANGE OF GOVERNOR Suppose an earthly king establishes a government and proposed as his great goal to produce the greatest happiness possible within his kingdom. To achieve this, he enacted wise and benevolent laws which he obeyed; laws which were framed so as to result in universal happiness if they were universally obeyed. He required all his subjects to sympathize with him; they all were to be governed by the same principles and pursue the same goal—the promotion of the highest interest of the community. Further suppose that one individual, after a season of obedience and devotion to the interest of the government and the glory of the king, was induced to stop promoting the public good. He set himself up and said, “I will no longer be governed by the principles of goodwill to the community. I will no longer find my happiness in promoting the public interest. I will aim at promoting my own happiness and glory in my own way, and let the king and his subjects take care to themselves. ‘Charity begins at home’”! Assume that this individual proposed his own happiness and aggrandizement as the supreme object of his pursuit, and did not hesitate to trample upon the laws and encroach upon the rights of his king and his subjects whenever those laws or rights lay in the way of the accomplishment of his designs. We can easily see that this person has become a rebel. He has changed his heart, and consequently his conduct. He has not only separated his interest but opposed the interest of his rightful ruler. From being an obedient subject, he has become a rebel. From obeying his king, he has set up an independent sovereignty. From trying to influence all people to obey the rightful government, from seeking supremely the prosperity and glory of his king, he has made himself a little king. As Absalom took the men of Israel and kissed them, and thus stole away their hearts, so this man now endeavours to engross the affections, to enlist the sympathies, to command the respect and obedience of all those around him. What would constitute a change of heart in this rebel toward his ruler? Only if he would go back and change his mind with regard to his supreme objective; prefer the glory of his king and the good of the public to his own separate interest.
God Reigns for Happiness Sake This is the case with the sinner. God has established a government and proposed; by the exhibition of Hiss own character, to produce the greatest happiness in the universe. He wisely has enacted laws to promote this, laws to which He conforms His own conduct and to which He requires all His subjects perfectly and undeviatingly to obey. After a season of obedience, Adam changed his heart and set up a kingdom for himself. Every sinner has followed and set up his own interest in opposition to the interest and government of God. Every sinner aims to promote his own private happiness. Self-satisfaction, the minding of the flesh and enmity against God, becomes the law over the general good. Whenever the preference or goal is changed, we set the need for a corresponding change of conduct. A change of heart, therefore, is to prefer a different end or goal; to prefer supremely the glory of God and the public good rather than the promotion of our own interest. If a person changes sides in politics, you will see him meeting with those who entertain the same views and feelings as he does. He will devise plans and use his influence to elect the candidate with whom he has now chosen to side. He has new political friends on one side, and new political enemies on the other. So with a sinner, if he changes his heart, you will see Christians become friends. With Christ as his candidate, he will aim at honouring Him and promoting His interest in all his ways. Before he changed, his motto declared, “Let Satan govern the world.” Now the motto of his heart and his life, “Let Christ rule as King of nations as He is King of saints.” His prayer was, “Satan, let thy kingdom come, and let thy will be done.” Now his lips cry out, “O Jesus, let thy kingdom come, let thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.”
A Christian Prefers the Interest of God’s Kingdom In proof that the change which I have described constitutes a change of heart (if any proof is necessary), I observe that he who actually prefers the glory of God and the interest of His kingdom to his own selfish interest is a Christian. He who prefers his own selfish interest to the glory of God is an unrepentant sinner. The fundamental difference between a Christian and a sinner lies in this ruling preference, this fountain, this heart out of which flows the emotions, the affections and actions. As the difference between ruling preferences consists not in the substance of their minds or bodies, but in the voluntary state of mind in which they are, it is just unphilosophical, absurd, and unnecessary to suppose that a physical or constitutional change has taken place in him who has a new heart as to infer that because a person has changed his politics that his nature is also changed.
Furthermore, this new preference needs only to become deep and
energetic in its influence to stamp the perfection of Heaven upon the
whole character. From long-cherished habits of sin and long acting under
the dominion of an opposing preference, the newly changed heart is often
weak and measurably inefficient. Consequently, the mind often acts
inconsistently with its general preference. Accordingly, God says to The Christian must allow old habits of thought, feeling, and action to be broken up. His new preference should gain strength, stability, firmness, and permanence to thus take control of the whole person. This process constitutes sanctification. Every act of obedience to God strengthens this preference and renders future obedience more natural. The perfect control of this preference over all the moral movements of the mind brings a person back to where Adam was previous to the fall, and constitutes perfect holiness. If a change of heart were physical it would have no moral character. The change, to have moral character, must be voluntary, a change with regard to the supreme object of goal of pursuit. Finally, every Christian has passed through the change which I have described. In speaking from experience he can say, “Whereas I once preferred my own private interest to the glory of my Maker, Now I refer His glory and the interest of His kingdom. I consecrate all my power to the promotion of them forever,”
CONVERSION IS AN OBLIGATION
The requirement God gives through Ezekiel is reasonable and
equitable. When God tells us to change our hearts
we are supposed to perform the
duty. However, if the change is a physical one, a change of substance of
the soul, it is beyond our ability, and the command is neither
reasonable nor equitable. To
maintain that we are under an obligation to do what we have no power to
do is absurd. If we are under an obligation to do something and do not do it, we sin. The blameworthiness of sin consists in its being the violation of an obligation. But if we are commanded to do what we have no power to do, then the sin is unavoidable: we are forced to sin by our natural inability. But it is unreasonable to make sin consist of anything that is forced upon us by the necessity of nature. If we are guilty of sin, we are to repent of it, heartily accepting our blame and justifying the requirements of God. But it is impossible for us to blame ourselves for not doing what we never had any power to do. Suppose God commanded a person to fly. Would the command impose any obligation upon him before he was furnished with wings? Certainly not. But further that upon his failure to fly, God required him to repent of his disobedience, and threatened to send him to Hell if he did not heartily accept blame and justify His requirement. He would have to cease reasoning before he could do this. He knows that God never gave him power to fly; therefore, He has no right o require it of him. His natural sense of justice is outraged. He indignantly and conscientiously throws back the requirement into his Makers face. Repentance in this case is a natural responsibility. He knows that he is not to blame for not flying without wings. However much he may regret his inability to obey the requirement and however great may be his fear of the wrath of God, to blame himself and justify God is a natural impossibility.
God’s Demand Evidences Man’s Ability
Since God requires people to make themselves a new heart or
suffer eternal death, we have the strongest possible evidence that they
are able to do it. To say that God has commanded His people to obey Him without telling them they are able is trifling. Their ability is implied in the command. The obligation to change our hearts turns upon our ability; and the question of our ability; and the question of the ability must turn upon the nature of the change itself. If the change is physical, it is clearly beyond the power of man: it is something over which he has no more control than he had over the creation of his soul and body. But if the change is moral, or voluntary, then the requirement of the text is just and reasonable. We have all the powers of moral agency, to choose between right and wrong. We are not required to altar these powers but to employ them in the service of our Maker. God created them and you can and do use them. He gives you the power to obey or disobey. Sin is to prostitute these powers, which He sustains, to the service of sin and Satan. Wickedness is a wrong and obstinate choice of sin. Isn’t it just as easy to choose right as to choose wrong? The motives for a right choice are infinitely greater than for a wrong one. Could Adam reasonably have objected that he had been unable to change his choice? Could Satan object that he had no power to change the governing preference of his mind, to prefer the glory of his Maker instead of rebellion against His throne? If Adam, Satan, or you could object, then wickedness would not exist. But God only requires you to act reasonable, for it is reasonable to prefer the glory of God and the interest of His immense kingdom to our own private interest. The glory of God is an infinite greater good than any other. Therefore, God, you and all His creatures are obligated to prefer it. The motives to choose a right preference are infinitely greater than those to choose a wrong one. Sinners often complain that they are so influenced by motives to do wrong that they cannot resists sin. They often excuse themselves by pleading that the temptation was too strong. Sinner, why is it that you can say you are so easily influenced by motives to sin that you cannot resists them, while you are strong enough to resist the motives that come rolling upon you like a wave of fire to do right and obey your Maker? How inconsistent!
When the Son of God approaches you, gathering motives from
Heaven, earth, and Hell and pours them in a focal blasé upon your mind,
how is it that you are strong enough to resist? If you did not exert the
whole strength of moral agency to resist, these considerations would
change your hearts
CONVERSION IS A GIFT OF GOD The requirement to “make yourself a new heart” is consistent with the declaration of the Bible that a new heart is the gift and work of God. The Bible ascribes conversion, or a new heart, to four different agencies,
Oftentimes conversion is ascribed to the
Spirit of God. If you consult the Scriptures, you will find it more
frequently ascribed to the truth.
Examples of this are numerous: “Of His own will begat He us by the Word
of truth” JA.
Conversion is ascribed to
the preacher, or to the person who presents the truth: “He that
winneth souls is wise” PR. 11: 30; Paul says, “I have begotten you
through the Gospel” 1
Sometimes conversion is spoken of as the work of
the sinner himself: “Ye have purified yourselves by obeying the
truth” 1 PE. Are all these declarations of Scripture consistent with each other? They are all true. They all mean just what they say, but there is no real disagreement among them. There is a sense in which conversion is the work of God, in which it is the effect of truth, in which the preacher brings it about, and in which it is the work of the sinner himself.
The Holy Spirit Is the Primary Agent of Conversion The actual turning, or change, is the sinner’s own act. The agent who induces him is the Spirit of God. The truth is the instrument, or motive, which the Spirit uses to induce him to turn. A secondary agent is the preacher or person who presents the truth.
Imagine yourself standing on the edge of the river by You follow him. His agitated appearance calls many people around him; and upon your arrival he points to you and says, “That man saved my life.” He ascribes the work to you; and certainly there is a sense in which you had saved him. But, on being further questioned, he says, “Stop! How that word rings in my ears. Oh, that was to me the word of life.” Here he ascribes it to the word that aroused him and caused him to turn. But, on conversing still further, he says, “Had I not turned at that instant, I would have been a dead man.” Here he speaks of it as his own act. But soon, you hear him say, “O, the mercy of god! If God had not interposed, I would have been lost.”
The Spirit of God Brings Truth to the Sinner’s Mind Now, the only defect in this illustration is this: the only interference on the part of God was a providential one. But in the conversion of a sinner, God employs something more than providence; for not only does the providence of God so order that the preacher cry Stop, but the Spirit of God forces the truth home upon him with tremendous power as to induce him to turn. The Spirit cries Stop. The preacher cries, “Turn, why will ye die?” The Spirit pours the plea home with such power that the sinner turns. In speaking of this change, it is perfectly proper to say that the Spirit turned the sinner just as you would say that the person who persuaded another to change his mind upon the subject of politics had converted him and brought him over. It is also proper to say that the truth converted him. In a case when the political sentiments of a person were changed by a certain argument, we should say that argument brought him over. So also with perfect property we may ascribe the change to the living preacher or to him who had presented the motives, just as we would say a lawyer who had prevailed in his argument with a jury that he had got his case, he had converted the jury. Just as true is to ascribe conversion to the individual whose heart is changed. It is strictly true that the act is his own act, the turning his own, even though the truth has induced him to turn. Still it is strictly true that he has turned himself. Thus it is the work of God and also the sinner’s own work. The Spirit of God, by the truth, influences the sinner to change, and this is the efficient cause of the change. But the sinner actually makes a change, and is therefore himself the author of the change. Some who read their Bibles fasten their eyes upon those passages which ascribe the work to the Spirit of God, and seem to overlook those which ascribe it to the man and speak of the sinner’s own act. When they have quoted Scripture to prove it is the work of God, they seem to think that have proved that in conversion man is passive, and the conversion in no sense be the work of man.
Conversion Is Not Entirely God’s Work Someone wrote a tract whose title was Regeneration Is the Effect of Divine Power. The write proves that the work is accomplished by the Spirit of God, and there he stops. Now it would have been just as true, just as philosophical, and just as scriptural had he said that conversion was the work of man. It was easy to prove that the work was of God in the sense in which I have explained it. But the write has told only half the truth. For while there is a sense in which conversion is the work of God, there is also the sense in which it is the work of man, as we have just seen. The title of the tract is a stumbling block. It tells the truth, but it does not tell the whole truth. The writer, in his zeal to recognize and honor God in this work, left out the fact that a change of heart is a sinners own act and has left the sinner strongly entrenched with his weapon in his rebellious hands, stoutly resisting the claims of his Maker and waiting passively for God to make him a new heart.
Thus you see the consistency between the requirement of the text
and the declared fact that God is the author of the new heart. God
commands you to do it and expects you to do it. If it is ever to be
done, you must do it.
SINNERS NEED THE HOLY SPIRIT Sinners make their own hearts wicked. The sinner’s preference for sin is a voluntary act. They make self-satisfaction the rule to which they confirm all their conduct. We discover that watching children that they are determined to satisfy themselves. Any effort to thwart the satisfaction of their desires is met with stout resistance. They seem to set their hearts fully to pursue their own happiness no matter what the consequences. Therefore, they will repeatedly make war on their parents and their God whenever they find that the requirements of one of these authorities prohibit the pursuit of self-satisfaction. Self-satisfaction is a voluntary pursuit. This state of mind was not created in the sinner before his birth. It is entirely the result of temptation to selfishness arising out of the circumstances in which the child grows up. The preference for self-interest is allowed by the sinner to grow with his growth, and strengthen with his strength, until his desperately wicked heart bears him onward to the gates of Hell. The necessity of a change of heart is obvious. The Apostle Paul calls the state of mind of repentant sinners the “carnal mind”; or as he also rendered it, “the minding of the flesh is enmity against God.” The child at first gives up the rein to the bodily desires. God requires him to keep his body under control, to express his soul’s wishes in the service to God—to subject and subordinate all his passions to the will of his Maker. But instead of this, he makes the satisfaction of his desires and passions the law of his life. The apostle speaks of this law in his members as warring against the law of his mind. This state of mind opposes the character and requirements of God. With his heart, the salvation of the sinner is manifestly impossible
The Spirit Attacks the Sinner’s Stubbornness In the light of this subject, you can see the nature and degree of the sinner’s dependence on the Spirit of God. The Spirit’s agency is not needed to give him power, but to overcome his voluntary obstinacy. Some people seem to suppose that the Spirit is employed to give the sinner power; he is unable to obey God without the Spirit’s agency. I am not alarmed when I hear this. I suppose there is a sense in which a person’s heart may be better than his head. But I have already shown that a person is under no obligation to do what he has no ability to do; for his obligation is only commensurate with his ability. He cannot blame himself for not having exerted a power that he never possessed. If he believes, therefore, that he has power to obey his Maker, it is impossible that he should blame himself for not doing it. If he believes that the Spirit’s agency is necessary to make him able, he is compelled to maintain that without this superadded agency he is under no obligation to obey God. Giving the sinner power by the aid of the Holy Spirit to obey God is what the Arminians call a gracious ability, but this is absurd. What grace? Grace is undeserved favor, something to which we have no just claim, that which may be withheld without justice. It is plain that a gracious ability to do our duty is absurd. Reason, conscience, common sense and our natural sense of justice dictate that if God requires us to perform any duty or act, He is obligated in justice to give us power to obey, He must give us the faculties and strength to perform the act. But if justice requires this, why call it gracious ability? Natural ability to do our duty cannot be gracious ability. This confuses the terms grace and justice. The sin of disobedience would then lie in the person’s having broken the law of God, but solely in his not having complied with the strivings of the Spirit. Accordingly, the definition of sin would not be “a transgression of the law,” but would consist in not yielding to the influence of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, before the sinner is aware that the Spirit is giving him power, he is under no obligation to be converted, nor can he blame himself. How, I would ask, is it possible for him to repent with such views? And how, upon these principles, is he to blame for not having repented and turned to the Lord?
The Spirit Comes With Motives for Obedience To illustrate both the nature and degree of our dependence on the Spirit, Imagine a person bent upon suicide. In the absence of his wife, he loads his pistol and prepares to commit the horrid deed. His little child observes the disorder of his mind and says, “Father, what are you going to do?” “Be still,” he replies, “I am going to kill myself.” The little child weeps, spreads out his little beggar hands, beseeches him to desist, and pours out his little prayers and tears agonizing entreaties to spare his life. If eloquence of this child’s grief, his prayers and tears, could prevail to change his purpose, he need no further influence to subdue and change his mind. But the parent persists, so the child screams to his mother, who flies to the voice of entreaty, and on being told the cause of its anguish hastens upon the wings of terror to her husband’s room and prays that he change his purpose. By his love for his family, by their love for him, by their dependence upon him—in view of the torn heart and distraction of his wife, by anguish, the tears and helplessness of his children—by the regard he has for his own soul, by the hope of Heaven, by the terrors of Hell, by everything tender and persuasive, by all the solemn in the final judgment and terrible in the pains of the second death, she pleads with him over and over again, not to rush upon his own destruction. If all this can move him, he needs no other and higher influence to change his mind. But she fails in her efforts. Imagine that she could summon all the angels of God and they also fail to move and melt him by their unearthly eloquence. Some higher power must interfere of the man is lost. But as he puts the pistol; to his head, the Spirit of God who knows perfectly the state of the man’s mind and understands all the reasons that have led him to this desperate determination, gathers such a world of motives and pours them in such a focus blaze upon his soul that he instantly quails, drops the weapon from his nerveless hand, relinquishes his purpose of death forever, falls upon his knees and gives glory to God. It was the strength of the man’s voluntary purpose of self-destruction alone that made the Spirit’s agency at all necessary. If he had yielded to all the motives that had been presented before, and if these had subdued him, no interposition of the Holy Spirit would have been necessary. But it was the wickedness and the obstinacy of the wretch that laid the foundation for the Spirit’s involvement
The Spirit Seeks to Turn the Sinner from Hell
.This is the sinner’s case. He has
set his heart fully to do evil, if the prayers and tears of friends and
of the church of God, the warnings of ministers, the rebukes of
Providence, the commands, the pleas, the tears, and groans, and death of
God’s dear Son; if the offer of Heaven, or the threatening of Hell could
overcome his obstinate preference of sin, the Spirit’s agency would be
needed. But because no human or angelic persuasion will cause him to
turn, the Spirit of God must interpose to shake his preference and turn him
back from hell.
The degree of the sinner’s
dependence upon the Spirit is just the degree of his obstinacy. If the
sinner were only slightly inclined to pursue the road to death, then
people could change him without calling upon God for help; but the
strength of his preference for sin makes it necessary that the Spirit
should interpose or he is lost. The sinner’s dependence upon the Spirit
of God, instead of being his excuses, is that which constitutes his
guilt. He is all the more guilty, because he will not come to Christ
with all the motives He has presented him in the Gospel apart from the
Holy Spirit interceding in his life.
SIMMERS NEED THE TRUTH It is very important for us to understand the nature of the Holy Spirit’s agency when sinners are converted to Christ. The Holy Spirit does not act by direct contact with the mind, but He uses the truth as a sword to pierce the sinner. The motives presented in the Gospel are the instruments the Holy Spirit uses to change the sinner’s heart. Some have doubted this, and supposed that it is equivalent to denying the Spirit’s agency altogether to maintain that He converts sinners by presenting motives for conversion. Other have denied the possibility of changing the heart by motives. But the serpent changed Adam’s heart by motives. If the old serpent could change a heart from a perfectly holy one to a perfectly sinful one by the power of motives, cannot the infinitely wise God do as much? Truly, to deny this detracts from the wisdom and power of God.
The Scriptures declare that the Spirit converts sinners by the
power of motive: “Of His own will begat He us with the Word of truth”
JA.
The Advocate of Truth The terms used by our Saviour in the promise of the Spirit to reprove the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment to come strongly imply the mode of His agency. The Greek term rendered Comforter in our translation of the Bible is Parakletos. Parakletos is the same term which is also rendered Advocate. The term in this sense is applied to Jesus Christ: “If any man sin, we have a Parakletos (or an Advocate) with the Father, even Jesus Christ the righteous” 1 JN. 2:1. In this passage, Jesus Christ is spoken of as our Advocate with God. The Parakletos or Comforter promised by our Saviour is represented as God’s Advocate to plead His cause with mankind. The term rendered reprove or convince in our translation of the Bible is a legal term meaning the summing up of an argument and establishing or demonstrating of the sinner’s guilt. Thus the striving of the Spirit of God with man are not a physical suffering, but a debate; a strife not of body with body, but of mind with mind, the action and reaction of vehement argumentation. These remarks will help us answer the question sometimes asked by individuals who seem to be entirely in the dark about whether the Spirit acts directly on the mind or on the truth to convert a sinner. It is evident from this subject that God never does what He requires the sinner to do in changing the sinner’s heart. Some people are passive, waiting for some mysterious influence, like and electric shock, to change their hearts. But with this attitude they may wait until the day of judgment, because God will never do their duty for them. Sinners, God requires you to turn, and what He requires of you He will not do for you. It must be your own act. It is not the appropriate work of God to do what He requires of you. Do not wait for Him to do your duty, but do it immediately yourself on the threat of death.
Sinners Must Turn to Receive Grace
This subject also shows that if the sinner is to have a new
heart, he must obey the command of the text and make it himself. But here someone may say, “Is not this taking the work out of God’s hand. And robbing Him of the glory?” No. It is the only view of the subject that gives glory to God. Some, in their zeal to magnify the grace of the Gospel, entirely overthrow it. They maintain the sinner’s inability and thereby do away with guilt. Instead of considering him guilty, voluntary rebel worthy of eternal death, they make him a helpless, unfortunate creature, unable to do what God requires of him. Instead of making his only difficulty an unwillingness, they insist upon his inability, and thus destroy his guilt, and of course the grace displayed in salvation—for what grace can there be in helping an unfortunate individual? If sinners are unable to obey God, they are innocent in proportion to their inability. But if they are unwilling, if their cannot is actually a will not, we have seen that their guilt is in proportion to the strength of their unwillingness, and grace in their salvation must be equal to their guilt. It does not detract from the glory of God that the act of turning is the sinner’s own. The fact is, he never does and never will unless God induces him to do it; so that although the act is his own, the glory belongs to God inasmuch as He caused him to act. If a person has made up his mind to take his own life, and you, by taking great pains and at great expense, prevail upon him to desist, would you not deserve credit for the influence you exerted in the case? Though changing his mind and relinquishing his purpose of self-destruction was his own act, inasmuch as you were the sole cause of his turning, are you not entitle to as much praise as if he had not been at all concerning in turning? Might it not in truth be said that you had turned him?
The idea that the Spirit
converts sinners by the truth is the only view of the subject that
honors either the Spirit or the truth of God.
God Exerts Moral Force Against Sin. The work of conversion is spoken of in the Bible as a work of exceedingly great power. I once heard a clergyman speaking on the great powers of God in conversion—he appeared to view it as a physical alteration of man, as the implantation of a new principle or taste. He asserted that it was a greater exertion of power than that which created Heaven. The reason which he gave was that the creation of the material universe had no opposition, but the conversion of the soul all the powers of Hell opposed God. This is whimsical and ridiculous enough; as if the opposition of Hell could place an obstacle in the way of physical Omnipotence! The Spirit cannot operate upon the mind by direct physical change, for the idea of effectively resisting His physical omnipotence is ridiculous. The same thought applies to those passages that caution against grieving and quenching the Spirit.
The power which God exerts in the conversion of a soul is
moral power. Moral power
is used by a statesman to sway the mind of a senate or by an advocate to
move the heart of a jury.” David bowed the heart of all
The idea that the Spirit
uses motives to change the heart is the only view that gives consistency
to the often repeated injunction not to resist the Holy Spirit: that we
are not to strive with our Maker.
SINNERS NEED
SOUND ARGUMENTS A sinner under the influence of the Spirit of God is just as free as a jury under the argument of an advocate. Suppose a lawyer in addressing a jury did not expect to change their minds by anything he could say, but waited for an invisible, physical agency to be exerted by the Holy Spirit upon them. Suppose on the other hand, that the jury thought that in making up their verdict they must be passive and wait for a direct physical force to be exerted upon them. In vain might the lawyer plead, and in vain might the jury listen, for until he pressed his argument as if he was determined to bow their hearts and until they made up their minds to decide the question and thus act like rational beings, both his pleading and their listening would be in vain. So, if a minister goes into a pulpit to preach to sinners, believing that his listeners have no power to obey the truth and that a direct physical influence must be exerted upon them before they can believe, he preaches in vain. And if his audience is of the same opinion, they listen in vain. They sin and quietly wait for the invisible hand to be stretched down from Heaven to perform some surgical operation, infuse some new principle or implant some constitutional taste, after which they suppose they shall be able to obey God. Ministers should labor with sinners as a lawyer does with a jury, and upon the same principles of logic. Sinners should weigh his arguments and make up their minds as though he were under oath and arguing for his life, and give a verdict upon the spot according to the law and evidence.
Why Sinners Will Not Be Saved in hell But someone perhaps will ask, “If truth, when seen in all its bearing and relations, is the instrument for converting the sinner, why will he not be converted in Hell where it is supposed that all truth will burst upon his mind in its burning reality?” The motive that prevails to turn the convicted rebel to God will be lacking in Hell. When the sinner is crowded with conviction, ready to despair, ready to flee and hide from the presence of his Maker, he is met by the offer of reconciliation which, together with the other motives that are weighing like a mountain upon his mind, sweetly constrains him to yield himself up to God. But in Hell the offer of reconciliation will be lacking: the sinner will be in despair, and while in despair it is a moral impossibility for him to turn his heart to God. Let a person so completely ruin his fortune so as to have no hope of retrieving it. In this state of absolute despair, no motive can reach him to make him put forth an effort. He does not have sufficient motive to attempt it. If his reputation is so completely gone that he has no hope of retrieving it, his despair allows no possibility of reclaiming himself. He is without hope. So in Hell, the poor dying sinner will be shut up in despair. His character is gone. His fortune for eternity is lost. There is no offer, no hope of reconciliation, and punishment will only drive him further and further from God for ever and ever. Buy, if a right apprehension of truth presented by the Spirit of God converts a sinner, does it follow that his ignorance is the cause of his sin? No. If Adam had kept what truth he knew steadily before his mind, he doubtless would have resisted the temptation. But Adam allowed his mind to be diverted from the reasons for obedience. In due time he sinned. When he had fallen, and selfishness began to control him, he was averse to knowing And weighing the reasons for turning back to God. If ever he turned, the Spirit of God must have pressed the subject upon him. So with every sinner. At first, he begins with what he knows by overlooking the good reasons he has to obey and yielding himself up to the motives for disobedience. If he has ever adopted the selfish principle, his ignorance becomes wilful and sinful. Unless the Spirit of God induces him, he will not see. He knows enough truth to leave him without excuse, but he will not consider it and let it have its effect upon him.
The Sinner Hates God as He Is But the objector may still ask, “Is it true, after all, if a full knowledge of the truth is all that is necessary to subdue the sinner, that he only needs to know the true character of God to love Him, and that his enmity against God arises out of his false notions of Him? Is it not a false rather than the true character of God that he hates?” No. He hates the true character of God. He hates God for what He is, and not for what He is not. The sinner’s character is selfishness: God’s character is benevolence. These are eternal opposites. The sinner hates God because God is opposed to his selfishness. While a person remains selfish, it is absurd to say that he is reconciled to the true character of God. But is his ignorance the cause of his selfishness? No, for he knows better than to be selfish. It is true he does not consider the unreasonableness of selfishness unless compelled by the Holy Spirit. The work of the Holy Spirit is not merely giving instructions, but compelling people to consider truths which he already knows: to think upon his ways and turn to the Lord. He brings to the sinner’s attention those motives which he hates to consider and feel the weight of. It is almost certain that if all the motives to obedience had been clearly before the mind of Adam or any other sinner, and had the mind duly considered them at the time, they would not have sinned. But the fact is, sinners do not set what truth they know before their minds. They divert their attention and rush on into Hell.
The Source of Ignorance Will anyone still reply that it is not the Spirit’s business to remove the ignorance caused by the sinner’s wilful rejection of light? What does thinking about the truth do but bring the sinner to a more just knowledge of himself, of God and of his duty, and thus, by force of truth constrain him to yield? The Apostle Paul views the subject in this light. In speaking of sinners, he says: “Having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of the heart.”
Indeed, pressing the truth upon the sinner induces him to turn.
But it is not true that he is ignorant of these truths. He knows he must
die, that he is a sinner that God is right and he is wrong. That there
is a Heaven and a Hell, but as the prophet says, “They will not see…My
people will not consider,” The Holy Spirit employs His agency not mainly to
instruct, but to lead the
sinner to think upon his ways,
and ultimately to bring him to repentance.
SINNERS NEED CONVICTION OF SIN Some may ask if my view is inconsistent with the mystery of which Christ speaks when He says, “The wind bloweth where it listeth, thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit”? I answer, no. The objector argues, “I have considered the subject of a new heart a very mysterious one, but you make it plain. How is this? Does not Christ in the quoted text represent it as mysterious?” I would ask where does Christ represent the mystery of the new birth as beyond understanding? Not in the effects which the Spirit produces, for they are matters of experience and observation. Not in the instrumentality used, for this is often revealed in the Bible.
The Truth was Kept Before His Mind Every Christian knows that in some way the truth was kept before his mind, made to bear and press upon him and hedge him until he was constrained to yield. These are matters of experience, but in what particular manner the Holy Spirit did this is just as mysterious as millions of other facts which we daily witness but cannot explain. But some will ask why the sinner needs the Spirit of God if he is able to convert himself. Suppose a person owed you one hundred dollars and was abundantly able but wholly unwilling to pay you. You sue him, giving him a motive that will constrain him to pay his debts. Just so with the sinner. He is able to do his duty, but is unwilling; therefore, the Spirit supplies him with motives to make him willing. When sinners enquire what they must do to be saved, it has been common for believers to substitute something for the scriptural demand to change their heart. They have told them to pray that God would change their hearts using words like, “You must remember that you are dependent on God for a new heart. Do not attempt to do anything in your own strength—attend to your Bible, use the means of grace, call upon God to change your heart and wait patiently for the answer.”
Praying for a New Heart Is Not Sufficient Sinners should not content themselves with praying for a new heart. A few years ago, a lawyer under deep conviction of sin came to me to inquire what he should do to be saved. When he was in college he, along with two others, had been deeply anxious for their souls. He said that they called on the president and asked him what they should do. His directions were, in substance, that they should read their Bibles, keep clear of vain company, use the means of grace and pray for a new heart. Before long they would either be converted or would give up reading their Bibles and using the means of grace for their salvation. He replied that it turned out as the president had told them: they soon gave up reading their Bibles and using the means of grace. He said that the directions relieved his mind and that the more he prayed and used the means the less he felt distressed. He thought he was doing his duty, the more he read his Bible and prayed, the more acceptable he thought himself to God and the more likely to be converted. The more diligent he was in using means, the more self-complacent he became. Thus he waited for God to change his heart until his convictions had entirely worn away, and with a burst of grief he added, “Thus it turned out with all of us. The other two are confirmed drunkards, and I have well night turned myself to drink. Now if there is any hope in my case, tell me what I shall do to be saved.” I told him to repent, and pressed him to action. He yielded himself up to God to all appearance. The result of the direction given by the president was strictly philosophical. The advice was just what would please the devil. It answered his purpose infinitely better than to have told them to have abandoned all thoughts of religion at once, for this would have shocked and frightened them; and as anxious as they were, they would have turned with abhorrence from such advice. But giving this sanctimonious method pf raying and waiting for God to do what He required of them was soothing to their consciences. The president substituted another requirement for the command of God, fostered the young men’s spirit of delay and confirmed them in self-righteousness. It was perfectly natural and reasonable if they fulfilled their duty to suppose that they were growing better, that the more diligent they were in their unrepentant endeavours, the more they might rely upon God’s converting them. Therefore, the longer they proceeded like this, the less they would understand themselves, their danger and their deserved punishment, and the more certainly would they grieve away the Spirit of God.
The Sinner Must Not Wait for God to Act Sinner! Do not wait and pray for god to change your heart. You should at once put forth the effort and change the governing preference of your mind. But some may ask, “Can the carnal mind, which is enmity against God, change itself?” I have already said that this text in the original reads: “The minding of the flesh is enmity against God.” This minding of the flesh is a choice or preference to satisfy the flesh. It is absurd to say that a choice can change itself; but it is not absurd to say that the agent who exercises choice can change it.
Sinner! Your obligation to love God is equal to the excellence of
His character, and your guilt in not obeying Him is equal to your
obligation: infinite. You cannot, therefore, for a moment defer
obedience to the commandment in the text without deserving eternal
condemnation.
SINNERS NEED TO MAKE A DECISION If sinners are converted, it is reasonable to expect them to be converted while a preachers holds sup the truth in all its blaze before their minds. An opposing idea has prevailed in the church that sinners must have a protracted season of conviction. Sudden conversions are of a suspicious character. But certainly “this persuasion cometh not from God.” We do not read in the Bible of cases of lengthy conviction. Peter was not afraid that his listeners had not conviction enough on the day of Pentecost. He did not tell them to pray and labor for a more impressive sense of their guilt and then wait for the Spirit of God to change their hearts. He urged their immediate duty upon them. If he had allowed them to escape, to go from under his voice while yet in their sins, it is probably that hundreds—if not thousands—of them would not have been converted at all. It is as reasonable to expect the sinner to turn, if he turns at all, while listening to the arguments of the preacher as it is to expect a juror to be convinced under the arguments of the lawyer. The advocate does not act upon the preposterous supposition that it is more likely that the jury will be convinced and make up their minds in his favor when they have retired and calmly considered the subject. His object is to thoroughly convince, to so completely imbued their minds with the subject, as to get their intellect, conscience and heart to embrace his views. This is wise, and in this respect “the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.” If you go away without changing our heart, it is most probable that your mind will be diverted. You will forget many things that you have heard. The motivations that now press upon you may be abstracted from your mind. You will lose the clear view of the subject that you now have. You may grieve the Holy Spirit, defer repentance and push your unbroken footsteps to the gates of hell. It is important to present these truths to induce the sinner to change his heart.
The Gospel Is Meant to Disarm the Sinner Few more devious ideas have been advance than that there is no legal connection between means and end in the conversion of sinners; that there is no natural adaptedness in the motives of the Gospel to annihilate the sinner’s selfishness and lead him to submit to God. This idea is a part of the scheme of physical depravity. It considers regeneration a change in the substance of the mind by the Spirit of God, irrespective of truth. If the work is a physical creation, performed by the direct physical power of the Holy Spirit, then certainly it is accomplished by no means whatever. But this is so far from truth that no sinner ever was or ever will be converted except by means wisely and logically adapted to this end. The Spirit selects considerations, under certain circumstances, that are naturally calculated to disarm the sinner; to strip him of excuses, answer his cavils, humble his pride and break his heart. The preacher should therefore acquaint himself with the sinner’s refuge of lies, and take into consideration his whole history, including his present views and state of mind. He should wisely select a subject, skilfully arrange it, simply and yet powerfully present it as to engage the sinner’s attention and then lay him out to the utmost to bring the sinner to yield upon the spot. He who deals with souls should study well the laws of mind (logic), and carefully and prayerfully adapt his manner to the state, circumstances, views and feeling in which he may find the sinner at the time. He should present in a manner that shall have the greatest natural tendency to subdue the rebel at once. If people would act as wisely and as logically in attempting to make others Christians as they do in attempting to sway them upon other subjects, if they would adapt their subject to the state of mind, conform “the action in the word and the word to the action” and press their subject with as much skill and warmth and perseverance as lawyers and statesmen do their speeches; the result would be the conversion of hundreds of thousands, and converts would be added to the Lord ‘like drops of the morning dew.” If every church and pastor were right upon this subject, were they imbued with a right spirit, they would “go forth with tears, bearing precious seed, they would soon reap the harvest of the whole earth, and return bearing their sheaves with them.”
God Converts Souls The importance of understanding that God converts souls by motives is inconceivably great. Those who do not practice this truth are more likely to hinder than to aid the Spirit in His work. Some have denied it in theory, but have happily admitted it in practice. They have prayed and preached and talked as f they expected the Holy Spirit to convert sinners by the truth. In such cases, notwithstanding their theory, their practice was blessed by God. But a lack of attention to this truth in practice caused much ruinous error in revivals and in dealing with anxious souls. Much of the preaching, conversation, and exhortation has been irrelevant, perplexing, and mystical. Counsellors have failed to demand response to the truth while the sinner was still deeply interested. Spiritual guides withheld particular truths which, above all others, sinners needed to know. Sinners have been perplexed and confounded by abstract doctrines (such as inability, physical regeneration, and constitutional depravity), metaphysical subtleties and absurd exhibitions of the sovereignty of God, until the agonized mind, discourages and mad from contradiction and absurdity, dismissed salvation as altogether incomprehensible, and postponed the performance of duty as impossible. You see the importance of pressing the sinner with every argument and every consideration that can have any weight. If you remain in sin while the subject is before you, will you yield? Keeping yourself away from the motivation to believe by neglecting church and the Bible or refusing to make up your mind and yield will prove fatal to your soul. “I beseech you, by the mercies of God that you at this time render your body and soul, a living sacrifice to God, which is your reasonable service.” Let the truth take hold of your conscience, throw down your rebellious weapons, give up your refuge of lies and fix your mind steadfastly upon the motivation to accept the offer of reconciliation while it lies before you. Another moment’s delay and it may be too late forever. The Spirit of God may depart from you, the offer of life mat be made no more, and this final offer of mercy may close up your account and seal you over to all the horrors of eternal death. Hear, O sinner, I beseech you to obey the word of the Lord—“Make you a new heart and a new spirit, for why will ye die?”
“Make you a new
heart and a new spirit, for why will you die?”
Ez. 1831 We have been discussing the meaning of the command in the text, its reasonableness and its consistency with those passages which declare a new heart to be the gift and work of God. I endeavoured to show that the heart in the text does not mean the bodily organ which is the seat of physical life. Nor does it mean a new soul. We are not required to create any new faculties of body or mind nor alter our constitutional powers, propensities or the susceptibilities of our nature. We are not required to implant any new principle or taste in the substance or either body or mind. I also endeavoured to show that a change of heart is not done to a sinner but by him. The change is not physical but moral: it is a change of mind or disposition with regard to the supreme object of pursuit: a change in the end at which a person aims, and not merely a change in the means of obtaining his goal. There must be a change in the governing preference of the mind. The sinner must change by preferring the glory of God and the interest of His kingdom to his own happiness and to everything else. It is a change from a state of selfishness, in which a person prefers his own interest above everything else, to that disinterested benevolence which prefers God’s happiness and glory to his own private happiness. I endeavoured to show how reasonable this duty is by showing the sinner’s ability and need for a new heart. And also, I showed that there is no inconsistency with those passages which declare that a new heart is the gift and work of God.
How to Change Your Heart When anxious sinners are commanded to change their hearts and are convinced that it is their duty to do so, they often wish to know how. This is especially true when they know the dreadful consequences of neglecting to obey. They anxiously ask, “How shall I do it? By what process of thought or feeling is this great change to be wrought in my mind?” The following principles will help you out of this dilemma; clearing up what seems to be so mysterious. You cannot change your heart by exciting your feelings. Sinners are prone to suppose that great fears, terrors, horrors of conscience and the utmost excitement that the mind is capable of bearing must necessarily precede a change of heart. They are led to this by the fact that such feelings do often precede the change. But sinners should understand that this excitement, these fears, alarms and horrors are just the result of ignorance or obstinacy, and sometimes both. Sinners will often avoid changing their hearts until the Spirit of God has driving them to extremity, until the thunders of Sinai have been rolled in their ears and the lurid fires of Hell have flashed in their faces. This is not part of making a new heart, but is the results of resistance to the performance of the duty. These terrors are not essential, but rather an embarrassment and hindrance. It is illogical to suppose that because some sinners have had horrors of conscience before they have yielded to God that, that therefore, these fears of Hell are necessary. You would not maintain that all your children must be threatened with the uplifted rod and thus be thrown into great consternation before they can obey simply because one of your children had been obstinate until you had been driven to extremities. If you are willing to do your duty, fears and great excitement of mind are wholly unnecessary. God has no delight in them for their own sake, and never causes them unless driven to necessity by persistent obstinacy. God often sees it unwise to produce these great terrors and would sooner let the sinner go to Hell without them.
Emotions Do Not Change the Heart You cannot change your heart by an attempt to force yourself into a state of emotion. When sinners are called upon to repent and give their hearts to God, it is common for them to undertake this duty by making an effort to feel emotions of love, repentance and faith. They seem to think that religion consists of excited feelings called into existence by a direct effort of will. They spend much time in prayer for certain feelings, and make agonizing efforts. But these emotions cannot be brought into existence by a direct effort to feel. The will has no direct influence over emotions. Emotions are dependent upon thought. They arise spontaneously when the mind is intensely occupied. Thought is under the direct control of the will. We can direct our attention and meditation to any subject, and the corresponding emotions will spontaneously arise. If a hated subject is under consideration, emotions of hatred arise. If an object of terror, of grief or of joy occupies the thoughts, the corresponding emotions will naturally arise with a strength corresponding to the intensity of our thoughts on that subject. Thus our feelings are only indirectly under the control of the will. They are sinful or holy only as they are indirectly brought into existence by the will. People often complain that they cannot control their feelings. They form overwhelming attachments and become offended—their anger arises—but they profess that they cannot help it. It is the preoccupation of the mind which determines the emotions they complain will exists naturally. If an emotion is not approved by our conscience, the corresponding subject must be dismissed from our thoughts and our attention must be directed to some other subject. Offences must be dismissed and our thoughts occupied with other considerations, or emotions of hatred will continue to fester in our minds. “If a man look on a woman, to lust after her, he has committed adultery with her already in his heart.” He is responsible for the feelings after allowing such a subject to occupy his thoughts.
MAINTAIN RIGHT FEELINGS Freedom of choice is indispensable to moral character. If an action is worthy of praise or blame, our universal conviction is hat it must be free. Suppose you see a stone fall from a building upon which people are working and a man is killed. If you discover it was an accident, you blame no one for murder. But if you learn that the stone was maliciously thrown upon the head of the man by a workman, you could not resist the conviction that it was murder. So, if God or any other being should push a dagger into your hand and force you to stab your neighbour, the universal conscience would not condemn you, but condemn the one who forced you to do the deed. Any moral action, thought or feeling must be directly or indirectly under the control of the will. If a person voluntarily places himself in circumstances which call wicked emotions into exercise, he is entirely responsible for them. If he places himself in circumstances where virtuous emotions are called forth, he is praiseworthy in the exercise of them precisely in proportion to his free choice to bring his mind into circumstances to cause their existence.
Love Is a Choice for God and His kingdom Love, repentance and faith may exist in the mind as either volition or emotion. Love as volition is a simple preference of the mind for God and His kingdom over everything else. This preference may, and often does exist in the mind so entirely separate from what is termed emotion or feeling that we may be entirely insensible to its existence. But even though its existence may be a matter of consciousness, its influence over our conduct will evidence its existence. In a similar manner, a man engaged in business away from home exercises no felt love for his family, but his preference remains the mainspring that directs his movements in his business. He seeks to make provision for his family. His conduct is modified and governed by his abiding though insensible preference for them. At the same time, his thoughts are so entirely occupied with other things that no emotion or feeling or affection exists in his mind. When the business of the day is passed, and other things cease to demand attention, this preference of home, wife and family comes forth and directs his thoughts. No sooner are they brought before his mind than the corresponding father and husband emotions awake and enkindle in his heart. So the Christian, while his thoughts are intensely occupied with business or study he may sense no emotions of love to God. But as a Christian, his preference for God will influence all his conduct. He will neither act nor feel like an ungodly person under similar circumstances. He will not curse, swear or get drunk. He will not cheat, lie or act as if under the dominion of unmingled selfishness. His preference for God will govern his conduct so that while he has no emotional enjoyment of the presence of God, he is indirectly influenced in all his ways by a regard for His glory. When the bustle of business is past, his abiding preference for God naturally directs his thoughts to Him and to the things of His kingdom; corresponding emotions will arise and warm feelings of love will enkindle and restore his soul. He understands the declaration of the Psalmists when he says, “While I mused the fire burned.”
Repentance Is an Act of the Will Repentance properly signifies a change of mind with regard to the nature of sin and does not include the idea of sorrow. It is simply an act of will: rejecting sin and choosing holiness. This is its form as volition. When existing as an emotion, it sometimes rises into a strong abhorrence of sin and love of holiness. It often melts away into relentings of heart; gushings of sorrow and strong feelings of self abhorrence in view of our own sins. Faith may also exist simply as a settled conviction of the truths of revelation, and will have greater or less influence according to the strength of this persuasion. It is not evangelical faith, however, unless this persuasion is accompanied by the actions of the will. Demons and wicked people may have a strong conviction of the truth, so strong that they tremble, but they may still hate the truth. When the conviction of Gospel truth accompanied with the consent of the will, it is evangelical faith; in proportion to its strength it will influence conduct. This is more exciting as volition. When the objects of faith, revealed in the Gospel, are the subjects of intense thought, faith rises into emotion. It becomes confidence so sensible as to calm all the anxieties and fears of the soul.
Not All Emotions Have Moral Character Emotion of love or hatred to God that are not directly or indirectly produced by the will have no moral character. A Christian under circumstances of strong moral temptation may feel emotions of opposition to God rankling his mind. If these emotions are forced upon him by Satan against his will, he is not responsible for them. If he diverts his attention, if he fleas from the scene of temptation, if he resists and represses these emotions, he has sinned. Such emotions are usually brought to exist in the mind of a Christian by some false view of the character or government of God. Emotions of love for God may exist in the mind of the purely selfish; they may arise out of a persuasion that God has a particular regard for us. If this love is not founded upon a preference for God as He really is, it is not virtuous love. In this case, the will may indirectly produce selfish emotions from the selfish preference of the heart.
To change your heart, as I have said repeatedly, is to change the
governing preference of your mind. Your
will should reject sin and
prefer God and obedience to Him over everything else. The question is,
then how is your will to be thus influenced? Until your will is right,
it is vain to expect emotions of true love to God and repentance and
faith. These feelings which you are seeking and into which you are
trying to force your self need not be expected until your will is bowed,
until the ruling preference of your mind is changed.
KNOW WHAT MOTIVATES YOU There are three classes of motives that influence the will. First, those that are purely selfish. Selfishness is the preference of personal interest and happiness, rather than God and His glory. Whenever the will chooses directly or indirectly under the influence of selfishness, the choice is sinful. All selfishness is sin. The second class of motives are those that arise from self-love. Self-love is a constitutional dread of misery and love of happiness. God created us to love ourselves without being selfish. Whenever the will is influenced purely by self-love, its decisions either have no moral character at all or they are wholly sinful. The constitutional desire of happiness and dread of misery is not sinful in itself. The consent of the will to lawfully gratify this love is not sinful. But, when the will consents, as in the case of Adam and Eve, to a prohibited indulgence, then self-love becomes sinful. A third class of motives that influence the will are connected with conscience. Conscience is the judgment which the mind forms of the moral qualities of actions. When the will is decided by the voice of conscience or a regard to right, its decisions are virtuous. Only when the mind chooses at the bidding of principles are its decisions according to the law of God.
The Bible Appeals to Self-Love and Conscience The Bible appeals to selfishness as a motive to influence our decisions. It often appeals to self-love, the hopes and fears of people, because self-love in itself is not sinful. When the Bible appeals to hopes and fears, then even the minds of selfish people are prepared for the enlightened and powerful urgings of conscience. The constitutional principle of self-love does not ultimately determine the mind’s choice of obedience to God. When, under the combine influence of hope, fear and conscience, the mind has been let to full consideration of the claims of God, to admit and cherish the influence of the Holy Spirit so that it becomes enlightened and is led to see what duty is, then the mind is ripe for a decision. Then conscience has a firm footing: the opportunity to exert its greatest power upon the will. If the will decides virtuously, the attention is not occupied with hopes or fears or with those considerations that excite them; but it must be occupied either with the reasonableness, fitness and propriety of its Maker’s claims, or with the hatefulness of sin or with the stability of His truth. The decision of the will is not mainly because you hope to be saved or fear to be damned, but because to act is right: to obey God, to serve Him, to honor Him and promote His glory is reasonable and right and just. This is a virtuous decision. This is a change of heart. The offer of pardon and acceptance has a powerful influence by fully demonstrating the unreasonableness of rebellion against our God. While in despair, the sinner would rather flee than submit. But the offer of reconciliation annihilates despair and gives conscience its utmost power. You cannot change your heart by listening to your feelings. It is common for people to turn their thought upon themselves to see whether they possess the proper feelings: whether they have conviction enough or the emotions which they suppose precede a change of heart. When they divert their mind from the motives to change their heart and fix their attention upon their present mental state, they inevitable lose what feelings they had, rendering a change impossible for the present.
Emotions Arise From the Focus of Thought Our feelings have a felt existence in mind. But if they become the subject of attention, they cease to exist. While our thoughts are engaged with things outside ourselves, with our past sins, with the character or requirements of God, with the love or sufferings of the Saviour or with any other subjects, corresponding emotions will exist in our minds. But, if we turn our attention from all these to our feelings and attempt to examine them, then there is no longer anything before the mind to make us feel: our emotions cease. While a person stares at an object, its image is painted on the retina of the eye. While he continues to look at the object, the image will remain there and the corresponding impression will be seen in his mind. But if he looks away, the image changes. Should he direct his attention to the mental impression instead of the object that caused it, the impression would also be effaced from his mind. Therefore, instead of waiting for certain feelings or making your present state of mind the subject of attention, please distinguish your thoughts from your present emotions and give your individual attention to some of the reasons for changing your heart. Remember the objective is not directly to create specific emotions, but, by leading your mind to an understanding of your obligations, to induce you to yield to principle and choose what is right. If you will give me your attention, I will give you ideas to consider which are calculated to induce the state of mind which allows a change of heart.
Thoughts to Promote Conversion Fix your mind upon the unreasonableness and hatefulness of selfishness. Selfishness is the pursuit of ones own happiness as a supreme good. This is inconsistent with the glory of God and the highest happiness of His kingdom. You must realize that you have always, directly or indirectly, aimed at promoting your own happiness in everything, that God’s glory and happiness has not been the leading motive of your life and that you have served only yourself. Your happiness is of trivial importance compared with the happiness and glory of God and the interest of His immense kingdom. To pursue it as a supreme good is to prefer an infinitely lesser good simply because it is your own. Is this virtue? Public spirit? Benevolence? Is this loving God supremely, or your neighbour as yourself? No. It is exalting your own happiness in the place of God. It is placing yourself as the center of the universe, and attempting to cause God and all His creatures to revolve around you as your satellites. Successfully pushing your elfish aims would ruin the universe. A selfish being can never be happy until his selfishness is fully satisfied. Therefore, only one selfish being can be fully satisfied. Selfishness aims at appropriating all good to self. Give a selfish person a county and he will covet a state. Give him a state and he will long for a nation. The nation in hand, he will not rest without the world. Give him the world and he is wretched unless he can rule the universe. He would not be happy unless God Himself were prostrate at his feet. His ambition could not be satisfied; his heart could not rest. If, then, you could succeed in your selfish aims, your success would ruin everybody else.
Is this right? If you could ascend to the throne of Jehovah,
wield the sceptre of universal government, appropriate to yourself the
honor and wealth of the entire universe and receive the homage and
obedience of God and all His creatures, the very element of your nature
would still be outraged. The conscience would condemn you; the very laws
of your moral constitution would mutiny. Self-accusation and reproach
would fight in your heart. You would be forced to abhor yourself.
REJECT YOUR SELFISHNESS If you are selfish, all moral beings should hate you. Furthermore, it is impossible for you, a moral being, to be happy while knowing you are deservedly despised. The love of acceptance is a law of nature: it is laid in the very constitution of the mind by the hand that formed us. We would need to altar the very structure of our being to love ourselves when we are deservedly hated. It is foolish for you to expect to be happy in the exercise of selfishness. God, angels and saints, wicked men devils and the entire universe of moral beings must be conscientiously opposed to you while you sustain a selfish character—while your conscience continually gives forth the verdict that you deserve their hatred and pronounces you unfit for anything other then Hell. If you are selfish, look at your guilt. If your example should have its natural influence and not be counteracted by God, it would leaven the whole lump. If all your acquaintances copied your example, and their acquaintances copied theirs, and so on, you can easily see that your influence would soon destroy all benevolence and introduce universal rebellion against God. You have never obeyed God, and all your efforts have been against His government. If God were not constantly watchful in counteracting the sinner’s influence, His government would have been demolished long ago, and virtue and obedience and love to God and man would have been banished from the world.
Selfishness Establishes Satan’s Dominion Your selfishness tends to establish forever the dominion of Satan over others. It is the law of Satan’s empire. Have you perfectly obeyed it? Since example preaches louder than precept, have you used the most powerful means possible to induce all mankind to obey the devil? But God has virtuous subjects on earth; no thanks to you if all people are not in league with Hell and by their example, at least; shouting forth, “Oh Satan, live forever. If you are selfish you have done nothing to save mankind. Your whole life has had a natural tendency to destroy them. Your neglect and contempt of God have exerted the strongest influence within your power to lead them in the way of death. You have done nothing to save yourself, and by neglecting your own soul you have virtually said to your family and friends, “Leave religion alone. Who is the Lord that we should obey Him. Or what profit would we have should we pray unto Him?
Now look at the guilt of selfishness. The guilt of any action is
equal to the evils which it has a natural tendency to produce. Your
selfishness has the natural tendency to ruin the world, to destroy God’s
government, to establish Satan’s and to people Hell with all mankind.
Loving God Is the Reasonable Choice Turn your attention now to the reasonableness and utility of benevolence, good will. Benevolence to God is preferring His happiness and glory to all other good. Benevolence to others is the exercise of this same regard to them and to desire fore their happiness as we have for our own. Benevolence to God is right because His happiness and glory are infinitely the greatest good in the universe. He prefers His own happiness and glory to everything else, not because they are His own, but because they constitute the greatest good. All beings, when compared with Him, are less than nothing. His capacity for enjoying happiness or enduring pain is infinite, not only in duration but in degree. If all the creatures in the universe were completely happy or perfectly miserable through al eternity, their happiness or misery would be finite. But God’s happiness is not only endless in duration but infinite in degree. It is as much more valuable then that of all happiness of His creatures as infinite exceeds finite. Therefore, is it not right that all His creatures should value His happiness and glory infinitely above their own? Is it not right that He should do this because it is an infinitely greater good?
Does the eternal law of justice demand that God should regard His
own happiness according to its real value? Has He any right to prefer
the happiness of His creatures above His own? Justice requires that He
regard everything in the universe according to its relative importance.
Should He not require all His intelligent crenatures to do the same?
Therefore, to have a supreme regard for your own happiness, to value it
more than you do the happiness and glory of God is to trample
upon the principles of justice which God is bound to maintain. You would
array yourself in the attitude of open and outrageous war against God,
against the universe, against the principles of your own nature and
against whatever is lovely and of good report.
Benevolence Is the Choice for Happiness Look also at the utility of benevolence. The mind is so constituted that benevolent affections are the source of happiness, and malevolent ones the source of misery. God’s happiness consists in His benevolence. Wherever there is untainted benevolence, there is peace. If it reigned throughout the universe, universal happiness would be the inevitable result. The happiness of Heaven is perfect because benevolence is perfect there. The angels love God with all their heart, soul, mind and strength, and their neighbour as themselves. Perfect benevolence to God and man promotes happiness in earth and Heaven. Benevolence is good will. If we desire the welfare of others as much as we do our own, we are made as happy by good conferred on them as on ourselves, and nothing but selfishness prevents us from tasting the cup of everyone’s happiness. If we supremely desire the happiness and glory of God, our supreme joy will be the expectation that “the whole earth shall be full of glory.”
When we look upon mankind around the world and see all the
wickedness, and through the pages of inspiration survey as with a
telescope the deep cavers of the pit, when we listen to its wailings,
behold the lurid flashes of its fires and contemplate the gnawings of
deathless worms, we see the legitimate results of selfishness.
Selfishness is the discord of the soul, the jarring, dissonance and
grating of Hell’s eternal anguish. Benevolence, on the other hand, is
the melody of the soul; harmonizing all the mental powers so that they
breathe the sweetness of heaven’s charming symphonies. To be happy, then
you must be benevolent. Selfishness is neither reasonable nor
profitable. Its very nature is at war with happiness and it renders you
odious to God. It buries your good name, your ultimate self-esteem and
your present and future happiness in one common grave. You are beyond
the hope of resurrection unless you turn, renounce your selfishness and
begin to obey the law of God.
GOD SHOULD GOVERN US Why should God govern the universe? In theory, you have perhaps never denied His right to govern. However, in practice you may have always denied it. Never having obeyed God is the strongest possible declaration of a person’s denial of His right to govern, Your conduct may say, “Who is Jehovah, that I should obey Him? I know not Jehovah; neither will I obey His voice.” Have you considered why you should obey Him? Your only conclusion would be that He has a right to govern. If you have never considered the question, it is not surprising that you have refused obedience. The foundation of God’s right to govern the universe is made up of three following considerations.
Reasons for God’s Rule
His moral character and attributes qualify Him to
govern the universe. His benevolence is infinite. Were He malevolent, He could have no right. It would be our duty to hate and disobey Him. But His benevolence renders Him worthy of our love and obedience. However, His benevolence alone cannot qualify Him to govern. However benevolent He may be, if His natural attributes were not sufficient He would not be qualified to be the Supreme Ruler of all worlds. But a glance at His natural attributes will show that he is no less worthy to govern in respect to these than in respect to His moral attributes.
He has infinite knowledge so that His benevolence will always be
wisely exercised. He has infinite power. If He lacked either knowledge
or power to execute His desires, He would not be fit to govern. He is
omnipresent, in every place at all times: so that nothing that
benevolence desires, wisdom directs, or power achieves will be lacking
in His administration. He is immortal and unchangeable. If He could
cease to exist or were subject to change, there would be a fundamental
defect in His nature as Supreme Ruler of the universe.
He Is the Creator. When viewed separately or together, neither His moral nor natural attributes give sufficient ground for His assuming the reigns of government. However good and great He may be, this is not sufficient reason for Him to take the office of governor, even if chosen by the other beings. But He also has the right to govern as Creator. He holds infinite tenure. Thus, He is infinitely qualified to govern, and by creation has the absolute and inalienable right to govern. He has the right to govern, but it is also His duty to govern. He cannot yield this office or throw aside this responsibility.
His Requirements Are Reasonable. They are not arbitrary for He is bound to enforce them. The laws of God do not have their foundation in His arbitrary will, but in the nature and fitness of things as He created them. To love God and our neighbour is not our duty simple because He requires it; it was our duty prior to an expressed requirement. He requires it because it is right in itself. Therefore, He would not be at liberty to dispense with our obedience even if He pleased. He cannot good-naturedly humor His creatures and let them have their own way—let them run into sin and rebellion, and then let them go unpunished. He is solemnly pledged and bound by the rules of His own government.
God Has No Choice But to Punish Sinners. Perhaps you have made this excuse for your rebellion: “God desires me to sin. Since he is almighty, He could prevent sin if He pleased. Because He does not, He must prefer rebellion to holiness.” You have only to look into His laws to see that He has done all He can to prevent the existence of sin. The rewards of obeying His laws are absolutely infinite in it He has embodied the highest possible motives to obedience. His law is moral and not physical; a government of motive and not force. It is vain to talk of His omnipotence preventing sin; if infinite motives will not prevent it, it cannot be prevented under a moral government. Administering moral laws is not the object of physical power. Therefore, to maintain that an all-powerful God could prevent sin is nonsense. If swaying the intellect could be accomplished by the same power that sways the physical universe, then indeed it would be reasonable to infer that God prefers the existence of sin to holiness. But, since mind must be governed by moral power, and the power of motive is all that can be brought to bear upon it, it is unjust and illogical to infer that God prefers sin. Since the motives to obedience are infinite, He might challenge the universe and enquire, “What more could I have done for my vineyard then I have done? And will you, in the face of all these considerations, continue your rebellion? When required to turn, will you profanely reply, “If God is Almighty, why does He not turn me? Oh sinner, why provoke your Maker? Your judgment does not linger and your damnation does not slumber.
Jesus’ Sacrifice Satisfies Justice. When the law was broken and mankind was exposed to its fearful penalty, God offered justice to the universe and mercy to sinners, which He displayed in the atonement. To make this universal offer of pardon without regard to justice would violate His law. A due regard for public interest forbade the Lawgiver to forgive and set aside the penalty without finding a way to secure obedience to the law. Therefore, His compassion for mankind and His regard for the law was so great that He was willing to suffer in the person of His Son, who became a substitute for the penalty of the law. This was the most stupendous exhibition of self-denial that was ever made: the Father giving His only begotten and beloved Son; the Son veiling the glories of His uncreated Godhead and becoming obedient to death, even the death of the cross, that we might never die. Now, if you are unrepentant, you have never obeyed your Maker. Every step you have taken has added to your crimes. When God has fanned your heaving lungs, you have breathed out your poisonous breath in rebellion against Him. How should God feel before you? You have walked over the principles of eternal righteousness with your unsanctified feet. You have lifted up your hands, filled with poisoned weapons, against the throne of the Almighty. You have spurned every principle of right, of love and of happiness. You are the enemy of God, the foe of man and a child of the devil in league with Hell. Ought not God hate you with all His heart? Yet, in the midst of your rebellion He has borne with you. All this you have done, and He has kept silent. Dare you think that He will never reprove?
The Condition of the Gospel Look for a moment at the condition of the Gospel: repentance and faith. To repent is to hate and renounce your sin. This requirement is not arbitrary. It should not be just or beneficial to you for God to pardon you before you repent. Can a king forgive his subjects while they remain in rebellion? Can God forgive you while you persevere in sin? He would have to give up His law and confess Himself wrong and you right. But this would be falsehood, a proclamation that sin is right and holiness is wrong. Not only this, but to forgive you and leave you in your sin would render your happiness impossible. A doctor might as well proclaim someone healthy who is dying with cancer. Faith is not an arbitrary requirement of God. God has no means of getting you to Heaven unless you believe His Word and walk in the path He points out. If you will not believe what He points out. If you will not believe what He tells you of Heaven and Hell, of the way to avoid the one and gain the other, your salvation is impossible. You cannot find Heaven at the end of the road that leads to hell. Only faith in what He tells you can influence you to take the path that leads to heaven.
Now if you are an unrepentant sinner, why should the sentence of
His law not be executed upon you? You have never cared for God: why
should He be under obligation to care for you? You have never obeyed
Him; what good then do you deserve at His hand? You have broken His law,
despised His grace and grieved His Spirit. “You have cast off fear and
restrained prayer.” Your selfish conduct has only tended to the ruin of
the universe by dethroning God and establishing the dominion of Satan,
damning yourself and all mankind. Let conscience pass sentence upon you.
Do you not hear it crying out in the deep recesses of your soul,
guilty, guilty, and worthy of
eternal death?
BE WILLING FOR GOD TO GOVERN YOU You have seen the reasonableness of benevolence and the hatefulness of selfishness. If you are an unrepentant sinner, you must see the right and duty of God to govern you and your obligation to obey. You have seen the reasonableness and utility of virtue, and the guilt and evil of sin. Is it not right and honourable to turn and obey your Maker? Look at the consequences of your present course. Will you continue to cast firebrands and arrows, to throw all your influence, time, talents and your body and soul into the balance of selfishness? Do you want to continue to increase the wickedness and misery of earth, to gratify the devil and grieve the Son of God? Sinner, if you go to Hell, you ought to be willing to go alone. Taking friends with you will not mitigate your pain. It will increase it. Ought you not to throw all your influence into the other side to balance now, to exert yourself to roll back the tide of death and save your fellowmen from Hell? Do not stop to look at your emotions or turn your eye inward upon your present state of mind. Rather, cease your rebellion; throw down your weapons and enlist in the service of Jesus Christ! He has come to destroy the works of the devil, to demolish his empire and re-establish the government of God in the hearts of men. Are you wiling that God should govern the world? If allowed to vote, would you elect Him as Supreme Governor of the world? Will you obey Him now? Do you say, “Oh! I am so great a sinner I fear there is no mercy for me”? The question is snot whether He will pardon you, but whether you will obey Him. If it were not wise to pardon you and if His government required your damnation, it is still your duty to obey Him. The question for you to settle is whether you will obey Him or not. Leave the question of your salvation for Him to settle. He is infinitely wise and benevolent. You ought, therefore, to cheerfully submit your final destiny to Him, to make your duty the object of your attention and obedience your constant aim. The atonement is perfectly complete. Nothing stands in the way of your salvation but your own unrepentance and unbelief. You have the promise that on the condition of submission to His will, you shall have eternal life. Do you see what you should do? Are you willing to do it? “Choose this day whom you will serve.” To choose God and His service above your own interest is to change your heart. Have you done it? Or do you still ask, how shall I do it? You might more properly ask yourself, “How shall I go home from work?” To go home would require two things first, to be willing, second, to put your body in motion. But here, no muscular power is needed; only a willing mind, your consent. Be willing to do your duty and the work is done. You see why many complain that they cannot submit to God. They do not give their attention to the consideration necessary to lead them to submission. Many occupy their thoughts with their feelings. They look steadily at the darkness of their own minds and hardness of their own hearts. They are anxiously waiting for feelings which they suppose precede conversion. They will never submit like this. Their submission would counter all the laws of mind because their mental eye is turned away from the reason for it. Instead of thinking about the reasonableness of their Maker’s claims, some give their whole attention to their danger and try to submit out of fear, under the influence of self-love. They are not responding to the voice of conscience and justice. Actuated by such motives, the mind may struggle till the day pf judgment without ever bringing the soul to true submission. True conversion comes when the soul responds to its duty and not to the danger of not fulfilling that duty. I have already said that hope and fear bear an important part in leading the mind to make the required investigation; but neither one is the final reason for submission. Therefore, he who does not understand the use and power of conscience and upon what to fix his mind to lead him to a right decision, will naturally complain that he does not know how to submit to God.
The Holy Spirit leads the Sinner to truth Do you see the role of the Spirit of God in conversion? He operates through the medium of attention and conscience. He gets and keeps the attention of the mind, and through the influence of hope, fear and conscience, conducts the sinner along the path of truth. When He has given conscience the information to exert its power, then conscience gives forth its verdict and the will may respond—Amen. This is the experience of every Christian. He knows that the Spirit of God exerted His influence to change his heart in this way. His errors and refuges of lies were swept away. The Spirit arrested his attention, enlightened his conscience and pressed truth upon his mind until he was induced to yield. While pressing the sinner to submission, do you see how illogical it is to divert his mind to the Spirit’s influence in conversion? While his attention is directed to that subject, his submission is impossible. He can only submit when hiss entire attention is diverted to the reasons for submission. Every diversion of his attention is merely another obstacle in his way.
We never find the inspired writers directing attention to divine
influence when calling sinners to
repentance. Joshua, when he assembled the people of
Do you see the importance of understanding the logic of
conversion and why it is that so many sermons are lost upon the souls of
men? The sinner’s attention is not secured. If it is secured, it is
often directed to irrelevant matters. The sermon contains many
extraneous considerations that have nothing to do withy the sinner’s
immediate duty. Often the subject is not clear in his mind; or if he
understands it, he does not see its personal application to himself. If
he sees this, he is not made to feel the immediate obligation to make a
decision, and not infrequently—“Oh tell it not in
You can see that
there are two classes of evidence
of a change of heart. One class are the vivid emotions of love to God,
repentance for sin and faith in Christ that often follow the change of
choice. These constitute happiness. They are highly prised and
usually considered the most dependable, but are certainly not the most
satisfactory. Highly wrought emotions are liable to deceive, for they
are the least to be depended on as an evidence of conversion, since they
cannot be examined without ceasing to exist.
The second evidence is an habitual
disposition to obey the requirements of God, an abiding preference of
God’s glory over everything else that gives direction to our conduct.
NOW IS THE TIME TO DECIDE Many people will set aside days of fasting and prayer, and spend the day examining their emotional state. They are sure to quince any right feeling they may have. They may examine their past thoughts, feelings, actions and motives, but whenever they make their present emotions the subject of attention, they cease to feel. Therefore, if you want to test your heart with regard to anything, bring that subject before your mind and consider it intensely. If there is any moral affinity between you and your focus of attention, then the fire of emotion will burn. Some people suppose they have more religion than others merely because they have more emotion. Multitudes uninfluenced by principle are carried hither and thither by every gist of emotion, no matter what may have produced the feelings. They tell of their raptures, love and joys but have little regard for their principles that they are guilty of Christ-dishonouring conduct. Others may experience deep emotion only occasionally, and yet are influenced by a sacred regard to what is right. They have much more consistency of Christian character, but perhaps complain of an absence or religious joy. If sinners continue to neglect the means of grace, their case is hopeless. Many seem to think that if they are to be saved they shall be saved, and if they are lost they shall be lost. They look upon religion as some mysterious thing; that they must wait for the whim of a sovereign God to implant religion in their minds. They pay attention to every other subject and occupy their thoughts with everything that is calculated to banish Christianity from their minds, and still hope to be converted. This is as irrational as a person desiring to obtain the perfection of Christian sobriety by revelling, drinking and stupefying his powers, still expecting that in some mysterious way he should by and by become a sober man.
The Fundamental Truths of Conversion Are Necessary Do you see the importance of giving a convicted sinner right instructions? Great care should be taken not to divert his mind from fundamental truths. His attention should be pulled, if possible, from everything irrelevant, everything that regards merely the circumstantials of religion. His attention must be brought to bear intensely upon the main question of unconditional submission to God. Very exciting means are often indispensable to awaken the sinner and secure sufficient attention to lead him to conversion. When there are many exciting topics continually before his mind to call his thoughts on worldly things, it is necessary for us to ply him with the most moving thoughts in the most affectionate and earnest manner, or we shall fail to interest him and get the subject to his mind for consideration. If we can get his mind, we can easily touch the conscience. Many people are adverse to addressing the feelings of others on the subject of Christianity. They fear to excite the emotions at all, so they generally excite no feeling at all. The reason is obviously this: they overlook some of the most striking peculiarities of the mind. They strive to arouse the conscience, but fail for lack of securing a person’s attention. The attention will not ordinarily be secured without first addressing the hopes and fears of people.
Know the Difference Between Convicted and Awakened We should carefully distinguish between a convicted and an awakened sinner. Once the sinner is awakened, there is then no need of further alarm. Appeals to hope and fear are then an embarrassment and hindrance to the progress of the work. When his attention is thoroughly secured, seize the chance to enlighten his mind with the claims of his Maker and a right understanding of his responsibilities. If his attention flags, appeals should be made to his feelings to rearouse and fix his thoughts; and watch to preserve attention and enlighten his mind as fast as possible. In this way you will most effectively aid the operation of the Holy Spirit, push matters to an issue and secure the conversion of the sinner to God. Not distinguishing between awakening and conviction has been the cause of many failures in securing conversions. Often, merely awakened sinners have been treated as if they were convicted: their spiritual guides have seized the opportunity to force conviction upon them. They have called on them to submit before they understood the reasons for submission or the nature of their duty. But instead of acting, they have imagined themselves willing to do so till their awakenings have subsided and the chill apathy of death has settled down upon them. Preaching terror alone should not effect the conversion of sinners. It is useful to awaken, but if not accompanied with instructions that enlighten, it will seldom result in any good. Those who preach only to the hopes of people seldom if ever effect their conversion. Some appeal to fear and others to hope, while they seldom reason with the sinner concerning righteousness or the judgment to come. They often excite feelings and many tears; but such appeals unaccompanied by discriminating instruction in regard to the sinner’s duty and the claims of his Maker will seldom result in a sound conversion. Do you see the necessity of special efforts to promote revivals of religion? Why there are protracted meetings to promote the conversion of sinners? Their novelty excites and fixes attention. Their continuation from day to day serves to enlighten the mind and has a tendency to result in conversion.
People Die as they Live It can be seen that a death bed is a poor place for repentance. Many expect that if they neglect repentance until their last day that they shall repent and give their hearts to God. But how vain the hope! In the anguish, exhaustion, pain, distraction and anxiety of a death bed, what opportunity or power is there for that intensity of attention that is needed to break the power of selfishness and change the entire current of the soul? To think is labor; to think intensely is exhausting labor, even to a man in health. But to understand the soul’s destiny, to hold the agonized mind in distressing contact with the great truths of revelation until the heart is melted and broken is ordinarily too great an effort for a dying person. Be it known, with few exceptions, people die as they live. No trust can be placed upon the flickering and struggling mind while the body is breaking down to usher it into the presence of its Maker.
Now is your time to decide, in alertness and strength, while the
command to make you a new heart and a new spirit is before you and the
reason for the performance of this duty lie clear. Decide while the gate
to Heaven stands open and mercy, with bleeding hands, beckons you to
come. While the pearl of great price is offered for your repentance,
seize the present moment and lay hold of eternal life.
TRADITIONS OF THE ELDERS
“Thus have ye made the commandments of God of none
effect by your traditions” MT. 15: 6.
GOD GOVERNS US THROUGH MOTIVES God exercises a moral government over the mind. A moral government is not administrated by a direct physical agency. That would place the mind along with the material universe under the physical laws which operate in the world of matter. Motives are the great instruments for moving the mind. God’s moral government is made up of motivations designed to influence the minds of intelligent creatures to pursue that course of conduct which will, in the highest manner, promote the glory of God, as well as their own interest and the happiness of the universe. His government lays down a perfect rule for action. His precepts mark the exact course of duty. On the one hand, His rewards embrace all the blessedness of everlasting life; on the other, His discipline damn offenders to all the pains of everlasting death. His moral government holds the clear lamp of truth before the sinner, revealing all the moving considerations that Heaven, earth and Hell can present to hold his mind in an exact course of obedience. The law of God was clearly revealed to the Jews, but its influence over the mind was often paralyzed by a variety of oral traditions. These traditions were handed down from one generation to another, and were held as equal authority with the written law. Often they were corrupt additions of the Jewish scholars, evasions of the spirit of the written law. We have an instance of this in the verses connected with the text. The rabbis believed it was unlawful to eat without first washing their hands. Christ’s disciples paid no regard. But since the traditions were held in high regard by the multitude, the scribes and Pharisees made the disciples’ unwashed hands an occasion for reproaching Christ. They demanded of Him, “Why do thy disciples transgress the traditions of the elders? Christ rebuked them by answering, “Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition? For God commanded, saying, honor they father and mother, and he that curseth father or mother, let him die the death, but ye say, whosoever shall say to his father or mother, it is a gift, by whatsoever thou mightest be profited by me, and honoreth not his father and mother, he shall be free. Thus have ye made the commandment of God of none effect by our tradition.” The commandment to honor father and mother included the duty of providing for them in case they were without mans; however, the tradition of the elders evaded this requirement and taught that the child could give his property to God or dedicate it to religious purposes without making provision for his aged parents. By this evasion, they remained blameless; nullifying the requirement and setting aside the commandment of God.
Satan Tries to Confuse the Motives of the Gospel Since the world began, Satan’s policy has been to break the power of moral government. He has sought to introduce confusion, rebellion and damnation into the universe of God. The influence on the mind is in some respects similar to the law of gravitation in the material universe. Motivation is designed to hold the same place in the world of mind that gravitation holds in the world of matter. Universal desolation would be the consequence of breaking the power of gravitation. Destroy the power of motive, and universal anarchy and misrule will fill the universe. Therefore, everything which tends to hide the truth, to cloud the minds of people in ignorance, to give them erroneous notions of their duty before God and evasions and misrepresentations of the true nature and tendency of His commands are calculated to subvert their power and to defeat the very objects for which they were made. Thus, the corrupt glosses and traditional evasions of the Jews had blinded the Jewish nation. Their carnal interpretation of the law had so modified the views and doctrinal sentiments of the nation that they missed the nature of the Messiah’s kingdom which they had so, long expected. Even though the sacrifices of the ceremonial law were designed to point out the nature of the coming of Christ, these traditional delusions had been so great and their expectations of the messiah so entirely erroneous that when He came, they did not know Him or His doctrine. They considered His claims as heresy. Hence, the nation rose up, rejected, persecuted and murdered Him. But after His resurrection and the pouring out of His Spirit on the day of Pentecost, the tradition of the Jewish doctors was discarded by the Christian church.
The Unadulterated Truth Is Powerful
For a short time after Pentecost, the clear, unadulterated truth
of God shone forth. It was powerful. Converts to Christianity were
multiplied as drops of the morning dew. Judaism gave way before it. The
system of pagan idolatry shrunk before its glories. Earth echoed back
the hallelujahs of Heaven. But in the midst of this bright day, even
while some of the inspired penmen were yet alive, the corrupt philosophy
of men began to break the power of truth. Men began to interpret the
Scriptures by the corrupt standards of their philosophy. The truth
became obscured, its influence over mind less and less manifest; until a
day of darkness came which spread the pall of When Christians saw this darkness, instead of ascribing it to corruption, to human glosses and tradition that had broken the Gospel’s influence over mind, and inconsistencies with which man’s traditions had encumbered the truth and palsied the arm of the church, they speculated. They sat quietly down and very learnedly endeavoured to account for the fact that His gory had departed by ascribing the loss to the mysterious sovereignty of God. These traditions multiplied in the Catholic Church until true conversion to God was hardly known among them. Many of these traditions were rejected by the Reformers, and light broke in again upon the world to break its slumbers. There is evidence that the Reformers’ efforts brought many souls to Christ. But the Reformation was only partial. The Gospel did not have its earlier effects. Since the glorious Son of righteousness was dimmed, something was evidently lacking, because through the Gospel He had shined in full strength.
The systems of philosophy that still prevailed, standards by
which people were interpreting the Word of God, introduced
embarrassments, contradiction, mystery and absurdity into the Gospel.
The human mind was confounded, and a false philosophy has clogged the
chariot wheels of His mercy to this day, and destroyed the power of the
law.
GOD’S LAW IS LOVING We must know a few of the intents of the moral law and consider some of the traditions of men that have broken its power. The following is the most obvious
The Intentions of the Moral Law The moral law is to exhibit the benevolence of God. A law expresses the will of the lawgiver. It is a declaration of his sentiment concerning his subjects, a portrait of his heart. We have only to look into the two great precepts that comprise the whole law and the prophets to learn that God is love. These command perfect love: supreme love to God and the same love to our fellows as we bear to ourselves. They are a universal rule of right for His kingdom. Universal obedience to these precepts would result in universal happiness. God created us in His image. His happiness springs from His benevolent affections and so with us. Therefore, if everyone were benevolent as the law requires, universal good will, peace and joy would fill the earth. The justice of God is also strongly exhibited in the law. The law calls man to reasonable and just love toward God, and perfect regard for the welfare of our fellowmen; nothing more nor less than is perfectly right. Another intent of the moral law is to convince people of sin. It does this by putting a perfect rule of action into People’s hands, by holding strongly before their eyes a pure moral mirror that reflects the exact moral character of every thought word and deed. It is the rule by which every action musts be measured, the scale of the sanctuary in which every thought and affection must be weighed. The moral law is also intended to promote humility. By comparing his life and affections with this holy law, the sinner finds that everything is wrong. On being weighed in this balance he finds himself lacking. His self-complacency is destroyed and his pride is humbled. The moral law is designed to destroy self-righteousness and teach men their need of an atonement and a Saviour. Another intention of God’s law is to promote holiness and happiness among people. We must be shown the impossibility of being happy without first being holy; that without perfect holiness no one shall see the Lord. The moral law impresses upon our hearts and conscience our obligation to perfect benevolence, and convicts us of sin in every instance in which we come short of. In short, God’s law is obviously designed to declare the perfection of God and the total depravity of man. For since it is a faithful portrait of the perfection of God’s moral character on the one hand, so it is a faithful witness of the total depravity of man on the other.
Traditions Have Altered the Law Yet, all these intents of the moral law have been defeated by the tradition of men. Pharisees, both of the ancient and modern variety, have defeated these designs by altering the precept. Some of them have made obedience a mere outward conformity to the law of God, regardless of the state of the heart, while the law principally regards the heart rather than the outward act. The law judges the heart, the intentions with which an action is performed. It gives no credit for outward action unless it proceeds from a right purpose. The act must be prompted by love, at the bidding of holy principle, to be recognized as virtue by the law of God. Does a man pray or preach or give alms to the poor? Does he read the Bible or go to church? Unless these are prompted by the love of God in the heart, they are neither obedience nor virtue. Still the law thunders forth its claims, thou shalt love the lord thy God with al thy heart, and with all thy soul, with all thy mind, and with all thy strength, and thy neighbour as thy self. No outward conduct, however sanctimonious or precise, is to be regarded as obedience to the law of God unless it flows from love. Obviously, merely making outward morality confirm to this law defeats one of its principle designs. Instead of convicting of sin, it fosters pride. Instead of exhibiting the true character of God, it holds Him forth merely as the promoter and showing them their need of a Saviour, it leads to self-complacency, stumbling at the doctrine of atonement and misunderstanding and rejecting the Gospel.
This false view of the moral law (that it regards the outward
action primary) was so extensively embraced by the
Pharisees that it led the Jewish nation to reject and crucify the
Saviour. They rejected the righteousness of God and tried to establish
their own righteousness by an outward conformity to the law. Assuming
obedience to the law, how could they understand the need of an
atonement, the righteousness of Christ and justification by faith alone?
So it is with the Pharisees of today: overlooking the inwardness of
God’s law and supposing their cold, dry, outward morality to be approved
in the sight of God, they wrap the filthy garments of their own
righteousness about themselves, walk in the light of their own fire and
warm themselves with sparks of their own kindling—they must lie down in
sorrow.
GODD’S LAW IS POSITIVE Some people make the moral law ineffective by regarding it only negatively.
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