Chapter 54 - On Conviction I

In this chapter I will begin to look more closely at the concept of "conviction of sin" in its relation to the regeneration or new birth experience. I will show that the great Calvinist leaders, both Baptists and otherwise, have viewed the experience of "conviction of sin" as most generally that which goes before the regeneration experience, and not after. It is not generally viewed as an evidence of spiritual life, though it be an evidence of the awakenings of conscience. Such awakenings of conscience are often experienced by unregenerated men. Men are "seekers" before they become "finders." Salvation is in the finding, not in the seeking alone.

Wrote Spurgeon:

"The Warrant of Faith lies in the Objective Commands of Scripture and not in the Subjective Feelings of the Hearer," and I say a hearty "amen" to that!

He said further:

"Christ’s ambassadors are authorized to call “on all people of every clime and kindred, to believe the gospel with a promise of personal salvation to each and every one that believes.” The message is not, “Wait for feelings,” it is, “believe and live.” I find Jesus Christ says nothing to sinners about waiting, but very much about coming. If we begin to preach to sinners that they must have a certain sense of sin and a certain measure of conviction, such teaching would turn the sinner away from God in Christ to himself. The man begins at once to say, “Have I a broken heart? Do I feel the burden of sin?” This is only another form of looking at self. Man must not look to himself to find reasons for God’s grace. The gospel is that you believe in Christ Jesus; that you get right out of yourself, and depend alone in Him. Do you say, “I feel so guilty?” You are certainly guilty, whether you feel it or not; you are far more guilty than you have any idea of. Come to Christ because you are guilty, not because you have been prepared to come by looking at your guilt. Trust nothing of your own, not even your sense of need."

http://www.brooksidebaptist.org/articles/Spurgeon%20and%20the%20Battle%20for%20Gospel%20Preaching.pdf

Spurgeon has, by these words, both identified and destroyed the Hardshell attitude and belief about a sinner's feelings of guilt. My years in the Hardshell church gave evidence to me of this unhealthy phenomenon among the membership generally. They are often "looking within" for "evidences" that they are one of the elect, one who has been "born again." The more one "doubts" his experience of grace, the more one feels he is elect. The more one can say and feel sinful, the more he can feel he is holy. The more one can feel himself "humble," the more he can feel that he is one of the elect and born of the Spirit.

Hardshells also encourage people to wait on believing and coming to Christ till they have had sufficient feelings in themselves. Again, this type of preaching is dangerous to souls and Brother Spurgeon realized it and sought with all his energy to uproot such ideas and such preaching to sinners. Hardshells, by this type preaching and by this kind of explaining of the new birth experience, are encouraging sinners to look within themselves rather than to Christ.

Spurgeon said:

"Just as sin makes us sick, and grievous, and sad, so does grace make us far more joyful and free. Sin causeth one to go about with an aching heart, till he seems as if the world would swallow him, and mountains hang above ready to drop upon him. This is the effect of the law. The law makes us sad; the law makes us miserable. But, poor sinner, grace removeth the evil effects of sin upon your spirit, if thou dost believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, thou shalt go out of this place with a sparkling eye and a light heart. Ah! well do I remember the morning when I stepped into a little place of worship, as miserable almost as hell could make me—being ruined and lost. I had often been at chapels where they spoke of the law, but I heard not the gospel. I sat down the pew a chained and imprisoned sinner; the Word of God came, and I went out free. Though I went in miserable as hell, I went out elated and joyful. I sat there black; I went away whiter than driven snow. God had said, "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be whiter than snow." Why not this be thy lot, my brother, if thou feelest thyself a sinner now? It is all he asks of thee, to feel thy need of him, this thou hast, and now the blood of Jesus lies before thee. "The law has entered that sin might abound." Thou are forgiven, only believe it; elect, only believe it; 'tis the truth that thou are saved. And now, lastly, poor sinner, has sin made thee unfit for heaven? Grace shall render thee a fit companion for seraphs and the just made perfect. Thou who art to-day lost and destroyed by sin, shalt one day find thyself with a crown upon thy head, and a golden harp in thine hand, exalted to the throne of the Most High. Think, O drunkard, if thou repentest, there is a crown laid up for thee in heaven. Ye guiltiest, most lost and depraved, are ye condemned in your conscience by the law? Then I invite you, in my Master's name, to accept pardon through his blood. He suffered in your stead, he has atoned for your guilt and you are acquitted. Thou art an object of his eternal affection, the law is but a schoolmaster, to bring thee to Christ. Cast thyself on him. Fall into the arms of saving grace. No works are required, no fitness, no righteousness, no doings. Ye are complete in him who said, "It is finished."" (JESUS AND THE CHILDREN - NO. 1925 - A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD’S-DAY MORNING, OCTOBER 17, 1886, BY C. H. SPURGEON, AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON)

This is all right on target as respecting the Christian experience of the new birth. Spurgeon was not deviating a hair's width from what had been the Baptist view of things prior to his day, yea, from the beginning of Baptist history. The Hardshell model of the "new birth," and of the place of conviction, are all new and novel ideas, and are strange to anyone who has read the bible with any degree of honesty of heart.

Spurgeon says that conviction of sin is the "work of the law," not the "work of grace." Hardshells greatly err by confusing the two, something that their forefathers did not do. Spurgeon believed that the work of grace and of the new birth was conversion, the experience of truly believing in Christ, and that conviction was a preparation to it (except in some special cases, as I shall show, like in very young children, where he said this order is not absolute, and which is the view of the ablest Calvinistic writers).

Spurgeon did not believe that the seeker or the one under the law's conviction was already pardoned, justified, converted, or born again. That is why he invites them to come to Christ. He believes that conviction has made coming to Christ easier now, the soul being in some ways prepared, and obstacles removed, but that the convicted soul may yet refuse to come, die without having fully come to Christ from the state of conviction, and go to Hell unforgiven. And, this is the traditional Baptist and Calvinistic view. The Hardshells are not historic Baptists in their strange view on this topic.

Spurgeon said further:

"Here let us observe that the principle is of general application; you must not hinder any awakened soul from seeking the Saviour. O my brethren and sisters, I hope we have such a love for souls, such an instinct within us to desire to see the travail of Christ's soul, that instead of putting stumbling blocks in the way, we would do the best we could to gather out the stones. On Sabbath days I have laboured to clear up the doubts and fears which afflict coming sinners; I have entreated God the Holy Spirit to enable me so to speak, that those things which hindered you from coming to the Saviour might be removed; but how sad must be the case of those who delight themselves in putting stumbling-blocks in men's way. The doctrine of election, for instance, a great and glorious truth, full of comfort to God's people; how often is that made to frighten sinners from Jesus! There is a way of preaching that with a drawn sword, and say, "You must not come unless you know you are one of God's elect." That is not the way to preach the doctrine. The true way of preaching it is, "God has a chosen people, and I hope you are one of them; come, lay hold on Jesus, put your trust in him." Then there be others who preach up frames and feelings as a preparation for Christ. They do in effect say, "Unless you have felt so much depression of spirit, or experienced a certain quantity of brokenness of heart, you must not come to Christ," instead of declaring, that whosoever will is permitted to come, and that the true way of coming to Christ is not with a qualification of frames and feeling and mental depressions, but just as you are."

"That which would raise an objection to the salvation of the big sinner is thrown back upon you, for Christ might well say, "Except ye receive these things as the chief of sinners, ye cannot enter the kingdom.""

(Children Brought to Christ - A Sermon Excerpt Delivered on Sunday Morning, July 24th, 1864, by the Rev. C. H. SPURGEON, At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington)

Today's Hardshells would never address awakened and convicted sinners in this manner! Rather than warning the sinner that he must go further and come to Christ, in faith and repentance, the Hardshell would say to him - "You are already born again. You already believe in Jesus, have already come to him. That is why you feel convicted. Be convicted no more, let the fact of your conviction prove to you that you are one of the elect and have no more reason to fear. As long as you feel that conviction of sin, you will have strong assurance that all is well with you."

I am happy to put the above words of Spurgeon in this book. Those Hardshells that perchance will read this work really need to hear these words of the great Sovereign Grace Baptist preacher!

And again Spurgeon says:

"I address those who sincerely want to obtain the true and heavenly light, who have waited hoping to receive it, but instead of obtaining it are in a worse, at least in a sadder, state than they were. They are almost driven into the dark foreboding that for them no light will ever come, they shall be prisoners chained forever in the valley of the shadow of death. These people are in some degree aware of their natural darkness. They are looking for light. They are not content with their obscurity, they are waiting for brightness. There are a few who are not content to be what their first birth has made them; they discover in their nature much evil and would be glad to get rid of it; they find in their understanding much ignorance, and they long to be illuminated; they do not understand Scripture when they read it, and though they hear gospel terms, they still fail to grasp gospel-thought. They pant to escape from this ignorance, they desire to know the truth which saves the soul; and their desire is not only to know it in theory, but to know it by its practical power upon their inner selves. They really and anxiously want to be delivered from the state of nature, which they feel to be a dangerous one, and to be brought into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

Oh, these are the best kind of hearers, these in whom right desires have begun to be awakened. Men who are dissatisfied with the darkness are evidently not altogether dead, for the dead shall slumber in the catacombs, heedless as to whether it is noon or night. Such men evidently have not fallen completely asleep, for they who slumber sleep better because of the darkness; they ask for no sunbeams to molest their dreams. Such people are evidently not completely blind, because it makes no difference to the blind whether the sun floods the landscape with glory, or night conceals it with her black veil. Those to whom our thoughts are directly turned are somewhat awakened, aroused and bestirred, and this is no small blessing for, alas, most people are a stolid (having or showing little or no emotion) mass regarding spiritual things, and the preacher might almost as hopefully strive to create a soul within the ribs of death, or exhort warm tears of pity from Sicilian marble, as evoke spiritual emotions from the people of this generation. So these people are hopeful in their condition who, just as the trees twist their branches towards the sunlight, they long after Jesus, the light and life of men."

"Moreover, these persons have a high idea of what the light is. They call it brightness. They wait for it, and are grieved because it does not come. If you greatly value spiritual life you have not made a mistake; if you count it a priceless thing to obtain an interest in Christ, the forgiveness of your sins, and peace with God, you judge according to solemnness. You shall never exaggerate in your valuation of the one thing necessary. It is true that those who trust in God are a happy people; it is true that to be brought into sonship, and adopted into the family of the great God, is a boon (kind, generous, pleasant) for which kings might well exchange their diadems. You cannot think too highly of the blessings of grace; I would rather incite in you a sacred covetousness after them than in the remotest degree lower your estimate of their preciousness. Salvation is such a blessing that heaven hangs upon it; if you win grace you have the germ of heaven within you, the security, the pledge, and earnest of everlasting bliss. So far, again, there is much that is hopeful in you. It is good that you loathe the darkness and prize the light."

"The people I want to speak with have some hope that they may yet obtain this light; in fact, they are waiting for it, hopefully waiting, and are somewhat disappointed that after waiting for the light, instead, obscurity has come. They are evidently astonished at the failure of their hopes. They are amazed to find themselves walking in darkness, when they had fondly hoped that the candle of the Lord would shine round about them. I would encourage in you that spark of hope, for despair is one of the most terrible hindrances to the reception of the gospel. So long as awakened sinners cherish a hope of mercy, we have hope for them. We hope, O seeker, that before long you will be able to sing of pardon bought with blood, and when this scene is closed, shall enter through the gates into the pearly city amongst the blessed who forever see the face of the well-beloved. Though it may seem too good to be true, yet even you, in your calmer moments, think that one day you will rejoice that Christ is yours, and take your seat amongst His people, though the poorest of them all in your own estimation. Then you imagine in your heart how fervently you will love your Redeemer, how rapturously you will kiss the very dust of His feet, how gratefully you will bless Him who has lifted the poor from the dunghill and set Him among princes. May you no longer look through the window wistfully at the banquet, but come in to sit at the table, and feed upon Christ, rejoicing with His chosen!"

"The people I am describing are those who have learned to plead their case with God. `We wait for Light, but only see obscurity; for brightness, but we walk in darkness.' It is a declaration of inward feelings, a laying bare of the heart's agonies to the Most High. Although you have not yet found the peace you seek, it is good that you have begun to pray. Perhaps you think it is poor praying; indeed, you hardly care to call it prayer at all; but God does not judge as you do. A groan is heard in heaven; a deep-fetched sigh and a falling tear are prevalent weapons at the throne of God. Yes, your soul cries to God, and you cannot help it. When you are about your daily work you find yourself sighing, `Oh, that my load of guilt were gone! Oh, that I could call the Lord my Father with an unfaltering tongue!' Night after night and day after day this desire rises from you like the morning mist from the valleys. You would tear off your right arm, and pluck out your right eye, if you might gain the unspeakable benefit of salvation in Jesus Christ. You are sincerely anxious for reconciliation with God, and your anxiety reveals itself in prayer and supplication. I hope these prayers will continue. I trust you will never cease your crying. May the Holy Spirit constrain you to continue to sigh and groan. Like the importunate woman (Luke 18:1-8), may you press your case until the gracious answer is granted through the merits of Jesus. So far things are hopeful for you; but when I say hopeful, I wish I could say much more, for mere hopefulness is not enough. It is not enough to desire, it is not enough to seek, it is not enough to pray; you must actually obtain, you must actually lay hold on eternal life. You will never enjoy comfort and peace till you have passed out of the merely hopeful stage into a better and a brighter one, by making sure of your interest in the Lord Jesus by a living, appropriating faith. In the exalted Saviour all the gifts and graces which you need are stored up, in readiness to supply your wants. Oh, may you come to His fullness, and out of it receive grace for grace!"

"The person I wish to comfort may be described by one other touch of the pen. He is one who is quite willing to lay bare his heart before God, to confess his desires, whether right or wrong, and to expose his condition, whether unhealthy or sound. While we try to cloak anything from God, we are both wicked and foolish. It shows a rebellious spirit when we have a desire to hide away from our Maker; but when a man uncovers his wound, invites inspection of its sore, bids the surgeon cut away the leprous film which covered its corruption, and says to him, `Here, probe into its depths, see what evil there is in it; do not spare me, but make a sure cure of the wound,' then he is in a fair way to be recovered. When a man is willing to make God his confessor, and freely, and without hypocrisy, pours out his heart like water before the Lord, there is hope for him. You have told the Lord your position, you have spread your petitions before Him--I trust you will continue to do so until you find relief; but I have yet a higher hope, namely, that you may soon obtain peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord."

The Invitation

"If the reason why a sinner is to come is because all things are ready, then it is idle for him to say, `But I am not ready.' It is clear that all the readiness required on man's part is a willingness to come and receive the blessing which God has provided. There is nothing else necessary; if men are willing to come, they may come, they will come. Where the Lord has been pleased to touch the will so that man has a desire towards Christ, where the heart really hungers and thirsts after righteousness, that is all the readiness which is wanted. All the fitness He requires is that first you feel your need of Him (and that He gives you), and that secondly, in feeling your need of Him you are willing to come to Him. Willingness to come is everything. A readiness to believe in Jesus, a willingness to cast the soul on Him, a preparedness to accept Him just as He is, because you feel that He is just the Saviour that you need--that is all: there was no other readiness, there could have been none, in the case of those who were poor and blind, and lame and maimed, yet came to the feast. The text does not say, `You are ready, therefore come'; that is a legal way of putting the gospel; but it says, `All things are ready, the gospel is ready, therefore you are to come.' As for your readiness, all the readiness that is possibly wanted is a readiness which the Spirit gives us--namely, willingness to come to Jesus." (ADVICE FOR SEEKERSC. H. SPURGEON)

Again, this is "good medicine" for the Hardshells (many of whom love reading the sermons and writings of Spurgeon). It really calls for little comment from me. Spurgeon has given us a clear understanding of the work of conviction and of the difference between the work of the law and the work of grace.

Spurgeon said again:

"By "Repentance unto life," I think we are to understand that repentance which is accompanied by spiritual life in the soul and ensures eternal life to everyone who possesses it. "Repentance unto life," I say, brings with it spiritual life, or rather, is the first consequence thereof. There are repentances which are not signs of spiritual life but of natural life. They are only effected by the power of the conscience and the voice of nature speaking in men. But the repentance here spoken of is produced by the Author of life, and when it comes it begets such life in the soul that he who was "dead in trespasses and sins," is quickened together with Christ.

This I think is "repentance unto life"—that which gives life unto a dead spirit. I have said also this repentance ensures eternal life. For there are repentances of which you hear men speak which do not secure the salvation of the soul." (I have lost the source of this citation, but will find it and place here before this book is published)

Stephen Charnock wrote:

"The soul must be beaten down by conviction before it be raised up by regeneration; there must be some apprehensions of the necessity of it. Yet sometimes the work of regeneration follows so close upon the heels of these precious preparations, that both must be acknowledged to be the work of one and the same hand. Paul on the sudden was struck down, and in a moment there is both an acknowledgement of the authority of Christ, and a submission to his will, when he said, 'Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?' Acts ix. 6. The preparation of the subject is necessary, but this preparation may be at the same time with the conveyance of the divine nature: as a warm seal may both prepare the hard wax, and convey the image to it, by one and the same touch."

"Though some things which man may do by common grace may be said in some sort to be preparations, yet they are not formally so, as that there is an absolute causal connection between such preparations and regeneration. They are not causae dispositivae of grace, not disposing causes of grace."

"The foundation of that which looks like a preparation may be laid in the very gall of bitterness; as Simon Magus desiring the gift of the Holy Ghost, but from the covetousness of his heart. Other operations upon the soul which seem to be nearer preparations, as convictions, do not infer grace; for the heart, as a field, may be ploughed by terrors, and yet not sown by any good seed. Planting and watering are preparations, but not the cause of fruit; the increase depends upon God."

"Thirdly, What preparation had any of those we read of in Scripture from themselves? What disposition had Paul, when he was struck down with a heart fuller of actual enmity than he had at his birth? Did the apostles expect any call from their nets, or set themselves in a readiness before they heard that call? A voice from Christ was attended with a divine touch or power upon their hearts; both the preparation and the motion itself took birth together. And what preparations are there in Scripture, but are attributed unto God? If a conviction be thorough and full, and consequently a preparation, it must refer to that Spirit which our Saviour asserts to be the principal cause of it, John xvi. 8, 9, 'When he is come,' that is, the Comforter, 'he will reprove the world of sin.' It is laid wholly upon this, as the end of the almighty Spirit's coming, whereby it is not likely men would be convinced without him. Is there any desire or prayer for it? Even this, if true, is from the Holy Ghost; 'no man can call Christ Lord, but by the Holy Ghost,' 1 Cor. xii. 3. Did any of those our Saviour cured of bodily infirmities, prepare themselves for that cure? Neither can any man prepare himself for his spiritual cure."

"The preparations of Lazarus to rise were from the voice of Christ, not from the stinking body of Lazarus."

Charnock calls these preparations of the Spirit, true heart-felt conviction of sin, "The beginning of faith."

"Which common grace is either...More general, to all men...More particular common grace, to men under the preaching of the gospel."

Charnock wrote:

"We have shown that God may command. Let us see why God does command, when he knows man has no power to renew himself?

1. The first reason is, To make us sensible of our impotency. The design of God is not to signify our power to perform it, but sensibly to affect us with our inability, that we may be the better prepared for a remedy; as the moral law was given with such terrifying marks, to make men despair in themselves, and the ceremonial law annexed to it, to give some glimpse of a Mediator in whom they might have strength. And therefore when the Israelites were so affected, Deut. xviii. 16-18, as to desire not to hear the voice of the Lord in that manner, nor to see that great fire any more which attended the law, that they might not die, he commends them for it: verse 17, 'They have well spoken that which they have spoken.' God is highly pleased with this sense of their own inability to answer the terms of the first covenant, since it makes them fly for help and supply to the prophet of the second covenant."

"A conceit of self-sufficiency secretly lurks in every one of us; we should think ourselves gods to ourselves if we saw not the picture of our own weakness in the spirituality of the command. Therefore, though we cannot ourselves perform this command of regeneration, it is necessary it should be directed to us, to make us abject in our eyes, and strip us of all confidence in the flesh, which is the first step toward a being endued with the Spirit; to make us hang down our proud plumes, and sink into that despair in ourselves, which is necessary to the superstructure of a saving faith. It is necessary the law should be commanded, to make sin appear exceeding sinful, to give us a true prospect of ourselves in the glass of the command: the rectitude of it shows us our crookedness; the holiness of it, our impurity; the justice of it, our unrighteousness; the goodness of it, our wickedness; and the spirituality of it, our carnality and fleshliness. God does not command us (though we have no power) to upbraid and triumph over us, but to lay us low, and humble us."

"2. To make us sensible of the grace of God, and urge us to have recourse to it. It is necessary that man should understand the perfection of divine righteousness, and what the condition of man was before the fall, that thereby he may understand the necessity of the remedy, and be more willing to come under God's wing than Adam has to keep under it; but without a sense of his own weakness man would never come to God. God commands us, not that he expects we should renew ourselves, for he knows we cannot; but that being acquainted with our feeble frame, we should implore his grace to turn us, and have recourse to him, who delights to be sought unto and depended upon by his creature. That this command of renewing ourselves, and returning to our due obedience, is given to this end, is evident by the promise of the gospel, which did accompany the command, both to encourage and direct men where to find assistance for the performance of what the first covenant exacts, and the second accepts."

"God calls sinners, though he knows they will not renew themselves, as men send servants to demand the possession of a piece of ground, though they know it will not be delivered to them; but they do it that they may more conveniently bring their action against such a person that will not surrender."
(A Discourse of the Efficient of Regeneration Part 1 by Stephen Charnock)

John Bunyan

"There is not only in carnal men a will to be vile, but there is in them a will to be saved also—a will to go to heaven also. But this it will not do, it will not privilege a man in the things of the kingdom of God. Natural desires after the things of another world, they are not an argument to prove a man shall go to heaven whenever he dies."

"I am not a free-willer, I do abhor it; yet there is not the wickedest man but he desires some time or other to be saved. He will read some time or other, or, it may be, pray; but this will not do—"It is not in him that wills, nor in him that runs, but in God that shews mercy;" there is willing and running, and yet to no purpose; (Rom. 9:16), "Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, have not obtained it.""

"Though a man without grace may have a will to be saved, yet he cannot have that will God's way. Nature, it cannot know anything but the things of nature; the things of God knows no man but by the Spirit of God; unless the Spirit of God be in you, it will leave you on this side the gates of heaven—"Not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." It may be some may have a will, a desire that Ishmael may be saved; know this, it will not save thy child." (John Bunyan's Last Sermon Preached August 19, 1688, from John 1:13)

A. A. Hodge

"What is the nature of that conviction of sin which often occurs before or without regeneration, and how may it be distinguished from the genuine? Natural conscience is an essential and indestructible element of human nature, including a sense of right and wrong, and painful emotions associated with a sense of the latter. Although this faculty may be for a time perverted, and the sensibility associated with it hardened, yet it may be, and often is, in the case of the unregenerate, quickened to a painful activity, leading to a sense of ill desert, pollution, helplessness, and danger. In eternity this will constitute a large measure of the sufferings of the lost.

On the other hand, that conviction of sin which is peculiar to the regenerate is distinguished by being accompanied by a sense of the positive beauty of holiness, and an earnest desire to escape not merely the pangs of remorse, but chiefly the pollution and the dominion of sin."

(www.monergism.com/thethreshold/articles/onsite/regenerhodge.html)

Thus, we have the scriptural view of the matter well stated by some of the leading men in the history of Baptist and Calvinistic theology. It is totally contrary to what today's Hardshells believe and teach about this important matter.

In the next two chapters I will continue to look at this topic, believing that the Hardshells, if they are ever to be delivered from their cultic error, must come to understand properly. It is also hoped that some of them who are lost, but imagine they are saved (simply because they have experienced the terrors of the law and of Mt. Sinai), will see their error and come to Mt. Zion and to Christ, and thus know what it means to truly be born again and to come to Christ.