"Your soul weighs in the balance"
Matthew 7:20-23
My greatest fear is that one day the Lord Jesus might tell me that during the ministry he entrusted me with, I had failed to proclaim a clear gospel message to someone of how they come to be saved.
Ezekiel 33:6 "But if the watchman see the sword come and blow not the trumpet and the people be not warned, if the sword come and take away any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity but his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand."
Beloved in keeping with the mandate of the Lord Jesus Christ it is my solemn duty before God to preach how a soul is saved that it not be taken away in it’s iniquity. In 1875 William Booth shared a message of the greatest danger to face the people of the now past 20th Century. Mr. Booth proclaimed under the guidance of the Holy Spirit for we shall soon see that it came to pass and that is only in keeping with what Jesus said the Holy Spirit would do in John 16:13 "Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth for he shall not speak of himself but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak and he will show you things to come."
His message was that somehow the church and it’s preachers would no longer have the ability to teach people how they are truly saved by the blood of Christ shed at Calvary. He said that these warning signs would accompany this departure from the truth of the gospel.
1) REGENERATION WITHOUT REPENTANCE
2) CONVERSION WITHOUT CONVICTION
3) SALVATION WITHOUT LORDSHIP
As we have just seen in Matthew 7:22 these people are from the church and have been cast into outer darkness because Jesus never knew them. Never knew them! For all the times that they prophesied in his name and for his name, they never knew him! For all the times that they cast out devils in the blessed name of the only son of God, he never knew them! For all of the wonderful things that they have done in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, they never knew him! They never knew him! They never knew him!
That seems to be a pretty good introduction for what we’re about to hear this morning so now I’m gonna preach a little while and let you listen to me. Then beloved I am going to draw a line in the blood of Jesus Christ in this church and give you the opportunity to either accept him or reject him. Spent the last few months dealing with something in my heart and know beyond any shadow of a doubt that the Lord intends to call me to evangelism because there aren’t many preachers that even know how to really see people saved. Haven’t taken any undue airs on myself but have simply listened to the whisper of the Holy Spirit and remained pliable in God’s hands to become what he wants of me. I know full well that most of you have heard a gospel message that has no power to change the soul because we want sad stories and for the preacher to tell us how easy it is to follow the Lord Jesus and we don’t have to change but can just keep on going on like we are, The Lord understands. Want to deal with the first work of the Holy Spirit and let you know that until a heart is placed under conviction for sin, there can be no repentance. Until God reach down under the power of the blessed Holy Spirit and convict us of our sins, we have never been led to the place of repentance because we have had no godly sorrow placed on our hearts.
So in keeping with what God would say to us from his blessed word this morning, I want to preach a one point message on this topic,
NO CONVERSION WITHOUT CONVICTION!
1) First work of the Holy Spirit when he comes to us to save us is to convict us of our sins!
a. John16:7-9
"Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is expedient for you that I go away for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you but if I depart, I will send him unto you. And when he is come he will reprove the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. Of sin because they believe not on me…"
Of sin because they believe not on me! They never knew Jesus and are a part of this crowd maybe that are cast into the burning pits of hell. May have been in church all their life, may have come to church and served in many capacities and they may have been the finest church member to ever come to Hurricane Baptist Church… but they have never believed on the Lord Jesus Christ! They never knew him!
Jesus said in John 6:44 that no man, woman, boy or girl can come to him unless God the father who sent him, that’s Jesus, draw him and that he will raise him us at the last day. Jesus went on to say in that same 6th chapter verses 63-66 something that is often overlooked when preaching the gospel about the act of salvation…
"It is the Spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life but there are some of you that believe not. (Want to make a point right here that unless the Spirit quickeneth us, convict us, convince us, reprove us: the flesh profits nothing! The flesh profits nothing! Now look with me at verse 64 when it says there are some of you that believe not. Amen, there are some that don’t believe you must be convicted of your sins by the Holy Spirit. They like to gossip and say all manner of hurtful things about other people when they come under conviction and say well that never happened to me! How can you say you’re not saved after all these years and that now you need to be saved? You listen to me very clearly you child of the devil, you need to go to God so he can show you that you’re not saved and lead you to the place of repentance. Can’t believe that there is such a mean spirit tolerated inside the church! If you’ve ever been saved you know what the conviction of the Holy Spirit is and you welcome someone else into the family of God when they’re saved under the first work of the Holy Spirit, conviction. What did I tell you the point of this message was? NO CONVERSION WITHOUT CONVICTION!) And he said, Therefore said I unto you that no man can come unto me except it were given unto him of my father."
Acts 2:37 "Now when they heard this they were pricked in their heart and said unto Peter and unto the rest of the Apostles, MEN AND BRETHREN, WHAT SHALL WE DO?"
This great multitude of people came under the conviction of the Holy Spirit and they cried out because they didn’t know what to do. What shall we do? We feel the pricking in our heart, the word of God described in Hebrews 4:12 as quick and powerful and sharper than any sword or knife known to man dividing, cutting into the very heart and soul of mankind and laying it all open unto God. When that happens, when the Holy Spirit comes unto us with the express purpose of convicting our soul of our sin, he lays our heart and our souls open unto ourselves and we know beyond any shadow of a doubt that we are lost. We become convinced beyond any shadow of a doubt that all our righteous works are as filthy rags and that all our good works are a stench in the nostrils of God because we have not been cleansed from our sins.
NO CONVERSION WITHOUT CONVICTION BELOVED! I can still call you beloved because of the great love Christ Jesus had for you when he went to Calvary for your sins. You are the beloved of Christ Jesus but can I call you brother or sister, born into the family of God? No born again experience without conviction and we know that Jesus told Nicodemus that one night when he searched his soul to find out if he would go to heaven when he died.
Turn to John 3:3-7 (read) Now beloved we know that before a baby is born there are labor pains that come on the mother and then the actual birth process. A spiritual birth will also have signs accompanying it that we can recognize, the first of which is the conviction of the Holy Spirit of our sins. He lays a burden on our shoulders, he lays a heavy weight on our heart, he whispers in our ears that we need to listen to what the word of God says because we may indeed have religious credentials but we have never really been born again. The Holy Spirit may lay the stench of our sins in our nostrils that we realize preceeds us unto God the father and create in us the earnest and heartfelt desire to be right with God or to be cleansed from our sins so God can forgive us. Maybe he shows you the emptiness in your soul, that God shaped hole in your heart that only Jesus can fill and you realize that everything you’ve ever tried to do to please God amounts to nothing if you don’t really come to know Jesus. Lest we forget, Depart from me ye that work iniquity, I NEVER KNEW YOU!
Turn to Titus 3:3-7 (read) Now beloved I want to share something with you that the Lord has put on my heart and correct a lie that I have told. In studying the word of God, I have become absolutely convinced that this is a life changing gospel, that Jesus is a life changing Savior. I believe that the very same trials that will drive away those who have never truly believed and come to know Jesus will only serve to make us embrace the cross more closely. If the Lord saved you, it ought to mean something to you and it will keep on meaning something to you right up until the moment we die or we are raptured, whichever comes first. Don’t believe that those who simply say they are backslidden have ever really been saved because of the power of God that I’ve seen manifest itself in my own life. I don’t even recognize myself from the man I was on September 10, 1995. The Holy Spirit has shown me that I was not saved until that moment beloved and I have to say to you that it’s no ones fault but my own. Not many preachers really understand how the Holy Spirit grabs hold of a man or woman’s, boy or girls heart and draws them to the foot of Calvary.
That night through ignorance I thought that God was simply trying to convince me to preach the gospel and I prayed like I’ve never prayed in my whole life. I asked Jesus to save me and forgive me and repented of all the wicked and evil things I had done and then picked up my cross to follow him. Because I had some invisible church baptism certificate from many years ago, they thought I was simply rededicating my life and I did too, but the Lord Jesus saved me that night in that little Baptist church and he means more to me today than he did back then. Over the past few years there has been a burden on my heart, I know now that it was placed there by the Holy Spirit, that I needed to be baptized as evidence of what Jesus had done in my life. There’s no precedence for someone to be rebaptized just with a rededication so I was quiet about it and simply mentioned it in passing sometimes. I now know that I have confessed Jesus to men but have never been obedient to the Lord by following his example in baptism.
I can speak this frankly with you this morning in part by what I learned from Brother T and by studying his book and by what God has put on my heart to carry that message all over the face of the earth if he lets me. Beloved I had never felt the conviction of my sins and my unworthiness until that night and looking back with the light on from what I’ve learned, I can take you back to that birth closer than I can take you to my physical birth on this earth. I remember now the questions in my mind and what I really wanted to ask Eddie when I went to see him. I remember how heavy my heart was and how I cried out and ran down that church aisle and grabbed the man of God and prayed like I’ve never prayed and the peace of God that flooded my heart and the change that has come over me since that time. I thank God for bringing a man like Brother T into my life because through what he shared, my life will never be the same from this day forward and Jesus will mean more to me tomorrow than he does today. NO CONVERSION WITHOUT CONVICTION!
