The Needs that Only Christ Can Meet

Introduction: The Necessity and Elements of Conversion

0:04 The following message was delivered on Sunday morning, June 7, 1992, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. In Matthew chapter 18 and verse 3, our Lord Jesus spoke the following words with that unusual magisterial authority signified by the word verily. He spoke these words with searching simplicity, Except ye turn, or be converted, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. And whatever else these words may mean, they clearly indicate that a sound, genuine, radical work of spiritual conversion is absolutely essential if we would enter the kingdom of God. Therefore, wherever and whenever the words of Jesus are taken seriously,

1:21 there you will find men and women, boys and girls, concerned both to know what conversion is and whether or not they have in reality experienced it. They have experienced it. They have experienced it. They have experienced it.

1:38 They have experienced it. They have experienced it. They have experienced it. For this reason, we are seeking to articulate those biblical truths and perspectives which have shaped our life and ministry and worship for the first 25 years of our life together, and have come to the consideration of the ninth affirmation in the distillation of these nerve-center truths that we have entitled a manifesto of Trinity Baptist Church.

2:06 And the ninth tenet of that... The ninth tenet of that manifesto is this.

2:10 We are determined to maintain a balanced New Testament perspective in our teaching and expectations concerning conversion, the Christian life, and the mission of the church. And in our first treatment of this statement, focusing only upon the matter of a balanced New Testament perspective and expectation with respect to conversion, I sought to demonstrate from the Word of God the absolute necessity of conversion. And we opened up three texts in your hearing, Acts 26, 18 to 20, Matthew 18, 1 to 3, and 1 Thessalonians 1, verses 9 and 10. Last week, in preparation for taking up our second major heading, moving from the necessity of conversion to conversion, I sought to demonstrate from the word of God the absolute necessity of conversion. And we opened up three texts in your hearing, Acts 26, 18 to 20, Matthew 18, 1 to 3, and 1 Thessalonians 1, verses 9 and 10. Last week, in preparation for taking up our second major heading, moving from the necessity of conversion to conversion, I sought to demonstrate from the word of God the absolute necessity of conversion. And we opened up three texts in your hearing, Acts 26, 18 to 20, Matthew 18, 1 to 3, and 1 Thessalonians 1, verses 9 and 10.

3:00 Last week, in preparation for taking up our second major heading, moving from the necessity of conversion or for conversion to the essential elements of conversion, I set before you what I described as an all-embracing canopy of qualification and cautions in considering the essential elements of conversion. Under that imagery of a canopy that stretches over everything that will be subsumed under the heading of the essential elements of conversion, I sought to demonstrate by setting before you five cameo accounts of conversion in the Scriptures these four words of caution. Genuine conversions need not be circumstantially identical. They may be, but they need not be. Genuine conversions need not be conceptually identical.

4:09 That is, at the point of conversion, sinners may not have the same degree, the same extent of understanding on any of the bare essentials of what a man or woman, boy or girl, must know in order to be converted. And then thirdly, genuine conversions need not be conceptual. They may not be conceptual. They may not be conceptual.

4:29 They may not be conceptual. They may not be sequential. They may not be sequentially identical. That is, whatever it is necessary to know, God is not bound to impart that saving understanding in the same order to every sinner whom he draws to himself.

4:48 And then fourthly, genuine conversions need not be emotionally identical. And we saw the examples of that from the recorded instances of conversion in the New Testament. And I may say, by way of an aside, I'm deeply grateful that not a few of you have come to me since preaching that message and indicated that you found it personally liberating, comforting, and generally instructive as you seek to work with your children and witness to the unconverted. And for this, I am grateful.

The First Essential Element: Acute Sense of Spiritual Need

5:24 Now, with the canopy stretched over, everything that we take up over the next couple of weeks, we now come to consider those essential elements of genuine biblical conversion. And the first of these elements, or I should first of all tell you where we're going to go. We're going to first of all look at this element stated and explained, this element amplified and illustrated from the scriptures, and then this element qualified and applied. To the conscience.

6:02 First of all, then, this element stated and explained. What is the first essential element in true conversion? Well, I'm going to state it this way. In genuine conversion, we are brought to an acute sense of spiritual need, which we become convinced can only be met in the person and work of the Lord God.

6:30 In genuine conversion, we are brought to an acute sense of spiritual need, which we become convinced can only be met in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I said under our first heading, I would state the element and then explain it. And I want to take a few minutes to do that. I began with the words, In genuine, conversion.

7:05 Because the Bible and human experience indicates there is such a thing as spurious conversion. Many people have many kinds of different experiences which radically change their lives. Morally, ethically, intellectually.

7:24 There are many people who have many religious experiences which are for them, indeed, a very real conversion. They've turned from one way of life to another. But it is not genuine, Biblical, Christian conversion. It is something less than that.

7:43 And we are concerned with genuine conversion. That is the conversion without which one will not enter the kingdom. That conversion consequent upon which everyone shall enter the kingdom of heaven. And then I use the terms, we are brought.

8:06 And why did I use those words? Because I wanted to underscore that in conversion, God is doing something with the sinner. We are brought. God is doing a work.

8:20 For Jesus said, No man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me draw him. And part of that drawing work of God comes to expression as God brings us, through the functions of conscience, through the instrumentality of teaching in the home, in the church, preaching, circumstances in life, in the world, by a multitude of influences. All of which God can sovereignly use in any combination He chooses. We are ultimately brought, by God, to something.

8:59 And what are we brought to? I have described it this way. We are brought to an acute sense of the causes of our faith. Remember this.

9:06 spiritual need. Now what does the word acute mean? When something is acute, it is severe or sharp. You have a relative rushed to the hospital with acute appendicitis. That is, they have not only an inflamed appendix, but it's right at the point where it's ready to burst and to spill out its poison into the whole abdominal cavity and possibly threaten their life.

9:36 It is not merely appendicitis, but acute appendicitis. Someone recently has been afflicted with acute tendonitis. Not just a little irritation, but so acute that to shake a hand is like driving a nail into the elbow. It's severe. It's sharp. And I'm saying that in genuine conversion, we are brought to an acute, a sharp, a severe sense of something.

10:05 And what do I mean by that? What do I mean by the word sense? Well, the word sense is the use, is word used when we describe a felt awareness of the soul. A felt awareness of the soul. I walked into the room and I sensed that someone else was in the room. I sensed danger.

10:24 A wife may say to her husband, hubby, when you came through the door today, I sensed that you were cold to me. What's she saying? She's saying I had a felt awareness of something in my soul. In my soul or in my spirit. And in genuine conversion, we are brought to an acute sense, a felt awareness of the soul that is not surface, is not incidental, but is severe. It's sharp. It's focused. We cannot ignore it any more than a person with acute appendicitis can ignore it.

11:04 And what is it to which we are brought? In an acute sense, I've described it as spiritual need. That is need that has to do with spiritual realities such as God and sin and heaven and hell and peace with God and forgiveness from God, rest of soul, purpose and direction for meaning and for life. In contrast to such matters as the mundane needs of this present soul.

11:40 Seen, touched, felt, smelled, tasted, whirled. Food, money, clothing, houses, lands, cars. No, in conversion, we are brought to an acute sense of spiritual need. And what do we do with those felt needs? Here's the last part of my description.

12:06 We become convinced. Can only be met in the. Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ when we are first brought to that acute sense of spiritual need, it may be hours, it may be days, it may be weeks, it may be months, it may be years for some until they are convinced that such need can only be met in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Some are brought by a direct line from the awareness of spiritual need to the conviction that that need can only be met in the Lord Jesus Christ. That was the Philippian jailer. No sooner was he aware of his need, acutely aware of his need, bringing in and falling down before Saul, Paul and Silas and crying out, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? But immediately he is told the only answer to that need is in the Lord Jesus Christ.

13:18 And before the night is out, he is convinced and embraces Christ as his own and is baptized. In other cases, people try to meet that need in ways dictated by false religion, by the religion of self-help, by the religion of self-trust and self-improvement. Others try to squelch that awareness of need and drown it in pleasure, in drugs, in alcohol. You see, people do not all make a straight line from this acute sense of spiritual need to the conviction that such needs can only be met in the person and work of the Lord Jesus. But in everyone who is converted, sooner or later, the same God who has brought...

14:12 ...brought us to this acute sense of spiritual need will convince us such needs can only be met in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Amplification 1: Sin and Its Consequences as the Most Frequent Focus

14:29 That's the first element stated and explained. Now, secondly, the element amplified and illustrated from the Scriptures. Where did I get such a notion? On what basis have I put together such a statement?

14:46 Well, I want to answer that question. From the Word of God. And I want to do it under two very simple, I hope simple, headings. The first is this.

14:56 The most frequent focus of the acute sense of spiritual need is that of our sin and its consequences. Focus of this acute sense of spiritual need is that of our sin and its consequences. And then the second heading will be...

15:21 ...a broader and legitimate focus of this acute sense of spiritual need may be any of a variety of unmet needs of the soul.

15:34 And we'll look at many Scriptures under both of these heads. First of all, then, this first element of conversion amplified and illustrated from the Scriptures brings us to the consideration...

15:49 ...that the most frequent...

15:52 ...focus of the acute sense of spiritual need is that of our sin and its consequences.

16:00 Now, this should not surprise us. For the Bible reveals that the Christian faith is essentially and fundamentally a faith for sinners. This is what was announced in the well-known words of Matthew 1 and verse 21. When the angel is informing Joseph as to precisely...

16:23 ...what happened, that he should find Mary pregnant, that he should find her with child, the angel says, she shall bring forth a son.

16:32 Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for it is he that shall save his people from their sins. So at the very conception of our Lord Jesus in Mary's womb, it is clearly announced...

16:53 ...that his mission is one of delivering his people from their sins.

16:59 And our Lord, when he entered into his adult life and active ministry, subsequent to his baptism in the waters of Jordan, was conscious that his mission had primarily to do with sinners. For he said in Luke chapter 5, verses 30 and 31, again, familiar words, and they are familiar, for this very reason, that they epitomize our Lord's consciousness of his true mission.

17:31 Jesus said unto them, Luke 5, verse 31, They that are in health have no need of a physician, but they that are sick. Verse 32, I am not come to call the righteous, but sin to repentance. As surely as the angel announced, the purpose of his mission is to say, from sin, Jesus now, in his earthly accomplishment of the mission, says, I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners. Whatever thoughts you have about me and my mission, you must forever put central to that mission that I have come to call.

18:19 So true was this in the consciousness of those foundation builders of the church, whom we call the apostles, that when they began, to formulate certain elements of conviction in the early churches, into what I like to call sanctified cliches, the faithful sayings of the pastoral epistles, one of them is this, 1 Timothy 1, 15, Faithful is the saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world, literally, sinners to save, of whom? I am chief. Yes, the religion of faith is essentially and fundamentally a religion for sinners. Therefore, in turning sinners from darkness to light, Acts 26, 18-20, in opening eyes that they may turn from darkness to light, in the power of Satan unto God, in order to receive forgiveness, what is the most frequent evidence of the working of God, in drawing the sinner? It's to make him feel acutely his need for forgiveness. It is to make him acutely feel his need for a mighty deliverer,

19:44 who can deliver from the consequences, and the power, and the penalty, and the pollution, which sin has brought upon mankind. It should not surprise us then, that often, most frequently, in the sinner's conversion, the first evidence of the work of the Spirit of God, as we sang in Newton's hymn, is grace that teaches our hearts to fear what? Fear the reality of the guilt of sin, which makes us liable to the curse and wrath of God. Romans 6, 23, we may have heard it all our lives, but when God takes us in hand to turn us from darkness to light, it's as though we're hearing it for the first time. The wages of sin. The wages of sin is death. The wages of my sin is death.

20:44 And death is more than merely going into the grave and out of existence. Death is to stand before Almighty God, and to hear Him say, depart from me into the lake of fire, which is the second death. And that's what I deserve. My sin with its guilt, makes me liable to the curse and wrath of God.

21:08 And that becomes not a mere admission of the lips, but an acutely felt, so how, how, can a holy God take away my guilt? And it may be that the focus is upon the pollution of sin, which makes us unfit for heaven. We begin to take seriously what we read last week in Mark chapter 7, that defilement does not come from touching things, and being, in certain places, in association with certain people. But as Jesus said, for from within, out of the heart, proceed. And then He describes all manner of sin, proceeding from out of the heart. And we realize that our sin has not only made us guilty in the court of heaven, but it has polluted the entirety of our being. It fills in light, unapproachable,

22:15 and moral vermin into His presence.

22:19 The scripture says, no unclean thing shall enter. Be not deceived, the unrighteous, shall not inherit the kingdom of God. And this begins to become an acute sin is my great problem, my sin in terms of guilt, my sin in terms of pollution, or it may be in some, it is my sin in terms of bondage. For the scripture says in John 8, 34, whosoever commits sin is the very slave of sin.

22:53 Romans 8, 7, the carnal mind is enmity against God. It is not subject, it is subject to the law of God. Neither indeed can it be. And in some, the matter of guilt may fade into the background.

23:08 It is not obliterated. The matter of pollution may be in the background on the other side. And that which is prominent is the sense of moral inability, the sense of bondage. I am chained, but I am helpless to break my chain.

23:25 I struggle against them the more they cut into my flesh, and gall me and hold me in their grip. Now, the most frequent focus of the acute sense of spiritual need is precisely here. It is that of our sin and of its consequences. And the divinely ordained instrument to impart this awareness of our sin until it becomes an acute sense of need is the law of God.

The Law of God: Instrument for Knowing Sin

23:58 Romans chapter 3. This is stated, in such terms that I don't know how people can miss it except through willful blindness. Romans 3.19 Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it speaketh to them that are under the law.

24:19 And he has demonstrated that all men are under the law. Those who have received it in its written codified form, those who have in their consciousness the evidence that that, that law was once clearly inscribed upon mankind in creation, and though sin has in many ways scarred and obliterated some of its letters and some of its form, it is nonetheless there in the function of conscience accusing or excusing.

24:53 And whatsoever things the law saith in either form, it saith to those that are under the law, to what end? That every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may be brought unto the judgment of God, because by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified in his sight. For through the law cometh the knowledge of sin. By the instrumentality of the law, there is brought home to the sinner the felt awareness, the acute sense of his sinnerhood.

25:33 And God, God's ordained instrument to bring about that felt awareness is His holy law. This is why the law was given according to 1 Timothy 1, 8 and 9. The law was not made for a righteous man, but for sinners. The law was added, the scripture says, because of transgression, that men might know the plague of their hearts and how seriously, God takes His own standards.

26:06 And this is precisely how the law worked in Paul himself. Turn over to Romans 7 and listen to part of his testimony. Having demonstrated that in faith union with the Lord Jesus, we have died to the condemning power of the law. We've died to the law as a standard that can only gall and stir us up to sin.

26:32 He says, Then shall we draw the conclusion that the law is something evil? Verse 7, What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid.

26:42 Howbeit I had not known sin. I had had no acute sense of my spiritual need as a sinner, except through the law. For I had not known coveting, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. Verse 9, I was alive apart from the law once.

27:04 Does that mean he was not surrounded with the words of the law? No. He tells us in Philippians 3 and in other biographical portions, this man was a son of the law, surrounded with the law. He was immersed in the law from his mother's womb.

27:22 But he said, I didn't really know it. I looked upon it as a code touching my external conduct. And when I did, I stroked myself and said, Saul of Tarsus, you've made it. But by the Spirit of God, through that same law, I came to an accurate self-knowledge.

27:41 And he says, when I did, what happened? But when the commandment came, when it came in God's time, under the unique influence of the Spirit, and I saw that the law, particularly the 10th commandment, touched the first springs of desire and motive and inclination of the heart, what happened to me? He said, sin revived. I saw sin as a living reality.

28:06 I saw sin as a living reality. I saw sin as a living reality. I saw sin as a living reality within my breast, and I died. I saw myself no longer legally alive by means, my pharisaic external obedience to the law.

28:17 I saw myself a sinner. I had an acute sense of a spiritual need, which could no longer be met by a few more trips to the temple, a few more washings, a few more ceremonies, a few more fastings, a few more rabbinical directives, a few more worship services, a few more fastings, directives obeyed in my life. I saw myself slain. I needed something that only God could do.

28:47 I needed spiritual resurrection, the commandment which was unto life I found to be unto death. There's his experience. And so I say that from whatever source the law speaks to us, when it speaks as it ought, when we face ourselves in its light, when we face ourselves in its light, as we ought, it will bring to us an acute sense of our spiritual need in terms of sin and its consequence. For some, that law acts most powerfully at the level of their consciousness through the functions of conscience.

29:30 When God is bringing them out of darkness into light, he does not immediately bring them under the sound of the word. There are some whom he brings into service, into circumstances in their own life, in their family life, in the world around them, in which they begin to listen to the accusing voice of conscience. Every time conscience is spoken, they put their hand upon his mouth and said, shut up. They've drowned him out with other voices.

29:57 But now God gets them quiet and they begin to listen to conscience's accusation. Their conscience is accusing them to listen. And the accusation is such that their accountability to God, their accountability to God, their accountability to God, and the fact that they've not obeyed God and honored God and sought God, begins to thunder and reverberate within their breast until it becomes an acute sense of a spiritual need. How can conscience be righteously silent?

30:29 Or the law of God may function not primarily through conscience, but they may sit under a series of sermons on the Ten Commandments. They may be sitting in family worship where mom and dad are teaching them the Ten Commandments in the shorter capitals, the shorter catechism and what happens under the blessing of the Holy Spirit. It is as though they are carried to Sinai and they can smell the smoke, can hear the thunder and see the lightning and God's holy demands breaking upon them. And they see that from the first sanctity to the last, all Ten Commandments have been grievously, continuously, willfully broken.

31:11 And they stand. And they stand condemned before the law of God. Or they may come in contact with God's law, picking up the New Testament and saying, you know, I've just not given too much attention to the spiritual side of things. I ought to start reading in the New Testament.

31:27 And so they start reading in the Gospel of Matthew and they get through the begets and they come to the birth of Jesus and the visit of the Magi and John the Baptist. But in long before they get into Matthew 5, there the law of God is expanded upon, and brought home to the conscience in terms of its true intention. And while they came to the Gospels, hoping they'd hear something about the meek and mild and sweet Jesus they'd always heard about, this Jesus through his word begins to say to them, you have heard that it was said, thou shall not commit adultery. I say unto you, the true meaning of that commandment from the very beginning was this, the sanctity, of the sexual relationship in marriage, so that whoever looks with a woman with an intent to lust after her, nothing but the hidden desires echoing in the chambers of his thought life, he says he has committed adultery already with her. A man struck himself as a sinner, he hears the Lord Jesus saying that using derisive speeches of the essence of murder, and the law of God comes to him, not by a trip to Sinai, by a trip to that mountain in Galilee where Jesus gave the sermon on the mount,

32:55 or it may be that he's hearing a sermon on the cross, and the law of God comes as it were, with all of its intense light through the medium of the preaching of the cross. For there is nothing like true biblical preaching on the cross to show the sanctity of God's law, for Christ, there on the cross, redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. How holy must God's law be, if rather than bypass its standards, he'd commit his son to being beaten and bruised and made bloody, with his own blood in a vile and death, rather than pass over the demands of his law. So it does not mean when it says, by the law comes the knowledge of sin, that it's only when the Ten Commandments are formally expounded or taught, no, by these means and others, God most frequently focuses on the acute sense of spiritual need that is rooted in our sin and in its consequences. And when the law has done its work in the conscience, then the sinner will know something of his guilt, something of his politicalcycles, pollution, something of His bondage or helplessness. Enough to know this.

34:25 There's no but in the Lord Jesus Christ. I've had people ask me many times, how much conviction must I have to know that it's Holy Spirit conviction? I said enough to convince you there's no hope to be found anywhere but in Jesus Christ. Anything less will not do.

34:46 Anything more is not needed. The sinner brought there will cry with the publican in Luke 18, 13, God, be propitious to me, a sinner. Oh God, turn away your wrath from me, the sinner who deserves that wrath. But for the sake and the honor and on the grounds of what your Son has done, be merciful to me.

35:13 So in true conversion, what's the first essential? The first essential is being brought to an acute, sense of spiritual need that can, we eventually become convinced, only be met in the Lord Jesus Christ. And the most frequent focus of that acute sense of need is that of our sin and its consequences. But now hear me carefully.

Amplification 2: Broader Unmet Needs of the Soul

35:41 The second heading as I amplify and illustrate this from the Scriptures is this. A broader and legitimate focus of this acute sense of spiritual need, may be any, originally I had in my heading, any one. But I said no, any. It could be one, two, three, it could be a combination of these things.

36:01 Any of a variety of unmet needs of the soul. A broader and legitimate focus of this acute sense of spiritual need may be any of a variety of unmet needs of the soul. Now let me explain what I mean by that. Let me explain what I mean by that.

36:23 Let me illustrate it from the Scriptures.

36:26 Man in his state of sin is not only guilty, polluted, and helpless, he is also living with all the results in his soul of his alienation from and rebellion against God. He's got what many have called a God-shaped hole in his soul, left by a vacated God. And only God can fill it. Though he tries to fill it with a thousand things, nothing will fit it.

36:58 It's still an empty, yawning chasm. And only the infinite God can fill it. He has capacities and appetites, which can only be satisfied in living communion with God. For man, unlike the beast, was made and given a capacity to have communion and fellowship with God.

37:19 And that capacity for fellowship with God, which has radically altered in terms of, that upon which it terminates for fellowship and communion, it is not destroyed in man, that which makes him different from the beast. Man has a sense of accountability, producing a fear of death and a fear of judgment. I hope some of you trembled inwardly when we sang, Great God, what do I see in here? The end of things created.

37:57 The judge of mankind shall appear on clouds of glory, seated. I hope that put fear in some of you. Therefore, in the scriptures, God often addresses the sinner in terms of these acutely felt needs and invites men to come to him in order to have those needs met. I'm going to give you very quickly seven examples.

38:28 First of all, the message we heard last Sunday night, Isaiah 55. Oh, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters and he that hath no money, come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Notice it doesn't say, Oh, everyone who is trembling with a conscious sense of the guilt of your sin, mourning with a conscious awareness of the pollution of your sin, with conscious awareness for liberation from your bondage to sin, that isn't what the invitation says. It's, Oh, everyone that thirsteth.

39:13 Do you have unmet soul need that is like a burning thirst? And do you have unmet soul hunger that is like annoying in your spiritual gut? God says, Come. Welcome to come.

39:27 Ah, but you say, I don't yet have an acute sense of my guilt, my pollution and my bondage. God says, Who brought up those issues? I didn't. I say, Oh, everyone that thirsteth.

39:41 Come. And you say, That's Old Testament. Yes, it is. But it's not materially different from the invitation of Jesus.

39:50 He's speaking to an immoral woman. She has broken the law of God left, right and center just in terms of the seventh commandment. And yet Jesus says to her in John chapter four, in all of her present immoral state, which he fully knew, he says in John 4, 13, Everyone that drinks of this water shall thirst again. But whosoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst.

40:22 But the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. And Jesus had previously said to that very woman in verse 10, If you knew the gift of God and who it is that said unto you, Give me to drink, you would have asked of him. And he would have given you living water. You would have asked, he would have given.

40:49 Yes, as he proceeds to deal with her, as her eyes begin to get open, she says, Whoa, sir, give me this water that I thirst not. Neither come all the way hither to draw. She was still thinking in terms of literal water. And so the Lord must awaken her conscience further.

41:09 And then he says, Call thy husband. He's beginning to address the polluted stream of her. Immoral life from which she was presently drinking, trying to satisfy the deep gnawing of her soul with an exchange of husbands every so often. And now she was just living in some kind of common law relationship.

41:32 And he whom you now have is not your husband. And yet he said, For you, woman, there's water. Isn't this exactly what we have in that last glorious invitation in the book of the Revelation? Revelation 22.

41:48 17. And the spirit and the bride say, Come, and he that heareth, let him say, Come. And he that is of thirst, let him come. He that will, let him take of the water of life freely.

42:07 Are you thirsty? Do you have unmet soul thirst that you are convinced cannot be met in anything that's in you or in your fellow creatures? Or in empty religion and in self-help schemes? It's to be found only in him who says, I am the bread of life.

42:30 I am the giver of living water. On that last day of the feast, John 7, Jesus stood and cried, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink what is spiritually. It is a felt, conscious, and acute awareness of unmet need of the Lord. It is a felt, conscious, and acute awareness of unmet need of the Lord.

42:51 It is a felt, conscious, and acute awareness of unmet need of the Lord. But you know, it's in the soul that galvanized the spirit of man. It is in the Kazan , the Teutonic, the Roman, the Athenian, the virgin, the Karait , the Dr reflecting the malevolent, the energisterian one filled with the tasty bread and an infinitesimal versatility that abounds in every last breath of each man. Where is that kindness to the one that's in need?

43:25 It is with thenon memories. some men to an acute sense of spiritual need which they become convinced can only be met in Jesus Christ he allows them to feel the pressure of the circumstances and the disappointments and the sorrows of life he surrounds them with influences that make life like an insufferably heavy burden strapped upon a poor slave who is given inadequate diet and works 16 hours a day and to these Jesus says in that wonderful gospel invitation of Matthew 11 and verse 28 Matthew 11 and verse 28 come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest come unto me you that have a ushing unbearable weariness of the soul come convinced you cannot have a crushing burden lifted come to me and he does not say you've got to have a very broad understanding of the roots of that burden in your solidarity in Adam and a fuller doctrine of the total depravity

44:52 and moral inability of the sinner no he says if you're bent down to the point of weariness and you've tried everything to get rid of the burden and you know there's no help in I'll give you rest I'll give you rest take my yoke upon you learn of me I am meek and lowly of heart you'll find rest to you as promised to people who are conscious of one thing a crushing unbearable weariness of the soul it may be in the third place a frustrating frightening ignorance of the soul it may be in the third place a frustrating frightening ignorance of the soul in the providence of God God deals with others whom he's drawing to himself in the providence of God God deals with others whom he's drawing to himself and begins to make them feel nothing short of a frustrating frightening ignorance of their own souls when they face the great questions how am i to cope with life how am i to view death what lies beyond that grave these questions begin to haunt them and gall them and they've turned perhaps to philosophy and they've turned to manmade religion and to foreign meanings of eternal life and without faith that's dumb appreciate what's happening in the world of mankind today what's happening, who unserer mentees areё buddies, live in hell, and how are they in hell? l ustedes confusen abitamos sobre cuenta不會 se saberhmmo que son los hermanos sobre Though motivosamente parece queふisilis'? and no answer has satisfied them. And then they either hear or they read verses such as these, John 8 and verse 12.

46:20 John 8 and verse 12. Here the Lord Jesus said, I am the light of the world. He that follows me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life. And they say, O Lord Jesus, there is much I don't know about you and about myself, but this I know.

46:43 I cannot go on living in the darkness. You said that if I follow you, I'll have light that issues in life. That's enough for me. And they go to Christ in terms of His own invitation.

46:59 Not bowed down primarily with a focused consciousness of the guilt of the pollution and of the bondage of their sin. But they go to Christ under the promise and the pressure of a frustrating, frightening ignorance of the soul. And they say He's light. Light that gives life.

47:20 That's what I long for. Or a passage such as John 14, 6. I am the way, the truth. And they read that and say, no, it's too good to be true.

47:31 Somewhere there is absolute truth. There is an anchor that will not shift when buffeted by the opinions of man and the changing fads of the individual. And they say, no, it's too good to be true. Somewhere there is absolute truth.

47:38 There is an anchor that will not shift when buffeted by the opinions of man and the changing fads of the individual. And they say, no, it's too good to be true. Somewhere there is absolute truth. There is an anchor that will not shift when buffeted by the opinions of man and the changing fads of the intellectual world.

47:51 There is absolute, eternal, unchangeable truth. And it's in a person. That's the person for me. Or it may be a passage like John 12, 46.

47:59 John 12 and verse 46. I am come a light into the world that whosoever believes on me may not abide in the darkness. And it's dark, oppressive, frustrating, frightening to the acutely felt sense of the world. And it's dark, oppressive, frustrating, frightening to the acutely felt sense of the world.

Illustrations of Broader Needs: Fear, Bliss, Damnation, Insecurity

48:20 A sense of the soul's need. And they hear an invitation like this and they say, Christ for me. Or it may be in the fourth place annoying, crippling fear of the soul. Annoying, crippling fear of the soul.

48:37 Hebrews 2, verses 14 and 15. Speaking of the reality of the humanity of Jesus and why he had to be true man to be, I say it reverently, a fully competent Savior, The writer to Hebrews says, Since then the children are sharers in flesh and blood. He also himself in like manner partook of the same, that through death he might bring to naught him that had the power of death, that is the devil, and might deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. And here is a person like myself, who cannot remember when he didn't fear death, who cannot remember a time in his consciousness when death became a reality, that he did not face that reality with fear, who perhaps went to bed every night as I did for years until I was converted, afraid to go to sleep for fear I'd wake up in hell.

49:39 And they hear that there is someone who has come to deliver from the fear of death. They've tried deliverance in this way and that way, and they've found none. And they hear that Christ delivered from the fear of death. And they may have very little understanding, understanding of what the roots of death are in terms of their sin in Adam, their own native depravity and all the rest.

50:04 I keep repeating it. But this one thing they know, there is a fear of death that holds them in bondage. And they know there's no answer but in the Son of God as He's presented in the Bible. And they go to Him, not so much driven by the thunders and lightning of Sinai, but by the horrible, stinky black darkness, that gnaws and cripples when they read a verse like John 11, 25.

50:42 This is God's news to them. I am the resurrection and the life. In me, though He were dead, yet shall He live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.

50:56 And they say, oh, that's the gospel.

51:00 And you say, well, that ain't right. Who said it ain't right? If God graciously lassoes them and uses as His means, that crushing, acute sense of the gnawing, crippling fear of death, who are we to be wiser than God and more gracious than His Son? It may be a longing for the eternal bliss of the soul.

51:28 That is often true with children who later on prove to have been converted at a very early age. When they hear of heaven, where all is light and all is pure, and nobody sasses and nobody cusses, and nobody is mean and ugly, and nobody steals and kills.

51:48 They say, what a lovely place. And Jesus is there all the time. That's where I want to go.

51:55 They come with an incipient desire. Such was expressed by a rich young ruler. Good Master, what good things shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? Matthew 19, 16.

52:07 Jesus didn't say to the men, now look, that's the wrong question. Desire for eternal life is an unworthy motive to come to me. Now, when you go back and learn better, come back and ask me, what shall I do to have the forgiveness of my sins? Jesus didn't rebuke His longing.

52:22 He rebuked His self-righteousness. But He didn't rebuke His longing. In fact, in His very promise, He said, Go, sell what thou hast, give to the poor, come follow Me, and thou shalt have treasures in heaven. He made the reward of heaven part of His invitation.

52:39 I didn't cheat in the Gospel and say that. Jesus did. It may be a longing for the eternal bliss, of the soul. Wasn't that the focus of the desire of the thief on the cross?

52:52 What did He say to Jesus? Lord, have mercy upon Me, the great sinner? No. He saw in Him a true King who would come down from the cross or would rise from the dead.

53:05 How much He saw, we do not know. But He said, Lord, remember Me when Thou comest in Thy kingdom. Look upon Me when You come in life and power that I may stand with You in life. Glory!

53:17 Glorious life. Kingdom life beyond the grave. What was focused in His soul was this longing for eternal bliss.

53:27 Or it may be a dread of the eternal damnation of the soul. I quickly pass over this with just a couple of texts. Matthew 3, 7. John the Baptist said, Who warned you?

53:38 Flee from the wrath to come. You mean running from hell? It's a legitimate motive to go to Christ. You bet your boots it is.

53:46 It's often been the most powerful motive for many. 1 Thessalonians 1.10 describes Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come. He's not ashamed to be known as Jesus who not only delivers and saves from sin, but who delivers from the coming wrath.

54:06 And for you who are crippled with a sense of this horrible reality that if I die in my present state, I know I'll go to hell. You are warranted to take the words of Jesus to heart. Don't be afraid of those that can kill your body but cannot kill the soul but fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna, in hell, in the lake of fire and run to Him who can shell to you under the protection of His own precious blood in His own perfect righteousness so in that day when this whole world is folded up and consumed in fire you'll be safe, hidden in the perfect righteousness of the Lord Jesus. It may be a fright and a frightening sense of insecurity in the soul. A little child loses his parents, loses a symbol of stability and changelessness. I see it coming with my own siblings and my own nephews and nieces as my father comes closer to death. And there's a sense of fear.

55:12 Pop-Pop always has been there. Pop-Pop's always been there. I can't conceive of life without Pop-Pop. Pop-Pop's been like the rock at Gibraltar.

55:23 He doesn't change. He's pretty. He's becoming unstrung. My prayer is that God will use the occasion of the death of my father to be the instrument of the conversion of some of those grandchildren who will realize they must cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils.

55:41 Pop-Pop can't save them because Pop-Pop's going to die. But there's one who conquered death and in their sense of shattered confidence and insecurity is it right to come to Christ? If I'm convinced that that has something to do with the need of my soul that only He can meet, that's why He said, I am the Good Shepherd and I have come. He said, unlike the thief, I'm come that my sheep might have life and have it more abundantly.

56:11 The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep and of His sheep He says, I know them. They follow Me. I give to them eternal life. They shall never perish.

56:21 No one shall pluck them out of My hand. And that invitation is peculiarly glorious to the soul. Being brought out of darkness into light. Who has this haunting, frightening sense of the insecurity of his soul.

56:37 Now I've given you very quickly those seven instances. Here's the point of them all. In all of these cases,

56:45 though the root cause of every felt need is sin, and the greatest need is to be delivered from sin, God uses acutely felt spiritual needs as the hope. By which He draws people in.

57:04 He does. God uses acutely felt spiritual need in a vast variety of those needs that are felt. And if the felt need drives the sinner out of himself and into...

57:22 That's all the need he has to...

57:28 Let not conscience make you linger nor a flea dream. All the fitness he requireth is what? To feel your need of Him.

57:45 Isn't that what I've said? You've sung it many times and you don't believe that. You've been singing something you don't believe.

57:52 All the fitness he requireth is to feel your need of Him. And though His most ordinary way of bringing us to an acute sense of spiritual need that only He can meet, to bring His law to bear upon our consciences, whether through the action of conscience, whether through the preaching of the law, directly or indirectly, so that something of our guilt, our pollution and our bondage is known at the level of our consciousness, none can say with Scripture as His basis that there is no other way that God ropes sinners in. A broader and legitimate focus of this acute sense of spiritual need may be, many of a variety of unmet needs of the soul.

Qualification 1: Infallible Proof is Faith in Christ

58:50 Well, as I bring the message to a close this morning, having stated this element and explained it, having amplified and demonstrated its taproots in Scripture, thirdly and finally and much more briefly, this element qualified and applied to your conscience. And I want to make the two qualifications and applications. Number one, hear me carefully now. You've listened very intently.

59:20 Hear carefully. The only infallible proof that your acute sense of spiritual need was the first element in a genuine work of conversion is that it drove you out of yourself and into Christ by faith. The only infallible proof that your acute sense of spiritual need was the first element in your conversion is that it drove you out of yourself and into Christ by faith. Whether in the more ordinary and frequent focus on sin, whether in this other way by conscious felt needs of the soul, here is the evidence you've come to an acute sense of spiritual need which for you was the first element of your conversion. The second element in your conversion is driven you out of yourself and into Christ by faith. For Acts 24-25 records a man who had an acute sense of spiritual need so much so that he trembled.

60:35 But he wasn't driven out of himself and into Christ. He said, come back and I'll hear some more later. As Paul reasoned of righteousness,

60:48 judgment, of self-control, Felix, but he was driven out of himself. But he wasn't driven out of himself. But he wasn't driven out of himself. But he wasn't driven out of himself.

60:56 But he didn't go out of himself and into Christ. We have no record he was ever converted.

61:03 So it's not enough to say, oh well, I must be converted because I remember I went through this and I... No, no, my friend.

61:08 Look, here's the evidence that that acute sense of spiritual need was indeed the first element in your conversion. It's driven you out of yourself and into Christ by faith. That's why Paul could say to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3-14, from a babe you've known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make you make you wise unto salvation through what? Through a deep period of conviction of sin?

61:35 Not necessarily. Through a lengthy period of unmet soul thirst? Not necessarily, he says, which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. Timothy, the Scriptures brought you to rest in Christ.

61:50 That's all you need to know. It's most likely that Timothy never went through any great trauma. There's nothing in all of the biblical material to indicate that he was that he did. And so we cannot press this matter into some formula for conversion which if we don't meet we question whether we are truly the Lord's.

62:12 And whatever your felt need of soul was, whether it was a crippling fear of death, a sense of ignorance, a horrible, pressing, oppressive sense you could not cope if it drove you out of yourself into Christ. Don't say, well, it must not have been a real conversion. That's such a self-centered, self-centered motive. My friend, if Jesus says, come all ye who labor, you need more than His Word.

62:39 Come all that thirst. Come all that fear.

62:43 This notion that you've got to come to the place where you're willing to be damned for the glory of God or your conviction is not real, that is a horrible, wretched, unbiblical concept.

62:57 And there are people in our day who believe it and preach it.

63:02 Dear people of God, don't rake over your past. Some of you are like a starving man in a banquet house with signs all around. If you're in these doors, eat, eat, eat. It's all yours.

63:14 And you won't touch the table because you say, I don't know how I got here.

63:21 Man, you're starving. Yeah, but I don't know how I got here. You're here. Are the tables spread?

63:26 Yes. Are the signs all around you?

63:29 But I don't know how I got here. I don't know if I came the right way. You're starving, man. Stop all those stupid questions and eat.

63:42 You get the point? This is what some of you do. Every time the fullness and the freeness of Christ is preached in the warrant of Christ's own word, eat.

63:58 I don't know if I came in the right way.

64:05 My friend, don't trouble yourself. If God saw fit to use some very insignificant incident to bring you to one of these areas that we focused upon and it was enough to drive you out of yourself and into Christ by faith, you're in the banquet house. Now eat. And stop all the scrupling about how you got there and whether you came the right way.

Qualification 2: Infallible Proof is Present Attachment to Christ

64:30 And then my final word of qualification and application is this. The only infallible proof that you're being driven out of yourself and into Christ, the only infallible proof that you're being driven out of yourself and into Christ resulted in a true conversion is your present attachment to Christ in faith, love, and submission to the teaching of His word. How can I know truly, driven out of Christ? How do you know am I presently clinging to Christ in faith?

65:11 Do I presently love Christ? Do I presently receive the word of Christ? For all the promises of God are to those who believe. Present tense, present tense.

65:27 Let me illustrate. In spurious conversion, once the felt pain is eased, people want no more to do with Jesus. Here's a man in a foxhole. His body's all around and being blown to pieces.

65:40 Half his unit has been wiped out and he's afraid to die and his life passes before him as some of us have had it do in a car accident before we were converted and it made us all the more convinced in the day of judgment God could bring everything because in a millisecond it seemed our whole life and incidents we'd long forgotten flashed before us. Some of you had that experience and he's in that foxhole and he has that experience and he's heard enough to know that the only hope for needy sinners is Jesus of Nazareth who lived and died and rose from the dead. There's been enough gospel truth buried in his consciousness for the Holy Spirit to bring it to the surface and he cries out, Oh Lord Jesus, save me from my sins and if you do and if it please you, save me from this hellish battlefield and I'll serve you all the days of my life. And God mercifully preserves him and three months later he's in the whorehouses and hitting the bars living like he always did. He had a so-called foxhole conversion and he likes to tell people how he cried out to God he'll do it half-drunken and how God delivered him. Now, no, my friend, he's not presently believing on the Lord Jesus.

66:57 He's not presently loving the Lord Jesus for if we love him we keep his commandments. He is not conforming his life to the word of Jesus. However, there may have been a buddy two foxholes over similar circumstances he cried out in the same way and three months later he's reading his Bible seeking out Christians finding a gospel church. Three years later he's walking with God serving the Lord.

67:20 Thirty years later he's going on with God. He was converted into foxhole.

67:27 And the evidence is when the felt need was met he didn't abandon Christ because he felt better. His felt need drove him to Christ and once he got to Christ he stayed with Christ. That's what Jesus meant when he said, if ye continue in my word then are you my disciples indeed? And the truth, you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.

67:51 People have complicated this issue. My friends sitting here this morning, the issue is not whether you can remember some marvelous conversion experience and you're resting upon that. The issue is this, whatever that experience was has it left you attached to Christ in living actings of present faith? Stronger, weaker, yes, but living actings of present faith?

68:19 Has it left you attached to Christ in love? If any man loved not our Lord Jesus let him be anathema. 1 Corinthians 16.22 Whom having not seen ye love in whom believing ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

68:35 All believers love him and all who love him keep his word for if ye loved me you would keep my words. He that hath my commandments and keepeth them. So what happens to that guy that cried out in the foxhole as he's gotten into a church? He's heard a series of sermons on Romans and oh, when he came to Romans 5 and was told that the root of his problem that had led him into the honky tonks and filled his mouth with oaths that made him know he wasn't ready to die was because he fell in Adam in the garden.

69:08 And as the preacher takes him through and he comes to verses that speak such as Ephesians, 2, 1-3 that he was a servant of the devil and a slave of his lust. He doesn't argue. And he comes to understand the depth of his sin and of his depravity. He understands his sin in terms of guilt in Adam.

69:28 Guilt for his specific sins. The depth of his pollution. The depths of his helplessness. And the more he knows of his sin the more he's driven.

69:39 And the more he loves and obeys Christ. And God along the way will give him a good dose. It'll humble him of what a sinner he was when he cried out. But God met him at the point of his felt need.

69:59 Should we tell God he ought to do it a different way?

Conclusion: Invitation to Christ

70:04 And that's the wonder of God's work. That He works where and how and with the means that He chooses. And I trust that as we've considered this first element this morning under that canopy, remember it's all under that canopy. Conversion to be realized.

70:23 The real need not be circumstantially, conceptually, sequentially, emotionally identical. But if you've truly been converted somewhere, by some means, God has brought you as He's brought me to an acute sense of spiritual need that can be met only in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Have you been brought there? And have you gone to Christ?

71:01 If not, why not?

71:05 If not, why not?

71:08 In the language of Ezekiel, turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die? I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that ye turn and live. God grants that you'll turn and live. But you say, Pastor Martin, I don't have any deep, humbling sense of the great extent of my...

71:28 My friend, do you know enough of your sin that no one will damn you if God nailed you in judgment today? Then you know enough to flee from your sin and go to Christ. That's all you need to know. All the fitness He requireeth is to feel your need.

71:43 You see, down underneath that desire to have a greater sense of sin and all the rest is this horrible human heart that wants to have something to commend itself to God. Look, God, my bucket of tears that I shed. Shed an ocean full of them. It won't wash away one sin.

72:03 It's the blood of Jesus that cleanses me. It cleanses from sin. Not your tears. Not your groans.

72:10 Not your self-loathings. No, no, friend. Go to Him now. Go to Him just as you are.

72:17 Go to Him saying, Oh God, I need a Savior who can soften a hard heart. He's the one who does it. I need a Savior who can give me a sense of sin that will humble me. He'll do it.

72:31 I need a Savior for whatever. And you go to Him and He's just such a Savior.

72:39 Are you converted? Not if you've never felt an acute sense of spiritual need that could only be met in the Lord Jesus. Our Father, what thanks can we render to You for Your holy Word. Oh, we thank You for the richness of the invitations of Jesus.

73:08 Calling to the oppressed and the weary. Calling to the hungry and the thirsty. Calling in the Gospel to those who are filled with fear. Fear and ignorance.

73:21 We thank You that He is light and life and bread and drink and knowledge and power. Oh, may He come today in the chariot of His own grace and power and lay hold of some of those hooks and some sitting here today with felt spiritual need that perhaps today for the first time they've come to see cannot be met at any of earth's fountains. Oh, that they may come to Him as the fountain open for sin and uncleanness and find deliverance in the Lord Jesus. Father, quiet the fears that some of Your children have.

74:03 Use Your Word preached today to open their eyes to the spiritual silliness and fruitlessness of constantly questioning whether they have a right to eat because they don't know how they got in the banquet hall. Oh, Lord, deliver them. From this we pray. Use Your Word to comfort Your own, to convict the lost, to bring in those who even this day You have brought to this place that You might turn them from darkness to light.

74:35 Seal Your Word, O God, we plead in Jesus' worthy name. Amen.