The Nature of True Conversion

Introduction to the Nature of True Conversion

0:00 The following message was delivered in the Adult Sunday School class of the Trinity Baptist Church on Sunday, March 1, 1992. This is lesson number three in the pre-membership class.

0:17 Now we are this morning in our second week, in our second study. We're considering the major topic of true conversion. And in our second study this morning, we will focus upon the nature of true conversion, that to be converted is to embrace or to obey the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And in our consideration this morning, I want first to give you an explanation of conversion, and then seek to make some experimental or practical applications of this biblical teaching about conversion to the Christian life.

0:58 And just a word of reminder that this class is being taught with an assumption, and we have to do a little bit of pretending. The assumption is that everyone who is here listening is seriously considering whether or not they should apply for membership in Trinity Baptist Church. So none of you are members this morning. But you're thinking about becoming members.

1:27 Seriously thinking about it. Whether the Lord has done a work of grace in your heart and you are prepared to come forward and to identify with the people of God at Trinity. Now, that is the assumption of the class, and please do not anyone be insulted if I address you as such. This is a pre-membership class, and you are all flies on the wall.

1:49 Now, with that little introduction behind us, let us then pray for the Lord's blessing upon our study of true conversion this morning.

2:02 Our Father, we thank you for the gospel of Jesus Christ. But especially we thank you that that gospel has come to us in power and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance. And this we attribute entirely to your grace and mercy. And we pray that as we consider what it is to receive the gospel of Christ with power this morning, that you would grant us the Holy Spirit and that we may have our minds enlightened, but especially that we may have our hearts refreshed and stirred by your grace to rejoice in these wonderful blessings of conversion and to live accordingly in the light of them.

2:45 And we ask this, O God, that you would receive the honor and praise and glory for it is your work and you are worthy. We ask these things in Christ's name. Amen. Now as I have said, our study respecting the nature of conversion this morning will be conducted under two headings for primary areas of concern.

Doctrinal Explanation: Conversion Explained

3:13 And the first, I'm aiming at your heads. What I say is primarily doctrinal. I want to give you a biblical explanation of the work of God which has so often been called conversion. It is the very beginning of the Christian life.

3:36 It is that wonderful event in which a sinner is saved, in which he passes from death to life. It is that event in which he goes from being a child of wrath to a child of God. goes out from being under the wrath of God to living a life as a Christian under the grace of God. And firstly, aimed at your head, I want to give you a doctrinal explanation of conversion.

4:08 But in the second place, I want to aim not so much at the head, but at the heart. And what I wish to say in the second place is not so much doctrinal as it is experimental. I want to open up some of the practical moral implications of conversion for living the Christian life. So, to put it simply, we have first, conversion explained, and secondly, conversion applied.

4:41 First of all, conversion explained. Why is it important that you understand conversion?

4:50 I mean, isn't it true that doctrine divides and love edifies? So why, here you are, thinking about joining the church, and I'm going to trouble you with doctrine. No, it is not a trouble that you'd be troubled with doctrine. There is good reason for you to understand conversion.

5:09 And I could, perhaps after I give you the explanation, you'll be able to see the reasons better. But the first reason is this. Ignorance concerning conversion is no help to bringing glory to God. It is when you understand what God has done for you and in you that then you are able intelligently to magnify and praise His holy name.

5:38 And truly God should be glorified for the work of conversion. For it is the work of God and to Him be the glory. And if you are ignorant of this wonderful work done, God will be robbed of glory. That is the first and primary reason.

5:55 But the second reason is to protect you. It is for your own spiritual welfare and protection that you understand, not perhaps with the understanding of an advanced theological student, but that you understand at least basically what the Bible teaches about conversion so that you would not be carried away with every wind of doctrine that is blowing around in our day. Indeed, there are many dangerous winds of doctrine blowing and the ignorant are liable to be carried away with those winds of doctrine into ruinous practices, which if they won't utterly destroy you,

6:41 at least they will fundamentally cripple you with reference to your Christian life and progress in grace. And therefore, it is important that you understand conversion. Now, in this explanation that I intend to give this morning, I am not attempting to make every new convert a theologian. No, no.

7:05 Much more could be said. If you find an academy student, ask him, and he will assure you that it is true. Much more could be said and required. This is not this morning a comprehensive explanation that I give you, nor is it a technical explanation.

7:24 But I trust that it will be a sufficient explanation so that at the end of it, you will be able to glorify God for what he has done in you, and you will be kept, I trust, from the pitfalls and dangers which would otherwise possibly befall you. Now, in terms of this explanation, I want to divide the explanation into two parts. First, I want to explain the overall picture of conversion, And then thirdly, I want to explain the specific blessings given in conversion. So under this, I want to explain first the overall picture.

The Overall Picture of Conversion: Before and After

8:16 The overall picture. now the overall picture you've seen no doubt in some of these advertisements for weight loss and also and perhaps I tell on myself here some of these advertisements for recovering hair loss you've seen the pictures of the before and then the after you've seen the before and the after now those are perhaps the two most graphic before and after pictures that are before my mind

9:03 there is something also like that the before and the after with reference to the whole subject of conversion there is what we were before that wonderful moment of conversion and what we are after that wonderful moment of conversion before we were dead in trespasses and sins we were a slave of sin our record was guilty and we were condemned before God. And furthermore, personally, we were out of fellowship with God.

9:51 As the apostle says, we were without hope and without God in the world. We were alienated from God. God was far from us and we were far from Him. We were not only morally the slaves of sin and legally condemned criminals in the courtroom of heaven, but personally we were alienated from God and far off from fellowship with him.

10:29 And then you have the after picture. That's what we were before. What are we after? Conversion.

10:38 We are first of all alive and no longer dead in trespasses and sins. We have been emancipated from slavery to sin. Morally, we have been renewed in every faculty of soul.

10:56 Legally, our record has been cleared so that we are accepted with God. And personally, we have been restored to fellowship with God, and we have begun a life of intimate, spiritual, personal communion with God. Now, that is a radical change.

11:27 The before and the after. and conversion is what happens to you to take you from what you were before to what you are after. Now, that's the overall picture.

11:47 You go from being a child of wrath, a slave of sin, condemned and alienated, to being emancipated, cleared and restored to fellowship with God, a Christian under grace. And this is conversion that takes you from here to there, from before to after. And this conversion involves three phases.

Three Phases of Conversion: God Enables, Man Responds, God Blesses

12:19 Okay?

12:29 There's before.

12:32 There's after. And this is conversion in between. This is an event. It's not a lifelong, week-long, age-long process.

12:45 It is an event of conversion. Now, in this event, there are three phases. First of all, God begins it.

12:57 God initiates and God enables. Man responds And then God blesses God enables Man responds And God blesses Now these are the three phases of conversion There is first of all an enabling phase where God enables a man to obey the gospel. Turn with me please to the book of Ephesians, chapter 2.

13:47 The book of Ephesians chapter 2.

13:58 God enables a man to obey the gospel. Ephesians chapter 2 verse 1 and following. First of all, the Bible explicitly states that it is God who initiates this wonderful work. Notice Ephesians 2.

14:28 And you did he make alive when you were dead through your trespasses and sins. You were dead. That was your condition. Wherein you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the powers of the air, the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom we also once lived in the lusts of the flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind and were by nature children of wrath even as the rest.

15:04 There's the before picture. We were dead in trespasses and sins. We were living in sin. Now notice who takes the initiative to make the difference.

15:19 Consider verse 4. But God, being rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us even when we were dead, made us alive together with Christ. By grace have you been saved. And then it goes on to say how He raised us up with Him and made us to sit with Him.

15:47 By grace have you been saved. It is God who made us alive. The sinner in the state of sin is pictured like a dead body. He is dead.

16:04 He does not have the ability to resurrect himself to spiritual life. and the scripture explicitly states that it is God doing a moral work which is likened to the work of resurrection. He made us alive. This is the initial work that takes us from what we were before to what we were after.

16:32 It is a work of divine enabling called resurrection from being spiritually dead in our sins. And this resurrection grows out of the fact that God loved us even when we were dead. So the first thing is that the scripture explicitly states that the initiative is not taken by man, but that the initiative is taken by God upon man who is viewed as dead and incapable of giving himself spiritual life. But then there's a second area where the Scripture shows that it is God who initiates by enabling.

17:19 And in that, the Scripture teaches that man could not initiate his own conversion. That man could not, in his own strength, obey the gospel. In Romans chapter 8 and verse 7 we read that the carnal mind is enmity against God, and it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be. man in the state of sin does not have the ability to render to God an acceptable obedience because the carnal mind

18:05 is enmity against God and the carnal mind must be changed. And unless that carnal mind is changed man cannot render evangelical obedience, acceptable obedience to the law of God. Jesus says the same thing in John chapter 6 and verse 44 about the gospel. Speaking of the gospel, he says, No man can come unto me unless the Father which has sent me draw him.

18:41 Nobody has the ability. either to obey the law or to obey the gospel apart from the enabling, drawing activity of God. And the reason the Lord Jesus Christ tells us Himself in John 8, He says, Whosoever commits sin is the slave of sin, but if the Son shall set you free, you shall be free indeed. John chapter 8 verses 34 and 36.

19:18 The old writers refer to this reality as total inability. Man does not have the ability in his own native strength or power either to come to Christ or to render any kind of an obedience to the law which would be pleasing and acceptable with God because man is the slave of sin and the chains are too powerful for fallen man to break, only God, only Christ, only the Holy Spirit in conjunction with the gospel is able to set man free. Therefore, he could not initiate his own conversion. Not only does the Bible say that God initiates it,

20:06 when we were dead, he makes us alive, But the Bible also says that man is bound in sin and that this bondage is such that he could not have initiated his own conversion. Then there's a third line of witness that I just mentioned to you briefly, which demonstrates that man could not have initiated his own conversion. and that is that the response of man to the gospel, this obedient response of repentance and faith is said in the Bible to be the gift of God. Faith is said to be the fruit of divine giving.

20:51 In Philippians 1 and verse 29, where it says, To you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe, but also to suffer for His name. To you, it has been granted to believe. To you, it has been granted to believe. Your faith is a grant.

21:16 It is a gift from God. The fruit of divine enabling. The same thing is said of repentance in Acts chapter 11 and verse 18 where we read, so then God has also granted unto the Gentiles repentance unto life. Repentance is a gift.

21:36 Faith is a gift. And repentance and faith constitute what man does in obeying the gospel. Man's obedience to the gospel is a gift from God. And so for these three reasons, the Bible says God initiates.

21:55 The Bible says man could not initiate And the Bible says that that obedience which man renders Is given to him as a grant As a gift from God Therefore I say it clearly teaches That conversion begins with God It is God who comes seeking sinners It is God who comes in conjunction with the gospel By the Holy Spirit and enables men to repent and to believe. That's the first element in the overall picture. The second element is man responding. God enables man to obey the gospel,

22:42 but a man in conversion, a man enabled by God, yes, a man obeys the gospel. The gospel comes and says repent And he is smitten and convicted And he does repent The gospel comes and says believe And he does believe He knows the story of Jesus He confesses that story to be true And his heart resides and trusts in Jesus alone as his only hope of going to heaven. He really does obey the gospel.

23:28 And without that, there is no conversion.

23:33 Wherever there is divine enabling, there is always man responding. And there are some who want to break these two phases apart, but you cannot do that. God is not simply giving and enabling in the vacuum. But this first work of God is actually the giving of repentance itself and the giving of faith itself.

24:00 It is nothing other than God giving the sinner repentance and God giving the sinner faith. That is the very enabling work which God does. And you cannot make some kind of a divorce. Those whom God has joined together, let not man put asunder.

24:19 and God has joined together his work of enabling and man's response and they must not be put asunder in time or with reference to cause.

God's Blessings in Conversion: Justification and Adoption

24:34 God in the gospel requires repentance and faith and he enables sinners to obey the gospel. And then in the third phase God comes and blesses. God comes and blesses. He blesses the penitent.

24:59 He blesses the believer. And the first blessing is tied to the exercise of saving faith and saving faith alone. And that blessing has to do with the clearing of the record. It is called in the Bible justification.

25:16 And in this blessing, God clears the record. He accepts the sinner and pardons him for all of his sin. There is a second blessing associated with conversion. I say that with no pun intended.

25:37 A second blessing associated with conversion, and that second blessing is not so much a legal blessing, But it is an experimental blessing, a personal blessing. And this blessing is what has been called by various names. It has been called adoption. Associated with it is the gift of the Holy Spirit.

26:01 And in conjunction with this blessing, there is the restoration of fellowship with God, which was lost and which was severed. now let me show you that the Bible clearly teaches that justification is a blessing experienced at conversion by means of faith and I just would like to turn you into two passages in the New Testament in this respect first of all Romans chapter 3 Romans chapter 3 Beginning in verse 21 But now apart from the law God righteousness has been manifested being witnessed by the law and the prophets even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ unto all them that believe

27:06 Perhaps you remember last time we saw that the righteousness of God is the virtue in God's eyes which comes from the work of Jesus Christ. It is the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And this righteousness of God, the righteousness of Christ, is given to everyone who believes. It is given upon the exercise of faith.

27:30 It is given immediately upon the exercise of faith. And it is given to everyone who exercises saving faith. Therefore, the Apostle Paul can state the following words. In Romans 3 and verse 28.

27:49 He says, we reckon therefore that a man is justified by faith apart from the works of the law. And notice again in Romans chapter 5 and verse 1. Being therefore justified by faith, we have peace with God. This justification does not wait until the middle or end of the Christian life, but this justification is associated with conversion itself upon the exercise of saving faith in Christ.

28:28 For the scripture says, to him that worketh not, but believes on him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned for righteousness. now again with reference to the gift of the Holy Spirit the Apostle Peter in the preaching of the gospel says repent in Acts 2.38 and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit but the text that I would turn you to is found in the book of Ephesians chapter 1 a text you should be familiar with this is a very important text recently at Trinity I can tell you for a fact sermon was preached on it if you want to learn more about it

29:15 you might listen to that sermon but Ephesians 1 verses 13 and 14 in whom you also having heard the word of the truth the gospel of your salvation you see associated with hearing the gospel and conversion in whom having also believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is in earnest of our inheritance unto the redemption of God's own possession, unto the praise of His glory. You, when you believe, in conjunction with being converted, you, all of you who believe

30:01 were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise and this is none other than the spirit of adoption whereby we cry Abba, Father. It is intimately associated this gift of the Spirit with the restoration of fellowship and communion with God and this blessing is not something that is given to God's people after conversion. But it is given to God's people just like justification upon the exercise of saving faith in Christ.

30:41 Okay? Now, there have been names given to these blessings. This blessing where God enables men to repent and believe has been called regeneration. or by others it's been called calling, regeneration and effectual calling.

31:01 The response of man in obedience to the gospel is a response of faith and repentance.

31:10 And the blessings that come in conjunction with the exercise of repentance and faith associated with conversion are justifications.

31:23 and adoption, which is associated with the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Summary of Conversion's Components and God's Glory

31:37 Regeneration. God enables men to repent and believe. Repentance and faith. Man responds obediently to the gospel.

31:49 And then God blesses. we are justified by means of faith we receive the blessing of adoption and the gift of the Holy Spirit by means of repentance and faith and all of these blessings regeneration, justification adoption and the gift of the Spirit these blessings are associated with conversion they are associated with the very foundation of the Christian life now before I go on to open up the specific blessings which I would like to do I want to just state a word about why it is important that you understand this regeneration is the cause of repentance and faith

32:40 faith is the means of justification and faith and repentance are the means of receiving the spirit of God why is it important that you understand this? it is important that you understand it for this reason you sit back you sit here today you look back upon the beginning of your Christian life and you ask this fundamental question who made you to differ? who maketh he to differ?

33:12 is it the church and the church's ordinance of baptism whereby you were given life and started on the way? If so, then the church maketh thee to differ. Give glory to the church. Is it yourself and your own exercise of faith and repentance where you use things that were given you that other people didn't use and therefore you made you to differ?

33:36 Give glory to yourself. These things are false. The truth is it's not the church that maketh thee to differ. It's not yourself that maketh thee to differ If you differ there's only one reason It is because God maketh thee to differ Therefore unto God be all of the praise And all of the glory for what has been done in you If you sit here this morning the after Rather than the before With your heart changed And your record cleared And fellowship with God restored There's only one who deserves all the credit and glory and that is God.

Specific Blessings: Regeneration, Justification, Adoption, and the Spirit

34:16 Unto God, therefore, be all the glory and credit and praise for the work is the Lord's work. But now, I hasten, having given the overall picture, I hasten to little B or capital B the specific blessings.

34:39 Specific blessings. and can you see that they are free regeneration justification and adoption and the gift of the spirit now you should know and I can't go into these blessings in great detail here this morning these are blessings that I trust you will study and look into for the rest of your Christian lives and you will never tire of learning more about the wonderful moral work that God did in you and the wonderful work that he did for you with reference to clearing your record or the tremendous blessing of having fellowship with him as his adopted sons in the Holy Spirit. And you'll never tire of learning more and more about these things.

35:26 Our own confession of faith gives you an explanation of these blessings in chapters 10, 11, and 12. and I can see I don't really even have time this morning to read you chapter 10 and chapter 11 and chapter 12 of the Confession of Faith. I think that if you have received the membership packet, in that membership packet, you have no doubt received the London Confession of Faith. And I would urge you to make a special point of reading chapter 10.

35:57 Chapter 10 focuses upon regeneration. It's called effectual quality, the moral blessing whereby God enables sinners to repent and believe. Chapter 11 focuses upon justification, the legal blessing in which God clears the record of the sinner. Chapter 12 focuses upon adoption.

36:17 And though it doesn't explicitly mention it, the gift of the Holy Spirit is implicit, where it says, gives us the spirit of adoption and enables us to cry, Abba, Father. And if you look up the text, that has to do with sending the spirit of his Son into our hearts. Galatians 4.6, enabling us to cry, of our Father.

36:37 So you have the moral blessing, the legal blessing, and the experimental or personal blessing. And I would just like to say a few things here specifically about each one of those so that you understand. Regeneration is the beginning of God's work in conversion. It is a moral blessing.

37:01 It is a blessing in which he morally changes changes the whole soul. What does he do? He takes out the heart of stone, the wicked heart of unbelief, and he puts in a heart of flesh, a good and honest heart, the Lord Jesus calls it. He changes the mind, changes the will, changes the affections, he changes the conscience.

37:29 The whole soul is radically morally transformed. It is God, the great physician, in the operating room, doing a moral heart transplant upon the sinner. How does he do it? By what method?

37:49 He does it by the Spirit and the Word combined. It is by the power of the Spirit through the instrumentality of the Word that God does this moral heart transplant. He doesn't do it with the word without the spirit. And he doesn't do it with the spirit without the word.

38:07 But he does it by the agency of the spirit through the instrumentality of the gospel word.

38:15 Of his own will, he brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures. James chapter 1 and verse 18. And in John 3, he speaks of being born of the Spirit. For whom does he do this?

38:35 He does this for his elect. Romans 8 and verse 29, Those whom he predestined, them he also called. And whom he called, them he justified. 1 Thessalonians chapter 1, verses 4 and 9, Knowing your election, how our gospel came to you, not in word only but in power and in the Holy Spirit.

39:00 When this happens, this is a demonstration that you are elect. God only regenerates his elect and he regenerates sometime in their life all of his elect without exception. And when he regenerates them, they repent and believe. And then he justifies them and enters into restored fellowship with them as his adopted children by the Holy Spirit.

39:24 why does God do this? of his own will he does it because he wants to you can't explain it you can't pry into the secret purposes of God why Esau I hated and Jacob I loved it's just because God wants to and because he loves us that's why he made us alive in chapter 11 it speaks about justification, that which occurs in the courtroom. This has to do with a legal blessing, the clearing of our guilty record before God. What does God do in clearing our record?

40:08 He accepts us as righteous and declares us to be righteous. It is the opposite of being legally condemned as a guilty criminal slated for damnation What is the ground of the clearing of our record? As I say, chapter 11 shows us clearly. The only ground is the perfect life and the atoning death of Jesus Christ.

40:38 And what is the means of the clearing of our record? the exclusive means is faith in Jesus Christ. Our record is cleared by faith alone. And what about the gift of the Holy Spirit and adoption?

40:54 What about this experimental blessing? Well, God, as it were, begins in the operating room with the moral heart transplant, moves to the courtroom and clearing the record, and then by His love and grace takes us into the living room of parental communion with himself where he gives us the name of his family and children, the status of his family, the communion with himself that we would enjoy by his Holy Spirit being part of his family, the oversight that a father gives to his children. He protects us, he pities us, he provides for us, He chastens us, he gives us this family care, and then in the end he gives us the family inheritance.

41:44 This is the great experiential or experimental blessing, and this is opened up in our confession, chapter 12. So you might think of it in terms of God first beginning in the operating room, changing our heart, then taking us to the courtroom, clearing our record, then bringing us into his own living room and making us part of his own family. and giving us parent-child spiritual communion with himself.

Conversion Applied: Four Foundational Lessons (The 4 F's)

42:14 Now, having then said these things by way of conversion explained, let me then, more briefly, by way of application, speak about conversion of God. Well, so what of all this? So what? Well, there are some very important lessons that you need to learn and take to heart and never forget them.

42:42 What I want to say to you this morning, though I say it briefly, has to do with Christian grammar school. And these are the lessons that you need even to go on in the Christian life. these are the foundational important lessons that you should never forget and though I don't mean to associate this with a grade I have four F's which describe these lessons first of all the fight secondly the fountain thirdly the foundation and fourthly, the feast.

Application 1: Embrace the Fight Against Indwelling Sin

43:32 4.S. First of all, in the light of what I've said about conversion, you must embrace the fight. Now, what do I mean by embrace the fight?

43:44 If you go on to chapter 13 of the Confession of Faith, it speaks about the warfare which characterizes the Christian life. The Christian life is a battle. and even though you have been regenerated sin has not been eradicated and sin never will be eradicated from you as long as you live it will not be eradicated until you die therefore you must embrace the fight and on the one hand you must strive to be absolutely sinlessly perfect for a goal that you cannot attain in this life on the other hand you must not define sin so that you can delude yourself into thinking that you live without sin or live above sin that you know about.

44:31 So you have to embrace the fight. There has been a radical moral change so that you could never go back to being what you were before. But that radical moral change does not equal the eradication of sin. And sin remains in your mind, in your feelings.

44:49 It remains in your conscience. It remains in your will. Sin remains in every faculty and aspect of your soul. It's there in your words, in your thoughts, in your actions.

45:00 It's always going to be there. You're going to have to fight with it for the rest of your life and don't believe anybody who tells you you won't.

45:11 The minute you try to find some way of living the Christian life without embracing the fight, you're going to be led into error. you're going to be led down a pathway of delusion and crippling of your soul to live the Christian life.

45:29 So that's the first thing I have to say to you. Anybody offers you escape don't believe him. There is none. Right now face the fact that there's going to be a fight with indwelling sin for the rest of your life.

Application 2: Continually Visit the Fountain of Christ Through Repentance and Faith

45:47 But then you can also say but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord. Which brings me to the second warning. And that has to do with the fountain. And that is the fountain open for sin and uncleanness, the cross of Christ.

46:07 See, it's true that you've been regenerated and regeneration puts you into the fight. It doesn't end the fight, it starts the fight. But then comes repentance and faith. Never stop repenting and believing As long as you live In conversion you don't stop repenting and believing In conversion you start repenting and believing Never stop repenting and believing If we confess our sins He's faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins When you go home Read Psalm 32 verses 3 to 5.

46:52 What he went through when he kept silence and didn't confess his sin.

46:58 See, but you're going to face danger. The danger you face is when you sin. You're going to hear a voice tell you, maybe your own voice, the voice of your own pride, maybe the voice of the devil himself. I don't know.

47:11 But the voice is going to tell you, you can't repent and go to Christ with your sin. You can't go back to Christ. you're just a hypocrite. Yes, you did that sin and then you confessed it.

47:22 Then you did it again. You confessed it, you did it again. You can't keep going back to Christ. You can't keep going from your sin right to Christ, confessing it and saying, forgive me, wash me, cleanse me.

47:35 You can't keep doing that. It's just hypocrisy. You have to first make yourself better. You have to first deal with your own sin.

47:45 Then you can go to Christ. well how are you going to deal with your sin apart from Christ where else are you going to go to deal with your sin how are you going to make up for your sin what are you going to do you're going to punish yourself you're going to punish yourself by inflicting upon yourself a guilty conscience for weeks and months that's going to be your atonement for sin oh no I tell you listen do not fall into that trap keep coming back to the fountain open for sin and uncleanness when you sin confess your sin and go to Christ repent of your sin over and over believe over and over

48:30 even if you have to repent and believe a hundred times a day keep repenting and keep believing don't ever stop don't let any argument any persuasion any person any suggestion and keep you away from the exercise of repentance and faith and from the fountain open for sin and uncleanness.

Application 3: Rest Upon the Foundation of Christ's Righteousness and the Spirit's Gift

48:53 This isn't even high school or college. This is grammar school. You keep going back again and again and again and again. The third thing is the foundation.

49:07 The foundation is this. The foundation remember And rest upon the foundation That you have forever been accepted And your record cleared on the basis of Christ And you have had fellowship restored In virtue of the irrevocable gift of the Spirit That's the foundation The foundation is you've been given two wonderful glorious gifts. The gift of the virtue of Christ whereby you are accepted and the gift of the Spirit of God whereby fellowship is restored. You don't need to go around

49:52 concocting a righteousness of your own out of your own works whereby somehow you're going to be accepted. There are so many people who forget this and become uneasy after a while resting in that simple, basic foundation of acceptance, which is Christ's righteousness and blood, and go trying to find some other foundation.

50:16 And they think, too, that there's something else they need other than just this gift of the Spirit whereby their fellowship is restored. And there's a hankering after some special, second, third, great, glorious...

50:30 No, there is no such thing.

50:33 The foundation is solid. The foundation is sure. Don't be shaken from it. You rest contently on it, in it, and don't go looking for anything else.

Application 4: Attend the Feast of God's Word and Prayer

50:43 My final word has to do with the feast.

50:47 And that is the feast of the word of God. Here you are now, regenerated. That brings you to the fight. Exercise repentance and faith.

50:58 That brings you to the fountain. You've received the blessing of the righteousness of Christ and the gift of the Spirit. That's the foundation. Don't be shaken from it or look anywhere else for acceptance with God or fellowship with God.

51:14 And now finally, you walk in the Christian life. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. You need to attend the feast. You need to come regularly to the word of God and prayer.

51:29 Set up a time of Bible reading for the nourishment of your soul. set up a time of prayer that you may seek the Lord regularly and diligently come to the spiritual feast that is open for you in the scriptures read and pray and seek God regularly daily seek him and feed your soul upon him well these are the basic fundamental lessons I see that our time is gone remember embrace the fight visit the fountain rest upon the foundation and attend the feast and may God give us grace to walk all of our Christian lives

52:15 in these basic fundamental experimental ways of the Lord let us pray together our Father we thank you for your holy word we thank you for the tremendous blessing of conversion thank you for what you did upon us and taking out the heart of stone and putting in a heart of flesh thank you for giving us the gift of Christ's righteousness thank you for giving us the gift of your spirit we thank you for these wonderful blessings Lord and for enabling us to repent and believe and we pray Father that we would not grow weary but that we would embrace this fight and battle that is laid before us that we may walk in it all of our days.

53:01 We pray, Father, that we would not be kept with delusion or pride from the fountain open for sin and uncleanness. We pray, our Father, that we would not be weary and restless, looking elsewhere, but that we may be able with simple faith all our days to rest upon this foundation for acceptance and fellowship. We pray, Father, that you would stir us up with a spiritual hunger to come to your holy word and to feed our souls upon that nourishment which you've given to us. Oh God, keep your people in the way of these things that we may walk in these things all of our days and that we may give to you all of the praise and honor and glory for that great work which you, by your power and grace, have done in us.

53:47 For we ask this in Christ's name. Amen.

53:54 Thank you.