The Nature of Conversion — Paul Washer

God's Covenant Promise of a New Heart

Please open up your Bibles to Ezekiel chapter 36. While you're finding our text, again, I would like to say what a privilege it is for me to be here. What an incredible joy. I can honestly say in this conference and the conference last year that I fell so in love, for lack of a better phrase.

With with the people that I saw and that I see here today, when I'm here. Times when I look at some of the literature that's produced here, when I call Brother Scott or talk with many of you, it always makes me want to be more.

I see Christianity larger, deeper, more historic, more foundational. I can't tell you what a blessing that many of you just watching you. And I do I watch you and watching your children and your interaction, looking at your countenance and your even your dress.

What a what a blessing you are to me. It's such an encouragement. Have you ever realized there were things that were wrong with you, but the enemy was able to turn that and turn you inward and make you depressed and cause you to stumble?

That's never been the case here. When whenever I've been around many of the men here and others that participate in this conference, I have seen things in their light. I've had shortcomings in my own life, but it never turned me inward.

It always encouraged me that there is more that I can be more. I can be a better husband. I can I can be a better father. There's this Christianity is a lot bigger than what I ever imagined. And so it's a privilege for me to be here.

Let's read our text. Ezekiel 36. Twenty two, therefore, say to the house of Israel, thus says the Lord God, it is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you went.

I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations which you have profaned in their midst. Then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when I prove myself holy among you in their sight.

For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land, then I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.

Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will be careful to observe my ordinances and you will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers.

So you will be my people and I will be your God. Let's go to Lord in prayer. Father, I come before you in the name of your son. I praise you. I praise you for him, for his person, for his work. I praise you, Father, for the Holy Spirit and his work.

In our lives, I praise you for your wisdom that designed so great a salvation. And for your power, Lord, that we'll see it through until the end, I praise you, Father, that you have not given us grace in meager portion, but you have blessed us and we are blessed that you will begin a good work and us will finish it.

That you have done this great thing for your own sake and to demonstrate your power and it will not fail. Father, I pray that you'll help me in my weakness. That you would strengthen me in my fear and my doubt that whether through eloquence or stammering lips, you would at least make the message clear that you would fill me with the Holy Spirit and that you would pour out your spirit upon your people in ever increasing measure.

I know you hear me because of him. It's in his name I pray. Amen. Let's look at our first verse, therefore, say to the House of Israel, that says the Lord God, it is not for your sake, O House of Israel, that I am about to act.

But for my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you went, every reasonable being. Has a reason for what he does, a final purpose, a sunam bonam, a great end to everything that he does, if he's reasonable and God most certainly is reasonable and God has a purpose for saving men and we can see in our text immediately that we are not the thing that primarily moved God to save us.

If God were to search all the hearts of all the men, take all the virtue, combine it together, it would not be enough to move him to save man. Do you understand that so many people today want it, want everything in religion to be all about them, but they do not realize that they're pronouncing a sentence of judgment and death upon themselves.

For if God were demanded to only move on our behalf because of something he found in us, he would never move. The only thing we could ever motivate a holy God to do is to condemn us. So why has God moved to save a people?

Well, we should never forget that God has moved because God himself is love. But there is another thing that I want you to see that is particularly important in this text and for us this morning and for the context in which we live in evangelical Christianity in America.

Salvation Demonstrates God's Power and Glory

God has saved men in order to demonstrate the greatness of his power. God has saved men in order to demonstrate the greatness of his power. Now, why is that important? Look at the blasphemous preaching of the gospel and the blasphemous way in which men, preachers, pastors deal with the conversion of individuals.

What do we have today in evangelical America? We have 60 percent, 66 percent of the people declaring themselves to be born again. And yet they live like devils, both inside and outside. Yet 60 some percent of America is born again.

And so the world, all the world looks upon this so-called testimony or demonstration of the power of God and they laugh. They laugh. So this is it. This is God's testimony on this planet. And the problem with this is that the evangelical preachers and pastors are the ones who most promote this.

We have turned the glorious doctrine of regeneration into decisionism. Where we ask a person a few questions, and if they say yes to each one of our questions like, do you know you're a sinner? Yes. Do you want to go to heaven?

Yes. Would you like to pray this prayer and ask Jesus to come in? Yes. And the moment they say yes to that final question, they're led in a prayer. And then the evangelical preacher popishly declares them born again.

And so we have a people who make a great claim to Christianity, who identify themselves with the work of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit. They identify themselves with this great demonstration of God's power, and because of it, the name of God is blasphemed among the nations.

And so what do we have? We have people coming in and identifying themselves with the evangelical community. They're coming in in droves because the gospel that's being preached is not a true gospel. No demands are being made.

No high Christianity is being taught. And so they come in and make their identification. And then they find themselves at ease in Zion because the preachers have turned into life coaches and are no longer prophets, no longer exposing sin, no longer meeting with people house to house to check their lives, to examine their lives, to test them, to help them on their journey.

No, none of that. We just build big shows of carnality. And then since church discipline is no longer practiced, it just keeps growing and growing and growing, and thus the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles.

I want you to know something. We must stop it. But before I go on to my text, let me say something. Please understand me. I think that I'm rightly interpreting the men. I hope I am and that I've heard today and yesterday.

There has been a mention of the church of Jesus Christ and in the same breath, whoredom. Let me share with you the way I understand that. If you want to talk about the evangelical community. And use the word whoredom, that's fine.

If you want to talk about churchianity in America and use the term whoredom, that is fine, too. If you want to talk about this visible group of people that call themselves Christians and use the word whoredom, that also is fine.

But the church of Jesus Christ is not a whore. And she does not participate in whoredom. A whore sleeps with other gods. Then she wipes her mouth and she says, I have done nothing wrong. And she does this with a brash face, unashamed.

That is not the church of Jesus Christ. I hear today all the time from preachers saying we've got to do something in the church. What must we do? Why must we do something for this reason? There's just as much divorce in the church as outside of the church.

Just as much pornography in the church as outside of the church. Just as much lying and hypocrisy and carnality and worldliness in the church as out of the church. We've got to do something. No, that is not true.

If it is true, every promise God ever made in the new covenant is false. There is not as much pornography in the church of Jesus Christ as in the world. There is not as much carnality and worldliness and everything else.

Your problem is you don't know what the church is. And one of the greatest, most horrible things the devil has done is grouped up a bunch of people in the name of evangelicalism, called them the church and the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles.

I want you to know something. The church of Jesus Christ in the United States of America presently at this moment is beautiful. Does she struggle with sin? Yes. Is she like the bride in the Song of Solomon?

When the bridegroom comes by the door and knocks, she's apathetic and delays and misses him. Yes, she struggles with sin. She struggles with apathy. But it's that struggle and that apathy and that at times coldness of heart that causes her to be always broken, broken, always mourning, always repentant and quickly returning.

My dear friend, listen to me. What so many people call the church today is not the church. And I hate that. Why? Because our text is telling us that God says he's going to save a people for his own glory.

He's going to save a people to demonstrate his great power. But when we preach the gospel like we do so that the world comes into the church, when we preach in the church like we do so that the world stays in the church, when we do not practice church discipline so that the world gets along fine in the church, then the witness is contaminated.

It's contaminated. My entire ministry is this going to churches and simply preaching what is a Christian because we have come to believe today that Christianity and true faith in Jesus Christ is nothing more than a decision, not even an intellectual decision, just a superficial decision, a religious decision.

And that is all. But that is not the case. When someone is truly born again. It is possibly the greatest manifestation of the power of God in all the workings of God, I marvel more at the work of God in the soul of a man than I marvel at the creation of the universe.

He created the universe ex nihilo out of nothing, but to take a mass of corrupt depravity and turn that into a new creature, that is something that drops my jaw. I want salvation. To be taught as it is found in the Bible, a supernatural work of God, and if God begins the work, he will finish it.

And if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. And that's what we can see here in our text. He says, first of all, he says, I'm going to do this for my own sake. Why did God save you? Well, he did save you because he loved you, but he saved you to demonstrate his glory in you, to demonstrate his power, that the whole world.

That even the world beyond what we know would look upon you and by looking upon you and looking upon what God is doing in your life, they would marvel at his power, they would marvel at his faithfulness, they would marvel at his mercy, they would marvel at his ability to transform.

He does it for his own glory. Now, here in this text, we have what I think looks forward to the new covenant, as we see also in Jeremiah 31, Jeremiah 32 is quoted at length, Jeremiah 31 in Hebrews chapter eight.

It's a demonstration of the power of God in creating for himself a people. Now, what does it say? First of all, in verse 24, for I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land.

Conversion Produces Separation and Holiness

One of the first things that you begin to notice when an individual has been truly converted is God's work of separation in his life. I know that we do not hear much about this, but it is true. One of the first works that God will do when he saves a man and a work that is enduring and will continue on through all the days of his life is God's work of separation.

You see, when we are born again, we come from a people of unclean lips. We ourselves have unclean lips and those unclean lips are just a manifestation of what was inside of us, what is around us. We come out of paganism.

We were not a people, but we have been made a people. And so at the moment of conversion, God begins to take us from the nations. And he begins to draw us to himself. Now, here's something that's very important, holiness.

Separation is not oftentimes what many people think the word holy. It's most in its basic root means to cut. It's like if a woman has a has a cutting board before her and a sharp knife and she takes vegetables and she begins to just cut them up and then as they pile up, she separates them off and then she cuts some more and she separates them off.

It's the idea of being separate, to be distinct, to be unique. What does it mean that God is holy? Well, a lot of people say, well, holiness means that God is is righteous. And I said, well, then what does righteous mean?

So well, holiness means that God is just without sin. Well, yes. But what does righteousness mean? I think sometimes we confuse the terms. Holiness means primarily that God is separate from everything.

He is distinct. He's set apart. That is why Jesus Christ in his great prayer cried out, hallowed be thy name. His greatest desire was that all of creation would see God as he is, that they would separate God as distinct from absolutely everything.

There is no comparison to him. He is God. There is no other. Love what R .C. Sproul says at times, he'll ask the question in various ways, for example, which which creature is more like God, the seraphim around his throne, crying out, holy, holy, holy, or a worm crawling on the earth?

And you'd say to yourself, well, I guess the seraphim, no, no, neither. No one's like God. He's not like us, just bigger and better, totally, completely distinct. And holiness means that he is set apart.

What does it mean for us to be holy? It doesn't mean simply that we reject the world. You see, you can reject the world. You can realize its wickedness. You can seek to run from it. You can reject its culture and its clothing and its music and its media and everything else like some of you have done.

But that does not mean you're holy unless you finish the task you separate from in order to separate to. I think holiness has a lot to do with love in this sense. I think God is holy in that he he recognizes himself for who he is.

He esteems himself for who he is. He loves himself as he ought to be loved. And his love toward himself is pure and without competition. And for us to be holy means more than just that we're separating from all these bad things of carnal people, but that we're separating unto God, that we grow and grow over the course of our life.

We are growing more and more to do what? To esteem God, to esteem him and our affections grow toward him until God becomes greater and greater and greater in the picture and everything else becomes smaller and smaller and smaller.

You see. A person who is unconverted. Who has a wicked, depraved heart, the more revelation he sees of God, the more he will hate God. But someone who has a heart that has been regenerate, that has been changed, that has become a new creature, he has a new heart, a new nature, and that new nature has new affections.

And so when he looks upon God and he sees more and more and more of God, his affections grow toward God. This is something that's very important, preachers will always tell people they need to love God more.

If you really want to ruin a sermon, just walk up to a preacher and say, I agree with you, I need to love God more. Now, how do I do that? How can I increase the love of God in my heart? Well, here's the answer.

If you have truly been regenerate. The more you know of God. And his works specifically manifested in the person and work of Jesus Christ, the more your affections will be drawn to him. So when we talk about holiness, what is one of the greatest things that you can do to grow in holiness is to grow in the knowledge of who God is and what he has done.

And the more you know of his attributes, his perfections, his excellencies, the more you will be drawn to him if your heart has truly been regenerate. Now, here's the question, both old and young, the things I've described here.

Many of you are saying, yes, yes, but here's my question for you. Is this a reality in your life? Is it? Is it a reality? I want to preach to your conscience, is it a reality in your life? Now, I'm not talking about every day you have these glorious experiences, I'm not saying that the evidence of conversion is that you never stumble and fall.

I'm not saying that if you have an apathetic heart toward God, you're lost. No, but over the course of your life, since you have been supposedly converted, can you see God doing a work in you, revealing more and more of himself to you and you being drawn to him with greater and greater affection, even though sometimes it is two steps forward and one step back and it's a struggle all the way?

Are you growing not just in your disdain for the world, but are you growing in your appreciation for God? Your desire for God, your love for God. Young people, I am afraid for some of you because sometimes it is so dangerous to look good on the outside.

I know of a fine preacher's wife who did not know the Lord. And one day sitting in a tent meeting. It was being preached to prostitutes and drug addicts. Sitting on the front row with the preacher's wife, she looked out the door of the tent and saw a prostitute there ravished with AIDS.

And this thought came into her heart. The only difference between you and that whore are the clothes you have on. But your heart is just like hers. She was gloriously saved. That was my wife. You see, there is a danger when you when you don't do bad things, when your parents have protected you, where you wear the right clothing and you listen to the right types of media and you read the right books.

But my question is this in your heart, are there affections growing for the person of Jesus Christ? Yes, you have turned away from so many bad things. But have you turned to him? Do you want him your devotion for the ministry?

I care not about that. Your devotion for the person of Christ. Is that growing? Is it growing? Now, let's go on, says in verse twenty five, then I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean.

I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Now here I want to step back for a second and I just want us to put emphasis on the personal pronoun I. Before we get started talking about God's work of cleansing, I want us to look at the personal pronoun I, which represents Yahweh in this case, look in verse twenty four.

For I will take you from the nations, I will gather you from all the lands, I will bring you into your own land, then I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. Then he goes on, I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.

Moreover, I will give you a new heart and I will put a new spirit within you and I will reprove the heart. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh and I will put my spirit within you and I will cause you to walk in my statutes and you will be careful to observe my ordinances.

Do you see something here? There is the sovereignty of God written all over this page. You see, at times we need to understand this, it is not the great barometer, the great test of conversion is not necessarily how quickly you are growing, but the manifestation of the providence of God in your life that you cannot escape him.

That he has set himself upon you to do a work and he will do that work. And listen to me, he will not wait until glory to do it. If he's not doing it now, he won't do it then. The evidence of justification is sanctification and the hope of glorification is the sanctifying work of God in us right now.

He says, look, I am going to save a people, I am going to do it. I myself, I saw no man who would stand in the gap. Therefore, I dressed myself in my own armor. I went down and with my own right hand, I saved.

This is all about him. It is all about a revelation of his power. Not only that, my dear friend, it is the revelation of the greatest manifestation of the power of God. And when we turn it into an hour of decision, it is an abomination.

It is an abomination. Salvation is this thing that once you catch view of it, along with the cross of Christ, it will hold your attention throughout all of eternity. You'll not care to look at trivial things any longer.

Look at this manifestation of the power of God through the saving of wicked, depraved men. But see, no one can have the joy that I now have in my heart with regard to this truth, because salvation has been reduced to nothing.

And I hate it. I hate it. He says, I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. I remember one time I was a farm boy raised on a cattle ranch. I'd come in dirty. One thing about a farm boy, he's got dirt in his neck.

Every crease in his body has dirt in it. I was getting feeling a little bit, as we used to say, cowboy strong. It's about nine years old. I could shoot, ride a horse. I'm a man. Walked in the door. Mom said, take a bath.

I said, Mom, I don't think I'm going to take a bath tonight. She looked at me. A charging bull would have been turned dead stone with the look she gave me. And she said, you will take a bath. Behold, my little mother has a greater power than the God of evangelical Christianity.

And so I go in there. Little dabble, do you? Boys will swim in ponds, creeks full of water. Moccasins doesn't matter, but get them in a bathtub. No way. I'm in there a little bit of water. And then I take a white towel and my mom comes in there.

My mother could haul hay better than any man. She was put in the hospital one time, gored by a bull. My mother was tough. She grabbed that bar of soap and I was praying she'd use a wire brush because it was softer than her hands.

She grabbed me. When I came out of there, the Shekinah glory was shining from my body. I could not look at myself in the mirror. But the God of evangelical Christianity can't do any of that. He can just sit on his little.

Paper mache throne with his little tin cap on his head, wringing his hands and weeping because no one will cooperate with him. That's not the God who captured me almost 30 years ago and has ravished. And torn me and broken me into a million pieces.

Not the same God, he says, I'll sprinkle clean water on you. You will be clean. Yes, there is in this there is justification that we are justified by faith, we have a right standing by faith, we are pardoned by faith.

But I want you to know that this great separation between justification and sanctification that is that is kind of all mingled together and messed up today is wrong. Those who are justified by faith will be sanctified by God's providence.

He who began a good work will continue it. One of the greatest evidences that you were justified is that you are currently being sanctified. Listen to what he says. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and all your idols.

If someone were to ask me to just put my life in a sentence, what would it be? My Christian life? God has been cleansing me from all my filthiness and all my idols, which is one of the greatest demonstrations of the love of God toward me.

Just look at this. Jacob, I loved Esau, I hated. Yet if you look at both of these men, God fulfilled every promise ever made to Esau. He blessed Esau in his providence. Esau prospered. All sorts of good things happened to Esau.

So how is it that God showed hatred toward Esau and love toward Jacob? Esau was set free. To be Esau, to continue in Esau for the rest of his life. God took a hold of Jacob and half killed him. How do we know that God loved Jacob?

Because God would not let Jacob be Jacob. It was discipline. It was God working. Do you see that? Now, let me ask you a question. Is that a reality in your life? Do you have this type of Christian God who's just up there hoping you'll cooperate?

Or do you have this massive, incredibly powerful God that holds you in the providence of his hand and who would be utterly terrifying to you if you did not know he was good? A God who will not let you go.

Young person, let me ask you this. I know you know how to act before your parents. I know you have figured out how to please them. But in your heart of hearts, are you growing in holiness? Are you desiring to please God?

Is God working in you, cleansing you, removing idols from you? Has he begun this work? Is he continuing it? That is the mark of conversion. That is the mark of conversion. You will not stand before your father on the day of judgment.

You will stand before God. Is there an inward working of God in your soul? Has he captured you? I remember when when I knew I knew God had called me into the ministry. I did not want to do it. And I got in the garage.

I had this old sixty six Mustang. It didn't even run. But I got in there and I just sat behind the wheel. It was like I just cried out there, I said, I'm just going to get in this car and I'm going to drive to California as far as I can go away from here.

And it was like, and I will be there when you get there waiting on you. You're mine. You're mine. Now, to this point, if I stopped right here, it would seem like. Sanctification and God's work of transformation in our life was nothing more than him overpowering us, divine coercion.

Regeneration Creates New Affections

If I stopped right here because we have not fully explained how it is that God does this great work of sanctification. He says, verse twenty six, moreover, I will give you a new heart and I will put a new spirit within you and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

Many times in the Bible, when we hear the word flesh, it's it's negative, it's something bad, it's carnal. That's not the case here. We have an unconverted man. He has a heart of stone. He can not respond to divine stimuli.

He can not respond as he is to the word of God. He is a stone. If you would only learn this, especially those of you who are younger preachers, if you would only learn this, then this will keep you from joining the circus of evangelicalism.

If I believe that men are something more than a stone hearted monster who will always reject God, if I believe they're not quite that bad, then I can walk out on this pulpit and manipulate men with music, with song, with words, with jokes, with stories, with personality and everything else.

But if I believe that those men have a heart of stone. Then I walk out on this platform as a prophet and I constantly hear ringing in my ears, can these bones live? You know, there's no finagling you can do.

There's no trickery, there's no coercion, there's no manipulation, there's no dimming of the lights, raising the hands, getting people to walk an aisle. All the things that are used to manipulate men psychologically.

No, you know that there must be a supernatural work of God that occurs through your preaching of the gospel. And so you stand there with the mantle of a prophet and you proclaim Christ crucified, risen from the dead.

And you know, if you stand there long enough and you preach faithful enough, God is going to send his spirit who's going to regenerate hearts and they're going to rise up like a new creature, a new army.

And so we preach and that's all we do is preach and we pray. Men's hearts are stone. Put a statue here, doesn't matter if he's seven feet tall, I can kick him, poke him, punch him, everything. He is not going to move a muscle.

He's stone. But if I could turn that stone statue in one moment into a man of flesh, then with every pinch and poke, he will respond, he will respond, he will respond. You see. For someone to be saved, the spirit of almighty God must come and recreate them, must regenerate them.

You see, we hear preachers all the time saying this, they say, well, you know, we just need to show people Jesus, my dear friend. Let's say I had a curtain right here and the Lord Jesus Christ was standing behind it in the fullness of his glory and I pull the curtain back.

That's what preachers say. Let's show the world Jesus and they'll come to him. There's only one problem when the entire audience is blind. So I pull the curtain, they're blind. So some preachers will say, well, yes, they're blind.

But we need to pray that God will open up their eyes. Well, yes, we need to pray that God will open up their eyes, but there's still a bigger problem. What? You see, men are born loving evil and hating God.

So if I pull back the curtain and present Jesus Christ in preaching and God just opens up the eyes of those men unconverted listening, the more they see of Christ, the more they're going to hate him. So you see, it's not just preaching Christ, it's not just giving some sort of spiritual sight to a blind victim.

No, it's then taking that heart that hates God. And literally transforming it by the power, the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit, transforming that person into a new creature recreated in the image of God and true righteousness and true holiness.

And then what happens? This new heart recreated with now new and godly affections, this person's eyes are opened up. And for the first time in his life, he sees Christ. And with this new heart, with godly affections, he cannot do anything but come to him.

He's not coerced. He's not manipulated. He is drawn by his affections because he's been recreated. You see, my dear friend, this whole thing about make your decision, make your decision. Yes, you must repent.

You must trust Christ. But you need to understand something. A supernatural work of God must occur. You become a new creature. If I go out visiting and I go to someone, let's say I'm a pastor of a new of a church and and I go out visiting because someone has told me that there was a man who lives over in the trailer up on the hill who used to come to church five years ago, doesn't come anymore.

And so I go and talk to him and I walk in, he's very polite and I say, yes, sir, how can I how can I help you? And he goes, well, pastor, he goes, I know I need to get to church. I know I need to do the right thing.

Well, sir, I've been hearing that you've not been in church for five years. That's true, pastor. I need to go to church. I need to do the right thing. Well, I've also been hearing that you're a drunkard.

Yes, pastor, you're absolutely right. I've been drinking that old liquor. It's bad. I need to stop it. I just need to do the right thing. Well, I've been hearing also that you're abusive to your wife and you're running around with other women.

Yes, pastor, I've been doing that. And you're right. I'm convicted. I need to stop it and I just need to do the right thing. I need to come back to church and I just need to get right with God. OK, Sunday he shows up.

And everybody is so excited, a sheep has come home. No, he hasn't. A goat has come back to church. Do you hear the language of that man? This is what he's saying. You're right, pastor. I need to stop doing all the wicked things I love and start doing all the righteous things I hate in order to save my soul.

My friend, that is not conversion. That is not salvation, not at all. You see, this is what I want to get in. And it just breaks my heart that by my my lack of intellect and my lack of language prohibits me.