Under a Work of Humiliation in Conversion — E.A. Johnston

Eternity, Hell, and the Diluted Gospel

I don't know about you friends, but a great deal of my time is spent on contemplating about heaven and hell. My thoughts are consumed with the brevity of life and the endlessness of eternity. Even when I see a crowd of people, I can't help but imagine most of them, even some of them good church members, will be spending an eternity in a place of torment and misery called hell.

The Modern Gospel and the Loss of Conviction

If you are under the age of 50, there is a very good chance, friend, that you've never heard the true gospel in your entire lifetime. The predominant version of the gospel from the majority of pulpits in the last five or six decades has been a perverted version of the New Testament original, watered down and diluted of its power to make it more palatable to sinful man.

All the teeth have been removed from the gospel message through the years. In the days of the Puritans, it was common to hear expressions like conviction, compunction, and humiliation in regard to a sound conversion of the soul.

The first part of a gospel presentation by wiser men of former days was comprised of the law as it was thundered about the hearer's ears to shut the sinner up to God and God alone for mercy and saving grace.

The gospel that was preached in former times was a God-centered gospel that brought glory to God in the salvation of man, not the man-centered gospel of today whose focus is the happiness of man rather than the glory of God.

There was a great emphasis placed on man's rune condition, that a blind man cannot open his own eyes and see the light, that a dead man cannot raise himself to life, that salvation was originated by God in a person's life and only God could give a person saving faith.

Unlike today, where we've taken salvation out of the hands of God and placed it in the hands of man, we make ourselves Christians today. But the trouble is, when we do that, we are still in our sins and on our way to a burning hell.

Repentance, Regeneration, and the Preachers of Former Times

There used to be a great emphasis placed on man's duty of repentance. If you study the Second Great Awakening, you will soon learn that if you read the sermons by, say, someone like Asahel Nettleton, who was greatly used as an instrument of revival, you will see from his sermons that man's duty of repentance was a constant theme by preachers of the early part of the 19th century.

And if you were to study the sermons of preachers from the 18th century, you would find that many of those sermons placed a great emphasis on the supernatural act of grace upon the heart called regeneration, and that only God can take the heart of stone and make it a heart of flesh.

And when you study the sermons of the great British evangelist George Whitefield, you will find that his constant theme when preaching was the absolute necessity of regeneration upon the heart in conversion.

Whitefield would cry out, you must be born again. In 1740, during the Great Awakening, Whitefield often preached out in the open air on Boston Common to 20 ,000 hearers at a time, when all of Boston then only had a population of about 60 ,000.

And Whitefield preached so frequently on the doctrine of regeneration that a Boston minister approached him one day and asked, Mr. Whitefield, since you've been among us, you've preached continually on the theme, you must be born again.

When, sir, will you preach a different message? To which the great Whitefield replied, when ye are born again. These preachers of former times knew full well the divine workings of God's grace upon the heart in conviction, compunction, and humiliation.

Humiliation as a Necessary Work in Conversion

Today friends, I want to focus our attention on the third aspect mentioned, humiliation. This, of course, is a foreign topic today in many of our churches, as the church herself is swelled up with pride and man makes himself a Christian today.

And when asked when he became a Christian, he will proudly say, oh, I received Jesus as my Savior at such and such a time. It was a choice he made, entirely up to him, and he could make that choice whenever he chose to, for salvation was entirely up to him if he wanted it.

I believe, friends, there is a vast disconnect today between what true conversion is as opposed to a false conversion. I believe that many today who are members of churches rest upon a false bottom of carnal security.

Their hope of heaven is based on their own self-righteousness and a long track record of service and works. Hopefully, when I'm through preaching today, we will have a clearer understanding of at least this one aspect of how the Holy Spirit works on the sinner's heart in the conversion of a soul, and this aspect of the divine operation of the Spirit is our subject today, friends.

The title of my message today is Under a Work of Humiliation in Conversion. I'll be very transparent with you today. Even though I walked an aisle as a boy of 16 and made a decision for Christ and repeated the sinner's prayer, I did not become a saved individual until later in life, much later.

I was a victim of the modern gospel. That's all I knew. That's all I grew up with, and the fact that I spent a great deal of my life under the sound of Southern Baptist preaching, I was restricted to hear the only-believed gospel of your day and mine.

Repentance was seldom mentioned, at least not as a condition necessary to salvation. We can thank Louis Barry Chafer for that. I wonder how many good Baptists are in hell today because they were victims of the modern gospel.

The Prodigal Son and the Meaning of Luke 15

Let us focus our attention on a particular passage of scripture, and we will read it momentarily. You can turn in your Bibles, friends, to the Gospel of Luke in chapter 15. We will be in the passage pertaining to the prodigal son.

I was always taught in church that the story of the prodigal son represented a backslider who went out to sow his wild oats and enjoy sin for a season, and eventually when he ran out of money and friends, he came back to God and was restored.

At least that's the majority sermon messages I've heard all my life on that subject from that text, but it's the wrong message. It's not even close to what our text relates. When you look at chapter 15 of Luke's Gospel, you see that Jesus is speaking about things which are lost.

There is the parable of the lost sheep, of the lost coin, and of the lost son. Even the father of the prodigal proclaims in verse 24, he was lost and is found. This passage from Luke's Gospel on the prodigal son is about a lost person who is awakened to his lost condition and who goes to the father in humiliation and repentance in the hope of receiving mercy.

That's what the story is about, friends. Our focus today is on the part about his humiliation and the process of his salvation. Let us go to the text now as found in Luke's Gospel in chapter 15, beginning in verse 11.

The Prodigal's Confession and the Father's Mercy

Here now is the word of God. May the spirit of the Lord be pleased to attend the reading of his holy word. And he said, A certain man had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that fall to me.

And he divided unto them his living. And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land, and he began to be in want.

And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into those fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat, and no man gave unto him.

And when he came to himself, he said, How many hard servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger. I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.

Make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.

But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet, and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it, and let us eat, and be merry.

For this my son was dead, and is alive again. He was lost, and is found, and they began to make merry. I will stop there. There are several aspects of this passage which pertain to the conversion of a soul, but our focus at this hour is the work of humiliation upon that soul.

And our main text from this passage, which centers upon this theme, is verse 19, which speaks of humiliation. I am no more worthy to be called thy son. In those words, friends, there is humility. He depends on the mere mercy of God.

He makes no demands of his father. He does not challenge him, or excuse himself in his bad behavior. He does not tell his father that he deserves to be brought back into the father's house. Rather, he admits that all he deserves is damnation.

O father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight. He is shut up to the father, and the mercy of the father. He believes that if the father casts him out, or even destroys him, that he's gotten what he deserves.

He is a subject of humiliation. He has tasted the lowest dregs of that pig pen of sin, and he now repents those sins, and turns from them, and turns to the father, and comes to the father, as a beggar would come, expecting nothing more than mere mercy.

He realizes he is bankrupt of self. He makes no demands, nor claims any rights. He comes empty handed, but his hands are cupped in the form of humiliation, as a beggar for bread and mercy. Here is a picture of Isaiah 55 -1, which states, Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.

And he that hath no money, come ye, buy and eat. Yea, come, buy wine and milk, without money and without price. The prodigal son does not rest upon any excellency in himself, but comes as a poor beggar, seeking favor and grace.

He has nothing to offer God. He comes without money, or without price. He casts himself entirely on the father for mercy and free grace. He is forced out from himself, and any good opinion of himself, for he knows his own righteousness is but mere filthy rags in the sight of the father.

He is a man, under a work of humiliation, coming to God with his whole heart, bringing nothing more than his great need of salvation. This, friends, is a sound basis for a sound conversion. Let me share with you my own conversion experience.

A Testimony of Conviction and Humiliation

I had a pass under, a work of humiliation for God to save me. I had been brought up under the sound of the modern gospel, where you became a Christian by physically responding to an altar call. You walk an aisle, repeat a prayer, and accept Jesus into your heart as your personal Savior.

That's all I ever knew. That's what the pastor told me to do, and that's what I did. But the trouble was, I wasn't a saved individual, but a lost church member. I served faithfully in my church for years as a lost church member, completely unaware of my false security.

One day, I was home alone, reading a sermon from the 18th century by a man named Solomon Stoddard. He was the grandfather of Jonathan Edwards. The name of that sermon was, The Way to Know Sincerity and Hypocrisy Cleared Up.

And while I read that sermon, something happened to me. Something dramatic happened to me. I became gripped with the conviction of sin. I was pricked in my conscience with compunction over my wretched sins, and I saw them stacked up against me high like a huge mountain.

I was quite suddenly awakened to my lost condition, but I wouldn't believe it. I argued with God and reminded Him of how I had already joined the church and all the good I'd done in His name through the years for the cause of Christ and His kingdom.

But the stark reality of my lost condition was all I saw. And it was so terrifying, I dropped down to my knees. I was seized with terror and alarm to my condition, for I felt God was revealing to me that I was not only on my way to hell, but that I deserved to go there.

At first, I fought this notion and argued that I was already saved and not on my way to hell, but eventually I saw my true condition, and all my false props of self-righteousness and works were kicked out from beneath me.

I agreed with God that I deserved hell, and this is where I came under the work of humiliation during this time of my conversion. I saw that I was nothing more than a lost church member who had never truly been washed of my sins.

I began to wrestle with God that day, friends, so to speak. I wrestled with Him that afternoon for the next three hours in my study on the floor, on my face on that floor. My tears made my carpet soaking wet as I was in deep anguish and in prayer over my lost soul.

I pounded the floor with my fists until I was exhausted. All I could do was to throw myself on the mercy of God and His grace. I was shut up to God and God alone for my salvation. There I was, a self-righteous church member who had been resting his hope of heaven on a long track record of good works and service.

But God got me lost that day, friends. God brought me under a true work of humiliation on that day, friends. God gave me the grace of repentance and faith on that day, friends, for I finally rose to my feet on that day.

I saved man, blessed God, saved from my sins. I was an object of mercy. I blessed His holy name. Now I'm not saying that everybody should get saved the same way. God works different means on different individuals.

Examining the Reality of Repentance and Faith

But for a proud church member like myself, He had to bring me under a work of humiliation for me to get truly saved. How about you, friend? What is your testimony? Is salvation something you did 20 years ago and you put it away in a tin can?

Or are you daily exercising repentance toward God and daily turning from this world and sin toward God and faith? Faith is something that needs exercise like any part of your human system. I learned that repentance is a daily act and that my faith is exercised on a regular basis.

Let me ask you a question. Are your sins washed in the blood and are you born from above? Is repentance and regeneration something that is real in your life? Are you dead to sin or are you still dead in sin?

May God grant you the grace to see your own true condition. And if you are not yet washed from your sins, may you like the prodigal say, I will arise and go to my father and go empty handed to that cross, friend, without money or without price.

Let us pray.