The Impact of Truth on an Unbeliever vs. a Christian | Clip from SFC: Conversion

Another question that Blair deals with here is being able to distinguish between the normal response of a lost person, of an unregenerate person. So let's imagine a person in church that hears these truths, you know, hears the Bible preached, and the conscience is affected.

Reads the Bible, the mind is filled with great truths. And maybe even during certain sermons, the heart, the emotions are stirred up. And even the external behavior is restrained. Like, I used to do this, but since I started going to church, I quit.

I quit doing that. Now, Blair warns that there is a common grace, or there is an impact that these truths have on everybody, but that does not mean you've been born again. So how would you distinguish between kind of the normal impact of truth on a person in church and the supernatural impact of truth when the Spirit makes us alive?

One difference that we could see is the nature of the fruit, is a depth of fruitfulness versus maybe, you know, you can think of the parable of the soil. So there are plants that spring up, and for different reasons, they don't endure.

So shallowness, short-lived nature of fruit, does a person turn away, or do they endure? So those would be some ways that we could distinguish between a person who is affected by the truth, but not really changed, and a person who has come to life.

The Parable of the Soils and the Test of Perseverance

Yeah, you know, I mean, we can't really see this verbally, I mean, you know, from the outside. But one question is, are the changes coming up from within? I have new desires. I have a new understanding.

I have a new love. And as you and I were talking earlier to each other about this, that there can be a lot of changes that are accomplished from a legalism, you know, kind of a legal righteousness. I'll quit doing these things, and I'll start doing these things, whatever my preacher tells me I'm supposed to do for this church, this denomination.

And every church has kind of its own pet things. So it's easy to give people an unspoken list, look like our church folks, talk like them, dress like them. You know, whether we're homeschool or Christian school, there's a long list.

We don't want to do that. We want God to change the heart. And as that person sees Christ and embraces Christ, there would be an evangelical, not a legal righteousness. And the difference is gratitude.

Because of what He's done for me, for gratitude of that, I want to obey my new King. Book of Hebrews is another good help. As you mentioned, so shallow changes, just the surface stuff, but no change of my heart's desires.

That's not the new birth. Short-lived changes. I seem to really be doing well, but in a year, you won't catch me at church. Hebrews, in such a terrifying way, gives us a number of warnings for those people who have gone very far in religion, but turn back at some point.

And the argument in Hebrews is that in turning back, you have demonstrated, really, that you never were His. And there is no hope for you, because in turning away from Christ, there isn't another option for life.

You turned away from the one hope. So really, very frightening passages there in Hebrews. Very big difference between just being affected by religious truth and being born from above, and the deep and lasting changes that the Spirit works.

Legal Righteousness Versus Evangelical Righteousness

That does remind me of a helpful illustration that Vernon Hyam used to do all the time. And it was kind of an unspoken kind of joke in the church, and it was 900 people in the church, which is quite unusual for Britain in the early 21st century.

He used to say, imagine that this, your hand, is you. And at the heart, your palm, is your soul. And your fingers represent the different faculties of the human soul. So we have the mind. We have the will.

We have the affections, or the heart. We have the conscience and memory. So you have these five things. Sometimes, I mean, normally when I describe it, I just think of three, but it doesn't fit the hand illustration as well.

So, you know, there's two different ways of thinking of the way God changes a person. You can think that God starts from the outside and works in. So God gives you enough information. God convinces you with arguments that are strong enough to make you change the way you behave.

God attracts you, you know, with alluring promises so that the heart suddenly wants, you know, and on and on. And is that how God works? Well, while these are ways that we are, you know, confronted with truth, really, God works here first.

He makes this alive. And then, spreading out from this new nature, become there is a mind that understands, you know. There is a will that chooses. A heart that desires. You know, the conscience that's receptive.

A memory that now grabs hold of truth instead of the things that we are ashamed of. So, a wonderful change and the way God does it. Well, thank you for watching the clip. We hope that it was helpful for you.

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