Conversion to Jesus Christ (11)

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Gods preparation for the sinner (5)

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Well on recent Sundays we had considered the biblical teaching regarding God's way of preparing sinners for the occasion in which they come to salvation.
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Last Lord's Day we began to describe the actual conversion event when God begins to transform the soul, and so we were addressing the matter of calling.
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A general call of God to all creatures, yes, but that's not sufficient to save people. God must extend a powerful call, a heavenly call, an effectual call to his people in order for them to experience conversion onto Jesus Christ.
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The Bible of course repeatedly refers to this calling of the sinner onto salvation. It's found in numerous places.
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It presents, of course, God as being sovereign in this matter of extending this call. It presumes, the
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Scriptures presume, the inability of man to convert himself because he's a sinner. God has to do it.
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We're saved by grace, and so we believe in salvation by God's grace and by God's grace alone.
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In other words, we would advocate, the Bible teaches, a term that's commonly used is monergism.
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You see the the preface, mono, singular, monergism.
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It's God who works alone in bringing salvation. We don't believe in synergism, which is the kind of gospel that is proclaimed by most of the evangelical world, in which they teach that God saves people according to his grace, but in conjunction with man's free will, and between the two, the sinner and God, the two of them get together, and it results in salvation.
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Now we understand to be God sovereign in this dispensing of salvation through Jesus Christ.
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It's holy of God, not ourselves. And then last, Lord's Day, regarding this matter of calling, we consider
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Romans 8, 28 through 30, where this calling of God is specifically identified, where Paul wrote, we know that all things work together for good to those who love
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God, to those who are the called, there it is, according to his purpose, for whom he foreknew, and that's in eternity past.
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He knew us, he loved us, we were elect. He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of his
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Son, so that he, that is the Son, might be the firstborn among many brethren, a large family of God, Christ being the elder son.
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Moreover, whom God predestinated, these he also called, and so there you have it, and whom he called he also justified.
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That's the point when the person believes the gospel and is pardoned and declared righteous.
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And then whom he justified, these he also glorified, anticipation of our future glory, although in a sense we've already been glorified.
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And so here are the steps of grace in which God brings his own to salvation by grace.
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He chooses them to be saved, speaks of election, the choice, predestination, speaks of the end or the design for which he chose his people.
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And so at a point in time, in every Christian's life, God effectually calls that one to himself to receive salvation.
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And then God justifies the ones who come to him, and he forgives them, credits
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Christ's righteousness to them through faith alone, and then again he glorifies each of them that he's justified.
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We gave last week this definition of what the Bible teaches, respecting God's effectual call, and this is from the
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Westminster Shorter Catechism, very good definition. Effectual calling is the work of God's Spirit whereby convincing us of our sin and misery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ and renewing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace
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Jesus Christ freely offered us in the gospel. And so Jesus Christ is freely offered in the gospel to every person in the world, and we're to proclaim that sincerely to every creature, but only those whom the
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Lord calls effectually will be enabled to embrace
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Jesus Christ, otherwise they wouldn't do it. We can invite people all day long to Christ, they won't come unless the
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Holy Spirit works a work of grace in their souls. Now we want to begin today by considering another passage that speaks to this subject that we've been addressing,
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God's effectual call of sinners, and we read the passage already, 2nd Timothy 1 8 through 14 actually,
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I believe we read through 14, but it's through verse 11. Here Paul was writing to Timothy with respect to the gospel.
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Paul encouraged a young minister to be bold in the gospel, for both he and Timothy had been the recipients of God's saving grace that had been wrought in them by the gospel.
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And so Paul described God who had saved them, having called them by his irresistible grace, effectual calling.
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And so Paul wrote, therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God.
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And after mentioning God, he gave these few relative clauses to describe
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God who has saved us and called us, there it is, called us with a holy calling, that's that effectual call, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began.
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And so the calling came in history within our lives, but it was actually given to us,
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God's purpose was set down, he decreed that we would come to salvation even before time began.
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Now let's just consider a few statements within this passage. First, let's consider what the Lord had done for them who has saved us and called us with a holy calling.
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God had saved them, and meaning that God had delivered them from sin and from God's wrath upon sin.
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God had brought them out of a condition of misery and condemnation into a state of God's forgiveness and favor, and moreover
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God had called them, that is, from having been at a great distance from God, God called them unto himself, brought them unto him.
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And now, although the order of words suggest that God saved them, then called them, we know that this was not Paul's meaning,
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God had saved them by calling them. It was an effectual call, God's purpose to save them, and he did so, it was all of grace.
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And so Paul described God's calling to salvation here as a holy calling, he called us with a holy calling.
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The calling is holy because it comes forth from a holy God, that's one reason it's a holy calling, but it's also holy because the call results in fallen men becoming regarded by God as holy, even as he begins a work in them to make them holy.
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When you respond to the gospel, God sets you apart, he sanctifies you positionally, you're a saint, you're a holy one, because this holy calling made you so,
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God sets you apart. And then, of course, that work of sanctification, he brings this process, it's lifelong, of making you holy, making you more like Jesus Christ.
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And so God's effectual call, his holy call, initiated this work of God in the center, so that center becomes and becomes like a saint, a holy one.
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And then secondly, we read the cause for which the Lord did this for them. Paul first expressed what was not the cause, he expressed it negatively, saying it was not due to any merit on their part, not according to our works.
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There was nothing about Paul or Timothy that moved God to call them to salvation, effectually.
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It was not because God foresaw something they would do, and therefore called them.
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It wasn't because of something they might do, or could do, or would do, but rather it was not according to works, it was according to God's grace, not according to our works.
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And so there he speaks of the cause negatively, but then Paul speaks positively, the cause of God calling them to salvation, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began.
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So God called them according to his purpose. It wasn't your purpose or my purpose to be saved, it was his purpose.
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This of course alludes to God's election of Paul and Timothy in eternity, and again his predestination of them onto their salvation.
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Before time began, before creation, God decreed all things that would come to pass in history. History is basically an unfolding, a realization of God's decrees.
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And so before time, God purposed to save Paul and Timothy. Before time began, God purposed to save you if he has called you unto himself, or if one day he does call you unto himself.
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It's because he purposed to do so, and he did so from eternity. The Bible teaches sovereign grace.
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It's all of the Lord. And so effectual calling is the work of God whereby he brings his elect, and that's a perfectly good biblical word.
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People react to it, but they shouldn't. Brings his elect into a saving relationship with himself.
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It is the fulfilling of his purpose, according to his purpose, to call his beloved ones unto himself.
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And so it's through God's effectual call that God begins this work of salvation that he ordained in eternity, that his elect would receive freely from him.
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And again, this is in accordance with what we read in Romans 8 earlier. Whom he predestined or predestined, these he also called.
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Whom he called, these he also justified. We might attempt to answer the question, why is it necessary that God effectually call his elect unto salvation?
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And of course, I'm always calling upon these old Puritans because they were so good and thorough in their answer.
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And Thomas Boston answered this question, why is it necessary that God calls us effectually?
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And he gave a number of reasons. First, well, they were far off from God, and so God needs to call them unto himself.
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That's a good reason. Ephesians 2 13, But now, in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have been made near by the blood of Christ.
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We were far off, so God had to call us. We would have never found Jesus. Jesus came and found us, as the shepherd finds a lost sheep, doesn't he?
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It's all of grace. Boston went on. Secondly, they are hard and fast asleep, and they need his call.
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Ephesians 5 14, Awake you who sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light. That's why
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God needs to call you, because you're not only far off, but you're asleep, and so he needs to awaken you, call you.
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However, thirdly, if they are awakened, they would not know where to go, and so they need God's calling.
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There is those who are awakened on the day of Pentecost. But what was their reaction to the Apostles?
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Acts 2 37, Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, said to Peter, the rest of the Apostles, men and brethren, what shall we do?
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You know, here they are, far off, they were asleep, they're awakened now, but they don't know which way to go, and so you have a need for God to call them.
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Over here, come here, come here to Christ. Then fourthly, if they did know where to go, they're not willing to go there.
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John 5 40, But you are not willing to come to me, that you may have life. And so they need an effectual call.
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And fifth, if they were willing to go to Christ, yet being awakened, they dare not venture, because guilt so stares them in the face.
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While the man is asleep, it's nothing to him to believe to come to Christ. Like people that walk in their sleep, they can go anywhere fearlessly.
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But when he is awakened, it's not so easy. He will then be like Adam, hiding himself on hearing the voice of the
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Lord, and will not come until he's called by the Lord himself. And then sixth, lastly, why do we need the effectual call?
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Because if they durst or dare to come, yet they cannot come unless they are drawn, as we read
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John 6 44. In other words, they have no ability. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.
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So there are some good reasons why we need to be saved by an effectual call.
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It won't happen any other way. Now, last Lord's Day, we began to explain the nature of God's effectual call, and so we spoke about God's illumination, where God, the
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Holy Spirit, illuminates the soul to his need, and illuminates the soul, that is, informs the mind, the soul, of the remedy that is in Christ.
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And so this is a work of God's grace, in which he reveals saving truth to the one that he is purposed to call to salvation.
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It's part of calling, one can say, this grace of illumination. And so when
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God extends his inward effectual call to salvation, he calls his people to understand and to value spiritual reality, spiritual truth.
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But in our discussion of this matter last week, we were careful to point out that God commonly illuminates lost people, that he's not intended to bring salvation.
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And we saw that in Hebrews 6, didn't we? That they were enlightened by God.
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The fact is, God is able and does frequently illuminate people to spiritual truth, but that illumination does not result in their salvation.
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So there's a measure of illumination that goes out with that general call of the gospel to all the world. And so God can reveal to people, giving them understanding of his ways, as well as insight to their own spiritual needy condition, and yet they're never converted to Christ.
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This is consistent with the idea of a general call. The general call of God through the gospel may be accompanied with much understanding, even understanding given by the
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Holy Spirit, but it does not result in salvation. But thankfully there is
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God's illumination of the sinner that does result in salvation. And this form of illumination accompanies
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God's effectual call of his people onto their salvation. So when God brings salvation to an individual,
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God himself teaches that person that he is a sinner and that Christ is the
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Savior. Illumination. This isn't to take away, of course, from the human instrument, say the preacher or the witness, but when the individual whom
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God intends to save hears the word of God taught or preached, and if it's in God's timing and God's purpose,
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God himself opens the eyes of that person to understand the reality and the importance of that truth.
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One of the reasons that Paul was convinced of the election of the Christians in the church at Thessalonica is that when he came and preached the word to them, you didn't receive it as the word of men but as it is in truth the very words of God.
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That was God effectually calling them, and the way they responded and received it, that convinced
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Paul that God had elected them from eternity. That's one of the ways you can know you're one of the elect.
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It's how you hear the word of God. It's not just the words of this guy standing up there in that pulpit.
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God is speaking to me. This is true, and I know it's true. That's the work of the Holy Spirit that's working in your soul, and this is what he does when he calls people, and so we're not denigrating in any way the role and the importance of the witness of the preacher, but there's something more.
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This is God's illumination of this sinner on to salvation. We considered last week how first the grace of God illumination that results in salvation is a sovereign act of God's power, just like when he created the world.
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Let there be light. There is light, and he comes to you as a non -christian, says, let there be light, and then there's light.
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There's understanding up to your condition, understanding of the remedy in Christ, a recognition of its truthfulness.
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You know it's true, even when you may be initially objecting to it, reacting to it, rejecting it.
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Nevertheless, you know, there's a realization there that there's truth here, and we pointed out also last week that spiritual illumination is more than knowledge of biblical words and theological ideas.
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The grace of illumination that results in salvation results in the sinner seeing and embracing
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Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. He sees Christ vividly with the eye of faith, and we also considered how spiritual illumination is both through the
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Word of God as well as the operation of the Holy Spirit. Both are used by God, and that's how we concluded last
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Lord's Day. So let's take off from there. Let's continue from there. Fourthly, spiritual illumination may be understood as occurring in two forms, and again we've already talked about this, but now we're going to talk about a little bit more thoroughly.
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There is an illumination of spiritual truth that does not result in salvation, and there is an illumination of truth to the soul that always results in salvation.
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Some have referred to this as external illumination over against internal illumination.
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I don't know that I like that distinction. Perhaps it would be preferable to think in terms of general or special illumination, just as there's general and effectual calling, there's general and special illumination.
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I don't know. Let's first consider external illumination that does not itself result in salvation.
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This form of illumination occurs when God gives understanding of his Word, but this understanding does not convert the sinner.
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The Bible does not use the term external with respect to illumination, but the Scriptures clearly speak of a calling that involves illumination that is not efficacious.
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It does not save the soul, but in this calling the sinner is brought to understand a degree of spiritual truth.
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And so, for example, in the parable of the marriage feast in Matthew 22, Jesus spoke of the kingdom of heaven being like a certain king who arranged a marriage for his son, and he sent out servants to call those who were invited to the wedding.
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So people were informed about this wedding. They were invited to this wedding, and they were invited and encouraged to prepare to come, and of course excuses were made, and they refused.
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And so the master said to a servant, the wedding is ready, but those who are invited were not worthy.
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Go into the highways, as many as you find, invite to the wedding. And so they went out to the highways, gathered together all whom they found, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.
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And then we found this one man, of course, that was not prepared, not dressed rightly, and he was cast out.
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The concluding words of our Lord, for many are called, but few are chosen. And so there the calling would be the general call, right, not effectual call, but the general call.
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The few are chosen would be those who receive the effectual call. But in that many who are called, there's a lot of information that is conveyed.
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People understand what's being offered, and people hear the gospel, and they know what's at stake. If it's been made clear to them, they're sinners, they're going to be damned for their sin on the day of judgment, but there's a way of escape in Jesus Christ, and they can understand this, rehearse it, maybe even believe it's true, but it doesn't impact their lives.
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And God can even illuminate them, impress them. They might go through a period of great conviction for a time.
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My grandmother, who died at the age of 93, I believe, yeah, 93, born on the middle day of the middle month in 1900,
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June 15, 1900. And her dad was a preacher who raised his nine kids in the
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Lord. He married my great -grandmother, who was not a Christian. My great -grandfather died when my grandmother was nine, and the
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Christian instruction stopped. He used to read the Bible to them every night, read from the classics every night, taught them in the scriptures, and he died, and that came to an end.
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But my grandmother grew and, through life, had a very good understanding of the scriptures.
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She'd visit our church. People would remark to me, oh, what a godly, saintly woman your grandmother is.
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But she wasn't. In 1920, she had an infant die after a couple months.
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It would have been the firstborn older sister of my dad, and a Christian science neighbor befriended her.
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She became Christian science and was so throughout her life until she died, although she could talk a good
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Christianity. And yet, I asked her one time about her soul, and she said, oh yeah,
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I remember being saved. It was in a tent revival in Fresno, California, sawdust on the on the ground, and I went forward, and it stuck with me for about three years, she said.
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And yet, you know, she wasn't truly converted, and yet she was illuminated. She spoke about the influence of her father, the influence of the gospel, and how it had affected her, and it affected her in such a degree she could talk about it throughout her whole life, but she was never converted, sadly.
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And so this happens. Our Lord taught the same kind of lesson in Luke 14, the parable of the
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Great Supper, where many people are invited, but they made excuses.
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I had married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. Other reasons were given, and our
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Lord said, for I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste of my supper. Well, the very invitation, you know, involves an impartation of information about what's going on, and so there are many that are illuminated through the truth of the
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Word of God, maybe even by the Spirit of God, and yet it does not result in them being converted.
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And so these parables reveal the fact that God graciously invites many to salvation who never do come through faith and repentance, but in this gracious act of God, he reveals or illuminates people of the great blessing they could receive freely from God through faith in Christ.
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And so God may externally illuminate people, if we want to use that word externally, in other words superficially, intellectually, in the mind, the facts of the gospel.
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Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation, an understanding of God's promise of forgiveness and new life of Christ, but they fail to be converted, and in fact, of course, their condemnation will be aggravated on the
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Day of Judgment because they knew their Master's will and did not do it. And our Lord Jesus used the analogy of a master and his servant, and those who have much knowledge from whom they will be much required, and they will be those who committed these things deserving of stripes shall be beaten with few who had less knowledge, but those who knew and refused or failed shall be beaten with many stripes.
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There will be degrees of punishment in hell, and the ones who knew the gospel, who knew the truth of the matter, and yet refused or failed to respond will be punished far greater than those who never knew.
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But again, something more is needed than that just this external illumination, because a person can go so far as even be instructed by the
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Holy Spirit himself, and yet be short of true salvation. As Paul expressed, though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries, all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I can remove mountains and have not love,
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I am nothing. There are many who assume wrongly that because somebody has a spiritual gift they must be a
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Christian. It's not necessarily so, interestingly. Peter wrote of false teachers in the church who had been ordained to condemnation, who had nevertheless encountered a measure of moral reformation in their lives through their knowledge of Jesus Christ.
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Now these are false teachers, they were never converted, but their lives had been cleaned up by the teaching of the
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Bible, by the gospel. For he said at the end of the passage, for if after they, and he's talking of false teachers, if they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the
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Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.
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For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness than having known it to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them.
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They did not lose their salvation, although those who teach that commonly go to this passage. Now later he says they are just as dogs who return to their vomit, pigs to their wallowing.
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They were cleaned up for a while, but they went back to what was natural for them. But you'll notice they cleaned up themselves through knowledge of the scriptures, they were illuminated to the truth of God.
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They even stood and taught people from the Bible, and yet they apostatized in the end, and they were worse off for it.
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And so we see that God must do more than merely help people to understand the truth intellectually and emotionally.
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People can get excited, the parable of the sower, the seed sown in one kind of soil.
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Immediately there was growth, but when the heat of the day came, you know, it withered.
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There are some who received the gospel and they seem to believe, and their lives seem to show some evident sign, well this is a great convert, we're gonna see great things from him or her.
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And in a year or two they wash out for one reason or another. And so there's something more that needs to be done than just truth intellectually and emotionally understood and even embraced.
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There has to be what some have referred to as internal or special illumination, which comes with this effectual calling.
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So let's consider this. What's the difference, or what do you get in internal illumination, if we want to use that term, that is more than what we've just been describing?
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Well, internal illumination occurs when God gives understanding of his word so as to transform a person.
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This is the work of the Holy Spirit in which he reveals not only the reality, but listen to this, the significance of the biblical truth to individuals.
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And this is all important. You need to do more than just know the truth. You've got to value the truth, see its significance, and thereby conform yourself to it.
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Spiritual internal illumination results in that. Either while reading the
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Bible or hearing the Bible taught, God enables people to understand spiritual truth through his work of illumination.
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But with this hearing there is power. The sinner is struck with the reality of it.
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It's true. I know it's true. And then the sinner is struck with the importance of it.
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This is vital. It's not just truth, but this has significance and importance. And the sinner is struck with the responsibility to respond to it.
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It must be obeyed. I've got to conform to this. This is the work of spiritual illumination, coupled of course with regeneration, the new birth that we'll be talking about more about in detail,
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Lord willing, next week. And so God causes his elect one to see the reality and the relevance of what
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God says respecting his sin, his need of salvation, his need for repentance, his remedy that's in Christ alone.
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And so the illuminated sinner possesses a desire to conform his faith and life to the gospel that he has come to understand and value.
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And that's the key. This illumination may be quite remarkable and have quite a significant impact on a person.
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The Holy Spirit opens the eyes of a person to see the truth of what God says about sin, about God's righteousness and the certainty of God's salvation.
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And he's no longer the same as a result. The person is made vividly aware of the person of Christ and the way of salvation.
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This person, because the truth is so vivid, embraces it, or so it would seem. And he may do many things to show that he believes what he's come to understand.
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And this internal illumination is evident when the knowledge of the gospel produces a true turning from sin unto
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Christ as Lord and Savior. And so this person is convicted of personal sin.
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This person comes to understand that Christ is more than just a Savior. He confesses
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Jesus is my Lord and my Savior, not just Savior.
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And we see clearly it's the Lord Jesus. We talked about how the Father illuminates, the
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Son illuminates, the Holy Spirit illuminates. We see clearly that the Lord Jesus illuminates people to spiritual truth.
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And we can see it, for example, in the account of our Lord on the Day of His Resurrection when he spoke with two of his disciples on the road to Emmaus.
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Luke 24, 27 we read, our Lord conducted a Bible study with two of his disciples.
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And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
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We might say with just a casual reading of that, this is an example of that external illumination that we're talking about.
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People can go to Bible studies, they can go to church, they can learn a lot of things. Well, we read then later that our
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Lord gave a more full understanding of the truth in these matters. And so in Luke 24, 44 we read of their recounting the scriptures, and actually we read of the
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Lord informing them more fully of the scriptures. He said to them, these are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses and the prophets and the
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Psalms concerning me. This is what he taught them. But then notice secondarily, and he opened their understanding that they might comprehend the scriptures.
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The Lord Jesus illuminated them. They had an inward comprehension in which the relevance and the importance of the truth of the scriptures was made clear to them.
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John Flavel, who we quoted last week from his book, The Fountain of Life Open, wrote of the need and importance of this internal illumination of God to the sinner.
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And indeed there is but little excellency in all those petty notions which furnish the lips with discourse, unless by a sweet and powerful influence they draw the conscience and will to the obedience of Christ.
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Light in the mind is necessarily antecedent to the sweet and heavenly motions and elevations of the affections.
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The words, your loves, the things you desire, your emotions, the things you are attracted to.
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For the farther any man stands from the light of truth, the farther he must needs be from the heat of comfort.
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Heavenly quickening are begotten in the heart while the son of righteousness spreads the beams of truth into the understanding and the soul sits under those its wings.
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Yet all the light of the gospel spreading and diffusing itself into the mind can never savingly open and change the heart without another act of Christ upon it.
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And what that is, the text informs you, then he opened their understandings that they might understand the scriptures.
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And that's what God does when he saves a person. He illuminates them. So really both external and internal illumination are necessary.
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One might describe this need as the importance of informing both the mind but also the necessity of informing or stirring the heart.
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It's not just an intellectual issue, is it? Again, John Flavel wrote of the
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Lord Jesus illuminating the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. And look at the initial understanding, but then again the imparting of the relevance of it, the importance of it to these disciples.
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Christ's act upon their understandings, he opened their understandings. By understanding is not here meant the mind only in opposition to the heart will and affections, but these were opened by and with the mind.
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The mind is to the heart as the door to the house. What comes into the heart comes at the understanding which is introductive to it.
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And although sometimes go no farther than the entry, never penetrate the hearts, that would be the external illumination, yet here this effect is undoubtedly included.
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Expositors make this expression parallel to that of Acts 16 14, the Lord opened the heart of Lydia.
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And it's well observed that it is one thing to open the scriptures, that is to expound them and give the meaning of them, as Paul is said to do in Acts 18 3.
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And another thing to open the mind and heart as it is here. There are, as a learned man and truly observes, two doors of the soul barred against Christ, the understanding by ignorance and the heart by hardness.
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That's very good. Both these are opened by Christ. The former is opened by the preaching of the gospel, the other by the internal operation of the
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Spirit. The former belongs to the first part of Christ's prophetical office, opened in the foregoing sermon.
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The latter to that special internal part of his prophetical office, to be opened in this.
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And that it was not a naked act upon their minds only, but that their hearts and minds did work in fellowship, being both touched by this act of Christ, is evident enough by the effects mentioned, verses 52 and 53.
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They returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple praising and blessing
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God. It is confessed that before this time Christ had opened their hearts by conversion.
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This opening is not to be understood simply, but secundum quid. Puritans always threw in those
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Latin phrases, in reference to those particular truths in which till now they were not sufficiently informed, and so their hearts could not be duly affected with them.
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They were very dark in their apprehensions of the death and resurrection of Christ, and consequently their hearts were sad and dejected about that which had befallen him.
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But when he opened the Scriptures and their understandings and hearts together, then things appeared with another face, and they returned blessing and praising
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God. Jonathan Edwards wrote a sermon.
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We're not going to read this because it's rather lengthy, and he's kind of wordy and difficult, but it's true, it's factual.
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And the title of the sermon, it speaks of this illumination, a divine and supernatural light immediately imparted to the soul by the
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Spirit of God, shown to be both scriptural and rational doctrine. Don't you love it?
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Those old titles, they would let you know exactly what they were saying. And he talks about the word then is not mere conviction of sin and misery, but rather there is an internal work of God's grace in illuminating people.
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I do want to draw your attention, however, to some of Arthur Pink's words at the bottom of page 7 of your notes.
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When he speaks, wrote of the transforming nature of spiritual illumination, which he refers to as spiritual enlightenment, and this is in from his book on the
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Holy Spirit. By this anointing or enlightenment, the quickened soul is enabled to perceive the true nature of sin, opposition against God, expressed in self -pleasing.
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And by it, he discerns the plague of his own heart and finds that he is a moral leper, totally depraved, corrupted the very center of his being.
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And by it, he detects the deception of Satan, which formerly made him believe that bitter was sweet and sweet bitter.
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By it, he apprehends the claims of God, that he's absolutely worthy of and infinitely entitled to be loved with all his heart, soul, and strength.
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And by it, he learns God's way of salvation, that the path of practical holiness is the only way which leads to heaven.
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And by it, he beholds the perfect suitability and sufficiency of Christ, that he is the only one who could meet all
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God's claims upon him. And by it, he feels his own impotence unto all that is good and presents himself as an empty vessel to be filled out of Christ's fullness.
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A divine light now shines into the quickened soul. See, he sees this internal illumination as accompanied regeneration and the new birth, the quickened soul made alive.
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Before he was darkness, and now he's light in the Lord. He now perceives that those things in which he once found pleasure are loathsome and damnable.
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His former concepts of the world and its enjoyments he now sees to be erroneous and ensnaring, and apprehends that no real happiness or contentment is to be found in any of them.
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That holiness of heart and strictness of life, which before he criticized as needless preciseness or puritanical extreme, is now looked upon not only as absolutely necessary, but as most beautiful and blessed.
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Those moral and religious performances he once prided himself in, and which he supposed merited the approval of God, he now regards as filthy rags.
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Those whom he once envied he now pities. The company he once delighted in now sickens and saddens him.
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His whole outlook is completely changed. Divine illumination then is the Holy Spirit imparting to the quickened soul accurate and spiritual views of divine things.
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To hear and understand is peculiar to the good ground hearer, the parable of the sower. None but the real disciple knows the truth.
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Even the gospel is hid from the lost. But when a quickened soul is enlightened by the Spirit, he has a feeling realization of the excellence of the divine character, the spirituality of God's law, the exceeding sinfulness of his sin in general, and his own vileness in particular.
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It's a divine work which capacitates the soul to have real communion with God, to receive or take in spiritual objects, enjoy them, and live upon them.
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It is in this way that Christ is formed in us. Thus at times the Christian is able to say, thy shining grace can cheer this dungeon where I dwell, tis paradise when thou art here, if thou depart tis hell.
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Pink's always good, isn't he? Because he was informed, instructed by Puritans before him.
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He's always quoting them. Of course, spiritual illumination is an act of God's grace.
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Through the instrument of his word, being taught and preached, or being read and studied, meditated upon.
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If you're in the Scriptures, you're not going to experience the illumination we're talking about.
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Sometimes this grace of illumination occurs gradually. At other times,
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God grants a sudden unveiling of the truth to the soul. It comes in both forms.
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When I was in Munich, Germany, you could see a kind of characterization or a characteristic of the
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Germans who were non -christian. They'd come to church and they'd listen with a critical ear and consider carefully what you had to say.
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And then they would make a study of it. They would go home and read their Bibles.
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They might even study what the opposition says, what the cults say. And they would work through this, sometimes, you know, for a number of weeks, several months.
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The Lord was at work in that, and I can think of several persons right now. They came back at the end, committed to Christ, after a careful, thorough deliberation.
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And they stuck, even though it came on kind of gradually, after a great deliberation.
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Whereas, on the other hand, you'd have some Americans come in and they would jump right in with great enthusiasm and zeal.
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And they would stick too. But God works differently in people's lives, and sometimes differently with different kinds of people because of their background and what has gone in to influence their lives.
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But it can be a sudden thing, and it's a wonderful thing when we see this sudden work of grace.
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We see this, and we want to close with this because I think it's important to understand this. We see this,
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I think, both gradual as well as sudden impartation of truth expressed in Ephesians chapter 1.
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We're not going to go into great detail there. I'm just going to describe it in my own words. You can read it, my notes, at your own time.
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But the Apostle Paul said that after he had heard of the faith and the love of these saints in the church at Ephesus, he began to pray for them.
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In fact, he ceased not to pray for them. They had come to Christ. They had salvation, but they didn't know a lot.
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They probably thought that, you know, they had heard the gospel. They responded. They probably thought that, you know, they had basically saved themselves by their own free will.
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People are born Arminians, and many times they come into the Christian faith as Arminians. I was.
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You probably were too, unless you were taught better. But the
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Apostle Paul wanted them to understand that it was actually God that had been at work in saving them.
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And so he spoke in a lengthy sentence, it's about 12 or 14 verses long in Ephesians 1, about how
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God elected them from eternity to be saved. And then he again voiced, he says, since I heard of your faith and your love for the saints,
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I've ceased not to pray for you, that God would give you a spirit of wisdom and a spirit of revelation and the knowledge of yourself.
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And then he said, so that you would comprehend or be illuminated in three things. And he spelled out those three things toward the end of Ephesians 1.
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And the bottom line is, basically he wanted them to understand that they were the objects of God's saving grace.
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It's God that illuminated them. It is God who raised them from the spiritually dead unto spiritual life, even when they were dead sinners.
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But he said he prayed that God would give them a spirit of wisdom and a spirit of revelation and the knowledge of these things.
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And I would argue that if there is a difference between the spirit of wisdom and the spirit of revelation, it's this. The spirit of wisdom would be the learning, the acquiring of information gradually, say by teaching or reading the
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Word, hearing it taught, the spirit of wisdom. But the spirit of revelation, that's the
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Greek words from apocalypse or the word apocalypse is taken from it, the unveiling, apocalypsios, the spirit of revelation.
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And this is the sudden appearing, the sudden unveiling. And so Paul was praying that God would enable them to grow in their understanding and knowledge, but that also
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God would turn on the lights that they would suddenly see the realization of this thing, you see. And he was saying that both things are good, both things are needed, both things are beneficial.
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And that's how we sometimes grow in our understanding of spiritual things, through the gradual, sometimes difficult, prolonged study of the
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Word of God in which we acquire wisdom. But sometimes you're reading a passage and all of a sudden the lights turn on like you and you see it and understand it like you've never seen it before.
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It's a whole new word to you because you've finally seen the truth and the relevance of it. And that's the spirit of revelation that God imparts to his people.
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And Paul said, I have not ceased to pray that this would be your experience.
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And I pray that that would be our experience, that we would acquire not just an intellectual, mental understanding of these matters.
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We talk about election, predestination, effectual calling, and some will grudgingly acknowledge, yeah, it's there, but I don't like it.
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But I tell you what, when the lights turn on, you not only like it, but you delight in it. You glory in it.
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You become like the Lord Jesus. Lord Jesus, I thank you that you've hidden these things from the wise and you've revealed them unto babes, even so it was good in your sight.
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And Jesus rejoiced in these things. And if we, if there are scriptural truth in which we have an understanding and we haven't yet come to rejoice in it, it's probably because you have not experienced this divine illumination of the
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Holy Spirit, showing you not only the truth of it, but the importance of it, the value of it, the relevance of it that will impact your life.
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And that's the kind of work of grace that we want to see, not only in our own lives, but the lives of others about us, don't we?
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And so we need to be at prayer, praying for people that need to be converted, that the
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Lord be gracious and illuminate them and illuminate us to the truth that's in Jesus Christ, that we would live as transformed people within this fallen world.
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Amen? Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for your word. Thank you, our
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God, that you are at work in calling your people unto yourself. And we thank you, our
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God, for your blessed grace of illumination that you impart to your people. And our
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Lord, we do echo the prayer of the Apostle Paul for that church at Ephesus. We pray for ourselves that you would give us a spirit of wisdom and revelation as to the truth of your word, that we would see your glory, our
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Father, in the face of Jesus Christ, in accomplishing your good purposes in Christ from eternity.
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And we pray, our God, that you would use us as a church and as individuals to proclaim this word.
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And we pray the blessed Holy Spirit would cause that word to go forth with power and reveal the people their condition and their need, and the glory of which