Divine Operations of Spirit on a Sinner's Heart — E.A. Johnston

God's Sovereignty in Salvation

The Word of God, in Psalm 110 .3, declares that thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power. And I believe, friends, that verse pretty much sums up the whole shooting match when it comes to a person's salvation.

A rebel will not willingly lay down his arms to a sovereign if he believes he still has a fighting chance. But if that sovereign overpowers him, then he has no choice but to lay down his weapons of rebellion and surrender.

What the modern church has succeeded in today is to wrestle salvation out of the hands of God and put it in man's hands. The consequences of a perverted gospel are baptizing individuals who are running our churches and ruining this nation, but they have no idea of what being regenerated by a holy God means, and that they think they have a hope of heaven while they're living like the devil out of hell.

What we see today is that salvation is something God does. In Jonah 2 .9, it declares the sovereignty of God and the salvation of man, for the Word of God says salvation is of the Lord. I believe every man and woman born of Adam is born under a curse and void of any desire for holiness unto God.

In fact, the enmity of man against God is so strong that every shotgun in his arsenal is pointed up at God's throne, and if you had enough gunpowder to reach him, you'd shoot God right off his throne and sit there yourself.

You might have a good opinion of yourself, friend, but I believe my Bible says about you that your heart is so wicked and so full of deceit that your heart is as black as the hinges on the doorposts of hell.

And if you get saved, friend, it's not going to be by some physical response to a preacher's emotional appeal where you make a decision for Jesus, but rather God Almighty has to perform a miracle in your heart.

The Three Operations of the Holy Spirit

Our text from Psalms declares, Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power. And God wrought the work of grace on a poor sinner's heart by the divine operations of his Holy Spirit. And that's what we're going to cover today, friends.

The title of my message today is, The Divine Operations of the Holy Spirit on the Sinner's Heart. We're going to study these three aspects today in how God's Spirit works on and in a sinner's heart. I call these the three foundational pillars of salvation.

For if you get saved, you'll experience all three of these, conviction, compunction, regeneration. Conviction is the work of the Holy Spirit. The main reason why our churches today are full of the unconverted is that we've made our own converts with a diluted gospel and crusade evangelism, man-made tactics.

We hand folks a gospel that's easy to swallow without any commitment on man's part other than a mental flip for Jesus. Our churches and our pulpits are loaded with deceived individuals whose hope of heaven is nothing more than a hole in the wall because they've never come under Holy Spirit conviction.

God was absent in their so-called conversion, and all they have is an empty religious profession as they travel a religious road to hell. Now I'm being honest with you, friends, because I will be true to your soul.

Pentecost and Conviction of Sin

In the book of Acts in chapter 2, we see how the Spirit of God deals with the soul. The apostle Peter's message created a disturbance that day in his hearers when his sermon reached its climatic close as he brought the curtain down when he cut the cord and dropped the boom on them with the cutting words, Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, meaning without any ifs, ands, or buts about it, listen to them now, that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.

Conviction of sin is where the Holy Spirit reproves or convinces the world of sin. The first operation of the Spirit of God upon the sinner's heart is conviction of sin. This is where the sinner is made to see his sin.

He sees sin as a vile evil against a holy God. He sees his own sin as a thing vile and evil before the Spirit of God comes. Man cannot nor will he see his sin as evil. A man is dead in sin, blind to his own condition.

But when God goes to work in the day of his power, he opens man's eyes to their sin. And that's what happened, friends, on the day of Pentecost when Peter preached his powerful sermon that came with the force of a double-edged claymore as he hewed his hearers down by calling them out as guilty of crucifying the Prince of Glory.

Compunction and the Pricked Heart

They were full of conviction of sin, and they clearly saw the evil of their sin. Then what happens next is the second operation of the Spirit of God on the heart of the sinner, and that is compunction.

Compunction is a sense of sin, a strong uneasiness caused by the Spirit. Compunction follows on the heels of conviction. When they heard this, in other words, when they saw and were convinced of their sin in crucifying the Lord Christ, which before they did not imagine to be a sin, but now it stands out before them like a black specter hovering over them.

And it not only stands out, but it stabs them in their hearts to where they can feel and sense it. Our text says, now, when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart. That, friends, is compunction.

I remember the day God got ahold of me and opened my eyes to see I was nothing, but a lost man on a religious road to hell. Good church member that I was, I was lost. I saw my sins that day as they rose before me like Samuel unto Saul, and I saw for the first time that I was a sinner on my way to hell.

And not only that, but I deserved to go there. I came under conviction and compunction that day and saw my guilty, ruined estate. My false foundation was broken up by a divine sledgehammer in conviction of sin.

I felt guilty like a dirty rebel who had committed treason against a sovereign. I was guilty as charged and deserved to hang on the gallows for my crimes. God worked a work of grace on my heart that day in regeneration, giving me repentance and faith.

Repentance, Faith, and the God-Centered Gospel

And if you get saved, friend, you will stand up in alarm like that crowd who were pricked in their hearts by the truth of God's word and who cried out in agony a soul of men and brethren. What shall we do?

Well, Peter the preacher tells them what they must do to be saved. Then Peter said unto them, Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. Salvation, friends, is of the Lord.

It's high time we got back to preaching a God-centered gospel that shuts up men and women to a holy God for pardon for sin. It's high time we get back to preaching a bloody cross on which a bloodstained savior bled and died for sin.

That if an old sinner like E .A. Johnston is to be saved, then the Lord's life must be laid down and his merits applied to me. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power. Let us pray.