(So Great a Salvation) Conviction and Repentance — Paris Reidhead

Conviction as the Second Phase of Salvation

Number one in the series we're bringing was awakening. Tomorrow you'll be given an outline and I'd like very much to have you fill it in and keep it. I believe when it's completed you will have a perspective on this so great salvation.

Will you turn now to John chapter 16. John the 16th chapter and I'd like to read verses 7 to 11. This portion, this evening, has to do with the second phase of the divine operation. Conviction. And hopefully we're going to be able to move on this evening to the third of these steps.

As the pastor Murdoch in Omaha said, stepping up to life. These steps of the divine operation when God would bring man out of death into life. It's important that we understand them because you will see as we go on that everything that follows builds on all that has proceeded.

So this evening the theme is conviction. John 16 verse 7. Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is expedient for you that I go away. For if I go not away the comforter will not come unto you. But if I depart I will send him unto you.

And when he has come he will reprove the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. Of sin because they believe not on me. Of righteousness because I go to my father and he see me no more. Of judgment because the prince of this world is judged.

Let us bow in prayer. Our father we're asking that the Holy Spirit will be the teacher tonight. That our eyes of our understanding will be open, our minds receptive. And that our hearts will retain all that thou would teach us.

The Witness’s Responsibility Toward the Unconverted

We ask thee father in and through everything that's said. Honor and glorify the Lord Jesus Christ in his name we ask it. Amen. What is sin? What is sin? You have to answer the question before you can ever expect to be effective in your ministry.

In helping people to come under conviction of sin. Now we are laborers together with God. We saw this morning that there are three things we can do for the unconverted. We can live before them as a sample of God's grace.

We can intercede for them. And we can witness to them. We spent some time talking about the witness to the unawakened. Scriptures that we would use to those that have no sensitivity at all to their need.

No awareness of their lostness. You see before they can become convicted of their sin they've got to discover that things aren't right. Most people that you meet have already accepted their own plan of salvation.

In fact I'm sure everyone you'll ever talk to has his own plan of salvation. It may be ridiculous. It may be ludicrous. I've heard people say well God's got a great scales in the sky. And he's putting all my good deeds on one side my bad deeds on the other.

And if my good deeds outweigh my bad deeds it'll be all right for me. Well whatever that is sinners have a plan of salvation. And usually it's it always if they're sinners it's the wrong one. And therefore we've got to recognize that our responsibility is as a witness to deal with the person we find at the point where we find them.

Now I've had people come to me through the years saying would you pray for my son my daughter my husband whoever that they'll be saved. You know it's an awfully big thing isn't it to pray that they'll be saved.

It's like a mother coming to someone saying will you pray for my daughter that she'll be married. And she'll get married. You might want to ask a question. Well does she have any friends. Does she have someone that she's going with.

Is she engaged. Well instead of praying that the daughter would be married don't you think it might be wise to start praying that she'll become affable and pleasant enough that at least she could have a friend.

And if that happens they might be able to move on to another step. And so when you're talking about the unconverted why should we start in by praying that they'll be that they'll be saved. Why not ask God if they're unawakened to awaken them.

And if we sense they're awakened don't rush in with with four questions that are going to lead them to a premature assumption that they're Christians. But pray that God will help you now to use the scripture in such a way as to see them brought to conviction.

But if they're going to be brought under conviction we must understand a little bit about sin. Now what is it. First is sin a congenital disease or is it a crime. Are people in trouble because they inherited something from their parents and their grandparents.

Or are they in trouble because when they reach the age of accountability they deliberately turn to their own way. They chose to follow in the path of those before them. And that they have confirmed everything that's gone before them by the committal of their will to the principle and the practice of pleasing themselves as the end of their being.

Sin as Crime, Rebellion, and Moral Insanity

Now sin is a crime. I'm saying that. I don't want to use some elaborate deductive reasoning to get you there. I'm going to tell you sin is a crime. It is a crime against God. When a mere man determines that he's going to defy the only one in the universe that's wise enough and big enough and good enough to govern and rule his life.

Climb up into that throne chair in his heart that only God can fill like a little infant in a big chair. A little tiny baby in a chair and has to cling to the post so he doesn't fall out under the armrest.

Here we are sinners climb up in the throne of our life and sit there and determine that we're going to do what we want to do. And all the time we're dependent on God for life and breath and all things.

Well sin is not only a crime it's insanity. It's moral insanity. We saw this morning that sin is treason against righteous government. Sin is open rebellion and defiance of government. Sin leads to anarchy where the only rule is I'm going to do what pleases me.

And it of course issues into transgression when their law of God gets between the individual and his appetite. The means of satisfying and he forgets all about God's law. The astounding thing is after all of these crimes against God you would think God would be the enemy of the sinner.

But you know the scripture says that carnal mind is enmity against God. In other words sinners committed all these crimes against God then he turns out to be God's enemy. Well if that's it then you got to understand that we've got to have conviction of sin.

Now in the years when I was here in training in Minneapolis I did quite a bit of work in jails. A little later on in prison and I gathered from the people I talked to on the other side of the bars that at least in Minnesota the miscarriage of justice is almost a hundred percent.

Now all these folks were there. They were all in prison. But I only think once that I ever met anybody that according to him was there justly. I remember asking one fellow why are you here? And he said because I deserve to be here.

In fact I deserve to have been killed for my crimes. But they were merciful, the court was merciful and I'm here on a life sentence. But I'm here because I deserve to be. Now that's the only time and you'd think wouldn't you that there might be somebody else in jail that was there because he deserved to be.

But all the people I talked to had been sentenced but in their own minds they weren't convicted. Now what is conviction? It is that state of the mind and heart when the individual takes sides with God against himself.

Now the word says all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. But conviction is the work of the Spirit of God on the human heart that causes the individual to realize at least something of the enormity of the crime that's been committed.

Biblical Examples of Conviction

I'd like to give you some illustrations. I'm going to ask you to turn. I want you to use your Bible. Will you turn to Genesis chapter 42 and verse 21. I would like to have you see with your own eyes something wonderful that happened in the life of these, the brethren of Joseph.

Joseph is an agent. In verse 8 it says, and Joseph knew his brethren but they knew him not. And Joseph remembered the dreams which he dreamed of them and said unto them, You are spies to see the nakedness of the land you are come.

And they said unto him, Nay, my Lord, but to buy food are thy servants come. We are all one man's sons. We are true men. Thy servants are no spies. And he said unto them, Nay, but to see the nakedness of the land you are come.

And they said, Thy servants are twelve brethren, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan. And behold, the youngest is this day with our father and one is not. And Joseph said unto them, You are spies.

And how be it you prove it now. You just bring your brother down here. And in verse 21, and they said one to another, We are verily guilty concerning our brother. In that we saw the anguish of his soul when he besought us and we would not hear.

Therefore is this distress come upon us. These brethren that so arrogantly and haughtily sold Joseph into slavery now have come to the place that they're under conviction and they've taken sides with God against themselves.

We are verily guilty. Now that's conviction. When the sinner takes sides against himself. You might want to turn over to Numbers chapter 21 in verse 7 and you'll see another instance when this has happened.

For the people came to Moses and said, We have sinned, spoken against the Lord and against thee. Pray unto the Lord that he take away the serpents from us. He prayed for them. You'd like to turn to Ezra.

There's another instance. Ezra in the ninth chapter in the sixth verse. Where the God of the Old Testament, you know, is the same as the God of the New Testament. And he has given to us these testimonies here that we might understand them.

Ezra 9 verse 6. And said, Oh my God, I am ashamed and blushed to lift up my face to thee, my God. For our iniquities have increased over our head and our trespasses is grown up into the heavens. Since the days of our father have we been in a great trespass unto this day.

And for our iniquities have we, our kings and our priests, been delivered into the hands of the kings of the land to the sword, to captivity and to spoil and to confusion as it is this day. Conviction of sin.

The Law Reveals Sin and Leads to Conviction

Well, why? Why should it happen in this way? Why should we have to have such an awful work of the spirit of God to produce conviction? I heard a preacher just a week or two ago say, never preach the law.

God is love. Just talk to sinners about the love of God. Everybody knows they've sinned. But how interesting it is to read in Romans that the law is the schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. And by the law is the knowledge of sin.

I don't know how I can give up the word of God to accept the metaphysics of certain preachers that think that because God is holy, it's a blot on his discussion, a blemish on his character. And so when I heard this man say that, I said, no, I'm going to stake with the word and the word says by the law is the knowledge of sin.

Inner and Outer Revelation of God’s Law

How then are people brought to conviction of sin? How does it occur? What happens? If you haven't read it, I urge you to get the book, Gospel Themes, the sermons that were preached by Charles G. Finney.

And in one of these messages, Finney talked about the inner revelation and the outer revelation. Now, when my wife and I went to Africa back in 1945, we had just the customary training that you'd get in a very fine Bible school.

And so we didn't have very high expectations as to what the people that had never seen a missionary or heard the name of Jesus knew. But when I went into the Danza tribe along the Sudan-Ethiopian border, who said I was the first one ever to come with a Bible, first one ever to mention to them the name of Jesus, I found out that these people knew an amazing amount, far more than I'd ever been led to expect they knew.

For instance, they knew God had made the world. All you had to do was break off a stick or pick up a stone or anything and say, who made it? And they gave you the name. In this case, it was Wanamish. And that he was holy, and he was angry with them because of their sin.

Oh, they also knew about Satan. Why don't you bring your chickens to Wanamish? And they said, we don't even know that he wants chickens. We can't waste them on him. We don't know that's what he wants.

We know that if we don't take our chickens to the evil spirits, our goats will die and our crops won't mature. And so we got to save all the chickens we got for the ones who want them, for the evil spirits.

So they knew that God was, but there was no fear of God before their eyes. Oh, they knew he was going to punish them when they died. But they were so worried about how to survive till the harvest that they couldn't be particularly concerned about what was going to happen when they died.

Now, again, they knew God was angry with them because of what they had done, was the way they put it. Well, what have you done that he's angry with? And they said, well, we've lied. Have you ever heard that?

It seems somewhat familiar to Ten Commandments, doesn't it? And what else have you done? Well, we've stolen. He doesn't want you? No. We can't steal. Well, have you stolen? Oh, yes. And what else? Well, you can't kill.

And I remember turning to one man, have you ever killed? He said, are you with the government? And I said, no, I'm here just to study your language and talk to you about Jesus. Yeah, I've killed. So it's he, so it's he, so it's he.

Fusing one another, you know. He didn't want to be all alone there. Now, they knew it was wrong to lie and to steal and to kill. Now, who taught them? They'd never seen a Bible. They'd never heard the name of Jesus.

They'd never had introduction to Ten Commandments. So how in the world would they know that? Well, you might be surprised. In Romans, the second chapter, Paul writes saying, when the Gentiles, that's the pagans, people I've talked to, who have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, show that they have a law, the law is written on their hearts.

You see, every model of the human family that's been, come off the assembly line, everybody's ever been born of human parents, is standard equipment. And the standard equipment for a human being is the law written on the heart.

Now, I referred to this marvelous sermon by Charles Finney. Now, he used an illustration appropriate to his day. In his day, flour mills consisted of having a big stone that had lines cut in it, grooves cut into it, and they had a means with a water wheel so that the lower stone would go one way, and then there was an upper stone, and it would go the other way.

Now, it's hard for you to get your hands, you might want to try it. It's hard to get one hand going one way and the other and keep it going, it won't work. But you get it with millstones. And so what Finney said was this, that when you bring the outer revelation of the law in the word to bear upon the inner revelation written on the heart, the human spirit is caught between and is ground, that is, the skull is taken off, the sophistication is taken away, and they're brought under conviction of sin.

Now, the upper millstone is the law written. The lower millstone is the law in the heart. And this is why wherever we go, any place in the world, you can always bring the revelation of the holiness of God and the law of God down upon the person that's there, knowing that the spirit of God is going to cause that preparation of the heart for grace.

You see, without that upper millstone lowered, the conduct just rests on the lower millstone and it just rides around and there's no abrasion and no pressure, no friction, and they're content. But when you bring the word of God down and the human spirit is there and human conduct is there and it begins to be ground, now you see why it says, by the law is the knowledge of sin.

And the law gives to sin the character of exceeding sinfulness and transgression. And it's therefore imperative that we learn how to use the law in such a way that it is going to cause the human spirit to undergo this work of being shredded and ripped and crushed and ground.

Now, just as we gave you verses having to do with awakening, so I'm asking you to do your homework and to gather for yourself verses that you find congenial to your mind and your spirit that you're going to use with people that have been awakened but are not yet under conviction.

And one of the good places to start is with the Ten Commandments. How many of you learned them when you were children in Sunday school? Well, how many of you remember them all? You can pass the test on it.

Now, if I were you, I'd go back and do a little refreshing on that because you'd be astonished the way the Spirit of God is pleased to use the revelation of the holiness of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as it's given there in the Ten Commandments.

That's the law. But the law is not restricted to it, of course. Everything that indicates the holiness of God is, in effect, that teaching, that Torah, that unveiling of the heart to the individual. Now, some of the effects of the law applied to the conscience are unrest, distress, concern, just unhappiness.

Something's the matter. I'm not getting any pleasure out of this anymore. Unrest will give way to a burden, just sort of something we psychologists call depression. But it's a burden on the mind and on the spirit.

And a lot of people that are depressed try to escape from it, thinking that it's something they shouldn't have when it's the Spirit of God dealing with them about their sin. In Psalm 51 .3, David talked about misery.

His sin was ever before him, and it caused misery in his heart. Acts, we're told that they had the sting of conscience. Their minds were stung by what they heard from Peter. In Acts 24, 35, 25, we are told that terror struck their hearts.

All of these things accompanied by conviction. Probably one of the best illustrations of a convicted person is that publican that went down to the temple and stood there in front of the veil of the temple and beat his breast with downcast eyes, the Pharisees on one side and the other saying, Thank God we're not like this fellow here.

And the publican is crying out, God be merciful to me, a sinner. Inside the other side of that veil is the mercy seat where the blood is taken once a year by the high priest. And he's in the right place and he's in the right attitude.

He's taken sides with God against himself. He's under conviction of sin. Now that's got to happen. That has to happen with sinners. And you should, when you find an awakened sinner, not lead him to a premature assumption that because he has an intellectual agreement with the plan of salvation that he can therefore just automatically assume that he's a Christian.

Conviction is real. Now there's a good reason for it. God has a reason why he said that the Holy Spirit would convict of sin. Because his purpose, you know, wasn't to just give us a hell insurance policy.

His purpose was to save us from our sins. And until we can discover what they are, we're really not candidates to be saved from them. I asked a group of people one time years ago, about 94 present, how many of you have been saved, are saved?

Every hand went up. We were having an evangelistic meeting. Ninety-four people weren't able to get one unsaved person into the meeting. They wanted to have an evangelistic meeting, but they weren't able to get one person in.

Now I said, how many of you have ever been lost? And four hands went up. And it amazed me. It's the first time, I don't think I'd ever asked that sequence of questions before, but I went ahead and said, how in the world is it that you can be saved when you've never been lost, because the only kind of people that he saves are lost people?

He came to seek and to save that which was lost, and only four of you ever remember being lost, and all 94 of you claim that you're saved. Now either the word is wrong, or your memories aren't correct, or you're wrong.

Something isn't coming out the way it ought to be, because if you're truly born of God, it shouldn't be too difficult for you to remember when you were lost. Certainly wasn't hard for me. I went down to old Red Rock Holiness Camp Meeting in South St. Paul, Minnesota, because my mother was teacher of a girls' class in Heron Methodist Church, and one of the girls was going to go down there, and I wanted to be where she was, and two weeks seemed pretty good, but I had to go to services three times a day.

Now, I mean, they didn't kid around. You went morning, and afternoon, and evening, and I had to change to go, and I had to wear a suit. Now I was about 12 years old, 13 maybe, and I had a suit, a Cheviot suit.

You know what Cheviot is? Well, they learned how to make Cheviot from the iron maiden that had spikes in it. I think it's half horse hair and half barbed wire. At any rate, I had a Cheviot suit, and I would go and sit there, and I tell you, I never went to sleep.

I never even sat down. I was about a half inch off the seat. And these preachers, by the way, there were giants in the land those days. There was Paul S. Reese, and Dr. John L. Brasher, and Joseph Owens.

Oh, great holiness preachers. Well, I was a church member, and I was all right, except long about Friday or Saturday of the first week, I reached the conclusion that there were two kinds of Christians, the kind I was and the kind they were talking about.

And about Sunday night, I realized that I wasn't saved, but I could never tell anybody because my mother thought I was, and she'd be so disappointed if she found I wasn't. And about Wednesday night, no, I hadn't slept.

I'd gone home. I knew I was lost. I knew that if God didn't have a hell and I died, he'd have to make one because if I went to heaven the way I was, I'd ruin the place. A sermon preached by Paul S. Reese.

Paul Reese preached, and oh, what a glorious exaltation of Christ. And then he stopped. We were singing, Just As I Am. He said, For the last three nights, I haven't been able to sleep. I've been waking up in the middle of the night because praying for somebody that came on the grounds thinking they were saved, and they found out they're lost.

As I prayed, it seems to me I've seen in my mind a boy, maybe 12 or 13, something like that. Thought he was here. Maybe somebody else, but that's what I think. Now, friends, you're standing there. You look down your aisle.

If you see somebody holding onto the bench in front of him, probably that's who it is. Boy, I dropped that branch like it was hot. I looked. I was the only one that I could see anywhere holding onto the bench in front of me.

Well, they sang the next verse, and I headed for that altar in the straw. And I remember when I knelt there, the whole place was full. And they had three quartets from three holiness colleges. John Fletcher College, Asbury, and Taylor.

Now, John Fletcher was the least of the colleges, and the bass was the least of the four singers. And so I got the least man from the least college. Everybody else was with somebody. And I'm over there at this end of the altar, all the way at the end.

And so I heard somebody say, Well, won't somebody go over to that boy over there? And I said, You, you go over there, would you? And this fellow came over, and he said, What did you come for? I said, To be saved.

He said, From what? I said, I didn't know I had a choice from saving you. He says, How do you know you need to be saved? I said, Because I'm lost. And he said, Ah, that's good. And I looked at him right square in the eye and said, Maybe you think so, but I'm not finding it so good.

Why do you say it's good? He said, Because the only kind of people God saves are lost people. And if he can't get them lost, he can't get them saved. I said, Now, what I want you to do, is I'm going to keep people from bothering you.

And you just go down there, and you go into your mind and memory, and you ask God to recall to you every sin you've ever committed. And you bring it out, and you pile it right here in front of you. And when there aren't any more, you tell God, If he'll tell you what the others are that you haven't remembered yet, you'll put them on the pile too.

And he said, When you finish, then I want you to start thanking God that he sent his son to die for sinners as bad as you. You got some idea how bad you were by that time. And I did just what he said.

And after a while, thanking him that he died for sinners like me, I found something had happened. And you know what it was? I was saying, Dear Father, thank you for saving me. You are witness with my spirit that I passed from death to life.

Repentance as a Change of Mind and Purpose

But I was lost. And I don't believe people have ever come to the assurance of forgiveness till they're lost. Now, the next thing number three in our list is repentance. I want you to see that. I think perhaps we can get pretty well along with that this evening.

Conviction issues into something we call repentance. We're commanded to repent. In Ezekiel 18, 31, we're commanded to repent. In Hosea, in Joel, in Luke 13, 3 and 5, the Spirit of God moves again upon us as the Lord Jesus.

The words are recorded. Except you repent, you'll perish. But I found an awful lot of nonsense about the subject of repentance. In fact, I hear a lot of preachers talk about it or write about it, and the way they handle it, you'd think that repentance means being sorry for sin.

I've even heard them say, sorry for sin, sorry enough to quit. Well, let's look at 2 Corinthians 7. Shouldn't I get worthwhile? Just take a look at it and see what this thing sorrow does in reference to sin.

2 Corinthians 7, beginning with verse 8 through verse 11. Paul said, though I made you sorry with a letter, that's the first letter of the Corinthians, I do not repent, though I did repent. For I perceive that the same epistle has made you sorry, though it were but for a season.

Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that you sorrowed to repentance. For you were made sorry after a godly manner that you might receive damage by us in nothing. For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation, not to be repented of.

But the sorrow of the world worketh death. Now we've had repentance used one way or another, what's it mean? Well, the Greek word, untold, means to change one's mind. To change one's mind from something to something.

Now I remember we were talking a few moments ago about what is sin. And I said sin is a crime, sin is the committal of the will to the principle and the practice of governing one's life to please himself.

In other words, when the scripture says, all have sinned, what it says is, reaching the age of accountability, everyone, everyone has chosen to govern and control their lives and please themselves. Now the church got into an awful lot of trouble because some fellas way back when, like Augustine, tried to answer the question that the Bible never answered.

The Bible doesn't tell us why everybody sins. It just tells us that everybody sins. Now the moment that you try to go beyond the scripture, you're in metaphysics. Or you're in philosophy. And it behooves us to stay in the scripture.

Now the scripture does not tell us why everybody sins. There's a lot of theories floating around. But I'm going to stick with the word of God. You ask me, well why does everybody sin? I don't know. And I don't think anybody else does.

Because God never told us why. He tells us that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And just between you and me, I got enough problem with the things he has told us that I can't spend a lot of time worrying about the things he hasn't told us.

And he never told us why. But he did tell us that. Reaching the age of accountability, every one of us chose as the principle by which we would live, I am going to do what I want to do. Now maybe some were far more refined and cultured than others.

And they didn't put their fist in the face of God and say, I'm going to do what I want to do. They may have just said, well, I'm going to do what I really want to do. I mean, I don't care whether they're up and out or down and out.

The fact is the scripture says they're out. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Whether they did it with gritting teeth and set jaw and shaking fists, or whether they just did it all nice and sweet and refined and cultured, they still did it.

And it's an equal treasonous crime, whatever their attitude was. But they did it. So the mindset of the sinner is, I am going to do what I want to do. I'm going to govern and control and rule my life.

Now the Lord Jesus said in Luke 13, 3 and 5, except you repent, you're going to perish. When I was here in Bible school, we were told that repentance had nothing to do with the age of grace. I was taught dispensationalism.

Repentance, Grace, and the Proclamation of the Gospel

Now friends, let me say this. Dispensationalism is like pregnancy. There's no such thing as a little bit of it. You get it. It's going to grow. It'll fill you. And it took hold on me. And when one of my colleagues said, Brother, I think there is something to this thing about repentance to sinners.

I said, now whatever you do, don't try to get me mixed up in that. Repentance is Jewish and it has nothing to do with the age of grace. I told him that after I came back from Africa as a missionary. Because I'd been really, well, when I finished with me, I was like Lazarus when he came out of the tomb.

He was alive, but man was he ever wrapped up. Was he bound? And so was I. And when I found out someone dared to believe that repentance was for today, you know who set me straight? Another dispensationalist.

That's right. By the name of Harry A. Ironside. Then pastor of Moody Church in Chicago. The American Tract Society had a contest. A thousand dollar reward or prize for the book that was chosen for that year.

And you know, Harry Ironside wrote a book and submitted it and it was chosen. And the title was, Accept Ye Repent. It's out of print. And it ought to be reprinted. And it ought to be distributed and made cheap enough that you could get it everywhere.

Because he said, I take umbrage with my dispensational friends that try to tell me and tell others that repentance is not for today. Because the scripture makes it clear that Paul said he was in, when he was in Ephesus night and day, among the Jews and the Gentiles, preaching repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, I believe that when the dispensationalists took out the law of God away from preparing hearts for grace, bringing conviction and repentance, they did, committed a greater crime against the glorious Son of God than all of the modernist enemies put together have ever done against the Lord Jesus Christ.

Because they disarmed the Holy Ghost with the only instruments with which he'd ever provided himself to prepare men for grace. Men have to be convicted of sin and they must repent because Christ said, except you repent you'll perish.

Now what does it mean to repent? A change of mind. What's the mindset of the sinner? I'm going to do what I want to do. What's a change of mind? A change from what it's been to what it should have been.

180 degree change. If I'm going to do what I want to do to the Lord, I'm going to please you and serve you as long as I live. That's repentance. A change of mind, a change of intention, a change of purpose and a change of practice.