May 11
18
Head or Heart?
(From Octavius Winslow’s, “The Coming of the
Lord in its Relation to Nominal Christianity”)
A person may have well balanced theology, and his general views of truth would be considered evangelical and orthodox. And yet, thus far may he proceed in the deepest ‘self deception’. With all this “form of knowledge,” this lodgment of the truth in the understanding, this subscription of the intellect to the doctrines of revelation, he
is an utter stranger to that ‘heart transformation’, that inward illumination of the Holy Spirit, without which the soul is spiritually dead, the heart is unrenewed and unholy, and the whole man is
unfit for the kingdom of heaven. In short, we have here the case of one who, while his judgment assents to the truth, his heart entirely
rejects it. The Gospel is to him a thing of intellectual subscription, and not of heart experience. Not a single truth of the Bible has become an element of life and holiness in his soul.
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THE KING’S GARDEN?
What wonders are wrought in the garden of the King.He transplants weeds from the dunghill, and makes them to grow as lilies in the midst of his fair garden. -Spurgeon, “The King’s Garden”
THE FIRST ACT OF REGENERATION?
Coming to Christ is the very first act of regeneration.
No sooner is the soul quickened,than it at once discovers it’s lost estate, is horrified thereat,looks for a refuge, and believing Christ to be a suitable one, flies to him and reposes in him. –Spurgeon
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Before and after… by Alleine
Before conversion man seeks to cover himself with his own
fig-leaves, and to make himself whole by his duties.
He is apt to trust in himself, and set up his own righteousness,
and to reckon his counters for gold, and not to submit to the
righteousness of God. But conversion changes his mind;
now he counts his own righteousness as filthy rags.
He casts it off, as a man would the venomous tatters
of a nasty beggar. Now he is brought to poverty of spirit, complains of and condemns himself, and all his inventory is “poor, and
miserable, and wretched, and blind, and naked”.He sees a world of iniquity in his holy things, and calls his once idolized righteousness but filth and loss; and would not for a thousand worlds be found in it.
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Shun them as they would the plague! (Arthur Pink)
“Having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them!” 2 Timothy 3:5
There are a multitude of such today! “Having a form of godliness.” This means that they have a religious veneer. They bear the name of Christ, belong to some so-called evangelical church, and seek to create the impression that they are regenerate people. But like the foolish bridesmaids of Matthew 25, they “took their lamps–but took no oil with them.” These professors are neither indwelt by the Holy Spirit, nor made partakers of the transforming grace of God.
It is said of them, secondly, “but denying its power.” The reality of vital godliness is lacking, the beauties of holiness are not found in them. By their lips, they claim to be godly–but by their lives, they give the lie to it. “They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good!” (Titus 1:16)
“Have nothing to do with them!” With such people, the children of God are to have nothing to do with–but are to shun them as they would the plague!
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A god to himself?
(adapted from Winslow’s, “The Soul Before Conversion”)
The unsaved man is a god to himself, and he has many other gods as well.
Whether it be…. self righteousness, self gratification, the world, wealth, family, in whatever form it appears, “other lords have dominion over him,” to the exclusion of the one true and living God. The nature of the human mind is such that it must love and worship some object supremely. In his state of innocence, Jehovah was the one and supreme object of the creature’s love and adoration. Seduced from that state of simple and supreme affection by the tempter’s promise that, if they ate of the fruit of the tree forbidden by God, “they should be as gods;” in one moment they threw off their allegiance to Jehovah, renounced him as the object of their supreme love, the center of their holiest affections, and became gods to themselves! The temple was ruined, the altar was thrown down, the pure flame was extinguished, God departed and “other lords” entered and took possession of the soul.
But what a change does grace produce!
It repairs the temple, rebuilds the altar, rekindles the flame and brings God back to man! Christ is now the supreme object of… his love, his adoration and his worship. The idol self has been cast down, self righteousness renounced, and self exaltation crucified.
The affections, released from their false deity and renewed by the Spirit, now turn to and take up their rest in God. How glorious does Jesus now appear! Truly it is a new God the soul is brought to know and love! Never did it see in Him… such beauty, such excellence, such blessedness as it now sees. All other glory fades and dies before the surpassing glory of… His character, His attributes, His government, and His law.
God says, “You are mine.” The soul responds, “You are my God! Other lords have had dominion over me, but henceforth, You only will I serve, You only will I love. My soul follows hard after You; Your right hand upholds me.” The regenerate soul possesses and acknowledges a new Savior. How glorious, suitable and precious is Jesus to him now! Not so formerly. Then he had his saviors, his “refuges of lies,” his many fatal confidences. Jesus was to him as “a root out of a dry ground, having no form nor loveliness.” It may be that he denied His deity, rejected His atonement, scorned His grace and slighted His pardon and His love. Christ is all to him now! He adores Him as the “mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of peace.” Oh, how surpassingly glorious, inimitably lovely and unutterably precious is Jesus to a renewed soul! Truly a new Savior! “Other lords” he has renounced. “Refuges of lies” he has turned his back upon. “False Christs” he no longer follows. He has found another and a better Savior; Jesus, the mighty God, the Redeemer of sinners! All is ‘new’ to his recovered sight! A new world of glory has floated before his mind! Jesus the Lamb is the light and glory thereof. Never did he suppose there was…. such beauty in His person, such love in His heart, such perfection in His work, such power and such willingness to save. That blood which was trampled under foot is now precious.
That righteousness which was scorned is now glorious. That name which was reviled is now as music to the soul, even “a name that is above every name.”
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Conviction or conversion?
“It is one thing to have sin alarmed only by convictions, and another to have it crucified by converting grace. Many, because they have been troubled in conscience for their sins, think well of their case, miserably mistaking conviction for conversion.” –JOSEPH ALLEINE
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Sheep or swine? (John Ensor)
“The swine that has been washed returns to wallow in the mire.” 2 Peter 2:22
Sheep and swine can both end up in the mire. Yet the essential difference in their two natures is quite visible from the reaction each has to its fallen condition. While sheep do stray and stumble into the mire, they quickly loathe the situation and struggle to get free. They may be dirty, but they desire to be clean. They may be stuck, but they bleat for their shepherd to come and save them out of the muck. But swine, in keeping with their nature, wallow in the muck, content to stay there all day. “The swine that has been washed returns to wallow in the mire.” 2 Peter 2:22
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Reader! marvel not that you must be born again!
(From Octavius Winslow’s, “The Restored Sheep”)
Alas! the life of an unconverted person is one entire, unbroken, departure from God! What hue sufficiently dark can portray the life of an unrenewed man? He may be…. upright and honorable as a man of the world; faithful in all the relations of life; admired for his private rectitude, and honored for his public character and career. His morality, stainless; his virtue, unquestioned; his liberality, generous; his philanthropy, distinguished; his religion, admired. And yet, destitute of the converting grace of God; a stranger to the great change of the new birth; an unbeliever in the Lord Jesus Christ, his life is but a blank; and dying in this condition, he can in no way enter into the kingdom of heaven!
Reader! marvel not that you must be born again!
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Splendid sins! (Charles Spurgeon)
“Without faith it is impossible to please God.” Hebrews 11:6
Without saving faith, all moral virtues are but splendid sins!
Unbelief nullifies everything! It is the dead fly in the ointment!
It is the poison in the pot! All the moral virtues,all the benevolence of philanthropy, all the kindness of unselfish sympathy, all the talents of genius, all the bravery of patriotism –give no title to Divine acceptance, for “without faith it is impossible to please God.”
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The gay and foolish multitude (Letters of William Tiptaft)
“Who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive?”
1 Cor. 4:7
It is of God’s grace if we differ from the gay and foolish multitude around us.
“By the grace of God I am what I am.” 1 Cor. 15:10
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So many truly sincere and religious people
(J. C. Philpot, “Answers to Inquiries”)
“Cornelius and all his family were devout and God-fearing; he gave generously to those in
need and prayed to God regularly.” Acts 10:2 Yet Cornelius and his family weren’t saved! (Acts 11:14) –A generous centurion build a synagogue. (Luke 7:3-5)–A young man keeps the commandments from his youth up. (Luke 18:21) -Balaam prophesies. (Numbers 23:16)
–Saul weeps. (1 Samuel 24:16) –Judas preaches the gospel. (Matthew 10:5-8)
Yet none of these men were saved! It is at times, enough to fill one’s heart with mingled
astonishment and sorrow, to see so many truly sincere and religious people, whose religion will leave them short of eternal life—because they are destitute of saving grace.
To see so much . . . amiability, benevolence, devotedness, self-denial, liberality loveliness of character, integrity, consistency of life, all inescapably dashed against the rock of inflexible justice, and there shattered and lost—swallowed up with its unhappy possessors in the raging billows beneath—such a sight, did we not know that the Judge of the whole earth cannot do wrong, would indeed stagger us to the very center of our being!
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Stuffed Christians? Spurgeon’s, “Life’s Ever Springing Well” “We are all Christians.”
“Why, we belong to a Christian nation; are we not born Christians?”
“Surely we must be all right; we have always attended our parish church, is not that enough?” “Our parents were always godly; we were born into the church, were we not? Did they not take us up in their arms when we were little, and make us members of Christ? What more do we lack?” This is the common talk. There is no Christian practice, there is no Christian habit, but what has been, or will be before long, imitated by people who have no vital godliness whatever. A man may appear much like a Christian, and yet possess no vital godliness! Walk through the British Museum, and you will see all the orders of animals standing in their various places, and exhibiting themselves with the utmost possible propriety.
The rhinoceros demurely retains the position in which he was set at first; the eagle soars not through the window; the wolf howls not at night; every creature, whether bird, beast, or fish, remains in the particular glass case allotted to it. But you all know well enough that these are not the living creatures, but only the outward forms of them. Yet in what do they differ? Certainly in nothing which you could readily see, for the well stuffed animal is precisely like what the living animal would have been; and that eye of glass even appears to have more of brightness in it than the natural eye of the creature itself. Yet you know well enough that there is a secret inward something lacking, which, when it has once departed, you cannot restore. So in the churches of Christ, many professors are not living believers, but stuffed believers, Stuffed Christians!
There is all the external of religion, everything that you could desire, and they behave with a great deal of propriety, too. They all keep their places, and there is no outward difference between them and the living, except upon that vital point; they lack spiritual life. This is the essential distinction, spiritual life is absent. It is almost painful to watch little children when some little pet of theirs has died, how they can hardly realize the difference between death and life! Your little boy’s bird moped for awhile upon its perch, and at last dropped down in the cage; and do not you remember how the little boy tried to set it up, and gave it seed, and filled its glass with water, and was quite surprised to think that birdie would not open his little eye upon his friend as it did before, and would not take its seed, nor drink its water! Ah, you finally had to tell the poor boy that a mysterious something had gone from his little birdie, and would not come back again. There is just such a spiritual difference between the mere professor, and the genuine Christian. There is an invisible, but most real, indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the absence or the presence of which makes all the difference between the lost sinner and the saint.