I feel it is of great importance tonight
to examine the subject of the Holy Spirit
and how the Holy Spirit brings conviction of
sin upon the sinner's heart.
I fear that in our day of great
spiritual declension, there are few who understand how
the Spirit of God works in the divine
operations of conversion.
This is a serious matter, and if we
fail to properly grasp how God deals with
sinners, we will fail miserably in our attempts
to point the unsaved to Christ.
I fear many today, in their eagerness to
win souls, make false converts because of spiritual
miscarriages.
Never tell an awakened sinner he is saved.
He is merely an awakened sinner who still
needs to find Christ, and he is not
saved until Christ is found.
Never tell someone they are now a Christian
because that is not your job.
It is the office of the Holy Spirit
to bring assurance.
The way most of us preach today hinders
the divine operations of the Holy Spirit rather
than aid the Spirit in His workings on
the human heart.
We fail to preach the law before the
gospel.
We offer the pearl of great price before
we even show a sinner why they need
Christ, for it is the law that is
the schoolmaster that brings men to Christ.
Our preaching makes spiritual stillbirths because we hinder
the work of the Holy Spirit by our
lack of understanding how God works on the
human heart in the process of conviction of
sin and regeneration and conversion.
My message this evening is entitled The Sinner's
Heart Under Conviction.
Our task as soul winners is to faithfully
present the Word of God so the Holy
Spirit can operate on a person's heart.
Charles Finney, Pelagian as he was, knew how
to preach the law to bring conviction of
sin, and old Finney could preach a lot
better than most of us today.
Finney used an illustration I like.
He spoke of the old gristmill that operated
by the force of water upon two millstones.
There was the top stone and the bottom
stone, and these two millstones are laid one
atop the other, and as they turn, they
grind the wheat into flour.
Finney said the bottom stone was the law
of God written on the heart of man,
which is his conscience, from Romans 2.15.
The top stone is the preached law of
God thundered about the ears of the hearer.
When this occurs, then the Holy Spirit can
operate by grinding upon the heart in conviction
of sin.
I like that.
You see, friends, the main problem with much
evangelism today is that we do not make
room for the Holy Spirit to operate because
of our meager preaching.
When Jesus was teaching his disciples about the
office of the Holy Spirit, he said to
them, and when he is 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 ye see me no
more, of judgment because the prince of this
world is judged.
I have yet many things to say unto
you, but ye cannot bear them now.
How be it when he, the Spirit of
Truth, is come, he will guide you into
all truth.
And that's true, friends, for it is the
Spirit of God that takes the gospel and
applies it to our hearts.
It is the Spirit of God that sets
on the word with power upon the conscience
of the hearer.
And there are two components to this action
of the Holy Spirit, which I want to
bring out tonight.
And the first is this.
When the word of God comes with power
to the conscience in conviction of sin, it
shows sinners their true character.
It shows a lost person that they are
lawbreakers, guilty rebels who have committed treason against
the sovereign.
When the Holy Spirit comes in conviction to
a sinner's heart, it does a plowing work.
It breaks up the fallow ground and the
hardness of the sinner's heart.
Before conviction of sin, the sinner was oblivious
to the evil of sin, unaware of the
damning nature of sin, ignorant of his own
sins as iniquity.
And he went on in his course of
sin without any fear of punishment from a
creator.
But when the Spirit of God descends upon
a sinner's heart and places him under conviction
of sin, then that person's conscience begins to
grind under that conviction and they are shown
their true character, which is that they are
lawbreakers who have transgressed the holy law of
God and they deserve punishment for the sentencing
of the law must be carried out.
Thus, it shows a sinner his true character,
that he is a guilty rebel who has
broken the strict law of God and the
Spirit of God convinces him that he is
under the wrath of God and the curse
of the law and that when the day
of judgment comes, the law will be executed
with the utmost severity upon all that know
not God and obey not the gospel of
Jesus Christ.
And the second aspect of the divine operation
of the Holy Spirit is this.
When the word of God comes with power
to the conscience, it awakens sinners to their
lost condition.
For when the Spirit of God subdues the
heart of rebels, he attends the preached word
with power, majesty, and authority, and quite suddenly
a sinner becomes alarmed to his great danger,
which before he never saw.
He now sees himself standing in direct opposition
to a holy God who must punish sin.
He is now aware of his lost condition
outside of Christ and his perilous position under
the condemnation of the Almighty.
He is brought to tremble under the sense
of divine wrath, for he knows his guilt
and feels it.
He feels the sentencing of the law being
carried out against him and the punishment which
awaits him, which is the prison of hell
and its torments, where prior to this he
never gave any thought to eternity.
Now he is consumed with the subject and
quite alarmed to his great danger of dropping
into a place of misery and torment called
hell.
He seeks relief.
He becomes a seeker of God and his
mercy.
He is completely shut up to God to
save him.
I know this sounds strange to us in
our day of an apostate church, and few
pastors would even agree with what I'm relating
to you this evening, but when the gospel
is preached in its purity and proper order,
then the Holy Spirit can attend the preached
word with power, which breaks the rock in
pieces, for it is the Spirit of God
that convicts a sin and reveals to a
poor sinner his true character as a guilty
rebel who has broken God's holy law, and
it is the Spirit of God which shows
a lost person the peril of being outside
of Christ's blood and standing in their own
merits and under the wrath of the Almighty,
for divine justice must be carried out, and
when a person is undone and under conviction
and shown their great danger and future punishment,
which is greatly deserved, then they are shut
up to God and his grace alone to
save them.
They are made to see their need of
a Savior.
But we live in a land and in
a day, and when we experience what we're
experiencing today, which is the remedial judgments from
an offended God, one of those judgments is
the withdrawn presence of God, and we have
few true conversions occurring today because man is
making himself a Christian by taking the name
of a Christian as he would take the
name of a college fraternity, and many are
Christians in name only like in Sardis and
Laodicea, but in times of revival, God is
afoot in the land, and His Holy Spirit
is actively at work in the conversion of
sinners.
I want to read you an account this
evening taken from the revival of 1858, which
occurred in this country.
It's also known as the prayer revival or
the businessman's revival, and it shook America from
coast to coast.
It was the last spiritual awakening this nation
has ever seen.
In this brief account, we see how the
Spirit of God is the one who works
on the conscience to bring a person to
Christ.
The following account is given from a witness
to these events from 1858.
Here now are his words.
Impenitent men have been found ready to hear
and ready to obey the gospel call.
This very discovery has roused up the individual
faithfulness of Christians, and they have felt the
value of personal effort as they never felt
it before.
Since the days of first Christians, men have
been surprised at the success of a little
labor, and this has encouraged more labor.
One man has gone prayerfully and affectionately to
another and urged the importance of the hour,
the space given him for repentance and the
necessity of improving it to make his peace
with God.
When he goes to him a second time,
he finds him in great anxiety of mind.
He asks now, What must I do?
What can I do to be saved?
He finds that sleep has departed from the
man.
His days are restless, and night brings him
no repose.
What is the matter with the man?
Why, nothing, except that from his knees a
man has gone and spoken to him at
an unexpected moment, with unexpected earnestness and unwanted
emotion, and with irresistible tenderness and love, has
besought him to attend the gospel message.
As a sinner needing an interest in Christ,
this is all, all that the Christian has
done.
But this is not all.
It has pleased God to clothe that message
with amazing power, the power of the Holy
Spirit, and it will be so evident that
the work is all of God that the
Christian is humbled, while at the same time
he is encouraged, even so, Father, for so
it seemeth good in thy sight.
That, friends, is a good description of the
sinner's heart under conviction.
The best biblical example of this I can
find is seen in the book of Acts
in chapter 2 and verse 37, which states,
Now when they heard this, they were pricked
in their heart, and said unto Peter, and
to the rest of the apostles, Men and
brethren, what shall we do?
For when Peter preached this sermon on the
day of Pentecost, his hearers were pierced through
the heart with conviction of sin.
Why?
Because the Spirit of God set home the
word with power upon the consciousness of the
hearers.
For the word of God is quick and
powerful, sharper than a two-edged sword.
That, friends, is the sword of the Spirit,
and a stab in the heart is fatal.
Paul said, When the commandment came, sin revived,
and I died.
These Jews were pierced through with the sword
of God, and they were gripped under the
conviction of sin.
The preached word, from the lips of Peter,
was attended with power from on high, and
it struck their conscience, showed them their true
character as rebels who sinned against God, and
it revealed to them their lost condition, and
it brought alarm to their conscience.
They were now awakened sinners under conviction of
sin, and when that happens to a man,
he is made aware that he is condemned
by the law, for he has broken God's
strict law time and time again.
He sees that he is guilty as a
lawbreaker, and through this he is exposed to
great danger, because he sees for the first
time that the punishment to which he is
exposed is eternal and misery in an everlasting
place of punishment called hell.
He is convinced of sin and of judgment,
for he realizes God is just to send
him to a burning hell, for he has
committed treason against a sovereign, and the sentencing
of the law must be carried out, for
God is a just judge.
So the sinner's danger becomes very real to
him.
Before all this, he was a careless sinner
who saw no danger in his behavior or
his state.
Now he is unable to rest at night.
He is alarmed to his lost condition and
his need of a remedy for sin.
Now that person is ready to hear about
the Pearl of Great Price, the Lord Jesus
Christ, who is the remedy for sin.
Now the remedy can be applied, for the
sinner has seen his need of that remedy.
He is hungry for God.
He is weary of his sins.
He is thirsty for Christ.
The gospel, friends, is for the hungry, the
weary, and the thirsty.
That man can do business with God when
he gets in that condition, for when a
person sees he is in danger of being
lost forever, he becomes alarmed to his perilous
position outside of Christ, and he becomes a
seeker, for he cannot stand in his own
merits against God's holy law, for he will
fail that test, because God requires perfection to
get into his heaven, and no man is
perfect, for all have sinned and fall short
of the glory of God.
He needs to stand in the merits of
another, a sin substitute in the person of
Jesus Christ, so that person who now has
been awakened to his lost condition and convicted
of sin is entirely showed up to God
to save him.
He becomes a seeker, a beggar for mercy.
The Spirit of God is striving with him.
This all may sound foreign to us in
our day of sad spiritual declension where people
make themselves Christians and join the church.
People save themselves today.
At least that is what they believe.
We've taken salvation out of the hands of
God and placed it in the hands of
men in your day and mine, friends.
There probably has never been in the history
of mankind a time when more lost people
or church members who think they are saved
and on their way to heaven, when in
reality they are quite lost and on their
way to hell.
They've never been awakened to their lost condition,
never convicted of sin by the Spirit of
God, and many rest upon a false foundation
of carnal security.
The reason for this is twofold.
We have cheapened the gospel by diluting it
to make it more palatable to sinful man,
and in the process we have grieved the
Spirit of God away from our sanctuaries.
Years ago, there was a God-consciousness in
our churches, but this is no longer the
case in America today, for we escorted God
to the back door of the church and
pushed him out and opened the front door
and let the world in.
The withdrawn presence of God should alarm us
today, for it is only the Holy Spirit
applying the gospel to a hard sinner's heart
that convicts and saves them.
Our modern gospel has no power to save.
There is no need of repentance or regeneration
today, so it is never mentioned from the
pulpit.
Man can save himself today, for we have
taken salvation out of the hands of God
and placed it in the hands of men,
and they join the church and live in
sin and die in their sins and drop
into a burning hell because a lawbreaker will
be judged as a guilty rebel who deserves
punishment from an offended creator, and for the
forgiveness of sin, God must have satisfaction.
You are either under the blood of Christ
and forgiven and have received pardon for sin,
or you stand in a great place of
exposed danger outside of Christ's merits and will
be sentenced to a place of eternal woe
and misery in a world of damnation, torment,
and flames.
Well, I hope we have learned a little
bit tonight about the sinner's heart under conviction.
I'm going to pray for us now and
then leave you with a verse of scripture,
and I hope you don't just hear this
poor preacher's voice, but you hear his voice
attending his word.
Let us pray.
Great God, salvation is in your hands, and
you can give it or withhold it and
still be a just God.
I pray right now for the Holy Spirit
to bring conviction of sin to anyone within
the sound of my voice who is outside
of Christ Jesus and in great danger of
being lost forever.
Reveal to them, great God, their crime against
you by breaking your holy law through sin.
Reveal to them the penalty for sin, which
is hell itself and its torments.
Bring conviction to them by your grace and
by your mercy.
Bring them to a place of seeking pardon
through the blood of your dear son, Jesus
Christ, the bright and morning star, the rose
of Sharon, the prince of peace, the pearl
of great price who suffered and died because
you, Lord, need satisfaction for sin.
Jesus, the sin bearer, who took your wrath
upon him so we would escape it under
the shelter of dear and precious blood poured
out on our behalf.
Have mercy, great God, and break up the
false foundations that anyone is resting upon.
Break up the false foundations that sit in
stubborn rebellion to your truth, for it is
in the strong name of the Lord Jesus
Christ I pray.
Amen.
Let the wicked forsake his way and the
unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return
unto the Lord and he will have mercy
upon him and to our God for he
will abundantly pardon.