The Word of God in Psalm 110.3
declares that 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 baptized
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.
Oh, 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 amnity 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.
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 a travel, a religious road to
hell.
Now I'm being honest with you, friends, because
I will be true to your soul.
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.
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.
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.
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 of soul, 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.