Calvary Road Baptist Church
“TESTS FOR CHRISTIAN CONVERSION, Part 1”
Second Corinthians 13.5
In Second Corinthians 13.5, the Apostle Paul writes,
“Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves.”
I would not be a faithful pastor if I did not challenge you, exhort you, provoke you, and incite you to examine yourselves from time to time to see whether ye be in the faith, to challenge you to prove your own selves. And since I do want to be a faithful pastor, and since I am answerable to my Savior for my watch care over your soul, as one who must give account, Hebrews 13.17, I plan to spend the next five weeks, if the Lord wills, laying out before you some tests for Christian conversion.
Paul’s directive to the Corinthian congregation was for them to examine themselves so they would know whether or not they were in the faith, the Christian faith, whether or not they were Christians. Not only for each member to reflect and consider his or her spiritual condition, but for a congregation to consider the spiritual welfare of other members in their Church.
The same pressing concern Paul urged upon the Corinthian congregation should be seen by you and the rest of our congregation. Why so? Because the only way you can be in the faith, the only way you can be a real Christian, is if you’ve been converted to Christ.
Have you been converted? Are you sure you’ve been converted? Do you have any idea what it is to be converted? We know conversion is a profoundly important thing because the Lord Jesus Christ said,
“Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven,”
Matthew 18.3.
I hope you grasp the importance of what the Lord Jesus said. He said, in effect, that if you aren’t converted, you will not go to heaven. So, we know that conversion and being converted is extremely important. Are you converted? Are you sure you are converted? Some people who think they are are not.
In a crowd this size, it’s always good to make sure we understand the terms we use since there is always a possibility that some of the words I am using are unfamiliar to some. But don’t be at all embarrassed by words you don’t understand.
The Bible discusses things that most people don’t frequently talk about or think about, so it’s understandable that some words and phrases might be unfamiliar to you. However, just because a word or a phrase is unfamiliar to you doesn’t mean that you should think of it as unimportant.
Such a word is “conversion” and “converted.” As a caution, know that Jewish people often have a very strong reaction to the word “conversion,” and for understandable reasons. During the Spanish Inquisition that took place some four centuries ago, Jewish people were required to “convert” to Roman Catholicism under penalty of death. So, I can understand why a religious Jew, who has been taught about the terrible things done to Jewish people during the Roman Catholic Inquisition of 1478–1834, would have a problem with the word “convert” and might initially balk at the idea of being “converted.”[1]
But a definition of what conversion is in the Bible shows there is no real connection between the usage of the word by the brutal Catholic inquisitors and the inspired writers of the New Testament. In the book, “Today’s Apostasy,” the authors have an excellent working definition of conversion. They write,
“Conversion is a result of that work of the Holy Spirit which draws a lost sinner to Jesus Christ for justification and regeneration, and changes the sinner’s standing before God from lost to saved, imparting divine life to a depraved soul, thus producing a new direction in the life of the convert. The objective side of salvation is justification. The subjective side of salvation is regeneration. The result is conversion.”[2]
I don’t want to bog you down with that complex, though excellent, definition. I cited it only to show you that conversion is very real. At the same time, it is something that no one can force on someone or conjure up with magic words, ceremonies, or even a sword point. Conversion is a work of God, and anything less than a work of God is not genuine conversion.
Are you converted? Are you really converted? When were you converted? How were you converted? What are the lasting results of conversion in your life? Before you can intelligently answer these questions for yourself, there are some things you need to know.
I want to read you an illustration of conversion. But before I do that, let me talk to you for a bit about the two words in the New Testament that are translated by the English word “convert” or “be converted.”
The first word is strέfoo, which means to twist or to turn.[3] The second word is ἐpistrέfoo, which is essentially the same word with the preposition epi tacked on to the front of the word, intensifying the word a bit.[4] So, when this happens with conversion, the concept is of someone pointed in a direction and then turned or twisted to be pointed in a new direction.
From the very good definition, remember that conversion is the result of a work done by the Holy Spirit when the sinner is drawn to Jesus Christ so that the sinner’s standing before God is entirely changed. Conversion is not something you have done to yourself or anything that you can do to or for yourself. Conversion is the result of what God does.
To illustrate this concept, let me read to you from the last portion of Jeremiah 31.18. That portion of Scripture, which in my opinion is the best concise statement of what conversion is, found anywhere in Scripture, reads,
“turn thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou art the LORD my God.”
You see? There is the turning, without which there is no real conversion. But the turning is not done by the sinner. The turning is done by the LORD my God. Has that happened to you? Has the Holy Spirit somehow drawn you to faith in Jesus Christ so that after all is said and done, after you have been justified through faith in Christ after you have been regenerated by the Holy Spirit, the result is that you’ve been converted, the result is that you’ve been turned about ... by God?
It’s important. Conversion reflects a person’s altered eternal destiny. Whereas he was headed for Hell one day, after he had been converted, his destiny was now heaven. It also alters an individual’s present day. Where he was an enemy of God and in a perpetual state of rebellion against God and His program for human beings, after he has been converted, his sins are forgiven, and he walks daily in sweet communion with His heavenly Father and his Savior Jesus Christ.
Has that happened to you? Have you been converted? Oh, I know that many these days claim to be Christians. They espouse Christian doctrines, and they claim to be born again. But they have such a low view of conversion. It must be because they’ve not been converted themselves. Don’t you think?
I was called to the ministry 49 years ago. Since then, I have been preparing, preaching, and pastoring without interruption. So, with a sense of exasperation and frustration, I discovered the writings and ministry of Richard Baxter some decades ago.
Richard Baxter, a Puritan who was a prolific writer, was a consummate pastor and shepherd of souls. He wrote some books that are considered classics that I regret not having been exposed to more than forty-five years ago when my ministry began. Oh, the loss to my ministry for all that time for not having been able by the means of his books to sit at the feet of that wonderfully used man of God.
One of the books that Richard Baxter wrote more than 300 years ago was “A Treatise On Conversion.” First published in 1657 and reissued too many times to count, it was universally accepted by all Christians as a faithful commentary on the subject of conversion. Methodists, Presbyterians, and Baptists loved Baxter’s book.
Baxter’s book contains five tests to determine whether or not a person is genuinely converted. Remember, his book was accepted by Christians across the theological spectrum, from Calvinists such as Spurgeon and Whitefield to Arminians such as John and Charles Wesley. So, his book, including its tests for conversion, was readily accepted by virtually every Christian in the English-speaking world.
I want to present the first of Baxter’s conversion tests. Please listen carefully to the first of Baxter’s tests of conversion. And I would be grateful if you could use it as a guide to examine yourself, whether ye be in the faith; to prove your own self. And why should you? Because it’s your soul, not mine. Because it’s your eternal destiny, not mine. Because it’s your responsibility, as well as mine. And because Baxter distilled profound Bible truths to benefit God’s children. Baxter’s words follow, after which comes my sermon based upon God’s Word:
“I shall tell you here for the negative, who they are who are yet unconverted, and must be changed, if ever they will be saved. (1) They who never yet perceived and felt that sin is a great and detestable evil, deserving the wrath of God, and who never felt their need of the pardon of sin by the blood of the Lord Jesus, nor were ever humbled because of their rebellion against God, are yet unconverted and without conversion cannot be saved.”[5]
Allow me to put you at ease in two respects. First, be careful not to assume that I am preaching the words of a man, for I have no such intent. Rather, I am preaching a sermon of my own construction from the Word of God that has been provoked by the keen insight into God’s Word by a profoundly godly man who lived long ago.
Secondly, I recognize that Baxter’s initial conversion test seems quite complex at first glance. But have no fear. In essence, this test of conversion has been drawn from his study of the Bible and can easily be seen to fall into three natural divisions that are quite recognizable to anyone familiar with the Bible.
Baxter’s first test of conversion, the first test I urge you to apply to your own condition for self-examination and consideration, is the perception of guilt, the punishment of God, and the pardon of God. We take these portions of Baxter’s first test, lifted from the Bible, in turn:
First, THERE IS THE PERCEPTION OF GUILT
Please think back to that point in time when you believe you were converted. For some of you, it was when you were, say, ten years old. For others, it was when you were fifty years old. Some of you were converted right after an evangelistic sermon was preached, perhaps a Gospel sermon in which you were urged to come to Christ. But with others, it was when you were alone in a room after much contemplation and reflection. Whatever the particular circumstance you experienced, try to remember how you felt. Was there your perception of guilt? Did you feel guilty, guilty, guilty?
I ask you this because I am seeking to lead you to understand, at the time you say you were converted, whether there was any work being done by the Holy Spirit. This is also helpful for the lost among us. Remember, the Lord Jesus told His disciples that the Holy Spirit would reprove the world of sin. And when someone is reproved of sin by the Holy Spirit, he ought to feel guilty. So, the way you know the Holy Spirit is convicting you of sin so as to bring you to saving faith in Christ is by the way you feel leading up to the time you were hopefully converted.
Let me share with you two heightened senses that are oftentimes associated with the reproving work of the Holy Spirit in a sinner’s life; when you appreciate the wickedness of your sin and when you grasp the enormity of the wrongness of your rebellion.
First, the wickedness of your sin. How did you feel about the wickedness of your sin before God? Was your sin a horror to you? Were you gripped by the wrongness of your sin, the nastiness of it, the defilement of it? Did you feel that you could do no right because the only thing you were capable of was wrong, wrong, always wrong? First Samuel 24.13 declares that “Wickedness proceedeth from the wicked.” Were you conscious of that? Were you persuaded of the awfulness of your sin? We know from Psalm 7.11 that “God is angry with the wicked every day.” So, what were your feelings toward yourself? Psalm 10.4 reminds us that “The wicked ... will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts.” Did it bother you that you did not seek after God? Did it trouble you greatly that God was not in all your thoughts? And how wrong that attitude is? Psalm 36.1 reads,
“The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart, that there is no fear of God before his eyes.”
Did you greatly fear God just before the time you think you were converted? Psalm 119.53 shows us that “the wicked ... forsake [God’s] law.” How did your disobedience toward God leave you feeling? Some unsaved people think they are not wicked. They have never thought of themselves as wicked. But Psalm 37.21 identifies as wicked even those who borrow and don’t pay back what they owe. And they’d better start thinking of themselves as wicked, since the sacrifice of the wicked, the way of the wicked, and the thoughts of the wicked, are an abomination to the LORD, Proverbs 15.8, 9, 26. How did you feel about your guilt before God? Were you convinced that your sin was wicked in the sight of God, a terrible calamity to your soul?
How about the wrongness of your rebellion? Sometimes, a sinner succeeds in justifying his sinfulness, in excusing himself. Some seek to explain away and excuse their rebellion. How did you feel about your rebellion toward God in refusing to love Him with all your heart, mind, and soul? Did you excuse it? Did you seek to explain it away by saying to yourself, “But I didn’t know”? Or did you recognize that rebellion is wrong in all its forms and regardless of what motivates it? Did you concur with God that “rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft,” that it’s the desperate act of a sinful heart that is hateful toward God? And how long did it take from when you first heard the Gospel before you actually came to Christ? Was your continued rebellion against obeying the Gospel and the command of Jesus Christ to turn from your sins, the command of the Lord Jesus to come to Him by faith, a source of heartache to you? That you continued lost after hearing the Gospel is also rebellion. Did that bother you at all? How about the example you set for others who look up to you and admire you? Two men who opposed the prophet Jeremiah were condemned by God because they taught rebellion against the LORD. But what rebellion against the LORD did you teach to your brothers, to your sisters, to your friends, perhaps to your children, by your example of rebellion? Was that guiltiness a burden to your heart? Did it weigh you down and crush you under its heavy load? Perceiving the wickedness of your sin and the wrongness of your rebellion are just illustrations of the feelings accompanying a person’s perception of guilt just before the individual is converted. As you look back on your hopeful conversion experience, I trust that something like what I have described is the legacy of conviction the Holy Spirit left with you.
Second, THERE IS THE PUNISHMENT OF GOD
Let me add that I am often concerned, when I listen to sinners, by their expressions of a fear of Hell as their motive for wanting to be saved. This is because the sinner is never admonished in God’s Word to fear Hell. Hell is quite simply the consequence of a life lived and died without Christ. But my Lord Jesus very pointedly directed sinners to
“fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell,”
Matthew 10.28. There is something wrong with a person who fears Hell or other individuals but who does not fear God or who does not fear sinning. That’s the criminal who commits the crime but is only concerned about doing the time and has no real remorse for the wrong that he has done or the harm that has ensued from his criminal behavior.
When I refer to the punishment of God, I am not speaking of a sinner being scared of going to Hell. There is no Holy Ghost preparation of one’s heart for conversion evident in sentiments like that. When the Spirit of God deals with a sinner about his or her sinfulness, that sinner comes to have a clear picture of the punishment of God concerning two things:
First, do you remember having a consciousness of the nature of God’s punishment? The unaffected think of Hell and damnation only in terms of pain and torment for all eternity. Perhaps they even think at times of the fact that the agony of the damned is both constant and conscious. And so far as they go in their thinking, they are entirely correct. But those convicted by the Holy Spirit and drawn to Christ may remember when asked, that sudden awareness that God’s punishment was very much a personal matter, that it was the wrath of a personal God against a personal sinner, as Romans 12.19 points out to us:
“Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”
“I will repay, saith the Lord.” In other words, God is telling us that He, personally, will exact revenge and pour out wrath on each sinner. Did that affect you, my friend? Do you remember that? I very much remember the night of my conversion that the issue of my sin was a very personal matter with God. I sensed Him to be personally offended. After all, I knew that I had personally wronged Him. Therefore, punishment would be personally meted out to me if I did not turn to Christ. It’s this aspect of God’s punishment that is oftentimes missing from the testimony of someone not truly converted. But the believer in Jesus Christ very much has Second Thessalonians 1.7-9 sentiments on his mind leading to his conversion:
7 ... when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels,
8 In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:
9 Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord.
It’s the truly convicted sinner, the one profoundly convinced by the Spirit of God of his transgressions against a personal, holy, loving, righteous, long-suffering God, who can be aware of the personal nature of God’s wrath poured out on an unsaved individual.
That’s the nature of God’s punishment. Now, what about the need for God’s punishment? Do you remember when you were broken? Do you remember when your shoulders slumped with the awareness that should you die without Christ, should you die without being truly converted, should you die in your state of rebellion against God, that consignment to Hell was called for, that God’s wrath poured out on you for all eternity was fully deserved? You see, don’t you, that the tears and the wailings of the lost are forms of protest against God’s justice and objections to His judgment against sinners? Wailing and tears are cries against God’s sovereign right to punish those who rise up in rebellion against His moral government. Much like a baby crying for not getting his way. When the Holy Spirit convicts, when the Holy Spirit convinces, then the sinner is convinced, he comes to a place where he sides with God against himself, where he acknowledges the rightness of God and his own wrongness. It’s a place where protests cease, and excuses are discarded. He bows before God and awaits God’s pleasure, for the Lord Jesus has told us that.
“No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him,”
John 6.44. Look back on that time before you believe you were converted. Think about what you thought and believed concerning God's punishment, the nature of that punishment, and the need for that punishment. Are you converted?
Finally, IN THIS FIRST TEST OF CONVERSION, THE PARDON OF GOD
What about the need to obtain God’s pardon? Were you absolutely convinced, beyond any shadow of doubt, that your situation was hopeless? Were you convinced at that time that you were way beyond any possibility of saving yourself, and that you needed divine intervention? Perhaps Ephesians 2.12 loomed larger and larger on your horizon of awareness:
“That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.”
There you were, dead in trespasses and sins, past the possibility of renovation. In need of a genuine miracle. Can a sinner seek pardon from God? Oh, yes. After all, sinners don’t just sit there and end up being saved from their sins. Let me read a passage that’s familiar to most of you, but then I want to point out to you the lesson that is almost always overlooked when this passage is considered. Luke 18.9-14:
9 And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:
10 Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.
11 The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.
12 I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.
13 And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.
14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.
What’s the instruction of the Lord Jesus Christ here? Not to pray. After all, both men prayed. The praying is incidental to the thrust of what the Savior is teaching here. What is He teaching the sinner to do here? To humble yourself. James 4.6 and First Peter 5.5 declare that God gives grace to the humble but that He resists the proud. The point is that this need to obtain God’s pardon is so great, so profound, and looms so large in your thinking that you will humble yourself before God in seeking His pardon. Do you remember that my friend? Did you humble yourself under the mighty hand of God?
Then, there is the necessity of obtaining God’s pardon. What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. In order to obtain God’s pardon, you must be cleansed of your sins. What is required for God to forget your sins and iniquities no more?[6] The precious blood of Jesus Christ cleanses away sins. It is also the only thing that enables God to forget your sins and iniquities no more. How does the blood of Jesus Christ come to be applied to your sins? You come to Him by faith.[7] You trust Him for the forgiveness of sins.[8] You lay hold of Jesus Christ by faith. Do you remember coming to Christ for His cleansing blood? Do you remember fleeing to Him for salvation and pardon?
This is the first test: perception of guilt, punishment of God, pardon by God. I hope your experience passes the test. If not, perhaps you must spend more time reflecting and contemplating to ponder your relationship with Christ.
Know that I am available to talk to you and show you truths from God’s Word so that this matter can be settled rather than ignored.
__________
[1] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Spanish-Inquisition
[2] R. L. Hymers, Jr. and Christopher Cagan, Today’s Apostasy: How Decisionism Is Destroying Our Churches, (Oklahoma City, OK: Hearthstone Publishing, Ltd., 1999), page 26.
[3] Bauer, Danker, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2000), page 948.
[4] Ibid., page 382.
[5] Hymers and Cagan, pages 64-66.
[6] Hebrews 8.12; 10.17
[7] Matthew 11.28
[8] Ephesians 1.12-13
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