true or false conversion continued {page two}

11. They may also agree in hating the same things.

They may both hate sexual immorality and oppose it strenuously. The true saint hates it because it is detestable in itself and contrary to God, and the other because it goes against his views and opinions.

They may both hate sin - the true convert because it is repulsive to God, and the deceived person because it hurts him personally. It's common for people to hate their own sins, and yet not forsake them.

They may both be opposed to sinners. The opposition of true saints is a loving opposition. They see that the character and conduct of sinners is calculated to ruin the Kingdom of God. False converts are opposed to sinners because they are against their religion and because they are not on their side.

In all of these cases, the motives of one class go directly against the other. The difference lies in their choice of goals. One chooses his own interest, the other chooses God's interest as his ultimate goal.
V. I Will Now Answer Some Common Questions.
1. "If these two classes of people are alike in so many things, how are we to know our own real character, or know which class we belong to? We know that the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked (Jer. 17:9), so how are we to know whether we love God and holiness for their own sake, or whether we are seeking the favor of God, and aiming at heaven for our own benefit?"

If we are truly benevolent, it will appear in our daily transactions. If in our dealings with men we are selfish, we will also be selfish in our dealings with God. "For the one who does not love his brother who he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen." ( I John 4:20 NASB) Being a Christian is not only loving God, but also loving man. And if our daily business shows us to be selfish, we are unconverted - or else a man can be a Christian without loving his neighbor as himself.

If you are unselfish, your spiritual responsibilities will not be a chore to you. Some people do what God says with the same attitude that a sick man takes his medicine - because he desires its good effects, and he knows he must have it or perish. It is something that he would never do for its own sake.

 

If you are selfish, your joy will depend mainly on the strength of your hopes of heaven. When you feel very certain of going to heaven then you enjoy being a Christian a great deal. Your joy depends on your hope, and not on your love for the things you are hoping for. I do not say that true saints don't enjoy their hope, but it's not the most important thing to them. They think very little about their own hopes because their thoughts are taken up with other things of greater value.

If you are selfish, your enjoyments will be chiefly from anticipation. The true saint already enjoys the peace of God and has heaven begun in his soul. He doesn't have to wait until he dies to taste the joys of eternal life. His enjoyment is in proportion to his holiness, and not in proportion to his hope.

The deceived person has only a purpose of obedience, while the saint has a preference of obedience. This is an important distinction, and I'm afraid few people make it. The true saint really prefers, and in is heart chooses obedience - therefore he finds it easy to obey. The false convert is determined to be holy, because he knows that it's the only way to be happy. The true saint chooses holiness for its own sake, and he is holy.

The true convert and the deceived person also differ in their faith. The true saint has a confidence in the character of God that leads him into whole-hearted submission to Him. True confidence in the Lord's special promises depends on a trust in God's character. There are only two principles on which any government, human or divine, is obeyed - fear and trust. All obedience springs from one of these two principles. In the one case, individuals obey from hope of reward and fear of punishment. In the other case, submission comes from a confidence in the character of the government, which is run by love. One child obeys his parents because he loves and trusts them. The other gives an outward obedience motivated from hopes and fears. The true convert has a faith, or confidence in God, that leads him to obey God from love. This is the obedience of faith.

The deceived person has only a partial faith, and only a partial submission. The devil has a partial faith too. He believes and trembles. A person may believe that Christ came to save sinners, and on that ground may submit to Him to be saved. But he does not submit wholly to His sovereign authority, or give Him control of his life. His submission is only on the condition that he will be saved. It is never with that unreserved confidence in God's whole character that leads him to say, "Thy will be done." His religion is the religion of law. The other has Gospel faith. One is selfish, the other benevolent. Here lies the true difference between the two classes. The religion of one is outward and hypocritical. The other is that of the heart - holy and acceptable to God.

If you are selfish, you will only rejoice in the conversion of sinners when you have part in it. You will have very little satisfaction when it is through others that people are saved. The selfish person rejoices when he is active and successful in converting sinners, because he thinks he will have a great reward. But he will be envious when others lead someone to Christ. The true saint sincerely delights to see others useful, and rejoices when sinners are converted through others as much as if he had a part in it himself.

2. "Shouldn't I have any regard for my own happiness?"

It is all right to be concerned about your own happiness according to its relative value. Measure it against the glory of God and the good of the universe, and then decide - giving it the value which properly belongs to it. This is exactly what God does. And this is what He means when He commands you to love your neighbor as yourself.

Interestingly enough, the less concerned you are about your own happiness - the happier you will be. True happiness consists mainly in the fulfillment of unselfish desires. If you aim at doing good for its own sake, then you will be happy in proportion as you do good. But if you do good simply to secure your own happiness, you will fail. You will be like the child pursuing his own shadow; he can never overtake it, because it's always just so far ahead of him.

3. "Didn't Christ regard the joy set before Him?"

It is true that Christ despised the shame and endured the cross, and had regard to the joy set before Him. But what was the joy set before Him? Not His own salvation, not His own happiness, but the great good He would do in the salvation of the world. The happiness of others was what He aimed at. This was the joy set before Him...and this is what He obtained.

4. "Didn't Moses look to the reward?"

Yes, Moses was looking to the reward. But was that reward to his own profit? Far from it. The reward was the salvation of the people of Israel. At one point God proposed to destroy Israel and make a great nation of Moses. If Moses had been selfish he would have said, "Yes, Lord. Let it be done to Your servant according to Your word." But what does he say? Why, his heart was so set on the salvation of his people, and the glory of God, that he wouldn't think of it for a moment. But instead he said, "If Thou wilt, forgive their sin - and if not, please blot me out from Thy book which Thou hast written!" (Ex. 32:32 NASB) This is not the response of a selfish man.

5. "Doesn't the Bible say we love God because he first loved us?"

Where it says, "We love Him because He first loved us," (I John 4:19) the language implies two different meanings: 1) His love for us has made it possible for us to love Him back; or 2) We love Him for the kindness and favor He has shown to us. The second meaning is obviously not correct because Jesus Christ has so clearly given the principle in His sermon on the mount: "And if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them." (Luke 6:32 NASB) If we love God, not for His character but for His favors to us, we are no different than the unconverted.

6. "Doesn't the Bible offer happiness as the reward of virtue?"

The Bible speaks of happiness as the result of virtue, but nowhere is your own happiness given as a reason for doing what is right.

7. "Why does the Bible appeal continually to the hopes and fears of men, if a concern for your own happiness is not the right motive for our actions?"

Man naturally dreads harm, and it is not wrong to avoid it. We may have a a concern for our own happiness, but only according to its value.

Also, men are so drunk with sin that God cannot get their attention to consider His true character and the reasons for loving Him, unless He appeals to their hopes and fears. But once they are awakened, He presents the Gospel to them. When a minister has preached the terrors of the Lord until he has his hearers alarmed and aroused, then he should spread out the character of God before them, to draw their hearts to love Him for His own excellence.

8. "Doesn't the Gospel offer forgiveness as a motive for submission?"

If you mean that the sinner is to repent on the condition that he will be forgiven, then I say that the Bible says no such thing. It never authorizes a sinner to say, "I will repent if you will forgive," and nowhere offers forgiveness as a motive of repentance.

VI. Some Closing Remarks.
1. Some people are more anxious to convert sinners than they are to see the Church sanctified and God glorified by the good works of His people.

Many want to see people saved, not because their lives and deeds hurt and dishonor God, but because they feel sorry for them and don't want to see them go to hell. True saints are upset by sin because it is so dishonoring to God. But they are most distressed when they see Christians sin, because it dishonors God even more. Some people seem to care very little about the state of the church, as long as they can see the work of conversion go forward, to them, "successful" evangelistic efforts equal a "successful" church, but they are not really anxious to have God honored. This shows that they are not motivated by a genuine love for God and holiness, but by their own human feelings and emotions for sinners.

2. From all I have just said, it's easy to see why so many professing Christians have such different views on what the Gospel really is.

Some view the Gospel as a mere convenience to mankind, where God is not as strict as He was under the law. They think that they can be as worldly as they want to be, and the Gospel will come in and make up what they lack and save them. Others view the Gospel as a divine provision from God, having as its main purpose the destruction of sin and the promotion of holiness. Therefore, far from making it acceptable for them to be less holy than they should be under the law, its whole value consists in its power to make them holy.

"Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you - unless you fail the test?" (II Cor. 13:5 NASB)

from Last Days Ministries, used by permission