SO many look at believing as some difficult task which they, on their part must perform, before God, on His part, can give them the longed-for blessing. After some special effort to accomplish this great work, they look in upon themselves to see if a right result has been produced, and in this way vainly try to get satisfaction. All this is self-occupation, from beginning to end. They try to produce something in their own feelings, by their own efforts to believe, and presume to be their own judge as to whether the thing arrived at is genuine or not. SELF! SELF! SELF! Then, usually, it is some sort of natural emotion that they expect; and, of course, it must be of a kind they have never felt before.
But conversion is not a physical change in our feelings, it is a moral change, produced by the Spirit of God in our souls. When a man is indifferent about sin one day, and dreads it and longs for Christ the next, it is surely proof that a change has been effected. But it is a moral change. The conscience has been awakened by the light. The light has exposed what he is in view of what God is. Nothing will meet such inward cravings but the One who could meet, and has met, all God’s claims against us. It is by this means that the sinner realizes that he cannot do without Christ. Then it is he learns with joy that this blessed Saviour exchanged the adoration of angels in heavenly glory, for the shame and suffering of the cross, in order that He might secure such sinners as himself for His own and His Father’s joy forever.
If the sinner’s awakened conscience cannot rest satisfied without the Saviour and His sin-atoning work, the Saviour’s love will not rest satisfied till that convicted sinner has received the longed-for blessing.
It is the GOSPEL which brings this glad news to a guilty, self-condemned one, and it is important to see that it is this GOSPEL which he is called upon to believe.
He is not commanded to believe that he is saved, but to repent and believe the gospel, and it is only when he does thus believe that he gets the assurance that salvation is his. There are four great facts about the gospel, and any one of them ought to be a cure for trying to believe.
1. Where it comes from―Heaven (1 Peter 1:12).
2. Who sends it. ―The blessed God (Acts 10:36; 1 Tim. 1:11).
3. Who brings it. ―The Holy Ghost (1 Peter 1:12).
4. Whom it is about. ―The Lord Jesus Christ.—His precious blood and heavenly exaltation (Rom. 1:3; 2 Cor. 4:4).
What a message it is! It comes from a place where no lie and no liar can enter. It comes from a God who cannot lie―who hates lying. It is brought by the Spirit of Truth, and it is concerning Him who is the very embodiment of Truth itself.
Yet a poor sinner will coolly say he will try to believe it!
You are bad enough, my reader, to deserve the judgment of God, and God has been good enough to send His beloved Son to bear that very judgment. This you are called upon to believe. Not that you are good, but that God is. Not that you are worthy, but that Christ is worthy. Not what you feel about yourself, but what God feels about Christ.
“This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief” (1 Tim. 1:15).
May the Spirit of God direct the heart of every troubled reader away from his worthless self to the worthy Saviour.
What think ye of such tidings?