November 18, 2013

Another Gospel

There  is only one Gospel – only one true message of good news from heaven. But there are many substitutes offered in place of the Gospel. It was so in the beginning. It is so now. The apostle Paul wrote to the Galatians:
I marvel that ye are so soon removed from Him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel; which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. (Galatians1:6-9)
THESE are intensely solemn words. They come bubbling up from the steaming heart of the indignant apostle in righteous wrath as he learns of pretentious carnal legalists deliberately seeking to mislead eternally-bound souls with a false message which could only, like a will-o-the-wisp, lead to ruin and destruction at last. He would have us know it is a fearfully wicked thing to trifle with the sacred heaven – sent message that has come to a needy world declaring the grace of God to poor lost sinners.

WHAT then is this Gospel of which the apostle was so jealous? He tells us plainly in 1st Corinthians 15:1-4:
“… I declare unto you the gospel… how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.”
Note carefully: The Gospel is God’s wonderful story of His beloved Son. It is a message of grace to be received in faith. It is not a code of laws to be obeyed or good advice to be followed. It is not a system of ritual observances or a call to submit to certain ordinances. It does not set forth the claims of any human church organization, however venerable, nor does it exhort men to seek after experiences, however remarkable, though a blessed experience follows its acceptance. It simply sets forth Christ crucified and risen as the Savior of all who believe in Him.

WHEN THE MORMON elder comes declaring that an angel revealed a gospel of salvation through a restored church and renewed ordinances, he is preaching another gospel, and angel and man are alike under the curse.

WHEN THE LEGALIST comes insisting that salvation is by obedience to God’s holy law (which in itself is just and good), he is preaching another gospel, for the Word of God declares, “By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in His sight.”

WHEN THE REVIVALIST comes promising salvation to those “who make a full surrender” of all that they have to God, and who “pay the price of full salvation,” he is preaching another gospel, for the price was paid on Calvary’s cross and the work that saves is finished. It was Christ Jesus who made the full surrender, when He yielded Himself unto death for us that we might be redeemed from the curse of the broken law and forever saved from the judgment to come upon all who refuse His grace.

WHEN THE MODERNIST prates in glowing terms and honeyed phrases of salvation by character, salvation by altruism, salvation by ethical culture, he, too is proclaiming another gospel, for if character could have saved, Christ need not have died; if altruism would have fitted sinful men for heaven, the Lord Jesus would surely have told us so; if ethical culture could deliver from the wrath of God, what place would Gethsemane, Calvary and the Empty Tomb have in the Divine economy?

WHEN THE CHRISTIAN SCIENTIST (falsely so-called) denies the reality of sin, disease and death and lulls sinners to sleep by telling them that “God is all and all is God,” even going so far as to declare the death of Christ was unreal, and His resurrection simply spiritual, and that the blood of Jesus was no more efficacious to cleanse from sins when shed upon the accursed tree than when it was flowing in His veins, he, or she, is promulgating another gospel, which is not another, for it is a baseless dream, a weird and blasphemous “error of mortal mind” that will leave its votaries at last without God and without hope.

THE SOLEMN FACT IS THERE IS NO OTHER GOSPEL. Every pretended substitute is but a Satan-devised delusion meant to turn men away from the strait gate which alone leads into the narrow way, and make them contented as they crowd down the clear side of the broad way to eternal perdition.

BEFORE there can really be another gospel there must be another savior and another Holy Spirit, and this can never be. Nor is any other gospel needed, for the grand old Gospel of the grace of God is all-sufficient to save “whosoever will,” and has demonstrated its power throughout the centuries by transforming lost miserable sinners into happy joyous saints. Paul says:
I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ; for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith. (Romans 1:16,17)
THE Gospel needs only to be preached in the power of the Holy Spirit to hold its own against every imitation and substitute that the mind of the natural man energized by Satan can devise. Like the Bible itself it is divinely inspired and, therefore, preeminently fitted for the needs of mankind… It convinces the mind and satisfies the heart, if men but take the place of repentant sinners and accept it by faith. It is the dynamic of God unto the deliverance of all who believe it. To refuse it is to be lost. To receive its message is to be saved.

IT reveals the righteousness of God, making known how He “can be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus.” Satan’s false gospels all pretend to show how man can establish his own righteousness. The Gospel of Christ comes to unrighteous men and tells them of a righteousness that is divine which is imputed to all who believe.

ANOTHER gospel - whatever its outward form - will always be found to center in something that man can be or do in order to obtain merit. The Gospel of God declares what Christ has done in order that the salvation purchased may be justly offered to sinners.

ANOTHER gospel presupposes some strength, some ability to please God, in the natural man. God’s Gospel declares that when “we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.”

ANOTHER gospel will land you in hell! God’s Gospel, believed, will bring you safe to heaven.


Dr. Harry A. Ironside

TURNING from every false hope, I beseech my unsaved reader to rest in what Scripture declares concerning Christ, and thus be able to sing in faith:
“Upon a life I did not live, Upon a death I did not die, Another’s life, Another’s death I hang my whole eternity. None will ever be confounded who put their trust in Him.”
*The writings of Harry A. Ironside are in the public domain and can be used freely.

Also by Harry A. Ironside:

What Does it Mean to Repent and Be Saved?

Should Christians Expose Error? 

November 8, 2013

"APOSTOLIC" APOSTASIES ATTRACT

Extreme Charismatics Increasingly Adopt "Emerging" Pagan Practices

Yoga. Centering Prayer. Lectio Divina. Evangelical Monasticism. Practicing the Presence. Stations of the Cross. Labyrinth Prayer. These are but a few of the teachings and techniques we've noted that are bombarding evangelical churches of all denominations, largely in association with the Emerging Church Movement (ECM). But while much recent biblical discernment has been focused on the errors and excesses of the ECM, another "renewal" has been taking place in the revived Latter-Rain and Kingdom-Now camps related to C. Peter Wagner's "New Apostolic Reformation" (NAR) that poses equal concern with regard to the Emerging Apostasy.

It may surprise some that the best-selling author/leaders in the NAR have key beliefs in common with the best-selling author/leaders of the ECM, which position both groups for a "melding of the minds." Among the common denominators are a general distaste for exegetical (verse-by-verse) preaching, a disdain of dispensational teaching (particularly the rapture, which is frequently mocked), and a "dominion mandate" doctrine that expands the gospel of God to include redemption of the earth through social-spiritual activism. The NAR and ECM also share a "trans-denominational" (ecumenical and pluralistic) mission of "inclusion" at the expense of sound doctrine.

Not surprisingly, then, is perhaps their greatest common denominator: an affinity for (and outright embrace of) Contemplative Spirituality. A particularly visible example is the Arizona-based organization of Patricia King called "Extreme Prophetic." Through a myriad of conferences and audio/visual media that includes a TV program, her ministry promotes not just "ordinary" miracles but "extreme signs and wonders" as taught by a variety of Christian seers and psychics--such as interpreting dreams, providing "spiritual readings" for the lost, "opening the heavens" to release the "manifest presence" of God (i.e., oil and "glory dust"), working with angels, raising the dead, "spirit-traveling" to the third heaven (throneroom of God), communicating with departed saints, and more.
Once recognized by a majority of the church as New Age occultism, these practices are now becoming commonplace (or at least commonly sought) at an alarming rate by confused Christians, immature believers, and unsaved spiritual seekers who are all hungry for a "manifest" encounter with God, "here and now." As occultism gains popular acceptance in the world, so does the craving for "genuine" (tangible) signs as encouraged by neo-prophetic teachers.

One of the more recent and blatant examples of neo-paganism in the church, however, is Patricia King's endorsement and embrace of trance-dancing as a Christian form of worship that she and Caleb Brundidge, one of her itinerant ministers, call "Ekstasis Worship." Brundidge is a traveling "prophetic" D.J. that calls his show "Club Mysterio." (Repetitive "rave" or "trance" music has been so-called because nightclubs around the world use it to enable patrons to enter a euphoric altered state of consciousness--with or without the assistance of drugs such as "ecstasy"--through extended freestyle and sensual motion set to repetitive music tracks.

It doesn't take an anthropologist to recognize parallels between modern trance dancing and ancient forms of ritual dance that is still used in many cultures to produce identical altered states and "spirit travel." But what many may not know is the increasing popularity of "yoga trance dance," which could well become the new "jazzercize" that turns this form of Hindu worship into an aerobic activity for "everyday" gym members.

Space does not permit a full analysis with comparison to Scripture, but as the quotes below reveal, patrons of Brundidge's "Club Mysterio" may indeed feel "ecstasy"--but rather than realizing the true joy of the Lord, they might experience either a "head rush" from spinning in circles (a practice of the "whirling dervishes" of Islamic mysticism) or they could meet instead an angel of light--one of the same "divine" deceivers as encountered by yogic dancers seeking all-night tantric pleasure with Hindu deities.

Which brings us to an ancient-future spiritual law: "apostasies attract." With "Christian yoga" and mystical methods for "meeting God" on the rise--and "Christian trance-dancing" now in vogue, what other "Christianized" demonic practices lie ahead?

[D.J. Caleb Brundidge's quotes below are transcribed from Patricia King's "Extreme Prophetic TV" show, interspersed with quotes taken from online testimony and promotion of yoga trance-dancing to show the parallel experiences.]
          
          Yogic Nightclub Dancer:
          "In searching for my personal connection with Shiva Nataraj, to best explain these roots of 
           trance dancing from ancient India, I felt I needed to go deeper than books, however."
 
Ekstasis Worship / Extreme Prophetic DJ:
"You no longer have to study the word, when you're inside of an infused atmosphere, it becomes part of you."

Yogic Nightclub Dancer:
"Infused with pure love for the Lord [Shiva Nataraj] and all that he represents, I let myself drift back through the ages until I was a young devadasi performing a tantric [sensual] trance dance somewhere in South India."

Ekstasis Worship / Extreme Prophetic DJ:
"Ekstasis worship is worship that when you go outside of your mind, and just release yourself into abandoned worship with God, going into the ecstasy [as in sensual union] of God."

Yogic Nightclub Dancer:
"Lost in this ancient trance, I felt my love for Shiva grow deeper all night, consuming me. I saw his essence in everyone and everything around me....The techno beat morphed in my head into the shrill song of a shenai, the rhythmic clanging of temple bells reverberating in an ancient stone temple, and the mesmerizing drone of devotional songs being repeated over and over again."

Ekstasis Worship / Extreme Prophetic DJ:
"With the rhythm, the sound, and the repetiveness of the music, the word is driven into your body, not just your mind, not just your soul, but the whole mind, body, and soul."

Yogic Nightclub Dancer:
"Ecstatically allowing the Nataraja trance to overtake me, I felt my body gyrate in unfamiliar ways that seemed as old as Shiva himself. What were these odd movements, these provocative dance steps from another millennium?"

Ekstasis Worship / Extreme Prophetic DJ:
"Ekstasis worship, even in our prayer and in our movement, it's about dancing...feeling it in your body, giving your body to God as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable. Begin to whirl and twirl.... [Unexplained] things begin to happen...."

Yogic Nightclub Dancer:
"I was able to leave my body and observe myself in this new/old incarnation. I realized that every motion the devadasi makes carries import, a message of devotion. The trance dance spiraled me into the deep meanings of these movements, and I instinctually found myself expressing a vast range of emotions that described the many manifestations of Shiva Nataraj."

Ekstasis Worship / Extreme Prophetic DJ:
"When you dance out...your emotion and love for Jesus Christ, something happens, not only in the spiritual, but in the natural, and in the force.... When we're making decrees and we're praising God, the music and you're jumping, and you're dancing and you're moving around, the words that we're speaking becomes one at a cellular level in your body. An' its not like you're learning it, it becomes part of who you are."

Yoga Trance Dance Website:
"The contemporary explorations of this state of rhythmic-induced meditation are reclaiming "trance" as an accessible experience of embodied communion where the observer dissolves into the power of now, the flow, the dance."

["Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils." --1 Timothy:4:1]

More Deception from False "Prophetess", Patricia King

[TBC: The Charismatic movement has long served as a catalyst to bring Catholicism and Protestants together. See: http://www.thebereancall.org/content/tbc-extra-29

We have noted in the past how the apostasy is progressing and how many seemingly diverse religious groups are coming together in that End-time religious system headquartered in Rome. Now, "prophetess" Patricia King's "word from the Lord" gives further details as to how this convergence will take place.]

A RADICAL COMPANY OF BELIEVERS WILL ARISE IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH [Excerpts]

Over the course of many years I have heard various judgments and complaints against the Catholic Church from fellow Believers. Some proclaimed that the Pope was the anti-Christ, others stated that the Roman Catholic Church was Babylon and would burn under the judgment of God, and yet others described the Catholic Church as being steeped in witchcraft. I realize that in any organization there can be the good, the bad, and the ugly. There are many things that the Spirit of God will work out in our midst as He perfects those things that concern us...and that is for all of us.

The Catholics I have known are Spirit-filled Believers who are fully devoted to following Christ. I love them and have been blessed by their hunger for the Lord. I am confident that the Lord will burn up the dross of impurities in the Catholic Church even as He will in ALL His Body.

In January of 2013, I received a prophetic word over a Catholic woman who was in one of our meetings. The gist of it, was that a move of God was coming to the Catholic Church. I could feel the potency in the word and I was excited.In March 2013, Francis became the Pope. In May, I was watching a television report revealing one of Pope Francis' ministry trips into South America.

As I watched this, I was again quickened with the word about a move of Spirit in the Catholic Church: Word for Catholics From May 2013: A move of the Spirit of God is coming to the Catholic Church. 

The youth in particular will be ignited with a fresh fire of zeal and passion for Christ and His Gospel. A radical company of Believers will arise in the Catholic Church during this move, and they will release a flow of God's love and truth into the nations.

The Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation will visit entire gatherings, and Catholics will be filled with fresh insights involving the glory of God, His Kingdom and His righteousness.These insights will bring alignment to many areas within the core of the Catholic Church and will release more demonstrations of the power of Christ.


The justice and righteousness of God will be made known to many through radical Catholics who are willing to proclaim the truth in love. There are intercessors in the Catholic Church even now who are giving birth to this move. The Pope will endorse it. (Elijah List Newsletter, 10/1/13).


[TBC: As an "infallible" Church, the Church of Rome cannot be reformed. Its foundational dogmas and sacraments all deny the Gospel (from the Mass, the Eucharist, Purgatory, the Immaculate Conception of Mary, etc., etc.). So called Spirit-filled Catholic believers claim to be spiritually enriched by their Church's heretical teachings and practices.]

November 6, 2013

What Does it Mean to Repent and Be Saved?

LTRP Note: The editors at Lighthouse Trails believe that one of the reasons so many proclaiming Christians are turning to contemplative mysticism is because they have been following a non-biblical “Gospel” that has kept them from a true born of the Spirit (born-again) relationship with Jesus Christ. Thus, mystically-induced experiences take the place of that relationship. The following article by Dr. Harry Ironside explains what repentance (a requirement for salvation and being born-again - “except ye repent” – Luke 13:3-5) entails. It may surprise a number of people when they discover what repentance really is.

By Dr. Harry Ironside
(From his book, Except Ye Repent)

More and more it becomes evident that ours is, as Carlyle expressed it, an “age of sham.” Unreality and specious pretense abound in all departments of life. In the domestic, commercial, social, and ecclesiastical spheres hypocrisy is not only openly condoned, but recognized as almost a necessity for advancement and success in attaining recognition among one’s fellows.

Nor is this true only where heterodox religious views are held. Orthodoxy has its shallow dogmatists who are ready to battle savagely for sound doctrine, but who manage to ignore sound living with little or no apparent compunction of conscience.

 God desires truth in the inward parts. The blessed man is still the one “in whose spirit there is no guile.” It is forever true that “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.” It can never be out of place to proclaim salvation by free, unmerited favor to all who put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. But it needs ever to be insisted on that the faith that justifies is not a mere intellectual process — not simply crediting certain historical facts or doctrinal statements; but it is a faith that springs from a divinely wrought conviction of sin which produces a repentance that is sincere and genuine. Our Lord’s solemn words, “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish,” are as important today as when first uttered. No dispensational distinctions, important as these are in understanding and interpreting God’s ways with man, can alter this truth.

No one was ever saved in any dispensation excepting by grace. Neither sacrificial observances, nor ritual service, nor works of law ever had any part in justifying the ungodly. Nor were any sinners ever saved by grace until they repented. Repentance is not opposed to grace; it is the recognition of the need of grace. “They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.” “I came not,” said our blessed Lord, “to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

One great trouble in this shallow age is that we have lost the meaning of words. We bandy them about until one can seldom be certain just how terms are being used. Two ministers were passing an open grocery and dairy store where, in three large baskets, eggs were displayed. On one basket was a sign reading, “Fresh eggs, 24 cents a dozen.” The second sign read, “Strictly fresh eggs, 29 cents a dozen.” While a third read, “Guaranteed strictly fresh eggs, 34 cents a dozen.” One of the pastors exclaimed in amazement, “What does that grocer understand ‘fresh’ to mean?” It is thus with many Scriptural terms that to our forefathers had an unvarying meaning, but like debased coins have today lost their values.

Grace is God’s unmerited favor to those who have merited the very opposite. Repentance is the sinner’s recognition of and acknowledgment of his lost estate and, thus, of his need of grace. Yet there are not wanting professed preachers of grace who, like the antinomians of old, decry the necessity of repentance lest it seem to invalidate the freedom of grace. As well might one object to a man’s acknowledgment of illness when seeking help and healing from a physician, on the ground that all he needed was a doctor’s prescription.

Shallow preaching that does not grapple with the terrible fact of man’s sinfulness and guilt, calling on “all men everywhere to repent,” results in shallow conversions; and so we have a myriad of glib-tongued professors today who give no evidence of regeneration whatever. Prating of salvation by grace, they manifest no grace in their lives. Loudly declaring they are justified by faith alone, they fail to remember that “faith without works is dead”; and that justification by works before men is not to be ignored as though it were in contradiction to justification by faith before God. We need to reread James 3 and let its serious message sink deep into our hearts, that it may control our lives. “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” No man can truly believe in Christ, who does not first repent. Nor will his repentance end when he has saving faith, but the more he knows God as he goes on through the years, the deeper will that repentance become. A servant of Christ said: “I repented before I knew the meaning of the word. I have repented far more since than I did then.”

Undoubtedly one great reason why some earnest Gospel preachers are almost afraid of, and generally ignore, the terms “repent” and “repentance” in their evangelizing is that they fear lest their hearers misunderstand these terms and think of them as implying something meritorious on the part of the sinner.

But nothing could be wider of the mark. There is no saving merit in owning my true condition. There is no healing in acknowledging the nature of my illness. And repentance, as we have seen, is just this very thing. But in order to clarify the subject, it may be well to observe carefully what repentance is not and then to notice briefly what it is.

First, then, repentance is not to be confounded with penitence, though penitence will invariably enter into it. But penitence is simply sorrow for sin. No amount of penitence can fit a man for salvation. On the other hand, the impenitent will never come to God seeking His grace. But godly sorrow, we are told, worketh repentance not to be repented of. There is a sorrow for sin that has no element of piety in it— “the sorrow of the world worketh death.” In Peter’s penitence we see the former; in the remorse of Judas, the latter. Nowhere is man exhorted to feel a certain amount of sorrow for his sins in order to come to Christ. When the Spirit of God applies the truth, penitence is the immediate result and this leads on to repentance, but should not be confounded with it. This is a divine work in the soul.

Second, penance is not repentance. Penance is the effort in some way to atone for wrong done. This, man can never do. Nor does God in His Word lay it down as a condition of salvation that one first seek to make up to either God or his fellows for evil committed. Here the Roman Catholic translation of the Bible perpetrates a glaring deception upon those who accept it as almost an inspired version because bearing the imprimatur of the great Catholic dignitaries. Wherever the [King James version] has “repent,” the Douay-Rheims translation reads, “Do penance.” There is no excuse for such a paraphrase. It is not a translation. It is the substituting of a Romish dogma for the plain command of God. John the Baptist did not cry, ‘Do penance, for the kingdom of God is at hand.’ Our Lord Jesus did not say, ‘Do penance and believe the gospel,’ and, ‘Except ye do penance ye shall all likewise perish.’ The Apostle Peter did not tell the anxious multitude at Pentecost to ‘Do penance and be converted.’ St. Paul did not announce to the men at Athens that ‘God commandeth all men everywhere to do penance’ in view of a coming judgment day. No respectable Greek scholar would ever think of so translating the original in these and many other instances.

On the contrary, the call was to repent; and between repenting and doing penance there is a vast difference. But even so, we would not forget that he who truly repents will surely seek to make right any wrong he has done to his fellows, though he knows that he never can make up for the wrong done to God. But this is where Christ’s expiatory work comes in. As the great Trespass Offering He could say, “Then I restored that which I took not away” (Psa. 69). Think not to add penance to this — as though His work were incomplete and something else were needed to satisfy God’s infinite justice.

In the third place, let us remember that reformation is not repentance, however closely allied to, or springing out of it. To turn over a new leaf, to attempt to supplant bad habits with good ones, to try to live well instead of evilly, may not be the outcome of repentance at all and should never be confounded with it. Reformation is merely an outward change. Repentance is a work of God in the soul.

Recently it was the writer’s privilege to broadcast a Gospel message from a large Cleveland station. While he was waiting in the studio for the time appointed an advertiser’s voice was heard through the loud speaker announcing: “If you need anything in watch repairing go to” such a firm. One of the employees looked up and exclaimed, “I need no watch repairing; what I need is a watch.” It furnished me with an excellent text. What the unsaved man needs is not a repairing of his life. He needs a new life altogether, which comes only through a second birth. Reformation is like watch repairing. Repentance is like the recognition of the lack of a watch.

Need I add that repentance then is not to be considered synonymous with joining a church or taking up one’s religious duties, as people say. It is not doing anything.

What then is repentance? So far as possible I desire to avoid the use of all abstruse or pedantic terms, for I am writing not simply for scholars, but for those Lincoln had in mind when he said, “God must have thought a lot of the common people, for He made so many of them.” Therefore I wish, so far as possible, to avoid citing Greek or Hebrew words. But here it seems almost necessary to say that it is the Greek word metanoia, which is translated “repentance” in our English Bibles, and literally means a change of mind. This is not simply the acceptance of new ideas in place of old notions. But it actually implies a complete reversal of one’s inward attitude.

How luminously clear this makes the whole question before us! To repent is to change one’s attitude toward self, toward sin, toward God, toward Christ. And this is what God commands. John came preaching to publicans and sinners, hopelessly vile and depraved, “Change your attitude, for the kingdom is at and.” To haughty scribes and legalistic Pharisees came the same command, “Change your attitude,” and thus they would be ready to receive Him who came in grace to save. To sinners everywhere the Savior cried, “Except ye change your attitude, ye shall all likewise perish.”

And everywhere the apostles went they called upon men thus to face their sins — to face the question of their helplessness, yet their responsibility to God — to face Christ as the one, all-sufficient Savior, and thus by trusting Him to obtain remission of sins and justification from all things.

So to face these tremendous facts is to change one’s mind completely, so that the pleasure lover sees and confesses the folly of his empty life; the self-indulgent learns to hate the passions that express the corruption of his nature; the self-righteous sees himself a condemned sinner in the eyes of a holy God; the man who has been hiding from God seeks to find a hiding place in Him; the Christ-rejector realizes and owns his need of a Redeemer, and so believes unto life and salvation.

Which comes first, repentance or faith? In Scripture we read, “Repent ye, and believe the gospel.” Yet we find true believers exhorted to “repent, and do the first works.” So intimately are the two related that you cannot have one without the other. The man who believes God repents; the repentant soul puts his trust in the Lord when the Gospel is revealed to him. Theologians may wrangle over this, but the fact is, no man repents until the Holy Spirit produces repentance in his soul through the truth. No man believes the Gospel and rests in it for his own salvation until he has judged himself as a needy sinner before God. And this is repentance.

Perhaps it will help us if we see that it is one thing to believe God as to my sinfulness and need of a Savior, and it is another thing to trust that Savior implicitly for my own salvation. Apart from the first aspect of faith, there can be no true repentance. “He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him.”

And apart from such repentance there can be no saving faith. Yet the deeper my realization of the grace of God manifested toward me in Christ, the more intense will my repentance become.

 It was when Mephibosheth realized the kindness of God as shown by David that he cried out, “What is thy servant, that thou shouldest look upon such a dead dog as I am?” (2 Sam. 9:8). And it is the soul’s apprehension of grace which leads to ever lower thoughts of self and higher thoughts of Christ; and so the work of repentance is deepened daily in the believer’s heart.

“Let not conscience make you linger,
Nor of fitness fondly dream,
All the fitness He requireth
Is to feel your need of Him.
This He gives you,
‘Tis the Spirit’s rising beam.”

 The very first evidence of awakening grace is dissatisfaction with one’s self and self-effort and a longing for deliverance from chains of sin that have bound the soul. To own frankly that I am lost and guilty is the prelude to life and peace. It is not a question of a certain depth of grief and sorrow, but simply the recognition and acknowledgment of need that lead one to turn to Christ for refuge. None can perish who put their trust in Him. His grace superabounds above all our sin, and His expiatory work on the cross is so infinitely precious to God that it fully meets all our uncleanness and guilt.