The Spirit Convicting the World of it's Guilt

There is scarcely a more important question particularly for pastors to examine than what is the relationship between God the Holy Spirit and the world. Pastors have an overwhelming concern that this unbelieving and indifferent generation amongst whom the church has to live as salt and light should experience the living God at work in its midst. How does the Lord Jesus build his church? What does the Holy Spirit do today? How is he at work? What are his customary means of changing men and women? By what principles does he act so that we Christians can become co-workers with him, throwing our energies into those same channels? We will achieve nothing without him; we cannot dictate to him how he is to work, and we dare not oppose him. That is why the above passage is so important, because in it the Lord Jesus describes the focus of the Holy Spirit’s activity in the world. What is he most concerned to do? What he does we must do by the grace he gives us, and so enthusiastically and sincerely. We have seen what he does with his disciples, that he regenerates them and leads them into all truth and he magnifies Christ before them and in them by taking the things of Christ and glorifying them. That is his activity with his own people, but now we are asking what does the Spirit do to the world?

No doubt the Spirit continues to do what he did in the Old Testament in gifting individuals of all faiths and ideologies in intelligence and creative skills. They are all made in the image and likeness of God and to each of them the Spirit is good. We also know that our God works through the powers that be and thus restrains law breakers and supports law keepers. We even know that the Spirit gives to all kinds of men and women everywhere in the world enlightenment, and a taste of the heavenly gift, a share in himself, a taste of the word of God and the powers of the coming age (Hebs. 6:4-6). This work of the Holy Spirit goes on repeatedly in all who are touched, however remotely, by the gospel of Jesus Christ. However, the main activity of God the Holy Ghost in the world by far is set out for us nowhere more clearly in all of Scripture than in the above words of our Saviour. The overwhelming purpose of the Spirit’s ministry in the world is to convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment.

It is well for us to take serious account of this particular emphasis. In this gospel of John our attention is often drawn to God’s interest in the world. We read in the best known text in Scripture that God loved the world, that is, the Father so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world through him might be saved. There is the interest of God the Father in the world. Likewise in this same gospel our attention is drawn to the activity of Christ in relation to the world. What was the witness of John the Baptist? Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. In the first epistle of John we read in similar fashion that Jesus Christ is the propitiation for our sin, but not for ours only but for the sin of the whole world. Thus we have the interests of both Father and Son in what the Scripture calls ‘the world.’

Now when our attention is drawn to the activity of God the Holy Spirit we are confronted with the same sphere of interest, “when he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment” (v8). A day is soon coming, says the Lord Jesus, when it will no longer be within the geographical confines of Israel that the Holy Spirit will be working but he will be coming to the world. The middle wall of partition that strictly limited Gentile access to God is going to be broken down in the saving work of Christ, and the Holy Spirit will freely move out and out at Pentecost from Jerusalem to Samaria and Judea and to the uttermost parts of the world, and wherever he goes the Spirit will be convicting the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment. That will ever be the prime work of the Holy Spirit with regard to the world because if it were not then the world would remain locked in the unbelief of sin. The mark of the Holy Spirit at work in a congregation is not numbers, or the length of the meetings, or professions of faith or the amount of singing going on but a conviction of their own unworthiness. “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn for they will be comforted:” - thus the Saviour commenced the Sermon on the Mount. He is speaking of this same theme, the convicting work of the Spirit. Sin, righteousness and judgment – of such matters will the Holy Spirit convict the world, for the highest interest of Christ’s kingdom is concerned with deliverance from the guilt and lostness of men and women. James Montgomery Boice claims that this passage, “becomes the greatest statement of the Spirit’s work of conviction and regeneration in the entire Bible and a ground of real encouragement to us, as it undoubtedly was to the apostles” (James Montgomery Boice, The Gospel of John, Volume 4, p.289).

Let me ask this question, to what extent do sin and righteousness and judgment loom in our interest? To what extent are these themes central to our thinking? Because if these truths are not central to our thoughts then we are not thinking God’s thoughts, and if we are not thinking God’s thoughts it is because ungodliness has taken possession of our minds and interests. Let each preacher ask himself how much do sin, righteousness and judgment occupy his sermons, his thoughts and his practice. How much are we concerned to get men and women convicted of the sin of unbelief?

Again, let me underline this for you, that apart from this work of the Holy Spirit fallen human beings can never come to terms with the truth of their state before Almighty God. What else is going to make a proud, self-sufficient man turn right around, so that he acknowledges his own guilt and shame, confessing that from that moment on his only hopes of mercy and eternal life will lie in the saving work that his Lord Jesus Christ has done? That is our desire for everyone we meet, and we know, from our own failures in evangelism and from our own experience, that it is only when the Holy Spirit has been at work in a person that he will respond savingly like that. Only then can such a man face up to sin, righteousness and judgment, looking at it in the face. Only then will he cease being a worldling and enter into the kingdom of God. That is a sovereign divine work that only the Holy Spirit can accomplish.

The Son of God is telling his disciples in the Upper Room discourse that when the Holy Spirit comes that he comes to convict sinners. You will know his presence and activity by the conviction of sin that men and women know. You must remember that that activity of his is in accord with his capacity as the ‘Counselor’. The figure is one of a court of law; a man is on trial and a prosecutor has the duty of convicting the criminal of his deeds. This advocate brings the evidence to bear upon his life in order to achieve the verdict, “Guilty!” He brings the truth to light; he shows it up in its true colours, precisely what this man has been doing. That is what the Holy Spirit is doing when he deals with the world. Principally he is acting in his capacity as an advocate, and in that capacity he brings conviction to bear on the world. He brings a sentence of condemnation upon the world so that the careless and the indifferent really feel it. His concern is not with moral and righteous living people, to stroke their affections and make them feel good about themselves, but with guilty men and women, convicting them of their sin, righteousness and judgment as the first inevitable step in their regeneration. The sick alone are going to be the ones sending for the physician.

1. THE HOLY SPIRIT CONVICTS THE WORLD OF SIN.

“In regard to sin because men do not believe in me” (v.9). If you ask a man in the world what is sin then he will say, “Murder,” or some such notorious action, the kind of thing he reads about in the newspapers day after day. That is sin, and as he’s certainly not been guilty of such kinds of activity he doesn’t consider himself to be a sinner. So men invariably think of sin in terms of horrid outward manifestations, but God sets a far more rigourous standard. The Holy Spirit convicts men and women that . . .

i] Sin is missing the target. Every human life should aim at conformity to the law of God. Think of the senior archer teaching the novice to hold his bow and fire his arrow at the bull’s eye. The target God places before us is to love him with all our heart and soul and mind and strength, and to love our neighbours as ourselves. Scripture says that every human life has missed that target. All have sinned and fallen short - not of the law of God but of the glory of God. That’s the standard. It’s not that we’ve missed the bull’s eye. Our lives haven’t even reached the target.

ii] Sin is trespassing across the boundary. There are the frontier posts that mark out life in the kingdom of God. The first says that we are to have no gods except the true and living God. The second says that we are not to make and serve idols. The third says that we are not to take God’s name in vain. The fourth says that we are to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. The fifth says that we are to honour both our father and our mothers. The sixth says that we are not to do violence to anyone. The seventh forbids sexual sin. The eight tells us to respect the private property of others and not to take what is not ours. The ninth condemns lying, while the tenth tells us that the itching longing for anything that belongs to our neighbours is a trespass. God has driven in deeply those boundary markers and no one may remove those landmarks. Within those ten demarcation points we’re to live our lives. Outside of them is the total exclusion zone where trespassers will be prosecuted by the Lord, and yet we all wander there quite deliberately day after day. Sometimes we will crash through the barriers of God’s great negatives into those no-go areas and do it again, and again – every single one of us. Sin is transgression.

iii] Sin is defiant unrighteousness. In other words sin is disobedience. There is the great voice of the Creator echoing in every heart, made known in every land in an earlier grace, and clarified in the Bible. “This is my will. Fathers behave like this . . . mothers behave like this . . . young people behave like this . . . preachers preach these truths . . . neighbours love your neighbours in this way.” These are the Creator’s rights over the creatures who live and move and have their being in him in his creation, and there is the constant, defiant human response of, “No! We will not have this Lord rule over us.”

iv] Sin is rebellious lawlessness. Men and women are not meant to live an autonomous existence in this world. In other words, they are not meant to say, “Well, this is how I think of God and this is how I consider the good life.” That is lawlessness, because such people are a law unto themselves, and that ends in chaos. We are meant to live not an autonomous existence but a theonomous existence, finding delight in the will of God, loving him with all our hearts and our neighbours as ourselves.

So in such ways as that men are taught by the Holy Spirit what sin is. They are taught it so that they are convicted of the fact that they are sinners. My life has missed its target; my life has transgressed the boundary lines of God; my life has disobeyed the voice of God; my life is a lawless life. When God the Holy Spirit comes near to a person and begins to work in him in grace then his superficial assessment of some acceptable standing in God’s sight vanishes. He sees that his problem is not with outward notorious sins, because he is being convicted by the Holy Spirit that sin is something inward. He is driven right down into the depths of human life and he sighs, “Lo, there too I find my sin.” Not just in his words and actions but in his thoughts and ambitions, his desires and emotions, his aspirations and affections he meets the effects of sin. Jesus said that it was not what went into the body through eating ‘unclean’ pork or crab or venison that made a person unclean but what came out of man’s heart that led to greedy, cruel, lustful, destructive actions. The heart of the problem is the human heart. It is not that human actions have missed their target, or human speech but the human heart. It is a glorious discovery when the Holy Spirit convicts a sinner of that.

All have sinned thus. You see depravity particularly clearly in children. Very often they lack the physical strength to express their sin in actions but in their voices and their constant cries for attention and complaint you see their depravity. There is the heart that says constantly, “More, more, more, more . . .”, that quickly discards new toys at Christmas and longs for the ones a sibling or cousin has been given. That is sin, the heart that is angry, that is hateful, that is discontented and dissatisfied is the chief problem of every person. Think of the frequent complaints and grumbles of the elderly, the demands for attention, the accusations, the chilly atmosphere of the lounge in many an old people’s home and you see that the frail grey-hairs have to be convicted by the Spirit and go to God and then confess those sins. It is not simply that we have said and done sinful things but that our affections and feelings and ambitions have been tarnished by sin.

But particularly the Holy Spirit has to convict men and women of the sin of rejecting Christ. Here is the blameless life of Jesus, this superb teaching – “Never man spake like this man” – these extraordinary signs, obtaining instant obedience from winds and waves, healing every single sick person who was brought to him and even raising the dead – and yet men and women will look at a life so full of God as Jesus’ and they’ll say, “We’re not persuaded. We don’t see it. The jury is out. I wish it were possible to be certain about this.” Christ is the supreme manifestation of the greatness of God, the brightness of God’s glory and the express image of his person. Yet men said when they looked at him, “We know that this man is a sinner.” They rejected him and his claims. Their attitude is as abhorrent as a husband who after twenty years of loving marriage turns against his wife and says he does not believe she has loved him. That is wicked unbelief.

There was once a docker in Plymouth in the year 1743 who was told that George Whitefield was preaching in the fields at Teat’s Hill. He went with five others to break up the meeting but once he heard Whitefield’s voice he was convicted. As he said, “Every sentence in Mr. Whitefield’s sermon was delivered in such a divine and energetic strain, as cut me to the heart, and was enough, God applying it, as it seemed to me, to raise the dead.” He heard that George Whitefield was going to preach later and at 6 p.m. his work for the day ended he ran to the place where Whitefield began to preach on the cross of Christ. Whitefield said. “I suppose you are reflecting in your minds on the cruelty of those inhuman butchers who stained their hands in innocent blood.” Then suddenly he turned in his field pulpit and looked right in the face of Henry Tanner and said, “Sinner, thou art the man the crucified the Son of God.” Tanner said, “Then, as never before, I felt the Word of God quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword. I knew not whether to stand or fall. My sins seemed all to stare me in my face. I was at once convicted, my heart bursting, my eyes gushing forth floods of tears. I dreaded the instant wrath of God, and expected that it would instantly fall upon me. None but those who have waded through the deep waters of a convinced conscience can form any idea of the horror I endured.”

2. THE HOLY SPIRIT CONVICTS THE WORLD OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.

“In regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer;” (v.10). Men and women don’t have any deep convictions as to what righteousness is unless the Holy Spirit convicts them of it. We had a former member in this congregation who had been a student at the university where he had been persuasively witnessed to by Christian students. One day he went back to his room under deep conviction and he cried to God saying these words, “O Lord, make me a righteous man.” The activity of the Holy Spirit made him conscious of righteousness for the first time in his life. Don’t we see in the Old Testament people of God a pervasive hostility to righteousness? God sent a procession of righteous men to speak to the Jews, men like Noah, and Abraham, and Moses, and Elijah, and Jeremiah. How were they treated? Did people put them on a pedestal crying, “All our lives we’ve been looking for men of total integrity and at last we have found them. Hooray!”? No. They despised them. They thought they were extremists, fanatics, and trouble-makers. We are told in Hebrews chapter eleven that these righteous men and women “were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawn in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and ill-treated - the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground” (Hebs. 11:35-38). The world then had no appreciation of righteous men. The world might have felt sorry for them and pitied them or it might have killed them.

When the Son of God arrived they treated him exactly the same, and though he was the most righteous man this world has ever seen, nobody at all recognized that truth. In fact they said that he was Beelzebub and he had a demon. They said that they had laws and by those laws he ought to have been declared guilty and put to death. That was the world’s judgment on Jesus Christ, that he was an unrighteous man. That was Saul of Tarsus’ view of Jesus, that he was a blasphemer and a liar. I heard John Murray speaking of two preachers in Scotland. In the afternoon a moderate was the preacher and he said in his sermon that if virtue should come down from heaven then the whole world would bow down to him. In the evening an evangelical man preached and he said that virtue had come down from heaven and the world had crucified him. That was the world’s judgment of Christ’s righteousness.

How different was God the Father’s view of his Son; “This is my beloved Son and in him I am well pleased.” Twice his voice speaks from heaven and men hear God’s acclamation of Jesus as the righteous man. So though men found him guilty and put him to death yet on the third day God raised him from the dead. The world said he was unrighteous; God exalted him to his right hand and endued him with power. God gave him a name that is above every name. The world crucified him; God exalted him. The world said ‘unrighteous’ while God said ‘the righteous one.’ The world denied the holy and just one, but God raised him from the dead. God vindicated him in his resurrection; it was a complete reversal of the world’s judgment.

The Holy Spirit’s task is to change the verdict of the world and convict the world of righteousness. God raised Jesus from the dead. The tomb was empty; the body was not there; the grave clothes were there, but the stone was rolled away and the body was gone. Who took the body? His followers came to embalm it and make the corpse a little sweeter smelling before the rot of death set in. His enemies put an armed guard on the grave because they wanted none to steal it, but the body had disappeared from the sealed tomb. Then he appeared for forty days in all kinds of places to individuals and groups and crowds of men and women. Firstly, to the women in the Garden, and then to the twelve in the upper room; then on the road to Emmaus to two disciples, and then to Peter. Again, to all the disciples at the side of the Sea of Galilee as they went fishing where he ate bread and fish with them that he had prepared. Then to 500 of his flock whom he had gathered to see him, many of whom were still alive thirty years later. Then on the hill of ascension where he bade goodbye to them lifting up his arms in blessing as a cloud hid him from their sight. They would see him no longer. They were not to expect a sight of him again. They were not to walk around glancing up at heaven, but go on doing the work he had given them to do of exalting him as the glorious Saviour by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus rose on the third day to live in the power of an endless life. He lives who once was dead. This was the testimony of the disciples from the day of Pentecost onwards. God has loved his righteous Son and exalted him by raising him from the dead. This is incarnate righteousness is; you do not find it in humanism nor in mere morality, but the life of Jesus Christ is the only pure righteous life this world has ever seen and the proof of it is that Jesus has gone to the Father. You remember the apostles’ great healing of the crippled man at the temple recorded in Acts chapter three. Peter preaches to the people and says to them, “You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you. You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this” (Acts 3:14&15). That is the conviction the Holy Spirit gives to his people. Jesus is now with the Father in glory. All the preaching in the Acts of the Apostles from Pentecost onwards centres on the glorious exaltation of the Lord Jesus. He is the righteous omnipotent one.

“In regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned” (v.11). Again, the Holy Spirit sets out to reverse the evaluation that all fallen creatures have made of Christ. Let me rehearse again the first two judgments which are turned around by the Holy Spirit; firstly, of men’s view of themselves as decent men, when in fact the Holy Spirit comes and writes on favoured hearts that they are sinners under condemnation because they’ve rejected Christ who is the Son of God. Secondly, the Holy Spirit convicts men that their evaluation of the poor, defeated, dead Jesus Christ has to be totally reversed. His dust is not somewhere lying under the Syrian sky. He is in fact risen from the dead. He is more powerful than death. He is the righteous one who is hidden from their eyes for this age because he’s been exalted to the presence of God in heaven. Thirdly, the devil’s slander about Christ has to be revealed. It was his calumny that put Jesus Christ on the cross. That was the hour of the Prince of Darkness when deceit prevailed. The crucifixion of Jesus Christ is in fact the arch crime of human history, perpetuated by the enemies of truth.

How does the Holy Spirit accomplish this reversal? He reveals to them that the prince of this world is the one who has actually been condemned. Yes, men did condemn Jesus; both the highest court of Jewry as well as the representative of Caesar judgeded Christ as one worthy of death, but God the mighty Judge of all makes the very wrath of men - furious at the claims of Jesus - become the praise of Jesus! In his death God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. God actually delivered our Lord to Jew and Gentile for crucifixion; his death was by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. I am talking about the crucifixion of the Son of God, the greatest sin this world has observed, perpetrated by forces that hate the truth. I am saying that the lid on hell was then opened wide by God and out poured all the hosts from the pit to dance a jig of exultation on Golgotha that the Holy One their Judge had been crucified. I am claiming that the most important event in the history of the universe was the judgment of the cross.

It took place outside the city walls of Jerusalem, on a spot where a degree of latitude crosses a degree of longitude, in calendar history, under the noses of the representative of Rome and witnessed by the Jewish chief priests, and yet all of them were utterly oblivious to what was happening there. Only one dying thief was given grace to realise who was being crucified alongside him. I am claiming that from that murder the prince of this world did not emerge the triumphant victor but the one who had been condemned. Now is the judgment of this world; now is the prince of this world cast out. The Son of God took everything that the devil could do to him, and all through his time on the cross displayed superior power and guardian grace. The devil with all his cronies and powers and authorities dreamed he was making a public spectacle of Jesus on Calvary, but the very reverse was occurring. Jesus was disarming the devils’ principalities and rulers. He was making “a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” (Gals. 3:15).

The demonic hegemony saw themselves as a mighty army that had subdued the whole Gentile world. They reigned over a kingdom of darkness in which men were worshipping idols of gold and stone and wood shaped in the form of men or four footed beasts. They were bowing before the sun and moon and making human sacrifices. This vast kingdom was patrolled by devilish powers and authorities, well armed and relentless in their energy. That was the enemy, but on the cross Christ drew them all out of the darkness to himself with extraordinary centripetal force; they were all sucked out of the caverns of the pit at his command; he made them train their weapons on him and bury them to the hilt in him. What a disarming that was! The world had never seen such a victory and never would again. It was thus he triumphed over them all; thus he bruised the serpent’s head rising alive and triumphant from the dead. Neither devil nor death could contain him, and then he commissioned his little band of warriors to go forth, and go forth into all the world – the devil’s former territory - and spread the reign of grace by preaching his cross.

You might compare such a triumph to the conquest of Peru by Pizarro of Spain beginning at the battle of Cajamarca on November 16 1532. There was this tiny band of Spanish soldiers and horsemen confronted by 4,000 Incas (yes, poorly equipped), led by their king Atahualpa, and those soldiers of Peru were speedily defeated. Little David defeated Goliath. Gideon’s three hundred defeated the whole army of Midian, and I am saying that thus it was when twelve men were sent into the nations of the world to conquer them justly and holily by preaching the gospel. They were totally up to their task. They did a good and decent job of their vocation. Our living King Jesus gave them their orders; “Be determined not to make known anything in your messages except me, especially the fact that I was once crucified. Be determined not to declare anything anywhere but my crucifixion. Tell the gospel of the cross to the world, and then the one who is in you and with you will be greater than the whole world.” Those were their orders. That is how the world was to be changed.

They had no long range policies. They were not in the command room looking at a floodlit map of the world and pushing counters from one place to another. They were not targeting countries and people. They founded no bishoprics, no Vaticans, no universities. They erected no prayer towers. They promised people no gold and silver. They did not offer healing of every disease. They went telling people about Jesus Christ’s glorious life and teaching and his royal victory on Calvary. We have no idea where most of the apostles went but we know what they did, how they went out and out with centrifugal spiritual force and with holy confidence and enthusiasm as men knowing they had been freed by the truth, armed with the weapon of Christ crucified, the Holy Spirit enabling them to turn the world upside down. Soon there were lights shining everywhere in what had been until then the cosmic kingdom of darkness. It was to be the devil’s sole sphere of influence for no longer and is not that today. Men are translated from that kingdom into the kingdom of God’s dear Son. The Holy Spirit convicts the world of the judgment of Satan. He persuades men and women of the great victory of Jesus Christ. That conviction springs to life in the hearts and minds of all those people who come to him.

The work Christ did on the cross is the crucial turning-point in the history of redemption. It is the pivotal defeat of the prince of this world and day by day the kingdom of darkness is being plundered by the servants of Jesus. All we do has an immense urgency because the devil stands judged. Wake up to the false judgment you’ve made about Christ. It is the devil’s own judgment of Jesus. Please know that his lies have been exposed and the devil has been defeated, that he moves around today dragging his chain, and when he oversteps the mark or gets too close to a little Christian girl King Jesus yanks the chain! Don Carson concludes, “I would quit all forms of Christian ministry immediately if I were not convinced that the Lord Jesus is building his church; that the Father has given over a people to his Son; and that the blessed Holy Spirit is working in the world to convict it of its sin, of righteousness and judgment. I have no confidence that on my own I could successfully persuade anyone of his deepest need and of the truth of the gospel” (Don Carson, Jesus and His Friends, Paternoster, 1995, p.145).

Listen to what one Christian did who would visit a retirement home for old soldiers. He heard of an old captain who had come to live there. He had been a hero in certain engagements and been awarded some honours and medals, but he would never attend a chapel service. The Christian spoke to him, “Captain, why don’t you read the Bible?” “Because I don’t believe in the Bible,” he said. The man returned in a few days, “Captain, here is a Bible. If you find any place that you think you can believe, mark it with red, and if you read the Bible through, and cannot find any such place, when I come next time you can tell me so.” The old soldier asked, “Where shall I begin?” “Begin with the gospel of John,” said the Christian.

So the old soldier started to read the gospel of John. He read the first chapter and never made a mark. He read the second chapter, and not a mark. He read to the fifteenth verse in John chapter three and never reached for his pen, but when he came to verse sixteen, he took up his pen, dipped it in the ink and marked the sixteenth verse in red. Some months went by and the Christian said, “I wish you could have seen the Bible a year later, but I sent it to his daughter. There was scarcely a page in the whole Bible that was not marked with red. He had come to believe it all.” What had wrought this change? Not a minister, because he would not listen to preachers. Not the visiting Christian officer because he would not let him talk to him about Jesus. It was the Spirit of God. There has never been a man or woman converted in this world in whom the Spirit of God did not do his work, convicting us of sin, convincing us of Jesus, and enabling us to believe on him.

If the work of the Spirit in the world is to bring conviction to bear in these ways, then let us be co-workers with the Spirit. Let us abandon every stunt and trick to get people thinking they are safe, every device of the professing church whether by sumptuous ritual or by cultic domineering or by psychological manipulation or by enhancing the human feel-good factor we succeed in making men religious, and further pronounce them to be ‘Christians.’ We have no interest whatsoever in making people religious. Men’s religions are their worst crimes. Our intention is to do what the Holy Spirit does by his power and under his blessing and make people know that they are convicted of sin and righteousness and judgment so that they know they need the Saviour whom God has sent.

Of course we do this tenderly. We do not yell at people for half an hour, but we are faithful to the fellowship of the Spirit in the half hours in which we address sinners in bringing the Spirit’s own verdict to bear on their lives. Those lives are utterly wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment. There is none righteous, no not one; all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. That is what we tell them and then they are eager and ready for the redemption that is found in Christ alone. Our holy responsibility by the cross of Christ and the power of the Spirit is to plant new conviction in their hearts of their lostness and Christ’s loveliness which will be theirs for eternity.

August 3 2008     GEOFF THOMAS