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Conversion

     Man cannot finally hinder his conversion; for whom God will save, no power of man can destroy. Man in his first conversion is wholly passive, we cannot work it in ourselves, nor hinder God’s working of it, because we are dead in sins. “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins. {Eph.2:1} “And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses.” {Col.2:13} “Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.” {Eph.5:14} We are spiritually blind. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” {Luke 4:19,20} Our hearts stony and destitute of goodness. “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh; and I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.” {Ez.36:26-27} God’s work in converting us is a raising from the dead. “Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ.” {Eph.2:5} A restoring the sight to the blind. {Luke.4:18} A new birth. {John 3:3} Another creation of him. {II Cor.5:17} The giving of a new heart. {Ezek.11:19} So that man cannot prepare himself to conversion. God regenerates man that he may believe. The tree must first be good, before it can bring forth good fruit. How can they that are evil speak good things? {Mat.12:34} It's an error therefore to think that man’s conversion to God begins in some act man performs, and not in a work first wrought in us by God.

Topics: Church Bulletin Articles
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