The Necessity of Conversion

My subject today is conversion,
the nature and necessity of conversion. Our Lord said in Matthew 18,
verse 3, Verily I say unto you, except you be converted and become
as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of
God. I preached a message one time
several years ago entitled the Lord's ultimatums, in which I
presented four points. Our Lord said, except you repent,
you'll perish. Repentance is imperative. If
a man does not repent, he perishes. That's what Christ said. Repentance
is essential. It is necessary. Except you repent,
Christ said, you'll perish. You've never repented, you're
perishing. Again, he said, except a man be born again. He cannot
see the kingdom of God. He said that twice. Except a
man be born again, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Now you can laugh about born-again
experiences and you can poke fun at born-again Christians,
but the master from glory uttered these words. They're unchangeable
as his throne. Except a man be born again, he
cannot enter the kingdom of God. I'm not saying a man must be
born again according to the prescribed method in certain churches and
by certain preachers. I'm saying by God's method. Whatever
born again means in the scripture, that's what must happen. Whatever
Christ meant when he said born again, that's what must happen.
Not what I say or someone else says, but what Christ said. Whatever
born again means in the Bible, that's what must happen to you
and me or we'll never see the kingdom of God. That's what Christ
said. It's very clear. It's an ultimatum. And then he
said, except you eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son
of Man, you have no life in you. Now, we better find out what
he meant by eating his flesh and drinking his blood. Because
he said, except you do, you don't have any life in you. It's that
clear, it's that plain, it's the Lord's ultimatum. And then
our text for today, our Lord uttered these words in Matthew
18. He said, Except you be converted,
whatever that means, except you be converted and become as little
children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of God. And
our Lord's very positive about it. He's very plain about it. Except you do, you'll not enter
into the kingdom of God. And you and I need to ask for
the aid and assistance of the Holy Spirit as we look at the
nature and necessity of conversion. Conversion, what is it? It's
nature and it's necessity. Now, before I enter into the
subject, let me clear away some difficulties that I believe exist
in regard to this matter of conversion. First of all, all conversions
are not alike. Now, you make a great mistake
to think that they are. All conversions are not alike.
Just as our Lord healed several blind people, but he didn't heal
them all alike. He healed them. And they were
healed, and the results were the same, but the methods were
different. And if you read the 16th chapter
of the book of Acts, you have three remarkable conversions
recorded there. You have the conversion of Lydia,
the conversion of the demon-possessed girl who followed Paul and Silas,
and you have the conversion of the Philippian jailer. But they
were all different. They were all soundly converted.
They all entered into the kingdom of God, but they had different
experiences. Lydia came down by the riverside
where the people were gathered to worship. They didn't have
enough people in that town to have a synagogue, so they went
down by the riverside and worshiped, and Paul came down there and
preached. And the scripture says, God opened her heart. Lydia,
whose heart the Lord opened. It was the Holy Spirit opened
her heart to receive and to drink in the word which Paul preached,
and she was converted. But the demon-possessed girl,
her experience was so radical and unusual and traumatic and
powerful, it wasn't like Lydia's experience at all. She was cast
upon the ground and rolled and watered upon the ground as the
demons were cast out of her by Paul. And then the Philippian
jailer, a little later in the same 16th chapter of Acts, here
was a man troubled and afraid and trembling. who came intelligently
seeking an answer to a question. What must I do to be saved? So my friend, all conversions
are not alike. They differ. Same God saves. Same God saves sinners in the
same results. But He does it in different ways. And then secondly, we must never,
and I repeat never, try to imitate another person's conversion.
There are different degrees of conviction. There are different
degrees of light and revelation. There are different degrees of
grace. Our Lord talked to Nicodemus about regeneration. He talked
to him about the new birth. He talked to him about the Holy
Spirit's supernatural and unusual quickening of the heart, God's
part in redemption, God's part in opening the heart, without
any response on the part of the sinner. But he talked to the
woman at the well about her sinful life. He didn't talk to her about
the new birth. He didn't talk to her about her
religious knowledge. He talked to her about her life,
her need, her emptiness, and how he could fill it. Our Lord
talked to the rich young ruler about his idols. Riches. Riches. He said, you have great
riches. Go and sell what you have and give it to the poor,
and take up the cross and follow me. And the young man walked
away sorrowfully because he loved his riches, and Christ knew he
loved his riches. And Christ made him at his point
of rebellion, and Christ dealt with him at his point of need.
But when he talked to the centurion, he talked to him about faith.
He didn't talk to him about riches. And I imagine the centurion was
just about as rich as this young man. Because he had said to the
Lord, I have servants, and I say go and they go and come and they
come. But our Lord didn't talk to him about that. He talked
to him about believing. He said, if you can believe, all things
are possible to them that believe. Our Lord talked to the Canaanite
woman about sovereignty, about election. That's right, He did.
He talked to her about sovereignty. He said, I am sent to the lost
sheep of the house of Israel. And it's not right to give the
children's bread to dogs. That's what He talked to her
about. But when He talked to the multitude in John chapter
6, He talked to them about the manna that fell from heaven.
And he said, now Moses didn't give you that bread of life.
My Father gave you that bread of life. I am the bread of life.
And he that eateth my body, and drinketh my blood, eateth my
flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath life. And he that eateth
not the flesh of the Son of Man, and drinketh not his blood, hath
no life in it. Oh, my friends, our Lord didn't
give the same pill to every sinner. He dealt differently with them.
Don't try to imitate another person's conversion. The wind
bloweth where it listeth, where it pleaseth. And even so, the
Holy Spirit is a free spirit. And the Holy Spirit, in regard
to your conversion, will deal with you at your point of need,
at your point of rebellion. He'll destroy your idols. I don't
know what your idols are. I know what mine are. I know
where he has to deal with me. I don't know where he'll have
to deal with you. But when I'm trying to imitate another person's
conversion, another person's experience, I may find out, here's
his genuine, and mine's just that, imitation. Mine's just
that, self-made. Mine's just that, it's false.
God dealt with him, but I dealt with myself. Now, here's the
third thing, and this is necessary. All conversions to Christ have
points of essential agreement. I don't care where the person
is, whether it's Lydia, or whether it's the demon possessed girl,
or whether it's the Philippian jailer, or whether it's Nicodemus,
or the woman at the well, or the rich young ruler, or Zacchaeus,
or the Canaanite woman, or the harlot, whoever it is, they have
one, or two, or three points of essential agreement. First
of all, in all conversions, I don't care who you are, where you are,
how you were converted. In all conversions there will
be, there must be, a conviction of sin. Now my friends, the Lord
Jesus said this, I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners
to repentance. So that lets the righteous man
out. And it's sinners who come to Christ. So this is the one
point, first of all, in which all conversions are in agreement.
They're all sinners, not righteous. Not righteous and sinful, just
sinful. 1 Timothy 1.15 says, 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. In Paul wrote in Romans 5, Christ
died for the ungodly. So I don't care who you are,
if you're converted, you started here, you were a sinner. Our
Lord came to seek and to save the lost. Thou shalt call his
name Jesus, he shall save his people from their sins. So that's
the first essential point of agreement. Every person whom
God saves, every person who is converted is a sinner. Secondly,
there must be a genuine desire for forgiveness. In other words,
everyone who is converted and everyone who comes to God through
Christ comes for mercy. Our Lord gave this illustration
on this point. He said two men went up to the
temple to pray. Now here are two religious men.
And they went up to the temple to pray, both of them going there
for the same purpose, to pray. In other words, to talk with
God, to worship God, to communicate with God, to have some fellowship
with God. And the first man was a Pharisee,
a religious man, a self-righteous man. And our Lord said this Pharisee
prayed thus with himself, not to God, with himself. This is
not a true prayer. He said, Lord, I thank you I'm
not like other men. I tithe, I fast, I give alms,
I do all these things. I'm not an adulterer, I'm not
an extortioner, I'm not unjust, I'm not like that old publican
down there. Well, our Lord said the publican would not so much
as lift his eyes to heaven, but smote upon his breast and cried,
O God, O God, be merciful, be merciful to me, the sinner. And our Lord said this man went
down to his house justified, converted, saved, while the other
was shut out. So this is the point of essential
agreement in this matter of conversion. All who come to Christ come as
sinners. And all sinners who come to Christ come for mercy. The sinner doesn't deserve mercy. He doesn't merit mercy. He doesn't
earn mercy. Mercy is free. It's given freely. There must be, in all conversions,
a sincere faith in Christ alone. Now, there can be no saving benefit
derived from Christ except as we're united to Christ, and there
can be no union with Christ except by faith. He that believeth on
the Son of God hath everlasting life. He that believeth not the
Son of God shall never see life, but the wrath of God abideth
on him. Our Lord said to the disciples, go preach the gospel.
Preach the gospel to all the world. to every creature, he
that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, he that believeth
not shall be damned. This is the record God hath given
us eternal life. That's the record, that's the
faithful saying. This life is in His Son. It's not in your
church, it's in His Son. It's not in your deeds, it's
in His Son. It's not even in the Bible, it's in His Son. It's not in the law, it's in
his Son. This life is in his Son, and he that hath the Son
of God hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath
not life. He that cometh to God must believe,
must believe that he is, and that he's the rewarder of them
that diligently seek him. So in conversion, while they're
not all alike, and we must not try to imitate someone else's
conversion, but yet there are some points of essential agreement.
All who come to Christ come as sinners, self-confessed, unadulterated,
unadorned sinners. And they come for mercy, mercy
alone. Let us come boldly before the
throne of grace that we may receive mercy, mercy. God deals in mercy. God is plenteous in mercy. God
delights to show mercy. God said, My goodness, my glory
is I will be merciful to whom I will be merciful. And they
all come. with faith in Christ. Now, fourthly,
conversion is absolutely necessary to life eternal. Except you be
converted, you cannot enter into the kingdom of God. A friend
of mine, an evangelist who died seven or eight years ago, was
holding a meeting in a town and he was talking with a young woman
about her soul. And he said to her, are you a
Christian? And she replied, yes, sir. He said, how long have you
been a Christian? She said, well, I've always been
a Christian. He says, that's too long. That's too long. You have not always been a Christian. Any person who is a Christian
has been converted from something to something. That's what the
scripture says. Any person who has been converted
has experienced a change from one state to another. Darkness
to light, death to life. Every person who is a Christian
and who has been converted is aware of becoming a new creature. If any man be in Christ, he's
a new creature. Old things pass away. Behold,
all things become new. There's a new knowledge. There's
a new fame. There's a new nature. There's
a new life. There's a new experience. There's a new master. There's
a new king. There's a new direction. So conversion
is essential. You haven't always been a Christian. There was a time when you were
not a Christian. You haven't always walked in the light. There
was a time when you walked in darkness. You haven't always
loved the God of the Bible. There was a time when you, by
nature, hated the God of the Bible. You haven't always seen
who Christ is and what he did and why he did it. There was
a time when you did not understand these things. There was a time
when you came to understand them and to believe them. And there
was a time when you came to receive them. If any man receives Christ,
to them gives God the power to become the sons of God if they
receive it. There was a time when you didn't
have Him and a time when you did have Him. There was a time
when you didn't know Him and a time when you did know Him.
I'm not asking you to name the time and the place. Many people
cannot, but it has happened. It has happened. Now, I want
you to listen to two or three things in bringing this message
to a conclusion. First of all, conversion to Christ
is just that. It's conversion to a person.
Now this is essential. If you don't hear anything else
I say, you turn that knob just a little bit and listen carefully
to what I'm about to present. Conversion is not changing churches. Conversion is not changing denominations. Conversion is not changing doctrines. Conversion is not changing your
lifestyle. Conversion is, by the grace of
God, Changing your master. Changing your master. That's
what conversion is. It's turning from your idols
to the living God. That's conversion. Let the wicked
forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him
return to the Lord. That's conversion. Satan was
our master. In the book of Ephesians, it
says, in times past, you walked according to the course of this
world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the
spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. He
reigned over you. He was your king. And now Christ
is your king. That's conversion. It's a change
of masters. Sin was our master. Paul said
in Romans 6.16, O you not that to whom you yield yourselves
servants to obey, his servants you are? Whether of sin unto
death or of obedience unto righteousness, whoever you're minding right
now, that's your master. If you're minding sin, sin's
your master. For when you're converted, Christ
becomes your master. Self was our master. Our Lord
said in Luke 6, you love them that love you. What thank have
you? All men do the same. Why, He
said, you do good to them that do good to you. What thank have
you? All men do the same. Why, you
lend to those from whom you hope to receive something in return.
What thank have you? All men do the same thing, but
I say to you, love your enemies. Why, we were under the direction
of Satan, we were under the power of sin, and we were under the
dominion of self. Everything we did was motivated
by a selfish purpose and a selfish motive. We did it because we
got something in return. Self was king, king, king. Now, conversion, when you're
converted, These old masters are dethroned. These old masters
are put off the throne. Oh, they give you some trouble.
They'll hang around the back porch and hang around out in
the yard, and they'll give you a lot of trouble, but they're
dethroned. And Christ becomes the Lord. And Christ reigns in
our hearts, and His commandments and His principles become our
commandments and our principles. And we say with the prophet of
old, Lord, speak, your servant's listening. Your servant hears.
We say with Thomas in the New Testament, as we fall at the
feet of our master, my Lord and my God. So conversion is a whole
lot more than walking down an aisle and giving mental assent
to a few Bible facts presented by a fast-talking preacher. Conversion
is a whole lot more than giving up a few bad habits that some
fellas talk to you into giving up so you can go to heaven and
not go to hell. Conversion is a whole lot more
than just believing there's one God, for the devil believes that
a whole lot stronger than you do, and he's not saved. Conversion
is crowning Christ the new King, turning from our idols to the
living God, enthroning Christ in our hearts, as our Lord. If
thou shalt confess with thy mouth Jesus to be Lord, and believe
in thine heart God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt
be saved. And when he becomes your Lord, the Word becomes his
Word. See the difference? The Bible
becomes his Bible. The church becomes his church.
The law becomes his law. It's different. The people become
his people. The cross becomes his cross.
And your life becomes His life. Galatians 2.20, Paul caught the
spirit of that when he said, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless,
I live, yet not I, Christ lives in me. And the life which I now
live in the flesh, I live by the power and the faith of the
Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Conversion, what
is it? Not changing churches. Not changing
denominations. Not changing doctrines. It's
not changing your lifestyle, changing your master, your master. Secondly, conversion, it's a
radical change too. If any man be in Christ, he's
a new creature, new creature. And this change is a change that
operates not only on the mind, that I become a spiritual intellectual,
it operates on the affections. And if it hadn't, you hadn't
been converted. It operates on the heart. It
operates on the will. It operates on the nature. It
operates on the conduct. All the way through the Bible,
listen to me, all the way through the Bible, men are divided into
two classes. There are believers and unbelievers. Sons of God and sons of Satan.
There are those who are known to God and those who are far
off. There are those who walk in the Spirit and those who walk
in the flesh. No middle ground. No middle ground is ever given.
And no hint that anyone can do both. Christ said, those who
are not with me are against me. No man can serve two masters.
It's a radical change. It's an abrupt change. And it's
described in this way. It's a new birth. And my friends,
a new birth is not just a decision for Christ. A new birth is when
God comes. to the dead womb of the sinner
and begets and imparts and implants the life of God. And he puts
in there a new person. There's an old person, there's
a new person. There's an old man, there's a new man. There's
an unregenerate man and a regenerate man. There's a natural man and
a spiritual man. And just as you were born the
first time of your parents and received natural life, if you're
born again, you're born of God. You receive spiritual life. And
that's what it means to be born again. It's a new man, it's a
new nature. That's pretty radical. That's
pretty radical. A man that didn't exist before.
God doesn't take old bottles and put new wine in it, and old
clothes and put new patches on them. He makes all things new.
There's no crossing over of those two people either. They're miles
apart, poles apart, east and west apart. It's a quickening
from the dead. You have to quicken who are dead
in trespasses and sins. God brings a man out of the spiritual
grave. It's called a new creation. The new man created in righteousness
and true holiness. John called it a passing from
death to life, from darkness to the kingdom of God's dear
Son. And then conversion is a change
which is recognizable by certain signs. Someone said when a man
is converted, he'll be perfect. Well, I wish that was so, don't
you? Someday it'll be so, but not now. The Apostle Paul wept
over his sins. David wept over his sins. Peter
wept over his sins. Anybody who's been converted
will grieve and weep and mourn over his sins, and confess them,
and God will forgive them. Some say when a man's converted
he's free from all doubt. I wish that was so too, don't
you? Some people say when a man is converted the way becomes
easy. Well, I wish that was so too, but it's not. Conversion
is the beginning of a life of conflict and a life of faith. Conversion is the beginning of
a spiritual struggle that is not ended till we're like Christ.
It's the beginning of a warfare in which there's no discharge
until the day we die. But it's marked by this. All
men who are converted become servants of Christ. Paul used
the word over and over again. Paul, a servant, a bond slave
of Jesus Christ. All who are converted experience
a change in attitude and a change in character. He that loveth
not abideth in death. That's what Christ said. He that
loveth not his brother abideth in death. He hadn't been converted.
He that loveth not knoweth not God. God is love. So you see,
this thing of conversion is a change of attitude. Now I know there's
a progressive sanctification, and a growth in grace, and there
are babes in Christ, and young men in Christ, and elders in
Christ. But there is a change in attitude. And the believer
walks by faith, not by sight. And the believer longs to be
like Christ. He says with David, I shall be satisfied when I awake
with his likeness. These are evidences of conversion. except you be converted and become
as a little child, you shall not enter into the kingdom of
God. O Lord, convert me by the power
of thy Spirit, through the blood of thy Son, through the instrumentality
of thy Word, convert me, make me a new creature." If you want
this message on tape, it will be with another message entitled,
Who is the Lord? Who is the Lord? on one side,
conversion on the other. We'll be happy to hear from you.
The address will be given to you by the announcer. And I bid
you a very pleasant good day.

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