Chapter 14
Mount Of Conviction
We have now come to the mountain peaks of life. There are at least three great mountain peaks in the life of every wholly sanctified man or woman. The first that stands out in the memory of the child of God is that experience of Bible Conviction. In the Christian experience Mount Sinai stands for conviction. You remember at Mount Sinai the Law was given and if so much as a beast touched the holy mountain it was thrust through with a dart. It is the same today; when the Holy Spirit convicts a sinner he is thrust through with a dart, and then he is ready to die to the world. He wants a place to pray, and he feels that he is the meanest man on earth, and he wonders why God has put up with him so long. He is amazed to think that God has kept him out of hell so long, and he is now ready to repent of his sins, and forsake his sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
When he does that he will hear from heaven; and until he hears the voice of God speaking to him as a loving Father, he hears the thunders of Mount Sinai and sees the forked lightning playing over his head, and knows that he is the man God is after. He knows that he is a hell-deserving wretch and that nothing but the grace of a merciful God has kept him out of the pit.
Now the little piece of dirt that he pays taxes on is as nothing in his own sight, and his bank stock is as nothing before him. It is not more horses and more mules that he wants, but it is God that he wants, for the man is under Bible conviction, and nothing short of a Bible repentance and a Bible confession and a Bible forsaking will bring peace to his troubled soul, but if he will meet God’s conditions he will receive God’s pardon. He has been thinking all the time that he was as good as anybody else, but today if you were to ask him about himself, he would tell you of a different man to what he thought he was a few days ago. He now has his eyes open.
The first thing that Bible conviction does for a fellow is to open his eyes, and for the first time in his life he sees himself as he really is. He has been thinking that he was one of the nicest men in the community, and as to his goodness, he never had a doubt about it until now. He thought he was as good as any church member in the community, and in fact, he has often said that he would not swap chances with the best of them for he said that he was an honest man, and he said that he paid all his debts, and he said that he had wronged no man, and he said that he had provided for his family a little better than the church members, and, in fact, he was all that could be desired of a gentleman. But the Master said, “Ye must be born again,” and he has paid no attention to that, and all the time he has been boasting his own honesty. To his surprise when the arrow from the King’s bow strikes him in the heart, and his eyes fly open, he sees down in his own heart that he is as tough as a meat block.
There in the natural heart, he sees anger, and jealousy, and pride and enmity and impatience, and profanity, and vulgarity, and Sabbath desecration, and the love of the world, and the love of praise, and the love of money, and no time for God, and no time for the Bible, and no time for prayer, and no time for God’s house and no time for the service of the blessed Son of God.
When all of this begins to dawn on the fellow, he thinks that he is the meanest white man on the face of the whole earth, and wonders how God can have mercy on him and save him at all. Some men I have seen almost go into despair when they see down in their own hearts, and all along before that they thought that they didn’t need anything at all, and wondered why their friends were so interested in them.
One reason that we have so little spiritual life in the Church is because there is so little conviction, or maybe none at all. They have joined the church when the crowd went in, but nobody gets Bible religion just because the crowd is going that way. We must be convicted of our sins and wake up to the fact that we are lost, and when we wake up and find we are lost, then we are ready to start back to the Father’s house. One thing that I do thank God for, and it is that I got a good case of Bible conviction and that I did repent of my sins, and confess my sins and forsake my sins, and then it was no trouble to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thank God it was no trouble for Him to blot out all of my sins, and then give me the witness of the Spirit that I was the child of God. Well, amen, and amen.