Acts 3:19-21 Repent you therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out… Let us — I. CONSIDER THE STATE OF THE SOUL BEFORE CONVERSION 1. The Bible speaks of it as a state of death. Death is so offensive in physical nature that we are compelled to bury even our beloved friends; and had we eyes and hearts to see and feel the realities of the spiritual world a soul dead by sin would be more offensive than a decaying body. We bury the physical dead, but it is impossible to put away a dead soul from society. The world would have been better without you, for as a corpse putrifies the air we breathe, so a dead soul is a corruption which gives forth evil and prevents good. A dead soul may — (1) Have great influence. Your influence might have been exerted for the good of society, but you have lived only to enjoy your own self, and so instead of being a helper of the highest interests of mankind, you are drawing sap from the human tree and are yielding no fruit. (2) Be a moral person. You have not committed any crime, but you are dangerous to society. Your goodness is an argument to a bad man against being "religious," and the children of your family say, "Why, father never goes to church, nor reads the Bible, nor prays — why should I?" People will follow a moral sceptic because they wish to have an excuse for sin. (3) Be an openly wicked man. 2. How can it be known whether I am in this state of death or not? If you be in this state there will be — (1) No growth of goodness in your character. Some persons appear to grow more beautiful every year, but others become more wicked as they grow older. (2) No strength to do holy things. You may do as you like with a dead body; it can make no resistance, and likewise a dead soul is helpless in the hands of Satan. (3) Troubles and obstacles which will cause you to despair. In such a case men, but mostly women, rush to intoxicating liquor, and their last state is worse than the first. A dead soul is one "having no hope, and without God in the world." II. INQUIRE, WHAT IS CONVERSION? 1. It is a new life. You may see advertisements offering for sale an ingredient which improves the breath. Now conversion does not improve the old sinful breath, but it gives a new holy breath within the soul. Just as God by His Providence gives us at birth physical lungs with which to breathe the air about us, so His Holy Spirit creates spiritual lungs in our soul by which we breathe in the atmosphere of the kingdom of God. 2. A second incarnation of God. The first was in Christ, the second in the soul of His disciple. God is not limited to the body of Jesus. He shall also fill every believer with all His fulness. Socrates, speaking of true friendship, describes it as one spirit in two bodies. Now conversion is one Spirit in God and also in you. 3. A moral transformation. It is that change which makes a man who has loved sin to shun it as he would a poisonous serpent. 4. A birth for humanity. It is to realise that you are born to be the brother or the sister of every one, and to prove it by your active goodness. It is that union with God which unites us to our fellow-man. III. I would URGE YOU TO BE CONVERTED: because — 1. Unless converted you are at war with God. How shameful to be at war with a loving Father! 2. The gospel assures you of pardon. 3. The Lord loves you. 4. God can convert you. (W. Birch.) Parallel Verses KJV: Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; |
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