Friday, May 20, 2005
John 16:7-11 I will send Him [the Holy Spirit] to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in Me.
CONVICTED BY THE SPIRIT
Who would ever believed that in a world filled with wickedness and hatred and sorrow one of the great and necessary works of the Holy Spirit would be to convict the world of sin? And who would believe that the one great sin He would convict us of is unbelief? Being, at least in part, a product of the 21st century, I could believe that a lack of confidence in self or, to put it in more noble words, a lack of appreciation for the potential of the human spirit set free from the suppression of government and society, a lack of compassion and love for my fellow human being, a lack of education, a disregard of moral absolutes, laziness, greed, a lack of devotion to the supreme being, I could believe that these are the root causes of evil in this world. But to say that the mother of all evils is the absence of trust in Jesus is such a simple answer, such a seemingly foolish answer, that it is not worthy of consideration.
Yet this is what Jesus tells His disciples. The sin that separates us from all good, from God Himself, is doubt, a rejection of the forgiveness won for sinners by Jesus. All sin separates from God and brings death and condemnation, yet it is only unbelief that prevents God from giving us all the blessings Christ has won for us. It is unbelief that causes us to strive against the working of the Holy Spirit on our hearts. It is doubt that prevents us from living under God's kingdom of grace. Unbelief is the source of all evil. And this rule of unbelief is so strong in sinners that only the Holy Spirit, and this with great effort on His part, can reveal its true nature to us.
What a blessing it is for the Christian to be so convicted by the Holy Spirit. It is easy to say unbelief is the source of all evil. But to be daily convinced in mind and heart that this is so is to have a truly heavenly perspective. A perspective which allows us to treat not only the symptoms of our disease but the disease itself. A perspective which allows us not only to pretend that we are doing what is good and pleasing to God, but a perspective which by the operation of the Holy Spirit allows us to expose and cut out the evil of unbelief and to implant the reign of Christ. May the Holy Spirit continue to convict us of the deceitful rule of unbelief so that through the Gospel of Jesus He might continue to keep us under the gracious rule of Christ.
