I was going to say I feel a bit like Elder Harris bringing up a stack tonight, but all he came up with was a piece of paper. So, as you normally know, as you know, he normally comes up with a stack of items, and so I thought I would be following suit, but apparently I'm not. So, but I do want to make mention of a couple of things. First of all, I want to say, maybe I'm only reporting to Elder Harris, but to the rest of you, I finished the Chronological Bible this year. I began in January and I finished at the end of October, so just a week and a half ago. I think I, you know, we introduced this to you some time ago, the beginning of the year, 365 daily readings. I know a couple of people picked it up. I just want to say I highly, highly recommend it. It's probably the most, undoubtedly I believe, the most engaging reading of the Bible I've done. I've done the McShane reading for years. We did it as a family, I've done it privately, but this was so well written. I appreciate the way it's divided up. You don't have to think about where to go next. It's just reading number 22, reading number 23, and make your way through it. Maps and introductions to the various daily readings. But it was so helpful to have the Psalms dispersed chronologically, the prophets dispersed chronologically, and of course the New Testament, the gospel stories, the letters, Paul writing from prison to the Philippians, things of that nature. But it just, you think of the big picture study we did. Redemptive history had just sort of a life to it. came alive in a special way when you see the overlap that it's really hard to see when you're reading the Bible canonically as we do through the McShane, well not necessarily through the McShane, but as you read the Bible canonically and you don't pertain, look at a particular order. So anyways, highly recommend that to you, I thoroughly enjoyed that. And another thing, I drafted an email to send out last week and I thought it would wait until the conference, I'm glad I did. because Carl Truman did such a great job of encouraging everyone in the benefit of reading the creeds and the confessions. I've got a reading plan that I got actually from Pastor Troxell during my internship many years ago now, and it's a monthly reading plan in the Reformed Standards. Basically, it takes you through the Westminster Confession and two catechisms, the three forms of unity, which is the Belgian Confession, the Canons, and the Heidelberg, and then the ecumenical creeds as well. And it takes you through all of these four times in one year. Sounds like a lot, but those documents aren't that large, except for the larger catechism. That's probably the largest port, the longest reading on a given day. But in either case, it takes you through those standards four times. So I have an email I've drafted. I'm going to send it out next week, and I'm going to encourage all of you to join me. Not necessarily in an accountability fashion, although I think that would be really helpful, but just to encourage you. to take up the standards and read them. Maybe you've read them once, twice, maybe you've never read them through, but I hope that you will, after this weekend's conference, have the zeal and the passion to say, you know, I need to know those standards. I need to at least read them once. And one of the things I think is really helpful, if you've ever thought about how daunting it may be to even thinking about memorizing the Shorter Catechism, for instance, even if you never, move toward memorizing the Shorter Catechism. By the time you've read the Shorter Catechism and the other associated standards through four times in one year, you're going to be so familiar with that doctrine. You're going to know it. It's almost like, you know, maybe you've not memorized a lot of scriptures, but you know where the story of the flood is. You know how to find the resurrection. You know how to find the building of the temple. You know where Solomon's prayer is. You know your Bible and you can make your way around it. Just give me a minute, I'll find it sort of thing. And if you can get that sort of familiarity with the standards over the course of a year, I think it will greatly encourage you. And given what Dr. Truman said, it's going to fuel your prayer life. It's going to fuel your worship. It's going to fuel and engage you in our own liturgy here at this church, because we use something from one of those standards every week in our confession. And how encouraging when a passage is chosen for confession, you think, I just read that, or I remember that. And it's going to come alive to you in a really special way. So I hope that you'll join me in that. And I would like there to be opportunities for engagement as we make our way through. But anyways, you'll get an email soon enough. I just wanted to alert you to that. All right, well, grab your handout. Lesson 12, we're digging in and continuing to make our way through Will Metzger's book on Tell the Truth. Tonight's lesson is really quite short and pretty simple. It's the introduction, part one I'm calling it. It's really the first chapter. introducing this second part of the book. We've covered the first part, the whole gospel, now we're looking at the second part to the whole person. So we've talked a lot about in the first part, in the first 11 lessons now, we talked a lot about content, which was really a lot of what Dr. Truman had to say with regard to the confessions and the creeds. And remember we talked about the rule of faith, right? That that was sort of, there was a time in the church where the rule of faith was basically going, this is the apostolic message, or he didn't refer to it in that way, although I would. given what we've studied, but this is the message, this is how you talk about that. And then that gave way to the creeds, and then of course later to confessions at particular seasons in the life of the church. So we've talked about the importance of that content. What is the message of the gospel? What is it to communicate the gospel? What does it entail? And we've looked at those five points, right? God, man, sin, Christ, response. Those five truth clusters, those five pillars around which The gospel message can at least be organized in your mind as you present the gospel. So we're moving now past what is the content of the message, and now we're dealing with this issue of the whole person. It's really only a couple of three chapters, but it's looking at how the gospel is to engage the entire person, how it engages the mind, the heart, and the will, how it engages the faculties, the whole human being, as we've learned this weekend as well. And so, as we look at part one, what he begins with is trying to really address this matter, this something every church deals with, and that is, why are there so many professors and so few possessors, right? Many who profess the gospel and yet prove over time, which is really the test for this, prove over time to not really know Christ, to not be saved. They walk away from the gospel, and as I make mention here, although he didn't mention this, As I mentioned, this happens in Baptist circles, it happens in Presbyterian circles, and the point I'm making is it happens everywhere. He uses the idea of young people, which he's just thinking of his own audience, but he says there's a widespread condition in the evangelical subculture, saved, quote unquote, young people who are merely adapting externally to the patterns of their church culture. So we think about this, how would this happen, say, in a Baptist church? He said, and so I put out here, this can happen in a Baptist circle, in which an unbeliever hears the gospel, makes a profession of faith, and is then received into the church as a Christian. They're baptized, they're brought into communion. They're not actually saved. Now, obviously, we wouldn't know that necessarily. That's part of the point. The point is, though, that over time, they prove not to be. But it can also happen in Presbyterian circles, in which covenant children grow up in the church, as our children have, your children have, I trust. They grow up in the church, they learn a lot about the Bible, they show no moral deviance, and then they're taken through church membership class, they make a profession of faith, and then they fall away. And they leave the church, and they grow older. So this isn't a Presbyterian problem, it isn't a Baptist problem. This isn't a Baptist problem that Presbyterians can fix, right? Because we baptize our children, right? We administer the sacrament of baptism in infancy, maybe that'll fix it. Well, the Baptist maybe thinks that they can fix it by, well, we just wait until there's a profession of faith. After a profession of faith, then we know they're genuinely saved, and then we'll baptize them and make them members of the church. Our children are born into the church, right? They're members by birth to their Christian parents. Baptism doesn't make them members, it recognizes and acknowledges that they're covenant children, right? They're Abraham's offspring, right? Abraham's offspring were circumcised by virtue of being his offspring. And so the Baptists are thinking, well, maybe we can fix that Presbyterian problem where they have so many people leaving the church. We can fix it by waiting for a profession of faith, waiting then for baptism, and waiting then for membership, formal membership, commitment, vows, and such forth later. Maybe that'll fix it. But the point I'm making is, we all lose people. We all lose children. And of course, it's not just children. It could be anyone coming in off the street in their 30s, 40s, 50s, making a profession of faith, seeming zealous for the Lord, fall away over time. So the question that I posit then, is there a problem here that needs fixing? And can we fix it in some way? How can we guard against mere intellectual assent? Because that's really what we're talking about here, right? Professing Christ, making an intellectual assent. Can we guard against mere intellectual assent with little evidence of a changed life? What can we do to avoid misleading people? Because maybe the onus is on us. in our presentation of the gospel. So now we go back to the message. What can we do to avoid misleading people into thinking that becoming a Christian is merely professing ascent in Jesus without the radical heart change that's at the heart of genuine conversion? We're moving into, in this section now, part two, we're moving into the fact that the gospel radically engages the whole person, not just the mind. It's preaching. What we've been saying is, yes, there's genuine truth content. What we want to guard against now, that's the message, what we want to guard against is, is truth content then just simply shared to the mind, related to the mind, because that's where truth goes, right? And if we just think of the truth, now that we go from truth content, and okay, What am I looking for? Am I looking for understanding, assent, agreement? Yes, you're looking for that, but not just that. If we limit conversion to mental assent, intellectual faith, without a radical change of heart and then life, which follows genuine faith, faith working out by love, then we don't have true salvation. There's not a real change. Go to Ezekiel 36, which of course is echoed by Christ, radically in John 3, but go to Ezekiel 36 and just be reminded, very familiar passage of course, but be reminded of how the Lord describes what he's going to do to Israel, which Jesus picks up on then of course in John 3, about being born again, being born of the Spirit. So in Ezekiel 36, beginning in verse 25, I will sprinkle clean water on you, And you shall be cleaned from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. Sounds like an external washing. And I will give you, but now notice how the Lord moves internally. If that's external, merely, now he moves internally, I will give you a new heart. Even deeper, a new spirit I will put within you, which of course is his own spirit. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you. And now we go back to the external. And cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. This is what God describes he's going to do with Israel. And of course, this is really a beautiful Old Testament picture of regeneration, conversion, something radical is happening. Right? Something is, there's a radical change. It's not merely external. If it was only external, then God would have stopped at washing the uncleanness, removing the idols. But it's more than that. They need a new heart. They need a change of heart. And so Jesus says you must be baptized, you must be born again of the Spirit, right? There must be a radical change and conversion. So it is a sad reality that Metzger is trying to recognize here and we're all faced with it. It's a sad reality that false professions are frequent in the church. We've all seen people fall away from the faith who seemed so promising in the church. Clearly every genuine believer is still a sinner saved by grace, right? Salvation doesn't make us perfect, we know that. Every genuine believer is still a sinner saved by grace. But how much of the moral failures in the church are due to the number of professors in the church who are not actually possessors? It's really a question only the Lord can answer, but I'm throwing it out there to make us wrestle with the fact that yes, right, there are many who fall away from the church. What we need to consider then at this point, again, just by way of introduction to the second part of the book, what we need to consider is the biblical view of conversion. What is conversion? In which salvation is shown to be a conversion of the whole personality and all its faculties. To cut to the chase, it's not just a change of mind, it's a change of heart, it's a change of will, all because it's a change of nature. We're united to Christ, we're born again, we're made new. Think of the imagery used in scripture to describe, like Ezekiel 36, to describe what God does when he regenerates us. As our catechism would say, this effectual calling that unites us to Christ. Now we know, we looked at this last week, and 1 John is very clear on this, and Christ himself is clear in John 14. It's impossible to be saved without being morally changed. Jesus says, this is the one who loves me. He who keeps my commandments. The one who keeps my commandments, that's the one who loves me. Christ makes a very direct connection between love, right? Which is really what's poured into our hearts. It's really where our life and our faith springs, right? This love of Christ who has poured his love into our hearts. This connection between loving Christ and obeying Christ. Not perfectly, that's not possible here. But the reality is a love for the law of God. A desire for the law of God, Psalm 119, right? caused me to run in the way of your commandments. This eagerness, this love in Psalm 119 for the law of God, the statutes of God, the rules of God, the commandments of God. Why are they so lovely to the believer? Because he has been radically changed toward them. So it's impossible to be saved without being morally changed. It's impossible to be saved but not submitted to the Lordship of Jesus Christ over your mind, your emotions, your will, your entire life. It's impossible to be saved and Christ not be King of kings and Lord of lords, right? This is one of the, obviously one of the OPC membership vows, right? Confessing and acknowledging Christ as your sovereign Lord. And this willingness, this vow to serve him with all that is within you by his grace. It's impossible to be saved and live a life continually characterized by being sinful. And again, I put that language purposely, continually characterized, because that's how John describes it, right? We don't continue in sin anymore. Those in whom the seat of God abides, we don't continue in sin, right? We're not all in anymore. It doesn't mean we don't backslide, right? We do backslide. We backslide miserably. But we don't continue in sin anymore like we did. We don't live a life that's characterized by the sinfulness with which we were born and with which we were characterized before we ever came to profess Christ in the first place. A true profession is going to show to be a true possession because not only do we have Christ, but because we have his spirit in us, the life is going to change. Little by little and gradually over time, but it's going to change, because that's the work that the spirit has come to do. And that's the second point. This is the radical reality, the unchangeable reality. A Christian is indwelt by the Holy Spirit. And when the Holy Spirit comes, he comes with this commission in which he never fails to bring about, this commission to sanctify this believer, this child of God, fully conforming him to the image of Jesus Christ. And in Christ there is no sin. We're being conformed to the one who is sinless, undefiled, the one who is blameless and holy. We're being conformed and shaped into that image. We'll never arrive in this life, but we will arrive at that when he appears and we see him and we become like him. But that will only happen because we've been a part of the progression in life. That progression is what we're talking about, this growing progression, as Peter would say, growing in the grace and knowledge of Christ. Why do you think Paul has so much to say about putting off and putting on? Put off, put on. Paul speaks of these things as continuing activities of the Christian life. This isn't something that's done, that we do once, and it isn't just something that Christ does at conversion, or the Holy Spirit does at conversion. Of course, that's exactly what the Holy Spirit does. It causes us to die to sin and live to Christ, right? We die in the death of Christ, we're raised in the resurrection of Christ. It's a radical, instantaneous putting off and putting on, right? We put off Adam and put on Christ. But then the epistles are filled with these commands and directives, these gospel imperatives, in light of the indicative of what God has done. Now these imperatives are given to us. Now you put off and you put on, you put away. No longer walk. Think of what Peter says, right? No longer walk in the way of the Gentiles, the way you walked before. Paul says, your life used to be characterized like this, but now you're children of light. You're not children of darkness anymore, so why would you walk in the darkness? You need to be walking in the light. And so this constant call to move forward and to live in light of the profession we've made. In other words, live that profession out, which we are enabled to by the Holy Spirit, if it's a genuine profession. And so let's turn to Romans chapter eight, And be reminded of what Paul says here about union with Christ, about the Spirit being poured out. Romans 8 verse 9, Paul says, You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. So if the Spirit of God indwells you as a believer, United to Christ, you're no longer in the flesh. Think of 1 John 3. You're no longer in the flesh, walking in the ways of the evil one. You're now in the spirit. Now Paul says in Galatians 5, therefore keep in step with the spirit. Walk in step with the spirit. No longer walk according to the flesh. Paul is saying the same thing here. But then he says radically, anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you by his spirit, Although the body is dead, in other words, the body is a body of sin, although the body is dead because of sin, Romans 7, the spirit in you, Christ in you, is life because of righteousness. And furthermore, verse 11, if the spirit of him, Jesus, and now he reminds us, if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you. So you see how the direct connection If we belong to Christ, his spirit indwells us. If his spirit indwells us, then that spirit comes as a spirit of life to give life to our mortal bodies. Though dead because of sin, yet giving life to our mortal bodies that they might be enabled to walk in the ways of holiness. Increasingly so, more and more. We're not the same people we were. Something has radically changed. And so a Christian is indwelt by the Holy Spirit who is on commission to sanctify us fully. And that will happen, of course, at the resurrection. A Christian, furthermore, has acknowledged the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Several times this weekend, Dr. Truman mentioned Romans 10, 9 and 10, right? You believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and confess Him with your mouth, believe upon Him in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved, right? Go to 1 John chapter five, A Christian is one who has confessed the Lordship of Jesus Christ. This is why one of the membership vows of the OPC, the fourth membership vow, has to do with this submission to Christ as your sovereign Lord and the commitment to follow and lead, follow Him in a holy life. All by His grace, of course. But this is a vow made because we're professing to be a believer. To profess to be a Christian is to profess that Christ, by His Spirit indwells me, that Christ has changed my heart. It's not just this outward profession of our lips. And the point we're making tonight, it's not just this mental ascent, right? That's really gonna be the subject of the next lesson and more in depth, but it's not just this mental ascent. I profess that Jesus is Lord mentally, intellectually. No, a Christian is one who acknowledges the Lordship of Jesus Christ because Christ has taken him as his own. So verse one of chapter five, first John, everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. This is the evidence of a true conversion. We know who Christ is and we confess him to be that. And everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey his commandments. Notice that connection again between love and obedience. For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not burdensome. They are a terror to the world. They are a great burden to unbelievers who throw them off and hate God's laws. But to Christians, they're not burdensome. Our only burden is that our sinfulness hinders us from pursuing those commandments and obeying them as well as we would like. That's the burden, but the commandments are not burdensome. We love God's law. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? So a Christian is one who acknowledges the Lordship of Christ because the Holy Spirit indwells him, Christ's own spirit. Furthermore, Christ, as John says in 1 John 3, Christ has come to destroy the works of the evil one. And Christ has come to save his people from sin, not in sin, right? Think, just simply take the words of the angel to Joseph, right? And you shall call his name Jesus. Why? Because he shall save his people from their sins. to save, to redeem, right? Not to save us so that we can continue in sin. All sin is paid for, because that's what that implies and suggests, right? That Christ paid for my sin, therefore there's no cost, there's no price to be paid and I can continue in sin. What does Paul say about that in Romans 6? God forbid, right? Has God's grace been so abundant? Does God's grace come abounding over sin so that we can abound in sin? God forbid. Any Christian who thinks that that's what grace does doesn't understand the first thing of grace. Doesn't understand the first thing about conversion and regeneration. Because conversion changes our attitude towards sin. Right? Remember, even as it changes our attitude toward Christ. Radically so. And increasingly so. All Christians turn away from sin because their heart has been changed in regeneration toward sin." Again, Romans 6. Return back again to now 1 John 3. It's just such a helpful and clear passage. 1 John 3, beginning in verse 3. The clarity, excuse me, the clarity with which John writes is so helpful. 1 John 3, verse 3. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself, even as he, Christ, is pure. Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness. You know that he, Christ, appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him, John 15, keeps on sinning. No one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous, because his righteous spirit indwells us. Christ is righteous, he puts his righteous spirit within us, Ezekiel 36, causes us to walk in his statutes. We practice righteousness, not perfectly, but that's our aim and our goal and our track. Whoever makes a practice of sinning, on the other hand, is of the devil. for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed, that life, abides in him, and he cannot, it's an impossibility, he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. By this, it is evident who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil. Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God. If we don't bear fruit, we have no root. That's what John is saying. Nor is the one who does not love his brother, which for John is a characteristic fruit of the love of God being poured into our hearts. We love our brother. We love God's people because Christ by his spirit unites us together. We are members of one body. And so the best way then, number three, the best way to align our understanding of conversion with the Bible is to deepen our understanding of the biblical doctrine of regeneration. What actually happens when a person is born again? Reminds us of what we heard in this morning's Sunday school class, right? The only remedy, talking about Luther, right? Luther's recognition and acknowledgement at last that the only remedy for a natural status or stasis of sin is a resurrection, a rebirth. It's the only way to fix this. All right, what's the best a dead man can do? Nothing at all, right? He has nothing he can do. So what's needed when we see ourselves to be dead, which we are by nature in sin, is a resurrection, a rebirth. And that's what regeneration is. So let's parallel here very quickly, regeneration and conversion. Metzger brings this up, and I think it's helpful. He says, regeneration is salvation from God's perspective. And it describes an instantaneous gift of new life to the soul by the power of God and the instrumentality of the Holy Spirit. Again, Ezekiel 36, which we have already read. John 3, 3, you must be born again. And Nicodemus, can we enter back into our mother's womb, right? Out of ignorance. And of course, that's not what he's talking about. But he is talking about a radical new birth, which the spirit affects upon the heart and nature of a sinner. So regeneration from God's perspective, Metzger says, is an instantaneous impartation of new life. Or as our catechism talks about, this effectual calling, uniting us to Christ in our effectual calling, right? A radical change. We were taken out of Adam, right? And we're put in Christ. We change heads. Under Adam, we're nothing but a sinner and that's all we'll ever be. Regeneration involves taking us out of the kingdom of darkness, putting us in the kingdom of light, connecting us, uniting us to the Lord Jesus Christ so that we participate in his person and work as mediator and savior. Regeneration. Conversion, Metzger says, on the other hand, is salvation from man's perspective. And it describes the process of the entire work of God's grace, which draws us to himself and turns us away from sin to trust and rely on Christ alone for salvation, which could take an hour or weeks or years. And we could talk about conversion and we could explain conversion and define conversion in a few other ways, and that's fine. But we'll leave it here where he puts it for now. Turn to Acts. Because what he's trying to point out, again, he's trying to help us realize that as we share the gospel with people, as we evangelize, we need to realize that it may take a season of time, right? The gospel, sharing the gospel with someone isn't always instantaneous in this radical Conversion, you know that from your own experience, maybe your own experience in fact, your own coming to Christ. Maybe it wasn't instantaneous. You very likely did not immediately repent and believe and turn at the moment someone first shared with you the very first instance of the knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It may have been that it took time. You heard it several times, pushed it away again and again. Rejected and rejected and rejected and rejected, sermon after sermon, Bible study after Bible study, Sunday school class after Sunday school class. And then at some point something changed. Metzger is saying that's conversion, that whole period in which God is working to bring, from man's perspective, working to bring us unto himself. And regeneration then, that moment of radical change. So we think of Saul, look how radical it was for Saul in fact, Acts 9 verse 4, Luke writes and says, falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And he said, who are you, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting, but rise and enter the city and you'll be told what you are to do. The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one. Saul rose from the ground and although his eyes were open, he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus, and for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank. Now we're not told much about those three days. All we know is that by the time Ananias goes to him, the Lord says to him, he's praying. Verse 10, now there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, Ananias, he said, here I am, Lord. And the Lord said to him, rise and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul, for behold, he is praying. So we don't know what was going on for three days other than the fact that Paul was fasting and praying, wrestling of soul with the Lord, right? The point being made is that there was a period of time there, this radical intervention of God's grace in Saul's life, and then this period of drawing near to the Lord and seeking his face, and certainly then Ananias comes and baptizes him and gives him the charge of the Lord that he is to be his disciple, even unto the Gentiles. So here Metzger wants to warn us, He wants us to differentiate between regeneration and conversion and realize that regeneration, although it's instantaneous, conversion could be over a long period of time of sharing the gospel with someone, exposing them to the gospel, right? Inviting them to church or to Bible study, whatever it may be. Think of Rosaria Butterfield's story, right? Two years coming to the pastor's house and continuing to be exposed to the gospel. She wasn't regenerated at the beginning, but only at the end. But what was taking place for those two years? What was the Lord doing in her heart, in her life? Metzger would say that was conversion, he was converting her, turning her, this slow turning. And he wants to make the point it's the slow turning of the whole person. She didn't just need a change of mind, or a change of will, or even a change of heart, each of which is necessary, but all of that entailing a change of nature, to be born again. So that's kind of the picture, and I know that's familiar to us all. And so he says in letter C, it's important not to confuse the first workings of a positive response to the good news with the final results of a genuine conversion. So over that whole period, there's the first workings to where someone might be intellectually, verbally responsive, positively responsive to what we're saying. And he wants to guard against, again, what's he criticizing? What's he trying to address? The church is filled with professors that are not possessors. Now there's no fix for that. Christ says at the end of the age, right? Think of, go back to Matthew 13. There's no fix for that, right? At the end of the age, there's gonna be weeds and wheat. There's gonna be bad fish and good fish gathered. So there's no fix for this, and that's not what he's saying. He's just trying to say how much of, as Paul says, as much as it depends upon you, be at peace with all men. Metzger is as much as saying, as much as it depends upon you, strive to be genuinely, or strive to be, intellectually astute with regard to the content, that you know the gospel, right? Get those five points down. You know the gospel, and you're not sharing a half gospel, but now try to at least understand and get your minds around what needs to take place in order for a person to be born again. It's a change of the whole person. So he's saying don't miss that, right? Don't latch on to someone's positive response, which might only be an intellectual assent, and an intellectual recognition saying, hey, good, so you're born again now, right? This is now what you need to do. He's trying to guard against that. Again, as much as it depends upon us, this is the work of the Spirit, we all know that. We don't save anyone, but we're instruments, and we're to be responsible instruments. And that's just what he's trying to help us get at. So don't mistake and confuse the first workings with where we're trying to get this final result. Think of Christ's messages to the crowd. Turn to Luke 14. The Lord was very kind and gracious that I didn't struggle with this cough this morning, but sorry to be struggling with it still tonight. So look at Luke 14 in verse 25. We might say this is Christ's evangelistic effort. Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you desiring to build a tower does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, All who see it begin to mock him, saying, this man began to build and was not able to finish. Or what king going out to encounter another king in war will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with 10,000 to meet him who comes against him with 20,000? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple." Think of this as an evangelistic message to the crowds. It's almost as if Christ is pushing people away. But what is he saying, right? Christ is giving the warning, Christ is getting right to the heart of the matter, right? All must be forsaken, all must be renounced, all upon which you would depend, all that you would love. You must love me and me alone, me above all else. If there's ever a competition from between me and anyone, Christ wins. But think of how he's, you know, Christ, obviously, the point I'm making here is Christ isn't rushing toward a decision with these people. Christ is poking and challenging. He's getting right at the heart of the cost of discipleship. Turn to John 2. See a similar thing in John 2. Actually, I'm sorry, John 6 first, then we'll come back to John 2. Turn to John 6, 25 to 29. Remember Christ had fed the 5,000, right? And then he crossed the sea, went over to the other side. People come and find him afterwards. So verse 25, when they found, so we have the crowds, right? This is a crowd of unbelievers drawing near to Christ. And so when they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, Rabbi, when did you come here? Because remember, he didn't get in the boat with the disciples. Jesus answered them, truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him, God the Father has set his seal. Then they said to him, what must we do to be doing the works of God? And Jesus answered them, this is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent. So Christ is clearly not rushing toward a decision with people because as John 2 says, he knew what was in man. Christ knows the fickleness of man, how quick we are just to go with the crowd, how quick we are to jump on the next bandwagon only to leave it when something more exciting comes along. how quick we are to be in the right crowd, be in the right place at the right time with the right people. Only when the right people in the right place in the right time changes, we jump ship and go somewhere else. We're not really all in. So Christ isn't rushing toward a decision. And if we think about that, then it helps us realize that the message of the gospel, right? And as we approach people, we need to be discerning as to what needs to take place. And so he closes out this very short chapter with a bit of guidance for helping people close with Christ. He says, first of all, counsel them in a way that focuses on action and not talk. Obviously, he's critical of modern approaches to evangelism in which you're driving toward a prayer of decision. In other words, be clear that the gospel demands a response to the appeal of God that they turn and trust. The gospel doesn't demand mere intellectual assent, mere verbal profession, but a turning repentance, and a trusting faith, which of course cannot be done in their own strength, but as the Holy Spirit works in the heart of the elect, it is done by His power and grace. Urge them, secondly, to cast themselves in prayer on the mercy of Christ, praying that God would forgive them of all their sins. And really the point here is just send them to God. Send them to the throne of grace. give them the gospel, make clear what sin is, make clear, think of the five points, right? God, man, sin, Christ, response, make clear what the gospel is, and then send them home to think about it. Encourage them to pray. Encourage them to open their Bibles or send them home with a Bible, right? And this runs counter to modern perspective where everything is driven toward a prayer of decision right now, right? You need to decide right now, You need to pray with me right now. Again, I don't want to take anything away from that that it should rightly have, right? We're not discouraged entirely. What we're trying to do is realize the depth of what needs to take place and realize that sometimes the best thing to do is just to send them home. Most of you, of course, will remember Ruby, who's now married to a believer and a godly man who, as far as I know, is still pursuing the pastorate. So what a wonderful change in her life. But you remember the encounter that we had with Ruby some years ago, and when I first had the opportunity to speak with her, and I think probably spoke for about two hours, hour and a half, two hours, just giving her sort of the big picture. Utterly ignorant she was of the gospel, the Bible, the message, so giving her that sort of big picture and helping her see her need. You're lost, you're in Adam. And if you die in this condition, you're gonna perish. You need to get in Christ. And giving her the gospel, laying it all out for her. And then I just left her. We ended the conversation. That was it. I didn't rush toward, let's pray right now. Not that that would have been a bad thing. I certainly prayed for her, but not rushing toward a decision. I really just sent her home. And we continued, you know, Chantry and I and some others, in fact, we continued to, she wanted to read the Bible. So we would read the Bible together. We'd go over to her house with her and her mother and we would do Bible study. We'd read the New Testament. She would ask questions. Of course, burning inside, I'm wondering, is God doing a work? And it was appearing that he, well, God was doing a work. She was definitely changing. And I remember she would ask me at different points, do you think I'm a Christian? Do you think I'm saved yet? Expecting, of course, I don't know if I feel anything different. She was expecting something's gonna change, there's gonna be a light or something. And I said, I don't know, are you? Where's your heart, where's your mind? You tell me. I was very careful. Not to look at something, ah yeah, I see a sign. And put her hope, like we said earlier, put her hope on something she had done. Well, we're doing Bible study every week here, Ruby, that's what Christians do. Surely you're saved now. Being very careful not to put her assurance on something she had done, or even something that I could see. Because I can't see the heart. But I constantly, I didn't answer that question for a very long time. Which probably, I think it was frustrating for her, I know it was. But I kept just sending her back to prayer, back to Christ. And over time, of course, it became very clear that there was a change, a genuine change. But over time, of course, she did grow to have assurance. But her assurance was upon the true grounds that we talked about earlier, right? We talked about before, you know, a testimony of the spirit in her heart, right? The promises of the gospel to her and a change in her life, a change towards sin and toward Christ. And so this is really what Metzger is trying to guard against, not being so quick in those situations in sharing the gospel and people we genuinely want to see converted and regenerated, but being careful not to move too quickly and certainly being careful not to put our hope or their hope upon false grounds. So thirdly then, use scripture to make clear that it's God who's calling them. And that's what I was doing with Ruby by reading the Bible with her and and opening the Bible for her. This isn't me calling you to be saved or calling you to join the Presbyterian Church of Cape Cod, calling you to be baptized. It wasn't me, because I didn't want her to do anything for me, for my sake, to please me. Rather, I wanted to drive her to God and say, this is God's call. God's calling you. God's commanding you. It's God who calls you to repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Your answer is to the Lord. He demands this of you, and he invites you. unto his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so making sure that she understood she wasn't being reconciled with me or the church or Christians, which she loved you all, of course, but helping her understand that a reconciliation, her sin was against God. That's the relationship that she needed to pursue to be fixed by grace. And then finally, then he gives this encouragement, be genuine with people, right? As we speak to them, encourage them. God is bringing them to a crisis, we pray. a crisis of decision, a crisis of their own future, life, eternity. Lovingly encourage the hesitant that God will give them faith if they ask him. Again, just send them to the throne of grace. Emphasize the sin of neglecting or rejecting the gospel offer, right? That there is an urgency, remember? There is an urgency to this. But that urgency comes from the reality that they are in sin and Christ is coming again. Encourage them to come to church, right? Which is what we did with Ruby, brought her to church. Right? Listen to the preached word. Talk to God's people. Read your Bible. Point them to a personal savior. Remember with regard to the content. It's not just pointing them to, you know, finding meaning in life, right? Or heaven, right? This world is a terrible place, but there's a heaven. Don't you want to go there? Those are all parts of the gospel, yes, but really it's, her direction needs to be that she's pointing to Christ. The root of rebellion is against God and his Christ. Think of what Peter says. The man whom you killed, you need to change your mind about this man, Jesus, and you need to be baptized in his name. That's the issue. Challenge them to admit the sin that they're clinging to if they refuse to come to Christ. Well, what is it that's keeping you from coming to Christ, right? If the conversation comes to that point, well, what is it that's holding you back? And you'll often find it's because I don't want to give up this or give up that or my friends or my peers, whatever it may be, I don't want to be I don't want people to think I'm weird. I don't want to stand out. I don't want to be, you know, criticized or ridiculed or laughed at or mocked. Help them to see what's holding them back and show them, obviously, the emptiness of all of that. And show them how to pray. Take them to Psalm 51, some other place in scripture in which, you know, take them to the Psalms in any case, in every case, crying out to God. I always send people to the Psalms, just open the Psalms, just pray the Psalms, read them and pray them, read them and pray them, turn them right around back up, read them in your mind and then pray them out with your mouth unto God for your own and the words will come that is appealed to the Lord. The chapter closes with just a recognition that it is actually possible for a person to profess faith in Christ and not be saved. In other words, there are the professors in the church, partial Non-saving responses to the gospel are real, frequent, and damning. You think the parable of the sower, right? One non-response, two very positive responses that are not saving, among the rocks and among the thorns, only one genuine response. And this is Christ, the sower, preaching the gospel, and only one-fourth are genuinely converted, whereas three-fourths positively respond. We might call the first, the second, and the third heart professors, but not possessors. Interesting. That's Christ's own parable of himself, the one who sows the seed. Simon the magician, right? He believes, we're told. He gets baptized, right, by Philip. And then when Peter comes, he rebukes him. You're in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity if you think you can buy the Holy Spirit. Repent, right? Herod, of course. We're told that Herod loved, right? Herod loved listening to John. He loved John the Baptist preaching. Didn't like what John said about his wife. But he loved, John, he loved listening to John. Think of what Ezekiel went through, right? They loved Ezekiel's voice. His voice was pleasant. They hated what he had to say, but they loved his preaching. So people can come into the church because they love to hear the preaching. They love the preacher. Whatever it may be, there can be any number of things that draw someone to the church besides true conversion, besides Christ. The crowd, obviously, we look at John 2, John 6, John 8. The crowd that follows him then, The Pharisees, and as he begins to talk to them, not only, right, they say that they believe, and yet what does Christ tell them? You're children of the devil. You're murderers, right? The enlightened Jews, think of that in Hebrews 6. It's impossible to bring them to repentance. You fall away, making this profession of faith. And then, of course, the lordship people. Lord, Lord, did we not cast out demons in your name, prophesy in your name, do wonders in your name? Surely we're the people of God. Again, think of that relative to what we heard. Where was their assurance of salvation? I cast out demons, right? I prophesy. I do wonders in his name. I go to church. I take the Lord's Supper. I'm a member. Think of all the things in the church that people hope in, that these things tell them. In other words, they're gathering their assurance from something they've done, from something tangible and physical in that sense. They're gathering it from something they've done. rather than having assurance truly in what Christ has done in him. Have you ever been given a new heart? Do you love Jesus? If push came to shove, would you choose Jesus over everyone and everything else? Do you love Jesus more than father, mother, sister, brother, even your own life? Do you love the church? Do you love God's people? Do you love Christians? Think of all of this. So there are lordship people in that sense. So letter G in your notes, we should be cautious identifying outwardly favorable responses with regeneration. And we should be faithful to encourage people to examine themselves for the signs and evidences of a genuine conversion to Christ and a new life in him. And again, we need to remember here that God's the one who gives these signs and evidences. That's the point Metzger has made time and time again. The self-examination that is being encouraged here is driving a person back to the word of God and saying, this is what God says he does to people that he takes for his own. Have these things been done to you? Have you been the recipient of God's grace? Here's what you should look for in your life. Point them to the right signs, the right evidences. 1 John, again, a good place. 2 Corinthians 13.5, Paul is the one who tells us to examine ourselves. And Romans 6. died with Christ to sin, born with Christ again, and then there's resurrection to new life. We're not the same towards sin anymore. Think of what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 13 5. Do you not know what it looks like that Christ is in you? How can you not know what it looks like when Christ changes a person? He's talking to the church who profess Christ. How do you not know? How are you ignorant of genuine signs and evidences of true conversion and salvation? You should not be ignorant of these things, Paul is saying. So look for those things. Again, by way of introduction, so Lord willing, next time we'll examine the faculties which make up our personality. So three things that Metzger is going to consider. Mind, emotions, will, or as we've said before, head, heart, and hand. And we'll see how a false conversion can result when any one of these faculties is not touched by the spirit of God. Right? When any one of these faculties is not touched by... In other words, when we're not changed wholly and completely, because that's what genuine conversion is. How do we know what conversion is? What is regeneration? It's a radical, complete change. The whole person's a change. Something instantaneously, radically changes from darkness to light. It's dim at first, and it's going to get a whole lot brighter. And there's still sin within, And one day that's gonna be completely eradicated, right? So we're on the progression, we're on the upward swing, if you will, and there's gonna be all sorts of ups and downs, but we're continually moving up, as the Catechism says, right? That's what sanctification is, right? Enabling us more and more to die to sin, more and more to live to righteousness. That's the Spirit's commitment to us. He has come to do that, and he never, ever fails. So we should be not only looking for that growth in grace, you should look over your life. New Year's is great for this, right? New Year's isn't just about resolutions. A new year is a great opportunity, or a birthday. Your own new year is a great opportunity to look back at your last year. Have I grown in grace? That sin I was struggling with, is it any better? Have I died more to that? Am I living more to righteousness? Have I changed? Have I drawn closer to Christ? How's my communion? Think of these things. What a wonderful opportunity for evaluation. and taking an account of your soul before the Lord, this whole change, and looking for that, because this is what the Spirit of God comes to bring, and he brings it progressively, thankfully. So I pray you'll find encouragement in that. I encourage you to go home and look up the rest of these verses that we did not look up, and begin to pray for the Lord to help you to examine your own life, right? Pray for God to show you where your mind has changed, where your emotions have changed, where your will has changed, that you might see the evidences of this holistic conversion, because that's really what needs to happen. And I'm not assuming it hasn't happened in any of your lives, but as Paul says to the church, examine yourselves, right? Your assurance needs to be in the right place. You need to know that you're right with God, because tomorrow we die, right? Tomorrow we die. That's how instantaneous death is, but more than that, that's how short time is. And so we need to realize that no question is more important for each and every one of us and to know that we are right with God. And how do you do that? Examine yourself and look for the signs and evidences of the Lord's genuine work in you. And if you see it, take heart and now take up the responsibility of your own vows to cultivate that, to grow in grace, right? And again, we're coming to the end of a year. What a wonderful opportunity to say, Lord, this year, I'm gonna commit to reading the Bible, maybe the creeds and confessions, and I wanna grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ. Target that, aim at that, because I remember J.C. Ryle said, holiness never happened to anyone. Holiness has to be pursued and cultivated and grown in, right, watered and nurtured. The Spirit's committed, and He calls us to be likewise committed, even by His own grace and strength, right? Amen. Let's close in prayer. Heavenly Father, bless these things unto us, we pray. We desire, Lord, to be sure of our own selves, to be sure of our own salvation before you. We desire to thoroughly and completely understand, at least better understand, Lord, exactly what it is that conversion and regeneration entails. Maybe we've not thought deeply about these things for a long time, but as we think about sharing the gospel and evangelizing others and encouraging and pointing others to the Lord Jesus Christ and helping them find assurance and gain assurance, and seek assurance, Lord. May we do so on the right grounds. And so we pray that you would continue to bless this study to us, continue to use it to equip and enable us to be instruments and tools in your hand, Lord, for the conversion of the lost, especially those whom we know and love. Thank you once again for this weekend and for this Lord's Day, this wonderful conference. Lord, we thank you so much for Carl Truman, for his wife, for the time they spent with us. We pray that they left this place blessed, encouraged, strengthened, built up in their faith, that they went home thankful that they spent time with the Presbyterian Church of Cape Cod. And we thank you, Lord, for all that we have learned. We pray that, Lord, all of the challenges that we were given, we pray that we would take these to heart and that we would, Lord, take up the responsibility and the wonderful privilege of being better grounded in our faith, knowing our faith, knowing what we believe and why we believe it. And so we pray that we would grow, oh Lord, in our understanding of these things, that we might be able not only to be better grounded, but also better able to communicate these things. Bless the preaching and the teaching of the gospel here, whether by myself or the elders or any others who may read scripture and teach. Father, we pray that the gospel would be ever present, that it would be ably presented, and that your people here, the Presbyterian Church of Cape Cod, would grow and be strengthened in their faith. Thank you for our visitors, Lord, even here tonight and over the course of the weekend. Pray that all will go home to their own churches, return to their own lives invigorated and quickened and resolved to pursue Christ and to pursue all the more the faith that has been entrusted to the saints and to hold fast to the faith in this day of crisis and constant change. Thank you for your enduring, immutable, and standing word. What a solid rock you've given us. Bless us, O Lord. Go with us this week in Jesus' name.