Although the term conversion is very common in theological and religious discussion today, it's actually a relatively rare term in the Bible. Now the popular use of the term among Christians today when you speak about somebody being converted is that they have become a Christian. When you say that they got converted you are referring to the fact that they have been saved by the grace of God. God, and it's become a popular shorthand for speaking of all the saving graces. And I am piquing it today that that is what the subject is meaning. The part of the Sovereign Grace Advent testimony manifested I'm dealing with today is that part that affirms the election, redemption, regeneration, justification, infutation of Christ's righteousness to sanctification and final preservation of all the saints. And later on I hope to be dealing with sanctification and preservation of the saints. But what I'm taking it is that when we speak of conversion, I'm speaking about all those other saving graces that are mentioned there in that section of the manifesto. However, I want to bear in mind today that there is a strictly theological definition of conversion and actually that is more in line with what the Bible definition is. In Acts chapter 3 and verse 19 it says, repent ye therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out when the times of repression shall come from the presence of the Lord. And I want you to notice how that there are two key thoughts of repentance there and turning to God in faith. Repentance and faith. Again in Acts chapter 26 and 28 it says, But showed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, And throughout all the coast of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance. So they were to repent and turn to God, and turning to God is the same word that is translated, be converted, in Acts chapter 3 and verse 19. Conversion then, is turning to God. And conversion then is brought about by faith. We think of how in Acts chapter 11 and verse 21 it tells us that. It says, And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed. and turned unto God. So believing and turning to God then are really set alongside each other as being tantamount to the same thing. So conversion is turning to God in repentance and faith. Now I'm saying all this to establish how I'm going to handle the subject today. When I'm using the word conversion today, I'm going to use it in the more strictly theological and biblical way, but in dealing with the subject I'm going to extend it to all of the saving graces of election, redemption, regeneration and justification and so on as mentioned in the Sovereign Grace Advent Testimony Manifesto. Now, the way that I propose to tackle this is by taking the testimony of the Apostle Paul that we read there in Galatians chapter 1 and verses 15 and 16. There's a great deal of information in the New Testament about the Apostle Paul and about his conversion and we see the wonderful way that God has taken this man and brought him to himself and he is He is brought to that place of repentance. He shows faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is redeemed. He is regenerated by the power of God. He is justified by faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. So here is a man whose testimony manifests conversion. And he is brought to Christ. And what a wonderful subject this is. As has already been said today, it is a subject to thrill our hearts. It's a subject to bring joy to our souls. We think today of the wonderful things that the Lord has done for us. And when we think of that, our souls should be thrilled and our hearts should be blessed. And if we haven't been blessed, and if we're not thrilled today, we have missed the point altogether. So let's just look at what it says here, particularly in Galatians 1, verses 15 and 16 about the conversion of the Apostle Paul. And let's use that as an illustration as to what God can do and does do in the life of every child of God. And the first thing I want you to see then is God's work in the prelude to conversion. We remember what it says in Jonah chapter 2 in verse 9, that salvation is of the Lord. It's the sovereign act of a sovereign God. And that is so well illustrated for us in the conversion of the Apostle Paul. I want you to see God's sovereignty in election, first of all. Turn over there to Galatians 1, look at verses 15 and 16. And I want you to see what it says about the Apostle Paul there. It says, But when it pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen, immediately I conferred an arm with flesh and blood. Now notice what it says about the Apostle Paul here. He was separated from his mother's womb. And he was set apart to be a preacher of God. Do you remember what Ananias, when he was sent to the newly converted Saul of Tarsus, and Ananias was a bit apprehensive about going to see this man who was a persecutor of the Christians. And we read in Acts chapter 9 and verse 15, But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way, for he is a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel. God had chosen to see him. God had elected him, if it were, to be a preacher of the gospel. And in Acts chapter 22 and verse 14, we find out what Ananias said to Paul, it says, and he said, the Lord God of our fathers hath chosen thee that thou shouldest know his will, and see that just one, and shouldest hear the voice of his mouth. The word chosen there in the Greek literally means that he was in God's hand. God, he was before God's hand or else he was in God's hand. God had taken this man in hand with a purpose in mind. Paul at the time, or well just before Anne and I spoke to him, he had been intent on beating and imprisoning and murdering Christians. But even as he did that, he was God's chosen, soon to be made, Christian ministry. And that's an amazing thought. You know, maybe we teach Sunday School or are involved in children's work at some time, and if you've ever been involved in children's work, you'll know that there are very often those individuals that give you a very hard time. But you know, even those individuals who give you a hard time may be God's chosen fellow saints. I know that I gave my Sunday school teacher a very hard time before I was saved and I did all sorts of things on my Sunday school teacher and yet God had, in his mercy, chosen, elected me. And so when God broke in upon the life of Saul of Tarsus, there was no escaping. He was saved that day upon the road to Damascus and God was sovereign in his salvation. In the next chapter 22 in verse 10, Paul tells us about his conversion that took place and what happened between him and the Lord on the road to Damascus. And remember how Paul asked the Lord, what shall I do Lord? And the reply of the Lord was, Arise, and go into Damascus, and there it shall be told thee of all things which are appointed for thee to do." So God had an appointment for him. He appointed him to be a preacher, and in order to do that he had to appoint him to be a Christian in the first place. So it is fleeing that God chose Paul and he elects his people from all eternity. What about redemption? Well again, the testimony of the Apostle Paul is that redemption is the work of God and the work of God alone. When we speak of redemption, we're of course speaking about the price that was paid for us to free us from the bondage of sin. And again, if you just go back to Galatians there and look at Galatians chapter 3 and verse 13, Paul says, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, be made a curse for us. For it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. So we find that redemption was accomplished by the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ has Paul is very clear that it is Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ, who redeems. He bought us with that precious blood that he shed there on the cross of Christ. Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 7, in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins according to the riches. of His grace. It took the infinite riches of God to buy us back from sin, to pay the price that needed to be paid. And what a price it was that He paid there on the centre cross of Calvary. If you look at Galatians 4 and if you look at verses 4 and 5 it says, But when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. So God is central in election. God is central in redemption. What about the call? of the sinner to himself. Well look at what Paul says in Galatians chapter 1 verse 15. He says, but when it pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by his grace. So again the calling is the grace of God. This is what Paul says about his own conversion. It says, when it please God. That's highly significant. It underscores the sovereignty of God again in this process. True spiritual awakening in the salvation sense The moving of a person to the kingdom of darkness, into the kingdom of God's dear Son, bringing those who are in darkness to life, those who are dead in trespasses and in sin unto life, the opening of the heart is when it pleases God. It pleases God to reveal His Son in us. And revealing his son speaks of the quickening power of God, it speaks of regeneration there. And how different it is, the assumptions of men when it comes to the call of God and the work of God in regeneration, very often even God's people say, well, if you exercise faith in God, you will be born again. But it's the very opposite. We've got to be born again of the Spirit of God before we exercise that faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. In John 6 and 44, no man can come to me except the Father which hath sent me. Draw him. There is an inability. for the sinner to come to Christ. But the Lord regenerates, He forgives the new life, summons us to God, brings us to Himself. And it says in Romans 8 and 30, Moreover whom He did predestinate, them He also called, and whom He called, them He justified. And whom He justified, them he also glorified. When you're called, you're justified, the assumption is you're going to be glorified. To thank God that He brings us to faith. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. There's the application of the Word of God to the heart. Nevertheless, God, this is the effectual call of the Gospel. We're not speaking really about the outward call of the preacher, although the Lord uses that. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Where God works in the heart. and brings sinners to himself. And then, regeneration of course, the Lord said to Nicodemus, verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. This is the necessity And again Paul says in Galatians 1 verse 15, when it pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by His grace to reveal His Son in me. That's regeneration. He was dead in trespasses and in sin when God stepped into his life. and implanted that light within him. Oh what a marvel it is, it is the grace of God working in the heart that brings the sinner to himself. So we notice some of the preliminaries to conversion. We think of the election of God, we think of redemption, we think of the effectual call, we think of regeneration, and we see God sovereign and central in all this work. But then I want you to think about God's work at the point of conversion. Now we're using conversion here in the strictly theological sense of the term. Acts 3 verse 19, the command is, repent ye therefore and be converted and we said that be converted simply means turn to God and again we're dealing with the work of God in conversion and we come to the place now a person has been regenerated by the power of God they're born again off the course those things happen simultaneously in a moment but I want to make a point here and I'm going to modify and refine it and the point is this that when we come to actual conversion in this sense, God and man cooperate now. There's a part for man here. Now that may shock you a little, but I'm going to refine what I'm going to say. I'm going to use this very carefully here, because I read in the scriptures How that there are commands to people. We think of how in Acts chapter 16 and verse 33, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. Or we think of Peter in that verse in Acts chapter 3 and verse 19. Repent ye therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out. So there is a command to believe. There is a command to repent. And that must mean when the Lord commands us that there is a responsibility upon us to do so. There is a responsibility upon man to do something. Now, I'm going to refine what I say, that there is a responsibility put upon us. But I want you to realize that repentance also is the gift of God. The psalmist says in Psalm 80 in verse 3, Turn us again, O Lord, and cause thy face to shine upon us, and we shall be saved. Turn us again, O Lord, and cause thy face to shine upon us. And that's chapter 5 and verse 31, we read how Peter declared that God the Father exalted Christ to his own right hand as a prince and saviour for to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. So God gives repentance. We are commanded to repent, but the repentance that we make is given to us by God. Or you think of what it says in 2 Timothy 2 and 25, where the Lord's servant would gently correct the non-Christian opposition if, I quote, God, peradventure, will give them repentance to the acknowledgement of the truth. So there you see again that repentance is given by God. The same is true of saving faith. Saving faith is a personal trust in Christ to save me. But saving faith is also a gift of God. Saving faith is not something that can be worked up in the heart in and of ourselves. It only comes out of a heart that has been regenerated by the power of God. Paul, in Acts chapter 14, Paul and Barnabas, completed their first missionary journey and they returned to their home base in Antioch to tell the congregation what God had been doing with them in the last number of months and many of the believers that were there give thanksgiving to God and in Acts chapter 14 and verse 27 it says all that God had done with them and how he opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles. Now you notice the phrase, he opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles. God had brought about and opened this door of faith to them. That implies that faith is a gift of God. He said, and the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. So grace was poured out upon them that they might have faith. It is a grace of God. It is given freely by God. And that's why God says, in Ephesians 2 verse 8, for by grace are ye saved through faith. And that not of yourselves, it's a gift of God. Luke wrote of the ministry of Apollos. In Acts 18 and 27, it says, when he was come out, the much which had believed through grace. So, it's very significant that when Luke speaks to Paulus, he doesn't say that he believed in grace. That would speak of the content of that which they believed. They believed in grace. No, they believed through grace. They were given this grace. So faith is given by God. So we see that God commands men to repent. God commands people to believe. But those two things are graces given by God. Now the question probably occurs in your mind, and if this is the gift of God, then why does God command men and women to do it? Well, in many ways this is one of the areas in which God's thoughts are not our thoughts. It's really beyond our understanding. There are things that are beyond our understanding. We can't reconcile all that is in the mind of God. But I like what Robert Raymond in his book of theology says about this. He says, and I quote, along with repentance unto life, It is the divinely effected human response to God's effectual summons of the elect sinner into fellowship with his Son. And I want you to see the phrase, the divinely effected human response. It is a human response that is effected by God. And I want you to listen to the testimony of St. Spurgeon on this. And I quote, he said, one weeknight when I was sitting in the house of God, I wasn't thinking much about the preacher's sermon, for I didn't believe it. The thought struck me, how did you become a Christian? I sought the Lord. How did you come to seek the Lord? The truth flashed across my mind in a moment. I shouldn't have thought of him unless there'd been some previous influence in my mind to make me seek him. I prayed, I thought I. But then I asked myself, how came I to pray? I wasn't used to pray by reading the scriptures. How came I to read the scriptures? I did read them, but what led me to do so? Then in a moment, I saw that God was at the bottom of it all, and that He was the author of my faith. And so the whole doctrine of grace opened up to me, and from that doctrine I have not departed to this day, and I desire to make my constant confession, I ascribe my change wholly to God. Now there are those that would advocate that you can have faith without repentance, but those two things are really two sides of the one coin. There are those that say, well you can come to the Lord in faith, but you don't need to make the Lord, you need to make the Saviour your Lord. But those two things must go together. He says, come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. So at the point of conversion, yes God commands, and it's a true command for men and women to come to Christ and trust the Lord. But it is something that God has effected in the heart. But then something else I want you to see, and that's God's work in the preaching of conversion. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 1. And look at verse 21, 1 Corinthians there, chapter 1 and verse 21. It says, For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching. to save them that believe. Now we have established that conversion is the work of God, but God has an ordained means of reaching men and women with the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. The immediate agency, the effectual agency is God, but He uses, and sometimes, a very odd time, God can work in hearts by His immediate agency. But in 999 times out of 100, it is through the instrumentality of the ministry of the Word of God. James says in James chapter 5 verses 19 and 20, Brethren, if any man do err from the truth and one convert him, let him know that he which converted the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death and shall hide a multitude of sins. So God has given the instrumentality of preaching. We shouldn't ever think that we sit back and depend upon the sovereignty of God and salvation. God has ordained means. He has given his people the responsibility of preaching the word that he has given, that through the foolishness of preaching that men might believe. So we notice the work of God in the preaching of conversion. But then could I say something about the work of God in the progress of conversion? There's something that I want you to see that conversion is a work in progress. Now, I add very swiftly that we are sealed once in our life. There is that time when we come to Christ and our sins are washed away, and there's that initial saving faith and repentance by which we come to God. But I want you to think about what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13 and verse 14. He said, but now abide of faith. Hope. Charity. These three, but the greatest of these is charity. And you notice that among the things that abide is faith. And I think that maybe faith throughout eternity because we'll be constantly trusting in God to supply our needs. But anyway, faith to the end of our lives. Paul says in Galatians 2 and 20, the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the face of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Remember how the Lord Jesus commanded us to pray and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And if we are constantly to pray, forgive us our debts, that's a constant repentance, as it were. There is that sense in which we're saved, in a moment of time, as it were, we are brought to Christ, there's the change and transformation, but there is that sense in which the work of conversion continues throughout our lives. So there is the work of God in the progress of conversion. But could I say one more thing and that's God's work in the purpose of conversion. What is the purpose of God in effectual calling and conversion and repentance and regeneration? Well again we go back to the Apostle Paul and his testimony there in Galatians chapter 1 and verses 15 and 16. We read it again, but will please God who separated me from my mother's womb and called me by his grace. Why? To reveal his son in me that I might preach him among the heathen. And we have noticed how Paul was separated from his mother's womb to be the Lord's. But I want you to notice why the Lord's separated. Yes, to be a preacher he called him. There was that purpose. But the ultimate purpose was to reveal his son in me. that I might preach him among the heathen. There's a two-fold purpose there. That he might preach among the heathen. There was a ministry to be done. That's why he was converted on the road to Damascus. He had to make the grace of God known to others. We are saved with a purpose. We're converted to do something. And that's the first purpose. To reveal Christ to others. But also, I want you to particularly notice that first purpose that he gives, to reveal his son in me. That's a remarkable phrase. It does not say that he was to reveal his son to him, although the son was revealed to him, but the son was to be revealed in him. And that's God's desire and purpose for us in conversion, that Christ might be seen in me. The Lord wants to reveal the Lord Jesus in me. We think of what the psalmist said in Psalm 19 verse 17, and let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish thou the work of our hands upon us. Yea, the work of our hands, establish thou it. Let the beauty of the Lord be seen in thee. The psalmist says in Psalm 27 in verse 4, One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the hands of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. One thing have I desired, that I may dwell in his presence, that I may be like him. We think of what it says in 2 Corinthians 3 and 18, but we all with open face Beholding us and at last the Lord the Lord are changed into the same image. From glory to glory. Even as buying the Spirit of the Lord. He said he was being changed. As he abode in the presence of the Lord, he was being changed. And how was he being changed? He was being changed to be more like the Lord Jesus Christ. Now I'm overlapping with my subject tonight, we'll maybe unfold this a little bit more as we go along, but here is the essential start. When we come to God in conversion, He has saved us for this purpose, that we might reveal Christ and that Christ might be revealed in us. How much is Christ revealed in us? How much do people see the face of the Lord Jesus Christ shining out in our actions, in our attitudes, in our words, in all that we do? How much of the Lord Jesus Christ is being revealed in us? That was God's great purpose in the conversion of the Apostle Paul. And oh may the Lord Jesus Christ be seen in us from day to day.