Conversion and wisdom
“But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” (1Cor. 1:30).
Bible wisdom is not Greek wisdom and is far from modern technology and philosophy.
Bible wisdom is the product of surrender to God’s love and authority. There is no truer wisdom, and this wisdom cannot come without a childlike conversion. “It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God.” (Jn. 6:45). To be taught by God means that the natural born pride has been bowed before Him.
But how is this accomplished? How do we surrender our pride? Do we accomplish it? No. No one can bow his pride. No one can crucify himself, just as no one can baptize himself. Self-crucifixion and self-baptism are physically impossible and they both represent the death of pride. These must be administered by someone else; otherwise, righteousness comes by works—our own. But, self cannot kill itself.
Rather, we must trust God to do that for us. And He will if we avail ourselves to Him. Is the whole religious world converted? No. “For though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet” “a very small remnant” “shall be saved.” (Is. 10:22;1:9;Rom. 9:27).
Why only a very small remnant saved? Because most sinners never make themselves available for God to do His work of conversion and sanctification and wisdom; “because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” (Matt. 7:14).
So, why is salvation so hard to find? “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9). Our sinful condition blinds us to the help that only God can provide. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” (Matt. 6:34). Self-sufficiency exalts us to self-dependence of God-like proportions. Our self-esteem is in the stratosphere lest we be reproved and be made guilty and be humiliated. Our humbler is our adversary. Stubborn pride shakes its fist at God or anyone else who compares us to a better example of goodness. Pride is at the core of our resistance to reproof and humility and conversion.
Pride’s false hopes in its own morality form the barrier to a sound mind and true wisdom; to true joy and to real life. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” (Prov. 1:7). Backing down from God in humble fear is the only access to being taught. But, pride cannot be taught because it already knows everything. Pride knows it all, lest it become the object of scorn and a mockery at its ignorance. Scorning others and exalting itself is what it has witnessed and done to others, and it believes that that is all everyone else will do to it, including God. We come out of the womb with hearts wired for pride.
The fallen souls of men have been so abused by satanic hosts because their captors know zero love. An existence in such a sterile environment without eternal, constant mercy slowly, imperceptibly encases us in bitterness. Cut off from God, the devil and his angels can only be abusive in their control of the captive race of Adam. Thus, they aggravate our fallen natures and provoke our bitterness into self-defense. Finally, pride says, “I have been hurt enough; I have lived in a loud, loveless, unsparing world long enough. I close my heart to any more torture. No more guilt for me! No more rebuke, no more correction will ever be acceptable to me again. I refuse it all! I’m a pretty moral and upstanding citizen! There are plenty of people worse than me!” Then egotism and ignorance reign supreme. And the devils laugh at us and at God.
How does God rescue us from this pit of hell? First, He must overpower our self-exaltation. We must back down from our superiority complex and bow to His superiority. He must do it slowly and kindly and gently, but He must shut us down. He must convince us of our real condition and our deficient standard, and of His perfect will and His divine standard. He must show us how He sees us:
“There is none righteous, no, not one:
There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:
Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:
Their feet are swift to shed blood:
Destruction and misery are in their ways:
And the way of peace have they not known:
There is no fear of God before their eyes.” (Rom. 3:10-19). “Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.” (vs. 19).
God must boom down from Mt. Sinai and put us on the ground. He must stop every mouth. Our whole life long He works to prostrate us to reality. And if that doesn’t work, He must finally let death convince us, if it can. Rom. 5:13,14. If we remain umoved from our self-sufficiency and refuse to weep at our loss before the great Judge (and this refusal happens on thousands of death beds around the world every hour) then each person’s life of thousands of opportunities to break and repent passes away, our probation closes, and we sleep on death row awaiting the great Judgment Day.
But if the heavy hand of God does humble our pride, then He brings us to the next step. “The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance.” (Rom. 2:4). “Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” (Gal. 3:24).
God must stop us in our tracks, and let the light of eternal realities seep into our darkened egotistical minds, or we are lost. Once startled by His power and authority and reset, then we gain a need of a Savior, and faith is riveted onto Him. Finally faith is born and is able to receive the salvation Christ has to offer. Then He can give us His adoption and apply His healing grace.
This is why Jesus said, “It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto Me.” (Jn. 6:45). They learned of the Father through His unforgiving creation, through the consequence to sinning and the daily bumping into other sinners who were as careless and uncaring as themselves, or straight through His sky-high standard—the Testimony of Jesus, His word.
Wherever the word of God has been faithfully preached, results have followed that attested its divine origin. The Spirit of God accompanied the message of His servants, and the word was with power. Sinners felt their consciences quickened. The “light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” illumined the secret chambers of their souls, and the hidden things of darkness were made manifest. Deep conviction took hold upon their minds and hearts. They were convinced of sin and of righteousness and of judgment to come. They had a sense of the righteousness of Jehovah and felt the terror of appearing, in their guilt and uncleanness, before the Searcher of hearts. In anguish they cried out: “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” As the cross of Calvary, with its infinite sacrifice for the sins of men, was revealed, they saw that nothing but the merits of Christ could suffice to atone for their transgressions; this alone could reconcile man to God. With faith and humility they accepted the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world. Through the blood of Jesus they had “remission of sins that are past.” Gerat Controversy, p. 461.
Is there anything I can do to assist God in this process and be saved? It is evident that I cannot help God in the production of saving faith in me. “Faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God…For we are His workmanship.” (Eph. 2:8,10). If I can’t help God save me, what then? What must I do to be saved? Even though salvation is wholly by the power of God, we can cooperate with Him in His work of catching up with us and working conviction into us.
All that man can possibly do toward his own salvation is to accept the invitation, “Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” (Revelation 22:17). Selected Messages, Vol. I, p.343.
This is where His word comes into play, and prayer and sharing what we already know or hope of God for the uplifting of those around us, loving them and giving to them. All this not to prove to God or anyone else that we are holy or great, but they are deliberate efforts that give God permission to open our hearts to know Him better.
Look what this effort toward godliness did for King Josiah. He launched into seeking God at an early age and making determined efforts to please Him.
“In the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father: and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images.
And they brake down the altars of Baalim in his presence; and the images, that were on high above them, he cut down; and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images, he brake in pieces, and made dust of them, and strowed it upon the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them.
And he burnt the bones of the priests upon their altars, and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem.
And so did he in the cities of Manasseh, and Ephraim, and Simeon, even unto Naphtali, with their mattocks round about.
And when he had broken down the altars and the groves, and had beaten the graven images into powder, and cut down all the idols throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem.
Now in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he had purged the land, and the house, he sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, and Maaseiah the governor of the city, and Joah the son of Joahaz the recorder, to repair the house of the Lord his God.
And when they came to Hilkiah the high priest, they delivered the money that was brought into the house of God, which the Levites that kept the doors had gathered....
And when they brought out the money that was brought into the house of the Lord, Hilkiah the priest found a book of the law of the Lord given by Moses.
And Hilkiah answered and said to Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord. And Hilkiah delivered the book to Shaphan.” (2Chron. 34:3-15).
All the reforms that Josiah accomplished led him to a deeper discovery of truth and heavier experience of conviction. Before the discovery of the precious book of Moses, his heart was already prepared to respond in deep contrition, and that discovery infused his consecration with divine power. This working in of truth into him was all planned by God. The Lord, seeing the strength of the king’s desire to turn Judah’s worldliness around, knew where the law was located in the shambles of the temple, hidden under age-long dust, and commanded His angels to lead the workers right to the place that the book of the law was laying. Then we see the strong reaction of Josiah at its presentation to him.
“Then Shaphan the scribe told the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest hath given me a book. And Shaphan read it before the king. And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the law, that he rent his clothes .” (vs. 18,19). For the first time king Josiah heard of the Lord’s original requirements in detail and Moses’ authentic voice of authority. He heard of the threats and warnings of disobedience to it and he awoke to the great danger of divine wrath.
By an agency as unseen as the wind, Christ is constantly working upon the heart. Little by little, perhaps unconsciously to the receiver, impressions are made that tend to draw the soul to Christ. These may be received through meditating upon Him, through reading the Scriptures, or through hearing the word from the living preacher. Suddenly, as the Spirit comes with more direct appeal, the soul gladly surrenders itself to Jesus. By many this is called sudden conversion; but it is the result of long wooing by the Spirit of God,--a patient, protracted process. Desire of Ages, p.172.
The king discerned from this discovery that the Lord was still with His people and it propelled him to seek out a reputable prophet. This he did and was confirmed of the Lord’s wrath, which spurred him on to greater reforms and to the work of leading the people to pledge themselves wholly to obedience to the God of their fathers.
Josiah’s was a personal revival that led to reform that led to greater revival which led to more extensive reform—from faith to faith, from grace to grace. Here we see reform that led to revival because it was founded on the right motives—seeking to know God.
At first we might be dismayed that the Jews of that time had never had the law of Moses read to them before. They had heard of it, but they had never really read it themselves, nor had they heard it read to them. But Providence led them to this buried treasure which caused the king to see the will of God much clearer. He also saw the hand of God in its discovery and this led to the empowering of resolution and the downfall of the last vestige of his self-sufficiency which his early seeking had not removed.
By the ripping of his royal garment King Josiah openly expressed the repentance and grief of his heart which was casting down every high thing in him that had exalted itself against God, and it revealed the new freedom which was captivating his every thought to obedience to Christ—a demonstration of the power of the word of God to a soul made ready to receive it.
And in the final breaking down of the ego and the full reception of the written word of God through the Holy Spirit, the humbled soul received the wisdom of God and the righteousness of God—the Word of God—God Himself who had sent it.
Bible wisdom is not Greek wisdom and is far from modern technology and philosophy.
Bible wisdom is the product of surrender to God’s love and authority. There is no truer wisdom, and this wisdom cannot come without a childlike conversion. “It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God.” (Jn. 6:45). To be taught by God means that the natural born pride has been bowed before Him.
But how is this accomplished? How do we surrender our pride? Do we accomplish it? No. No one can bow his pride. No one can crucify himself, just as no one can baptize himself. Self-crucifixion and self-baptism are physically impossible and they both represent the death of pride. These must be administered by someone else; otherwise, righteousness comes by works—our own. But, self cannot kill itself.
Rather, we must trust God to do that for us. And He will if we avail ourselves to Him. Is the whole religious world converted? No. “For though thy people Israel be as the sand of the sea, yet” “a very small remnant” “shall be saved.” (Is. 10:22;1:9;Rom. 9:27).
Why only a very small remnant saved? Because most sinners never make themselves available for God to do His work of conversion and sanctification and wisdom; “because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” (Matt. 7:14).
So, why is salvation so hard to find? “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jer. 17:9). Our sinful condition blinds us to the help that only God can provide. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” (Matt. 6:34). Self-sufficiency exalts us to self-dependence of God-like proportions. Our self-esteem is in the stratosphere lest we be reproved and be made guilty and be humiliated. Our humbler is our adversary. Stubborn pride shakes its fist at God or anyone else who compares us to a better example of goodness. Pride is at the core of our resistance to reproof and humility and conversion.
Pride’s false hopes in its own morality form the barrier to a sound mind and true wisdom; to true joy and to real life. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” (Prov. 1:7). Backing down from God in humble fear is the only access to being taught. But, pride cannot be taught because it already knows everything. Pride knows it all, lest it become the object of scorn and a mockery at its ignorance. Scorning others and exalting itself is what it has witnessed and done to others, and it believes that that is all everyone else will do to it, including God. We come out of the womb with hearts wired for pride.
The fallen souls of men have been so abused by satanic hosts because their captors know zero love. An existence in such a sterile environment without eternal, constant mercy slowly, imperceptibly encases us in bitterness. Cut off from God, the devil and his angels can only be abusive in their control of the captive race of Adam. Thus, they aggravate our fallen natures and provoke our bitterness into self-defense. Finally, pride says, “I have been hurt enough; I have lived in a loud, loveless, unsparing world long enough. I close my heart to any more torture. No more guilt for me! No more rebuke, no more correction will ever be acceptable to me again. I refuse it all! I’m a pretty moral and upstanding citizen! There are plenty of people worse than me!” Then egotism and ignorance reign supreme. And the devils laugh at us and at God.
How does God rescue us from this pit of hell? First, He must overpower our self-exaltation. We must back down from our superiority complex and bow to His superiority. He must do it slowly and kindly and gently, but He must shut us down. He must convince us of our real condition and our deficient standard, and of His perfect will and His divine standard. He must show us how He sees us:
“There is none righteous, no, not one:
There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips:
Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness:
Their feet are swift to shed blood:
Destruction and misery are in their ways:
And the way of peace have they not known:
There is no fear of God before their eyes.” (Rom. 3:10-19). “Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.” (vs. 19).
God must boom down from Mt. Sinai and put us on the ground. He must stop every mouth. Our whole life long He works to prostrate us to reality. And if that doesn’t work, He must finally let death convince us, if it can. Rom. 5:13,14. If we remain umoved from our self-sufficiency and refuse to weep at our loss before the great Judge (and this refusal happens on thousands of death beds around the world every hour) then each person’s life of thousands of opportunities to break and repent passes away, our probation closes, and we sleep on death row awaiting the great Judgment Day.
But if the heavy hand of God does humble our pride, then He brings us to the next step. “The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance.” (Rom. 2:4). “Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” (Gal. 3:24).
God must stop us in our tracks, and let the light of eternal realities seep into our darkened egotistical minds, or we are lost. Once startled by His power and authority and reset, then we gain a need of a Savior, and faith is riveted onto Him. Finally faith is born and is able to receive the salvation Christ has to offer. Then He can give us His adoption and apply His healing grace.
This is why Jesus said, “It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto Me.” (Jn. 6:45). They learned of the Father through His unforgiving creation, through the consequence to sinning and the daily bumping into other sinners who were as careless and uncaring as themselves, or straight through His sky-high standard—the Testimony of Jesus, His word.
Wherever the word of God has been faithfully preached, results have followed that attested its divine origin. The Spirit of God accompanied the message of His servants, and the word was with power. Sinners felt their consciences quickened. The “light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” illumined the secret chambers of their souls, and the hidden things of darkness were made manifest. Deep conviction took hold upon their minds and hearts. They were convinced of sin and of righteousness and of judgment to come. They had a sense of the righteousness of Jehovah and felt the terror of appearing, in their guilt and uncleanness, before the Searcher of hearts. In anguish they cried out: “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” As the cross of Calvary, with its infinite sacrifice for the sins of men, was revealed, they saw that nothing but the merits of Christ could suffice to atone for their transgressions; this alone could reconcile man to God. With faith and humility they accepted the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world. Through the blood of Jesus they had “remission of sins that are past.” Gerat Controversy, p. 461.
Is there anything I can do to assist God in this process and be saved? It is evident that I cannot help God in the production of saving faith in me. “Faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God…For we are His workmanship.” (Eph. 2:8,10). If I can’t help God save me, what then? What must I do to be saved? Even though salvation is wholly by the power of God, we can cooperate with Him in His work of catching up with us and working conviction into us.
All that man can possibly do toward his own salvation is to accept the invitation, “Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” (Revelation 22:17). Selected Messages, Vol. I, p.343.
This is where His word comes into play, and prayer and sharing what we already know or hope of God for the uplifting of those around us, loving them and giving to them. All this not to prove to God or anyone else that we are holy or great, but they are deliberate efforts that give God permission to open our hearts to know Him better.
Look what this effort toward godliness did for King Josiah. He launched into seeking God at an early age and making determined efforts to please Him.
“In the eighth year of his reign, while he was yet young, he began to seek after the God of David his father: and in the twelfth year he began to purge Judah and Jerusalem from the high places, and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images.
And they brake down the altars of Baalim in his presence; and the images, that were on high above them, he cut down; and the groves, and the carved images, and the molten images, he brake in pieces, and made dust of them, and strowed it upon the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them.
And he burnt the bones of the priests upon their altars, and cleansed Judah and Jerusalem.
And so did he in the cities of Manasseh, and Ephraim, and Simeon, even unto Naphtali, with their mattocks round about.
And when he had broken down the altars and the groves, and had beaten the graven images into powder, and cut down all the idols throughout all the land of Israel, he returned to Jerusalem.
Now in the eighteenth year of his reign, when he had purged the land, and the house, he sent Shaphan the son of Azaliah, and Maaseiah the governor of the city, and Joah the son of Joahaz the recorder, to repair the house of the Lord his God.
And when they came to Hilkiah the high priest, they delivered the money that was brought into the house of God, which the Levites that kept the doors had gathered....
And when they brought out the money that was brought into the house of the Lord, Hilkiah the priest found a book of the law of the Lord given by Moses.
And Hilkiah answered and said to Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord. And Hilkiah delivered the book to Shaphan.” (2Chron. 34:3-15).
All the reforms that Josiah accomplished led him to a deeper discovery of truth and heavier experience of conviction. Before the discovery of the precious book of Moses, his heart was already prepared to respond in deep contrition, and that discovery infused his consecration with divine power. This working in of truth into him was all planned by God. The Lord, seeing the strength of the king’s desire to turn Judah’s worldliness around, knew where the law was located in the shambles of the temple, hidden under age-long dust, and commanded His angels to lead the workers right to the place that the book of the law was laying. Then we see the strong reaction of Josiah at its presentation to him.
“Then Shaphan the scribe told the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest hath given me a book. And Shaphan read it before the king. And it came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the law, that he rent his clothes .” (vs. 18,19). For the first time king Josiah heard of the Lord’s original requirements in detail and Moses’ authentic voice of authority. He heard of the threats and warnings of disobedience to it and he awoke to the great danger of divine wrath.
By an agency as unseen as the wind, Christ is constantly working upon the heart. Little by little, perhaps unconsciously to the receiver, impressions are made that tend to draw the soul to Christ. These may be received through meditating upon Him, through reading the Scriptures, or through hearing the word from the living preacher. Suddenly, as the Spirit comes with more direct appeal, the soul gladly surrenders itself to Jesus. By many this is called sudden conversion; but it is the result of long wooing by the Spirit of God,--a patient, protracted process. Desire of Ages, p.172.
The king discerned from this discovery that the Lord was still with His people and it propelled him to seek out a reputable prophet. This he did and was confirmed of the Lord’s wrath, which spurred him on to greater reforms and to the work of leading the people to pledge themselves wholly to obedience to the God of their fathers.
Josiah’s was a personal revival that led to reform that led to greater revival which led to more extensive reform—from faith to faith, from grace to grace. Here we see reform that led to revival because it was founded on the right motives—seeking to know God.
At first we might be dismayed that the Jews of that time had never had the law of Moses read to them before. They had heard of it, but they had never really read it themselves, nor had they heard it read to them. But Providence led them to this buried treasure which caused the king to see the will of God much clearer. He also saw the hand of God in its discovery and this led to the empowering of resolution and the downfall of the last vestige of his self-sufficiency which his early seeking had not removed.
By the ripping of his royal garment King Josiah openly expressed the repentance and grief of his heart which was casting down every high thing in him that had exalted itself against God, and it revealed the new freedom which was captivating his every thought to obedience to Christ—a demonstration of the power of the word of God to a soul made ready to receive it.
And in the final breaking down of the ego and the full reception of the written word of God through the Holy Spirit, the humbled soul received the wisdom of God and the righteousness of God—the Word of God—God Himself who had sent it.
posted by David | 7:58 AM
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