Welcome to the Puritan Uniformed Audiobook Podcast. This is a class on Christian Experience and Assurance of Salvation. This is on conviction of sin prior to conversion or the burden that pressed hard down on Christian's back before he entered into the wicked gate. From Pilgrim's Progress it says, I looked and saw him open the book and read therein, and as he read he wept and trembled, and not being able longer to contain, he cried out with a lamentable cry, saying, What shall I do? In his plight, therefore, he went home and refrained himself as long as he could, that his wife and children should not perceive his distress. But he could not be silent long, because then his trouble increased. Therefore, at length he spoke his mind to his wife and children, and thus he began to talk to them. Oh, my dear wife, he said, and you, the children of my bowels, I, your dear friend, am in myself undone by reason of a burden that lies hard upon me. Now moving forward into the picture of Christian with a burden on his back, it's a slough of despond. Therefore Christian was left to tumble in the slough of despond alone. But still he endeavored to struggle to that side of the slough that was still further from his own house and next to the wicket gate, to which he did but could not get out because of the burden that was upon his back. C.H. Burgin wrote, Our Heavenly Father does not usually cause us to seek the Savior until He has whipped us clean out of all of our self-confidence. He cannot make us in earnest after Heaven until He has made us feel something of the intolerable tortures of an aching conscience, which is a foretaste of Hell. I remember when I used to awake in the morning, The first thing I did was to take up Joseph Alain's book, The Alarm to the Unconverted, or Richard Baxter's book, The Call to the Unconverted. Oh, those books, those books. I read and devoured them when under a sense of guilt, but it was like sitting at the foot of Sinai. For five years as a child there was nothing before my eyes but my guilt, and though I do not hesitate to say that those who observed my life would not have seen any extraordinary sin, Yet, as I looked upon myself, there was not a day in which I did not commit such gross, such outrageous sins against God, that often and often have I wished I had never been born. Sickness is a terrible thing, more especially when it is accompanied with pain, when the poor body is racked to an extreme, so that the spirit fails within us and we are dried up like a potsherd. But I bear witness that sickness, however agonizing, is nothing like the discovery of the evil of sin. I'd rather pass through seven years of the most wearisome pain and the most languishing sickness than I would ever again pass through the terrible discovery of the evil of sin. It was my sad lot at that time to feel the greatness of my sin without a discovery of the greatness of God's mercy. I had to walk through this world with more than a world upon my shoulders and sustain a grief that as far exceeds all other griefs as a mountain exceeds a molehill. And I often wonder to this day how it was that my hand was kept from rending my own body in pieces through the awful agony which I felt when I discovered the greatness of my transgression. And the following is a testimony of the agonies that John Owen went through in his awakening prior to his conversion. John Owen He had gone one Sabbath morning to hear the celebrated Presbyterian preacher, Edmund Calamee, and was much disappointed when he saw an unknown stranger from the country enter into the pulpit. His companions suggested that they should leave the chapel and hasten to the place of worship of another celebrated preacher, but John Owen's strength being already exhausted, he determined to remain. In other words, the guilt that was upon him. The burden pressing upon his back incapacitated him to want to get up and go somewhere else. He felt like he couldn't move. He had to sit there. After a prayer of simple earnestness, a text was announced in these words of Matthew 8, verse 26. Why are you fearful? O you of little faith! Immediately it arrested his thoughts, as appropriate to his present state of mind, and he breathed an inward prayer that God would be pleased by that minister to speak to his condition. The prayer was heard. For the preacher stated and answered the very doubts that had long perplexed his mind. And by the time that the discourse was ended, it had succeeded in leading him forth into the sunshine of a settled peace. The most diligent efforts were used by him to discover the name of the preacher who had thus been to him as an angel of God. but he was never successful. The next story is that of the conversion of George Whitefield in a lengthy awakening or burden on his back prior to his conversion. Quote, aroused by the solemn realization that he must be born again, he began to search for the life of God. So George Whitefield came across the book, The Life of God and the Soul of Man by Henry Scougal. And that's the context here. Which Henry Schugel stated must be placed within a soul, thought Winfield, amidst his fears of being eternally lost, he became a subject to strange and terrible emotions. He stated, my comforts were soon withdrawn and a horrible fearfulness and dread permitted to overwhelm my soul. One morning, in particular, I felt an unusual impression and weight upon my chest, attended with inward darkness. God only knows how many nights I've lain upon my bed, groaning under the weight I felt, impeding Satan to depart from me. Whole days and weeks have I spent in lying prostrate on the ground. When the bearing of these difficulties brought no experience of the life of God, George Whitfield undertook still greater self-denial. He left off eating such things as fruits and sweets and wore a patched gown and dirty shoes. He adopted the customs of a German cult called the Quietists, talking very little and wondering if he should talk at all. Under this burdening of his mind, his academic work began to suffer. and his tutor thought he might be going mad. But Whitfield went further in his efforts. For instance, he says concerning one attempt, quote, After supper I went into the Christ Church, walked, and continued in silent prayer under one of the trees for nearly two hours, sometimes lying flat on my face. Tonight being stormy, I had great reluctance against staying out so long in the cold. Still finding only failure in all of these efforts, he decided the only other thing he could give up was his association with the Holy Club. This is a sore trial, he declared. But rather than not be, as I fancied Christ's disciple, I resolved to renounce them, though dear to me as my own soul. He had been undergoing these strivings since the autumn of 1734, and with the approach of Lent in the spring of 1735, matters became still worse. He determined that throughout the six weeks of the holy season, he would allow himself little except coarse bread and sage tea without sugar. Still burdened in mind, dangerously weakened in body, Unable to do his studies, praying with strong crying and tears, and constantly reading his Greek New Testament, he pressed into his Lenten devotions with increased zeal. By the Passion Week, however, he found himself too feeble even to creep upstairs. His physician confined him to bed, and he lay there for seven weeks. Despite his weakened condition, he wrote a list of his sins, both past and present. and confessed them before God morning and evening, every day. But with all of his efforts, he obtained no life of God within his soul. But now, when there was nothing else that Whitefield could do, God revealed himself in grace and granted Whitefield that which he had learned could never be earned, in utter desperation and in rejection of all self-trust. He cast himself on the mercy of God through Jesus Christ. An array of faith granted him from above assured him he would not be cast out." Quoting Archibald Alexander in a book, Thoughts on Religious Experience. The conviction of sin is a necessary part of experimental religion, all will admit. But there is one question respecting this matter concerning which there may be much doubt, and that is whether a Law work prior to regeneration is necessary, or not. An old lady of the Baptist denomination was the first person I ever heard give an account of Christian experience, and I recollect that she said she was so deeply convinced that she should be lost that she began to think how she should feel and be exercised in hell. And it occurred to her that all who were in that horrid place were employed in blaspheming the name of God. The thought of doing so was rejected with abhorrence. And she felt as if she must and would love him even there, for his goodness to her. For she saw that she alone was to blame for her destruction, and that he could in consistency with his character do nothing else but inflict his punishment on her. Now surely her heart was already changed, although not a ray of comfort had dawned upon her mind. But is there not before this, generally, a rebellious rising against God in the heart and a disposition to find fault with his dealings? It may be so in many cases, but this feeling is far from being as universal as some suppose. As far as the testimony of pious people can be dependent on, there are many whose first convictions are of the evil of sin rather than of its danger. So what is the point he's saying of the evil of sin rather than of its danger? If your convictions are of the evil of your sin and not just a danger of going to hell, that's a sign of evangelical conviction. You're not just wanting to be saved because you want to be safe, but you want to be saved because you want to be rid of the sin that is plaguing you and weighing you down. So let me read that sentence again. As far as the testimony of pious people can be depended on, There are many whose first convictions are of the evil of sin, rather than of its danger, and who feel real compunction of spirit for having committed it, accompanied with a lively sense of their ingratitude." In the introduction to A Guide to Christ by Solomon Stoddard, there is this excellent analysis of this subject. He says, It has been an error and a tyrannical one in some preachers to have made their own particular experiences the standard for all others, when as God is pleased to use a great variety in bringing His elect home to Christ, although conversion as to the substance of it is the same in all that are brought into a state of salvation. Some have experienced such tears and distress of conscience as others have not been acquainted with, who nevertheless are true believers on Christ. To that question, what measure of preparatory work? This is sometimes called a law work. It is antecedent. Often it goes before conversion. To that question, what measure of a preparatory work is necessary to conversion? Mr. Norton answers judiciously, his greatest measure of conviction has no necessary connection with salvation. so the least measure of conviction puts a soul into a preparatory capacity or ministerial next disposition to the receiving of Christ. There is not a like degree of humiliation in all those that are converted, for some feel a great measure of trouble, others a lesser measure, but all that are truly converted are humbled. Nor can it be determined how long a man must be held under fears and tears before he is truly converted. To affirm that men must be so many years or months under a spirit of bondage and fear before they can believe on Christ, Contrary to the experience of many pious souls and to the scriptures, the preparatory work of the converts mentioned in the sacred writings was not of long continuance. That super-eminent Puritan divine, Dr. Thomas Goodwin, observes that a man may be held too long under the water of John the Baptist. and that some have urged too far and insisted too much on that as preparatory or as prior to conversion, which really includes the beginning of true faith. That imminent man of God Richard Baxter relates that as he is once at a meeting of many Christians, And they were as eminent for holiness as most in the land, of whom a number were ministers of great fame. And it was desired that every one of them would give an account of the time and manner of its conversion. And there was but one of them all that could do it. And he says, I say from my heart, that I neither know the day nor the year. when I began to be sincere. Nevertheless, for the most part, they that have been great sinners are not converted without dreadful terrors of conscience." Well, that's something we don't hear a lot in testimonies in our day. We've received many of them in our various churches. Hardly anybody ever talks about experiencing dreadful terrors of conscience or a serious law work. prior to their conversion. But let's dig deeper. What is this conviction of sin that goes before conversion? Augustus Hopkins Strong, in his systematic theology, defines it very well for us, quote, Conviction of sin is an ordinary, if not an invariable antecedent of regeneration. It goes before the new birth. It results from the contemplation of truth. It is often accompanied by fear, remorse, and cries for mercy. But this is the key. Are these things evangelical? But he says these desires and fears are not signs of regeneration. They're selfish. They're quite consistent with manifest and dreadful enmity to God. So he's saying you can experience these, quote, legal convictions. And the fact of the matter is, though you are convicted that you deserve to be damned, that you are a great sinner, your heart could still be full of dreadful enmity to God because you have not been born again. They are not evangelical. They are not a sign of the new birth. They are those things which every man and woman will experience when they stand before Christ on the day of judgment. unreconciled to them. They have a hopeful aspect, he says, because they give evidence that the Holy Spirit is striving with the soul. But this work of the Spirit is not yet regeneration. At most, God is preparing the soul for regeneration. But so far as the sinner is concerned, this is prior to the new birth. He is more of a sinner than ever before, because under more light or more conviction than has ever been before given him, he is still yet rejecting Christ and resisting the Spirit. The Word of God and the Holy Spirit appeal to lower as well as appeal to higher motives. Most men's concern about religion is determined at the outset by hope or fear. The Holy Spirit does not ordinarily regenerate a man until he is a convinced man or a convicted man. Until in the use of the means of conviction, under common grace, he has become conscious of his need of regenerating grace. To the person who inquires, how am I to obtain the new birth? Now here I am quoting William Shedd in his dogmatic theology. How am I to obtain a new birth? And what particular thing am I to do respecting it? The answer is, find out that you need it, and that your self-enslaved will cannot originate it. And when you have found this out, cry unto God, the Holy Spirit, create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me. And this prayer must not cease until the answer comes. As Christ teaches in the parable of the widow, in the unjust judge Luke 18 verses 1 to 8. When men are convicted of sin and utter helplessness they are people prepared for the Lord. Luke 1 verse 17. A sense of guilt and danger is a preparative to deliverance from it. Now this isn't preparationism because the sinner isn't preparing himself. The conviction of sin coming from the Holy Spirit prepares a man to see his need of Christ. But I go on. A convicted man is a fit subject for the new birth, but an unconvicted man is not. A person who denies that he is a guilty sinner before God, or that sin deserves endless retribution, or who has no fears of retribution, is not. prepared for the regenerating work of the Spirit. It is true that the Holy Spirit who is free to work with means, without means, above means, and against means. Westminster Confession, Chapter 5, Paragraph 2. Can convict a sinner without his cooperation if he pleases. An utterly careless and thoughtless person is sometimes by the power of God, the Spirit, suddenly filled with remorse and terror on account of his sins. And sometimes a convicted person does his utmost to repress conviction and get rid of his moral anxiety, and the Divine Spirit will not permit him to succeed. But this is not the usual way of the Holy Spirit in conviction of sin, and it is not to be counted upon." Jonathan Edwards, in his work, The Justice of God and the Damnation of Sinners, talks about that enmity against God is consistent with conviction of sin prior to conversion. And many people seek Christ out of these what we call mercenary or selfish motives, not out of evangelical motives. Remember, they don't want to be cleansed from sin. They want to just be safe. So in this sermon, Jonathan Edwards says, quote, I am sensible that by this time, many persons are ready to object against this. If all should speak what they now think, we should hear a murmuring all over the meeting house. And one another would say, I cannot see how this can be, that I am not willing that Christ should be my savior. Well, I'd give all the world that he was my savior. How is it possible that I should not be willing to have Christ for my Savior when this is what I am seeking after and praying for and striving for is for my life? And Jonathan Edwards answers this objection. He says, Here, therefore, I would endeavor to convince you that you are under a gross mistake in this manner. I would endeavor to show the grounds of your mistake. And secondly, to demonstrate to you that you have rejected and do willfully reject Jesus Christ. So here's the charge. During your conviction, they're afraid of being damned. It is a great awakening. And they are awakened. They are aroused. They are awoke out of their sleep. But Jonathan Edwards says that you may see the weak grounds of your mistake. Consider one, There is a great deal of difference between a willingness not to be damned and a being willing to receive Christ for your Savior. You have the former. There is no doubt of that. Nobody supposes that you love misery so as to choose an eternity of it, and so doubtless you are willing to be saved from eternal misery. But that is a very different thing from being willing to come to Christ. Persons that are awakened. Persons that are under a legal conviction of sin, Jonathan Edwards is saying, very commonly mistake the one for the other. But they are two different things. You may love the deliverance, but hate the deliverer. You tell of a willingness to be saved, but consider, what is the object of that willingness? It doesn't respect Christ. The way of salvation by him is not at all the object of it. But it is wholly terminated on your escape from eternal misery. The inclination of your will goes no further than self. It never reaches Christ. You're willing not to be miserable. That is, you love yourself, and there your will and choice terminate. And it is but a vain pretense and delusion to say or think that you are willing to accept of Christ." Archibald Alexander. We quote him again. Why does God allow the awakened to struggle often for some time under conviction? Though man, in his natural state, is spiritually dead, that is, entirely destitute of any spark of true holiness, yet is he still a reasonable being and has a conscience by which he is capable of discerning the difference between good and evil, and of feeling the force of moral obligation. By him and his sins brought clearly before his mind, and his conscience awakened from its stupor, he could be made to feel what his true condition is as a transgressor of the holy law of God, deciding sins of sin under the influence of the common operations of the Spirit of God. He says the common operations of the Spirit of God. Common operations can be experienced by persons who were not converted. In fact, common operations of the Holy Spirit can come upon persons for a time who never are converted. They are said to return as a dog to the vomit. They go back to the world. Alexander says, and there can be no doubt that these views and feelings may be very clear and strong in an unrenewed mind. in a mind that has not been renewed by the Holy Spirit in conversion. Indeed, they do not differ in kind from what every sinner will experience at the day of judgment, when his own conscience will condemn him, and he will stand guilty before his judge. But there is nothing in this kind of conviction, this kind of conviction, which has any tendency to change the heart, or to make it better. Some indeed have maintained with some show of reason that under mere legal conviction the sinner grows worse and worse, and certainly he sees his sins to be greater in proportion as the light of truth increases. That's a very, very important thing because some people look at Romans 7, 14 to 25, his Paul, is yet unconverted state or he is only awakened. A person who is merely awakened to a sense of his sense cannot be said to delight in the law of God after the inward man. But I go on to quote Alexander. There is not therefore in such convictions, however clear and strong, any approximation to regeneration. It cannot be called a preparatory work to this change in the sense that it disposes a person to receive the grace of God. That sentence is so important. If we call it a preparatory work, it isn't one that puts a person in the disposition that now he is able to receive the grace of God. because the fact that the manor is as strong says he is now more guilty than ever because he's still withholding his heart from Christ. Alexander says the only end which such conviction can answer is to show the rational creature his true condition and to convince the sinner of his absolute need of a savior. Under conviction there is frequently a more sensible rising of the enmity of the heart against God. and as moral law. But feelings of this kind do not belong to the essence of conviction. There is also sometimes an awful apprehension of danger, danger of going to hell, danger of being damned for these sins. The imagination that filled with strong images of terror and hell seems almost uncovered to the view of the convinced sinner. But there may be much of this feeling of terror where there is very little real conviction of sin. In other words, there's no compunction, there's no hard sorrow for the sin, because there is no real abhorrence of sin in an unconverted man. Alexander says, and on the other hand, there often is deep and permanent conviction where the passions and imagination are very little excited." Jonathan Edwards has this sermon on Hosea 2 verse 15, which I think is so enlightening. And it is called, Hope and Comfort Usually Follow Genuine Humiliation. Genuine Humiliation and Repentance. And it is taken from this verse. And I will give her vineyards from thence, In the valley of Acre, for a door of hope. And she shall sing there as in the days of her youth, As in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt. Edwards says souls are likely to be brought into trouble before God bestows true hope and comfort. The corrupt hearts of men naturally incline to stupidity and senselessness before God comes with awakening influences of his spirit. The unconverted sinner is quiet and carnally secure. They have no true comfort and hope and yet they are quiet. They are at ease during miserable slavery and yet seek not a remedy. They say as the children of Israel did in Egypt to Moses, let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians. But if God has a design of mercy to them, it is his manner before he bestows true hope and comfort on them to bring them into trouble, to distress them and spoil their ease and false quietness. and to rouse them out of their old resting and sleeping places and to bring them into a wilderness. They are brought into great trouble and distress so that they can take comfort, not in those things in which they used to take comfort. Their hearts are pinched and stung, and they can find no ease in anything. They have, as it were, an arrow sticking fast in them which causes grievous and continual pain, an arrow which they cannot shake off. and they cannot pull it out. The pain and anguish of it drinks up their spirit. Their worldly enjoyments were a sufficient good before, but they are not now. They wander about with wounded hearts, seeking rest and finding none. Like one wandering in a dry and parched wilderness under the burning, scorching heat of the sun, seeking for some shadow where he may sit down and rest, but finding none. Wherever he goes, the beams of the sun scorch him, or he seeks some fountain of cool water to quench his thirst, but he doesn't find a drop. He's like David in his trouble, who wandered about in the wilderness, Saul pursuing him wherever he went, driving and hunting him from one wilderness to another, from one mountain to another, and from one cave to another, giving him no rest. To such sinners all things look dark, and they don't know what to do, nor where to turn. If they look forward or backward, to the right hand, or to the left, all is gloom and perplexity. If they look to heaven, behold darkness. If they look to the earth, behold trouble and dimness of anguish. Sometimes they hope for relief, but they are disappointed. And so again and again they travel in pain, and a dreadful sound is in their ears. They are terrified and affrighted, and they seek refuge as a poor creature pursued by an enemy. He flies to one refuge, and there is beset. And that fails. Then he flies to another. and then is driven out of that. And his enemies grow thicker and thicker about, encompassing him on every side. They're like those of whom we read in Isaiah 24, verses 17 and 18. Fear and the pit and the snare are upon them. And when they flee from the noise of the fear, they are taken in the pit. And if they come up out of the pit, they're taken in a snare, so that they know not what to do. They're like the children of Israel while Achor troubled them. They go forth against their enemies, and they are smitten down and flee before them. They call on God, but he does not answer nor seem to regard them. Sometimes they find something in which they take pleasure for a little time, but it soon vanishes away. and leaves them in greater distress than before, and sometimes they are brought to the very borders of despair. Thus, they are brought into the wilderness and into the Valley of Acre, or the Valley of Trouble." William Shedd, again, quoting in his dogmatic theology on conviction of sin. It is objected that the prayer of the unregenerate is sinful. In other words, he shouldn't pray because his prayers are sinful. But this sprues too much, because it would preclude any action whatever by the unregenerate man. The hearing of the word by the unregenerate is sinful, but the unregenerate is not forbidden to hear the word of God preached upon this ground. The thinking of the wicked, like his plowing, is sin. All the acts of the unregenerate are sinful, because none of them spring from supreme love to God. Some of them are better preperatives for, or antecedents to, God's work of regeneration than others. Attendance upon public worship is better adapted to advance a man in the knowledge of his spiritual needs than attendance upon the theater or the movies. Prayer is better adapted in prayerlessness to bring a blessing to the soul. because God has not bound himself by a covenant to hear the prayer of every convicted sinner without exception. It by no means follows that he does not hear such a prayer and that it is useless for such a person to pray. He has heard the cries of multitudes of this number. It is his general role under the gospel economy to hear this cry. The highest probability of success, therefore, attends a prayer of an anxious and convicted person. for regenerating grace, and this is ample encouragement for him to call upon the merciful and mighty God for what he needs, namely, a heart of flesh in place of the stony heart. It is not true that God never granted the prayer of an unregenerate man. Such men in peril have called upon God to spare their lives and have been heard. This is taught in Psalm 107 verses 10 to 14. Convicted men, from a sense of danger and the fear of the wrath to come, have prayed for the salvation of their souls from perdition. and God has saved them. In such cases, God has granted the petition not because it was a holy one or because it merited to be granted, but because a blessing was needed and because of His mercy to sinners in Christ. But, in addition to the fact that the prayer of a convicted sinner may have an effect upon God and be answered favorably, it also has an effect on the person himself and prepares for the regenerating act of God. No man can study the divine word and receive legal illumination from it without having some sense of his danger awakened and giving utterance to it in prayer. Even if the prayer be only the cry of fear, and is not accompanied with filial trust and humble submission, it still is of use. The prayer, by its very defects, prepares for the new birth by showing the person his need of it. The person in distress asks for a new heart. The answer does not come immediately. The heart is displeased and is perhaps made more bitter and rebellious. At this experience the Holy Spirit discloses to the unregenerate man more and more of the enmity of the carnal mind and the impotence of the self-enslaved will. This goes towards preparing him for the instantaneous act of regeneration. While regeneration is a sovereign act of God according to election, it is an encouraging fact both for the sinner and the preacher of the Word that God's regenerating grace is commonly bestowed where the preparatory work is performed. This is a role under the Gospel dispensation. He who reads and meditates upon the Word of God is ordinarily enlightened by the Holy Spirit. Perhaps in the very act of reading or hearing or meditating, While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all of them which heard the word. Acts 10 verse 44. He who asks for regenerating grace may be regenerate. Perhaps in the act of his praying, God has appointed certain human acts in which to make ready the heart of man for the divine act. Without attentive reading and hearing of the word and prayer, the soul is not a fit subject for regenerating grace. By fitness, it's not meant holiness, or even the faintest desire for holiness, but a conviction of guilt and its danger, a sense of its sin and utter impotence to everything spiritually good. Such an experience as this breaks up the fallow ground to employ the scripture metaphor Jeremiah 4 verse 3, Hosea 10 verse 12. When the Holy Spirit finds his preparation, and he usually intervenes with his quickening agency, it is objected thirdly that to pray for regeneration is to delay faith and repentance. I'm quoting William Shedd here. Gives you a lot to think about. Because I read the life of Asahel Nettleton and how he dealt with awakened sinners. The objection is that the sinner is commanded immediately to believe on Christ and turn from a sin with godly sorrow. But praying for the new birth is dallying with the use of means. It is an excuse for procrastination. But to this objection it is to be replied that prayer for regeneration is a prayer that God the Holy Spirit would work instantaneously upon the heart and would immediately renew and incline the will. There would be force in this objection if the sinner were taught that there are means of regeneration. and were exhorted to supplicate God to regenerate him at some future time through his own use of these means. But he who truly prays for regenerating grace, despairs of all agency in the use of means, and precludes all procrastination by entreating an immediate and instantaneous act on the part of God by which he shall this very instant be delivered from the death and bondage of sin, and be brought into the life and liberty of the gospel. So we will close out this particular class by reading the reflections of David Brainerd when under awakening, because I think they are so enlightening. He says, quote, and remember he's under awakening, he has a burden pressing down hard upon his back. Sometimes I grew remiss and sluggish without any great convictions of sin for a considerable time together. But after such a season conviction sees me more violently. One night I remember in particular when I was walking solitarily abroad, I had opened to me such a view of my sin that I feared the ground would cleave asunder under my feet and become my grave, and would send my soul alive into hell before I could get home. And though I was forced to go to bed, lest my distress should be discovered by others, which I much feared. Yet I scarcely dared sleep at all, for I thought it would be a great wonder if I should be out of hell in the morning. And though my distress was sometime thus great, yet I greatly dreaded the loss of conviction of sin, and returning back to a state of carnal security, and to my former insensibility of impending wrath, which made me exceeding exact in my behavior, lest I should stifle the motions of God's Holy Spirit. When at any time I took a view of my convictions and thought the degree of them to be considerable, I was wont to trust in them, but disconfidence in the hopes of soon making some notable advances towards deliverance would ease my mind, and I soon became more senseless and remiss. But then again when I discerned my convictions to grow languid, and I thought them about to leave me, this immediately alarmed and distressed me. Sometimes I expected to take a large step and get very far towards conversion by some particular opportunity or means I had in view. The many disappointments, great distresses and perplexity I met with put me into a most horrible frame of contesting with the Almighty. with an inward vehemence and virulence, finding fault with his ways of dealing with mankind. I found great fault with the imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity, and my wicked heart often wished for some other way of salvation than by Jesus Christ. Being like the troubled sea, my thoughts confused, I used to contrive to escape the wrath of God by some other means. I had strange projects full of atheism contriving to disappoint God's designs and decrees concerning me, or to escape His notice and hide myself from Him. But when upon reflection I saw these projects were vain and would not serve me, and that I could contrive nothing for my own relief, this would throw my mind into the most horrid frame, to wish there was no God, or to wish there were some other God that could control him. These thoughts and desires were the secret inclinations of my heart, frequently acting before I was aware. But alas, they were mine, although I was frightened when it came to reflect on them, when I considered It distressed me to think that my heart was so full of enmity against God that it made me tremble lest his vengeance should suddenly fall upon me. Later on in this story he says, quote, I continued as I remembered in the state of mind from Friday morning until the seventh evening following July 12, 1739, when I was walking again in the same solitary place where I was brought to see myself lost and helpless as before mentioned. Here, in a mournful melancholy state, I was attempting to pray, but found no heart to engage in that. For any other duty, my former concern, exercise, and religious affections were now gone. I thought the Spirit of God had quite left me, but still was not distressed, yet disconsolate, as if there was nothing in heaven or earth could make me happy, having been thus endeavoring to pray Though, as I thought, very stupid and senseless all the time, for nearly a half an hour, then as, walking in a dark, thick grove, unspeakable glory seemed to open to the view and apprehension of my soul. I don't mean any external brightness, for I saw no such thing, nor do I intend any imagination of a body of light somewhere in the third heavens or anything of that nature, but it was a new inward apprehension or view that I had of God. such as I never had before, nor anything which had the least resemblance of it. I stood still. I wondered and admired. I knew that I never had seen before anything comparable to it for excellency and beauty. It was widely different from all the conceptions that ever I had of God or things divine. I had no particular apprehension of any one person in a trinity, either the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit, but appeared to be divine glory. My soul rejoiced with joy and was speakable to see such a God, such a glorious divine being, and I was inwardly pleased and satisfied that he should be God over all, forever and ever. My soul was so captivated and delighted with the excellency, loveliness, greatness, and other perfections of God that I was even swallowed up in Him, at least to that degree that I had no thought as I remember at first. about my being saved at that time, and scarce reflected there was such a creature as myself. Thus God, I trust, brought me to a hearty disposition to exalt him, and set him on the throne, and principally and ultimately to aim at his honor and glory as king of the universe. I continued in a state of inward joy and peace, an astonishment till near dark, without any sensible abatement. and then began to think and examine what I'd seen and felt sweetly composed in my mind all the evening following. I felt myself in a new world, and everything about me appeared with a different aspect from what it was wont to do. At this time the way of salvation opened to me with such infinite wisdom, suitableness, and excellency that I wondered I should ever think of any other way of salvation. I was amazed that I had not dropped my own contrivances and complied with this lovely, blessed, and excellent way before, if I could have been saved by my own duties or any other way that I had formerly contrived. my whole soul would now have refused it. I marvel that all the world did not see and comply with this way of salvation entirely by the righteousness of Christ." David Brainerd's journal. I hope this is enlightening to you. We don't hear a lot of stories of this. We don't hear a lot about examinations of conviction of sin prior to conversion. In fact, stories of the burden pressing down upon the back of a Christian prior to our entering into the Wicked Gate. And such a thing as a Slav despond. They are unheard of in our day. It's like people speak in an unknown tongue. And this isn't the only way the people are converted. But it is often very common, and in a bygone day we used to hear these things amazingly. We don't hear a lot of it anymore, which makes me wonder if the plow did not go deep enough and these people grasped at a hope and they did so presumptuously. Well, we know that day will reveal it, but we pray that revival would come. And I guarantee that if true revival comes to the churches like it did in a bygone day, these stories would be very, very common. and the pastors would need to be prepared to counsel those who were under this awakening. Thank you for tuning in to this podcast. This is a voice of the Narrative Puritan, a class on Christian experience and assurance of salvation.