God’s Providence in a Child’s Conversion

Berean Baptist on August 13, 2017

John Flavel has long been one of my favorite Puritan authors and his masterpiece on God’s providence is one of the first of his books I read. Providence is a very important concept in scripture as it describes how God works all things after the counsel of will and knows how each detail of His creation works together for the blessings of His children. In other words, providence comprehends more than the predestination of God’s people to salvation. It considers His total control of all His creatures to bring about His sovereign purposes. Among its many properties is the confirmation that all things consist by the power of God and that no creature is self-sustaining.

In chapter 3 of Flavel’s book, he deals with God’s providence in salvation. Flavel seems enraptured as he expounds on the way God orders all the occasions that bring His people to belief in Him. There are no accidents in our conversion. Each step is carefully planned by God. Of all the good God does for us, nothing compares to His meticulous care to bring us to salvation.

The point of this chapter is the gratitude and the testimony of a Christian because of what Christ has done. And yet Flavel points out that all testimonies are not equal. All experiences of conversion are not the same. Every Christian does not tell the same story or give as much detail in relating what happened in their lives at the time God saved them.

This interested me because I have experienced exactly what Flavel describes. I was saved when I was very young. My father was a Baptist preacher and I grew up in a Christian home. The first place I was taken as a child was to church. My name appeared on the cradle roll of South Broadway Baptist Church when I was just a few days old. There has never been I time when I have not been in church, and at the age of seven I trusted Christ as Saviour. Believe me, that was a long time ago.

If you ask me to provide the details of my conversion, to tell you the sermon, the songs, to relate what happened afterwards, to tell you how I felt—I cannot. I do remember the conviction, but that is all. Because I can’t remember the details, does it mean I am not saved? Surprisingly, I have heard preachers say if you don’t know the day, the hour, and the minute you trusted Christ, then you aren’t really saved.

Your experience of coming to Christ may be different. I have heard many testimonies of people who were in deep sin when they were saved. Some were in drugs, alcohol, adultery, pornography—and each has a very clear recollection of the day God brought them out of those horrible lives of sin. And there lies the difference. I was young and had very little life experiences. I needed salvation as much as anyone, but I don’t have that riveting, interesting, enthralling story that causes people to shout, Praise God! I don’t believe anyone ever said ooh and ah at my testimony.

Here is the point. An exciting testimony is no more proof a person is saved than a dull, vague, boring memory of a child who came to know Christ. In fact, you should pray to God every day that your children end up with a boring story of conversion rather than a spectacular turnaround. When a child is saved, it is the most exciting salvation of all.

 

Pastor V. Mark Smith

His Psalm

Berean Baptist on June 19, 2017

 

Psalm 91

One of the things I really enjoy about church is watching the young boys and girls as they leave their Sunday school and Pioneer Club classes. Many of them will show me the papers they colored or the crafts they made that relate to the incredible stories told in the Bible.

I remember when I was very young my dad gave me a huge children’s Bible with illustrations of the many miracles that God did throughout scripture. I think about the parting of the Red Sea or the collapse of Jericho’s walls or Gideon’s men as they shouted, “The sword of the Lord and of Gideon!” Those stories captured my attention with excitement as I imagined them. However, it was not until I was older that I understood the greatest miracle was not what God did by overruling nature or supernaturally tearing down walls or how three hundred men frightened multiple thousands of Midianites. The greatest miracle was when God became incarnate. The Almighty God who did these things took on human flesh and came to live among us.

I am reminded of the magnificence of this miracle when reading the 91st Psalm. This is a psalm for Jesus with its blessed promises of the Father to protect Him while He made His sojourn among the wicked of this world. None of us can imagine what it was like for Christ to have knowledge of His former exaltation in heaven as He walked in the lowliness of human flesh on earth. In one sense, it must have been a frightening prospect in His humanity as He was daily aware of the extreme hatred of religion against Him.

His first foray in His public ministry was to be led into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. This awful period was a foreshadowing of how difficult the way would be. He was without food for forty days and at His weakest moment, Satan approached with his greatest temptations. It is very interesting that Satan quoted this psalm he dared Jesus to leap from the pinnacle of the temple. Satan asked Him to prove verses 10-12: “There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.  For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.” These verses are true without the test and Jesus accepted them by faith.

It is also interesting that Satan was selective in his quotations as many that mishandle the scriptures often are. The next verses promise that Christ would tread on the lion and the adder and the dragon, and trample them under His feet. Who can miss that Satan is the roaring lion, the slimy serpent, and the great red dragon of Revelation 12? A little more quotation and Satan would prophesy his own destruction!

Verses 15 and 16 require special attention. Jesus had to go to the cross—this was His mission in the Incarnation. But, He trusted God to deliver Him. He was taunted with that trust as the crucifiers said, “He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him…” Jesus only needed to wait three days for verses 15 and 16 to come true: “He shall call upon me, and I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him, and honour him. With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation.” Now, He is alive and honored at the right hand of the Father forever.

Yes, the Incarnation is the greatest of all miracles. Jesus did not fear it even though He knew what it would bring. Psalm 91 was for Him—to strengthen Him by the promises of the Word of God. If only we would trust the Word as much!

Pastor V. Mark Smith

 

 

Conditions for Answers

Berean Baptist on February 13, 2017

Psalm 77

Several times in preaching on the need for total dependence upon Christ, I have told the story of a dark period I went through about thirty years ago. This was during an economic downturn in our city when business was failing, and it seemed everything I worked for was ready to collapse. I won’t go into the details now, but that period spawned a real test of faith in which I seriously questioned if God had forgotten His promises.

When I was just a child, my dad taught me to be faithful to the Lord’s work and to always keep up with my tithes and offerings. My first job was working for him, and out of the $10 I received each week I always deducted the proper tithe along with a little extra for missions. I was faithful to do this and I believed if I did there would never be a time I was without.

Up until this difficult time in my life, I never had any serious troubles. Married life was good, finances were good, church was as usual, and faith was never severely tested. The brewing financial storm and prospects of failure changed all of that. Those were the most serious days of prayer in all my life. During this time, I sought solace in the pages of scripture trying to find any passage that would ease my anxiety. One day I was reading 1 John 3:22 for the nth time when the verse popped out on the page: “And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight.” I took this as intended—an absolute promise.

As Christians, we are never in a bargaining position with God over our salvation. Salvation is an irrevocable gift purchased by the blood of Christ and given to us freely. The ability to keep the gift is neither ours as salvation is unconditional no matter how unfaithful at times we may be. However, the realization of peace, assurance, and loving companionship are conditioned upon how we respond in obedience to God’s commands. Please note I said realization of these not the reality of these. For a Christian, an unspiritual mind causes the perception to become perceived reality. John said that whatever we ask we receive with this condition—we must keep His commandments and do what pleases Him.

My determination was to stop the pity party and obey the verse. In fact, I had been obeying the verse, at least in part. I was doing but not asking, or should I say not doing and asking with faith believing. To make a long story short, God turned everything around. My fears were unfounded, and the next year was one of the most financially outstanding of my life.

I wrote this little essay in conjunction with Psalm 77. Note how the psalmist was overwhelmed at the beginning with his personal problem. He was at the point of giving up on God and believed God had given up on him. We don’t know what put him in such despair, but it hardly matters because there are numerous issues that park us beside the psalmist. The situation looked bleak, but as Charles Spurgeon said there would be a good outcome because the first verse starts with a prayer—“I cried unto God with my voice…”

It took ten verses for the psalmist to work through the emotions of his problem. Finally, he took the focus off self and put it on the Lord. He remembered in the worst of times God was always there. In verse 10, he said: “This is my infirmity: but I will remember the years of the right hand of the most High.”

Whatever you fear may make the way bleak and nigh impossible. The best course is not to focus on you and the problem, but to focus on God who solves problems. Always remember to keep His commandments and do what is pleasing in His sight. These are the conditions to receive what you ask.

Pastor V. Mark Smith