Title:- Bleeding Hearts
Acts 2:37 Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?”
The first real sign of the work of the Holy Spirit is conviction of sin. How do we recognize such Holy Spirit conviction? Well allow me first to show you what it is not!
Firstly, it is not only an intelligent understanding of what the Bible says about sin; neither is it a gentle acquiescence or a grudging agreement with what the Bible says about us.
Secondly, it is not just a deep imprint; a biting necessity, a hot branded impression of guilt made on our mind. It’s not just feeling awful, wretched or despondent about the things we’ve done or failed to do. No! It’s more than even that.
Thirdly, it is not just being stricken, floored or slain by our own accusing conscience, risen from its sleep like some poor dishevelled corpse that points its bony fingers at our moaning misdemeanors. No, it is especially much more, much, much more, more than even that!
Conviction is a heart racing, pant-filling fear, a deep and dire sense of a condemning dreadfulness that our own dirty and deceitful sin, has its roots in the very core of who we are. When true Holy Spirit conviction comes, we finally own the darkness to be indeed, our very own. It is a deep heart awareness that all our life we have been in bondage to and under the sickening slavery and demonic handled power and deceitful persuasion of our very own sin. It is a deep realization that we have thoroughly dishonoured God, ruined ourselves and wrecked others in such a way, that we know the terrible wrath of God towards us is both completely justified and is coming soon upon us, ready to fall at any time, in flailing sword and burning fire.
Robert Murray McCheyne says, “There is all the difference in the world between knowing the dreadfulness of our sins and feeling the dreadfulness of our sins. There is a great difference between knowing that vinegar is sour and actually tasting and feeling that it is sour. There is a great difference between knowing that fire will burn us, and actually feeling the pain of being burned.”
He’s right of course! Reading our Bibles, hearing it preached, reading books about it, are all useless, yes utterly USELESS, unless the Holy Spirit uses the words to give a deep and sensual feeling to our cold dead hearts. He that made our heart is the only one that by His Spirit can reveal the darkness within us, make us taste it, feel it and bleed it out in such pleading tears of regret, that we cannot help but force out the most desperate of cries of “What shall we do to be saved?”
Are you feeling dreadful about who you are and what you’ve done? Take hope then. For the first real sign of the work of the Holy Spirit is conviction of sin. Go with the dreadful feeling friend; let it like some terrible tsunami wash you from your shores of self-justification into the waiting, pierced and bleeding arms of your Saviour.
Finally, may I say that if you call yourself a Christian that has been delivered from sin and all its darkness, yet you have never felt such Holy Spirit conviction; then I fear for you my friend, I really fear for you.
Listen: - "The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?" Jer17:9
Pray: - My Father I am ashamed, and thoroughly undone before Your awful Majesty. Oh Jesus, please forgive me. Oh Jesus, please help me. Oh Jesus, please heal me and save me, amen and amen.
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