Mistakes about conversion

I have just started this book by the Puritan Joseph Alleine called a sure guide to Heaven. This book was first published in 1671. Joseph Alleine was born into a Puritan family at Devizes, in Wiltshire, and baptized on April 8Th,1634 in April 1641 Alleine found himself going up to Oxford to sit at the feet of such divines as John Owen and Thomas Goodwin. In the 148 pages Alleine's book is a clear teaching of what conversion is and is not if you have a chance please pick it up and allow God to bless you through this read.

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I thought that I would post some of the points that Alleine makes through his work a sure guide to Heaven. In the first chapter mistakes about conversion Alleine starts off by saying:

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"The devil has made many counterfeits of conversion, and cheats one with this, and another with that. He has such craft and artifice in his mystery of deceits that , if it were possible, he would deceive the very elect. ( first paragraph of chapter one page 19).

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Conversion is not the taking upon us the profession of Christianity. Christianity is more that a name. If we will hear Paul, it does not lie in word, but in power (1 Cor iv 20). If to cease to be Jews and pagans, and to put on the Christian profession, had been true conversion - as this is all that some would have to be understood by it - who better Christians than they of Sardis and Laodicea? These were all Christians by profession, and had a name to live only; but because they had a name, they are condemned by Christ, and threatened to be rejected (Rev iii 14-16). Are there not many that name the name of the Lord Jesus, that do not depart from iniquity ( 2 Tim ii 19), and confess they know God, but in works deny Him? (Titus i 16). And will God receive these for true converts? WHAT! converts from sin, when they still line in sin? It is a visible contradiction. Surly, if the lamp of profession would have served the turn, the foolish virgins had never been shut out (Mt xxv 12). We find not only professing Christians, but preachers of Christ, and wonder workers, rejected, because they are evil-workers (Mt vii 22-23)."

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Many today have a false view of what conversion is because they have "pastors" that have the wrong view of what conversion is. Today we have "pastors" not calling men to repentance but calling men to pray a prayer after them and then go on to promise them that Jesus saved them, "just ask Jesus into your heart" they say. This is all after they preach a sermon without mentioning one word about Gods law and that they have broken it and deserve eternal hell for the crimes that have committed against God, His justice, His hate for sin. And forget to preach that God calls us to Holiness and a life of repentance and sanctification, In result of not preaching these very important subjects they don't preach the true definition of God's love for sinners. The sinner walks out of the service having put his trust in a decision and a false god, and leave there on there own power to start living a better life and being "better", maybe even breaking some bad habits there conscience has been bothering them about, really only being a work of the flesh and not a work of God converting the sinner, they mistake there feelings for conversion and manifest to have a form of godliness, without the power (2 Tim 3:5).

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The Bible shows us even when we do preach the true Gospel men will reject it (1 Cor 1:18) and that only God can save them when the Gospel is preached (Acts 13:48). How much more are men not being converted when we preach a false gospel and a false way of how God would have us to live as His children. Alleine goes on to say this about conversion in chapter one:

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"Conversion does not consist in illumination or conviction or in a superficial change or partial reformation."

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"Many, because they have been troubled in conscience for their sins, think well of their case, miserably mistaking conviction for conversion."

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"Others think that because they have given up their riotous ways, and are broken off from evil company or some particular lust, and are reduced to sobriety and civility, they are now real converts. They forget that there is a vast difference between being sanctified and civilized. They forget that many seek to enter the kingdom of heaven, and are not far from it, and arrive to the almost of Christianity, and yet fall short at last."

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"So a man may pass through carious transmutations, from ignorance to knowledge, from profanity to civility, then to a form of religion, and all this time he is still carnal and unregenerate, his nature remains unchanged. "

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Brothers and sisters continue to do as Paul would tell us in 2 Corinthians 13:5 "Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?"