Urban Reformation

Which of these answers the above statement?

A. Falsehood + Sincerity = Cult

B. Falsehood + Insincerity = Deceived, Hardened Heart

C. Truth + Insincerity = Hypocrisy

A friend of mine recently told me of a book to read by Horatius Bonar called Words to Winners of Souls. I picked it up this morning and have almost finished.

One of the subjects that is discussed is “Sincerity.” What is striking to me about this 59 page book is that it is striking at the hypocrisy of all ministers present writer included here about their lack of sincerity for the souls of men due to a lack of relationships and perspective from the purview of God.

Often time people will come up to me and say listen to the Mormon’s or the Jehovah Witnesses they are completely sincere in their experiences. They demonstrate moral character guided by their religion yet often as Christians lack the zeal and the fervency that we see in these other faiths, so why is that?

We can look at Romans 10 which answers this question.

Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. - Romans 10:1-4

We know that both of these cults the JW’s and the Mormon’s have to a large degree a “Works” righteousness mentality associated with them, in the same way the Jews in Roman’s 10 were building upon a false foundation. Matthew Henry Commentary explains.

The Jews built on a false foundation, and refused to come to Christ for free salvation by faith, and numbers in every age do the same in various ways. The strictness of the law showed men their need of salvation by grace, through faith. And the ceremonies shadowed forth Christ as fulfilling the righteousness, and bearing the curse of the law. So that even under the law, all who were justified before God, obtained that blessing by faith, whereby they were made partakers of the perfect righteousness of the promised Redeemer. The law is not destroyed, nor the intention of the Lawgiver disappointed; but full satisfaction being made by the death of Christ for our breach of the law, the end is gained. That is, Christ has fulfilled the whole law, therefore whoever believeth in him, is counted just before God, as much as though he had fulfilled the whole law himself. Sinners never could go on in vain fancies of their own righteousness, if they knew the justice of God as a Governor, or his righteousness as a Saviour.

These false faiths then can have a zeal with out knowledge and it leads to nowhere but the pit. They can have a zealousness for the things of their God and all the while being deceptively used by the evil one. So we have established that sincerity and or zeal alone is worthless if it’s not grounded in truth.

Now the truth and back to the book Words to Winners of Souls. We in this day and age have become so pendulum oriented swinging back from the uncomfortable and often insane antics of the “Charistmatic” who have perverted the word charisma to mean often lawlessness to the point that having feeling when you preach or teach is something to avoid. To mourn or weep in a service is something of a manipulation tactic. We have seen men crying on the television asking for money so much so that we associate emotion with scandal.

This has caused us to cease with our zeal. We have ceased in our care because nothing can be trusted as a true manifestation of the Holy Spirit moving upon the heart, and all of this to the devastation of the reality of the lost. The sincerity of truth and zeal have been seemingly lost but for a few men.

This short book is filled, every page with conviction. How can we claim our sincerity of teaching and preaching to others about Christ if we do not mourn for their soul, weep for their eternal life, that they may know that it is true what we say about the bad news of sinful men and the good news of Jesus Christ paying our owed debt? If we can not in all sincerity examine our lives to see our own disconnect between our own miracle and coldness of heart by what means are we proclaiming this message to the lost?

Let me quote an opening section of this book on page two entitled “Baxter’s Burning Sincerity.” This from the puritan preacher Richard Baxter.

“When he spoke of weighty soul concerns, says one of the contemporaries of Baxter, “you might find his very spirit drenched therein.” No wonder that he was blessed with such amazing success! Men felt that in listening to him they were in contact with one who was dealing with the realities of infinite moment.

This is one of the secrets of ministerial strength and ministerial success. And who can say how much of the overflowing infidelity of the present day is owing not only to the lack of spiritual instructors — not merely to the existence of grossly unfaithful and inconsistent ones — but to the coldness of many who are reputed sound and faithful. Men cannot but feel that if religeon is worth anything, it is worth everything; that if it calls for any measure of zeal and warmth, it will justify the utmost degrees of these; and that there is no consistent medium between reckless atheism and the intensest warmth of religeous zeal. Men may dislike, detest, scoff at, persecute the latter, yet their consciences area all the while silently reminding them that if there be a God and Saviour, a heaven and a hell, anything short of such life and love is hypocrisy, dishonesty, and perjury!

And thus the lesson they learn from the lifeless discourse of the class we are alluding to is, that since these men do not believe in the doctrines they are preaching, there is no need of their hearers to believing them; if ministers only believe them because they make the living by them, why should those who make nothing by them scruple about denying them?

This is absolutely convicting to me as we go out witnessing to the streets, I must examine my own life, and be willing to check the sincerity of my preaching and the hypocrisy of my life, and seek earnestly to close the gaps where God reveals these shortcomings, if not for the sake of my own soul also for those whom I am telling about Christ.

We all know that when we share the gospel with people we can do it in a rote manner but when there is a sincerity and a connection involved and we are speaking from not only the book but from our experience within the bible, and the realities of our own faith this demonstrates the truth in sincerity about the Holy Spirit and testifies of His power. This isn’t something that is false made up from the outside so that our works can be dressed up but these are things that are transforming from the inside of the heart and when we show emotion and candor with our life experiences as guided by our new life in Christ we are being all the more used for God’s glory to point others to Christ in a “REAL” sincere manner, a manner that is transforming, one that is empowered and emboldened by the Holy Spirit whom Jesus sent for us.

Oh that we would all see souls and have a heart for the lost, and that when we do have a heart for the lost that it would cause us to examine our own life to see if we are lacking in sincerity and relationship with our Father!

I urge everyone to pick up a copy of Words to Winner’s of Souls, it’s in the FCC Book Store or you can get it from Monergism.com

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