Called to Transformation: Embracing God's Marvelous Light

The fundamental need at this hour surely of all thinking men and women is this: is there some word, something that can give me security and rest and peace and safety in this world as it is at this hour? That's the Great desire, that's the Great quest of the human race. [00:03:09]

The great thing is to become one of these people. This statement is true only of those who are the people of God. They are in this peculiar privileged position; they are the people of whom we can say that they'll never be confounded. [00:05:08]

One of the first things we all have to realize is this: that as we are by Nature, we are dead, spiritually dead in a spiritual sense, non-existent. Oh, we live in this world, we have our existence, we have our intellectual interests, and we are busyed about many things, yes, but spiritually as we are born into this world, we are dead. [00:05:49]

What happens when a man becomes a Christian is comparable to what happened when God created the whole universe at the beginning. There was nothing; he said, let there be light, and there was light, and he proceeded to make everything out of nothing. That's it, a new birth, a new life comes into being. [00:07:17]

The Apostle Paul in writing to the Ephesians in the fifth chapter, he puts it like this: he says, you know, this is what happens. He says that a call comes, awake thou that sleepest and rise from the dead in Christ will give thee light. Same thing, same idea exactly. [00:12:45]

The preaching of this gospel has divided men and women into two groups. There are those who have heard this call who become Christians, people of God. There are others who have heard it and have not become the people of God and have not become Christians. [00:16:40]

The first thing it does always is to disturb us. You see, there we are, all of us by Nature, living that natural sinful life of darkness and of ignorance and of sin, and you just go on. There are minor variations from day to day, but there's no real variation. It's always the same life. [00:19:01]

Suddenly there comes a disturbance, something upsets the Rhythm, there's an arresting. Now, this again may come in a thousand and one ways, almost. I'm trying to put this as simply and as plainly as I can. I say I do so because I'm speaking with a sense of responsibility. [00:19:54]

The man who is truly called of God is a man who stops protecting himself. Conviction of sin means that you agree it's true, that all your defenses collapse. You accept the diagnosis, you accept the conviction, you stop defending yourself, and you are ready to admit that it's nothing but the simple truth concerning you. [00:29:46]

The man who's in the position I'm describing is a man who's ready to listen. He is a man who's not only ready to be taught, he is anxious to be taught. He is a man who wants to know about this way of Salvation. Look at that poor Philippian Jailer; suddenly he realizes this is the one thing that matters. [00:32:48]

The man who had this call of God, he always comes. Another way of putting it is this: you notice the contrast unto you therefore which believe he is precious, but unto them which be disobedient. Very well, the man who believes is obedient, he's obedient, and he comes. [00:41:06]

The man who's heard this call of God, the man who's had the effectual call, he comes to Christ to thank him, to thank him for ever having left the courts of heaven and to abase himself and to come in the likeness of sinful flesh and to be made a sin offering and to bear all the ignominy and the shame and the agony of the punishment of sin. [00:46:00]