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"I'd like to share Christ, but I just don't know how!"
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Literature Ministries International
- By Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
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January 21
TEMPORARY CONVERSION
But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that…is offended.
Matthew 13:20-21
Our Lord, because of the danger of a “temporary something” happening, was constantly dealing with this and seemed to be repelling people. Indeed, they charged Him with making discipleship impossible. Take that great sixth chapter of John where the people were running after Him and hanging onto His words because of the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand, and our Lord seemed to be trying deliberately to repel them.
Take also the parable in Matthew 13—the Parable of the Sower—and our Lord’s own exposition of it. Notice particularly verses 20-21: “But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that hears the word, and anon with joy receives it; yet hath he not root in himself, but endures for a while: for when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, by and by he is offended.” But notice what our Lord says about this same man: he “anon with joy receives it [the Word].” That is what I mean by temporary conversion. He seems to have received the Word, he is full of joy, but he has no root in him, and that is why he ends up with nothing at all. Now that is our Lord’s own teaching; there is the possibility of this very joyful “conversion,” and yet there is nothing there in a vital, living sense, and it proves temporary.
Paul speaks in 1 Timothy 1:19-20 of “holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck.” Now that is very serious teaching. He says the same thing in 2 Timothy 2. There is such a thing as temporary conversion, temporary believers, but they are not true believers. That is why it is so vital that we should know the biblical teaching as to what conversion really is.
A THOUGHT TO PONDER
There is the possibility of a joyful conversion proving to be temporary.
From God the Holy Spirit, pp. 119-120.
Today’s devo is taken from Walking with God Day by Day © 2003 by Good News Publishers. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Crossway Books, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.
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