What happens in true conversion is that there is a soul and it's surrounded, it's in a kind of palace, and the devil has got it fast. But the Lord Jesus Christ starts to batter on the walls, and even though I may be prejudiced against Christianity, and though I may have all the wrong ideas, and though I may think only fools and people out of the middle ages believe in that sort of thing; though I've got all these prejudices, suddenly the walls begin to shake and be battered and the cracks appear. I begin to think, ‘Oh, but yes, but there is a God. This world can't explain everything. There's more to life than I have been told.’ I begin to no longer believe the anti-God, rationalistic programming that I've received all my life. Then the walls begin to crack a little more, and I begin to look at myself and think, ‘I am weak. I am a sinner against God. I can't control myself. I can't turn over a new leaf. I can't live a better life. I can't cope with my selfishness or my pride or my temper’, or whatever your prevailing sin is. You begin to realize you need the help of God. You are a corrupt person. God is holy. God is beginning to shatter the walls.
The devil would lie to you. and come to you straight away, and say, ‘Don't talk about yourself like that. You're a very good person. You've got a fine personality. You're a very able person. You've got a few faults, but no more than anybody else. Look at all the good things you do.’ Yes, the devil will try to puff you up and patch up the cracks as fast as he can. But when the stronger than he, begins to shake those walls, you begin to come under conviction. You begin to be aware that you are a bankrupt without God. You have got no place in heaven. You have got no friend in heaven. You have offended against him; you are far from him. There's a mountain of guilt from your past life between you and God. You need his forgiveness and you need his help. It's a tremendous thing when Christ begins to batter down those walls.
When Christ begins to break down the walls and loosen the devil's grip upon me, then I begin to think and to realize how much I need God’s pardon, his love, and his forgiveness. Eventually, this is what happens. Christ separates us from that stranglehold of the devil and we come to the point where we are humbled and enlightened, and our hearts are nearly broken. We begin to see the amazing love of Christ: that he was prepared to come from heaven and to go to Calvary's cross and to have God the Father put upon him all the guilt of my sin and that of millions of others also. The Lord Jesus Christ was willing to stand in my place and take from heaven all the punishment which I should have borne forever and forever for my sin. That would never have moved me before, while I was one of Satan's goods. But suddenly I begin to be moved. I am amazed at what God would do out of love for such a worm, such a meaningless wretch as me.
So I come to Christ. I run to him and I go and I say, ‘Lord, pardon me and forgive me. Give me a new life. Lord, come upon me. Lord, I've been just a poor dupe of the devil. I've lived for this world and for myself. Oh, Lord, pardon me and forgive me.’ And I trust in what Christ has done in paying the price for sinners like me who simply come to him, and I believe his word, ‘Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out.’ So I pray in faith, I say, ‘Lord, I repent of all my sins I'll leave the old life behind. Just change me and make me a true Christian. Grant me a true spiritual conversion. Put life within me.’ If I mean that with all my heart, he will do it. God has begun to work in your heart already. He has begun to make us desire his salvation. If we trust in Christ and go to him, he will pardon us; he will change us. When Christ begins to work, there is Satan can do to keep you trapped or to drag you back to your old life. You are in the safekeeping of the Saviour. You know him and you love him, and you begin to pray to him, and you feel his blessings and his power in your life. You are on the Lord's side. You belong to him and he will hold you fast.
What is going to happen to us if we have no personal hold on the Lord Jesus Christ? If we have never sought him and found him, never been converted by him, what's going to happen? You can go on through life just being swept along by the enemy of souls – a manipulated person – until at last you have to face God in judgment. Such is the amazing mercy of Christ that he came and suffered and died on the cross of Calvary. He suffered and died there to pay personally the punishment, the price of sin, the agony due to us throughout all eternity. He came to pay the punishment of sin on behalf of all those people who would repent and seek him, and yield over their lives to him, and ask him to transform them.