DECEMBER 9TH, 1927

DECEMBER 9TH, 1927

MY DEAR BROTHER, — I have not been able to answer your letter of November 22nd until now, but am glad now to send you a few lines on the subject to which you refer.

The children of believing parents need to be born anew, and to become the subjects of a gracious work of God, just like any others. For that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and the children of believers have to learn this in their own experience even though they are relatively “holy” as 1 Corinthians 7:14 teaches. They have to learn that in their flesh dwells no good thing. But in many cases God begins His work very early — sometimes even from infancy — and as children grow up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and knowing the Holy Scriptures, like Timothy, from childhood, the divine work in the soul proceeds by almost imperceptible stages. Conviction of sin is brought about through inward exercises rather than by an outwardly evil course. God and the Lord Jesus get a more and more definite place in faith and love. And affections go out to the people of God, and their company is delighted in. There may be much evidence in this way of a real work of God without there having been any definite point in the history when the soul turned round from ^[p. 161] a course of sin to walk in the ways of the Lord. Conversion really means turning round; the converted person has been going in one direction, but now he has turned round and is going in the opposite direction.

Many of us who have been brought up in Christian homes, and with every spiritual advantage, have from early days turned to our own way, and followed our own fleshly desires, and we have needed to be distinctly converted. But this is the sorrowful evidence that we have preferred our own will and desires to the control of the Lord. But if the fear of God is established early in the heart, and through grace there is subjection, the naughty will of the flesh may be judged in secret, and its desires refused. Then a course would be followed from which one would not need to turn. Scripture regards the children of believers as being in subjection to their parents, and as being brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, owning His claim and right over them. From such a course they do not need to be converted. But this supposes that in God’s sovereign mercy He has put His fear in their hearts from early days. It would not, and could not, be apart from being born anew. It is this which Christian parents would look to God to effect in their children.

One would not expect that in children of believers there would be in every case evidence of a definite point when they turned round from a course of sin to God. There often would be this, but not necessarily in every case. But one would always look for some evidence of true self-judgment — that it was realised that flesh was sinful flesh — and that there was a sense of the need of Christ and of His precious sin-bearing work. One would look for a sense of deserving nothing, and of deep thankfulness to God for bringing in His great salvation in Christ. It would always, of course, be a matter of much interest to know how any soul had been brought to know the Lord, but this might not always be at a definite turning point which could be marked as the time of conversion.

I do not know whether these few remarks will in any way meet your exercises, but if they are of any help I shall be thankful.

With love in the Lord Jesus,

Yours affectionately in Him,

December 9th, 1927.