Ichabod Spencer Excerpt

Ichabod Spencer is a pastor who served in the New York region in the mid 1800's.  There is a man who knew much about bringing anxious souls to faith in Christ.  We are told after we are born again to "be anxious for nothing," yet the church would profit greatly from this sort of anxiousness!  Unless a man is anxious about his condition apart from God, his hypocrisy, the sins of his lips and heart, and the eternal damnation which awaits him, it seems he does not believe in God, hell, or judgment at all!  It is a foolish thing for Christians to seek to ease the concern of anxious unbelievers by offering the comforts, grace, and love of God to those who have rejected Him.  There are few things worse a Christian can do than by easing the conscience of one who is under conviction by the Holy Spirit.  Leave them under God's conviction, direct them to obey God's Word, and intercede for them in prayer.  Only then will they flee to Christ in desperation and be His forever!

Pastor Spencer writes in his book A Pastor's Sketches:  "There are multitudes in our congregations, who are just waiting, while they ought to be acting; who have a sort of indefinite hope about the aids of the Holy Spirit yet to be experienced, while they are pursuing the very course to fail of attaining any such aids.  They think they must wait.  They think wrong.  They must work, if they would have God work in them.  There can be no religion without obedience.  And there is not likely to be, with any sinner, a just sense of his dependence, till he earnestly intends and attempts to obey the gospel.  Religion is practical.  Much of its light comes by practical attempts.  'If you will do the works, ye shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God.'"

He relates a story of a woman who heard the truth of scripture but was reluctant to respond to it.  She was waiting for a deeper conviction - basically a feeling - before she would come to Christ and obey Him in faith.  It was only after God revealed the wickedness of her heart that she was born again.  Here is the conclusion in their own words beginning with the seeker who had made peace with God:

"At that time I knew almost nothing of my heart.  I never found out how much it was opposed to God and His demands, till some time afterwards, when I resolved that I would become a Christian that very day."

"And did your resolve bring you to Christ?"

"Oh, no!  Not at all.  It did me no good.  My heart would not yield.  I was opposed to God, and found I was such a sinner that I could do nothing for myself.  My resolutions did me no good, and I gave up all and just cried for mercy.  A while after that I began to be at peace.  I do not know how it is, but I have done nothing for myself.  Indeed, when I cried so for mercy, I had given up trying to do anything.  It seems to me that when I gave up trying, and cried to God, He did everything for me." (A Pastor's Sketches, Spencer, pg. 77)

It is not our resolve or our works which save us.  It is not by might, nor by power, but by God's Holy Spirit.  Do you see your heart as desperately wicked in your natural state, defiantly opposed to God beyond your ability to understand?  That is our true condition in our flesh.  But praise be to God, who has given us the Holy Spirit to convict of sin, of righteousness, judgment, and leads us into all truth.  God does for us what we could never hope to do ourselves through the power of the Gospel.