CONVERTED SLIGHTLY

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 24, 1878

CONVERTED SLIGHTLY.

Speaking one day of a person who had been indulging in worldly pleasures and going in the path of fashion and folly, an inquirer asked one who knew her, “Wasn’t she ever converted?”

“Slightly,” replied the old man,—and his look and his manner embodied meaning enough to fill a volume.

There are multitudes of these people who have been converted “slightly.” Their conversion was a matter of opinion, emotion, fashion, or form. They have never known those hearty convictions of sin which are wrought within by the Holy Ghost, nor have they known the searching energy of that living Word which is quick and powerful, and sharper than a two-edged sword, discerning the thoughts and intents of the heart. They have never known that godly sorrow which worketh repentance, nor have they known the consolations of that grace which makes glad the hearts of the redeemed. They know little of conflict, and less of victory; little of trial, and less of triumph; little of the anguish of a broken heart, and less of the joy of God’s salvation restored to those that seek it.

The church is infected with slightly converted people. The door has been opened wide to take them in; their conversion has made no perceptible change in their lives, and it is fair to suppose that it has made little change in their hearts. They give slight evidence of being new creatures, hence it is a question whether they are “in Christ” or not. They are still conformed to this world, having never been transformed by the renewing of their minds, to prove “what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” They fill places in the church; they mingle in all the worldly enjoyments which are introduced within its doors, to the great detriment of its spiritual life. They also manifest the ordinary worldly characteristics which distinguished them before they ever named the name of Christ; pride, ambition, greediness of gain, the desire to be greatest, lust for authority and leadership based upon wealth instead of worth, upon gold instead of grace,—these are some of the marks of those whose conversion is slight, and whose lives bear witness to the fact.

There will be terrible disappointments in that Great Day, when vast piles of “wood, hay, and stubble” which have been heaped together by the art and craft and slight of men, shall be swept away as with the besom of destruction, and devoured in the quenchless flames of the wrath of God. What a terrible winnowing and sifting will then occur! How many who have been converted slightly, and found their way into the Church of Christ, will be weighed in the balances and found wanting then!

It is better for us to know the worst at once. “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.” Let that law be proclaimed; let the gospel of the grace of God be preached in all its purity and power; let the solemn and eternal verities of revelation be poured upon the ears of dying men; let them be taught their utter ruin by nature, and their full salvation by grace; and let nothing be accepted but hearty, earnest, and sincere repentance, and bringing forth of good fruits, which shall ensure their escape when the ax is laid at the root of the tree, and the fruitless cumberer is cut down and cast into the unquenchable fire.

Beware of slight conversions. Let the wound be probed to the bottom; let the leprosy of sin be exposed in all its foulness; let men know their guilt, their ruin, and their helplessness; and then sound in their ears the glad tidings of mercy free as heaven, of pardon and cleansing from every sin and stain. Beware of the curse that fell upon Israel, of whose prophets and whose priests Jeremiah said, “They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace.” Jer. 8:11.—The Christian.