The Conversion That Wasn't

By Ferrell Griswold

II Kings 17:24-40

Because of their constant rebellion, God sent the Ten Tribes of the Northern Kingdom of Israel into Assyrian captivity.

To guarantee himself of total control over Israel, Shalmaneser, the Assyrian king, removed the greater part of Israel's population into other parts of his kingdom. He then resettled Samaria, the land of Israel, with people from other lands that he had conquered, placing them in various former towns of Israel as colonists.

It was a strategy to keep his kingdom safe from inward revolution, for people will not fight for a land that is not theirs, nor sacrifice to preserve a heritage that is alien.

In divine providence, these settlers had come to live next to Judah, which was then ruled over by the good king Hezekiah. Being neighbors of a God-fearing people, they had the rare opportunity to know the God of Israel, the only true and living God.

Opportunity lost. This was to their advantage, but nevertheless proved to be to their judgment.

You see, these displaced persons were not interested in knowing Jehovah; they scarcely knew Him. To them, Jehovah was just one of the "land gods" that they were accustomed to worshipping. Since they found the land good, they were content to live for themselves.

Not surprisingly, God judged them. We read in II Kings 17:25: "And so it was at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they feared not the Lord: therefore the Lord sent lions among them, which slew some of them."

Even then, they considered the killing of their fellow men by the lions to be a show of displeasure by a finite god. So they sent word to the Assyrian king that they did not understand the ways of the god of this land.

False conversion. In response, the king sent a priest that he had captured from Israel to teach them how they should fear and worship the God of the Bible. Having been taught, they began to fear the Lord. But they still looked upon Him as just another god. We read in verse 33:

They feared the Lord, and served their own gods, after the manner of the nations whom they carried away from thence.
They experienced a conversion of sort, but it was not real. "They feared the Lord, and served their own gods" in their own way.

Professed Christians. In this we have a picture of what I'm afraid is the experience of most churchgoers today. They go to church every Sunday morning to worship the Lord Jesus, but they continue to serve their own gods.

With Judgment Day rapidly approaching, it is vitally important that you examine yourself to make certain that you are not one of these misguided people.

Let me show you four particulars about the conversion of those people in Samaria so that you might have a standard by which to measure the genuineness of your own.

I. Their conversion was spurred by the wrong fear.

If God had not sent lions among them, these people would probably have been content to live without God. Even when they finally sent word to the king of Assyria for help, they were interested only to know how to placate the god of the land so that they could go on living their lives their own way.

Likewise, if your "conversion" can be traced directly to the fear of earthly problems in your life, you are no better off than those people. Did you call on the name of the Lord because you wanted Him to save you from a physical illness? Did you expect Him to protect you from financial, marriage or other failures? Were you fearful of dying someday?

Don't get me wrong. You need to fear God and you need to fear death. But your fear should center not on things that might happen to you in this life, but on the destiny of your soul after you have left this world. Jesus says: "Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matt. 10:28).

The most Satan and the world can do to you is to kill your body. But if you remain an enemy of God, He will surely destroy your soul in hell.

II. Their conversion had resulted from ignorance.

These people could not have been sincere in their profession of faith because they didn't have a clear view of God! They were told that they should worship God, and so they went ahead and worshipped God academically.

Nowadays many have also "received" Christ just because they had been told that they had to receive Christ to become saved. That's the extent of their knowledge of the gospel. But they are just fooling themselves. All they have is a false conversion.

Their ignorance can be traced to the increasing popularity of Christianity without doctrine. People just want to hear so-called "practical" sermons, in which the pastor presents his guidelines on how to handle problems of everyday life. It doesn't matter whether his views are based on Scripture or taken from the world. Because more and more pastors desire to please their congregations, they no longer bother to expound the word of God.

My dear friend, you cannot know God without doctrine, for doctrine is teaching. You cannot be saved without a true knowledge of who the Lord Jesus Christ is, why He was crucified on the cross, and what's so important about His resurrection.

And you can hardly have saving faith unless you fully understand that you are a sinner, that the holy and just God will surely punish all sinners on Judgment Day and that only by trusting Jesus as your personal sin-bearer can you escape the wrath of God when Christ returns.

III. They were instructed by unqualified teachers.

In verse 32, we read: "So they feared the Lord, and made unto themselves of the lowest of them priests of the high places, which sacrificed for them in the houses of the high places."
Nowadays many have received Christ just because they had been told that they had to receive Christ to become saved.

The king of Assyria, you see, did send them a true priest to instruct them in the ways of God. He was located at Bethel (the word "Bethel" means the house of God). Instead of learning how to worship God from this priest, however, the settlers appointed people of their own to officiate for them as priests in the high places. Taken from the common people, those priests were not men of God at all.

Similarly, many people today have had only a false conversion because they have been instructed by ministers who do not know the gospel of the Bible themselves; they merely pass on what they have learned from other theologians. Unlike the Bereans, they never bothered to examine the Bible to see if what they had been taught was true.

As a result, their "sermonettes" have no gospel content and certainly do not disturb the conscience. Jesus describes such preachers as "blind leaders of the blind", and He says in Matthew 15:14, "If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch."

IV. Their conversion lacks the essential elements.

The conversion of those settlers was false because some of the key characteristics of a true conversion were absent. In the first place, there was no repentance. These people just added the God of the Bible to the other gods that they worshipped. There was no real sense of sin, no confession of having rebelled against God. They felt no guilt.

Repentance means a total change of mind. There will be sorrow for sin. There will be confession of sin. There will be forsaking of sin.

Secondly, there was no expiatory sacrifice. Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. These people persisted in their own religious ceremonies. True, the priests they appointed offered sacrifices at the high places. But they had no idea of the need of a divine Sacrifice to atone for sins.

This is still true in our own day. In many churches the gospel of redemption is not preached and salvation by the shed blood of Jesus Christ is ridiculed. The conversion of their members is nothing more than a resolution to turn over a new leaf, and become active in some church. But no matter how active a person is in his church, he is not saved if his sins have not been covered by the shed blood of Christ.

Thirdly, they did not put away their false gods. I often make the statement, "When a person is saved he loses his religion." You see, all men by nature are religious, but they worship a false god. When we come to Christ, we lay aside all our false gods, and begin worshipping the one and only true God.

Men do not part with their religions easily, however. That's why many find refuge in some ritual that allows them to profess having been converted to Christ, while retaining in their heart their idols. The Bible has made it very clear, however, that our conversion must not include our own good works, church ordinances and rituals, and all the other things that men rely on to give them some pride of having some part in saving themselves.

Christ will not share His glory. We either come to Him alone for salvation recognizing that He has done it all, or we are not saved at all.

In closing, may I admonish you to examine yourself to see if you are truly in the faith. The Bible says in II Peter 1:10, "Give diligence to make your calling and election sure!" So, check your motives for having embraced Christianity in open profession. You cannot afford to be deceived in this most important of all things. And with time running out soon, you cannot afford to procrastinate. o

The late Rev. Ferrell Griswold was the pastor of Clairmont Reformed Baptist Church, Birmingham, AL. His messages are now distributed by the Berean Tape Ministry, 4105 Court G, Fairfield, AL 35064.

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