Comfort for the 2020 World in Need of Regenerating Grace

The founder of MyPillow was recently at the White House to announce the help his company was going to provide to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.  At the end of his announcement, he encouraged all Americans to use this time to read their Bibles.  Why did he add that?  Because the Bible reveals our sin and misery and our need for deliverance.

God must teach us to know our sins and misery. How? God teaches us our sins and misery through the law. When referring to the law, we refer to all the demands which God has set down in His Word. These are summarized in the Ten Commandments and in Matthew 22:37-40. 

In the law we come to see what God requires and what we were originally capable of obeying. We see ourselves, as we ought to be. And when we examine ourselves in the mirror of God’s law, then we find that we are not what we ought to be and we do not do what we ought to do. By measuring ourselves by the law of God, we find that we fall terribly short of the obedience which God requires of us.

In saying that God teaches us our sins and misery through the law, we must not think that the law alone is capable of giving us this knowledge. We can memorize the Ten Commandments and know them completely by heart, and still not come to know our sins and misery.  We still do not come to acknowledge our sins and misery to God. 

There is need for the regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin through the law.  Christ said in John 16:8, “And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin.” 

Think of the effect the Holy Spirit had upon the people of Jerusalem whose hearts were previously closed to the gospel.  After the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the crowds who listened to Peter’s sermon came to acknowledge their sin. Peter closed his sermon by saying, “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” (Acts 2:36) And then we read of the response from the people. “Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” (Acts 2:37). The conviction of sin comes from the Holy Spirit who uses the law as His instrument.