Conviction, n. “The act of convincing, or compelling one to admit the truth of a charge; the act of convincing of sin or sinfulness; the state of being convinced or convicted by conscience; the state of being sensible of guilt; as the convictions of a sinner may be temporary or lasting.”
By conviction, a sinner is brought to repentance.
Conviction is the feeling we get when we’ve done something wrong and we know that we’ve done something wrong.
When you were a little child and stole a cookie out of the cookie jar, you felt that little tug of your conscience because you were aware that you were doing something wrong.
For the world, conviction is their conscience that they depend on to guide their actions. For the saved person, we know conviction as coming from the Holy Spirit who guides us to righteousness.
John 3:5 “Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”
The Spirit mentioned here is the Holy Spirit of God whom we receive when we accept the gift of salvation. We now have God as our conscience, in the person of the Holy Spirit, and he will never lead us astray.
The difference between a saved person and an unsaved person, besides their eternal destination, is that the saved person relies on the Holy Spirit of God to chastise, correct and convict them when they’ve gone astray.
The unsaved person simply does what comes naturally as they are still run by their father the devil.
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So, here are some of the ways in which someone can avoid conviction.
- Don’t answer the call of salvation.
If you never become saved, the only thing that the Holy Spirit will convict you of is your need for salvation.
Isaiah 1:18 “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”
Mark 1:14-15 “Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, And saying,The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.”
God wants all of us to be saved and spend eternity with him.
If you chose to ignore the call of salvation, you won’t feel as bad when you do bad things because, firstly, you are still of the old nature and you aren’t concerned about sin, just not getting in trouble.
You have situational ethics, you tell “white” lies, you can be sneaky as long as you don’t get caught, and secondly, you still believe that we are all just animals and we don’t have a need for a higher power or authority over our lives other than ourselves.
And, if you ignore the call of salvation long enough, someday, that call will just disappear.
God doesn’t want to see anyone go to hell.
2 Peter 3:9 “…..not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
But, he’s under no obligation to keep nagging you to become saved.
Did you know that God allowed the people in Noah’s time 120 years to repent before he finally sent the flood?
Genesis 6:3 “And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.”
God knew that it was going to take Noah 120 years to complete the ark before he opened up the fountains of the deep and destroyed everyone on the planet except for those aboard.
At any time, anyone on earth could have chose to believe what Noah was preaching and enter the ark to be saved from the wrath that was to come.
Noah preached to the people all that time and they willfully ignored him.
Genesis 6:5 says “And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”
When the flood started, it was too late for man and everyone except Noah and his family were left out in the rain.
God could have allowed Noah 300 years to build the ark. He could have miraculously provided it instantaneously, but, he allowed a specific amount of time for people to come to their senses and heed his call.
Eventually he stopped calling and they felt his wrath.
When Abraham begged God to spare the cities of Sodom and Gomorra if he could find even fifty righteous people, God would have spared the cities, but, as it turns out, he couldn’t even find anyone besides his nephew Lot and part of his family.
Genesis 18:23-26 “And Abraham drew near, and said, Wilt thou also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Peradventure there be fifty righteous within the city: wilt thou also destroy and not spare the place for the fifty righteous that are therein? That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?And the LORD said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.”
Verses 32-33 “And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for ten’s sake. And the LORD went his way, as soon as he had left communing with Abraham: and Abraham returned unto his place.”
He couldn’t even find ten righteous people, but, God with his mercy was willing to let the cities go if only ten were found.
God doesn’t want anyone to go to hell, but he is absolutely under no obligation to continue allowing us to deny his calling.
There will be a reckoning one day if we continue to ignore the call of the Holy Spirit to be saved.
The second way to avoid conviction:
2. Be saved, but ignore the leading of the Holy Spirit
John 16:13 “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.”
If you are a blood-bought child of God, the Holy Spirit dwells within you and convicts you of wrongdoing. You grieve the Holy Spirit when you choose to ignore his leading.
Ephesians 4:30 says “And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.”
Things you did when you were lost should no longer hold an attraction for you.
The Holy Spirit tells you this.
When you do wrong, even though you are saved and all your sins; past present and future have been forgiven, the devil still waits at the door.
The Holy Spirit is there to remind you that those things are in the past and that you should no longer do them. You aren’t a slave to your past sins any longer unless you chose to make them master over you. Your old habits you no longer have to do unless you willfully allow them to keep you in their power.
We sometimes choose to still do the wrong things simply because we want to. Our flesh may still desire that particular sin, and we will ignore the convicting voice of the Holy Spirit.
We are all rebellious at times. That’s the old creature trying to come back to life. But, if we continue in our rebellion, we not only grieve the Holy Spirit, but we also lose our fellowship with God and our heavenly rewards.
We may gain pleasure from ignoring the call to do right, but we also lose our joy that only comes from God.
And, just like when we ignore the call of the Holy Ghost to be saved and he finally lets you go, so also will he do if you are saved and chose to continue in your sin.
Romans 6:1-2 says “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?”
Again, God is under no obligation to allow us to stay on this earth if we are no good to him. He will give us over to the devil to be punished and we may even lose our lives if we continue to ignore the conviction of the Spirit.
1 Corinthians 5:1-5 “It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife. And ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that hath done this deed might be taken away from among you. For I verily, as absent in body, but present in spirit, have judged already, as though I were present, concerning him that hath so done this deed, In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when ye are gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.”
The church at Corinth had a problem. A member there was committing a terrible sin. A sin that was so bad that even the heathen wouldn’t commit it. The church was apparently choosing to ignore the sin for the sake of the person that was doing the sinning. But Paul heard about it and judged the man from afar.
He told the church that this person was to be ousted and to let the devil deal with him. God gave this person over to the devil to be punished. It says here “for the destruction of the flesh.”
That means just how it sounds. Paul said that it would be best if this person died rather than continue in his sin because it was adversely affecting the church.
We can only surmise what happened after this because it doesn’t say, but it isn’t above God to allow a saved person to die because of the sin they continue or even begin, after salvation.
We can be saved and know not to sin but still chose to because we are weak and rebellious.
The Holy Spirit convicts us of our need for a saviour by showing us that our sin hurts God and will send us to hell. But, we still have a free will after salvation and satan will use that willfulness to try to destroy us one way or another.
If we ignore conviction, it may just go away, but not in the ways you might think.
The third way to avoid conviction is to
3. Heed the guiding hand of the Spirit and live for the Lord.
We live within God’s will and as a result, there is no need for conviction. We are following the leading of Christ and striving to be holy and perfect as he commands us.
Leviticus 11:44 “For I am the LORD your God: ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I am holy: neither shall ye defile yourselves with any manner of creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.”
1 Peter 1:16 “Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.”
If we aren’t breaking the law, we have nothing to fear from those in authority.
If the speed limit is 25 miles per hour and we drive 25 miles per hour because we respect the law, the officer running the speed trap won’t have a reason to make you fear his authority.
When God tells us to tithe, and we do it without hesitation or reservation, we aren’t feeling a conviction that we didn’t obey.
When we read the Bible and do what it says, we are rewarded.
When we pray and spend time with the Lord, we gain peace and joy.
Keeping ourselves unspotted from the world will result in us not being convicted for doing wrong.
So, of these three methods for avoiding conviction, I’m sure you will agree that the third one is by far the obvious choice.
God wants us to have a joyful life. He doesn’t want to convict us of sin, he wants us to avoid it because we love him and want to please and bring glory to him.
Living a conviction free life is hard because we still have the flesh to deal with.
But, if we continually reflect on God’s promises and what he’s already done for us, it’s not really that hard to want to please him.
We are a sorry people if we accepted the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross but choose to continue in our sins that he bled and died to forgive us for.
Mistakes and missteps happen when we take our eyes off of God and instead focus on our flesh. Satan loves to turn our eyes away from God.
Jesus didn’t endure the heartache of the cross just so that we could continue sinning.
If we say we love the Lord, we should show it by doing his will and avoiding the things of this world that would keep us from receiving our heavenly rewards.
1 Corinthians 3:12-15 says “Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.”
Avoiding conviction is as easy as following the lead of the Holy Spirit and choosing to do the will of God, forsaking our own feelings or wants. We have a great debt to pay to our Saviour as we honor his sacrifice and allow his will to be done in our lives.
Avoid conviction and just submit to the will of God.