R.A. Torrey (1856-1928), a 20th century
evangelist, was a friend and associate of D.L. Moody and the first
superintendent of Moody Bible Institute. In 1902, he went on a world evangelism
tour travelling the world to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. In this passage
below, Torrey addresses the Sin that the Holy Spirit Convicts- the sin of not
believing in Jesus. (John 16:9)
Sin
that the Holy Spirit Convicts-the Sin of Not Believing in Jesus (John 16:9)
Let me read it to you again. “And He,
when He is come, will convict the world in respect of sin …of sin, because they
believe not on me.” The sin of which the Holy Spirit convicts men and women is
the sin of unbelief in Jesus Christ: not the sin of drunkenness, not the sin of
stealing, not the sin of adultery, not the sin of murder, nor of any other
immorality or crime, but just the sin of not believing on the Son of God, not
believing on Jesus Christ. This was the
sin of which the Holy Spirit convicted the three thousand on the Day of the
Pentecost.
The Apostle Peter had just said in Acts
2:36, “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made
that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.” Then we read in
the thirty-seventh verse, “Now when they heard this (that is, had heard that
the One whom they had rejected was both Lord and Christ), they were pricked in
their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and
brethren, What shall we do?”
Yes, this is the sin of which the Holy
Spirit convinces men and women today, the sin, the awful sin, of rejecting Him,
of not believing in Him, Whom God hath made our Divine “Lord and Christ.”
He sees clearly that it is the worst,
the most decisive, the most daring, and most damning of all sins, and while he
may bitterly regret his dishonesty or his impurity, or whatever other sins of
which he may have been guilty, he sees and feels that the most awful of his
sins is the sin of rejecting the glorious Son of God. He sees that no sin he
can possibly commit against a fellow man can match in enormity the sin of
rejecting Him Whom God has clearly shown, by raising Him from the dead, to be
His own eternal Son; and Him Who gave up heaven and all its glory to come down
to earth with all its shame to bear our sins in His own body on the cross. But
you and I cannot make men see that; but the Holy Ghost can, and this is the sin
of which the Holy Spirit convicts men, the sin of unbelief in Jesus Christ.
-R.A. Torrey, The Holy Spirit: Who He Is And What He Does,
And How to Know Him In All The Fullness Of His Gracious And Glorious Ministry,
pp. 51-52
