Spurgeon on Shallow Conversion and Deep Conversion

Charles Spurgeon on the hazards of shallow conversions that do not pluck up every root of man's "goodness", conversions that are not a complete and total renunciation of any righteousness of my own, conversions that are based on preaching that makes it seem like Jesus came to make your life better. NO, NO A THOUSAND TIMES NO!!  We do a great disservice to the "hearer" when we present this "home improvement" gospel.  Jesus came because EVERYTHING that you have built is on the wrong foundation.  It will eventually, under the strain of deep suffering or the deep dealings of God, it will crack and collapse, as it must.  It is a "severe mercy" that will not let you rely on anything false.  In His dealings with Israel if they kept a friendship with Egypt, in order to have a "back up plan" in addition to their reliance on God, He would cause that stick that they were leaning on to snap or go right through their hand.  This is our God!  He is a consuming fire and only His righteousness can be left standing.  This is critical to the church in the last days.  This is the old wine skin and the new wine.  This is the root cause of so many believers who are severely shaken when troubles, trials and suffering come into their lives. This is the root cause of the great falling away.  Oh God rid us of soft preaching and shallow conversions!
And now the Spurgeon quote...."Everywhere before the salvation there comes the humbling of the creature, the overthrow of human hope.

This is mournful work, but it must be done. I think those who experience much of it when they first come to Christ have great reason to be thankful. Their course in life will, in all probability, be much brighter and happier, for I have noticed that persons who are converted very easily, and come to Christ with but comparatively little knowledge of their own depravity, have to learn it afterwards, and they remain for a long time babes in Christ, and are perplexed with masters that would not have troubled them if they had experienced a deeper work at first. No, sir; if grace has begun to build in your soul and left any of the old walls of self-trust standing, they will have to come down sooner or later. You may congratulate yourself upon their remaining, but it is a false congratulation, your glorying is not good. I am sure of this, that Christ will never put a new piece upon an old garment, or new wine in old bottles: he knows the rent would be worse in the long run, and the bottles would burst. 

 It is a great mercy for a man when God sweeps right away all his own righteousness and strength, when he makes him feel that he is nothing and can be nothing, and drives him to confess that Christ must be all in all, and that his only strength lies in the eternal might of the ever-blessed Spirit.

 If I were to win heaven partly through what I had done, and partly through what Christ had done, and if the energy which sanctified me was in a measure my own, and in a measure divine, they that divide the work shall divide the reward, and the songs of heaven while they would be partly to Jehovah must also be partly to the creature. But it shall not be."

Closing thoughts....The righteousness of God, the fear of God is the foundation, and then when the love of God is revealed it is received as something that we are wholly undeserving of, but when the love of God is presented apart from the righteousness of God, the cross of Christ makes no sense. When the love of God is presented apart from the righteousness of God, there is a tiny shred of self-righteousness that is allowed to continue in its existence that then poisons the whole well. Oh God we ask for clear presentations of the gospel!

Until we can truly hear the accusation, "Thou art the man!"...Until we come to a place of true "dead" we cannot come out into resurrection...Until humility replaces pride...Until we have at the center of our thoughts His righteousness and our total unrighteousness.... There is NO NEW BIRTH!