“Holy Spirit conviction” isn’t a phrase that you hear much about these days.  But that doesn’t change this one, simple truth:

Only the Holy Spirit can convict us of the truth about sin.

Jesus said about the Holy Spirit:

John 16:8–9 (NKJV) — 8 And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: 9 of sin, because they do not believe in Me;

The word convict literally means “to reprove.”  It is a legal term that describes how a jury or a judge would bring in a verdict of guilty.  It could be translated “pronounce a verdict.”

In the Gospel of John, Jesus is saying, that the Holy Spirit has been sent to show us that we are guilty of sin and need the forgiveness of God.

Now the Holy Spirit has not been sent merely to hurl accusations at us…rather, the Holy Spirit convicts us.  There is a huge difference between the conviction of the Holy Spirit and the accusations of Satan:

• Satan will accuse you of sins that God has already forgiven.
• The Holy Spirit will convict you of sin which God has not yet forgiven.

There are two general ways that the Holy Spirit will teach us about sin…the first is simply the truth and reality of sin.

If you looked around our world you would think that everybody believes in sin. It seems so obvious every time we log onto the internet or turn on our televisions. But that is really not true.  In our society, and all around the world, sin is becoming a forgotten term and a laughable concept.

A psychologist, Carl Menninger, once wrote a book entitled, “Whatever Happened to Sin?” 

 He said that 82% of the population of France consider themselves to be Catholic, and yet 90% of the population no longer believe in sin, and only 4% accept the concept at all. 

What is true in France is probably pretty typical for much of the world that simply rejects the concept of sin.

But even those who do believe in sin do not understand it.

The world sees sin as something that is external—what a man does. 

But God sees sin as something internal—what a man is. 

Dr. Rogers said: “Man is not a sinner because he sins, he sins because he is a sinner.  A man is not a thief because he steals, he steals because he is a thief.”

We are not just sinners by choice, we are sinners by nature; and we sin by choice because that is our nature.

We do what we do because we are what we are.

Now the world thinks that man’s problem is sin(s): murder, lying, rape, stealing, etc.  These are not man’s problems.  They are just symptoms.  The problem is S-I-N.

Sins are the fruit of man’s problem; sin is the root of man’s problem.

We do what we do on the outside because of what we are on the inside.

Jesus said in John 15:19:

John 15:19 (NKJV) — 19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

An illustration that I have heard preachers use is the one of the apple…Have you ever bitten into an apple and found a worm inside of that apple?  If you have, oftentimes you will notice there is no hole in the apple. 

 Do you know how the worm got there?  The worm did not bore its way into that apple.  Instead he is trying to bore his way out. 

 How does that happen? 

 Well, the egg was laid in the blossom of that apple, and because the egg was in the blossom the worm was in the core.  The worm began on the inside, trying to make its way to the outside. 

That is exactly the way sin works in the life of man…it comes from his heart.

In the next post we will look at the second way that God the Holy Spirit teaches us about sin.