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11 Sermon Illustrations on False Conversion

11 illustrations

False conversion refers to a profession of faith that lacks true repentance and genuine spiritual transformation, resulting in a hollow assurance of salvation (Matthew 7:21-23). Christian preaching often illustrates this through fragile or deceptive images—such as empty lamps, spider webs, or unsteady faith—that reveal the peril of relying on self-made hopes or outward professions without heartfelt obedience and new birth.

Intellectualism and Immoral Life

Intellectual doubts can mask a heart unwilling to repent from immoral living.

Josh McDowell relates how he was counseling a student who said she was fed up with Christianity because she did not think it was historically accurate nor that there was actually anything to it. She had convinced everyone in her circle that she had searched and found profound intellectual problems with Christianity as a result of her university studies. One after another of her classmates tried to persuade her otherwise; but to no avail. Josh asked her several pointed questions. Within 30 minutes she admitted that she had fooled everyone including herself, and that she had developed her intellectual doubts in order to excuse her immoral life.

No Oil in the Lamp

Profession without genuine faith leaves one unprepared for Christ's return.

“They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them.” Matthew 25:3

Nothing is sadder than profession without possession, nothing more solemn than to have a name that one lives, while actually dead in trespasses and sins. Many are like this, they have no sense of their true condition.

The following case came to my notice while I was preaching in a middle western city, sometime ago. The lady related it to me herself. She had been for years a professor of religion, attending services frequently, reading her Bible with some degree of regularity, saying her prayers and attending to what she thought were her duties as one who belonged to a respectable church. In short, she was doing all she knew how in order to prepare her soul for eternity. But, while she hoped she was all right, she was never very seriously concerned for her conscience had not yet been reached and so, as she put it afterward, she was contentedly hastening on to judgment, relying upon her own fancied goodness and meritorious works for salvation.

She was alone in her room one night when suddenly the lamp which had lighted went out, leaving her in the darkness. Almost involuntarily she exclaimed, “There is no oil in the lamp!” The words were scarcely uttered till they seemed to come reverberating back into her ears, but with a new and solemn meaning. “No oil in the lamp! I’ve heard that before. Ah, yes, the parable of the virgins (Matthew 25:1-12). Five of them had no oil in their lamps when the bridegroom came, and they were shut out of the feast.” Her mind became troubled. For several days, and even nights, the thought was always with her. She would often cry out in anguish of soul, “No, I have no oil in my lamp. What will become of me? I have not the grace of God in my heart!”

A horror of great darkness came upon her. She longed to be saved, yet knew not how. In great distress she began to pray, and God opened her eyes to see her utterly lost, undone condition in His sight, and showed her that she could do nothing to save herself. She searched His Word for light as to how she might obtain the longed-for “oil,” and at last was led to realize that the work that saves had all been finished long ago when the Lord Jesus bore her sins in His own body on the tree (1 Peter 2:24); that all she had to do to possess eternal life and to know that she had it, was to believe on Him (1 John 5:13). Glad she was indeed to be saved so simply, and yet in a way that brought such satisfaction. Sin had been all judged on Another, and she was justified from all things (Acts 13:38-39). In simple faith she rested in Christ, and can now rejoice that she is His for time and eternity. Before she had profession, now she had Christ; before she was dressed in the rags of self-righteousness, now she was clothed in the righteousness of God (1 Corinthians 1:30); before she had an empty lamp only, now she was the possessor of the oil of the Spirit, who has sealed her for heaven (Ephesians 4:30).

The Madman Of Athens

False confidence in false religion leads to devastating eternal despair.

"As the madman at Athens challenged all the ships that came into the harbour for his own, so carnal men claim an interest in heavenly things which are none of theirs. Deceived hearts believe they are running to heaven when they are posting to hell, like rowers in a boat, they look one way, and go contrary. Religious delusions may be very comfortable while they last, but what will be the misery of their breaking up! To have all your fancied godliness vanish like the mists before the sun will be grievous indeed. In proportion to the confidence inspired will be the despair involved. The poor madman in Bedlam in the olden time placed a straw crown upon his head, and issued orders like a Cæsar; it was his madness which made such a farce a comfort to him. In the next world the sinner's madness will be over, he will be sobered by his despair: what then will he think of his former fancies and fond self-flatteries! What an awakening, from the dreams of bliss to the realities of hell! O my soul, see thou to it that all thy hopes are well grounded! Call not Christ thine, and heaven thine, if they are not so. Do not play the fool with eternal things, but get a sure title to everlasting blessedness.

The Spider

Job 8:14

Self-made hopes are fragile like spider webs and will fail at life's end.

"The blind hope that is found in men ignorant and presumptuous will certainly fail them; it is compared to 'a spider's web,' Job viii. 14. The spider spinneth a web out of her own bowels, which is swept away as soon as the besom cometh; so do carnal men conceive a few rash and ungrounded hopes; but when death cometh, or a little trouble of conscience, these vain conceits are swept away." Let us not spin a hope of heaven out of ourselves, or our own works, feelings, or professions. Such a web of confidence may be very ingeniously contrived, but it must be very frail and will inevitably be swept away. What is a man full of self-righteousness but a dark room full of cobwebs? Good housekeepers do not care for the clever works of this poor insect, but are eager to destroy them, for they are a detriment, and not an ornament. Neither spiders nor their webs are acceptable to us; and even so we may depend upon it that when we have finished the web of our legal hopes and worked hard at our will-worship, God will have no more respect to us and our proud doings than we have to spiders and their constructions. Let proud Pharisees think of this and be humbled. The bee is our example, for she builds a house but fetches all the material from abroad, and it is from the flowers of the garden, and not from herself, that she procures the honey with which she stores her cells. Spiders suck no flowers as bees do; their productions are from their own bowels. True believers get all the substance and sweetness of their hopes from the flowers of the promises, and dare not live upon themselves, or anything that they can do or be.

Faith, Waverlag

Unsteady faith bends with every breeze, showing a hollow, unreal belief.

When a breeze blows on a bed of willows, all heads bend gracefully: not one resists. But it costs the willows nothing to yield; and, when the wind changes, you may see them all pointing the other way. Behold a picture of smooth, hollow, unreal faith! Arnot.

from New Cyclopaedia of Prose Illustrations · Elon Foster faith

Hope, False

False hope is like unused life-preservers, ineffective when spiritual danger arrives.

A "hope" is to some like a passport, which one keeps quietly in his pocket till the time for the journey, and then produces it. Or like life-preservers, which hang useless around the vessel until the hour of danger comes, when the captain calls on every passenger to save himself; and then they are taken down and blown up, and each man, with his hope under his arm, strikes out for the land; and so such men would keep their religious hope hanging until death comes; and then take it down and inflate it, that it may buoy them up, and float them over the dark river to the heavenly shore. Or as the inhabitants of Block Island keep their boats hauled high upon the beach, and only use them now and then, when they would cross to the mainland; so such men keep their hopes high and dry upon the shore of life, only to be used when they have to cross the flood that divides this island of time from the mainland of eternity.

— Beecher

from New Cyclopaedia of Prose Illustrations · Elon Foster hope

Hope, Groundless

Claiming hope without repentance and obedience reveals a groundless assurance of salvation.

A professor of religion, who neglected all religious duties, and was engaged in rumselling, being called to account by the church-authorities, declared that he still indulged a hope; and, moreover, knew that he was a child of God and an heir of heaven. He maintained his assurance in his neglect and guilt. How much was such a hope worth?

Presumption, Perilous

Careless sinners presume on last-minute mercy but risk eternal damnation.

Like as if an arrant thief should reason thus with himself, "I will spend my days in robbing and stealing; I fear neither arraignment nor execution: for at the very time when I am to be hung, if I do but call upon the judge, I know I shall have my pardon." Such is the practice of careless men in the matter of their salvation; for a man may die with a "Lord have mercy" in his mouth, and yet perish eternally.

— Cawdray

from New Cyclopaedia of Prose Illustrations · Elon Foster eternal judgment

Profession, False

A mere outward profession without true faith leads to spiritual death.

A mere profession is but painted pageantry to go to hell in: it is like the plumes upon the hearse and the trappings upon the black horses which drag men to their graves, — the funeral array of dead souls. Take heed, above every thing, of a waxen profession, that will not stand the sun; beware of a life that needs to have two faces to carry it out. Spurgeon.

Self-Deception, Fatal

Self-deception leads to false confidence and eternal destruction when too late.

Many destroy themselves by false lights, who, being wedded to their own opinions, and adoring the chimeras of their spirit, think themselves full of knowledge, just, and happy; that the sun riseth only for them, and that all the rest of the world is in darkness: they conceive that they have the fairest stars for conductors; but, at the end of their career, they find (too late) that this pretended life was but an ignis fatuus, which led them to a precipice of eternal flames.

— N. Caussin

A Universalist Bible

A man’s selective Bible reading leads him to true repentance and new birth.

There once lived in England a man who professed to believe in the final salvation of all men. To sustain this doctrine, whenever he came to a passage in the Bible which seemed favorable to his creed he turned down a leaf. In this way he converted his Bible into a kind of Universalist Text Book for the indoctrination of his family. He had a son, who imbibed the sentiments of his father. At the death of the father, the son inherited the Bible referred to, and in accordance with paternal example, he used to read where the leaves were turned down, and comfort himself in the belief that the way of sin is not death. After a few years the young man removed to the West. He went to hear a Universalist minister preach. The sermon being rather a lame performance, the man, so far from being confirmed by it, was rather shaken in his confidence. He thought, however, that he could make a stronger argument himself. He went home and sat down to the task. But the Bible with the leaves turned down was away in England, and he had forgotten where to look for the detached portions upon which he rested his faith, and thus was forced to read his Bible in its legitimate connexions and dependencies. So he read on, chapter after chapter, looking all the while for his favorite doctrine. But he did not find it. Nay, he was soon convinced that in order to salvation he must be born again. He sought and soon found peace in believing.

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