Spiritual transformation in Christian preaching refers to the profound renewal and purification of the believer's inner life, often likened to cleansing waters or the molding of the soul's character. Illustrations frequently use images of rivers, fountains, or assimilation to convey how focusing on God brings about a godlike change (Romans 12:2; 2 Corinthians 3:18).
The Jordan River's cleansing effect illustrates spiritual purification and renewal.
The Jordan flows into the Lake of Gennesaret muddy and dark-colored, but precipitates its impurities, and flows from it clear and pure.
The soul takes on the character of what it focuses on, becoming godlike by focusing on God.
The soul is always stamped with the same characters as are engraven upon the end it aims at; and while it converses with it, and sets itself before it, "it is turned as wax to the seal," to use that phrase in Job. Man's soul conceives all its thoughts and imaginations before his ends, as Laban's ewes did their young before the rods in the watering-troughs. He that pursues any worldly interest or earthly thing as his end becomes himself also "earthly;" and, the more the soul directs itself to God, the more it becomes godlike, deriving a print of that glory and beauty upon itself with which it converseth.
— John Smith
Sunday school changed a neighborhood's Sabbath from worldly songs to psalms and hymns.
The teachers in a New England Sabbath school, in 1830, were fully convinced of the good influence their school had exerted on the population with whom they labored. Before its establishment, and even some time afterwards, it was no uncommon thing to hear songs and dancing tunes on Sabbath mornings, in the street where the school is located; but during the year then closed, it was not remembered that one instance had occurred; but, on the contrary, they were often heard singing psalms and hymns.
A Sunday school replaced a dancing school, leading children to Bible reading and hymn singing.
The Sunday school at Sheriff Hill, Newcastle, was established in the year 1813, and the circumstances attending its establishment were rather singular. A dancing school had, at that time, been opened there, and many seemed desirous of attending it. Some Christian colliers conversing on the subject, down in the pit, and endeavoring to devise some means for stopping the progress of iniquity, it occurred to one of them, that the most effectual way would be to begin a Sunday school. When they came up from the pit, they spoke to one of the agents of the colliery, who expressed himself favorable to the undertaking, and very handsomely gave them permission to teach in the very room where the dancing was taught. They went home full of gratitude to the Lord, who had so far opened a way for them. They next canvassed the whole village, taking down the names of such children as wished to come: sixty-five agreed to attend. They had, however, neither books nor forms for the school; but the Lord raised up a kind friend, who supplied them with both. The school was then opened, and was soon filled. The dancing was laid aside, and the children were employed in reading their Bibles and singing hymns.
# 391. In Counteracting and Removing Infidelity.
Constantly looking to an ideal transforms a person into the likeness of that ideal.
In the legend of the “Great Stone Face” Hawthorne tells us how a great soul was formed by constantly looking at an ideal head formed by rocks on the side of a mountain. Ernest had been told by his mother that some day or other (so the people in the valley believed) a man would grow up from among them who would be the greatest man of his time, and that his face would resemble the face outlined on the rocks of the mountain. So Ernest waited, and finally a man who had become very rich came back to the valley and built a palace, and people thought for a time that the legend had been fulfilled in Mr. Grabgold, but the man was hard and selfish. Another came who was famous as a statesman, but ambition had killed his spiritual life. A poet came, whose verses had been an inspiration to Ernest, who often preached to the people of the valley, but the poet was a sensualist. He admitted to Ernest that he had not lived the beautiful life that he had depicted in his poetry, that he had even doubted at times whether the beautiful things he had taught to men were true. So at last, when Ernest had been almost in despair about the great man who should come to the valley, he went out one evening to preach to the people, and as the rays of the setting sun lighted up his face, and also the Great Stone Face of the mountain, the people shouted, “The legend has been fulfilled; the faces are alike.” It was true. The boy of the valley, by keeping his eyes on the noble face on the mountain, had accomplished more than they all. It is the secret of the development of the soul. A man must keep his eyes on the face of Jesus Christ to-day, because there is none else so noble.
— C. F. J. WRIGLEY
Environment can influence outward appearance and behavior over generations, symbolizing transformation.
The Japanese have an ingenious way of changing the color and appearance of birds and animals. For example, white sparrows are produced by selecting a pair of grayish birds and keeping them in a white cage, in a white room, where they are attended by a person drest in white. The mental effect on a series of generations of birds results in completely white birds. (Text.)
God’s light transforms the soul as a star’s light creates a photograph.
Star photography is one of the most refined and delicate of the arts of modern science. Two factors enter into the production of the photo. It is the star which makes the picture, but the artist-astronomer is essential also. He has to expose the sensitive plate and to direct the telescope to the star, and the star by its light does the rest.
So when the gaze of the soul is set on God, He reproduces His own likeness by His own light. It is ours to point the telescope; His to paint the picture. (Text.)
Just as inoculation revives sterile soil, spiritual life revives and makes believers fruitful.
Jesus taught that human lives can be redeemed from sterility to fruitfulness, by an infusion of diverse life. Why should not this principle be even more valuable in morals than in nature?
“To inoculate sterile ground and make it bring forth fruit in abundance is one of the latest achievements of American science,” says G. H. Grosvenor in _The National Geographic Magazine_. “Some of man’s most dread diseases--smallpox, diphtheria, plague, rabies--have been vanquished by inoculation, and now inoculation is to cure soil that has been worn out and make it fertile and productive again. The germs that bring fertility are mailed by the Department of Agriculture in a small package like a yeast-cake. The cake contains millions of dried germs. The farmer who receives the cake drops it into a barrel of clean water; the germs are revived and soon turns the water to a milky white. Seeds of clover, peas, alfalfa, or other leguminous plants that are then soaked in this milky preparation are endowed with marvelous strength. Land on which, for instance, the farmer with constant toil had obtained alfalfa only a few inches high, when planted with these inoculated seeds will produce alfalfa several feet high and so rich that the farmer does not recognize his crop.” (Text.)
Everything we make is available for free because of a generous community of supporters.
Donate