Yes! Serious! Urgent! “Except ye be converted…ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” So said the king of that kingdom. So he addressed all his hearers. So all must become!

To be converted our Lord defined as becoming as little children. To be converted is to humble yourself as the little child whom the Lord had set in the midst of his audience. There before the people’s very eyes, he had given to them a living picture of what it means to be converted. To be converted is to humble yourself as a little child.

Oh, you will say to me, and you would have said to the Lord, “But, Lord, to be converted means to turn from my sins! To be converted means to be sorry for my sins. To be converted means to actively turn from those sins. To be converted is all about the conscious activity of man.”

And Christ would tell you, “To be converted is to humble yourself like that little child and to become as a little child.”

Oh, please, do not misunderstand the Lord when he said to humble yourselves and become as little children. He did not mean that children are the picture of humility, and you must likewise imitate the humility of little children. No, no. You must become as little children. When you talk about conversion, you want to talk about what man must do. You want to talk about man’s obligations, responsibilities, and callings. When you come to the subject of conversion, you are thrilled to be able to talk about man’s activity. And when you talk about conversion, you say that man must do these things first in order to experience the blessings of God, and you say that man must do these if he would experientially enter the kingdom. Then you are very far from the kingdom, as far as many in Christ’s audience were far from the kingdom.

That little child was already in the kingdom. Whether the Lord took an infant or a child, it really makes no difference. The child could not discern the Lord’s body! And Christ said that children believe in him. They have faith. They have faith because they are in the kingdom. They are in the kingdom without their acts of conversion, without their acts of repentance, and without their fulfilling any responsibilities. They are in the kingdom because of God’s election. They are in the kingdom because Christ would die for their sins, their sin in Adam and their own actual sins, many of which they still had to commit. They were in the kingdom by sovereign grace alone and without any activities being first performed on their part.

And except you be converted and become as little children, you shall not enter. Oh, yes, you must realize that you do not enter by your repentance either. You do not enter experientially or in your conscious experience by your repentance or your act of conversion. You enter because of the grace of God alone; because he chose you; because he regenerated you; because he brought you into the kingdom and made you a citizen of that kingdom according to his eternal choice of you. When you are brought to that knowledge, you have been converted. Then you delight in the God of your salvation. Then you weep for your sins. If you enter consciously into the kingdom by your repentance, then you have not been converted, and you will not enter into the kingdom, for you are yet an adult. And except you become as a little child, you will perish as an adult outside the kingdom.