"What is this conversion that you talk so much about, and say people must have?" asked an officer one day of a private who was an earnest, active Christian.
"Sir," was the reply, "it is when the Captain of our salvation cries 'Halt!' and then when we halt, He orders `Right about face! ' "
Conversion is more than "theory," or "head knowledge," or "talk." It strikes deeper than the skin: it influences the heart. Conversion is not reformation. Conversion is not a beginning to amend or trying to be better, but it is a great cure done at once, and done forever.
An earthly doctor cures his patients by making them a little bit better each day, but conversion is God's work on a man that transforms him from being a child of wrath to being a child of God. We are "born again by the word of God," and "this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you."