St. Augustine lived from 354-430 AD.
His birth name was Aurelius Augustinus. He is better known as Augustine of Hippo because he was the bishop of the city of Hippo in North Africa…modern day Algeria.

Augustine’s teachings were part of what God used over 1,000 years later to provide foundation to the Protestant Reformation.

Christian History magazine said of Augustine, “After Jesus and Paul, Augustine of Hippo is the most influential figure in the history of Christianity.”

Augustine’s best-known books are his “Confessions” and “City of God.”

His book “Confessions” is well worth reading. It is very unique in that it is his autobiography, but it is totally written as a prayer to God. The whole book is him thanking, praising, worshipping, and praying to God.

The most amazing thing to me about Augustine’s life is his radical conversion. God saved Augustine and Augustine never got over his joy and delight in God’s power to save him.

You see, Augustine was full of lust. Starting as a teenager, he was very promiscuous and eventually took a concubine (a live-in mistress) with whom he had a son. And he would also have other mistresses and lived for years just seeking maximal pleasure anywhere he could find it.

But Augustine had a godly mother. Her name was Monica and her son’s rampant wickedness caused her much grief. Monica is one of the most precious women in the history of the church. And she reminds us that simple faithfulness and persistence in prayer is seen and blessed by God. Moms, never stop pleading with God for your children.

Augustine would later write of his mom: “She shed more tears over my spiritual death, than other mothers shed for the bodily death of a son.”

Augustine had a praying mother, but he was also being pursued by a kind Savior.

Augustine was saved by God’s grace at 32 years old. And how God did it is amazing.

Augustine felt shacked by his lust. He did not want to let it go. But he knew he needed to.

And Augustine found himself in a small garden at the house of one of his friends. And here is how he describes what happened.

“I flung myself down beneath a fig tree and gave way to the tears which now streamed from my eyes. In my misery, I kept crying, “How long will I go on saying, ‘Tomorrow, tomorrow?’” Why not now? Why not make an end to my ugly sins at this moment?’ All at once I heard the singsong voice of a child in a nearby house. Whether it was the voice of a boy or a girl I cannot say, but again and again it repeated the refrain, “Take it and read. Take it and read.”
At this I looked up, thinking hard whether there was any kind of game in which the children used to chant words like these, but I could not remember ever hearing them before. I stemmed my flood of tears and stood up, telling myself that this could only be a divine command to open my book of Scripture and read the first passage on which my eyes should fall.
So I hurried back to the place where my friend was sitting, seized the book of Paul’s epistles and opened it. In silence, I read the first passage on which my eyes fell:
”Not in reveling in drunkenness, not in lust and wantonness, not in quarrels and rivalries. Rather, arm yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ; spend no more thought on nature and nature’s appetites” (Romans 13:13–14).
I had no wish to read more, nor need to do so. For, in an instant, as I came to the end of this sentence, it was as though the light of confidence flooded into my heart, and all the darkness of doubt was dispelled.”

Augustine was baptized the next Easter Sunday morning in 387 AD. Later that year, Monica died a very happy woman because the son of her tears was safe in Christ.

Augustine would never be the same. He committed himself to celibacy and poverty and to preaching the gospel and defending the truth against error….primarily against Pelagianism.

And it would be a great question to ask Augustine how he delt with and viewed his lust and the battle for purity the rest of his life. He speaks extensively on this.

And my favorite quote from him is so helpful to all of us who struggle with sins that we seem to be forever shackled to.

“How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys, which I had once feared to lose. You drove them from me, you who are the true, the sovereign joy.
You drove them from me and took their place, you who are sweeter than all pleasure, though not to flesh and blood, you who outshine all light, yet are hidden deeper than any secret in our hearts, you who surpass all honor, though not to the eyes of men who see all honor in themselves. O Lord my God, my light, my wealth, and my salvation.”

3 phrases in that quote that I want to highlight:
1. Fruitless joys
2. You drove them from me (2x)
3. You took their place

2 more shorter quotes from Augustine:
“You made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they rest in you.”
“He loves Thee too little who loves anything together with Thee, which he loves not for Thy sake.”

Augustine preached and wrote and traveled and served the church for over 35 years and died in 430 AD. He was 75 years old and died of a high fever.

According to one biographer, Augustine spent his final days in repentance and prayer, having requested that Psalms of repentance be hung on the walls around his bed.