Psalms 51:13. Sinners shall be converted unto Thee.
David had fallen deeply and had been mercifully restored. Nathan had come to him, and conviction had been carried home to his conscience – the power of God accompanying Nathan’s words. And after Nathan, the prophet of the Lord, had declared David’s pardon, in the Lord’s name, we still find him crying to Him who alone could forgive sin: “Hide Thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities”. And whilst there is the earnest cry for forgiveness, he entreats also for the restoration of purity and peace and joy: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me; cast me not away from Thy presence, and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me; restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation, and uphold me with Thy free Spirit”. And looking for such things from Israel’s gracious God, he joins his vows with his prayers: “Then will I teach transgressors Thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto Thee”.
It is characteristic of the people of God that they desire the conversion of sinners to God; they are not, at least, in a healthy state when this desire is not active. I believe it so belongs to the divine life that, though it may indeed be crushed in a time of declension, yet like all other things that are essential to religion, the principle abides there, though crushed, and causes in the soul a latent disquiet and discomfort. Yet the believer may not know, or rather is unwilling to inquire into, the reason for it. So far as there is backsliding, this principle may thus be crushed and weakened, although it is still there; but let there be renewed repentance, forgiveness, cleansing and the joy of God’s salvation, and this principle reappears.
In fact, there are these two cases in which you may more especially look for this desire for the conversion of sinners unto God – namely, that of the recently converted and that of the restored backslider. Take the case of the recently converted: the restored backslider much resembles him. He has been himself recently in the school of the Holy Ghost, receiving “the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost”. He has been recently learning the painful lesson of his alienation from God and been learning the joyful lesson of his restoration to Him. And, experiencing the joy of God’s salvation, most anxious is he that others in a state of nature should be converted; not regarding the suffering – for he himself has come through the process of conviction. He is not shrinking because of that, but desiring that sinners should be convinced of sin and misery; should have their minds enlightened in the knowledge of Christ; should have their wills renewed; should be persuaded and enabled to embrace Jesus Christ; should obtain pardon, renewal, sanctification, divine consolation and joy – in short, should be converted unto God.
So also the restored backslider desires that others should obtain what he has now got restored. Not but that this may be preserved, by the Spirit, in the believer throughout. It is not necessary to be brought into a state of backsliding, and then to be restored, in order to have this desire for the conversion of sinners unto God. No, if believers keep in mind their former state, when they were indulging the lusts of the flesh and of the mind, assuredly they will be stirred up to a habitual desire for this.
“Sinners shall be converted unto Thee.” This implies that sinners are away from God. Why do you need conversion, or turning round about? Because you are in the wrong road. You are in the road over which the weight of the wrath to come, which has been revealed from heaven, is impending; you are in the road which ends in hell.
And why are you in that road? Because your back is to God; because you have turned to Him the back and not the face. When did you turn your back? Why, perhaps in one sense never; you always had your back turned to God; you were born so. But God did not make man so. God regards the human race as a unit represented in Adam. And when he was with God, formed in God’s image, standing in God’s favour, he left God; turned his back on God, and turned his face sinwards, devilwards, hellwards. Sinner, you are away from God. And, sinner, you can never prosper when away from God. I would entreat you to mark that. You can never prosper. And mark why: because God made man.
Ah, it lies there, it lies in the making of man – God made man in His own image, to employ his activities in God’s service, and to find all his good and enjoyment in God as his portion. That is man’s nature, his nature as he was created; that is human nature as it came from the hand of God. Well then, if man’s activities are not employed for God, if his enjoyment is not sought in God he must, according to the constitution of man’s own nature, be unhappy. It cannot be otherwise while man is man. And what the sinner needs, to render him holy and happy, is to come back to God, or to be brought back to God; that God and he in some way may meet amicably together. For holiness and happiness can be found only in God. It is therefore not so much that man fell from holiness and happiness, as that he fell from God; and it is not so much that he needs to return to holiness and happiness, as that he needs to return to God.
“Sinners shall be converted unto Thee.” These words show that the con-version of a sinner is possible. Sinner, the lost God may be returned to, the averted face may be turned toward God. There is such a thing as the conversion of a sinner, else you must be eternally godless, and therefore eternally unholy and unhappy. True, man cannot come in again by the way by which he went out. God drove out the man from Eden, and placed cherubim with a flaming sword to keep the way. If you would come back to God in Eden, you must meet the cherub’s sword. That would be death.
But “who is this that engageth His heart to approach unto God?” There is One who met the sword, against whom Jehovah’s sword awoke. He finished transgression, made an end of sin, and brought in everlasting righteousness; and He is now “exalted . . . to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance . . . and forgiveness of sins”. He was sent to seek and to save, and He sent Paul, even as now He sends His servants, “to open men’s eyes, and to turn them from darkness unto light, and from the power of Satan unto God”. And he whom Jesus thus sent went and preached everywhere – that men should repent and bring forth fruits meet for repentance. You see what the sinner needs is: back to God – back to God. And the old way is shut, eternally shut. But He who went in and met the sword, who suffered the death and gained the life, He says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life”.
Sinner, you must go back to God; you must go back to God. God calls your state “lost”. “What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not . . . go after that which is lost?” God says you are a lost sheep, that He has lost you; and if God cares for you as His lost sheep, you must return to Him. If God calls you lost, you must consider yourself lost; and if God has sent His Son to seek and save the lost and has constituted Him the way, you must just receive Him and through Him go back to God.
But how go back? Why, wherein consists our distance from God? It does not consist in local space. God is everywhere. “Do not I fill heaven and earth?” He is nigh to all, “for in Him we live, and move, and have our being”. And yet He is far from sinners – at once near and far off. He is near as Creator, upholding, governing, judging, at least preparing materials for the judgement. What is the distance then? It is a spiritual and moral distance; it is the distance of a different, of a contrarious, nature; it is the distance of alienation from the original constitution of man’s moral nature. I say, of his moral nature; for man, in his natural qualities, retains the image of God in some measure – in wisdom or at least intelligence, and in power. But these, being misused, are lost, and thus the image of God is lost; and not only so, there is a contrarious nature.
The moral qualities of man were the image of the moral perfections of God, and now they are the very opposite. And as like draws to like, so do differences shrink from differences, specially contraries from contraries. So, save in this new and living way, God keeps back from sinners, and sinners shrink back from God. They dislike God, and they dislike God because His moral nature is one and theirs another – because theirs is the direct contrary.
You see then your need of conversion. You must be converted, or you cannot go to heaven; for while God could not bear to have your presence there, no more could you bear to have God’s presence there. A holy God and an unholy sinner, an angry God and a guilty sinner, would not make a happy heaven together; it is not possible. You must be converted; you must go back to God, you must be restored to His favour, you must be renewed in His image, you must be employed in His service, you must find your happiness in Him. God made you for that, and without that you cannot be blessed while you are man, and the Fall will terminate in everlasting misery.
You were alienated from God by the Fall, but that alienation is greatly strengthened. You were born in sin, brought forth in iniquity; but every day you continue in sin, your natural alienation is increased; for if one sin destroyed man’s moral nature, every sin strengthens man’s depravity. And the longer you continue in sin, the less you care about going back to God, about being converted. You go to other things for happiness, and perhaps for a time you find it; you are made happy for a moment, your depraved appetite getting what is congenial to it. You can suppose a man ignorantly taking sweet poison and being pleased with it, although it would destroy his body; so the sinner is pleased with the sweet poison of sin, although it will destroy his soul.
Sinner, you must be converted; because God has been at such pains to open a way to take sinners back again. He has sent His own Son, so that sinners might be brought back again; He has sent His Spirit, so that sinners might be brought back again. He has sent His holy law, He has sent His gospel, so that sinners might be brought back again. Sinner, you must be converted; or, sinner living under the gospel, you must perish – not only because you sinned in Adam, not only because you sinned personally, but because, after you had sinned in Adam and had broken the law yourself, God said, Come back again – and you would not.
One word to unconverted souls, specially to such as know they are unconverted: Pray much.
(1.) Pray that you may be made willing to be converted. You think you are, but you are not. It is a great step to come to that, greater than to come to the next thing.
(2.) Pray that you may be made very anxious to be converted.
(3.) Pray that you may be made so anxious as that an unconverted state shall be intolerable to you.
(4.) Pray that God will teach you what conversion is.
- One of five sermons on this text, it was preached in Edinburgh in 1857. It is taken, with editing, from Duncan’s Pulpit and Communion Table.