Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2870
“The Law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul.” Psalm 19:7.
WHEN he spoke of “the Law of the Lord, David did not merely mean the Law as it was given in the Ten Commandments, although that also is perfect and is used, to some extent, in the conversion of souls. The term includes the entire Doctrine of God—the whole Divine Revelation and though, in David’s day, there was not so full and clear a Revelation as we have—for the New Testament was not then given, nor much of the Old Testament, yet the text has lost none of its former force, but has rather gained more. So I shall use it as applicable to the entire Scriptures—to the Law and to the Gospel—and to all that God has revealed. And speaking of it in that sense, I may truly say that it is perfect and that it converts the soul.
A tree is known by its fruit and a book must be tested by its effects. There are some books which bear their fruit for the hangman and the jail—and such books are very widely read nowadays. They are frequently embellished with engravings and put into the hands of boys and girls—and a crop of criminals is constantly the result of their publication and circulation! There have been books written which have spread moral contagion throughout centuries. I need not mention them, but if it were possible to gather them all together in one heap and burn them as the Ephesians burnt their books of magic, it would be one of the greatest blessings conceivable! Yet, if that were done, I fear that other wicked brains would be set to work to think out similar blasphemies and that other hands would be found to scatter their vile productions.
The Word of God must be tested, like other books, by the effect which it produces, and I am going to speak upon one of its effects to which many of us here present can bear personal witness. The old proverb says, “Speak as you find,” and I am going to speak of the Bible as I have found it—to praise the bridge that has carried me over every difficulty until now—and that has carried a great many of you over, also. We know that the Law of the Lord is good because it converts the soul and, to our mind, the best proof of its purity and power is that it has converted oursoul.
My first objective will be to show how the Word of God converts the soul Then to show the excellence of the work of conversion. And, therefore, thirdly, the excellence of that Book which produces conversion.
I. First, then, I am to show HOW THE WORD OF GOD CONVERTS THE SOUL.
Man’s face is turned away from his Maker. Ever since the fatal day when our first parents broke the Law of God, we have been, all of us, guilty of the same great crime. We stand as men who have their backs to the light and we are going the downward road, the road which leads to destruction. What we need is to be turned around, for that is the meaning of the word, “converted”—turned right about. We need to hear the command, “Right about face,” and to march in the opposite direction from any in which we have ever marched before. Our text truly says that the Word of God turns us around. It does not mean that the Word alone does that apart from the Spirit of God, because a man may read the Bible through 50 times and, for 50 years hear sermons that have all come out of the Bible, and yet they will never turn him unless the Spirit of God makes use of the Word of God or the preacher’s sermons. But when the Spirit of God goes with the Word, then the Word becomes the instrument of the conversion of the souls of men.
This is how the work of conversion is worked. First, it is by the Scriptures of Truth that men are made to see that they are in error. There are millions upon millions of men in the world who are going the wrong way, yet they do not
know it. And there are tens of thousands who believe that they are even doing God service when they are utterly opposing Him. Some who, as far as it is in their power, are even slaying Christ, know not what they are doing. One of the pleas that our Savior used upon the Cross was, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” To take my own case, I know that for years I was not conscious of having committed any great sin. I had been, by God’s restraining Grace, kept from outward immoralities and from gross transgressions and, therefore, I thought I was all right. Did I not pray? Did I not attend a place of worship? Did I not do what was right towards my fellow men? Did I not, even as a child, have a tender conscience? It seemed to me, for a time, that all was well and, perhaps, I am addressing someone else who says, “Well, if I am not right, I wonder who is? And if I have gone wrong, where must my neighbors be going?”
Ah, that is often the way we talk! As long as we are blind, we can see no faults in ourselves. But when the Spirit of God comes to us and reveals to us the Law of God, then we perceive that we have broken the whole of the Ten Commandments in the spirit, if not in the letter of them. Even the most chaste of men may well tremble when they remember that searching word of Christ—“Whoever looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her already in his heart.” When you understand that the Commandments of God not only forbid wrong actions, but also the desires, imaginations and thoughts of the heart—and that, consequently, a man may commit murder while he lies in his bed— may rob his neighbor without touching a penny of his money or any of his goods—may blaspheme God though he never uttered an oath—and may break all the commands of the Law of God, from the first to the last, before he has put on his garments in the morning—when you come to examine your life in thatlight, you will see that you are in a very different condition than you thought you were!