Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2911
“For my iniquities are gone over my head: as a heavy burden they are too heavy for me.” Psalm 38:4.
I HAVE a special purpose before me this evening. I shall endeavor to describe the state of the sinner’s heart when it has been awakened, when conscience is set at work, when sin and the judgment of God upon it occupy the mind’s attention—that period which John Bunyan describes in his, “Pilgrim’s Progress,” as being spent between the City of Destruction and the Wicket Gate—that state of mind in which a man is found when he flees from his former sin and desires to escape from the wrath to come, but has not yet found out the way of salvation so as to realize his own pardon and forgiveness through the great Atonement made upon the Cross.
In fulfilling this intention, I propose, first, to speak of the terrors which frequently accompany conviction of sin. Secondly, to describe the cases of some who, while really convicted of sin, are, nevertheless, strangers to those terrors. And then to address a few words of advice both to those who are sorely broken by cruel fears and those, on the other hand, who are more gently brought to Christ
I. There is A GREAT AND APPALLING TERROR OF MIND WHICH FREQUENTLY ACCOMPANIES CONVICTION OF SIN. The experience which I shall try to describe has not been that of all those who are brought to Christ. I must make, as it were, a broad outline—an open sketch without filling it up—a picture in which many, though certainly not all, may be able to read the story of their own passage through the Slough of Despond.
Usually, when Divine Grace comes into the heart, one of the first things that attends it is a sort of indefinable fear. The man does not know how or why it is that he has such a fear. He felt safe enough before, but now the very ground under his feet seems to be rotten. He played with sin, thinking it was only a trifle, but, suddenly, he is made to tremble at it. He finds that the serpent has a sting and he is afraid of it. Sometimes, by night, he will be scared with visions in his dreams and, by day, something more vivid than visions will appear before him. He now begins to believe that there is a Hell, that there is a just God, that sin must be punished, that he has sinned and that, therefore, he must die! He does not know that he is to do, but he feel that something must be done, either by himself or by somebody else, for his soul is truly afraid. To a greater or less extent, he has first the fear of punishment which afterwards, through the Grace of God, grows into a fear of sin!
Then, as this fear increases, a kind of disquietude and unrest lays hold of the man. David tells us his own experience and his prayer when he was in such a state as I am trying to describe. “O Lord, rebuke me not in Your wrath: neither chasten me in Your hot displeasure. For Your arrows stick fast in me, and your hand presses me sorely. There is no soundness in my flesh because of Your anger. Neither is there any rest in my bones because of my sin.” That is the case with a man under conviction of sin—he is restless and ill at ease. Those things which he once counted as pleasures now seem to him to be exceedingly wearisome. If he still seeks the amusements which once charmed him, they only sicken him now—he cannot bear to look at them. He has such a sad heart within him that he does not want to have songs sung to him, for they seem to be out of place to such a man as he feels himself to be. The Psalmist’s words describe him just now. “Fools because of their transgression and because of their iniquities are afflicted. Their soul abhors all manner of meat and they draw near unto the gates of death.”
The companions of such a man cannot understand what is the matter with him! They think that he is suffering from a fit of melancholy. So, indeed, he is, but I pray that it may not be a mere fitful spasm, but that it may continue and that it may be increased and intensified until he is “dead, indeed, unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The man’s melancholy will then give place to “unspeakable joy and full of glory.” He then begins to be a quiet stay-at-home. He tries to find rest there but, somehow, even his own family does not afford him the peace it once did. His wife thinks that something strange has come over him and if she is not herself converted, it must be quite incomprehensible to her. But if she should ever be led forth on the same pilgrimage, she would understand that this is a part of the footsteps of the flock—one of the first of the footsteps of the straying sheep when the Shepherd comes to fetch them back.
This disquietude and unrest of spirit will grow, by-and-by, into a burdensomeness of heart, just as Bunyan describes Christian with a burden on his back which made him sigh and groan. You remember how he pictures the pilgrim—“I saw a man clothed with rags standing in a certain place, a book in his hand and a great burden upon his back. I looked and saw him open the book, and read therein. And as he read, he wept and trembled and, not being able to contain it any longer, he broke out with a lamentable cry, saying, ‘What shall I do?’” The man of whom I am speaking comes to just such state as this. He has no visible burden upon his shoulders, yet he has upon his heart a load so heavy that it threatens to crush him to the very dust and to drive him to utter despair! It may be that through the persuasion of his former companions, he is led to indulge in sin as he was known to do, but if so, in the sin he is wretched and after the sin he is far more miserable than he was before! He may sing, but even while he is singing, he will be like the man who could amuse others with his funny sayings while his own heart was heavy within him. And this becomes the man’s constant state of mind—not only can he find no rest, night nor day, but all the while he has to carry his heavy burden wherever he may be! And he cries to the Lord with David, “Day and night Your hand was heavy upon me; my moisture is turned into the drought of summer.”