Sinners with their Heads Down - Glenn Conjurske

Sinners with their Heads Down

by Glenn Conjurske

Sinners are wont to hold their heads high, sinful man having little sense of shame for his sin, and mortal man little sense of his utter weakness. The latter is most aptly expressed in the following not-very-pleasant verse by Coxe:

March! March! March! Earth groans as they tread;
Each carries a skull, going down to the dead.
Every stride, every stamp, every footfall is bolder:
‘Tis a skeleton’s tramp with a skull on its shoulder.
But oh! how he steps, with high tossing head,
That clay-covered bone, going down to the dead.

The one great need of the world today is for these high tossing heads to be bowed down. That is to say, the one great need of the world today is conviction of sin. No sinner can be converted till he is convicted of sin. Without this, conversions are as empty as they are glib. Yet modern evangelism in general contains little or nothing of conviction of sin. Christians fail to distinguish between awakening and conviction. An awakened sinner may be afraid, and therefore willing to submit to certain conditions in order to be saved, especially if the conditions are easy enough, but a convicted sinner is ashamed, and is therefore willing to have done with sin, and to forsake all and follow Christ.

The shame which belongs to real conviction of sin will be evident in the deportment of the convicted sinner. He will be solemn and subdued. Everything light and glib will be thoroughly rooted out of him. It will be evident from his very looks and bearing that he is ashamed. Yet the reverse of this is generally the case in modern evangelism. I was present at a Jack Van Impe Crusade in Grand Rapids about twenty years ago. When he gave the invitation I saw people walking down the aisles talking and laughing, and I said in my heart, Surely they are not going forward to be saved. Men are not saved after this fashion.

Experienced evangelists from better days than our own learned to distinguish convicted sinners from others by the fact that they held their heads down—-or could not hold them up. It is written of the publican who went into the temple to pray, “And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.” This man was convicted of sin, and it is also written of him, “This man went down to his house justified.” (Luke 18:13-14). I have seen a number of statements concerning this from the great preachers of the past, and I pass them on to my readers.

D. L. Moody (1837-1899) says, “When I go into the inquiry rooms some days some have their heads down on their hands, and I cannot get a word out of them. I say to myself such persons are near to God. But some are flippant and glib, and say why does God do this and why does God do that?”

Charles G. Finney (1792-1875) speaks in the same vein, only much more fully and forcefully. He says, “From my own experience and observation, as well as from the word of God, I am fully convinced that the character of revivals depends very much upon the stress that is laid upon the depravity of the heart. Its pride, enmity, windings, deceitfulness, and every thing else that is hateful to God should be exposed in the light of his perfect law.

“I fear that stress enough is not laid upon the horrible guilt of this depravity. Pains enough is not taken by a series of pointed and cutting discourses, to show the sinner the utter inexcusableness, the unutterable wickedness and guilt of his base heart. No revival can be thorough until sinners and backsliders are so searched and humbled that they cannot hold up their heads. It is a settled point with me, that while backsliders and sinners can come to an anxious meeting and hold up their heads and look you and others in the face without blushing and confusion, the work of searching is by no means performed, and they are in no state to be thoroughly broken down and converted to God. I wish to call the attention of my brethren especially to this fact. When sinners and backsliders are really convicted by the Holy Ghost, they are greatly ashamed of themselves. Until they manifest deep shame, it should be known that the probe is not used sufficiently, and they do not see themselves as they ought. When I go into a meeting of inquiry and look over the multitudes, if I see them with heads up, looking at me and at each other, I have learned to understand what work I have to do. Instead of pressing them immediately to come to Christ, I must go to work to convict them of sin. Generally by looking over the room, a minister can easily tell, not only who are convicted and who are not, but who are so deeply convicted as to be prepared to receive Christ. Some are looking around and manifest no shame at all; others cannot look you in the face and yet can hold up their heads; others still cannot hold up their heads and yet are silent; others by their sobbing, and breathing, and agonizing, reveal at once the fact that the sword of the Spirit has wounded them to their very heart. Now I have learned that a revival never does take on a desirable and wholesome type any farther than the preaching and means are so directed, and so efficient as to produce that kind of genuine and deep conviction which breaks the sinner and the backslider right down, and makes him unutterably ashamed and confounded before the Lord, until he is not only stripped of every excuse, but driven to go all lengths in justifying God and condemning himself.”

Finney frequently refers to this fact in the revivals which took place under his ministry. “I saw that a general conviction was spreading over the whole congregation. Many of them could not hold up their heads.”

“I went to Rome and preached three times on the Sabbath. To me it was perfectly manifest that the word took great effect. I could see during the day that many heads were down, and that a great number of them were bowed down with deep conviction for sin.”

“I arose and pressed the point he had omitted. It was the distinction between desire and will. From the course of thought he had presented, and from the attitude in which I saw that the congregation was at the time, I saw, or thought I saw, that the pressing of that distinction, just at that point, upon the people, would throw much light upon the question whether they were really Christians or not, whether they merely had desires without being in fact willing to obey God.

“When this distinction was made clear, just in that connection, I recollect the Holy Spirit fell upon the congregation in a most remarkable manner. A large number of persons dropped down their heads, and some groaned so that they could be heard throughout the house.”

John Berridge (1716-1793) writes, “When you open your commission, begin with laying open the innumerable corruptions of the hearts of your audience; Moses will lend you a knife, which may be often whetted at his grindstone. Lay open the universal sinfulness of nature; the darkness of the mind, the frowardness of the will, the fretfulness of the temper, and the earthliness and sensuality of the affections. Speak of the evil of sin in its nature, its rebellion against God as our sovereign, ingratitude to God as our benefactor, and contempt both of his authority and love. Declare the evil of sin in its effects, bringing all our sickness, pains, and sorrows; all the evils we feel, and all the evils we fear; all inundations, and fires, and famines, and pestilences; all brawls, and quarrels, and fightings, and wars, with death to close these present sorrows, and hell afterwards to receive all that die in sin.

“Lay open the spirituality of the law, and its extent, reaching to every thought, word, and action, and declaring every transgression, whether by omission or commission, deserving of death. Declare man’s utter helplessness to change his nature, or to make his peace. Pardon and holiness must come from the Saviour. Acquaint them with the searching eye of God, watching us continually, spying out every thought, word, and action, noting them down in the book of his remembrance, and bringing every secret thing into judgment, whether it be good or evil.

“When your hearers are deeply affected with these things (which is seen by the hanging down of their heads), preach Christ.”

Now observe, these men were all experienced and powerful evangelists. They lived in different times, and moved in different circles. Yet independently of each other, they all learned to recognize the hanging down of sinners’ heads as the mark of conviction of sin. Here is wisdom. If the evangelistic work of our times were conducted on this plan, the Fundamental churches would not be filled up with false converts.

Glenn Conjurske