Matthew 18:3

Matthew 18:3

I. The expression "converted" is one requiring careful examination; with the simple Greek word faithfully rendered, our text would be, "Except ye be turned." It appears, then, that men must be turned, or they cannot enter into Christ's heavenly kingdom. This first implies that they are, before such turning takes place, proceeding in a direction which will not lead them to that kingdom. We are all, when Christ's Gospel meets with us, proceeding in a direction averse from that which is our highest interest, the salvation of our body, soul, and spirit, in a glorious and eternal state. We are seeking the lower welfare of the animal soul, not the higher welfare of the immortal spirit. The direction of our path must be changed; we must be turned.

II. Of what sort is this turning? It is plain that it is not any partial change in the outward life, not any polishing and rounding of the circumference of a man's character, but a changing of the centre itself, a change thorough and complete. It is not the opinions alone which are in question here; the desires are changed also. From having no mind to God, no eye to eternity, the desire after Him is awakened, and things invisible and eternal assume their proper place of prominence.

III. Consider the manner of the change. The turning is not the work of an instant. However rapid the thaw, the thick-ribbed realm of ice will not melt away but by degrees. However complete the renewal at last, there is an inertia to be overcome, an impulse to be communicated and to gather force, before the whole mass will obey the moving hand, in the spiritual as well as in the material world. There is no reason to question, but every reason to believe, that here as elsewhere the miracle is the exception, the ordinary agency by secondary means the rule; that conversion is not in the generality of cases the sudden, well-defined event which it is represented to be, but the gradual accruing result of the teaching and operation of the Spirit, working through the common every-day means of grace.

H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons,vol. iii., p. 67.

I. Man was made for God. He made us to behold Him; beholding, to reflect Him; reflecting Him, to be glorified in Him. He willed, evermore, to shine on into our souls, to be the light of our souls, that we might see all things truly by His light. He willed to make us holy, that we might be little pictures of Himself, and that He might dwell with good pleasure upon us, as a father's soul rests with joy and love upon the child of his love. From this we fell by sin; to this God willed to restore us in Christ. Sin was to choose, against God's will, something instead of God. In whatever way the change may be wrought, a change there must be. God is the Lord, the Father, the centre of the soul, The soul must turn wholly to Him for its life, its light, its peace, its joy, its resting-place, all good to it, all goodness in it. As the flower follows the sun, opens itself to its glow, and through that glow sends forth its fragrance and ripens its fruit, so the soul must turn to Him, the Sun of righteousness, unfold itself wholly to His life-giving glow, hide nothing from His searching beams, and through the fire of His love ripen to Him the fruits of His Spirit.

II. Conversion to God is not a mere ceasing from some sin when the temptation ceases. It is not a breaking off from outward sin, while the heart enjoys the memory of it, and enacts it again in thought. Conversion is not a passing emotion of the soul, nor is it a mere passionate sorrow or remorse. Without ceasing from sin there is no conversion. Yet to cease from sin is not alone conversion; nor is it for the soul only to condemn its own sin. It is to hate, for the love of God, whatever in the soul displeases God; it is to hate its former self for having displeased God; conversion is a change of mind, a change of the heart, a change of the life. The mind, enlightened by the grace of God, sees what once it saw not; the heart, touched by the grace of God and melted by the love of God in Christ Jesus, loves what once it loved not, and the life is changed, because the mind and heart, being changed, cannot endure the slavery to the sins which before they chose; and now they love, for the love of Jesus, to submit and subdue themselves to the love of God, which before they did not endure.

E. B. Pusey, Parochial and Cathedral Sermons,p. 16.

There is something exceedingly touching and full of instruction in the association of the words and acts of our blessed Lord with little children. If the story of redemption had been invented by man, and the Son of God had been described in His incarnate course on earth by mere human imagination, we may well conceive that this would have been otherwise. The mind of the Gospel would have been that of the disciples, who forbade the children to come to Him. Our religion would have been a stern, and forbidding, and restrictive code of morals, not the glorious Gospel of freedom and love.

I. Notice the humility of the child. We may speak with children without danger of wounding their self-esteem; we feel that it ought not to be present, and we act as if it were not. We expect to find in them a natural consciousness of their lowly position, springing from the mere simplicity and meekness of the helpless and inexperienced. Now, in humility the candidate for the kingdom of heaven must be as the little child.

II. The trusting disposition of the child is necessary for the disciple of Christ. Distrust is the offspring of worldly experience. It would be in the highest degree unnatural to find it in the disposition and behaviour of a young child. Our reconciled Father in heaven calls on us to trust Him. He invites us with no double purpose. It is as much a duty to trust God as it is to serve Him.

III. We must be teachable, like little children. The child is willing to learn, ready to receive, apt to lay up what is heard; in ordinary cases, not difficult to persuade, open to truth and to conviction. So must it be with Christ's disciples.

IV. Loving obedience. It is especially the gem and perfection of a child's character to obey. He who knows God, trusts God, is taught by God, and obeys not God is a example of inconsistency difficult to conceive. Never, for a moment, imagine that you can be right in heart towards God, without a life consciously and diligently spent in obeying Him and glorifying Him, and growing up towards a perfect man in Christ under the sanctification of His Spirit.

H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons,vol. iii., p. 116.

References: Matthew 18:3. Homiletic Magazine,vol. ix., p. 335; G. B. Ryley, Christian World Pulpit,vol. vi., p. 154; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. xv., p. 338; S. A. Brooke, Church Sermons,vol. i., p. 177; S. Baring-Gould, Preacher's Pocket,p. 52.

These words of the Lord teach us to look upon the life of the Christian as a glorified child-life.

I. As regards its faith. The child has undoubting faith in those who are set over him, in his parents and teachers. Is there any more touching picture than that of a group of children who listen to their father or mother with eager questioning eyes, and receive as gospel every word that falls from those hallowed lips? Even as children believe with unquestioning faith, so we, whom the Son of God has purchased with His precious blood, believe our Lord. Other masters may give their disciples a stone for bread, a scorpion for an egg; the word of our Lord is evermore the bread of our lives, whether we understand its full meaning or not. He who has learned this childlike faith in his Saviour is like a man who sails out of the broad sea into a sheltered haven.

II. As regards its love. The love of the child is without partiality. Let there be only a human eye, a human face, and the child will smile to greet it; the child of the prince will clasp the hand of the beggar. And may we not say that we Christians love all men without distinction, with a childlike love? To us, also, every human face is holy, but we are better off in this respect than the child; for the child loves not always wisely. His love is blind, even as his faith is ignorant. But we in whose heart the Spirit of the Lord has implanted this love for men can read on every human brow this inscription, this solemn writing, which makes every human countenance sacred: God "hath made of one blood all nations of the earth,... that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us."

III. As regards its hope. The child's hope knows no boundary. He sees no thorns in the present, and so he can enter deep into the flowery life which he sees around him, and looking out into the future, he sees the flowers of the present blooming still. The grace of Christ offers to all Christians what is most lovely in the life of the child its faith, its love, and its hope. And it offers these things transformed and glorified. The hope of the Christian is not the careless hope of the child; he knows why he hopes. Christians are children of hope, because they believe in Christ, who, as the Apostle says, is in them, "the hope of glory." Through the mercy of God, they are born again unto a lively hope.

F. A. Tholuck, Predigten,vol. iii., p. 284.