Bringing Back the Wanderers

Our Scripture reading this evening comes from the very end of James chapter 5. Indeed, it is the final two verses of James chapter 5. And they read as follows: “My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins.”

Father, we pray for your help as we study these final verses of this letter. We pray that your Word will shine into our lives in case we find ourselves as one of the “anyones” that are addressed in verse 19. We know that our hearts are “prone to wander,” that we are “prone to leave the God [we] love”;[1] and therefore, we pray that you will help us to hear your voice and to do what you say. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Well, we come to the end of our studies in James. It’s always a little bit sad. I always find it sad. I feel as though I’m leaving a good friend behind every time I finish one of these studies. But I think, as many of you have been suggesting to me, it’s long time that we were finished with these studies, and I greatly value your patience and your willingness to hold on right to the very end.

For those of us who are familiar with our way around the Bible, we have become accustomed to a certain kind of ending to these letters—particularly Paul; he often ends with gathering into the record of his letter the names of those who have been instrumental in the work in which he’s been engaged, and often he finishes with words of encouragement and certainly words of benediction. And so we ought to be struck by the rather abrupt ending that is here for us in these two verses: no benediction, no doxology, and no grace.

We surely would not think for a moment that James had left it off but rather that he had determined that this was the right and proper way to wrap things up. We ought not to be surprised by that on one level, insofar as the letter of James is a letter that is full of imperatives. It is a call to action on so many different fronts. And certainly we’ve been made aware of the fact that James is introducing his readers to a faith that functions, to faith that is not simply that which rattles in a person’s head or even stirs an individual’s heart, but rather it is a faith that reveals itself in good deeds,[2] that it is a faith that is found in a controlled tongue,[3] that it is a faith that is revealed in care for those who are widowed and those who are in affliction[4] and so on.

And as we have moved—slowly, albeit, but nevertheless resolutely—towards the exit sign, as it were, we recognize that he has dealt with those who are in trouble, offering the observation that we should engage in prayer. If we are rejoicing, we should be those who are singing the songs of praise. He addresses those who are sick with a particular word for them, and then he encourages prayer.[5] And then he says, “And I want to mention finally to you one particular issue,” and he gives this word of exhortation: “My brothers, if one of you should wander from the truth…” In other words, the Bible comes and hits each of us right between the eyes.

Our title this evening is “Winning Back the Wanderers.” But before we think about winning back those who wander, we are confronted by the letter of James, forcing us to ask of ourselves, “Am I beginning to wander? Am I a wanderer? And if so, what am I personally going to do about it?”

If you visit any local church, as in the case of visiting any shepherd and his sheep, you will find that there are sheep that are aggressive and move forward, there are those that hang towards the back, and there are those who, given any circumstance on any day, manage somehow or another always to be off and on their own, stragglers and wanderers. And if you have been around Parkside Church for any length of time, you will know that we are not any less guilty, nor are we any less marked by the existence of those who straggle and those who wander. Therefore, it is a timely word.

Murray M’Cheyne, who died at the age of twenty-nine and preached remarkable sermons even though he was so youthful, preaches in the midpart of his ministry a sermon from Hosea 7:9, which reads, “gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not.”[6] There’s an exercise for those who want to do expositional ministry. Here is an assignment for you; here is your text: “Gray hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth not.” What are you going to do with that? Well, let me tell you what M’Cheyne did with it. He said,

These words describe a state of secret backsliding, the most dangerous, perhaps, of any. It is a common thing for persons grown up in years to turn old and grey-headed without observing it. Most people are unwilling to be thought old. They do not love to notice the progress of decay, and the marks of old age are allowed to steal upon them unobserved.

And then he says, somewhat remarkably, “The teeth drop out one by one.” This is a commentary on the time in which he lived, and also on Scottish dentistry.

The hand loses its steadiness, the limbs lose their elasticity, the eye becomes dim, and gray hairs are here and there upon the head, and we are in old age before we are aware. So it is in the decay of the soul in divine things.

It creeps up upon us in such a way as we are unobservant of and, when confronted by, often unwilling to face. And he goes on to say to his congregation, “Alas! my friends, it is plain from ourselves. … Brethren, we as a congregation are a monument that there is such a thing as spiritual decay.”[7]

It seems to me that that takes confidence, courage, and striking honesty on the part of the pastor in St Peters there in Dundee. And equal courage and honesty is called for from this pulpit amongst this congregation, recognizing that every one of us who turns open the Scriptures is confronted by the Scriptures face-to-face.

We have responsibilities not simply to pray for one another but also to watch out for the well-being of one another.

Now, as we deal with this, it’s important that we recognize that the answer to the question posed by Cain back in Genesis 4:9, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”—the answer to that question is in fact yes. That we have responsibilities not simply to pray for one another but also to watch out for the well-being of one another. And what we have described here is not a call that relates to those who have not professed faith in Jesus, but it is rather a call to observe those who, having started out on the path of faith, who have given testimony often in baptism and have sat at communion with God’s people, somehow or along the journey they have gone absent without leave. And James concludes his letter with this issue surely because he recognizes the absolute importance of it.

Wandering from the Truth

Now, you will notice that he speaks concerning the wandering “from the truth.” It is a wandering “from the truth”—not truth as an abstract commodity, but truth as it is found in the Scriptures and, as we said this morning, truth as it is embodied in the Lord Jesus Christ, he who is the Truth.[8] So the individual here mentioned is someone who has begun to wander away from Jesus. They have begun to distance themselves from Christ.

And we are, he says, as a family of faith, to watch out for those wanderers. They will have departed in their minds from the things of truth, they will have gone off, often, from things that they once held dear. And if they have shifted doctrinally—and it often comes out in comments like “I no longer like to think of God like that”—when the shift goes doctrinally, you may watch for the second shoe falling, and the second shoe which falls is the moral shoe. For in twenty-five years here of pastoral experience, apart from the others overseas, it has been always the case that when I have heard someone explaining to me that they no longer like to think of God in the way they once did, they are usually seeking to reconfigure God in order to accommodate their own sinful proclivities. And the danger that is represented in that is a clear and present danger.

We wander in our minds, then we wander in our actions. We begin to think little of Jesus, and we soon have little faith in Jesus. We neglect the fact that the Bible calls us to holiness and to distinctive Christian living, and before we know where we are, we are neither holy nor distinctive in any shape. We begin to assume that God is not actually so concerned about all the things that we’ve noticed: that we would care for those who are impoverished, and so we don’t care; or that he is very concerned about the use and abuse of our tongues, and we decide that doesn’t matter either. And suddenly we find that we’re allowing language that is inappropriate to come from our lips. We’re employing our tongues as gossips and as backbiters and as slanderers. And as Spurgeon put it quite graphically, “Every error has its own outgrowth, as all decay has its [own] fungus. … When truth is dominant morality and holiness are abundant; but when error comes to the front godly living retreats in shame.”[9]

And you will notice the phrases that are virtually interchangeable: in verse 19, this individual “wander[s] from the truth,” and in verse 20, we are seeking to turn the sinner “from the error of his way.” It is simply a twofold statement of one sorry condition.

Now, we don’t want to belabor it, but we want to be clear that when this wandering takes place, let me tell you that it takes place individually. Every sin in our lives is an inside job, no matter how much we may want to blame it on our heritage or blame it on the people around us or blame it on the influence of the folks with whom we spend time. Every deviation from the narrow way is our own personal deviation. Every disinterest in the things of Jesus is our personal disinterest. Every decision to turn our back on the clear instruction of the Bible and to go our own way is something that we do as individuals. Now, if we had nowhere else to go than to stay within the letter of James, we know that, because remember he said, “Everyone, when he is tempted, is turned away and enticed by his own evil desire.”[10] And the evil temptation to wander from the truth comes upon us individually.

It also comes upon us gradually. The very word that he uses here for “wander” is planáō, which is the word in Greek which give us our word for “planet,” because planets wander around the solar system. And that’s the derivation of this word. And if we think in terms of it being some dramatic activity, we’re thinking wrongly. Rather, we ought to imagine that this is at first a sort of casual indifference to the path, then a growing disinclination to be on the path, then a stepping out of the path, and then a stepping in to other paths.

The other Sunday morning, when I drove home from church, I was remarking to myself that my car was pulling dreadfully to the right-hand side. And then the further down the road I got, I said, “This is absolutely absurd,” and then I got out, and there it was, flat as a pancake on the passenger side. Flat as a pancake. And of course, if I’d been sensible, I would have noticed that it had been going down, that there actually was a slow leak, and then, eventually, I was at the side of the road, stranded. Every wanderer who is at the side of the road, stranded, unless there has been some cataclysmic event in their lives, will find themselves there as a result of not having paid attention to the leak that they had detected before.

Every deviation from the narrow way is our own personal deviation. Every disinterest in the things of Jesus is our personal disinterest.

Individually, gradually, and willfully. Willfully. Every time we turn away from the truth of God’s Word, we turn away from it. Every time we neglect prayer, we neglect prayer. That we don’t read our Bibles, that we don’t engage in fellowship with God’s people, that we’ve ceased to tell others about Jesus—all of these things, all of these things are both contributory factors and they are evidences of what James is referring to here as an individual who wanders from the truth.

Restoring the Wanderers

Now, the rescue operation that is to be assembled is equally clear. Unlike the matter of healing, where there is a particular responsibility entrusted to the leadership of the church, you will notice that there is a general emphasis here: “If someone should bring him back…” He doesn’t designate the responsibility. Which takes us back to where we were this morning—at least some of us—to the realm of mutual care: that we would exercise diligence, that we would be watching out for one another, not in the way that the KGB watches out for people, hiding around and sneaking and doing things, but watching out for people. Because we can see in our own selves, if we’re honest, the temptations and the ease with which we may find ourselves, in Pilgrim’s Progress, in Bypath Meadow or in Doubter’s Castle or in Vanity Fair or any of those places that Bunyan mentions. And it is a responsibility that we have. It’s a responsibility that parents have to watch for their children who have professed faith in Jesus and now they’ve begun to wander. It is the responsibility of a wife to watch for her husband and for a husband, his wife. It is a responsibility for special acquaintances and close friends to take the responsibility of watching for the wanderers.

And loved ones, when this happens in a congregation, it works in a self-cleansing way. Because it means that if we’re going to in any sense say to somebody, “Hey, it looks to me like you’re not into this the way you once were,” or “I’ve noticed that you haven’t been here for three weeks in a row,” or “Why is it that you don’t carry your Bible anymore?” or “I noticed you in such and such a place,” for us to do that has a self-purifying dimension to it. Because it confronts us with the call to radical obedience. And we dare not, of course, go to somebody and point out that they have a splinter in their eye without recognizing that we might have a two-by-four sticking right outside of the front of our forehead.[11]

The concern that is to be exercised in winning the wanderers is also a spiritual concern. It’s a spiritual concern. It’s a concern that they might be restored, that they might be brought back, that they might be turned away from their error. Turned away from their error. And that’s why we read this morning from Galatians, and I said it was probably a cross-reference, and it is. Galatians 6:1: “Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted.” If you see somebody in this situation, you’re to go and deal with it. You don’t have to go running off and send for the emergency squad. We’re not there yet. You can handle this. You know these people.

Do you know how many things finally come to us at a pastoral level where all… And this is my longtime metaphor, which is—everyone’s tired of hearing me using it. I say it in the pastoral team all the time, and they know as soon as I start, they know. “He’s going to say, ‘The eggs are all smashed on the kitchen floor.’” And that’s exactly right. By the time many things reach us, people are coming to us saying, “Could you put these, the yolks and the whites and everything, could you put them back here in these shells and reassemble these eggs for us?” The answer is no. God may, but we can’t.

And here’s how it happens: somebody in the body knows and doesn’t do anything, doesn’t say anything. “Oh, I don’t want to interfere,” or “Who am I to say anything?” or “What have I got to say?” Listen, I’ll tell you what you’ve got to say. This is what you say: “Hey, hey! Look out! Wait! You’re going over the cliff! Don’t do that! Hang on! Stop!” That’s what you say. And failure for that to happen on a one-another level results almost inevitably in it finally filtering through to a crisis level where many of the circumstances concerning those who have entered into the error of their ways and who have wandered from the truth are so far gone that despite some mighty miraculous intervention of God, it seems virtually impossible to do or to say anything that would be worthwhile or restorative.

Now, if you feel the burden of that, I’m happy. Because feel it we must, for that is part of what it means to be brothers and sisters. The sister calls and says, “Hey, wait a minute.” The brother looks after his little sister. And that’s what it means to be a family. It is a spiritual work of restoration. And that approach is the approach that is curative, that is restorative, that is spiritual, and it is gentle. Gentle.

Spurgeon says, “I have known a person who has erred hunted down like a wolf.”[12] “I have known a person who has erred hunted down like a wolf.” That won’t do. For if God seeks us out and by means of his kindness he leads us to repentance, what possible justification would any one of us have for exercising any other instrument in seeking to see our brothers and sisters also come to repentance? They know what they’re doing. They know where they are. They know they’re not happy. They don’t need somebody to go at them with a bow and arrow or a whip. It will be tenderness and prayerfulness and gentleness and relentlessness that will see them turning from the error of their ways.

Oh, well, I see this, and I look at it face on, and I say to myself, “Well, that’s a very demanding thing, is it not?” Yes, it is. It demands self-sacrifice.

I have my grandfather’s shepherd’s crook in our back hallway. Goes way, way back to the Highlands of Scotland, way, way up on the North Sea. I never knew my grandfather. He died before I was born. I think it’s the only thing I possess that was his. But he was a shepherd. Therefore, it’s probably as good as anything he might have given me. And sometimes I just take it from outwith the little group of umbrellas, and I hold it in my hand, and I look at it, and I say, “Look at this thing! Imagine what this has done. Imagine all the prodding that it’s done. Imagine all the whacks on the nose that it has administered. And imagine how many times it has crooked down there on those cliffy coasts of Scotland and grabbed up a little one that was destined for destruction were it not for the intervention of a gentle shepherd.”

Was there ever kinder shepherd
Half so gentle, half so sweet,
As the Savior who would have us
Come and gather at his feet?[13]

No, for those of us who are interested in this kind of intervention because it sort of rings a bell in our own unpalatable psyche, let us heed Spurgeon’s words: “I have known a person who has erred hunted down like a wolf.” That is not the way.

The Impact of Intervention and Restoration

And then, finally, you will notice clearly what we’re told about the impact of such a ministry of intervention and restoration: “Whoever turns a sinner”—this is what we are, sinners, wandering sinners—“from the error of [their] way will save him from death.” Because you see, death is the result of sin.[14] And the security of a believer is a security that is known to God and a security that is ministered to the believer as the Spirit bears witness with our spirits—Romans 8—that we are the children of God.[15] But disobedience to God’s Word, wandering from God’s truth, and an assurance of God’s consistent companionship do not go hand in hand. Indeed, there is never a time more worrisome than when we know ourselves to be deliberately wandering from the truth and erring from the way and we are seeking to theologize our circumstances by assuring ourselves of our security in Christ: “Oh, but this doesn’t matter, because I’m secure in Christ.”

Listen, and listen carefully: it matters. Because it is impossible to tell in the moment whether we are temporarily backslidden or whether we are on the road to apostasy. And indeed, when we look at others who have wandered from the truth, our best assumption is that they have merely slid back. But eternity will reveal, if time does not, whether their profession was true and whether their restoration was real.

That’s why, you see, each of us is judged by the same test. Two Timothy 2:19: “The Lord knows them that are his. Let them who name the name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness.”[16] “The Lord knows them that are his.” It’s not in any doubt at all. The absolute security and completion of a work of grace is never called into question. God always completes what he’s begun. There is no doubt about that. The Scriptures are full with that. But here: “The Lord knows them that are his.” And the evidence that we are his is to be found in our departing from iniquity. So when we turn from the path that is narrow and holy into the path that is wide and unrighteous,[17] we call in question for ourselves and for those who observe the very profession of faith that we have made.

In the books of heaven, credited to the name of those who are in Christ, is all of the righteousness of Jesus, everything paid up in full, everything dealt with absolutely as God purposed.

Well, it’s daunting stuff, isn’t it? But here’s the wonderful promise: Whenever we have the privilege of seeing somebody restored, they’re saved from death, and a multitude of sins is covered over. It covered over a multitude of sins. This wonderful picture is there in Psalm 32 and in Psalm 85 and in Romans chapter 4. We don’t have time to go to it. But it is a reminder of the way God treats us: his willingness to conceal in his presence the faults of the penitent sinner—the willingness of God to conceal in his presence the faults of the penitent sinner. “If you, O Lord, kept a record of our sins, which of us could stand?”[18]—that in the books of heaven, credited to the name of those who are in Christ, is all of the righteousness of Jesus, everything paid up in full, everything dealt with absolutely as God purposed. Hence the believer’s security.

And when we think of God’s love expressed in that way—epitomized, if you like, in the story of the father in Luke 15 who runs down the street to welcome back his penitent boy[19]—we also are to run down the streets to welcome back our penitent brothers and sisters and to take with us, as it were, a huge, big blanket of forgiveness. And as soon as we meet them and reach them, we will cover them over with it so as not to gloat over their sins and their mess, so as not to expose them to other people, so as not to make fun of them, because we know that there but for the grace of God, we would be there. And it is a terrible thing when those who go to restore go as they were warring against wolves or go absent the blanket of God’s forgiveness. If he covers over the record of all our rebellion, if he chooses never to remember it anymore, are you going to tell me that you have the prerogative to hold as an offense against you the sins of others as you go through your life? Whether it be your husband or your wife or whoever else it is, you do not! And you must not.

And therefore, when the penitent is prepared to be returned from the error of their ways, when they are asked to come back into the straight and narrow road, it’s time for a party. It’s time for the killing of the fatted calf. It’s time for us to get up on our feet and to dance. And do you know how many young people are longing for that kind of welcome? They know their lives are a shambles. They don’t need someone to tell them that. They need somebody to come and say, “Hey. Hey. It doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way.”

Where is the blessedness [you] knew
When first [you saw] the Lord?
Where is the soul-refreshing view
Of Jesus and his Word?[20]

“What’s happened to you?”

“Ach, I just stopped reading my Bible. I just stopped coming to the thing. I used to go with the singles, but I… There was someone there that I liked and now I don’t like, and I didn’t…”

“Oh, I understand. I know how all of that goes. But come on, now. We’re all here on the path, and we’re all waiting for you, and we all want to see you. And we’re not here to expose your sins or to gloat over your offenses. We are here to welcome you with the forgiveness of Jesus.”

Now, let me finish with one final word, and that is to turn it all the way back around to ourselves. “My brothers [and sisters], if one of you should wander from the truth…” Let me say this to each of us—to each of us, starting with me: it is absolutely imperative that we continue to check for leaks in our souls. To check for leaks in our souls. It is a matter of presumption, not assurance, that says, “There is no reason for me to check. After all…” It is because of the “after all” that there is every reason for us to check. So will you check?

The best way to handle this stuff is to take your own inventory—not to have to wait till somebody comes and says, “Hey, you’ve wandered,” but to get alone with God and to say, “You know what? I have wandered. I’m not where I once was. I used to be far more zealous. I was far more interested in reading my Bible.” Whatever it may be. “The means of grace were precious to me. Now it’s a routine to me.” What is that? It’s an evidence of spiritual warfare, and it’s a reminder of the fact that each of us, because we live where we live, are exposed to the danger of the leak in our own souls.

Well, that’s the book of James. Finito.

Let’s pray together:

O God our Father, look upon us in your mercy, we pray. Forgive us for wanting immediately to be the ones running around with the stretcher, the ones out with the flashlights, and help us to face the fact that we need someone to come to us. We’re unsettled by the searchlight of your Word, because it’s like a CAT scan. It’s like an MRI, and it exposes the hidden deeds of darkness; it shows up where we really are. Everything may look good on the outside, but it shows us what’s really going on inside—phenomenally uncomfortable. But we thank you that you do this in order that you might heal us, that you might restore us.

And thank you that you don’t do it from afar, but you do it up close, and you do it by bringing our friends and our loved ones to us, so that those who love us best are the ones who are prepared to be brave enough to wound us. “Faithful are the wounds of a friend.”[21] Flattery comes from the lips of those who disdain us.

Oh, help us as a church, Lord. Because we know that M’Cheyne was right concerning his congregation, and he was right concerning ours: that we exist in part as a monument to the reality of spiritual decay in our souls.

Meet with us, God, we pray. Fill us anew with your Holy Spirit. Shower upon us the blessings of your forgiving grace so that we in turn may be emblems of that same forgiveness and restorative joy in the lives of one another.

May we stand before you one day without regret, or at least with minimal regret, in relation to the things we’ve considered today. For Jesus’ sake we ask it. Amen.

[1] Robert Robinson, “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing” (1758).

[2] See James 1:22–25; James 2:14–26.

[3] See James 1:26; James 3:3–12.

[4] See James 1:27.

[5] See James 5:13–16.

[6] Hosea 7:9 (KJV).

[7] Robert Murray M’Cheyne, “Grey Hairs Are upon Him,” in The Works of the Late Rev. Robert Murray McCheyne (New York, 1847), 2:500–501.

[8] See John 14:6.

[9] C. H. Spurgeon, “To Sabbath-School Teachers and Other Soul-Winners,” The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit 19, no. 1137, 579–80.

[10] James 1:14 (paraphrased).

[11] See Matthew 7:3; Luke 6:41.

[12] Spurgeon, “To Sabbath-School Teachers,” 580.

[13] Frederick W. Faber, “There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy” (1854).

[14] See Romans 6:23.

[15] See Romans 8:16.

[16] 2 Timothy 2:19 (paraphrased).

[17] See Matthew 7:13–14.

[18] Psalm 130:3 (paraphrased).

[19] See Luke 15:20.

[20] William Cowper, “O for a Closer Walk with God” (1772).

[21] Proverbs 27:6 (KJV).