Chapter C: B. Gillette (5)

But Jesus read their thoughts, and quickly rebuked them. He said: “Simeon, I have something to say to thee.”

Simeon answered: “Master, say on.”

“Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water to wash my feet; but she has washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss, but this woman, since I came in, hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with ointment thou didst not anoint, but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment.”

Simeon was like many Pharisees nowadays, who say: “Oh, well! We will entertain that minister if we must. We do not want to, for he is a dreadful nuisance; but we will have to put up with him. It is our duty to be patronizing.”

Well, the Master said more to His entertainer, as follows:

“There was a certain creditor which had two debtors. One owed 500 pence and the other 50 pence, and when he had nothing to pay----”

Mark that, sinner; the debtor had nothing to pay. There is no sinner in the world who can pay any thing to cancel his debt to God. The great trouble is that sinners think they can pay--some of them 75 cents on the dollar, some even feel able to pay 99 cents on the dollar, and the one cent that they are short they believe can be made up in some manner. That is not the correct way; it is all wrong; you must throw all the debt on God. Some few, very likely, will only claim to pay 25 cents on the dollar, but they are not humble enough, either; they can not begin to carry out their bargain. Why, sinner, you could not pay one-tenth part of a single mill of the debt you are under to God.

Now, it is said in this parable the debtors could not pay their creditor any thing; they had nothing to give, and their creditor frankly forgave them both.

“Now, Simeon,” the Master asked, “which should love that man the more?”

“I suppose,” was the reply, “he that was forgiven the more.”

“You have rightly judged. This woman loves much because she has been forgiven much.” And Jesus went on to tell Simeon all about her. I suppose He wanted to make it plainer to Simeon, and He turned to the poor woman and said:

“Thy sins are forgiven; go in peace.”

All her sins were forgiven--not simply part of them; not half them, but every sin from the cradle up. Every impurity is blotted out for time and eternity.

Yes, truly, she went out in peace, for she went out in the light of Heaven. With what brightness the light must have come down to her from those eternal hills! With what beauty it must have flashed on her soul!

Yes, she came to the feet of the Master for a blessing, and she received it.

THE GOOD SAMARITAN.

We are told that as Jesus stood with His disciples a man, a lawyer, stood up and tempted Him.

The lawyer asked Jesus this question:

“Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”

He asked what he could do to inherit eternal life--what he could do to buy salvation.

Jesus answered his question by asking another question: “What is written in the law? How readest thou?”

To this the lawyer answered:

“Thou shalt love the Lord God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself.”

“Thou hast answered right. But who is ‘thy neighbor?’”

Then Jesus drew a vivid picture, which has been told for the last eighteen hundred years, and I do not know any thing that brings out more truthfully the wonderful power of the Gospel than this story. It is the story of the man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and who fell among thieves.

Jerusalem was called the City of Peace. Jericho and the road leading to it were infested with thieves. Probably it had been taken possession of by the worst of Adam’s sons.

From the Painting by Gustave Dore.]

I do not know how far the man got from Jerusalem toward Jericho, but the thieves had come out and fallen upon him, and had taken all his money, stripped him of his clothing and left him wounded. I suppose they left him for dead.

By-and-by, a priest came down the road from Jerusalem. We are told that he came by chance. Perhaps he was going down to dedicate some synagogue or preach a sermon on some important subject, and had the manuscript in his pocket.

As he was going along on the other side, he heard a groan. He turned around, and saw the poor fellow, lying bleeding on the ground, and pitied him. He went up close, took a look at him, and said: “Why, that man is a Jew! He belongs to the seed of Abraham. If I remember aright, I saw him in the synagogue last Sabbath. I pity him; but I have too much business, and I can not attend to him.”

He felt a pity for him, and looked on him, and probably wondered why God allowed such men as were those thieves to come into the world. Then he passed by.

There are many men just like this priest. They stop to discuss and wonder why sin came into the world, and look upon a wounded man, but do not stop to pick up a poor sinner--forgetting the fact that sin is in the world already, and must be rooted out.

Soon another man came along, a Levite, and he also heard the groans of the robbers’ victim. He, too, turned about and looked upon him with pity. He felt compassion for him. He was one of those men that, if we had him here, we would probably make an elder or a deacon. He looked at the suffering man and said: “Poor fellow! He is all covered with blood! He has been badly hurt; he is nearly dead; and they have taken all his money and stripped him naked! Ah, well; I pity him.” He would like to extend help, but he, too, has very pressing business; and so he passes by on the other side. But he has scarcely got out of sight when another one comes along, riding on a beast. He heard the groans of the wounded man, and went over and took a good look at him.

The traveler was a Samaritan. When he looked down he saw the man was a Jew.

Ah, how the Jews looked down upon the Samaritans. There was a great, high partition wall between the Jews and the Samaritans. The Jews would not allow them in the Temple; they would not have any dealings with them; they would not associate with them.

I can see him coming along that road, with his good, benevolent face; and as he passes he hears a groan from the poor fellow. He draws in his beast, and pauses to listen. “And he came to where he was.”

This is the sweetest thing, to my mind, in the whole story.

A good many people would like to help a poor man if he was on the platform--if it cost them no trouble. They want him to come to them. They are afraid to touch the wounded man; he is all over blood, and they will get their hands soiled.

And that was just the way with the priest and the Levite. This poor man, perhaps, had paid half of all his means to help the service in the Temple, and might have been a constant worshiper; but they only felt pity for him.

This good Samaritan “came to where he was,” and after he saw him he had compassion on him. That word “compassion”--how sweet it sounds! The first thing he did on hearing him cry for water--the hot sun had been pouring down upon his head--was to go and get it from a brook. Then he goes and gets a bag, that he had with him--what we might call a carpet-bag or a saddle-bag in the West--and pours in oil on his wounds. Then he says to himself: “The poor fellow is weak.” So he goes and gets a little wine. He has been lying so long in the burning sun that he is nearly dead now--he had been left half dead--and the wine revives him.

The good Samaritan looks him over, and sees all the wounds that need to be bound up. But he has nothing to do this with. I can see him now, tearing the lining out of his coat, and with it binding up his wounds. Then he takes him up and lays him on his bosom until he is revived, and, when the poor fellow gets strength enough, the good Samaritan puts him on his own beast.

If the Jew had not been half dead he would never have allowed the Samaritan to put his hands on him. He would have treated him with scorn. But he is half dead, and he can not prevent the good Samaritan treating him kindly and putting him on his beast.

Did you ever stop to think what a strong picture it would have been if the Samaritan had not been able himself to get the man on the beast--if he had needed to call any assistance?

Perhaps a man would have come along, and he would have asked him to help him with the wounded man.

“What are you?”

“I am a Samaritan.”

“You are a Samaritan, are you? I can not help you--I am a Jew.”

There is a good deal of that spirit today--just as strong as it was then. When we are trying to get a poor man on the right way--when we are tugging at him to get his face toward Zion--we ask some one to help us, but he says: “I am a Roman Catholic.”

“Well,” you say, “I am a Protestant.”

So they give no assistance to one another.

The same spirit of old is present today. The Protestants will have nothing to do with the Catholics; the Jews will have nothing to do with the Gentiles. And there was a time--but, thank God, we are getting over it--when a Methodist would not touch a Baptist nor a Presbyterian a Congregationalist; and if we beheld a Methodist taking a man out of the ditch, a Baptist was sure to ask:

“What are you going to do with him?”

“Take him to a Methodist church.”

“Well, I’ll have nothing to do with him.”

A great deal of this has gone by, and the time is certainly coming when, if we are trying to get a man out of the ditch, and they see us tugging at him, and we are so faint that we can not get him on the beast, they will help him. And that is what Christ wants.

Well, the Samaritan gets him on his beast, and says to him:

“You are very weak, but my beast is sure-footed; he’ll take you to the inn, and I’ll hold you.”

He held him firmly, and God is able to hold every one He takes out of the pit. I see them going along the road, he holding him on, and he gets him to the inn. He gets him there, and he says to the inn keeper:

“Here is a wounded man; the thieves have been after him; give him the best attention you can; nothing is too good for him.”

I can imagine the good Samaritan as stopping there all night, sitting up with him, and attending to his every need. And the next morning he gets up and says to the landlord:

“I must be off; I leave a little money to pay you for what the man has had, and if that is not enough I will pay what is necessary when I return from my business in Jericho.”

This good Samaritan gave this landlord twopence to pay for what he had got, and promised to come again and repay whatever had been spent to take care of the man, and he had given him, besides, all his sympathy and compassion.

Jesus tells this story in answer to the lawyer who came to tempt Him, and showed that the Samaritan was the neighbor.

Now, this story is brought out here to teach church-goers this thing: It is not creed or doctrine that we need so much as compassion and sympathy.

THE LEPER.

See that poor leper! Do you know what an awful thing leprosy is? A disease so terrible that it separates its victim from all the world, and makes him an outcast, even from his home. Every one is afraid of him. His disease is so contagious that to touch him or even to breathe the air near him is dangerous; and so these poor, afflicted wretches have to go away and live in cave or desert all alone.

They sit by the wayside afar off, calling to the passers-by for charity--who sometimes throw them a piece of money and hurry off, lest they also come into that terrible plight.

Here is a poor man who finds the marks of what he thinks is this terrible disease upon his body. According to the law, he must go to the priest and be examined.

Alas! The priest says it is leprosy--nothing else.

Now the poor man, with broken heart, turns away from the Temple. He goes to his house, to say good-by to his wife and to take his children in his arms once more before he goes away to spend the long years in the wilderness alone, or with other lepers like himself, until death shall come to deliver him from his sufferings.

What a sorry house is that! Surely, this is worse than death itself.

He goes out of his door with no hope of ever entering it again. He walks the street by himself, and if any one comes near he lifts up his voice in that mournful cry:

“Unclean! Unclean!”

Out of the gates of the city he goes, away from all his friends and acquaintances, carrying with him the sorrow of separation and the seeds of death.

One day he sees a crowd passing along the road, but he dares not go near enough to inquire what it is. All at once he happens to think it may be that Prophet of Nazareth whom he had heard of--that same Man that, people said, could open the eyes of blind men, make lame men to walk, and who had even raised the son of the widow from death, over there at Nain. If only He were passing! At any rate, he will take the chances, and cry out after Him; and so he shouts, at the top of his voice:

“Have mercy upon me!”

All the rest of the crowd are afraid of him, but Jesus, who is in the midst, hears some one calling; and, just as He always did when any one wanted any thing of Him, He stopped to find out what it was.

He is not afraid of the leper; and so, while the rest of the crowd stand apart by themselves, He calls the poor fellow up to Him, and asks him what he wants.

The leper, with his heart full of anxious hope, makes answer:

“Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean.”

Jesus says: “I will; be thou clean.”

A strange sense of health and strength comes suddenly over the man. He looks at his hands, and finds the leprosy all gone. He begins to pour out his heart in thanks to Jesus, who sends him away to the priests, saying: “Go, show thyself to the priests, and offer the gift that Moses commanded.”

Now, I seem to see that cleansed leper, hurrying off to show himself to the priest, to be pronounced cured, according to the law; and then hastening to his little home, to see his wife and children once more. He bursts into the house, weeping for joy. He stretches out his arms to his wife and little ones, saying: “I am clean! Jesus did it--Jesus of Nazareth.”

THE PENITENT THIEF.

I am going to take for my text, this morning, “A Man”--the last one that Jesus saved before He returned to Heaven.

The fact that Jesus saved such a man at all ought to give every one of us much hope and comfort. This man was a thief--a highwayman and murderer, perhaps--and yet Christ takes him with Him when He ascends to glory; and if Jesus is not ashamed of such a man, surely no class of sinners need to feel that they are left out.

It is a blessed fact that all kinds of men and women are represented among the converts in the Gospels, and almost all of them were converted suddenly.

Very many people object to sudden conversions, but you may read in the Acts of the Apostles of eight thousand people converted in two days. That seems to me rather quick work. If all the Christians before me this morning would only consecrate themselves to the work of Christ, they might be the means of converting that number before the week is out.

Let us look at Christ hanging on the cross, between two thieves--the Scribes and Pharisees wagging their heads and jeering at Him, His disciples gone away, and only His mother and one or two other women in sight to cheer Him with their presence, among all this concourse of enemies--relentless and mocking enemies.

Hear those spiteful Pharisees calling out to Jesus: “If Thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross, and we will believe on Thee.” And the account says that the two thieves cast the same in His teeth.

So, then, the first thing that we know of our man is that he is a reviler of Christ. You might reasonably think that he ought to be doing something else at such a time as this; but, hanging there in the midst of his tortures, and certain to be dead in a few hours, instead of confessing his sins and preparing to meet the God whose laws he had broken all his life--instead of that, he is abusing God’s only Son. Surely, this man can not sink any lower until he sinks into hell!

The next thing we hear of him, he appears to be under conviction. Nobody is ever converted until he is convicted.

In the twenty-third chapter of Luke we read:

“And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on Him, saying: ‘If Thou be the Christ, save Thyself and us.’ But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying: ‘Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this man hath done nothing amiss.’”

What, do you suppose, it was that made this great change in this man’s feelings in these few hours?

Christ had not preached him a sermon--had given him no exhortation. The darkness had not yet come on; the Earth had not opened its mouth; the business of death was going on as usual; the crowd was still there, mocking and hissing and wagging their heads; and yet this man, who in the morning was railing at Christ, is now confessing his sins.

“We indeed justly.”

No miracle had been wrought before his eyes. The Son of God had not come down from the cross. No angel from Heaven had come to place a glittering crown upon His head, in place of the bloody crown of thorns.

What was it, then?

I will tell you what I think it was. I think it was the Savior’s prayer:

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

I seem to hear this thief talking with himself in this fashion:

“What a strange kind of man this must be! He says He is King of the Jews; and the superscription on His cross says the same thing. But what sort of a throne is this? He says He is the Son of God. Why does not God send down His angels, and destroy all this great gathering of people that are torturing His Son? If He has all power now, as He used to have when He worked those miracles they talk about, why does He not bring out His vengeance, and sweep all these wretches into destruction? I would do it in a minute, if I had the power. Oh, if I could, I would open the Earth, and swallow up these tormentors!

“But this man prays to God to ‘forgive them.’

“Strange! Strange! He must be different from the rest of us. I am sorry that I said one word against Him when they first hung us up here. What a difference there is between Him and me!

“Here we are, hanging on two crosses--side by side; but all the rest of our lives we have been far enough apart. I have been robbing and murdering, but He has been visiting the hungry, healing the sick, and raising the dead. Now these people are railing at us both. What a strange world is this!

“I will not rail at Him any more. Indeed, I begin to believe He must be the Son of God; for, surely, no son of man could forgive his enemies this way.”

That is what did it, my friends.

This poor man had been scourged and beaten and nailed to the cross, and hung up there for the world to gaze upon; and he was not sorry for his sins one single bit--did not feel the least conviction on account of all that misery. But when he heard the Savior praying for His murderers that broke his heart.

I remember to have heard a story, somewhere, of a bad boy that had run away from home. He had given his father no end of trouble. He had refused all the invitations that his father had sent him to come home and be forgiven, and help to comfort his old heart. He had even gone so far as to scoff at his father and mother.

But one day a letter came, telling him his father was dead, and they wanted him to come home and attend the funeral.

At first he determined he would not go, but then he thought it would be a shame not to pay some little show of respect to the memory of so good a man after he was dead; and so, just as a matter of form, he took a train and went to the old home.

He sat through all the funeral services, saw his kind old father buried, and came back with the rest of the friends to the house, with his heart as cold and stony as ever. But when the old man’s will was brought out to be read, the ungrateful son found that his father had remembered him along with all the other members of the family in the will, and had left him an inheritance with the others, who had not gone astray.

This broke his heart.

It was too much for him, that his old father, during all those years in which he had been so wicked and so rebellious, had never ceased to love him.

That is just the way our Father in Heaven does with us. That is just the way Jesus does with people who refuse to give their hearts to Him. He loves them in spite of their sins, and it is the love which, more than any thing else, brings hard-hearted sinners to fall upon their knees.

Now, this thief on the cross confessed his sins. A man may be very sorry for his sins; but, if he does not confess them, he has no promise of being forgiven. The thief says: “We are suffering justly.” I never knew any man to be converted until he confessed.

Cain felt bad enough over his sins, but he did not confess.

Saul was greatly tormented in his mind, but he went to the Witch of Endor rather than to the Lord.

Judas felt so bad over the betrayal of his Master that he went out and hanged himself; but he did not confess--that is, he did not confess to God. He came back and confessed to the priests, saying: “I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood.” It was of no use to confess to them; they could not forgive him. What he should have done was to confess to God; but instead of that, he rushed out and hanged himself.

How different is the case with the penitent thief! He confesses his sins to Christ, and Christ has mercy on him at once.

Just here is one of the great difficulties with many people. They do not like to come up face to face with their sins. They do not like to own that they are sinners. They excuse themselves in every way. They think they are not very bad sinners; that there are a great many worse than they are; and so they try to cover up the great fact that this penitent thief confesses openly. My friends, you never will be saved, so long as you try to cover up your sins.

We have heard a great deal about the faith of Abraham and the faith of Moses; but this man seems to me to have had more faith than any of them. He stands at the head of his class.

God was twenty-five years toning up the faith of Abraham; Moses was forty years getting ready for his work; but this thief, right here in the midst of men who rejected Him--nailed to the cross and racked with pain in every nerve, overwhelmed with horror, and his soul in a perfect tempest--still manages to lay hold upon Christ, and trust in Him for a swift salvation. His heart goes out to the Savior. How glad he would be to fall on his knees at the foot of that cross, and pour out his prayer to Him who was hanging on it! But this he can not do. His hands and feet are nailed fast to the wood; but they can not nail his eyes, nor his heart. He can, at least, turn his head, and look upon the Son of God; and his breaking heart can go out in love to the One who is dying beside him--dying for him, and dying for you and me.

And what did Jesus say in answer to his prayer?

That prayer was a confession of Christ. He calls Jesus “Lord,” and begs to be remembered in His kingdom. That must be a kingdom in Heaven--for, surely, there was no chance of a kingdom on Earth, as matters looked at that time.

Christ fulfilled His promise to the thief:

“Whoso confesseth Me before men, him will I confess before my Father and the holy angels.”

He looks kindly upon him, and says:

“Today thou shalt be with Me in Paradise.”

And now the darkness falls upon the Earth; the Sun hides itself; but, worse than all, the Father hides His face from the Son. What else is the meaning of that bitter cry?

“My God! My God! Why hast Thou forsaken Me?”

Ah! It had been written:

“Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.”

Jesus is made a curse for us. God can not look upon sin; and now His own Son is bearing, in His own body, the sins of the world; and so He can not look upon Him.

I think that was what was heaviest upon the Savior’s heart, away there in the Garden, when He prayed: “If it be possible, let this cup pass away from Me.”

He could bear the unfaithfulness of His friends, the spite of His enemies, the pain of His crucifixion and the shadow of death. He could bear all these. But when it came to the hiding of His Father’s face, that seemed almost too much for even the Son of God to bear. But even this He endured for our sins; and now the face of God is turned back to us, whose sins had turned it away, and looking upon Jesus, the sinless One, He sees our souls in Him.

In the midst of all His agony, how sweet it must have been to Christ to hear that poor thief confessing Him! He likes to have men confessing Him.

Do you remember His asking Peter: “Who do men say that I am?”

Peter answered: “Some people say You are Moses; some people say You are Elias, and some people say You are one of the old prophets.”

He asked again: “But, Peter, who do you say that I am?”

And when Peter said “Thou art the Son of God,” Jesus blessed him for that confession.

And now this thief confesses Him--confesses Him in the darkness. Perhaps it is so dark he can not see Him any longer; but he feels that He is there beside him.

This poor thief did as much for Christ in that one act as if he had lived and worked for Him fifty years. That is what Christ wants of us--to confess Him; in the dark as well as in the light, and when it is hard as well as when it is easy. For He was not ashamed of us, and carried our sins even unto death.

Just look for a minute at the prayer of this penitent thief.

He calls Jesus “Lord.” That sounds like a young convert. “Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom.” Not a very long prayer, you see, but a prevailing prayer.

Some people think they must have a form of prayer--a prayer book, perhaps--if they are going to address the Throne of Grace properly. But what would that poor fellow do with a prayer book up there--hanging on the cross, his hands nailed fast to the wood? Suppose it were necessary that some minister or priest should pray for him, what is he going to do? There is nobody there to pray for him, and he is going to die within a few hours. He is out of reach of help from men, but God has laid help upon One who is mighty, and that One is close at hand.

Then look at the answer to his prayer. The supplicant received more than he asked. He only asked to be remembered when Christ came into His kingdom. But Christ said to him: “I will take you right up with Me into My kingdom today.”

The Savior wants us all to remember Him in His old kingdom--to remember Him in the breaking of bread and in the drinking of wine--and then He will remember us in the new kingdom.

Just think of this, my friends. The last the world ever saw of Christ He was on the cross. The last business of His life was the saving of a poor penitent thief. That was a part of His triumph; that was one of the glories attending His death.

No doubt Satan said to himself: “I will have the soul of that thief, pretty soon, down here in the caverns of the lost. He belongs to me; he has belonged to me all these years.”

From the Painting by Gustave Dore.]

But Christ snapped the fetters of his soul, and set him at liberty; Satan lost his prey. “The Lion of the tribe of Judah” conquered the lion of hell.

You know that in the British colonies, before the day of Wilberforce, there used to be a great many slaves; but that good man began to agitate the question of setting them free; and all the slaves in the colonies, when they heard of it, were very anxious to hear how he was getting along. They knew the bill was before Parliament, and with them it was a question next to that of life itself.

But in those days there were no telegraphs and no steamships. The mails went by the slow sailing vessels. They would be from six to eight months in making the voyage to some of the more distant of the colonies. The slaves used to watch for the white sails of British ships, hoping to hear good reports, and also fearing they might hear bad ones.

There was a ship that had sailed immediately after the Emancipation Act had been passed and signed by the king; and when she came within hailing distance of the boats that had put off from the shore at the port of her destination, the captain could not wait to deliver the message officially, and have it duly promulgated by the government; but, seeing the anxious men standing up in their boats, eager for the news, he placed his trumpet to his mouth, and shouted with all his might:

“Free! Free!”

Just so the angels shouted when this poor bondman of Satan’s, almost in the jaws of the pit, was taken in hand by the Savior Himself; delivered from the bondage of darkness into the liberty of His dear Son! Free--free from sin--free from the curse of the law--free, too, in a short time, from the bonds of the flesh.

What a contrast! In the morning he is led out a condemned criminal; in the evening he is saved from his sins. In the morning he is cursing; in the evening he is singing hallelujahs with a choir of angels. In the morning he is condemned by men as not fit to live on Earth; in the evening he is reckoned good enough for Heaven.

Christ was not ashamed to walk arm-in-arm with him along the golden pavements of the Eternal City.

He had heard the Savior’s cry: “It is finished.” He had seen the spear thrust into His side. Jesus had died before his very eyes, and hastened before him to get a place ready for this first soul brought from the world after He had died.

You have heard of the child that did not like to die and go to Heaven, because he did not know anybody there. But the thief had one acquaintance--even the Master of the place. He calls to Gabriel, and says:

“Prepare a chariot; make haste! There is a friend of Mine hanging upon that cross. They are breaking his legs; he soon will be ready to come. Make haste and bring him to Me.”

And the angel in the chariot sweeps down the sky, takes up the soul of the poor penitent thief, and hastens back again to glory; while the gates of the city swing wide open, and the angels shout their welcome to this poor sinner--“washed in the blood of the Lamb.”

And that, my friends, is just what Christ wants to do for every sinner. He wants to save you. That is the business on which He came down from Heaven. That is why He died; and if He gives such great and swift salvation to this poor thief on the cross, surely He will give you the same deliverance, if, like the penitent thief, you will repent, confess and trust in the Savior.

Somebody says that this man “was saved at the eleventh hour.” I do not know about that. Perhaps it was the first hour. It might have been the first hour with him, I think. Perhaps he never knew Christ until he was led out to die beside Him. This may have been the very first time he had ever learned the way of faith in the Son of God.

But how many of you gave your hearts to Christ the very first time He asked them of you? Are you not farther along in the day than even that poor thief?

A little while ago, in one of the mining districts of England, a young man attended one of our meetings, and refused to go from the place till he had found peace in the Savior. The next day he went down into the pit, and the coal fell in upon him; and when they took him out he was broken and mangled, and had only about two or three minutes of life left in him. His friends gathered about him, saw his lips moving, and, bending down their ears to catch his words, this was what they heard him say: “It was a good thing I settled it last night.”

* * * * *

Begin now to confess your sins, and to pray the Lord to remember you when He cometh into His kingdom.

THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN.

In this first parable we are told that men ought to pray always and everywhere; that prayer should not be left to a few in the churches, but all men ought to pray.

Jesus gives us a picture, so that we may understand in what spirit we ought to pray.

Two men went up to the Temple--one to pray to himself and the other to pray to God.

I think it will be safe to divide the audience into two bodies, and put them under these two heads. However, whether we divide the audience or not, we come under these two heads--those who have the spirit of the publican and those who have the spirit of the Pharisee.

You can find that the entire community may be correctly divided into these two classes. The spirit of the prodigal and the spirit of an elder brother are still in the world; the spirits of Cain and Abel are still in the world, and these two are representative men.

One of them trusted in his own righteousness and the other did not have any trust in it, and I say I think all men will come under these two heads. They have either given up all their self-righteousness--renounced it all and turned their backs upon it--or else they are clinging to their own righteousness; and you will find that these self-righteous men that are ever clinging to their own righteousness are continually measuring themselves by their neighbors.

“I thank God that I am not as other men are.”

This was the spirit of that Pharisee, and this is the spirit today of one class in this community, and the other class comes under the head of this other man.

Let us look at the man Christ pictured first.

It is evident that he was full of egotism--full of conceit--full of pride; and I believe, as I have said before on this platform, that is one of the greatest enemies the Son of God has today, and I believe it keeps more men from the kingdom of God than any thing else.

Pride can grow on any soil, in any climate. No place is too hot for it, and no place is too cold for its growth. How much misery it has caused in this world! How many men here are kept from salvation by pride!

Why, it sprung up into Heaven, and for it Lucifer was cast out; by pride Nebuchadnezzar lost his throne. As he walked through Babylon he cried: “Is not this a great Babylon which I have built?” And he was hurled from his throne.

How many men that have become drunkards, who are all broken up--will gone, health gone--and yet are just as full of pride as the sun is of light! It will not let them come to Christ and be saved.

A great many live like this Pharisee--only in the form of religion; they do not want the wheat--only the husk; they do not want the kernel--only the shell.

How many men are today just living on empty form! They say their prayers, but they do not mean any thing.

Why, this Pharisee said plenty of prayers, but how did he pray? He prayed to himself. He might as well have prayed to a post. He did not pray to God, who knew his heart a thousand times better than he himself did. He thought he knew himself; he forgot that he was a sepulcher, full of dead men’s bones; forgot that his heart was rotten, corrupt and vile; and he comes and spreads out his hands and looks up to Heaven.

Why, the very angels in Heaven veil their faces before God as they cry: “Holy, holy, holy!”

But this Pharisee comes into the Temple and spreads out his hands, and says:

“Lord, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are. I fast twice a week.”

He set before God what he had done in comparison with other men, and was striking a balance and making out God to be his debtor, as thousands are doing today; and then he says: “I give one-tenth of all I possess.”

I suppose if he was living in Chicago now, and we had gone to him and asked him for a donation to help put up this Tabernacle, he would have said:

“Well, I think it will do good; yes, I think it will. It may reach the vagabonds and outcasts--I do not need it, of course--but if it will reach that class it will do good. I will give $50, especially if you can get it in the morning papers--if you can have it announced: ‘John Jones gave $50 to build the Tabernacle.’”

That is the way some of the people give donations to God’s cause; they give in a patronizing way. But in this manner God will not accept it. If your heart does not go with your gift, God will not accept it.

This Pharisee says: “I give one-tenth of all that I have; I keep up the services in the Temple; I fast twice a week.”

He fasted twice a week, although once was only called for, and he thought because of this he was far above other men. A great many people nowadays think because they do not eat meat on Fridays, but only fish, they deserve great credit, although they go on sinning all the week.

Look at this prayer! There is no confession there. He had got so bad, and the devil had so covered up his sins, that he was above confession.

The first thing we have to do when we come to God is to confess. If there is any sin clustering around the heart, bear in mind we can have no communion with God. It is because we have sin about our hearts that our prayers do not go any higher than our head. We can not get God’s favor if we have any iniquity in our hearts.

People, like the Pharisee, have only been educated to pray. If they did not pray every night their consciences would trouble them, and they would get out of bed and say their prayers; but the moment they get off their knees, perhaps, you may hear them swearing.

A man may just as well get a string of beads and pray to them. It would do him as much good.

This Pharisee’s prayer showed no spirit of contrition; there was no petition; he did not ask any thing from God. This is a queer kind of prayer:

“Lord, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are--extortionate, unjust, adulterous--or even as the poor publican.”

Not a petition in his prayer. It was a prayerless prayer--it was downright mockery. But how many men have just got into that cradle and been rocked to sleep by the devil!

A short time ago I put this question to a man:

“Are you a Christian?”

“Of course I am; I say my prayers every night.”

“But do you ever pray?”

“Didn’t I tell you I prayed?”

“But do you ever pray?”

“Why, of course I do; haven’t I said so?”

I found that he prayed, but he only went through the form, and, after a little, I found that he had been in the habit of swearing.

“How is this?” I asked. “Swearing and praying! Do your prayers ever go any higher than your head?”

“Well, I have sometimes thought that they did not.”

My friends, if you are not in communion with God your prayers are but forms; you are living in formalism, and your prayers will go no higher than your head.

How many people just go through the form! They can not rest unless they say their prayers. How many are there with whom it is only a matter of education?

But this Pharisee trusted in his own righteousness; he ignored the mercy of God and the love of Jesus. He was measuring himself by his own rule. Now, if you want to measure yourself, do it by God’s law--by God’s requirements.

A great many people have a rule of their own, by which they measure themselves, and by that rule they are perfectly ready and willing to forgive themselves.

So it was with this Pharisee. The idea of coming to God and asking His forgiveness never enters his mind.

While talking to a man--one of those Pharisees--some time ago, about God and the need of Christ, he said to me:

“I can do without Christ; I do not want Him. I am ready to stand before God any time.”

That man was trusting in his own righteousness.

Now, take a good look at this Pharisee. You know, I have an idea that the Bible is like an album. I go into a man’s house, and, while waiting for him, I take up an album from a table and open it.

I look at a picture.

“Why, that looks like a man I know.”

I turn over and look at another.

“Well, I know that man.”

By-and-by, I come upon another.

“Why, that man looks like my brother.”

I am getting pretty near home. I keep turning over the leaves.

“Well, I declare! Here is a man who lives in the same street I do. Why, he is my next-door neighbor.”

Then I come upon another, and I see--myself.

My friends, if you read your Bibles, you will find your own pictures there. It will just describe you.

Now, it may be there is some Pharisee here tonight. If there is, let him turn to the third chapter of John, and see what Christ said to the Pharisee:

“Except a man be born again, he can not enter the kingdom of God.”

Nicodemus, no doubt, was one of the fairest specimens of a man in Jerusalem in those days, yet he had to be born again, else he could not enter into the kingdom of God.

“But,” you may say, “I am not a Pharisee. I am a poor and miserable sinner--too bad to come to Him.” Well, turn to the woman of Samaria, and see what He said to her.

See what a difference there was between that publican and that Pharisee. There was as great a distance between them as between the Sun and the Moon.

One was in the very highest station, and the other occupied the very worst station. One had only himself and his sins to bring to God, and the other was trying to bring in his position and his aristocracy.

I tell you, when a man gets a true sight of himself, all his position and station and excellences drop.

See this prayer:

“I thank God.”

“I am not.”

“I fast.”

“I give.”

“I possess.”

Why, if he had delivered a long prayer, and the copy had been put into the printers’ hands, they would have had to send out for some “I’s.”

“I thank God,” “I,” “I,” “I.”

When a man prays--not with himself, but to God--he does not exalt himself; he does not pass a eulogy on himself. He falls flat down in the dust before God. In that prayer you do not find him thanking God for what He had done for him. It was a heartless and prayerless prayer--merely a form.

I hope the day will come when formal prayer will be a thing of the past. I think the reason why we can not get more people out to the meetings is because we have too many formal prayers in the churches. These formal Christians get up, like this Pharisee, and thank God that they are better than other men; but when a man gets a look at himself he comes in the spirit of the publican.

You see this Pharisee standing and praying with himself, but God could not give him any thing. He was too full of egotism--too full of himself. There was no religion in it. God could not bless him.

Now, for a moment, take a look at that poor publican. Just give his prayer your attention.

There was no capital “I” there--no exalting of himself. “God be merciful to this Pharisee; God be merciful to the other people who have injured me; God be merciful to the church members who have not been true to their belief.”

Was that his prayer?

Thank God, he got to himself. “God be merciful to me, a sinner.” It was very short. He had got his eye upon himself; he saw that his heart was vile; he could not lift his eyes to Heaven. But, thank God, he could lift his heart to Heaven.

There is not a poor publican in the audience tonight but can send up this prayer. No matter what your past life has been--no matter if it has been as black as hell--if you but send up the prayer it will be heard. He did not buy his own righteousness; and God heard his appeal.

Spurgeon, speaking of that publican, said he had the soundest theology of any man in England. He came before God, struck his hand on his heart, and cried: “God be merciful to me, a sinner.”

THE WIDOW’S SON.

Think of that poor widow at Nain.

She is an old woman now; and her only son, who is the staff of her life, is sick.

How she watches him; sits up all night to see that he has his medicine at the right time; sits by his bedside all day, fanning him, keeping away the flies, moistening his parched lips with water!

Every thing he asks for she brings.

The very best doctor in Nain is sent for; and when he comes and feels the pulse of the young man and looks at his tongue, he shakes his head; and then the poor woman knows there is no hope for her boy.

What an awful thought!

“My son--my only son--must die! What will become of me then?”

Sure enough, the doctor is right; and in a little while the fever comes to its crisis, and the poor boy dies, with his head upon his mother’s bosom.

The people come in and try to comfort the bereaved mother; but it is of no use. Her heart is broken; and she wishes she were dead, too.

Some of you know what it is to look your last upon the faces of those you love. Some of you mothers have wept hot tears upon the cold faces of your sons.

Well, they make him ready for burial; and when the time comes, they celebrate the funeral service, and place him on a bier to carry him away to the grave.

What a sad procession!

Just as they come out of the city gates, they see a little company of thirteen dusty-looking travelers, coming up the road.

There is One among them who is tall and far fairer than the sons of men.

Who can He be?

He is moved with compassion when He sees this little funeral procession; and it does not take Him long to find out that this woman who walks next the bier is a poor widow, whose only son she is following in sadness to the grave.

He tells the bearers to put down the bier; and while the mother wonders what is to be done, He bends tenderly over the dead man, and speaks to him in a low and sweet voice:

“Arise!”

And the dead man hears Him. His body begins to move; the man that was dead is struggling with his grave clothes; they unbind them, and now he sits up.

He leaps off the bier, catches sight of his mother, remembers that he was dead and is now alive again. He takes his mother in his arms, kisses her again and again, and then turns to look at the Stranger who has wrought this miracle upon him.

He is ready to do any thing for that Man--ready to follow Him to the death. But Jesus does not ask that of him. He knows his mother needs him; and so He does not take him away to be one of His disciples, but gives him back to his old mother.

I would have liked to see that young man re-entering the city of Nain, arm-in-arm with his mother. What do you suppose he said to the people, who looked at him with wonder? Would he not confess that Jesus of Nazareth had raised him from the dead? Would he not go everywhere, declaring what the Lord had done for his dead body?

Oh, how I love to preach Christ, who can stand over all the graves, and say to all the dead bodies: “Arise!”