Preached at Redmarley, 11th Sunday after Trinity, August 11, 1861.
“I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased, and every one that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”—St. Luke xviii. 14.
Two men, it is said in the Gospel we have just read, went up into the temple to pray. They went to the same place: they went for the same end. They were both Jews and they went to the place in which the Lord God had told the Jews that He would meet with them and hear them. They went to ask that He would do what He had promised.
Our Lord says one of these men went back to his house justified rather than the other. He returned with a lighter, freer heart. He had got the thing he sought for; our Lord tells us this; and He knows it. The hearts of these men are open to Him. He understands what they desire. He understands why one obtains what he desires and the other misses it.
And He wishes us to understand the secret also; for we are all interested in it. This story of the publican and the Pharisee is called a parable. That is to say, it is an example of what is going on in a thousand different places, in times thousands of years apart. It happened in the temple of Jerusalem. It happens in every English church. It happened when our Lord was upon earth; it happens in the year 1861.
What, then, was the difference between these two men—the Pharisee and the publican? Had the one who went down to his house justified some great advantage over his neighbour? No; he had, to all appearances, great disadvantages. He was a man in bad repute. He belonged to a class of men who did many evil things. People charged him with sharing in them. You see what the Pharisee thought of him. He thanked God that he was not like that publican or tax-gatherer. He thought that the man who was praying a little way from him was very likely an unjust man or an extortioner; he knew that he had a bad name.
The Pharisee himself had a very good name. He was one of a class to whom the people looked up. He had a character to preserve. And he says—and for aught we know he says truly—that he had preserved it. He could not be accused of any crime against his fellow-creatures. He could not be accused of neglecting the service of his Creator.
So far all seems in his favour; all seems to go against the publican: and what is more, the publican thinks so himself. He does not try to prove that he has done his duty to God or his duty to his neighbour. He does not believe that he has. Nay, he is sure that he has not. He does not venture to raise his eyes to heaven. He smites upon his breast. He says, “God be merciful to me a sinner.”
And what comes of this? That comes of it which God had said should come. He had bidden men who had any load upon their hearts to come into His temple and lay it bare before Him. He had bidden those who had broken his law to own that they had broken it. He had invited those who were not serving Him as they wished to serve Him, frankly to tell Him that they were not. He had invited those who were not loving their neighbours as they wished to love them, not to keep that wrong to themselves, but to ask deliverance from it of Him. The publican had done this. He was not satisfied with himself; he said that he was not. He could not say much about his trouble or his need. Perhaps he did not know precisely what it was, just as we often feel a pain or a sickness without knowing where it is. But he had come into the presence of One who understood what he did not understand. His muttered words even would be interpreted rightly. He was seeking the God of mercy; he was seeking the Deliverer from sin. “Be merciful to me a sinner,” was enough for him.
Therefore he went down to his house justified. He could not justify himself. God had justified him. He had given him a clean conscience and a right heart. His sin did not cleave to him any longer, did not press him down, did not take the strength out of him. He could say, ‘God counts it as His enemy even as I count it mine. He is my Lord; this sin is not my Lord, and shall not be. In His strength I will defy it.’
Now the Pharisee did not get this justification, for he did not desire it. He justified himself. He was content with his own thoughts and doings. He wanted nothing. He had prayed in the temple because he believed it was a proper and right thing to pray. He had not prayed because there was any divine blessing which he could not do without, any great curse from which he must be set free.
And so it will be, so it must be, our Lord says, always. Is it not reasonable? The God of grace and mercy gives to each that which he craves for; if we think all is well with us, He will leave us to try whether all is well. If we find that there is something not well, something that must be set right in us, He will set it right.
And yet, brethren, this is not all. God does not justify those who justify themselves, who trust in themselves that they are righteous, and despise others. But He does—like a merciful Father—show us that we cannot trust in ourselves, and that we are not righteous, and that we have no excuse for despising others. He lays bare the secret wrong that is in us. He makes us see that we are just as likely to fall into sin, that we have just as little strength of our own to do what is right as any of our neighbours whom we have been looking down upon. He shows us that all our strength is in Him. He humbles us when we are exalted in our own conceit: just that He may exalt us when He has humbled us. That is the course of His wise and gracious government with every one of us. Let every one of us try to understand it, and then we shall profit by all the things that befall us. We shall profit by the foolish and wrong doings that we have committed in time past. We shall profit, above all, by the prayers that we offer when we are alone, and when we come to this house.
1. We shall profit by all that befalls us. If it is good and necessary for most of us to be humbled—if we cannot be anything or do anything right till we are humbled, then be sure God means all that He sends us for this purpose. Sometimes it may be a great trouble, sometimes it may be a little vexing trouble which overtakes us. One may do the work as well as the other. One may bring down our self-confidence as well as the other. God knows which will do it best for each of us. Or He may send us good and bright days. They may tend to our humiliation as much as the others. We may wonder what right we have to them; how such people as we should have blessings that we have done so little for. Anything may turn to the increase of our pride if we receive it without asking for God’s Spirit to make it good. Anything may help to take the pride out of us if His Spirit comes with it.
2. Yes, and therefore I say a man’s past transgressions and his most easily-besetting sin may be used, if he will use them, for this end. Sometimes a person is inclined to forget all the things he has done amiss in past times, and would fain think they have nothing to do with him now. Then up starts the recollection of some one of them. It flashes across him as he lies on a sick bed: he cannot throw it off. Or it comes to him in another way. He thought he had got rid of some bad habit—of drinking perhaps. He supposes he is quite safe; but he meets an old companion. The old sin catches him and throttles him again. It was lying hid; but it was not gone. He said he had not that sin still; he deceived himself. Is that to make him despair? Is it to lead him to say, ‘I must be the slave of this wicked power. I must confess the devil for my ruler.’ No; it is to make him cry, ‘God be merciful to me a sinner. I am worse and weaker than I knew. I find I cannot trust myself for an hour. The past evil comes back to me. It seems always present. But Thou, O God, canst raise me out of it. It drives me to Thee. Be merciful to me, not in sparing my sin, for that is my foe and my curse, but in separating me from it as far as the East is from the West. And I am separate from it as far as the East is from the West, when I am finding my refuge and my home in Thee.’
And so you will see what I meant when I said that our Lord is teaching us to-day what all our prayers at church are for, and what all our prayers at home are for.
The first words you hear in church are a call to confess your sins. The first act you join in with the minister is that of owning to the Almighty and most merciful Father that you have erred and strayed from His way like lost sheep. That is to say, we are all treated alike. No one is allowed to trust in himself that he is righteous, and to despise others. Each brings his own burden. Each says, “Be merciful to me a sinner.” Each cries against his own wrong; each asks for help against his own guilt. And yet we all come together. There is a common salvation for us. We call upon God as the Father of us all. We call on Him in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, who has redeemed us all; in whom there is no sin; in whom He loves all, and is satisfied with all. While each is trying to stand on his own ground, while each is pleased and satisfied with himself, there is nothing but discontent, envying, and backbiting. When each one gives up his own pretension to be good, and trusts in the good God, and believes that that God has given up His Son for his neighbours as well as for himself, and asks for the loving Spirit to dwell with us all and keep us in one, then do we indeed become Christ’s family on earth, part of that great family in heaven and earth, of which He is the head and elder brother. And we may be sure that as we kneel by our bedsides, or as we cry when we are out in the field or at our work, ‘God be merciful to us sinners; keep us from doing this wrong thing; help us not to neglect this act of duty or of kindness,’ He will present that prayer before God. It will be joined to the prayer of that publican in the temple, and to all the good prayers that have been offered since the world began. And the man who has poured it out will go to his home with a clean heart and right spirit, humbled in himself, exalted in God; waiting for the day when He who was humble, and lowly, and merciful, shall be revealed in the glory of His Father and the holy angels, and when all pride, and vanity, and sin shall be banished out of His universe.