Publican's Prayer

The point: Understand that true self-knowledge, biblically, will first make you want to run from God, not snuggle up to Him.

Martin expresses suspicion of those who find prayer easy and are always verbose, suggesting they may not have felt the unworthiness the Publican did.

His consciousness of the distance that sin puts between the sinner and God and then flowing out of that there is an evidence here of his sense of unworthiness to approach this God. The Pharisee has no problem strutting as close as he can get to the place that was legitimate for an Israelite to go and looking up straight into what he thought was the presence of his God and then spewing out this self-congratulation. He had no problems in approaching God and I'm suspicious of people who can trip into the presence of God and just pour out words like machine guns spit out bullets and who never find...

12:20 - 13:39 Read in full sermon

The point: Understand that true self-knowledge, biblically, will first make you want to run from God, not snuggle up to Him.

He argues that biblical self-understanding first drives one away from God due to unworthiness, rather than encouraging 'snuggling up' to Him, contrasting it with unscriptural evangelism.

That's the position of the publican and our Lord is careful to state it very explicitly the publican standing afar off. Let me say by way of further application when you and I begin to understand ourselves biblically the first reaction will not be to snuggle up to God. It will be to run from Him.

13:39 - 14:02 Read in full sermon

The point: Understand that true self-knowledge, biblically, will first make you want to run from God, not snuggle up to Him.

Martin quotes, 'The best cure for self-righteousness is true self-knowledge,' to explain the Publican's transformation.

He says in His word I am the Lord I woo and I heal I kill and I make alive and what do we have? What do we have here in the publican but that slaying work of God giving Him to feel and to own this sense of His uncleanness and His unworthiness. One has accurately said the best cure for self-righteousness is true self-knowledge. That's what happened to this poor publican.

14:35 - 15:04 Read in full sermon

The point: Understand that true self-knowledge, biblically, will first make you want to run from God, not snuggle up to Him.

He uses the metaphor of God removing 'cataracts' from one's eyes to reveal the ugly sight of one's own sinful heart, leading to humility.

Unlike the Pharisee who is as it were drunk with the heady wine of his own self-righteousness because he is ignorant of his true condition. The publican has begun to look upon himself through the eye and there's no more ugly sight in all your native sinful heart when viewed without the colored glasses of Adamic pride and self-deception. When God begins to take the cataracts from your eyes and let you look at yourself the way He sees you I say it's an ugly sight. No man was ever found clicking his heels and shouting hallelujah when God was pulling the cataracts off and showing him what he was. ...

15:04 - 15:55 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The Publican's posture—not lifting his eyes to heaven and smiting his breast—indicates profound shame and inward pain over his sinfulness. Martin contrasts this with superficial…

Martin recounts personal experiences as a child and with his own children, where shame from misdeeds caused them to drop their heads, illustrating the Publican's downcast eyes.

And I, I thought of those many times when as a child I was caught in some misdeed and I felt the shame of it and I'd drop my head and my father would say son look at me. And I remember though I never could just brazenly stick my head up I felt too ashamed. He would say son look at me. And finally I would so much as lift up my eyes to him.

17:27 - 17:49 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The Publican's posture—not lifting his eyes to heaven and smiting his breast—indicates profound shame and inward pain over his sinfulness. Martin contrasts this with superficial…

He explains that beating the breast was a natural cultural expression of deep, overpowering grief in the Middle East, contrasting it with how it would be perceived in modern Western culture.

When you read even in the gospel of Luke of those who mourn the women in what's commonly called the Via Dolorosa the way of sorrow as our Lord was making his way to the cross it says that they mourned and they wept for him and probably beat upon their breast just as when you see some of our good Italian friends and some people think I must have some Italian blood in me the way I use my hands but it's very natural for them culturally and temperamentally to speak with the hands and other things as well. Well you see our Lord is describing this in a setting in which it would be very natural for u...

18:42 - 20:11 Read in full sermon

The point: Consider if you know the shame and pain of deliberate rebellion against God, especially for sins against light and grace.

Martin shares his personal experience of pain from temporary separation from his wife, using it to illustrate the deep, inward pain the Publican felt over his sin.

And in the posture of the publican we see that shame in the downcast countenance and then in the beating of the breast there is that true inward pain in the realization of his sin and his sinfulness. Pain so deep that it's somehow like the pain that is felt at the loss of a loved one. And having my wife away these days has made me a little more sympathetic of what it must be like for a man and wife who've shared together for 30, 40 years and then the Lord is pleased to take one. We've shared 16 years together and there's actually a pain that one can almost feel in the pit of the stomach when t...

22:24 - 23:18 Read in full sermon

The point: Consider if you know the shame and pain of deliberate rebellion against God, especially for sins against light and grace.

He alludes to Daniel's prayer of shame and quotes lines from a hymn about turning one's back on God, to convey the profound shame felt by a repentant sinner.

So the beating upon the breast was but the natural reaction of the felt inward pain. And I say by way of application if you've ever begun to understand something of what it means to be part of Adam's fallen race something of what it means to be guilty of deliberate willful foul rebellion against the God of infinite goodness you can't help but feel ashamed and say with Daniel in his prayer I am ashamed and I blush and I cannot look up all the bitter shame and sorrow that a time should ever be and you know some of you the words of that hymn that I should turn my back upon the throne rights of Go...

23:49 - 25:18 Read in full sermon

The point: Ask if you have been given the Publican's heart, confessing yourself as 'the sinner' before God.

Martin quotes Professor Murray's 'Redemption Accomplished and Applied' to provide a concise and formal definition of propitiation, explaining its meaning in the Old Testament context of covering sin and turning away God's wrath.

and in Hebrews 2 17 notice how it's translated in Hebrews 2 and verse 17 wherefore it behooved him in all things to be made like unto his brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God to make and here's the same word in the original propitiation for the sins of the people this is that word that belongs in those in that family of words translated propitiation so his prayer is literally and you have it in the margin of the 1901 edition God be thou propitiated to me the sinner now what's the basic concept in propitiation well in order to be concise rath...

36:57 - 38:25 Read in full sermon

Driving home: justified that is not only forgiven justification is more than forgiveness it is a declaration by God that this man stands now before God only in a state as though he had never sinned but more than that as though he had …

He uses the analogy of false religions narrowing the spectrum of man's assessment, making him not as low as the Bible describes, nor as high as God elevates him through the gospel.

Ah, you see, the answer is the provisions of divine grace. And that alone will produce such tremendous privilege. The thought struck me today, and it's been churning around in my mind all day long, and it's this. One of the almost universal marks of false religions is right here, that it narrows the spectrum of the assessment of man that the Bible gives.

47:32 - 48:02 Read in full sermon