Publican's Prayer

Introduction: The Most Important Question

0:06 I encourage you to turn in your own Bibles to the 18th chapter of the Gospel according to Luke, Luke chapter 18, and I shall read verses 9 through 14. Luke 18, 9 through 14.

0:34 And he spake also this parable unto certain who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and set all others at naught. Two men went up into the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee, the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I get.

1:16 But the publican... The publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote his breast, saying, God, be thou merciful to me, a sinner.

1:34 I say unto you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other, for every one that exalteth himself shall be humbled. But he that humbleth himself shall be exalted. As we come tonight to the fourth in the series of studies in this parable, we do well to remind ourselves of the basic statement that I've made at the introduction of each of the three previous studies. Namely, there is no more important religious question that anyone can consider than this.

2:18 How can sinful man be just or righteous? How can sinful man be right with a holy God?

2:25 There is no question which your mind will ever entertain from the youngest of you to the oldest than that question. How can sinful man be just with a holy God? Or to change the question a bit, how can we as sinners find acceptance and favor in the sight of the living God? And this parable is particularly helpful in answering that question, because it addresses itself to the question in a very explicit and obvious way.

2:59 For as we have seen in our previous study, the occasion of our Lord's giving this parable was the detection on his part of a spirit of self-confidence with reference to this great question. There were some who began to answer the question this way. You can find acceptance before God by trusting in something to be found in yourself. And in order to utterly annihilate that false thinking, our Lord gives to us the parable commonly known as the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican.

Review: The Pharisee's Prayer and Ignorance

3:33 Well, thus far we have studied the prayer of the Publican. We have seen that it contains two essential elements. It is really not a prayer, but a proclamation of his own personal character and of his religious performance. And he believes on the basis of his character, the fact that he is better than others, the fact that he is better than others, and the fact that he performs certain religious duties with great consistency.

3:58 He will therefore find acceptance with God. Then we studied for two weeks the reason for this prayer. And we saw that the basic answer to the question, why did he pray this way, is this. He prayed this way because of his native spiritual ignorance augmented by his false religious teaching.

4:19 This man was parading his ignorance, when he dared to think that acceptance could come on the basis of his own character and on the basis of his own religious performance. He was ignorant of his involvement in the sin of mankind, in the fall of Adam. He was not better than other men. He was a fallen son of Adam, for as in Adam all die, and we all are by nature the children of wrath.

4:49 He was ignorant of the spiritual demands of the Lord, He would never dare say he was not a murderer or an adulterer if he realized that these sins are to be judged in terms of the attitudes of the heart. The look of lust is considered adultery. The attitude of anger is considered murder. And the covetous spirit is idolatry.

5:15 And then last of all, we saw in our study last week that this man was ignorant of God's only way of accepting God. Accepting sinners, namely his own righteousness, which is the righteousness of God, the righteousness of grace, and the righteousness of faith. The way his father Abraham, after the flesh, found acceptance. The way David found acceptance.

5:39 The way Elijah and Elisha and Jeremiah found acceptance. But he was utterly ignorant of this, though he had the scriptures in his hands which should have taught him this. He missed it completely. And so, we need to ask ourselves, do we in any way think that acceptance before God is in any measure founded upon what we are in our characters or what we are in our religious performance?

The Publican's Position: Standing Afar Off

6:06 If so, then we, like this man, looking at the results of his prayer, we shall go down to our houses unjustified, still under wrath and condemnation and not under the favor of God. So much for this very, very brief and cursory review, squeezing into five minutes, three hours of study together. Now we come tonight to the prayer of the publican. And let me remind you that we are not simply looking at this as spectators.

6:36 Jesus takes the instance of this parable and he generalizes in verse 14. And I say unto you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other for everyone that exalted himself shall be humbled. In other words, everyone who walks the path of the Pharisee shall have the results of the Pharisee. And everyone who walks the path of the publican shall have the results of the publican.

7:02 So I remind you again that we are not dealing with this simply as spectators looking in at a performance. We're coming to the mirror of the word of God to see ourselves and to ask ourselves this question, upon what grounds do I seek acceptance and favor before God? Well, then coming to this publican, will you notice in the first place that the text tells us something about the position of the publican. Verse 13, But the publican standing afar off.

7:39 And here you have contrast between the position of the Pharisee and of the publican. Verse 11 says, The Pharisee stood and prayed. And you remember that I pointed out to you that the Pharisee stood and prayed. I point out to you that the emphasis in the original is very emphatic.

7:56 He took a stand and he prayed. Took a place of prominence, probably as close to the court of the priest as an average Israelite could come. That he might be there in a place to be observed by all men. And that physical position was a reflection of the attitude of his heart and the disposition of his mind.

8:19 Likewise, the position of the publican is a reflection of the attitude of the publican. It is a reflection of the disposition of his heart. His position is described as standing afar off. Either at the very edge of the court of the Israelites or possibly even out in the further court of the Gentiles.

8:42 But he stands afar off. Whether this afar off refers, as I say, to the very perimeter, the outside edge of the court where an Israelite could enter or the very court of the Gentiles, one thing is clear. It was a place of no prominence. The exact opposite of the place that the Pharisee took.

9:07 Now what does this tell us about the mind and the spirit of the publican? Well, it tells us at least three very essential things. First of all, it tells us that this man was preoccupied totally with this one great issue, his own relationship to the living God. Unlike the Pharisee who even when he goes to the temple to pray is conscious of the eyes and the opinion and the assessment of others, the publican is conscious of but one issue, the God into whose presence he's about to come and his own needy, desperate state before him.

9:52 For this publican, there were only at this point himself and his God and none other. For the Pharisee, there was himself, there was his God, there was the priest, there were the eyes of the other worshippers, there were many things entering into his spiritual vision. Not so with the publican. He stands afar in the place of obscurity that his mind might not be distracted with any other issue but his own self.

10:25 The soul's dealings with his God. Secondly, the position of the publican tells us something about his consciousness of distance that his sins had placed between him and his God. It's as though he is demonstrating by his very physical proximity to the center of the place of worship his consciousness of distance between himself and God. It was there within the veil in the central place of the temple where the priest went, the high priest, once a year that there was the peculiar dwelling place of God and he stands as it were as far as he can and still having it evident that he wants to draw near to that God. He feels that terrible tension that every man, woman, fellow and girl in this place has felt and still who experimentally knows the grace of God. That tension between knowing my only hope is in the direction of my God to draw near and I'm to draw near.

11:45 Do you know that tension? The sense that there is distance in the words of the prophet Isaiah my sins have separated between me and my God and hid his face and yet I know that that same God is a God of mercy as the psalmist says there is forgiveness with thee. I say, the publican knew something of that tension within his own spirit and his very position in the temple was reflective of it. So we have in the first place his preoccupation with the one great issue his God and himself.

12:20 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 it difficult to pray. I'm suspicious of people who are always loquacious in prayer who always find it easy to mass together all of this verbiage and throw it in the direction of the deity. If you never find yourself without words and with a sense of the hollowness and the emptiness and the shallowness of your mouthings I doubt you've ever felt the unworthiness that you ought to feel and that this man obviously felt. He stood afar off. Feeling his own unworthiness.

13:39 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.

14:05 The whole idea that evangelism is getting past and people convinced that God's not so bad to live with anyway and that they ought to snuggle up to Him and begin to try God and find God sufficient is totally unscriptural. God first of all drives you away on a basis totally other than what the human mind could ever discover apart from the revelation of the gospel.

14:35 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.

15:04 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. He'll be found afar off. Afar off!

The Publican's Posture: Downcast Eyes and Beating Breast

15:57 In that self-discovery. I ask you has the Holy Ghost brought you there? I'm not asking do you know a time and a place? I'm not concerned about that.

16:05 God isn't. But I'm asking has He brought you there? That's the issue. Has He brought you there?

16:13 Well we must hurry on from a consideration of the position of the publican to what the scripture tells us of the posture of the publican. Not only his position but notice the Lord Jesus tells us something about his very posture.

16:29 Both a negative and a positive. He would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven the negative but positively smote his breast. Can you use your imagination and get the picture?

16:48 And I missed this for years. It wasn't until I was preparing for the exposition of this passage in recent days that the simple statement here gripped me. It gripped me in its vividness. It doesn't say he would not so much as lift up his head but would not so much as lift up his eyes indicating that everything about him was borne down and hunched over.

17:10 Head down. Eyes down. Face down. To the earth.

17:15 That's the thing that he felt most at home with. The earth beneath his feet. Not the God above. And it says he would not so much as lift up his eyes.

17:27 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.

17:51 And I've seen that with my own children. And some of you here you know what that's like don't you? When mommy or daddy has caught you in something or you've done something you know you feel the shame of it but you finally bring yourself to where you can at least lift up your eyes. This man it says would not so much as even lift up his eyes of death.

18:12 He would not so much as even look in the direction of the God whose burning holiness he had come to understand in some measure because he began to feel the weight of his own sin. Two things about his posture. He would not lift up his eyes to heaven but as in the oriental fashion to show grief they would beat upon the breast. And so he was doing that which was a very natural cultural expression of genuine grief.

18:42 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 us to show grief by beating upon the breast would be histrionic. Or someone would think we were trying to be King Kong or something. It would be very out of place and so it doesn't register with us and you must then project yourself into that cultural setting in which any time you saw a person beating upon the breast and you would have seen this from the time you were a little child you could think of one word deep pungent overpowering grief the kind of grief that was shown in the presence of dead loved ones the kind of grief that was shown in the face of some kind of calamity or tragedy not the kind of surface grief that comes and goes very quickly but the beating of the breast was symbolic of this deep this overpowering this inward

20:11 this great and immeasurable grief. So then our Lord tells us those two things about his posture and they are not put there by accident not so much as lift up the eyes negative beat upon the breast. Now what does this indicate about the state of this man's mind? Well though there is some overlapping with his position I would suggest that there are several things added to what we've already considered.

20:41 First of all this posture indicates the true shame that he felt at the thought of his sin and his sinfulness.

20:53 True shame. We indicated earlier in the illustration from human experience what causes a young child to drop its head and not look into the face of its parent when caught in a misdeed. It's the sense of shame.

21:09 My parent did not deserve the kind of treatment I've given. My parent's command or wish was not unreasonable. It was the perversity of my own heart that caused me to walk in that forbidden path and when caught in it I'm ashamed and it's shame that causes me to cast my eyes to the earth. Our Lord is underscoring that the publican knew something of that genuine shame that every sinful son of Adam feels when he thinks of how he's mistreated his creator God.

21:41 That God who is the sum and substance of all that is pure and beautiful and holy who has a right to command his creatures to love him with an undivided and an imperishable love and yet when we think of how foully we've revolted not against the God in whose character we found something that gave us as it were a reason for that revolt. No, no, nothing in his character, nothing in his commandments. His will is good, acceptable and perfect and when you begin to discover something of the absolute perversity of sin it fills the heart with shame. Shame!

22:24 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 there are periods of forced separation such as we're experiencing these days due to the needs of my father-in-law. Something of that pain. It's real. It's not something you crank up.

23:18 It's not something you sit and think and say, oh well, I'm away from my wife I ought to feel. No, no. It's just something that comes and it's there and it's real.

23:28 That's what we have here. Here's the man beating upon his breast because the shame of the thought of his sin had led to inward pain that caused him to beat upon the breast. This is not play acting. He was standing afar probably where no one would see him.

23:49 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 God and the pleadings of his son I think there's nothing that makes me want to have the earth swallow me up more than the awful sense of shame that comes upon me not just for my sins prior to my conversion but oh the sins against light the sins against privilege the sins against grace and I don't want to look my father in the face because I know the fault is not in him but it's in me that after all he's done me and all he's done for me and all he's been to me as my common God I should still be found hankering after those things

25:18 that I've long since left behind all the shame do you know something of that shame and do you know something of the pain when you think of the offense you've been to his holiness when you think of the terrible offense you've been to him in the months and years that you've despised the overtures of his holiness of grace in the gospel does it bring pain to your heart and perhaps the deepest pain that a true Christian experiences is the pain that he feels no more pain than he feels do you hear me perhaps the deepest pain the Christian feels is the pain that he doesn't feel more pain there are times when I'm caught in that hopeless dilemma and I don't know the way out when my conscience smites me in the light of the scriptures for sins committed and I know that I ought to confess and I have confessed but my very confession seems as deeply stained as the sin I'm confessing if you find it an easy thing to confess sin you don't know what confession is you don't know what sin is you don't know what grace is true confession will be marked by something of the pain you may not literally beat upon the breast because that's not part of your cultural habit but what is true of you

The Publican's Prayer: Proper Object, Confession, and Petition

26:48 in genuine grief and pain in other realms will be transferred into the realm of grace and you'll feel pain well having looked at the position of the publican afar off and what it indicates the posture of the publican eyes down beating upon the breast and what it signifies consider now in the third place the prayer of the publican the first thing we notice with his prayer is that it had a proper object notice but the publican standing afar off would not so much lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven but smote his breast saying God be thou merciful to me a sinner wonder of wonders though he was full of this sense of shame and pain and distance and unworthiness he dared to address the living God directly he didn't come to marry he didn't come to the disciples he didn't come to the priest he stood afar off and in the midst of the shame and the pain and grief of conviction the same Bible and the same spirit who revealed to him his sin

28:16 against God had shown him in the words of the 130th psalm there is forgiveness with thee that thou mayest be feared if thou Lord shouldst mark iniquity O Lord there is with thee and so his prayer had a proper object notice the contrast with the prayer of the Pharisee we pointed out that the original again is very emphatic the Pharisee stood and prayed thus towards himself God is incidental in the Pharisee's prayer but in the publican's prayer God talking to himself is not talking to others addressing the living God the God against whom he sinned the one whose law he had broken the one before whom he must stand in judgment I'm amazed at how many people are content with second hand religious experience and of direct first hand dealings with God they know absolutely nothing they'll talk about their mother's God and their father's God and they'll talk about the God of their church and the God of their denomination but the words my God are seldom upon their lips I ask you have you been given

29:43 such a true sense of your own sin and such an accurate sight of your own state that you've come directly to this God against whom you've sinned the prayer of the publican is marked first of all by this fact it had a proper object secondly it included a proper confession notice God be thou merciful to me not a sinner but if you look at the bottom if you have a 1901 edition which many of you have number 14 it says these the sinner in other words in the original the article V is there he's not just saying God be merciful to me a sinner I'm one of the fallen sons of Adam I'm one of all those who've gone astray like sheep and have turned to our own way I'm one of the many who have sinned and come short of the glory of God no no standing afar off this man says God be merciful to me translation indicating that he felt in his own soul that there was no other sinner under heaven as deeply died and stained in his sin as he was for remember unlike the Pharisee whose eye was comparing himself with others I find the eye not as others look at that

31:11 debauched extortioner and that adulterer and look at me God these things the Pharisee had been given eyes to see the infinite holiness of God and the inflexible righteousness of that law before which every sinner must make the confession unclean unclean unclean he was not comparing himself with his peers but with the great and holy God and notice he does not say God have mercy upon my sin Holy Ghost conviction and mere clever little manipulation of verses in an inquiry room that goes on in our day in the name of evangelists all of sin comes from the glory of God yes you believe that yes you're a sinner yes you've done some bad things yes all right now tell God oh God oh God be merciful I mean what kind of foolishness is that nobody was there over the shoulder of this man coaching him and trying to convince him to admit that he'd done

32:30 a few bad things done some bad things but that he was a Pharisee unlike the Pharisee who didn't see himself involved in the fall of the human race in Adam this man did he says I stand as the sinner polluted and foul to the core a man who is best described as sinner that's a confession made by this man but not made by him alone you remember a similar confession in the lips of another man who looked pretty good on the outside didn't he he said Pharisee of the Pharisees touching the law blameless but that same man said this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners ah whom what I was chief of whom I am oh you say that's just a sort of pious overstatement is it or is that an honest expression of what the apostle felt would you say that the Holy Ghost would inspire pious overstatement no no he's the spirit of truth

33:58 when the apostle Paul said in 2nd Timothy 1 15 this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief he was confessing the honest assessment of his own heart the Holy Ghost repeats that assessment in everyone whom he savingly draws to Christ you look at other people and instead of saying well I'm not so bad as they used to say look if they only knew this about me they wouldn't look me in the eye at times when I felt dear people if you knew what I really was you'd never come through those doors you'd never come to hear me preach again you'd say what do you do run out Saturday nights and get drunk and get soaked no I'm not talking about my external conduct that's the easiest thing in the world to keep straight talking about the thoughts and the intents and the dispositions and the attitudes it's what you are in your heart that tells what you really are for out of the heart proceed the issues of life you see the Pharisees were notorious for cleansing the outside remember Jesus said you're like whitewashed sepulchers you're like you're like pieces of china that people have polished on the outside on the inside there's the grinds of leftover coffee grinds and tea

35:28 leaves and everything of a generation he said outside pure but inwardly unclean so that's the difference you see between the publican and the Pharisee he looks on the outside and says I'm better the publican sees the inside and says this is my confession these have you been brought to that place you've been brought have you I'm not asking have you prayed the publican's prayer I'm asking have you been given the publican's heart well we move on in the third place to notice that his prayer not only had a proper object God himself not only did it have a proper confession the sinner but it had a proper petition what is the petition here it is God be thou merciful to me a sinner and here again is one of those places where the translators unfortunately threw a curve at us because the word you would think is the same word that you have in those places where people under physical duress came to Jesus and said son of David have mercy upon me well there is a proper legitimate Greek word for mercy and it's used in those instances where the needy came and said son of David have mercy upon me but it's not the word used here the word used here is used only twice in the New Testament here

36:57 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 rather than trying to explain it from a number of angles I shall just very quickly read a paragraph or two from Professor Murray's excellent book Redemption Accomplished and Applied in which he treats formally the subject propitiation what does propitiation mean in the Hebrew of the Old Testament it is expressed by a word which means to cover and in connection with this covering there are in particular three things to be noted the covering is in reference to sin when God propitiated

38:25 when his people were propitiated through a sacrifice God was there was a covering of the sin secondly the effect of this covering is cleansing and forgiveness when God had covered sin the people were forgiven and cleansed thirdly it is before the Lord that both the covering and its effect takes place this means that sin creates a situation in relationship to the Lord which makes the covering of sin necessary it is this Godward reference of both the sin and the covering that must be appreciated it may be said that the sin or perhaps the person who has sinned is covered before the sight of the Lord in the thought of the Old Testament there is but one construction that we can place upon this provision of the sacrificial ritual it is that sin evokes the displeasure or wrath of God vengeance is the reaction of the holiness of God to sin and the covering is that which provides for the removal of divine displeasure which the sin evokes now that's the heart of the concept of propitiation the sinner has sinned God is angry but if the sin is propitiated is covered the anger of God is turned away God can look with favor upon his people now put that

39:54 into the setting of this passage he stands afar all would not so much as lift his hand up his eyes unto heaven a personal opinion that our Lord would have us to understand I wouldn't be dogmatic that his eyes were lifted up halfway to heaven probably fixed upon the altar upon which the body of an innocent victim was already offered and was there being consumed in sacrificial fire so that his approach to God is not direct in the place of the Pharisees but it is an approach to God a propitiatory to me sacrifice of the Messiah whose suffering is depicted there upon that altar in the temple God be merciful to me be propitious to me turn away the anger that I deserve from you he goes holy of himself and says God turn away your wrath

41:22 your anger because of the sacrifice by which you've ordained to cover you your sin that's his prayer he does not ask for pure mercy that bypasses atonement and sacrifice but he asks for mercy that finds expression through atonement and through a sacrifice let me say by way of application how much of this the publican knew clearly we do not know Old Testament saints saw a lot more than a lot of people are willing to give them credit for Abraham rejoiced to see what Jesus said Hebrews 11 says Moses counted it a greater treasure to suffer the reproach of Christ enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season Jesus said that when Isaiah had the vision of glory in chapter 6 he says in John 12 this spake he when he saw the glory of this publican our Lord intends us to understand whether he saw that clearly one thing is clear his approach to God was of the only approach is man in mercy on the basis of the sacrifice of an innocent victim

42:48 contains a petition which on the one hand acknowledges that there is mercy with God a provision sacrifice and that this mercy must be petitioned and must be laid hold of in faith so you have in this proper petition all the elements of true repentance and of true faith repentance with reference to sin he's grieved he stands afar off from running up near the all cash in on a little but a bit his mercy was not found in the beating of his fixing the game upon the all sacrifice and plead for God to be propitious on that basis and so salvation comes not to repentance but to faith and to faith that is born of repentance how can a man who's himself

44:13 God will accept him he came to see that the one ray of hope was in sacrifice be thou propitious to me and there's faith and perhaps the greatest most noble act any sinner ever performs and I'll qualify that as that act of fully owning his sinfulness and his undone in the face of God's holiness and yet daring to believe that that God will accept him solely on the basis of the work of another no wonder faith has to be the gift of God a work of the Holy Ghost a man would never attain to it that's too stupendous a concept you see you who've never been troubled about your sin you think faith is a simple thing oh yeah just believe just believe sure it is but you begin to get a sight of who you are and what God is and then the most staggering thing in the world is to think that that God will receive me and then faith is impossible unless God by the Holy Ghost enables you to draw near hence we sang tonight I sought the Lord and afterward I knew it was he who sought me seeking him it was not so much as I on thee laid hold as thou dear Lord on me I say

The Result: Justified by Free Grace

45:42 it was a proper petition that seeks mercy from the sacrifice in a way of repentance and faith and that's the only way it's given he not only repents of his sin and his sinfulness but it is dead works he doesn't say God be merciful because I this or I that not a thing does he bring this man if he had the poetic gift could have penned that great hymn nothing in my hands I bring simply to thy cross I cling foul I to the fountain fly wash me savior ere I die well then we hurry to a conclusion what was the result of this prayer we've looked at his position his posture his prayer now what was the result of it verse 14 I say unto you this man went down to his house justified what a wonderful statement we don't have time to go into it tonight I think we'll bring one more message on the passage but I must pause long enough to underscore this principle I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm 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 perfectly kept the law of God in every single detail that's what justification

47:10 is God's declaration in the presence of his

47:19 having fully kept that law. Well, how in the world does that happen? From these depths, be merciful to me, the sinner, to such heights, justified.

47:32 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.

48:02 Now, let me explain what I mean. The Bible says man is undone, a sinner by nature and birth and practice, and the best things he does are foul and unclean in God's sight. The Bible doctrine of man in sin humbles him and strips him and lays him low. So, all false teachings and all false religions paint man in a much better picture than that.

48:28 But they also do something else. They never raise him as high as God raises him. They say he'll have what? Eternal life here on earth, the sort of better life of what he now has, and he'll have this or have that.

48:42 But you see, the false religions never elevate man to the position God elevates him. Co-heir with Christ. Sharing in the very likeness of Christ. Ruling and living with Christ.

48:54 And it's the gospel alone that takes man down and then raises him to the heights of glory.

49:05 And what is true of the gospel and its essential content is true in the life history of everyone who embraces it. And if we would know what it is to be raised to the heights of gospel blessing. That's the last part of the verse. And that's what Jesus said.

49:22 We've got to go down to the depths of a true knowledge, for whosoever will exalt himself shall be humble, but whosoever shall humble himself shall be exalted. And what is that exaltation? Going down to your house justified. Think of it.

49:42 Oh, the wonder of it. That I can go down to my house tonight with my father looking upon me as though I had kept the law as perfectly as his son kept it. Because his obedience is put to my account. The wonder!

49:58 The wonder! The wonder of justification. What does this do to the doctrine that says you must put in so much performance before God will, as it were, give the sentence? This man had no time to shape up and to change his lifestyle and all the rest and build up a little merit.

50:16 He comes up to the temple and says, The sinner! He goes down to his house, the justified sinner. Thank God for free grace that takes a man where he is. Listen.

50:29 Elevates him. Now, he didn't go on back to go back to the hog pens and go back to cheating. The same grace that brought him justification will infallibly bring him sanctification and a holy life and bring it immediately in principle and then work it out by degrees. Granted, I'm not preaching antinomian doctrine, but I want to preach what's in the text.

50:53 And the emphasis of the text is not sanctification, but justification. Oh, my friend, will you go down to your house justified tonight? Will you? If you do, what does it matter if you're scraping the bottom of your checking account?

51:10 What does it matter if nobody thinks you're important? What does it matter, regardless of what life circumstances are, if we can go down to our houses justified? We ought to go down to our houses tonight with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Amen.

Call to Self-Examination

51:29 Because God, for Christ's sake, has been propitious unto us, turned away His wrath, and we're accepted in the Beloved One. All right, where are you? Where are you in that parable? Pharisee or publican?

51:47 God grant that you'll answer that question with judgment day honesty. Let us pray.