Now may I urge you to turn with
me in your own Bibles to the Gospel according to Luke and
the 18th chapter and follow please as I read what for many of you
may be a very familiar portion of the Word of God, but one which
I trust by the blessing of the Spirit of God will come home
to our hearts with freshness and with power. as I seek to
open up this passage in your hearing. Luke chapter 18, and
beginning with verse 9, recording the ministry of our Lord Jesus,
Luke writes, And he, that is, our Lord, spoke 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, and the other a publican or a
tax collector. And the Pharisee stood and prayed
thus with himself, God, I thank you that I am not as the rest
of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax
collector. I fast twice in the week. I give
tithes of all that I possess. But the public, standing afar
off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but
beat upon his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me. the sinner. I say unto you, this
man went down to his house justified rather than the other, for every
one that exalts himself shall be humbled, but he that humbles
himself shall be exalted." As we set this portion of the Word
of God before us this evening, I want us to think of our approach
to this passage as though we were about to enter a portrait
gallery together this evening. That is, a gallery set apart
for the hanging of portraits for people to come and to observe
them and to analyze them. And as we enter this portrait
gallery, it is none other than the Lord Jesus who is going to
be our guide in order to point out the things that each one
of us ought to observe concerning the portraits within this gallery. It is the Lord Jesus who himself
has painted the portraits and he will interpret the significance
of his own painting. However, these portraits are
of a most unusual kind, for they not only give us an accurate
picture of those whom they represent, but they also function as mirrors. It is impossible to stand by
them and to look upon them and to listen to the Lord Jesus as
he points out the various features in the portraits without at the
same time finding the portrait converting itself into a mirror
in which we will see ourselves in either one or the other of
the portraits painted by the Lord Jesus, described in the
various features by the Lord Jesus, portraits of His own painting
of his own interpreting, but they become mirrors in which
we see our very selves. And unlike the trick mirrors
in a funhouse, some of you kids perhaps have been in a funhouse,
an entertainment amusement park where you go in and they have
these different shaped mirrors and into some of them when you
place yourself before them, you are seen as about ten feet wide
and a foot and a half tall. In others, you may see yourself
ten feet tall and six inches wide. Trick mirrors that though
they reflect something that looks something like you, you know
it is not really you. But in these portraits that become
mirrors, there is a perfect reflection of what we really are in the
sight and in the presence of the living God. So I want you
to come with me as together the Lord Jesus takes us into this
portrait gallery that here we might have the Lord Jesus direct
our eyes to the two main hangings within the gallery. Listen carefully
to the Lord Jesus as he points out the features of those two
portraits upon which he will direct our attention and then
honestly to ask ourselves when the portrait turns into a mirror,
in which portrait do I see myself reflected? Consider with me then
as we enter our portrait gallery tonight The things in which these
men are essentially and fundamentally the same. That is the features
of the portraits where we find identical features. The things in which these two
men are essentially the same. Look at verse 10 of the text.
Two men went up into the temple to pray. Two men went into the
temple to pray. Since they are described as men,
we know from the rest of Scripture that they are both in the same
condition before God by nature. They were men, that is, creatures
made originally in the image of God. They were not cosmic
junk. They were not animals of the
highest order that came to be what they were through the brute
forces of time and nature in some so-called evolutionary process. They were men. Men made originally,
as we read in Genesis chapter 1, after the image and the likeness
of God. They were both in the same condition
before God in that they bore the dignity of being creatures
made in the image of God, but because they were both men, they
were sinners who fell in Adam and were under the condemnation
of God by nature. They were not born innocent until
they came to some so-called age of accountability, a doctrine
not at all found in the scriptures. For our age of accountability
came and went in the Garden of Eden. Romans chapter 5 and verse
12 says, Wherefore, as through one man sin entered into the
world, and death passed upon all men, for that all sinned. And when did they all sin? We
all sinned when our first father sinned in eating the forbidden
fruit. God, as it were, had piggybacked
the entire human race upon Adam, saying, Adam, if you stand in
integrity before me and walk according to my word, the entire
human race will stand in you and with you and upon you. But
Adam, when you fall, All of the human race will fall in you and
with you, so that the scriptures everywhere teach, as in 1 Corinthians
15.22, as in Adam, all die. Romans 3.23, all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God, or that graphic imagery
of the prophet Isaiah. All we, like sheep, have gone
astray. We have turned, every one of
us, to his own way. So as we enter the portrait gallery
and the Lord Jesus brings us before these two major portraits,
we are told that they were two men and the things in which these
men are essentially the same is that they were in the same
condition before God by nature. Creatures originally made in
the image of God but creatures fallen in Adam and now in a state
of sin and condemnation. Therefore, they bear a family
likeness. They have all the features of
Adam in both creation and in the fall. And as we stand before
either or both of the portraits, and they become mirrors, We see
that that's precisely our condition as men and as women, as boys
and as girls. We are not cosmic junk floating
through the universe by chance. We are creatures who are image
bearers of the living God. We have all the dignity that
is unique to man as man. And yet each one of us, without
exception, bears the horrible infection of our humanity with
the rotten influence of sin. Sin both as guilt, making us
culpable and liable to the wrath of God. Sin as pollution and
defilement, making us odious in the sight of the living God. and we stand before the portraits
and we see two men, we see that in their creative identity and
in their fallenness, we too are mirrored in these two men. For we sit in this place today
as those who are creatures made in the image of God and creatures
fallen in Adam, sinners in guilt, sinners in pollution, sinners
before the bar of God's judgment, sinners in the defilement and
in the bondage of our own natures. But then notice, in the things
that these men have in common, they are not only both in the
same condition before God, As the Lord Jesus guides us to look
closely at the portraits, we see in the second place that
they are both in the same place, engaged in the same activity. In other words, the backdrop
of each portrait is precisely the same. Look at the text of
Scripture. We are told two men, verse 10,
went up into the temple in order to pray. So the two men in their
portraits are set before us in precisely the same general setting. Both of them are in the temple. Both of them are there to pray. They are in the temple, the place
of God's special presence. the place of his appointed formal
worship, the place where the rituals instituted by God under
the old covenant that were to be enacted by that special class
of men of the tribe of Levi and of the sons of Aaron, the priesthood,
there in the temple both men are found. and they are both
praying again we are told they went up to the temple to pray
verse 11 says as we look at one of the portraits the Pharisee
stood and prayed thus with himself When we come to verse 13, though
the word prayer is not used, it is obvious that this tax collector
is engaged in prayer. He is addressing himself to God. He beat upon his breast saying,
God, be merciful to me, the sinner. And so as we stand by the portraits,
we not only see that they have in common their identical condition
before God, but that they are both in the same place, engaged
in the same activity. And in a very real sense, when
the mirrors or when the portraits become mirrors, we again find
all of ourselves reflected. We are here, not in the temple,
but in a place set apart for the public worship of God. a
place set apart for the exercise of the institutions ordained
of God, the reading of the Scriptures, the singing of His praise, the
hearing of His Word, the seeking of His face. And as I stood and
sang, and as I listened while the Word of God was being read,
as far as I could discern, all of us were together engaged in
those same activities. So we see the things in which
these men are essentially the same, gazing at their portraits. When the portraits become mirrors,
we see ourselves. But now then, having looked at
the things in which these men are essentially the same, consider
with me in the second place the things in which these men are
radically and fundamentally different the one from the other. The things
in which these men are radically different from each other. And
I want you to note with me four specific differences that are
nothing less than radical as the Lord Jesus Our gallery guide
and interpreter takes us by the hand and begins to point out
the features painted closer to the foreground against a common
backdrop as together we hear the voice of Christ describing
what is before us. First of all, they differ radically
in their conception of God. They differ radically in their
conception of God. It is accurate to say that there
is perhaps nothing more fundamental to what you are as a man, woman,
boy or girl than your conception of God. What you conceive God
to be is most likely the most powerful formative influence
upon your life. And as the Lord Jesus takes us
before these portraits, He underscores how these two men differ radically
in their conception of God. Look and listen as we stand by
the portrait of the Pharisee. Although exceedingly religious,
even to the point, our text says, of despising others. If this
man had a long Jewish nose, he'd look down to the end of its very
length, despising all others, considering himself elevated
above all others. Yet this man, in spite of his
religion that fed his pride, had a horribly distorted view
of God. He had a view of a God who was
so small and so trivial that he actually thought the God of
the universe would be impressed with his outwardly moral life
and that his piddling little religious deeds would gain him
some favor with God. What a pathetically little God
he had stuffed between his ears. Listen to it. The Pharisee stood
and prayed thus with himself. There's a bit of a nuance there
that his prayer got no higher than his own cranium. He stood
and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank you that I am not
as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as
this tax collector. And furthermore, God, I want
to inform you of a few things that ought to impress you. If
you're not exceedingly impressed with what I am not, Surely you
are impressed with what I do. You see how he changes the emphasis?
I thank you, I am not. And surely what I am not is impressive
to you, God. And if that is not of sufficient
impression to gain your full favor, God let me inform you
concerning what I do. I fast twice in the week, twice
a week from nine in the morning till three in the afternoon.
I forego a normal intake of food. God doesn't that impress you
tremendously that two times every week I don't open my mouth and
ingest a normal amount of food? Now think of how ludicrous this
is. The God of the universe who spoke
the galaxies into being by the word of His mouth. who upholds
them by the word of his power is supposed to be impressed because
this guy doesn't throw something down his throat twice a week.
That's what he's telling God, isn't it? I fast twice in the
week. I give tithes of all that I get. Now surely God, this must impress
you. Though you Own the world. Create it all that is in it.
Sustain it up. Own it. I give a tenth of everything
that comes within my possession. Think of it, God. One tenth of
it I give back to you. You, the God who owned the cattle
upon a thousand hills, the God of whom it is spoken in Genesis
1. I love this. After all of the
account of creation, it says, oh yes, and he made the stars
also. And here with the Hubble telescope,
they're discovering galaxies that stretch across hundreds
and thousands of light years. And what was this to God? He
said, oh, by the way, I made the stars also. Big deal. Big deal. Now, do you see something
of how ludicrous this situation is? Here's a man standing in
the presence of a God like this. with such a low, trivial, trite
view of God that he actually thinks that because he does not
conduct himself in some of the grosser forms of sin as other
men, and because he does these little bits of religious things,
these things will actually impress the high and the lofty one who
inhabits eternity, whose name is holy, who charges his very
angels with folly, who rides upon the wings of the storm and
the clouds of a dust at his feet, and hear this little speck of
a creature who could not draw his next breath unless God gave
it, is preening himself like a peacock spreading its tail
feathers in the presence of the Almighty. The God who at that
moment had the retinue of heaven bowed before him with seraphim
and cherubim veiling face and feet And with holy restlessness
flying about his throne, crying one to another, holy, holy, holy
is the Lord God the Almighty. The whole earth is full of his
glory. The God in whose presence myriads
of angels wait, straining for their names to be named, sent
on an errand for the Almighty. This God who with a blink of
His eye can send into oblivion massive mountains and cause the
heaving seas to break over their shores. And here is this creature
standing in the presence of this God actually thinking that the
things he doesn't do and the piddling little religious things
he does will earn him acceptance with God. What a trite, trivial
little God he had. But now when the Lord Jesus takes
us by the hand and causes us to stand before the public, what
do we see in this public? We see an utterly different conception
of God. He saw God, according to verse
13, as so holy, so majestic, so pure, that he had no right
of access to Him by nature. Look at the language. But the
publican, the tax collector, standing afar off, perhaps he
came just a couple of inches inside the court, of the Israelites,
where the males were able to come. There was the court of
the Gentiles, and the court of the women, and the court of the
males, and then the court where only the priest could minister,
and then the inner sanctuary where only the high priest could
go once a year. It says he stood afar off, perhaps
on the very border of where the court of the Gentiles was. His
standing afar off was symbolic of his felt sense of the distance
that existed between himself and the God who made him. The
God in whose presence he knew all things were naked and laid
bare. this God so full of majesty,
of purer eyes than to look upon iniquity, that He knows He has
no right of access to this God, that if this God were not merciful
to Him, He had had it, He was undone, there was no hope for
Him, that if this God would not turn away His wrath, He would
be consumed by the righteous anger of God. He stood afar off,
because he knew that there was this infinite chasm between himself
and this exalted, majestic, thrice holy God. They differed radically
in their conception of God. And as we stand before the portrait,
and the portrait becomes a mirror, in which portrait are you reflected? Do you have a trivial, trite
little God whom you think is impressed when you don't do certain
things or don't go quite as far as others into expressions of
violations of God's holy law? Do you really think that because
you raised your hand and prayed the prayer and walked the aisle
and go to church and throw God some of your money that he's
impressed with all of that? Is that your conception of God?
To say the word God, to think of what God is to you and how
you conceive of Him, are you mirrored in this Pharisee with
his narrow, truncated, trite, trivial little God? Or is your
view mirrored in this tax collector who sees Him as high and lofty,
the Holy One of Israel, of purer eyes than to look upon iniquity,
who will by no means clear the guilty. But then notice how they
differ not only in their conception of God, but they differ radically
in their perception of themselves. They differ radically in their
perception of themselves. The Pharisee? He is the perfect
product of ten seminars on self-esteem, self-actualization, self-fulfillment,
and being happy with himself. Is he not? Look at him. I thank you that I am not as
the rest of men, extortioners, unjust adulterers, or even as
this tax collector. Everything about him oozes with
self-esteem, self-acceptance, self-confidence, self-congratulation. When I was a kid, you children
listen to this little song we used to sing. I love myself. I think I'm grand. I go to the
movie just to hold my hand. I put my arm around my waist.
When I get fresh, I slap my face. Now that was a little innocent
ditty. We used to laughingly quote one to another. But it's
no laughing matter in the presence of God when a man says, I love
myself. I think I'm grand. I come to
the temple not just to hold my hand. But to show God how beautiful
my hands are, how clean my hands are, how righteous I am, he had
a view of himself that was utterly devoid of any sense of his own
wretched state in the presence of the living God. He's filled
with a sense of peace and self-satisfaction. He says, Oh God, behold me, the
righteous one. But now look at the perspective
that the publican, the tax collector, had of himself. He is full of
self-esteem and self-confidence and self-congratulation. He is
full of self-loathing, self-abhorrence, and self-distrust. Now I know these are not popular
words in modern evangelicalism, and even some so-called reformed
theologians are telling us we should no longer sing, vile and
full of sin I am. Would he devote that sacred head
for such a worm as I? Even though God says, Fear not
thou worm, Jacob, we are beneath taking the names that God calls
us. But the publican, you see, has
a perception of himself. that leads to self-loathing. When the text says, the public
in standing afar off would not lift up so much as his eyes to
heaven. Do you see what the emphasis
is? Unlike the Pharisee who apparently
had himself arched backward with face upward to heaven, this man
is pictured as bowed down. had even bowed over and would
not so much as even lift his eyes to heaven, let alone his
countenance, and fill his lungs with air of self-importance and
strut before God, he had a view of himself marked by self-loathing,
self-abhorrence and self-distrust. He had the same view Isaiah had. In the year that King Uzziah
died, I saw the Lord high and lifted up upon a throne. And when Isaiah envisioned has
this unveiling of God in His burning holiness and in His ineffable
exaltedness. What does Isaiah say? He cries
out, Woe is me! I'm undone! I'm a man of unclean
lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips for
mine eyes have seen the King, Jehovah. of hosts. I've seen God, and now I see
myself. Who was Isaiah? Was he a pothead? Was he an old wino? No, he was
a noble son of the court. He was a man that anyone would
gladly claim as his uncle or his big brother. Any woman would
gladly identify as her husband. But when he saw God, he saw himself. And when he saw himself, it led
to self-loathing, self-abhorrence, and self-distrust. And the mark
of this was that he knew he had to go utterly out of himself
if he was ever to have acceptance with God. For look at his words.
He said, O God, be merciful to me. The sinnered God, if you
don't do something for me that I cannot do for myself, I've
had it. I am not only a far off now,
I shall be farther off yet in death, and farther off yet in
judgment, and farther yet in eternity when I am cast into
outer darkness. Oh, how they differed radically
in their perception of themselves. the Pharisee the epitome of self-esteem,
self-confidence, self-congratulation, the publican full of self-loathing,
self-abhorrence, and self-distrust. Now the portraits again become
our mirrors. In which one are you reflected?
Sitting here in this building tonight, which portrait is you. Are you one who has had your
native self-esteem and self-fulfillment and self-confidence and self-congratulation
devastated by the application of God's holy law to your conscience,
showing you that regardless of what your external life has been,
you are through and through a sinner, deserving of the wrath of Almighty
God? Or do you stand before the portrait
of the publican and say, O God, that's me. If I know my own name,
I know one thing for sure, that if I am ever accepted with God,
it will be on the basis of something God does. not on the basis of
what I am or what I have done. And you're in one of two of those
portraits. And as the mirror reflects you,
what do you see? Do you see? Not merely someone
who coached in an inquiry room, prayed the prayer. No, no. Nobody was coaching him to pray
the prayer. It is one of the most abominable
and wretched practices ever foisted upon professing Christendom.
Pray the prayer, say after me, O God, O God, have mercy. Nobody
was here coaching him. That prayer was wrung out of
the inner consciousness of his own spirit. His conception of
God led to an accurate perception of himself. in which portrait
are you mirrored? Well, we've noted they differ
radically in their conception of God. As we've come closer
to their portraits and listened to the Lord Jesus interpret them,
we've seen they differ radically in their perception of themselves.
And then thirdly, they differ radically in their conviction
of how one gains acceptance with God. they differ radically in
their conviction of how a man gains acceptance with God. Hear me carefully, young and
old alike, few things are more indicative of someone's spiritual
state than their heart conviction with respect to this question,
how does one find acceptance with God. Look at the portraits. There's the Pharisee. He actually
believes he is accepted with God. That's why he gives thanks. I give thanks. He believes. He has accepted that he is a
favorite in the court of heaven. He believed that were he to die
in the next moment, God would be under obligation to take such
a nice chap and a good fellow right into his presence. And
his confidence of that acceptance with God was based totally upon
what he was and what he did and what he did not do and what he
was not. But it all centered in himself. We had Romans 10 read tonight. This man epitomizes what Paul
describes in Romans 10 and in verse 2. Verses 2 and 3, I bear
them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to
knowledge, for being ignorant of God's righteousness, God's
way of having sinners accepted before Him, and seeking to establish
their own righteousness, they did not subject themselves to
the righteousness of God. That's a perfect description
of this man. His conviction of how a man gained
acceptance with God was utterly, utterly and radically different
from what is revealed in Scripture. He believes his acceptance with
God is grounded in who he is, what he has done and what he
has not done. Whereas the tax collector is
so convinced that what he is by nature and practice is so
abhorrent to God, so wrath and hell deserving, that this is
what he prayed. His prayer was not, God be merciful
to me, a sinner. There is a standard Greek word
for mercy and merciful. That was not in his prayer. He
used a word that has a far more profound significance. This is
what he prayed, literally. God, be propitious to me, a sinner. And what is propitiation? It
is the turning away of the wrath of God on the basis of an acceptable
sacrifice. It is the acknowledgment that
sin deserves wrath. The wages of sin is death. And the sentence of death must
be meted out in the pure, holy, righteous wrath of God. And when
he prayed, O God, be propitious to me, a sinner, what he was
saying is, God, turn away your wrath on the grounds of an acceptable
sacrifice. When it says he would not so
much as lift up his eyes to heaven, it's my own conviction that his
eyes were fixed on an object there in the temple. Fixed upon
an altar. Upon an altar where innocent
victims were slain. Their blood spilt. Their carcasses
consumed in fire. to constantly bear witness that
the sinner's approach to God can only be grounded on the death
of the innocent substitute. And we know that every lamb that
bleated when the knife slitted its throat was a foreshadowing
of that time when the Lamb of God, who would bear away the
sin of the world, would hang upon the cross And there immolated,
forsaken, abandoned by God would cry with that mysterious, penetrating,
awesome cry of dereliction, my God, my God, why have you forsaken
me? And if an answer had ever come
forth from heaven, we know what the answer would have been. My
son, I have forsaken you because I am of purer eyes than to behold
iniquity. And you have voluntarily engaged
to take upon yourself all of the wrath, deservingness of the
sins of those for whom you are dying. And though I have never
loved you more, as your obedience has found its highest expression
in laying down your life, while I yet have never loved you more,
my son, as I treat you in pure justice in the court of heaven,
I must consume you in the fire of my righteous anger. And the
Scripture tells us Christ is our propitiation. The Scriptures
tell us He made a propitiation in His blood. The wrath of God
is not somehow just jettisoned out into the black hole of the
universe. It is funneled down into the
heart and soul of the Son of God. And there it is forever
swallowed up. And how much this publican understood
of that we do not know. But interpreting and expounding
the passage in the light of the full teaching of the New Testament,
we are warranted to say that he had a totally radically different
conviction of how man gains acceptance with God. The Pharisee believes
his acceptance is based on who he is, what he does not do, and
what he does. The tax collector is convinced
His acceptance with God is based totally upon the activity of
God in turning away his wrath on the basis of the death of
an innocent victim. God be propitious to me, the
sinner. Now as we stand by the portraits, once again they become
a mirror. What do you see? Where are you? When you stand
before that Pharisee, Do you see yourself thinking that something
you are, something you are not, something you have done or have
not done is that which gives you acceptance with God? Do you
believe that because you have not abandoned yourself to an
openly immoral life, you've known no man or woman but your legitimate
husband or wife, you guard your mind from lustful thoughts? You
have never consciously stolen the property of another. You're
honest and upright in the paying of your taxes. You've got a string
of perfect attendance bars for Sunday school that's long enough
to go around three Los Angeles blocks. Do you really think that
all those things give you some standing with God? Oh, you would
never say, God, look at my perfect attendance bar. But in your heart
of hearts, you believe that somehow they must count for a little
something. They just must give me a few brownie points. And
though you would not blatantly stand like this man and say,
God, I thank you. I'm not a slut and a whore and
a whoremonger and a lecherous, dirty young man or old man. I'm not a thief and a crook.
And therefore, God, you must accept me. Maybe it's a little
more subtle. I thank you, God, I made my decision
when I was a teenager. And I thank you, God, that having
made my decision, I've lived a pretty decent life. And I thank
you, God, that I've gone to church regularly, Sunday morning, Sunday
night, and even occasionally to prayer meetings. And, Lord,
I thank you that I've been a tither all my life. I believe in tithing. God bless me. I thank you, God. That's the language of a Pharisee.
That's the language of someone who thinks his acceptance with
God is based on what he is, what he does, and what he doesn't
do. Is that you? Is that a portrait
of you? Does that portrait, when it becomes
a mirror, reflect your image? Or are you here with that tax
collector? By whatever specific means, over
how long a period of time, to whatever extent, in all of that,
God is utterly sovereign. But God has brought you to that
place where you say, I know in my heart of hearts, when it comes
to having acceptance before Almighty God, I must go totally out of
myself. and look solely to the mercy
of God in the provision of an adequate substitute and sacrifice
to turn away his wrath. Which are you? Do you sit here
tonight In the depths of your being, though you may have named
the name of Christ for years and even earned the reputation
of being a consistent Christian, in your heart of hearts do you
say, Oh God, if you are not propitious to me, if you do not turn away
your wrath from me based upon the activity and the work of
an innocent victim, I've had it. I'm undone. There is no hope for me. But
we see fourthly and finally that they not only differ in their
conception of God, their perception of themselves, their conviction
of how a man gains acceptance with God, but the final feature
as we stand in this portrait gallery is this. They differ
radically in their true position before God. They differ radically
in their true position before God. Notice what the text says
as our Lord Jesus brings this description to a summary. He
says in Luke chapter 18 and verse 14, I say unto you, he who is
truth incarnate speaks with gracious magisterial authority, I say
unto you, this man, that is the tax collector, went down to his
house justified rather than the other. You see, they differed
radically in their true position before God. The Pharisee came
up to the temple lost. condemned, dead in trespasses
and sins, dressed in nothing but the rags of his own righteousness,
which are, Scripture says, as polluted garments. And he left
exactly as he came. In spite of his prayer, In spite
of his sense of self-satisfaction, no doubt more convinced than
ever, all was well between himself and God, for he had paid one
more trip to the temple, one more brownie point, one more
accomplishment star on his chart. But you have it upon the word
of Jesus, he went down to his house, not just in under condemnation,
under wrath, an object of the righteous displeasure of God,
and had he died, he'd have dropped straight into hell. But the publican,
look at the text, I say unto you, this man, this tax collector
went down to his house justified. Justified! What is justification? It is God declaring a man to
be in a condition so that he can say, I am just as if I'd
never sinned. Furthermore, just as if I'd fully
kept your law. Justification is God's legal
declaration that on the ground of the perfect life of Christ
and the death of Christ under the curse of God's law, That
sinner believing in Christ has all of his sins pardoned and
is credited with a perfect righteousness that demands that he be accepted
into the presence of God as righteous. And this publican, according
to Jesus, this tax collector, went down to his house justified. declared righteous. All of his
sins, past, present, and future, forgiven, pardoned. No legal
punishment could ever come upon him, even for his subsequent
sins as a justified man, which he would need to confess and
repent of. Yet, there would never be an
illegal terror. There would never be any Anger
of the judge, there be the frown of a displeased father, but not
the anger of an incensed judge. What Christ was on His way to
accomplish in the remainder of His earthly life, culminating
in His death, burial, and resurrection, that had already been credited
to Abel, and to Seth, and to Noah, and to Abraham, and to
Isaac, and to Jacob, and the prophets. It was credited to
this publican. He went down to His house justified. They differed radically in their
true position before God. The one went down to his house
lost, condemned, still in Adam, dead in his sins. The other went
down to his house justified. The portrait again becomes a
mirror. As you leave this building in a few minutes, you will go
down to your house in one of two conditions. The same as when
you came in, if you are in Adam, just a man, just a woman, just
a boy, just a girl, having nothing more than what you brought into
this world in your first birth. And in spite of all that you've
done and all you don't do that may be commendable in isolation
from other factors according to this passage, if you have
never taken the posture of this publican and gone out of yourself
totally into another for mercy and acceptance, you go down to
your house under the wrath of God. The thought of it ought
to be enough to terrify you. to think that almighty God who
holds your next breath in his hands would have a controversy
with you it's the most frightening thing in the world to think that
the God who has the right to withhold my next breath has a
controversy with me which if he chooses to bring it into the
theater of present action and snatch away my life will forever
seal my doom as the doom of the lost. And then your life and
your consciousness and your feelings will be an eternal exposition
of those words in the Bible that are frightening just to read
them. Outer darkness, weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth, the
smoke of their torment descending up forever and forever They have
no rest day nor night. My friends, those are Bible words. I didn't write them. I tremble
just to quote them. You will have an eternal exegesis
of them if you go down to your house the way you came, if you
came unhumbled, never having seen your sin. never having gone
out of yourself and into Christ. But if this night you say, O
God, you've shown me, as I've stood before the portrait and
the portrait has become a mirror, I've seen I've had the heart
of the Pharisee. But Lord, you have shown me that
beneath all of that I am the sinner. I am the one who deserves
wrath and judgment. O Lord, as much I don't know,
but I do believe that You sent Your Son to die for sinners. I do believe when He cried, My
God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? And when He gave the shout
of triumph, It is finished! And when He was buried and then
raised from the dead, I do believe, O God, that this is sufficient. for me and my sin. And you cast yourself upon him.
You cry to him for mercy as we heard in our scripture reading,
whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. This word of faith we preach
is nigh, it's near to you in your mouth and in your heart.
As I said last night and I say again tonight with joy, Christ
is nearer to you in the preaching of the gospel than your own breath. He comes to you individually
in the gospel and says, in all the plenitude of my saving mercy
and power, in all the richness of my grace, I'm yours. if you
will have me. I'm yours if you will have me. But you see, to have Him, you've
got to get rid of making yourself your own Savior. Your vaunted
self-esteem and self-sufficiency and self-congratulation all must
be abandoned, and you must take your posture with that publican,
not literally bending over and literally beating your breast.
but taking the posture that those external actions mirrored as
the disposition of his heart, the posture of a sinner. Well,
having considered together the things in which these men were
the same, the things in which they radically differed then,
thirdly, and very briefly note from the passage the fundamental
lesson from the portrait gallery You see, when Jesus takes us
in, points out the various features,
explains their significance, as he now takes us by the hand
to lead us out of the portrait gallery, he said, there's one
central fundamental lesson I want you to learn from all I've shown
you in the gallery today. And that central lesson is found
at the end of verse 14. Look at it. I say unto you, this
man went down to his house justified rather than the other four. Here's
the central lesson. Everyone that exalts himself
shall be humbled, but he that humbles himself shall be exalted. What's the central lesson of
our Lord's guided tour through this portrait gallery? It's this.
self-exaltation will result in abasement by God. And secondly,
abasement will result in exaltation by God. That's the great lesson. He, everyone that exalts himself,
shall be humbled. The person who seeks to lift
himself up by his own bootstraps into the presence of God shall
be humbled. Where would this man's feathers
be in the day of judgment when he stood naked before the living
God? And God showed the entire moral
universe what He really was, a sinner, vile, unclean, undone,
odious, in the presence of the Holy One, exalted in Himself,
abased by God. But He that humbles Himself,
and in the context, what is that humbling of Himself? taking my
place in terms of what I really am. Yes, a creature made in the
image of God, morally accountable to God, but a creature fallen
in Adam, a sinner by nature and practice with nothing to commend
myself to God, humbling myself, that is, going totally out of
myself, unto another for mercy and pardon and acceptance. Such
a one, Jesus said, shall be exalted. Exalted with what? The very righteousness
of Christ put to our account and eventually exalted to the
glorified state of the sons and daughters of God, having glorified
bodies and perfected spirits. My friends, nothing is more humbling,
pride-withering, than to stand spiritually naked and empty-handed
before a crucified Savior and say from the depths of your heart,
Nothing in my hands I bring. Simply to thy cross I cling. Foul, foul I to the fountain
fly, me Savior, or I die. Jesus, lover of my soul, let
me to thy bosom fly. False and full of sin I am, thou
art full of truth and grace." People say, well, simple faith
in Christ. Yes, it is simple faith. But
no one ever exercised that simple faith who was not humbled by
the reality of his sinfulness and by the reality that since
his salvation is wholly based upon the work of another, all
of the credit and all of the glory goes to another. There's
none left for myself. So every true act of saving faith
and exercise of saving faith is flesh withering. And you only
have one of two alternatives. You take that posture now and
flee to Christ, or maintain your dignity now and be forced to
take the posture of moral nakedness in the day of judgment. Which
will it be? Humble yourself now and be exalted
with all of the glory of gospel privileges and standing. Stand
upon your dignity. I don't like the language, vile,
false, full of sin. No, I haven't done everything
perfectly. I'm willing to admit I'm a sinner,
but dead, defiled, polluted, my righteousness as filthy garments? No. All right, stand upon your
dignity and perish. For he that exalts himself shall
be humbled. I close with a simple, honest,
true anecdote. Some years ago, two Jehovah's
Witnesses showed up at our front door, and I had begun to learn
that if you were going to have any hope of reaching them with
the truth, you had to get them derailed from their speech and
from their own text and their own approach. And once I showed
enough courtesy to gain the attention of the woman who was the chief
speaker, I said, ma'am, before we enter into any discussion
about the Trinity and hell and Jesus as the co-equal, co-eternal
son of the living God, may I ask you a very simple question? She
said, yes. I said, where and when and by what means? were
you brought to own yourself as a vile, filthy, hell-deserving
sinner?" She stood upright and bristled and said, Where in the
world do you get those words from the Bible? Vile and wretched
and hell-deserving. And I began to quote the text,
The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. We are all as an unclean thing,
and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. Behold, I am
vile." At which point she grabbed the elbow of her companion and
said, let's get out of here. Well, you see, leaving my front
porch didn't change her true state. And you may leave here
tonight and say, I've had enough of that business. That's the
last time I'll ever darken the door of that church where I was
told I was vile and wretched and undone. And all of my church
attendance and all of my morality and uprightness count for nothing.
I'll go away from all of that. My friend, you can go away from
such preaching, but it won't change the reality. You'll meet
all that reality in the day of judgment. Would to God you'd
face it tonight. while the door of mercy is open,
while the Savior comes to you in the word and promise of the
gospel, and while he says, come unto me and I will give you rest. And if you've been able to go
through the portrait gallery and say, by the grace of God,
when the portrait has become a mirror, yes, I am mirrored
in the portrait of the publican, it wasn't always that way, but
blessed be God, it is so now. Surely, child of God, you've
not been wearied to have rehearsed in your hearing what God did,
that you might be exalted. What He did to humble you, that
He might raise you to the heights of being united to Christ, seated
in the heavenlies with Christ. awaiting the hour when He shall
be manifested and we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him
as He is. What a wonderful thing to be
a Christian. May God grant that if you do
not know the blessedness of being mirrored in that publican, ere
you pillow your head tonight by the grace of God, that portrait
will mirror even you. Let us pray. Our Father, how we thank you
for your holy word. Thank you for the words of our
Lord Jesus. Thank you for these portraits
that he himself painted with his own words. Thank you for
his own explanation of their significance. And we pray that
the Holy Spirit will so seal them to every heart that the
last day of unveiling will show that someone this night was by
grace brought to take the posture of the publican, abandoning all
of the self-delusion and self-esteem of the Pharisees. and taking
the true and rightful place of the publican. Oh God, seal your
word that it may bear fruit now and even until the day of Christ. Thank you for the privilege of
meeting together in this way tonight. May your blessing rest
upon us as we part from one another. Grant us safety in our journey
to our various homes And if it please you, may your blessing
rest upon the day that would unfold before us, that we may
know what it means to walk in communion with you, the living
God, who has brought us to yourself through Jesus Christ. Hear us
as we plead these mercies in his worthy name. Amen.