The Lord's having public discourses,
and in verse 9, Luke 18, we pick up our reading. And he spake
this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they
were righteous and despised others. Two men went up into the temple
to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a publican. The Pharisee
stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee that I am not
as other men are. extortioners, unjust, adulterers,
or even as this publican, I fast twice in the week. I give tithes
of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar
off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but
smote upon his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you, this man that is
the last, the publican, went down to his house justified rather
than the other, for every one that exalts himself shall be
abased. Everyone lifts himself up shall
be brought down. He that humbles himself shall
be exalted. Now, all of the parables that
were spoken by our Lord during his earthly ministry, and there
were many of them as they are recorded for us in the gospel,
each one of them emphasized a particular idea. There is one central thought
to every parable that our Lord gave. And there is something
that is relevant to those to whom our Lord spake these particular
parables. As for example, when the Pharisees
and the Jews heard the parable of the vineyard from our Lord
in Matthew chapter 21 verse 33 to about verse 44, of the treatment
of the servant, of the householder, and of the son, in verse 45 they
heard that and they perceived that the Lord while speaking
to them or about them. Now, there's an amazing thing
that is recorded in the 13th chapter of Matthew in regard
to the parables of our Lord. In the midst of what we call
the Kingdom of Heaven parables, in Matthew chapter 13. Here it is, quote, All these
things spake Jesus in parables, and without a parable did not
he speak unto them, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken
by the prophet, who said, I will open my mouth in parables and
other things kept secret from the foundation of the world."
So the Lord in speaking parables actually fulfilled some of the
Old Testament prophecy. That's probably a reference to
Psalm chapter 78 Now, this does not mean that
Christ spoke only in parables during the course of his ministry. He often spoke without figures
and clearly and plainly. But in Matthew 13, there were
those parables that gushed out of the mouth of our blessed and
wonderful and all-knowing Lord. Now the object of the parable
that we have read this morning is to show the spiritual danger
of self-righteousness, to show the danger and the ignorance
and the blindness of those that are self-righteous. That is,
they think themselves good, they think themselves well, they think
that God is pleased with them, and they see nothing terribly
wrong with themselves before the Almighty God of Heaven. because it says here that the
Lord spoke this parable to them or about them who trusted in
themselves that they were righteous. What were they doing? They were
relying upon themselves. They were relying upon their
own goodness or their own works or their keeping of the law that
they were righteous. They viewed themselves as personally
good and righteous in the sight of God. I was reading Linsky,
and Linsky said that the tenth is such like this, such as have
been trusting in themselves that they are righteous. They have
been doing so for quite some time, and they keep on doing
so, that they are righteous and trusting in themselves. Noted,
the ground of their trust is themselves. It is not the grace
of God, or the mercy of God, or the goodness of God, it is
themselves. So that the substance of their
trust was that they themselves were good, that they were righteous,
that they stood well in the sight of God. And such persons as this
are confident that they are counted good and in the favor of Almighty
God. But that's only half of their
sin. There's another hack. Not only
do they trust in themselves that they are righteous, but they
despise others. They look down upon others. They
hold them in contempt. as being beneath them, and as
we might express it, they look down their noses at other men
who are not like them, and particularly and especially the Gentile, the
Samaritan, and of themselves, the publican. Then in the parable,
the Lord utters or illustrates some things here. Let's notice
them as we move along. Number one, Our Lord points out
here that self-righteous persons are ignorant of the true way
and method of righteousness. They are ignorant of how one
becomes righteous in the sight of God. They are ignorant of
the way of justification of a sinner in the sight of God. Then the
second thing that we have in this wonderful parable is the
truth from Christ that great sinners may be justified as they
are, no matter how great a great sinner they are in the sight
of God, they may be justified. And they may be justified without
reforming themselves, or without going and doing good works, first
of all, without keeping the law, without getting or making themselves
better, or without giving up something that might bring them
the favor and the grace of God. In other words, they are saved
as they are. They are justified as sinners. God justifies sinners, for he
came to seek and to save them. And in unfolding these truths,
the Lord contrasts two individuals that are in this parable. They're
identified not by name, but two men. Two men went up to the temple. Two men went up and stood in
the temple. And the two men went up into
the temple for a particular reason or exercise, and that was to
pray. Now, we do not know, but it may
have been one of the hours of prayer that the Jews observed,
and they went to the temple and daily observed hours of prayer. And the Lord uses these two men. One is a Pharisee, and the other
is a publican. Now, let's look at the history
of these two sorts of people. Well, there were many of them
in Israel at that particular time. And you might remember
from reading the scripture that the Pharisees were the largest
sect SECT of Judaism. By far, most of them were Pharisees
as to their religious observances and their religion. And these
Pharisees not only were the most numerous, they were the most
influential, having the most power and influence in Judaism,
and and they also were the most political of all of the Jewish
sects that are mentioned in the scripture. They also had most
control of the synagogues and their services than any of the
other Their name, Pharisee, as they're called, actually means
separatist. Well, they considered themselves
cut apart. They were separate. They kept
themselves separate, so they thought they were the separatists
of their day. They stood aloof and apart from
most of the other happening of their day. And they practiced
their Phariseeism with great outward pomp and enthusiasm,
but also with great show. They did things to be seen and
heard of men. Now you might think, well, these
are good religious people. But we remember that these were
full of hypocrisy from the standpoint of our Lord. See that in Matthew
chapter 23. He called them Pharisees, liars,
hypocrites, blind leaders of the blind, and more severely
condemned and criticized the Pharisees than any other that
he met with in that day. Now, the other man is called
a publican. And these were Jews, but these
were Jews who had contracted themselves with the Roman government
to collect taxes in the provinces of the Kingdom of Rome. Their real designation was tax
collector. Nobody likes a tax collector,
even to our day. Matthew was one. Even when he
was called by our Lord, Matthew was even then seated at the receipt
of custom. He was there collecting taxes
and tolls and such like when the Lord called him in Matthew
chapter 9 and verse 9. He was in his tax booth exacting
taxes when Christ called him away. Zacchaeus is another famous
publican in the scripture, chief among the publicans he was, when
the Lord called him, he immediately was convicted of his having exacted
over much taxes from the people. You'll find that in Luke chapter
19, 1 through 9. For as the Lord called him, he
said, if I have taken anything by fraud, Lord, I freely give
it back fourfold. Now, needless to say that the
publicans had a very bad reputation among the other Jews of that
day. Because people like the Pharisees
looked upon them as traitors to Israel. They looked upon them
as turncoats. They looked upon them that had
sold their soul unto the Romans for the almighty dollar. Because they not only collected
taxes, but they collected beyond what was due or what was owed. And they kept the surplus and
enriched themselves at the expense of others. And they were very
often classified and associated with great notorious sinners. They were put in the class with
other great sinners. Matthew chapter 18 and 17 speaks
of a heathen man and a publican. So we see that they were lumped
together in that matter. Publicans and sinners are set
at meat with the Lord Jesus Christ as he would eat with them. So the Lord welcomed them even
into his company. What's more, the publican were
put in the same class or the same category with the harlots. Matthew 21 and 31, the publican
and the harlots are mentioned together. So that's the kind
of man that we're reading about this morning that went down to
the temple in Jerusalem that he might pray. Now Matthew chapter
3, 12 and 13 confirms that these tax crooks, as we might call
them, and it was common knowledge throughout Israel that this was
the case. These publicans who had given
themselves to the Romans to collect taxes from their fellow Jews,
did overtax them and enrich not only the government, but also
themselves. And yet, in the parable that
is our text for this morning, there stands a publican. Here's one of those despised
tax collectors who has collected too much, who's been a crook,
who's been dishonest all of his days. And here he stands. Where? In the temple there in
Jerusalem. And not only that, he hasn't
come there to run down somebody that owes their taxes. But he
has come there for a religious exercise. He has come there for
to pray. And yet the Lord speaks of two
men, not one, but two, who went up to the temple to pray. And
again, I'll identify them. One was a Pharisee, a self-righteous
man. The other was a publican, a great
sinner, and everybody knew it. Now the Lord speaks first of
the Pharisee and describes him. And it's in Luke chapter 18,
verse 11 and 12. Two verses are devoted to describing
this man. And I wonder if you have considered
the words in verse 11. This Pharisee came to pray, pushed
right up close, I'm sure, to be heard of all the others and
to be seen. And it says here, he prayed thus
with himself. Now there is a fault in the very
beginning with this man. For his praying is, as Linsky
called it, in favor of himself." This he did. He did not ask for
mercy. He did not confess to being a
sinner. He did not confess anything wrong,
but he extolled himself as he stood there in prayer. The NIV translates it, he prayed
about himself. His prayer was self-friendly,
if we may use that term in our day, for the whole prayer of
this man is nothing but a boasting about himself and how good and
how lawful he has been. Now, there are parts of his prayer
that we hear them separately. They might at first seem legitimate
until we view them in their whole and in their context. For first
of all, he invokes the name of God, and that's good, since God
only is to be prayed to. None other but God and Christ
and the Divine One. or to be prayed to. We're not
to pray to Mary or the angel or the saint or to any preacher. Second, he expresses thanks. We ought to do that as we pray. I thank thee, says the man, but
soon he goes astray. For thanksgiving is a central
part of prayer. For even the Lord Jesus Christ
prayed, Father, I Thank thee. And we could even understand,
in a proper context, his next words. I thank you that I am
not like other men are. For we can be thankful that God
has not left us to ourselves, so that we are homeless this
morning, or a pitiful dope addict, or a bleary-eyed drunk somewhere
under a bridge, or that he has not withheld from us the understanding
of the gospel and of our state and such like. And he has not
left us to our own way, to walk in our own pitiful, blind, ignorant,
sinful way. But then the Pharisee erred greatly
in his prayer. or he thought he had made himself
to differ. He thought that what he had done
had stood him well with God and set him so apart from these other
types of sinful people. He attributed to his own personal
goodness, and he was conceited. He was full of pride and full
of arrogance, and he contrasted himself from all other men in
the world. The rest of men, is what he said. Not just this man, but I thank
you that I'm not like other men. I'm not like the rest of men. Extortioner, or that means robbers,
or rapacious. I'm not excessively greedy. Secondly, I'm not unjust. Third, I'm not an adulterer,
and fourth, I'm not like this tax collector standing here in
the courtyard of the temple. Now, as the Lord Jesus tells
us, the Pharisees were hypocrites. They were made clean on the outside. as we read in Matthew 23, 25. They were like somebody who'd
cleaned up the outside of a cup or a dish, but inside, they had
left it all filthy. The Lord said, you're like a
grave. Outside, you're decorated, you're
mowed, you're clean, flowers are planted, a marker, but inside,
what is there but dead men's bone? Now Paul said concerning
the Jews, their great fault was in Romans 10 and verse 3. being
ignorant of the righteousness of God, going about to establish
their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto
the righteousness of God. So Paul tells us that, and so
does the Lord. The Lord warned in the Sermon
on the Mount, Matthew 5 and 20. This is a powerful statement. Accept your righteousness. exceed the righteousness of the
scribe and of the Pharisee, you shall in no wise enter into the
kingdom of heaven." What is this? The Pharisee were the most religious
people of their day. They prayed, they tithed, they
said what they ought to say, they went to the temple, they
offered their sacrifices, They were what we might call the most
religious people of their day. And yet the Lord said, except
your righteousness goes beyond that, you shall in no while enter
into the kingdom of heaven. Remember what the Lord said here
in our text back in verse 9, I believe it is, that they trusted
in themselves that they were righteous, and secondly, they
despised others whom they thought were below them. When we see
these two things very prominently displayed in the elder brother
of the prodigal son, in that he said to his father, listen,
I never at any time transgressed thy commandment, but this thy
son, the prodigal, the younger, has been whoremongering. He has
wasted thy substance on harlots. I'm not like him, and I deserve
to be looked upon with greater favor and have privileges. We
see that the Pharisee, here in the Lord's parable, prayed with
no sense of unworthiness at all. He did not see himself as unworthy
of the goodness and the grace of God. He made not the slightest
mention or confession of sin. He gave no thanks, not one. for any of the past mercies of
God. He asked not for any grace to
help him in time of need. J.C. Rowe, an old-time writer,
said of his prayer, and I'm quoting, It is a mere boasting, reciting
of fanciful merits, a proud, high-minded professor, destitute
of penitence, of humility, and of charity." End of quote. And such a man is in our text
today and comes before the Lord in the temple that he might pray. What did he do? He dragged his
putrid self-righteousness and brought that as if to present
it before God as the ground of his acceptance. For he had not
learned. Isaiah chapter 64 and verse 6. We are all as an unclean thing. And all of our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags. That's how God looks upon it.
That's how God sees it. But then we switch a bit, for
the Lord tells of another man. And this other man also went
to the same place and at the same time, except this man was
by life and practice a publican. Now, not a Republican, but a
publican as he came to the temple. a tax collector of that despised
fraternity that was so despised by the Jew of that day, of whom
no piety was expected of them, for they had given themselves
over to wickedness and evil. No self-respecting Jew Would
ever be in their company and the Pharisee would cross the
street to avoid the company of a publican but as we saw This
one behold He prayeth this one has come that he might pray now. We're told of his position and
Of his posture as he comes to the temple number one. It said
he stood afar off He did not draw near. He did not get up
close. He did not mix and mingle with
that multitude that must have been there in the temple. He
was like a leper of old, had to keep his distance, had to
stay away because of the condition of his leprosy. A leper in Israel
was not allowed in the congregation, but had to stand afar off and
had to cry out as others passed by, unclean, unclean. Now the Pharisee, he drew right
up to the front row and there he began to pray. The wretched
publican felt unworthy. to draw any nearer to that place
where God dwelt in his presence in the temple. I've known a few
people in my day who even thought themselves unworthy to enter
into a house of worship. So great was their sin, and so
down was their life. But secondly, he would not so
much as lift up his eyes into heaven. I guess the Pharisee
probably lifted up his hands and looked up, praised himself. But here comes the publican.
He would not so much as lift up his eyes unto heaven. Methinks I see that old Pharisee
spreading his hand and proudly lifting up and extolling the
life that he had lived. But not so with this publican
man. He considered himself unworthy. Here was a man too ashamed to
presume on the holiness of God at that hour, too wretched to
even look up to God. So he smote down. So vile in
his own eye was this man, he considered, therefore, not looking
up but smiting upon his breast. This took me to a passage in
Ezra, the Old Testament prophet, chapter 9, verse 5 through 7.
I'll quote it for you. It was after the return of the
people from Babylon and the sad state of the nation after that
captivity when Ezra writes this, and I quote, Oh my God, I'm ashamed
and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God, for our iniquities
are increased over our head and our trespass is grown up unto
the heaven. Since the days of our fathers
have we been in great trespass unto this day, and our iniquities
have we been delivered into the hands of the king of the land."
Neither would the prodigal lift up his eye, and neither would
this publican unto God. Third thing we see, he smote
upon his breast. rather than lift up his head,
for that would signify pride, he lowered it so that it rested
down upon his breasts. John Gill, a great theologian,
takes this expression to mean that he's looking or considering
his abhorrence of himself. When he sees himself and what
he is in the sight of Almighty God, as an indignation and as
a revolt against him because it stirs up in him the faculties
of his soul as he felt the guilt of his sin and the unworthiness
of him being in that place and in the presence of God. Now,
before we consider, His short but effectual prayer, let's acknowledge
that this is an humble and a broken soul that we're looking at this
morning. His sin is heavy upon his soul. He does not come full of pride
in the accomplishment of his life. He does not take pride
in the fact that he has defrauded people. of their taxes and has
taken away their earning. Instead he comes now and sees
himself at the very end of himself. He has now a sense of the sinful
life that he has lived, even as the prodigal did when he returned
unto the Father and cried out unto him, I'm not worthy to be
called thy son. He now sees himself as a sinner
and a filthy sinner at that. One deserving of the wrath of
God, not of the blessing of God, as he comes and bows his head. And yet, he is of a mind to pray. He is of a mind to seek the Lord. And thank God for that. Would
such a man pray? Would we expect this man to come
and to pray? Who had heard him pray before?
Who had seen him in the temple before? And what shall his prayer
be when he comes before God to pray? Has this man any virtues
or to plead before God? Is there one good thing that
he can say and extol about himself that he might gain the favor
of God or of people that he had helped? Could he brag on the
good that he had done, how he had been fair and decent unto
his neighbor? How many good deeds he'd done
in the course of his life? Will he downplay his faults by
comparing himself unto someone worse than himself. This is a
common fault of many sinners in our day. You tell them about
their sin, and they say, well, I'm not as bad as him, I'm not
as bad as her, I haven't done this, I haven't done that, and
the other. I'm not as bad as a lot of people
that I know, and I'm not as bad as some people I know who are
in church every Sunday know, his prayer is short. Less than
a dozen words is recorded in this man's prayer. God be merciful
to me a sinner. And here it gets interesting.
We should sharpen our focus in order to get the full impact. The poor man does not ask for
justice. He does not say, Lord, give me
what I deserve. But he asks for mercy. He seeks not to justify his sin
and to extol them or to extenuate them in any way. but that God
in mercy would look upon him and would pardon them. His only
hope was that God would show him mercy. His sins were great,
and so he prayed, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. His sins were
heavy upon his heart and upon his conscience. They burned like
a fire. And so he asked for mercy. God, be mercy. Now, notice something. He does
not speak of justice, of love, of judgment, but of mercy. He did not say, judge me as I
deserve, but he says, be merciful. Now there are two things in his
prayer that may not be quite so clear as we look at it in
the translation of the Greek into our English. The first word
that we look at is the word mercy. God be merciful unto me. Many good translators have caught
this, and the translation of the word, that the word translated
mercy here is actually the Greek word, helioskozome, but butchered
that up probably, but this word is only a couple of times in
all of our New Testament. And the other time that this
Greek word is translated in the New Testament is in Hebrews chapter
2 and verse 17, where it is translated to make reconciliation. God be merciful. The other place,
make reconciliation or literally atonement for the sins of the
people, where the idea is that the making of a sacrifice that
atones for sin. a sacrifice that is able to put
away sin, and is the only ground upon which God forgives sin,
is that sacrifice made by the Lord Jesus Christ. Except God's
wrath and anger is placated, except His wrath is appeased
against it, except there be a proper propitiation for sin, there can
be no expiation of that sin, there can be no putting it away,
there can be no covering it, there can be no annulling, no
forgiving it, except the Lord Jesus Christ has made a sacrifice
for that sin. So when the publican uses the
word mercy, be merciful, be propitious unto me, we might think, how
does this man know theological terms such as this as he prayed? Being such a great sinner, how
could he know this? How could he pray it? Let me
share with you a point which I got from the old Puritan Thomas
Goodwin that he made concerning the words of this wretched sinner. Goodwin wrote of him as having,
hear me now, quote, a Jewish heart, unquote. A Jewish heart
was in this man. And a Jewish mindset was in this
man because he was a Jew. And that because the word that
he used He said the word mean it is a verb answering to the
noun mercy seat. And we have that also in Hebrews
nine and verse five, which in the Jewish heart was and mind
was the place where propitiation was made. It was the altar before
the temple and it was the holy of holies where there was the
mercy seat, and there the priest sprinkled the blood of the sacrificial
offering that he had brought. And on that pure gold mercy seat
did the priest sprinkle the blood of the sacrifice that he had
made. And that mercy seat was where
atonement was typically made during the course of Israel and
done by the high priest. God put his typical presence
above the mercy seat in the tabernacle. You can read that in Exodus chapter
25. Now the publican kept his distance
as only the high priest could approach the mercy seat. He came
to the temple. He came to the temple to pray.
He came to the temple also knowing that though God's essential presence
was in heaven, And yet did he put his glory in the mercy seat
under the old economy. And there he met with, there
God met and communed with Moses at the mercy seat. There the
high priest came and put his blood, typical of that which
would be done by the Lord Jesus Christ. Now we see this in the
mind of a pious Jew. As in 2 Kings, 1915, when Hezekiah
directed his prayer to Ward, and I am going to quote. He directed his prayer to Ward,
quote, Oh Lord, God of Israel, which dwells between the cherubims,"
unquote. And he did in Exodus 25 and 22. Also in Psalm 28 and verse 2,
it was so. Hear the voice of my supplication,
and here did the priest come, and here was atonement made. And then the point. Two men went
up into the temple. The two men prayed. The two men
left the temple. And hear the conclusion of the
Lord's parable in verse 14. I tell you, this man, he means
the publican, went down to his house justified and not the other,
meaning the Pharisee. The Pharisee rested his hope
upon his own works, upon his own goodness and observance of
the law. But the publican cast himself
upon the mercy of God as a sinner. Now, we must not lose sight of
the fact in all this that the man is also a model for a certain
class of people. And that is the ungodly, the
sinner, dead in sin, the irreligious, the profane, the unbeliever. This man was justified without
one good work to his account or to his credit. He did not
bring any merit before God. He brought simply and confessed
his sin in the sight of God. So in closing, let us say two
things here about this parable that our Lord has spoken unto
us and that we have considered this morning. Number one, The
saving mercy is manifested only in Jesus Christ. Jude verse 1, the mercy of our
Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. God is the father of mercy. 2 Corinthians 1. Paul obtained
mercy, 2 Timothy 1 and verse 16. So mercy flows only by and
through Christ. And the second thing is this,
and I want you to hear it. That is that the saving mercy
of God is sovereign. God declares this. I will have
mercy on whom I will have mercy. Exodus 33 19 quoted by Paul in
Romans 9 and 15. It is God's free and sovereign
action to have mercy is his good pleasure. His mercy is unmerited,
it is His sovereign prerogative to dispense His mercy as He would. And still, by an inward work,
He can put the words in a sinner's heart and a sinner's mouth and
cause them to cry out, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. That happened to me one day in
the 50s. It happened to you along the
way, no doubt. And may it happen unto others
that might be here this morning. God be merciful to me. And you know, I think the article
is there, The Sinner. I think that's what it is. God
be merciful to me, the sinner, for he viewed himself as the
worst of all. Like Paul, who said, though he
was the best Christian in the New Testament, he called himself
the chief of sinners. And that's how we view ourselves.
And the closer we get to God, the more vile we see ourselves. Not the better, but the more
vile. The more you grow in grace, the
more you learn, the more you walk with the Lord, you do not
see yourself as better and better, but you see yourself as wretched
and vile in the sight of God. And that's a good sign. It's
a work of God. It's a work of grace.