The Conversion of Zacchaeus

entered and passed through Jerusalem.
And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus, which was the chief
among the publicans, and he was rich. And he sought to see Jesus,
who he was, and could not for the press, because he was little
of stature. And he ran before and climbed
up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was to pass that
way. And when Jesus came to the place,
he looked up and saw him, and said unto him, Zacchaeus, make
haste, and come down, for today I must abide at thy house. And
he made haste, and came down, and received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all
murmured, saying that he was going to be the guest with the
man that is a sinner. And Zacchaeus stood and said
unto the Lord, Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to
the poor, and if I have taken anything from any man of false
accusation, I restore him for whole. And Jesus said unto him,
This day is salvation come to this house, for as much as he
also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man is come to
seek and to save you. That is the law, sir. This morning, the Lord willing,
I want to speak on this portion of the Word of
God and probably will so also this evening. I think this morning
we probably will get down to the first six verses. And then
this evening, God willing, we'll take up the rest of this portion
of the Word. But I want to speak on the subject,
uh, converging to Zacchaeus. This is a blessed portion of
the Word of God, and I know that probably most of you have heard
this portion of the Word read many times and probably memorized
a great deal of the story. But it'd be wonderful this morning
if we was able to dismiss from our minds completely anything
that we ever heard about this story. And if we could just this
morning concentrate upon it as if it was the first time that
we ever heard it read, the first time that we ever heard anything
said about it. This is a tremendous fortune
of the Word of God. Now, I recognize that the Bible
and the understanding of the Holy Scriptures It's somewhat
like mining for diamonds or mining for coal. Now we know that there
are many places probably in the world where that you could maybe
go out and you could right on the surface of the ground and
find diamonds. Or you could go out and as they
do often in the east and maybe even here in the west in some
places they take They strip mining for coal, they just have to turn
a little bit of the topsoil away, and the veins of coal just lie
right close to the surface. There's very little work involved
in getting to the coal. And the precious gems of the
Word of God, the precious truths of God's sovereign grace in the
Gospel, are somewhat like that. There are many, many chapters
in the Bible where you can just go through, as it were, and just
pick up the diamonds of the truths of God's sovereign mercy in the
scriptures. And then there are other places
in the scriptures, like it is with mining for diamonds and
coal, where you have to dig deep into the bowels of the earth.
And you have to go down very deeply into the earth and take
the the mining equipment, the sophisticated mining equipment
of the day, and dig out the coal, the diamonds. And this so is
the Word of God. There are many times when you've
got to get down and dig down into the Word and get into the
vein of truth that's in the Holy Scripture in order to find out
the precious truths of the Word. Now, I want to say that, for
an example, that if you was to read the the 6th chapter of the
Gospel of John, to read the 10th chapter of the Gospel of John,
the 17th chapter of the Gospel of John. If you was to turn over
to the Book of Romans and read the 8th chapter and the 9th chapter
of the Book of Romans, you read the 1st chapter of the Book of
Ephesians, the 2nd chapter of the Book of Ephesians, and so
on, we could name many other chapters that you could read
that would be like going out and picking up diamonds right
off the top of the ground, because these are portions of the Word
of God wherein the precious fruits of redeeming grace very near
the surface of the Word of God. Now, if a man doesn't have spiritual
arthritis, He can bend down and pick up these truths. And there's
a lot of people who do have spiritual authorities, and even though
they would wade through those fields, they still couldn't find
any of that truth that I'm talking about when it comes to redeeming
grace, when it comes to God's sovereignty in the salvation
of sinners. But then, this is the portion
I believe this morning that we have to deal with. We must dig
a little bit. We must go down, as it were,
into the bowels of the earth this morning in order to discover
the doctrines of truth set forth here. And in my study of these
verses, I've been overwhelmed by the teaching of sovereignty
that are in these verses and the tremendous way in which the
Holy Spirit has revealed the sovereignty of the Lord Jesus
Christ in these verses. Now, there is a principle, a
physical interpretation that I want to give to you at the
outset this morning of our message in order that you might understand
how we arrive at some of the truth that we will arrive at
this morning in our declaration or our teaching of this chapter.
Now, I believe that you may think, well, now the preachers read
between the lines if I don't give you this principle of biblical
interpretation. It's very important, and I want
you to get it. Now, I believe that the facts
of the Gospels and the facts of the Book of Acts and the narratives
of the Gospels and the narratives in the Book of Acts are all to
be interpreted in the light of the epistles of the Bible. That's
very important. If you don't interpret the Gospels,
the fact that the Gospels are the facts of the world and the
lives and the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ and His mighty
acts and deeds among men, and if we fail to interpret the Gospels
in the light of the Epistles, Then I think we go haywire. We
find ourselves trying to trust in a Savior that is not revealed
to us. We find ourselves trying to get
men to commit themselves to a Savior that is unrevealed. And so I
think this morning that we can keep that principle in mind.
Now what I mean by this is this. If you really want to know who
Jesus is, you could turn to the first and second chapters of
the book of Colossians And read those two chapters, and the first
chapter of Hebrews, and you can really discover who Jesus Christ
is. Now another thing, I'm going
out in the way of illustration of this biblical principle that
I just gave you, and that's this. That if you want to really know
the condition of Zacchaeus, When he ran and climbed up the sycamore
tree, you turn to the second chapter of the book of Ephesians
and read verse 1 and you have the condition of Zacchaeus when
he ran up that tree or climbed up that tree. Because the scripture
says there in Ephesians chapter 2, and you have he quickened
who were dead. in trespasses and in sin. So
you see what I'm talking about? This is the biblical interpretation
that if you want to understand the Gospels, interpret them in
the live teachings of the Epistle, and you'll be able to derive
what comes from truth of these verses. All right now. Let's
give you a little bit of an introduction into this portion of the scripture,
but say, first of all, that we believe this is a real-life grant.
It really is. And it has two scenes. I think
the first scene we find from verses 1 down to verse 6, and
the second scene from verse 6 down to verse 9. And then we have
the epilogue, which we find in verse 10. In other words, we
have these two scenes of the play as it were, the real-life
drama, and then we have, in verse 10, we have, as it were, the
Lord Jesus Christ coming out at the end of the play, and the
screens now are closed, the curtains are closed, And the Lord Jesus
steps out and he says, now if you miss the point of this story,
if you miss the point of this story, if you fail to get out
of what I've been teaching here concerning Zacchaeus, this is
the thrust of the message of this drama. It is that the Son
of Man has come to speak and to save that which was lost. And so we will, the Lord willing,
try to dig into this. and discover some truth. Now
the first thing they'll say is that this took place right outside
of Jericho on the Jericho Road. And the man that's involved is
a man named Zacchaeus. And the name Zacchaeus means
pure. And I believe that Zacchaeus
was an Israelite. He was a Jew. And he was a, the
scripture tells us in the next place, his occupation was that
he was a publican. He was a chief publican. Now
a publican was someone who collected taxes for the Roman government
and he collected taxes of the Jews. He was a very unpopular
man. He was unpopular because he went
out and every time that a Jew saw one of these publicans coming,
he knew that here was a man that was come and authorized by this
government rule to exact taxes from them. And, of course, many
times they would receive more. They would, by their chicanery
and duplicity, they would get more than what they was entitled
to, more than what they should have. They were guilty of breaking
the 8th and the 10th Commandment, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt
not covet. And these publicans were sinners
indeed. And they were looked upon by
the people as being sinners. Now, the next thing we find in
this text is his station in life. He was rich. The scripture says
he was a rich man. And the way he got his wealth
was by his chicanery and by him going out and exacting more taxes
than what was due. And he robbed the people, and
he was a rich man. All right? And then his stature
was, he was short. The scripture says that he was
In verse 3, because he was little of stature, that he went out
and of course he ran before and climbed up into a sycamore tree
because he was a short man. And because he couldn't see over
the crowd, he ran and climbed up the sycamore tree. Now the
next thing we have introduced to us here is his desire. And
he was curious. This man was a curious man. I
don't think he was anything more than just curiosity. Now, he
wanted to see Jesus, who he was. Now, he came out, and on the
Jericho Road here, there was a crowd of people that was gathering.
And they were sitting around somebody. And there was something
going on. And somebody said, well, this
is Jesus passing by. Jesus is coming this way. And
so Zacchaeus, he was a curious man, and he wanted to know what
was going on. And he never let anybody stop
him, whatever he had done involved in. He always got to the top.
And so he pulled off his shoes, as it were, and he just skinned
up this tree. And here he is, sitting up here
in this sycamore tree. He had a desire, and it was curiosity,
and curiosity is often the ally of grace. And so here he is.
He climbs up the sycamore tree, and this is his desire. He sought
to see Jesus who he was. All right, now, the next thing
we call your attention to is this, his condition. And we find
his condition described to us in verse 7 and in verse 10. We'll just skip ahead a little
bit of what we intend to speak on this morning, but I want you
to look at verse 7. And when they saw it, they all
murmured, saying that he was going to be the guest of the
man that is a sinner. Now, Zacchaeus was a sinner. Now, I believe that here we have
a pivotal point in this portion of the Word of God because, and
I say this because his name really isn't important and his station
in life really isn't important. And his stature, it really isn't
important. And his desire, it really isn't
important. But the thing that is of the
utmost importance is his condition before God. His condition before
God. What God saw him to be. But his
real state was before the living God. This is the thing that's
important. And I say this morning, the cause
that you and I now, as we come to this pivotal point in the
message, can put ourselves, we see ourselves now as you were
on this stage, and we see the spotlight of God upon us. The
spotlight of the Word of God, because if there's any two words
that describes Zacchaeus' condition, and our condition, if we be apart
from the Savior, if we be in the same condition Zacchaeus
was, it is the word sinner in verse 7, and it's the word lost
in verse 10. And so Zacchaeus' legal condition
before God was that he was a sinner. Now, Zacchaeus, I mentioned that
he had broken the 8th and the 10th Commandments in that he
was guilty of being a thief and he was guilty of the sin of covetousness. And the Bible says that if you
offend in one corner of the law, that you're guilty of all of
the law. And Zacchaeus had lived in defiance of the holy law of
God. Therefore, he was legally a sinner. He was a sinner before God because
the Bible says that sin is the transgression of the law, and
by the law is the knowledge of sin. Zacchaeus was a sinner because
he had broken the law. Now, all these people around,
they said that this man's a sinner, and Jesus didn't deny it. He
didn't deny it because it was true. This man was a sinner. All right, and then in verse
10, as I mentioned the word lost, this was his Being a sinner was
his condition, and he was lost. This means that he was astray
from God. He was astray from God. Zacchaeus
was in danger, and he was in danger of death and destruction. He was a sinner. He was lost. And he was one that was astray
from God. You remember the parable. of
that son who got his inheritance and he left his father's house
and went off into a foreign country. And you remember when he returned
that the father said this was my son and he was lost and now
he is found. Now, this son, when he was off
yonder in poor country, it didn't mean that he was lost in that,
that he was out there in some village, he didn't know where
he was at. No, he was out there in that village, and his father
said that he was lost, and the reason he was lost means that
he was estranged from the father, that he was out of fellowship
with the father, that he was cut off from the face of his
father. He was lost in that sense, don't
you see? And then also in the 15th chapter
of Luke, there's a picture there given of the lost sheep, and
the parable of the lost sheep, and also the parable of the lost
coin. Now, the parable of the lost sheep there, when the sheep
was lost, that means that this sheep was He was in a state of
danger and in a state where he would be destroyed. He was in
a state where he could be destroyed because he was lost from the
shepherd. And he was, of course, could
suffer at the hand or at the end of a wild animal or so on,
and he could be destroyed. And then the lost coin, remember
the lost coin illustrates what it means to be lost, in that
when the coin was lost, that it was no longer It was no longer
useful for the purpose for which it was made. Here the coin was
lost. It was still of intrinsic value,
I suppose, but it was lost and it was no purpose to anyone and
that the purpose for which it was made was gone. It was of
no use anymore and you As a man or a woman, boy or girl, was
given a mind to follow after God, a heart to love God when
He created you, a heart to serve the living God, and of course
you, as a sinner, you're no longer useful for the purpose for which
you were made. In that that you suffered in
the fall in the first man Adam and you're in this state of lostness
and you're not in fellowship with God. You're not serving
the holy law of God. You're not living for the glory
of God. You're not loving the Lord thy God with all of your
heart, mind, soul, and strength. And so the purpose for which
you were created, you're no longer useful for that purpose because
you're lost. And you face danger and destruction
and death in that that you're estranged from God. You're lost. and you face the judgment of
Almighty God for all eternity. You are a lost sinner if you
be outside Jesus Christ. And now this was the state, the
legal state of one's atheism. He was a sinner. And as I said,
this is the biblical point. Because this is the important
thing. How does God see you this morning? What is your true character
before God? If you be not in Christ Jesus,
you too are looked upon by God as a sinner and one who is lost
and separated from Him. So now this is your true statement. Alright? Now, I want us to think
now about the entrance in verse 5 of the Lord Jesus Christ into
this story. And when Jesus came to the place,
he looked up. Now here's Zacchaeus up a tree.
And Zacchaeus is a lost sinner up a tree. The scriptures have
told us that. And he's up this tree, and the
Lord Jesus Christ, and I want you to notice here, here Jesus
comes in to the story and to this first scene. And I want
you to notice the deliberateness of his approach to Zacchaeus. Nothing accidental about it.
A deliberateness about it. Notice it here in verse 5, Jesus
came to the place. He looked up and saw him and
said unto him. Now this is deliberateness. And
this is because that the Son of Man has come to see and to
save that which was lost. Now, I believe that if you see
this deliverance in verse 5, that you can quickly see that
it is a commentary or it helps us to interpret verse 10. Because
here is the Son of Man. and he comes directly to the
tree, and he looks up into this tree, and he says to Zacchaeus,
he calls him by name, Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for
today I must abide at thy house. Now this reminds us somewhat,
this inference of Jesus here in a deliberate way, reminds
us somewhat of Ephesians chapter two, verse four. When after Paul
has said you that were dead and sin, hath he quickened and made
alive, You that walked according to the course of this world,
and were children of wrath, even by nature. And then he said,
but God, who is rich in mercy for his great love for his beloved,
even when we were dead in sin, hath broken us together with
Christ by grace, you're saved. And but God, and his atheist
of this greatest sinner lost, but Christ came, and he stood
at the foot of the tree, and he called him by name. Now I
believe that in the command of Jesus here, as he looked up and
saw him and said unto him, make haste and come down, for today
I must abide at thy house." I believe in this command, you see the
sovereignty of the Lord Jesus Christ. And you see some things
in this command that are very, very revealing. Number one, I
believe that as he addressed him by name, and we do have him
addressing Zacchaeus by name here, that he revealed to Zacchaeus
who He was who Jesus was, was revealed exactly who he was. Now let me illustrate this. If
somebody walks up to you and you never saw the individual
before, and you never laid an eye on them, and you know that
as far as you know, they're not acquainted with you, and they
walk up to you and shake hands with you and call you by name,
you think something is rather suspicious. You think, well,
how in the world could this fella know my name? Why, I've never
met him before. How could he know anything about
me? You say, why he must have ESP or something like that because
he knows my name. Now listen to me now, when Jesus
said Zacchaeus, this said something to Zacchaeus. Now, I want you
to turn, and this will illustrate it better than anything else
that can be said, I believe, to John chapter one. John one. And I want us to read here beginning
with verse 43. Now just listen to these scriptures.
If you want to see how that Jesus Christ was revealed to Zacchaeus,
being very God, as Jesus was, I want you to, you can see it
clearly right here as the scripture talks about Nathanael. The day
following Jesus will go forth in the Galilee. It's verse 43,
John 1. Now Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip cried with Nathanael and
saith unto him, We have found him of whom Moses in the law
of the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth the son of Joseph.
And Nathanael said unto him, Can there any good thing come
out of Nazareth? Philip saith unto him, Come and
see. Jesus saw Nathanael coming to
him and saith unto him, Behold an Israelite, indeed, in whom
is no God. Nathanael saith unto him, Which
knowest thou me? How is it that you can know me?
How is it that you can know my character? How is it that you
know so much about me? Nathanael answered and said unto
him, or no, verse 48, Nathanael said unto him, which knowest
thou me? Jesus answered and said unto him, before that Philip
called thee, when thou wast under the fig tree, I saw thee. Nathanael answered and said unto
him, brethren, thou art the son of God. Thou art the King of
Israel." Well, now, what happened here? Well, the Lord Jesus Christ,
by speaking to Nathanael and by saying, Behold, and if I indeed
have revealed himself unto Nathanael, and the reason is this, because
these Jews, they knew that one of the characteristics of the
Messiah And the Lord Jesus Christ was the Messiah. Now listen. And the faculty here answered
and said to him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God, thou art
the King of Israel. Jesus answered and said to him,
because I said unto thee, I saw thee under the big tree, believest
thou? Thou shalt see greater things
than these. And he said unto him, truly, truly, I say unto
you, hereafter you shall see heaven opened and the angels
of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. Now turn
over to John. And here we find another demonstration
of the thing that I'm talking about. Jesus revealed himself
to Zacchaeus when he said, Zacchaeus, when he called him by name, John
chapter 4. And in this portion of the work,
we have the Lord Jesus talking to the woman at the well. And
I want you to listen to what he says to her. We begin with
verse 16. John 4, Jesus said unto her, Go, call thy husband,
and come hither. The woman answered and said,
I have no husband. Jesus said unto her, Thou hast
well said, I have no husband. For thou hast had thine husband,
and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband. In that saidst
thou to me." The woman said unto him, Sir, I perceive that thou
art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this
mountain, and he said, In Jerusalem is the place where men ought
to worship. Jesus said unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh
when ye shall neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem
worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what.
We know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour
cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship
the Father in spirit and in truth. And the Father seeketh such to
worship him. God is a spirit, and they that
worship him must. worship him in spirit and truth. Now listen to verse 25, what
the woman says. The woman saith unto him, I know
that Messiah is come, which is called Christ. When he is come,
he will tell us all things. Then she went into the city,
if you recall. And when she went into the city,
as she approached the men of the city and so on, she told
them about how that he had told her of all things which she had
done. And this was her testimony. Here's
one that told me of all things that I've done. And so, of course,
many of them came out. And the Lord Jesus Christ revealed
himself to this woman by telling her all that she had done in
her past and so on. And so when he said to Zacchaeus,
Zacchaeus! This revealed to Zacchaeus that
this, as he did to Nathanael, this is the son of God, this
is the Christ, this is God's Christ. And so he said to Zacchaeus,
you make Hades and come down. Now, I believe that Jesus also,
when he said, for today, I must abide in my house, somebody said,
do you even have a common decency to ask Zacchaeus if he might
dwell in his house? You know, on one occasion in
the scripture, Zacchaeus, or Jesus, remember, he was with
the disciples, and he made out as if he would go on ahead further,
and it was night, it was time to retire, and they of course
asked him, and he did stay with them, but he made out that he
would go on, but in this case, He said, today I must have I
get my house. He didn't ask him. Now Zach is,
he became aware of something here. Here's a man that knows
my name. Here's a man that only knows
my name. But here's a man who knows that
I've got a house. And here's a man who knows that
I've got a guest room. Here's a man who knows that I've
got a place to watch him. And this reveals something to
Zach is, It made Zacchaeus to have a preview, I think, of the
coming judgment. It made Zacchaeus to be aware
that he was here faced with one that was looking up right into
his face, that knew all about him. He knew everything about
him. He knew his name. He knew that he had a house.
He knew how to deal with him. Now, you remember the scripture
says that all things are naked and open under the eyes of him
with whom we have to You remember the scripture that we read a
few weeks ago in John chapter 2? That Jesus needed not that
any man should testify of man, because he knows all men, and
he knew what was in man. He needed not that anybody tell
him. And so here Jesus reveals himself to Zacchaeus as the Messiah,
as the Son of the Living God, and exposes Zacchaeus, and causes
him to see that now he can conceal nothing, because everything is
out on him. He's a sinner. This one who sees
him and is speaking with him knows him for what he is, and
knows his true character, knows him a little. And you see this
morning, as we face this one, the Lord Jesus, and we do deal
with him, The Lord Jesus Christ, he has us upon his hands, and
we're in his hands, and we must deal with him. And if we would
come to know God, we must deal with this one Jesus Christ. We
must do business with this one who knows us and knows all about
us. This calling, that is the name. You know, I want you to look
at this with me. I think this morning, as he said
in the last place, when he said here, I must abide at thy house,
I think what he meant to say there, or what he was saying
there is this, is that I come, Zacchaeus, you are a sinner,
but I am the son of God, as I reveal myself to be. I will abide at
thy house, meaning this, that if I'm going to abide at thy
house, then I must do something for you because God cannot be
or God cannot dwell with a sinner unless he first does something
for that sinner. He must do something in the sinner
and for the sinner or he cannot dwell with him. Now an awakened
conscience cannot live in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ
without being miserable. Zacchaeus could not have tolerated
the presence of this one who knew all things, and knew him,
and had exposed him for what he was, unless Jesus Christ would
do something for him in order that he might be reconciled,
in order that his guilt and that his sinnerhood, that it might
be taken care of. And the Lord Jesus Christ was
on his way to the cross to bury his body. The sins of Zacchaeus. The Lord Jesus Christ had come
down here on a mission, and that mission was to bear the sins
of his people. The Lord Jesus Christ was going
to make an atonement. He was going to dwell with the
sinner, but the only way he could dwell with the sinner was to
do something for him, and that was to answer to God Almighty
for him and to satisfy legal justice on his behalf. And he
must do it. And he must reconcile his sinner
unto a holy God before he can dwell with him. And so I think
in this he revealed what he came to do to Zacchaeus. Now he's
revealed three things here, man, that we've talked about. First
of all, he revealed who he was. I call it in my name. He revealed
what Zacchaeus was by saying, today I must have hired a firehouse. And thirdly, he revealed what
Jesus had come to do, what he'd come to do in that he was going
to dwell in this Zacchaeus. Therefore, something's got to
be done, and this one Jesus can do it. he can reconcile the unholy
sinner to the holy God by his shed blood, by his work on the
cross, wherein he answered to God for the sins of all his people. All right? Now let us look at
the response of Zacchaeus. What was the essence of his response?
Number one, it was implicit obedience to the command. Make haste and
come down. We have implicit obedience. Now,
Jesus said, my sheep hear my voice, and they follow me. Zacchaeus has been called by
name. Jesus said, I call my own sheep
by name, and they hear my voice, and they follow me. And Zacchaeus
is coming down. He made a cage and came down.
That's implicit obedience. Now, I believe that as the child
of God, we can look back and we can see that time when the
kingly authority of the Lord Jesus Christ summons us, and
when we heard the voice of the Son of God. Amen. Now, everyone
that's saved must hear from God. It's not enough to hear the voice
of the preacher. You've got to hear from God. These three things
that we said happened in Zacchaeus. He had Jesus revealed to him.
He had his own sinfulness revealed to him. And he had the mission
of Christ revealed to him. This must happen to you. And
when you hear the voice of the Son of God, this will happen.
And you will be able to obey the voice of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Come to me when you hear from Him. All right? Now, I think
that Zacchaeus heard the regal authority of Christ in His command. Make haste and come down, Zacchaeus. The regal authority, the kingly
authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm here to tell you that where
the word of the king is, there is power, the prophet says. There's power where the word
of the king is. And when the Lord Jesus Christ
commanded this chief publican, this low sinner, to come down
out of the tree, he came down. He came down. And this is the
effectual call of God, calling his people unto himself. It was a hastening call. Come
down. And he hastened and came down.
Implicit obedience. Now to the word of Christ. Now,
I know that some people, they go through the scriptures and
they pick out the honey of the promises only. And they search
through and find the honey of the promises. And they think
this is the yearning. And the obeying. The implicit
obeying of the real authority of Christ and his son. We must
be aware of the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ, and I think
this is brought out very well in the next point, I said there
was two things about his obedience, and the first was it was an implicit
obedience, the second thing was that he gave down in joy when
they received the Lord Jesus Christ. They had adorable reception
of the Son of God. Now, one, if you study carefully,
I think the word God, You must be convinced that when one receives
the Lord Jesus Christ, that he receives the whole Christ for
the whole man, and that he must receive the Lord Jesus Christ
in all his offices. He must receive him as prophet
to teach him, as priest to forgive him, and as king to rule over
him. And there's no such thing as
coming down and obeying the voice of the Lord and not receiving
Christ in all of his offices for the whole man. You know,
some people say, well, Christ saved my soul. Well, that's all
right. But I believe that he saved the whole man. And that
it's not enough for a man to say, well, my soul has been saved. Well, that's wonderful. But the
work of the Lord Jesus Christ involves the whole man. And this business of a man saying,
my soul is saved, but I'm living in this body like hell. I'm living
like I please in this body. I'm doing what I want to in this
body. My soul is saved. There's nothing taught like that
in the Word of God. If a man joyfully receives Christ, he
receives the Lord Jesus Christ, and he receives the whole Christ,
he receives him in all these offices we mentioned, and he
receives him for the whole name, this whole man, his whole life
is affected by him receiving the Lord Jesus. Now I believe
And I think we can see this clearly. This is a commentary, or it's
shown clearly in John chapter 1, in verse 12 and 13. Exactly what happens is that
he is here. Let's turn over there and look at this. John 1, when
he came down and received enjoyment. Listen to these verses. But as
many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons
of God, even to them that believed on His name. Well, who's going
to receive Him? One who's had Jesus revealed
to him as the Son of God, one who's had his sins exposed, and
one who has understood the mission of the Lord Jesus Christ. He
receives Christ. And he's given the power to become
the sons of God, even the sons of Abraham on his name, which
were born, listen to this, which were born, not of blood, nor
of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. You see that? And so this is
a commentary on what happened to Zacchaeus. He was born of
the will of God, James 1.18 says, of his own will, he got healed
with the Word of Truth. It is the word of truth that
God uses in the forgetting of souls. And so he brought Zacchaeus
to implicit obedience and to a joyful reception. Zacchaeus
came down out of that tree and received enjoyment. And to do
that, a sinner has got to understand upon what basis he can fellowship
with a holy God. He must understand that his sins
have been put away by the Shed Blood of Christ. He must understand
that he himself has been reconciled and he's now at warfulness with
God through the atonement of Jesus Christ. And that he's now
reconciled to God on the basis of the imputed righteousness
and merit of the Son of God. And so he receives Him joyfully. All right, now. I want us to
think a little bit in the last part now of our message here
about the cause. And I just want to say a few
things about this, because I think that a lot of people wonder,
say, well, how in the world has anything like this ever happened?
How does the Lord ever get a center up a tree? And how does he ever
call it down? And how does this business of
salvation ever happen? Because in fact, he just was
saved that very day. He was saved, and we'll talk
about that a little bit this evening, but I want you to know how it
happened. What's the cause of all this?
The cause! Now, first of all, from Zacchaeus's
standpoint, what was the cause? Well, he had some curiosity.
And as we said, curiosity is often the ally of grace. Here's
this man, he's curious, his desire is to see Jesus who he is. And
so he gets up this tree. And then Jesus comes and stands
and speaks to him, looks up and speaks to him. And so the call
from Zacchaeus' standpoint is that this one Jesus came and
revealed himself to him. And commanded him. And he heard
the command and was enabled to obey the command. That man had
the withered arm, remember? And Jesus spoke to him and commanded
him to extend forth his hand. And he was enabled to do it.
He reached forth his hand and he was healed. That's the way
sinners come to Christ. Somebody said the sinner is invited.
The sinner is commanded to come. The sinner is commanded to repent.
He is. And he's enabled to come. Enablement
is in the command of the Lord Jesus Christ. When it comes home
to the heart, when God sends the command home to the heart,
the enablement is there. It's there in the command. And
so, from Zacchaeus' standpoint, he had been, he had heard Jesus,
he had heard his own name spoken by his lips, and he had been
commanded by this one, and so he came down and received him
normally. Now, from the Lord's standpoint,
This is very important that we speak from Christ's standpoint
here. You recognize that this story wouldn't have meant anything
if it hadn't been for the entrance of Jesus in verse 5. He happened
to came by, and He had to came to the tree, and looked up, and
CALLS out to you by name. Then right at the end of this
story, here's a chief publican of a tree. And he's of a tree
when it comes to reconciling himself to a holy God. He's of
a tree when it comes to saving himself. He's of a tree when
it comes to providing back what your holy God demands of all
the holy sinners. But Jesus comes by. And from
the standpoint of the Lord Jesus Christ, let's not go to Zacchaeus
and ask him for a testimony and ask Zacchaeus if he would please
tell us how he exercised his free will and how he exercised
his common grace. Oh, no! We won't go and shake
Zacchaeus' hand and give him commendation for having received
Christ's pure belief as if it was an act of his own. No! We
won't do that. Somebody says, oh, Zach, he has
used his good intelligence. He climbed up a tree to see Jesus. No one left him to use his common
grace. He had his feet in his hands,
and he used them to get to Jesus. Ah, listen, friend. Common grace
doesn't have any place at all in this story. Doesn't have any
place at all. Listen to me now. Verse 10. which reveals the uniqueness
of Christ's person and reveals the mission of the Lord Jesus
Christ, shows us, from Christ's standpoint, the cause He came
to seek and to save that which was lost. And so the Lord Jesus
Christ did the work. He sought out those ideas and
He called them down. He redeemed Himself to this center
and He saved this center. It was the work of the sovereign
seeking, sovereign saving. Sovereignly neither. It was His
work. He did it. It was all His work. And so the cause was not to be
found in Isaiah. The cause was to be found in
the Lord Jesus Christ. Now our salvation, if we trace
the cause, you say, well, it was the Word of God that was
preached faithfully to me. Oh yes, well that's good. That's
wonderful. But then when we look at it from
God's standpoint, We say the Word of God was preached faithfully.
But listen, do you remember the Thessalonians? Paul said that
the Word of God, when it came to them, it came not in word
only. It's not enough. You can go hear the most skillful,
the most eloquent preacher of the gospel of God's redeeming
grace on the face of the earth, and if you only hear that preacher,
you're lost. You'll remain lost. You will
die lost. You'll perish forever if that's
the only voice you hear. Now listen, when that preacher
preaches the word of God, if the gospel comes with power to
your heart, if it's sent home with power to you, if you hear
from God when the gospel is preached, then, then you live. Then you're a child of God. Then
you can give your testimony. Jesus came to seek and to save
me. I was lost and He found me. It wasn't that I found Him. It
wasn't that I sought out the Lord, but God's. Let me say this
to you this morning. You say, but don't the scriptures
say, seek the Lord with all your heart and you'll find Him. He'll
be found in you. Yes, but our seeking of the Lord
is only a reflection of His seeking of us. That's what it is. And
if you go out here and become a seeker after God this morning,
Ah, you will find Him. You will find Him. That you're
seeking Him is only a reflection of His having sought you. And
so you'll come to Him if you seek Him. You'll come to Him.
You'll find Him. Because no man, we're told in
the third chapter of the Book of Romans, That men, by nature,
they are not seekers after the Lord. No man seeks the Lord until
he is first sought after by the Lord. Then he becomes a seeker. Then he becomes a seeker. Oh,
but all of you were seekers. All of you were a seeker after
him. then I would know, and everybody else would know here, that the
Lord is seeking you. He's seeking you. And that's
the reason for your seeking Him. Well, so much for that. Well,
after the first six verses, the first sentence, we have Zacchaeus,
this lost sinner, up the tree. Jesus, with spalking authority,
hauling him down out of the tree, revealing Himself to him, saving
the sinner. Tonight, the Lord willing, we
talk about the confession of Zacchaeus. When he called Jesus,
Lord, behold, Lord! We talk about that this evening,
and we talk about the uniqueness of Christ as he's revealed in
verse 10, and his mission explained further. And so did I, and we
are, sir, the Lord will. Well, let's stand to our feet.

The Conversion of Zacchaeus

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The Conversion of Zacchaeus

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