Sermon 1319. The Sinner's Savior

(No. 1319)

A SERMON DELIVERED ON LORD'S-DAY MORNING, OCTOBER 1, 1876,

BY C. H. SPURGEON,

AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON.

"And when they saw it, they all murmured, saying, He was gone to be a guest with a man that is a sinner." Luke 19:7.

PUBLICANS, or tax-gatherers, among the Jews were objects of intense aversion. The nation was always restless under the Romanyoke, for the Israelite's pride of lineage made him boast that he was born free and was never in bondage unto any man. Moreover,they had hopes of a great future under a Messiah who would lead them on to conquest and, therefore, the Roman yoke galledtheir shoulders exceedingly and the payment of taxes to a foreign power was a heavy grievance. That the people of God shouldpay tribute to a heathen power was a bone of continual contention and the persons of the tax-gatherers were held in bitterhatred. While they abhorred the collectors of customs as a class, they reserved their most intense contempt for any of theirown countrymen who lent themselves to this obnoxious business.

They regarded such as almost renouncing their relationship to Israel and sharing the guilt of the oppressor. As a usual ruleit would only be the lowest class of people among the Jews who would become collectors of tribute from their own countrymen.The outcasts and scapegoats of society would sometimes take to this detested business, but very rarely would a man of wealthand position, such as Zacchaeus evidently was, encounter the scorn which such an office brought upon him. Zacchaeus was not,perhaps, the actual tax collector who called upon individuals, but he was the superintendent of the custom house officersof the district, for, "he was the chief of the publicans, and he was rich."

He came, perhaps, under even greater contempt than others because he occupied a more prominent position and carried on theunsavory business on a larger scale. Jewish society drew a cordon around the publicans and set them aside as moral lepers,with whom respectable people must not associate if they studied their souls' health. And so Zacchaeus, with all his wealth,was regarded as a pariah by his fellow countrymen. He may have been a thoroughly honest and upright man, but that matteredlittle to those who had taken a prejudice against all publicans. He was regarded by the Pharisaic party as one of the offscouringof society-a man not to be acknowledged in the street and into whose house no one would enter. He was a man to be shunnedif he had the impertinence to enter the synagogue or the temple, and only to be tolerated because it was not possible to ridthe world of him.

From the very first, our Lord had broken through this hard and fast rule. He disregarded all the traditional and fashionablerules of caste. Constantly did He address publicans as if they had the same feelings as other men. He talked with them andwent into their houses, so that He came to be commonly called by those who wished to show their contempt of Him, "the friendof publicans and sinners." A man who could be a friend to publicans was reckoned to be as evil as publicans, themselves, andfurther than that, a man could not go! If the Jew mentioned publicans and sinners, he always gave publicans the first place,as being decidedly the worse of the two! "Friend of publicans and sinners"-who can tell what a mass of contempt was condensedinto that title!

Our Lord did not at all deviate from His course because of this scoffing, but He went on befriending sinners, even open sinners,sinners of the most avowed and undoubted degree of sin! He almost commenced His ministry by talking to an unchaste woman atthe well of Sychar. And He finished it by dispensing pardon to a thief while hanging on the Cross-and between that callingof the woman of Samaria who had had five husbands and was living unlawfully at the time-right along to the thief who diedupon the gallows tree for his crime, the Savior had been receiving sinners and eating with them! He had been seeking and savingthat which was lost!

The old contempt of the sinner's Savior still lingers in the world among the self-righteous. Taking different shapes and speakingwith other voices, it is still among us and still, in one way or the other, the old charge is repeated that Christianity istoo lenient on the sinner. They say it tends to discourage the naturally amiable and virtuous, and looks

too favorably upon the vicious and disreputable. They say that it is always talking about pardon without merit and speakingslightingly of human goodness. And therefore some even say they regard Christianity as a foe to society and an enemy to goodmorals. How easily could we turn the tables upon these slanderers, for usually those who talk thus have but a scant supplyof morals and virtues themselves.

First, Brothers and Sisters, it was said that Jesus had gone to be a guest of a man that was a sinner, and we shall admitthe truth of the charge. Secondly, we shall deny the insinuation which that charge is meant to cover. And thirdly, we shallrejoice in the fact which has been the subject of the objection.

I. First, then, we shall ADMIT THE TRUTH OF THE CHARGE. We do so most cheerfully and without the slightest reserve! Jesusdid go to be a guest of a man that was a sinner and He did so not only once, but as often as He saw a need. He went afterthe sheep which had gone astray and He had a wonderful attraction for the disreputable classes, for it is written, "Then drewnear unto Him all the publicans and sinners for to hear Him." His ministry was aimed at those who were as sheep without ashepherd and it succeeded among such, for we read that the publicans and harlots entered into the kingdom! We are not, fora single moment, going to deny what is so evidently true-Jesus was and is the sinner's Friend.

We admit most fully and freely that the Gospel which now represents Christ upon earth bears the most kindly relationship towardsthe guilty. That, in fact, it contemplates their salvation and finds its greatest triumphs among them! To begin with, theobject of Christ and the design of the Gospel is the saving of sinners. If there is any man in this world who is not guilty,the Savior is nothing to him. If there is anyone who has never transgressed God's Law, but has kept His Commandments fromhis youth up and is excellent and meritorious in himself, Jesus Christ did not come into the world to call such a man to repentance.Why should He? "The whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick."

Christ comes not to proffer His needless services to those who are not sin-sick or needy! A Savior for those who are not lost?A Redeemer for those who are not enslaved? Alms for the rich? Medicine for the whole? Pardon for the innocent? These are allneedless things! A physician does not at all hesitate to say that he comes into a town with his eyes upon the sick. It wouldbe ridiculous for him to come there with a view to anybody else! And so to guilty sinners Jesus comes. Gospel promises areaddressed to the guilty. Who else would need abundant pardon? Gospel invitations are addressed to the sinful. Who should beentreated to wash but those who are foul? Gospel blessings are intended for those who have transgressed and are under condemnation,for who else would value forgiveness and justification?

I know, myself, of no Gospel for men who have not sinned! I know of no New Testament promises intended for those who havenever broken the Law of God! I perceive all through the wondrous pages of the Gospel that Mercy's eyes and heart are set uponthose who are guilty and self-condemned! The Eternal Watcher is looking over the vast ocean of life, not that He may spy outthe vessels which sail along proudly in safety, but that He may see those who are almost wrecks. "He looks upon men, and ifany say, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profits me not; He will deliver his soul from going intothe Pit, and his life shall see the light."

Our Lord was more moved at the sight of sickness than of health! He worked His greatest wonders among fevers, leprosies andpalsies! This is the end and object of the Gospel, namely, to save the unrighteous! The God of the Gospel is He that "justifiesthe ungodly," "for when we were yet without strength, Christ died for the ungodly." "God commends His love toward us, in that,while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." As the Gospel's eye is thus fixed on sinners, we have to notice that our Lorddoes actually call sinners into its fellowship. Zacchaeus did not come to Jesus, first, but Jesus went after Him while hewas yet a sinner, and said to him, "Today I must abide in your house." So does the Gospel, by the Holy Spirit's power, continuallycall to itself the guilty!

The drunk, the thief, the harlot, the profane, the careless, the prayerless are called out-those who are consciously guiltyare led to faith and pardon. Not merely those guilty of open sin, but those guilty of secret sin-sins of the heart, sins ofthe imagination, sins which stain the inmost soul are converted and saved! Jesus Christ causes His ministers, in the preachingof the Word of God, to gather out of the world and into the Church those who were enemies and alienated in their minds bywicked works. The Spirit of God does not effectually call those who are without sin, but He calls sinners to repentance. TheSpirit of God does not quicken those living-living in their own natural goodness-He quickens the dead in trespasses and sins!

The eternal love of God does not go forth towards those who dream of their own superiority and wrap themselves up in the mantleof their own righteousness, but it goes forth unto those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, bound in afflictionand iron because they have rebelled against the Lord and contemned the counsel of the Most High. These are they upon whomthis mighty love fixes itself and upon whom Sovereign Grace exerts its power! The great Founder of Zion has found inhabitantsfor her, even as Romulus peopled Rome. It is said of that renowned builder that when he walled his city he peopled it by permittingthe offscouring of all other cities to use it as a refuge. Glorious things are spoken of you, O Zion, city of God, and yetall your citizens confess that they were guilty and defiled till Jesus washed and renewed them! Today Jesus, the Son of David,enlists under His banner men who are in debt and are discontented! And out of such as these are, He makes heroes of the Cross!Gladly would I invite to the cave Adullam of His Church those who are willing to enlist under the banner of the Son of David!

Moreover, while we are about it, we will make a further confession-the Man Christ Jesus does very readily come to be a guestwith a man who is a sinner, for He stands on no ceremony with sinners, but makes Himself at home with them at once. If a Phariseehad gone to Zacchaeus' house and been allowed to do exactly what he liked, he would have said, "Well, I may, perhaps, condescendto enter your profane abode, Zacchaeus, but I must wash first and wash afterwards also. And, moreover, you, also, must washand also have your house specially purified-it must be whitewashed, scrubbed, and perfumed with incense. And then, if youwill take a seat up in the far corner of the room, I will not mind coming near the door, where the fresh air may, perhaps,remove any exhalations from your guilty person, for I, being so transcendently holy, am exceedingly sensitive and cannot comeinto contact with your unholiness."

Now, the Lord Jesus Christ did not ask Zacchaeus even to wash his little finger, but He said, "Make haste, and come down,for today I must abide in your house." Why, Zacchaeus had the green of the tree all over him! He was not in a very elegantcondition to receive the Lord and, worse still, there was his sin about him! And yet Jesus Christ said to him before he hadbrushed off a grain of dust, "Make haste, and come down, for today I must abide in your house." To his house Jesus came andwith him He sojourned, and all without ceremony and preparation! Yes, I have known the Lord Jesus meet with a man as blackas Hell and wash him white in five minutes-and sit at his side and eat bread with him at once!

I have known Him meet with the very vilest of offenders and almost in the twinkling of an eye He has made the transgressorto be His companion and His friend! Did not the father in the parable at once receive his returning son? How many minutesdid he wait before he kissed him? How many times did the prodigal wash his face before his father pressed him to his bosom?He did not even tell him to wash his hands, though he had been feeding swine, but fell upon his neck and kissed him then andthere! Our Lord Jesus not only has pity upon sinners, but treats them with love, comes under their roof and brings salvationto their homes! We confess the impeachment and rejoice that our Lord is indifferent to the censures of the proud and continues,still, to provoke the question, "Why does your Master eat with publicans and sinners?"

Our Lord goes further. He not only stands on no ceremony with sinners, but within a very little time He is using those verysinners who had been so unfit for any holy service-using them in His most hallowed world! Note how He makes Zacchaeus to beHis host-"Today I must abide in your house." Was not this going too far? Might we not have prudently suggested, Good Master,forgive Zacchaeus, but do it privately? Good Master, accept Zacchaeus as a secret disciple, but do not publicly go into suchsociety! To sit at his table and let him wait upon You, is too great an honor for the likes of him! And surely, Brothers andSisters, it seemed to the first Christians to be almost impossible that Saul of Tarsus could be allowed to be a preacher!

They heard that he now preached the faith which he had persecuted, but they could hardly believe in his Apostleship! What?When his hands were just now blood-red with putting saints to death, is he to stand up and preach and to be an Apostle-howcan it be? We all have a measure of this legal hardness and are scarcely prepared to allow the guilty to become heralds ofGrace too soon after their conversion! The Gospel knows nothing of a purgatory at the Church doors, or a quarantine beforeits pulpit! Only is it, indeed, seen that a man has really accepted Christ and we may both receive him into fellowship andemploy him in holy service! Jesus permits the man who was a sinner to become His host, even as He allowed the woman who wasa sinner to anoint His head, and Peter, who had denied Him, to feed His sheep!

Yes, and the Lord favored Zacchaeus, the sinner, by granting him, that day, the full assurance of salvation. The very daythat He called him, by His Grace, He gave him full assurance-at any rate I should not want any better assurance than Zacchaeusreceived when the Lord, Himself said to him, "This day is salvation come to your house."-

"Oh, might I hear Your heavenly tongue

But whisper, 'You are Mine!'

Those gentle words should raise my song

To notes almost Divine."

How often have we sung this wish, but Zacchaeus had it granted him, for the Lord said plainly, "Salvation has come to yourhouse," and Zacchaeus could not doubt it! How happy he must have felt, how free from all trouble-"I am a saved man and salvation,having once entered the house, there is no telling where it will go-it will be upstairs, downstairs, among the servants, amongthe children! It will embrace all my descendants and I and my house shall be saved!"

He obtained that choice blessing within the first day of his believing on Christ! And is it not wonderful, poor Sinner, thatthough you, even now, have not believed in Jesus as yet, and are sitting down in sorrow, burdened with sin, yet if you nowbelieve-before this service shall be over, you may not only be saved but know it-and shall go home and say to your wife andchildren, "Salvation has come to our house!" Blessed be the name of Jesus! All this is true and we have no wish to concealit! Jesus Christ has gone to be a guest with a man that is a sinner!

II. Secondly, we are going to DENY THE INSINUATION WHICH IS COVERTLY INTENDED BY THE CHARGE brought against our Lord. Jesusis the Friend of sinners, but He is not the Friend of sin! Jesus forgives sin altogether apart from human merit, but Jesusdoes not, therefore, treat virtue and vice as if they were indifferent things, or in any way discourage purity and righteousness.Far from it, for, first, Christ was a guest with a man that was a sinner, but He never flattered a sinner yet. Direct me toa single passage in His Word in which He ever justifies a sinner in sinning, or ever treats sin as if it were a trifle, orlooks at it as a mere misfortune and not as a crime!

No religion under Heaven is so strong in its denunciation of sin as the religion of Jesus Christ! His Words do not only condemnacts of sin, but even words and thoughts, in such words as these-"For every idle word that man shall speak, he shall givean account in the Day of Judgment." "God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ." The Savior's lips were too truthfuland too pure to pander to the vices of men! He denounced sin in every form and shape and threatened it with everlasting fire!You do not find Jesus Christ anywhere asserting that the result of sin is a merely temporal evil, that the souls of sinnerswill be annihilated, or that they will, by-and-by, in another state, obtain forgiveness and be delivered, but, "these shallgo away into everlasting punishment" rolls like thunder from His honest lips.

He sweeps away from men all their empty confidences wherein they entrenched themselves and makes them see that whatever aman sows, that shall he also reap. He who lives in sin is declared to be the servant of sin, and he who brings forth evilfruit is judged to be an evil tree. Christ's fan is in His hand and He sweeps away the chaff. He sits as a refiner and consumesthe dross. He lays the axe at the root of tree and demands that the heart and spirit be right before God. If He sets forthobedience to the Law, our Lord declares that it must be obedience in every point, or a man cannot be saved by it. If He acceptsa follower, He bids him count the cost and forsake all that he has, or he cannot be His disciple. His moral standard is-"Beyou perfect, even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect."

If you want the standard of the Laws of God lowered, you must not go to Christ! And if you wish to see the penalties of sinmitigated, you must not go to Christ, for He is, of all Teachers, the most severe against sin of every sort, and the mostclear in foretelling its penalty. The Friend of sinners is too much their Friend to befriend their sin-that He utterly abhorsand He will never rest till He has driven it out of them. Neither does the Lord Jesus Christ screen sinners from that properand wholesome rebuke which virtue must always give to vice.

The Pharisees, no doubt, meant to say, "This man Jesus does mischief. We keep ourselves aloof from all low company and inthis way we do a good deal for these publicans, because we let them see the difference between holy and unholy men! When theylook at our phylacteries between our eyes and observe the broad borders of our garments, and see how we wash our hands, andknow how we tithes on mint and cumin, it must greatly edify them! No doubt they will go home and feel greatly ashamed thatthey cannot associate with such blessed and holy people as we are. Now, that Man, Christ, goes in among them and eats anddrinks with them! And thus, in some measure, our protest is broken down. They will think a great deal of themselves, now thatthe proper distance is no longer kept up, for they will say, if this Man, who is, no doubt, a good man, associates with us,then, after all, we are not so bad as we were thought to be."

That is how the Pharisees argued and there are some around us who still think that the best thing you can possibly do withthe degraded is to isolate them. Turn your back on them! The sight of a good man's back will be a fine moral lesson to them!Make them to feel that you are disgusted with them and they will be brought to repent. But it does not turn out to be so.This process has generally been carried out by proud formalists and loathsome hypocrites and has ended in making bad worse!Jesus never sanctions this mode of reformation. Look at Him and admire! Did He say a word to Zacchaeus about his having takentaxes by false means, or about his being cruel to the poor? No, not a syllable!

Christ's Presence was enough rebuke for the man's sin. No sooner does a man perceive the love of Christ and the perfectionof His blessed Person, than straightway sin receives its death blow and is ashamed to show itself anymore. Jesus is the bestrebuke to sin. The Gospel of Jesus Christ does not say to you, who live in sin, "You are not fit company for Christians."Nor does it turn to godly people and say, "Make these your daily associates and join in their mirth." Quite the opposite!But it does, nevertheless, say to Christians, "Go and seek out the lost and bring them to a better mind." We go not amongthe sin-smitten to catch their disease, but to cure it! Going in such a spirit, a good man's presence is a far better rebuketo sin than a cold, self-righteous isolation. The Gospel does not aim so much at rebuking sinners as at reclaiming them. Itsbusiness is not to make men feel remorse for having sinned, but to rid them from the power of sin.

Again, it is not true, as I have heard some say, that the Gospel makes pardon seem such a very easy thing and, therefore,sin is thought to be a small matter. "Oh," says one, "if men have only to believe and be saved, you put a premium upon sinby making deliverance from it to be so speedy a business." These cavilers know better, some of them, and if they do not knowbetter, let us teach them! When the Lord Jesus Christ forgave me, He taught me at the same moment to dread sin. I never hadsuch a sense of the terrible evil of sin as I had in the moment of my forgiveness! Where, do you think, did I read my pardon?I read it on His Cross-written in crimson lines! I understood that, though the pardon was free to me, it cost Him cries andgroans to bring me near to God. It cost His soul an agony never to be described before He could redeem one poor sinner fromgoing down into the Pit. It is a gross injustice to charge the preaching of the Gospel to sinners with making sin to appeara trifle! The accusation is a baseless slander!

They who know no atoning blood. They who know nothing of the sufferings of Christ-these are they who can toy with sin. Butthose who gaze upon the wounds of Christ cannot but tremble at sin! The great doctrine of the Substitu-tionary Sacrifice,whenever it is fully received by the soul, makes sin to be exceeding sinful! Oh, Sin, I have heard of you by the hearing ofthe ear, but on the Cross my eyes see you slaying the Incarnate God! I abhor myself in dust and ashes!

Now, though Christ is the Friend of sinners, is it true that He makes men think lightly ofpersonal character? "Oh," say some,"these Christians teach that believing a creed saves the soul and that it does not matter at all how we live." This is anold libel. I remember reading much the same charge in a book which leveled its artillery at Wilberforce and his evangelicalfriends. The author said, "in a cant, unmeaning jargon, they talk much of vital faith, but they say little of vital benevolence."He goes on to remark that to teach men to be honest, clean, kind and truthful was far more important. Now, it is time thatsuch a slander as that came to an end, but a lie has many lives and though you kill it 50 times over, it soon restores itselfto vitality. Look at the matter of fact.

Jesus Christ did not teach Zacchaeus, by going to his house, that character was of no consequence. On the contrary, Zacchaeusperceived at once that character was of the greatest consequence and so he stood forth, and said, "Behold, Lord, the halfof my goods I give to the poor. And if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold." Letwho will, deny the logic of it! The fact is that when a man comes to believe in Jesus, he has a higher appreciation of theexcellence of character than any other man in the world. And he does not merely appreciate it in theory, but begins to seekafter it for himself.

Man's nature becomes renewed by the faith which, some say, will cause him to become indifferent to holiness. A man's wholelife is changed by his believing in Jesus, and that which thus happily affects the character cannot honestly be said to leadto indifference concerning it! Even the remark I quoted now about Wilberforce was signally false, because it was through himand the party which gathered around him that benevolence gained one of her very noblest victories. How would the slave inthe West Indies have obtained his liberty if it had not been for these very men? Wilberforce and the like, who while theyheld that faith in Christ, alone, could save the soul, felt that benevolence was the essential spirit of Christianity andliberty the natural right of every man! They spent their whole strength in fighting against the mercenary feeling of the times,till the fetters of England's slaves were broken forever!

It has been said that if we tell men that good works cannot save them, but that Jesus saves the guilty who believe in Him,we take away all motives for morality and holiness. We meet that, again, by a direct denial-it is not so-we supply the grandestmotive possible and only remove a vicious and feeble motive! We take away from man the idea of performing good works in orderto salvation, because it is a lie! Good works will not save a sinner, nor is he able to perform them if they could save him!Works done with a view to salvation are not good, because they are evidently selfish and so are not acceptable to God. Theselfishness of the motive poisons the life of the work and takes its goodness out of it.

But when we tell men, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved," if they exercise faith they are saved! Andbeing saved there grows up in their hearts gratitude to God-and from this springs a loving desire to serve God on accountof what He has done-and this motive is not only very powerful but it is very pure, because the man does not, then, serve Godwith a view to self, but he serves Him out of love! And works done out of love to God are the only good works possible tomen. It supplies a motive which is clean, clear, pure-a motive, moreover, which is proven by the lives of saved men to bepotent enough to keep them in the way of righteousness all their days.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ gives men something more than motive, it supplies them with power and life, for wherever men believeon the Lord Jesus the Holy Spirit is surely at work with all His wondrous power! He enters the heart and changes it, turnsthe whole current of the soul and creates within the man a new, living, conquering principle akin to the Nature of God, Himself,so that the man becomes and continues to be a new creature in Christ Jesus. This indwelling Spirit is not a theory, nor adoctrine, but a Person-and His work is not a dream, but a conscious fact-a phenomenon to which all Believers bear witness,for we have known Him and felt His power! We have bowed before the might and majesty of His influences.

As the anointing on Aaron's head went where Aaron went, so where Christ is received, the Holy Spirit comes, the new creationcommences and men are delivered from living as they did before, under the bondage of corruption. Thus we repel with indignationthe charge that Christ is the abettor of sin-and yet we preach with unabated eagerness this good news for sinners-Whateversin you may have committed, and however stained you may be with habits of evil, there is immediate pardon to be had and completesalvation to be obtained, now, on this very spot, if you will but accept it and trust Jesus for it! We assure you of thisfrom our own experience! We also assure you that all your good works, prayers, tears and almsgivings will go for nothing ifyou trust in them! But though you may be covered with ten thousand times ten thousand sins, if you believe in Jesus you shallbe saved from them all!

He is a Savior and a great one! And He is able to deliver great sinners. This will not make you think lightly of sin, norcause you to continue in sin that Grace may abound, but it will give you the power which you need! It will supply you witha strength you have never been able to find, notwithstanding all your efforts! It will enable you to rejoice that you aresaved and, in the strength of such an assurance, you will find within your heart a love for holiness and an abhorrence ofsin such as you have never known before! You will go to the door of your heart and say to the devil, "Get you gone!" And tothe lusts of the flesh, "Get you behind me!" And as to all the temptations which arise from old companions you will shut thedoor in their faces and say, "Depart from me!"

III. In the third place, WE REJOICE IN THE VERY FACT WHICH HAS BEEN OBJECTED TO, that Jesus Christ

comes to be a guest with men who are sinners. And first, dear Brothers and Sisters, we rejoice in it because it affords hopeto ourselves. It often happens that we should never have a hope of His coming to be a guest with us if He were not a guestto sinners. To me, such gracious facts are needed to save me from despair. Oh, it is mighty easy to build up a fine experienceand a pretty sanctification. And to imagine that you are getting on wonderfully and becoming strong and pure, and very superiorsaints, indeed. Let the devil deal with you five minutes and he will show you something of quite another color!

Let your old corrupt nature only bubble up for a quarter of an hour and you will find such a condition of things in your soulthat you will cry out in bitterness of anguish! Then will you find that fine words about experience do not fit your mouthand all your notions of being somebody will evaporate like dew in the summer's sun. Oh the thousands of times when I havelooked for any mouse hole through which I might creep if I might but enter into a little hope! I love to preach a sinner'sGospel, for it suits myself! I delight to preach holiness and will aim at it as long as I live and can never be content untilI am perfect, but still, my soul needs and must have the sinner's Savior! Nothing else will do for me!

Whenever I get nearest to my Lord and feel most of His preciousness, and enjoy most communion with Him, I lay lower beforeHim than ever and feel it to be an unspeakable privilege to creep to His feet and wash them with my tears. I have, at thismoment, no sort of hope but in mercy, great mercy rendered to a great sinner through the sacrifice of Jesus! Brothers andSisters, what is there to depend upon, except the sinner's Savior? If He does not save sinners, as sinners, by an act of free,rich, Sovereign Mercy, altogether apart from anything that is in them and of them, what will happen to you and me? We do notwish to make any excuses for our sin! We would loathe it and abhor ourselves before God on account of it, but still, a washin the Fountain opened for sin and uncleanness suits us today as well as it did 27 years ago, when, for the first time, welooked to Jesus and lived!

Do you not find it so, my beloved Brothers and Sisters? After half a century of knowing Christ, do you not find that you needa sinner's Savior as much as ever? You will need Him when you come to die even as you need Him now! And while you are languishinginto everlasting life, He will be your strength and your song, and you will be glad to think that, "this Man receives sinnersand eats with them." Again, we rejoice that it is true for another reason, because this affords us hope for all our fellowmen. Suppose that our Lord did not visit any but the good, moral and excellent? Then, alas, for poor London's back streetsand crowded courts! Alas for the casual ward! Alas for the penitentiary and alas for the jail! Alas for the fallen woman andalas for the thief!

But now there is hope for even these and every philanthropist ought to feel, deep down in his soul, the most profound gratitudeto the Lord for this fact. This is earth's brightest star! This is her well of hope, her dawn of joy! Since Jesus Christ receivesthe guilty and saves the vile, despondency and despair have, from now on, no right to haunt the abodes of men! Hope smileson all and invites the most fallen to look up and live! Yes, and let me tell you Pharisees, if there are any representativesof that section here today-though you do not like the idea of Grace to the guilty, but cling to the idea of your being rewardedfor your supposed merit-it is a great mercy for you that Jesus receives great offenders because you must be numbered amongthem!

What is your heart but a raging sea of pride and enmity against God and even against your fellow men? You despise God's ordainedplan of Grace and you look with contempt upon the guilty whom He deigns to save! Is it not the spirit of the devil which makesyou think yourself so much above your fellow men? Is it not an intolerable inhumanity which makes you wish that the Gospelwere molded to suit you and to shut out poor sinners? Who are you to carry your head so high? If you have never sinned asopen transgressors have done, yet it is very probable that you would have done worse if you had been placed in the positionswhich they have occupied! With all their faults there are greater faults in you-and if somebody were to set to work to readthe secrets of your soul, aloud, you would be much ashamed!

Ah, there are many who are pluming themselves upon their virtues who, in the sight of God, are as rotten at the core as eventhe unchaste and the profane! There are more thieves, I doubt not, outside our jails than there are inside! And there aremore double-dyed sinners than we ever dreamed of who appear respectable and yet are abominable! Yes, even among nominal Christiansthere are plenty of scarlet sinners-they are always at the place of worship, very regular in all acts of outward devotion-andyet they indulge in secret uncleanness and are as bad as any in the felons' prison!

If my Master were to repeat, today, a certain scene in which He figured so wonderfully, some of those now present would beplaced in an awkward position. A woman taken in adultery was brought before Him. He did not, for a moment, justify her crime,but He said with great power and to the point, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." I sayto you who pretend that you are righteous, that if your consciences speak, you must admit that you have no righteousness,but are so sinful that you have not a stone to fling, even against the grossest sinner! Convicted by your own conscience youmay go out-but it were better, still, if you were to stay here and say, "Yes, in my heart I am guilty, too, and I bless Christthat He is a sinner's Savior, and that even I may look to Him this day and live."

We rejoice that this is the fact, because when we are working for the Lord it cheers us up with the hope of fine recruits.Many become very cold, stale and mechanical in their work for Jesus within a short time after they are converted. The enthusiasmdies out, the warmth chills. I remember a sailor who, before conversion, used to swear, and I guarantee you he would rattleit out, volley after volley! He became converted and when he prayed it was much in the same fashion. How he woke everybodyup the first time he opened his mouth at the Prayer Meeting! The little Church had quite a revival, for their old jog-trotpace would not do for the new convert so full of love and zeal!

The prayers offered in the meetings had become quite stereotyped and so had everything else about them. There were the samesleepy people, the same long prayers and the same dreary addresses. But Jack's conversion was like an earthquake and startledeverybody-and their zeal revived. They even began to think that, perhaps, sailors might be saved, and started a service onthe wharf and did many other good things. The conversion of a great sinner is the best medicine for a sick Church! In allthe churches, you good people who are settled on your lees, need stirring up every now and then, and one of the best stirringsup you can have is to open the door of the Church and see a Saul of Tarsus standing there to be admitted!

The porter enquires, "Who is this that seeks admission here?" "A recruit," says he, and we look at him. Why, he is one ofthe devil's most famous soldiers, one of the men who carried the black flag in the battle, one who ridiculed us most! We areapt to look a little askance at him, for we feel dubious. So we refer him to the elders, that they may enquire and sift him,to see whether he is really a changed character. Perhaps these earnest men are not quite sure and hesitate till they see moreof him. And they are quite right to do so. But if the Lord has really called the sinner, by His Grace, no sooner does theChurch receive such a man than they find that he has brought with him fresh fire and throws a fresh impetus into the wholework! Our Lord Jesus, then, when He goes to be a guest with a man that is a sinner, brings additional strength to the Churchand finds her recruits of the very sort she most needs. We will therefore rejoice and bless the sinner's Savior.

I wonder, this morning, where Zacchaeus is-whether he is up in the gallery there! Has there come in here a man who is a sinnerand knows it? Has there come in here, this morning, one who, if I were to pass a label up to him inscribed with the word,"SINNER," would hang it round his neck and say, "I am the man"? Where are you, Zacchaeus? Jesus calls you! He means to saveyou at once! He says to you, "I must abide in your house today." Make haste down and open the door, and say, "Come in, myLord, I am honored to receive You." Will any hesitate? Will any delay? May my Master's Holy Spirit cause, today, many a greatsinner's heart to open and receive Jesus joyfully!

PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON-Luke 18:31-43; 19:1-10. HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"-257, 543, 544.