(9th in a series)
The Lord Jesus Christ spoke this parable "unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others:" (Luke 18:9)
"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." (Luke 18:10-12)
"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." (Luke 18:13)
"I tell you, this man went down to his house justified [rather] than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." (Luke 18:14)
We have all become so used to condemning the PROUD self-righteous attitude of the Pharisee in the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, that we can hardly believe that the picture of him there is meant to apply to US -- which only shows how much like him we really are.
The Sunday School teacher was never so much a Pharisee, as when she finished her lesson on this parable with the words, "And now, children, we can thank God that we are not as this Pharisee."
In particular, we are in danger of adopting the Pharisee's attitude, when God is wanting to humble us at the cross of Christ, and show us the sins in our hearts that are hindering personal Revival.
GOD'S VIEW OF MAN'S HEART.
We shall not understand the real wrong of the Pharisee's attitude, nor of our own, unless we view it against the background of what God says about man's heart.
The Lord said: "That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: All these evil things come from within, and defile the man." (Mark 7:20-23)
The same dark picture of man's heart is given us in Paul's epistle to the Galatians:
"Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are [these]; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told [you] in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." (Galatians 5:19-21)
WHAT A PICTURE!
Jeremiah adds the same witness: "The heart [is] deceitful above all [things], and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9)
That then is God's view of man's heart, the fallen self, "the old man" (Ephesians 4:22p), as the scriptures also call it, whether it be in the unconverted or even the best of Christians.
It is hard to believe that these things can proceed from the heart of ministers, evangelists and Christian workers, but you know they do.
The simple truth is, that the only beautiful thing about the Christian, is Jesus Christ. God wants us to recognize that fact as true in our experience, so that in true brokenness and self-despair we shall allow Jesus Christ to be our righteousness and holiness and all in all -- and that is victory.
MAKING GOD A LIAR.
Now in the face of God's description of the heart, we can see what it was that the Pharisee did. In saying, "I thank thee, that I am not as other men are...", he was protesting his innocence of the very things that God says are in EVERY heart.
He was making God a liar, for: "If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us." (1 John 1:10)
God's word says: " For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;" (Romans 3:23)
Was the Pharisee SINCERE in what he was claiming? Probably. He may well have believed that he was innocent of those things; Indeed, he is even giving credit to God for his supposed innocence, saying, "I thank thee..."
God's word, however, still stood against him, but he had just not seen it. ("The penny had not dropped.")
The Publican was beating upon his breast and confessing his sins, NOT because he had sinned worse than the Pharisee, but simply because he had seen what God says is woefully true of him, and the Pharisee had not.
The Pharisee still thinks that OUTWARD abstinence from "certain" sins is all that God requires. He has not yet understood that God looks, not on the outward appearance, but ON THE HEART!
"But the LORD said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for [the LORD seeth] not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7)
The Lord accounts the "look" of "lust" to be no different than the physical act of adultery, since both are SIN!
The attitude of resentment and hate is accounted as MURDER!
Envy is as much SIN as actual theft, and covetousness is IDOLATRY!
The petty tyrannies in the home are as wicked as the most extortionate dealings in the business world.
How often we have also protested our innocence on the many occasions, when God has been convicting others, and when he was wanting to convict us too. We have said in effect, "These things may be true of others, but not of ME." -- and we thought ourselves to be quite sincere, didn't we? (You did too!)
Perhaps we have heard of others who have humbled themselves and have rather despised them for the confessions they have had to make and the things they had to put right in their lives.
Or perhaps we have been genuinely glad that they have been blessed. But, whatever -- we don't feel that WE have anything to be broken about ourselves.
Beloved, if we feel we are innocent and have nothing to be broken about, it is NOT that these things are not there, but that we have NOT SEEN THEM! You've been living in a realm of illusion about yourself.
LET GOD BE TRUE....
....but EVERY MAN A LIAR!
In one form or another God sees all these sins expressing themselves in us in one form or another, until WE see ourselves as we really are, and allow God to deal with us about our sins and cleanse our hearts with the precious blood of Christ.
Unconscious-selfishness, PRIDE, self-congratulation, jealousy, resentment, impatience, reserve, fears and shyness, dishonesty and deception, impurity and lust -- if not one thing, then another.
But we have blinded ourselves to these things many times. How often are we so pre-occupied with the wrong that the other person has done us, that we do not see that we are sinning against the LORD, in not being willing to accept with meekness and lowliness, the things he allows to come our way.
Somehow we are not in vital fellowship with God. We are not spiritually fresh. Our service does not "crackle with the supernatural." Unconscious sin is none the less, still sin against God, and separates us from him. The sin in question may be a small thing, (such a tiny little thing we think,) but God is ever ready to show us our sin and reveal what displeases him, if we are only willing to allow him, and how often have we failed to simply just ASK the Lord to, "Show me, as I really am."
There is yet another error we fall into, when we are not willing to recognize the truth of what God says of the heart. Not only do we protest our own innocence, but we often protest the innocence of our friends and family.
We hate to see them being convicted and humbled and we hasten to defend them. We do not want them to confess anything. We are again, not only living in a realm of illusion about ourselves, but about them too, and we fear to have that illusion shattered.
But what, or WHO are we defending them from? Are we not defending them from being convicted of their sins, and thereby denying them also from being SET FREE from that sin?
And we're making God a liar, on their behalf, even as we do for our own SELF, and keeping them from entering into the blessing, which we thereby also don't allow ourselves to enter.
Only a deep hunger for real fellowship with God will make us willing to cry to God for his all-revealing light, and to turn and obey the LORD!
JUSTIFYING GOD.
That brings us now, to the publican. With all that God says about the heart, we can see that his confession of sin was simply allowing God to be JUST, and admitting that what God SAID about him was TRUE. (Agree with God!)
Perhaps, like the Pharisee, he used to not believe that what God SAID about man was really true of him; but the Holy Spirit has been convicting him of sin, and of righteousness, and of JUDGMENT, and he has been humbled before God and is judging himself to be what God said of him, a SINNER, condemned by God's law, without hope apart from the mercy and grace of God.
Not only does he justify God in all that God has said, but he doubtless justifies God in all the chastening judgments that God has had to bring upon him in order to bring him to repentance.
Have you not read some of the many prayers of repentance in the word of God? Do you not yet realize that the many troubles that come upon you, are because your back is toward God? Turn NOW to the Lord and open up your heart in true repentance, speaking from your heart!
In Nehemiah, we find this in a prayer of repentance: "Howbeit thou [art] just in all that is brought upon us; for thou hast done right, but we have done wickedly:" (Nehemiah 9:33)
Surely the Lord is a God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and even now is speaking to you in love, that you would RECEIVE his FREE PARDON, even EVERLASTING LIFE!
"Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?" (Romans 2:4)
True confession of sin, true brokenness, true repentance! Truly confess:
"My sin is not just a mistake, not just a slip, not something which is not from my heart or not really like me, but indeed, my sin is SIN AGAINST GOD!"
The real me, the "I", the proud, rotten, unclean thing, sinful ME that has sinned against a HOLY GOD!
That's how David confessed his sin, when he prayed: "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done [this] evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, [and] be clear when thou judgest." (Psalms 51:4)
When Paul speaks of these same things in the new testament, we see also, not only that the Lord judges us, but in fact, when we do not justify God, we are actually JUDGING GOD!
"For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged." (Romans 3:3,4)
Can you not yet see, that when you don't agree with what God says, that you are in effect setting yourself up as better than God, and sitting in judgment upon GOD HIMSELF!
When God convicts us, let us fear God, and confess that which we must. Sure, we've "let Jesus down," but let us not stop with anything less than true confession at his feet and GET CLEANED UP through his word and by his blood!
When we confess our sin and sins, God gets the glory, for we declare him to be right. And such victory that he gives us when we do!
Have you experience this cleansing, this victory, this wonderful gift of "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27p)?
Let us declare afresh, that "in me (that is, in my flesh), dwelleth no good thing," (Romans 7:18p), and allow God to bring us to the place where we give up trying to make our self "holy", and where we receive JESUS as our holiness, and his life instead of our own.
Let God bring us to the place where we can honestly say: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20)
PEACE AND CLEANSING.
The publican did something more than justify God, for he was before the alter of sacrifice, and found peace with God and cleansing from sin, as he trusted God's sacrifice for him.
"God be merciful to me, a sinner!"
The very LAMB OF GOD, sacrificed for our sins. God's "blood" (Acts 20:28p), poured out to pay for our wickedness.
"Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood." (Acts 20:28)
You'll never come to this wonderful blessing of brokenness and cleansing, if you don't let God show you Jesus Christ and him crucified for you! God has declared beforehand what we are, and has made available the PERFECT, holy propitiation for our sins at the cross of Christ.
JESUS, the Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world.
In Christ, who bore our sins in meekness, your sins are FINISHED! When in true brokenness, you confess them, and put your faith in his blood, your sins are cleansed and GONE! (Amen.)
Peace with God then comes into your heart, fellowship with God is immediately restored, and Glory to God, let us walk with him in the light forever!
This simple way of being willing to justify God and see the power of the blood to cleanse, brings within our reach, as never before, a close walk with JESUS, a constant dwelling with him in the Holy of Holies, the very innermost sanctum were God dwells.
As we walk with him in the light, he will be showing us all the time, the beginnings of things, which if allowed to pass, will grieve him and check the flow of his life in us -- things which are the expression of that old proud self, for which God has nothing but JUDGMENT.
Let us no more protest our innocence of what he shows us. All along the way, let us be willing to justify HIM and say, "Thou art right, LORD; that just shows what I am," and be willing to give it up to him for cleansing.
And then, we find, that his precious blood is continuously cleansing us from sin, as it is said: "The tide is being continuously healed at its beginning."
And bless God, we then are always filled with his Spirit and all the wonderful blessings that flow in us, through us and overflow to others.
There then, is your choice -- to protest your innocence and go down to your house, un-blessed, dry of soul and out of touch with God -- or to JUSTIFY (agree with) GOD and to enter into peace, fellowship and victory through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Jesus paid it all,
Sin had left a crimson stain,
Lord, now indeed I find,
Can change the leper's spots,
For nothing good have I,
I'll wash my garments white,
Jesus paid it all,
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed me WHITE AS SNOW.
Always remember that Jesus is the Lord!
"Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD:
though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." (Isaiah 1:18)
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
(Please see The Dove and the Lamb next. Thanks. :)
URL of this page: http://www.avbtab.org/revival/09innoce.htm