Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2687
“I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other.” Luke 18:14.
THE publican was justified rather than the Pharisee. The outwardly worse man of the two was accepted rather than the one who was apparently better. “This man went down to his house justified rather than the other.” Observe, dear Friends, our Savior’s gentle way of describing the contrast between these two men. He says that the publican was “justified rather than the other,” but we all know that behind this mild and lenient expression, there is the sad and solemn Truth of God that the Pharisee was not justified at all. It is concerning that fact that I am about to speak to you. The publican was justified and the Pharisee was not, yet our Lord only said, “This man went down to his house justified rather than the other.” It will be true wisdom on our part, also, to sometimes state a Truth in the very mildest way possible. A Scriptural Doctrine loses nothing of its effect by being tenderly expressed—indeed, a forcible Truth of God may even have its force increased by being rather understated than overstated. Our Lord Jesus Christ knew when to use this holy art and He did so on this occasion and, therefore, you and I will be wise if we do the same when a fitting opportunity occurs.
Notice, further, dear Friends, that the pith, the marrow, the very center of the blessing that we expect to get in worship is justification. To be accepted of God, to be regarded as just, to be esteemed by Him as doing the right thing—this is what we ought to seek whenever we come together for worship! And in that sense the publican, with his earnest cry for mercy, was justified—that is, he was accepted by God, he was regarded as one who had been made just—while the Pharisee, who stood there ostentatiously publishing his own excellences, was not justified, was not accepted, was not considered a just man and did not receive from God any of the favors which He is accustomed to give to those who rightly worship Him in spirit and in truth.
The reason why the Pharisee did not receive that which is the end of all worship—namely, acceptance with God, and justification in His sight—was that he reckoned himself too good to be justified. According to his own opinion, he was altogether too righteous a man to need God’s favor and mercy. And I want now to speak to any of you who think you are too good to be saved. I am always preaching to sinners and I have had the great delight of seeing many and many a sinner taken in the Gospel net and saved. Now I want to talk to those who are scarcely sinners except that, by way of compliment, they acknowledge that they are. “Yes,” they say, “we are all sinners.” And if they go to church, they say, “Lord, have mercy upon us miserable sinners.” Yet, all the while, they neither look miserable, nor are they really conscious that they are sinners in the sight of God and already under condemnation. I want to speak especially to this class of persons. It is a great pity that it should be so, yet there are many people who, in their own estimation, are much too good to be saved, too good ever to be justified, too good ever to go to Heaven! There may be some such persons here. If so, may God the Holy Spirit bless to them what I have to say in Christ’s name!
I. My first remark is that THERE ARE STILL SUCH PERSONS AS THIS PHARISEE.
There are still in the world many persons who, in their own opinion, are too good to be justified, too good to be saved. They come to this condition because they compare themselves with others. This Pharisee said, “God, I thank You that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.” He felt himself to be quite a
saint compared with the publican. He went up many degrees in his own estimation when he thought of what a wicked extortioner that publican had been! And he remembered someone who had been an adulterer and another person who had been unjust—and contrasting himself with these people, he felt that he was the most respectable individual whom he knew—a man to be held in very high esteem! He felt that God ought to be thankedfor making such a man and if nobody else would do it, he would do it himself, for that was a duty which ought to be discharged at once. So remarkable a specimen of human excellence ought not to be left on the face of the earth, ungratefully forgotten by men—and as many of them did seem to forget him and not to see his excellences, he would, himself, bless God that there was, at any rate, one person in the world who was all he ought to be, if not a little more! He reckoned himself to be so good because he compared himself with other men.
My dear Hearer, are you very good by the same sort of measurement? Are you superlatively excellent because you judge yourself by a similar standard? If so, let me ask you kindly to make use of that standard in another way by comparing yourself, not with those whom you regard as your inferiors, but with those whom you must acknowledge to be your superiors. You have surely read some biographies of really devout, earnest, holy, consecrated men whose lives much exceed yours in all that is of true worth. So, if you will look upinstead of looking down, I think you will soon begin to say, “Ah, I am far short of their standard! I am nothing like those men were. I am not living such a careful, prayerful, watchful, self-denying, consecrated life as they lived.” Let this thought take a little of the conceit out of you. Begin to think that you are not quite so good as you thought you were and it may do you some service if you meditate for a while upon that fact.