The Sinner’s Savior

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 Roman yoke, 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 galled their shoulders exceedingly and the
payment of taxes to a foreign power was a heavy grievance. That the
people of God should pay tribute to a heathen power was a bone of
continual contention and the persons of the tax-gatherers were held in
bitter hatred. While they abhorred the collectors of customs as a
class, they reserved their most intense contempt for any of their own
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 rule it 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 wealth and 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
officers of 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 the unsavory 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 mattered
little to those who had taken a prejudice against all publicans. He was
regarded by the Pharisaic party as one of the offscouring of society–a
man not to be acknowledged in the street and into whose house no one
would enter. He was a man to be shunned if he had the impertinence to
enter the synagogue or the temple, and only to be tolerated because it
was not possible to rid the world of him.

From the very first, our Lord had broken through this hard and fast
rule. He disregarded all the traditional and fashionable rules of
caste. Constantly did He address publicans as if they had the same
feelings as other men. He talked with them and went into their houses,
so that He came to be commonly called by those who wished to show their
contempt of Him, "the friend of publicans and sinners." A man who could
be a friend to publicans was reckoned to be as evil as publicans,
themselves, and further 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 condensed into
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 at the well of
Sychar. And He finished it by dispensing pardon to a thief while
hanging on the Cross–and between that calling of the woman of Samaria
who had had five husbands and was living unlawfully at the time–right
along to the thief who died upon the gallows tree for his crime, the
Savior had been receiving sinners and eating with them! He had been
seeking and saving that which was lost!

The old contempt of the sinner's Savior still lingers in the world
among the self-righteous. Taking different shapes and speaking with
other voices, it is still among us and still, in one way or the other,
the old charge is repeated that Christianity is too 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 speaking slightingly of
human goodness. And therefore some even say they regard Christianity as
a foe to society and an enemy to good morals. How easily could we turn
the tables upon these slanderers, for usually those who talk thus have
but a scant supply of 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 admit the truth of the
charge. Secondly, we shall deny the insinuation which that charge is
meant to cover. And thirdly, we shall rejoice 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! Jesus did 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 after the sheep which had gone astray
and He had a wonderful attraction for the disreputable classes, for it
is written, "Then drew near unto Him all the publicans and sinners for
to hear Him." His ministry was aimed at those who were as sheep without
a shepherd and it succeeded among such, for we read that the publicans
and harlots entered into the kingdom! We are not, for a 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 towards the
guilty. That, in fact, it contemplates their salvation and finds its
greatest triumphs among them! To begin with, the object 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 from his 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 all needless things! A physician
does not at all hesitate to say that he comes into a town with his eyes
upon the sick. It would be ridiculous for him to come there with a view
to anybody else! And so to guilty sinners Jesus comes. Gospel promises
are addressed to the guilty. Who else would need abundant pardon?
Gospel invitations are addressed to the sinful. Who should be entreated
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 have never broken the Law
of God! I perceive all through the wondrous pages of the Gospel that
Mercy's eyes and heart are set upon those who are guilty and
self-condemned! The Eternal Watcher is looking over the vast ocean of
life, not that He may spy out the vessels which sail along proudly in
safety, but that He may see those who are almost wrecks. "He looks upon
men, and if any say, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right,
and it profits me not; He will deliver his soul from going into the
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 and palsies! This
is the end and object of the Gospel, namely, to save the unrighteous!
The God of the Gospel is He that "justifies the 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 Lord does actually call sinners into its fellowship. Zacchaeus
did not come to Jesus, first, but Jesus went after Him while he was yet
a sinner, and said to him, "Today I must abide in your house." So does
the Gospel, by the Holy Spirit's power, continually call to itself the
guilty!

The drunk, the thief, the harlot, the profane, the careless, the
prayerless are called out–those who are consciously guilty are led to
faith and pardon. Not merely those guilty of open sin, but those guilty
of secret sin–sins of the heart, sins of the imagination, sins which
stain the inmost soul are converted and saved! Jesus Christ causes His
ministers, in the preaching of the Word of God, to gather out of the
world and into the Church those who were enemies and alienated in their
minds by wicked works. The Spirit of God does not effectually call
those who are without sin, but He calls sinners to repentance. The
Spirit 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 mantle of their own
righteousness, but it goes forth unto those who sit in darkness and in
the shadow of death, bound in affliction and iron because they have
rebelled against the Lord and contemned the counsel of the Most High.
These are they upon whom this mighty love fixes itself and upon whom
Sovereign Grace exerts its power! The great Founder of Zion has found
inhabitants for her, even as Romulus peopled Rome. It is said of that
renowned builder that when he walled his city he peopled it by
permitting the offscouring of all other cities to use it as a refuge.
Glorious things are spoken of you, O Zion, city of God, and yet all
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 guest with 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 Pharisee had gone to Zacchaeus' house
and been allowed to do exactly what he liked, he would have said,
"Well, I may, perhaps, condescend to enter your profane abode,
Zacchaeus, but I must wash first and wash afterwards also. And,
moreover, you, also, must wash and also have your house specially
purified–it must be whitewashed, scrubbed, and perfumed with incense.
And then, if you will 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 come into
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 elegant condition to receive the Lord
and, worse still, there was his sin about him! And yet Jesus Christ
said to him before he had brushed off a grain of dust, "Make haste, and
come down, for today I must abide in your house." To his house Jesus
came and with him He sojourned, and all without ceremony and
preparation! Yes, I have known the Lord Jesus meet with a man as black
as 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 transgressor to be His
companion and His friend! Did not the father in the parable at once
receive his returning son? How many minutes did 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 and there! Our Lord Jesus not only has pity upon
sinners, but treats them with love, comes under their roof and brings
salvation to 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 very sinners who had
been so unfit for any holy service–using them in His most hallowed
world! Note how He makes Zacchaeus to be His 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 such society! To sit at his table and let him wait upon You, is
too great an honor for the likes of him! And surely, Brothers and
Sisters, 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–how can it be? We all have a measure of
this legal hardness and are scarcely prepared to allow the guilty to
become heralds of Grace too soon after their conversion! The Gospel
knows nothing of a purgatory at the Church doors, or a quarantine
before its pulpit! Only is it, indeed, seen that a man has really
accepted Christ and we may both receive him into fellowship and employ
him in holy service! Jesus permits the man who was a sinner to become
His host, even as He allowed the woman who was a 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 day that He called him,
by His Grace, He gave him full assurance–at any rate I should not want
any better assurance than Zacchaeus received 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 your house," 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, among the 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, that though you, even
now, have not believed in Jesus as yet, and are sitting down in sorrow,
burdened with sin, yet if you now believe–before this service shall be
over, you may not only be saved but know it–and shall go home and say
to your wife and children, "Salvation has come to our house!" Blessed
be the name of Jesus! All this is true and we have no wish to conceal
it! 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. Jesus is the Friend of
sinners, but He is not the Friend of sin! Jesus forgives sin altogether
apart from human merit, but Jesus does 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 to a single passage in His Word in which He ever justifies a
sinner in sinning, or ever treats sin as if it were a trifle, or looks
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 condemn acts of sin,
but even words and thoughts, in such words as these–"For every idle
word that man shall speak, he shall give an account in the Day of
Judgment." "God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ." The
Savior's lips were too truthful and 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 sinners
will be annihilated, or that they will, by-and-by, in another state,
obtain forgiveness and be delivered, but, "these shall go 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 a man sows, that
shall he also reap. He who lives in sin is declared to be the servant
of sin, and he who brings forth evil fruit 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 consumes the dross. He lays the axe at the root of
tree and demands that the heart and spirit be right before God. If He
sets forth obedience to the Law, our Lord declares that it must be
obedience in every point, or a man cannot be saved by it. If He accepts
a follower, He bids him count the cost and forsake all that he has, or
he cannot be His disciple. His moral standard is–"Be you 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 sin mitigated, you must
not go to Christ, for He is, of all Teachers, the most severe against
sin of every sort, and the most clear in foretelling its penalty. The
Friend of sinners is too much their Friend to befriend their sin–that
He utterly abhors and He will never rest till He has driven it out of
them. Neither does the Lord Jesus Christ screen sinners from that
proper and 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 in this way we do a
good deal for these publicans, because we let them see the difference
between holy and unholy men! When they look at our phylacteries between
our eyes and observe the broad borders of our garments, and see how we
wash our hands, and know how we tithes on mint and cumin, it must
greatly edify them! No doubt they will go home and feel greatly ashamed
that they cannot associate with such blessed and holy people as we are.
Now, that Man, Christ, goes in among them and eats and drinks with
them! And thus, in some measure, our protest is broken down. They will
think a great deal of themselves, now that the 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 with the 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 taken taxes 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 perfection of His blessed
Person, than straightway sin receives its death blow and is ashamed to
show itself anymore. Jesus is the best rebuke 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 among the
sin-smitten to catch their disease, but to cure it! Going in such a
spirit, a good man's presence is a far better rebuke to sin than a
cold, self-righteous isolation. The Gospel does not aim so much at
rebuking sinners as at reclaiming them. Its business 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 sin by making deliverance from it to be
so speedy a business." These cavilers know better, some of them, and if
they do not know better, let us teach them! When the Lord Jesus Christ
forgave me, He taught me at the same moment to dread sin. I never had
such 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 and groans to bring me near to
God. It cost His soul an agony never to be described before He could
redeem one poor sinner from going down into the Pit. It is a gross
injustice to charge the preaching of the Gospel to sinners with making
sin to appear a 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. But those 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 of the 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 an old libel. I remember
reading much the same charge in a book which leveled its artillery at
Wilberforce and his evangelical friends. 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 that such 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 itself to
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, Zacchaeus perceived
at once that character was of the greatest consequence and so he stood
forth, and said, "Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the
poor. And if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I
restore him fourfold." Let who will, deny the logic of it! The fact is
that when a man comes to believe in Jesus, he has a higher appreciation
of the excellence of character than any other man in the world. And he
does not merely appreciate it in theory, but begins to seek after 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 whole life is changed by
his believing in Jesus, and that which thus happily affects the
character cannot honestly be said to lead to indifference concerning
it! Even the remark I quoted now about Wilberforce was signally false,
because it was through him and the party which gathered around him that
benevolence gained one of her very noblest victories. How would the
slave in the West Indies have obtained his liberty if it had not been
for these very men? Wilberforce and the like, who while they held that
faith in Christ, alone, could save the soul, felt that benevolence was
the essential spirit of Christianity and liberty 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 grandest motive possible and only
remove a vicious and feeble motive! We take away from man the idea of
performing good works in order to 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.
The selfishness 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! And being saved there
grows up in their hearts gratitude to God–and from this springs a
loving desire to serve God on account of what He has done–and this
motive is not only very powerful but it is very pure, because the man
does not, then, serve God with 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 to men. It supplies a motive which is clean, clear, pure–a
motive, moreover, which is proven by the lives of saved men to be
potent 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 believe on the Lord
Jesus the Holy Spirit is surely at work with all His wondrous power! He
enters the heart and changes it, turns the 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 a doctrine, 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 creation commences and men
are delivered from living as they did before, under the bondage of
corruption. Thus we repel with indignation the charge that Christ is
the abettor of sin–and yet we preach with unabated eagerness this good
news for sinners–Whatever sin you may have committed, and however
stained you may be with habits of evil, there is immediate pardon to be
had and complete salvation to be obtained, now, on this very spot, if
you will but accept it and trust Jesus for it! We assure you of this
from our own experience! We also assure you that all your good works,
prayers, tears and almsgivings will go for nothing if you trust in
them! But though you may be covered with ten thousand times ten
thousand sins, if you believe in Jesus you shall be 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, nor cause you to
continue in sin that Grace may abound, but it will give you the power
which you need! It will supply you with a strength you have never been
able to find, notwithstanding all your efforts! It will enable you to
rejoice that you are saved and, in the strength of such an assurance,
you will find within your heart a love for holiness and an abhorrence
of sin 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 to the lusts of
the flesh, "Get you behind me!" And as to all the temptations which
arise from old companions you will shut the door 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 hope to 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 guest to sinners. To me, such gracious
facts are needed to save me from despair. Oh, it is mighty easy to
build up a fine experience and a pretty sanctification. And to imagine
that you are getting on wonderfully and becoming strong and pure, and
very superior saints, 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 soul that you will cry
out in bitterness of anguish! Then will you find that fine words about
experience do not fit your mouth and all your notions of being somebody
will evaporate like dew in the summer's sun. Oh the thousands of times
when I have looked for any mouse hole through which I might creep if I
might but enter into a little hope! I love to preach a sinner's Gospel,
for it suits myself! I delight to preach holiness and will aim at it as
long as I live and can never be content until I 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 before Him than ever and
feel it to be an unspeakable privilege to creep to His feet and wash
them with my tears. I have, at this moment, no sort of hope but in
mercy, great mercy rendered to a great sinner through the sacrifice of
Jesus! Brothers and Sisters, 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 not wish to
make any excuses for our sin! We would loathe it and abhor ourselves
before God on account of it, but still, a wash in the Fountain opened
for sin and uncleanness suits us today as well as it did 27 years ago,
when, for the first time, we looked 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 need a 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 languishing into everlasting life,
He will be your strength and your song, and you will be glad to think
that, "this Man receives sinners and eats with them." Again, we rejoice
that it is true for another reason, because this affords us hope for
all our fellow men. Suppose that our Lord did not visit any but the
good, moral and excellent? Then, alas, for poor London's back streets
and crowded courts! Alas for the casual ward! Alas for the penitentiary
and alas for the jail! Alas for the fallen woman and alas 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 gratitude to the Lord
for this fact. This is earth's brightest star! This is her well of
hope, her dawn of joy! Since Jesus Christ receives the guilty and saves
the vile, despondency and despair have, from now on, no right to haunt
the abodes of men! Hope smiles on all and invites the most fallen to
look up and live! Yes, and let me tell you Pharisees, if there are any
representatives of that section here today–though you do not like the
idea of Grace to the guilty, but cling to the idea of your being
rewarded for your supposed merit–it is a great mercy for you that
Jesus receives great offenders because you must be numbered among them!

What is your heart but a raging sea of pride and enmity against God and
even against your fellow men? You despise God's ordained plan of Grace
and you look with contempt upon the guilty whom He deigns to save! Is
it not the spirit of the devil which makes you think yourself so much
above your fellow men? Is it not an intolerable inhumanity which makes
you wish that the Gospel were molded to suit you and to shut out poor
sinners? Who are you to carry your head so high? If you have never
sinned as open transgressors have done, yet it is very probable that
you would have done worse if you had been placed in the positions which
they have occupied! With all their faults there are greater faults in
you–and if somebody were to set to work to read the 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 even the unchaste and
the profane! There are more thieves, I doubt not, outside our jails
than there are inside! And there are more double-dyed sinners than we
ever dreamed of who appear respectable and yet are abominable! Yes,
even among nominal Christians there are plenty of scarlet sinners–they
are always at the place of worship, very regular in all acts of outward
devotion–and yet 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 be placed 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 say to 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 you may 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 Christ that 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 enthusiasm dies out, the warmth chills. I
remember a sailor who, before conversion, used to swear, and I
guarantee you he would rattle it out, volley after volley! He became
converted and when he prayed it was much in the same fashion. How he
woke everybody up the first time he opened his mouth at the Prayer
Meeting! The little Church had quite a revival, for their old jog-trot
pace 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 same sleepy people, the
same long prayers and the same dreary addresses. But Jack's conversion
was like an earthquake and startled everybody–and their zeal revived.
They even began to think that, perhaps, sailors might be saved, and
started a service on the wharf and did many other good things. The
conversion of a great sinner is the best medicine for a sick Church! In
all the churches, you good people who are settled on your lees, need
stirring up every now and then, and one of the best stirrings up 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 of the devil's
most famous soldiers, one of the men who carried the black flag in the
battle, one who ridiculed us most! We are apt 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 more of him. And they are quite right to do so. But if
the Lord has really called the sinner, by His Grace, no sooner does the
Church receive such a man than they find that he has brought with him
fresh fire and throws a fresh impetus into the whole work! Our Lord
Jesus, then, when He goes to be a guest with a man that is a sinner,
brings additional strength to the Church and 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 sinner and 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 save you at once! He says to you, "I must abide in
your house today." Make haste down and open the door, and say, "Come
in, my Lord, I am honored to receive You." Will any hesitate? Will any
delay? May my Master's Holy Spirit cause, today, many a great sinner'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.
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Why Should I Weep?