Luke 18:9-14

HUMILITY AND PRIDE

Luke 18:9-14. “And He spoke this parable also to certain ones, having confidence in themselves that they are righteous, and treat others with contempt: Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.” The holy Temple Campus contains thirty-five acres, consecrated to God, and regarded even to this day as most holy. Since none but the priests were allowed to enter the temple proper, we conclude that these two men simply entered the sacred enclosure, and proceeded to pray.

“The Pharisee, standing, prayed after this manner: God, I thank Thee, because I am not like the rest of men, unrighteous, adulterous, or even as this publican. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all things so many as I possess.” Tithe-paying is all right, and we do not blame the Pharisee for thanking God that he was not guilty of vulgar vices and midnight iniquities. This is all fight. We ought to thank God for keeping us from terrible sin, which ruin soul and body, world without end. If the publican was guilty of dark sins which this Pharisee would blush to contemplate, and from which he. would recoil with horror, it is all right to thank God for the happy deliverance and the enviable contrast.

“The publican, standing a great way off, did not wish to lift up his eyes toward heaven, but smote his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me the sinner! I say unto you that he went down to his house justified rather than that one; because every one exalting himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” Jesus here tells the secret of the great difference between these two men. We have no right to call in question the testimony of that Pharisee as to the moral purity of his life and his amiable loyalty to the Church. That was all right, and very pertinent that he should thank God for it. O the millions of Church members who are in the succession of this Pharisee, depending on morality, legal obedience, and Church loyalty to save them! All such go down to hell, since Jesus alone can save. Here we have the clear affirmation that this publican, so despised by the Jews because he collected revenue for the Roman Government, went down to his house justified, while the Pharisee, the nice, honorable Church member, went to his house one hour nearer hell than when he went to the temple. As the publican was no Church member, had no consolation, and nothing to bolster him up, consequently the Holy Ghost had unobstructed access to him, giving him such an awful presentment of hell, damnation, eternity, and doom that, in the bitter anguish of despair, his heart was so heavy that he could not look up, while sheer agony of spirit constrained him W beat his breast with horror, crying out, “God, be merciful unto me a sinner!” Etupen, “smote,” is in the imperfect tense, showing that as there he stood, crying to God, he continued repeatedly to smite his breast, not in a formal way, but spontaneously, thus giving vent to the unutterable agony of a broken heart and a contrite spirit. God never turns away a case of that kind. Of course, he returned home justified, born from above, adopted into the heavenly family, and gloriously saved. You see from these two contrastive cases how Church membership, with its false comforts, is adroitly used by Satan in the damnation of millions. Hence we conclude that it is unsafe to receive or retain sinners in the membership of the Church, as Satan is certain to slip in like a weasel and persuade them, as he did this man, that if they keep the commandments, live good, moral lives, and show up their loyalty to the Church by paying all their dues, they are justified.

You see from this parable that this conclusion is untrue, and a fond delusion of Satan for the damnation of souls. Hence if we can not get people truly and experimentally saved, we should neither receive nor retain them in the membership of the Church, lest they lean on it, as this man did, and lose their souls.