427. The Publican’s Prayer

The Publican’92s Prayer

Luk_18:13 : ’93God be merciful to me a sinner.’94

No mountain ever had a more brilliant coronet than Mount Moriah. The glories of the ancient temple blazed there. The mountain-top was not originally large enough to hold the temple and so a wall six hundred feet high was erected and the mountain was built out on that wall. It was at that point that Satan met Christ and tried to persuade him to cast himself down the six hundred feet. The nine gates of the temple flashed the light of the silver and gold and Corinthian brass, which Corinthian brass was made up of precious stones melted and mixed and crystallized. The temple itself was not so very large a structure, but the courts and the adjuncts of the architecture made it half a mile in circumference. We stand and look off upon that wondrous structure. What’92s the matter? what strange appearance in the temple? Is it fire. Why, it seems as if it were a mansion all kindled into flame. What’92s the matter? It’92s the hour of morning sacrifice and the smoke on the altar rises and bursts out of the crevices and out of the door and wreaths the mountain-top with folds of smoke, through which glitter precious stones, gathered and burnished by royal munificence.

I see two men mounting the steps of the building; they go side by side; they are very unlike; no sympathy between them’97the one, the Pharisee, proud, arrogant, pompous, goes up the steps of the building, and seems by his manner to say, ’93Clear the track.’94 Never before came up these steps such goodness and consecration. Beside him is the publican, bowed down, seemingly, with a load on his heart. They reach the enclosure for worship in the midst of the temple; the Pharisee goes close up to the gate of the Holy of Holies; he feels he is worthy to stand there; he says, practically: ’93I am so holy I want to go into the Holy of Holies. O Lord, I am a very good man; I’92m a remarkably good man; why, two days in the week I eat absolutely nothing. I’92m so good; I’92m very generous in my conduct toward the poor; I have no sympathy with the common rabble, especially have I none with this poor, miserable, common-place, wretched publican, who happened to come up the stairs beside me.’94 The publican goes clear to the other side of the enclosure, as far away from the gate of the Holy of Holies as he can get; for he feels unworthy to stand near that sacred place. And the Bible says he stood afar off. Standing on the opposite side of this enclosure he bows his head, and as Orientals when they have any trouble beat their breasts, so he begins to pound his breast, as he cries: ’93God, be merciful to me a sinner!’94

Was there ever a greater contrast? The incense that wafted that morning from the priest’92s censer wasn’92t so sweet as the publican’92s prayer floating into the opening heavens while the prayer of the Pharisee died on his contemptuous lips, and rolled down into his arrogant heart. After worshiping there, they join each other, and go side by side down the steps, the Pharisee cross, wretched, acrid, saturnine; the publican, with his face shining with the very joys of heaven; for ’93I tell you that this man went down to his house justified rather than the other.’94

Now, I put this publican’92s prayer under analysis and I discover in the first place that he was persuaded of his sinfulness. He was an honest man, he was a tax-gatherer, he was an officer of the government; the publicans were tax-gatherers, and Cicero says they were the adornment of the State. Of course, they were somewhat unpopular, because people then did not like to pay their taxes any better than people now like to pay their taxes, and there were many who disliked them. Still, I suppose this publican, this tax-gatherer, was an honorable man; he had an office of trust; there were many hard things said about him; and yet, standing there in that enclosure of the temple, amid the demonstrations of God’92s holiness and power, he cries out from the very depths of his stricken soul: ’93God be merciful to me a sinner!’94

By what process shall I prove that I am a sinner? By what process shall I prove that you are a sinner? Shall I ask you to weigh your motives, to scan your actions, to estimate your behavior? I will do nothing of the kind; I will draw my argument rather from the plan of the work that God has achieved for your salvation. You go down in a storm to the beach and you see wreckers put on their rough jackets and launch the lifeboat and then shoot the rockets to show that help is coming out into the breakers, and you immediately cry: ’93A shipwreck!’94 And when I see the Lord Jesus Christ putting aside robe and crown and launch out on the tossing sea of human suffering and satanic hate, going out into the thundering surge of death, I cry: ’93A shipwreck!’94

I know that our souls are dreadfully lost, by the work that God has done to save them. Are you a sinner? Suppose you had a commercial agent in Charleston or San Francisco or Chicago, and you were paying him promptly his salary, and you found out, after a while, that, notwithstanding he had drawn the salary, he had given nine-tenths of all the time to some rival commercial establishment. Why, your indignation would know no bounds. And yet that is just the way we have treated the Lord. He sent us out into this world to serve him. He has clothed us; he has sheltered us, and he has surrounded us with ten thousand benefactions; and yet many of us have given nine-tenths of our lives to the service of the world, the flesh, and the devil. The Bible is full of confession, and I do not find anybody is pardoned until he has confessed. What did David say? ’93I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord.’94 What did Isaiah say? ’93Woe is me, because I am a man of unclean lips.’94 What did Ezra say? ’93Our iniquities are increased over our head and our trespass is grown up unto heaven.’94 And among the millions before the throne of God tonight, not one got there until he confessed.

You may pay all your debts; you may be kind to the poor; you may be distinguished for ten thousand generosities; but unless you repent you shall perish; unless you take Christ for your portion you will live an unholy life, die a miserable death, and go to an undone eternity. The coast of eternal sorrow is strewn with the wreck of those who, not taking the warning, drove with the cargo of immortal hope into the white-tangled foam of the breakers.

Repent! the voice celestial cries,

Nor longer dare delay;

The wretch that scorns the mandate dies,

And meets the fiery day.

But I analyze the publican’92s prayer a step further and I find that he expected no relief except through God’92s mercy. Why did he not say, I’92m an honorable man; when I get ten dollars taxes I pay them right over to the government. I give full permission to anybody to audit my accounts; I appeal to thy justice, O God! He made no such plea. He threw himself flat on God’92s mercy.

Have you any idea that a man by breaking off the scales of the leprosy can change the disease? Have you any idea that you can, by changing your life, change your heart, that you can purchase your way to heaven? Come, try it; come, bring all the bread you ever gave to the hungry, all the medicine you ever gave to the sick, all the kind words you have ever uttered, all the kind deeds that have ever distinguished you; add them all up into the tremendous aggregate of good words and works, and then you will see Paul sharpen his knife and he cuts through that spirit of self-satisfaction, as he cries: ’93By the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified.’94

Well, you say, if I am not to get anything in the way of peace from God in good works, how am I to be saved? By mercy. Here I stand to tell the story: mercy, long-suffering mercy, sovereign mercy, infinite mercy, omnipotent mercy, everlasting mercy. It seems in the Bible as if all language were exhausted, as if it were stretched until it broke, as if all power of expression were struck dead at the feet of prophet and apostle and evangelist, when it tries to describe God’92s mercy.

The murderer has come, and while he was washing the blood of his victim from his hands he has looked into the face of God and cried for mercy and his soul has been made white in God’92s pardoning love! And the soul that has wandered off in the streets and down to the very gates of hell, has come back to her father’92s house, throwing her arms around his neck, and been saved by the mercy that saved Mary Magdalen.

But, says some one, you are throwing open that door of mercy too wide. No; I will throw it open wider; I will take the responsibility of saying that if all this audience, instead of being gathered in a semicircle were placed side by side, in one long line, they could all march right through that wide-open gate of mercy. ’93Whosoever,’94 ’93whosoever.’94 Oh, this mercy of God’97there is no line long enough to measure it; there is no ladder long enough to scale it; there is no arithmetic facile enough to calculate it; no angel’92s wing can fly across it. Heavenly harpers, aided by choirs with feet like the sun, cannot compass that anthem of mercy. It sounds in the rumbling of the celestial gate; I hear it in the chiming of the heavenly towers; I see it flashing in the uplifted and downcast coronets of the saved; I hear it in the tread of the bannered hosts round about the throne; and then it comes and sits down unexpressed on a throne overtopping all heaven’97the throne of mercy.

How I was affected when some one told me in regard to an accident on Long Island Sound several years ago, when one poor woman came and got her hand on a raft, as she tried to save herself, but those who were on the raft thought there was no room for her, and one man came and most cruelly beat and bruised her hands until she fell off. I bless God that this lifeboat of the Gospel has room enough for all’97for the fourteen hundred millions of the race’97room for one, room for all, and yet there is room!

I push this analysis of the publican’92s prayer a step further, and find that he did not expect any mercy except by pleading for it. He did not fold his hands together, as some do, saying: ’93If I’92m to be saved, I’92ll be saved; if I’92m to be lost, I’92ll be lost; and there is nothing for me to do.’94 He knew what was worth having was worth asking for; hence this earnest cry of the text: ’93God be merciful to me a sinner.’94 It was an earnest prayer, and it is characteristic of all Bible prayers that they were answered. The blind man: ’93Lord, that I may receive my sight;’94 the leper: ’93Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean;’94 sinking Peter: ’93Lord, save me;’94 the publican: ’93God be merciful to me a sinner.’94 But if you come up with the tip of your finger and tap at the gate of mercy, it will not open; you must have the earnestness of the warrior who, defeated and pursued, dismounts from his lathered steed, and with gauntleted fist pounds at the palace-gate. You must have the earnestness of the man who at midnight in the fourth story has a sense of suffocation, and with the house in flames goes to the window and shouts to the firemen, ’93Help!’94 Oh, unforgiven souls! if you realized your true condition there would be such an imploring earnestness on your part I might have to command silence in the auditory, for your prayers would drown the voice of the speaker, and we would have to pause in the service. It is because you do not realize your sin before God that you are not this moment crying, Mercy, mercy, mercy.

This prayer of the publican was also an humble prayer. The Pharisee looked up, the publican looked down. You cannot be saved as a metaphysician or as a rhetorician; you cannot be saved as a scholar; you cannot be saved as an artist; you cannot be saved as an official. If you are ever saved at all it will be as a sinner. ’93God be merciful to me a sinner.’94

Another characteristic of the prayer of the publican was, it had a ring of confidence. It was not a cry of despair. He knew he was going to get what he asked for; he wanted mercy; he asked for it, expecting it. And do you tell me, O man! that God has provided this salvation and is not going to let you have it? If a man builds a bridge across a river, will he not let people go over it? If a physician gives a prescription to a sick man, will he not let him take it? If an architect puts up a building, will he not let people enter it? If God provides salvation, will he not let you have it? If there be a Pharisee here, a man who declares he is all right, let me say that while that man is in that mood there is no peace for him; there is no pardon, no salvation; and the probability is he will go down and spend eternity with the lost Pharisee of the text.

But if there be one who says, I want to be better; I want to quit my sins; my life has been a very imperfect life; how many things I have said that I should not have said; how many things I have done I should not have done; I want to change my life; I want to begin now; let me say to such a soul, God is waiting; God is ready, and you are near the kingdom, or rather you have entered it, for no man says, I am determined to serve God, and surrender the sins of my life; here now, I consecrate myself to the Lord Jesus Christ who died to redeem me’97no man from the depth of his soul says that except he be already a Christian.

My uncle, the Rev. Samuel K. Talmage, of Augusta, Georgia, was passing along the streets of Augusta one day, and he saw a black man step from the sidewalk out into the street, take his hat off, and bow very lowly. My uncle was not a man who demanded obsequiousness, and he said: ’93Why do you do that?’94 ’93Oh,’94 says the man, ’93Massa, the other night I was going along the street and I had a burden on my shoulder; I was sick and hungry and I came to the door of your church and you were preaching about ’91God be merciful to me a sinner,’92 and I stood there at the door long enough to hear you say that if a man could utter that prayer from the depths of his soul God would pardon him, and finally take him to heaven. Then I put my burden on my shoulder and I started home. I got to my home and I sat down and I said: ’91God be merciful to me a sinner,’92 but it got darker and darker, and then, Massa, I got down on my knees and I said: ’91God be merciful to me a sinner,’92 and the burden got heavier and it got darker and darker; I knew not what to do. Then I got down on my face and I cried: ’91God be merciful to me a sinner,’92 and away off I saw a light coming and it came nearer and nearer and nearer, until all was bright in my heart and I arose. I am happy now’97the burden is all gone and I said to myself, if ever I met you in the street I would get clear off the sidewalk and I would bow down and take my hat off before you. I feel that I owe more to you than to any other man. That is the reason I bow before you.’94

Are there not many here who can utter this prayer, the prayer of the black man, the prayer of the publican: ’93God be merciful to me a sinner’94? While I halt in the sermon, will you not all utter it? I do not say audibly, but utter it down in the depths of your souls’92 consciousness. Yes; the sigh goes all through the galleries; it goes all through the pews; it goes all through these crowded aisles, sigh after sigh; God be merciful to me a sinner.

Have you all uttered it? No; there is one soul that has not uttered it: too proud to utter it, too hard to utter it. O Holy Spirit, descend upon that one heart. Yes; he begins to breathe it now. No bowing of the head yet, no starting tear yet, but the prayer is beginning’97it is born; God be merciful to me a sinner. Have all uttered it? Then I utter it myself, for no one needs to utter it more than my own soul. ’93God be merciful to me a sinner.’94

Autor: T. De Witt Talmage