"What! do you mean to say that I may be respectable, and obliging, and yet be lost?”
"Yes; and yet be lost.”
"What! religious, amiable, courteous, and yet be lost?”
"Yes; and yet be lost.”
"What! be devoted to my church, the cause, and subscribe well: and yet be lost?”
"Yes; and yet be lost.”
"What! be a preacher, eloquent, successful; and yet be lost?”
"Yes; and yet be lost.”
"What! fast, deny myself, do penance; and yet be lost?”
"Yes; and yet be eternally lost; shut out from God forever.”
"But what more can I do than I have done?”
"Listen! You can stop making God a liar; for who has required these things at your hand?”
"Making God a liar! I do not intend doing that.”
"That may be very true, but you are, nevertheless. Again, I ask, who has required these things at your hand? Who?”
"But does not God require us to be good, and do good, before He will save us?”
"Where does God say in the gospel (which is His message to you) that you have to be good, and do good, before He will save you? Where?”
"But—God won't take us into heaven—He won't receive us just as we are.”
"Pray, dear friend, what book have you been studying on this most important question?”
"Why, of course, the Bible, for there is no other to turn to.”
"I grant you there is no other book that can enlighten a poor sinner on this important subject but the Bible; but where does it say that God won't receive a sinner just as he is?”
"Well, I don't know just where it is, but I have always been under the impression that we must be good, and do good, before God will receive us.”
"My dear friend, all that I can say is, you never got it from the Bible, and I am bold to say all this time you have been contradicting God, and therefore making Him a liar. He says one thing, and you say another. But let us turn to the Scriptures.”
"In the first place, for whom did Christ die? Was it good people? What answer do the Scriptures give to this important question? They say, He died for the ungodly, for sinners, for the guilty, yea, for His enemies, and that He came 'to seek and to save that which was lost.' Are you such?”
"Yes.”
"Then He died for you?”
"But have I not to do something to help save myself?”
"Yes; you have got to cease acting the hypocrite, and own to God just what you are, and in heart and conscience take your place before Him accordingly.”
"But will He accept me just as I am, in all my sins and vileness?”
"If He does not, He will never accept you; for how can you remove the moral stains from your soul, when it is written: `Without shedding of blood, is no remission,' and again 'It is the blood that maketh atonement for the soul' " (Heb. 9:22; Lev. 17:11)?
"But what say the Scriptures on this subject, as to how a poor, unclean sinner (and we are all that, for there is no difference) is received by God?
"Look at the glorious 15th of Luke, and what do we find there? Why Christ's enemies are charging Him with what was His glory, and what He left heaven to do. They were saying: `This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.' See whom the blessed Jesus, the Son of God, received—sinners. Is that your name?”
"Why, yes; to be sure I am a sinner; I feel that to be so.”
"Then He will receive you, if you will only be warned against the 'leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy,' that is, pretending to be what you are not. Repentance is the full recognition, and confession of the fact, that you are a sinner, and that to God, who knows all—the judgment, too, of yourself, not merely of what you have done.
"But to proceed with Luke 15. It was the 'lost sheep' that the shepherd went after. It was not the sheep seeking the shepherd, but the shepherd seeking the lost sheep. And how glad and happy he was to get it back to his bosom! Jesus is the Shepherd who laid down His life for the sheep: and what joy it gives His heart to find and save a lost sheep—a lost sinner.
"Again, the woman with the light seeking the piece of silver represents the Holy Ghost with the Word, detecting, convicting, and quickening the poor lost, dead sinner. And what joy it gives Him thus to do!
"Lastly, we have the prodigal in his rags, degradation, filth and misery (solemn picture of the sinner), received by the father with a heart of overflowing love and compassion: who as he embraced him, kissed him, and pressed him to his bosom, said to his servants: `Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet; and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead and is alive again: he was lost and is found; and they began to be merry.'”
And when will the joy stop? Never!
"Thus we have in this wondrous chapter, the united joy of the ever-blessed Trinity, in receiving and saving completely and eternally a poor lost, hell-deserving sinner. We have also in what condition he was received. True, it was a repentant one (for that God demands, Acts 17:30), but in all his misery, degradation, and helplessness.
"Thus we see from the Word of God, that He receives sinners, just as they are, simply because they cannot better their condition, and He is bent upon saving them. And it is easily to be seen how the reversing of this order is simply making God a liar, and in many, many instances, it is "the leaven of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy." (Luke 12:1-3).
May God bless these few lines to the reader, is the writer's earnest prayer. Read Luke 7:36-50. Works follow as a consequence of salvation, but never precede it.