IT is a well-known fact, that although there is so much preaching, and (in a general way) so much knowledge of the truths of Scripture, it is quite the exception to find anyone who knows salvation as a personal matter. In other words, there are but few who know that their sins are forgiven; that they have eternal life, and can never perish; that they have peace with God, and can look up to Him, crying, Abba, Father! On the contrary, it is not unfrequently urged, that no one while in this world can be sure of his acceptance with God; that it is the merest presumption for anyone to say his sins are forgiven, or that he is “sure of going to heaven.”
Now, in the New Testament, we find when the Apostles wrote to the Christians of their day, they addressed them as saved people (Eph. 2:88For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: (Ephesians 2:8)), whose sins were forgiven (Eph. 1:77In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; (Ephesians 1:7); 1 John 2:1212I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake. (1 John 2:12)), who had eternal life, and who knew they had it (1 John 5:11-1311And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life. 13These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. (1 John 5:11‑13)). The Word of God is as true now as it was then; the Gospel is the same; the blood of Christ is as precious as ever; and there is as much power in the name of Jesus now, to bless and save the poor needy sinner, as in days of yore. How is it, then, so few know the blessed, simple truths of salvation? The answer is simply this, in the vast majority of cases: They form their own thoughts and ideas apart from the Word of God, and they go by what they think, and not by what God says! No wonder, indeed, that they err and are ignorant, for the Lord declares, “My thoughts are not your thoughts.”
Let us look at a few specimens of men’s thoughts. On asking a paralytic man, who had been assuring me that for eighteen months past he had read his Bible more than he had ever before done during all his life, if he now knew his sins were forgiven, he replied, “No, I could not say they are yet.” “Well,” I said, “will you tell me in your own words how you think you are to be saved?”
“Well, my idea is,” was his answer, “that a man must pray, and give his mind altogether to it. He must pray from his heart, and give his mind to it altogether.”
“But have you not read in your Bible of One called Jesus Christ “I asked.
“Oh, yes,” he said, “I did not mean to leave Him out.”
“Ah, but you did leave Him out. The only name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved, you never mentioned; but you spoke of your prayers, and giving your mind to it, as the way to be saved.”
Now this is not an uncommon case. I put the same question to another man a few months since, a poor old creature fast approaching the grave. His reply was, “I am working, and doing, and striving the best I can.”
Another said, a little while after, in answering the same question, “I suppose a man must do the best he can, and pray.” Alas for man’s thoughts! He puts his doing and his praying instead of Christ the only Saviour. What must the end of this be?
“Oh, we must pray,” is a remark one often hears. Or again, “If we don’t ask, we’ll not receive (meaning salvation).” Or yet again, “Well, I ask and pray continually for the forgiveness of my sins.” From such remarks, and many similar ones which are constantly heard, it is evident that people are much more occupied with their own ideas of prayer than with Christ.
I desire to point out some prayers that we find in the Gospel according to St Luke, some answered, and some not answered. Let us mark them well.
The first I call your attention to is in chapters 18:11:12. It is the prayer of the Pharisee in the temple, if prayer it may be called. It is the utterance of the heart of a self-righteous man. He tells God about what he is not, and what he has not done.
He looks at others, and tells God be is better than they. He further adds, that he abstains from meat twice a week, and gives a tenth of his income to Him from whom he receives all. Do we wonder that there is no response to such a prayer? How could such a statement of his own imaginary goodness be pleasing to the God who searches the heart, and has pronounced it to be desperately wicked? There is not a word more said of the scornful self-righteous Pharisee.
Beware, my dear reader, of your own goodness. It is not their sins, but their righteousness, which hinder many and many a soul from coming to Christ. Your sins are no obstacle at all to your coming to the Saviour! The fact that you are so bad, is your very title to come. But when any have an idea that they have something meritorious of their own, they do not like the thought of giving it all up, and coming as poor, lost, undone ones to Christ, for grace, because they are so bad!
Real prayer for mercy, from a broken and contrite heart, has never to be repeated. God answers it at once. He cannot deny Himself. The prayers people speak of repeating, and going on with for years, are a mere delusion.
A woman of eighty-six years, told me once she had been all her life asking God-morning, noon, and night-for forgiveness.
“And has He not forgiven you yet?” I naturally enough asked.
“Oh, I could not say that, but I hope He will,” was her reply.
I said to her, “Now, suppose I had sinned against you, and had wronged you very grievously, but afterward was brought to see my fault, lamented it, and besought you to forgive me, would you, if you saw I was really in earnest, keep me waiting eighty-six years without forgiving me?”
“Oh, no,” she said, “I would not have the heart to do that.”
Now see, in chapter 18:13, the prayer of the publican. Here is a really honest man. How different from the Pharisee. He sees none but himself, and all he sees of himself is, that he is THE sinner. “God be merciful to me the sinner” (which is the true translation), as if there was not another sinner in the world. How immediately there is a response to this prayer! The Pharisee’s is unnoticed. He exalted himself; but of the two, this man who humbled himself, ―who had not a good word to say for himself, ―this man, who was nothing but a bad sinner, there and then goes down to his house justified, rather than the other, with all his high opinion of himself.
Again, in chapters 23:42, 43, when the poor dying robber turns to the Saviour, and in spite of all that men said against Him, owned Him to be the Lord, and sought to be remembered by Him in the day of His glory, how long was he kept praying? Had he to go on year after year with this prayer? Why, the man was dying! And the question is, Will Christ have anything to say to him? This poor ignorant malefactor believed three things about the bleeding sufferer on the cross beside him, which many a professing Christian today is not so clear about,— 1St, he believed He was LORD; 2nd, he believed that He was coming again; and 3rd, he believed that He had a kingdom, which would then be displayed. Willing to sink every thought of present relief and deliverance from the pain and shame of the cross, if the Lord would only remember him in the day of his coming glory, he casts himself in all his vileness, “justly condemned” as he was, upon THE MERCY of the Blessed One beside him. How long was he kept waiting? Was it left a matter of uncertainty with him whether the Lord would hear him or not? Oh, no. The assuring, soul-comforting answer comes to him at once, “Verily I say unto thee, Today thou shalt be with me in paradise.”
Mark it well, my reader, ere we turn to notice some other prayers of another kind, that these cries for MERCY from contrite hearts, were then, as they ever are, answered at once. God will never say to the poor penitent who casts himself upon His mercy,
“I have none for you.”
Beware, my dear reader, whoever you are who may read this paper, of persisting in a routine of prayer saying, as if there were some merit in it that God will mark with His approval. Prayer, true prayer, is the expression of need, ―of conscious, dire necessity.
What an awful thing to pray, ―really to pray, ― to pray under the sense of the deepest want, and yet to find no relief! None can ever do so but those who have left it till it is too late. In chap. 16:19-31, we read the solemn account of one who waited till after his death to begin to pray in earnest. Terrible as was his need, and earnest as was his prayer, there could never be an answer to it, save to tell him of the hopelessness of his request ever being complied with.
Again, in chapters 13:24-28, we find others― “many” seeking to enter in, and not able to do so-loudly, and with earnestness, calling for admittance. But no. Their cry is in vain. Their prayer, the most importunate and deeply fervent that had ever been uttered by them, cannot be answered now. Why? Because they have waited too long. They have delayed till the Master of the house has risen up and shut to the door, and it is too late now!
O my reader, let me say a solemn word to you. Do you not know the Lord Jesus is coming again very soon? His saints are looking for Him. Thousands of them are expecting Him daily. When He comes, He will call out of this poor guilty world all “His own,” to be forever with Himself. The hope of this is the joy of His people’s hearts. They long for it more than they who wait for the morning. On the other hand, what a fearful awakening it will be for dead professors, to find that what they had often heard of, but never heeded, has actually taken place! The Lord has come, and taken away every saint from off the face of the earth! What a stir this will make among those who were easygoing professors before! Of them it may then be said, “The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites: who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?”
Notice well that these unhappy people were not the openly evil and profane. No. They were those who had the form of godliness, without the power thereof.
They had a name to live, and were yet dead. They plead their past privileges. But these cannot avail!
“We have eaten and drunk in thy presence,” they cry; as though they said, “Lord, we have taken the sacrament; we have been church members.” Alas, it will be found by-and-bye, that many received what they called the sacrament who had never received God’s grace. There will be many who were “church members,” who were never members of Christ; many whose names were on the “church-roll,” who were never written in heaven. Beware, any reader! Privileges cannot save you. A man could kiss the Son of God, and yet perish after all. The only answer to the prayer of these poor (but too late) awakened ones is, “I know you not whence ye are: depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity.”
There are two prayers in chapter 8 which I must notice briefly before concluding. One was answered, the other was not. In verse 37 we find that the whole multitude of the Gadarenes, who valued their unclean swine more than the Lord of glory, “besought him to depart from them.” He answered their petition, “he went up into the ship, and returned back again.” A sad day, indeed, for them. The Lord had come into their midst, in rich grace and mercy, and they did not want Him. The world and its gains were much more to them, than the display of God’s goodness in their midst. It is a solemn day for the man or woman who, for the sake of any worldly advantage, refuses the grace of Christ, asking Him, as it were, to leave them. There is the awful probability of His taking such at their word. He may answer their prayer, to their everlasting sorrow and loss.
In verse 38 we have a prayer of another kind, but unanswered. This poor demoniac, who was so infinitely indebted to the Saviour, very naturally “besought him that he might be with him.” The Lord had delivered him from the power of devils, and had brought him to “his right mind,” and now he wants to be with his Benefactor. How like this is to the thought in the heart of many a young convert, “Oh, how I wish the Lord would come, or that He would take me to be with Himself.” And yet the Lord does not respond to this request. He leaves us here, instead, in scenes of sorrow and strife and sin. The brightest and the best day has yet to come; but, meanwhile, He leaves us here to witness for Him. So it was in the case of the delivered demoniac. The Lord sends him home (to begin at his own house), to say a good word for Him, and to testify to His grace and power, in the very place where He Himself had been rejected.
Christian reader, have you apprehended this fact, that because you are on earth, and not yet in heaven, though you belong to it, you are a missionary here (a sent one), sent by the Lord, who has saved you, to witness for Him for a little moment in the world out of which He has been cast? See to it, that at His coming you may be owned by Him as a good and faithful servant.
Let us now put these prayers in Luke’s gospel together, thus: ―
1. The Pharisee’s prayer. Unnoticed; it, so to speak, went no higher than the ceiling (ch. 18:11:12).
2. The publican’s prayer. The cry of a broken and contrite heart for mercy, which was at once bestowed (chs. 18:13, 14).
3. The dying thief’s prayer. Immediately answered; he gets assurance of salvation, and is taken to paradise that day (chs. 23:42, 43).
4. The rich man’s prayer. Too late in hell,—the great gulf fixed,―none can pass (chs. 16:23-26).
5. The Christless professor’s prayer. Too late I the Master has risen and shut the door; He knows them not (chs. 13:24-27).
6. The Gadarenes’ prayer. “Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways” (Job 21:1414Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways. (Job 21:14)); the world preferred to Christ (ch. 8:37).
7. The convert’s prayer. Not answered at the moment; he must testify for Christ now, and be with Him by-and-bye (chs. 8:38, 39).
F. C.