A Sermon Delivered On Sunday 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 who is a sinner.” [Lu 19:7]

1. Publicans or tax collectors 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 to 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 people who were the tax collectors 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 offscourings of society would sometimes take up 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 tax collectors, and he was rich.” He came, perhaps, under even greater odium than others, because he occupied a more prominent position and carried on the unsavoury business on a grander scale.

2. Jewish society drew a cordon around the tax collectors, and set them aside as moral lepers, with whom respectable people must not associate if they valued 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 were prejudiced against all tax collectors: he was regarded by the Pharisaic party as one of the offscourings of society, a man not to be acknowledged in the street, and into whose house no one would enter, 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 he addressed tax collectors as if they had the same feelings as other men, and 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 tax collectors and sinners.” A man who could be a friend to tax collectors was thought to be as evil as tax collectors themselves, and a man could not go any further; for if the Jew mentioned tax collectors and sinners, he always gave tax collectors the first place, as being decidedly the worst of the two. “Friend of tax collectors 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 public sinners, sinners of the most affirmed and undoubted degree of sin. He almost began his ministry by talking to an unchaste woman at the well of Sychar, and he finished it by dispensing a pardon to a thief while he was 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 Saviour had been receiving sinners and eating with them. He had been seeking and saving those who were lost.

3. The old contempt of the sinner’s Saviour still lingers in the world among the self-righteous: taking different forms and speaking with other voices, it is still among us, and still in one way or other the old charge is repeated, that Christianity is too lenient towards the sinner, that it tends to discourage the naturally amiable and virtuous, and looks too favourably upon the vicious and disreputable; that it is always talking about pardon without merit, and speaking slightingly of human goodness; and therefore some even say that they regard it 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 like that have only a scanty supply of morals and virtues themselves.

4. First, brethren, it was said that Jesus had gone to be a guest to a man who was a sinner, and we shall admit the truth of the charge; secondly, we shall deny the insinuation which that charge is meant to bring; and thirdly, we shall rejoice in the fact which has been the subject of objection.

5. 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 to a man who was a sinner, and 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 all the tax collectors and sinners drew near to him to hear him.” His ministry was intended for those who were like sheep without a shepherd, and it succeeded among such, for we read that the tax collectors and prostitutes entered into the kingdom. We are not going for a single moment 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.

6. To begin with: the object of Christ and the intent of the gospel is the saving of sinners. If there is any man in this world who is not guilty, the Saviour is nothing to him. If there is any one 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 healthy have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.” Christ does not come to proffer his needless services to those who are not sin-sick or needy! A Saviour for those who are not lost! A redeemer for those who are not enslaved! Alms for the rich! Medicine for the healthy! 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 eye upon the sick; it would be ridiculous for him to come there with a view to anyone else; and so Jesus comes to guilty sinners. 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 except those who are filthy? Gospel blessings are intended for those who have transgressed and are under condemnation, for who else would value forgiveness and justification? I myself know 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; but I perceive all through the wondrous pages of the gospel that mercy’s eye 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 discover the vessels which sail along proudly in safety, but that he may see those who are almost wrecks. “He looks upon men, and if anyone says, ‘I have sinned, and perverted what was right, and it does not profit me’; he will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light.” Our Lord was more moved by the sight of sickness than of health, and performed his greatest wonders among fevers, leprosies, and palsies. This is the purpose and object of the gospel, namely, to save the unrighteous; the God of the gospel is he who “justifies the ungodly,” “for when we were still without strength, Christ died for the ungodly.” “God commends his love towards us, in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

7. Since the gospel’s eye is thus fixed on sinners, we have to notice that our Lord actually calls sinners into its fellowship. Zacchaeus did not come to Jesus first, but Jesus went after him while he was still a sinner, and said to him, “Today I must visit in your house.” So the gospel, by the Holy Spirit’s power, continually calls the guilty to itself. The drunkard, the thief, the prostitute, 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 public sin, but those guilty of secret sin, sins of the heart, sins of the imagination, sins which stain the innermost soul, are converted and saved. Jesus Christ causes his ministers, in the preaching of the word, 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; but he quickens the dead in trespasses and sins. The eternal love of God does not seek out those who dream of their own superiority and wrap themselves up in the mantle of their own righteousness, but it seeks out those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, bound in affliction and iron, because they have rebelled against the Lord and condemned the counsel of the Most High. These are those 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 populated Rome. It is said of that renowned builder that when he walled his city he populated it by permitting the offscouring of all other cities to use it as a refuge. Glorious things are spoken of you, oh Zion, city of God, and yet all your citizens confess that they were guilty and defiled until 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.

8. Moreover, while we are about it we will make a further confession; the man Christ Jesus very readily comes 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 do not mind coming near the door, where the fresh air may perhaps remove any breath 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 even ask Zacchaeus to wash his little finger, but he said, “Hurry, and come down, for today I must visit 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, “Hurry, and come down, for today I must visit your house.” Jesus came to his house, and he sojourned with him, and all without ceremony and preparation. Yes, I have known the Lord Jesus to meet 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 to meet 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 heart? 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 still continues to provoke the question, “Why does your Master eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

9. 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 work. Notice how he makes Zacchaeus to be his host: “Today I must visit your house.” Was this not 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 company.” To sit at his table, and let him wait upon you, is too great an honour for the likes of him: and surely, brethren, 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 may it be, 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.

10. Indeed, and the Lord favoured 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, “Today is salvation come to your house.”

   Oh, might I hear thine heavenly tongue
      But whisper “Thou art mine!”
   Those gentle words should raise my song
      To notes almost divine.

How often have we sung this wish, but Zacchaeus had it granted to 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 believe now, 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!”

11. Blessed be the name of Jesus, all this is true, and we have no wish to conceal it, he has gone to be a guest with a man who is a sinner.

12. 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 does forgive 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.

13. For, first, Christ was a guest with a man who 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 Saviour’s lips were too truthful, and too pure to pander to the vices of men, he denounced sin in every shape and form, 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 eventually 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 in which 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 produces 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 discusses 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 asks him to count the cost and forsake all that he has, or he cannot be his disciple. His moral standard is — “Be perfect, even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect.” If you want the law 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 kind, 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 until he has driven it out of them.

14. 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 tax collectors, 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 pay tithe on mint and cummin, 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 thwarted. 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 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 the 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 accusation, 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 immediately sin receives its death-warrant, and is ashamed to show itself any more. Jesus is the best rebuke to sin. The gospel of Jesus Christ does not say to you who live in sin, “You are 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 do not go among the sin-stricken to catch their disease, but to cure it. Going in such a spirit a good man’s presence is a far better rebuke for sin than a cold self-righteous isolation could have been. 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.

15. 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,” one says, “if men only have to believe and be saved, you put a premium upon sin by making deliverance from it to be so speedy a business.” Some of these critics know better, 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; for where, do you think, 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! Those who know no atoning blood, those who know nothing about the sufferings of Christ, these are the men who can toy with sin, but those who gaze upon the wounds of Christ can only tremble at sin. The great doctrine of the substitutionary sacrifice, whenever it is fully received by the soul, makes sin to be exceedingly sinful. Oh, sin, I have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but on the cross my eye sees you killing the incarnate God, therefore I abhor myself in dust and ashes as I never would have otherwise done.

16. Now, though Christ is the friend of sinners, is it true that he makes men think lightly of personal character. “Oh,” some say, “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 levelled its artillery at Wilberforce and his evangelical friend. The author said, “in a pious meaningless 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, upright, 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 fifty 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 up, 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 it to him fourfold.” Let those 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 holiness 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 what thus happily affects the character cannot honestly be said to lead to indifference concerning it. Even the remark I quoted now about Wilberforce was inherently 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, until the fetters of England’s slaves were broken for ever.

17. 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 obtain 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 for God are the only good works possible for 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 of their days.

18. 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, like 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, and 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 begins, and men are delivered from living as they previously did under the bondage of corruption. Thus we repel with indignation the charge that Christ is the aider or 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 only 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, and prayers, and 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 Saviour, 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 so that grace may abound; but it will give you the power which you lack, 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 never knew before! You will go to the door of your heart and say to the devil, “Be gone!” and to the lusts of the flesh, “Get behind me!” and as for all the temptations which arise from old companions you will shut the door in their faces, and say, “Get away from here!”

19. 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.

20. And first, dear brethren, we rejoice in it because it affords hope for ourselves. It often happens that we should never have a hope of his coming to be a guest with us if he was not a guest to sinners. To me such gracious facts are needed to save me from despair. Oh, it is very 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 for five minutes, and he will show you something of quite another colour. 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 you will find that fine words about experience do not fit your mouth, and all your notions of being a 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 only enter into a little hope. I love to preach a sinner’s gospel, for it suits myself. I delight to preach holiness, and will strive for 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 Saviour. 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 kind 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 on, except the sinner’s Saviour? 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, where will you and I ever appear? We do not wish to make any excuses for our own 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 twenty-seven years ago, when for the first time we looked to Jesus and lived. Do you not find it so, my beloved brethren? After half a century of knowing Christ, do you not find that you need a sinner’s Saviour 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.”

21. 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 except the good, and 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 profoundest gratitude to the Lord for this fact. This is earth’s brightest star, her well of hope, her dawn of joy. Since Jesus Christ receives the guilty and saves the vile, despondency and despair have henceforth 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 sect here today, though you do not like the idea of grace for the guilty, but cling to the idea of your being rewarded for your supposed merit, that it is a great mercy for you that Jesus receives great offenders, because you must be numbered among them. What is your heart except 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 condescends to save. Is it not the spirit of the devil which makes you think yourself to be so much above your fellow men? Is it not an intolerable inhumanity which makes you wish that the gospel were moulded to suit you and to shut out poor sinners? Who are you to carry, your head so high? If you have never sinned as public 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 equally great faults in you, and if someone 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 to the core as even the unchaste and the profane. There are more thieves, no doubt, outside our jails than there are inside; and there are more double dyed sinners than we ever dream 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 point, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw 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 would be better still, if you were to stay here and say, “Yes, in my heart I am guilty too, and I now bless Christ that he is a sinner’s Saviour, and that I may look to him today and live.”

22. 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: new converts rebuke this declension. I remember a sailor, who before conversion used to swear, and I warrant 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 everyone 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 newcomer, 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 everyone, and their zeal revived. They even began to think that perhaps sailors might be saved, and started a service on the dock, 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 who seeks admission here?” “A recruit,” he says, 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 the most! We are apt to look a little askance at him, for we feel dubious, and we refer him to the elders, so that they may enquire and sift him, to see whether he really is a changed character. Perhaps these earnest men are not quite sure, and hesitate until 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 to a man who is a sinner, brings additional strength to the church, and finds her recruits of the very kind she most needs. We will therefore rejoice and bless the sinner’s Saviour.

23. 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, who if I were to pass a label up to him inscribed with the word “SINNER,” would hang it around his neck and say, “I am the man?” Where are you, Zacchaeus? for Jesus calls you. He intends to save you at once. He says to you, “I must visit your house today.” Hurry down and open the door, and say, “Come in, my Lord, I am honoured to receive you.” Will anyone hesitate? Will anyone delay? May my Master cause today many a great sinner’s heart to open and receive Jesus joyfully.

[Portion Of Scripture Read Before Sermon — Lu 18:31-19:10]
[See Spurgeon_Hymnal “Jesus Christ, Deity and Incarnation — The Advent” 257]
[See Spurgeon_Hymnal “Gospel, Stated — Hope For Sinners” 543]
[See Spurgeon_Hymnal “Gospel, Stated — Mercy For The Guilty” 544]
[See Spurgeon_Sermons No. 3564, “Publications” 3566 @@ "The Interpreter"]
 

Jesus Christ, Deity and Incarnation
257 — The Advent
1 Hark, the glad sound, the Saviour comes,
   The Saviour promised long!
   Let every heart prepare a throne,
   And every voice a song.
2 On him the Spirit, largely pour’d
   Exerts its sacred fire;
   Wisdom and might, and zeal and love,
   His holy breast inspire.
3 He comes, the prisoners to release,
   In Satan’s bondage held;
   The gates of brass before him burst,
   The iron fetters yield.
4 He comes, from thickest films of vice,
   To clear the mental ray;
   And on the eye balls of the blind
   To pour celestial day.
5 He comes, the broken heart to bind,
   The bleeding soul to cure;
   And, with the treasures of his grace
   To enrich the humble poor.
6 Our glad hosannas, Prince of Peace,
   Thy welcome shall proclaim;
   And heaven’s eternal arches ring
   With thy beloved name.
                  Philip Doddridge, 1755.
 

Gospel, Stated
543 — Hope For Sinners <8.7. />
1 Sinner, where is room for doubting?
      Has not Jesus died fro sin?
   Did he not in resurrection
      Victory over Satan win?
2 Hear him on the cross exclaiming —
      “It is finish’d,” ere he died;
   See him in his mercy saving
      One there hanging by his side.
3 ‘Twas for sinners that he suffer’d
      Agonies unspeakable;
   Canst thou doubt thou art a sinner?
      If thou canst — then hope farewell.
4 But, believing what is written —
      “All are guilty” — “dead in sin,”
   Looking to the Crucified One
      Hope shall rise thy soul within.
5 Hope and peace, and joy unfailing,
      Through the Saviour’s precious blood,
   All thy crimson sins forgiven,
      And thy soul brought nigh to God.
                        Albert Midlane, 1862.
 

Gospel, Stated
544 — Mercy For The Guilty
1 Mercy is welcome news indeed
      To those that guilty stand;
   Wretches, that feel what help they need,
      Will bless the helping hand.
2 Who rightly would his alms dispose
      Must give them to the poor;
   None but the wounded patient knows
      The comforts of his cure.
3 We all have sinn’d against our God,
      Exception none can boast;
   But he that feels the heaviest load
      Will prize forgiveness most.
4 No reckoning can we rightly keep,
      For who the sums can know?
   Some souls are fifty pieces deep,
      And some five hundred owe.
5 But let our debts be what thy may,
      However great or small,
   As soon as we have nought to pay,
      Our Lord forgives us all.
6 ‘Tis perfect poverty alone
      That sets the soul at large;
   While we can call one mite our own,
      We have no full discharge.
                        Joseph Hart, 1759.