DISCRIMINATION

^[p. 337] DISCRIMINATION

Luke 5: 32; Luke 19: 10; 2 Timothy 2: 10; Revelation 8: 3 - 6

In seeking to set out the gospel at this time what is in mind initially is to call attention to the discrimination that it makes. In making these remarks it is necessary to guard the truth that the gospel is for all; it is indiscriminate in that sense. God in longsuffering wills not the death of the sinner, but desires that all may be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth. That is a great general fact relative to the gospel, and I hope it will not be weakened in any of our minds in regard to the discrimination in detail which the gospel testimony makes.

In a general sense the discrimination is seen representatively in the word in Acts 2: “The Lord added ... those that were to be saved”, where the discrimination is in favour of “those that were to be saved”. It is plain enough from that statement there were those who were not to be saved, and of course that is a more searching fact. Curiosity might enquire, How many are there? Indeed, they did enquire from the Lord Jesus Himself, but the Lord never answers mere curiosity. If there should be those not saved and are enquiring how many are to be or not to be saved, you will get no help. The word of the Lord to that man was, See that you are saved. It is your matter: “Strive with earnestness to enter in through the narrow door” (Luke 13: 24), He says. To count the number of saved and unsaved would take up so much time; no creature could do it. The Lord puts the man on his own responsibility-You see that you are one of them. If there is one here unsaved, see to it that you are one of the saved. You may say, The Lord has to do it. But you have to do it too. Do not misunderstand. Peter says to some listening to him, “Be saved from this perverse generation”, Acts 2: 40. You have to do it.

Someone is saying under his breath, He is not preaching the gospel; but what I am saying comes in under the discriminating character of the gospel. It is the working out of a great scheme and, through distinction, the great sorrowful and plain fact comes out, that some are not to be saved. The apostle Paul says, “If also our gospel is veiled, it is veiled in those that are lost”; there is that class of people. What is the history of those people? They are people that lend themselves to the devil. You can easily detect who they are characteristically. The God of this world blinds their eyes; they are unbelieving, and as unbelieving, they are exposed to the devil and he makes use of his advantage in blinding their eyes, “so that the radiancy of the glad tidings of the glory of the Christ, who is the image of God, should not shine forth for them”, 2 Corinthians 4:4. That is a terrible thought. I hope nobody is in the state of an unsaved person here, but the fact that there may not be one such here will not hinder me in preaching at all, because the people of God are the best listeners to the gospel.

I do hope there is no unsaved person here; I do indeed. But if there should be one or more then it is a very solemn fact there are such people as ‘lost’.

I have to point out the use of the word ‘lost’; and the distinction that is made in the passage read in Luke 19, “The Son of man has come to seek and to save that which is lost”. Paul says of the lost that Satan has blinded their eyes as to the gospel; he is hindering them from coming in. To understand this statement contextually, we must see that what Paul says is one thing and what the Lord says is another. The Lord is discriminating in favour of the lost. Paul is discriminating against them.

I began with Luke 5 which is a very pointed passage in regard to what I am remarking, for the Lord says,

“^[p. 339] I am not ^[p. 340] come to call righteous persons, but sinful ones to repentance”. We have to understand that word ‘righteous’ in its setting here or we shall be very, very much misled. We have to understand divine irony. It has in mind people who are not righteous, people who have elected to be that, and, in dealing with such persons in detail in the gospel service, we have great advantage in a word like this from the Lord Jesus Christ who calls people righteous and discriminates against them. Maybe there are such here; those who are church-goers, communicants and the like, but who have never repented at all. It is a habit of their lives to regard themselves in this way. The Lord has furnished preachers with a great weapon in dealing with such, and if there is one here tonight, what I am saying has relation to him. The Lord says He did not come to call you if you are in this way. You have elected yourself out of the class. You may have been spoken to times without number, and your habitual reply may have been, ‘I never did anything wrong, anything out of the way; my parents are good church people ...’ and so you are electing yourself out of the class the Lord came for-the class called ‘sinners’.

You may say, I never take my place among them, but I will go this far, and say, ‘God be merciful to us miserable sinners’. It is always in the plural. You belong to the class that says things but you do not mean that. If I speak to you individually you say, I have been a good churchgoer; I have never done anything out of the way. You may join with the congregation in the customary sort of thing, but you do not mean it. If I challenge you yourself, How about your sins? you may think there are none; you mean that you are a righteous person. If that is so, the Lord says, You are not in mind in this matter. That is a very serious matter; you are electing yourself out of the class the Lord came to call, “I am not come to call righteous persons, but sinful ones”. On your own showing you have nothing to repent of.

The matter of repentance is not collective. You are accustomed to speak with others of your sins, but you are not accustomed to speak to God in your closet alone. You must take your place in the class the Lord Jesus came to call to repentance.

In saying this I have no thought at all that you should be confirmed in your present attitude, because divine irony is intended to reach your conscience. You may be electing yourself out of the class the Lord had in mind when He came into this world. It says, “Faithful is the word, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners”, 1 Timothy 1: 15. I do not wish to confirm you in the class of people you have elected yourself to be amongst. You are as much a sinner as anybody is. The man that said “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the first” was a righteous man in his younger days, just like you! He asserted his righteousness and was blameless! I do not suppose there would be anybody more eloquent in asserting his blamelessness than that man, for while he really belonged to the class the Lord is discriminating against here, divine irony covered him.

There is thus hope for you, for that man was saved. In due course, under the Lord’s gracious dealings, he came to see that he belonged to the class the Lord came to call to repentance. I do not suppose anybody repented more than the apostle Paul. The word ‘repentance’ in the gospel testimony is a continuous thing, and when the apostle Paul said he was the chief of sinners he had gone a long way. I think the Spirit of God held him back from writing it down until he could say it thoroughly-not he was the first, but “I am the first”. The more spiritual a man is down here, the more he carries along in his soul the sense of lawlessness-what he once was and what he now is.

Paul says, “By God’s grace I am what I am”, 1 Corinthians 15: 10.

In remarking this as to discrimination it is with the hope that if there is anyone here regarding himself righteous like Saul of Tarsus, you will see after all that you have been deceived. You have chosen the wrong class, having elected yourself out of the class the Lord Jesus had in mind when He came to this earth and now He will enable you to change your mind. If you remain where you are, you are lost eternally.

I go on to chapter 19 to speak about another discrimination. This time it is not the sinner to be called to repentance, but the lost to be saved. The two passages go together; but this one refers to a man’s sins. Tax-gatherers were a class who were easily convicted of sin. If you only looked up the tax bills, they had been discriminating unrighteously; you could easily convict them of guilt. So when we come to Zacchaeus he was a man of that kind; he was a sort of extortioner. The Lord is in his house. He would come near to him. He was in Matthew’s house too. These statements were both in tax-gatherer’s houses. Matthew had made a great entertainment for the Lord. It is a remarkable thing the Lord should enter into his house, the house of a man of this kind, and that Matthew should have people there like himself. The Lord came under reproach in that way; He goes that far. The Lord goes so far as to be under reproach to get a soul. When He was baptised Himself He was under reproach. We are told expressly in Matthew that He came from Galilee. He does not evade the fact, nor does he disguise the fact that He was in the house of a man that was a sinner. They say of Him, “This man receives sinners and eats with them”. If He is in the midst of sinners, He is the Saviour of sinners! He is just where He should be. It is right for Him to be there,

^[p. 342] as it is right for Him to be on His Father’s throne. He was where He should be-Blessed be His name! He was come amongst them to give them repentance, not that they should continue in their sins, but that they might be delivered from them and that through repentance sins might be forgiven.

So now, in his house Zacchaeus is not making an entertainment for Him, but the Lord is in his house seeking to save that which was lost. He is just where such people were. If there is one here now just beginning to feel his lost condition the Lord is at your side. He is standing by you and He has the greatest interest in a convicted sinner. The Lord would get down by your side and give you to understand that He is come to save you; it is His business in that sense. He is come as near as He can come; He has taken on this business to seek and save the lost. He has been seeking some of you here and not found an entrance into your heart yet. Zacchaeus let Him in. The Lord looked up at Zacchaeus. It may be the difficulty is you are too high up. This man was rich; he had a good bank account and that makes a man elated; rich people sometimes have a way of making you feel they are rich people. He was accustomed to be high up. No matter who a man is, if he has money he says, ‘I can afford to be that’. The Lord came to where he was and looked up at him, and He says, “Zacchaeus”, calling him by name. One of the most touching things is to be called by name by God; think of that! Some men might say of him, ‘I would not use his name; he has robbed me, charged me too much taxes; he is not fit to be taken into the mouth of a righteous person!’. The Lord took it up, He says, “Zacchaeus”. He would never forget that!

If there is anyone here ‘uppish’, in a good position maybe, and rich, the Lord is looking up at you; He can do that. He is not one to honour you in that

position. He says, ‘I am not coming up there after you’; He could not take such a place morally as that. He says, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must remain in thy house”. Zacchaeus understood that. May God grant someone here like that may say to himself, ‘I have been too uppish, I have been holding the people of God at arm’s length’. The Lord is calling you to comedown; you are standing in your own way. He says, ‘I have the greatest things in My heart for you and I will be with you all night in your own house’. What an advantage! The Lord of glory is going to be in your house tonight! You will see Him at His best, and I may add, He will see you at your best, because a man ought to be that in his own house.

Zacchaeus came down and received the Lord Jesus gladly into his house. The Lord can speak freely now. This man’s house occasions an opportunity of speaking what He could not have said under the sycamore tree. He was a selfish man and a wealthy man that had a right to climb a tree to look at Jesus. The Lord could not say under that tree, “The Son of man has come to seek and to save that which is lost”. Zacchaeus was not consciously lost. The Lord is working with you and it takes years sometimes to bring you to the point, but He speaks to you and of you accordingly. He announces a great principle in relation to you. The works of God are innumerable and the Lord says of them that the works of God should be manifested in you. The Lord refers to Zacchaeus as a “son of Abraham”. He could not say that in the sycamore tree. This is a man that belongs to the sinner class publicly. The Lord did not call him ‘son of Abraham’ in the tree, but in his house. What a gesture as he meets the Saviour at the door!

He values the gesture of faith. In receiving the Lord he did so gladly, and tells Him immediately how he paid back fourfold if he had robbed anyone. What a ^[p. 344] meeting! Would you not like to have a meeting like that with Jesus? Come down! Do not stay up there! People in your class are a mutual admiration society, but this man detached himself from all that and he meets the Lord Jesus. No one would welcome more the gesture of faith at this man’s own door than the Lord Jesus. He led Him in. The Lord says, in Revelation 3, “Behold, I stand at the door and am knocking”. He is knocking here tonight and wants you to let Him in. Zacchaeus was ready to let Him in and as in the house of Zacchaeus, He ennobles him.

Never was he a greater man than now; the Lord of glory is conferring glory on him. He alone can. Not only does He possess it, but He administers glory as the lost soul takes his place at the feet of the Saviour. He says he is “a son of Abraham”. He stands out. That is a great thought that has been used of God many times since He came: “The Son of man has come to seek and to save that which is lost”. For the present the neuter is enough, “that which”; but in being called “son of Abraham”, Zacchaeus is dignified by the Lord of glory.

This is discrimination, to save that lost man by coming into his house. As he took the place of the lost he came under the direction of Christ; it is impossible morally for anyone to come into the divine presence except in subjection. There was glory shining as that man moved down from the tree, the glory of obedience, and the man is ennobled in his own house. It is the principle on which I am speaking tonight; it is on the principle of faith. Obedience has moral glory and I do not hesitate to say that, from the moment he began to get down from the tree, he is covering himself with moral glory. The Lord recognises him as a son of Abraham on the principle of faith. He came to save him. “The Father has sent the Son as Saviour of the world”, 1 John 4: 14.

Marvellous thought! David said, “Is there not a cause?”; there was a cause and this is the business on hand tonight. If you take your place as a lost sinner, He has come to save you. Is that not glad tidings? It is. The gospel is that you might be saved and then that you might adorn the gospel, for ennoblement is just that. Another son of Abraham is added to his family.

The next discrimination is in favour of the elect. The apostle Paul in this passage in 2 Timothy says that he endures all things for the elect’s sake. We are on the line of the elect, which is a great doctrine; we are not to be afraid of it, everything is on that principle. Of course, when I use the word I must think of those who are actually so. The New Testament abounds in designating those who are the Lord’s through faith, but then there are those who belong to the elect that are not yet known. The apostle Paul towards the end of his service considered he must not leave one of these out. He said, “I, from Jerusalem, and in a circuit round to Illyricum, have fully preached the glad tidings of the Christ”, Romans 15: 19. That was for everybody; it was a great general thought with him. How many times the glad tidings resounded throughout those territories of Asia Minor and Greece, the territories now known as Bulgaria and along the Adriatic. How heaven delighted in the great evangelist carrying the gospel! “Woe to me”, he says, “if I should not announce the glad tidings”. Necessity was laid upon him; he is personally under reproach. He says, virtually, ‘I must not leave one of the elect out, they must all be brought in’, and that is the present attitude.

Christianity has been received world-wide. There are some five hundred millions of christians, nominally, in the world, I understand, about one quarter of the whole population. They are rapidly becoming apostate. The elect are a class in the mind of God and the apostle is concerned about them; he is ^[p. 346] enduring all things for their sakes; this gospel meeting is on account of them; it may be there are some of them here. We can only tell as they show it, but the apostle is enduring all things on their account. What prayers there were from the prison at Rome! There were marvellous references to prayer in that wonderful servant, and now as we think of the elect that they should be saved, we are not only thinking that, but that they may obtain salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory. It is beyond the reach of the devil. It is not a salvation that lies in works or church-going, it is a salvation which is in Christ Jesus. It can never be touched. Those in it are immune from that point of view from all the powers of the devil and hell. It is a fixture. Think of that! Everything is being shaken. What uncertainty is in the air! The foundations are in question. How important therefore it is we should be in this, that we should obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus. It is for christians. One is stirred to think of it! To obtain the thing with eternal glory is the divine mind. We are at the end of the gospel period and there must not be one left out. It is finishing up, but they must obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus. Is it not worth something to go in for it? This is a wonderful thing, “the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory”.

Now a final word in connection with the passage in Revelation. It is a word as to judgment, and there is discrimination against certain persons and in favour of certain things. It is only as to principle that I refer to it; certain things are in favour; they do not come under this head of punishment. “And it was said to them, that they should not injure the grass of the earth, nor any green thing, nor any tree, but the men who have not the seal of God on their foreheads”. These things are immune, but I am discriminated against. That is a terrible thing! One may have to ^[p. 347] say, This terrible thing is to happen to me and not to these things; the judgment of God passes the green fields and comes to my house. It may be a good house, a well-ordered house like the rich man’s, but the judgment passes all the green fields and enters my house. He gets at me where I am. Why is it? What is the reason of it? The Spirit of God says here that it is “the men who have not the seal of God on their foreheads”. There is no question of piled-up sins, it is just this one thing. They have not the seal of God on their foreheads.

I know there is a dispensational setting to this passage, but I am making an application. The preacher is entitled to use it with the wisdom that God gives, rightly dividing the word of truth. There is a certain class of people, and the only reason why this penalty is inflicted upon them is that they have not the seal of the living God on their foreheads. Some young people may say, I have not the Spirit of God. The allusion here is to chapter 7. Most of us in this room are sealed with the seal of the Spirit after we believed. We have got it. Others I am speaking to, the Spirit of God is at work with them. In chapter 7 we are told about the seal of the living God. God is sealing certain persons and they are immune from judgment. That is, all of us here who have the Spirit of God are immune from wrath. Not a tremor rises in our hearts as the thought of going to be with the Lord or death is presented to us. But how about some of you young people? you have not got the seal of the living God. Divine wrath will seek you out; He will pass over the green fields, your garden and all you have, and come to you, as of old the destroying angel got into the house in Egypt and found the first-born in each house. Although there were many boys and girls in those houses, he would make no mistake; he found the first-born. A bow at a venture found Ahab (1 Kings 22: 34), although ^[p. 348] he was disguised. There would be no mistake. It was divine accuracy. The executor of God’s judgment finds those people; he is looking for them; he goes into the town and finds them all. What is the guidance he has? “The seal of the living God”-that is all.

We have a more serious matter in a way later, in the reference to five months under the wrath of God. David says that he would fall into the hands of God, and God spoke to the angel; and he put up his sword into its sheath (1 Chronicles 21: 13, 27). In this awful thing men are not allowed to die; it is the principle of judgment.

It says in Revelation 14, “And another, a third, angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any one do homage to the beast and its image, and receive a mark upon his forehead or upon his hand, he also shall drink of the wine of the fury of God prepared unmixed in the cup of his wrath, and he shall be tormented in fire and brimstone before the holy angels and before the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up to ages of ages, and they have no respite day and night who do homage to the beast and to its image, and if any one receive the mark of its name. Here is the endurance of the saints, who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus”.

“And I heard a voice out of the heaven saying, Write, Blessed the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth. Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; for their works follow with them”, Revelation 14: 9 - 13.

This is one of the most terrible scriptures you can read. It is a continuation of what I have been speaking of. In one case it is the absence of the divine mark, in chapter 14 it is the presence of another mark. The absence of the divine mark is simply making way for another mark that calls down judgment. We are in the time when these things are and the divine mark is being received and people are being “sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise”. But the time will come when the discriminating judgment of God will find its objects; divine wrath will find its objects without the slightest possibility of error.