THE RICHES AND GLORY OF GOD'S GRACE
This article and the following two are gospel addresses in London published together in a booklet with this title
I wanted to read two other passages farther on in the gospel, but I may be detained by what is proposed in the chapter before us, so I will refrain from reading the other two passages which were before me, as this one is the most important.
Now I suppose we may safely say that a verse found in the Epistle to Titus would be a very fitting title to this precious gospel from which I have read this passage - I refer to that scripture which says, “The grace of God which carries with it salvation for all men has appeared”, Tit 2: 11. Now I take that to be a most fitting title to this precious gospel in which we have so prominently the grace of God set forth.
There is just one remark I would like to make in passing: we have all heard of the grace of God; it is impossible to be brought up in a country like this without knowing something - in the letter of it - about the grace of God; but there is such a thing as tasting the grace of God; knowing it in your soul, not only hearing it and holding it as a dogma, but tasting it; and when you have tasted it you do not forget it. I hope that any who have never tasted that the Lord is gracious may begin to taste that grace this evening. May God grant it.
My thought is to bring before you three points. The first is in this passage and is this: God's attitude of grace toward all men in forgiveness. That is where you begin to taste that the Lord is gracious - in forgiveness; indeed this narrative which I have read shows to us plainly and clearly our first introduction to Christ as the Saviour. That is your first introduction to Him; you know Him as your own precious Saviour.
Now my thought was to read a passage later on which sets forth the riches of God's grace as seen in the story of the good Samaritan. Then, thirdly, the glory of God's grace as set forth in the story of the prodigal.
These are the three presentations of the grace of God and form great landmarks in the gospel - God's attitude of grace toward all men in forgiveness; that is where you begin to taste that God is gracious. Secondly, the riches of His grace are set forth in the good Samaritan - you remember the story. Then the glory of His grace is seen in the reception of the prodigal; that is the glory of His grace. The two latter expressions are seen in the Epistle to the Ephesians.
Now if I were asked what I considered in my experience of preaching the gospel to be the scripture used more than any to the blessing of souls, I should immediately refer to the passage before us, because we have so livingly before us a sinner coming to the Saviour, and the reception of that sinner so simply and so vividly, that it has been used in the bringing to God of thousands.
One remark I would like to make, that when we are reading the gospels and reading about Jesus, the precious Saviour, the Son of God, we must remember that He is the same to-day as He was then, as you see Him there in the narratives. As He is in this passage, so is He now; the words that fell from His gracious lips have the same divine meaning and power now as then. That is what makes it so intensely interesting. He is a long way from this world, He is at the right hand of God, having accomplished the will of God and finished that blessed work whereby the grace of God can reach us; He is alive at the right hand of God; but His words are living, and the Spirit of God is here to make the reality of His words living and efficacious in our souls.
Another thing, and please pay close attention to it, is that men are just the same morally now as they were when Jesus was here; so that when you are reading the gospels - such a passage as this - where you get this woman and Simon, they are represented by millions to-day. It is not a bit of history you are reading, something historical, but similar people are alive now. That is what I want you to see, it makes the scripture so intensely interesting.
This woman is alive now; there are many here in our meeting. Do you recognise that? They have taken this way and have had this gracious reception; they have heard His voice - not only read it - but heard it in their souls livingly. I would like you to have the sense of that. It is like what a boy once said to his mother. His mother asked him, ‘What are you reading, Johnnie?’. ‘Oh’, he said, ‘I am not reading, I am looking at Jesus raising Lazarus’. Looking at it. Do you see the difference between reading a bit of history and reading the scripture? ‘I was looking at Jesus raising Lazarus’. That is the way to read scripture. It was living and real to him.
People are to-day morally the same. I would like to press that upon you. One of the reasons why I love the scriptures so much, is that I am told the naked truth about myself. God never flatters me, He tells me what I am, and He shews me in these personages what I am. I thank God for it. That is why the scriptures are not liked. God never flatters man; He puts him in his right place. What for? That you may find that the good that is in God is greater than the evil in you. You must come down to find Christ. You must come down to Him. Take that in. Jesus, who was here in Simon's house, is the same to-night as He was then. His words have the same meaning now as they had then. The Spirit of God is here to bring home in mighty power the words that fell from His gracious lips; they have their own true meaning at this moment.
Let us look at the incident. I did not read the whole of it. It is your first introduction to Christ, the way you are introduced to Christ in the reality of what He is. The incident you well know. I will recall the fact that over the incident is written this verse, “But wisdom is justified of all her children”, Luke 7: 35. That is the text which stands - if I may be allowed to put it like that - over the incident, and immediately we are introduced to this man who invites the Lord to his house.
Now there is a man here named Simon, and he invites the Lord into his house. Whatever induced that man to invite Jesus to his house? There are thousands of Simons, and, thank God, there are thousands of Wisdom's children still. May you be one of them. Simon invited Jesus into his house. Other guests were welcome, but not Jesus. Other guests had water given them, not Jesus. He was sadly neglected in Simon's house; He felt it, but He kept silence; He felt it and noted it.
Whatever induced that man to invite Jesus to his house? It is a principle we are in the presence of at this time; he sought to patronise Christ. He never came here to be patronised; He came here to be trusted and loved, the blessed Son of God. Simon thought to add something to his own dignity; he thought that He was a prophet, and so He was, more than a prophet of course - and he invited Him to his house, but there was not a single pulsation in that man's heart towards Christ. Is there one in yours, one single pulsation in your heart towards Christ? Has He endeared Himself to you? O sad and desolate is the heart that knows Him not. He is there in Simon's house, but He is waiting for His child. He is waiting for you. Where is His child? A sad and weary heart; a sin-convicted soul. He is waiting for His child, and she is wending her way towards Him. May you wend your way towards Him as you sit there; wend your way to Jesus in your sinfulness and weariness in all that bitter past; may you come to Him. She wends her way and she entered Simon's house, drawn there by her deep need. That is where you learn the reality of Jesus, by your deep need. Have you need?
I love to tell God in that psalm I quoted in my prayer that He numbers and names the stars; the infinitude of God is seen in that; He spangled the heavens and upholds it by the might of His power; but He heals the broken-hearted. Jesus has stooped down to my poor broken heart and has healed it, and He is greater in doing that than in creating the universe. May you be conscious of His interest in you; may the preacher be forgotten and His Master, the Lord Jesus, be in presence, so shall there be blessing to your heart.
She wended her way and stooped down. Not a word escaped her lips. She feels safe there. She stands behind Him and she takes down her hair and anoints His feet and wipes them with the hairs of her head. The woman's glory has come down to wipe His feet. “How beautiful the feet of them that announce glad tidings”, Rom 10: 15. His feet were beautified by the grace of God. He is God's Son and He brought the grace of God down here to poor wretched man. She stands behind Him and she weeps. What a place at which to weep! Yes, that is the place to weep. Have you not read in the scripture, “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest? For all those things hath mine hand made ... saith the Lord: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit”, Isa 66: 1, 2. He who is poor and contrite in heart. I will look on such, says the Lord. You cannot do anything for God. It is no good people trying to patronise Christ. He does not want that; He wants you - your love. You cannot do anything for Him, He wants to do all for you. She stood there behind Him. She washed His feet with her tears and wiped them with the hairs of her head.
Simon looked on with a dark frown on his brow. He had no appreciation of Christ. Look at Simon - I am rich; I am religious; I am respectable; I am clever; I am this, that, and the other. That is Simon. But she says, I am nothing - but she found Christ there. I found Him there, and you will find Him there. I am nothing. That is where you find Christ. Do you say, ‘I am religious’, or ‘I am respectable’? All that keeps you at a distance, but the moment you come down to ‘I am nothing’ - on this man will I look, says the Lord, I will look on him that is of a contrite heart.
Simon sits there with a dark frown on his brow, wrapped up in all the pride of what he was; he had no appreciation of the mercy that was there. He says, “This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him”. The Lord read his thoughts, even as He read the dark history of that woman; every dark blot was under His eye. He read the darkening thoughts of that man. If the woman had said anything - nothing is related as to what she said, she is silent there - but if she had said anything she would have said, ‘You speak for me, Lord. I cannot meet this man’. She knew her dark history, her blotted past, she could not meet a man like that. The Lord said, I will speak for you. If you are Wisdom's child He will justify you. If you take your true place before Him He will justify you. “Wisdom is justified of all her children”, Matt 11: 19. He justifies His child. How simple it all is. Let me tell you, the way of salvation is put simply, it is for simple people.
The Lord said, “Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee”. He said, “Master, say on”. Then briefly, pointedly, and powerfully He puts before us the situation. How magnificent the words! So simple that a child can understand the force of them, but how profound and far-reaching!
“A certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both”. Behold in these words the mind of God - the situation which has for its moral foundation the precious blood of Christ. If grace is to reach down to us it has its righteous foundation in the precious blood of Christ. He who uttered these words was going to the cross to make it good and efficacious by His death. He was wending His way to Calvary's bitter cross to lay down the righteous foundation of that which is underlying these words. “When they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both”. That is, He graciously forgave them both.
It gives me the greatest possible joy to say that. In these words you may learn the attitude of God in grace toward all men - all men. That is it. He has no judgment in His mind; this is the day of grace, it is not the day of judgment, but if you refuse the grace you force the hand of God to judgment. This is the day of grace because there lives before the face of God One of whom it says in scripture, “he is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours alone, but also for the whole world”, 1 John 2: 2. It is open to all - God's attitude of grace is toward all men, and the only thing that will keep you out will be this, that you do not acknowledge your liability. There must be the acknowledgment of liability before there can be the relief. You must acknowledge it, this is all that God asks you to do. Without palliation or excuse, go right down to it.
I am liable to God and I cannot pay. No tears, nor prayers, none of these things can make atonement; the only thing that can make atonement is the precious blood of Christ. “When they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both”.
That is God's attitude towards them both, whether the five hundred pence debtor or the fifty. They were both alike, they could not meet their liability. What is to be done now? Own the liability - mean it. “When they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most?”
I do not know which is the greatest point in the passage, but there are two grand points: God's attitude of grace towards all men and the way in which Christ endears Himself to those who know the grace that is in Him; and let me tell you, that is the way to love Christ, much forgiveness, much love.
He justifies His child, He draws a striking contrast between His child and Simon. He dismisses Simon. As long as he keeps in that environment the situation will be on a plane as far as he is concerned. It is open to both open to all - but you must recognise your liability. It is wisdom to own your liability and also to own that you cannot meet it yourself, and then you will learn how blessedly He has met it through His precious blood, which is the witness of the righteousness of God. He dismisses Simon and turns to His child.
Now sad and weary heart, you know you are not right with God, you are afraid of Him. You cannot meet Him on the ground of your responsibility, you are away from Him, you want to come under the blessedness of His grace, I am sure. Just look, He turns to His child, and His words have the same deep and blessed meaning to-night to all such. He turns even to you and looks on you with divine love.
May you know it as you sit there in the sense of your sinfulness and the weariness of your soul. You can trust in Christ, can come to Him by faith, His words are for you as they were for her, for she represents the whole company of Wisdom's children. “Thy sins are forgiven... Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace”.
The Spirit of God is here to make good those words; the mighty power of the Spirit is here to make good those blessed words which fell from His lips, of which you have the record; they have their own true, deep, personal meaning for you now - mark it well. “ Thy sins are forgiven... Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace”.
I was preaching some years ago in Essex in a little hamlet - well I remember it. It was in a little cottage; I stood in the passage and on either side was a room full of listeners. On my right hand there was a middle-aged woman, and during the preaching she wept; she was greatly affected by the preaching. I said to her afterwards, ‘What is it; why do you sorrow so?’
‘Oh’, she said, ‘I do not know whether I have been sorry enough’. She was making her sorrow her saviour - her repentance. I said to her, ‘He had the sorrow, the Lord Jesus; the Saviour had the sorrow when He was the sin-bearer’. I had to leave the town and had no opportunity to say more to her.
On the next Thursday I was lodged in a farmhouse at another village, and after breakfast the Lord said to me, ‘You go to that village’. I cannot explain it, I would like to know it better, but He said, ‘You go to that village’, and to that village I went. The first house I came to - though I did not know it - was the house where that woman lived.
A young woman opened the door in answer to my knock, and when she saw me she burst into tears and said, ‘Have you heard about mother?’. I said, ‘No, what has happened?’. She said, ‘Mother was sitting at breakfast when she fell off her chair and was paralysed down one side’. Thank God, her tongue was not paralysed. When she fell on the floor she cried, ‘Lord, send the preacher to me with words’. The daughter added, ‘We have sent for the doctor and we were going to send for you, but you have come’.
The Lord had sent me. She said, ‘She is lying on the bed and must hear your voice, so go up and see her’. As I went up those stairs - I did not go very quickly - I said, ‘Lord, give me words for this dear soul’. As I stepped into the bedroom a pair of anxious eyes looked at me and she said, ‘Have you words for me?’
I stood there and said, ‘The Lord Jesus, the precious Saviour, who died and rose again, if you will but trust Him, His words to you are, “Woman, thy sins are forgiven ... Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace”’. I said no more and stood quite still. She turned away from me - how gladly I saw it she turned her head away and I heard her say adoringly and gratefully, ‘I thank Thee, Lord, beautiful words, Lord, and I do thank Thee’.
Let them be beautiful words to you, and let your heart thank Him, poor, weary soul, as you are sitting there in the sense of your need, and look up into His face and say, Lord, here I am, Thou knowest all about me. He will speak to you by the Spirit these words - again I repeat, for so much depends upon it. His words are as efficacious for you to-night as for that woman – “Thy sins are forgiven....Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace”. May God grant it.
Are you cavilling at what I am saying? Dare any of you say that this cannot be known until some future day? How dare you say so? God says, “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile”, Ps 32: 1, 2. Do you think that God would tantalise us in presenting impossibilities to us?
Never mind theology; never mind what men say, there is a description by God Himself. “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven ... unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile”. That is God's description of a happy man.
Unattainable, you say? How dare you say so? Not to be known. How dare you say so in the presence of the word of God? This momentous thing - and how momentous it is - our individual relationship with God. Meet that woman outside Simon’s house many a time have I put the question to her in my mind, Are your sins forgiven? Oh, yes, she would say. Have you got peace, what is the ground of it? He said so. That is it. He said so. Never mind what Simon said or anybody else. He said it. What did He say? “Thy sins are forgiven ... Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace”.
Now that is the first introduction to Christ, and that is the way in which Christ endears Himself to us. That is what I call the first step in the apprehension of the grace of God. It is forgiveness.
I will proceed now and read further on in Luke 10: 33-37. Here we have a deeper thing, a further apprehension - the riches of His grace. We have had before us the grace of God in forgiveness, here we have this poor wretched man lying there. It is not a question of sins, but of condition. We are introduced to the story by the man who was not Wisdom's child asking the Lord, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life? ” and the Lord said, “What is written in the law? how readest thou? ” He said, This is the way I read it, “ Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself”.
Jesus said, “Go, and do thou likewise”. You go and do it, and you shall live. The blessing does not lie in the reading but in the doing it. Now if he had been upright and one of Wisdom's children he would have said, ‘I cannot do it, I cannot love my neighbour as myself’. A man said to me at St. Ives, when I was preaching there, ‘Your coming here has turned me upside down and inside out. I thought I had to love God, but now I find that I cannot’. A very good thing that, you are on the way to learning that God loves you.
Here we have in this picture - I cannot go into details - a wretched man lying there on the roadside, naked and half dead. Mark the salient points. He was wounded by the deadly wound of self-love. You do not love God or your neighbour. We love ourselves too well, and the deadly wound of self-love is there.
The good Samaritan came down from where love was to where love was not and He brought it down. He brought love here - self-sacrificing love. The good Samaritan was Jesus, who brought love down to the spot where love was not. All our misery lies in self-love. Have you not been bitten by that deadly wound of self-love?
How does it work? ‘They do not think as much of me as they should’. Would you not like to get clear of it? I was down in Wiltshire during the late war, and met an old man there. He was deploring the war as we all had to do, and I said to him, ‘If everybody commenced to love God with all their heart and their neighbours as themselves, the war would end at once’. We want to see the moral reason of things. How could there be a war if man loved God with all his heart and his neighbour as himself?
I pity the politicians - I pray for them every day - but I pity them. They think by altering people's circumstances they will make people happier - never one bit. What is needed is the alteration in you. That is it. I often think of it and pity them - I do not say it disrespectfully, but I think of authorities when I am on the beach and see the children putting up their castles, and by-and-by the rude waves come up and wash them away.
The government must be carried on, but people are not happier, they are growing more unhappy. What is the meaning of it? They want to be changed inside, not their circumstances outside. You want the mighty love of God to be in your heart, that will make a difference, and then you love God and love your neighbour. So will it be byand-by. I thank God from the bottom of my heart. I do not know where I should have been during the late war if I had not known that there is a time coming when from pole to pole every one will love God and his neighbour as himself; one great amen from pole to pole; God's will be done.
When your heart is in the love of God your will is silenced, it is God's will. From pole to pole amen shall be uttered, and there shall be great peace. One amen - one will. I will tell you why. Because the one love will produce the one will.
I must proceed very rapidly. One thing I should like to say, and if I speak of it naturally you will understand. My beloved mother, when I was a poor little weakling in the cradle, morning, noon and night she was there; week after week, month after month, she was by my side. What made her do it? She couldn't help herself. She loved me into loving her back again. She has gone to be with Christ long since, but if she stood outside the door to-night and called my name I should know her voice from any other. She put love into my heart, she loved me into loving her back again. God loves us into loving Him back again. My friend down at St. Ives, I have since learned, has been brought into the blessing of knowing that God loves him.
Now He poured in the oil and the wine. The deadly wound of self-love was there, but He poured in the oil and the wine. He poured in the love of God. “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us”, Rom 5: 15. I cannot help loving God any more than I can help breathing. How so? He has shed abroad that love in my heart by the Holy Ghost. That is the riches of His grace.
My last point is the prodigal. There we get the full glory of His grace, mark it well; we reach the climax of grace in Luke. There was departure; there was distance; oh, what distance! He took all that he had from his father and went off into a far country. Departure and distance. There he had destitution - he was hungry. There he had degradation - he fed on the husks that the swine did eat. He was sent into the fields to take care of swine - degradation. Departure, distance - what a distance, a great way off. What destitution - hungry. What degradation - sent into the fields to feed swine.
He had gone from a place where all was give and no take, and he got into a place where all was take and no give - a sad place. That is the world, take everything from you and give you nothing, and he had gone away from where all was give and no take. He thought of his father's house, all the plenty of it, never a tramp turned away with nothing; he thought of that and the goodness of his father brought him to repentance. So he repented and he resolved: “I will arise and go to my father”, Luke 15: 18. He would return to the goodness of his father.
I want you all to take this in. Here is a dark background, but there shines resplendent over against the dark background of the poor prodigal the glory of God's grace - the glory of it. If the boy was hungry for his father and his father's house - let it touch your heart the father's house was hungry for the boy. That is God, dear friends. Now, the boy was hungry, but the father was looking out for him. God is like that. Jesus came to deliver us. “When he was yet a great way off, his father saw him … and ran”, v 20. The hunger of the father's heart - God is like that, may it touch your heart - he was on the outlook for that poor degraded boy. He says, ‘I will let him know the kind of father he has turned his back on’. He ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. That is God. God is like that. He fell on his neck and covered him with kisses. That is the reception. There was the repentance, the resolve, the return, and the reception. That is God.
There arose from his contrite heart doubly contrite now because of the father's welcome - there arose from his heart and his lips, “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son”. He stops. He had meant to say, “Make me as one of thy hired servants”. But he cannot say it now. His father’s kisses checked it. What does he say? Do just what you like with me. I begin to see you are going to bless me, not according to my need, but according to what you are yourself. What a grand thought that is. Look: “Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him”. He was robed; he was ringed; he was regaled, and then he rejoiced.
Oh, how pregnant are those words; how full of meaning - there are twenty discourses in each. He robed him; he ringed him; he regaled him; and he rejoiced over him, made suitable for himself. That is it. ‘I will have you near me so that I can look upon you with pleasure’. That is the story of the glory of His grace. “And they began to be merry”. “They began to be merry”. Did it ever end? No, never; it never ended. Do you say, ‘I want to get away from my mother's house so that I can see life’? What folly! That is a way that leads to nothing but death.
My dear mother looked through her tears at me and said, ‘I will never let you go’. And her prayers were answered when I was eighteen. I came to Christ, and I never knew happiness till I came to Christ. “They began to be merry” - they began.
Look at me; do you think I am unhappy? Do you think that what I am speaking about makes me unhappy? If I could only put the one hundredth part of the music of it in your heart that is in my heart through grace, I would do it.
When I was in Indianapolis a conductor on a car said to me, ‘Do you belong to the happy band?’ I said, ‘No; I belong, thank God, to the pleasures for evermore people’. Would you not like to be a Christian, I ask you? Would you not like to have the music in your heart? Let me tell you, my dear young people, I yearn over you, that in all my earthly joys and I have had a good many - I have always had the sense that some day I should lose it. That is the point, it will come to an end. But in this spiritual joy that has come to my heart I know I shall never lose it.
What a magnificent thing it is to be a Christian. It is open to you all. The very first step in it is that you go as the woman did to taste it in forgiveness, and then to have Christ endear Himself to your heart, and then you will learn the riches of His grace and the glory of His grace in deepening joy. God grant it. Amen.
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