The Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican

The Lord Jesus did not deliver this parable to encourage the contrite, but chiefly to reprove and alarm the selfrighteous. While the trembling worshipper goes down to his house justified, He shows us another worshipper going from the temple just as he entered it —- well pleased with himself, better pleased perhaps than he was before, but, alas! not justified. The burden of sin still rested on him, and the displeasure of God followed him. All he has gained by his worship is worse than nothing; he had better not have gained it. It is only an increase of his self-complacency and pride.

And it is a mournful thought that this man is a picture of some of you. Christ intended him as a picture of some of you. “There,” He says, “look at that Pharisee, that decent, moral, self-delighted, but unpardoned Pharisee; and say as you leave My courts, each one of you to himself, ‘Thou art the man.’ You have come here, where all you have witnessed has told you of your sinfulness and misery. You have come to a temple built for sinners; you have joined in prayers for sinners; you have heard of a Savior who came into the world to save sinners. You have listened to a gospel which proclaims mercy, free and abundant mercy, for the chief of sinners.

“There is a happy heaven, you have been told, set open for sinners; but what has been the language of thy heart? ‘I may be a sinner, but I have not felt here as one; I have not really prayed as one; I have not attended to the sermon I have heard as though I were one. I have rather thanked God that I am not one, but a good and righteous man. I am now going home, and in what frame of mind? Loathing myself for my guiltiness, and anxious to get alone and cast myself down before an offended God to implore His mercy? No, let this or that guilty man among my neighbors act thus. I have no need. The Lord is already well pleased with me.’”

O brethren, a real believer in Christ would not have his soul in your soul’s stead for a thousand worlds! This satisfaction with yourselves, if it is not shaken, will prove your ruin. May the living God by His mighty Spirit shake it! May He force from you this day, in spite of yourselves, this humble but blessed prayer, “God be merciful to me a sinner!”

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