140. The Prayers Of The Pharisee And Publican

The Prayers Of The Pharisee And Publican The Prayers as recorded.—Luke 18:10-13. The Lord’s Answer.—Luke 18:14.

We will not separate these two prayers, for, connected like the light and shadow in a picture, the effect is more startling, and may make a deeper impression on the heart. Here are two men going up into the temple to pray, just as we all go at the sound of the Sabbath bell, and a few at the hour for social prayer. There is nothing in the exterior of these two men that would particularly attract our attention, for both have gone there to pray. It is after they enter we observe the difference. The one with drooping eyes comes like a grateful almsman and humbly begs his bread; the other is like one “the music of whose own vain tongue doth ravish like enchanting harmony.” One is “poor, and blind, and naked,” the other full, proud, and satisfied. One has seen himself with the eye of faith a lost and ruined soul, and seeks the only remedy; the other’s heart still nurses that deadly passion which blinds him to his sin, and brings before his deluded vision his imagined virtue. One would exalt, the other abase himself, when communing with the Omnipotent Jehovah. Let us examine well these two prayers, for they represent two large classes in this world of ours. The Publican knew himself—the Pharisee did not. This knowledge made the one humble, and the want of this filled the heart of the other with pride.

“Acquaint thee with thyself, O man! so shalt thou be humble; The hard, hot desert of thy heart shall blossom with the lily and and the rose; The frozen cliffs of pride shall melt as an iceberg in the tropics.”

All that thou hast done, all thou canst ever do in thy own poor, puny strength, can never win for thee the crown in heaven. God has to do with thy heart. All its secret springs, its hidden desires, its unseen emotions, are naked and open to that all-seeing eye, which knows no sleeping. Then, wherefore wouldst thou boast? frail worm of the dust, a withering flower, a fading leaf, a morning vapor, or an evening cloud I Be wise—fight against thy pride; with humble prayer thou canst subdue the evil, hateful passion.

“Mark, amid all his transformations, The complicate deceitfulness of pride; And the more he striveth to elude thee, Bind him the closer in thy toils.

Prayer is the net that snareth him;

Prayer is the fetter that holdeth him.

Thou canst not nourish pride, while Waiting as an almsman on thy God.” Would we have our prayer acceptable, we must remember the humble Publican—remember God himself hath uttered the eternal truth, “There is not one good; no, not one.” This is difficult for the merely moral man to comprehend; he .may, like the Pharisee, give “tithes of all he possesses,” but he has never yet laid the offering of his heart, broken and contrite, on God’s altar. He cannot, until God takes the film from his blind eye, see the deep, dark shadow of his indwelling corruption; nor will he, till he can make from his heart the prayer of the poor Publican. Oh, there are many among those we love who know not the deep sin of their hearts; circumstances have made them refined, society with the good has made them winning and gentle, but beneath all this, behind this soft and silken curtain, which the world so much admires, is a human heart, “deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.”

We would, with a gentle hand, draw aside this curtain; we would show you just such a heart as your own, for such was that of the Pharisee, and yet it is not I who can do this, it is the reader of the secrets of all hearts. I may point out the way to the mercy-seat, and tell you there, and there alone, is your remedy; the spirit in which you may come, learn for yourself in the narrative below, and may God give you strength to come in humility.