Luke 19

Luke 19:1-9

—THE Luke 19:1-9. ANYONE reading the four Gospels would be impressed by the fact that personal history occupies a large place in each of them. It seems almost strange when we remember that Jesus was the great “Teacher”, that the inspired writers should pass over some of His most important doctrines with a few sentences while giving many verses to the history of Zacchseus, the publican. And yet, upon deeper thought, the wisdom of this appears. There is no better way to exploit the essential truth of the Gospel than to show its effect upon a single human life; and perhaps there is no better way of so presenting the Gospel as to win men to Jesus than by telling what Jesus Himself did for one who put his trust in Him. Keen observers must be impressed by the fact that those mission churches and halls which are open every night the year around, and which keep constantly at the work of winning men to Jesus, give important place to the relation of personal experience; and it is while one man stands up and tells who he was, what he was doing, how Jesus came to him, and how He changed his life and thought and even character, and made him better in all, that some listener is convicted of his need and convinced of Christ’s ability to save. That is the value of an ideal after-meeting.

That is the secret of the Salvation Army’s success.The preaching they do is of the sort the Gadarene did after his regeneration. They go about telling how great things the Lord hath done for them and hath had compassion on them, and men, listening, believe and live. That is why nine verses in this 19th chapter of Luke is given over to this story of Zacchaeus, whom Jesus met as He passed through Jericho. In reading this chapter, one is impressed with the fact thatZACCHΖUS WAS A . “And, behold, there was a man named Zacchζus, which was the chief among the publicans, and he was rich” (Luke 19:2) He had a Roman appointment then. It is hardly necessary to say much about this office of publican since we gave our attention to that elsewhere. You know the Jews’ judgment of the office and the oppression which had characterized it. In Matthew’s case, we are not told what sort of a publican he was other than that “he sat at the receipt of customs”, but in this instance the text is very explicit.Zacchζus was the chief among publicans. He not only had a part in gathering the tax from the people, but he determined how much the people should pay, for taxes were not gathered in those days as they are now; The Government did not first determine upon the amount per capita to be paid, or the percentage on the basis of one’s possessions. Instead, it sold out to some man the privilege of collecting what he could from the people, and then that man went forth to reimburse himself and make his office bring him as much additional as possible.

You can see instantly to what excesses that system would lead, and when one remembers that men have never taken pleasure in paying a just tax, he can readily imagine what opinion they would entertain toward the collector who came to extract from them a tax that was unjust. The very sight of such a man stirred all the enmity of his fellows, and his very unpopularity was a great power in Satan’s hands for his personal degradation.

Few things can happen a man that work out for him worse results than to be appointed or chosen to an office that the people despise, knowing that nothing he can do will satisfy them, realizing that they hate him whether they have cause or no. He is constantly tempted to get even with this spirit of opposition by exercising an oppressive hand. He realizes that he has no reputation among them to sustain, and that very realization produces always and only the most evil effects. Once in a while a man says, “Oh, well, what is the use of my trying to do anything. Nobody believes in me. Nobody respects me.

Everybody despises me.” When a man comes to that conclusion, he stands on the precipice of personal ruin, and before the slightest temptation he will plunge himself into the very pit of moral iniquity. That is the reason why it is a good thing that we don’t know one another as God knows us.

Many a man has back of him sins which have been kept secret, and while his own conscience is condemned by the consciousness that God knows all about it, he is able still to retain something of self-respect, because he believes the people respect him; and when he is tempted again, he thinks of the people’s opinion and is slow to so act as to forfeit even that. That is also the reason that the individual who goes about stigmatizing his fellows, who does not hesitate to whisper a scandal against them, is one of Satan’s most efficient emissaries; for, as Frederick W. Robinson says, “To stigmatize is to ruin.” To take away one’s good name is to pull out the very foundation from beneath character. The Jews, therefore, were not far wrong in feeling as they did toward a publican. No man has a right to exchange his good name for the emoluments of an office, and I want to say to you, young men, that when you see a chance at money making in some profession or calling where your very name is degraded by following that profession or calling, don’t sell out so cheaply!If one came and asked, “In view of all the circumstances; in view of the fact that I am without employment and have a dependent family, would not I be justified in becoming a salesman for a liquor house?” Never, unless you appreciate bread and meat above both reputation and character!And Zacchζus was also rich. Just how he had made this money, we do not know.

His appointment would tempt him to the oppression of the people for his own personal gain. But it is not always true that the well-to-do man, not always true that the political official, has made his money at the expense of others.

It is just possible that his riches came in consequence of economy, frugality, and industry. It is just possible that, having received a fair return for one’s services, he has invested the money wisely and made it beget more. While there is little question that many rich men have parted with conscience for the sake of cash, have pauperized others that they might profit themselves, still he is a very superficial student of facts and entertains practically the spirit of an anarchist, who condemns all rich men as equally guilty of these crimes. The very fact that Zacchζus was interested in the Son of God; the very fact that he sought to see Him, and readily received His Gospel, is to me an evidence in Zacchζus’ favor. I believe he was one of those rich men, the temptations of whose office, and the consciousness of whose honor, had not spoiled him by searing his conscience, and hardening his heart. While it is true that the poor of the earth gave the best audience to Jesus, and to this day are most interested in His Gospel, it is also true that among the early converts were Mary, Martha and Lazarus, who were well-to-do, and Joseph of Arimathaea, who was rich; and to this day, the better class of rich men are reachable by the Gospel of the Son of God.Louis Albert Banks tells us of how a well-to-do man in a certain city heard him preach, and afterwards, when Banks went to visit him, he found that he was impressed by the sermon, and when Banks asked him if he would not like to have him pray before leaving the home, the man not only consented but dropped upon his knees with tears in his eyes, and followed Bank’s prayer with an evident interest in every word, and when it was over he said, “I want to thank you, sir, for you know my wife and I have lived together for thirty years and had our home all this time, and no man ever before came to pray with us.”Zacchζus was a publican and he was rich, and yet he was interested in Jesus.In the third place we find,ZACCHΖUS WAS OPPOSED BY THE PRESS. “He sought to see Jesus, who He was; and could not for the press, because he was little of stature” (Luke 19:3). The crowd was too strong for him. Had he been a great giant of a man he might have shoved them aside and forced his way through. But the little fellow could not accomplish that feat; and yet we do well to remember that it is better to be small in stature than small in intellect, narrow in judgment, circumscribed in character, for while a man little in stature may think out methods of making his way in the world, the man small in the directions just suggested will be always carried along by public opinion, always held as in a vise by the crowd with which he moves. He will never show any independence. He will never prove himself able to overcome any difficulties and make any conquests. Every time Jesus Christ is presented there are men in the crowd who cannot come to Him for the press.

Somebody else stands in their way, some stronger character sitting in the seat near them, and if only he would get up and move down the aisle, and take his place at the penitent form, they could follow, but they can never go unless he does do that. They have not courage enough to walk past him.

They have not strength enough to push him aside.Once I preached to a large company of young men in a little town. I never saw a deeper interest on the part of young men. They listened as if they realized that they were hearing the Gospel of the Son of God, and they deported themselves as if they felt they were determining eternal interests, and yet, when the time came for them to stand forth and declare for Christ, they remained in sullen silence. When the meeting was over, I went back and talked with a number of them, asked them if they did not want to be Christians, and they said they did; and when I inquired why they had not come out boldly for Him, they admitted they had no satisfactory excuse. But when the meeting was over, I learned from an active member of the church that there were one or two leaders among them whose power was practically complete. He told me he did not believe that the most of those young men had the courage of their convictions.

He did not believe they would ever come out for Christ unless two, whose names he called, went before them and opened the way for them. It is so in every audience—small people who want to see Jesus, but cannot because somebody stands between Him and them.But it was also too high for him.

He lacked the physical strength essential to pushing them aside while making his way to Jesus, and he was equally deficient in the very stature essential to seeing over their heads. There are always people who employ their better moral (perhaps I ought to say immoral) proportions to keep their smaller associates from salvation.In my first pastorate, I talked one afternoon with a young woman about giving her heart to Christ. She consented that she ought to do so and believed she would at the service to be held that afternoon. The sermon was preached; the pastor pleaded as best he was able. This poor girl stood in the audience with tears in her eyes, and a great longing in her soul, but a woman who was a little older, and who was shallow in character, and who coveted the continued society of this younger sister, took it upon herself to sit at her side, make light remarks about the service, and by such means kept the girl from courageously coming out for Christ. That girl has gone through deep seas of trouble since that time, and, as billow after billow has rolled over her, she has been without any Saviour to whom she could go in times of trouble.

To have taken a stand then in spite of this designing associate, would have brought her into the full light of a saved life.Russel Conwell tells of having gone into a cave in the Upper Ganges. At one point in this cave the guide left the party and told them to go by the path in which they were walking until they came to a certain rock, and then by passing around this rock, they would see the way beyond.

The party went a few steps, stumbling over stones, and finally decided to wait until the guide should return with his torch. Then he came back and he said, “Why did you not go around the rock, as I told you?” And so, they set out and made their way around the ledge, and when they came to the other side, Conwell shouted to the rest of the party, “We are all right; I see the light.” He says that it seemed a mere glimmer in the distance, but as they pressed on, it grew and guided them to the light of perfect day.I don’t know who may be standing in your way or what; how large, how high, the obstacle may seem, but I do know that it is possible to walk around it. You may have to pass a friend. You may have to push aside a husband or wife. You may even have to overcome the opposition of parent, but beyond that obstacle, the light is shining for thee. Look into our Scripture again and note thatZACCHΖSUS WAS BY JESUS. Jesus came to him. “And when Jesus came to the place, He looked up, and saw him” (Luke 19:5).It is true literally that Zacchζus was seeking to see Jesus. It is equally true that Jesus was in search of Zacchζus. No man ever yet sought Jesus without finding that Jesus was searching for him, “for the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). The man who wrote the words of “The Ninety and Nine” had a clear conception of Jesus’ saving work. From beginning to the end of that wonderful hymn, the music of which was given Mr. Sankey by inspiration, the author represents Jesus as searching for the lost one.“There were ninety and nine that safely lay In the shelter of the fold, But one was out on the hills away, Far off from the gates of gold— Away on the mountains wild and bare, Away from the tender Shepherd’s care. “Lord, Thou hast here Thy ninety and nine; Are they not enough for Thee?’ But the Shepherd made answer, ‘This of Mine has wandered away from Me. And although the road be rough and steep I go to the desert to find My sheep. “But none of the ransomed ever knew How deep were the waters crossed; Nor how dark was the night that the Lord passed through Ere He found His sheep that was lost. Out in the desert, He heard its cry— Sick and helpless and ready to die. “‘Lord, whence are those blood drops all the way That mark out the mountains track?’ ‘They were shed for one who had gone astray Ere the Shepherd could bring him back.’ ‘Lord, whence are Thy hands so rent and torn?’ ‘They are pierced tonight by many a thorn,’ “But all through the mountains, thunder-riven, And up from the rocky steep, There rose a cry to the gate of Heaven, ‘Rejoice, I have found My sheep!’ And the angels echoed around the throne, ‘Rejoice, for the Lord brings back His own!”’ The poor sheep was doing its best to get back to the Shepherd, but all its efforts would have been in vain had not the Shepherd come after him; and so what profit in Zacchζus’ effort to see Jesus had Jesus passed Zacchζus unnoticed?Jesus called him. He looked up and saw him and said unto Zacchζus, “Make haste, and come down”. Oh, to have his name spoken; to realize that he, the little, insignificant-looking man; that he, the unpopular, hated publican; that he, the stained sinner, should be the subject of such grace! Oh, to hear his name on the Saviour’s lips—as Moses heard his name spoken by God, as Samuel heard his call, as Isaiah, as Elijah! There are people who think that God’s methods in this matter are changed, and that He never speaks directly now to any man, but those of us who preach the Gospel know better, and not a week but some man comes to me and says, “You preached a sermon for me. I don’t know how you found out about me, but evidently you know my heart, or you wouldn’t have talked as you did.”It is the voice of the Spirit of God.

Once when Mr. Moody was preaching in Philadelphia, a man went with his wife to the meetings.

When the service was over and they started home, he would not speak to her. She thought it queer and was all the more surprised when he went to bed without saying a word, but she expected that by morning he would be all right again. To her surprise, at breakfast the meal was consumed in perfect silence. At dinner the same thing was repeated, and this went on. At the end of that time he could stand it no longer, so he said, “I want to know what you wrote to Mr. Moody and told him all about me for?” “Why,” answered the wife, “I never wrote to Mr.

Moody in my life.” “Yes you did,” he answered. “No, you are mistaken,” she replied. “I never have spoken to him or written him a line.” “Well, then, I wronged you,” he said. “But, I don’t know how he managed to pick me out of all those people and tell all about me unless you or somebody else wrote to him.”God was speaking to that man, and He may be speaking to you in the same way. If every sentence of the sermon goes straight to your heart and you see the truth of it, and realize that it suits your case, what is it but God saying over to you again, “John!

William! Henry! I want you to be My friend and My follower from this day. Mary, I want to abide in your house, and dwell in your heart and make you Mine own.”And Jesus visited with him. “For to day I must abide in thy house” (Luke 19:5).The blessedness of Jesus’ visit is that it is not a passing one, not one that shall recognize you for a moment, to speak to you no more forever. It is not a visit in which He says, “Your sins are forgiven”, and then passes on to leave you unsustained.Jesus said, “If a man love Me, he will keep My words and My father will love him, and We will come unto him and make Our abode with him”. Therein is joy that the Christ who calls us will also abide with us and keep us.Looking further into the Scriptures, we findZACCHΖUS WAS FOR . He was a proper subject for salvation—a sinner. We may believe the same spirit possessed him that possessed the publican who went up into the Temple to pray. He approached Jesus, feeling his unworthiness, his sinfulness, his need of salvation. The reason why a publican can be saved more easily than a Pharisee is because the former knows his need while the latter ignores it. People who undertake to adopt children never think of going into a home where the well-dressed and well-fed little ones are full content with all their surroundings to select therefrom. You simply cannot take a child out of that house and adopt him into yours because he is satisfied with the situation and would not consent to the change; but into a home of poverty where the poorly clad children cry in vain for a crust, the kindly disposed may go and select out any child and say, “Come away with me to beautiful clothes, abundant food, good education, best society,” and it will follow.

So God can do nothing for a man who is content with his condition, who prays as the Pharisee did. But, whenever He finds a poor publican who, smiting upon his breast, is saying, “God be merciful to me a sinner”, there God can exercise His grace.

Such a man is not content with his lot.Such a man is dissatisfied with his father—Satan. Such a man wants to forsake all his associates, and come into a sweeter, holier, higher life. God can help him and God will. No sinner, therefore, can despair, for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.Zacchζus was also a man of clean and keen conscience. I have heard this Scripture misread. For a long time now, men preaching about him have said, “The evidence of Zacchζus’ conversion was in the fact of his restitution.” But I think he was a man who had been accustomed to give to the poor, for he says, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor.” It is a pledge for the future.

It is a plain statement of accustomed conduct. “And if I have taken aught from any man by false accusation I restore him fourfold” (Luke 19:8). As a Jew, he knew the law of Moses on that subject and had been following it literally.

Here is another proof that a man may be better than his profession, and here also is a proof that the clean man, the conscientious man, is yet a man in need of the salvation that is in Jesus Christ. Sometimes people make so much of the converted drunkard, the converted gambler, the converted harlot, that people almost wonder whether God can magnify His grace by converting a moral man, by saving a good woman, by accepting an innocent child. I remember a prayer-meeting in Chicago in which the wife of one of our young deacons stood up and said, “Jesus saved me when I was eight years old and ever since that time He has been sweetly keeping me.” After the meeting was over, a man came to me who had been converted from a criminal life, and he said, “You don’t know how much good the testimony of that woman did me. It has always seemed to me to be wonderful grace from God that saved me out of a life of sin, but think how much more God magnifies His grace when He keeps one from infancy, unspotted from the world.” And I want to say to you, if you are a man not guilty of profanity, not guilty of intemperance, not guilty of lust in thought or deed, upright in your deportment, affectionate to your family, straightforward in your business dealings, respected by your neighbors, that you are just the kind of man that Jesus wants to save and you are just the kind of man that Jesus would make His disciple. If you are as generous as Zacchζus was, all the better; and if, when you do wrong, you go about setting it right, as Zacchζus did, Christ will have the more honor from your service. Oh, that all such sinners would give themselves unreservedly to Him and His service!And lastly, Zacchζus was a child of promise. “God is no respecter of persons”.

The Presbyterians, in the end, will be compelled to revise their Confession of Faith and strike out the remotest suggestion that God condemns the little children of the wicked, for He does nothing of the sort. And yet God has certainly special promises for the offspring of the faithful—the sons of Abraham.

If your father were a Christian and your mother a devout woman, there are additional reasons why you should be a saved son or a saved daughter. Many prayers have ascended for you. Many promises have been pled in your behalf, and God will not disappoint them that plead His promises.When I was a student in the Southern Seminary, I went one day to call on a Mrs. Johnson, and she told me how she had been present at Jeffersonville, Ind., at the bedside of a dying woman, Mrs. Day; and how that woman had said to her in her last hour, “Mrs. Johnson, my boy is an unbeliever. He is an infidel. He is an Ingersollite.

Today he is employing the paper of which he is editor to propagate infidelity. I am dying without seeing him redeemed, but I have a perfect confidence that God is going to answer my prayer, and that very boy will yet preach the Christ he now persecutes.” I was present myself in Louisville, Kentucky, when in one of Mr. Moody’s meetings that man was converted, and a little later he began to preach the Gospel of Christ with unusual eloquence. God rewarded the mother’s faithful faith. Oh, ye sons of the faithful, ye daughters of the devout, whatever others do, there is a reason tonight why you should surrender. Your mother’s prayers are laid up in Heaven, and God has not forgotten your father’s petitions, and as a son of Abraham, Jesus is saying, “Follow Me”.