The Prayer God Answers

A Sermon by Dr. Walter A. Maier

“Two men went up into the Temple to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up as much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” SAINT LUKE 18:10-14.

ALMIGHTY FATHER, OUR MERCIFUL MAKER: Gratefully we join our hearts to praise Thy goodness in blessing our country’s farmlands and orchards, its schools and homes, its industries and commerce. At the approach of our national Day of Thanksgiving we glorify Thy grace for granting us good far beyond our needs, providing profitable labor for all who want work, preserving our peace in a world of war and safeguarding the liberties with which Thou hast enriched our land. Truly Thou hast not dealt thus bountifully with any other nation on the face of the earth; therefore we recognize the responsibility placed upon us by Thy Word, “Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required.” Most gratefully do we also magnify Thy mercy for protecting Thy Church amid fierce attacks directed against it in this age of atheistic terror for bringing us to Christ and keeping us in His glorious Gospel. Forgive us, we plead in His name and reliance on His blood-bought mercies, our many sins of selfishness and ingratitude! Make us a penitent, pardon-seeking people, who place their assurance of salvation in Thy Son and in His guilt-destroying death for our life! May Thy Spirit so take possession of our hearts that we gladly share our overabundance with the poor and hungry, as we thankfully help spread the message of the Savior’s atonement throughout the world also by means of this radio testimony to the Redeemer! Bless us, Father, and may Thy Spirit comfort the saddened, strengthen the doubting, and lead lost souls to Jesus, in whose name we pray contritely but confidently! Amen!

How utterly selfish some people can be! Newspapers tell us that a house caught fire outside an Ohio town and that a neighbor, seeing the smoke rushed to telephone the fire department. However, the party line was busy. Two women were chatting. For a few moments the frantic man hesitated, hoping they would hand up; but when their talking continued, he interrupted and asked permission to make an emergency call. Indignantly the women protested they they were paying for the telephone and could use it as long as they pleased. What if the distracted neighbor, seeing the flames rise higher, broke in again to beg only the few moments required to summon help? The women, still refusing to relinquish the line, raised their voices to insist that they knew their rights and would exercise them. They did; and while their conversation continued, the house burned to the ground.

How blessed the assurance, by contrast, to have the confidence that once you are Christ’s, relying on His sin-removing death at Calvary, no power on earth or in hell will keep your heavenly Father from answering your requests and supplying your real needs! Indeed, prayer is the priceless privilege which can always be yours and of which neither evil men, hard times, crushing catastrophes, nor the hour of death itself can rob you. Nazi thugs in control of the Dachau torture camp could beat a clergyman almost senseless and, as the blood flowed down his cheeks, stand before him, chanting in satanic mockery, “O bleeding head and wounded!” Yet this did not keep the victim of their brutality from praying. Red radicals in Riga could warn a Lutheran pastor that if he entered the death cell to give Holy Communion to condemned political prisoners, he would be executed with them, and then, after he fulfilled his duty, shoot him down in cold blood; but their machine guns did not prevent him from commending his soul to the Savior. No matter how heavy your hardships are, however completely suffering fills your life, whatever your needs of soul, mind and body may be, God always hears and helps when you approach Him in true faith.

Is your prayer the pleading which has the promise of reply? Let us help you find the answer to this all-important question, when on this last Sunday of the church year, set aside long centuries ago as the Day of Humiliation and Prayer, we discuss.

THE PRAYER GOD ANSWERS

The words of Scripture which reveal the Lord’s instruction are taken from Saint Luke’s Gospel, chapter eighteen, verses ten to fourteen, where we read: “Two men went up into the Temple to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone that exalteth himself shall be abased, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” From the teachings of our Savior Himself it becomes clear that the prayer with God’s guaranteed acceptance is not the proud, self righteous thanks of the Pharisee, but the humble, sin-confessing plea of the publican.

I

NOT THE PROUD, SELF-RIGHTEOUS THANKS

OF THE PHARISEE

This widely known and widely misunderstood parable directs our attention to two people; yet today, in the Bible’s ageless truth, all of humanity’s two billions, however they may differ racially and regionally, may be divided into the two classes represented by these men. We may well begin with the Pharisee; and you will defeat the purpose for which Jesus recorded these words and be guilty of the sins our Savior here condemned if you start with an inner sigh of relief that you are immeasurably better than he is.

Some of you are so accustomed to use this word “Pharisee” in describing a hypocrite or a pious fraud that you overlook entirely its good side. Unlike their opponents, the Sadducees, who openly contradicted Scripture, the Pharisees rigidly clung to the teachings of the Old Testament. They overdid it, of course, when they followed the letter rather than the spirit of God’s truth, adding the grievous burden of man-made statues to the mercy of His Word. Yet, give them credit at least for their protest against the unbelief, the carnal ease, and the indifference to sin which marked and marred their days. We, too, need voices to denounce the increasing worldliness in America’s religious life. Believers must realize personally that it will cost them much to be known as loyal disciples of the Lord. When you pledge allegiance to Christ, you cannot do everything, go every place, associate with everyone. Repeatedly you must say “No!” when your all-to-human heart craves that you say “Yes!” Denouncing the easy-going, do-what-you-want, say-what-you-please creed, the Son of God tells you pointedly, “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me!”

The Pharisee in our text was not an ordinary, run-of-the-mill member of his sect. “I fast twice in the week,” he could say. Now, abstinence from food on weekdays was not required by the Lord in Old Testament times; yet the Pharisees, in their error of adding to Scripture, insisted that their followers fast one day of every seven. Even this, however, was not enough for the super-Pharisee in our text. He doubled his fasting schedule to two days each week. In the liberty of the New Testament we have complete food freedom. Yet our Lord’s forty-day fast in the wilderness and repeated Scriptural statements show us that dropping a meal or refusing to touch food a whole day, when prompted by the right spirit, can help bring blessings. Outside the fact that physicians have plainly stated that the American people are eating too much food, and that some medical scientists have recently advocated two and a half meals a day instead of the customary three, fasting can help mortify the flesh and days of abstinence from food can aid us in dedicating our thoughts to the Lord.

Time was when America recognized the power of Scriptural fasting. John Quincy Adams, sixth President of the United States, officially summoned our people to humble themselves before the Almighty and on an entire day repentantly refrain from eating. Yet, in view of past experience, we are tempted to ask ourselves: Why mention foodless days, when many in the United States show themselves unwilling to accept even an eggless day, when the directive for meatless Tuesdays produced widespread resentment and had to be canceled?

At least, learn this lesson from the Pharisee: If this man was willing to shoulder the burden his false creed required of him, how can you Christians be satisfied with doing only a small fraction of what the Lord expects of you? With greater urgency than ever before, the Church needs not minimum believers, who do the least they can for Jesus, but maximum believers, eager to do the most they can.

Thank God, some of you write us that you want to work for the Savior not with two-per-cent, but with close to 100-per-cent, efficiency! Our Church recently adopted a minimum missionary campaign with the slogan “Each One Reach One”: but the chef of the largest hotel in Minneapolis was not satisfied with this. He helped to reach twenty-seven, who were brought to Christ—and they were Japanese. In the crucified Redeemer’s name I ask you to be maximum Christians.

Again, we must recognize the liberality of the Pharisee, his planned sharing with the Almighty, by which he could say, “I give tithes of all that I possess.” Here, too, he was doing more than Old Testament legislation required. He contributed the tenth “of all” he had, while in Scripture the tithe was restricted to certain income and possessions. How few people in the United States, even within the churches, can join him because they, too, tithe for the Savior’s kingdom! Figures recently published show that for every dollar Americans give to church and charity they spend ten for luxuries and almost eighteen for war. If every Christian in this country would tithe, the churches, with an income four or five times larger than at present, could institute the most far-flung of all missionary campaigns, and the advances of atheism would be repulsed on a hundred fronts which now remain untouched by Christ’s Gospel.

We are told that the Pharisee “went up into the Temple.” In this way he showed a marked difference from millions of men in the United States, seldom seen in God’s house. Only half the people in our country, approximately, are members of any religious group, and only half of this half publicly worships the Lord on Sunday. Nevertheless many wonder why our country is confronted by serious dangers, why in their own lives they meet one catastrophe after another. If they have no time to honor God, how can they expect God to honor them? Besides, our age is cursed not only by absence from church, but by organized opposition to its work and existence. A few days ago Stalin, whom many regard as the mightiest world figure, issued this official statement to leaders on the atheist youth movement throughout the U.S.S.R.; “The Party cannot be neutral regarding religion. It cries out an antireligious propaganda against all and sundry religious beliefs… It is considered impossible and impermissible for a young Communist member to believe in God and to observe religious rites.” Such blasphemous declarations increasing in number and hatred, are warning signs which show us that unless God is exceedingly merciful to us, believers in our generation and in this country may be called to fight for the right to proclaim the crucified Redeemer

To avoid this disaster, every one of you, like the Pharisee, should be found “in the Temple of the Lord.” Are you a member of a Christian congregation? If not, why not? Since the true Church, offering you the sure way to heaven, is directly responsible for all the good you enjoy today, and the one effective means of curbing crime, for what reason do you keep aloof from its blessings? Do not tell me in worn-out, threadbare arguments that you have no time for membership; that too many hypocrites are enrolled; that it costs too much to belong; that you can worship God in nature; that you have had sad experiences with your previous church connection! Most of these objections are plainly untrue, and none of them should be a decisive reason for remaining distant from the Lord’s work. Many of the 65,000,000 Americans who have never joined a church do not know Jesus in the full glory of His grace. They do not know themselves, lost as they are in their sins. They do not know their country’s need, infiltrated as America is with destructive ideologies. Build true churches of Christ by adding your name to the membership roster and conforming your faith to the Gospel, and you will build your own spiritual joy, your home happiness, and your nation’s notable blessing!

The Pharisee, our text reminds us, “went up into the Temple to pray.” His chief interest in religion did not lie in suppers and socials; nor did he share the growing unbelief which publicly labels prayer as weak, womanish, worthless. During these days history’s greatest anti-prayer campaign is in progress. In meetings of world leaders prayer is strictly forbidden, even before assemblies which are to lay the foundation for a new world and a new age. Members of the Congregational Church petitioned the United Nations “to give God a chance” by providing a few minutes in the daily schedule so that the delegates who so wish could engage in silent prayer for divine blessing on the United Nations’ business. That appeal was not granted. What chance, we ask, has this world for peace without Christ, who is in all truth “the Prince of Peace”?

Do you pray? Have some of you who learned to lisp petitions at your mother’s breast now become so rich and successful that you tell yourselves: “I don’t need prayer.” “I can get along without it”? You can exist without prayer. Pigs and dogs and cats do, but you cannot live fully, happily, blessedly, nor have the promise of eternal life, without regular, reverent, repeated intercessions to our heavenly Father. “Ye have not, because ye ask not,” Scripture reminds us, and perhaps things have gone wrong with you because you have forgotten to bend your knees and incline your hearts to the Lord. Begin a new, blessed prayer life today! Pray yourself! Pray in your family circle! Pray in your churches! Pray every morning, every night, and frequently in between, and you will discover new treasures of spiritual truth and triumph.

We also note that when the Pharisee began, “God, I thank Thee,” he showed more gratitude to the Almighty than many of you do whose prayers are a steady flow of requests a “Give me this! And a “Grant me that!” and who thoughtlessly and thanklessly never acknowledge the great Creator’s goodness.

This week, which brings the national festival of Thanksgiving, should find the United States the most appreciative of all nations. Count America’s blessings, one by one! First, we have had a year of peace, while scores of areas throughout the world have been blotched by bloodshed. Second, we have more workers than ever before, 60,000,000 of them, therefore small unemployment, while industry in Europe is almost paralyzed. Third, we have more food than perhaps any dozen other countries in the world, while across the seas nations hover on the edge of mass starvation. Fourth, we have had a year of health, with no polio wave nor other serious epidemics; yet in Egypt people are dying of cholera like flies. Fifth, the death rate in the United States has dropped to a new all-time low of 10.1 per 1,000 inhabitants, while over in Berlin it is rising toward a new high of almost 30 per 1,000. Sixth, we have had good and sometimes unequaled harvests. Never before did our farm lands produce so many bushels of wheat and grain. Only in corn was the yield smaller than anticipated. In Central Europe the harvest generally has been the worst in fifty years. Seventh, the profits of industry and the income of the workers were startling. We have so much money that we can send capital to the ruined and bankrupt areas of former enemy lands, to help them become self-supporting. Eighth, our youth has greater educational opportunities than ever before. Two million, three hundred thousand young people are enrolled at our colleges and universities—an all-time high—while abroad many institutions of higher learning are carrying on amid bombed, shattered ruins. Ninth, we have had another year of free government, in which Americans generally could and did speak their minds. How different, as fugitives from dictators’ domains tell us, from the fear-filled life amid the violence and the murder of atheist despotism! Tenth, we have had a year of religious peace, with everyone permitted to worship God as he pleases. Yet over in India millions have been driven from their homes, and more than a hundred thousand killed in massacres produced by the intolerance and hatred between Mohammedans and Hindus. Those are only ten of our national blessings. If you survey your own life, you can list a thousand personal benefits of body and soul which have been yours since last Thanksgiving.

How, then, will our country, how will you, celebrate Thanksgiving? Unbelievable as this is, more people will be found in football bowls than in the Lord’s house. Think, by contrast, of the zeal shown by the Pilgrims who gave us our first Thanksgiving! Elder Brewster raised his voice to praise the Almighty for the clams and oysters found on the Plymouth shores and glorify Him even after disease had decimated the colonists ranks. Yet this week many American homes with turkey dinners, and free-following liquors, many American women with mink coats and lavish jewelry, many American businessmen with bulging bank accounts and top-yield investments, will not find an hour —though the President of the United States requested it— in which to visit a church of God and gratefully to acknowledge Him as the Giver of “every good gift and every perfect gift.”

Survey these signs of distressing thanklessness throughout the land: waste of food, sufficient, some experts claim, to support 40,000,000 people; widespread profanity; desecration of the Lord’s Day; family life blighted by a high divorce rate, frequent unfaithfulness, and shocking sex sins; especially advancing atheism and unbelief in religious circles!

The greater a people’s ingratitude is, the heavier the punishment by which divine justice avenges itself. Scripture, unbreakable in its truth warns, “The nation and kingdom that will not serve Thee shall perish.” Therefore, one need not be a prophet to predict with certainty that every godless country is doomed to disintegration and defeat. The Bible tells us this. Four hundred years ago Martin Luther, with his God-given insight into human affairs, foresaw the eclipse of Christianity in his native land and wrote this startling forecast: “There will come a dreadful manifestation of revenge upon Germany —a revenge so terrific that it is beyond the imagination of the heart of man…The Lord will remove His Gospel from Germany, and at that time Germany will know only hunger, strife, pestilence, and bloody cruelties.… The same fate will overtake Germany that came upon… Jerusalem, or upon Greece and Turkey. Germany will be sacked in the same way as the Goths destroyed Rome, and, all of this will come upon Germany because they have not known the time of their visitation, when the lord wanted by His Word to take possession of the people.… Even if there were at that time ten men as mighty in faith as Moses to pray for Germany, it will not help.” The threats of these prophecies have gone into literal fulfillment, because they were based on God’s Word. With the same authority we say that the Communist powers today which ridicule Christ, practice the wholesale murder of His messengers, scream out their hated of Heaven and their determination to destroy faith in the Almighty, will suffer an even more fearful fate than the horrors which World War II have revealed.

Let America be warned in time, realizing “Unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required.” To help promote gratitude to Heaven in our country, ask yourself: Have I ever sincerely praised my Father above for blessing, as He bountifully does? If shamefacedly you plead guilty to continued thoughtlessness, resolve now that this Thanksgiving will find you in a true house of the Lord, ready to tell Him from whom all goodness flows, “God, I thank Thee!”

As you repeat these words of the Pharisee, realize that now, after everything to be said in his favor has been advanced, you must face the distressing fact that his prayer was not heard; that despite all his good works and extra virtues the Most High rejected him. Why? Listen closely as he prays, “God, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers.” Watch him carefully, as in his swelling pride he beholds the poor publican in the Temple and, gloating over the favorable contrast he presents to this despised outcast, continues, “God I thank Thee that I am not... as this publican.”

He lied, of course, when he claimed that he was “not as other men are,” pretending that he was of better character and higher grade than “this publican.” In the Lord’s sight all men, condemned by their sins, are on the same low level. Scripture declares, “There is none that doeth good, no not one.”

The Pharisee lied when he posed as an example of goodness and obedience. He had harbored unclean, lust-filled, greedy, hate-charged thoughts. His soul, as every man’s, was a source of vicious, destructive evil. Deny it though he did this Bible verdict condemned him: “From within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.”

He lied when he mentioned only his virtues, his double fasting, his extra tithing forgetting his vices, and remained strangely silent concerning his transgressions. Plainly the sacred writer protests, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

He was guilty of fatal pride when, to make his own conduct appear the more lustrous, he compared himself with the worst of humanity, “extortioners, unjust, adulterers,” and especially with the despised publican. Why was he not honest enough to select godly, truly devout believers and admit that he was far inferior to them? Why does he mention the Almighty only once and himself four times, “I… I… I… I…”? Was he not deceived by the delusions of his own grandeur?

Especially did the Pharisee mislead himself by relying on his own good works his fasting his tithes, as means of earning divine favor. David pleaded, “Enter not into judgment with Thy servant; for in Thy sight shall no man living be justified”; Micah, showing how hopeless it is for anyone to gain Heaven’s recognition, declares: “Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” Yet this vain, self-worshiping egoist arrogantly ignores his own sins, sets himself up as a model, in effect demanding that the Almighty hear and heed his words. No wonder the Lord refused to receive him, and the Pharisee left the Temple to return to his home far, suicidally far, from God!

Great wonder, however, that despite Scripture’s plainly repeated warning, the mass of mankind today is guilty of the same fatal folly! How easy it is for us, if not in words, then in thought, to compare ourselves with gangsters or criminals and thus pose as paragons of goodness, all the while concealing the ugly evidences of our own iniquity! How readily we thank the Lord that the United States is not as other nations are, forgetting our crimes, our divorces, our war profiteering, our drunkenness, our neglect of Christ! How rapidly, too, we rehearse our church activities and our charities, holding that these entitle us to the Almighty’s approval and a place in Paradise! Ask the average American, not “What must you do to be saved?” for in too many cases he does not recognize that he is eternally lost in his transgressions, but, “How do you hope to enter heaven?” and in nine cases out of ten, if he believes in a hereafter, he will reply in effect: “I am going to try to be good and do good, live right and act right, go straight and stay straight. Then heaven will be mine.” If your expectation for eternal blessedness is built on this flimsy foundation, be warned in time! With all your righteousnesses “filthy rags,” disguise them as you will, you cannot get near God. You will not reach Him even by your pleading. You may beseech the Almighty in your choicest language and your most urgent tones; you may recite long, repeated requests, but if you exalt yourself and despise others, you can cry out until your swollen vocal cords refuse to function, and as the echo of your failure fades away, you will learn that pride always spoils prayer.

II

BUT THE HUMBLE, SIN-CONFESSING PLEA

OF THE PUBLICAN

The Holy Spirit now grant you the inner vision to believe that the prayer our Heavenly Father answers is the humble, sin-confessing plea raised there in the Temple by the publican! It is hardly possible for you to picture a greater human contrast than that which has separated these two men. The Pharisee represented the highest level of society in his day, and the publican, the lowest. He, a taxgatherer, was an agent of the hated Roman government; and officials in his position were notorious for their cruelty in pressing the people for tax money. With few exceptions they were dishonest; and so repulsive was their evil conduct that self-respecting citizens shunned their company, refusing even to be seen with them.

Consider also the different attitude of these two petitions! The Pharisee, erect in his pride, “stood… with himself”; but of the publican we read that he “would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven.” Instead, he “smote upon his breast” in deep anguish.

Note especially the marked contrast between the two prayers! The Pharisee proudly reminds the Almighty that he is better than other men, but the publican, using only one fifth as many words, refusing to compare himself with anyone else, ashamed to mention even his best achievement, threw himself on divine grace and in these seven simple words pleads, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

By the magnificence of divine love his prayer was answered. Our parable concludes with Jesus’ verdict: “I tell you, this man (the publican) went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”

Here, then, Christ has taught us that the petition His Father hears must be the humble, persistent, self-searching plea of a sin-stricken soul. The publican felt the frightful force of unforgiven faults and failure. He recognized the damning, destructive power of evil, and he trembled in terror when he thought of being judged by the holy, righteous God.

In one of the most deadly delusions of our day, men like to remain silent on sin. They want to ignore it, forget it. As the world hurries farther away from its Ruler, increasing multitudes actually serve sin, pursue it, dedicate their lives to it, glorify it. Masses have found their national heroes in murderers of millions, leaders who have satanically shot down ambassadors of Christ.

In our own so-called Christian country, how easily we gloss over the sin-marked lives of popular figures! How readily the public acclaims the multidivorced or scandal-stained adventurer! How quickly sex-saturated books become best sellers or suggestive entertainment prospers, despite outspoken church opposition! What America needs above the political panaceas now proposed is an awakening to the realization that the transgression of God’s will is far more fatal to our welfare than any foreign foe or public enemy Number One. Sin, unconfessed, unrebuked, unchecked, can destroy this nation, when divine judgment crashes down on a people which, though preferred above all others, has long set the Almighty’s Law aside and come to the point where His mercy, finally exhausted, can give way to punishment. On this Sunday, when for long centuries believers in various parts of the world have humbly bowed before the eternal Judge to confess their guilt, may we across the breadth of this country pray the penitent’s prayer, beseeching the Lord of hosts to forgive our land its sin! A veteran, disillusioned by the fact that the United States has not learned the lessons plainly taught by global bloodshed, asks our clergy to call their “people to a season of prayer and fasting in this national crisis.” The soldier is right. No partisan program can help as much as that institution which the United States had when it was closer to God, the day of prayer, fasting, and repentance.

We have asked repeatedly, but futilely, for this evidence of return to the faith of the fathers, and it may take the hard times Roger Babson sees in 1952, or even horror such as we have never known, to make our country contrite and dedicated to God. Be clear on this, however, sometime America will have to balance its books; sometime this nation must give an account of itself! What a price we will have to pay for our impenitence, unbelief, neglect of grace, and disregarded privileges! The Holy Spirit bring us on our knees in humility and pleading repentance!

Whatever the United States does, I ask you individually: learn of the publican how to pray. He asked if we translate the original text literally, “God, be merciful to me, THE SINNER,” as though he would say, “I am the worst of all rebels against the Almighty,” and join Saint Paul in calling himself “chief” of sinners. The divine Enlightener give you the grace in these very moments, similarly without restrictions or excuse to confess your guilt, to recall your secret transgressions and lustful passions, which now make you ashamed of yourself as you review them! Admit them, every one of them and repeat the publican’s plea, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

If you refuse; if in your pride you think you are so good that Heaven must recognize and reward you; if in your blind unbelief you imagine that you can cheat the All-knowing as you have deceived your own husband or wife, your friends or acquaintances, then in plain language which each of you can understand I warn you that you are condemned by Heaven, sentenced to suffer the punishment of all unforgiven sins, headed for hell. Could you picture only one moment of that misery, instead of trying to laugh it away; could you realize the torture of body, mind, and spirit which torments the damned; were you able to know what it means to be separated from your loved ones who were in Christ, everlastingly to suffer in unrelieved pain, tears of anguish would fill your eyes, and in soul agony you would fall on your knees to repeat the publican’s prayer, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

That penitent knew he could come before the Almighty, appealing for pardon, since the Word of truth had given him a hundred glorious guarantees of grace, like the pledge, “Though our sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” The Old Testament assured each believer that the Lord is long-suffering, “who forgiveth all thine iniquities.” Isaiah, exulting, “he will abundantly pardon,” pictured the merciful Messiah as the sin-bearing, sin-removing, sin-destroying Savior of the world. Therefore, completely trusting God’s compassion, the despised publican goes “down to his house justified,” saved by his faith.

The Holy Spirit now help you believe that you, too, can be sure of your salvation! In addition to Old Covenant prophecy you have the priceless treasure of New Testament fulfillment. You have Christ, God’s Son, your Savior. If you are burdened by the weight of your sins; if you wonder whether you can be pardoned for your transgressions; if the evil which brought misery to your soul and to others seems so crushing that it can never be relieved; if you lie awake at night and by day are robbed of real joy because your misdeeds haunt you, don’t give way to despair! This message is meant for you. Behold the Lord of love, and believe Him whose lips speak only truth when He assures you, “The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” Build your hope on this unfailing guarantee of grace, “God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life”!

Jesus – defeat doubt and trust this! – takes away all sins, even the most hateful and hideous. Jesus has universal pardon for every penitent transgressor, even for those whom the world puts behind iron bars. Jesus has eternal forgiveness, so that once your sins are removed, no power on earth or hell can bring them back. Jesus has free remission granted “without money, and without price.” Jesus has assured salvation. When you come to Him, the Holy Spirit gives you witness in your own heart that the Gospel is God’s guarantee of grace. Jesus has unchanging mercy. You may have fallen far from the faith and denied Him, but His compassion is renewed to you every morning. Husbands and wives may pledge their mutual love until death parts them, yet soon hurry to the divorce court; but “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today and forever,” is the Lord of unalterable compassion. Jesus has sin-destroying mercy, He not only forgives your transgressions, forgets them, He actually wipes them out of existence. Jesus has completed redemption. His deliverance is not a possible blessing which may be offered some time in the future, but a priceless reality which is here for you now. Jesus – praise His saving name! – has all-inclusive deliverance, with no one excluded by class, color, or condition. Jesus—and, Oh, that you will praise Him in eternity for this!--has the riches of His redeeming love for you, no matter how unsparingly your own conscience may accuse you, how disdainfully your family and friends denounce you, however cunningly the Evil One whispers into your soul that you have fallen too low even to think of pardon.

Why can you have this assurance, that if you pray the publican’s prayer, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner,” your plea will be answered? Find Heaven’s pledge of pardon in this, that the Almighty took the only way by which the curse of evil could be canceled. The punishment of every sin had to be suffered; its penalty, death, paid; and to accomplish this superhuman task, Jesus Christ gave Himself as the Atonement, the Sin-Offering, the Reconciliation, the Payment for human iniquity. He suffered in His body, but far more agonizingly in His soul the total torment of all transgressions. He died the agony of all sinners’ deaths. When, as the everlasting evangel proclaims, God “made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him,” then you, cleansed by His love, justified by faith in His substitutionary self-sacrifice, will stand before the celestial judgment throne free from sin, saved for eternity.

Pointing you to the cross where Christ took your place in suffering divine wrath, I ask you to learn this one short lesson today; Pray the publican’s prayer as you behold the Son of the Highest crucified for you! Pray it aloud with us: “‘God be merciful to me, a sinner,’ for Jesus’ sake!” When you learn to plead in that faith, the Lord will hear you, and new day of marvelous strengthening will dawn for you. True prayer produces powerful blessings.

Over in Europe’s citadels of atheist Communism, foolish men deny this as they try to tear the reliance on the Almighty even from the hearts of boys and girls. In the spring, when school children are taught to start their own garden, the teacher sets aside a plot for each pupil, and then, with diabolical cunningness, a small section for God. The children’s portion is carefully watered and weeded. A few seeds are carelessly strewn on the Lord’s part, and that piece of ground is never touched again. In the fall, when the pupils’ section has produced its crop, while the ground marked “God’s has yielded only weeds, the teachers, seeking to drive this object lesson home, say: “Now, children, see how useless it is to ask God for anything! He is absolutely helpless. He cannot take care even of a little garden. You see, boys and girls, there is no God.”

They are utterly wrong, of course, for Christians know that God’s acre, if prepared with prayer and faith, can produce marvels. Thursday, when you sit down to your Thanksgiving dinner with red cranberries on the table think of the cranberry bog in Carver, Massachusetts which in 1925 was dedicated to the Lord. The first year it was thus consecrated, the bog produced 1.200 pounds, 100 percent more than it had yielded annually for the previous thirty years. If you dedicate yourself to Christ in thankful faith, you will learn that your heavenly Father gives you, His redeemed child, immeasurably more than you ask or think. The Holy Spirit grant that this Thanksgiving Sunday there will be thanksgiving in heaven when the holy angels rejoice because you have learned to pray, “‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner’ for Jesus’ sake!” Amen!

[The preceding sermon first aired on the fourth Sunday in November, 1947. From the book “One Thousand Radio Voices for Christ”]