Face the Truth
And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. – Luke 7:42
Some of you have never given serious thought to your souls and to your condition before God. It is an unpleasant subject. You suspect that it would be still more unpleasant if you looked into it. You want amusement, something to while away the time because you do not care to examine the state of your heart before God. Solomon exhorts the diligent man to know the state of his flocks and look well to his herds. But he that is careless and idle would rather leave such enquiries and let things go as they please…He labors to beguile the hours that he may conceal from himself his true condition. But what a fool he is! Would it not be infinitely wiser if he would look things in the face and have it out and know his actual state? I have often prayed this prayer— “Lord, let me know the very worst of my case,” for I do not wish to entertain a hope that will, at last, deceive me. Disappointment will be bitter in proportion as false hope was sweet. This is the temptation of the bankrupt soul—to shut its eyes to the unwelcome Truths of God.
When we come to feel our bankruptcy, we then make an honest confession. And to that confession a promise is given— “He that confesses his sin shall find mercy.” The two debtors had acknowledged their debts, and they had also openly confessed, though it must have gone against the grain a bit, that they could not pay. They humbled themselves before their creditor and then he said, “I frankly forgive you.” If one of these debtors had bounced and bragged, “Oh, we can pay,” in all probability he would have been sent to prison. As for you, poor Trembler, I do not know where you are but here is comfort for you—when you go to God in your chamber and cry, “Lord, have mercy upon me, for I am guilty, and I cannot justify myself before You, nor offer any excuse to You”—then it is that He will say, “Be of good cheer! I have put away your sin; you shall not die.”
To Know the Value of God’s Mercy
…work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure. – Philippians 2:12,13
It is true you are to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,” but what must come first? Read the passage, “For it is God which works in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.” If the Lord does not work salvation in us, we cannot work it out! Every good thing in man is the work of God, the produce of the Spirit of God operating upon the heart and mind. Men are dead in trespasses and sins; dead to all that is holy and acceptable with God and life, itself, is a gift. What, then, can sinners do? Their bankruptcy is utter and entire—and this is true of every man that is still out of Christ—he is a debtor and he has nothing to pay.
When you have nothing to pay and confess your insolvency, the debt shall be wiped out. When you are brought to your worst, you shall see the Lord at His best! It is in their utter destitution that men value a discharge. If God were to give His mercy to every man at once, without his ever having had any sense of sin at all, why, men would count it cheap and think nothing of it! “God is merciful,” is a common saying everywhere. And it is such a bit of valueless talk with them that they let it roll glibly out as if it were no matter. They do not worship Him for His mercy or serve Him for His Grace. They say, “Oh, God is merciful,” and then they go on to sin worse than ever! The idea has no effect upon their hearts or lives. They have no esteem for that mercy of which they speak so freely. So, the Lord takes care that the sinner shall know his need of mercy by feeling the pinch of conscience and the terror of the Law.
Christ is Precious When Our Sins are Bitter
There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. – Luke 7:41
The debt is immense and incalculable! Fifty pence is but a poor representation of what the most righteous person owes. Five hundred pence is but an insignificant sum compared with the transgressions of the greater offenders. Oh, Friends, when I think of my life, it seems to be like the sea, made up of innumerable waves of sin; or like the seashore, constituted of sands that cannot be weighed nor counted! My faults are utterly innumerable and each one deserving eternal death! Our sins, our heavy sins, sins against light and knowledge; our foul sins, our repeated sins, our aggravated sins, our sins against our parents, our sins against all our relationships, our sins against our God, our sins with the body, our sins with the mind, our sins of forgetfulness, our sins of thought, our sins of imagination—who can make them right? Who knows the number of his trespasses?
Now, to think that we can ever meet such a debt is, indeed, to bolster up ourselves with a notion that is utterly absurd—we have nothing with which to pay! Moreover, I go a little further. Even if these sins were somewhat within reach to pay back—if we were not indebted for the future as to all we can do, yet what is there that we can do? Does not Paul say of himself that he was not sufficient to think anything of himself? Did not the Lord tell His Israel of old, “From Me is your fruit found”? Did not Jesus say to His disciples and even to His Apostles, “Without Me you can do nothing”? Then, O bankrupt Sinner, what is there good that you can do? You must get the good work from God before you can perform it!
Christ is precious when sin is bitter. Is it not wise on God‘s part that the canceling of the debt shall come just when we have nothing to pay and, therefore, are prepared to prize a free forgiveness? Under conviction, a poor soul sees the reality of sin and of pardon!
Nowhere Else to Look but to Christ
And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. – Luke 7:42
Our inability to obey comes of our own fault and is part of our crime. Ah me! May none of us ever have to bear the penalty! To be banished from His Presence and from the glory of His power! To be cast away from all hope and light and joy forever! Why, there are those at this moment in the abyss of woe who have for thousands of years endured the heavy hand of justice and yet their debt remains unpaid, even now, for they have yet to appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ at the Last Day and answer for their transgressions! It is certain that to meet the whole payment is impossible! Neither in the form of obedience, nor in the form of penalty may we ever hope to pay it—it would be all in vain to make the attempt.
Remember, too, that if there is anything that we can do for God in the way of obedience, it is already due to Him. All that I can do, if I love God with all my heart and soul and strength, and my neighbor as myself, throughout the rest of my life, is already due to God—I shall but be discharging new duties as they occur—how will this affect old disobediences? In what way can I cleanse myself from my former stains by the resolve that I will not be defiled with fresh ones?
I believe that the Lord will give us our freedom when we have got to our last farthing and not till then, because only then do we look to the Lord Jesus Christ. Ah, my dear Friends, as long as we have anything else to look to, we will never look to Christ!
The Saviour of Sinners
And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. – Luke 7:42
There is not one among us, apart from the Lord Jesus Christ, but owes to God‘s Law a debt which eternity cannot fully meet, even though it is crowded with agonizing regrets! A life of forgetfulness of God and breaking of His Law must be recompensed by a future life of punishment! That is where we stand—can any man be at rest while this is his condition before God? We are debtors—the debt is overwhelming—it brings with it consequences tremendous to the last degree! And we are utterly unable to make any amends for this. If He should meet with us and call us to account, we cannot repay Him one pence of a thousand. We cannot excuse ourselves and we cannot, by any possibility, render to Him His righteous due. If any think they can, let me remind them of this, that to cancel the debt which we owe to God we must pay it all! God demands, righteously demands from us the keeping of His entire Law.
If any of you have any goodness of your own, you will perish forever! If you have anything you can trust to of your own, you will be lost as sure as you are living men and women! But if you are reduced to sore extremity and God‘s fierce wrath seems to burn against you—then, not only may you have mercy, but mercy is yours already! Are you a sinner? Then Christ is the Saviour of sinners! Join hands with Him by faith and the work is done—you are saved forever!
“As soon as we have naught to pay
Our Lord forgives us all.”
We Are Indebted to God
There was 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. – Luke 7:41,42
They had nothing at home or abroad that they could dispose of. Things had come to such a pass with them that they had neither stock nor money, nor anything in prospect which they could draw upon—they were brought to the last extremity—reduced to absolute beggary. Meanwhile, their great creditor was pressing them for settlement…We are all, by nature and by practice, plunged in debt—and this is the way in which we came to be so—hear it and mark it well! As God‘s creatures we, from the very first, owed to Him the debt of obedience. We were bound to obey our Maker! It is He that made us, not we, ourselves, and we were, therefore, bound reverently to recognize our Creator, affectionately to worship Him and dutifully to serve Him. This is an obligation so natural and reasonable that nobody can dispute it! …But, dear Friends, we have not done His will! We have left undone the things we ought to have done, and we have done the things we ought not to have done—and so we have come, in a second sense, into His debt! We now stand liable to penalty, yes, we are already condemned!
I remember when I felt the burden of sin and though, but a child, my heart failed me for anguish, and I was brought very low. Sin was no bugbear to scare me—it was a grim reality—as a lion, it tore me in pieces. And now, today, I know the reality of pardon—it is no fancy, no dream—for my inmost soul feels its power! I know that my sins are forgiven and I rejoice because of that belief, but I should never have known the real truth of this happy condition if I had not felt the oppressive load of sin upon the conscience. I could not afford to play at conversion, for sin was an awful fact in my soul. Our heavenly Father does not wish us to use lightness in a matter concerning which Jesus shed His blood—and so He brings us into trouble of soul—and afterwards into a vivid realization of Free Grace.
He Hath Said 