This Man Receives Sinners!

“All the tax-collectors and sinners drew near to Him in order to hear Him.
And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying,
This man receives sinners and eats with them.”
(Luke 15:1-2)

“This man” is the Lord Jesus Christ. He, being the Eternal Son of God, became flesh. And when He came into this world of ours, He came “full of grace and of truth” (John 1:14). This infinite grace in Him drew tax-collectors (rejected and despised by the people) and sinners to Him. It was easy to have access to the Lord. He did not reject them as everyone else did. They, drawing near to hear Him, found in Him mercy, love, and grace.

The Pharisees and scribes, the self-righteous, religious leaders of the day, criticized our Lord saying, “This man receives sinners.” As if it were a charge against Him. Oh! they did not know that this very act, of which they were accusing Him, conveyed the perfection of Him who is “holy, harmless, undefiled, separated from sinners” (Hebrews 7:26). But the good news is that, holy as He is, He received sinners. He did not isolate Himself from them, yet He was separate from them as regards His holy nature. He accepted them showing them ultimate mercy and grace.

The Lord’s attitude towards these rejected people, expresses, in essence, the good news of Christianity: God accepts sinners and brings them into fellowship with Himself. The Lord’s reply to the complaint of the Pharisees, was the amazing three-fold parable recorded in Luke 15: the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. In another situation, saving another lost soul, the Lord Jesus said, “The Son of man has come to seek and to save that which is lost.” (Luke 19:10).

Out of His immense love, the Good Shepherd seeks the lost sheep until He finds it. He even sacrifices Himself for the sheep (John 10:11). And that is exactly what our Lord did when He gave Himself on the cross in order to save you and me. The Holy Spirit, using the Word of God (the lamp), seeks patiently for the lost coin until He finds it. This portrays God’s activity in seeking and finding those who are lost.

But the lost son needs to come to his senses first before he decides to go back to the Father. God longs for you to come back, but there is responsibility on your part, my friend. You need to realize that you are lost and change your mind and go back to the bosom of the Father. This is what’s called REPENTANCE. When you go back to God you will find a Loving Father waiting for you with embraces and kisses (please read Luke 15:20-24). You will enjoy real, living fellowship with God as your Father. This is exactly what the Lord Jesus did, after accepting sinners: He ate with them!

My dear reader, there is hope for you today in this good news: The Lord Jesus Christ receives sinners! Please do not do like the Pharisees who did not count themselves among “sinners” and did not want to consider themselves “lost.” If you recognize your sin, your being lost, come to the Lord Jesus now! HE RECEIVES SINNERS! He said, “Him that comes to me I will not at all cast out.” (John 6:37).

The Bible

“The Bible contains the mind of God, the state of man, the way of salvation, the doom of sinners, and the happiness of believers. Its doctrines are holy, its precepts are binding, its histories are true, and its decisions are immutable. Read it to be wise, believe it to be safe, and practice it to be holy. It contains light to direct you, food to support you, and comfort to cheer you. It is the traveler’s map, the pilgrim’s staff, the pilot’s compass, the soldier’s sword, and the Christian’s charter. Here Paradise is restored, Heaven opened, and the gates of hell disclosed. Christ is its grand subject, our good the design and the glory of God its end. It should fill the memory, rule the heart, and guide the feet. Read it slowly, frequently, and prayerfully. It is a mine of wealth, a paradise of glory, and a river of pleasure. It is given you in life, will be opened at the judgment, and be remembered forever. It involves the highest responsibility, will reward the greatest labor, and will condemn all who trifle with its sacred contents.”

--Samuel R. Boggs


“Pray it in. Read it through. Live it out. Pass it on.”

--J. C. Ryle

All Other Ground Is Sinking Sand

The Solid Rock

Words: Edward Mote, 1834

Music: William B. Bradbury, 1863

1. My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

Refrain:
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand.

2. When darkness veils His lovely face,
I rest on His unchanging grace;
In every high and stormy gale,
My anchor holds within the veil.

3. His oath, His covenant, His blood
Support me in the whelming flood;
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.

4. When He shall come with trumpet sound,
Oh, may I then in Him be found;
Dressed in His righteousness alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne.

The Unspeakable Gift

“Thanks be to God for His unspeakable free gift!” (2Corinthians 9:15)

What matters about a gift is what it is, how it is presented, and who gives it. Imagine then how amazing, indeed “unspeakable,” when the Giver is God Himself, the Gift is the Lord Jesus Christ, and it is wrapped with a Love that is “so amazing, so divine!”

But we must notice that this “free gift” is not without price. It is given to us freely, by grace, but the price has been paid! “For God so loved the world that He GAVE His only-begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).

When God gave His Son, He gave Him to die for us: “God commends His love to us, in that, we being still sinners, Christ has died for us” (Romans 5:8). He died, on that cross of Calvary, in order to give us life and to pay the penalty of our sins, which is eternal judgment in hell: “In this the love of God has been manifested in us, because God has sent His only begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins” (1John 4:9-10). Praised be God for His free gift!

All we need to do is ACCEPT this “unspeakable free gift” of God. You cannot buy it by doing some good works of your own, my dear reader! It is already paid for, and the price was quite high, was actually too high for anyone to pay. The price was the “precious blood of Christ” (1Peter 1:19), that is His life which He gave for you and me. There is nothing left for you to do to earn God's great salvation. All you ought to do is BELIEVE! Listen, “He that believes in Him is not judged, but he who does not believe has been already judged, because he has not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God” (John 3:18).

Dear reader, for your own ultimate good, I urge you to accept this amazing free gift now, and before it is too late! I encourage you to believe in the Lord Jesus and in the perfect work He accomplished FOR YOU on the cross! If you believe and accept, you will be saved!

Via Dolorosa

“...we being still without strength, in the due time Christ has died for the ungodly. For scarcely for the just man will one die, for perhaps for the good man some one might also dare to die; but God commends His love to us, in that, we being still sinners, Christ has died for us.” (Romans 5:6-8)

Down the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem that day

The soldiers tried to clear the narrow street
But the crowd pressed in to see
This Man condemned to die on Calvary

He was bleeding from a beating, there were stripes upon His back
And He wore a crown of thorns upon His head
And He bore with every step
The scorn of those who cried out for His death

Down the Via Dolorosa called the way of suffering
Like a lamb came the Messiah, Christ the King,
But He chose to walk that road out of
His love for you and me.
Down the Via Dolorosa, all the way to Calvary.

Por la Vía Dolorosa, triste día en Jerusalén
Los soldados le abrían paso a Jesús
Mas la gente si acercaba
Para ver que llevaba aquella cruz

Por la Vía Dolorosa, que es la vía del dolor
Como oveja vino Cristo, Rey, Señor
Y fue Él quien quiso ir por amor por ti y por mí
Por la Vía Dolorosa al Calvario y a morir

The blood that would cleanse the souls of all men
Made its way through the heart of Jerusalem.

Down the Via Dolorosa called the way of suffering
Like a lamb came the Messiah, Christ the King
But He chose to walk that road out of

His love for you and me
Down the Via Dolorosa, all the way to Calvary.

By Billy Sprague and Niles Borop
1983 Meadowgreen Music and Word Music/ASCAP

The Cross of Power

“He hath poured out His soul unto death.” (Isaiah 53:12)

“On this account the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it again. I have received this commandment of my Father.” (John 10:17-18)

God has presented His wisdom and His power in the cross. How does His power come out, not only in the effect of the cross, but in the cross itself! It never shone out so bright. Not the creation of a new heaven and earth could be such an expression of His power as that cross.

That the infinite God, He who is the Almighty God, should have been down here on that cross! That no one less than the God who created all things, who had but to speak and it was done, — that that Almighty God should become a man! What had Almighty God to do there upon that cross between two thieves, tied and bound to it, not by circumstances — the nails could not keep Him there — but by something stronger than all fetters, (1) something that He cannot break through: “Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God.” (Hebrews 10:7). The Son of God had become the servant of God. He, the very One by whom God had created all things, there was He, with power to put everything down, fettered, absolutely fettered (2) as servant to the will of God, whose servant He had pledged Himself to be.

Where did God’s power ever shine out as it did there? Not only — I repeat it — the expression of Divine power in the fruits of the cross, but in the cross itself, that cross where He leaves Himself and everything in God’s hands, to turn everything to His own glory. I know nothing like the moral glory shining out in connection with the cross. We hear of moral glory in the actions of different individuals. In Christ it was perfect. Because the power of God brought Him down to weakness, He gives up His spirit in perfect obedience; but God alone could do it. A man’s life is not his own to give; but the Lord could give His life.

God alone has a right to act as He pleases. He had an only Son, of whom He could say, “He is all my delight;” and if He would make that Son the One on whom all His wrath should fall, who could dare to say to God, “What doest Thou?” (Job 9:12). He is God, and He alone had a right to do what He liked and do it how He liked. If He had a plan in connection with that Son, He must have the cooperation of that Son to carry out His plan, and He had it. Christ came to the cross to die there.

--G. V. Wigram, Gleanings, Volume 1.

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(1) Chains
(2) Bound