The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1893-07-14

But / analyze the publican's prayer %
step further, and find that he expected
no relief except through Gods mercy.
Why did he not say, am an honorab BILE
man. When get SO taxes, pay them
over to the government give
full permission 10 anybody to audit my
accounts I appeal to thy justice. o
God! He made no such plea He threw.
himself fat on Gods mercy.
Have you any idea that a man by
breaking off the scales of the leprosy
can change the disease? Have you any
idea that you can by changing your life
change your heart, that you can pur-
chase your way to Heaven? Come, try
it. Come, bring all the bread you ever
gave to the hungry, all the medicine
You ever gave to the sick, all the kind
words you have ever uttered, all the
kind deeds that have ever distinguished
you Add them all up into the tre-
mendous aggregate of good words and
works, and then you will see Paul
sharpen his knife as he cuts that spirit
of self satisfaction, as he cries, by
the deeds of the law there shall no
flesh be justified
Well, say thousand men in this au-
dience, If am not to get anything in
the way of peace from God in good
works, how am to be saved? BY mer-
cy. Here / stand to tell the story
mercy, mercy, long suffering mercy,
sovereign mercy, infinite mercy, omnip-
otent mercy, everlasting mercy. Why,
il seems in the Bible as If all language
were exhausted, as II it were stretched
until broke, as if all expression were
struck dead at the feet of prophet and
apostle and evangelist when it tries to
describe Gods mercy.
Oh, says some one, that is only add
ing to my crime If / come and confess
before God and seek his mercy. No,
mol The murderer has come, and while
he was washing the blood of his victim
from his hands looked into the face of
God and cried for mercy, and his soul
has been white in Gods pardoning lovel
| And the soul that has wandered off
In the streets and down to the very
gates of hell has come back to her
fathers house, throwing her arms
around his neck and been saved by the
mercy that saved Mary Magdalen.
But, says some one, you are throwing
open that door of mercy too wide. No,
l will throw it open wider. will take
the responsibility of saying that if all
this audience, instead of being gathered
in a semi-circle, were placed side by
side in one long line they could all
march right through that wide open
gate of mercy. whatsoever whose
ever" Oh, this mercy of God. There
is no line long enough to fathom it;
there is no ladder long enough to scale
1 =. of 70
to calculate it; no angels wing can fly
across it.
Heavenly harpers, aided by choirs
with feet like the sun, can not compass
that harmony of mercy, mercy. 1t
sounds in the rumbling of the celestial
gate. ] hear it in the Ginning of the
celestial towers. / see it flashing in
the up1ifted and downcast coronets of
the saved. / hear it in the laundering
tread of the hammered host round about
the throne, and then it comes from the
harps and crowns and thrones and pro-
cessions to sit down, unexpressed, on a
throne overlapping all Heaven-the
throne of mercy.
How was affected when some one
told me in regard to that accident on
Long Island sound, when one poor
woman came and got her hand on a
raft as she tried to save herself, but
those who were on the raft thought
| there was no room for her, and one man
came and most cruelty beat and bruised
her han DIS until she fell off. Oh, Ibless
God that this lifeboat of the gospel has
room enough for the sixteen hundred
millions of the race-room for one,
room for all, and yet there is room.
1 push this analysis of the publican's
prayer a step further and find that he
did not expect any money except by
pleading for it. He did not fold his
hands together as some do, saying: IF
I'm to be saved, I'll be saved; I'm to
be lost I'll be lost, and there is nothing
for me to do He knew what was
worth having was worth asking for;
hence this earnest cry of the text:
"God, be merciful to me, a sinnerI''
It was an earnest prayer, and it is
characteristic of all Bible prayers that
they were answered. The blind man,
Lord, that 1 may receive my sight,"
the leper. Lord, If thou wilt thou
canst make me Clean" sinking Peter,
Lord, save me-" the publican, God,
be merciful to me, a sinner" But if
you come mp with the tip of your finger
and tap at the gate of mercy it will not
open. You have got to have the ear
nestness of the warrior, who, defeated
and pursued, dismounts from his lath-
cred steed and with gauntleted fists
pounds at the palace gate.
You have got to have the earnestness
of the man who at midnight in the
fourth story has sense of suffocation
with the house in flames, goes to the
window and shouts to the fireman,
"HelpI" Oh, unforgiving soul, if you
were in full earnest / might have to
command silence in the auditory, for
your prayers would drown the voice of
the speaker and we have to pause in
the great servicel 1t is because you do
not realize your sin before God that
you are not this moment crying mercy,
mercy, mercy.
This prayer of the publican was also
an humble prayer. The pharisee looked
up, the publican looked down. You
can not be saved as metaphysician;
you can not be saved as scholar; you
can not be saved as an artist; you can
not be saved as an official. II you are
ever saved at all, it will be as a sinner.
Another characteristic of the prayer
of the publican was, it had a ring Of
confidence 1t was not cry of despair.
He knew he was going to get what he
, asked for. He wanted mercy. He
asked for it, expecting it. And do you
tell me, o man, that God has provided