obedience

For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.

Luke 19:10.

It is a lovely story, friends, that leads up to these words. Which of your hearts does not beat in sympathy with this little Zacchaeus? He has been hearing of Jesus for some time. The news of Him had spread far and wide, and this was the Lord’s last journey before the end. By that time oh! so many had heard of Him; and especially such men as Zacchaeus were roused to a desire to see Him. You know all about the class of men to which he belonged, how these tax-gatherers were looked down upon. And perhaps it was a rather ungracious thing for them to gather up the money for the Roman Empire. But the Empire was keeping order there, and the main point with regard to the publican, whoever he might be, was that he gave all fair-play. The higher, however, this man had risen, and the richer he became, of course he was the more looked down upon by the men who thought, “We are the people of God,” who thought that because they obeyed certain laws (to which they had added a good many that the Lord knew nothing about) they were on good terms with heaven. They were respectable people, they were sound orthodox Pharisees mostly; and this man was a publican—a word that they always coupled with the other word, a sinner. We shall wait till we hear his words to the Lord before we try to know just what kind of a man he was.