The first thing we have to do when we come to God is to confess. If there is any sin clustering around the heart, bear in mind we can have no communion with God. It is because we have sin about our hearts that our prayers do not go any higher than our head. We can not get God’s favor if we have any iniquity in our hearts.
People, like the Pharisee, have only been educated to pray. If they did not pray every night their consciences would trouble them, and they would get out of bed and say their prayers; but the moment they get off their knees, perhaps, you may hear them swearing.
A man may just as well get a string of beads and pray to them. It would do him as much good.
This Pharisee’s prayer showed no spirit of contrition; there was no petition; he did not ask any thing from God. This is a queer kind of prayer:
“Lord, I thank Thee that I am not as other men are--extortionate, unjust, adulterous--or even as the poor publican.”
Not a petition in his prayer. It was a prayerless prayer--it was downright mockery. But how many men have just got into that cradle and been rocked to sleep by the devil!
A short time ago I put this question to a man:
“Are you a Christian?”
“Of course I am; I say my prayers every night.”
“But do you ever pray?”
“Didn’t I tell you I prayed?”
“But do you ever pray?”
“Why, of course I do; haven’t I said so?”
I found that he prayed, but he only went through the form, and, after a little, I found that he had been in the habit of swearing.
“How is this?” I asked. “Swearing and praying! Do your prayers ever go any higher than your head?”
“Well, I have sometimes thought that they did not.”
My friends, if you are not in communion with God your prayers are but forms; you are living in formalism, and your prayers will go no higher than your head.
How many people just go through the form! They can not rest unless they say their prayers. How many are there with whom it is only a matter of education?
But this Pharisee trusted in his own righteousness; he ignored the mercy of God and the love of Jesus. He was measuring himself by his own rule. Now, if you want to measure yourself, do it by God’s law--by God’s requirements.
A great many people have a rule of their own, by which they measure themselves, and by that rule they are perfectly ready and willing to forgive themselves.
So it was with this Pharisee. The idea of coming to God and asking His forgiveness never enters his mind.
While talking to a man--one of those Pharisees--some time ago, about God and the need of Christ, he said to me:
“I can do without Christ; I do not want Him. I am ready to stand before God any time.”
That man was trusting in his own righteousness.
Now, take a good look at this Pharisee. You know, I have an idea that the Bible is like an album. I go into a man’s house, and, while waiting for him, I take up an album from a table and open it.
I look at a picture.
“Why, that looks like a man I know.”
I turn over and look at another.
“Well, I know that man.”
By-and-by, I come upon another.
“Why, that man looks like my brother.”
I am getting pretty near home. I keep turning over the leaves.
“Well, I declare! Here is a man who lives in the same street I do. Why, he is my next-door neighbor.”
Then I come upon another, and I see--myself.
My friends, if you read your Bibles, you will find your own pictures there. It will just describe you.
Now, it may be there is some Pharisee here tonight. If there is, let him turn to the third chapter of John, and see what Christ said to the Pharisee:
“Except a man be born again, he can not enter the kingdom of God.”
Nicodemus, no doubt, was one of the fairest specimens of a man in Jerusalem in those days, yet he had to be born again, else he could not enter into the kingdom of God.
“But,” you may say, “I am not a Pharisee. I am a poor and miserable sinner--too bad to come to Him.” Well, turn to the woman of Samaria, and see what He said to her.
See what a difference there was between that publican and that Pharisee. There was as great a distance between them as between the Sun and the Moon.
One was in the very highest station, and the other occupied the very worst station. One had only himself and his sins to bring to God, and the other was trying to bring in his position and his aristocracy.
I tell you, when a man gets a true sight of himself, all his position and station and excellences drop.
See this prayer:
“I thank God.”
“I am not.”
“I fast.”
“I give.”
“I possess.”
Why, if he had delivered a long prayer, and the copy had been put into the printers’ hands, they would have had to send out for some “I’s.”
“I thank God,” “I,” “I,” “I.”
When a man prays--not with himself, but to God--he does not exalt himself; he does not pass a eulogy on himself. He falls flat down in the dust before God. In that prayer you do not find him thanking God for what He had done for him. It was a heartless and prayerless prayer--merely a form.