Christ in the House
“This day is salvation come to this house.” — Luke xix., 9.
ZACCHEUS was a politician and a tax-gatherer. He had an honest calling, but the opportunity for “steal¬ ings” was so large, the temptation wTas too much for him. The Bible says he “was a sinner” — that is, in the public sense. How many fine men have been ruined by official position! It is an awful thing for any man to seek office under government unless his principles of integrity are deeply fixed. Many a man, upright in an insignificant position, has made shipwreck in a great one. As far as I can tell, in the city of Jericho this Zaccheus be¬ longed to wThat might be called the “Ring.” They had things their own way, successfully avoiding exposure — if by no other way, perhaps by hiring somebody to break in and steal the vouchers. Notwithstanding his bad reputation, there were streaks of good about him, as there is about almost every man. Gold is found in quartz, and sometimes in a very small percentage.
Jesus was coming to town. The people turned out en masse to see him. Here he comes — the Lord of Glory — on foot, dust-covered and road-weary, limping along the way, carrying the griefs and woes of the world. He looks to be sixty years of age when he is only about thirty. Zaccheus was a short man, and could not see over the people’s heads while standing on the ground; so he got up into a sycamore tree that swung its arm clear over the road. Jesus advanced amid the wild excitement of the surging crowd. The most honorable and popular men of the city are looking on, and trying to gain his attention. Jesus, instead of regarding them, looks up at the little man in the tree, and says, “Zaccheus, come dowm. I am going home with you.” Every body was disgusted to think that Christ would go home with so dishonorable a man.
I see Christ entering the front door of the house of Zaccheus. The King of heaven and earth sits down; and as he looks around on the place and the family, he pronounces the benediction of the text: “This day is salvation come to this house.”
Zaccheus had mounted the sycamore-tree out of mere inquisitiveness. He wanted to see how this stranger looked — the color of his eyes, the length of his hair, the contour of his features, the height of his stature. “Come down,” said Christ.
And so many people, in this day, get up into the tree of curiosity or speculation to see Christ. They ask a thousand queer questions about his divinity, about God’s sovereignty, and the eternal decrees. They speculate, and criticise, and hang on to the outside limb of a great sycamore. But they must come down from that if they want to be saved. We can not be saved as philosophers, but as little children. You can not go to heaven by way of Athens, but by way of Bethlehem. What matters it who are elected to be saved, when we know that unless wre believe and repent we shall all be damned? Why be perplexed about the way sin came into the world, when the great question is how we shall get sin driven out of our hearts? How many spend their time in crit-CHRIST IN THE HOUSE.
icism and religions speculation! They take the Hose of Sharon, or the Lily of the Yalley, pull out the anther, scatter the corolla, and say, “Is that the beautiful flower of religion that you are talking about?” Ho flower is beautiful after you have torn it all to pieces. The path to heaven is so plain that a fool need not make any mis¬ take about it, and yet men stop and cavil. Suppose that, going toward the Pacific slope, I had resolved that I would stop until I could kill all the grizzly bears and the panthers on either side of the way. I would never have got to the Pacific coast. When I went out to hunt the grizzly bear, the grizzly bear would have come out to hunt me. Here is a plain road to heaven. Men say they will not take a step on it until they can make game of all the theories that bark and growl at them from the thickets. They forget the fact that as they go out to hunt the theory, the theory comes out to hunt them, and so they perish. We must receive the kingdom of heaven in simplicity. William Pennington was one of the wisest men of this country — a governor of his own state, and afterward Speaker of the House of Representatives. Yet, when God called him to be a Christian, he went in, and sat down among some children who were applying for Church-membership, and said to his pastor, “Talk to me just as you do to these children, for I know nothing about it.” There is no need of bothering ourselves about mysteries when there are so many things that are plain.
Dr. Ludlow, my professor in the Theological Seminary, taught me a lesson I have never forgotten. While putting a variety of questions to him that were perplexing, he turned upon me somewhat in sternness, but more in love, and said, te Mr. Talmage, you will have to let God know some things that you don’t.” We tear our hands on the spines of the cactus instead of feasting our eye in its tropical bloom. A great company of people to¬ night sit swinging themselves on the sycamore-tree of their pride, and I cry to you, “Zaccheus, come down!” Come down out of your pride, out of your inquisitive¬ ness, out of your speculation. You can not ride into the gate of heaven with coach and four, postilion ahead, and lackey behind. “Except ye become as little children, ye can not enter into the kingdom of God.” “God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the mighty.” Zaccheus, come down! come down!
I notice that this tax-gatherer accompanied his surrender to Christ with the restoration of property that did not belong to him. He says, “If I have taken any thing by false accusation, I restore fourfold.” That is, if I have taxed any man for ten thousand dollars when he had only five thousand dollars of property, and put in my own pocket the tax for the last five thousand, I will restore to him fourfold. If I took from him ten dollars, I will give him forty dollars. If I took from him forty dollars, I will give him one hundred and sixty dollars.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been sent to Washington during the past few years as “conscience money? I suppose that money was sent by men who wanted to be Christians, but found they could not until they made restitution. There is no need of our trying to come to Christ as long as we keep fraudulently a dollar or a farthing in our possession that belongs to another. Suppose you have not money enough to pay your debts, and, for the sake of defrauding your creditors,
you put your property in your wife’s name. You might cry until the day of j udgment for pardon, hut you would not get it without first making restitution. In times of prosperity it is right, against a rainy day, to assign property to your wife; hut if, in time of perplexity, and for the sake of defrauding your creditors, you make such assignment, you become a culprit before God, and you may as well stop praying until you have made restitution. Or suppose one man loans another money on bond and mortgage, with the understanding that the mort¬ gage can lie quiet for several years, but as soon as the mortgage is given, commences foreclosure — the sheriff mounts the auction-block, and the property is struck down at half price, and the mortgagee buys it in. The mortgagee started to get the property at half price, and is a thief and a robber. Until he makes restitution, there is no mercy for him. Suppose you sell goods by a sample, and then afterward send to your customer an inferior quality of goods. You have committed a fraud, and there is no mercy for you until you have made restitution. Suppose you sell a man a handkerchief for silk, telling him it is all silk, and it is part cotton. No mercy for you until you have made restitution. Suppose you sell a man a horse, saying he is sound, and he afterward turns out to be spavined and balky. No mercy for you until you have made restitution.
Exodus xxii.: “If a man shall steal an ox or a sheep, and kill it or sell it, he shall restore five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep.; If a thief be found break¬ ing up, and be smitten that he die, there shall no blood be shed for him. If the sun be risen upon him, there shall be blood shed, for him, for lie should make full restitution: if he have nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft. If the theft be certainly found in his hand alive, whether it be ox, or ass, or sheep, he shall restore double. If a man shall cause a field or vineyard to be eaten, and shall put in his beast, and shall feed in an¬ other man’s field, of the best of his own field, and of the best of his own vineyard shall he make restitution.”
You say, “I can not make restitution. The parties whom I swindled are gone.” Then I say, “Take the money up to the American Bible Society and consecrate it to God.”
Zaccheus was wise when he disgorged his unrighteous gains, and it was his first step in the right direction.
The way being clear, Christ walked into the house of Zaccheus. He becomes a different man; his wife a different woman; the children are different. Oh! it makes a great change in any house when Christ comes into it. I shall not be satisfied until in every one of the houses of my congregation the Son of God takes up his permanent residence. How many beautiful homes are represented here to-day! There are pictures on the wall; there is music in the drawing-room; and luxuries in the wardrobe; and a full supply in the pantry. If you were half asleep with my sermon, there is one word with which I could wake you, and thrill you through and through, and that word is “home!” There are also houses of suffering represented here, where thqpe are neither pictures, nor wardrobe, nor adornment — only one room, and a plain cot, or a bunk in a corner; yet it is the place where your loved ones dwell, and your whole nature tin¬ gles with satisfaction when you think of it and call it home. Though the world may scoff at us, and pursue
us, and all the day we be tossed about, at eventide we sail into the harbor of home. Though there be no rest for us in the busy world, and we go trudging about, bearing burdens that well-nigh crush us, there is a refuge, and it hath an easy-chair in which we may sit, and a lounge where we may lie, and a serenity of peace in which we may repose, and that refuge is home. The English soldiers, sitting on the walls around Sebastopol, one night heard a company of musicians playing “Home, sweet Home,” and it is said that the whole army broke out in sobs and wailing, so great was their homesick¬ ness. God pity the poor, miserable wretch who has no home!
How suppose Christ should come into your house. First the wife and the mother would feel his presence. Religion almost always begins there. It is easier for women to become Christians than for us men. They do not fight so against God. If woman tempted man originally away from holiness, now she tempts him back. She may not make any fuss about it, but, somehow, every body in the house knows that there is a change in the wife and mother. She chides the children more gently. Her face sometimes lights up with an unearthly glow. She goes into some unoccupied room for a little while, and the husband goes not after her, nor asks her why she was there. He knows without asking that she has been praying. Te husband notices that her face is brighter than on the day when, years ago, they stood at the marriage-altar, and he knows that Jesus has been putting upon her brow a wreath sweeter than the orange-blossoms. She puts the children to bed, not satisfied with the formal prayer that they once offered, but she lingers now, and tells them of Jesus who blessed little children, and of the good place where they all hope to be at last. And then she kisses them good-night with something that the child feels to be a heavenly benediction — a something that shall hold on to the boy after he has become a man forty or fifty years of age; for there .is something in a good, loving Christian mother’s kiss that fifty years can not wipe off the cheek.
How the husband is distressed and annoyed, and almost vexed. If she would only speak to him, he wrould “blow her up.” He does not like to say any thing about it, but he knows that she has a hope that he has not, and a peace that he has not; and he knows that, dying as he now is, he can not go to the same place. He can not stand it any longer. Some Sunday night, as they sit in church, side by side, the floods of his soul break forth. He wants to pray, but does not know how. He hides his face, lest some of his worldly friends see him; but God’s Spirit arouses him, melts him, overwhelms him. And they go home — husband and wife — in silence, until they get to their room, when he cries out, “Oh, pray for me!” And they kneel down. They can not speak. The words will not come. But God does not want any words. He looks down and answers sob, and groan, and outgushing tenderness. That night they do not sleep any for talking of all the years wasted, and of that Savior who ceased not to call. Before morning they have laid their plans for a new life. Morning comes.’ Father and mother descend from the bedroom. The children do not know what is the matter. They never saw father with a Bible in his hand before. He says, “Come, children, I want you all to sit down while we read and pray.” The chil-M
dren look at each other, and are almost disposed to laugh; but they see that their parents are in deep earnest. It is a short chapter that the father reads. He is a good reader at other times, but now he does not get on much. He sees so much to linger on. His voice trembles. Every thing is so strangely new to him. They kneel — that is, the father and mother do; but the children come down one by one. They do not know that they must. It is some time before they all get down. The sentences are broken. The phrases are a little un¬ grammatical. The prayer begins abruptly and ends abruptly; but, as far as I can understand what they mean, it is about this: “O Savior! help us! We do not know how to pray. Teach us. We can not live any longer in the way we have been living. We start to-day for heaven. Help us to take these children along with us. Forgive us for all the past. Strengthen us for all the future. And when the journey is over, take us where Jesus is, and where the little babe is that we lost. Amen!”
It ended very abruptly; but the angels came out and leaned so far over to listen, they would have fallen off the battlement but for a stroke of their wings, and cried, “Hark! hark! Behold! He prays!”
That night there is a rap at the bedroom door. “Who is there?” cries the father. It is the oldest child. “What is the matter? Are you sick “No; I want to be saved.” Only a little while, and all the children are brought into the kingdom of God. And there is great joy in the house.
Years pass on. The telegraph goes click, click! What is the news flying over the country “Come home. Father is dying!” The children all gather. Some come in the last train. Some, too late for the train, take a carriage across the country. They stand around the dying bed of the father. The oldest son upholds the mother, and says, “Don’t cry, mother; I will take care of you.” The parting blessing is given. No long admonition; for he has, through years, been saying to his children all he had to say to them. It is a plain “Good-by,” and the remark, “I know you will all be kind to your mother,” and all is over.
“Life’s duty done, as sinks the clay,
Light from its load, the spirit flies;
While heaven and earth combine to say,
How bless’d the righteous when he dies!”
A whole family saved forever! If the deluge come, they are all in the ark — father, mother, sons, daughters. Together on earth, together in heaven. What makes it so? Explain it. Zaccheus one day took Jesus home with him. That is all. Salvation came to that house.
What sound is it I hear to-night! It is Jesus knock¬ ing at the door of your house.
“Behold! a stranger at the door:
B[e gently knocks — has knocked before.”
If you looked out of your window and saw me going up your front steps, you would not wait, but go yourself to open the door. Will you keep Jesus standing on the outside, his locks wet with the dews of the night? This day is salvation come to thy house. The great want of your house is not a new carpet, or costlier pictures, or richer furniture — it is Jesus!
Up to forty years men work for themselves; after that, for their children. Now, what do you propose to leave
them. Nothing but dollars! Alas! what an inheritance! It is more likely to be a curse than a blessing. Your own common sense and observation tell you that money, without the divine blessing, is a curse. You must soon leave your children. Your shoulders are not so strong as they were, and you know that they will soon have to carry their own burdens. Your eyesight is not so clear as once; they will soon have to pick out their own way. Your arm is not so mighty as once; they will soon have to fight their own battles. Oh! let it not be told on judgment day that you let your family start without the only safeguard — the religion of Christ. Give yourself no rest until your children are the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty. Your son does just as you do. He tries to wralk like you, and to talk like you. The daughter imitates the mother. Alas! if father and mother miss heaven, the children will. What an awful wreck! A whole family going down in one terrific rush — into an undone eternity! Crash! Crash! Crash!
Oh! let Jesus come into your house. Do not bolt the hall door, or the parlor door, or the kitchen door, or the bedroom door against him. Above all, do not bolt your heart.
I wTas in the army a little while. During the day the soldiers drilled, and at night they all went to their tents. So, to-night, I look on this august assembly as a great army. We have been drilling to-day. Now we are about to break ranks, and to go, each one to his family tent. May the Angel of the Covenant spread his wings over each one of those tents! God bless you and your children! Before ten o’clock to-night, build your altar. Take the family Bible lying on the parlor-table. Call together as many of your family as may be awake. Read a chapter, and then, if you can think of nothing else besides the Lord’s Prayer, say that. That will do. Heaven will have begun in your house. You can put your head on your pillow feeling that, whether you wake up in this world or the next, all is well. In that great, ponderous Book of the Judgment, where is recorded all the important events of the earth, you will read at last the statement that this was the day when salvation came into your house.
Oh Zaccheus, come down! come down! Jesus is passing by.