The Jerusalem Sinner Saved; or, Good News for the Vilest of Men

Object.  But I was one of them that did spit in his face when he stood before his accusers.  I also was one that mocked him, when in anguish he hanged bleeding on the tree.  Is there room for me?

Peter.  For every one of you, says Peter.

Object.  But I was one of them that in his extremity said, give him gall and vinegar to drink.  Why may not I expect the same when anguish and guilt is upon me?

Peter.  Repent of these your wickednesses, and here is remission of sins for every one of you.

Object.  But I railed on him, I reviled him, I hated him, I rejoiced to see him mocked at by others.  Can there be hopes for me?

Peter.  There is for every one of you.  “Repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.”  Oh! what a blessed “Every one of you,” is here!  How willing was Peter, and the Lord Jesus, by his ministry, to catch these murderers with the word of the gospel, that they might be made monuments of the grace of God!  How unwilling, I say, was he, that any of these should escape the hand of mercy!  Yea, what an amazing wonder it is to think, that above all the world, and above every body in it, these should have the first offer of mercy!  “Beginning at Jerusalem.”

But was there not something of moment in this clause of the commission?  Did not Peter, think you, see a great deal in it, that he should thus begin with these men, and thus offer, so particularly, this grace to each particular man of them?

But, as I told you, this is not all; these Jerusalem sinners must have this offer again and again; every one of them must be offered it over and over.  Christ would not take their first rejection for a denial, nor their second repulse for a denial; but he will have grace offered once, and twice, and thrice, to these Jerusalem sinners.  Is not this amazing grace?  Christ will not be put off.  These are the sinners that are sinners indeed.  They are sinners of the biggest sort; consequently such as Christ can, if they convert and be saved, best serve his ends and designs upon.  Of which more anon.

But what a pitch of grace is this!  Christ is minded to amaze the world, and to shew, that he acteth not like the children of men.  This is that which he said of old.  “I will not execute the fierceness of my wrath, I will not return to destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not man;” Hos. xi. 9.  This is not the manner of men; men are shorter winded; men are soon moved to take vengeance, and to right themselves in a way of wrath and indignation.  But God is full of grace, full of patience, ready to forgive, and one that delights in mercy.  All this is seen in our text.  The biggest sinners must first be offered mercy; they must, I say, have the cream of the gospel offered unto them.

But we will a little proceed.  In the third chapter we find, that they who escaped converting by the first sermon, are called upon again, to accept of grace and forgiveness, for their murder committed upon the Son of God.  You have killed, yea, “you have denied, the holy one and the just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you; and killed the Prince of life.”  Mark, he falls again upon the very men that actually were, as you have it in the chapters following, his very betrayers and murderers, Acts iii. 14, 15; as being loath that they should escape the mercy of forgiveness; and exhorts them again to repent, that their sins might “be blotted out;” verses 19, 20.

Again, in the fourth chapter, he charges them afresh with this murder, ver. 10; but withal tells them, salvation is in no other.  Then, like a heavenly decoy, he puts himself also among them, to draw them the better under the net of the gospel; saying, “There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved;” ver. 12.

In the fifth chapter you find them railing at him, because he continued preaching among them salvation in the name of Jesus.  But he tells them, that that very Jesus whom they had slain and hanged on a tree, him God had raised up, and exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins: ver. 29–31.  Still insinuating, that though they had killed him, and to this day rejected him, yet his business was to bestow upon them repentance and forgiveness of sins.

’Tis true, after they began to kill again, and when nothing but killing would serve their turn, then they that were scattered abroad went every where preaching the word.  Yet even some of them so hankered after the conversion of the Jews, that they preached the gospel only to them.  Also the apostles still made their abode at Jerusalem, in hopes that they might yet let down their net for another draught of these Jerusalem sinners.  Neither did Paul and Barnabas, who were the ministers of God to the Gentiles, but offer the gospel, in the first place, to those of them that for their wickedness were scattered like vagabonds among the nations; yea, and when they rendered rebellion and blasphemy for their service and love, they replied, it was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to them; Acts i. 8; chap. xiii. 46, 47.

Nor was this their preaching unsuccessful among these people: but the Lord Jesus so wrought with the word thus spoken, that thousands of them came flocking to him for mercy.  Three thousand of them closed with him at the first; and afterwards two thousand more; for now they were in number about five thousand; whereas before sermons were preached to these murderers, the number of the disciples was not above “a hundred and twenty;” Acts i. 15; chap. ii. 41; chap. iv. 4.

Also among these people that thus flocked to him for mercy, there was a “great company of the priests;” chap. vi. 7.  Now the priests were they that were the greatest of these biggest sinners; they were the ringleaders, they were the inventors and ringleaders in the mischief.  It was they that set the people against the Lord Jesus, and that were the cause why the uproar increased, until Pilate had given sentence upon him.  “The chief priests and elders,” says the text, “persuaded (the people) the multitude,” that they should ask Barabbas, and destroy Jesus; Matt. xxvii. 20.  And yet behold the priests, yea, a great company of the priests, became obedient to the faith.

Oh the greatness of the grace of Christ, that he should be thus in love with the souls of Jerusalem sinners! that he should be thus delighted with the salvation of the Jerusalem sinners! that he should not only will that his gospel should be offered them, but that it should be offered unto them first, and before other sinners were admitted to a hearing of it.  “Begin at Jerusalem.”

Were this doctrine well believed, where would there be a place for a doubt, or a fear of the damnation of the soul, if the sinner be penitent, how bad a life soever he has lived, how many soever in number are his sins?

But this grace is hid from the eyes of men; the devil hides it from them; for he knows it is alluring, he knows it has an attracting virtue in it: for this is it that above all arguments can draw the soul to God.

I cannot help it, but must let drop another word.  The first church, the Jerusalem church, from whence the gospel was to be sent into all the world, was a church made up of Jerusalem sinners.  These great sinners were here the most shining monuments of the exceeding grace of God.

Thus you see I have proved the doctrine; and that not only by showing you that this was the practice of the Lord Jesus Christ in his lifetime, but his last will when he went up to God; saying, Begin to preach at Jerusalem.

Yea, it is yet further manifested, in that when his ministers first began to preach there, he joined his power to the word, to the converting of thousands of his betrayers and murderers, and also many of the ringleading priests to the faith.

I shall now proceed, and shall show you,

1.  The reasons of the point:

2.  And then make some application of the whole.

The observation, you know, is this: Jesus Christ would have mercy offered, in the first place, to the biggest sinners, to the Jerusalem sinners: “Preach repentance, and remission of sins, in my name, among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.”

The reasons of the point are:

First, Because the biggest sinners have most need thereof.  He that has most need, reason says, should be helped first.  I mean, when a helping hand is offered, and now it is: for the gospel of the grace of God is sent to help the world; Acts xvi. 9.  But the biggest sinner has most need.  Therefore, in reason, when mercy is sent down from heaven to men, the worst of men should have the first offer of it.  “Begin at Jerusalem.”  This is the reason which the Lord Christ himself renders, why in his lifetime he left the best, and turned him to the worst; why he sat so loose from the righteous, and stuck so close to the wicked.  “The whole,” saith he, “have no need of the physician, but the sick.  I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance;” Mark ii. 15–47.

Above you read, that the scribes and pharisees said to his disciples, “How is it that he eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners?”  Alas! they did not know the reason: but the Lord renders them one, and such an one as is both natural and cogent, saying, These have need, most need.  Their great necessity requires that I should be most friendly, and show my grace first to them.

Not that the other were sinless, and so had no need of a Saviour; but the publicans and their companions were the biggest sinners; they were, as to view, worse than the scribes; and therefore in reason should be helped first, because they had most need of a Saviour.

Men that are at the point to die have more need of the physician than they that are but now and then troubled with an heart-fainting qualm.  The publicans and sinners were, as it were, in the mouth of death; death was swallowing of them down: and therefore the Lord Jesus receives them first, offers them mercy first.  “The whole have no need of the physician, but the sick.  I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”  The sick, as I said, is the biggest sinner, whether he sees his disease or not.  He is stained from head to foot, from heart to life and conversation.  This man, in every man’s judgment, has the most need of mercy.  There is nothing attends him from bed to board, and from board to bed again, but the visible characters, and obvious symptoms, of eternal damnation.  This therefore is the man that has need, most need; and therefore in reason should be helped in the first place.  Thus it was with the people concerned in the text, they were the worst of sinners, Jerusalem sinners, sinners of the biggest size; and therefore such as had the greatest need; wherefore they must have mercy offered to them, before it be offered any where else in the world.  “Begin at Jerusalem,” offer mercy first to a Jerusalem sinner.  This man has most need, he is farthest from God, nearest to hell, and so one that has most need.  This man’s sins are in number the most, in cry the loudest, in weight the heaviest, and consequently will sink him soonest: wherefore he has most need of mercy.  This man is shut up in Satan’s hand, fastest bound in the cords of his sins: one that justice is whetting his sword to cut off; and therefore has most need, not only of mercy, but that it should be extended to him in the first place.

But a little further to show you the true nature of this reason, to wit, That Jesus Christ would have mercy offered, in the first place, to the biggest sinners.

First, Mercy ariseth from the bowels and compassion, from pity, and from a feeling of the condition of those in misery.  “In his love, and in his pity, he saveth us.”  And again, “The Lord is pitiful, very pitiful, and of great mercy;” Isa. lxiii. 9; James v. 11.

Now, where pity and compassion is, there is yearning of bowels; and where there is that, there is a readiness to help.  And, I say again, the more deplorable and dreadful the condition is, the more directly doth bowels and compassion turn themselves to such, and offer help and deliverance.  All this flows from our first scripture proof; I came to call them that have need; to call them first, while the rest look on and murmur.

“How shall I give thee up, Ephraim?”  Ephraim was a revolter from God, a man that had given himself up to devilism: a company of men, the ten tribes, that worshipped devils, while Judah kept with his God.  “But how shall I give thee up, Ephraim?  How shall I deliver thee, Israel?  How shall I make thee as Admah?  How shall I set thee as Zeboim? (and yet thou art worse than they: nor has Samaria committed half thy sins); Ezek. xvi. 46–51.  My heart is turned within me, and my repentings are kindled together;” Hos. xi. 8.

But where do you find that ever the Lord did thus yearn in his bowels for and after any self-righteous man?  No, no; they are the publicans and harlots, idolaters and Jerusalem sinners, for whom his bowels thus yearn and tumble about within him: for, alas! poor worms, they have most need of mercy.

Had not the good Samaritan more compassion for that man that fell among thieves (though that fall was occasioned by his going from the place where they worshipped God, to Jericho, the cursed city) than we read he had for any other besides?  His wine was for him, his oil was for him, his beast for him; his penny, his care, and his swaddling bands for him; for alas! wretch, he had most need; Luke x. 30–35.

Zaccheus the publican, the chief of the publicans, one that had made himself the richer by wronging of others; the Lord at that time singled him out from all the rest of his brother publicans, and that in the face of many Pharisees, and proclaimed in the audience of them all, that that day salvation was come to his house; Luke xix. 1–8.

The woman also that had been bound down by Satan for eighteen years together, his compassions putting him upon it, he loosed her, though those that stood by snarled at him for so doing; Luke xiii. 11–13,

And why the woman of Sarepta, and why Naaman the Syrian, rather than widows and lepers in Israel, but because their conditions were more deplorable, (for that) they were most forlorn, and farthest from help; Luke iv. 25, 27.

But I say, why all these, thus named? why have we not a catalogue of some holy men that were so in their own eyes, and in the judgment of the world?  Alas if at any time any of them are mentioned, how seemingly coldly doth the record of scripture present them to us?  Nicodemus, a night professor, and Simon the pharisee, with his fifty pence; and their great ignorance of the methods of grace, we have now and then touched upon.

Mercy seems to be out of his proper channel, when it deals with self-righteous men; but then it runs with a full stream when it extends itself to the biggest sinners.  As God’s mercy is not regulated by man’s goodness, nor obtained by man’s worthiness; so not much set out by saving of any such.  But more of this anon.

And here let me ask my reader a question: suppose that as thou art walking by some pond side, thou shouldst espy in it four or five children all in danger of drowning, and one in more danger than all the rest, judge which has most need to be helped out first?  I know thou wilt say, he that is nearest drowning.  Why, this is the case; the bigger sinner, the nearer drowning; therefore the bigger sinner the more need of mercy; yea, of help by mercy in the first place.  And to this our text agrees, when it saith, “Beginning at Jerusalem.”  Let the Jerusalem sinner, says Christ, have the first offer, the first invitation, the first tender of my grace and mercy, for he is the biggest sinner, and so has most need thereof.

Secondly, Christ Jesus would have mercy offered in the first place to the biggest sinners, because when they, any of them, receive it, it redounds most to the fame of his name.

Christ Jesus, as you may perceive, has put himself under the term of a physician, a doctor for curing of diseases: and you know that applause and fame, are things that physicians much desire.  That is it that helps them to patients, and that also that will help their patients to commit themselves to their skill for cure, with the more confidence and repose of spirit.  And the best way for a doctor or physician to get himself a name, is, in the first place, to take in hand, and cure some such as all others have given off for lost and dead.  Physicians get neither name nor fame by pricking of wheals, or pricking out thistles, or by laying of plaisters to the scratch of a pin; every old woman can do this.  But if they would have a name and a fame, if they will have it quickly they must, as I said, do some great and desperate cures.  Let them fetch one to life that was dead; let them recover one to his wits that was mad; let them make one that was born blind to see; or let them give ripe wits to a fool; these are notable cures, and he that can do thus, and if he doth thus first, he shall have the name and fame he desires; he may lie a-bed till noon.

Why, Christ Jesus forgiveth sins for a name, and so begets of himself a good report in the hearts of the children of men.  And therefore in reason he must be willing, as also he did command, that his mercy should be offered first to the biggest sinners.

“I will forgive their sins, iniquities, and transgressions,” says he, “and it shall turn to me for a name of joy, and a praise and an honour, before all the nations of the earth;” Jer. xxxiii. 8, 9.

And hence it is, that at his first appearing he took upon him to do such mighty works: he got a fame thereby, he got a name thereby; Matt. iv. 23, 24.

When Christ had cast the legion of devils out of the man of whom you read, Mark v., he bid him go home to his friends, and tell it: “Go home,” saith he, “to thy friends, and tell them how great things God has done for thee, and has had compassion on thee;” Mark v. 19.  Christ Jesus seeks a name, and desireth a fame in the world; and therefore, or the better to obtain that, he commands that mercy should first be proffered to the biggest sinners, because, by the saving of one of them he makes all men marvel.  As ’tis said of the man last mentioned, whom Christ cured towards the beginning of his ministry: “And he departed,” says the text, “and began to publish in Decapolis, how great things Jesus had done for him; and all men did marvel,” ver. 20.

When John told Christ, that they saw one casting out devils in his name, and they forbade him, because he followed not with them, what is the answer of Christ?  “Forbid him not: for there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name, that can lightly speak evil of me.”  No; they will rather cause his praise to be heard, and his name to be magnified, and so put glory on the head of Christ.

But we will follow a little our metaphor: Christ, as I said, has put himself under the term of a physician; consequently he desireth that his fame, as to the salvation of sinners, may spread abroad, and that the world may see what he can do.  And to this end, he has not only commanded, that the biggest sinners should have the first offer of his mercy, but has, as physicians do, put out his bills, and published his doings, that things may be read and talked of.  Yea, he has moreover, in these his blessed bills, the holy scriptures I mean, inserted the very names of persons, the places of their abode, and the great cures that, by the means of his salvations, he has wrought upon them to this very end.  Here is, Item, such a one, by my grace and redeeming blood, was made a monument of everlasting life; and such a one, by my perfect obedience, became an heir of glory.  And then he produceth their names.