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THE KING’S BUSINESS
moralist and redeemed outcast now filled with intense love to the Redeemer. Jesus is far better pleased with the loving peni tents, deep though they have been in sin, than the Simons whose outward lives may have been exemplary, but who have never realized that they are sinners and whose hearts are now as cold as their lives have been clean. Thursday, November 18. Luke 7:47-50. Jesus said that the woman’s great love proved she was a forgiven sinner. By that He did not mean that she was forgiven be cause she loved much; on the contrary, He Himself said her faith saved her (v. 50), but what He did mean was that her sense of sins forgiven led to this great love, and so her great love was proof that her sins had been forgiven. Are we proving that our sins are forgiven by loving much? Not for one mo ment did Jesus gloss over her sins. He is too holy to even minimize sin. “Her sins which are many" was His very searching word. But then He turns to the woman with that wondrous word of comfort and blessing, “Thy sins are forgiven.” Those words were the sweetest music that ever fell on that woman’s ear, and Jesus is say ing today to every person who believes in Him, “T hy sins are forgiven ” (Acts 13:38, 39). That woman had a right to go out and say, “I know my sins are forgiven.” She had the best possible proof of it, the sure word of Him, not one word of Whom shall ever fail (Matt. 24:35). Every believer in Christ has the same sure word that his sins are forgiven. It would not have been pre sumption for this woman to say "I know my sins are forgiven.” It would have been pre sumption for her to doubt it. It was not a question at all of what she felt, but simply of what Jesus said, and with us the forgive ness of our sins is not at all a question of what we feel, but simply of what God says, and God says that every believer ’ s sins are forgiven (Acts 13:38, 39; 10:43). He says it in His Word, and every believer should know that his sins are forgiven sim ply because God says so. He should ask no
other evidence. It was a very significant question that our Lord’s hearers asked, “Who is this that overcometh sins?” The answer is plain, He is.the Son of God. Her faith had saved her. Her faith was simply this, that Jesus could and would forgive sins. That is saving faith. Its foundation was His own Word (Matt. 11:28). Being saved, she went “into peace.” There is no other road into peace, but simply faith in Jesus for salvation (Rom. 5:1). Friday, November 19. Luke 8:1-15. We have already considered this parable in our notes of Matt. 13:1-23; Mark 4:1-20, but we do well- to consider it again, for we shall never exhaust it. The great central thought of the parable is found in the elev enth verse, “The seed is the Word of God.” That is, the seed out of which the new life springs (1 Peter 1:23). If we wish to see people born again, the seed that we must sow in their hearts is the “Word of God.” No other instrument will accomplish the de sired work (cf. Ps. 10:17). The second great thought of the parable is that whether or no the seed comes to the intended and desired fruitage, depends entirely upon what we do with the seed; that is to say, upon how we hear the word. There are four classes of hearers, and consequently four results of the sowing of the seed. The first class of hearers are those who hear without hearing; who have no appreciation whatever of the Word of God that they hear spoken. The devil is ever present to im mediately take away the seed sown, out of the minds and hearts of such hearers. The second class of hearers are those where there is some passing appreciation of the word. At first “they receive the word with joy,” but they have no deep realization of its meaning and its requirements; there is no depth of soil; the seed springs up with out sending down roots into the deeper depths of the human heart. There is a promise of fruitage, but only for a: brief time. When the scorching sun of persecu tion and testing arises they immediately fall away. The third class of hearers are those
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