Saying and Doing
173
“The first.” This they said without realizing that they were pronouncing
sentence against themselves. Then there fell from Christ’s lips the
denunciation, “Verily I say unto you, That the publicans and the harlots
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go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came unto you in
the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not; but the publicans
and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye had seen it, repented
not afterward, that ye might believe him.”
John the Baptist came preaching truth, and by his preaching sinners
were convicted and converted. These would go into the kingdom of
heaven before the ones who in self-righteousness resisted the solemn
warning. The publicans and harlots were ignorant, but these learned
men knew the way of truth. Yet they refused to walk in the path which
leads to the Paradise of God. The truth that should have been to them a
savor of life unto life became a savor of death unto death. Open sinners
who loathed themselves had received baptism at the hands of John; but
these teachers were hypocrites. Their own stubborn hearts were the
obstacle to their receiving the truth. They resisted the conviction of
the Spirit of God. They refused obedience to God’s commandments.
Christ did not say to them, Ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven;
but He showed that the obstacle which prevented them from entering
was of their own creating. The door was still open to these Jewish
leaders; the invitation was
“Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, ... If ye
will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then ye
shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me above all people: for
all the earth is Mine: and ye shall be unto Me a kingdom
of priests, and an holy nation.”
Exodus 19:3-6
.
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still held out. Christ longed to see them convicted and converted.
The priests and elders of Israel spent their lives in religious cere-
monies, which they regarded as too sacred to be connected with secular
business. Therefore their lives were supposed to be wholly religious.
But they performed their ceremonies to be seen by men that they might
be thought by the world to be pious and devoted. While professing to
obey they refused to render obedience to God. They were not doers of
the truth which they professed to teach.