The Duty of Following Christ
W. Maclure. Luke 5:27-28 And after these things he went forth, and saw a publican, named Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he said to him, Follow me.… But, in the event which succeeds, we have an instance of still greater power than that which is involved in the healing of any temporal disease. We find Him controlling not merely the elements of nature, as he had often done, or the circumstances which conduce to the health of our temporal frames, as in the instance of the paralytic man, but we find Him swaying the very elements of the mind and will, and proving that the moral and the intellectual powers of man are no less subject to His sovereign control. "After these things," we are told, "He went forth, and saw a publican, named Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom: and lie said unto him, Follow Me." 1. In the first place, the individual named Levi, who is spoken of by St. Luke, is said to have been a publican — a term which is explained in some degree, when it is mentioned that he was found "sitting at the receipt of custom." It was thus that the name of publican became expressive, in their mind, of all that was abandoned and profane. There was nothing, for instance, in the character or condition of the individual before us to warrant his selection to this high and distinguished calling. There was no title existing in himself whereby he could claim it as peculiarly his own. He was a member of an obnoxious profession, and he was, so far as we know, unadorned with any lofty or brilliant attainments. We are not referring in the meantime to the condition of these men as poor and illiterate, and as affording from their original circumstances, as contrasted with the noble future discharge of their apostolic duties, a powerful argument for the truth and efficacy of our holy religion. We are referring to it simply as pointing out in the term, publican, in the present instance, and in the ideas which were usually associated with that term, the very condition in which by nature we are placed, and from which Christ is so willing to redeem us. Naturally, we say, there is nothing in any one of us to entitle us to selection on the part of Christ. On the contrary, there is everything that might lead Him to reject us, and dispose Him, in the purity of His character and the beauty of His own perfections, to pass us by as unworthy of His notice. In all our character and condition, naturally considered, and as seen in the light of His untainted holiness, there is nothing which His pure and omniscient eye can possibly desire. We are not engaged in His service. We are not contemplating His works. We are not endeavouring to ascend through the survey and admiration of these to the adoring contemplation of His excellence, or aspiring in the light of His perfections to have our natures assimilated to His. There is nothing of all this, when He comes to us on His errand of mercy, and calls upon us to follow Him as His disciples and His friends. We are engaged in the service of the world at that very time, intent, like the fishermen of Galilee, or the despised receiver of customs, on the affairs of a life which is only preparatory to another, but for which other we are not mindful or solicitous to prepare. Yes, my friends, we are either busied in the pursuit of some gainful and engrossing occupation, or we are sitting at destructive ease in the degradation of sin, reviewing our extending treasures, and yet thirsting to increase them. If active, we are not active in God's service — if at ease, we are not at ease in Zion, or because we have sought peace and found it of the Lord. We repeat, then, that we are selected by Christ in the exercise of free and sovereign compassion. We are called to be disciples of His, not because we have loved Him, but because He has loved us. 2. The inclination or willingness to follow onward to know the Lord, is not occasioned by any exercise of our own powers, but is wrought in us by the operation of Christ's own mighty power. But in Jesus there was nothing outwardly to distinguish Him. He was surrounded with no trappings of external dignity, no insignia of honour, no symbols of opulence or power. He was meek and lowly in His deportment — the reputed son of a carpenter; arrayed like the meanest of the people, and bearing in His aspect the suffering, yet subdued, expression of the man of sorrows. And yet He called the disciples, and they implicitly obeyed Him. No sooner did He issue the command than they hastened to fulfil it. He said to them, " Follow Me," and immediately they left all and followed Him. Now, we argue from this, that a great and decided change must have instantaneously passed upon their minds. The mere command of Jesus, considered apart from His divinity — considered apart from His power over the understanding and the heart, could never have produced this effect. We say, then, that the grace of God must have operated directly in this instance to the enlightenment of their minds, and the regulation of their wills. On no other principle can we account for the conduct they displayed. The Spirit of the Lord was with them, and at once they felt it to be their duty and their privilege to obey. They resembled the men who acknowledged Saul to be their king, when Samuel announced him to be the chosen of God to the throne of Israel, and when the children of Belial were despising and setting him at nought: they resembled these firm and devoted men, of whom it is said, in the expressive language of Scripture, "that when Saul went up to Gibeah, there went up with him likewise a baud of men, whose hearts God had touched." In the case of the disciples, God also had touched and influenced their hearts. 3. We would remark, that when the Spirit of God does touch our hearts, and the power of Christ is thus made manifest in our lives, we are at once enlightened as to two things — the right of Jesus to command, and His worthiness as a King and Saviour to be obeyed. All this was exemplified in the conduct of the disciples. True, they had not at this time the most clear views of His character, or the most spiritual notions of the kingdom He was to establish, but still they saw, or rather felt enough, to convince them that Christ was worthy of their obedience and love; and, therefore, without a moment's hesitation or reserve, they yielded the submission which He required, and determined to "follow Him whithersoever He went." We admit, then, that they were not enlightened all at once, and that they were still imperfect as to their conceptions of Christ's heavenly kingdom. But this is the way in which the Spirit of Divine grace in general acts upon the human understanding. He works in a gradual and progressive manner, disclosing more and more of the beauty of Christ, and of the loveliness of sacred truth, and shining inwardly upon the soul with somewhat of the brightening effulgence of that light of heaven, which rises at first with the faint dawnings of the eastern sky, until at last it opens and expands into the glorious lustre of the perfect day. But still the work of the Spirit leads us at once to exercise confidence in Christ. Now, the right which Christ has to the obedience of us all, is simply this: He has created us, and we are bound to serve Him; He has preserved us, and we are bound to honour Him; He has redeemed us, and we are bound to love Him. In every character and relation He is entitled to our love, and homage, and gratitude, and esteem. But superadded to this, there is now the powerful, the constraining tie of sovereign and redeeming love. In following Christ, my friends, we must follow Him to duty. When the Saviour issued His command to His disciples, there was before Him the chequered scene of His labours; and they, as the companions of His wanderings, had to go forth and mingle in the work. Again, my friends, we must follow the Saviour in the path of suffering. When Christ told His disciples to follow Him, He had yet before Him the scenes of His agony and death — the privations of His wanderings to feel, the hall of Pilate to encounter, the garden of Gethsemane to bear, the torture of the cross, in unmitigated anguish, to endure. And His disciples, whom He had called to follow Him, had likewise their griefs and sufferings to undergo. "In the world ye shall have tribulation," was the warning which He gave them. Not that the way of life is a dark and painful career, unsoothed by a single comfort, unalleviated by a single joy. The truth is, that the follower of Christ has joys which the world cannot understand, just as he has sorrows which it cannot share. He has a peace of mind which passeth knowledge, which rises far above the comprehension of the mere natural man; but then he has griefs which a stranger cannot interfere with. There is encouragement, however, the amplest and surest encouragement. Hear the language of Christ to His people: "I will make My grace to be sufficient for you; I will perfect My strength in your weakness; I will guide you by My counsel, and receive you to My glory." (W. Maclure.) Parallel Verses KJV: And after these things he went forth, and saw a publican, named Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he said unto him, Follow me. WEB: After these things he went out, and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax office, and said to him, "Follow me!"