Jesus, the Friend of Sinners — Joshua Daniel

Welcome to the Lord's Challenge with Joshua Daniel. The Layman's Evangelical Fellowship International is a ministry reaching people from all walks of life since 1935. After a life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ at the age of 16, Joshua Daniel has been declaring the marvelous deliverance from sin, which is freely given to all those who turn to the loving Savior.

From small villages to large cities, in many parts of the globe, through revival meetings, literature, radio, internet, and television, Joshua Daniel has been tirelessly laboring, trusting God to supply all that is needed.

Wherever this message has gone out, broken relationships have been restored, sickness healed, ill-gotten money returned, and thieves turn into givers. We now invite you to watch and receive the invaluable blessing that God has for you.

Christ’s Love for Sinners at the Cross

Now, of course, we have always heard of our Lord, the Lord Jesus Christ, being the friend of sinners. Let us begin with Romans, the fifth chapter. The eighth verse,. But God commended His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

You know, my dear friends, where the cross of Jesus Christ is unknown, this concept that there is love and forgiveness and salvation for a sinner is hard to project on anybody. You see, how can it be, how can a holy God embrace someone out of the gutter, you know?

You can think of a mother who lifts her child who has slipped into a puddle of muddy water, and she does not think of her expensive dress, just embraces the little one with delight and relief that the little one has been rescued from imminent death.

Now, so, when we look at the cross of Jesus Christ, forgiveness for the man, for the person who is nailing him to the cross, forgiveness for the one who whipped him and lacerated his back, forgiveness for the one who rent the air with the shakrai, crucify him.

Now, this is all very hard to believe, in fact, that in the face of such hatred, the Lord Jesus Christ breathes His prayer, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Forgiveness, for God commended, presented His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

What promise did He see in any of us? A promise of holy living, a promise of rejection of this world's values, which are essentially selfish values. You know, there is nothing in me, there is no great evil perpetrated by just riches, but riches, as long as I hold tight to them and riches that deplete my compassion, or even exclude my compassion, riches unapplied to righteous causes, what are they going to do?

They are going to harm me. I am going to accumulate them for what? To what purpose? So, there would be no meaning at all to riches which are not applied to bringing the kingdom of God in. You know, the Lord Jesus Christ said that He must go and declare the glad tidings of the kingdom of heaven.

The Glad Tidings of the Kingdom

The glad tidings, He called it. You see, now sometimes we tend to take away the glad from the tidings. Now, we have absolutely no right to do it. These are glad tidings, they have to be glad tidings. You know, they promise that some stores are going to be open from midnight, is it?

It's called midnight madness. Of course, it is madness when you go hunting after bargains at midnight. Well, it's insanity. Okay, but that's how our world goes, you know. Thanksgiving with a splurge of selfish buying.

Now, if Thanksgiving is all thanks to Joshua Daniel, well, it's no thanks at all. If it is all a thanks to self, what good does it do? It may boost your ego and your pride and hasten your downfall. But apart from that, I see no good which can come from such a thing.

The Sinful Woman’s Confidence in Jesus

Now, you know, in the seventh chapter of Luke, let us turn to the seventh chapter of Luke, where Jesus Christ was seated at dinner in the Pharisees' house. Thirty-seventh verse,. And behold, a woman of the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisees' house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, and stood at his feet behind him weeping.

Now, however did this woman regard herself to be a welcome guest? She was an uninvited person. As a matter of fact, she would not have gained admission into that house, had it not been for the fact that she almost gatecrashed the place, came in, headed straight to the Lord Jesus, and began to kiss his feet.

She wouldn't have dared to have gone into that house. It was a Pharisees' house. He was no owner of the place, the host, was no friend to characters like herself, no friend at all. And yet, when she saw Jesus, she felt she would not be refused.

You know, my dear friends, we must be very careful that we are not a kind of forbidding people, you know, grim and grimacing type of people who keep a long face and an unattractive appearance, so that people are not at ease at all when they approach you.

Sometimes we must confess that many people who call themselves Christians are grim, forbidding people. They are not a very pleasant people. And I cannot understand this. Look at this woman's assurance.

I will not be cast out. My Lord will receive me. Look at that kind of assurance. What acquaintance did she have with Jesus? Nothing at all. She was just, she is introduced to us as just one of those very bad characters who had acquired a name for herself of disrepute.

And there she was, gate crashing this place, coming in and falling at the feet of Jesus. She was emboldened to even kiss those feet. Now how did she get that kind of idea or assurance? Christ will receive me.

This sinless Son of God will receive me. Are we projecting such a Savior? You know, being remiss in this regard is a serious crime. In other words, we are misrepresenting Jesus. We are making him inaccessible.

Presenting Jesus as an Accessible Savior

I think we Christians have made, many Christians at least, let me say, have made Jesus Christ a kind of very remote personality, an inaccessible person, not just that welcoming person. I cannot understand, you know, how Islam, which acknowledges Jesus Christ as a prophet, but denies his crucifixion or resurrection, even if they should just acknowledge that he is a prophet, that would invite comparisons, isn't it, with Muhammad, their prophet?

And I cannot see how anybody would dare put their deity or their prophet or their guru or whatever you might call him beside the Lord Jesus and invite a comparison, since there is hardly any comparison at all.

It is an obvious fact of history. But look at the fact that in the face of historical evidence that Muhammad was a man of great violence. That is how his whole beginnings were. And we have not been able to project the Lord Jesus as such a contrast, such a beautiful person, that a billion, nearly a billion people did not say, I would rather have Jesus.

I feel that it is a grave failure, a kind of unaccountable and unpardonable failure, that the beauty of Jesus has not been brought out and made absolutely incontrovertible in the face of such darkness.

I can't understand. Maybe it is the historical greed which has been manifested by nations which were called Christian. It may be other acts of grave cruelty perpetrated in the time of the Crusades. However, Christ has never been acknowledged as the Savior.

Jesus the Physician Among Sinners

Now, my friends, let us turn to Matthew, ninth chapter, ninth verse. And Jesus, and as Jesus passed forth, passed by, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the receipt of custom, and he saith unto him, Follow me.

And he arose and followed him. And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, Behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your master with publicans and sinners?

But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that behold need not a physician, but they that are sick. So, here again, the company in which the Lord Jesus Christ sat was the kind of company with which none of those religious crowd of scribes or Pharisees would ever keep.

They would never keep such company. They had nothing to give such a company. You see, folks, suppose you're seated next to a politician. I wonder what you will have to pass on to that person. Politics today being as corrupt as it is, what is it that you will be able to give that man?

Would you be able to challenge him and say, Is it really your objective to lift this nation? Is it really your objective or is it only to feather your nest and make yourself a little more comfortable or a lot more comfortable?

Bringing Righteousness to Public Life

Or suppose you were seated next to a commissioner of the IRS or the top bosses, one of the top bosses of the internal revenue. Would you have something which you can give him? Would you be able to say, Hey, look, the nation is losing billions from tax cheats who do not pay in their taxes.

Billions and much of this deficit budget can be easily counterbalanced if we bring the righteousness of Jesus into the nation's conscience. You know, very often it is found that some of the top people have been evading taxes.

Top people who know better. And as for the fraud involved in all the handouts that are given and the false claims, Medicare and Medicaid claims, false claims put in by doctors that we have educated a bunch of thieves to be physicians and surgeons is something terrible.

Would we have something to give this nation in the realm of economics and the budgetary woes of the country? Here was the Lord Jesus amongst these financial officials who were handling the taxes and he could give them something higher.

Levi Leaves His Earthly Ties to Follow Jesus

And it was so evident to them by the steps which their colleague Levi took. The immediate, you know, rising up, what do we see? Sitting at the receipt of custom. Follow me. He said unto him, follow me.

And he arose and followed him. You know, it's not easy to cut away some of these earthly ties. It's not easy at all. We have got a strong idea that it is the dollar that will eventually secure our joy or our well-being.

That's a fallacy. But it is so deeply entrenched in our minds that to find a release like Levi's release is something which is most amazing.

This program is brought to you by the Layman's Evangelical Fellowship International, an interdenominational missionary and prayer group working for revival around the globe. We invite every lay person to become God's ally in changing his or her corner of the world.

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You can also call us at 248 -486 -6326. Until we meet again next week, may God bless you.