How was it that a man like Levi, with aims so low and pleasures so earthly, was found to listen, not only with willingness, but with profit and attention, to the teachings of the Lord Jesus? We cannot explain that difficulty away by saying that our Saviour spoke seldom or leniently of this particular class of men; for it would be difficult to name any sin, save hypocrisy, which He reproved with greater frequency and severity than covetousness. Anything more opposite than the tone of His preaching to the state of public teaching and practice it would be impossible to conceive, and yet the fact is incontestable, that in this class of publicans our Saviour found numerous disciples and one apostle. How, then, are we to explain it? The result was due, I believe,
I. To the honesty of the Lord Jesus Himself. In censuring sinners He reproved all alike, not only the poor and despised, but also the nominally pious and respectable. No station was so lofty as to lift the offender above the reach of His censure; no profession so pious or respectable as to cloak from his searching eye the pride, or lust, or covetousness, which might lurk concealed beneath it. By such a prophet the publicans could bear to be censured, who told the Pharisees that they were accursed outcasts, that their phylacteries and broad garments, and greetings in the market-place, were all hypocrisy. If, then, we are desiring that the love of Christ should touch men's hearts, and change their lives, let us endeavour to be more like our Saviour. More bold and true in what we say; more simple and self-denying in what we do; practising no more than what we believe and what we intend.
II. But then, in the second place, if we would worthily follow the Lord Jesus, our Master, we must not only imitate His truthfulness and self-denial, but we must be content, like Matthew, to leave all in order to do it; content, that is to say, with no more of this world's wealth and honour and pleasant things, than are consistent with a simple and holy-hearted surrender of our wills and ways to the will and direction of our blessed Saviour. If there be any pleasure, any pursuit, any friend, any indulgence, any gain, which is inconsistent with the devotion of our life and work and heart to the service and glory of our Lord, all that must be given up without reservation; we must throw it off and cast it behind us, finally and decisively, as Matthew did, when, rising up from the toll-booth at the call of the Saviour, he deserted his occupation for ever.
Bishop Moorhouse, Penny Pulpit,No. 536.
I. One of the most conspicuous instances of the attractive power of Jesus is presented by the narrative in our text. The Lord laid a spell on Matthew, and he yielded in a moment. Christ drew him irresistibly, imperially. He swept him with Him in His progress as a satellite is swept by its sun. And what was the secret of the spell? The Man Christ Jesus embodied all the higher thoughts, influences, aspirations, and hopes, by which His life had ever been blessed. Man is double. He is what he is, what the world and the devil have made him, and he is what he was meant to be, what his soul pines to be his idea. And he and his idea dwell together, strange comrades in this case of flesh. The one is and suffers; the other dreams, and while it dreams is blessed.
II. The Lord came by as Matthew was brooding there; the Lord comes by as you sit brooding; He is the Author and Finisher of those dreams. His is the voice which has often spoken to you in night watches, and stirred your aspirations; in bitter sorrow He has come to you and kindled your hope; out of the depths He has lifted you to visions of a glorious future, and made the germs of all blessed fruits stir in the cold breast of your despair. Every voice of the better nature, every pining of the nobler heart, every vision of the purer imagination, every stirring of the immortal spirit that you have from God, every sigh for deliverance from sin, every resolution to fight it out, God helping you, with the devil, is the Lord's inspiration; and they all rise up and beckon you to follow Him, when Jesus of Nazareth at length draws near. "And Matthew left all, rose up, and followed Him." Young man, standing there by the devil's toll-booth, paying in the tax of thy young life to his accursed treasury, go thou and do likewise.
J. Baldwin Brown, The Sunday Afternoon,p. 106.
References: Luke 5:27-29. Homilist,new series, vol. vii., p. 141; Preacher's Monthly,vol. ii., p. 190. Luke 5:27-32. A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve,p. 20. Luke 5:27-39. W. Hanna, Our Lord's Life on Earth,p. 154.Luke 5:28. G. Huntington, Sermons for Holy Seasons,p. 249.