{"content":[{"text":"It happened as I was driving to an industrial plant here in Southern California where I was \n scheduled to speak to a large group of men at a noon service, and again as I was given a brief \n tour of the plant—the story of Zacchaeus kept recurring in my mind. Suddenly I realized \n something new had penetrated my heart, and it seemed that the Lord revealed to me the purpose \n of this wonderful incident in the ministry of Jesus. So under the inspiration of just having \n received a new truth, I scrapped the message I had prepared and spoke at that noonday service on \n Zacchaeus. The reaction to the message and the results from it clearly indicated to me that this \n had, indeed, been of the Lord! \n The importance of the encounter with Zacchaeus in the life of our Lord is that it affords an \n illustration for one of the difficult texts of Scripture, James 2:20:","bbox":{"left":0.117663,"top":0.088603,"width":0.762965,"height":0.17700300000000002}},{"text":"But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?","bbox":{"left":0.15295,"top":0.28177,"width":0.599922,"height":0.01963300000000001}},{"text":"One of the problems of the church is reconciling the positions of Paul and James as to the place \n of good works in the plan of salvation. I had long felt that if a Bible illustration of this great truth \n was to be found, it would help identify the place of good works in the gospel of grace. The new \n truth which came to me that day was that Zacchaeus is the illustration for which I had been \n searching. \n Those of us who belong to the school that emphasizes the grace of God in salvation are often \n reluctant to speak of good works for fear of complicating God‘s glorious grace. Not only does \n God save without the good works of man even entering into the picture, but God saves in spite of \n man‘s so–called good works. Yet we recognize that all too often the practical aspect of good \n works has not had its proper place.","bbox":{"left":0.117663,"top":0.315121,"width":0.762655,"height":0.177004}},{"text":"There is a Movement…","bbox":{"left":0.401768,"top":0.507224,"width":0.19646399999999997,"height":0.020981999999999945}},{"text":"Now let us consider this record of Zacchaeus.","bbox":{"left":0.147069,"top":0.541628,"width":0.358028,"height":0.020209000000000032}},{"text":"Then Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. (Luke 19:1)","bbox":{"left":0.15295,"top":0.576471,"width":0.4895679999999999,"height":0.0208600000000001}},{"text":"In the record of Luke there is a movement, beginning in chapter 9 when Jesus left Caesarea \n Philippi, which would take Him to Jerusalem and to the cross. In Luke 9:51 we read, ―Now it \n came to pass, when the time had come for Him to be received up, that He steadfastly set His face \n to go to Jerusalem.‖ Our Lord moved out of that area, through Galilee and Samaria; then He \n apparently crossed the Jordan River and continued down the east side until He was over against \n Jericho. As He entered Jericho, there was a blind man. Actually there were two blind men, but \n here Luke gives us the record of only one of them. There was, however, according to Luke, one \n blind man who encountered Jesus as He entered the city and another blind man who met Him \n when He was leaving the city, as we shall see. \n The movement here is through Jericho. He entered and passed through. He never spent a \n night in Jericho, for it was the accursed city. This was the first city that God had given to the \n people of Israel when they returned to enter the promised land after forty years in the wilderness. \n It was the city from which nothing personal was to be salvaged, and a curse was placed on any \n person who would attempt to rebuild it. If you want to read the record, in 1 Kings 16:34 a man \n rebuilt the city and reaped the curse in all its fullness—both he and his family. Though \n eventually the city was rebuilt, it remained an accursed city. It was a city where there was great","bbox":{"left":0.117663,"top":0.611314,"width":0.7601260000000001,"height":0.281566}},{"text":"2","bbox":{"left":0.872737,"top":0.917543,"width":0.009801999999999977,"height":0.020209000000000032}}],"images_bbox":[],"images_bbox_not_text_overlap":[]}