Today we continue in our study of the Lord's words in Luke chapter 15, verses 1 to 7. Luke chapter 15, verses 1 to 7. Here we have this well-known parable of the lost sheep. The parable of the lost sheep. Luke chapter 15, verses 1 to 7.
Now, if any of you don't feel warm enough, please feel free to get up and get your jacket and put something on, because we don't want any of you to catch a cold. Luke chapter 15, verses 1 to 7. The parallel passage to this is in Matthew chapter 18, verses 10 to 14. But right now we will stay in Luke chapter 15. And this is what we read here:
"Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, 'This man receives sinners and eats with them.' So he told them this parable: 'What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one which is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, "Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost." Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.'"
Before I turn to this message, I would say that if any person here doesn't understand English, and if you know someone who doesn't understand English too well, I hope you'll let them know that there is simultaneous translation available in the back. I wonder if the chairman had announced this earlier. But in any case, if you notice someone who needs it, just let them know.
The parable of the lost sheep. Now here is another beautiful parable. And first I would like to mention this point at the beginning. The tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near. Well, what are tax collectors and sinners? Tax collectors are the people who collected taxes for the Romans. That I'm sure you know very well already. Tax collectors were people who served the Roman government in a certain way, by gathering taxes from the Jews, who were at this time under the Roman power. That is why tax collectors were often regarded as traitors. They were hated by the Jewish population. And so they were left out in the cold. They were socially ostracized, that is, isolated.
What were sinners? Well, the term "sinners" in the Bible is very important to understand. It does not only refer to people who were, say, adulterers or murderers or anything like this. In fact, "sinners" in the Bible has a much wider term. For example, shepherds were regarded as sinners. Also donkey drivers — people who, in those days, of course, didn't have trucks or jeeps to carry goods around, so what did you have? You had donkeys. Donkey drivers were regarded as sinners. Tanners, for example, people who tanned leather, were called sinners. They were regarded as people who were unclean. So it's important to understand that the term "sinner" in the Bible is much wider than the way in which we use it.
Now, why were these people called sinners? This group of people were called sinners because they were regarded as being in trades or professions which either were dishonest in their dealings, and a great amount of dishonesty was involved. Shepherds came to be regarded as sinners because sometimes they would take their sheep to graze on private lands without seeking permission. They were said to do various dishonest things. Well, that's strange, because I'm sure they're not the only ones who are doing dishonest things. But they, as a class, were regarded as sinners. There were also people who were regarded as sinners because they had a lot of contact with the non-Jews, with the Gentiles. If you were a merchant who had a lot of contact with Gentiles, with non-Jews — there was strict separation between Jews and Gentiles — but if you went over that border and you did business with foreigners, you would be regarded as a sinner, as unclean.
Now, it's important to grasp this point because the Lord Jesus speaks about a shepherd in this parable, which, according to the Mishnah, the Jewish law, was a trade where people were regarded as sinners. So the Jews, the Pharisees, who regarded themselves as super-holy people, despised all people like this. Shepherds, and tanners, and donkey peddlers, and donkey drivers, and peddlers on the streets. And this kind of people — these small businessmen — they were all regarded as unclean, as sinners. They were socially low-class and outcast people. And so that is the point that the Lord Jesus chooses here in this parable to use the picture of a shepherd. Shepherd is very important because in the Old Testament, God himself is pictured as a shepherd. "The Lord is my shepherd," as you all know from the 23rd Psalm.
But the Pharisees and the scribes, these Bible scholars, so-called, as time went on, began to themselves make rules and regulations and human traditions, and soon began to class various groups of people as sinners. Among these, of course, were the tax collectors, since they had dealings with the Romans, and since they were regarded as traitors, and all these kind of people.
So the Lord Jesus pictures himself as a shepherd. Now, the Pharisees, you notice in the second verse, are murmuring. They are grumbling about this thing. He is supposed to be a rabbi, a teacher. Jesus is a teacher of God's word, and he mixed with this group of social outcasts. These low-class people, these people who are unclean, these people that one should have nothing to do with if one was a self-respecting teacher of the Bible. So the implication was that Jesus was not a self-respecting teacher of the Bible. He had no regard for the traditions of the Pharisees and the scribes.
Now, why was this the case? Well, the Jews felt that in order to keep themselves pure, one should not associate with this kind of people, this kind of sinners. One should be separate from them, keep away from them, so as not to be contaminated by them. But the Lord Jesus was not afraid to be contaminated. He was not afraid. Why? Because his holiness was the kind that could not be contaminated.
You will find, as you read the Gospels, that the Lord Jesus was a most approachable person. And I find that Christians should be just like this. He was never snobbish. He never just associated with high-class people. In fact, you will notice that he always reserved his scorn for the high class. In fact, he was an ideal mixer with what is today called the proletariat, the workers, the lower classes. Jesus loved this kind of person. And he loved them in such a way that he reached out to them. He went out to them. And that is why, as I have mentioned to you before, whenever he dealt with the learned, with the high-class people, you notice in him a certain toughness, a certain severity, a certain hardness. Such as when Nicodemus, that great leader of the Jews, a high government official, came to see the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus received him with no ceremony, gave him no face at all. It was to people like Nicodemus, government leaders among the Pharisees, that he spoke with a sharpness. "Are you a teacher of the Jews, and you do not know these things?" He is very firm, very sharp with them. But to the outcast, the bruised reed he will not break. The wounded, the bruised reed, he doesn't break. The burning flax, the flax that is smoking, it is running out of oil, it is weak, it has run out of supply — he does not quench. He is very gentle with those who are down and out. I wonder if we have this heart of Jesus.
He is never separate, in the sense that he is never afraid to mix with the people of the world, because he is not afraid to be contaminated. I once in England went into a pub. I must say, I pulled all my courage together to go into a pub. I don't know if you know what a pub is. A pub in England is a public house. That is where people go in to drink beers and to drink wine, and where all the sinners gather together for their social center. And I went in there to have a drink — not of beer or of wine. In fact, I went for a soft drink, and you can get those too. But I remember how I wondered if I was being contaminated by going into a pub. Imagine, if a Christian were seen in a pub, in a drinking place, what that looks like. I found myself, and then I felt deeply rebuked in my heart for my attitude. I thought to myself, we as Christians have become just like the Pharisees and scribes. We have decided that people who go to pubs are sinners and low-class, morally speaking, people. And therefore, we don't associate with this kind of people, otherwise we get contaminated. What kind of holiness have we got? A kind of holiness that's so easily contaminated, so quickly defiled? No.
What I see about the holiness of the Lord Jesus is a holiness that does not get defiled, but in fact makes everyone else who touches him holy. And when I pondered this point — and the point that I have shared with those in training some weeks ago — about this holiness that conquers, the holiness that overcomes, there is only one thing in the Old Testament that I read that makes everything holy and everyone holy that touches it. You know what that is? It is the altar of sacrifice. The altar of sacrifice — anyone who touches it becomes holy. In other words, you cannot pollute the altar of sacrifice. You cannot make it unholy by touching it. It makes you holy, even though you are unholy. Now, what kind of holiness do we have? And of this altar of sacrifice, we read about that in Exodus 29, verse 37, for example. There we read, in Exodus 29:37, that anyone who touches the altar of sacrifice, on which the burnt offerings are offered to God, becomes holy. In fact, all the things associated with the altar — the utensils of the altar, the instruments that are used with the altar — for example, also make you holy if you touch them. In Exodus 30, verse 29, indeed, even the offerings on the altar make you holy if you come into contact with them. Everything that has to do with the altar makes the person holy who touches it.
And I find, when I come into the New Testament, I find that the Lord Jesus is exactly this. He is the altar, and he is the sacrifice. Anyone who touches him becomes holy. You cannot pollute Jesus by touching him. He makes you holy. And that is why, as he moved among the sinners, he transformed the sinners into saints. They could not make him a sinner. He made them saints. Because he himself was the sacrifice.
Now, if you have, as a Christian, become a sacrifice for God, a living sacrifice, as we read about in Romans chapter 12, verses 1 and 2, then you will not become polluted by other people's sins when you come into contact with them. You should be able to make them holy through the power of God working in you. Christians don't have to hide themselves. Christians are so weak, so defensive, so afraid. And the kind of Christians who are weak and defensive are the kind of Christians who have never become a sacrifice poured out for God. This kind of Christian is never defensive. He is never scared to go into contact with the people of the world or fear that he might lose his faith, that he might become contaminated, that he might become polluted. What kind of holiness have you got? If it is the holiness of the altar, because you have become a sacrifice and have come into contact with the altar, then you will make holy the others.
I would to God that we as a church become Christians of the kind that cause others to become holy. That is not afraid to associate with sinners, with non-Christians. Why are you scared of non-Christians? Do you think that the power in them is greater than the power in you? What kind of Christianity have we got? If the power of God is in us, the Holy Spirit is in us, and we are a living sacrifice, how can we be polluted by contact with a non-Christian? It is they who will be changed. It is they whose lives will be affected. It is they who will be transformed — unless you believe their power is greater than yours.
And that is why, for example, in the Bible it says that anyone who is unclean, by touching another person, makes that person unclean. For example, the woman with the issue of blood — whoever she touched, under Jewish law, that person became unclean. If she sits on a chair, that chair becomes unclean, and anyone who sits on that chair after her becomes unclean. Well, how complicated can you get? That is powerful uncleanness. It makes everything unclean. And if she touched the Lord Jesus, under Jewish law, she would make the Lord Jesus unclean. But oh no, she doesn't. It is exactly the opposite that happens. When she touches the Lord Jesus, she becomes clean. Because the power in the Lord Jesus goes out and makes her clean. You remember how the Lord Jesus said, "Power has gone out of me. Who has touched me?" And the crowd of disciples said, "What do you mean, who touched you? Everybody is touching you. Everybody is jostling around." He says, "No, I am not talking about that. Somebody has drawn power from me." And the woman confessed, "I was the one who touched you and was healed." His holiness is a powerful holiness. It is a holiness that makes others holy. Transforming holiness. Is that your holiness?
But I find that so many Christians are so afraid. If you are in hospital, they invite you out to a meeting, a sherry party. "Oh, if I go there I will become a sinner. I will be contaminated. And I cannot go to this place and I cannot go there." What kind of holiness have you got? You should have the kind of holiness that goes in there and transforms everybody that comes into touch with you. Who come into contact with you and say, "Hey, this man — he's got something there." I pray that God so make us that we know what it is to be a living sacrifice. That is why I have constantly preached on total commitment. Because that is what sacrifice means. When you have offered yourself totally to God, you have become a living sacrifice. Then you have a holiness that overpowers uncleanness. I am not afraid to go into a pub. I am not afraid to go anywhere. Because I know that the power in me, the power of God in me, the Holy Spirit, overcomes any unholiness around the place.
And anyway, have we forgotten that we were sinners? Have we forgotten that we are no better than they? Oh no. We must bear in mind this holiness that is not afraid to reach out to sinners, that doesn't look down on people because they have not yet believed. That is disgraceful. There is one thing I do not tolerate about some people — it is their sense that they are so spiritually superior that they must not touch anybody else because other people contaminate them. Everybody is dirty; only they are clean. Well, if they are dirty, make them clean. That's our job, because we were once dirty too, and we have been cleansed. Now it's time to pass on that cleansing holiness to others. That is the Christian life. The Christian life that is not always cowering behind its own shell, having to hide itself, but that reaches out and conquers, transforms all that comes into contact with it.
And so we find here that the Pharisees are like so many Christians today. They set up separate groups of people that we should not have dealings with. This kind and that kind of sinners. The kind of people who smoke — you don't talk with them, they are sinners. The kind of people who drink — they are sinners. The kind of people who go to movies — they are sinners. The people who read newspapers on Sundays are sinners. And the whole world is full of sinners, so what are we going to do? I think we should apply to be shot off to the moon and start our colony somewhere up there. We are put here in the world to reach out with a transforming holiness. To go out to those sinners, take them by the hand, lead them on to the truth in Christ Jesus. That is the Christian life.
Now thanks be to God that the Lord Jesus didn't sit there in heaven and look down on us and say, "Oh, these are sinners. I am holy. I don't touch this kind of people." Where would we all be if that was Jesus' attitude? If Jesus had the same attitude as the Pharisees, none of us would have a chance. We would have no hope at all. But he left his home and he came into this world. What for? To look for the likes of you and me, wretched sinners, down-and-outs. He picked us up out of the gutter. When the Lord picked me up, I was quite literally almost in the gutter. Such is his grace. I was in terrible condition by that time. I had descended from the heights down into the gutter of poverty, living at that time under the communists, having lost everything. I know what it is to be in the gutter. Never do I despise the poor again, because I know what it feels like. And it was then, when I was sleeping amidst bicycles in the storage room, that the Lord Jesus reached out his hand to me and took me and brought me to himself. I was not too dirty, too low down for him, even then.
So we thank the Lord that this is what this parable is about. The shepherd who comes out and goes forth searching for that sheep that was lost. Now let me describe to you a little bit about this parable so that we can get this picture together. Here the Lord Jesus tells us in verse 4 onwards about a shepherd who has a hundred sheep. Now a flock of one hundred sheep — and sometimes this background material helps us to picture the situation, takes us back into the picture of those days — a flock of one hundred sheep is a medium-sized flock by the standards of Palestine. The poorer people had flocks of maybe twenty or thirty sheep. The rich people had flocks of up to two or three hundred sheep. According to the Jewish law in the Talmud, a person with three hundred sheep was regarded as unusually well off. He was a well-to-do man. So this man with a hundred sheep that is pictured here is pictured as a sort of average, medium-sized flock owner. And so the picture is designed to show us that here is a shepherd, and the reason for this hundred is because people with a flock of that size were able still to pay attention to each one of his sheep.
You will notice that this parable implies that he had no hired worker. He was looking after the one hundred sheep himself. When you have two or three hundred sheep, you can't manage to look after so many on your own. You need to have, for every hundred sheep, another worker, another hireling. You have to hire somebody to help you look after the sheep. There are too many then. But with one hundred sheep, you can manage to look after them yourself. And what the shepherds did in those days was, of course, you needed constantly to count your sheep because the sheep would be grazing away in the hills.
Here you find the word translated "wilderness," and if you compare the Matthew passage — the wilderness here is not the desert, by the way. Sheep don't graze in the desert. The wilderness is just the place where people don't live. It's out in the countryside. It's where the pasture lands are. The wilderness is simply uncultivated land, wild land which has not been planted or cultivated because the terrain is too rough for that. You can cultivate flat lands, but you cannot cultivate this kind of rocky land where grass grows, and you can graze sheep, you can feed sheep on it, but you cannot cultivate it. This kind of land was called "wilderness." It has nothing to do with the desert. As a young Christian, nobody ever told me this, so I constantly wondered: what are the sheep doing in the desert? Exactly how do you feed sheep in the desert? In fact, wilderness has nothing to do with desert at all. It is simply uncultivated land because it is rocky land and is not fit for cultivation, but the rough grass that grows there is very suitable for feeding the flocks. And it is usually in the hill country of Judea — that is the area around Jerusalem, around Bethlehem. If you have visited the place or looked at a map, you will know that that is hilly country. It is very hilly and rocky, and you cannot cultivate that kind of land. It is very difficult to cultivate. There is not enough topsoil there. And so this is the hilly land of Judea that we are talking about, and not some desert.
But because they graze around in the hills and the rocks, and they wander around among the hills, it is very easy to have a sheep that goes astray. And so the shepherd needs to count his sheep. He needs to count his sheep every day to make sure that everyone is there. Now a hundred sheep is quite a lot, but also, as we saw, not that many. But you do not see at a glance whether any is missing. You have to count them one by one to see whether you have all hundred of them there. And usually the counting was done at night when the shepherd would bring his sheep into a fold.
Now what is a fold? A fold was simply a kind of pen, a kind of place that you make by piling a lot of rocks one on top of another to form a kind of wall around it. And in this enclosure formed by these rocks — and rocks are very plentiful in Judea. You just walk around, pick them up, and pile them one on top of another, and you soon have a wall which encloses the whole area so that while you are sleeping, you don't find that your sheep have all wandered off and next morning you wake up and you are left with no sheep at all. And so you close them in inside this rock wall. The other advantage, of course, is in case a stray wolf comes around; he won't carry off one of your sheep. There were not that many wolves in Judea, but occasionally there was one that came around, and so one had to watch out for that as well.
So there you see that as he brought his sheep into the fold, into this rocky enclosure with this wall around it, he counted his sheep: one, two, three, so he knows whether he has got his hundred sheep there. Now that night, when he is counting his sheep, the shepherd discovers — he counts to ninety-nine, and where is the hundred? One is missing. So what can he do? He has to leave his sheep, presumably put up some more rocks to close off completely around the enclosure so the sheep don't come out, and off he goes searching for his one lost sheep.
It's very interesting that this is so true to life. It was a common experience. It was something that every Jew knew about because sheep were so plentiful and there were so many shepherds out in the countryside. Everybody knew about this kind of practice. But it's very interesting too. I think many of you have heard about the Qumran documents, the Dead Sea Scrolls as they are called, which were discovered in 1947. Now remarkably, the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered through a shepherd boy who had lost one of his goats. Now today the Arabs tend to keep goats rather than sheep. Goats are a little bit tougher, and they can feed on poorer soil. Today the soil, often near the edge of the desert, between the wilderness and the desert, is poor and the feeding is tough. And so goats are tougher creatures than sheep, which are rather weaker. And so today many of the Arabs, the Palestinians, tend to raise goats instead of sheep. Goats, however, are very bad for grazing land, as you might know, because goats, when they feed upon the grass, tend to pull the whole grass out with the roots. Sheep, when they chew it, cut the top part off, leaving the roots. So if you keep goats long enough, you might find yourself with literally a desert on your hands, because they pull roots and everything out altogether. And so that is why the Palestinian shepherds have to take their flocks elsewhere, because if you have too many goats, soon the whole area is reduced to a desert. They are quite something. But they are tough creatures.
But you will know that in 1947, this goatherd — this boy, this young man who was looking after goats — in fact he had a flock of 55 goats — discovered that when he counted his goats, one was missing. And he did exactly what the shepherd did. He put his goats under the care of one of his friends, and he went out looking for the goat that had been lost. And so he looked up into the rocks near the Dead Sea, and there he saw something there in this rocky enclave, and he thought, "Maybe my goat has climbed up there." You know, goats are good at climbing. So he went up there to look for his goat. And that's how he stumbled upon the cave, which is now called Qumran Cave No. 1. Because in due time, the archaeologists later discovered many other caves there, with all these important documents in the caves. And this is how, actually because of having lost a sheep, today we have what is known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. And what the Dead Sea Scrolls has done for us, of course, has confirmed to us — and that is some of its major importance — it has confirmed to us how accurate, how exact is the Old Testament manuscript that we now have in our hands. That the Bible manuscripts that we have in our hands today are very, very accurate. Because those Qumran manuscripts, the oldest Old Testament manuscripts that exist now, date to the time of the Lord Jesus and up to 200 years before the time of the Lord Jesus. And so these documents proved to be very important.
Of course, our friend the goatherd who stumbled on the cave and found these fragments had no clue what they meant. Not being a scholar, he couldn't, of course, even understand what was in those things. And so he thought that he might sell this thing off as some antiques in Jerusalem. Maybe some antique dealer would handle this. And some fragments of this thing came into the hands of a scholar in Jerusalem. And he asked, "Where did this thing come from? These are very ancient documents. Where would they come from?" And so he traced back from one dealer to another until he learned that it had come from a cave. And so the archaeologists set forth in search of these caves. As a result of that, we have today these Qumran documents.
So we find that even up to the present century this thing is still happening. Now the next thing we find is that he goes in search, and notice these beautiful words. He searches until — at the end of verse 4 — "until he finds it." He does not give up. He goes looking into every cave, into every hole in the ground in case the sheep had fallen into it, looking behind every bush, everywhere he is looking. He does not give up until he finds it. I think of those beautiful words concerning the Lord Jesus, his love for his disciples in John, that having loved his own, he loved them to the end. He doesn't give up. Just now, those in the witness in song team were singing that his love holds on to us. It does not let us go. That is his love. He goes on searching and searching. He doesn't let go. Such is the pursuing love of God.
Now, having found it, he picks up this lost sheep. I am told by sheep people that when a sheep gets lost, it gets so frightened and it gets so discouraged that it just lies down, helpless on the ground. It doesn't know what to do. And so this is the reason why the shepherd picks it up, because it is so lost and so frightened and so helpless that it will not walk, it will not go anywhere. It just lies down behind the bush somewhere, helpless. And so the shepherd picks it up and carries it home.
Now, the next beautiful thing in this passage is — notice this, because we'll come to this in a moment — we are told that this shepherd doesn't carry the sheep back to the fold, but he carries him home, in verse 6. And so, verse 5: "And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing." And verse 6: "And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors." This picture of carrying the lost sheep back on his shoulders is one that you have seen in Christian art. I think the early Christians loved to portray this picture. The way the sheep was carried was: the shepherd put it around his neck, the front legs here, the hind legs here, and he holds the legs of the sheep together with the sheep around his neck, carrying him home. And so we find that he comes home — and this is important to understand for this parable, as I shall come back to in a moment.
Now let us come to the spiritual significance of this.
# The Parable of the Lost Sheep (Part 2)
...but to Christians, in the first instance. "The Lord is my shepherd." Wherever you find the word "sheep" in the Bible, it will in the Old Testament refer to the people of Israel, not to the other people in the world, but only to the people of God, the people of Israel. And so you can see that, for example, in Ezekiel chapter 34, where God speaks of Israel as his sheep. Everywhere in the Old Testament, sheep refers to the people of God. In the context in Matthew, you need only look at Matthew to see what goes on before the passage, before Matthew chapter 18 and verse 10, and after chapter 18 and verse 14. That is, look at the context, before and after, and you will see that the whole context deals with Christians. A Christian that has strayed away. That is what the whole of Matthew 18 is about. And that is why, just before this passage, it speaks about falling into temptation. He was tempted.
Why does a sheep go astray? Well, presumably it is wandering along and it sees there — oh, this delicious green grass. So it goes along there and chews this green grass. And then when it has chewed this part, it looks over there and sees another patch of nice green grass further on. So it wanders over and chews that other nice piece of green grass over there. And then it sees another patch, and so it goes on and on, further and further away. It is led away, drawn away through its eyes, its temptation. So we find in Matthew 18 that the sheep we are talking about is in fact a stray Christian. A stray believer. Nothing to do with a non-Christian.
When we come to the Luke passage, we find very much the same thing. But here this application has become wider. Take for example the previous verses, just before this, at the end of Luke chapter 14. It says, "Salt is good. But if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?" Now we know from Matthew chapter 5 that salt refers to Christians. "You are the salt of the earth." And in Matthew chapter 5 too, he says that if the salt has lost its taste. Exactly the same parallel to this passage. So here too it is referring to Christians. When we look further on, we will find, for example, the parable of the lost son. Well, if a son didn't first belong to the father, how can he be called a son? So the whole picture of the sheep in the first instance is important to observe that it deals with Christians who have strayed away.
And unfortunately, every church does not lack some examples of such Christians who strayed away. Tempted into sin by doing things that they should not have done. By doing things which are illegal. Things of this sort, because of a certain necessity, they were tempted and they fell into sin. They were drawn away. But here the passage is that we should not condemn them but have compassion upon them. We should seek to draw them back. We should yearn for them with our hearts. We should not immediately condemn them as unworthy of any more love. We should go after them. Seek for them. To bring them back to the fold.
Now it is quite true, though, that this principle could also be applied — this outreaching love of God can also be applied to the non-Christian. That is perfectly true. All I am saying is that it is important to observe that in the context of this passage, the first application is to Christians. And then by way of extension, that same love of God reaches out also to non-Christians who have never been his before. You can hardly be "lost" if you never belonged to someone in the first place. If I say I lost my watch, it implies that I had a watch before. I could lose it. If I never had a watch, I can hardly say I have found my watch. If you never had a watch, how can you find it? And so it is important to grasp. In verse 6 it says, "Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost." It is his in the first place.
So, once we have grasped this principle, the next thing that comes forth from this passage is to grasp: why does one go astray? Why does anyone go astray? Well, we have seen already that it has to do with temptation, but it goes deeper. In Mark chapter 12, verse 24, the Lord Jesus says, "You err, you go astray." In the Greek, it's the same word, basically. "You go astray because you do not know the scriptures nor the power of God." That is the same word in Mark chapter 12, verse 24, as that in Matthew chapter 18, verse 12. Both have to do with going astray. You go astray. Why? Why do people go astray? Because they do not know God's word, and they do not experience or have not experienced his power.
Now, if you know these two things, then by the grace of God, you will not go astray. Many Christians, because they are not rooted in the word of God — that is why I am so concerned that in this church we constantly get rooted in the word of God, that we work into the word of God, that you may know his word. Not because I want you to be Bible scholars or intellectuals. It's because that will prevent you from going astray, because you know what his word is about any given thing. Many Christians do things wrong because they have not absorbed his word into their lives, that changes them. And the second thing is because they have not experienced his power. Have you experienced his power? I constantly desire that Christians know his power — that you know his word, know his power. Many times you find something in God's word and you put it into practice, and then you experience how God does this thing. You experience his power. And so it is still connected with his word. It is knowing his word and doing his word. It is through doing his word that we know his power.
For example, I read in Matthew chapter 6 that God feeds the birds of the air, that he clothes the lilies of the field. Now I have put into practice that teaching in my life. I don't talk from theory. I stake my life on it. I say, "Lord, here I am. I am going to trust you to provide me with my physical needs, my food and my clothing." And what did I discover? I discover his power when I do his word. Now this is the way to learn his power. But so many Christians — they do not do these things. They do not study his word, and they do not apply it in their lives. And so in due time, they stray away. They get lost. And so difficult often it is to find them and to bring them back again.
But the beauty of this parable speaks to us about God's lovingkindness. That even though we are lost, even though we stray away, God still yearns for us. His heart still goes out for us. He still cares for us. Maybe other people have given up hope on us. But not God. He will seek us and seek us until there is no other way left.
This is something so beautiful about God. In the Bible I read in Micah chapter 7, verse 18, there is a passage that I love so much. And so many times I ponder this passage. Micah chapter 7 and verse 18. This is what Micah, that great prophet of God, says in his prayer: "Who is a God like thee, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion upon us. He will tread our iniquities underfoot. Thou will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea." God just yearns for us. He will pardon us. Now there is nothing so bad as when we sin, to run away from God. As I have said before, that is just when you need him most. But every time we sin, we develop a guilt complex. When we develop a guilt complex, we dare not come back to God again. Have you had that feeling? You do something wrong, and you dare not see God again. You say, "I can't come into this prayer. I dare not pray. God will not listen to me." Remember this verse in Micah chapter 7, verse 18: "Who is a pardoning God like thee?" He will cast our sins into the depths of the sea. Let us only return to him, and he will abundantly pardon.
And that takes me to Isaiah chapter 55 and verse 7. This is another wonderful verse. And this is where the words "abundantly pardon" come in. He not only will pardon; he will abundantly pardon. In other words, we don't know whether God will say, "Okay, I forgive you. But don't you dare do this again," with a kind of attitude that forgives but is very punishing in its forgiving. No. What we read here about God is this: "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." Provided we forsake the wicked way and our wicked thoughts.
Now this leads me to this other picture in Isaiah chapter 65, verse 2, and quoted in Romans chapter 10, verse 21. And this picture has constantly touched my heart about God. What we read here in Romans 10, verse 21, is the picture of God. And there we read, where Paul says, "All day long I have stretched forth my hands to a stubborn and disobedient people." Now I try to picture that in your mind — the picture of God stretching forth his hands. Can you see God standing there and stretching out his hands to what kind of person? To a stubborn and disobedient person. That arrogant look on the man's face. And God's gentleness, with his hands stretched out. Can you picture that in your mind? I must say, many times I've looked at that picture and thought, "I never thought of God like that."
And then I think of the words of the Lord Jesus: "How often would I have spread out my wings and gathered you under my wings, as a hen gathers its chicks." God's outstretched hand. It really touches me in the heart. His lovingkindness. Oh, how great. But he does not forgive us unconditionally. He doesn't say, "Well, I'll turn a blind eye to your sin." Of course, he will forgive us if we turn from our wicked ways.
And this brings me finally to this point in this parable about repentance. The key idea here is repentance. We must not miss this point in this parable. And this is the essential difference between a sheep and a person. You may go and pick up the sheep. The sheep doesn't resist. It doesn't do anything. In fact, it couldn't resist. You pick it up and you carry it home. But if you think of that picture as some kind of irresistible grace, then you have missed the picture altogether. Not at all. Because if you look at the key words in the last verse of this parable, you will see what it means. In verse 7: "So I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance." Now here the key idea of repentance is brought in. The sheep cannot repent. But we must repent before he can carry us home. And carry us home where? Where is Jesus' home? His home is in the heavenly places. To bring us back to heaven. That's where he will carry us home. But, as we see, the sheep do not talk about repenting. It is human beings who must repent.
And the Lord Jesus sees immediately that we might miss the point and think that he will save us quite regardless of our repentance. But that's not possible. Here he tells us: "Over one sinner who repents." In this verse there is both the verb "repent" and the noun "repentance." Now, it is so important for us as Christians to understand the meaning of repentance. And so I want to close on this particular note. Do you know what repentance means? Many people think of repentance as simply being sorry for one's sins. That's not repentance in the Bible. Being sorry for one's sins is not the basic meaning of repentance. It does involve a certain sorrow, but that is not what it's about. Repentance — the very word, as some of you will know — means in the Greek "the change of mind." Metanoia. Meta — to change. Noia — the mind. The change of mind. The change of our way of thinking. That is much deeper than a change of feeling.
Now, this is essential for us to understand if we are going to become Christians at all in any deep sense of the word. Because so many people have become Christians without really having repented. Let me tell you that the first word of Jesus' preaching was "Repent." That was the key word in his preaching. In Matthew chapter 4, verse 17, for example, and Mark chapter 1, verse 15. The Lord Jesus began his ministry with the words, "Repent, because God's kingdom is at hand." And the passage in Luke chapter 5, verse 32, is very close to this passage here: "I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."
The apostolic preaching stressed repentance in the same way. In Acts chapter 2, verse 38, and Acts chapter 3, verse 19, the apostles preached repentance in each case. And again in Acts chapter 17, verse 30, the apostle tells us that God commands all men everywhere to repent. And he commands us to repent because he does not want us to perish. If you don't repent, you will perish. And that is why 2 Peter chapter 3, verse 9, tells us this very thing: he desires that all men will have the chance to repent. God is very gracious and very patient, giving us time to repent.
Moreover, repentance is not just for non-Christians. Many people think that it is non-Christians who repent; we don't repent. The word "repentance" applies as much to the Christian as to the non-Christian. And that is why in the letters to the seven churches, you will find the word "repent" occurring again and again. In Revelation chapter 2, for example, verses 5 and 16 and 21 and 22. And chapter 3, verses 3 and 19. They all call upon Christians to repent from individual sins. So we can repent generally, but we must repent also in particular things. I find that I need to repent about various things from week to week. Things in which I must change my attitude completely.
But that takes us now to the basic idea of repentance. Repentance involves a fundamental change of mind. A renewing of the mind. A change of attitude. A change in our behavior. And that means that in time there will be a change in our personality. If you change your attitude, you change your mind, you change your behavior, your whole personality will change. And that's how you come to 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 17: "If any man be in Christ, the old things are passed away; the new things have come." You have become a new creature. You have changed fundamentally.
Now this is very different from preaching a gospel in which you can be saved simply by believing that Jesus died for your sins. You see, to preach like that is not to preach repentance at all. It is not to preach the message of Jesus. It is not to preach the message of the apostles, who preach repentance, who preach that you must change fundamentally your attitude and not just accept certain things to be true. No one is saved just by believing these things. There must first and foremost — I beg of you to understand this — there must be first and foremost the fundamental change in your heart, in your whole attitude towards life, in the way you look at things, in the way you think, in the way you behave. Anyone who tells me that he is a Christian and he is saved because he believes that Jesus died for his sins, and I look at him and there is no change in his behavior and his attitude — I don't believe a word he says. That is not Christianity. But when I look at a person whose attitude has changed, whose behavior has changed, then I know that this person is a Christian.
Now consider yourself today. If you think of yourself as a Christian — since you became a Christian, has there been a fundamental change in your way of thinking, in your attitude towards people, in the way you do things? If not, you still have not yet understood repentance. You have still not become a Christian in the biblical sense of the word. And I am very concerned about this, because recently I have noticed a situation that happened, particularly perhaps with one or two persons who have slowly drifted away from the Lord. And I know why they have drifted away from the Lord. Because they have not repented. They have gone back to the sins that they once committed. They have gone back, like the pig, back into wallowing in the mud again.
You see why? This can happen to you. You can become a Christian, and for a time you separate yourself from certain sins. You don't do them anymore. But not doing those things does not necessarily mean repentance. Your attitude towards those things has not changed. For example, you might have enjoyed certain sinful thoughts when you were a non-Christian. Some people, as non-Christians, liked to read pornography. They enjoyed reading pornography, looking at these magazines with nude women on the covers and things of this sort. They enjoyed that. It gave them a kick. It was a kind of drug to them. When they became Christians, they stopped looking at those things. They stopped doing these things. Right. But their fundamental attitude to those things had not changed. Because in their minds, they still enjoyed those things. But for a time, they put them away. They put them away because they felt, "Well, it's not good. It's corrupting my thinking. Maybe I should put a stop to this for a time." But their attitude to those things had not fundamentally changed. The love of sin had not fundamentally changed. And if your attitude has not changed, you have not fundamentally repented. There is no change of mind.
You might have been sorry about those things. But you can be sorry without changing your mind. You still go back and do it again the next time. And you will do it again the next time after that. You see how important it is to distinguish between just being sorry and being changed in your mind. When you look at this thing and you say, "No. I am finished with this. I don't enjoy the thoughts of these things anymore. I don't enjoy sin and all this kind of thing, because my attitude to these things has changed." I don't just put a distance between them, because it is easy to recover the distance again and go back. But once your thinking has changed — and you know why your thinking has changed — in other words, a Christian has to be more than just emotional. He has to sit down and think. "I have got to change my mind about this thing. And I have got to understand why I am going to change my mind."
Have you ever worked that out? Have you ever come to grips with a sin and not just said, "Oh, I shouldn't think about that"? It is no use saying you shouldn't think about it, because you are going to think about it again, right? You have got to look at this thing and take hold of it and think calmly to yourself, "Now, do I still enjoy the thought of it? Yes, I do. Why do I still enjoy the thought of it? Why is it that I have not yet come to see the sinfulness of sin?" You deal with it fundamentally. Tackle it. You separate what is sinful from what is not sinful, and you reject that part which is sinful.
Now of course, not all sex is sinful, by any means. There is nothing sinful about sex. But there is an aspect of it — if you are thinking of fornication, or adultery, or things which are out of course — then of course you are thinking sinful thoughts. There you have to deal with this. If no one ever thought about sex, he wouldn't be normal. He wouldn't be a normal person. And I have to counsel young people who are distressed about this. They come to me and tell me, "I am very sinful because I have thoughts about sex." Well, what is sinful about that, so long as you keep control on that? We are so created that we have thoughts about sex, and there is no need to pretend that we don't. But so long as we do not allow our thoughts to become sinful — to think of fornication, of adultery, of going to see some prostitute — then that is a different situation altogether. Or to get some kind of sinful, lustful pleasure out of this. Something very different. Our thoughts can be about sex and still be very holy. Nothing sinful about it at all.
And so here we find that there must be a change of mind if we are not going to slide back into sin. I beg of you to understand this thing. There must be a transformation in the inner attitude. You must come to grips with sin. You must take hold of it and overcome it. That is so essential. And so we come to this attitude that we read about in Psalm 45, verse 7, that we "hate iniquity and love righteousness." Whereas once, as in John chapter 3, verse 20, we loved iniquity and hated righteousness. But now our attitude must change to that of Psalm 45, verse 7, where we hate iniquity and we know why we hate it. We know what this thing will do to us. It is like a drug addict learning to hate drugs. It is not easy, because up to that point he enjoyed drugs. He has to understand why he hates the drugs. It is no use saying, "Oh, it is wrong to have drugs." Why should it be wrong? He does not know why it is wrong. He has to understand it. Then he will say, "Now I am finished with drugs. I see the damage that it will do. I enjoyed it, but I see what damage it will do, how harmful it is to me and to others." Then his mind changes. He knows, with the depth of his thinking, why he has taken this attitude. That becomes true repentance. That turns away completely, in his thinking and behavior, from sin.
I pray that God may so work in each one of us that this will be accomplished in us, that we will learn to repent and to deal with every individual sin in the same way. Don't just push it away. Don't just hide it under a cover, because it will come up again. It is no use. You have got to deal with it sensibly, determinedly, and by the grace and power of God.
And so we see the beauty, on the one hand, of God's lovingkindness in this parable, and on the other hand, of the importance of repentance. In fact, this whole parable can be summed up in one sentence, in the words of Romans chapter 2, verse 4: "Do you not know that God's lovingkindness is leading you to repentance?" Romans 2, verse 4. It seems to sum up this whole parable in just those words. Let us now be quiet before God in prayer.