We want to welcome any persons who are new with us today, or if this is the first time you are with us, we want you to feel very much at home with us because we are truly one family in the Lord. If there are any persons who don't understand English fully, there is a simultaneous translation available in the back. So if someone sitting next to you does not understand English, then please direct them to the translation.
Now today we continue our systematic study of the Lord's teaching in Luke chapter 15, verses 8 to 10. For those of you who are with us for the first time, I'd like to let you know that what we do in this church is systematically expound what the Lord Jesus taught week by week in an orderly fashion, so that no part of the Lord's teaching will have been missed, so that in due time we have covered everything that the Lord has taught us. Because no part of the Lord's teaching is unimportant. Everything is important. His words, they are spirit and they are life. And today we come to this beautiful parable of the Lord's teaching in Luke chapter 15, verses 8 to 10. What is usually called the parable of the lost coin.
Now the more I look at this parable, the more I appreciate its beauty. I could easily say it is one of my favorite parables. It is so exceedingly beautiful. And yet it is stated so very briefly, so very short in these three verses, verses 8 to 10. And this is what we read, what the Lord Jesus says: "Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light the lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I lost.' Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents."
Today, we are that one sinner who repents. And there is joy in heaven. Heaven is a place of joy. But that joy is even increased by a sinner who repents. Such is love in heaven. If you couldn't care less whether the person is saved or not, of course you wouldn't rejoice. But because God so cares, and the angels of God so care for man, that when he repents, they rejoice. Have you noticed that only people who rejoice about the welfare of others are those who really care for you? If we didn't care for you, what happens to you? But because God cares, and because the angels care — it's a new thought too, isn't it? Did you know that the angels care? That they rejoice?
Now, many modern commentators, in fact most modern commentators, see this parable as saying nothing different from the previous one. They think that it's merely repeating the previous parable of the lost sheep. In fact, the German commentator Rienecker, all he has to say on this parable is simply that there is nothing in this parable which has not already been said in the previous parable, with the only exception, the only different point being that in the previous parable there was one lost sheep out of a hundred, and here there is one coin out of ten. So the value of the sinner has increased, as it were. Whereas you were one out of a hundred, now you are one out of ten. So you have sort of — once you were only one percent, and now you are ten percent. And that, he sees as being the only difference. Well, how wrong he is. And yet this is the strange thing: the Germans and other scholars all seem to think that it says nothing different. Well, I'm going to prove to you it tells an awful lot that is different. And there is so much more in this parable, so much riches in this parable that has not been mentioned in the previous one.
Now, the more I meditate on this parable, the beauty of it is really striking. There is no part of it that is without meaning. No part of it that does not contain deep riches in it. If only by God's grace we have the spiritual eyes to see. I have constantly emphasized that the one thing you need when you come to the Word of God is not just academic knowledge, which these scholars certainly have and which most of us, to some extent, share to some degree. But what you need is spiritual insight to see the beauty and the riches that are there. So let us try to see by God's grace what there is in it. For none of us, when we come to the Word of God, will see its riches just because we are more clever. We are not more clever. Many people are far cleverer than us. It is God's grace that enables us to have the insight to see what the Lord Jesus is saying. There is nothing that has to do with our cleverness. It is simply God's grace of insight that I have constantly been speaking about in these training programs.
Now, let us look then at this beautiful parable. Let me first just describe to you the parable. The parable itself, the picture is quite simple. There is this woman and she has ten coins. Ten silver coins. Now, we all know that this means that she is not very rich. Ten silver coins. Each silver coin was approximately the amount that a person earned for one day's wages. What is called a denarius. A denarius was roughly what a laborer earned for one day's wages. So what she has in ten coins is approximately what a person would take ten days to earn. Ten working days. That's not an awful lot. That's not an awful lot of money by any means.
And some scholars think that these were the coins that she used on her headdress. You know that the Middle Eastern women often had a headdress decorated with coins, which is still used by some of the Bedouins today. They had coins — some gold, some silver — that they would drill a little hole in and then put onto their headdress as decoration. It looked very beautiful. And this was often given to them as their dowry. That is, when they got married, this would be their own personal possession. It would not belong to their husband but to them. Even if for any reason they had to be separated from their husband, the husband could not claim this part of the possession. This would always be hers, to safeguard her livelihood in case of the death of the husband, or in case of a divorce, or any other separation. So these ten coins. But of course, it is not said in this parable that this is part of the headdress. This is really guessing. So it doesn't matter too much whether it is the headdress or not.
The main point is that if it was the headdress, this decoration that the woman wore on her head, then it would further indicate her poverty, because many Bedouin women today would have maybe 50 or 100 coins decorating their headdress, and ten would indicate great poverty if that's all she had. Again, of course, this doesn't really matter. The point is that if she has only ten, to lose one out of the ten is to lose quite a big proportion of that. You see, if you had hundreds of coins and you lost one, you probably don't even notice it. But if you have only ten, you will notice that you have lost something. And all this is to indicate again that the sinner is precious to God. A sinner is precious to God. He doesn't want to say you are just one of a million and if you didn't exist, God wouldn't even notice that. No. If you are missing, if you are not in the kingdom of God, if you are not saved, God notices it. You are precious to him.
And this is further emphasized by the fact that this coin is a silver coin. It is not the cheapest kind of coin; it is not just a bronze coin. It is a silver coin, and silver in itself has a lot of value. And so this woman has lost this coin, and in the Palestinian houses of the time, mostly these houses had no windows. There is no light in the building, and therefore you need to understand why she had to light a lamp. She would have to light it not only at night but also in the daytime. These houses are often made of mud or mud bricks. There were no windows. There was no light coming in except through the door. And so the floor also was a mud floor. And a mud floor means that if the coin dropped on the floor in the darkness, and in the mud floor which tends to build up a lot of dust, it is easily rolling away and hidden in the dust of the floor. Hence the need to sweep — to sweep around, that by moving it around, you might hear the sound, or remove the dust in such a way that the light would shine upon this coin and cause a reflection, or a certain sound through the sweeping process.
And so she lights the lamp, she sweeps, and she looks through the building, through the house — usually a one-room house, just one room in the whole place, in the whole house — looking for this coin. Now then, having found this coin, she is filled with joy because it means so much to her. For a rich person to lose a coin, that's nothing. In Canada, I keep finding coins all over the place. Apparently people's pockets are so full of coins that they keep falling out. I'm sure you have found coins from time to time. In England, I very seldom find coins. Maybe the people are not so well off, so they look so well after their coins that I can't remember ever finding a coin in England in all those years. But in the relatively short time here of two or three years, I have found so many coins. People apparently don't even notice that they have lost 25 cents or 10 cents or whatever it is. So it means that for this woman, this coin is very precious. She certainly notices the loss. And when she finds it, she rejoices. She is so happy to have found this coin again. For the poor person, that coin means a lot. For the rich person, it doesn't mean much. And hence the emphasis upon the poverty of this person, just to bring out the fact that God finds every soul so precious to him.
And not only so, but all the angels of heaven rejoice over one sinner — one sinner that repents. God is not one who sees statistics. He doesn't feel happy because 5,000 people have signed decision cards. To him it's not the question of 5,000. To him one is precious. We rejoice when the number is big. He rejoices over one. That's so wonderful to see. How God's attitude is different from man's attitude. Man is always counting statistics. For him the number of people is what matters.
Now let's begin to look into the spiritual meaning of this parable. Basically we have already seen that it is a parable that gives us a great deal of insight into God's character. The way he looks at man. The way he looks not only at a human being but at a lost human being, at a sinner, so that we may learn the same attitude towards sinners as we were learning at the prayer time today. So many times Christians take a superior attitude towards non-Christians, but that's not the way God looks. God's heart goes out after the lost person. He has no time to think, as so many Christians think, "Oh, I'm saved, and what are you?" When you think in this way, your whole attention is focused upon yourself — what I am. But when you think of the need of the other person, you forget about yourself and you think about him, and how precious that person is, if only he can be restored back to God.
So it tells us about the way God looks at the sinner — how unlike the way we look at sinners sometimes. And then not only how he looks at the sinner, but what he does about it. Not that he has some good intention, but that he acts upon it. So here salvation is seen through God's eyes. And this makes me think immediately that this is a kind of parable that only God could tell. I can't think of a person telling this kind of a parable, because it sees salvation not as man sees salvation. It looks at a sinner not as man looks at sinners, but as the way God looks at sinners. It's a divine parable, because it's the way only God can tell you how he looks at the sinner. That's not the way man looks at sinners. Look at the condemning attitude of the Pharisees towards sinners. We always condemn those who fall, but God has a pitying, compassionate attitude.
Now this parable is different from the previous one in that it speaks about a woman who lost a coin. Now conceivably a man could lose a coin too, but the Lord Jesus doesn't speak of a man here but of a woman. Now if a man lost a coin, one out of ten, he would also be searching for that coin. But here the picture is not about a man but about a woman who is looking for a coin. Why is there a reference to a woman here? Now as I said, most modern commentators don't see any significance in that. Why not? Why is there no significance in this? Why couldn't he say, "Now a certain man lost a coin; he had ten of them"? Well, he is the one who went out to earn the money, so if he lost some money from his money belt, why shouldn't he be seeking it?
I don't think there's any reason that the woman is mentioned for no reason. No. Once I look at it, it becomes clear that here the woman is a representation of the church. So often in the Lord's teaching, the Lord speaks about the wedding feast, the marriage of the bride and the bridegroom, and so on — these kinds of pictures in which the woman represents the church. Now of course, in expounding the Bible, I should warn you that it doesn't mean that every time the Lord Jesus speaks about a woman it refers to the church. No, no. But here in this context, given what has gone before and what follows afterwards, it is clear that he is speaking about the church. Why? Why is this so?
You see, in the first parable he was speaking about himself as the shepherd seeking the lost sheep. But how does he seek for those who are lost here and now at this moment? He wants to tell us that he seeks us through his church. How were you found? How was I saved? If it was not that God worked through his church to find those who are lost. How is the Lord today seeking those who are perishing? Is it not through you and through me? It becomes clear then, as Paul says, that the love of Christ motivates us to do what we are doing — seeking for those who are lost. So in the same way we see a certain progression of thought here. The first parable tells us first and foremost that God seeks the sinner. And then he inspires us who are his church to seek after the sinner.
Did you not come to the Lord through the agency of some people in the church? Did they not invite you to come to church? And then you were drawn to the Lord through them? Well, thanks be to God for them. Let us never despise human agency. We should never say man doesn't matter. What do you mean, doesn't matter? He matters to God. It doesn't matter to us — it matters to God. And he works through us. Today the church is the light in the world — or should be the light.
So we find the same parable. Jesus is the light of the world, as we read in John chapter 8, verse 12. But then he also says, "You are the light of the world." So this means that he shines into the world through us. That is, through his church. And in the same way, we find the same thing here. In the first instance, he is the shepherd who seeks and who saves the lost. And now we find, in the second place, the church is the woman, representative, through whom he works to save that which is lost. And that's very beautiful. A beautiful progression here.
There is also a progression in the number of these three parables. In the first parable, the number is one to a hundred. There is one lost sheep out of a hundred. In this parable, there is one out of ten. In the next parable, it is one out of two. There were two sons, and one of them got lost. Nothing is haphazard in the Lord's teaching. Everything is a beautiful progression, moving as it focuses towards that particular sinner. First the idea is of a wide group of people, then it narrows down, narrows down, until it focuses upon you — the one that Jesus is seeking. And so we find that unless it is the love of Christ motivating us, we would not be seeking the lost sinner. Unless it is the light of Christ shining through us, we wouldn't shine at all.
So in the first place, he is the light, and only because he is the light do we become the light. In the first place, it is he who is seeking, and only because he is seeking do we also seek. His love motivates us. This means that this parable shows that this woman, of course — and the woman representing the church does not represent any particular individual church, but the church universal, the church ideally conceived. As I said, and I must warn you again, it doesn't mean that every time the Lord Jesus speaks of a woman it always represents the church. Those of us who have been studying Revelation in the training group will know that there are two women. One represents the church; the other is the harlot — that which is unfaithful, the false church that is not true to the Lord. One must separate carefully in scripture between these two.
Now here then we see this woman, motivated by love — the love of Christ — searching for that which is lost, that coin which is lost. What does the woman do? The woman does three things, and everything that she does is significant. First, we are told here that she lights a lamp. We see that in verse 8. The woman, having lost the coin, she lights a lamp. Well, that's the first thing the church must do: light the lamp. That is, let the light shine forth, both by the way you live and the message you preach. We are the light of the world. Light the lamp. Let it shine forth. Oh, that is beautiful. That's exactly what the Lord Jesus said earlier in Luke. Luke chapter 8, verses 16 and 17: that a person lights a lamp and puts it in a place where the light will shine through the whole house. And the next verse, verse 17, says, "Nothing which is hidden shall not be manifest." That is the beauty of it. The light shines in order to bring that which is hidden to light. That which is lost may be found. That's why the light is shining. The gospel is that light. Both in the way we live out the gospel and in the way we preach the gospel. The gospel, the word of God, is a lamp to our feet. Psalm 119, verse 105. But the gospel is light not because there is some magical power in the gospel itself. No, it is because God's light is shining through the gospel. Ultimately, it is God's light, because God is light. "The Lord is my light and my salvation." The Lord is my light. Take for example 2 Samuel chapter 22, verse 29. It is so beautiful. God is light. We let him shine forth and let nothing hide that light.
The second thing she does, after having lit the light, is to sweep. Now what does the sweeping mean? Well, sweeping of course is easy to understand. It is a cleansing process. When do you sweep the place? It is when you need to clean the place. In fact, the Lord Jesus speaks about sweeping also in Luke chapter 11, verse 25, about the house that was swept clean after the demon was driven out. Remember, the place was swept clean. It has to do with cleansing inside. The light shines upon you in order to bring about cleansing, to make the cleansing possible. God is then cleansing away the dirt and the dust that hides us and so brings us to light. That is beautiful. It has to do then not only with speaking and preaching, shining with the light, but activity — the activity of reaching forth, sweeping, turning things upside down in order to find that which is lost. Remember, the apostles were accused of turning the world upside down. You sweep around the place, turning, agitating about. Sometimes Christians are not very popular; they cause too much disturbance, too much agitation. Well, that's okay if that leads to the salvation of someone lost in the dust.
And the third thing, of course, that she does is to seek. The whole process is not just to sweep around and make a lot of noise and a lot of dust. The whole purpose of this activity is in order to find. So the shining is not just for the sake of shining. The sweeping is not just for the sake of sweeping. It is all with the purpose of finding, seeking and finding that which is lost.
But there is still more beauty in this passage. Because this coin is lost in the dust — the dust on this mud floor that we have in these Palestinian houses in those days. Dust. Now the Bible gives us a lot of meaning about dust. No part of it is without meaning and riches there. The dust — when I study the Old Testament, I see a threefold richness in the meaning of dust. First of all, we are created out of dust. Genesis chapter 2, verse 7. Genesis chapter 3, verse 19. Psalm 103, verse 14, and so on and so forth. So many of these, all telling us that we, in terms of our physical aspect, this body with its various minerals and other elements inside this chemical constitution — in fact, you need only to see what happens, for example, at a cremation. That body is simply reduced to dust. That's all it is. Dust and ashes. What is ashes but dust? Physically, this physical body is described in terms of dust.
Very interesting. This coin which has fallen and fallen into the dust is obscured by the dust. This is a very important reason why man falls: it's because he lets his physical nature dominate. His carnal nature envelops him, so that the spiritual aspect of man is lost in the midst of the dust of his carnal nature, his fleshly nature, his physical nature. You will see that the man who is lost in sin is always dominated by the physical aspects of life. He can only think about houses and about cars and about money and about salary. His whole conversation, his discussion, his thinking is only about the material things. He is enveloped in dust, the dust of this physical life. So much so that he can no longer see the light. His eyes are clouded by this dust. He is just wrapped inside his physical life. That's all there is to it. Just talk to a non-Christian. What does he ever think about except his career, his profession, his money, his house? What else does he think about? That's his whole life. That's life for him. He cannot see into the things which are eternal, the things which endure beyond the transient things of dust. He can't see that. For him, dust is all that matters. It is all that is precious. Dust — that's all there is. He cannot see that everything he's living for, he's working for, is all going to degenerate into dust. Oh, it's so beautiful, these beautiful buildings here, the work, the design that goes into it, so beautiful. In a few hundred years, maybe only a hundred years, maybe two hundred years, maybe less than that, it will all be reduced to dust. If it's not by a fire, then by bombs; if it's not by bombs, it will just collapse from natural causes. It will all be reduced to dust. That's all it is. All the glory of man will be dust.
Physical aspects of life envelop this coin which represents us, the lost sinner. When I did not know the Lord, my whole thinking was in the material world. Dust. And so we notice this first point concerning dust. Dust represents the physical aspect of man. Out of dust we were made, that is physically. And into the physical dust out of which we were made and created, God breathed his breath of life so that we also became a living spirit, a living soul. But in the fallen man, in the lost man, it is simply the physical that predominates. He does not function anymore as a spiritual being. For him, spiritual reality ceases to exist. For him, the physical is all that matters. What he can see is all that matters. He doesn't realize that the very breath, the air he breathes, he cannot see, he cannot taste, he cannot touch. And yet without it, he couldn't live so much as for a minute.
Now the second thing about dust that we see here is the expression "in dust" — death. And this is an expression in the Old Testament which always refers to death. It is death. To be in the dust is to be in death. Now this coin has fallen into the dust; that's exactly where it is. It is to fall into death. And so many places in the Old Testament, speaking of being in the dust is simply an expression of being dead. Hence we have Paul's expression, "We are dead in trespasses and sins." And we find this, for example, in Psalm 22, verses 15 and 29: "the dust of death." The dust of death. There are simply too many references, and I just give you this one as an example. If you wish to find more, just look in the concordance and you will see a lot of them. And so here is the second point. Because of his engrossment with the physical things of life — engrossed in such a way that for him the spiritual ceases to be important and only the physical is the reality — the result of this is he's dead. He is lost in the dust. He is in the dust. Spiritually he becomes inactive, spiritually dead.
You see how rich is the meaning of the Lord's parable. Did you think there was nothing in this parable? How can these commentators say there is nothing there? Study the scripture. It is full of riches for those who have eyes to see.
The third thing about dust is: dust means humiliation in the Bible. And to lick the dust is the sign of deepest humiliation, of degradation. Take for example Psalm 72, verse 9. Psalm 113, verse 7. To be in the dust is to be humiliated, to go down as low as man can go, to be degraded, to be reduced to nothing. And in this connection I just want to read to you this passage in Psalm 113, verse 7, because it is exactly so close to the point that we are talking about in this beautiful parable. Psalm 113, verse 7, reads like this: "He raises the poor from the dust. He lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes, with the princes of his people. He gives the barren woman a home, making her the joyous mother of children. Praise the Lord," it says here. "He raises the poor from the dust." Ah, that is beautiful. The poor are the despised, the rejected, the nobody. You remember how the Lord Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, "Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
He raises the poor from the dust, from the humiliation, from the degradation of sin. And he lifts them up to sit with princes. He makes us to be sons of God. Now if that's not princes — sons of the King of kings — then who are princes? He makes us to sit with the princes, the sons of God, when we were beggars, crushed in the dust, reduced to the humiliation of sin. And sin is so humiliating, isn't it? After you are through with sin, you'll find it has done nothing but degraded you, humiliated you. These days, if you read in the newspaper, you'll hear of the great leader of the Liberal Party in England, because of a degrading situation of a homosexual affair that he had. What is he today? He's degraded in the dust because of sin. He was once a likely candidate to be prime minister of England. But because of an act of sin, he is today utterly humiliated, degraded. Everybody looks at him with disgust. Sin is so degrading, so revolting. But if we repent, if we let God change us and transform us, then he will lift us out of the dust and make us to sit with princes as the children of God.
And notice in the same psalm, the same picture of this joy as it ends in the note of joy. And also in verses 5 and 6, the same parallel to our passage, where God seeks — he looks down, it says, "Who is like the Lord our God, who is seated on high, who looks far down upon the heavens and the earth?" But he doesn't just look there; he is seeking in order to raise up the poor from the dust. It is so beautiful, the Lord's teaching.
And so, as we look at this passage then, all the riches are coming out. This wonderful work of salvation that we see here, that the Lord is accomplishing through that light which shines, through the work of sweeping through the dust. And notice what the dust does, what the sweeping does to the coin. The coin, in coming into contact with the work of the gospel, is swept — it is swept clean of the dust. The dust is removed from it, of course. That is so beautiful too. That when the gospel comes into contact with you, it removes the dust — this preoccupation with the physical things, the material things, the external things. It saves you out of the dust. It delivers you then from these three things.
The gospel delivers you first from this physical materialism that we have been so engrossed with. If you have not been delivered from that, then you must ask yourself whether you know what it is to be a Christian. When you become truly a Christian, your whole thinking is changed. The things that you valued before in the physical life don't matter to you that much now. What matters to you are the things which are eternal, which have enduring value. Secondly, you are delivered from death. To be taken up out of the dust is to be delivered from the dust of death. And thirdly, you are delivered from the degradation of sin. God lifts you up. And it says in Ephesians chapter 1, he has seated us with Christ in the heavenly places. Now you can't go higher than that, when you are lifted up. Seated with Christ in the heavenly places. Exalted in Christ. Glorified. It says there in Romans chapter 8, that whom he did foreknow, those he did glorify. That aspect of the gospel is seldom spoken about, in which God glorifies us. He exalts us. He makes us glorious. He makes us shine with his beauty. No more the ugliness and degradation of sin.
There is one more thing, of course, about silver, you'll know. That when silver is left on the ground, especially in those damp, muddy grounds, you know what happens to silver. It begins to get black with tarnish. You know, tarnish — I'm sure you've seen silver things. It turns black. And then what you have to do is to get a metal polish and polish off the black dirt upon it so that the original shine will come forth again. Silver has this constant problem. And again you see the perfect choice that the Lord Jesus has in choosing this parable. The Lord Jesus in his wisdom says not a bronze coin or a gold coin — and a gold coin seldom is covered in tarnish — but a silver coin. Silver has this constant problem: it turns black. I'm sure you have silver spoons or something you've seen before. It just keeps turning black, and you have to polish it.
And so the same way, the man that is lost in the dust of sin also begins to turn black. Blackness is so perfect as an illustration of the effect of sin upon man. Hence part of the need for sweeping. It's not just good enough to look around, because when it turns dark and black or gray, it becomes harder and harder to see on the ground. It's the sound of it tinkling upon the ground — the broom sweeping away the dust but also causing it to tinkle upon the ground. That helps the woman to find it. There is also the beauty of the parable, because this tinkling of the coin represents then the response of man to the sweeping of the gospel. It is not only that God seeks us, but we must produce a response. And this is more fully stated in the last word of this parable: repent. That responding to the gospel is what repentance is about. We cannot make ourselves clean, but we can respond to the sweeping of the gospel, to the sound of the gospel.
# The Parable of the Lost Coin (Part 2)
You know that every coin is only a coin, not because it's a piece of metal, but because it has a stamp upon it. Isn't it? Just look at your coin in your pocket, take it out, and you'll see there is a stamp, there is an image of a person upon it. In British and Canadian coins, you'll see the stamp usually of the Queen upon it. In the Roman coins, it was the stamp of the Emperor. In older English coins, it would be the stamp of the King, whoever the King was at the time. Today, the coins — you wouldn't know which country's coin it is except by the stamp that it bears upon it. In the same way, the Roman coins, and in fact the coins of every country in those times, bore the image of its Emperor. And technically speaking, the Emperor owns every coin around. It bears his image, and therefore it's his. Remember when they said to the Lord Jesus, "Shall we pay tax to Caesar?" He said, "Take out a coin, look at it." He says, "What picture do you see on the coin?" They say, "Caesar's." He says, "Give to Caesar what belongs to him." Isn't that his image on it? That means that it's his. This coin bears his stamp. In a sense, the Emperor owns everything.
Now this is the beauty of the image. We also bear a stamp. What stamp do we bear? Genesis has told us we were created in the image of God. That same word, "image," is exactly there. You find it in Matthew chapter 22, verses 20 and 21 — the image and superscription. And so in the same way, every man, though he be lost in the dust, though he be covered in tarnish, he still bears the stamp of God's creation upon him. He still belongs to God. Don't think that you don't belong to God because you haven't believed in him. He made you. He created you. You belong to him by right of his creation. He still has the claim upon you, for the very reason that you were created in his image. You bear his stamp. But how much more beautiful it is when we are taken out of the dust and we are cleansed so that the full glory of that image can shine forth again. Once it was hidden in sin, but now it can shine forth — the beauty of his image. You see how rich is this parable? Who said that there is nothing in the parable? Oh, there is too much in the parable. There is too much riches in it. It is so beautiful.
But think one more thing about this coin. The coin is silver. The coin bears the stamp of its creator and its possessor. But what good is any coin to anybody when it is lost in the dust? It does nothing. It is non-functional. A coin that is lost is simply useless to anyone. Only when that coin is in my pocket can it do something. When it is in the dust, it can't do anything. It is no use at all. Until you find it, it won't be of any use. In the same way, you could be of such value to other people, and such value to God, but so long as you are lost in the dust of sin, you are of no use to anybody, not even to yourself. The value of a person — although the value is intrinsically there, because you are still silver even if you are lost, and you still bear the stamp of God even if you are lost — but you have no value to anyone. The value only becomes functional, it becomes extrinsic, when it is found. Oh, this is so wonderful. So beautiful to understand.
That is why God wants to find you. Because you are precious to him. But also because only then will you become of use to other people, of use to God, of use to bless the whole of society. Only then can somebody use this coin to buy the piece of bread that he needs to feed his family and his children and himself. Only then can the poor man rejoice because he receives the food. Only then can this coin contribute something to the world, to society. And you see, no matter how much it is used, a coin does not lose its value, does it? No, it doesn't. Its value is increased. It brings more blessing the more it circulates. The less it circulates, the less it does anything. The more it circulates, the more it does something.
This is the beauty about the Christian life. The more you are able to serve, it doesn't mean your value is less because you serve more. Not at all. The more you serve, the greater is your value. The more you function, the greater is your value and blessing. That doesn't mean that somehow you yourself are more valuable. It's simply that you are doing more. The more that coin circulates around, the more it brings bread to the hungry families, the more it brings joy to many hearts. Oh, would that once we are saved, we don't just sit there feeling happy that we are saved. I am simply upset with so many Christians who think that salvation is simply to be saved so that you can sit back and wait to get to heaven. I have said before, anyone who thinks like that doesn't begin to understand what it is to be a Christian. To be saved means you are in circulation now as a coin. You are now there to function, to do something for others, to feed the hungry, to rejoice the hearts of the needy, to clothe those who are shivering in the cold. That's what the coins are there for. That's what silver is there for — to do. Not so you can sit back and say, "Look how beautiful I am. I have been polished now. I look so nice now. I am so clean now." Oh, no, no. It's there to do a job. I would like every Christian to understand that, because that's what the Lord wants us to know.
And so here then, we just rejoice in the riches of God's word. And so, as we begin to conclude, let us conclude also on this point. Let us return to the point of the joy to God about being found. Again, I want to return and conclude on this point. Being saved is not just so that you can be happy, but it is something that rejoices God, and, of course, other people who are going to benefit from the use of this coin.
Now, I would like us, in conclusion, to get the right understanding of God's attitude. You see, our prayer life and our Christian life is often so deeply hindered because we have the wrong attitude about God. We often picture God as some person sitting upon the throne with a severe face. Much like Kwan Gong, you see, in the Chinese god of war. Red face, beard coming down, standing there with his eyes popping out, almost looking right through you. I mean, if you have that kind of concept of God, it's rather terrifying. I mean, who wants to worship a God like this, except out of fear? But look at the beautiful picture that we have here of God. God is not like this. Change your image of God. What is God like?
Well, God's heart is one that goes out to us all the time. It's a heart that is motivated and throbbing with love. A heart that is restless until he can find us. He doesn't sit back and say, "Well, I'm on my throne here. As far as you are lost, that's too bad for you. That's your lookout. That's your business, not mine." His heart cannot rest until he finds us, because his heart goes out to us and yearns for us. It's hard for us to understand it, isn't it? Because our thinking is not like that. I see the average Christian thinking, "I'm okay, Joe. And what happens to you is not my business. If I have some spare time, I might come and help you. If I don't have spare time, then too bad for you." Our hearts don't go out to other people in this way. So don't make God after your own image. Remember that we are made in his image. We have to return to his image again.
I find that people are always creating God in their own image. They think of God as some dictator who is barking out orders while all the angels are scurrying about doing his orders. He needs only cough and all the angels fall on their faces trembling. He needs only stamp his foot and we have an earthquake. And so the whole vision of God that we have is some fearful, majestic, frightening being. That's not the Lord's teaching about God. God is holy. God is powerful. That is our concept of God. But here is another aspect about God that Jesus wants, through his parables, constantly to impress upon our minds. And that is his outgoing concern for us. Try to think of a God who is simply going to be restless until he finds you. Because he cares. Some people, sometimes I say to them about God's love, they say, "Why should God love me?" I don't know the answer to that question, why he should love you. I don't know. You see, people find it so difficult to understand because we don't love anybody else, so why should anybody love us? That's so hard to understand. Think then of a God who yearns for you, and your heart will then reach out for God.
I think of the fact that once — and on this point, this illustration I must conclude with — when I was a small boy, I was characteristically naughty. Very mischievous and naughty. Anyway, one day I was scolded by my mother, very severely, for having done something bad. And I was so upset about this. You know, children always feel that they have been unfairly dealt with. Have you ever noticed that a child tends to feel they're always unfairly dealt with? And so I decided that I had had enough of this life at home of being constantly rebuked by my mother. And so I decided that I would go forth into the world on my own at the ripe old age of six. At six years old, I can fend for myself. Why should I stay at home and be scolded all day long? Enough of this.
And so I went to my room and collected my suitcase, which was a tiny little thing. And I put in my favorite toys. Children never think of clothing and stuff like this, of course. I mean, that never crosses their minds. They put in their toys. Those are the most precious things. I closed my suitcase and I said bye-bye to my mother. And she sort of looked and thought, "Don't be ridiculous. I mean, where will this fellow go?" And so she didn't even take notice of me, you see. And so I took my little case, and down I went, down the stairs and out into the streets of the great city of Shanghai. And I wandered off. There I went, looking for my father. My father, of course, had gone to Chongqing to fight the Japanese at the time, being very patriotic. And he stayed in the resistance to fight up to the last minute, and then he slipped out through the Japanese lines. And that left me and my mother back in Shanghai. And so off he went.
Now, I had seen him go, and I knew that he went somewhere from the harbor, in the Shanghai harbor, in what is called the Bund. And so I, knowing roughly the direction of where the harbor was, set out and followed the tram car lines and walked and walked and walked. It seemed endless, because it took some two hours walking to get there. And so finally, I arrived with my suitcase. And then I looked up and down for the boats that would take me to my father. Of course, I didn't know that there were no boats going to Chongqing, to the wartime capital. Of course, the whole place was now under Japanese control. So having arrived there and being about that high, I looked up to some man there and I said, "Where is the boat going to Chongqing?" So he looked down at me and said, "Boat to Chongqing? There are no boats going to Chongqing." I said, "Yes, but my father got on a boat right here to Chongqing. So there must be a boat to Chongqing." He said, "No, there are no more boats going to Chongqing." So I walked up and down rather dejected, wondering where is this boat that goes, so I can go to my father, whom I thought would treat me more reasonably than my mother. That's the way children think, of course.
In the meantime, of course, my mother discovered that I had disappeared. Gone. And she then began to panic, because she looked up and down the house and I was not to be found. She looked in the garden and I was nowhere to be found. She looked up and down the street and I was nowhere to be found. And now she really began to panic. And there I was, happily walking around still looking for some means of going to my father, not knowing, of course, that Chongqing was thousands of miles away, and I, not having a single cent in my pocket, would get nowhere at all. But children never realize that you need to pay for anything.
But what I'm getting at in this illustration is how my mother began to become disturbed and restless. And I think the beauty of the parable is this: we often think that God is severe with us or that he is harsh with us. We often think that God deals with us unfairly. But this is not so. That even though sometimes he seems to be severe with us because of our sins, yet he has his outgoing love for us. And this experience was an eye-opener to me, because I didn't know that my mother loved me that much. I didn't know that my mother was concerned for me in this way. And so I thought that because she kept saying severe things to me and rebuking me and so on, I thought that she didn't really love me that much. And isn't that the reason why we sometimes think that God doesn't really care for us? He's constantly talking to us about our sins and always rebuking us for our sins. And you say, "Why is he always rebuking me? Always talking about sins. And this God doesn't love me." It is precisely because he loves us that he tells us about our sins. And yet, it never entered my mind that because my mother loved me, she was trying to drive the naughtiness out of me to make me a better kind of person.
And this lesson was one that deeply struck me. I came to realize, "Oh, my mother loves me so much." You know, after several hours of wandering on the streets, and it was getting dark, and I was getting very hungry, and I had no money in my pocket, and I wondered, "How do I ever get food in this world? Exactly what do you have to do to get something to eat?" I discovered that you couldn't go up to a counter and say, "I want some food." He says, "Money." And I said, "Why, everybody wants money in this world?" I mean, at home I just sit down at a table and eat. So eventually I discovered that, well, there's only one place left to go, and that's back home. So like the prodigal son, I dragged my weary feet back across the great city of Shanghai, and finally, late at night somehow, I stumbled back into the door of my home. And my mother nearly collapsed at the sight of me. She was so overjoyed at seeing me that she did not even find one word to scold me with. I had been away so long — it's a wonder that she hadn't collapsed of a heart attack. She was in such a state of anxiety. And when I looked at my mother, I was so struck in my heart. I didn't know my mother loved me so much. I didn't understand. When she looked at me, all she could do was look at me and burst out into tears. That's all she could do. At the sheer relief of seeing me back home again after so many hours. And Shanghai is a city of ten million people. She was already — the police were looking for me everywhere, but how do you find a little boy among ten million people?
And I find this is the same thing that this parable tells me here. I didn't know that God loved me so much. I didn't know that I was so valuable to God. I just wandered forth and thought, "Well, God is always talking about sin. He's always saying don't do this and don't do that," just like my mother. Every time I want to do something, my mother says, "Don't do that." And I do another thing, and she says, "Don't do that." I say, "Oh, when can I get some freedom?" And God is always saying the Ten Commandments: "Thou shalt not, and thou shalt not." Say, "Oh, when can we live? When can we do something? What is freedom?" Freedom is when I can do what I like, and go out there and starve, if you like, in the world too.
Now we find that God does say "don't do this and that" so that we don't hurt ourselves. When I tell my girl, "Don't put your hand on the fire," it's not because I want to make life hard for her. I want to tell her, "If you touch that fire, you'll burn yourself. You'll get hurt." The "don'ts" were just to protect her, and I didn't understand this. And when I saw my mother that night — the tears running down her face, not able even to rebuke me, she couldn't think of even spanking me or doing anything — she just gave me something to eat and put me in bed. And I was so tired from so many hours of walking that it was so nice to find this bed again. I just flopped down and slept.
I think this is such a beautiful picture of God. I hope that you come to realize that when the preacher, on God's behalf, speaks about sin, the terrors of sin, and I'm calling you not to sin — you think, "Why is God always making life difficult for me?" Oh no, it's not. It's because he wants to save you, to protect you. And now here's the beautiful picture that God loves. And I see in these words how she rejoiced to find this coin, calling her neighbors in — how my mother rejoiced to see me, with the tears running down her face to see me again. I hope that we can get this new picture of God. That is how God is like. When I look at my mother, I say, "Now I know what God is like. That is how much I mean to him."
With that we understand it, you see. It's very hard to pray to a God that you think sits upon the throne with his arms folded, staring down at you. Who wants to come to a God like this? But when you know that God is not like this — he is like my mother — the joy of seeing me again. Then how wonderful it is to come back to him every day, to worship and to praise, to have sweet fellowship with him. Try to get a new picture of God. That is how he is like. He is holy, but exceedingly loving. He is compassionate. His lovingkindness is ever flowing forth, reaching out to us, even when we are in the dust, to lift us up to seat us among the princes.
Let us now be quiet before God in prayer.