And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing.
The verse pictures Christ the divine Shepherd finding the helpless lost sinner who cannot find his own way back and tenderly lifting him to His shoulders to carry him home rejoicing. It was spoken in the parable of the lost sheep when publicans and sinners drew near to hear Jesus and scribes and Pharisees murmured that He receives sinners, to show that His welcome is pitying love and not approval of sin. He seeks persistently through darkness and peril at the cost of hardship and blood even to the cross, and when He finds He does not scold or drive but bears the bruised one as a precious burden. One soul is of more value than a whole world of property because of its possibilities and immortality, so its recovery brings joy in heaven shared by angels and the Father greater than over the ninety and nine. The church and every believer must therefore go to seek the straying with tender compassion and not wait for them to return, for neglecting that work betrays sacred trust while sharing it brings the finder's joy and great reward.
Parable Occasion and Form
The verse belongs to the parable of the lost sheep, spoken when publicans and sinners drew near to hear Jesus while scribes and Pharisees murmured because He receives sinners and eats with them. In that setting a man with a hundred sheep leaves the ninety and nine in the wilderness to go after the one that is lost until he finds it, and then carries it home rejoicing. The lost sheep is man, every man of every nation, kindred and tongue, white or black, who still bears the image of God and is the purchase of Christ's blood. The finding shows the estimate God placed upon man in giving heaven's best gift, Jesus, to humiliation, poverty and self-sacrifice, to contempt, rejection and death, that man might be saved and ransomed. The rejoicing shows the interest of all heaven in that ransom, with ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands of angels ascending and descending to minister to heirs of salvation as messengers of mercy, cooperating with the Captain of the Lord's host and with human agents to seek and save the lost, and encamping round about those who fear and love God, not coming to denounce and destroy.
The parable answers the charge, This Man receiveth sinners, which was meant to create the false impression that Jesus loved the company of the sinful and defiled and was insensible to their wickedness. The opposite is true, for His receiving of sinners comes from God so loving the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. He truly receives sinners because He greets them as children of God estranged from the Father's house yet not forgotten by the Father's heart. In His presence even the vilest feel there is escape from the pit of sin, and their very misery and sin make them only more the objects of His compassion, so that the farther they have wandered the more earnest is His longing and the greater His sacrifice for their rescue. His welcome of publicans and sinners was therefore a lesson of compassion and love, not approval of sin, for He came to recover those who are lost, not to condemn or destroy them, while those who see themselves as spiritually complete fail to recognize their need of repentance.
The parable rebukes the hard-hearted leaders of Israel for neglecting publicans and sinners instead of seeking them, while they despised, condemned and criticized both the lost and His work for them. Laying the found sheep on his shoulders rejoicing is the duty of true shepherds, who must not hold aloof in supposed piety from the lost that are bleating and do not know how to get back, for Christ's special work is not for those who think themselves safe but for seeking the lost until found. Refusal to manifest the mercy and love of Christ and to unite with Him in seeking and saving the lost proves claims of piety to be false, and grumbling against soul-hunting proves spiritual darkness and a cold dead heart with no light to diffuse. Christ gave this reproof by illustration rather than openly, lest their hearts be closed against Him. While many rejected the reproof, some were convicted by it as a symbol intended to convict them, and after Christ's resurrection and ascension they received the Holy Spirit and united with His disciples in the church in the very work of seeking the lost outlined in the parable.
The lost-sheep parable stands together with the parable of the lost piece of silver and the prodigal son, showing God's pitying love for those who stray from Him and His kindness and tender pity toward those exposed to temptation. Christ gave the lost sheep immediately before the woman who lights a candle and seeks diligently for one lost coin, teaching that what is lost can be recovered through searching and that its recovery brings great joy to those who know they are separated from God and cannot restore themselves. He repeated the beautiful parable of the lost sheep with its rejoicing over the found carried still farther by the lost piece of silver and the prodigal son. He taught it through the familiar shepherd and sheep from daily life to shape character and guide the conduct of life, using familiar things to teach immortal truth. It was a message of mercy fitted to His hearers, a word in season to the weary spoken with grace to make treasures of truth attractive, revealing God and the realities of the eternal world in simple form with wonderful depth of meaning. It reaches the heart through the imagination with tact that wins attention even from prejudiced minds, breaks the spell of absorption in earthly things by placing this life in true subordinate relation to eternal interest while linking heaven and earth together, and puts a lesson in nature so that every later sight of shepherd and sheep recalls His words and constantly repeats His teaching.
Its full force was not appreciated at once but was entered into after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, when the ingathering of the Gentiles and the envious anger of the Jews made plain its joy over the lost found alive again.
Sheep and Shepherd Symbols
The shepherd is Christ Himself, the Good, the True and the divine Shepherd, the pure and sinless Redeemer, and in Him God is seen taking the first step to seek men while they are still in rebellion against Him. He goes out into the desert and wilderness of thickets, quagmires and dangerous crevices, through dark night and severe tempest, calling the lost by name at every step until He hears its terrified, faint, dying bleating afar off, encountering every difficulty, parting briars and lifting from mire with firm yet gentle hand. When He finds it alive He does not heap reproaches, scold, drive or condemn, but is only glad, tenderly lifting it to His shoulders and to His breast of infinite love, bearing the sinful and unclean as a burden so precious that He rejoices, His song of rejoicing reaching the heavenly courts.
The lost and found sheep is the individual sinner of every nation, kindred, rank and race, one who knows he is lost, having left shepherd and flock and wandered into wilderness or upon the mountains. It is a soul wandered away from God, separated from Him in a cloud of perplexity, in humiliation and sorely tempted, as helpless as the strayed sheep that cannot find its way back and could never find its way to God unless divine love came to rescue it. The shepherd's carrying it himself, lifting the trembling, bruised and wounded creature onto his shoulders and bringing it home, pictures God's patient, persevering love that takes the first step even while men are in rebellion, seeking and rescuing even one lost soul at the cost of His own life.
The one lost sheep is also the one fallen world, apostatized and ruined by sin through the transgression of the first parents, lost without hope and cut off from heaven. Though this world is only an atom in the vast dominions God governs, this little fallen, seared and marred world is more precious in His sight than the ninety and nine that did not stray from the fold. Looking down with sympathy, Christ, the loved Commander in the heavenly courts, left His high and exalted place on His Father's throne and the glory He had with the Father, stooping from His high estate to take human weakness and sins, enduring temptation, ridicule, opposition, human woes, griefs and sorrows without murmuring, descending step by step in humiliation until He hung as a criminal on the cross of Calvary where He paid the redemption price. There He encircled the race with His right arm of infinite love while grasping the throne of infinite power, so connecting earth with heaven, because God gave Himself in His Son to have the joy of receiving back the sheep that was lost, making the final decision in Gethsemane to save man at any cost to Himself.
The ninety and nine that did not stray are the sinless worlds on high that loved Christ and stayed loyal, whom He left to come to this earth and suffer for human sins. They are also those left safe in the fold or wilderness who have not strayed, who do not call for the same sympathy, tender pitying love, anxiety and whole-hearted energy as the one that is lost and has caused greatest anxiety and engrossed the shepherd's sympathies. Therefore the disinterested, faithful shepherd leaves all the rest and spends whole heart and soul and energies amid frost and cold, storm and tempest, patiently laboring without resting, murmuring or blaming until the object of his search is found. When found he lifts it to his shoulder and returns carrying it with gladness and rejoicing at every step, calling others to rejoice with him, and no picture is given of a sorrowful shepherd returning without the sheep; that joy outweighs the sorrow of loss and the care, perplexity and peril of the search. Christ's example in seeking and saving the one though He has ninety-nine others shows the lost soul is valuable and calls ministers to spend their utmost effort and make sacrifices to bring one sinner to conversion.
The lost sheep is also the straying church member, the backslider and the erring, weak, trembling and even apostate one, including those driven away, in contention, isolated, or such as George Lay, Martha, Edson White, Sister Martin and Sister Holland. Such are to be sought out and helped back to Christ and to the Great Shepherd's fold rather than waited for or met with demanded terms, for reclaiming the erring is a blessed work and heaven rejoices when a sinner is restored. The church had failed in this duty and needed to recognize and acknowledge that wrong, confessing its own coldness and indifference that hinder return, before the straying could be reached.
The sheep and lambs also picture children and youth who stray and face temptation in the wilderness of temptation, whom the Shepherd seeks with tender sympathy and protects with living interest so they are not left to perish or driven for Satan to work his cruel will upon them. Those responsible for them, every minister and every Christian teacher of children, youth, and old and young in opening the Scriptures, must seek the one who strays with tender, winning invitations to return and with yearning love, not with harsh words and a whip, not giving them up, expelling them from school, or humiliating them. All heaven is enlisted in bringing them back to the fold, with a golden chain of mercy and compassion of divine power passed around every imperiled soul as the divine guarantee that not one straying sheep and lamb is overlooked or left unsuccored.
Laying the sheep on the shoulders pictures Christ taking the place of helpless sinners and bearing their guilt as Sin-bearer, the pure sinless Redeemer bearing the sinful unclean and the befouled sheep, so that every individual self has thus been borne upon His shoulders. He alone can restore the moral image of God lost through transgression, undertaking the case of the man in slavery to sin who flees to Jesus and fighting the prince of darkness for his soul, all suffering, trial and peril forgotten in the joy of finding. Being laid on His shoulders means being brought back to the fold of God through genuine repentance for sin and for stubborn resistance against truth, through distinct knowledge of lost condition, entire surrender to Christ's will, earnest faith and prayer and implicit trust in the mighty Helper, finding peace and rest in Him as a miracle of mercy. The return is by entering through the door into the fold and into the open doors of the heavenly Canaan, not by climbing up some other way, a life prepared through His own suffering and death that would never have cost pain or grief if the sheep had never left it, every self-denial and sacrifice in following Him being a step of that return.
Christ's Costly Tender Rescue
The wandering soul is as helpless as the strayed sheep, the most helpless of all creatures, which cannot find its way back to the fold and if left to itself wanders until it perishes. Finding therefore means seeking and carrying home, for the sinner could never find the way to God unless divine love came to rescue him. The shepherd carries the found sheep himself, and that care pictures patient, persevering love that seeks the bewildered and endangered in the wilderness, endures hardship to bring them back, and calls for personal, compassionate effort to help those who have wandered from Christ return. Many souls go down to ruin for want of a hand stretched out to save them, and erring ones who seem hard and reckless might have shown nobility of soul and talent for usefulness if they had received the same advantages as others. Angels pity these wanderers and weep while human eyes are dry and hearts closed to pity, revealing the lack of deep soul-touching sympathy and the need for more of Christ's spirit and far less of self.
Salvation does not come through seeking after God but through God's seeking after us. He takes the first step while people are still in rebellion, extending love first, and that revealed love produces repentance. The sinner cannot make himself worthy of justification nor take a step toward spiritual life without Jesus seeking, drawing, strengthening and leading him to repentance. By unmerited grace Christ seeks those who have wandered away and brings them back to the fold, and their rescue brings joy in heaven. Every wanderer who is willing is brought back to the Father's house because the lost sheep is precious to Him.
The Shepherd seeks persistently until He finds, leaving the fold for desert, mountains, valleys, thickets, quagmires and crevices. He goes out in dark night through storm, frost and tempest without resting, over rough and steep roads into wild bare mountains, crossing deep waters, calling the lost sheep by name at every step until He hears its terrified, faint, dying cry. He follows that cry through dangerous places and tangled briers to the very edge of the precipice at risk of His own life, drawing the straying with cords of a man and with bands of love. When the sheep is found, fainting and helpless and ready to die far from care, He brings it back as His own without complaint.
The search is a stern conflict with Satan for the soul of man, who lays every device to counteract the work of God and defeat the Shepherd's purpose. It is carried on with compassion, sorrow and persistence far beyond what under-shepherds endure, costing self-denial, hardship, privation and humiliation to the cross. Blood drops mark all along the mountain track, with hands rent and torn and pierced by thorns, showing that Christ suffers to bring the straying back to safety. On the cross He paid the redemption price for the lost world He loved, encircling the race with infinite love while grasping infinite power, and a truly converted soul shares that missionary burden. The wounded hands reveal the strength and fervor of divine compassion in persistent, untiring labor to bring the one lost sheep to the Father's fold.
When found He does not scold, drive, reproach, murmur, blame for trouble caused, mourn over Himself, force the weak to walk, or leave the trembling, bruised and wounded to follow while exhausted. He tenderly lifts, gathers close, and lays the sheep on His shoulders and to His bosom and breast of infinite love, bearing it as a precious burden with pity, forgiveness and warming life safely back to the fold. Each person has been borne in this way, and no sheep would enter the fold without His painful search, which calls for humility rather than self-righteous criticism. That joyful rescue outweighs the sorrow of loss and the care, perplexity and peril of the search, and grateful that the perilous search was not in vain He returns rejoicing.
He returns rejoicing at every step, with a song that reaches the heavenly courts crying Rejoice, I have found My sheep. He calls neighbors, friends and others to rejoice with Him because the lost is found, with gladness and without complaint, and the return centers on the joy of finding, not on the straying. Angels around the throne join the anthem, singing Rejoice, for the Lord brings back His own, and the ransom of the wandering touches the harps of heaven over one sinner that repents. The recovery brings joy in heaven and calls for joy among those on earth who hear of it.
The verse gives success and not failure, joy in recovery and not a sorrowful shepherd returning without the sheep. There is no picture of failure, and that success in bringing sheep and lambs back is the lesson to be learned. It is the divine guarantee that not even one straying sheep of God's fold is overlooked and not one is left without help or unsuccored, for a golden chain of mercy and compassion of divine power is passed around every imperiled soul. Every one that will submit to be ransomed Christ will rescue from the pit of corruption, the briers of sin and the wilds of sin, so every wanderer should take courage, let faith take the place of unbelief, look at the hands pierced at infinite cost and rejoice in their power to save. To doubt the possibility of salvation is to doubt the saving power of Him who purchased him, for God and Christ are interested in the lost and all the host of heaven is engaged in the work.
When a wandering sheep is in peril, lost without hope and without courage in the mire, and no human makes effort to seek and save him or travail of soul for him, God Himself goes in search of him. God alone speaks to his soul, inspires hope to rely wholly on Christ, takes his feet out of the miry clay and sets them on the Rock of Ages, and by His own arm brings salvation. To God alone belongs all the glory, for the rescued one is indebted to no human agent. Therefore trust must rest on God rather than on men, looking to Jesus and hanging the helpless soul on Him by faith, since men may view him in a wrong light with distrust and suspicion and counselors of years of experience can do very strange things. God still works through human agencies with tender hearts of flesh to rescue, encourage, uplift and open the way for the erring who trust Him, yet when one errs he is too often pushed down, crowded down, or left without uplifting work by an un-Christlike spirit that hedges up the way and causes the struggling soul to let go the hand of infinite power.
Soul's Worth and Heaven's Joy
One lost soul is precious to God, of more value than a whole world of property, houses, lands and money, because of the possibilities before it, the spiritual advantages granted to it, the capabilities it may possess when vitalized by the Word of God, and the immortality it may gain through obedience to the gospel and the hope of the Life-giver. Christ would have died for even one person that that person might live forever, and to fail ninety-nine times yet succeed in saving the one soul from ruin is a noble deed for the Master's cause. That worth calls ministers and all workers to tax their resources to the utmost, to spend utmost effort and make sacrifices even to selling possessions if needed, to find the sheep at any peril and any cost, for to do less or neglect this work is without justification, a betrayal of sacred trust and an insult to God. The lost sheep is a soul in danger through sin with the possibility of immortal life, not to be passed by for care only of those already in the fold, and indifference to its peril provokes God's anger. Work among the humble and lowly leading them to the Saviour is as honorable as work among the rich and great, never to be scorned as too simple or dismissed as not worth saving, but done in humility and patience while leaving results with God, knowing the good accomplished cannot be measured in this life. One soul won flashes heaven's light all around, penetrating moral darkness and saving other souls, so that two, five and ten talents accumulate and double.
God's estimate of man is measured by giving heaven's best gift, Jesus His only-begotten Son, whose life is the price of the soul, to humiliation, poverty, self-sacrifice, contempt, rejection and death that man might be saved and ransomed. The lost sheep is every man of every nation, kindred, tongue, rank and race, high or low, rich or poor, white or black, still bearing the image of God and purchased by the blood of Christ, so none is to be treated with contempt. Satan has studied to lay in ruins that image and obliterate all trace of God's character through intemperance and sin, while Christ clothed divinity with humanity to meet humanity without extinguishing it, becoming a servant in lowly ministry, taking human weakness to lift man, and paying the redemption price on Calvary. That sacrifice reveals the Father's infinite love, for Christ who was with the Father before the world took human form, suffered and died on the cross for guilty perishing people, bearing long with them as His own property though they offend Him, taking the guilt of the undeserving upon His divine soul and imputing His own righteousness to them, since if He dealt with people as they deal with one another not one could be saved. His course for lost, erring, unbalanced and diseased minds is therefore to heal and not cut them off, speaking tender forbearance instead of hasty passionate words, and He came to save all who are lost, not only those who accept Him or seem faultless. Restoration costs the ransom money of Christ's own blood, accomplished by sending willing laborers into highways and hedges sustained by investing all possible means in God's cause instead of spending on needless display.
The recovery brings joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, shared by angels and by the Father and by Christ, greater than over the ninety and nine that did not stray. The shepherd laying the found sheep on his shoulders rejoicing pictures joyful rescue upon repentance, the loving care in finding what was lost, and the gladness called for in seeking those perishing in sin and welcoming them back. Those who labor for salvation bring joy and gladness to heavenly beings, and reclaiming the erring rather than waiting for return or demanding terms is a blessed work in which heaven rejoices when a sinner is restored. That joy outweighs the sorrow, care, perplexity and peril of the search, and when the lost is brought back God and Christ rejoice and the whole universe of heaven rejoices.
All heaven is enlisted and cooperates in that ransom, with ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands of angels ascending and descending as messengers of mercy to minister to those who shall be heirs of salvation, encamping round about those who fear and love God, not coming to denounce and destroy. Heavenly angels are connected with the Christian's work, watching human efforts to save souls with intense interest and working with seekers and with the Captain of the Lord's host and with human agents to seek and save the lost. The shepherd's pleasure and joy at every step home causes pleasure and rejoicing among the angels, showing wisdom, power and love without parallel. The ninety and nine that have not strayed do not call for the same sympathy and tender pitying love as the one that is lost and has caused greatest anxiety and engrossed the sympathies, yet the divine guarantee stands that not one straying sheep or lamb is overlooked or left unsuccored, but a golden chain of mercy and compassion of divine power is passed around every imperiled soul.
The joy in heaven calls for rejoicing on earth among those who hear, who help save a soul, and who are already in the church, for he who is instrumental in saving a soul is at liberty to rejoice with angels and Father and Christ in his success. When labor in new places brings wandering sheep into the fold through awakened souls and baptisms, those already in the church should rejoice at the finding instead of feeling envious and jealous like the elder son because more labor is not given to them. When a soul turns to the light of truth the one who sees it rejoices with that same great joy, more than over all the rest, and those who bring souls to Christ share in that rejoicing and will have great reward. As children not of darkness but of light, believers must therefore use time carefully, bring heaven into their own lives, have the love of God in the heart, care more for Heaven's approval than the world's, be assimilated to Christ, obey God, elevate men, let rays of light shine, impart what God has imparted, and cultivate intellect and wisdom to advance the work.
Church's Call to Seek
The carrying home on the shoulders with rejoicing is the church's pattern for straying members, who are to be sought out where they are and helped back to Christ and left in the fold rather than waited for or met with demanded terms, and reclaiming even one erring, weak, trembling, apostate soul in this compassionate search is blessed work that brings joy in heaven. Coldness and indifference in the church hinder such return and must be confessed and acknowledged as wrong before the lost, as in the case of George Lay, can be reached.
Ministers and under-shepherds are to leave those already cared for and labor chiefly for those outside, in new districts, waste places and foreign lands, knowing and seeking backsliders and each person with watchful tender care unto conversion. This is not preaching alone nor constant feeding of the church, but diligent personal effort, house-to-house visiting, watching for souls, bearing truth with tenderness, educating self-denying workers to go forth as missionaries with earnest travail, prayer in the Holy Spirit, and persevering refusal to yield or grow discouraged until the lost is recovered. Even one lost soul is worth such individual restoring effort, and heaven rejoices over its return.
The same hunting belongs to every converted believer, teacher, canvasser and parent, who is to use strength, talent and influence for unbelieving neighbors and friends with the last message of mercy and warning, ceasing criticism and cooperating with ministers to bring souls in rejoicing so many more are added. It requires studying how to approach men and women, presenting the Word tactfully and simply to awaken interest in those without intelligent understanding, giving clear definite instruction line upon line, reading the simple Word, sowing seed not knowing which shall prosper, and trading upon talents to the best ability instead of hiding them. The work is done by entering homes and situations best suited to talents in close relation with people, inviting outsiders to meetings, communicating heard truth beyond the family, carrying truth to every open place, opening new fields, and arousing others to their soul interest and the preciousness of Christ. Searching as those who must give an account softens speech and brings disposition under the Holy Spirit, which gives success.
The seeking is never with harsh words and a whip, blame, gossip, contempt or criticism, but with tender winning invitations, compassion, sorrow, persistence, patience, forbearance, and soothing words of hope, courage and pardon that heal and bind up. The ninety and nine that have not strayed do not call for the same sympathy and tender pitying love as the one that has caused greatest anxiety and engrosses the sympathies, so the faithful shepherd gives whole heart and soul and energies to that one and returns carrying it rejoicing at every step and calling others to rejoice. The found are borne back with pity, tenderness, forgiveness and love as a precious burden in danger, at cost of self-denial, hardship and physical discomfort, with pride and dignity set aside and earnest effort made easy for return. Even one personal wrong that keeps a wanderer away is to be humbly confessed.
Faithful shepherds forget self with the one object of saving the lost and wandering at whatever peril and cost to themselves, not feeling weariness and cold and hunger, uninfluenced by ease, comfort or wages, holding commission from Heaven and expecting reward when the entrusted work is done. They go forth amid frost and sleet and tempest, storm and cold, patiently continuing without reprimand or abandonment until the perishing object is found, lifted to the shoulder, and brought back with thankfulness and exceeding joy as over one soul saved from death. Ministers are to spend utmost effort, tax resources to the utmost, work and sacrifice as Christ worked for the conversion of one sinner because of the soul's value.
Bible teachers, school workers and parents bear the same responsibility for children, youth, and old and young who open the Scriptures, and when children and youth stray they are not to be given up, expelled, humiliated or driven where Satan can work his will upon them, but sought with tender voice and yearning love in personal work, speaking and praying with those taught. New and weak believers are to be borne with until strong, with clear definite instruction and special effort and care for the one lost, knowing all heaven is enlisted to bring them back. So labored for, they reach higher and remarkable conversions are expected.
Neglecting this seeking and sacrifice, going home at ease to care only for those already in the fold, crushing or cutting off the erring, or grumbling like the Pharisees at soul-hunting betrays sacred trust, leaves the church without excuse, insults God who gave His Son to shameful death, provokes His anger, and will meet solemn questions in the judgment for sheep left unsaved and perishing in the enemy's snare. Such murmuring when ministers labor chiefly for those who do not know the truth, and such selfish expectation of constant work for those with every spiritual advantage like sick babies needing breath kept in them, proves spiritual darkness, a cold dead heart with no light to diffuse and no subduing influence to pour out, making a terrible representation before the heavenly universe however great the numbers. Indifference to a soul in danger through sin, with immortality possible, and slothfulness that closes the heart and leaves the door shut, must be broken by conversion, counteracting wrong counsels, and pressing the case to the throne as Moses pleaded for Israel.
Those who share the search are in harmony with God, with spiritual faculties awakened and energized and intellectual and moral powers attaining highest development under the Holy Spirit, obtaining invaluable experience and grace in answer to demand. They are co-workers with Christ in thorough, patient, tender, sympathetic personal labor for those fallen under temptation and backslidden, connected with angels who watch human efforts with intense interest, and at liberty to rejoice with angels and Father and Christ over one sinner that repents. Their joy is the finder's joy, and one soul truly won flashes heaven's light around him, penetrating moral darkness and saving other souls so talents accumulate and double. Such ministers, precious in God's sight, go into waste places and foreign lands among idolaters, leaving comforts of home and society of friends, wife and children, farms and business, looking to the harvest, and though many lose their lives others rise to carry on until the seed sown in sorrow yields bountiful harvest and the knowledge of God is widely extended, which none but Christ can fully measure.
Restoration and Remaining Safe
Being found means deep conviction of the lost condition, sincere repentance for sin, surrender to Christ's will, and being brought back to the fold of God through genuine faith in Christ, earnest prayer and implicit trust in the mighty Helper apart from feeling. He alone can restore in man the moral image of God lost through transgression, undertaking the case of the man in slavery to sin who flees to Jesus and fighting the prince of darkness for his soul through the most discouraging circumstances of hardship and peril until the wanderer is found. Those thus brought back may rest in peace and joy in the Lord, sitting together with Him in heavenly places in fellowship with Him when the blessed light of the Sun of Righteousness shines into their hearts, finding pardon and new life that resists the tempter. This rescue by One who bought them with a price calls forth praise not only in words but by consecrating all they are and have to Him, which is the science and song of all the heavenly universe.
Christ's work is to restore and build up those who have gone wrong, not to keep them burdened with their past, and heaven rejoices when a sinner repents. As the delusions of Satan are broken and the sinner looks to Calvary and sees the costly offering given to save an apostate and ruined race, he contemplates the love of God who loved without being loved first, is deeply moved, becomes repentant, and by beholding Christ is changed and transformed in character from glory to glory, entering the conflict between light and darkness. Wandering sinners are brought back to God and to allegiance to Him through the power of truth, which has a peculiar working power adapted to the minds and hearts of wandering sheep, so that all who believe in Christ become sons and daughters of God and laborers together with Him. Those recovered by God's Word and personal labor can in turn become workers helping others, bringing joy to God and heaven.
The found wanderer must henceforth remain under the Shepherd's care in the fold and not renew wandering, repaying the Shepherd's love by staying. Men and women straying from the fold become cold and indifferent and lose all disposition to return, so they will not run after believers, and helpers must go to them where they are, place the straying one on the shoulder, carry him back to the fold, and leave him there to remain. The Shepherd stays always with His flock to defend them and keep them from wolves, to hunt for the lost sheep and carry it back, and to lead them beside green pastures and beside living waters.
The Shepherd heals lost, erring, unbalanced and diseased minds rather than cutting them off, ministering to sin-sick souls to bring healing and strength without heap of reproach. His welcome is compassion and love, not approval of sin, and the helpless lost condition shows humanity's need of the True Shepherd who seeks and saves the perishing at cost to Himself. Christ came to save the lost sheep of every rank and race, high or low, rich or poor, white or black, valuing every soul by the immense ransom of the life of God's only-begotten Son, bearing long with them as His own property though they offend Him, taking the guilt of the undeserving upon His divine soul and imputing His own righteousness to them, for if He dealt with people as they deal with one another not one could be saved. Satan has studied to lay in ruins the image of God in man and obliterate all trace of His character through intemperance and sin, while Christ clothed His divinity with humanity to meet humanity without extinguishing it, becoming a servant in lowly ministry to lift up the lowly, so no one separated from God is to be blamed, condemned, or treated with contempt, and no masterly, self-righteous, criticizing spirit is to be entertained.
Those who have been sought and rescued learn how to seek and help others who are lost, searching for those outside Christ and bringing them close to Himself and to the gospel of the sin-pardoning Saviour. All who believe become sons and daughters of God and laborers together with Him, so that restoration takes place through the truth and willing subjects are brought to allegiance to God and back to the fold. Those recovered from degradation by God's Word and personal labor can in turn become workers helping others, lighting confused minds and lifting the tempted with patience, bringing joy to God and heaven.
The true shepherd searches faithfully and personally until the stray is found and restored, not giving up or leaving the search to others, and when found lifts the helpless lamb and carries it close to himself, on his shoulders and in his bosom, enfolded in his robe, rejoicing, while leading the way and the flock follows closely behind. That carrying pictures tender love, protection, watchcare and guarding as careful as a mother guarding her child, giving more than daily food, and the love of Christ filling the shepherd's heart flows through him to the sheep and lambs. The verse thus sets the pattern for undershepherds of the flock to watch, guard and care for those under their protection with faithful, loving service.
The finding is seen in the family's joy when travelers returned safely, in the assurance that a child facing spiritual struggle remains precious to God, and in the Lord glorified when a sheep wounded, bruised and driven away from the church is restored to the fold. Such restoration means seeking them in their homes, praying with them, helping their minds in regard to truth such as the Sabbath, speaking plain things in love and treating them rightly, so that they are helped, strengthened and established, consecrated to do good with their means and by active effort, promise to attend meeting again with the church, and become superior, aggressive workers.
The recovery pictures lost people found and brought back to God's fold by faithful shepherds who go forth into the highways and byways and into the wilderness to seek and to save the lost and lead back the perishing sheep and lambs. This work belongs to all who profess Christ, whose sympathies are not congealed but whose hearts go out to the perishing nigh and afar off, who realize each is his brother's keeper, who help neighbors see truth and serve God acceptably and aid others in forming a Christlike character, changing the condition of the poor and distressed and letting pure religion gleam as a bright light that melts barriers of race and caste and removes obstacles barring others from truth. Christ's pitying care goes after the lost and draws them back to the tender Shepherd, illustrating the care owed to those wandered from the faith, and the study of nature can help guide the lost back to God.
The verse pictures Christ the divine Shepherd finding the helpless lost sinner who cannot find his own way back and tenderly lifting him to His shoulders to carry him home rejoicing. It was spoken in the parable of the lost sheep when publicans and sinners drew near to hear Jesus and scribes and Pharisees murmured that He receives sinners, to show that His welcome is pitying love and not approval of sin. He seeks persistently through darkness and peril at the cost of hardship and blood even to the cross, and when He finds He does not scold or drive but bears the bruised one as a precious burden. One soul is of more value than a whole world of property because of its possibilities and immortality, so its recovery brings joy in heaven shared by angels and the Father greater than over the ninety and nine. The church and every believer must therefore go to seek the straying with tender compassion and not wait for them to return, for neglecting that work betrays sacred trust while sharing it brings the finder's joy and great reward.
Parable Occasion and Form
The verse belongs to the parable of the lost sheep, spoken when publicans and sinners drew near to hear Jesus while scribes and Pharisees murmured because He receives sinners and eats with them. In that setting a man with a hundred sheep leaves the ninety and nine in the wilderness to go after the one that is lost until he finds it, and then carries it home rejoicing. The lost sheep is man, every man of every nation, kindred and tongue, white or black, who still bears the image of God and is the purchase of Christ's blood. The finding shows the estimate God placed upon man in giving heaven's best gift, Jesus, to humiliation, poverty and self-sacrifice, to contempt, rejection and death, that man might be saved and ransomed. The rejoicing shows the interest of all heaven in that ransom, with ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands of angels ascending and descending to minister to heirs of salvation as messengers of mercy, cooperating with the Captain of the Lord's host and with human agents to seek and save the lost, and encamping round about those who fear and love God, not coming to denounce and destroy.
The parable answers the charge, This Man receiveth sinners, which was meant to create the false impression that Jesus loved the company of the sinful and defiled and was insensible to their wickedness. The opposite is true, for His receiving of sinners comes from God so loving the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. He truly receives sinners because He greets them as children of God estranged from the Father's house yet not forgotten by the Father's heart. In His presence even the vilest feel there is escape from the pit of sin, and their very misery and sin make them only more the objects of His compassion, so that the farther they have wandered the more earnest is His longing and the greater His sacrifice for their rescue. His welcome of publicans and sinners was therefore a lesson of compassion and love, not approval of sin, for He came to recover those who are lost, not to condemn or destroy them, while those who see themselves as spiritually complete fail to recognize their need of repentance.
The parable rebukes the hard-hearted leaders of Israel for neglecting publicans and sinners instead of seeking them, while they despised, condemned and criticized both the lost and His work for them. Laying the found sheep on his shoulders rejoicing is the duty of true shepherds, who must not hold aloof in supposed piety from the lost that are bleating and do not know how to get back, for Christ's special work is not for those who think themselves safe but for seeking the lost until found. Refusal to manifest the mercy and love of Christ and to unite with Him in seeking and saving the lost proves claims of piety to be false, and grumbling against soul-hunting proves spiritual darkness and a cold dead heart with no light to diffuse. Christ gave this reproof by illustration rather than openly, lest their hearts be closed against Him. While many rejected the reproof, some were convicted by it as a symbol intended to convict them, and after Christ's resurrection and ascension they received the Holy Spirit and united with His disciples in the church in the very work of seeking the lost outlined in the parable.
The lost-sheep parable stands together with the parable of the lost piece of silver and the prodigal son, showing God's pitying love for those who stray from Him and His kindness and tender pity toward those exposed to temptation. Christ gave the lost sheep immediately before the woman who lights a candle and seeks diligently for one lost coin, teaching that what is lost can be recovered through searching and that its recovery brings great joy to those who know they are separated from God and cannot restore themselves. He repeated the beautiful parable of the lost sheep with its rejoicing over the found carried still farther by the lost piece of silver and the prodigal son. He taught it through the familiar shepherd and sheep from daily life to shape character and guide the conduct of life, using familiar things to teach immortal truth. It was a message of mercy fitted to His hearers, a word in season to the weary spoken with grace to make treasures of truth attractive, revealing God and the realities of the eternal world in simple form with wonderful depth of meaning. It reaches the heart through the imagination with tact that wins attention even from prejudiced minds, breaks the spell of absorption in earthly things by placing this life in true subordinate relation to eternal interest while linking heaven and earth together, and puts a lesson in nature so that every later sight of shepherd and sheep recalls His words and constantly repeats His teaching.
Its full force was not appreciated at once but was entered into after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, when the ingathering of the Gentiles and the envious anger of the Jews made plain its joy over the lost found alive again.
Sheep and Shepherd Symbols
The shepherd is Christ Himself, the Good, the True and the divine Shepherd, the pure and sinless Redeemer, and in Him God is seen taking the first step to seek men while they are still in rebellion against Him. He goes out into the desert and wilderness of thickets, quagmires and dangerous crevices, through dark night and severe tempest, calling the lost by name at every step until He hears its terrified, faint, dying bleating afar off, encountering every difficulty, parting briars and lifting from mire with firm yet gentle hand. When He finds it alive He does not heap reproaches, scold, drive or condemn, but is only glad, tenderly lifting it to His shoulders and to His breast of infinite love, bearing the sinful and unclean as a burden so precious that He rejoices, His song of rejoicing reaching the heavenly courts.
The lost and found sheep is the individual sinner of every nation, kindred, rank and race, one who knows he is lost, having left shepherd and flock and wandered into wilderness or upon the mountains. It is a soul wandered away from God, separated from Him in a cloud of perplexity, in humiliation and sorely tempted, as helpless as the strayed sheep that cannot find its way back and could never find its way to God unless divine love came to rescue it. The shepherd's carrying it himself, lifting the trembling, bruised and wounded creature onto his shoulders and bringing it home, pictures God's patient, persevering love that takes the first step even while men are in rebellion, seeking and rescuing even one lost soul at the cost of His own life.
The one lost sheep is also the one fallen world, apostatized and ruined by sin through the transgression of the first parents, lost without hope and cut off from heaven. Though this world is only an atom in the vast dominions God governs, this little fallen, seared and marred world is more precious in His sight than the ninety and nine that did not stray from the fold. Looking down with sympathy, Christ, the loved Commander in the heavenly courts, left His high and exalted place on His Father's throne and the glory He had with the Father, stooping from His high estate to take human weakness and sins, enduring temptation, ridicule, opposition, human woes, griefs and sorrows without murmuring, descending step by step in humiliation until He hung as a criminal on the cross of Calvary where He paid the redemption price. There He encircled the race with His right arm of infinite love while grasping the throne of infinite power, so connecting earth with heaven, because God gave Himself in His Son to have the joy of receiving back the sheep that was lost, making the final decision in Gethsemane to save man at any cost to Himself.
The ninety and nine that did not stray are the sinless worlds on high that loved Christ and stayed loyal, whom He left to come to this earth and suffer for human sins. They are also those left safe in the fold or wilderness who have not strayed, who do not call for the same sympathy, tender pitying love, anxiety and whole-hearted energy as the one that is lost and has caused greatest anxiety and engrossed the shepherd's sympathies. Therefore the disinterested, faithful shepherd leaves all the rest and spends whole heart and soul and energies amid frost and cold, storm and tempest, patiently laboring without resting, murmuring or blaming until the object of his search is found. When found he lifts it to his shoulder and returns carrying it with gladness and rejoicing at every step, calling others to rejoice with him, and no picture is given of a sorrowful shepherd returning without the sheep; that joy outweighs the sorrow of loss and the care, perplexity and peril of the search. Christ's example in seeking and saving the one though He has ninety-nine others shows the lost soul is valuable and calls ministers to spend their utmost effort and make sacrifices to bring one sinner to conversion.
The lost sheep is also the straying church member, the backslider and the erring, weak, trembling and even apostate one, including those driven away, in contention, isolated, or such as George Lay, Martha, Edson White, Sister Martin and Sister Holland. Such are to be sought out and helped back to Christ and to the Great Shepherd's fold rather than waited for or met with demanded terms, for reclaiming the erring is a blessed work and heaven rejoices when a sinner is restored. The church had failed in this duty and needed to recognize and acknowledge that wrong, confessing its own coldness and indifference that hinder return, before the straying could be reached.
The sheep and lambs also picture children and youth who stray and face temptation in the wilderness of temptation, whom the Shepherd seeks with tender sympathy and protects with living interest so they are not left to perish or driven for Satan to work his cruel will upon them. Those responsible for them, every minister and every Christian teacher of children, youth, and old and young in opening the Scriptures, must seek the one who strays with tender, winning invitations to return and with yearning love, not with harsh words and a whip, not giving them up, expelling them from school, or humiliating them. All heaven is enlisted in bringing them back to the fold, with a golden chain of mercy and compassion of divine power passed around every imperiled soul as the divine guarantee that not one straying sheep and lamb is overlooked or left unsuccored.
Laying the sheep on the shoulders pictures Christ taking the place of helpless sinners and bearing their guilt as Sin-bearer, the pure sinless Redeemer bearing the sinful unclean and the befouled sheep, so that every individual self has thus been borne upon His shoulders. He alone can restore the moral image of God lost through transgression, undertaking the case of the man in slavery to sin who flees to Jesus and fighting the prince of darkness for his soul, all suffering, trial and peril forgotten in the joy of finding. Being laid on His shoulders means being brought back to the fold of God through genuine repentance for sin and for stubborn resistance against truth, through distinct knowledge of lost condition, entire surrender to Christ's will, earnest faith and prayer and implicit trust in the mighty Helper, finding peace and rest in Him as a miracle of mercy. The return is by entering through the door into the fold and into the open doors of the heavenly Canaan, not by climbing up some other way, a life prepared through His own suffering and death that would never have cost pain or grief if the sheep had never left it, every self-denial and sacrifice in following Him being a step of that return.
Christ's Costly Tender Rescue
The wandering soul is as helpless as the strayed sheep, the most helpless of all creatures, which cannot find its way back to the fold and if left to itself wanders until it perishes. Finding therefore means seeking and carrying home, for the sinner could never find the way to God unless divine love came to rescue him. The shepherd carries the found sheep himself, and that care pictures patient, persevering love that seeks the bewildered and endangered in the wilderness, endures hardship to bring them back, and calls for personal, compassionate effort to help those who have wandered from Christ return. Many souls go down to ruin for want of a hand stretched out to save them, and erring ones who seem hard and reckless might have shown nobility of soul and talent for usefulness if they had received the same advantages as others. Angels pity these wanderers and weep while human eyes are dry and hearts closed to pity, revealing the lack of deep soul-touching sympathy and the need for more of Christ's spirit and far less of self.
Salvation does not come through seeking after God but through God's seeking after us. He takes the first step while people are still in rebellion, extending love first, and that revealed love produces repentance. The sinner cannot make himself worthy of justification nor take a step toward spiritual life without Jesus seeking, drawing, strengthening and leading him to repentance. By unmerited grace Christ seeks those who have wandered away and brings them back to the fold, and their rescue brings joy in heaven. Every wanderer who is willing is brought back to the Father's house because the lost sheep is precious to Him.
The Shepherd seeks persistently until He finds, leaving the fold for desert, mountains, valleys, thickets, quagmires and crevices. He goes out in dark night through storm, frost and tempest without resting, over rough and steep roads into wild bare mountains, crossing deep waters, calling the lost sheep by name at every step until He hears its terrified, faint, dying cry. He follows that cry through dangerous places and tangled briers to the very edge of the precipice at risk of His own life, drawing the straying with cords of a man and with bands of love. When the sheep is found, fainting and helpless and ready to die far from care, He brings it back as His own without complaint.
The search is a stern conflict with Satan for the soul of man, who lays every device to counteract the work of God and defeat the Shepherd's purpose. It is carried on with compassion, sorrow and persistence far beyond what under-shepherds endure, costing self-denial, hardship, privation and humiliation to the cross. Blood drops mark all along the mountain track, with hands rent and torn and pierced by thorns, showing that Christ suffers to bring the straying back to safety. On the cross He paid the redemption price for the lost world He loved, encircling the race with infinite love while grasping infinite power, and a truly converted soul shares that missionary burden. The wounded hands reveal the strength and fervor of divine compassion in persistent, untiring labor to bring the one lost sheep to the Father's fold.
When found He does not scold, drive, reproach, murmur, blame for trouble caused, mourn over Himself, force the weak to walk, or leave the trembling, bruised and wounded to follow while exhausted. He tenderly lifts, gathers close, and lays the sheep on His shoulders and to His bosom and breast of infinite love, bearing it as a precious burden with pity, forgiveness and warming life safely back to the fold. Each person has been borne in this way, and no sheep would enter the fold without His painful search, which calls for humility rather than self-righteous criticism. That joyful rescue outweighs the sorrow of loss and the care, perplexity and peril of the search, and grateful that the perilous search was not in vain He returns rejoicing.
He returns rejoicing at every step, with a song that reaches the heavenly courts crying Rejoice, I have found My sheep. He calls neighbors, friends and others to rejoice with Him because the lost is found, with gladness and without complaint, and the return centers on the joy of finding, not on the straying. Angels around the throne join the anthem, singing Rejoice, for the Lord brings back His own, and the ransom of the wandering touches the harps of heaven over one sinner that repents. The recovery brings joy in heaven and calls for joy among those on earth who hear of it.
The verse gives success and not failure, joy in recovery and not a sorrowful shepherd returning without the sheep. There is no picture of failure, and that success in bringing sheep and lambs back is the lesson to be learned. It is the divine guarantee that not even one straying sheep of God's fold is overlooked and not one is left without help or unsuccored, for a golden chain of mercy and compassion of divine power is passed around every imperiled soul. Every one that will submit to be ransomed Christ will rescue from the pit of corruption, the briers of sin and the wilds of sin, so every wanderer should take courage, let faith take the place of unbelief, look at the hands pierced at infinite cost and rejoice in their power to save. To doubt the possibility of salvation is to doubt the saving power of Him who purchased him, for God and Christ are interested in the lost and all the host of heaven is engaged in the work.
When a wandering sheep is in peril, lost without hope and without courage in the mire, and no human makes effort to seek and save him or travail of soul for him, God Himself goes in search of him. God alone speaks to his soul, inspires hope to rely wholly on Christ, takes his feet out of the miry clay and sets them on the Rock of Ages, and by His own arm brings salvation. To God alone belongs all the glory, for the rescued one is indebted to no human agent. Therefore trust must rest on God rather than on men, looking to Jesus and hanging the helpless soul on Him by faith, since men may view him in a wrong light with distrust and suspicion and counselors of years of experience can do very strange things. God still works through human agencies with tender hearts of flesh to rescue, encourage, uplift and open the way for the erring who trust Him, yet when one errs he is too often pushed down, crowded down, or left without uplifting work by an un-Christlike spirit that hedges up the way and causes the struggling soul to let go the hand of infinite power.
Soul's Worth and Heaven's Joy
One lost soul is precious to God, of more value than a whole world of property, houses, lands and money, because of the possibilities before it, the spiritual advantages granted to it, the capabilities it may possess when vitalized by the Word of God, and the immortality it may gain through obedience to the gospel and the hope of the Life-giver. Christ would have died for even one person that that person might live forever, and to fail ninety-nine times yet succeed in saving the one soul from ruin is a noble deed for the Master's cause. That worth calls ministers and all workers to tax their resources to the utmost, to spend utmost effort and make sacrifices even to selling possessions if needed, to find the sheep at any peril and any cost, for to do less or neglect this work is without justification, a betrayal of sacred trust and an insult to God. The lost sheep is a soul in danger through sin with the possibility of immortal life, not to be passed by for care only of those already in the fold, and indifference to its peril provokes God's anger. Work among the humble and lowly leading them to the Saviour is as honorable as work among the rich and great, never to be scorned as too simple or dismissed as not worth saving, but done in humility and patience while leaving results with God, knowing the good accomplished cannot be measured in this life. One soul won flashes heaven's light all around, penetrating moral darkness and saving other souls, so that two, five and ten talents accumulate and double.
God's estimate of man is measured by giving heaven's best gift, Jesus His only-begotten Son, whose life is the price of the soul, to humiliation, poverty, self-sacrifice, contempt, rejection and death that man might be saved and ransomed. The lost sheep is every man of every nation, kindred, tongue, rank and race, high or low, rich or poor, white or black, still bearing the image of God and purchased by the blood of Christ, so none is to be treated with contempt. Satan has studied to lay in ruins that image and obliterate all trace of God's character through intemperance and sin, while Christ clothed divinity with humanity to meet humanity without extinguishing it, becoming a servant in lowly ministry, taking human weakness to lift man, and paying the redemption price on Calvary. That sacrifice reveals the Father's infinite love, for Christ who was with the Father before the world took human form, suffered and died on the cross for guilty perishing people, bearing long with them as His own property though they offend Him, taking the guilt of the undeserving upon His divine soul and imputing His own righteousness to them, since if He dealt with people as they deal with one another not one could be saved. His course for lost, erring, unbalanced and diseased minds is therefore to heal and not cut them off, speaking tender forbearance instead of hasty passionate words, and He came to save all who are lost, not only those who accept Him or seem faultless. Restoration costs the ransom money of Christ's own blood, accomplished by sending willing laborers into highways and hedges sustained by investing all possible means in God's cause instead of spending on needless display.
The recovery brings joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, shared by angels and by the Father and by Christ, greater than over the ninety and nine that did not stray. The shepherd laying the found sheep on his shoulders rejoicing pictures joyful rescue upon repentance, the loving care in finding what was lost, and the gladness called for in seeking those perishing in sin and welcoming them back. Those who labor for salvation bring joy and gladness to heavenly beings, and reclaiming the erring rather than waiting for return or demanding terms is a blessed work in which heaven rejoices when a sinner is restored. That joy outweighs the sorrow, care, perplexity and peril of the search, and when the lost is brought back God and Christ rejoice and the whole universe of heaven rejoices.
All heaven is enlisted and cooperates in that ransom, with ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands of angels ascending and descending as messengers of mercy to minister to those who shall be heirs of salvation, encamping round about those who fear and love God, not coming to denounce and destroy. Heavenly angels are connected with the Christian's work, watching human efforts to save souls with intense interest and working with seekers and with the Captain of the Lord's host and with human agents to seek and save the lost. The shepherd's pleasure and joy at every step home causes pleasure and rejoicing among the angels, showing wisdom, power and love without parallel. The ninety and nine that have not strayed do not call for the same sympathy and tender pitying love as the one that is lost and has caused greatest anxiety and engrossed the sympathies, yet the divine guarantee stands that not one straying sheep or lamb is overlooked or left unsuccored, but a golden chain of mercy and compassion of divine power is passed around every imperiled soul.
The joy in heaven calls for rejoicing on earth among those who hear, who help save a soul, and who are already in the church, for he who is instrumental in saving a soul is at liberty to rejoice with angels and Father and Christ in his success. When labor in new places brings wandering sheep into the fold through awakened souls and baptisms, those already in the church should rejoice at the finding instead of feeling envious and jealous like the elder son because more labor is not given to them. When a soul turns to the light of truth the one who sees it rejoices with that same great joy, more than over all the rest, and those who bring souls to Christ share in that rejoicing and will have great reward. As children not of darkness but of light, believers must therefore use time carefully, bring heaven into their own lives, have the love of God in the heart, care more for Heaven's approval than the world's, be assimilated to Christ, obey God, elevate men, let rays of light shine, impart what God has imparted, and cultivate intellect and wisdom to advance the work.
Church's Call to Seek
The carrying home on the shoulders with rejoicing is the church's pattern for straying members, who are to be sought out where they are and helped back to Christ and left in the fold rather than waited for or met with demanded terms, and reclaiming even one erring, weak, trembling, apostate soul in this compassionate search is blessed work that brings joy in heaven. Coldness and indifference in the church hinder such return and must be confessed and acknowledged as wrong before the lost, as in the case of George Lay, can be reached.
Ministers and under-shepherds are to leave those already cared for and labor chiefly for those outside, in new districts, waste places and foreign lands, knowing and seeking backsliders and each person with watchful tender care unto conversion. This is not preaching alone nor constant feeding of the church, but diligent personal effort, house-to-house visiting, watching for souls, bearing truth with tenderness, educating self-denying workers to go forth as missionaries with earnest travail, prayer in the Holy Spirit, and persevering refusal to yield or grow discouraged until the lost is recovered. Even one lost soul is worth such individual restoring effort, and heaven rejoices over its return.
The same hunting belongs to every converted believer, teacher, canvasser and parent, who is to use strength, talent and influence for unbelieving neighbors and friends with the last message of mercy and warning, ceasing criticism and cooperating with ministers to bring souls in rejoicing so many more are added. It requires studying how to approach men and women, presenting the Word tactfully and simply to awaken interest in those without intelligent understanding, giving clear definite instruction line upon line, reading the simple Word, sowing seed not knowing which shall prosper, and trading upon talents to the best ability instead of hiding them. The work is done by entering homes and situations best suited to talents in close relation with people, inviting outsiders to meetings, communicating heard truth beyond the family, carrying truth to every open place, opening new fields, and arousing others to their soul interest and the preciousness of Christ. Searching as those who must give an account softens speech and brings disposition under the Holy Spirit, which gives success.
The seeking is never with harsh words and a whip, blame, gossip, contempt or criticism, but with tender winning invitations, compassion, sorrow, persistence, patience, forbearance, and soothing words of hope, courage and pardon that heal and bind up. The ninety and nine that have not strayed do not call for the same sympathy and tender pitying love as the one that has caused greatest anxiety and engrosses the sympathies, so the faithful shepherd gives whole heart and soul and energies to that one and returns carrying it rejoicing at every step and calling others to rejoice. The found are borne back with pity, tenderness, forgiveness and love as a precious burden in danger, at cost of self-denial, hardship and physical discomfort, with pride and dignity set aside and earnest effort made easy for return. Even one personal wrong that keeps a wanderer away is to be humbly confessed.
Faithful shepherds forget self with the one object of saving the lost and wandering at whatever peril and cost to themselves, not feeling weariness and cold and hunger, uninfluenced by ease, comfort or wages, holding commission from Heaven and expecting reward when the entrusted work is done. They go forth amid frost and sleet and tempest, storm and cold, patiently continuing without reprimand or abandonment until the perishing object is found, lifted to the shoulder, and brought back with thankfulness and exceeding joy as over one soul saved from death. Ministers are to spend utmost effort, tax resources to the utmost, work and sacrifice as Christ worked for the conversion of one sinner because of the soul's value.
Bible teachers, school workers and parents bear the same responsibility for children, youth, and old and young who open the Scriptures, and when children and youth stray they are not to be given up, expelled, humiliated or driven where Satan can work his will upon them, but sought with tender voice and yearning love in personal work, speaking and praying with those taught. New and weak believers are to be borne with until strong, with clear definite instruction and special effort and care for the one lost, knowing all heaven is enlisted to bring them back. So labored for, they reach higher and remarkable conversions are expected.
Neglecting this seeking and sacrifice, going home at ease to care only for those already in the fold, crushing or cutting off the erring, or grumbling like the Pharisees at soul-hunting betrays sacred trust, leaves the church without excuse, insults God who gave His Son to shameful death, provokes His anger, and will meet solemn questions in the judgment for sheep left unsaved and perishing in the enemy's snare. Such murmuring when ministers labor chiefly for those who do not know the truth, and such selfish expectation of constant work for those with every spiritual advantage like sick babies needing breath kept in them, proves spiritual darkness, a cold dead heart with no light to diffuse and no subduing influence to pour out, making a terrible representation before the heavenly universe however great the numbers. Indifference to a soul in danger through sin, with immortality possible, and slothfulness that closes the heart and leaves the door shut, must be broken by conversion, counteracting wrong counsels, and pressing the case to the throne as Moses pleaded for Israel.
Those who share the search are in harmony with God, with spiritual faculties awakened and energized and intellectual and moral powers attaining highest development under the Holy Spirit, obtaining invaluable experience and grace in answer to demand. They are co-workers with Christ in thorough, patient, tender, sympathetic personal labor for those fallen under temptation and backslidden, connected with angels who watch human efforts with intense interest, and at liberty to rejoice with angels and Father and Christ over one sinner that repents. Their joy is the finder's joy, and one soul truly won flashes heaven's light around him, penetrating moral darkness and saving other souls so talents accumulate and double. Such ministers, precious in God's sight, go into waste places and foreign lands among idolaters, leaving comforts of home and society of friends, wife and children, farms and business, looking to the harvest, and though many lose their lives others rise to carry on until the seed sown in sorrow yields bountiful harvest and the knowledge of God is widely extended, which none but Christ can fully measure.
Restoration and Remaining Safe
Being found means deep conviction of the lost condition, sincere repentance for sin, surrender to Christ's will, and being brought back to the fold of God through genuine faith in Christ, earnest prayer and implicit trust in the mighty Helper apart from feeling. He alone can restore in man the moral image of God lost through transgression, undertaking the case of the man in slavery to sin who flees to Jesus and fighting the prince of darkness for his soul through the most discouraging circumstances of hardship and peril until the wanderer is found. Those thus brought back may rest in peace and joy in the Lord, sitting together with Him in heavenly places in fellowship with Him when the blessed light of the Sun of Righteousness shines into their hearts, finding pardon and new life that resists the tempter. This rescue by One who bought them with a price calls forth praise not only in words but by consecrating all they are and have to Him, which is the science and song of all the heavenly universe.
Christ's work is to restore and build up those who have gone wrong, not to keep them burdened with their past, and heaven rejoices when a sinner repents. As the delusions of Satan are broken and the sinner looks to Calvary and sees the costly offering given to save an apostate and ruined race, he contemplates the love of God who loved without being loved first, is deeply moved, becomes repentant, and by beholding Christ is changed and transformed in character from glory to glory, entering the conflict between light and darkness. Wandering sinners are brought back to God and to allegiance to Him through the power of truth, which has a peculiar working power adapted to the minds and hearts of wandering sheep, so that all who believe in Christ become sons and daughters of God and laborers together with Him. Those recovered by God's Word and personal labor can in turn become workers helping others, bringing joy to God and heaven.
The found wanderer must henceforth remain under the Shepherd's care in the fold and not renew wandering, repaying the Shepherd's love by staying. Men and women straying from the fold become cold and indifferent and lose all disposition to return, so they will not run after believers, and helpers must go to them where they are, place the straying one on the shoulder, carry him back to the fold, and leave him there to remain. The Shepherd stays always with His flock to defend them and keep them from wolves, to hunt for the lost sheep and carry it back, and to lead them beside green pastures and beside living waters.
The Shepherd heals lost, erring, unbalanced and diseased minds rather than cutting them off, ministering to sin-sick souls to bring healing and strength without heap of reproach. His welcome is compassion and love, not approval of sin, and the helpless lost condition shows humanity's need of the True Shepherd who seeks and saves the perishing at cost to Himself. Christ came to save the lost sheep of every rank and race, high or low, rich or poor, white or black, valuing every soul by the immense ransom of the life of God's only-begotten Son, bearing long with them as His own property though they offend Him, taking the guilt of the undeserving upon His divine soul and imputing His own righteousness to them, for if He dealt with people as they deal with one another not one could be saved. Satan has studied to lay in ruins the image of God in man and obliterate all trace of His character through intemperance and sin, while Christ clothed His divinity with humanity to meet humanity without extinguishing it, becoming a servant in lowly ministry to lift up the lowly, so no one separated from God is to be blamed, condemned, or treated with contempt, and no masterly, self-righteous, criticizing spirit is to be entertained.
Those who have been sought and rescued learn how to seek and help others who are lost, searching for those outside Christ and bringing them close to Himself and to the gospel of the sin-pardoning Saviour. All who believe become sons and daughters of God and laborers together with Him, so that restoration takes place through the truth and willing subjects are brought to allegiance to God and back to the fold. Those recovered from degradation by God's Word and personal labor can in turn become workers helping others, lighting confused minds and lifting the tempted with patience, bringing joy to God and heaven.
The true shepherd searches faithfully and personally until the stray is found and restored, not giving up or leaving the search to others, and when found lifts the helpless lamb and carries it close to himself, on his shoulders and in his bosom, enfolded in his robe, rejoicing, while leading the way and the flock follows closely behind. That carrying pictures tender love, protection, watchcare and guarding as careful as a mother guarding her child, giving more than daily food, and the love of Christ filling the shepherd's heart flows through him to the sheep and lambs. The verse thus sets the pattern for undershepherds of the flock to watch, guard and care for those under their protection with faithful, loving service.
The finding is seen in the family's joy when travelers returned safely, in the assurance that a child facing spiritual struggle remains precious to God, and in the Lord glorified when a sheep wounded, bruised and driven away from the church is restored to the fold. Such restoration means seeking them in their homes, praying with them, helping their minds in regard to truth such as the Sabbath, speaking plain things in love and treating them rightly, so that they are helped, strengthened and established, consecrated to do good with their means and by active effort, promise to attend meeting again with the church, and become superior, aggressive workers.
The recovery pictures lost people found and brought back to God's fold by faithful shepherds who go forth into the highways and byways and into the wilderness to seek and to save the lost and lead back the perishing sheep and lambs. This work belongs to all who profess Christ, whose sympathies are not congealed but whose hearts go out to the perishing nigh and afar off, who realize each is his brother's keeper, who help neighbors see truth and serve God acceptably and aid others in forming a Christlike character, changing the condition of the poor and distressed and letting pure religion gleam as a bright light that melts barriers of race and caste and removes obstacles barring others from truth. Christ's pitying care goes after the lost and draws them back to the tender Shepherd, illustrating the care owed to those wandered from the faith, and the study of nature can help guide the lost back to God.