Luke 15:1-7

CHAPTER 12

THE HUNDRED SHEEP

Luke 15:1-7. Our Lord is still in Perea, east of the Jordan, with His face toward Jerusalem, traveling slowly, accompanied by vast multitudes, to whom, daily halting, He preaches the living Word. “ And all the publicans and sinners were drawing nigh to hear Him. And the Pharisees and scribes were murmuring, saying, He receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.” Jesus associated freely with sinners, showing Himself kind and loving, and eating at their tables. He did this for the sole purpose of doing them good. We should do likewise, associating with them only to save them, diligently utilizing every opportunity, by prayer, appeal, exhortation, and brotherly kindness, to bring them to repentance and draw them to the Savior.

“ And He spoke this parable to them, saying, What man of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after the lost one until he may find it? Having found it, he places it on his shoulders, rejoicing, and coming to his house, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, Rejoice with me, because I found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you that there is joy in heaven over one sinner repenting, rather than ninety and nine just persons who have no need of repentance.” This is a beautiful symbolism of the faithful pastor Jesus frequently called the Jews “sheep without a shepherd,” not that they were aliens and heathens, for they were all bona fide members of the visible Church; but He simply means that they were destitute of the much-needed spiritual guides, i.e., they had plenty of preachers, but no one to care for their souls. The sanctified pastor, filled with the Holy Ghost and endued with His gifts (1 Corinthians 12:8-11), has very acute spiritual discernment, so as to readily detect a backslider in his congregation. John Wesley pronounced every one back-slidden who did not pray orally and testify. O how the Church needs faithful shepherds this day, endued with spiritual discernment, competent to detect the wandering sheep, courageous enough to pursue it into every hell-den, and at the peril of his life rescue it from Satan's prowling wolves; and then grateful enough to the Great Deliverer to hold a jubilee meeting over every reclaimed backslider! Let not holiness people make the mistake of resting with the flock safe in the fold, while some poor wanderer is already bewildered amid the crags and precipices and on the brink of destruction. Scripture is unlike uninspired literature, in the fact of its multifarious significations, light radiating out from every segment of the gospel globe, reflected from the glorious Sun of righteousness. The Bible corroborates astronomy and geology in the hypothesis of multitudinous celestial worlds. One hundred is a round number, and here used representatively. The blessed Second Person of the Trinity is the revealed Creator of all material worlds. (Colossians 1.) Now conceive our Great Shepherd having created a hundred worlds, and one of them wanders away from the house of God i.e., the Celestial Kingdom lassoed by Satan in view of adding it to hell, to augment the unsatisfactory limits of the pandemonium. The Good Shepherd leaves the ninety and nine bright, unfallen, celestial worlds, comes down to earth, battles with the powers of darkness, defeats the hosts of hell, and rescues the wanderer. This is a stupendous work, and even now in progress. Wonderful victories lie out before us, when the Millennial Theocracy shall inundate this fallen world with celestial glory, sweeping on a thousand years, with no devil on the earth, finally to be followed by the sanctifying baptism of celestial fire, utterly expurgating out of this world all the debris of sin, having accumulated during the reign of Satan six thousand years, thus making earth and firmament all new. (Revelation 21.) O what a shout will roar and reverberate through the one hundred celestial worlds, when our lost planet, in the glorious and triumphant finale shall be brought back within the immediate illumination of the city of God, the New Jerusalem, there, in glorious harmony with all celestial spheres, to wheel in beauty, and splendor around the throne of God, pursuing undeviatingly the very orbit in which the Omnipotent Hand located her when first from shapeless chaos, responsive to the Divine bidding, she wheeled into line, and took her place in the heavenly ecliptic.