Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2083
Delivered on Lord’ S-Day Morning, April 28, 1889
“How think you? If a man has an hundred sheep and one of them is gone astray, does he not lea ve the ninety and nine and go into the mountains and seek that which is gone astray? And if he should find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoices more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray.” Matthew 18:12,13.
THIS passage occurs in a discourse of our Savior against despising one of those little ones that believe in Him. He foretells a dreadful doom for those who, in their contempt for the little ones, cause them to stumble. And He forbids that contempt by a variety of forcible arguments upon which we cannot now dwell. There is a tendency, apparent at this present time, to think little of the conversion of individuals and to look upon the work of the Holy Spirit upon each separate person as much too slow a business for this progressive age.
We hear grand theories of a theocracy of a kind unknown to Holy Scripture—a semi-political dominion of the Lord over masses wherein the individuals are unregenerate. We listen to great swelling words about the uplifting of nations and the advancement of the race. But these lofty ideas do not produce facts, nor have they any moral power. Our “cultured” teachers are weary of the humdrum work of bringing individual souls into light. They want to do it wholesale, by a far more rapid process than that of personal salvation. They are tired of the units—their great minds dwell upon “the solidarity of the race.”
I am bold to assert that if ever we despise the method of individual conversion we shall get into an unsound order of business altogether and find ourselves wrecked upon the rocks of hypocrisy. Even in those right glorious times when the Gospel shall have the freest course, when it shall run the most quickly and be the most extensively glorified, its progress will still be after the former manner of the conviction, conversion and sanctification of individuals. Individuals who shall each one believe and be baptized according to the Word of the Lord.
I fear lest in any of you there should be even the least measure of despising the one lost sheep because of the large and philosophical methods which are now so loudly advocated. I would not have you exchange the gold of individual Christianity for the base metal of Christian Socialism. If the wanderers are to be brought in, in vast numbers, as I pray they may be, yet must it be accomplished by the bringing of them in one by one. To attempt national regeneration without personal regeneration is to dream of erecting a house without separate bricks. In the vain attempt to work in the gross, we may miss the practical result which would have followed working in detail. Let us settle it in our minds that we cannot do better than obey the example of our Lord Jesus given us in the text and go after the one sheep which has gone astray.
Our text warns us that we are not to despise one person, even on account of evil character. The first temptation is to despise one because he is only one. The next is to despise one because that one is so little. The next and perhaps the most dangerous form of the temptation, is to despise one because that one has gone astray. The individual is not in the right path. He is not obeying the Law, nor reflecting credit on the Church but doing much that vexes the spiritual and grieves the holy. But we are not, therefore, to despise him. Read the eleventh verse—“The Son of man is come to save that which was lost.”
In the Greek, the word “lost” is a very strong word—we may read it, “that which is destroyed.” It does not mean “that which is nonexistent,” as you can clearly see. But that which is destroyed as to usefulness to the shepherd, as to happiness to itself, and as to working out the intent for which it was created. It means any that are so effectually destroyed by sin that their existence is a greater calamity than their nonexistence. But even if they are now dead in
trespasses and sins, and even offensive in character—must we not despise them. The Son of Man did not despise such, since, “He has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”
Many a soul that has been so destroyed as to be lost to itself, lost to God, lost to his people, lost to anything like hope and holiness, the Lord Jesus Christ has saved by His gracious power. He values each one. This is the lesson which I would teach this morning to the utmost of my power. May the Holy Spirit teach it also.
In considering the words of our Lord which are now before us, I beg you to notice, first, that the Lord Jesus herein shows peculiar interest in one lost soul. Secondly, He puts forth special exertion for the rescue of this lost one. And thirdly He displays a special rejoicing when the lost one is restored. When we have thought of all this, we shall then observe, fourthly, that He sets us a very striking example—herein teaching us to care for each soul destroyed by sin. I. First, then, in the words before us, OUR SAVIOR SHOWS PECULIAR INTEREST IN ONE LOST SOUL. Note in the commencement, that for the sake of those lost ones, our Lord assumes a special Character. The eleventh verse puts it, “The Son of Man is come to save that which was lost.” He was not originally known as “the Son of Man,” but as “the Son of God.” Before all worlds, He dwelt in the bosom of the Father and “thought it not robbery to be equal with God.” But in order to redeem men, the Son of the Highest became “the Son of Man.” He was born of the Virgin and by birth inherited the innocent infirmities of our nature and bore the sufferings incident to those infirmities. Then did He also take upon Himself our sin and its penalty and therefore died upon the Cross.