Open your Bibles with me to Ezekiel
34. Ezekiel 34. I just want to read
a few verses, and then we'll go back over to Luke. But Ezekiel 34, beginning with verse 11. Ezekiel
34, verse 11. For thus saith the Lord God,
Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep and seek them
out. As a shepherd seeketh out his
flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered,
so will I seek out my sheep and will deliver them out of all
places where they've been scattered in the cloudy and dark day. And
I will bring them out from the people, and gather them from
the countries, and I will bring them to their own land and feed
them upon the mountains of Israel, by the rivers, and in all the
inhabited places of the country. I will feed them in a good pasture,
and upon the high mountains of Israel shall their fold be. There
shall they lie in a good fold, and in a fat pasture shall they
feed upon the mountains of Israel. Thus saith the Lord, look here,
I will feed my flock, and I will cause them to lie down, saith
the Lord God. I will seek that which was lost.
I will bring again that which was driven away. I will bind
up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was
sick. But I will destroy the fat and the strong. I will feed
them with judgment. Thus saith the Lord." He says,
I'll feed my flock. That's the promise. He says,
I will feed my flock. I will cause them to lie down.
I'll give them a reason to rest. To rest in Him. I will seek that
which was lost. Isn't that comforting to know?
You know, we get rattled about everything. But Almighty God
says, I'll feed my flock. I'll cause them to lie down.
I'll seek that which was lost. I'll bring again that which was
driven away. I'll build up that which was broken. I'll strengthen
that which was sick." What comforting words. If we could just slow
down and just listen, listen to the Word, we'd save ourselves
a lot of gray hairs, I think. We'd save ourselves He says,
I'll do these things. I'll do these things. We'll rest
in Him. Rest in what He has done. What
comforting words. But listen. He says, I'll destroy
the fat and the strong. Not so comforting there, is it?
A word of judgment. He says, I'll feed them with
judgment. I'll feed them with judgment.
God is going to punish sin. He's either going to punish it
on me, or He's going to punish it in His Son, for those of His
sheep. His Word says this, the wages
of sin is death. It says this, the soul that sinneth,
it shall surely die. God says He judges the righteous
and He's angry with the wicked every day. Sin is going to be
punished. I wonder how men and women, how
can we read God's Word without either being comforted or scared
to death? A few months ago, Me and Abby
and the boys, we were at the beach out on the east coast. And where we vacationed, it's
close to a military base. And we've been going there for
years. And there's always helicopters
flying up and down the beach. Some of them are quite menacing
looking. I mean, I don't know if they're
real guns or not, but when they fly over, they look pretty serious,
pretty intimidating. But you know what? Even though
the sound of that thing gets your attention and you look up,
no reason for us to fear. We're not the enemy, are we?
There's no reason for us to fear. But I wonder, I wonder sometimes,
I think, I wonder what the enemy thinks when they hear that sound
of that rotor, before they even look up and they know what's
on the horizon. That must strike fear in the
heart of the enemy. I just think it has to. It just
has to. To me, it's peaceful. To me,
it's comforting. There's somebody there, even
while I'm on vacation with my family. There's the United States
military watching over the beach. But see, our problem concerning
the gospel is this. We don't know we're the enemy. We don't know we're the enemy
until God reveals it. Until He reveals it to us. God's
holy. God's absolutely holy. Man's sinful. Man's utterly sinful. Dead in trespasses and sin. These things must be revealed
to us. They must be revealed to us.
And seeing that God is absolutely holy, in Habakkuk we read this,
"...thou art of pure eyes than to behold evil." and cannot look
upon iniquity. See, even our best, even the
best we can bring before God in our eyes and in our mind,
the best we can bring before Him is filthy rags in His sight. What hope? What hope is there
for a sinner? What hope is there for a sinner
like me? A sinner by birth, A sinner by choice. A sinner by practice. It's not just what we do, it's
what we are. Sinners. Turn with me. Turn with me over to Luke. This
is where we'll take our text. Luke chapter 15. Beginning with verse 1. What hope is there for a sinner? Verse 1 of chapter 15, Then drew
near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. Let me ask you this, are you
a sinner? Are you a sinner? Are you without hope? Are you
without help? dead in trespasses and sin. Can
you take your place as a publican? Remember the publican old, he
wouldn't even raise his eyes unto heaven. And he cried out,
God be merciful unto me. God be merciful to me, the sinner. How about David? Remember David? David had taken another woman.
Another man's wife. God judged him for that. But
David went to him and he said this. He wrote this. He said,
"...against thee, and thee only, have I sinned, and done this
evil in thy sight." See, it's not our sin. It's not
our sin that keeps us from God. It's our self-righteousness.
That's what keeps us from God. We need to be able to fall at
His feet and beg for mercy as sinners. Draw near to Him. You see that?
Then drew near unto Him all the publicans and sinners for to
hear Him. Let's read on here. Look at verse
2. And the Pharisees and the scribes, they murmured, and they
said this, this man, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth
with them." That's the title of the message this evening.
This man receiveth sinners. Now the Pharisees, when they
said this, they said it as an insult. They said this man, like
he was just a common, ordinary man. Oh, He's more than a man,
isn't He? He's very God of very God. He's God-man. He's God in human
flesh. And consider this. Consider the... He came down from heaven. He
came down from heaven for His people to do the will of the
Father and save His people. What condescension for Almighty
God to come down and walk on this earth. What grace and what
comfort, what comfort that should be for us, that He receiveth
sinners. He receiveth sinners, notorious
sinners. The publicans were considered,
if you go back and you read about some of the things these publicans
would do when they come by to collect taxes and the people
couldn't pay them, They weren't just run-of-the-mill, they were
notorious, they were wicked. And yet we read, this man, this
man receiveth sinners and he eateth with them. Listen, there's
no need to be discouraged. Come to Him. You can't be too
unworthy to come to Him. Come to Christ. Come unto Me,
all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. I'll give you rest. All that
the Father hath given Me shall. All that the Father hath given
Me shall come to Me, and him that cometh to Me," He says,
"...I will in no wise cast out." Who else would we go to? Why
would we look anywhere else other than to the Lord Jesus Christ?
The woman with that issue of blood, remember that? She said,
if I could just touch the hem of his garment. And she did,
and what happened? She was made whole. Remember
blind Bartimaeus there by the roadside? God be merciful to
me, sinner. And they tried to silence him
and he cried out even louder, God be merciful to me the sinner.
And God was merciful to him. Christ was merciful to him and
healed him. Now this man, this man receiveth
sinners. I want us to look real quickly
at this portion. Typically we'd look at these
three parables together. But I want us to just look at
the first part here, here this evening. Look at verse 4. He says, What man of you, having
a hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth he not leave the
ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost
until he finds it? Now the first thing I want us
to see here in this text is this. He's the shepherd. He's the Shepherd. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
Shepherd. Over in Zechariah, He's referred
to as Jehovah's Shepherd. Listen to a few of these other
titles. He's the One Shepherd. There's only one. He's the Good
Shepherd. He's the Great Shepherd. He's
the Chief Shepherd. And, my friends, I believe my
favorite title, as far as the shepherd goes, is the one David
referred to him when he said, the Lord is my shepherd. He's my shepherd. He cares for
his sheep. He watches over his sheep. He
knows them by name. He makes them to lay down in
green pastures. He gives his life for the sheep.
He preserves the sheep. He protects the sheep. He keeps
the sheep. because they're His. And He is
the Shepherd. Our text says, what man of you
having a hundred sheep? They're His sheep. Let that be established. They
are His sheep. And He can do with them what
He will. He can save me, or He can pass me by, because He's
sovereign. What He does is right and just,
and no man can question that. But He says, they're His sheep. They're His sheep. What He does is right and what
He does is just. He's the Shepherd. Second, we
see the lost sheep. This sheep is lost. It's wandered
out in the wilderness. And we are by nature lost sheep,
every last one of us. Isaiah, turn over to Isaiah 53. Look at Isaiah 53 verse 6. It's what Isaiah says here. He
says, All we, every last one of us, like sheep, have gone
astray. We've turned everyone to his
own way. We've turned to our own way.
God's Word says there's a way that seems right unto man, but
the end thereof are the ways of death. Back there in the garden,
God told Adam, He said, of every tree in the garden, you can freely
eat. But of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day
you eat thereof, thou shalt surely die. Which way did Adam go? Adam turned to his own way. Not
God's way. Not what God told him to do.
He turned to his own way, just as every one of us do. The way
of sin. The way of self-righteousness.
And apart from God intervening, we'll continue in that way. Going
away from Him. All we, like sheep, have gone
astray. And we've, listen, we've wandered
far from the fold. We've went far from the fold.
Thank God. Thank God He doesn't leave His
sheep lost in the wilderness. Turn back to Luke 15. Look at
the end of verse 4. Here we read, He goes after.
He goes after that which was lost until He finds it. You know, sometimes I have something
missing around the house. And I'll look for it. And I'll
look for it for a little while and then I'm done. I'll move
on to something else. Not when it comes to His sheep.
It says He goes after it and He searches till He finds it. He's not going to stop. He's
not going to stop till He finds it. That old hymn writer, he
wrote this, Jesus sought me when a stranger. Wandering. Wandering from the fold of God.
You know, by nature, we try to run and hide. That's what we
do. Isn't that what our kids do too? They do something wrong and then
all of a sudden they decide they're going to go clean their room
or they're somewhere besides in front of you. And we've done
that as kids too, right? We try to run and hide. That's
what Adam did when he fell. They went and knitted those fig
leaf aprons together and went out there and tried to, of all
things, tried to hide from God. You can't hide from God. You can't hide from God. We try to run for fear of judgment. A couple reasons, we run and
hide because of fear of judgment or we run and hide because we
just don't need Him. We just don't need Him. Psalm
14, the fool hath said in his heart, know God for me. Just don't by nature, No use
for him. No need of him. Well, I tell
you, I don't know much about sheep, but I worked on a farm
as a kid. And I know this, when a calf
goes astray, they get as far away from the
barn as they can possibly get. Seen it time and time again.
All the way out to the farthest point. And it's always raining. The conditions are always horrible.
It must have something to do with
our nature, doesn't it? And it has everything to do with
our nature. We run from Him. We stray from Him. We go away
from Him. The prodigal son, we can read
about him later on here in this chapter. And it says he gathered
his things together and he took his journey. He didn't go next
door to the city, right beside it. He took it and he went to
a far country. He's going to get as far away
from his father as he can. Prone to wander. Prone to wander. Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave
the God I love. Isn't that what we do by nature?
We run away from Him. Can't get far enough away from
Him. But what's said here in our verse 4? He goes after that
which is lost until He finds it. You can't run from God. Jonah. I think Jonah tried to
do that, didn't he? You can't run from Him. He goes
after it until He finds it. John 6.39, This is the Father's
will which has sent me, that of all which He hath given me,
I should lose nothing. He's not going to lose one, but
should raise it up again at the last day. Mephibosheth, he's
all the way down there in Lodabar. What did David say? Let's go
fetch him and bring him back. Bring him back to me. Remember
that prison guard over in Acts 16? How's the gospel ever going
to get inside of a prison? How's that going to happen? Paul and Silas are cast into
prison. I don't know what the whole purpose was, but I know
this. They preached the gospel to that man. They were sent there
to preach the gospel to that man and his family. Think about
that. Again, we worry about all these
things. God's going to accomplish His
purpose. God's going to do His will in all these things. My sheep hear my voice. I know
them and they follow me. He knows His sheep. He knows
them by name. and he goes and he seeks Him until he finds Him,
and then he brings Him back. Look at that, when he finds it.
Look at verse 5. When he finds it. Where's that at in verse 5? Notice
he doesn't say there, it says, when he hath found it. It doesn't
say if he finds Him. It doesn't say he tries to find
Him. It doesn't say He's going to go out there and if that sheep
will take the first step to Him, then He'll take it and pick it
up and put it on His shoulder, does it? It says, when He finds it,
when He hath found it, He laith it on His shoulders rejoicing. Rejoicing. Just a couple things here. It
says He puts that sheep up on his shoulder. Now men have created
an image of a man in a white robe, a perfectly white robe,
and a perfectly white sheep laying up there on his shoulder. And
that's foolishness. That's absolute foolishness. Now again, I'm going to speak
from experience here. I used to work for an old farmer,
and when those calves would get out of the barn, and they'd wander
away, and he'd send me to go find them, and he'd tell me,
don't come back until you've found it. Every time one of those
calves were found, they were muddy. Typically, they'd been
injured by something that had blood all over them. And when
you put them up on your shoulder, they're not so discreet that
they won't relieve themselves on you, right? All of a sudden,
your shoulder feels kind of warm. And it ain't because that... Think about that. Just think
about that for a minute. That manure that's rubbed all
over that sheep, okay? Because from what I understand,
as dirty as a calf is, A sheep are ten times, everything I've
read, they're ten times dirtier. You can't lay that animal up
on your shoulder without getting whatever's on it all over you. It's just impossible. Whatever's
on that sheep is going to cover you. And that dirt, that filth, the man carrying it's going to
be covered in it, isn't he? It says He picks up that sheep and
He puts it up on His shoulder. Now you think about that. I think about my filth. I think
about my guilt. I think about my shame, my sin.
And it covers Him when He puts me up on His shoulder. and he bears it. He bears it. We read he bore our sins in his
body on a tree. That which was mine, that which
I'm guilty of, he bore it. He bore it to himself. Surely,
turn back to Isaiah 53 again. Isaiah 53. Look at verse four of Isaiah 53. Surely, He hath borne our griefs and
He hath carried our sorrows." The Lord Jesus Christ bore the
sins of His people and He made satisfaction for them. He's our surety. He bore our
sins. He's the representative head
of His people. He bore our sins. And Isaiah goes on to say, He
was wounded. He was wounded for our transgressions.
He was bruised for our iniquity. The chastisement of our peace
was upon Him. He carried it. And with His stripes,
that which we deserve, that punishment we deserve for our sin, he bore,
with his stripes were healed." This man, this man, the Lord
Jesus Christ, this man receiveth sinners, and he hath appeared
to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. He did this. The
Scriptures declare this, that he was made sin. The Lord Jesus
Christ who was perfect, who did no sin, knew no sin, He was made
sin. The wages of sin is death. Someone
has to bear the punishment and He bore the sin of His people
and suffered, suffered unto death. The angel said this, call His
name Jesus for He shall save His people from their sin. So
He identifies with His people. He takes them up and He puts
them on His shoulder. And listen, when He puts them on His shoulder,
who's bearing all the weight? Who's doing all the work? The
Lord Jesus Christ. That lamb ain't helping a bit,
is it? In fact, if anything, it's probably
up there bucking and trying to get down. And if He ever put
it down, It'd turn around and go right back where it came from. Far, far away. He bears the weight
of my sin. He bears the guilt of my sin.
He bears the shame of my sin. He bore it all. It's all of Him. It's not a, you do a little bit
and He'll do the rest. He bore it. He bore it all. He
bore it all. It's not, you take the first
step. Imagine how absurd that would
be if a wild animal was out here and needed rescue and you got
down and you said, come over here and I'll rescue you. No. So he went over and he picked
it up in his arms and laid it up there on his shoulder and
he bears it. He bears it. It's Christ and
Christ alone. For by grace are you saved through
faith and that not of yourselves, It's a gift of God, not of works,
lest any man should boast. He must carry us. He must carry
us. And I'm, listen, I'm confident
again, if He ever put us down, we go, just like that pig going
right back to the mud, right? He bore, He bore. Well, and then
look at verse six. He delivers them. He delivers
His sheep. Look at verse 6, when He cometh
home, when He brings that sheep home, He calls together His friends
and His neighbors, saying unto them, Rejoice with Me, for I
have found My sheep which was lost. You know, Almighty God
He didn't propose to save a people, He purposed to save a people. He determined to save a people.
And He chose them in Christ before the foundation of the world.
He made the Lord Jesus Christ our surety. And the Lord Jesus
Christ, He suffered and died on the cross as our substitute. He died for our sins and He clothed
His people in His perfect robe of righteousness. And He's given
us assurance in this. Almighty God has given assurance
that He raised Him from the dead, that He's satisfied with that
sacrifice. Turn over to just a couple more
Scriptures. Turn over to Hebrews chapter
10. Hebrews 10. Verse 12, this man, but this
man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat
down on the right hand of God, from henceforth expecting till
his enemies made his footstool. For by one offering, one offering,
he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. He presents
His people faultless. Imagine that, a sinful man in
the presence of God being seen as faultless. Because we stand
in His righteousness. We're clothed in His righteousness.
And He presents us with exceeding joy, holy, unblameable, unreprovable
in His sight. You know, we can put on a good
show for each other, right? We can dress up and look nice
and be friendly when we have to. But to be found unblameable,
unreprovable, holy in the sight of God, who is holy, it's all
of Christ. And isn't that reason to rejoice? Look at verse 6. When he cometh home, he calleth
together his friends and neighbors, saying unto them, Rejoice with
me, O rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.
I say unto you, that likewise, not only do we joy and rejoice
when we see Almighty God save a sinner, there's rejoicing in
heaven. I say unto you, that likewise
joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than
over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance." The
Pharisees, they couldn't find any fault with themselves, could
they? Turn with me back to Ezekiel 34, and we'll close. Listen to
these words again before we close. Ezekiel 34. For thus saith the
Lord God, verse 11, Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep
and seek them out. As a shepherd seeketh out his
flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered,
so will I seek out my sheep. and will deliver them out of
all places where they've been scattered in the cloudy and dark
day. I'll bring them out from the people, gather them from
the countries, will bring them to their own land and feed them
upon the mountains of Israel, by the rivers, and all the inhabited
places of the country. I'll feed them in a good pasture,
and upon the high mountains of Israel shall their fold be, and
there shall they lie in a good fold, in a fat pasture. And shall
they feed upon the mountains of Israel, I'll feed my flock. I'll cause them to lie down,
saith the Lord God. I will seek that which was lost.
I'll bring again that which was driven away. I'll bind up that
which was broken. And I'll strengthen that which
was sick. Oh, but I will destroy the fat
and the strong. Those Pharisees, I'll destroy
the fat and the strong. And I'll feed them with judgment. Oh, that God would reveal unto
us something, something of our sin, something of His holiness,
and cause us to fall at His feet and beg mercy, knowing this,
knowing this, that in Christ there's life, there's life, joy,
grace and mercy. Alright, I pray God will bless
His Word.