The lesson this morning will
be taken from Luke chapter 15. Luke chapter 15. We'll be looking at verses 8
through 10. Luke chapter 15. This is the second trilogy or
three of the parables given to the murmuring scribes and Pharisees. They murmured at everything our
Lord did. They murmured and murmured. They looked at Him and I told
you in the first lesson, they wouldn't even use the word man. They just said this, this. They
were disgusted with him. And so he gives them these three
parables. The first was the parable of
the lost sheep. Now the accusation was that Jesus
was receiving sinners and eating with them, the company that he
kept. They despised these people. They
looked down their noses at these people. If you weren't in their clique,
they looked down their noses at you. You were less than they
were. And they'd sit around, no doubt,
just like religious people do, and discuss how you rated. You're number
five. You're number seven. Oh, he's
number two. He's way down there. And that's
what they do. They categorize people in labels
and percentages and look at them and treat them that way. And
that's the way they were looking at him. And so he gives them
this parable, and they're murmuring about him eating with this crowd. He's ministering to this crowd,
he's eating with them, he's talking with them, he's ministering to
them, he's preaching to them. And they're over here in the
corner, they ain't preaching to nobody. They're just over there gathered,
criticizing. And so he gives them this parable,
And the accusation was that he was eating with sinners and receiving
them, and the answer was he was looking for lost sheep. He wasn't
looking for self-righteous men, he was looking for lost sheep. Somebody told old brother Barnard
one time, an old evangelist, they said you can catch more
flies with honey than you can with vinegar. And he said, I'm
not hunting for... Catch flies, he said, I'm trying
to kill sinners. I'm looking for sinners. In John chapter 10 verse 11,
our Lord said to these same men, I am the good shepherd, the good
shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. And they got disgusted
with him, and they said, if thou be the Christ, tell us plainly.
He said, I told you. I told you. But you believe not,
because you're not my sheep. And that was the slap in the
face this day. He's telling them he's looking
for lost sheep. That's why he's down here among these sinners. And not with them. The sheep
are easy prey. Sheep are always under the eye
of stealthy predators. But sheep have shepherds. They
have a shepherd. And the shepherd seeks his lost
sheep. He finds his lost sheep and he carries them all the way
home. And what a slap in the face it must have been for this
man whose claim was to be the Christ, the great shepherd of
the sheep, to be ministering to publicans and sinners and
not to these religious folks. The second of this trilogy of
parables is what I have for you this morning. It's the parable
of the lost coin. So let's read these verses together.
Luke chapter 15, beginning with verse 8. Either what woman, having ten
pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle,
and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it.
And when she found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbors
together, saying, Rejoice with me. where I found the peace which
I'd lost. Likewise, I say unto you, there's
joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth."
Now, these three parables set before us the work of the Holy
Trinity, the living God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. And God
the Son is pictured in the Good Shepherd. seeking to save his
sheep. And the lost son is the work
of the Father, overseeing, preparing for the return of his lost son,
making preparations. And the lost coin is the work
of the Holy Spirit, leading for sinners to repentance. And that's
our message this morning. I have four things I want us
to see in this prayer. The first is this, the woman. The woman. And then secondly,
the awakening of faith. And then the coin. What's this
coin all about? And then the repenting sinner.
So first of all, let's look at the woman. Why a woman? Why a
woman? Our Lord's addressing a band
of proud, arrogant, self-righteous Pharisees and scribes as to why
he's receiving and eating with sinners. And he gives them a
parable about a woman. Why would he do that? Well, because
the first woman and every woman sent there is symbolic of his
church. He's down here eating with sinners,
looking for lost sheep, because that's what makes up his church.
A church ain't a building. The building is where the church
meets. The church is made up of people. And these people are
his sheep. is elect, whatever you want to
call it. And the first woman, and every other woman since,
is symbolic of that. She's symbolic of the church.
Paul tells us in Ephesians 5, husbands, love your wives even
as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse
it with the washing of the water of the Word. that he might present
it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or
any such thing. But it should be holy and without
blemish. And then he gives a quote from
Genesis 2. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother,
and shall be joined unto his wife, and they too shall be one
flesh. They're going to be one. Now
listen to this. He said this is a great mystery.
There's no explaining this. It's a mystery. It's a great
mystery. But I speak concerning Christ
and his church. That's what a husband and wife
is symbolic of, his church. And there's a holy union there.
They're one. They're one. And then secondly,
why a woman? Because these self-righteous
legalists look down on women. They look down on women. Don't
tell me they don't, I grew up in them. I know exactly what
they think about women. That women are second class citizens
in religion. If you've never been in there,
you just go in there and listen to them talk. They're like servants. Not being pictures of his elect,
not symbolic of his elect. He tells them to love their wives
even as Christ loved the church. And these proud men looked at
themselves in a bad light and saw themselves as prime objects
of God's election, and the woman was just out. She just got whatever
he was willing to give her. And so our Lord uses this example
of a woman. This parable is about a woman.
The great work of the Holy Ghost, our Lord pictures with a woman.
Why? Because she baguettes children.
When Zion prevails, what's going to happen? She's going to bring
four children. She baguettes children. The woman
prepares the meals. You're going to get fed? Well,
the church, what is it? That's the pillar and ground
of the truth. You're going to learn something, that's where
you're going to learn it. Go where his church assembles and
you'll learn truth. She prepares the meals, she ministers
in the household affairs. The church of the living God
is never pictured by a man. Not anywhere in the scripture,
it's always pictured by a woman. And that's in her flaws as well
as her virtues. The work of the Holy Ghost and
His elect is taught through a woman. And then the second thing I see
in this parable is the awakening of faith. This woman had a coin. She lost it. She wasn't worried
she lost it. She thought she knew exactly
where it was. I'll just go get it any time I want to. Isn't
that what religion teaches you about faith? It's right there.
All you have to do is just get it. You can get it any time you
want to. Try it sometime. It ain't where
you thought it was. You can't go pick it up like
you thought you could. Faith is the gift of God. It's
the gift of God. He said, by grace are you saved
through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of
God. It's not of works lest any man
should boast. And this is God's way and God's
means and God doesn't change. He said, God has from the beginning
chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit
and belief of the truth. Well, what happens to a sinner
when they're awakened to faith? What happens? What happens on
the inside of a sinner when he's awakened to faith? They discover
something missing. And religion can't fill the hole. They told me our church would
have you come down front to a mourner's bench. And I came down, and I
prayed, and I cried, and I did everything that I was taught
to do. And I went back and sat down,
and the pastor said, is everything all right? I said, no. No, it
ain't. Well, just believe. Really? Believe what? I need somebody to fill in the
blanks. I need for somebody to tell me the truth because I didn't
know it. All of a sudden I realized what
I thought was at a hand's reach wasn't there anymore. You can't
just go grab it like you thought you could. You thought it's sitting
there on the shelf and if something happens, I get diagnosed with
cancer or something, I might run over here and get it real
quick. It don't work that way. The awakened sinner realizes
something's missing. They discover that in themselves,
where they've looked their whole life, is nothing but a void. It's empty. It ain't there. It's a dung heap. It's a black
hole. And all that is of any value
has to come from without and be put within. Secondly, she discovers a man.
When you're awakened by faith, all of a sudden, you discover
a man. See, you thought this was a system your whole life.
You thought religion was a system. It had this little explanation,
you know. You don't want to go to hell,
do you, no? Do you know anybody that wants to go to hell? What
a dumb question. Well, you want to go to heaven,
don't you? Well, why wouldn't you? You see what I'm saying? It's
A, B, C, D. They spit it out. There's nothing
of any value in any of that. Just a bunch of rhetoric. There's
no change in heart. There's no change in mind. There's
no information. There's no foundation. There's
nothing there. It's a void. That's what you
discover. When you're awakened to faith
by the Holy Ghost, all of a sudden you realize, I don't have what
I thought I had. You discover a man, the God-man,
the one mediator, the man Christ Jesus, the man, the second man. And nothing of any consequence
will ever happen until you do discover him. The gospel is the
declaration of a person. He is the gospel and he is the
revelation of the Spirit of God. Somebody stands up and says,
well, God told me to go build a statue out in a lake somewhere.
Well, a god might have told him that, but the living God didn't.
The living God reveals himself in his son. Period. And the work of the Spirit is
set before us in this woman. And as she's awakened to faith,
she discovers something missing. Now, that brings us to the third
thing. I want us to see in this parable something about this
coin. And I'm going to tell you something.
I read a lot of old writers on this and none of them had anything
to say about it. The only thing they talked about was how much
this coin was worth. And they started telling you
what it was a Greek coin or a Babylonian coin or what it was worth then
and what it's worth now and on and on and on about it. They
didn't tell you what the coin was. What does it represent? This is a parable. This is saying
something to these scribes and Pharisees. Well, what's it saying?
What's this coin have to do with the work of the Holy Ghost? Well,
one man said the coins were not in a jar. And they were not in
a box. And they were not in a pocket.
They were a chain around their forehead. It's called a semi-die. And you've
seen pictures of oriental women, they have this chain on their
head and they got these little, looks like a, kind of like a
bracelet but it goes around their forehead and they had these.
Well this coin headdress was called a semi-die and a semi-die
was kind of like a ring in our jewelry. It was a token of affection. And when God the Spirit inspired
Ezekiel to describe the Israel of God, he called her an unwanted
castaway. This was a little baby that was
born and it just threw out in the sand. Its navel wasn't cut,
it wasn't washed, it wasn't cleaned up, it was just laying there
in its afterbirth in the sand, filthy, unwanted. God took her. He's picturing
Israel, the Israel, the Israel of God. He took this baby and
he cleaned her up. He washed her. And he clothed
her with fine linen and he decked her with ornaments. He put a
chain on her neck and a jewel on her forehead. And if indeed
he's alluding to this Semedi, a chain of coins on the forehead,
he's talking about a token of his affection. Knowing what we are by nature,
choice, and practice, knowing our condition and reputation
and the curse that we're under, what could be of more value to
a poor sinner than to know something about the affection of God for
him? I've got to have it. Well, Scripture teaches election,
don't it? Thirty-seven times He tells us
about election. And that's not counting all the
times where he talks about his choice and so on and so forth.
That's just election, elected, elect, and so on. But how do I know if I'm elect? Huh? See, I've been told my whole
life that God loves me. I don't know if he does or not. If he don't do something for
me to show me that love, how do I know he loves me? Because
he don't love everybody. He said, Jacob have I loved,
Esau have I hated. How do I know I'm one of his
beloved? How do I know? The love of God
never fails. Never fails. Read Romans 8. Read
the end of the chapter. He names everything that is.
Things present, things to come, past things, on and on and on. Nothing shall be able to separate
you from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
But how do I know he loves me? We got along great, didn't we?
Kathy was still alive. We got along great. She loved
the gospel. And she'd write and tell me that. We met her up in
West Virginia, Kathy and I did. But she didn't know anything
about my affection for her until I told her. And neither do you
about God. Here's what's missing, the Semodai. God's token of love. I have to
find it. When I discover I don't have
it, I have to find it. Now if you think you got it,
you ain't going to look for it. But when you discover it ain't
there, you're going to hunt for it. You're going to hunt for
it. Universalism told us we all have
it. It's in a safe place. Get it
any time you want to. But when faith comes, we learn
something different. Everything God has for chosen
sinners is in Christ. And now we're searching diligently
to find some evidence of our election, some token of his affection,
some way to know how does that include me? What's that got to
do with me? Well, I'll tell you what it is.
Over in John chapter 6, verse 37, he said, all that the Father
giveth me, that's his electing, all that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. Huh? Not going to come to a system. Not going to come to a theology
and say, oh, I used to believe this and now I believe that.
It's not a system. It's a person. It's a person. And you're going
to seek for him with all your heart because you know everything
God has for sinners is in that man. It's all in Christ and now we're
searching diligently. That's what it says she did.
She searched diligently. And let me tell you this. This
is about the work of the Holy Ghost. Now he said, when he talked
about the Jews and Gentiles, Paul said, I before prove, Romans
chapter 3, I before prove they're all under sin. As it is written,
there's none righteous, no not one. There's none that understandeth,
now listen, there's none that seeketh after God. But she was
seeking. Or was she? Or was that the Holy Ghost in
her, working in her, enabling her to seek, being one with her? You see, that's what happens.
Listen to this. He said, this is in 1 Corinthians
chapter 2, He said, I hath not seen nor ear heard, neither have
entered into the heart of man the things that God hath prepared
for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto
us by Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all things. Did he lose something? Does the Spirit not know everything?
Does he have to search? Does he have to study like I
do? No. Oh, what's he talking about?
He's talking about him searching in you. That's what he's talking
about. You begin to search. Why? Because the Spirit of the
Living God has entered into you. He's entered into you. He's going
to reveal Christ to you. The coin she thought she had
in a safe place wasn't there. What does she do? What can't
she do? Well, the Lord said she lights
a candle. What's that? Well, He tells us in Revelations
1.20, that's a local church assembly. That's what that candle is. You
want to see something? Go where God's church assembles.
There's light there. Ain't no light out there. Wander
all you want to. Ain't no light out there. What
did He say to His disciples? You are the light of the world.
That's what He told them. There's an assembly out there
following the Savior who is the light that lighteth every man
that cometh into the world. And He's the light of the glorious
gospel of Christ and He shines into the hearts of all His elect.
She lights a candle. Where does she look? In the house. In the house. What does she discover
when she lights the light? That house is a mess. It's a
mess. It's got dust an inch thick.
She grabs her broom. That's the word of God. And she
starts sweeping. Starts sweeping. What does she
sweep at? The lies. The deceit. Those idols. Those religious
ideas, all the stuff she's been lied to all her life. Where'd
this come from? I don't need this. Out the door
it goes. She clinks, she sweeps that house. Sweeps that house, that old,
dark, dingy house. And my friend, I'm gonna tell
you something. It's not Christ with you or Christ to you. It's Christ in you. That's the
hope of glory. What you looking for? Christ
in me. That's what you're looking for.
Is this my hope? Is that my hope? Is Christ all
my hope? I have no righteousness apart
from Christ. I have no hope apart from Christ.
I have no hope that my sins have been put away except in Christ. And here's this dirty old house,
and she realizes she's not going to find anything in this mess.
And she gets a broom, and she starts moving things around,
and top to bottom, she sweeps and sweeps away the dust of freewillism,
and sweeps away the dirt of legalism, and sweeps away those deceitful
images of God, and ceremonialism, and every other ism. I'm going
to tell you something. Dust don't accumulate overnight.
It comes there over time. Over time. You'd be surprised
how much of what you believe you learn when you're just a
little kid. Mama said, grandma said, my best
friend said, the pastor said, on and on it go. My friends at
school said, and it's the word of God and the preaching of the gospel
and the revelation of the spirit. What's she looking for? A token
of love. And that token is Christ. It's
Christ. I know God has a people. I know
he'll save them to the uttermost. And I've got all the coins in
the headdress, except one. And that's the one coin I have
to have, and that's Christ. That's Christ. The rest of it's
meaningless without Christ. I'm a Calvinist. So what? So what? You can be a Calvinist
and go to hell. Use your game. You saved if you
have Christ. Listen to this. He hath raised
us up together, made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ
Jesus, that in the ages to come, what's he gonna show you? the
exceeding riches of His grace and His kindness toward us in
Christ Jesus. That's the token. That's the
token. She didn't just lose a coin,
one of many, she lost THE coin. And the affection of Christ is
of no value to the world, but it's of infinite value to His
elect. And then lastly, and this is
the key to this whole parable, there's going to be joy, he said,
among the angels over one sinner that repenteth. That's what it
was all about, a sinner being brought to repentance. Well,
how is a sinner brought to repentance? What's he doing? What do you
say? What's involved? The Holy Ghost
is He's working in this man and he's bringing him to repentance.
How's he going to do it? Well, here's what the scripture
said. You can memorize this verse just from me quoting it. The
goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance. Brother Marvin's daddy used to
have a seafood restaurant down in Tioga, Louisiana. And we go
in there, and they had these little half ears of corn. You've
had them in restaurants before. But they used a butter with some
kind of seafood sauce mixed in it. I don't know what it was.
But I'm telling you, those are the best little ears of corn
I ever put in my mouth. And my wife and I were in there
one evening, and we'd eaten. We was really enjoying the show.
There was a little two-year-old boy over there, and he donated
his dinner, and he had that little ear of corn. And he had it all
over him. But he had that ear of corn,
and it was time to go. And he donated all the corn off
of it. He was still just sucking the butter and stuff off that
top. And they tried to get him to put that ear of corn down
so they could put his coat off. But he wouldn't do it. He'd grab
that ear of corn and just look at him and shake all over. They
threatened him. They did everything. But he wasn't
turning loose that corn from nobody. And finally, Marvin's
daddy came over and he said, I don't generally interfere with
family's business. But he said, would you mind if
I tried to do something to help him get rid of that corn? They
said, help yourself. We done tried everything. He
pulled out a Hershey bar. Man, he turned loose that corn
and reached for that Hershey bar. When's a man gonna repent? When's he gonna see Christ? When
he sees something better.