As in all the parables that we
have studied during the past several weeks, the occasion,
I've repeated this and I'll give it to you one more time because
it's so evident in every one of the parables that we're studying. The meaning of the parable, the
meaning of the parable is revealed right away. The occasion for
the parable gives us the meaning. Let me show you this, verse 1
and 2. It says, then drew near unto him the publicans and the
sinners to hear him. Here's the master preaching,
teaching. Surrounding him are not the theologians. Surrounding him are not the students
of the scriptures. Surrounding him are not the religious
leaders or bishops and pastors and priests and scribes and Pharisees,
but surrounding him are sinners, publicans and sinners, the riffraff
of the town. people known to be sinners. They're
surrounding him, listening to him, hanging on every word. And
out there on the outskirts, there are the theologians, there are
the religious leaders, there are the Pharisees and the scribes
and the Sadducees murmuring, murmuring, and saying, this man
receiveth sinners and eateth with them. Spurgeon gave an amusing
story. He said to help the people remember
this verse. This man received sinners. The
worst thing they thought they could say about Christ is the
best news I can hear. He received sinners. He communicates
with sinners. He's merciful to sinners. He
saveth sinners. That's what they said. He's the
friend of sinners. That's the worst thing they could say. In
their piety and in their religion, they said, well, he received
sinners. He has fellowship with sinners. Well, a little girl
came home from Sunday school or from church one Sunday and
she ran into her mother and she said, mother, the little girl's
name was Edith. And she ran in and she said,
mother, the pastor read my name out of the Bible. And the mother
said, honey, I don't think so. I named you, and I don't think
I've ever seen that name. Oh, yes, she, yes, she said,
yes. The pastor read my name out of
the Bible this morning. She said, I don't think so. Yes,
Mama. He said, the Lord receives sinners
and eateth with them. I told Edith Neal that. She likes
that story. That's her favorite. But that'll
help you. This man receives sinners. He does. and receives Edith with
them, and receives Edith with them. Turn to Luke 19.10. This is why the Master came into
the world. In Luke 19.10, he says, the Son
of Man is come to seek and to save the lost. That's why Christ
came into this world, to seek and to save the lost. Turn to
1 Timothy. Paul says the same thing in first
Timothy chapter 1 verse 15. He said this is a faithful saying
It's worthy of acceptation by all men that Christ Jesus came
into the world To save sinners. That's why he came To save sinners
turn to Matthew if you will Matthew chapter 9 our Lord said that
our to the same group of people on another occasion in Matthew
chapter 9 beginning with verse 10. And it came to pass, Matthew
9 verse 10, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, and he
was eaten with Matthew the publican there. Many publicans and sinners
came and sat down with him and with his disciples. I want to
be the friend of sinners. I want very much to be, not that
I condone their sins at all, not that I'm in agreement with
their sins, but I want to be their friend. The Lord was their
friend. They didn't avoid him. The Pharisees
avoided him. The religious people avoided
him, but sinners sought him out and he sought them out. He loved
them. He prayed for them. He came to
save them. And they looked him up. Sinners
came and heard the master. And they sat down with him. And
when the Pharisees, verse 11, saw it, well, they said to his
disciples, why does your master associate with these kind of
people? Why does your master eat with publicans and sinners?
Why does he sit with them? And Jesus heard them. The disciples,
I don't think, had the answer. They didn't reply, but the master
did. When he heard it, he said to them, they that are whole
do not need a physician, but they that are sick. And then
in verse 13, he says, now you go learn what that means. You
go learn what that means. I will have mercy, not sacrifice. And that's taken from Isaiah.
I'm weary of your sacrifices, he said. I'm weary of your burnt
offerings. I'm weary of your so-called holy hands. I'm weary
of your feast days. I'm weary of your prayers. I
will have mercy, mercy, mercy, and not sacrifice. For I am not
come to call the righteous. There's none righteous, no, not
one, but they think they are. There's none that doeth good,
no, not one, but they think they do. There's none just before
God, but they think they are. And Christ said, I didn't come
to call the righteous, but sinners to repent. Well, that's why he
came. But he received sinners. That's
what verse 2 says. This man received sinners. and
he eats with them. The Pharisees were offended by
everything the master did. They were offended by his background.
They said, can any good thing come out of Nazareth? They were
offended by his education. They said, how does this man
know letters, having never learned? They were offended by his vocation.
They said, why, this is the carpenter. They were offended by his personal
habits. They said, this man's a winebibber
and gluttonous. They were offended by his claim
to deity. They said, you're a man, how
can you be God? But these Pharisees found his
companions most offensive. They found his congregation to
be most offensive. They stood on the outskirts while
Christ sat with publicans and sinners, and they murmured and
they said, this man receives sinners and eateth with them. My friends, it's not surprising
to me to find sinners congregated around Christ. It's not surprising
to me to find publicans and sinners crowded to Christ. Why? Because
he offered them some help. He offered them some hope. It's
not surprising to me to find the religious people out there
on the outskirts murmuring and offended because they don't need
his help. and they don't need the hope
that he offers. It's not surprising. It's not
surprising to me to see sinners come to Christ. It's not surprising
to me to see the religious reject him. And I think if we're true
to the gospel which he preached, and the gospel of his grace,
we're going to experience the same thing. I believe the religious
world, the self-righteous, are going to avoid us. And I believe
if we have a true message of hope that sinners are going to
seek us out. I really do. Because mercy reaches
out to the miserable. And if you're built, you're preaching
mercy, the miserable are going to hear it and rejoice. Now if
you're preaching legalism, if you're preaching law, you're
going to run sinners away because they're honest. But you'll get
a bunch of Pharisees around you. That's exactly right. Whatever
a man's ministry is, is what his congregation is made of.
If he's preaching legalism, Phariseeism, if he's preaching personal righteousness,
he's going to bring around him a congregation of Pharisees and
legalists. They're going to come to him.
It appeals to them. But if he preaches mercy, he's going to
reach the miserable. If he preaches grace, he's going
to reach the guilty. If he preaches the love of Christ,
he's going to reach the lost. If he preaches salvation, which
is by the grace of God, he's going to reach the sinful. Now
that's so. That's exactly so. You'll see
that all three of these stories combine to make one. I'm going
to try to show you that. You notice this before we go
any further. The end of each one is very similar. Look at
verse 7. Now here's the story of the part of the story of the
shepherd that went out seeking the sheep, verse 7. Our Lord
closed that part of the parable with this statement, I say unto
you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that
repented, more than over ninety and nine just persons which need
no repentance. All right, notice now in verse
10, when he finished the part about the coin, he said, likewise
I say unto you There is joy in the presence of the angels of
God over one sinner that repented. And then in verse 24, after he
finished the part about the son, the prodigal son who came home
and the father rejoiced, the father said, verse 24, this my
son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found, and
they began to make or be married. Now let's take these three and
put them together and see what the masters say. Now here's the
occasion which gives us the meaning. The masters here preaching. The
gospel, the good news, the glad tidings around him are miserable,
guilty, sinful, lost people. And they find in his message
hope. They find in his message help. They find in his message
comfort. They find in his message confidence.
They find in his message assurance of forgiveness. And out along
the edges are the religious, the Pharisees, they're working
their way to heaven, they're seeking by their merit, their
good deeds and their good works to attain some acceptance with
God. And they began to murmur and find fault and say, why does
this man, why does he associate with people like this? Why does
he associate with sinners? Why does he eat with sinners?
And that's when the Master gave these three stones. He said in the first one, And
he spake this parable, saying, what man of you, verse 4, having
a hundred sheep? Here's a man who owns some sheep.
They're his sheep. He has a hundred sheep, but one
of them's lost. Now, my friends, remember this
when you're reading a parable. Don't, please don't, try to make
that earthly story, make every part of it to have some objective
or meaning. Our Lord is taking a common ordinary
story, a common earthly incident, and illustrating a heavenly truth. And the one thing, you find the
one thing that he's emphasizing and preach it. You don't call
attention to the 99. Now watch this. He leaves the
99 in the wilderness. You say, who are they? I don't
know. I really don't know. I'm being
honest with you. I'll tell you who they could be. Now down here
at the bottom in verse seven he says, joy shall be in heaven
over one sinner that repented, more than over ninety-nine just
persons who need no repentance. Now number one, there ain't no
such animal on this earth. There's just not. There's no
just man, there is not a good man on the earth that doeth good
and sinneth not. That's what scripture says. Except
ye repent, ye'll all likewise perish. There's not a man who
needs no repentance. Now it may be, if there is an
application here, it may be this is the heavenly host that the
Lord Jesus left and came to this earth. It may be. That's what
some people say. It may be referring to the Pharisees
who felt they had no need of repentance. It may be. But that's
not what he's illustrating. That's not what he's talking
about at all. And Satan has a way of sidetracking us He has a way
of getting us preachers to preach against Christmas, or preach
against Easter, or preach against Halloween, or preach against
something against football, or preach against something else.
And when we're doing that, we're not preaching Christ. It's just a subtle, crafty way
of Satan to take your mind off the main thing. What he's showing
here is the work of the Son in redemption. the sacrifice of
the Son, the suffering of the Son, the diligence of the Son,
the personal work of Christ in redemption. He says this man
has a hundred sheep. One of them is lost. He loves
that sheep. He said, I've drawn you with an everlasting love.
Having loved his own, he loved them to the end. He loved them
even to the cross, even to the death of the cross. And he left
that 99. He left glory. He left heaven.
He left the throne. He came to this earth seeking
his sheep. And he went out into the wilderness,
and somebody said three things about this. First of all, the
search was a personal search. A personal search by the shepherd
himself. Our Lord calls himself the Good
Shepherd. Turn to John 10. Let's read this.
He calls himself the Great Shepherd, the Chief Shepherd, and the Good
Shepherd. But here in John chapter 10,
verse 11, I'm the Good Shepherd. I'm the Good Shepherd. The good
shepherd gives his life for the sheep. I get the picture here
of a man that has 100 sheep. One of them's lost. He doesn't
know where. He goes out in the wilderness.
The briars, the thorns, the thickets, that sheep has wandered away,
lost. He hunts through the night. And the next morning, we see
him coming back. Blood is running down his arms from his face.
That sheep is on his shoulder. He comes back and lays it gently
in the fold. He said, this my sheep was lost,
but now it's found. Rejoice with me. And our Lord
Jesus Christ came into the world. He said, I give my life for the
sheep. Now look down at verse 27. My sheep hear my voice. I know them. They follow me.
I give them eternal life and they shall never perish. Neither
shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave
them me. You see the ownership? They're His sheep. Our Lord is
not hunting goats to transform them into sheep. Our Lord is
not hunting somebody else's sheep. They're His sheep. Which man
of you, having a hundred sheep, one of them lost, does not leave
the ninety and nine and go out into the wilderness? And the
second thing about this search, it's all absorbing. The shepherd
personally left everything and went out to find this one sheep.
Whatever it took to find him, he'll find him. And the third
thing, he persevered. He hunted till he found it. Turn
to John chapter 6. He hunted that sheep till he
found it. In the sixth chapter of John, verse 37, our Lord said,
All that the Father giveth me shall come to me. Him that cometh
to me I'll in no wise cast out. I came down from heaven, not
to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me, and
this is the Father's will. which hath sent me, that of all
which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but raise it up
at the last day." He will find his sheep. He came into the world,
was made flesh, made of a woman, made under the law, went to the
cross, suffered and died, he found his sheep, he put them
on his shoulders, he brought them home, it's all of grace,
he shall not fail. Salvation is the work of Christ
alone. And this is what our Lord is
illustrating right here. Our Lord came to save the lost,
not those who were secure in the fold, not those who had not
wandered away, not those who had not rebelled. He came to
seek and to save the lost. And here in this part of the
parable, you have sacrifice, you have suffering, you have
a personal search, you have perseverance, you have an all-absorbing search,
you have the Lord finding His sheep and doing it all Himself,
bringing them home. In the work of redemption, it's
all of grace and all of Christ. David gave that in the 23rd Psalm.
He says, the Lord is my shepherd. He maketh me to lie down in green
pastures. He leadeth me beside the still
waters. He restoreth my soul. He leadeth me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake. He did it all. And that's what
the first part of this story is saying. It's saying that salvation
is of the Lord. The sheep is lost. The shepherd
went after it. And he went through the sacrifice
and suffering. He diligently sought it. He did
not fail. He would not come back without
it. He found that sheep. He lifted it. He put it on his
shoulders. He brought it home and put it
back in the fold. And that's what Christ did. I'm
saying that in salvation, the work of Christ is both passive
and active. It is active in obedience. It
is passive in submission to the wrath of judgment of God upon
him. In salvation, as far as I'm concerned, the work of salvation
is all passive, Bob. I didn't do a thing. I didn't
do a thing. The sheep didn't hunt the shepherd.
The shepherd hunted the sheep. The sheep didn't seek the shepherd.
The shepherd sought the sheep. The sheep probably was content
to wander on out there. He was senseless and stupid.
He really didn't know where he was. He didn't know where the
foal was and didn't know where he was. But the shepherd knew
where he was. And he went after him. And that's what that story's
telling. All right, now watch verse 8. And our Lord didn't
start a new parable. He says, either. Either. Now, which of you having a hundred
sheep and one is lost does not leave the foal, That great love,
that driving love, that persevering love, go find that sheep. Either,
he says, what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose
one piece, does not light a candle and sweep the house and seek
diligently until she find it. And when she found it, called
her friends and her neighbors together, saying, rejoice with
me. I found the peace which I had lost. Likewise, I say unto you,
there's joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner."
Sinner, now we emphasize it, that repented. Now, our Lord
has described the work of the Son. He now describes the work
of the Holy Spirit in the redemption of a sinner. That's what he's
doing. And this part is where it should
be, for the work of the Spirit follows the work of the Son.
The work of the Spirit follows the work of the Son. The work
of the Spirit is to quicken, regenerate, convert those whom
the Lord hath redeemed. Now watch this. In the first
story, you have the element of sin, the wandering away of the
sheep. You have the fact of the sheep
being lost. You have the suffering of the
shepherd. You have the sacrifice of the
shepherd. That's all present in that first story. The sheep
went astray willingly. The sheep, being senseless and
stupid, could not find his way back. The shepherd, having love
for that sheep, care for that sheep, determination to find
that sheep, to bring it back, must toil, suffer, sacrifice
to find it and restore it, and he goes out and gets it. But
in this second story, there's no sin, There's no suffering. There's no sacrifice. None of
those things. You have a coin. Yes, it belonged
to the owner. You have the same thing in the
first pair. The sheep belonged to the shepherd. The coin belonged
to the woman. But the coin was dead, lifeless. The coin had no feeling. The
coin lay in the dust of the earth. The coin had no will. The coin
was ignorant. It was just as content to lie
in the dust as being in the woman's pocket. It had no feeling in
either place. You have the woman, now watch this, lighting a candle. You say, what does that mean?
I'll tell you what it is. The light is the word of God.
The woman is the Holy Spirit. The coin is a dead sinner, a
dead lifeless sinner. The scripture says that we are
dead in trespasses and sins. We have no will to come to God.
We have no desire to come to God. We're dead and without life
in the dust of this earth. And the Holy Spirit brings a
light. And that light is the Word of
God. I will make thy word as a light unto my feet and a lamp
unto my path. And as that light comes there,
it reveals where that coin is. And the light of the Word of
God reveals where I am. In the dust. in the dust, away
from God. That light reveals, the light
of the word reveals my sin, it reveals my inability, it reveals
my Savior, it reveals the gospel, and this woman, just like the
shepherd, sought the coin with the light until she found it.
God will use His Word. Let me show you something over
in the book of Acts. Turn over in the book of Acts. I emphasize
this pretty strongly in my Sunday school class one day. It's Acts
chapter 18. Acts chapter 18. Now this is one thing that we
must never lose. We must never lose sight of the
fact that, yes, God elects a people. God has elected a people and
given them to Christ. There's no question about that.
We must never lose sight of the fact that His will is going to
be done. He's going to find His people.
Those for whom Christ died are going to be saved. That's a fact. Not a one of them will be lost.
The Holy Spirit will find them. We'll call them. But the Holy
Spirit uses the means that God has ordained. And those means
are the preaching of the gospel. Now, I tried to emphasize that
this morning. And that's what our Lord's emphasizing in this
parable. The first part of the parable, he emphasizes the work
of the shepherd. the love of the shepherd, the
diligence of the shepherd, the suffering of the shepherd, the
sacrifice of the shepherd. He is leaving everything with
his heart set on one quest and one goal to find that sheep,
recover it, restore it, and bring it home. That's Christ. But in
the second part, he has that sinner dead, lifeless, in the
dust, careless, indifferent, and the woman lights a candle,
and the master didn't waste his words. And that candle is the
word of God and don't you ever go hunting a sinner without the
candle. Don't ever do it. Don't go with
a band, go with a candle. Don't go with an entertaining
show, go with a candle. Don't go with a potluck supper,
go with a candle. That woman lit a candle and she
looked around in the darkness and that light illuminated the
darkness. Drove the darkness away and the
Word of God will drive away the ignorance It'll drive away the
darkness of tradition. It'll drive away the doctrine
of denominationalism It'll drive away the doctrine of custom.
It'll drive away the doctrine of ceremonialism and and legalism
and all other isms and it'll reveal things as they are and
Our Lord said here to Paul now you watch this Paul was down
in Corinth and they were making things hot for him He was about
to be killed and he was just about to leave that place, Acts
18 verse 9. And the Lord came to him in the
night by a vision and spoke to him and said, Paul, don't be
afraid, but speak and hold not your peace. I'm with you. Nobody's
going to hurt you. I have much sheep in this city.
I have many lost coins. And Paul continued there a year
and six months teaching the Word of God among them. And he found
some sheep and found some lost cows with the Word. He continued
there and preached the Word. And that's what he's saying here
in this story here. All right, we have another story.
Now, this story would not be understood without the other
two, the parable or the part of the prodigal son. Because
let me show you this. When you get to this son, now
here's a father, evidently wealthy, had plenty. And his two boys,
he had two sons, the eldest son and the youngest son. And evidently,
they were going to inherit everything he had. But the youngest son,
being a rebel, came to him and said, I'm leaving home. And I
want what's coming to me. He didn't want the father. He
didn't want the fellowship of the father. He wanted what the
father could give him. And he took his wealth, whatever it
was, and he went out into a foreign country, and he wasted it with
righteous living. And he came to being want. He
would fain have eaten the husk what the pigs were eating out
of the pig pen. He got a job taking care of the
hogs, which is the worst thing a Jew could do. And finally,
he came to himself, and he said, why? What am I doing here? The
servants in my daddy's house have more than I have. I'm going
to go home. And I'm going to plead for mercy. I'm going to
plead for mercy. Now watch this. There's no mention
in that story of any suffering. There's no mention of any compassion
or sacrifice on the part of God to find that young man. There's
no mention. And this is where a lot of freewillism
is born. Right here, Jay. They take this
parable and preach it. As if this young man all by himself
was sitting down there without any preaching, without any teaching,
without any searching, without any seeking on the part of God,
and of his own will he decided, weighing the matter, there's
more at home than there is here. I'm going home. We know that that young man never
moved toward God, but God moved toward him. But our Lord's already
illustrated that in the shepherd and the sheep and the coin and
the woman. Here he's focusing the spotlight on the father and
the father's love and compassion and grace in receiving the center
You see in this parable. There's no mention of the light
of the gospel This man it seems like that this prodigal son Reasoned
with his natural wisdom his own plight and by his own will Determine
that things were better at home In other words, this is the way
the other part would have to read. The sheep was wandering
out there and said, well, there's no clover here. I'm going back
to the foals. Or it's like the coin lying there
and the dust decides, I don't want to stay here in this darkness.
It's better in a woman's purse. It's warm and soft. It's velvet. I'm going to jump
back up in the purse. You don't have one without the
other. And that's what these three parts are. The first one
is that the Lord Jesus Christ having loved his own, loved them
unto the end, came to this earth with its suffering and sorrow
and with its sacrifice, with its death, he found the sheep. He redeemed them. He put them
on his shoulders and took them to glory. And then the woman,
the coin is a dead sinner, and the light of the word of God
in the hands of the Holy Spirit finds that coin. and restores
it to its proper place. And then here's a son down there.
He's rebelled against his father. He's mistreated his father. He's
broken his father's heart. The father never stopped loving
him. And down there in that foreign country, he came to his senses. And I believe every sinner will
come to his senses, but not apart from the gospel, not apart from
the wooing of the Holy Spirit, not apart from some understanding
of the sacrifice of the son, apart from that But the son came
to himself and he said I'm gonna return home and I'm gonna say
I've sinned against heaven and in thy sight and no more worthy
to be called our son so he started back home and The father saw
him let's look down here and the father saw him when he was
a great way off It says verse 20 he arose and came to his father,
but he was still a great way off his father saw him Evidently
he was looking for him He was looking for him. And he saw him
a great way off. He never stopped loving him. I wish we could understand something
of the love of the Father. You know, I've often said to
you, and I keep repeating it until some of you understand
it, I think the Lord has given me and Doris several experiences
in our lives so we could identify with you and those with whom
we preach. some very difficult trials, some
very difficult. I think that I can identify with
a lot of young ministers here and in other places that have
gone through a church battle. We went through one. I had that
pulpit vacating thing, you know, done and all this battling. And I've been through that sort
of thing. And then we had a son, our firstborn, who was killed.
That was a very difficult valley, a very difficult trial. But I'll tell you one we went
through that I haven't mentioned very many times here, but one
of the most difficult that I ever endured. We woke up one morning. We had four children, three boys.
We woke up one morning, and one of our sons was gone. There's
no note. There was nothing. He was just
gone. And 16 years old. And that's
a traumatic experience. when you don't know which way
he went. And so we began to call railroad stations, and bus depots,
and police, and everywhere in the tri-state air to find out
if anybody tried to get in touch with some friends. And these
young people, they think they stick together no matter. What
if the boy had been killed? Some of these young people knew
where he'd gone. They wouldn't tell. No way. They wouldn't tell
how he left, when he left, or where he'd gone. And a day passed,
two days, a week passed. We'd get rumors. He was here,
he was yonder, he was somewhere. Darts and I'd get in the car
and go, you know. He's at this motel, somebody saw him in Huntington,
somebody saw him here. We'd go there, not a word. That
went on for a month. And it's very, but we never stopped
loving him. We never stopped wanting him
back. I wish we could get that through our heads. A father loves
his own. He never stops loving them. This
boy was down in that foreign country, but that daddy stood
by that window and watched for him every day. Every day, he'd
stand by the window, hoping that boy would come home. He didn't
stand there with a switch in his hand, either. He didn't stand
there with a stick in his hand. When he saw him coming, he didn't
say, well, where's the money? But what'd you do with the money?
Boy on the money. That's what he said. In fact,
his elder son came to him and said, I never did leave home.
You never killed a fatted calf for me. You never gave me the
ring. He said, I love you. But I'm glad to see my boy, a
sinner. You see, these Pharisees standing
around saying, well, what's he doing rejoicing over that? That's
what the elder brother said. What's he doing rejoicing over
that scallywag? He broke his heart. He took his
money. He spent it all because he loved him. Can you see that? God loves sinners. The love of
God is greater far than tongue or pen can write. Somebody wrote,
could we with ink the ocean fill, and where the sky a parchment
made, and every man, every stalk on earth a quill, and every man
a scribe by trade, to write the love of God above would drain
the ocean dry. Nor could the scroll contain
the whole, though stretched from sky to sky. You say, what happened
to your son? Well, I went out to Houston in a meeting. This
was a month past. We didn't know where he was.
Nothing. Went out to Houston in a meeting.
I'd call every night home. And I called Doris one night.
And she said, our son just walked in, just off the street. I said,
let me speak to him. So she put him on the phone,
and I said, welcome home. Glad you're back. We won't ever
bring this up again. And it's never been brought up
again. And there will be. It never will be. First time
I brought it up, almost 15 years. It's been erased. But the only
reason I bring it up is to illustrate to you what I'm trying, I understood
something of the prodigal's father that hour. I understood something. If I can love my son like that,
I can't love one ten millionth the way God loves you. Why do
you doubt his love? If you being evil know how to
give good gifts to your children, how much more shall the father
give good things to them that trust him? If your son asked
bread, would you give him a stone? If he asked for meat, would you
give him a scorpion? See what I'm saying? We've got peanut ideas of God's
grace and God's love. But I tell you, that was a glad...
I preached that night at Houston. Oh, I tell you, that's a happy
time. And that's joy, nothing but joy.
And that's what he's saying here, the joy in the presence of the
angel over sinners that repent. They don't put him on probation. That boy came home and never
put on probation. You don't do it either, do you?
Ain't no probation. Well, I'm going to watch you
for a while, son. I'm going to watch you all right, just rejoice
you around. This is what the father said.
It's what our master said. He got around him some sinners,
genuine sinners, real sinners. And he loves them. And that bunch
of religious, no count Pharisees, standing out there murmuring,
finding fault. He said, I got something to tell
you boys. He said, a man that loses a sheep loves it and goes
after it. I came to go after my sheep.
And a woman that loses a coin, it's dead and senseless, but
she'll light a candle and find it. And a man loses a son, he'll
stand by the window and wait on him till he comes home. And
when he sees him, he won't make the boy come to him, he'll run
out and meet him. And he'll throw his arms around him and say,
welcome home. And there's joy in the presence of the angels. That's what these things mean.
To me, there's no problem, Bob. Ron, it's just right there. That's
the way it is. And it's clear as a day. You say you're oversimplified. No, I ain't. I'm just telling
the truth. Our Lord Jesus Christ. And I'll tell you this. Sinners
understood what he was saying, and the Pharisees never did.
They never did. In the face of that right there,
they never took it. They never did. But I tell you,
that sinner understood it. He said, that's what I want.
That's the love and grace and mercy I want. And I'm coming
home. I'm coming home. But the Pharisee
went farther away. He never did. Which are you? Can you enter into that? Well,
those to whom much is forgiven, they'll love much. Our Father, for your word, we
thank you. For this beautiful picture that
our Lord gave us, we thank you. For every trial, every experience,
we thank you. Those that are happy, and those
that are sad, and those that are pleasant, and those that
are difficult. Because we're your children,
and we've been taught. And if you be without chastisement,
you're not a son. We're glad we're sons. We're
glad we have your correcting rod. But we're glad we have your
eternal love. We're glad we have your mercy
and your grace. We're glad that you brought us
to faith and repentance. We rejoice. We love this story. We thank you for it. Apply it
to every heart. For Christ's sake, I pray. Amen.