The Lost Sheep
The fifteenth chapter of Luke is composed of three parables; The lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. These parables were spoken in answer to a charge made against Jesus by the Scribes and Pharisees that he "Receiveth sinners and eateth with them." They all point in the same direction. That is, they emphasize (1) the worth of a soul, and (2) the love of God for that soul.
There is no way that we can measure the worth of a soul because all our standards of measurement are finite. The soul is infinite and immortal. But just as we teach the child that a tiny picture 3x5 represents a big house, so the Lord seeks to convey to us the value of a soul by there parabolic pictures.
In the case of the prodigal son we see all the love and pathos of a father's forgiving heart poured out upon a wayward son who has been brought to repentance by cruel adversity. This son had to fall to the lowest depths before he "came to himself" and realized that even a servant in his father's house was better off than he. There is one thing about this fellow I have always admired. He didn't try to blame someone else for his misfortune. His attitude was, "I got what I deserved."
He had drunk the cup of sinful pleasure to its bitter dregs and had come at last to realize that home and the restraints of a loving father were more to be desired than anything else he had ever had. What he had thought was freedom had turned out to be the worst kind of bondage. Like so many million others, he had found that sin is glamorous only when we are approaching it. When we look back we can always see its evil and destructive ways. But, too often then, we have felt its wicked influence in our lives and bear to our graves its ugly scars.
The lost coin presents another view. The coin was lost through carelessness of others, because a coin has no will of its own. Of course this is never quite true of a person. A man cannot be lost without any personal responsibility. But I am convinced that our carelessness is often a factor in the loss of souls. We fail them when they need us most. We pass them by when a little effort, a spoken word or a visit would give them courage and mean the difference between success and failure for them. We will have to answer for this. We need to remember that just as the coin was worth as much when it was lost as when the woman had it in her hand, so the soul that is lost and confused is just as precious in the eyes of God as the one that is safe. It is said in this chapter, "There is rejoicing in heaven over one sinner that repenteth more than over ninety and nine persons who need no repentance."
However, it is the lost sheep that interests me just now, because I see in him the largest group of wayward children of God.
The prodigal was led away by the glitter of the world, the coin was lost through the carelessness of someone else, but the sheep strayed no doubt without any intention of becoming lost from the fold. He simply grazed away, step by step, until he was so far he could not find his way back.
Like the sheep, Christians do not usually forsake the Lord all at once. Their departure is so gradual that they themselves, many times, are not aware of it. One usually starts by staying away from worship. He may have a pretty fair "excuse" at first, or at least he convinces himself that he has. And if his conscience bothers him a bit he looks around and sees some others who are doing the same thing and feels a little better.
But these excuses become more obvious, as time goes by, as simply a sedative for that little pang of conscience. Some of them are so flimsy that I am surprised that those who make them are not ashamed to insult the intelligence of their friends by asking them to believe that these are the real reasons why they do not attend worship. When a fellow tells you that he doesn't come to worship because he works shift work, and you know that he finds time to go hunting, fishing, visiting, and nearly anything else he has a mind to do, you know that he is not telling the truth. When a lady says that she doesn't come to worship because her husband won't go, or her children are always sick, when you know that she finds a way to go to school functions, to go visiting often, to go shopping and many other places, you know that she is only making an excuse.
I know that it requires a lot of effort to get several children ready for church. But it also requires effort to get them ready to go to town or a movie or visiting or to school. The difference is that we want to go to town shopping, to go visiting, to go to school functions. A man wants to go fishing and hunting. When we want to do, we find a way. When we don't want to do, we find an excuse. We make these excuses because we don't want to admit to ourselves that we have lost all interest in spiritual things; that our spiritual nature has become dormant; that worshipping God has become a burden and no longer holds any attraction for us. We always tell ourselves that we will go back some day and straighten all this up — soon — but not now — not today. We know that we owe it to our children to give them at least a chance. But things will be better after a while. The children will be older and less trouble. The husband will grow to realize his responsibility. The job mother has will demand less of her time, or she will quit and then she will get started back. But these "just right" situations never seem to arrive. The years go by. Our spiritual vision becomes dimmer and dimmer. The children grow older — only now they consider "church" a waste of time and refuse to attend. If you insist, they will likely remind you of yourself and say, "later." Mother never finds a convenient time to quit that job, Father has retired now, but he no longer needs an excuse. He has become acclimated to the world and found enough flaws in the church to keep him satisfied with himself until the icy hand of the grim reaper brings him to the terrible realization that he has waited too long. — La Porte, Texas