The Joy of Saving the Lost
IN Mr. George Kennan’s fascinating “Tent-Life in Siberia ‘’ is a very thrilling account of a search made by the author for a party of his lost countrymen on the Anadyr river. After a journey by dog-sledge for two hundred miles over drifted snow, they reach the spot where they conjecture the missing Americans to be buried away under the snow. Mr. Kennan and his companion are well-nigh perishing themselves from cold which has sunk the mercury to fifty degrees below zero! The feet of their poor dogs spot the white snow with blood at every step. One of the two brave explorers has already sunk exhausted on his sledge, and is fast falling into the sleep of death. Suddenly, at midnight, Mr. Kennan hears a faint, long-drawn halloo across the wintry waste. It comes from one of his “Chookchee,” who has gone on in advance. He hurries to the spot, all the blood in his veins throbbing at his heart. As he comes up he discovers the Chookchee standing by a small black pipe projecting from a snowbank. The lost wanderers must be under it. “‘Thank God! thank God! ‘I repeated to myself softly, says the heroic writer; “and as I climbed upon the snowdrift, and shouted down the pipe, ‘Halloo the house I ’ 1 “heard a s.i. pasidftr my feet reply, ‘Who’s there?* As I entered the snowcellar and seized hold of my long-lost friends, my overstrained nerves gave way, and in ten minutes I could hardly raise my hand to my lips.”
Reading the above thrilling scene in my friend Kennan’s book, I found the tears stealing down my own cheeks in sympathy with the brave fellows who had perilled their lives in order to rescue their lost friends from death by cold and starvation. After concluding the narrative, which had almost the sweet” lineament of a gospel book,’’ I opened my Bible, and read this parable which Jesus spake:
“What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders rejoicing.”
With this vivid scene of the Siberian search fresh in my mind, I read this exquisite parable with a new delight. I seemed to see our Divine Shepherd starting oflf after the lost sheep. He knows the thickets or the quagmires into which the silly truant must have strayed. He may hear its bleatings afar off. He goes until he finds it. He does not beat it for straggling; but pulling it out of the mire, or drawing it from the tangled thicket. He layeth it on His shoulders — the clean carrying the unclean, the holy carrying the unholy. Beautiful picture of Jesus, the Sin-bearer! Every saved soul has been upon Christ’s shoulders. When He “boi oplx ilsx^^ and “carried our sorrows,” then was the befoule( yet precious load upon Jesus’ shoulder. Yes, and Hi bids us “cast our cares” upon Him too. The whol load He takes up joyfully.
Say what we may about free agency, or about th< activity of the soul in regeneration, it is equally tni that not a solitary sheep would ever have entered th fold of God if the Divine Shepherd had not come t seek and to save the lost. He came after each ont For Jesus “tasted death for every man” — for th individual and not for the vague mass of undistir guishable humanity. That “one sheep” was lost wa enough to start the loving Shepherd on His searcl What an argument is this to labour for the conversio of one soul/
It has often been said as a cavil by students c astronomy, If this globe of ours is only a mere spec in the starry universe, amid millions of suns an planets, why should the Son of God single out tk diminutive globe as the theatre of His incamatio and sufferings? why did He stoop to such a litll world as ours? In reply to this cavil. Dr. Chalmei prepared and preached his magnificent “Astronomia Discourses.” But we think that this exquisite parabl throws a hint of suggestive light on this problen For, though we do not know that our Saviour nevt went on an errand of redemption to any other plane we do know that He came to this one of ours. W do not know that He went to stupendous Jupiter, c to belted Saturn, or to fai-away “Ne^Xxxxi.
He did not go perhaps to the planet that was biggest in size, but to the one that was basest in sin. He came not “to the largest world, but to the lost worldP Ah! He may have left the “ninety and nine” glorious and gigantic orbs which never wandered, and sought out the single one in which lay a race of - sinners lost in misery and guilt!
There is one stroke in the parable which we must not lose sight of. It is that which depicts the exquisite joy of the Rescuer, When the shepherd “findeth the sheep, he layeth it on his shoulders rejoicing He is glad, for the sake of the restored sheep, but still more for his own. It was “for the JOY set before Him that He endured the cross and despised the shame.” Into that sublime joy how many elements may enter! There must have been in my Saviour’s heart a holy ecstasy of love which pleased itself in doing good — in saving me when lost — in enduring suflfering and sacrifice for my salvation. This sublime love of the Sin-bearer makes even the crown of thorns flash as a diadem of splendours on the Redeemer’s bleeding brow. Here was the Divine luxury of doing good.
It is a sweet thought too that Jesus would have missed vaQ if I had never been sought and brought back. As the shepherd in the story left the ninety and nine to hunt for the single straggler, so I may gladly hope that Jesus wanted me in heaven, or else He would not have come so far or endured so much to save me. If I were left witViOMl I^vkv, xJsyx^^-^^ have been one more soul in hell. But if He were left without me, there would be one soul the less to sing His praise in heaven. He would have had one the less to present to His Father “with exceeding yy.”
For observe that the sweet parable says nothing about the delight of the sheep in being found; it only depicts the exceeding joy of the shepherd in finding the wanderer. He calls his neighbours together to share his gladness. “Likewise there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.” The common and inaccurate rendering of this text confines the joy to the angels only, as if it read “among the angels.” Just as well say that the “neighbours” felt the thrill of gladness over the recovered sheep, and not the shepherd himself.
The transcendent joy in heaven over a saved soul is not confined to the angel-bands. It is only witnessed by them, and partially shared by them. It is “in Xhtix presence that the celestial rapture breaks forth. But the supreme joy is in the bosom of the enthroned Redeemer! His was the sorrow, when He was “exceeding sorrowful even unto death.” His is the joy, when He presents even one repentant sinner before the “presence of His glory.” He sees the travail of His soul and is satisfied.
O beloved Saviour! when we behold Thee on Thy
throne, the Shepherd amid His ransomed flock. Thy
victories complete, the last wandering sheep brought
home, the last recovered jewel glittering in Thy
crown; then we will confess iViaX X)ci lfwlfi.^w ^a.^
The yoy of Saving the Lost. 109
orthy of the toil, and the ransom of Thy glorified Ihurch was worthy of all the bitter agonies of Him ho came to seek and to save the lost! “Worthy isle Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, nd strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing, for ver and ever!”