The Lost Sheep Restored

"My people have been lost sheep – their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they have turned them away on the mountains – they have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their resting place." Jeremiah 50:6

God the Father in His eternal appointments, God the Son in His mediatorial work, and God the Holy Spirit in His inward teachings, have drawn an eternal line of distinction between the whitewashed professor and the living soul. However the 'hypocrites in Zion' may be mixed up in churches with the people of God; however they may profess to believe in the same doctrines, yet there is a boundary – never to be crossed – established between them by the hand of the triune Jehovah, a boundary line which not all the art or wisdom of men can ever break down. The child of God has that filial fear in his heart which the professor knows nothing of; he has that uprightness before God, that integrity, that simplicity and godly sincerity, that desire to be right, that fear to be wrong, that panting of heart feelingly and experimentally to know "the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent," John 17:3 that longing to live day by day under the blessed Spirit's teachings, that humility of soul and brokenness of heart, that tenderness of conscience, and those other fruits of the Spirit, which may indeed be counterfeited and imitated, but which never really exist except in those hearts which God has touched with His finger.

It therefore behooves all those whom God has been pleased to plant upon the walls of Zion as watchmen, in order to call the hours of light and darkness, and to proclaim when "the morning comes, and also the night" Isaiah 21:11-12 to cry aloud and spare not between the honest man and the thief. The faithful shepherds are called upon "to judge between cattle and cattle, between the rams and the he-goats" Eze 34:17 Nor has there ever been a period when the prophets of the Lord were more urgently required to take forth the precious from the vile and be thus manifested as God's mouth Jer 15:19.

In the two verses that precede the text, and in the text itself taken in connection with them, we have a description by the Holy Spirit, speaking through His servant Jeremiah, of the way in which the Lord leads His people. We find described by the unerring pen of divine inspiration, the place where He finds them, the cause which has driven them there, the way in which they are delivered, and the spot to which they are eventually brought. And, therefore, in speaking from these words I shall not confine myself to the words of the text, but shall, the Lord helping me, take them in connection with the two verses which immediately precede it. And may the blessed Spirit condescend to favor us with His unction and dew, without which all that I speak, and all that you hear, will be like "water spilled upon the ground."

As there is nothing like a good beginning, I shall endeavor to make my ground good at first by stating as plainly and as decisively as I can who the persons are of whom these things are spoken. They are called in the text by the mouth of God Himself, "My people," and they are that peculiar people whom God the Father chose in Christ before all worlds, that chosen generation whom God the Son, taking their nature into union with Himself, redeemed by His own most precious blood, and that holy nation whom God the Holy Spirit condescends to teach, and lead and guide, and bring home safe to glory. This elect portion of the human race, God calls in the text, "My people," as though He would say of them, "They are Mine by choice, Mine by purchase, Mine by adoption; eternally Mine, irreversibly Mine; Mine in spite of sin, death, and hell; Mine in spite of the flesh, the world, and the devil."

I. But our first view of this peculiar people shall be in the place where God finds them. "My people," He says, "have been lost sheep." They do not become sheep by being found, nor do they cease to be sheep by being lost. They were sheep eternally in the mind of God; and their becoming lost did not alter nor destroy their character of being sheep any more than the wandering of a sheep literally and naturally from the fold turns it into a goat. It may be lame, sick, or diseased; it may stray away miles from the fold; its fleece may be torn with briars or soiled with mud, and its whole appearance so altered that the shepherd can scarcely recognize it; but it is a sheep still, and ever will be a sheep while it continues to exist. And thus the elect being sheep eternally in the mind of God, and as such possessing an eternal union with the Son of God, could not cease to be sheep by falling in Adam, nor do their personal, individual falls, slips, and transgressions destroy their original, unalterable character.

But viewed as to the place where the Lord the Spirit finds them, they are "lost sheep," ruined, undone, without hope, without help, without strength, without wisdom, without righteousness; lost, so as to have no power to find the way to glory; lost, as to any expectations of finding that in the creature which God can look upon with acceptance; lost, as to any hope of ever reaching the heavenly shore, except under the immediate guidance of the Holy Spirit; lost, as to any possibility of doing the least thing towards propitiating the favor of God, or gaining an interest in His love.

When God the Holy Spirit takes a soul in hand, just as the fingers of a man's hand wrote a sentence of condemnation upon the wall of the palace of the king of Babylon, so does the blessed Spirit write the word "Lost" upon the conscience of every vessel of mercy; and when He has written this word with power on their consciences, they carry it about with them branded as it were in letters of fire, in such a manner that the impression is never to be erased, until it is blotted out by the atoning blood of the Mediator.

And thus in the teachings of the Holy Spirit in the consciences of God's family, "lost, lost, lost," is written on their heart; "lost, lost, lost," is the cry of their lips; "lost, lost, lost," is the deep feeling of their soul. And none was ever found who had not the feeling "lost", written more or less deeply upon his heart. None was ever gathered in the arms of the heavenly Shepherd; sought out upon the mountains and the hills, laid upon His shoulders, and brought home with rejoicing; none was ever brought into a spiritual acquaintance with Jesus, so as to enjoy communion with Him, who had not sighed, and groaned, and cried under a sense of his lost state, as a guilty sinner before God.

Now when the soul has been taught by the Holy Spirit to feel as well as to see and know itself to be without strength to deliver itself from the wrath to come, and is in consequence sunk down into despondency and dismay, then is the time when the Holy Spirit usually gives it some discovery of the mercy of God in the face of Jesus Christ. We find this sweetly set forth in that remarkable chapter, Eze 16. The vessel of mercy is there delineated under the figure of a new-born babe, abandoned by its mother, and "cast out in the open field, to the loathing of its person in the day that it was born". Eze 16:5 As unpitied, as abandoned, as polluted, as helpless, as perishing, as wretched as an outcast is the quickened soul. But it is not left to perish. "When I passed by you," says the loving Redeemer, "and looked upon you, behold, your time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over you" (the time of espousal), Ru 3:9 "and covered your nakedness; yes, I swore unto you, and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord God, and you became mine". Eze 16:8

There seems to be some hint of this in the last words of the text, "They have forgotten their resting place," implying that these "lost sheep" had to a certain extent been found, and had had some rest given to them in Christ; that the Lord the Spirit had brought them, some by a deeper, others by a more shallow way, some more and some less strikingly, to find Jesus to be their rest, so that their lost, distressed, and troubled souls had found a measure of rest in Christ, rest in His blood, rest in His righteousness, rest in "the everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure" 2Sa 23:5

But the Lord speaks of His people in the text as having forgotten "their resting place." Now if they never knew what a resting place was, they could not be said to have forgotten it. And this, if I am not much mistaken, affords us a clue to the meaning of the text in speaking of God's people as being lost on the mountains through the instrumentality of false shepherds. It is clear that their being lost in the first instance could not arise from treacherous guides, as they were lost in their first parent, lost in the womb where they were conceived in sin, and lost from the womb, whence they went astray speaking lies. It is rather the straying away of a sheep which had once been gathered, than of one that had been born upon the mountains, and had never known the voice of the good Shepherd; the wandering of the backslider, rather than of the dead in sin. And thus it corresponds to the parable of the lost sheep Luke 15:4-6 which describes the case of a backslider; and it falls in with David's penitent cry Psalm 119:176 "I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek Your servant."

II. The Lord then in the text states the cause, the instrumental CAUSE, of the backslidings and wanderings of His people. He charges it home upon their FALSE SHEPHERDS, their deceiving and deceived guides, who through ignorance or maliciousness lead them astray. "My people," says He, "have been lost sheep; their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they have turned them away on the mountains; they have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their resting place."

O! what thunderbolts of divine vengeance are threatened in God's Word against false ministers – enough to make any man with a tender conscience who stands up in the name of the Lord tremble from head to foot! What dreadful denunciations of the wrath of God against the idol shepherds Zec 11:17 the slothful, self-seeking pastors, who never strengthen the diseased, nor heal the sick, nor bind up the broken, nor bring again the driven away, nor seek the lost, but rule them with force and cruelty, feeding themselves, and not the flock! Eze 34:4,8

But if the Lord's people are led astray by these shepherds after they have obtained some knowledge of Christ, we may be very sure that their treacherous guides came in the grab of truth. The doctrines of grace were on their lips, but deceit and hypocrisy in their heart; and thus, under the mask of truth, they insinuated themselves into the affections, biased the judgment, and beguiled the heart of God's people. Did they come with open errors, did they at once propound their deceptive sentiments, did they at the outset manifest their ungodly lives, the sheep would take alarm and not listen to their alluring voice. But they come into the fold as real shepherds, the divinely commissioned pastors of the flock, though they enter it only to break down the hurdles, and scatter and lead astray the sheep. We will, the Lord enabling us, unmask and hold up to view some of these false shepherds who come in the name of Christ, but are neither taught nor sent by Him.

1. Some of these false shepherds lead them aside by building them up in doctrines, without the sweet power and living efficacy of truth being felt in the soul; and thus the children of God get drawn aside from sighs, and cries, and groanings after the Lord, to rest upon doctrines as doctrines, without the sweet unction and blessed power and divine savor of those doctrines being communicated and breathed into their heart by the mouth of God Himself.

Now whatever it is that leads the soul away from its "resting place," whatever draws it aside from an experimental knowledge of the Son of God, whatever seduces it from the Spirit into the form, and from the power into the letter, injures, seriously injures, a living soul. However Scriptural, however true these doctrines are, however ably stated, clearly proved, or eloquently enforced, yet, when used by ministers of unrighteousness, as they frequently are used, to build the soul up in presumptuous confidence, and oppose the Spirit's work upon the conscience, they draw the sheep away from the power and spirit and savor of divine realities as made experimentally known, into the dead letter and dry form. Doctrines in the letter are but the skeleton and wire-fastened bones of truth, without the sinews and flesh coming up upon them, and the skin covering them above, or the breath of the Holy Spirit breathing upon those who they may live Eze 37:8-9

I appeal to the consciences of some here present, if you have not been thus led astray.

When the Lord first began His work in your soul (I can speak for myself), was there not a simplicity, an uprightness, and mingled with convictions of sin and helplessness, a panting to know Jesus by His own manifestations? And when brought to some measure of faith and hope in Him, was there not a sincere, childlike reliance and rest upon His blood and righteousness? But have not some of you been led away from this simplicity and godly sincerity, this implicit and panting reliance upon the Spirit's inward teachings, into a dry, cold, hard profession of truth, much further advanced indeed in the knowledge of the letter, but the freshness, the savor, the vitality, and the power of truth sensibly declined, and as it were dried up out of your soul? And what has been the instrumental cause of this substitution of the 'wisdom of men' for the 'power of God'? Trace it to its source, and it will generally be found that the false shepherds were the cause, who came into the fold, pulled down the hurdles of godly fear, and drove or drew the flock away upon the barren mountains, leading them from mountain to hill of doctrines and speculations, hairbreadth distinctions and strifes of words, until amid disputes and controversies the sheep forgot their resting place.

2. Again; others of these false shepherds, who come in the garb of truth bring with them a base antinomian spirit, which they may conceal at first, but which, after a time, they breathe forth, and infuse into the minds of their hearers. It is not so much a man's words as his spirit that we are to watch and narrowly observe.

Whenever a minister is over a people, and is preaching to them continually, he will breathe his spirit into them, will infuse into their minds what his own mind is full of. A minister, then, shall come among a people professing vital godliness, with truth on his lips, with the doctrines of grace and some show of experience, and yet there shall be a spirit of levity and carelessness about him, a spirit of slighting the preceptive parts of God's Word, of neglecting the ordinances of His house, of making light of the workings of godly fear and tender conscience, and without absolutely denying the experience of the saints, for that were too barefaced and might damage his own interest, he shall throw out contemptuous remarks against the sighs and cries of a troubled heart, the tears, groans, and supplications of the living soul. He shall set aside these things as legality and bondage, and clamor loudly for what he calls the liberty of the gospel and the unwavering assurance of faith. When he has brought them off from "looking into self, and poring over frames and feelings," in other words from a heart-felt, divinely-taught and wrought religion, he will infuse into their minds the reckless, hardened presumption, that licentious, antinomian spirit, which Satan has breathed into him – a spirit as different from holy trembling, godly awe, and reverential fear, as heaven from hell, or Christ from Belial.

The sheep who had found some resting place in Christ, who had felt the savor of His name as ointment poured forth, gradually drinking into this loose spirit, and finding how suitable it is to their vile lusts and passions, often get so intoxicated with this wine of Sodom and these grapes of Gomorrah, that they "forget their resting place;" and being "turned away on the mountains," wander "from mountain to hill" of presumptuous confidence, and perhaps fall down some of the steep crags, until the good Shepherd seek them out where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.

3. Others of these false shepherds, coming under a profession of truth, introduce Sabellian, Arian, and other abominable errors, and yet wrap them up so covertly that they deceive the unwary.

4. But there is another class of false shepherds of a totally different stamp, who are great zealots for the precepts of God's Word, and the ordinances of His house, but whose object is secretly to infuse a spirit of self-righteousness – to lead the people up to what they call holiness, as though holiness were something to be attained by diligent cultivation; and thus they draw them aside from lying as poor miserable sinners at the foot of the cross, and bring them to lean upon something in self, where by dishonor is done to the Holy Spirit, as teacher of the church of God, and to the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our sanctification as well as our righteousness. Whatever leads a man away from lying at the foot of the cross, from godly fear, reverential awe, and a trembling sense of God's presence, whatever draws him aside from communion with Jesus, from contrition and self-renunciation, does not come from God. Whatever Scriptural language it be dressed out in, whatever piety and holiness are worn in the features, manner and garb of the preacher, whatever zeal, devotion, and fervor he seems to carry with him, yes, though he comes as an angel of light, he and his message are to be rejected if he teach anything that leads the soul away from the cross of the Lord Jesus.

"If anything, easy or hard He teaches, except the Lamb and His blood." But in early days, before the soul is led deeply into the mystery of sin and the mystery of salvation, nothing more readily falls in with the ingrained self-righteousness of our hearts than earnest persuasions to holiness from the lips of a preacher who seem embalmed in all the odor of it, and in our undiscerning eyes clad from head to foot in well-near sinless perfection.

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