The Lost Sought and Saved 2
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1. "The Son of Man is come to seek that which was lost." Here is a poor sinner writing bitter things against himself. Alas! he has lost all his religion. O how religious he once used to be! How comfortably he could walk to church or chapel with his Bible and hymn-book under his arm, and look as devout and holy as possible! How regularly also, he could read the Scriptures, and pray in his manner, and think himself pretty well with one foot in heaven. But a ray of heavenly light has beamed into his soul, and shown him who and what God is, what sin and a sinful heart is, and who and what he himself as a sinner is. The keen dissecting knife of God has come into his heart, laid it all bare, and let the gory matter flow out. When his conscience is bleeding under the scalpel, and is streaming all over with the gore and filth thus let out, where is the clean heart once boasted of? Where is his religion now? All buried beneath a load of filth. Where is all his holiness gone?--his holy looks, holy expressions, holy manners, holy gestures, and holy garb--where are they all gone? All are flooded and buried. The sewer has broken out, and the filthy stream has discharged itself over his holy looks, holy manners, holy words and holy gestures; and he is, as Job says, "in the ditch." "If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands ever so clean."
Here is a pharisee of the first water aspiring to the height of creature perfection. Common water will not do; it must be snow water, the purest possible. And in this he will wash, and wash, and wash again; there shall not be one spot or speck upon his hands or heart. "Yet shall you," Job adds, "plunge me in the ditch." What then? How will he come out? There shall not be a single thread not saturated with the filth of the ditch; so that he shall be as glad to tear off his filthy rags as one who had dropped into the Thames' sewer. "My own clothes shall abhor me," as much as I abhor them. Job 9:31.
If such be your experience, may I not ask you, Where is your former religion now? You have lost it; and a very good thing too. We never find the right religion, until we have lost
the wrong one. We never find Christ, until we have lost SELF. We never find grace, until we have lost our own pitiful self-holiness. We never experience the beauty and blessedness of salvation by grace until we despair of salvation by the works of the flesh.
"The Son of Man is come to seek that which is lost." But how does he seek? By the gospel. Some by the preached gospel. There may be one here who cries with Jonah, "I am cast out of your sight." Jonah was obliged to go into the whale's belly, aye, into the belly of hell, to feel himself lost, and have his pharisaism drowned out of him. When he cried, "I cast out!" that was the best speech Jonah ever made in his life; and when he said, "Yet will I look again toward your holy temple!" that was the best look that Jonah ever looked in all his days; for it was that cry and that look which brought Jonah out of the belly of hell. And though I will not say, we must be cast into the whale's belly, or even into the belly of hell, we must go down somewhere into Jonah's experience before we can have Jonah's deliverance. Now the Lord seeks out such lost souls. Perhaps there is some one here this evening who may have crept into the chapel, hid himself in some corner, buried his face in his hands, and secretly lifting up his heart to God, has said, 'Lord, can you, will you be merciful? Have I sinned so as never, never to be forgiven? Are my backslidings such as never, never to be healed? Have I offended you, so that you will never, no, never give me a smile again?' Here is the man. Here is the individual that the Son of Man is come to seek; here is the poor creature; the Lord knows where he is--where he is physically, and where he is spiritually; and he has come to seek him. He cannot find the Lord; but the Lord has come to look after his stray sheep. In his providence and grace he brings him under the sound of the gospel, and applies it with power to his soul. Thus, he often seeks; and not only seeks, but finds him.
If the Lord did not seek him, he would never seek the Lord. That is most certain. If you are one that seeks the Lord in prayer, in supplication, in secret desire, with many a heart-rending groan, and often by night and by day, be well assured, that you would have never sought the Lord, had not the Lord first sought you. He is now seeking you. It may be as you fear some time before he finds you; but he will find you at last. How sweetly the Lord has set forth this in the parable of the lost sheep!
The poor sheep has gone astray; and having once left the fold, it is pretty sure to have got into some strange place or other. It has fallen down a rock, or has rolled into a ditch, or is hidden beneath a bush, or has crept into a cave, or is lying in some deep, distant ravine, where none but an experienced eye and hand can find it out. And so with the Lord's lost sheep; they get into strange places. They fall off rocks, slip into holes, hide among the bushes, and sometimes creep off to die in caverns. When the literal sheep has gone astray, the shepherd goes after it to find it. Here he sees a foot-mark; there a little lock of wool torn off by the thorns. Every nook he searches; into every corner he looks, until at last he finds the poor sheep--wearied, torn, and half expiring, with scarcely strength enough to groan forth its misery. Nor does he beat it home, nor thrust the goad into its back; but he gently takes it up, lays it upon his shoulder, and brings it home rejoicing. Similar in grace are the Lord's ways with his lost sheep. Men act otherwise. Let a pharisee see a sheep cast, as we call it in the country, that is, lying helpless upon its back, he would soon kick it up and kick it home, beat its head with his crook, or drive the sharp nail into its flank.
David's was a wise prayer, "Let me fall into the hands of God, and not into the hands of man." Oh! to fall into the hands of God; into the hands of a merciful and compassionate High Priest, who was tempted in all points, like as we are, and can therefore sympathize with his poor tempted people! These, these are the only hands for us safely to fall into; and he that falls into these hands will neither fall out of them, nor through them, for "underneath are the everlasting arms," and these can neither be sundered nor broken.
2. But the Son of Man has come not only to seek, but to save. Seeking was not enough; he would save as well as seek. And do you think he would save only IN PART? Was the fall in part? Did man fall only half way from God? A salvation, then, which does not go as deep as the fall, can be no salvation to me. It is not a half salvation, nor a three-quarter salvation; no, nor a ninety-nine hundredth salvation that can suit or save a thoroughly ruined soul. To be salvation at all, it must be complete. Were it anything but complete, it were none; it would not reach down to the extremity of the case.
"The Son of Man has come to save." Blessed word! "To save." He requires nothing upon our part to contribute to our salvation; he has come to save, and that to the uttermost. And to save from what? From the depth of the fall; from sin in all its miserable consequences.
The Lord came to save FROM SIN. There are five things connected with sin from which the Lord came to save.
1. There is the GUILT of sin. Now this lies with great weight and power upon every CONSCIENCE into which the law enters, and where there is any discovery of the purity, holiness, and majesty of God. Guilt of conscience, what a burden! Distress of soul through the imputation of God's wrath, and the fearful apprehension of falling into the hands of Him who indeed is a "consuming fire"--is a heavy load indeed. Did guilt ever lie upon your conscience, wake you up in the dead of the night, and make you feel as if you could wring the hair off your head? If you have felt something of what guilt is, and what a wound it can make in a sinner's conscience, you don't need me to tell you– it must be the Son of Man, and the Son of Man alone, who can save you from the guilt of sin. And how does he save from guilt? By the application of his precious blood to the conscience; thus revealing a sense of his dying love, and giving the soul to feel, that where sin abounded, there grace does and will much more abound. Nothing short of this can effectually take away guilt from the conscience of the sinner.
2. But there is the FILTH of sin. Sin not merely makes as it were a stab in the conscience, or rather, the law as manifesting the wrath of God due to sin brings thereby a burden of guilt; but the filth of sin pollutes and defiles the heart and imagination. Did you ever feel what a filthy wretch you are! how defiled and polluted from head to foot; so that you have hated, abhorred, and detested yourself before God as a monster of all uncleanness? O how little a man can know of the hideous nature of sin, and of the holiness and purity of God, who does not feel how sin pollutes and defiles him from head to foot! He must be saved from this. And how? In two ways–
A. By a solemn plunge into the fountain of Christ's blood once opened for sin and uncleanness, "If I do not wash you, you have no part with me."
B. By the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit; being bathed in the laver of regeneration, and washed by the washing of water by the word; in other words, by the application of God's word of truth by a divine power to the heart.
3. But there is the dreadful LOVE of sin. 'O!' you say, 'surely a child of God can never love sin! Why, I have always been taught ever since I heard of religion, that when a man is born again he loves what he hated, and hates what he loved; and therefore, you can never persuade me that there is such a thing in my heart as love to sin!' I do not want to persuade you; I want you to persuade yourself. And if you knew as much of the human heart as some here, you would painfully know there was in the carnal mind enmity against God, and love to evil. Do not mistake me– there is in the carnal mind a detestable and abominable love of sin. If there be not, I am much deceived. Do you never commit sin? Why do you? Is it not because you love it? If you did not love it; if there were no desire toward it, no inclination, would you ever long after anything sinful? We do not want what we do not like; it is inclination that draws and leads us here and there. Look a little deeper into your heart than the mere surface. Do not take my word for it; I know it too painfully to be mistaken; it has cost me many a groan; and yet here it is to this day.
Look a little deeper; take the lid off; it needs no microscope; and I warrant, if you look a little deeper than usual you will see a something, a something we can scarcely bear to look at--but you will see a something, a something in your heart that has a strange alliance with every sin; a hideous something that seeks gratification from what God hates, and what you and I hate too; for there is a hating of sin in our spiritual nature--as there is an abominable and detestable love to it in our carnal nature.
Now we must be delivered from, and saved out of this. And how? By the letting down of the love of God into our soul. You may try not to love this, and not to love that forbidden thing; not to desire this, or not to desire that sinful object. You may try to watch your looks, your thoughts, and your words, and say, 'I won't, I won't, I won't!' but there is something within which secretly says, 'Yes, I want, I want, I want,' every time that you say 'I won't, I won't, I won't.'
Now you must be saved from this; for all your groans and sighs and struggles cannot keep that something in our heart from opening its mouth, like a little bird in its nest after a worm. But when the love of God is shed abroad in the heart by the blessed Spirit, and heavenly things come with a sweet power into the soul, it takes away for the time the love of sin, and draws up the affections to where Jesus sits at God's right hand. And that is the way whereby we are purged from the dreadful love of sin, and learn to detest everything which made the Savior groan, bleed, and die.
4. But there is the POWER of sin. "Sin shall not have dominion over you." Why? "For you are not under the law, but under grace." 'Aye,' say you, 'but sin has power.' I grant it. But what gives sin its power? Love. O what a mysterious power sin has in our carnal mind! People say they do not love sin. 'O, that is horrible!' they cry. But sin loves them, if they do not love sin. What else makes them so proud, so overbearing, so worldly? What leads them to do this or that unbecoming thing? Why surely there must be some power to produce this. Here are some steel filings lying upon the table--O how quiet they are! they do not move. No; they lie quite still. But bring the magnet; and see where they are then. See how they leap toward it and cling to it closely.
So it is with sin and our carnal mind. Here sin lies. O how quiet these lusts are! how subdued this pride! Why it is almost changed into humility! Surely the heart is getting better! It is not so bad as preachers say it is! Why, all is as calm as the sea on a summer's day. Here are the steel filings; very quiet, though very dirty. Bring the magnet. Let something that attracts the carnal mind pass over these filings. O how they all leap forth to embrace it!
Now here is the power of sin working in our fallen nature through temptation. This we must be saved from. And how? Not by the law; not by resolutions; not by tears; not by remorse; not by shame; but by the blessed beaming in of the grace of God, giving power against power, giving strength, the strength of grace against the dominion of evil.
5. But there is the PRACTICE of sin. Are you quite pure here? Could you bear to be followed up every day of the week, and every hour of the day? Would you like a minister of the gospel to be always dogging your steps, and watching what you said and what you did, and how you lived all the day long? 'No,' say you. 'Sometimes I would rather shrink back I think.' Then, though God may keep you from unbecoming things outwardly--God grant it may be so!--yet who is not guilty in some measure of some slip, some fall? Who can say he keeps his eyes, or his hands, or his feet, or his tongue as pure as they should be kept? Now from this we need deliverance. And this, by "the fear of the Lord, is a fountain of life, turning a man from the snares of death."
From these five things does Jesus save; the guilt of sin; the filth of sin; the love of sin; the power of sin; and the practice of sin. And all by the gospel--not a grain of the law, but all by the gospel, the pure gospel, the precious and everlasting gospel. "For the Son of Man;" not Moses; no, not Moses; but "the Son of Man"--the kind, condescending, compassionate great High Priest--"has come to seek and to save that which was lost." And if He cannot do it; who can? If He has not done it; who has? If we turn away from this Savior, and this salvation, what hope have we? There is hope now; but turn away from the gospel to the law, from Christ to Moses, and from salvation by grace to salvation by the works and deeds of the flesh--it cuts off all hope. "The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost."
And let Pharisees rave as long as they please; let them gnash their teeth against the purity and blessedness of the free grace of the gospel; those who have felt its power and tasted its sweetness, know that nothing but the gospel can suit their souls, and nothing but the gospel can save them from all that they fear. No more! this despised gospel as regards practice and a consistent life and conversation will produce more in five minutes than the law could produce in five centuries; it will raise up more holiness, true holiness, more obedience, true obedience, than Moses could do with all his thunders. And therefore the Lord give us faith to drink deeply into this precious gospel, enjoy its sweetness, and die beneath its blessedness.
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