The Straying Sheep and the Sin-bearing Shepherd

Next Part The Straying Sheep and the Sin-bearing Shepherd 2

"Who his own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness– by whose stripes you were healed. For you were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls." 1 Peter 2:24, 25

In endeavoring to lay lay the text open before you, I shall–

First, direct your thoughts to what is said in it of our going astray as sheep.

Secondly, the bearing of our sins in his own body on the tree by the blessed Lord, and our being healed by his stripes.

Thirdly, the effect and consequence of a knowledge of this– that we become dead to sins and live to righteousness, and return unto the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls.

I. Going astray as sheep. I need hardly observe how continually in the word of truth the people of Christ are called sheep; nor need I point out the various reasons which make that figure peculiarly descriptive of their character and condition. There can, therefore, be no difficulty in understanding that by the word "sheep" in our text the people of God are intended, and chiefly the living and regenerated people, those for whom not only the Lord laid down his precious life, but whom he has quickened by his Spirit, and called by his grace, and whom he will eventually bring home to glory.

But you will observe, that they are here spoken of as "going astray." They were sheep before they went astray, for the straying of a sheep in the literal figure does not destroy its nature as a sheep, or turn it into a goat. That it should leave the fold and go astray is its folly and misery; but however far it may wander upon the dark mountains, it can never lose its original character or change its nature. It needs, indeed, to be brought back that it may not be devoured by the wolf, or perish of hunger; but even in its furthest wanderings, when it has most lost its way, and is least able to return, its heart is toward the fold, the flock, and the shepherd.

A. But let us examine more minutely the expression of the apostle, "going astray," and see what meaning we may gather up from the idea thus presented to our mind in harmony with the Scriptures and the experience of the saints. And perhaps it may help us to understand the figure better if we look at the various reasons through which the literal sheep often goes astray; for most likely we shall find some, if not all, of the same causes acting in some analogous way upon the minds of the Lord's family when they go astray.

1. One cause, and that not the least frequent or the least prevalent, is silliness; their downright silliness, actual foolish stupidity. Sheep often go astray not from maliciousness; not from a natural desire to live like the goat; not from a weariness of the fold or of their companions; not from any sudden antipathy to their shepherd, but from sheer stupidity. Is not this true also with the Lord's sheep? Have you not often gone out of the path through sheer stupidity, through actual silliness of heart? Some silly lust, some stupid folly, some miserable, wretched trifle of no more real weight or importance than a straw, has drawn you aside. You have got out of the path and fallen into some evil which has produced great guilt, and it may be all your lifetime a source of inward compunction, through some stupid folly by which you were overtaken in some heedless moment, so as to say or do something unbecoming or inconsistent, which you never can forget, and which, if it has come abroad, has grieved friends, put a reproach into the mouth of enemies, tarnished your Christian character, and brought upon you misery and vexation.

You did not do it wittingly, willfully, or wantonly, but if I may use the expression, blundered into it through sheer silliness of mind and mere stupidity, as being off your guard and caught in a snare before you were well aware. When we look sometimes at the in-and-out path which we have trodden since we made a profession, and what silly, foolish things we have often said and done, how humbling is the review, what shame covers our face; what a low place we are forced to take among the family of God; and how every one of them seems to be wiser, holier, more consistent, more sober, prudent and godly, more spiritual and heavenly-minded than we feel ourselves to be. We seem to see how much more they have been kept by the power of God; preserved more tender in his fear, and have lived more to his praise and glory than we have done. It is this continual sight and sense of what we have been and are as sheep that have gone astray, which causes us to esteem others better than ourselves, and makes us daily feel that we are the chief of sinners and less than the least of all saints.

2. Another cause of the sheep's going astray is a hankering after a fresh pasture, even though there are poisonous herbs in it. The sheep seems to get weary of so small a territory, grows tired of being always penned up closely in a fold, and ever treading up and down the same narrow ground. In looking over a pasture or a field of turnips fed down by sheep, we generally observe that the shepherd keeps them, as it were, to the last bite. Sheep food is too costly to be wasted. They must eat up all and leave nothing. Now, we may well understand that when the sheep sees near at hand a richer pasture, it is easily tempted to leave the fold and the flock to get a fuller feed. And yet what danger there may be in it. A friend of mine lost a good part of his flock through disease, brought on, it was supposed, by the shepherd's getting out the flock upon the frosted clover before the sun had thawed and dried it.

How needful it is for us to be kept within the fold and under the eye of the Shepherd who will make no such mistake as that, even if the food is sometimes scanty, and we may seem to long for a change of pasture. It is in this way that men so often get entangled with error. It seems to offer to them some fresh pasture, some new food, a lively and agreeable change from that round of doctrine and experience of which they have got almost tired, and of which, were it manna itself, they would say, if you could read their hearts– "Our soul loaths this light bread." The restless desires of the human heart are as innumerable as they are insatiable. What silly baits will sometimes entangle our vain mind. What a hankering often is there after some gratification which, if we got it, would be but a momentary indulgence, and, even that spoiled by guilt and shame at the very moment of obtaining it. How easily, too, we get entangled and drawn aside by some of those "deceitful lusts," of which I was speaking this morning, and which well may be called deceitful as promising much and performing nothing, and indeed worse than nothing, for all they can perform is bondage and misery.

3. But sometimes sheep go astray, drawn aside by the example of others. You know how prone sheep are to follow each other, and if the lead sheep does but direct the way, how first one and then another rushes almost madly after him. An old Puritan writer, if I remember right, relates an incident which he himself witnessed at Shrewsbury, where there is a bridge that crosses the river Severn, there tolerably wide. A flock of sheep was passing over the bridge, and one of them took it into his head, as we should say, to leap off the road upon the parapet, which I suppose in those days was of a lower character and of a cruder structure than in our modern bridges. The next sheep followed suit, and the third followed him. But they had got a very narrow spot to stand upon. Down, then, goes the first sheep into the water, the next follows, the third imitates his example, until the outcome was that the whole flock fell into the river.

And even in London, there is a familiar example of this following propensity in the device by which a poor sheep is sometimes enticed into the slaughter-house by a stuffed sheep being drawn in before him. How great is the influence of example; and but for God's grace how the river or the slaughterhouse might have been our end, and would be if we followed some examples set before us. How often God's people have been drawn aside by the bad example of this or that professor, or even sheltered themselves under the sins and infirmities of good men. If they see one going before them who is generally received as a saint or servant of God, they think they may safely follow; and yet he may only go before them to lead them into evil.

Bunyan, who has left few things untouched, has beautifully hit off this temptation in representing Vain Confidence going before Christian and Hopeful in By-Path Meadow. "Look," said Christian, "Did not I tell you so? By this you may know we are right." But when night came on, Vain Confidence fell into a pit and was dashed to pieces by his fall, and the two pilgrims soon got into the Castle of Giant Despair. It is not the example of good men or bad which is to guide or lead us, but the precepts of the gospel and the example of Christ. Directly you are beginning to justify your inconsistent or unbecoming conduct by the example of some good man, you are falling into a snare. Has God told you to be covetous because it is this good man's besetting sin? or to be peevish and passionate because this other worthy man has a hasty temper? or to be light and trifling because this minister has dropped from the pulpit some quaint saying which, perhaps, smote his conscience with a pang as soon as it had gone out of his lips? But I have spoken enough on this point if you will listen to my warning voice.

B. There is one marked characteristic, however, of sheep going astray which I must not pass by. They never come back by themselves. They are so silly, stupid, and ignorant that when they stray they never can find their own way back to the fold. The shepherd must himself go after them and bring them back, or never, never will they come back of themselves. Have you not found it was easier to go out of the way than to get back into it; easier to stray, wander and get upon the wild mountains, or fall into some pit or hole and there get smeared with mud and mire, than it was to get back or get out, and return to the fold? No, we never shall get back unless the Lord himself comes out after us, searches for us in the dark and cloudy day, lays us on his shoulders, and himself carry us all the way home.

How beautifully and how touchingly is this spoken of by the Lord, in the words of the prophet– "My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill– yes, my flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them." (Ezekiel 34:6.) And what tender care he manifests towards his sheep thus scattered through all the mountains and upon every high hill– "For thus says the Lord God; Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day." (Ezekiel 34:11, 12.)

And do not the Lord's own words sweetly correspond with the promise thus given in the prophet? "Then Jesus told them this parable: Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep." (Luke 15:3-6.) If ever, then, the sheep that has gone astray returns to the fold, it is because the good Shepherd himself brings it home. And O how tenderly and graciously has he shown himself to be this good Shepherd. "The good Shepherd," he himself has declared, "gives his life for the sheep." (John 10:11.) But this leads us to our second point.

II. "Who, his own self, bore our sins in his own body on the tree."

A. The sheep of whom our text speaks have gone astray. This was not only their misery but their sin. To depart from the Lord is not merely to wander away from the fountain of all happiness, but it is a crime of high and exceeding magnitude. The prophet therefore says, "Your own wickedness shall correct you, and your backslidings shall reprove you; know, therefore, and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that you have forsaken the Lord your God, and that my fear is not in you, says the Lord God of hosts." (Jer. 2:19.) To forsake the Lord our God is not only a bitter thing, and the cause of all misery, but an evil thing and the cause of all wickedness. The Lord, therefore, calls upon the heavens to be astonished and to be horribly afraid at the wickedness of departing from him. "Be astonished, O heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be very desolate, says the Lord. For my people have committed two evils– they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, which can hold no water." (Jer. 2:12, 13.)

And is there one here who must not plead guilty to this charge? Is there one here who has not committed the two evils which astonished the very heavens? Have we not again and again wickedly and wantonly forsaken the Fountain of living waters, and wickedly and wantonly hewn out for ourselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water? Can we look back without seeing the broken cisterns almost filling up the road, strewing it in all directions, and every one of them dry? And are we not in our vain imaginations, if not in our lives, still doing the same work– hewing out this and that cistern, and finding, when hewn out with great care and labor, it holds no water? Alas! when Adam strayed away from God and godliness, it was as Deer speaks– "He ruined all his future race;" and the infection of his blood makes us wander like him, and that, to our ruin, but for preventing and saving grace.

Now these sins of ours must be atoned for, that they may be effectually put away. And O what a wondrous way was that by which they were blotted out from the sight of God. The Son of God took flesh, that by laying down his precious life and offering his pure humanity, in conjunction with his Deity, as a sacrifice for sin, he might forever put it away. This is expressed in our text, in the words– "Who, his own self, bore our sins in his own body on the tree."

How distinctly does our text speak of the imputation of our sins to Jesus. It was "his own self"– his very, his true self, and none but himself, for no one else could have done it; no one else in heaven or earth could have borne the load; no one else have had sufficient dignity of Person; no one else be the only begotten Son of the Father in truth and love; and, therefore, none but his own precious self could have borne our sins in their imputation, in their guilt, in their weight, in their condemnation, and in the wrath of God justly due to them. And it was "in his own body"– not excluding his soul; that is, in the whole of his pure humanity which he offered upon the tree.

But now let us look at this bearing of our sins a little more experimentally, for in that way we come best to see how the Lord Jesus Christ made atonement for them.

When sin is charged home upon our conscience by the work of God's Spirit upon the heart; when we begin to feel its burden and know what it is by painful experience to have sinned against a holy, just, and righteous God, we are made to know a little of the real nature of the sin, and with what a heavy load it presses upon the heart of a truly convinced sinner. Now if each individual thus convinced of sin, feels, in his measure, the weight of his own transgressions, what must it have been to the Redeemer when he bore the whole weight of imputed transgression, and had to atone for the millions of sins committed by his elect people, by bearing them all in his own body on the tree? What must he have suffered in body and soul when the anger of God, due to these myriads and myriads of the vilest transgressions, and the curse of the law attached to disobedience met in his sacred bosom, and he hung upon the cross laden and bowed down with the heavy burden of all the sins and iniquities of his chosen family?

When our blessed Lord undertook to bear our sins in his own body on the tree, he undertook to bear all the guilt and punishment which were due to them. We, therefore, read, "The Lord has laid upon him (in the margin, made to meet on him) the iniquities of us all." "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities;" yes, "it pleased the Lord himself to bruise him;" his own Father to put him to grief, and thus to make his soul an offering for sin. But would we especially see something of what the Redeemer felt and suffered in his holy soul, when he bore our griefs and carried our sorrows, we must have recourse to those Psalms, sometimes called the Messianic Psalms, such as Psalms 22, 40, 69, in which he pours out his soul unto God under the heavy strokes of his bruising hand. How we hear him crying in one of these Psalms– "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? why are you so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? O my God, I cry in the daytime, but you hear not; and in the night season, and am not silent." (Psalm. 22:1, 2.) And again, "I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint– my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaves to my jaws; and you have brought me into the dust of death." (Psalm. 22:14, 15.)

That this Psalm expresses the very language of Christ we know from his own words upon the cross, when, in the depths of his dolorous agony, he cried out in the words I have already quoted– "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" How truly were the words fulfilled in him, "All those who see me laugh me to scorn; they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him; let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him." (Psalm. 22:7, 8.) And has not the Holy Spirit expressly declared that the words, "they part my garments among them and cast lots for my vesture" (Psalm. 22:18) were written that that Scripture might be fulfilled in him? (John 19:24.) The gospels are for the most part very silent on the sufferings of Christ, both of body and soul. Nor is this surprising. They are chiefly a simple narrative of actual events, and therefore a description of the personal experience of Christ would have been out of place. Nor, indeed, was it necessary, as the Holy Spirit had already made it known in the Psalms, by previous anticipation.

But O what an unspeakable mercy it is to the Church of God, that the blessed Redeemer did so interpose, as to bear our sins in his own body on the tree, that we might not bear them forever and ever ourselves; took them upon himself, that they might be dealt with as if they were actually his; for, in a sense, they became his by imputation as much as if he himself had committed them. Is not this true in human affairs? If I undertake to pay a man's debts, and pledge myself by some written contract to that effect, I am as much responsible for them, as if I had myself incurred them. And you will observe, that when the debt is transferred from him to me, he is no longer responsible for it. The law cannot demand double payment for one debt. When, then, our Lord undertook to bear our sins in his own body on the tree, the debt due by us was transferred to him. It was by this vicarious obedience that sin was atoned for, put away, blotted out, and propitiation made; for it was by his precious blood shedding and death upon the cross, that sin was entirely removed from the sight of God, so that his people might never come under its condemnation.

Now, nothing but a sight of this atoning sacrifice by living faith, can ever bring relief to one truly convinced of sin by the power of the Spirit, and who sighs and groans beneath it as a heavy burden too great for him to bear. Nothing but the application of the atoning blood of the Lord the Lamb can purge the conscience of a truly convicted sinner from filth, guilt, and dead works to serve the living God. We may try and try again to purify our own conscience, and to speak peace to our own troubled heart. We may try in a thousand ways to assure our hearts before God, but it will be labor in vain. It will be with us, as Job speaks– "If I wash myself with snow water, and make my hands ever so clean; yet shall you plunge me in the ditch, and my own clothes shall abhor me." (Job 9:30, 31.)

We beg of the Lord, sometimes, to give us a broken heart, a contrite spirit, a tender conscience, and a humble mind; but it is only a view by faith of what the gracious Redeemer endured upon the cross, when he bore our sins in his own body with all their weight and pressure, and with all the anger of God due to them, that can really melt a hard, and break a stony heart. No sight, short of this, can make sin felt to be hateful; bring tears of godly sorrow out of the eyes, sobs of true repentance out of the breast, and the deepest, humblest confessions before God what dreadful sinners and base backsliders we have been before the eyes of his infinite Purity, Majesty, and Holiness.

O, what help is there for our guilty souls; what refuge from the wrath of God so justly our due; what shelter from the curse of a fiery law, except it be in the cross of Jesus? O, for a view of him revealed to the eyes of our enlightened understanding, as bearing our sins in his own body on the tree. O, to see by the eye of faith, all those dreadful sins which have caused us so much inward grief and trouble, all those fearful backslidings and sad entanglements on which we can but reflect with shame and grief; O, to see all we have said and thought and done, which conscience testifies against, and all those innumerable evils that we have never seen or conscience has forgotten; to view them by the eye of faith taken off our guilty head, and put upon the head of the Lord the Lamb.

Where, oh, where can we get relief from any other source or by any other way? There is no relief anywhere else. Where can you find pardon sealed upon your breast, forgiveness manifested to your soul, or any expectation of gaining heaven and escaping hell, except in the cross, and some testimony in your own bosom of your saving interest in that precious blood and righteousness, and the knowledge for yourself that the dear Redeemer bore your sins in his body on the tree? I know, indeed, full well, that it requires special faith, a faith of God's own giving and raising up to believe this– an especial manifestation of salvation by the blood of the Lamb to the soul; a blessed bringing in of the power of Christ crucified to the heart. But I believe I do but speak the inmost conviction of every heart touched by the finger of God when I say, that until this is in some measure done, there is no solid relief; no true peace with God; no firm, abiding foundation on which we can stand, as if for eternity; nothing strong enough to banish the fear of death and open the gates of heaven.

But how both the need and the enjoyment of this salvation through the blood of the Lamb, puts an end forever to all creature merit and creature righteousness, and every expectation which is founded and grounded upon the works of the law. How it leads us to see that our sins were of so deep a dye, of so black a hue, and so merited the eternal wrath of God, that nothing but this sacrifice could suffice; that his own Son, his co-equal, co-eternal Son, must come and take our nature into union with his divine Person, and bear our sins in his own body on the tree, that they might be put away forever from the sight of God; cast behind his back; drowned in the depths of the sea; so that when sought for, they may no more be found.

Next Part The Straying Sheep and the Sin-bearing Shepherd 2

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