Does God pursue us?

God has drawn near to man as a Friend. Man never thought to find a friend in God. He had naturally no confidence in his Creator. He broke with God when he became a sinner, and to this day he has no desire for the healing of the breach. He wishes not to have to do with God, nor would he ever have sought God if left to himself. But God had desires after man, and if man will not seek God, God will seek him. If there is none that seeks after God, there is a God who seeks after man. He sought after Adam and Eve when they had abandoned Him, and when they were doing their best to make it impossible for Him to find them. They hid themselves away from Him when they heard Him in the garden. They could only think of Him as a Judge. And even to-day with the gospel ringing in the ears of men few wake up to the fact that God is seeking after them in grace. People are liable to think there can be nothing for them in the heart of God but wrath. What a mistake this is!

There are also evidences of His goodness in the fact that He gives sunshine, rain, and fruitful seasons, “filling our hearts with food and gladness” (Acts 14). The object of it all is that men might feel after Him and find Him, for He is not far from any one of us (Acts 17). Man has gone far from God, and his great desire is always to increase the distance, but God has not gone far from man. The distance lies in alienation of heart and mind, and therefore man being a God-hating sinner, the distance to which he has gone is immeasurable; but God pursues him in the grace and love of His heart, ready to fall on his neck and cover him with kisses (Luke 15) the moment he, in the sorrow of his soul, turns round and begins to feel after his Creator, whom he has so heartlessly abandoned.

This world has its powerful attractions, and the cunning enemy of mankind has designed it for the ruin of his victim, but the attraction God has for man is Himself, revealed in love, and in the apprehension of this lies the endless blessing of His poor fallen creature. And that men might be attracted to Him He left not Himself at any time without witness, even in the darkest places of the earth: doing good, and giving rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness (Acts 14); desiring that they might feel after Him and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us (Acts 17). Man in his wanderings had got a long way from God, but God in His marvellous grace pursued him closely, even into the darkest corners of the earth, and in unwearying patience kept continually before his eyes the evidences of His goodness and tender consideration for His creature, that he might be induced to return to Him.

This being the true condition of things, all would perish in their appalling folly, but for the activity of God in grace. If men do not want Him, He wants them! Immediately after the rebellion in the garden, the voice of God was heard, saying, "Adam, where art thou?" (Gen. 3:9). The Gospel tells us (Oh, blessed thought!) that God is now the Seeker after men. This is the meaning of the coming amongst us of His beloved Son. Accordingly in the New Testament sinners are never charged to seek the Lord although it is still their responsibility to do so; in stead, they are told that God is seeking them. When the Lord Jesus was found fault with for receiving sinners and eating with them, He gave utterance to the delightful parables of Luke 15, wherein He delineated the grace that seeks the lost, and that welcomes the penitent. He likened Himself to a shepherd "going after that which is lost until He find it." When again complained of for entering the house of Zacchaeus the tax-gatherer, He said: "the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which is lost" (Luke 19:10). The grace which seeks (oh, so unweariedly!) those whom righteousness might well condemn, is marvellous! What a God is ours! Yet how cruelly misrepresented by Satan to foolish men whom he would fain keep in eternal distance from the God who loves them! It is noticeable that when the Lord Jesus spoke of little ones He omitted the word "seek." All He said was: "the Son of man is come to save that which is lost." (Matt. 18:11). Even the Youngest is lost by nature; but some have not had time enough to wilfully stray from their God. Yet they need to be saved.

[02 1859 321] May not these words, these last words, the only hope of any poor soul to whom God discovers its true condition, and assuredly the joy, and song, and rejoicing of all who for ever so great a length of time have known this blessed One, — may not these last words be regarded as a kind of key-note of the whole group of narratives that has now been read? Assuredly the Spirit of God in inditing Scripture had an object, not only in what was inserted, but in the order in which the matter is presented? and this gospel is remarkable, as is familiar to all here, for the grouping together, because of their moral connection, things which may even have occurred at different times. But whatever other secret there may be as to the why and wherefore of the order in which these narratives are arranged, may not this be one reason — the illustration which each and all afford of this grand, central, all-important foundation fact. "The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost?" In the parable of the Pharisee and publican you have a lost one sought, and found, and saved. In the case of the little children you have lost ones received and blessed. He had come to save even them. And in the case of the young man, the ruler, you have one who refuses submission to God's estimate of what he was; one who refuses to take the place of being lost: and he is the one who goes empty and sorrowful away. The case of the blind man is a plain one. He was lost, and Jesus was passing by. He is brought to Him, and mercy triumphs in his case too. And as for Zaccheus, it is his case which affords the immediate occasion for the words — words uttered by the lips of incarnate love, vindicating its own right to be what it is, and do what it does. It is the Son of man come to seek and to save that which was lost. This is the explanation the Lord gives to those who were not only rejecting Him, but quarrelling with the grace that received the lost. "This day is salvation come to this house," etc. "For the Son of man," etc. Now it is often of all-importance to get back to the very foundation-truths of all. There is no real progress if these be forgotten. And if there be one snare of the enemy, with which he is permitted to beguile the Lord's own beloved ones, more than another, it is in putting out of sight and memory God's estimate of what they are. We use even the Lord's own grace, and what it gives and does, to put honour upon ourselves, and to think highly about ourselves on account of it; and then we have to find, in one way or another, that whatever grace has given and done, it is grace, and that grace has for its object such as were lost. "The Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost."

The fact is, He came seeking us, that we might be saved from eternal doom. The activity of grace was on His side, blessed be His name. Even if it were a question of the children, who had not arrived at the years of responsibility, who had not deliberately wandered away in the paths of evil; but who by reason of their birth were necessarily in a lost condition, we read, the Saviour said, “Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones … for the Son of Man is come to save that which was lost” (Matt. 18:10-11). What grace shines in the Son of Man! What multitudes of these dear little ones shall praise Him for their salvation for ever and ever! And when years of responsibility have been reached, and the wanderer has gone far from God, when he needs not only saving but seeking, even then His grace and compassion carry Him after the wayward out, for He said, “The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). Blessed Saviour, hadst Thou not sought us we should have been lost for ever! We should never have known Thy great salvation! We should have been strangers to Thy rich grace and love eternally. We bless Thee for seeking us. We bless Thee for saving us.

He Himself said, “For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.” He was not content with the work of the cross—mighty though that was—a work that righteously opens the way to heaven to the vilest who comes through Christ, but He SEEKS as well as saves—blessed be His name.

The Lord answers in a parable — indeed, in three. But the first of them is that which we will look at now. He puts the case of a man — of themselves — having a hundred sheep. "If he loses one of them, doth he not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness381 and go after that which is lost until he find it?" He appeals to them: not one of them but would go after his lost sheep and seek to recover it. With us, indeed, it is not a question here of our going in quest of Christ, but of the man Christ Jesus, the good Shepherd, going after us — that which was lost. Supposing a man has ninety-nine that did not so urgently call on his energetic efforts, he can leave the sheep that abide in comparative safety. The one that is in danger is that which draws out his love until he finds it. "And having found382 it, he lays it upon his own shoulders rejoicing." It is evidently the work of the Lord Jesus that is set forth here. Who can fail to recognize in it the mighty manifestation of Divine love which characterized Jesus? It was He Who came, He Who undertook the labour; it was His to endure the suffering unto death, even the death of the cross; it was He Who found and saves the lost sheep; it is He Who lays it on His shoulders rejoicing. Whose joy can be compared with His? No doubt the sheep does reap the benefit; yet assuredly it was not the sheep that sought the Shepherd, but the Shepherd the sheep. It was not the sheep that clambered on His shoulders, but He that laid it there with His own hand. And who shall pluck it thence? It was all, all His work. It was the sheep that strayed; and, the longer it was left to itself, the farther it got away from the Shepherd. It was the work of the Lord Jesus, then, both to seek and to save.

The first thing the Lord Jesus does is to justify God in being good to sinners. He appeals at once to the natural heart of man. "What man of you, having an hundred sheep?" etc. The shepherd puts the sheep upon his shoulder, and brings it home rejoicing - have I not a right to seek lost sinners? Is it not a right thing for God to come among publicans and sinners? This may not suit a moral man, but it suits God; it is His privilege to come amidst sin - to come near to ruined sinners - because He can deliver out of it. The shepherd lays the sheep upon his shoulders and rejoices; he goes out to seek it, charges himself with it; he takes the whole toil of it. It was his own interest to do it, because he valued the sheep; it was his, and he brings it home again rejoicing. Thus He presents the shepherd here. And thus it is with "the Great Shepherd of the sheep." He presents it as His interest to "seek and to save that which is lost": He even makes it His interest in the sense of love; the sheep is His own, and He brings it home rejoicing, bidding others to rejoice with Him. There is the strength and power of salvation.

Now, in these verses that I have read for you, we find the shepherd presented to us in a deeply interesting stage of his gracious work; he is here seen in search of the sheep. The parable derives peculiar force from the fact that it was put forth, together with the parables of the lost piece of silver, and the lost son, as an argument in favour of God's gracious acting towards sinners. God, in the person of the Lord Jesus, had come so very near to the sinner, that legalism and Pharisaism, as represented by the scribes and Pharisees, took offence at it. "This man receives sinners, and eats with them." Here was the offence of which Divine grace stood charged at the bar of man's legal, proud, self-righteous heart. But it was the very glory of God — God manifest in the flesh — God come down to earth thus to receive sinners. It was for that He came down into a ruined world. He left not the throne of His Father to come down here to search for righteous people; for wherefore should He search for them? Who would think of going to look for anything but that which was "lost?" Surely the very presence of Christ in the world proved that he had come in search of something, and, moreover, that that something must have been "lost." "The Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost." The soul should greatly rejoice in the fact that it was as a lost thing that it drew forth the grace and pity of the shepherd's heart. We may inquire what it was that could have drawn the heart of Jesus towards such as we are; yes, we may inquire, but eternity alone will unfold to us the answer to the inquiry. We might ask the shepherd in this parable why he thought more about the one solitary lost sheep than he did about the ninety and nine which were not lost at all. What would have been his answer? "The lost one is my object, it is valuable to me, and I must find it." So it was with the merchantman, who surely is no other than Jesus: he alone could see, in that which lay buried in the bowels of the earth, an object which was worth everything to him; Jesus alone could see, in a helpless sinner, an object for which He thought it worth stooping from His Father's bright throne to save: —