We shall read the two opening verses of the 15th chapter of Luke. Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them. This is a very, very interesting passage full of good counsel, full of wisdom. Indeed, deeper stretches of wisdom in these three parables than we have perhaps ever realized. The parable of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. And the scene was set for this picture language of our Lord by the fact that there gathered together a considerable number of those who were despised and little esteemed in Israel at that time. They're described here as publicans and sinners. Now a publican in those days was not a man who managed the local tavern as he was the licensee of the local public house a publican in those days was a tax gatherer and he was particularly odious to the Jewish population not because they any more than we are very pleased about having to pay out of our hard earned incomes an increasing amount to the government. I am ready to protest against that with all my heart. I've said before that I think the principal troubles in this land are not capital and labour at all, it's government expenditure. Successive governments outdo each other. No, these publicans were not tax gatherers in the ordinary sense of the term. They were particularly odious because of the methods which they employed. They were found at the boundaries of different provinces and towns and at the entrances to the bridges over rivers or fords over streams and there they demanded, in the name of the government, taxes which may or may not have been authorised, but everybody had to pay just the same. That was not just an ancient kind of a trouble. Just two hundred years ago, things were building up in France towards the outbreak of the great French Revolution. The taxation upon the poorer classes at that time was simply enormous and it was a great enormity too. The workmen who crossed the River Seine either way on their way to work were taxed even upon the food which they carried in their pockets for their midday lunch and taxed by law not simply by wicked tax gatherers via an oppressive government Taxation is a bad business, especially when it is gathered in such ways as that and becomes a penalty upon hard work and a penalty upon honesty. These publicans were all this and worse. They were so odious in the eyes of the community that we are told that their testimony in a court of law was unacceptable. They couldn't be called as witnesses, even if they were prepared to speak the truth, because nobody trusted them and the courts didn't trust them either. And they were barred from giving testimony in courts of law because their testimony was unacceptable, either to the people or to the authorities. These were the people who gathered, the publicans and sinners. Not that the publicans weren't sinners too, but it was probably a dual application which applied to them. They were both publicans and sinners. You couldn't very well be a publican at that time unless you were a sinner as well. But what was it which drew them together? Why did they come to hear Christ? This is Eve. Astonishing thing, isn't it? A thing which is not usually dealt with in expositions of the 15th chapter of Luke. What was it brought these men together? What brought them together was this, that they were convicted of their sin and they wanted to hear if there was anything could be done for the likes of them. That's the astonishing thing, isn't it? And there were others who were respectable citizens there. People whose testimony would be acceptable in any court of law. Men looked up to. Men who were teachers. Men who were intellectual. Men who had a reputation for being good, you know. The Pharisees and the scribes murmured saying, this man receiveth sinners and eateth with them. There he was sitting down at the table with publicans and sinners. He ate with them. Now, in fact, this was not an unusual thing. And it isn't unusual today. It would be difficult in this world, dear friends, to sit down at any table at which sinners were not present. Your own table or anybody else's table. Very, very difficult indeed to find any table at which you could sit down in this wide, wide world at which sinners were not present. So what was there in the remark of these people? This man receive us sinners and eat us with them. Well, if they had had their eyes open, which they didn't, they would have appreciated that it was impossible to sit down and eat with anybody in this world who wasn't already a sinner. You try it and you will soon find out that what we say is true in that regard anyway. What made all the difference on this occasion was not that sinners were sitting at a table eating and other sinners who didn't know they were sinners were standing around and watching the process. What made the difference on this occasion which created all the trouble and all the mischief, was that this man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them. If it had been anybody else, they wouldn't have minded so much. But this man, this man, receiveth sinners, and eateth with them. This man, said the Pharisee, this man, this man. Don't you know what he claims to be? He even says he's the Son of God. But look what he's doing. He claims to be the Messiah, but look what he's doing! He claims to be the Shepherd of Israel, but look! This man, expecting people to believe that he is THE man, receiveth sinners, and eateth with them. That is known by the company he keeps, you know. It was this that aroused their wonder and their contempt, that he not only received sinners, but he actually chose their company. It is one thing for the likes of us being unable to find a table in this world around which sinners do not gather. It's another thing deliberately to choose one's guests from the dregs of humanity, and by choice take the worst and the most obvious of sinners and say brethren let us sit down together and eat. This was the problem which was created out of which arose these three great parables which of course they didn't understand at least the Pharisees didn't because they weren't there for the purpose of understanding they were there for the purpose of criticising the purpose of finding fault they were more concerned about their own reputation and their own position they wouldn't be found in such company not realising that their company was the worst of all it's one thing to be a sinner and know it and acknowledge it it's another thing to be a sinner and not to recognise it or when you're taxed with it, never to admit the charge. I wouldn't like to say that we have that division amongst us this evening. I wouldn't like to think that it was so. But just for the record, and just in case, let us each one examine ourselves as to what kind of sinners we are, because we are all sinners, there's no question, every one of us. Right from the man in the pulpit, right to everyone in the back seats and all in between. There's no question that we're all sinners. But there are sinners who know it. And there are sinners who don't acknowledge it. Have you acknowledged before God, not before us, that's not necessary, have you acknowledged before God in secret that you are a sinner? Because until you do so, It is exceedingly unlikely that you'll ever be received. Sorry to put it that way, but there's no other way of putting it, is there? This man receives sinners. That means he doesn't receive anybody else but sinners. This man eats and drinks with sinners. But the whole point is he never eats and drinks with anybody else. He left the table of yonder at which holy angels all sat around, if they do sit around tables there. He came down to this sin curster and he received sinners. And he sat down with them and he chose their company. Yes, even at the last supper. You say, I know what you're thinking about. You think of Judas being there. No, I'm not. I'm thinking of Judas Aton, I'm thinking of Peter, James and John, Bartholomew, Thomas, Thaddeus and James the son of Alphaeus and all the other people who were there present. The twelve apostles. Peter declared on a certain occasion when the divinity of his Lord flashed out and he stood in the plough of that frail vessel rebuked the winds and the waves, and there was a great calm. They said, What manner of man is this? Peter, on the occasion of the draft of fishes, came to him and took hold of his garment and said, Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. So they were all sinners. If they weren't sinners then they wouldn't have been there. Christ receiveth sinners and eateth with them. He came down into this world for no other purpose than that, to receive sinners and to eat with them. To eat with them not only down here but up there yonder in heaven at the great marriage of the Lamb, the Bridegroom, when He receives His Bride, that's you and me, saved by His grace, the entire Church. He loved the Church and gave Himself for it, loved her in all her sin, her misery and shame, your misery and mine, our sin and shame. And he loved to receive sinners and eat with them. And in heaven, there'll no longer be sinners there, but they'll have the memory of it. Those who were sinners, once defiled in his sight, will be sitting around his table forever and ever. And he'll rejoice in the presence of the angels of God to go in and out amongst them. He'll be more amongst them than he is amongst the angels. They'll be closer to him than the angels are. There's such a thing as distance in heaven and there might be some doubt about that. He didn't die for sinners because they didn't need dying for in that sense. He took on him the nature of sinful man and was made in the likeness of sinful man who himself had no sin. The only man who ever appeared upon earth who had no sin. This man, this man receiveth sinners and eateth with them. The Pharisees and scribes were there. They were there present at that lunch that day, but they hadn't come to eat. They had come to criticize and unwittingly to give all the world a lesson in self-righteousness. So many people are very pleased to do that, you know. You can tell the way they speak. You bring the gospel to them all. Oh, I'm a good person. I believe in being good. Oh, yes. I'm respectable. I was well brought up and I've kept myself nice and clean all my life. Pharisee, scribe, come down, proud heart and repent in dust and ashes. That was the worst sin you ever committed when you said that. Because there's no sin so heinous as pride. None. Pride is the original sin. It's the root of all sin. It's pride that lifted up itself against God in the beginning. He said, we will not have you to reign over us. Pride. So he told them this parable, both for those who knew they were sinners and those who refused to recognize or acknowledge that they were sinners. These three parables, the parable of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. There were differences in these parables. They all had to do with precisely the same thing. The text was, this man received a sinner as an eater with them. And the Lord was enforcing that lesson, but in three different ways, totally different. There was the lost sheep that he'd come to find. Now, a sheep is just a woolly-backed lump of perfect stupidity. And when it's lost, it doesn't know that it's lost. Now, the principal agent in the rescue of the lost sheep was the shepherd, of course. His was the initiative. The sheep was not seeking the shepherd, in other words. The shepherd was seeking the sheep. You say, well, we understood that. Yes, but it's just as well that it's said, isn't it? You might know precisely just the weight and the purpose of the parable. The whole thing starts off with the shepherd seeking the sheep, not the sheep seeking the shepherd. Aren't you glad it's that way, dear friends? Aren't you glad? It's because you haven't thought it out yet. I'm glad because unless he'd sought me when I didn't know him, I don't know what would have happened to me. When I knew him not, he sought me. Hallelujah, Jesus ransomed me. I'm quoting an old hymn that you don't know, or very few of you do. It's rather one of these American style things which go with a very rapidly moving tune. But I like those last two lines. When I knew him not, he sought me. Hallelujah, Jesus ransomed me. That's the whole point. That's why the parable of the lost sheep had to be the first of the three, because it shows the divine initiative. This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them, but before he could receive them and eat with them, he had to come an awfully long way. A great descent, a great mystery, that he should ever be amongst us, this man. He was once upon the eternal throne. He made all things. He spake and it was done. He commanded and all creation stood fast. His mind is all comprehensive. Nothing he does not know. Always in majestic control of all creation, all events. the Alpha and the Omega he started all things and he who started all things will finish all things and the end is in the beginning with him with whom there is no time what he began he will finish what he intended to do he will accomplish this man receive a sinner, so happy the sinner who is received by him. But the sinner has to be sought and found. Left to himself, he will never come. He will continue to wander on, on and on and on, from place to place, a mouth full of pasture here, a drink at the brook there, and so long as he gets his belly filled I'm speaking in good old Anglo-Saxon so that it will stick in your mind. As long as he has his belly filled, he'll never want, he'll never desire anything else, because that's all he seeks after. And the Bible says, whose God is their belly, and their glory is in their shame. What a group the Bible is for putting its finger upon the spot. You can see it, can't you? All the more vivid because it's written for us and spoken for us in good old Anglo-Saxon, which never varies a word to make it sound a little less crude than it is. That's all of us, of course, apart from the grace of God. And so the first parable brings us face to face with this fact, that the initiative is with Him who came from heaven to earth, and from the manger to the cross, and from the cross to the grave, and again from the grave to the eternal throne. Because this was the way and the only way by which the sheep could be found. When he finds it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. He calls friends and neighbors, saying, Rejoice with me, I have found my sheep, which was lost. Think of that, dear friends. Not grudgingly he comes to save your soul and mine. He is not doing this as a mere exercise of generosity and mercy, it's all that of course, there's a lot more besides. It is because this sheep was his property, I have found my sheep which was lost, rejoice Let all heaven rejoice, and all heaven begins to rejoice. For I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance. Strange words, aren't they? One against just one out of a hundred. One out of a hundred. Oh, but all the other ninety-nine, they were already saved. No, they weren't. All the same need repentance. These were just persons which need no repentance. These were the scribes and Pharisees, but they weren't righteous people. They did need repentance, though not in their own eyes. In their own eyes. There were 99 of them. There's plenty more of that 99 going around today. Just persons who, thank you, need no repentance. You meet them in every walk of life. Just upright persons who need no repentance, or at least that's what they say of themselves. And then that's how they live. Oh no, these aren't the sinners that have been converted whom the Lord leaves while he goes and finds just another one. The parable would fall to pieces. It would cease to have significance if that was the case. You don't need to bring in ninety and nine others. What we are seeing is Luke's, St. Luke's favorite play upon the two covenants, Israel after the flesh and Israel after the spirit. not just looks play upon the words, but he's the only one who records these three parables. And because the Holy Spirit gave him a plan on which to write his gospel, he sought and obtained all the information like the good doctor that he was, a physician, medical man, highly trained mind. There were good doctors in those days. They weren't over in the European world in the Middle Ages, but they were 2,000 years ago in Greece and elsewhere. Luke was probably a Grecian Jew if he was a Jew at all. He was certainly a Grecian. Galen, Hippocrates, the fathers and the patriarchs of medicine whose principles guide the medical profession right down to this present day. And Luke was a highly intelligent man and he knew why he was writing. He was an inspired man by the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit led him with his fine intelligence and his grasp of detail to seek out all those things which the Lord had said and to put them down in a book what he is seeing here are sinners and Pharisees. On the one hand the publicans and sinners and on the other the Pharisees and the scribes, the just persons in their own eyes who need no repentance. These are the bulk of Israel who looked in scorn upon the poor publicans and sinners and cast them out, but the Lord took them in. He receiveth sinners, and eateth and drinketh with them, and left the Ninety and Nine in order to find them, and to bring them in. The Ninety and Nine were Israel after the flesh, Old Covenant Israel, who set themselves up against all the rest of the world besides and said, We are the people of God. We've got the Bible. We've got the teachers. We've got the churches, the synagogues. We are the only people who are in touch with God. We're the only people who know the ways of God. We have the law of God. We're very zealous in the keeping of the law of God. And so the Lord accommodated them, or rather accommodated His parable to them. Ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance. All right. This is what you are, says the Lord, in effect, in your own eyes. Well, leave me to go my way. All the more reason, if you don't need me, that I should go to the poor sinners and outcasts and publicans. What is it you're complaining about? Isn't it right that God Almighty should seek the sheep that went astray? Right indeed. Thanks be to high heaven that he didn't overlook me. He didn't overlook you. He saw us in our need. He found us bruised and dying. He laid us on His shoulder and brought us back rejoicing. I would think His shoulder is broad enough and strong enough to take a weighty sinner like I am, or maybe like you are. And although burdensome indeed in His glorious Spirit, Yet the great Creator leaves His throne on high to take upon His shoulder all my trouble, all my burden, all my need, and carries me back to the fold rejoicing. There's something in that too, isn't there? But we need to be carried back. It doesn't drive us back. I know there's another sense in which we come back upon our four feet. We haven't got four feet of sheep, you know. We've only got two feet as men. I know there's a sense in which we have to have our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. We're on our pilgrimage from the land of Egypt to the promised land. We're marching through the desert. We're marching up with desire in that beautiful city of God. But you see, the parable deals with one thing at a time. And we wouldn't march, we wouldn't go. Our feet and our legs wouldn't move. If it wasn't for the truth which is enshrined here, that it is His strength which bears us through. And here in this case is the wounded sheep on His shoulder, bringing it back rejoicing. In other words, you don't bear your burdens alone. He carries them with you and for you. is the great burden bearer. Now you know what the parable of the lost sheep means. I'm not going to carry on very much longer because it's a warm night and the seats are soft and there's always another night to tell about the rest. I want you just to remember that and the following parable which is the parable of the ten pieces of silver You notice how the average has come down. 100 to 1 it is. The parable of the lost sheep, it's 10 to 1 when it comes to the losing the piece of silver. And when you come to the last parable, the prodigal son, it's 2 to 1. Or rather, 1 out of 2. There were 2 sons and 1 was prodigal. There were 10 pieces of silver and 1 was lost. There were 100 sheep and 1 out of 100 went astray. And so the parables must be understood. They're all talking about the same thing but in a different way. And whereas we may say the sheep were stupid, and certainly there is a great stupidity in our minds and hearts concerning our own sins, and a blindness to recognize that the way we're going is the wrong way, blind indeed are we till the Lord comes and opens our eyes. But when it comes to a piece of silver, well, it is just hard. It can do nothing for itself. It's only what it represents, isn't it? Have a look at that piece of silver again. Ah, it has the Queen's head on it. And the piece of silver that the Lord was talking about had the King's head on it. The King of the ages, the King of all eternity. His own imprint was upon it. His own name was stamped upon that piece of silver. and sold. The woman who lost it. Strange, it was a woman, wasn't it? A woman. The woman who lost this piece of silver and went around searching for it. Whatever can this mean? Some people say, well, a woman, that's the church. Yeah. It isn't the church, though. It couldn't possibly be. It isn't the church that loses the piece of silver, is it? It's God. Well, why the woman? Well, I was asked a question this morning by one of the more brainy of our up-and-coming young men after the service. He won't mind if I mention it. I won't tell any names. He asked me what was the Hebrew word for wisdom. And eventually, I remembered what it was. When I went home, I took down the lexicon and I found it was indeed the word harkan. And it is, in fact, a female word, wisdom, and it's given to Christ in the eighth chapter of Proverbs. I am wisdom. He's speaking in the feminine gender, because there is no neuter, no neutral gender. We have it in our language. But not so in the ancient language. They've only got male and female. And so there are many things which are expressed in the female which have nothing to do with femininity. I suppose to balance things off and put me right with the ladies, I suppose there are many things expressed in the masculine gender which have nothing to do with well set up men like we are. It's just the nature of language, you see. Just like we to this day speak about a ship. A ship is always she. She went down with all hands. And so even to this day we refer to many things as he or she, when we're not really thinking about male or female at all, because it's the custom, that's all. Now when it comes to this word, it was a woman who lost a piece of silver. It is a woman who sought it. That woman is wisdom. That woman is the Holy Spirit, if you will receive it. The entire wisdom of God is collected for the purpose of finding, recovering, restoring that which was lost. When you come to the third parable, It is the Father who has lost the Son. And so here, in the three parables, you've got Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now isn't that wonderful now? Perhaps we didn't see it before, but there it is, when we understand our parables. And all we have to say in one sentence as we wind up, because there's so much else to say, I'm not going to start to, not going to begin to say it, which is to come back to the original. We're beginning to say, are we not? the meaning of this word, this man receiveth sinners and eateth with them. Now we see how he felt the loss, the woman felt the loss, the father felt the loss. And when the loss was made up and the loss was redeemed and brought in again, let all heaven rejoice and there is joy in the presence of the angels of God. over one sinner that repented, and yet on earth he was hardly able to find anyone who would rejoice that a sinner had been saved. Instead of that, this man receiveth sinners and eateth with them. Oh, thank God that what they said was true, even if their motives for saying it were most reprehensible. It is true, a sinner Believe it, sinners Jesus will receive. Sound this word of grace to all, who the heavenly pathway lead, all who linger, all who fall. Now we can only sing one hymn, can we not? Number 97, the 90 and 9, that safely lay in the shelter of the foe. Let me tell you before you sing it, and as you are finding the number, that Ira Sankey picked up the score, or rather the words of this, out of a magazine which was printed when he was in the train travelling from Liverpool to Edinburgh to open up the first of the great Moody-Sankey campaigns in the Usher Hall, Edinburgh. And he gave it to Mr Moody, but Mr Moody gave it back again. He wasn't interested, he was talking to somebody, so Sankey put it in his pocket. And that night, Moody spoke upon the lost sheep. and was a great impression made. And he turned to Sankey at the end as he sat at his little harmonium organ there on the platform and said, Mr. Sankey says, have you got something you can sing suitable to what I've been saying? I can't think of anything myself. Sankey thought of the slip of paper in his pocket. He says, yes, he says, I've got this piece of poetry that was given to me in the train. He says, He said, do you think you can sing it? Well, he said, I don't know a tune to it, but I'll try. He sat down at his little organ, and with the words in front of him, and he began to move his fingers on the notes. And after he'd gone through the whole of the tune, and this is the tune we're going to sing, he wondered whether he'd be able to play the same tune twice. But God had given him a good memory, and his memory was equal to the occasion. And he was able to play the same tune the second time, for the second verse, and so on. And that's how it came to be written, and that's the tune we're going to sing. Ninety-seven, there were ninety and nine that safely lay in the shelter of the fold, but one was out on the hills away, far off from the gates of gold.