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Joy Over One Sinner that Repenteth, July 17
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.
Luke 15:7
.
Jesus, the Son of the Highest, is combating the powers of Satan, who is laying
every possible device whereby he may counteract the work of God. The prize for
which the powers of light and darkness are contending is the soul of man. The
Good Shepherd is seeking His sheep, and what self-denial, what hardships, what
privations He endures! The undershepherds know something of the stern conflict,
but little in comparison to what is endured by the Shepherd of the sheep. With what
compassion, what sorrow, what persistence, He seeks the lost! How few realize what
desperate efforts are put forth by Satan to defeat the Shepherd’s purpose. When the
Shepherd at last finds His lost sheep, He gathers it in His arms with rejoicing, and
bears it back to the fold on His shoulders. And the harps of heaven are touched,
and an anthem of rejoicing is sung over the ransom of the wandering and lost sheep.
“Joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and
nine just persons which need no repentance.”...
The Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost. A lost sheep
never finds its way back to the fold of itself. If it is not sought for and saved by
the watchful shepherd, it wanders until it perishes. What a representation of the
Saviour is this! Unless Jesus, the Good Shepherd, had come to seek and to save the
wandering, we should have perished. The Pharisees had taught that none but the
Jewish nation would be saved, and they treated all other nationalities with contempt.
But Jesus attracted the attention of those that the Pharisees despised, and He treated
them with consideration and courtesy....
“God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” This love on behalf
of man, expressed in the gift of His only-begotten Son, called forth from Satan the
most intense hatred, both toward the Giver and toward the priceless Gift. Satan
had represented the Father to the world in a false light, and by this great Gift his
representations were proved untrue, for here was love without a parallel, proving
that man was to be redeemed by an inconceivable cost. Satan had tried to obliterate
the image of God in man in order that as God looked upon him in his wretchedness,
in his perverseness, in his degradation, He might be induced to give him up as
hopelessly lost. But the Lord gave His only begotten Son in order that the most
sinful, the most degraded, need not perish, but, by believing on Jesus Christ, may be
reclaimed, regenerated, and restored to the image of God, and thus have eternal life
(
The Signs of the Times, November 20, 1893
).
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