3. Lost Sheep
3
Lost Sheep1
I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
—Matthew 15:24
First, a word of sheep, then of “lost sheep.” I give no other reasons why the redeemed of the Lord are called sheep than are obvious in Scripture. Sheep are passive creatures and can do little for themselves, just as believers in the work of their salvation, such as:
1. Of themselves, believers do not have more knowledge of the saving way than sheep, and so they cannot walk but as they are taught and led. “Teach me, O LORD” (Ps. 119:33). “Lead me in thy truth” (Ps. 25:5). (1) Like a blind man holding out his hand to his guide, so are believers: “Lead me, O LORD, in thy righteousness” (Ps. 5:8). (2) This is not common leading, but the leading used with children, as someone teaches them to walk by holding onto them. “When Ephraim [Israel] was a child, then I loved him” (Hos. 11:1). “I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms”; but Ephraim, like a child, did not know his leader: “But they knew not,” says the Lord, “that I healed them” (Hos. 11:3). (3) Leading may suppose some willingness, but we must be drawn: “No man can come to me, except the Father…draw him” (John 6:44). “Draw me, we will run after thee” (Song 1:4). (4) There is a word of special grace, which is more than teaching, leading, and drawing, and that is “leaning”: “Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?” (Song 8:5). (5) There is a word yet more, and that is “bearing”: when the Good Shepherd has found the lost sheep, “he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing” (Luke 15:5). “Hearken unto me, O house of Jacob, and all the remnant of the house of Israel, which are borne by me from the belly, which are carried from the womb” (Isa. 46:3). So also, “[God] beareth them on [eagles’] wings” (Deut. 32:11). Grace, grace is a noble guide and tutor.
2. The life of sheep is the most dependent life in the world; there are no such dependent creatures as sheep. All their happiness is the goodness, care, and wisdom of their shepherd. Wolves, lions, and leopards need none to watch over them. Briars and thorns grow alone; the vine tree, the noble vine, is a tender thing, and must be supported. Christ must bear the weak and lambs in His bosom (Isa. 40:11). The Shepherd’s bosom and His legs are the legs of the weak lamb. Even the habit of grace2 is created and is no independent thing, and so, in its creation, in its preservation, it depends on Christ. Grace is as the newborn bird; its life is the heat and warmness of the body and wings of the dam.3 It is like a chariot; though it has four wheels, yet it moves only as it is drawn by the strength of horses without it. It is a plough made of timber only, without iron and steel, that does not break up the earth. The new seed of God acts as it is acted upon by God; hence, repenting Ephraim says, “Turn thou me, and I shall be turned” (Jer. 31:18). Renewed David is often at this: “Quicken me, quicken me.” The swooning church says, “Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples” (Song 2:5).
3. Sheep are docile creatures. “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27). There is a controversy with Papists over how we know that Scripture is the Word of God. There are two things here worthy of consideration—one within, and another without. How does the lamb know its mother among a thousand of the flock? Natural instinct teaches it. From what teacher or art is it that the swallow builds its clay house and nest, and every bee knows its own cell and waxen house? So the instinct of grace knows the voice of the Beloved among many voices (Song 2:8). And this discerning power is in the subject. There is another power in the object. Of many thousand millions of men since the creation, not one, in figure and shape, is altogether like another; there is some visible difference. Among many voices, there is no voice like man’s tongue. Among millions of diverse tongues of men, every voice has an audible difference printed on it, by which it is discerned from all others. To the new creature, there is in Christ’s Word some character, some sound of heaven that is in no voice in the world, but in His only. In Christ, as He is represented to a believer’s eye of faith, there is a shape and a stamp of divine majesty; no man knows it but the believer, and in heaven and earth Christ has not a marrow4 like Himself. Suppose there were a hundred counterfeit moons or fancied suns in the heaven; a natural eye can discern the true moon and the natural sun from them all. The eye knows white is not black or green. Christ, offered to the eye of faith, stamps little images of Himself, that the soul dare go to death and to hell with it, that this, this only was Christ, and none other but He only.
4. Sheep are simple: they are often led by their fancy,5 and therefore they are straying creatures (Isa. 53:6; Ps. 119:176; 1 Peter 2:25). There is nothing of the notion of death or of another life in the fancy of sheep; a mouthful of green grass carries the sheep into a pit and into the mouth and teeth of lions and wolves. Fancy is often the guide of weak believers rather than faith; by nature, we care little for what we shall be in the next generation. Fancy and nature cannot out-see time or see over or beyond death. Fair green-like hopes of gain are to us hopes of real good: we think we see two moons in one heaven. There is a way that seems good that deceives us, but black death is the night lodging of it. Alas! We are journeying, and we do not know where our inns for the night are and where we shall lodge when the sun is going down. Poor soul! Where shall you be all night?
1. Trial and Triumph, sermon 13, 134–35.
2. “Habit” comes from the Latin habitus, meaning “state.” Scholastic theology distinguished between God’s grace as acts or influences upon the believer and as a created habit within the soul, that is, a new nature or state of grace.
3. dam: mother
4. marrow: match, or another identical or equal person of the same kind
5. fancy: imaginations