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This is one of those parables which, by its simplicity, presents the full tenderness of the gospel message to mankind, gathered, as it were, into a strong focus of emphasis.

I. THE HIGH ESTIMATE ENTERTAINED, ON THE PART OF JEHOVAH, OF THE SOUL OF MAN. In the narrative of the sheep, the shepherd is represented as thinking with greater anxiety of the one straying from his flock, than of the ninety-nine who are safe under his eye. He feels sure of them, and quits them without apprehension, intent rather upon the restoration of the one than upon the preservation of the many. We are not to presume that Christ withdraws His care and His regard from His own people in His anxiety to add more to His fold. He has never left His true disciples comfort. less; but "the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost," abides with them alway. But the Saviour, when He spoke this parable, wanted to show that His heart was large enough to love, and His fold was wide enough to hold, both the flock already gathered and the sheep which had wandered away.

II. Look, secondly, at an expansion of the same idea in THE TENDERNESS OF THE SHEPHERD IN BRINGING BACK THE SHEEP THAT WAS LOST. It was passing kind to bring it back at all; but what a depth of kindness is there in the manner of that bringing back! "When he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders." Oh, my friends, what touching tenderness is here! a tenderness "passing the love of woman." Have you not often seen a mother chase a wayward child, and when she overtakes it, seize it with a petulant clutch, and almost drag it back to the door of the cottage, chiding and sometimes chastising it the whole way? But there is no upbraiding here. The wanderer has no excuse. He has been ungrateful; he has broken down the fences which love had built for his security; he has despised the guardianship which would have shielded him, he has been obdurate under the mildness which would have gently governed him; he has quarrelled with the fare which sovereign bounty had provided him. But there are none of these things flung sternly in his teeth. There is no anger in the Shepherd's eye. It is all pity.

III. Now look at THE GREATNESS AND COMPLETENESS OF THE RESTORATION. "I have found that which was lost." "Found" and "lost," these are the two contrasting words, and their meaning is unspeakable. What a losing! What a finding! It is a rescue from perdition. Not a mere human estimate of being lost, but God's estimate. And there is a difference between the two ideas as vast and wide as the difference between the finite and the infinite. We deem it no small thing to lose the valuable purchase of years of anxiety and toil; but what must be Christ's estimate of His own loss, when He feels that He has lost the purchase of His blood, His pleading, and His prayers; that human infatuation has actually torn itself away from the embrace of Calvary; and that the coinage of the Cross — the wealth that poured, stamped with a Saviour's crown of thorns, from Mercy's mint — is cast aside for nought! And what must be the sinner's estimate of his own perdition, when from its darkest depths he feels its cruellest curse, and has only light enough to see to count the priceless sum at which his soul was bought, but which he has contemned, and scorned, and flung away!

IV. THE REJOICINGS WHICH GREET THE SHEPHERD'S RETURN WITH HIS SHEEP. His heart is too full to keep the gladness to himself. There is such chainless ecstasy thrilling in his soul that he must have all his friends about him to help him in his triumphant celebration. "Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost." What condescension is there in this sympathy! Oh could we but gauge the satisfaction with which Jesus will look upon "the travail of His soul," then we should know something of the depth of the love with which He loves us. But the ocean is too wide for our gaze to see the further shore, it is too deep for our poor plummet to fathom. We cannot know the bitterness of the cup He drank to the foul dregs; we cannot feel the agony which the sleeping disciples might not watch, when the drops of blood were sweat upon the ground; we cannot tell the galling stab of nail and thorn and spear, nor lift the weight of the rough, crushing cross. No; we cannot understand the huge encyclopaedia of Calvary, nor study to the full profundity of its melting lore the lexicon of dying love; and so we cannot measure out the joy with which the purchase of that death will be received, and the trophies of that tragedy be counted up. But we shall be allowed to share in it! Not only shall we be rejoiced ever, but we shall rejoice over others.

(A. Mursell.)

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KJV: And he spake this parable unto them, saying,

WEB: He told them this parable.