others.  The piece of money is lost through carelessness, without any fault of its own.  The person who had the charge of it took no heed to be sure that it was safe.  How many are there in exactly that position?  They have been lost, humanly speaking, through want of care.

But the third character is quite distinct from both the others.  The Prodigal Son was lost because he deliberately and determinately left his father’s home.  He was totally unlike the wandering sheep led on from step to step without a plan, for he had a plan, and he deliberately carried it out.  This, then, is far the worst of the three.  It represents one living in the midst of privileges, but deliberately casting away his faith.  He has life and death brought before him, and he chooses death, or, at all events, he chooses that which leads to death.  Oh! how marvellous is the boundless grace and mercy of our God, that He should go out of His way to seek and to save any one so unthankful and so guilty!

The Seeking of the Saviour.

He seeks by coming Himself as the Son of Man.  The Shepherd leaving the fold and going forth into the wilderness to seek the wanderer, is a picture of the Son of God leaving the glory which He had with the Father before the world was, and visiting this fallen world as the Son of man, in order that He might seek, and, by His atoning blood, might save the sinner.  We shall never understand His grace in seeking us if we do not realize that great act of His already complete.  This great finished work of His is the foundation of all that follows, and if we want to understand the mystery of His love in seeking us we must begin with the two great facts, Incarnation and Atonement.  Why did He become man?  Why was He born at Bethlehem?  Was it not because He came on a divine mission to seek the sinner?  Why did He die?  Why did He utter that bitter cry upon the cross?  Was it not that He might remove the curse by bearing it, and having broken down every barrier, might have the joy of bringing the lost one to the Father’s home?  You, then, who are anxious about your souls, and whose earnest desire it is to be sought out and saved, remember what the Son of man has already done; fall back on the finished fact; and never forget that however doubtful you may be as to your own position, there is no doubt whatever as to the fact that the Son of God has come to seek the lost one and to save him by His blood.

He seeks through Human Agency.

I cannot think that the woman lighting a candle and sweeping the house represents the Saviour.  She is generally, and I think correctly, thought to represent the Church.  If this be the case it may serve to teach how the whole Church of Christ ought to be entirely engaged in carrying out the sacred mission of our Blessed Lord.  It is not the Spirit alone that is to say “Come,” [15] but the Bride and all that hear the message.  He has become man and died for us, but we are to light the candle, sweep the house, and seek diligently till we find the lost ones.  We are to spare no effort for their recovery: we are to search them out; we are to let them know that there is a Christian friend anxious for their safety, and that there will not only be joy amongst the angels of God, but a hearty welcome amongst His people on earth for any poor lost one brought in lowly repentance to the feet of the Blessed Saviour, there to find pardon and recovery.

And what are we to say of the third parable, for we find no mention of the seeking there.  But we find the divine act most remarkably represented, for there we may see how God Himself seeks the wanderer.  We do not see the father doing it in the parable, but we do see how God Himself does it in fact.  We there see the work both of His providence and of His Spirit.  Of His providence, for the Father in heaven both sought and found him, just as He is doing with thousands now.  He took from him one thing after another till all hope was gone, and he envied even the swine their meal.  God was seeking him, so He broke him down and crushed him on purpose that He might save.

But God did much more than bring him into trouble, for trouble very often does nothing but harden.  But in this case the Spirit of God was seeking him, so that it was a trouble blessed by the Spirit, and he was led with a broken heart to say, “Father, I have sinned.”

See how God Himself sought him and brought him to true repentance.  He was far away from the hand of man.  He was lost to his father’s home.  But he was never lost sight of by God.  There was a loving eye watching him, and a loving care seeking him, so that though lost to man he was not lost to God, and his father with a full heart was able at length to say, “This my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”

A DIVINE SALVATION

“Salvation is of the Lord.”—Jonah ii. 9.

“According as His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain onto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue.”—2 St. Peter i. 3.

No one can read his Bible without being convinced that it is full of practical exhortations as to human conduct and human effort.  Those who are seeking the Lord Jesus Christ are exhorted to repent, to believe, to be converted, to seek, to come, and to follow on to know the Lord.  Hence it follows that as we are very apt to see only one side of anything at a time, there is a great tendency to dwell exclusively on human action, and to exhort, and to persuade, as if everything was in our own hands, so that we may do just what we please, and when we please, in the great matter of our soul’s salvation.  People are apt to write and speak about coming to Jesus as if it all rested with the sinner himself.  But this, though deduced from a truth, is not the whole truth of Scripture.  We find there beyond all doubt the warning, the offer and the invitation; but we find also the clear description of a divine salvation, the plan of divine wisdom, and the gift of divine grace.  Accordingly in this passage when St. Peter [17] is addressing those who had obtained like precious faith with himself, he makes it perfectly clear at the very outset of his letter that they had obtained it, not by the power of their own energy, or the determination of their own will, but through the power of God, the gift of God, and the call of God, “whereby were given unto them exceeding great and precious promises.” [18a]

Let us, therefore, turn our attention to the divine side of the great transaction, and trace through four successive steps, the divine Saviour, the divine salvation, the divine revelation, and the divine application.

I.  A Divine Saviour.

It is not my business now to make any attempt to prove the divinity of our