The central truth of the shepherd parable: the joy God has over the 'repenting' men do

Pastor-Teacher
John Farley
Wednesday,
March 3, 2010

The central truth of the shepherd parable: The joy God has over the 'repenting' men do

God’s plan throughout all the ages is that He might be glorified by the grace that He dispenses to undeserving creatures.

“Superabundant Grace” by Kenneth Wuest

the lost sheep, LUK 15:4-7,
the lost coin, LUK 15:8-10,
the lost sons, LUK 15:11-32.

Why does He recklessly go out and risk it all to rescue this one lost sheep?

Jesus wants the Pharisees and scribes to know the kind of shepherd He and His Father are.

He has a party to celebrate His joy at preserving His integrity!

ROM 3:26
for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

Ps 23:3

He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake.

The Lord is doing all the work here in Ezekiel 36!

There is not one word here about anything that the Jewish people do.

The Old Testament offers two primary reasons why God acts in history to save and to restore.

1. He does so because of His love for His people. He saves and restores for their sake. We see this in other prophets like Jeremiah and Hosea.

2. He also acts in history to save and restore because of His own integrity - for the sake of His own name, His own character and nature, His holiness. So that all will know that He is a God of righteousness, justice, love and grace. And we see this motivation in Psalms, Isaiah, and Ezekiel.

We see the holiness of God and the love of God come together in a remarkable passage in Hosea,
HOS 2:18-23 .

A parable is a story that places one thing beside another for the purpose of teaching.

“It puts the known next to the unknown so that we may learn.”

In particular, in the Bible, a parable is a comparison between a familiar fact and a spiritual truth.

Look for the CENTRAL truth of the parable, making sure that any other truths gleaned from the parable are in harmony with it.

Don’t use the parables to formulate new doctrine.

Don’t ever try to build or destroy a case for a doctrine solely on the evidence found in a parable.

Look for the CENTRAL truth of the parable, making sure that any other truths gleaned from the parable are in harmony with it.

The central truth of the parable is the joy God has over the change in status of a believer from lost to found, from “dead” to “alive. Or in a word, “restoration” or what our Lord calls in verse 7 “repentance”.

He acts for His own sake, and yet He has joy when He gets a positive response from one of His sinning, weak, yet thinking creatures.