Sinners Drew Near To God, While The Righteous Complained Against Him?

The Lost Chapter Of Humanity

By Abraham Israel

Parable is a simple story used to illustrate a moral lesson to the ordinary and spiritual lesson to the one desiring for more of God. It was prophetically said of Jesus that He, “...will open [His] mouth in parables, [and He] will utter what has been hidden since the foundation of the world.” (Matthew 13:35). So these parables are not ordinary stories like we see in a lot of secular novels and other fables, but it has been heavenly truth hidden since the foundation of the world for people like you and me, but revealed and spoken by Jesus to us now to receive spiritual truth for earthly living with heavenly power, which will bring heavenly reward.

The lost chapter of humanity speaks about man's need for salvation and God's provision through repentance. We see that there is no awareness in humans to see themselves as lost, so I believe that Jesus spoke in parables to the lost humanity for them to understand that they need salvation. Luke 15th Chapter is what we can call as the 'lost chapter' because the lostness of humanity echoes and recurs in the three parable that has a lost theme of a lost sheep, a lost coin and a lost son.

The tendency in all humans is to consider themselves righteous in themselves by living a religious life that brings pride which actually was the mother of all sin that leads them to hell fire to be along with the devil and his demons (Matt 25:41; Ezek 28:17). The simple thumb rule is for us humans to understand that those who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, will always treat others with contempt and hatred which shows that they need salvation of God to save them from this sinful nature that makes them see sin in other while not noticing the bigger sin of pride about their own spirituality in themselves (Luke 18:9).

During the time of Jesus' ministry, the same problem was there. Religious Pharisees and scribes who were the Scripture copiers complained about Jesus, saying that He received sinners and eats with them, because these religious fanatics considered sinners as untouchables, with whom no so called righteous should even speak or touch or even stand near them. These religious people were accusing Jesus for moving closely with sinners, forgetting completely that He came to save the sinners by calling them to repentance, and not the righteous who think that they don't need God's salvation which was provided by Him through Jesus (Matt 9:13; Mark 2:17; Luke 5:32). These religious men were filled with 'I am holier than thou attitude of pride,' which Jesus condemned and wanted them to understand it is very sinful to the core.

Sinners who realize that they are hopelessly heading to hell and need salvation from God can easily be saved because of their humility to accept God's provision in Jesus, than for those who think that they are righteous in themselves because of following the rules of a religion they follow through which they set a self-righteousness for themselves and therefore they do not see a need for salvation that God provides in Jesus. This was the reason that while sinners drew near to Jesus to hear Him and be saved, while the prideful religious heads who were Pharisees and scribes complained against Jesus for moving closely and physically with all sinners whom they hated because they thought they were perfectly without sin and righteous before God because of their religious belief (Luke 15:1-2).


Jesus Replies With A Parable Of The Lost Sheep

So Jesus Spoke this Parable to all those religious men who justified themselves as great saints who thought they needed no salvation that God provides, "3 So He spoke this parable to them, saying: 4 “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ 7 I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance." (Luke 15:3-7).

The answer Jesus gives to the religious people with pride and self-righteousness is a answer to all humanity that has 'holier than thou' attitude of religious pride and self righteousness. Jesus demands an answer from all! A true shepherd if he has lost a sheep, will definitely leave the 99 sheep in the wilderness and will go after the one which is lost until He finds it. Jesus is saying, the 99 sheep that think that they are safe and needs no help needs no help for sure, but even though it is just one that realizes that he needs God's help to save himself or herself from sin and hell fire is the one who needs help from Jesus to save them from sin as He is the true shepherd of all humanity who is going to give His sinless life a little later from that point of time just for such people in need (John 10:11-16). When Jesus finds a sinner who is the lost sheep come back to Him to receive God's righteousness, He finds them and carries them safely to the Father's home because they realize that they no more have strength to walk or do any righteousness of their own to save themselves in their lost state, but just believe Jesus whom they find to be their true shepherd who actually found them, and follow him from that time on-wards spiritually until they reach the Father's house in heaven (John 14:1-4).

When ever a sinner realizes that Jesus is the only way, the truth and the life (John 14:6), Jesus rejoices along with the whole of heaven because each of those times the sinners find their way back to God in heaven and gets saved by Jesus for eternity ahead to remain forever safe in His spiritual care (John 10:27-30). A shepherd man is the one who searches in the outside world of deep forest and dangerous wilderness to find that one sheep return back to him, truly Jesus is the one true shepherd man who searches for the lost sinners in all dangerous places where others fear to tread and brings them back to God!


Jesus Replies Again With A Parable Of The Lost Coin

Jesus first spoke to men audience who are mostly in wilderness in their life and living, now when he speaks to the women audience and nudges the message to the women folks thinking, he speaks about something lost within the house where they mostly spend their time and live, truly a genius spokes man of God Jesus is!

So Jesus asked women folks to give an answer with this parable saying, "8 “Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? 9 And when she has found it, she calls her friends and neighbors together, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece which I lost!’ 10 Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”" (Luke 15:8-9).

We know that every woman folk who loses a coin from 10 coins she had, will switch on the lamp, sweep the house and will search carefully until she finds it. Women are always those who look for details, once they get the coin they have searched for, they will rejoice with other women who live around them. So likewise Jesus says that He is the one who searches for the needy sinners who are lost by switching on the light of heaven by enlightening God's truth to them and then sweeps their house with God's broom of His Holy Spirit who reaches everywhere in all the world to draw them to Him (Psa 119:105; John 16:8), and only when He finds them saved to be counted in God's treasury of heaven, then He keeps rejoicing for them along with the whole of heavenly angels as the sinners have got saved and have come in to God's safe hands that will take care of them for eternity ahead.


One Main Point To Note

Here in the above parables of the Lost Sheep and The Lost Coin, Jesus is the one who goes after the Lost sinner in both the cases and brings them back to God. Until He finds the sinner and saves them He pursues them diligently and takes the responsibility to bring in to the sheep fold of God which is the Church in the first case and the treasury of God which is also the same Church which has women folks as its members and therefore is beyond any gender discrimination of those times in which He spoke where women were treated very badly and their value was equated to half of the value of a man in the religious Jewish world of those times.

So Jesus was saying, there is neither Jew, nor Gentiles, neither man, nor woman, neither rich, nor poor, but all sinners need the salvation of God equally to save them from sin and hell fire (Gal 3:28). And Jesus as the true shepherd of God and the woman who owns the coins, goes after the lost ones and finds them, then rejoices over them with the whole of heaven and its angels because they have come back to the place where they actually belong, that is the Church of God (1 Cor 1:2). All sinners who are saved have already got registered by name as God's child in heaven and have therefore come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels (Heb 12:22-23; John 1:12-13). These sinners are saved by grace through faith for eternity ahead and Jesus has promised that not even one of them will be lost (Eph 2:8-9; 1:13-14; John 10:28-29). There is no doubt about their future in heaven which is guaranteed by the sealing of the Holy Spirit that is done within them, and so Jesus tells that they know the way to the Father's House to which place they will be escorted by angels to come after death (Luke 16:22; 2 Cor 5:8), and has promised to one day come with them and take along all of them through rapture to the mansions prepared for them in the New Jerusalem the city of God (John 14:4; 1 Thess 4:16-17).


Jesus Continues With The Parable Of The Lost Son

Hear the beautiful Parable please :

"11 Then He said: “A certain man had two sons. 12 And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.’ So he divided to them his livelihood. 13 And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living. 14 But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land, and he began to be in want. 15 Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. 16 And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything. 17 “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! 18 I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, 19 and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.”’ 20 “And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. 21 And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ 22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. 23 And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; 24 for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they began to be merry. 25 “Now his older son was in the field. And as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. 27 And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and because he has received him safe and sound, your father has killed the fatted calf.’ 28 “But he was angry and would not go in. Therefore his father came out and pleaded with him. 29 So he answered and said to his father, ‘Lo, these many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends. 30 But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him.’ 31 “And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. 32 It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.’”" (Luke 15:11-31).

Here in the above Parable, it is not about sinners saved by Jesus or Him going after them and the unsaved in pride who did not need Jesus being warned, but it is about a man with two sons. We know that the man is Father God in heaven who has saved us already to have given us the privilege to be the sons of God (John 1:12; Gal 3:26). Remember, both are sons and there are no unsaved in the picture at all. The younger son is the type of God's children who take the Father God's great natural and spiritual gifts, money, power and wealth of peace, joy and righteousness in the Holy Spirit (Rom 14:17; 1 Cor 4:20; 12:7; 1 Peter 4:10) and by giving in to the selfish desire of the sin nature they spend their time flirting with the world of sin that destroys all of the Father's wealth that is within them within a short period of time (Rom 7:19; 1 John 2:15-17). Once they become empty and are sent by sinful bondage to feed the demonic swine of their flesh nature with pig's pods of which he was not even able to eat, in hunger for the reality of Father's house and His Presence, they come back to themselves which is the true identity that Jesus has given them as the sons of God (Rom 8:14). They knew that if they have to go back to their father's house, they have to confess their sins to him (1 John 1:7, 9). Because our Father God who is in heaven is holy, He cannot live in the presence of sin and therefore will break his fellowship with us when we sin like the younger son did, driven by the sin nature within. But because of sin we do not lose our sonship but only fellowship (John 1:12; Rom 8:16-17). We gained our sonship by God's will through the death of God's Son Jesus and not by our works, so the union of sonship stays with us for eternity ahead (John 10:28-29; Rom 5:10; 8:15). In other words, we did not gain our union with God by good works and therefore we cannot lose it by bad works, but rather it was a gift given to us from our Heavenly Father because He was the one who planned us to be His child (John 14:23; 1 Cor 6:17, 19). Above all the Holy Spirit has been given as a guarantee seal for all the children of God that one day soon we will all rise up in the glorious body of heaven and live forever in it like Jesus (Eph 1:13-14; 1 John 3:2). Once a sin is confessed and denounced, Father God will automatically embrace us as he does this younger son that was lost by sin and will forgive the sin of us all like he did to his younger son and will cleanse us through the blood of Jesus (Matt 5:48; 1 Peter 1:15-16, 17). The authority of the lost son, celebration of joy, robe of righteousness, shoe of the gospel of peace along with music and dancing will be then restored within the heart of the us who are actually younger son type of believers who confess their sin to God and come in to restored fellowship with Father God through his only begotten Son who is the fatted calf who is killed [i.e. 2000 years ago] for celebration (1 John 1:3-4; Heb 9:12-13, 14; 10:26).

Now the older son type of believers are another type who work hard as God's servants, putting their effort heart and soul but without real relationship with their Father God in their day to day lives. They zealously do slog out in their work for Father God in heaven, then when they see the younger son type of believers enjoying fellowship with Father God equal to them in authority of sonship with costly ring, celebration of joy, robe of righteousness, shoe of the gospel of peace along with music and dancing...they get upset with God and do not want to join in with the celebration of the Father's house. For them the spirit of entitlement has diminished their thankfulness towards their Father God. They begin to think that they only deserve all the blessing because of their hard work, and start to wrongly assume that God has not fully given them their due but has given to those believers who flaunted with sin and have got lost like the younger son. What can we learn from this? None of us by nature the sons of Adam born as sinners do not deserve even the least of blessing that God has given us and will give us in the future. It is God's benevolent nature to bless and we do not have the rights to say who he should bless and who he should not. Actually the good attitude of the elder son who served the Father, have got spoiled because of pride entering his heart which made him forget to have compassion towards his Brother who was lost and found, and at the same time made him to think that the Father has not properly given him the right to enjoy when he deserves it. The elder son type of believers always want to accuse the younger son type of believers of harlotry, bad name and ruining of God's wealth before Him, but they do not notice the change in them regarding the attitude of hate towards sin in which they were involved before, because of confessing their sin to their Father God in humility. Little do they realize that they themselves have always been in the Father's Presence but were not enjoying it, and all that God has they were using and enjoying because of His goodness towards them but have continued to live without thankfulness for all of it. So finally the Father God concludes that it is right for all us the believers that whenever someone who is dead in sin comes alive to righteousness by repentance and someone who is lost from God's Presence and fellowship because of sin is found again by the Father when they choose to confess their sin and continue to walk in the light of the Fathers' Presence, they should all make merry and be glad to rejoice along with the angels of heaven and God Himself.


So What?

The Parable of the lost sheep was told so that unsaved proud could realize their need for salvation instead of complaining against God for saving sinner who come to God for salvation realizing their unworthiness. The parable of the Lost Coin was told by Jesus to make us understand that God saves a women equally like a man from sin and gives them eternal life to make them be His daughters to have the same rights as his sons to serve Him for eternity (Matt 22:30; Mark 12:25).

Jesus also found some sons of the Father with true faith within the Pharisees and scribes who walked like the elder Son we see in the parable of the Lost Son (Acts 15:5; Matt 3:7-8; John 3:1-2; 7:46-51; 12:42; 19:38; Gal 1:14; Php 3:5-7). He wanted them to turn to the Father's will and celebrate when other sinners who were their Brothers in faith come back to the Father's Presence through repentance and confession of their sins. Jesus wanted them to rejoice with the Father when those believers like the lost son were made alive and was found. Praise the Lord!

 

 

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