“GOD, BEING RICH IN MERCY”
A. E. Dunne
Luke 15: 1–10; Ephesians 2: 1–7
That summing up in Ephesians 2 of what God has done for the sinner is superb, is it not?
Could you improve on the language or what the language speaks about? God being rich in mercy could not let His creature remain where he was—His helpless creature. It is a very precious part of the Bible where Paul so launches out into the deep waters of the great mercy of God. My purpose in this little word to you is to speak about two ways in which the sinner may be viewed. It is set forth in the parable of the sheep and the parable of the lost piece of money. In the case of the sheep it is marked by wandering, by self-will; it is active in lawlessness. The piece of money brings another view before us, that is, the sinner is dead; he is not moving at all; he is dead. There is no movement in a dead person; a dead person has no feeling; all the faculties are gone. You may preach for all you are worth at a dead person with no result at all; there is no response in a dead person. The apostle tells us that in the scripture I read in Ephesians; he says, “and you, being dead in your offences”. What constitutes us dead is our sins; our very sins forbid our responding to God; they are prohibitive of an answer to Him or to the gospel message—dead in offences. The offences constitute the power that hinders you responding to the Lord Jesus. I think I spoke of sin last time as a seizing hold of the sinner by the devil. That is a serious thing; when we sin the devil touches us or grips us.
Now I am suggesting to you sin in another view. It constitutes us unresponsive to God, and what the sinner needs in such a case is mercy, because you are ignorant, or I am ignorant, of what it is all going to lead to. In writing to Paul’s son in the faith, Timothy, Paul speaks of grace and mercy, two things.
Now just to speak of mercy for the moment. Paul says he was shown mercy, because he did what he did ignorantly, in unbelief (see 1 Timothy 1: 13). It is like a man travelling in dangerous territory, perhaps at the top of a cliff, and moving straight to the cliff edge as if he does not know it is there. Mercy is needed in that case; mercy is granted in that case. I think all of us in our experience have to recognize that that is the truth. There was a time when we were not convicted of sin. I was in that state many, many years ago, I remember; I was not convicted of sin. I did not realize that sin, if not met by the blood of Jesus, would land me in hell, and nobody gets out of hell if he gets into it, and it is excruciating pain there, without a rebate; it is insufferable. That is the truth about hell. Therefore it is of great value that God is marked by mercy, and He knows that the way you are taking if not converted will lead to that awful place. So that it is the goodness of God that leads men to repentance; it is a kind thing on God’s part to bring about repentance. And in what does His kindness show itself often? In the severity of His dealings. I did not read the third parable, the son who went into the far country, but he got into a very bad way. He spent all that he had; every blessing that God gave him naturally he dissipated, but he began to be in want and then he went to feed swine. He was in very terrible circumstances, and God brought him into them; that was His kindness which led him to repentance. Because, you see, we may not think it kind of God to do certain things; it may look severe; but it is His kindness because He is looking to the final results; He wants to divert man from his purpose.
Now to reverse the order in which I read, I speak of that side first, and it is represented in this coin that the woman lost. As I said, in the case of the sheep it is all activity (I will speak of that in a moment), but with the drachma there is no activity. It is lying there just dead in the dust of its own history, inert, not interested in being in circulation and being useful to God. It is only useful when in circulation, used to buy things with, to benefit by. So you get a man like John Mark. He was not useful, but he became useful. There was also the runaway slave, Onesimus, and he was unprofitable, useless to God, lying in the dust, but the Spirit of God found him, searched him out. God does not leave us alone. Let us each one look back on our lives. Can we not each one see something, at least one thing perhaps, that shows that God has not left us alone? He showed His mercy. This searching is of God. The point about this parable is that this woman searched and searched. The Spirit of God searches your heart; He is a Searcher; He is
a Convictor. In fact, the Lord Jesus thus spoke of the Spirit of God as coming here; He said He would bring demonstration to the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment (see John 16: 8). That does not mean that every creature, every human being, is actually converted, but that is the purpose of His presence, to convict of sin, and He does it. Is He not convicting us of sin? He searches, searches until He finds. He is doing this amongst men; He is searching, getting down to rock bottom with them, getting to their consciences. Nobody gets help without the conscience being reached. The Holy Spirit’s mission is thus to convict of sin.
This woman is a type of that. She lost this piece of silver, and she was not content with not having it. I say to everyone here, God is not content with your being out of His favour. He is not content with your being out of circulation, out of testimony for Him. How blessed it is then that such a result comes about. She calls together the friends and neighbours, and she says, “I have found the drachma which I lost”—what joy! ‘Do you not appreciate how wonderful it is to me that I have got this coin back, that I have got this poor sinner back?’
Who are the friends and neighbours? Well, do you know the Lord uttered this parable to correct the antipathy of the Pharisees and the scribes to His receiving sinners and eating with them? They wanted to see sinners in hell really, to put it in that language. They did not care whether they went to the place of torment as long as they kept their own reputation right—awful thing! It is rampant today, is it not? So the Lord brings in this tripartite parable to correct that, and what was He saying? ‘Are you complaining about the pleasure I have in eating with sinners? God is on the same line; He is enjoying repenting sinners!’ He is. Who are those that notice this joy of God? The angels; they love to think of it. Sometimes we are allowed a little spiritual imagination. These great beings by legions are sent out for service, in constant activity and operation. But here is a sinner converted to God. What does God do? He calls them all in for a rally, to enjoy with Him the fact that one sinner has returned to Him.
That is what it says. So God loves to find a response to the preaching of His word.
The other case, which I have made second, is that of the sheep. The parable of the sheep represents a sinner who is active in self-will. The coin is one who is dead, unresponsive to God and needing mercy, but the sheep is active and moving further and further away in its wayward course. Now I will tell you an interesting thing in that regard that struck me today in reading this scripture in Ephesians, that once Paul says they were dead, “being dead”, he immediately says, “in which ye once walked”— walked—“according to the age of this world, according to the ruler of the authority of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience”. Whilst they were dead on the one hand, they were active on the other. So we come to the active side. The figure of sheep in Scripture is very interesting. There are quite a number of things said about the sheep and the shepherd in the Bible that illustrate various truths, and one thing about a lost sheep is this, solemn thought, it never returns on its own. It goes on, and on, and on, lost; it never returns; it has no instinct to return, and unless it is found it will be lost. What will happen to it at the end of the journey that it is on? It will fall into destruction. Now I believe this, the lost soul going on is bound for destruction. It may not appear like this. The person described as the lost sheep is one who is having a great time in the world, pleasure upon
pleasure, using all the resources possible to enjoy this life, but the scripture describes him as a lost sheep.
But here again we have a saviour provided. The shepherd has ninety-nine called sheep. They are also called righteous; that is the way it is put. They may think they are righteous and are really not so, but that is not the point. There is one that is manifestly unrighteous and needs salvation, needs the forgiveness of sins. The shepherd proceeds to find it, and how can the shepherd find it? Well, he must take the same path the sheep has trodden, reach it in its danger, and suffer with it. That is what the Shepherd has done; it says, “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep”, John 10: 11. If the lost sheep gets into difficulty and danger, as we lost sinners have done, the only way we can be saved is by the Saviour taking the same place. He gave His life; He took our place as the Substitute for us and our sins. That is the way our active wills are met. The person who is active in self-will needs to turn from it, and this is what happens. But in this case you are, as a sinner, so fatigued, so affected by what you have been in, by the sinful career that you have been in, that you have to be carried back, and the Shepherd carries the sheep back on His shoulders. Then there is the Holy Spirit, another divine Person, who is given to us to comfort us through the rest of the journey. We have been so affected by sin and its consequences, and the troubles it has brought upon us, that a great deal needs to be done for us still after we have been saved initially. We need to be carried all the way home, that is until the time we die or the Lord comes. Is it not all very good? This is the gospel of God concerning His Son; it is His gospel; no other could provide a gospel like this—the gospel of God concerning His Son.
Is it not very enjoyable? It is indeed!
So you get these two sides, dead in trespasses and sins, and walking in waywardness; both are true, and God has taken account of the need from both points of view. Well, it is good to surrender to Him; it is good to have no will of your own, because the sheep brought back on the shepherd’s shoulders had no will of its own; it was being carried; it was not walking back; the will of another was determining the way it went. It was being carried on the shepherd’s shoulders, and it was the will of the shepherd that governed the way it was to go. So there it is, right from now on, from the day of your turning to the Lord Jesus until the end, you find power available to support you. Some may say, ‘I cannot think how I will fare’. I think it is most illogical that there are people who are concerned about their sins, but who wonder whether they will be able to live a Christian life. They have their friends; they have their workmates, schoolmates, or whatever it may be, and they feel that to live a Christian life is just too much for them. It is illogical to talk that way. We must be saved—there is no other name under heaven given amongst men whereby we must be saved. There is no alternative, logically speaking and morally speaking, but to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved thereby. That is my little message to you, and may God bless it to us all.
Preaching at Londonderry
15 March 1981