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Is the Great Shepherd to leave the stray sheep to wander and perish? or is He to pity and reclaim them? In the Crimean War there were two ways, very different from each other, in which heroic deed manifested itself. One was, by our soldiers' indomitable courage in the field, — when brave men stood manfully to their guns, and poured the iron hail against fearful odds. That was the stern glory of carnage and destruction. The other unfolds a picture in strange and startling contrast with this. At midnight, in stiffed hospital wards, amid the light of dim lamps and moans of sufferers, a gentle form of pity flitted from couch to couch, with words and looks and deeds of mercy; — pale lips kissing the shadow on their pillows as it passed. On which of the two does the mind love most to dwell? On that field of stern desperate valour; or on these hushed corridors, away from the roar of battle, with the one hero-heart moving like a ministering angel amid the congregated crowd of wounded and dying? God's way regarding man (with reverence we say it) was the latter. We may look to this truth, first, in its simplest aspect. The soul, as we have already noted, is ever and anon manifesting some undefined longing after its lost portion in God. But it has in itself a hopeless moral inability to return. It cannot retrace its lost way. Alas! often there is rather the plunging deeper and deeper amid the pathless wilds of ruin, till, in addition to inability, there is added disinclination to be restored to the long lost fold. The sheep, rather than return to the Shepherd, will go roaming in search of other pastures — increasing its mournful distance from the fold, and bringing it only into more perilous vicinity to the lions' dens and the mountains of the leopards. How, then, can the sinner be reclaimed? It is manifest that by no self-originated effort can he return. If saved, it must be by another. Himself he cannot, — himself he will not save. Omnipotence alone can bring it back. It is easy enough to take the tiara of priceless diamonds, or the necklace of gold, and plunge it down in mid ocean; but it is not so easy to descend through that untraversed barrier, that liquid rampart which rolls defiant between, and get them up again. The soul, the true casket of lost treasures, by reason of its own sad principle of moral gravitation, sinks easily downward. But it is He alone who "taketh up the waters in the hollow of His hand" that cart rescue it from the depths of ruin and despair. Here, then, is the Gospel's glorious history of the restoration of the wanderers. Marvellous condescension — unspeakable grace! He speaks in one of the verses which precede this chapter as if it were something wondrous, — something well-nigh incredible: "Behold I, even I." The spot is still pointed out with pride, amid the rocky wilds of Dauphine, where nil eagle bore in its talons the infant which had been left smiling in fearless innocence in its cradle by the cottage door. One stalwart form after another tried to climb that giddy height for the rescue, but had to abandon it in despair. At last a fleet and nimble foot spurns all difficulties. Up she climbs, from crag to crag, until, reaching the dizzy eminence, she buries the yet living child in her bosom, saying, as a mother's tongue in such an hour alone could say, "This my child was dead, and is alive again — was lost, and is found!" But that was a mother's speechless affection for her offspring. As she brought her "loved and lost" back to her cottage home, and replaced it in the empty cradle, we would think it strange to hear her saying, "Behold I, even I, have done this." Who could have done it but she? But what does the Infinite Jehovah see in us? — What claim have these sheep on this Shepherd of the universe — these sinners on their God? — None! The natural heart is a den of pollution, a haunt of evil, the nurturing home of rebellion. Not only, however, are we called to note and admire God's grace and condescension; but to admire the sovereignty of that grace as shown in the selection of its objects. Mankind were not the only fallen family in the universe. Other sheep, not of the earthly fold, had also strayed from the Shepherd. Might we not have expected that, in resolving on the ransom and recovery of any lost ones, he would have made choice rather of a different race of wanderers? Fallen angels (the aborigines of heaven) were greater than man. Well may we pause and ponder this wondrous manifestation of sovereign grace in the salvation of sinners of the dust! Truly, indeed, this salvation of man is a story of grace. Turn the moral kaleidoscope as we may, the gleaming words still stand radiant before our eyes, "By the grace of God we are what we are." Once more. God's grace and compassion are further manifested in His untiring love and patience in the pursuit of the lost, till restoration and safety be ensured. In other words, we have to admire, not only His free grace and His sovereign grace, but what the old writers call His irresistible grace. "Thus saith the Lord God, Behold I, even I, will both search My sheep and seek them out." He will not only search for them, but He will search till He discover them. "He goeth after that which was lost until He find it." The Saviour's love is bounded by no distance, is cooled by no difficulties, is repulsed by no obstacles. One of the noblest records of true heroism in England's annals is of comparatively recent date; when a gallant vessel, manned with gallant hearts, vent forth amid the frowning icebergs of the Northern Seas, to search for a band of missing explorers. They sailed thither, buoyed with the faint, feeble hope that the object of their search might still be found, battling bravely with eternal winter. Alas! they went after the lost "until they found them"; but they found them with the stiffened snow and ice as their winding sheet! They brought not back the living, but only some sad mementoes and memorials of the dead. Not so is the journey, not so the pursuit, of the Great Shepherd of the sheep. His omniscient eye follows every wanderer. Those whom He has marked for His own He will, without fail, bring home. Not one can elude His pursuit, nor evade His loving scrutiny.

(J. R. Macduff, D. D.)

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KJV: For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out.

WEB: For thus says the Lord Yahweh: Behold, I myself, even I, will search for my sheep, and will seek them out.