Beyond the Hymnal: The Ninety and Nine
“What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them gets lost, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountain and go in search of the one that is lost? And if it turns out that he finds it, I assure you and most solemnly say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that did not get lost. So it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones be lost.” (Matthew 18:12-14, AMP)
This might be a hymn you’ve never heard before, but a story that’s really familiar to you: the parable of the ninety nine sheep.
In this parable, Jesus explains that a shepherd has one hundred sheep and one gets lost. This shepherd then leaves his flock to find the missing sheep. If the shepherd finds that lost sheep, he rejoices over having found it more than the ninety-nine that stayed where they were supposed to be. In the same way, heaven rejoices with God the Father over one lost soul coming to salvation.
In the 1800s, the evangelist D.L. Moody hired Ira Sankey to be the soloist and song leader at his meetings and outreaches. In 1874, Moody and Sankey were taking a train from Glasgow to Edinburgh during a series of evangelistic meetings. Sankey had been reading a penny newspaper he had picked up for the ride, hoping to catch up on American news. In the paper, he found a poem by Elizabeth C. Clephane that caught his attention.
Being touched by the poem, Sankey tried to read the poem aloud to D.L. Moody but in the end, Moody was so absorbed by the letter he was reading that he didn’t hear Sankey’s recitation. Cutting the poem out of the paper, Sankey placed it in his musical scrapbook and carried on.
Two days into their meetings in Edinburgh, Moody gave a message on the subject of the Good Shepherd. At the end of the meeting, Moody asked Sankey if he had any appropriate songs with which to end the meeting. Sankey says he heard an inner voice saying, “Sing the hymn you found on the train!”
Nervously retrieving the poem and placing it on the organ, Sankey writes that he “lifted [his] heart in prayer, struck the key of A flat, and began to sing.” Remember: this was just a poem from a newspaper. There was no melody or proper music set to it, but Sankey proceeded to sing the poem exactly as the hymn is sung today. The story goes that D.L. Moody was moved by the hymn, and approached Sankey at the end asking, “Sankey, where did you get this hymn?” and he replied, “Mr. Moody, that’s the hymn I read to you yesterday on the train, which you did not hear!”
And a lot of the time, when this parable is preached, the same message is taught: that God values that one lost soul just as much as he values the ninety-nine that have stayed put. God loves that one wandering soul enough to leave the flock of obedient ones to save it and bring it back to the flock. He rejoices in the fact that the lost sheep is found, and all of heaven rejoices with our God, our Shepherd, over that one soul.
But here’s another take: when we discuss perseverance in the context of Christianity, we often talk about our perseverance– of the saints, of our faith, and our steadfastness in God’s Word. We often place that emphasis on the fact that we must persevere in our walk of faith. We must persevere against the flesh. We must fight and carry on.
But have we ever thought about the fact that God must persevere for us? Because yes, we are fickle creatures that are easily distracted. We are prone to wander and get lost. We aren’t likely to stay where we should be, safe in the fold of God’s faithfulness to us. And God is the Good Shepherd. He watches over those that He has chosen as His flock. He loves us, He shelters us, He leads us beside still waters and makes us lie down in green pastures. To any rational lamb, we should never stray or lose faith, and yet we do.
We fail to listen when God calls, just the way Moody failed to hear the words of that poem on the train. But one of the blessings we receive when we are saved by God is His perseverance with us. He knows our faults and our failures, but searches us out anyway. He continues to love us when we still fall short. He continues to come after us when we wander. He will never turn His back on one of His lambs when we need Him.
And unlike our imperfect perseverance, God’s is steadfast and faithful. He is persistent in His love for us, constant in His pursuit of us, and patient in our maturing of faith. His eye is always on us, that’s how He knows when we are missing. His care over His people is complete. And yes, He goes after the one and rejoices over that one when they are found, but He also delights in the ninety-nine that remain and faithfully follow Him.
What a beautiful blessing for us, as Christians, that measures beyond any earthly riches or impressive boast: that our God perseveres through our doubts, our sin, and our wandering. Our God doesn’t turn His back on us when we foolishly fail Him, opting to hold on to the ones that listen and obey. Our God picks His way over mountains and valleys and wilderness to bring us back to His side.
Why?
Because He loves those who are His. He is not content to let us stumble around in fear and darkness. He is not satisfied to let us learn our lesson and flounder on our own. He wants all that belong to Him, and He is good enough to come find us and redeem us.
And when He saves us from our own devices and schemes that lead us to our own destruction, all of heaven rejoices– that the one that was lost was found by the Good Shepherd, who is mighty to save and so good to His sheep.
