SEMESTER 6
384 – Ninety and Nine
BIBLE INSTITUTE OF CORRESPONDENCE
COURSE: ECCLESIOLOGY VI (HYMNOLOGY) LESSON # 84
THE DOCTRINES AND EFFECTS OF CHURCH MUSIC – THE NINETY AND NINE
Read: Luke 15:1-7
INTRODUCTION:
1. No doubt, this passage inspired Elizabeth Clephane to write the poem.
2. Story is, she handed it to Sankey, and he sang it without written music that night.
3. The song expresses wonderfully our proper burden for lost souls.
4. But that was not its purpose, nor the message it was to convey. It was praise!
5. It was to extol our Lord’s love and compassion upon poor sinners, and His salvation for them.
6. Note, in these five verses, the things it wonderfully points out to us.
I. THE CARE CHRIST HAS FOR A SINGLE SINNER
1. Not the value (present or future), but the vulnerability of the sinner sent Him.
2. Logic says, “Do not risk the secure for that which is lost,” or “send good after bad.”
3. But a true shepherd thinks differently, and so much more the great Shepherd.
4. The Good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep. (Joh. 10:11)
5. What can you do for God which He cannot do better? What can you add to heaven?
6. Yet while we were yet without strength, He died for the ungodly. (Rom. 5:6)
II. THIS CARE ARISES OUT OF THE FACT THAT WE ARE HIS SHEEP
1. Are ninety and nine not enough? That is not the issue here, This of mine is missing! (Joh. 6:39)
III: Your child is missing, but do not fret, you have three more! Love, not need, motivates.
2. My hope is built on the promise of Hebrews 10:7. He came to do God’s will.
3. He died for me as personally as if I had been the only sinner that fell.
4. Rough as the road was, He came to the desert land of Lodebar to rescue me.
III. HIS GREAT SUFFERING TRANSCENDS OUR KNOWLEDGE
1. We write songs and preach sermons about the cross, yet we do not really know.
III: Can you explain just what Hebrews 12:4 means? Sin striving against blood?
2. I expect He suffered more in those few hours than any man has ever suffered.
IV. THE CONTEMPLATION OF THAT SUFFERING
1. Try to contemplate the depth and breadth of Isaiah 53:10. Oh weep in amazement!
2. Some who think they follow His path today, joy in miracles and great sermons.
3. But this song writer, rejoiced that he saw great blood drops of His suffering along the way.
III: From the ivory palaces, through rejection and ridicule and Gethsemane and to Calvary.
4. There is and has never been shame and suffering like that of the cross.
III: How they purposely stripped a man of his clothes, his dignity and imposed suffering.
V. THE JOY IN HEAVEN OVER ONE REPENTANT SINNER (LUKE 15:10
)
1. Heaven rejoices more over forgiveness and repentance than over righteousness.
2. It seems that angles who are not redeemed, rejoice above all in redemption.
III: How the angels, in chorus, sang as they welcomed His birth. Much more this!
3. It is because that for this purpose He came into the world. (Joh. 12:27)
4. Friend, there is a way to move heaven with Joy. It is in repentance from sin