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I. IN WHAT SENSE WE ARE SAID TO BE LOST.

1. Really and indeed; so we are lost to God and lost to ourselves. As to God, He hath no glory, love, and service from us, and so is deprived and robbed of the honour of His creation.

2. Some are lost and undone in their own sense and feeling. All by reason of sin are in a lost state, but some are apprehensive of it. Now such a sense is necessary to prepare us for a more brokenhearted and thankful acceptance of the grace of the gospel.

II. IN WHAT SENSE CHRIST IS SAID TO SEEK AND SAVE SUCH, Here is a double work — seeking and saving.

1. What is His seeking? It implieth —

(1) His pity to us in our lost estate, and providing means for us, in that He doth not leave us to our wanderings, or our own heart's counsels, but taketh care that we be brought back again to God (John 10:16).

(2) His seeking implieth His diligence and pains to reduce them (Luke 15:4). It requireth time and pains to find them, and gain their consent. A lost soul is not so easily recovered and reduced from his straying; there is many a warning slighted, many a conviction smothered, and tenders of grace made in vain. I evidence this two ways —

(1) Christ is said to seek after us by His word and Spirit.

(a) By His word, He cometh as a teacher from heaven, to recall sinners from their wanderings.

(b) By His Spirit striving against and overcoming the obstinacy and contradiction of our souls. By His call in the word He inviteth us to holiness, but by His powerful grace He inclineth us.

(2) This seeking is absolutely necessary: if He did not seek them, they would never seek Him.

2. To save them. Two ways is Christ a Saviour — merito et efficacia, by merit and by power. We are sometimes said to be saved by His death, and sometimes to be saved by His life (Romans 5:10). Here I shall do two things —

(1) I shall show why it is so;

(2) I shall prove that this was Christ's great end and business.First, Why it is so.

1. With respect to the parties concerned. In saving lost creatures, Christ hath to do with three parties — God, man, and Satan.

2. With respect to the parts of salvation. There is redemption and conversion, the one by way of impetration, to other by way of application. It is not enough that we are redeemed, that is done Without us upon the cross; but we must also be converted, that is real redemption applied to us.

3. With respect to eternal salvation, which is the result of all, that is to say, it is the effect of Christ's merit and of our regeneration; for in regeneration that life is begun in us which is perfected in heaven.Secondly, I am to prove that this was Christ's great end and business.

1. It is certain that Christ was sent to man in a lapsed and fallen estate, not to preserve us as innocent, but to recover us as fallen.

2. Out of this misery man is unable to deliver and recover himself.

3. We being utterly unable, God, in pity to us, that the creation of man for His glory might not be frustrated, hath sent us Christ.Arguments to press you to accept of this grace.

1. Consider the misery of a lost condition.

2. Think of the excellency and reality of salvation by Christ (1 Timothy 1:15).

3. You have the means; you have the offer made to you (Isaiah 27:13).

(T. Manton, D. D.)

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KJV: And Jesus entered and passed through Jericho.

WEB: He entered and was passing through Jericho.