Shepherding

1st Samuel, please, chapter 17 and verse 34. After Saul talked to David that he's unable to meet this Goliath, so David, verse 34, said unto Saul, Thy servant kept his father's sheep. They came a lion and a bear and took a lamb out of the flock.

I went out after him and smote him and delivered it out of his mouth. When he rose against me, I caught him by his beard and smote him and slew him. Thy servant slew both the lion and the bear, and this uncircumcised Philistine shall be as one of them, seeing he hath defied the armies of the living God.

A final reading in the prophecy of Ezekiel, chapter 34. We shall read from verse 13. I will bring them out from the people and gather them from the countries and will bring them to their own land and feed them upon the mountains of Israel by the rivers and on all the inhabited places of the country.

This is likely has to do with the regathering of the nation. I will feed them in good pasture. Upon the high mountains of Israel shall their fold be.

There shall they lie in a good fold, and in a fat pasture shall they feed upon the mountains of Israel. I will feed my flock. I will cause them to lie down, saith the Lord God.

I will seek that which was lost and bring again that which was driven away. I will bind up the broken and will strengthen that which was sick, but it will destroy the fat and the strong. I will feed them with judgment.

That's all we're going to read. Now my subject, I trust, will be a helpful one. Next to the winning of souls, the art or the work of shepherding.

It's closest to the Savior's heart. You see, dear young men, don't always live to receive as a Christian. You have to give.

We all should have, brethren, a shepherd's heart. Even the sister should have a shepherd nature. I'll give you a short introduction to the subject and then we shall look at the passages which we read.

There are four people interested in the sheep. The first is the autocratic dictator, like Diotrephes. His name means nourished by idols.

Had it been Theotrephes, it would have meant nourished by God. He is the COO that seeks to run, I use this term, an assembly like a business. You do this, you come here, you do as I say.

Fortunately, these folks have earned the minority but they're still not dead yet. The second one is a butcher. He's interested just what he can get out of it.

I visited in the eastern parts of Ontario, met an evangelical couple and they're near to tears. They had a visit from their pastor, an evangelical church, and the pastor and several elders told them and they said, you belong to the lower income class. In our church, most of the people are affluent and we would rather that you don't come to the meeting anymore.

Brother, that's a butcher. Would the Savior act this way? Come on. Would Paul teach? He said there's no division.

Rich and poor, Gentile, Jews, barbarian, educated. A butcher. And then you have the hireling.

He too has no interest in the sheep. He'd rather shoot the sick than watch over it. And then you have the real shepherd.

Now in the Middle East, in ancient times, even as today, sheep are controlled by throwing stones. Don't you dare doing it from the platform. Way under the little village of Bethany, I met a Bedouin.

He sold me about 12 of these slings. They're made out of camel or wool from goats and sheep. And in broken English, we conversed a little.

There's one word all the Palestinians know and that's dollar. Dollar. They know that one.

So I said, do you recall in the Old Testament, King David? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you demonstrate to me how David used the sling? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he looked around for a stone the size of a hazelnut, put in the sling, three famous revolutions, and the stone you could hardly follow it with their eye, landed in the little village of Bethany.

I said, man, what if it hits somebody? What if it hits a breaker window? He said, that's your problem. Oh, that's Palestinian mentality, you know. So here.

Now, Acts, no, rather Luke 2 and 8. They were in the country shepherds. I like to point out these were not just what we call farm hands. These were not priests, but they're priestly-oriented men.

For we see their sheep were to be ultimately taken to a temple service as sacrificial animals. These men had priestly hearts. They took special care of the sheep.

Then it says, they were abiding in the field. That's a geography. I don't understand now if you need a holiday down south, that's fine.

But you know, we meet shepherds, supposed to be shepherds, and they hardly ever among the sheep. Hardly ever there. Brethren, a shepherd, it's a 24-hour job.

It's difficult. It's not easy. But oh, the Savior values it highly next to the reigning of souls, especially young converts today.

You know, as a rule, young converts don't know much of anything from the Bible. And they need to be taught. They need to be nourished.

Oh, the preacher goes, and who are the shepherds? The men that take care of the young converts. Oh, how important this is. Sometimes souls get saved and we lose them.

Let it never be said simply because of a lack of a care. They need to learn. The Old and New Testament is completely new to them.

Nurtured bit by bit as little children of the faith. So you have the geographical sphere, says Dr. Luke, and then you have the spiritual sphere, keeping watch over them by night. That's a moral sphere.

Geographical sphere, spiritual sphere, and moral sphere. Now let's come please, for the sake of time, to the passage which we read together. In 1st Samuel, David meets a lion.

Brethren, sometimes shepherds will experience the onslaught of the evil one of Satan. You see, Satan has four distinct faces. The first one is a lion.

As such, he can attack the body, Job and Peter. Don't blame every cold on the devil, mind you. But he can attack the body.

As a serpent, he can attack the mind. Tell me, have you ever had like Eve of yonder? Or many in the Old and New Testament doubts in concerning the supernatural element of Christianity? As a serpent, he will attack your mind. As the ruler of darkness, he will attack your will.

I don't know all of you. Tell me in God's name. Have you ever, when it got rough and tough, have you ever thought of giving up? Come on.

Who's behind it? As the ruler of darkness, Satan can attack the will. As he accuses the brethren, he can attack the conscience. And you young people learn this lesson, please.

Satan can attack your mind with negative things to the degree you stop praying and even function in worship. You cannot afford to dwell excessively on negative things. You'll produce negative things.

Paul says, and he was not faultless, he said, I must forget things that are behind and press forward. Satan has four distinct faces. Did you notice in the reading, the Old Testament, there were some men who were excellent herdsmen, excellent farmers.

And some of them had no end of trouble with their family. Moses. Oh, go back.

Jacob. Jacob, excellent with the herds, problems with the family. Moses.

You read Judges chapter 18. And of course, in your authorized version, it's very obscured. Critical versions give it very clearly.

Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh, it wasn't Manasseh, brethren, it was Moses. Critical versions. I do not know whether translated inserted Manasseh.

It's not Manasseh, it's Moses. Was it to shelter this tremendous spiritual giant in the Old Testament from the shame his grandson was an idolater? He worshipped up in the tribal turf of Dan. He became an idolatrous priest.

Jonathan, the son of Moses, or Gershom, the son of Moses. And there you have the problem of the third generation. A brother said publicly, I don't believe that the third generation.

Well, there are exceptions, of course. But you see, the third generation, even today, can present spiritual problems. Do you have grandchildren? You ever recognize a deterioration in their convictions? Ever recognize a departure from divine doctrine and the assembly doesn't mean as much as it meant to you? Oh, yes, brethren, it does exist.

The danger of the third generation. Jacob, Moses, David, Solomon, all these men had problems as far as their family is concerned. Brother once told me, and he's a good man.

There was a time when most of his children gave him problems. He almost blamed God for it. Very useful in the things of God.

I said to him, my dear brother, do not look upon what you experience in that negative light. For you see, in the local assembly that you form a part of, folks could come in and they may in the future face the same problem as you do. God saw it through the deep valley.

When others have the same problem, it will shelter from becoming critical and cold. Oh, they made their nest, let them sit in it. See, a shepherd has to be sympathetic and sometimes the Lord will bring you through deep waters.

He will bring you almost down, maybe to the point of despair that you might learn. You know, we had very critical brothers and sisters too. That's not a shepherd for you.

Condemnation, judgment, criticism. Now, for the sake of time, let's touch on John 21. Peter, do you love me? Three times.

Oh, the knife went deep. And yet this is the very character of my Christianity. It's not how much I know.

And the platform, brethren, is not for competition. The platform is to be held to the of God. Not how much I know what I convey of Christ and his word.

John 21. Peter, do you love me? Yes. All right, Peter, I have work for you to do.

Feed my lambs, feed my sheep, guard my sheep, guard my lambs. Peter, you cannot do the work of a true shepherd apart from divine love. Oh, it's difficult.

For see, sometimes sheep, they've been ornery. Sheep can be disobedient. I remember when the first series of meetings of ministry attended in Toronto.

Brother from Scotland, he went to the Bible reading in the old country. To go to the hall, he went across the field and crossed the style. You know what a style is? No old country folks here.

You look very dubious to me. A style is a little ladder that takes you over a stone wall so the cattle cannot cross it, not the sheep. So he goes over.

It's raining a little. He has his Bible in his leather jacket. And all of a sudden, he hears or sees a sheep entangled in a hawthorn bush.

He goes by the sheep and then his conscience stirred him. He says, no, I'm supposed to be a shepherd and here's a little sheep and I pass by that poor creature. So he put the Bible on the stone hill, laboriously extricated the sheep.

That wasn't easy. The horns were all taken and the fur and so ultimately the ram was clear and he turned around and knocked him to the mud. That's sometimes what you do.

Oh, we had good brahman. And you know, if you needed a haircut, one of these elders just looked at you and he didn't have to say and you went to the barber the next day. There were men who conveyed godliness and interest in the sheep.

I could never come to minister meeting because my work was nights. So the brahman, you may remember Mr. Gordon Johnson, missionary to Venezuela. He organized a prayer meeting and a Bible reading on a private basis just for me because they figured as a young convert, I needed to be taught.

And a lot of these elders gathered, most of the retired folks, and this is how I learned the basic principles of the Old and New Testament. Now let's come please to Ezekiel. Ezekiel, the first chapter, tells you of God condemning shepherds that do the work out of a selfish motive.

The second half of the chapter, God commends those and he teaches us because after all, Ezekiel was a priest, a priestly man. Brahman, if we pattern our work as shepherds according to what we have in Ezekiel 34, we do more than well. Let's look at it.

You notice five times in the whole section the prophet speaks about feeding, feeding, feeding the saints of God. Let it never be said that folks leave the assembly because of a lack of care and spiritual food. We had two or three ministry meetings a year for the benefit of younger Christians.

There were 10 of them saved in the series of meetings I was reached in. And had it not been for this, I don't think it would have gone on. They came a job opportunity way up in the north, called for a house father to Eskimo and Indian children.

I thought I was qualified. I went for the job like a bee to the sugar. What I did not think in the first year of my Christian life was this, the nearest assembly was 400 miles and I would have to take the train, which didn't operate on Sunday.

But oh, I was attracted by this pay, the bonus and everything else. So I applied. I never got the job.

You know why? All the elders in that assembly prayed that the job would fall through. I thought, fine friends, you are. You see, I had to be channeled.

I had to be taught what is valuable and profitable for eternity. And young Christian, you've passed through the same phase. Tell me, do you have any ambitions as far as the Lord is concerned? Shepherding Ephesians 4 is a gift.

Exercise it. We can all be on the receiving line. Give of yourself and take an interest in the Lord's people.

Don't just criticize things that you don't care for and don't like. Oh brother, we need shepherds in our assemblies today. Men with a care, men with a real heart.

So here, five times, feeding, feeding, feeding. And if there's no gift in the local assembly in order to feed the people, we have a responsibility to bring in men that can. Notice, it says here in Ezekiel 34, not only feeding, I will cause them to lie down.

Brethren, we are responsible to maintain conditions of peace. It doesn't mean I need my will. I don't care what anyone says.

I'm right. Conditions of peace. Now this is solemn.

I will bring back that which was driven away. Delicate. Delicate.

Is it possible that by words, actions, statements, folk leave? Oh God help us. Up in northern Ontario, there's a place and it's a hunting village. When I was here some time ago, an elderly couple, they asked me for supper.

It was wintertime. And he said, now I have to feed my charges. What's on the picture window? And he went out and he said, I have a contract of a private hunting party.

And he fed about 16 to 20 deer. I didn't see any until he withdrew. He put out two bales of hay and two buckets of corn.

As soon as he withdrew, the bush came alive. Now when you look at the confirmation of this lovely animal, power, looks, lovely brown eyes. And I don't know why brother take a gun and shoot those things.

I made that statement in this part of the country. And you know, the atmosphere got as ice. I could only redeem myself and say, no, I like venison too.

And the tension lifted. You get the point, don't you? Don't believe that siren it's wrong. So here I see about 18 deer and they come from every direction.

And I saw something that made me change my mind concerning the North American white-tailed deer. And it was this. Amongst those 16, 18, 20 deer, there were four or five yearlings.

They never got a bite. Because as soon as he came near a corn pile or a hay, the older ones drove them away. And you know, a deer has hoofs that can kill you.

They never got a bite. I changed my mind about the deer and I looked at the man's gun rack. Fortunately it was locked.

I felt like shooting them. You see brother, in the animal world, there is what you call a pecking order. Do you have cats? Major Mitzi, she rules the floor.

There's a pecking order among the cows. There's a pecking order among the chickens. There's a pecking order among the horses.

Brother, there should never be a pecking order among the brother. I will seek that which was driven away. That's what true shepherd.

It's not easy. And then he says, I will heal that which was broken. I remember when our girl was about seven years old, she came home from school.

She broke her arm. I wasn't home, so my wife took her to the hospital. The surgeon was away and there was a man who was, well, he was an assistant doctor.

And he says, Mrs. Kraus, you think that the arm is broken? Yeah, I think so. So the doctor takes the arm by the elbow and gives her a real shake. Well, that's not how you treat a broken arm.

I'm not Irish, but I would have given them, had I been there, a good part of my German mind, I tell you. That's not how you cure it. That's not even how I diagnose it.

Man, it's a seven-year-old. Be gentle, be kind. X-ray it.

Do not dislike this. No. Well, I will heal the broken-hearted.

You know, the things in life that God teaches you, I was only saved two years when I heard about a veterinarian in St. Catharines near Niagara Falls. And she specialized in repairing owls, grey owls, snowy owls, and they come from all over Canada. And immediately, these birds seem to relax.

They seem to sense that this woman means her best. She looked at the wound. She extracts any foreign objects, X-rays it, applies a bandage, and she feeds them too.

This woman has three freezers full of dead rats and mice. The birds have to eat. And now comes the clinch.

After the bird is deemed repaired and healthy, they take it by truck in a cage to the very place where it was apprehended in the first place. It's night. They open the cage.

The bird is nervous, moves, and all of a sudden, with one swoop, into the blue yonder. And this is what the lady says. He says, I feel so satisfied in having restored to the great Canadian wildlife one species that otherwise would have died.

Oh, brethren, sometimes there are folks among us, spiritually speaking, there's a broken arm. There's a broken leg. Can't walk the same.

Where are the men without criticism in the shepherd hearts that will look after these dear people for the glory of God and the help of weak saints?