THE SPIRIT OF A SHEPHERD
[p. 271] THE SPIRIT OF A SHEPHERD
Romans 10:18,19; Romans 10:21; Amos 3:1-8; Amos 3:12
I desire, dear friends, to speak in the spirit of the shepherd. The Scriptures abound with allusions to the shepherd. The idea was abominable to the Egyptians, showing it is not in the world. It is only seen in Christ, and those who are Christ’s. And so, in serving now, one would exhibit the spirit of the shepherd, who, it is said here by Amos, would rescue from the lion’s mouth whatever he can. The true shepherd will not let the lion have anything, so that he rescues whatever he can, as it is said here, “Two legs, or a piece of an ear”. Maybe there are those here over whom the lion has almost secured complete control. Your presence here encourages us for your legs have brought you. That much is an evidence; you have come. And we are hopeful that a part of your ear is still available; were it not so, we might graciously assume you would be elsewhere tonight, listening to some production of this world. Many of us here have been praying about this meeting, and now we are here with a burden on our hearts. You are the occasion of it, you, whom the lion has. We desire you may be recovered wholly from him. The Good Shepherd of the sheep laid down His life to the end that the lion should have none of you, but that He should have you, all of you. The Lord is aiming at getting the whole person. He will have us entirely, but He will take what He can get now. And so, as I said, one may graciously assume that, as you have come, your legs have carried you. His legs, His feet carried Him a long way; indeed it is said here in Romans 10, “How beautiful the feet of them that announce glad tidings of peace, of them that announce glad tidings of good things!”. These are, pre-eminently,
[p. 272] the feet of Jesus, for He walked all the way, so to speak. One who was gained by His grace anointed those feet with myrrh (Luke 7: 38); she, who was a sinner greater than you, than any of us, a sinner in the city, found grace in Jesus. He had carried it a long way to her, and she anointed His feet with myrrh, she washed His feet with her tears and then anointed them. So that if your legs have brought you here now, we may graciously assume that the Lord has those now, and a part of your ear. You have never given the whole of your ears to Christ; you have paid more attention to the voices of this world hitherto. He speaks loudly, we read, so that all may hear, and now the voice goes out to the ends of the earth. But it may be you have never placed yourself within the reach of it. You may have been ‘listening-in’, as they call it, listening-in to some voice from the pit maybe! You may have given your ears heartily to these voices from the loud-speakers, which would get your ear even if you did not listen-in, for the enemy uses every effort to get it so that you may be secured wholly for this world. There is the man that speaks froward things, who speaks blasphemous things against Christ, and then there is the woman that flatters with her mouth (Proverbs 2: 12, 16). These all bid for the ears of the young, so that they do not hear the tones of the voice of Christ. But you are here tonight, as I said, and one would graciously assume that your ear is open now.
So I read in Romans 10 to remind you that you have already heard. Evangelisation today is to those who have heard; there are those who attempt to go to the heathen world, where Christ has not been named, but with little result. That was Paul’s aim, showing that the position has changed now. His labours were “not where Christ has been named” (Romans 15: 20), a very difficult matter involving suffering we are not acquainted with now. “Not where Christ has been named”,
those were Paul’s labours over a very wide area, as he says, “From Jerusalem, and in a circuit round to Illyricum” he has “fully preached the glad tidings of the Christ”. Our work is to those who have heard. “Have they not heard?”. Israel had heard. So today, there is no one who has not heard in a literal sense, and on account of this God holds you peculiarly responsible. This is what I wish to press upon you: “All the day long I have stretched out my hands unto a people disobeying and opposing”, both His hands, showing how much God was in it in His overtures of grace to His earthly people. Now that applies at the present time, dear friends. God is still holding forth His hands in christendom, in spite of the hardness, the indifference, the blasphemy against Christ, and the sink of iniquity that exists in Christendom, things equal to any that ever existed in heathendom. God is nevertheless maintaining His own dispensation of grace. He is standing forth tonight in thousands of places, stretching forth His hands to a disobeying and opposing people, shall I say? Well, it is for you to answer! Brought up in a godly household, brought up even to attend spiritual meetings, where Jesus has been named with affection, not in a formal religious way, these advantages you have had, and still your heart is as a stone. You have not yet bowed; you come in the class of “a people disobeying and opposing”. “All the day long”; and so it is, “I have stretched out my hands” tonight, so full of grace! As Christ began to preach, according to Luke 4: 22, He was full of grace. In His very reading of the Scriptures, and the manner in which He sat down, there was the expression on God’s behalf of grace. He was anointed by God, He was everything Himself that He was to announce in the power of the anointing, and so He is still: the Christ crucified, the Christ glorified, the Christ seated at the right hand of God, whatever way He is presented. One of the most [p. 274] remarkable things is that grace is reigning, that is, it is dominant, there are no limitations to it; it is grace in the most absolute way, so that the neediest, the blackest sinner may be the subject Of grace. Indeed, in the gospels the Lord singles out the worst people, so that afterwards no sinner should hesitate. God is holding out His hands, in spite Of a people disobeying and opposing. Peter says, “Christ indeed has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God; being put to death in flesh, but made alive in the Spirit, in which also going he preached to the spirits which are in prison, heretofore disobedient, when the longsuffering Of God waited in the days Of Noah while the ark was preparing”,
1 Peter 3: 18 - 20. It was a time of disobedience, as the present, a time in which few were saved. God was making overtures in a righteous man, an ark-builder, striving with men. And so it is, dear young people, we are here to emphasise in your ears the dominance of grace; it is that power on the throne that overcomes the greatest guilt, the worst possibly conceivable; “that repentance and remission Of sins should be preached in his name to all the nations beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke 24: 47), the worst possible place on earth then. That is how it stands, and it has been going On all these years. You have heard, but your heart remains unmoved, you are still outside the realm of grace, you have elected to remain there. Presently the hour Of it will have gone for ever! “Ye shall begin to stand without and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, open to us; and he answering shall say to you, I know you not whence ye are: then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten in thy presence and drunk, and thou hast taught in our streets; and he shall say, I tell you, I do not know you whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers Of iniquity”, Luke 13: 25 - 27. He does not say that now, He knows all about you, and He is here, in me, to convict you, that you may [p. 275] be saved. Preaching is to bring home the truth in the power Of the Spirit, to bring about repentance, for there is no hope apart from it.
So in Amos He says, “Hear this word that Jehovah hath spoken against you, children of Israel”. Now you see how God is dealing with a people that had had immense privileges, and now they are going to be dealt with according to their advantages. I speak warningly. God will deal with you presently according to your advantages. Yours will be a far more serious matter than that of the dark heathen in Africa. Then He begins to ask questions through Amos, who is a sort Of representative prophet. It is a divine way to ask questions: “Shall two walk together except they be agreed?”. Now what about this? You sit down at your father’s table in the morning, you go to business with him maybe, and you are on good terms with your mother, your brothers and sisters. But what about this, are you really agreed? You see, down below, in spite of apparent family affection, there is a radical disagreement. You are On a different road from theirs. How can you walk with them? Presently the cleavage will become wider, you are on the broad way and they are On the narrow way. At the table they talk about Jesus, they love Him; it is irksome to you. You would rather read the newspaper, Or a novel. You bear with it, maybe, but underneath there is a disagreement. You are taking the broad way that leads to destruction. It means for you separation for ever, like that rich man Of whom we read, “And in hades lifting up his eyes, being in torments, he sees Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom” (Luke 16: 23), with no possibility of ever reaching him, for there is a great chasm fixed, it is impassable! How serious it is!
Then there are other questions here, as you will observe. “Will a lion roar in the forest when he hath no prey?”. What about this, what about the noise of [p. 276] the lion? Your parents hear. The lion may not have you altogether, but it is said, “Your adversary the devil as a roaring lion walks about seeking whom he may devour”, 1 Peter 5: 8. Wake up, young man, you may not know it, but this is the position. And then again, “Can a bird fall in a snare upon the earth when no gin is laid for him?”. You see all this alludes to the catching of souls by the world system. You have no wings, you have not even your sins forgiven, and the snare is set for you. He does not catch anything that has wings; you see, the Christian has wings. “Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid?”. That is another matter. The trumpet of God has been blown, thank God, and some are afraid; so the Lord says, “Fear not those who kill the body and after this have no more that they can do. But I will shew you whom ye shall fear: Fear him who after he has killed has authority to cast into hell; yea, I say to you, Fear him”, Luke 12: 4, 5. The trumpet is blowing tonight, will you not hear, will you not be afraid? Not that God would bring terror into your heart, yet He would terrorise you that He might save you! “For there is revealed wrath of God from heaven upon all impiety, and unrighteousness of men holding the truth in unrighteousness”, Romans 1: 18. Indeed, in Christians the mark of piety is that they fear God, but you go about with your head lifted up as though there were no God.
These questions are very searching, but I would especially press this, as to whether you are ready to meet God. What about it? Terror shall surely set hold of you. Instead of that gracious countenance of which I have spoken, the heavens and the earth shall flee away from His countenance. How can you meet God, in Christ, thus? As Luther said, ‘The judge of all mankind appears’. “The dead, great and small”, we are told, stand before Him (Revelation 20: 12). You [p. 277] are not allowed to escape. May God work in your conscience; now the trumpet sounds!
And so there are other things here, but I want to come to the shepherd. You will observe in Amos 3: 12 it says, “Like as the shepherd rescueth out of the jaw of the lion two legs, or a piece of an ear; so shall the children of Israel be rescued that sit in Samaria in the corner of a couch, and upon the damask of a bed”. I have been speaking of the shepherd spirit. I want now to call attention to the energies of the shepherd; although the setting of this prophecy is in magnificence, it is in relation to a people who are reprobate and in Samaria, living in affluence. The allusion to the couch and the bed is a question of luxury. The bed of Damascus is the idea of a rich luxurious resting place. That is, enjoying the mercies of God, enjoying luxury, and leaving God out, leaving the Creator out. It may be you are striving for this very thing, young man or young woman. You have had before you a position in this world, a well-furnished house in time, and so on. It is the present world, the world of luxury; the standard of living is very different from what it used to be in the memory of many of us; many are going into debt, to live in luxury, living on the future. They are going to sleep, and leaving God out. Satan will rock them to sleep in their luxury. God has not changed one whit: man may become luxurious, a rich man aspires to great things, but God has not changed. He has fixed the time of His grace, and He keeps on at it.
The Lord is here in great solicitation to get your soul and rescue you from the lion’s mouth, for that is where you are. David, you will remember, the great type of Christ, took the lamb from the lion and the bear (1 Samuel 17: 34 - 36). The shepherd will have you entirely, not only your legs or your ear. It was a dual attack. We know the Lord has us entirely, we belong to Him; for us He has slain the lion and the [p. 278] bear, but not for those who have not faith. Satan still goes about and he has got you. David took the whole lamb, and slew the lion and the bear; that is Christ in fulfilment. But we are trying to get you now, in a humble way. Will you not give Him your ear tonight? Listen to His voice, accept the offers of mercy and forgiveness: “Through this man remission of sins is preached to you, and from all things from which ye could not be justified in the law of Moses, in him every one that believes is justified”, Acts 13:38, 39.
All these things, and more are offered to you. Will you not have Him? Will you not give your ears to Christ? He will then have your whole person, now, and for eternity!