Last week, I preached a message called That
Great Shepherd of the Sheep. And as we came to the end of
our time, I mentioned that there was actually much more that I
had planned on saying. And I think I mentioned then
I might just say it next week. Well, that next week is this
week. And that's what I'm going to do. Our Lord is that great shepherd
of the sheep. And He is great in every way
that you can imagine a shepherd being great. But He, as our shepherd,
His greatness is most certainly founded upon who He is. He is Jehovah in human flesh. He is the God. He is that great
God in human flesh, and that made Him that great Shepherd
of the sheep. And we should be amazed, really,
and I know that we are. At times, the amazement grips
us, more than at other times, but we should be amazed that
that great God cared one whit for us. Not only that He cared one whit,
He cared to the point that He came and He laid down His life
for His sheep. He calls us sheep. He calls us
sheep because sheep are stupid, prone to wonder, and they are easily deceived. They're weak and defenseless. You know that there is not a
name given that I can think of to the people of God that is
a name in which they can glory. People say, I'm proud to be a
Christian. And I say, are you? Do you know what being a Christian
means? Being a Christian means that you are a worthless sinner.
That's what being a Christian meant, the first thing. Second,
being a Christian means that you are willing to let someone
else take the punishment for your sin. That doesn't sound very virtuous,
does it? Being a Christian means that
you are utterly dependent for all things on someone else. Now I know sometimes when people
say, I'm proud to be a Christian, what they mean is, I'm not ashamed
to own up to the fact that I'm a Christian. I'm not going to
be a coward about this. And mostly what they mean is, I'm not ashamed
of Christ my Savior. But there are plenty of people
who are just plain old proud that they're Christians. They
think they're better than other people by virtue of the fact
that they're Christians. And sheep. I thank God I'm one
of the Lord's sheep. But I'm not going to put that
on a bumper sticker. As though I put it on there for someone
to say, wow, he must be somebody special. No, I'm not. God didn't
choose special people. God chose people and gave them
special grace. But they started out people,
they're still people. They started out sheep, they're
still sheep. It's just that they have the
blessed privilege of being able to say, the Lord is my shepherd. This morning I want to look at that great shepherd of the sheep
under these two subheadings. Number one, his relationship
with the sheep. And then two, his care for the
sheep. Now, the first thing, several
of these things about our Lord's relationship with His sheep are
mentioned here in John chapter 10. And I'm not going to do them
in the order that our Lord mentioned them, but rather, I guess in
the way that would go along a little bit more with the way I develop
ideas. But I'm going to start with this.
He's the good shepherd. because he knows his sheep. He says in verse 14, I am the
good shepherd. I know my sheep and my sheep
know me. Now, the Lord, by saying my sheep,
makes it obvious that he's not including everyone in the world. He says, I know my sheep. There are others in the world
who are sheep of someone else, or worse yet, nobody's sheep. I remember once teaching the
young people Oh, they would have been elementary age and maybe
some in middle school. But I taught them that scripture,
all we like sheep have gone astray. And I asked them, do you know
what astray means? And one of them held the hand
up and I said, okay, tell us. Well, that's an animal that's
not owned by anyone. And of course, he was thinking
like a stray dog, stray cat. And I thought, what an interesting
insight into what it is to go astray. And the fact of the matter
is, the world is populated mostly by those who are strays. They don't belong to anybody.
And when a sheep doesn't belong to anybody and is not under the
protection of anybody, then they are at the mercy of the wolf. And you know, I don't know a
lot about wolves, but I know one thing, mercy's not their
strong suit. We are his sheep. The shepherd chooses sheep, sheep
don't choose the shepherd. They follow their shepherd, but
they don't choose him. I know my sheep. Now this word translated know
means more than know about them. There are some people who would
say that God chose certain people to be His sheep because He saw
that they would believe in Him. He foresaw that they would believe
in Him. He looked down through history and saw who would, you
know, choose to follow Him. And so He made them His sheep,
chose them to be His sheep. Well, there's a lot that could
be said about such a belief that shows it not to be even possible,
but look over here at Matthew chapter 7, and you'll see something
of what this word, no, means. He's talking about more than
being aware of someone's existence, or knowing things about them,
or knowing what they would do. Peter said we're elect according
to the foreknowledge of God. That's where they get the idea.
God foreknew who would believe. But look here at Matthew chapter
7 and verse 23. Then I will tell them plainly,
I never knew you away from me, you evildoers. Now does that
mean our Lord Jesus didn't know who they were? Does that mean
that He didn't know everything there is to know about them?
He knew things about them they didn't know themselves. But He says, I never knew. That word, know, is used not
only to speak of being aware of things, knowing things in
the normal sense of the word, but it is often used as a euphemism
for the intimate relationship of husband and wife. And that's
true from the very beginning. You read, and Adam knew his wife
Eve. and she gave birth to a son.
Well, that just wasn't because he knew who she was. She didn't
give birth to a son because he foresaw that she would give birth
to a son. And more involved. And we talk about, someone might come up to you
and say, well, do you know so-and-so? Well, I know who they are, but
I wouldn't say I know them. What does that mean? There's
not really a personal relationship between you and them. God says, Christ says concerning
His sheep, I know them. He's never introduced to them.
He's always known them. When Peter said, elect according
to the foreknowledge, it means that this knowledge, this personal
relationship knowledge, this very intimate personal relationship
knowledge, God had that for His people before they existed, before
the worlds existed, before the stars were put in place. He knew them. He not only knew about them,
He not only knew every detail about them, He knew them. To some He shall say, I never
knew you. To others He'll say, I always
knew you. Always. There is a time in the
life of every one of God's sheep when they are introduced, as
it were, to the Lord Jesus Christ. And they come to know Him. But
there never was a time when God's knowledge of His people began.
Because He knew them before there was such a thing as time. And began indicates a point in
time. know them, and my sheep know
me." Now, there are some who are his sheep that do not yet
know him. In fact, he says in verse 16,
I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen, I must bring
them also. They too will listen to my voice,
and there shall be one flock and one shepherd." Now, what's
he saying there? Well, of course, what he's talking
about is that his sheep are not just the Jews. Or they won't
even be made up of just Jews. He has a people out of every
kindred, tongue, tribe, and nation, says the Scriptures. And the
Lord knew it. And He said, there's other sheep pens out there. They got my sheep in them. They're
going to hear my voice, and they're going to follow me. And so there are sheep walking
the earth today who do not yet know that they are the Lord's
sheep, and they do not yet know Him, but they will. They are
wandering sheep, they are straying sheep, but they are not strays
in the sense that they don't belong to anybody. They are strays
in the sense that in their natural foolishness and their, we could
say, spiritual deadness, deafness, blindness, whatever other metaphor
the Scriptures use, they have wandered. They came forth from
the womb wandering, and they've been wandering around in the
wilderness. And they've probably latched on to some shepherd that
claimed that he cared, claimed that he was interested in their
welfare. And they think he's just wonderful, and they're following
him. But they belong to the Lord Jesus Christ. And the day will
come when the shepherd will leave those he has already found, and
he will go after that one. Because while they are lost in
the sense that they don't know where they are, they're not lost
in the sense that He doesn't know where they are. He knows
exactly where they are. And at the appointed time, He
shall go to them, and He shall call to them, and they'll hear
a voice they've never heard before, but they will know that voice. This is the miracle of grace.
I remember a fellow that who wrote music, Christian music,
back when I was in college. And he was, he wrote a song about
dying and going to heaven, and he said, imagine finding a shore, I'm not remembering
the words exactly, but finding the heaven, he says, imagine
going someplace you've never been. and finding it home. And in the same way, imagine
hearing a voice you've never heard and finding it familiar. Such is the experience of the
new birth, a voice you couldn't hear before, a voice you've never
heard before, speaks, and it's the voice of a shepherd you know,
though you've never met him. I know my sheep, and my sheep
know me. This is why we do not cajole
people into making a profession of faith. This is why we don't
try to hunt them down and put them under some kind of manipulative
pressure in order to make them make a decision for Jesus. Why? Well, that'd be an insult to
the shepherd to do it. He'll speak. And when He speaks,
they listen. You should be thankful for that,
and I know you are, you who believe. Because if He spoke to everybody
the same, and just left it up to them whether or not they'd
listen and follow, the Lord would have no sheep. And no one could
say, the Lord is my shepherd. But He speaks. He says, come. Now lots of people
hear that word. They hear the preacher say it,
but they've never heard the Lord Jesus say it. Because when he
says it, they come. When he says look, they look. When he says follow, they follow. I know my sheep. He says, I know them just as
the Father knows me and I know the Father. That's some pretty serious knowing
going on. How well do you think the Lord
Jesus knows the Father? How well do you think the Father
knows the Lord Jesus? With such intimate, powerful
knowledge, does the good shepherd know his sheep? He knows them, they know him. And then notice this. He's the
good shepherd. He says, I lay down my life for
the sheep. Now I've been told this, and
I'm going to pass it on as the truth, because I've never been
a shepherd, particularly never been a shepherd in the way they
shepherded sheep way back yonder, but I'm told that They would
take them out in the pasture during the day, and then at night,
they would take them back to the sheep pen, which probably
was a low wall of rocks or whatever they could put together to keep
them. And there'd be only one way to
get in it. And they'd get all the sheep in there, and then
the shepherd. would lay down across that open
place. They didn't have a gate, a swinging gate. They didn't stack some stones
in the opening that they'd have to unstack. The shepherd himself
laid himself across that opening. And the only way to get to the
sheep was to get over him. Now imagine you're a wolf. You can't get over the fence,
it's too high for you. And you see an opening, but laying
across that opening is a shepherd, a shepherd who loves those sheep,
calls them his sheep. You just kind of hang back, don't
you? And if you are stupid enough to try to go after those sheep,
The moment you got close to the shepherd you'd find out just
how full of wrath a shepherd can be. Oh how blessed we are brother. Our Lord lays down his life for
the sheep he laid down his life in sacrifice and I know that's
what he was pointing to and yet it's illustrated in this he lays
himself down even now. And his life, as it were, is
laid down in our protection. It was laid down to purchase
us, to redeem us, to make us his own, but his life is laid
down as our protection as well. And until somebody can get past
our good shepherd, We are safe. Absolutely. Perfectly safe. And then I want you to think
of it from the other end. You're in the pen. You get a wild idea. You want to go out. You wake
up in the middle of the night. You think I'm a little hungry.
I think I'll go out and get something to eat. You've got to get across
the shepherd to do that. You can't go wandering. I know
in some sense we wonder because we're not perfect, and yet really
we're not wondering. The shepherd won't let us get
out of the pen. The only opening available to
us, he lays across it. We can't get past him. And I don't know about you, I'm
sure glad that's the way it is. Because I'd have been out of
the pen and who knows where by now. He lays down his life, no one
takes it from him. Our Lord is not a hireling. He's
not someone who feels obligated to do a job because somebody
paid him to. He loves the sheep. He says,
I've got authority to lay down my life and I've got authority
to take it up again. And that's exactly what he did.
Pilate says, don't you realize I have authority to have you
crucified? And the Lord said, you don't have any authority
except the authority given to you from heaven. You can't do
anything to me. Now, Pilate didn't understand
that this is what the Lord meant, but what the Lord was saying,
you can't do anything to me unless I let you. But that's exactly what the Lord
meant. You can't touch me. They tried to arrest him. And
he said, who are you looking for? And they said, we're looking
for Jesus. And he said, I am. And they fell backwards. And these weren't just a mob
of nobodies, these were soldiers. And just the announcement of
his name, I am, caused them to fall back. Pilot, do you think
that you're going to be able to make this man do anything?
Do you think that all your soldiers gathered together and all the
power of Romans might and all the malice and hatred of the
Jewish leaders, do you think all that put together is a match
for this One who stands before you, the great I Am in human
flesh, the One who brought the heavens and the earth into existence,
the One who guides everything by His hands? The one who does
what he wills among the armies of heaven and the inhabitants
of the earth and none can stay his hand or question what he
does. You think that you're going to crucify him without his permission? Oh my, what a shepherd. He exercises all that divine
authority, that sovereign, undeniable, irresistible authority and power
for the welfare of his sheep. He calls and they listen. Verse 26, but you do not believe because
you are not my sheep. Now, he'd been just talking to
everyone in general, but then he would speak later on, he came
to the Feast of Dedication and he started speaking to some of
the religious leaders of the day. And they go, they say in
verse 24, how long are you going to keep us in suspense? If you're
the Christ, tell us plainly. And he said, well, I did tell
you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father's
name, they speak for me. They're telling you that I'm
the Christ. But you don't believe. Why? Well, they didn't exercise
their free will and choose Jesus. No. They didn't believe because
they weren't His sheep. That was a strange voice to them.
You know, the Lord says that His sheep won't follow a strange
voice, and that's true. Once they've heard His voice,
they don't follow others. Well, to those religious leaders,
the voice of Jesus was a strange voice. He did not say, because you didn't believe, you're
not my sheep. He said, you didn't believe because
you're not my sheep. My sheep hear my voice. They
understand it in their hearts and they believe it. The good shepherd, he calls them,
verse 3. The watchman opens the gate for
him, that is the legitimate shepherd. The watchman opens the gate for
him and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls them by name. God does not know His people
only collectively as, quote, the church. He knows every individual
one of them, and He calls them by name. His call to His sheep to follow
Him is not just a, y'all come. He'll call all of His sheep,
but He calls them one at a time. One at a time. One day, he said, Eric, and you heard. One day, he said, Joe, and this
stupid sheep heard. And every one of you who believes,
one day he called you by name. You didn't hear somebody say
out loud your name. But the point is he came to you. And he called you. And you recognized a voice you'd
never heard before. And he says he leads them out. He leads them. He doesn't drive
them. He doesn't just call them and
then go off and do His own stuff. He leads them. They follow Him. If they try to get ahead. One
of the preachers one time in talking about Psalm 23, Got to that verse,
surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my
life. He says the heavenly shepherd has a couple of sheep dogs. Goodness
and mercy. And when the sheep start to stray,
when they aren't paying attention, here one of them sheep dogs comes
around. Have you ever seen how those sheep dogs work? It's amazing.
They're intelligent. A whole lot more intelligent
than the sheep are. And they keep those things in
line. They're faster than the sheep.
They're smarter than the sheep. Oh, God's goodness and mercy.
Which are really just extensions of his own person. But they're
like sheepdogs. And they keep the sheep in the
flock. And they follow the shepherd.
And then verse 10. The thief comes only to steal
and to kill and destroy. I've come that they may have
life and have it to the full. I look at church advertisements
and I remember the things that I heard when I was brought up
in the religion I was raised in. And they would talk about,
the King James says it this way, that they might have life and
have it more abundantly. And they'd say, do you want the
abundant life? And to them, the abundant life,
what they meant was, would you like to be happy all the time?
Would you like to feel full and fulfilled? It's not at all what
our Lord's talking about. You read through the Psalms and
see just how happy some of those sheep were. Job said, I just almost wished
I'd never been born. That's not the abundant life
that most religionists think of. What he's talking about,
he's not coming to make our life better. He's coming to give us
a life we don't have. He didn't come to improve this
natural existence of 70 or 80 or whatever it is years that
most of us get. I'm not saying that He doesn't
improve it. I'd rather live this way than
live any way without Him, wouldn't you? But that's not the life that
He came to give. That's the life we already had.
He came to give us a life we didn't have. Spiritual life. A life connected to God. A life
that is able to know God and love God and believe God. It's
spiritual life. The life lost in the Garden of
Eden. And He doesn't give it just a
little. He gives it to the full. We know Him. Now, right now,
that life, while given to us in the fullness, yet our conscience
or not conscience, but consciousness is not only aware of our spiritual
understanding, the flesh is in there too. And there's a constant
warfare within our own minds. And it clouds and confuses and
distorts. But you know, when you die, Or when the Lord returns, you're
not going to get more spiritual life. You're just going to be
relieved of this stinking old flesh that keeps getting in the
way. That's why you say, oh, I wish
I could pray as I ought to pray. What you don't realize is you
do. You just can't hear it because the flesh is too noisy. The Lord
hears it. Oh, I wish I loved him as I ought. You do. You've got the flesh
that doesn't like him at all. And the noise of battle makes
you unaware of what's going on in your heart. That's why when our Lord confronted
Peter about his betrayal, And he just kept asking him, do you
love me? Finally, Peter said, Lord, you
know all things, and you know that I love you. Lord didn't
ask him those questions because the Lord himself didn't know.
It was Peter who was questioning his love. And I can full well
understand why he questioned whether or not he loved the Lord. But when pressed on the point,
he couldn't deny it. And he said, Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you. You can get in a state of mind
and consciousness that the Lord's the only one that knows you love
him. He'll come back. He loves us. Because he loves
us. We love him. Now if you turn to. Psalm 23. And I'll spend just
a few minutes on the shepherd's care of the sheep. His relationship
and his care kind of intertwined so. You know the more you understand. About God's. Sovereign power. And by that I mean he has the
will and the power to do whatever he wants and not only does he
have the will and the power to do it he does do it he does exactly
what he wants to do. I'm the Lord I do all my pleasure
he said. And when you understand that,
and He's called you by name, you realize that it's just absolutely
impossible that you end up lost. Because you have one who cares
for you, and cares to you to such a degree, He will move heaven
and earth to save you. And so David says, the Lord is
my shepherd, I shall not be in want. Won't lack anything that I need. Religion. Even most of Christian
religion will tell you, you're lacking something. Well, they're
right if they're talking to people that do not believe. But what
they lack, they are unable to provide. But what they need, that is what
God's sheep need, they need the same thing as everybody else,
but he provides that need for them. So we gotta have faith. Yes you do, you gotta have faith.
But you can't have faith in yourself. Or let me put it this way. You cannot have faith from a
natural heart, the heart you were born with. If God doesn't do a work of grace
in you, you're just going to go on in your unbelief until
you die and suffer the penalty of your sins. Now that doesn't
mean you're supposed to wait around until you think God's
given you life and then believe. But I'm just saying that's the
way it works. But if the Lord is your shepherd,
And you're one of those sheep who has not yet heard His voice,
who has not yet believed on Him. You know what He's going to do?
He's going to provide you with spiritual life. You won't lack
that. The rest of the world will. He's
going to provide you with faith to believe Him. And He's going
to keep on providing it. Oh, preacher, there's times I
feel like I don't believe. Well, that's me most of the time. I've told you this before, but
one of the reasons I really like coming to church is because I
believe better here, and I don't mean in this place, but gathered
like this, opening the Bible, joining together in worship.
Faith is much more easy in these circumstances than out there. But he will never let you not
believe, even when you feel like you don't believe anything. He will give you strength. He
will make you, as the Apostle said, firm to the end. Faithful is He who called you,
and will also do it. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall
not want. He makes me lie down in green
pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. Now that has nothing to do with
your natural life. Our lives, our natural lives
and our experience in this natural life is often in a drought-stricken
land. And the waters are turbulent,
like a mighty flood. of a great river. Some of you have experienced
that. All of us have experienced it some, some more than others. That's not what David's talking
about. Sooner or later, so far as your
natural life is concerned, you will come to a place where there's
no grass, and it'll be like Noah's flood, and you will depart this
world. He brings us into the green pastures
and beside the quiet waters in our souls concerning things to
come. What are the green pastures other
than Him? Full of life. As far as I know,
the only thing sheep eat naturally is grass. And evidently, everything
a sheep needs is in grass. And everything a believer needs
is in Christ. And it's there in abundant supply.
Still waters. Oh, there are those who would
like to get to the still waters of God's sheep and stir it up
and stir up the mud in it, make it distasteful. They'd like to
flood it with heresy and make it a scary place from which to
try to get a drink. Our Lord doesn't let that happen. in their hearts, in their souls,
in their spirits. It is all green grass and all
quiet waters. Verse three, he restores my soul. That lets us know that's what
David's talking about. Soul life, spirit life. And he
restores it. When it's flagging, he strengthens
it. When it's confused, He instructs it. When it's hungry, He feeds
it. When it's weary, He gives it
rest. He makes me lie down in green
pasture. Now, I don't know that the word
make there, I didn't look it up, but it means to force. I doubt it. It just, He causes
it. You know, that's how He leads His sheep, to lie down. But I
know us. We're like children. We're having
so much fun, we don't want to go to bed. And our parents know
we need to rest, and they make us go to bed. They make us lie
down. Well, even if it's not what David
means, let me tell you this, he makes us lie down. He makes us rest, because we
need it. He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his own namesake. Now, people, yes, the shepherd
will guide you to do the right thing. Well, I don't have any
problem with saying that's true. Problem is, is we don't do the
right thing very often. What's the paths of righteousness
he's talking about? The path of righteousness by
faith. The path of that righteousness which Abraham had. Abraham believed
God and it was counted to him as righteousness. That's the
path of righteousness. It's that narrow way that our
Lord spoke of. You got to get through a narrow
gate and on a narrow path. And actually you don't get on
it, He leads you on it. Brother Maurice Montgomery used
to say, that gate's so narrow, you can't go through with anybody
else. You can't go with any of your
luggage. He says, you can't even get through
that with your clothes on. What do you mean by that? Your
own righteousness. God will strip you of whatever
righteousness you're wearing. and it'll just be old naked sinful
you going through that gate and then he'll give you some good
clothes on the other side. It's the path of righteousness. Regardless of the wicked things
we do, brethren, we are righteous in the sight of God. He put us
on that path. Verse four, even though I walk
the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are
with me. Remember when you were a kid? Maybe you're going to the dentist
for the first time. Oh, I hated that. I remember
the first time I went. Awful experience. The dentist
was kind of a mean fella. He wouldn't let mama come in. Do you remember when you were
a child, if you were with mom or dad, you weren't afraid? We went to a carnival in a parking
lot across from the school where I went to first grade. This is
in Springfield, Virginia, 1961 or 62, but, you know, we had
a night out and they had a carnival going. I mean, the place was
just crawling with the folks. And in my typical absent-minded
way, I got my eyes full of what was going on. I'm looking, and
I didn't notice that mom and dad and my two sisters walked
away. And I'm looking around, and all at once, and I doubted
it had been very long, but I suddenly noticed I'm alone. Now, there
was nothing there to hurt me, but that didn't change. I was
terrified, terrified. And this is one of those things
I got to photograph in my mind. Here comes a pair of legs with
khaki pants. Dad's was still in the Navy.
So it had to be 1961. And he had his khakis on. Most
beautiful pair of khakis I ever saw. Instantly, fear is gone. Why? Dad's with me. Nobody can
hurt me when Dad's with me. So I walked through the valley
of the shadow of death. Now, most people believe that
that refers to when you die. Well, it certainly has application
there, but I believe it much more than that. Because he doesn't
say even when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
or even when that time comes that I must pass through the
valley of the shadow of death. He says even though I walk, even
though I am walking through the valley of the shadow of death.
This life is the valley of the shadow of death. We live our
whole lives in the shadow of death, don't we? You know my obsession with numbers
and the years passing by, and I keep going, I'm 66, you know. We put another 20 years on that,
and I'll be this. And I remember 20 years ago,
wow, that was 2001. And wow, that was when they hit
the Twin Towers, and that seems like yesterday. And boy, that
just means tomorrow I'm out of here. Lived my whole life with that
shadow of death. It's all right. The shepherd's
with me here. He's not waiting for me on the
other side. He's right here. You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies. Now here he kind of leaves the
shepherd sheep metaphor. But he's still talking about
his care for us. Now I want you to imagine this.
You're being chased by the enemy. I mean someone intent on killing
you. And there's the Lord Jesus. You run to Him. What are you
going to do, Lord? Well, let's sit down and have
something to eat. What do you mean, let's have something to
eat? Well, you're probably hungry from running. Yeah, but He's
still coming. I don't worry about that. You see, our Lord is so powerful,
and the enemy knows it. He may chase you. But the Lord
doesn't have to draw a sword. He doesn't have to ball up his
fist. He puts out some good food on the table and says, here,
sit down. But he's coming. He'll stop. But he's getting
closer. Yeah, but I've set a boundary. He's not getting any closer than
that. Now just settle down. You know, you don't eat when
you're scared. Here's what he's saying. In the presence of my
enemies when I should be terrified. He puts a choice, a banquet in
front of me. Says, enjoy yourself. Well, what
about them? I got them. Don't worry about it. Just have
some good food. Surely goodness and love and
mercy will follow me all the days of my life. All of my days
in this valley of the shadow of death, those two sheepdogs,
they're right there. His goodness, His mercy, His
love, His grace and kindness. Oh, there are some who would
have to say, you know, surely the law and the fear of death
shall follow me all the days of my life and keep me on the
straight and narrow. And I tell you, if it's the law
and the fear of death that keeps you in line, no, the Lord's not
your shepherd. It's goodness and mercy keeps
his people in line. Follow me all the days of my
life and I will dwell in the house, in the presence of the
Lord forever. No wonder he's called that great
shepherd of the sheep. Bless his name.