I'd just like to read those first
few verses out of John chapter 10 again, and I want us to consider
the shepherd. Today, just briefly, before we
come to partake in the shepherd's supper, We feast upon the Shepherd's
life and the Shepherd's blood. He says in chapter 10 verse 1,
Verily, verily, truly, truly, I say unto you, he that entereth
not by the door, into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way,
the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the
door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth, and
the sheep hear his voice, and he calleth his own sheep by name,
and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his
own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him, for
they know his voice, and a stranger they will not follow, but flee
from him, for they know not the voice of strangers. This parable Jesus spoke unto
them, but they understood not what things they were which he
spoke unto them. What a blessed thing it is to
hear the shepherd's voice when multitudes can't hear. What a
blessed thing it is to be brought into the fold of the Lord's sheep
by the great shepherd. And he brings them in as a shepherd. He brings them in and they hear
his voice. They know his voice. I'd like
you to turn back in your Bibles to Ezekiel chapter 34, which
is one of the great chapters in the Bible. It's one of the
most glorious chapters and it speaks of the shepherd and his
sheep. But also it reveals to us The division between the sheep
and the goats reveals to us the division between those who are
the shepherds of God's people and those who are the thieves
and the robbers. And as I said earlier, the thieves
rob God of his glory. And in robbing God of His glory,
they rob His people of their comfort. The greatest comfort
the child of God has in this world is the character of God. How much comfort do you find
in the fact that He's faithful? How much comfort do you find
in the fact that when He speaks, He's a God, according to Titus
1, who cannot lie? He's a God who makes the most
extraordinary promises. We've been reading them, haven't
we? The blind, those who see themselves be blind, they have
no sin. God said that, I didn't say that.
And yet all of those promises are yay and amen in the Lord
Jesus Christ. All of these promises are all
signed and sealed in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And there are many distinctions,
aren't there, between those who are God's shepherds and those
who aren't God's shepherds, and there are only two at the end
of the day. At the end of this time, at the end of this time
on earth, I will be seen to be someone who has spoken on God's
behalf to people, or I will be seen as a false shepherd. And
there is no in-between ground. That's the separation, isn't
it? That's the judgment that comes. Either you are hearing
from someone who speaks on God's behalf, or you're hearing from
someone who speaks on Satan's behalf. It is that serious for
you and for me. You take heed who you hear, take
heed how you hear. And we have before us in the
Word of God very, very clear distinctives, aren't they, made?
And the one that overrides so many of them The false teachers will come
to the people of this world, and there's never been a false
teacher who wasn't jealous, and there's never been a false teacher
who wasn't an attractive personality, and there's never been a false
teacher who didn't seem to have an extraordinary knowledge of
the Bible. There's hardly ever been a false teacher, apart from
these latter days, who didn't live an extraordinary moral life.
And so the test is not on the things that you see, the test
is on the things that he sees about God. And the great test,
one of the great tests, is what will they say about the Lord
Jesus Christ? Do they present to you a God who says, If you do, and you can fill in
the blank, if you do something, then I will respond to you, or
does the person speaking to you declare the absolute sovereignty
of God and say that my people, as the Lord said, my people shall
be willing in the day of my power? The eternal covenant is always
spoken of in terms of I will, and they shall. The thieves and the robbers are robbing
God of His glory and His children of their comfort by saying, if
you do, if you do whatever it is, then God will bless you. They are the thieves and robbers.
They are the blind. They're not insincere and they're
not irreligious and they're not immoral. They're just not speaking
on behalf of God Almighty. Now why don't you, I just wanted
to go through it. I want you to see as I read. and then we'll have the Lord's
Supper. I wanted to see what the shepherd does to his people.
And I'd love for you, if you have the courage to mark your
Bibles, to mark them and go through Ezekiel and many other passages
of Scripture. And this is in the Old Testament,
but this is not the first time Ezekiel said it, and it's not
the first time God said it. It's what God said to Abraham.
He says, I will, I will, I will, and you shall. That is the terms
of the eternal covenant. God begins it. God does it. God gets all the glory all the
time. What keeps you? How are you kept
in this world of so much deception, religious deception? How are
you kept in this world when there's so much sin that's so evident
in your life? We are kept by the power of God
through faith. We just look to Him. There are
at least 25 times in Ezekiel 34 where God says, I will. And there are over 20 times in
it where God says they shall. And that's the eternal covenant.
God will act and he will bring his people to respond to him. Okay, and the circumstances of
Ezekiel's life were extraordinary. He'd been cast out from Jerusalem.
He'd been taken captive, gone hundreds of miles away over into
Babylon. And the religious people in Jerusalem
continued their religion. And they thought that Ezekiel
and all of his friends over there were being cast out. They are
the chosen ones. Here we are in the temple, here
we are with all these things. God takes his people out of that
religious world, and he says to Ezekiel and to all of his
people, he says, I'm gonna be a sanctuary for you. I'm gonna
bless you there. So let's just read, and I just
want us to make note of these things, because I just think
this is glorious, and I find it so comforting. I just trust
that this shepherd speaks through these words with a voice that
only a shepherd can. The word of the Lord came down
to me, saying, Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and say unto them, Thus
saith the Lord God unto the shepherds, Woe be to the shepherds of Israel
that do feed themselves, and not the shepherds. Should not
the shepherds feed the flocks? You eat the fat, and you clothe
yourself with wool. You kill them that are fed, but
you feed not the flock. The disease you have not strengthened,
neither have you healed that which is sick, neither have you
bound up that which is broken, neither have you brought again
that which was driven away, neither have you sought that which was
lost. But with force and cruelty have you ruled them? Just think
of the response to that crippled man in John chapter. They didn't
say a single word about this man. He'd been 38 years there
at Cripple. They had no respect for him. What did they do about the blind
man? There was no sense of the awe or wonder of that. All they
were thinking of were themselves. They've ruled them with cruelty.
And they were scattered, because there is no shepherd. And they
became meat to all the beasts of the field. And when they were
scattered, my sheep wandered throughout all the mountains.
And upon every high hill, yea, my flock was scattered upon all
the face of the earth. And none did search or seek after
them. "'Therefore, ye shepherds, hear
the word of the Lord. "'As I live, saith the Lord God,
"'surely because my flock became a prey, "'and my flock became
meat to every beast of the field, "'and because there was no shepherd,
"'neither did my shepherds search for my flock, "'but the shepherds
fed themselves and fed not my flock.'" Therefore, O ye shepherds,
hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God, Behold,
I am against the shepherds. I will require my flock at their
hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the flock. Neither
shall the shepherds feed themselves any more, for I will deliver
my flock from their mouth, that they may not be meat for them.
For thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I, Beav and I, will both search
my sheep and seek them out. Just listen to this description.
This is exactly what we see all through the gospel accounts,
isn't it? It's exactly what we've seen all through history, isn't
it? He's the one that comes and he does all the seeking and he
finds them. As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that
he is among his sheep that are scattered, so will I seek out
my sheep and will deliver them out of all places where they
have been scattered. in the cloudy and dark day, and
I will bring them out from the people and gather them from the
countries, and I will bring them to their own land and feed them
upon the mountain of Israel by the rivers and in the inhabited
places of the country. I will feed them in a good pasture
upon the high mountains of Israel, shall their foal be. There they
shall lie In a good fold, you think of the fold in John chapter
10, 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 cause them to rest. She
says in Solomon, he causes them to rest in the midday. I will
seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven
away, and bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen
that which was sick. And I will destroy the fat and
the strong, and I will feed them at judgment. As for you, O my
flock, saith the Lord God, behold, I will judge between cattle and
cattle, between rams and he-goats. seen that it is a small thing
unto you to have eaten up the good pasture, that you must tread
down with your feet the residue of your pastures, and have drunk
of the deep waters, but you must foul the residue with your feet. As for my flock, they eat that
which you have trodden with your feet, and they drink that which
you have fouled with your feet. Therefore, thus says the Lord
God unto them, Behold, I, even I, will judge between the fat
cattle and between the lean cattle, because you have thrust with
the side and the shoulder and pushed all the disease with your
horns till you have scattered them abroad. Therefore, will
I save my flock, and there shall no more be a prey, and I will
judge between cattle and cattle, and I will set up one shepherd
over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David."
David hadn't been dead for 400 years at this stage. He shall
feed them, and he shall be their shepherd. This is talking about
the Lord Jesus Christ. He's going to feed his people.
and he's going to be their shepherd. And I, the Lord, will be their
God, and my servant David, a prince among them. I, the Lord, have
spoken it, and I will make with them a covenant of peace. Not they making a covenant with
me, not them promising to do something and me blessing them.
I will make a covenant. He's speaking of the eternal
covenant. a covenant of peace, a covenant of grace, a covenant
in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and will cause the evil
beasts to cease out of the land, and they shall dwell safely in
the wilderness and sleep in the woods. Often we in Australia
don't have a whole lot of wild animals around and we think sleeping
in the woods is pretty nice. Ben does it, and Tom and others
think it's a wonderful thing to do. in a land where there
are lions and bears and tigers and elephants and things, sleeping
in the woods, not a safe place to be at all. I remember we,
I can't help but think of it every time I read these verses,
that we used to go to a campsite up in the hills in India where
we lived and I took our girls out one night and the guide was
very new to the job and he got lost. I had absolutely no idea
where I was. I didn't have a clue. And we
got lost in this thicket of trees where you could hardly walk between
them. But every so often, you'd come to a little clearing in
those trees, and there was an animal that had been eaten by
a tiger. And the tigers are huge. When
they strop on the trees, it's higher than the ceiling, and
they're enormous things, and their feet are... So our woods are not like their
woods. These are woods. This is a glorious picture, isn't
it? Of the safety and the security of God's people. If I was asked
to sleep out there that night, there's no way in the world I
would have stayed awake. I would have been awake all night. It's
terrifying. Lost. Scattered. I will make a covenant of peace
and cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land. There
are no evil beasts. You can sleep in safety. You can sleep in the
woods. And I will make them and the
places around about my hill a blessing and I will cause the shower to
come down in this season and there shall be showers of blessing.
All those blessings are showers that God does, aren't they? And
the tree of the field shall yield her fruit and the earth shall
yield her increase and they shall be safe. in their land, and shall
know that I am the Lord, when I have broken the bands of their
yoke, and delivered them out of the hands of those that served
themselves of them." If you have been involved in religion, you've
had people who have served themselves. They've boasted. Look what we've
got this person do. Look at the numbers that we've
got here. Served themselves. They shall no more be a prey
to the heathen, neither shall the beast of the land devour
them, but they shall dwell safely, and none shall make them afraid. Perfect love casts out fear,
brothers and sisters. The Lord Jesus Christ has perfect
love. In Him we have loved God perfectly. In Him we have loved
our neighbour as ourselves. In Him we are perfect before
God. And I will raise up for them
a plant of renown. They shall no more be consumed
with hunger in the land, neither bear the shame of the heathen
anymore. And they shall, this is the glorious
blessing of all of this covenant and this work of God, this is
in a sense the culmination of it, isn't it? They shall know
that I, the Lord, their God, am with them. and that they, even the house
of Israel, are my people, sayeth the Lord God. You are my flock,
the flock of my pasture are men, and I am your God. What's eternal
life? John chapter 17 verse 3, and you know Jesus Christ that
he has sent, and you'll know him when he does this to you,
when he comes and reveals himself to you. He's the great shepherd. He's the glorious shepherd. He
is the shepherd of the sheep. He made the promises. Did they
make one single promise, all the sheep? Showers of blessing, the showers
of blessing, in the hearts of his people. Let's read Hebrews
13, 20. I know we read it often, that
we are the children of God and we have an altar. We have the
Lord Jesus Christ as our altar. In verse 20, now the God of peace,
Hebrews 13. that brought again from the dead
our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood
of the everlasting covenant. It's the everlasting covenant
under which he died. It's the everlasting covenant
in which all of his children were given to him. His bride
was given to him and he promised to present it to the Father wholly
and spotless and unblameable. And he doesn't just sit there
as a God who's waiting for you to do things. Our God does. Our
God is the one that says, I will and they shall. I will and they
shall. And all through history, the
I will has caused the they shalls to do the they shall. Listen
to what he goes on to say, verse 21 of Hebrews 13. The God of peace that brought
again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of
the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant,
make you perfect in every good work, to do his will, working
in you, that which is well-pleasing in
his sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and
ever. Does that warm your heart? Cause
you to rest in the woods, to lie down in the wild places,
He does it. Did he do it? Is he doing it,
brothers and sisters?