The book of Isaiah, if you want
to turn back there, chapter 40. And I just want to read verse
10 and 11. Maybe we begin in verse 9. Isaiah chapter 40 and verse 9. O Zion that bringeth good tidings,
get thee up into the high mountain. O Jerusalem that bringeth good
tidings, Lift up your voice with strength. Lift it up. Be not afraid. Say unto the cities
of Judah, Behold your God. Behold, the Lord God will come
with strong hand, and His arms shall rule for Him. Behold, His
reward is with Him, and His work before Him. He shall feed His
flock like a shepherd, and He shall gather the lambs with His
arms. and carry them in his bosom,
and shall gently lead those that are with young." He is just speaking
here in verse 11 of the shepherd and his flock, the shepherd and
his sheep. And there is no doubt who this
shepherd is and how great he is and how mighty that he is,
the authority that he possesses. We come over into the New Testament
And we find this written of Jesus Christ, that He is the Shepherd. John 10, 14 says that, I am the
Good Shepherd and I know my sheep. He is the Shepherd. And Hebrews
13, 20 tells us He's the Shepherd. The God of peace that brought
again from the dead, our Lord Jesus, that Great Shepherd of
the sheep. through the blood of the everlasting
covenant. And Peter says this about him.
Peter says, When the cheap shepherd shall appear, then shall you
appear with him in glory. And in Matthew chapter 25, he's
addressed there as the shepherd, but he's given other names. He's
called the Son of Man, and he's called the King. He's the King
Shepherd. He said, When the Son of Man
shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with him.
Then he shall sit upon the throne of his glory, and before him
shall be gathered all nations, and he shall separate them one
from another, as the shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.
And he shall set the sheep on the right hand, and the goats
on the left. And then he says this, Then the
king shall say unto them, So He's the Great Shepherd, He's
the Good Shepherd, and here He tells us that He's the King Shepherd. And we're told here in our text
who this is in verse 10, Behold the Lord God. You know, when
you see Jesus in the New Testament, and you look back over in the
Old Testament and see Him, they don't hardly compare to that.
This is the Holy Comparator. He's so meek and lowly. But when
you see Him here, the Shepherd here, it identifies who He really
is. And I want you to look at it
here. I saved it to read it here to you. But look at it here in
verse 12. This is the Shepherd. He identifies
Him there in verse 10 and says, The Lord God will come. And then
in verse 11, He shall feed His flock like a shepherd. So this
is the Shepherd. But I want you to notice how
great He is. He surely is the Chief Shepherd,
the Great Shepherd. He's the King Shepherd. You wouldn't
think of a king keeping sheep, would you? Especially one like
this. But look at Him. Look at Him
in verse 12. He identifies Himself. Who hath
measured the waters in the holla of His hands? And He has measured,
meted out heaven with a span, and comprehended the dust of
the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and
the hills in balance." Now He is telling us that because nobody
can do that. Who can measure the heavens?
He can. Who can comprehend the dust of
the earth? Nobody, but He can. And who can
weigh the mountains? and the heels in a balance. Nobody
can do that, but our Shepherd can. And verse 13, look how wise
he is. Who hath directed the Spirit
of the Lord, being his counselor has taught him. Has anybody ever
taught our Shepherd anything? Nobody has. He's too wise for
that, isn't he? He teaches us everything. With
whom doth he counsel? And who instructed him? and taught
him in the paths of judgment, and taught him knowledge and
showed him the way of understanding. It's obvious, nobody. And look
at this. Behold, the nations are as a
drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance. Behold, he taketh up the isles,
the islands, as a very little thing, and Lebanon is not sufficient
to burn, nor the beasts thereof sufficient for a burnt offering.
All nations before him are nothing, and they are counted to him less
than nothing, and vanity. To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare
unto him?" Looking down in verse 22, "...he that sitteth upon
the circles of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as
grasshoppers, that scattereth out the heavens as a curtain,
and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in. He brings the princes
to nothing, and He makes the judges of the earth as vanity."
This is the Shepherd. Isn't He a great Shepherd? One
with all authority? And when we read of Him here
in the Old Testament, boy, it seems foreign, doesn't it? It
just doesn't seem like this is Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of
Mary. He's meek and lowly in His heart,
He said. But you know, we mustn't mistake
Him. Meekness and lowliness with weakness. He's meek and He's
lowly, but He's not weak. He's the Creator. He's the Sustainer. And all nations before Him, He
said, you are nothing, and they're less than nothing in vanity.
And He has power and authority to put the princes to ignorance. And the judges of the earth,
He brings them to nothing. In our Shepherd, we see the mightiest
of power. And we see the tenderness of
mercies. And they're brought together
in this one glorious person. And that's what makes Him so
wonderful. He's the Sovereign Lord. He sets upon the circles
of the earth. And He's meek and lowly in His
heart. Listen to Psalms chapter 80 and
verse 1. This is talking about the shepherd. Listen how it identifies
it. Give ear, O shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like
a flock, Thou that dwelleth between the cherubims." Shine forth! Who was it that dwelt between
the cherubim? That was God, wasn't it? God
told Moses, I'll meet you between those cherubims. And the succant
glory of God would be there and Moses would see it. And he met
with the Lord, the Sovereign Lord, between those cherubims,
those angels. But where did he meet them all?
What was that between the cherubim? That was the mercy seat, wasn't
it? Mercy seat. So here the mighty God was between
the cherubim. And He dwelt there. But He dwelt
upon the mercy seat. So what do we have in our shepherd?
Sovereign mercy. Sovereign mercy. Can anything
else save you but sovereign mercy? Aren't you so weak? And aren't
you so stupid? Like a sheep? that nothing else
will save you but sovereign mercy? Well, that's what we see in our
Shepherd. He dwells on the mercy seat between the cherubims, our
Shepherd. He tells us here in verse 10
about this, and oh, we see such a need of this. He says here
in verse 10 in our text, Behold the Lord God will come with strong
hands and his arm shall rule for him." See that strong hand
and a ruling arm? Why is that necessary? Why is
this so appealing to us? Because this is the kind of shepherd
it takes to save us. One with a strong hand and a
ruling arm. You remember when David was out
keeping his sheep, and he was a shepherd, and the bearer came
and took the lamb in his mouth, And the lion came and tried to
snatch a lamb. And you remember what David did?
He took it by his beard in his hand and he slew it. The Bible says he slew it with
his bare hands. You and I feel the need of such
a shepherd, don't we? Because, boy, we've been in the
clutches of a lion too, haven't we? There is Satan the roaring
lion and we were in his clutches and he held us. And we were like
a little sheep, a little lamb in the clutches of a lion. We
could not escape. The Bible says we were held in
the power of darkness, the power of sin. But here comes our Shepherd
with His strong hand and His ruling arm and He delivered us
from that snare. Sin is a powerful thing. It's
a dark thing. We poor lost sheep had wandered
into it and unable and unwilling to find our way out of it. And
what happened? We heard the voice of the Shepherd.
We felt His strength. We felt the power of His arm
delivering us. The Lord Jesus Himself told us
about the parable in Luke 15 of the Shepherd I love that. He said the shepherd had a hundred
sheep and he lost one of them. Now we can't establish many doctrines
by these parables, but he said if the shepherd just lost one
of them, he went off into the wilderness until he found the
sheep that he lost. Now think of this. He said I've
only lost one sheep. If it was true that he only lost
one, You know something? He'd have to do just as much
for the one as He did for the many. If you were the only sheep
that was lost, He'd have to come down from heaven to die for you,
would He not? He'd have to go searching diligently
just to find you. And you know something? He would.
He would. That's how much He loves His
sheep. And he's strong and he's wise and he can find his sheep. But that's so personal, isn't
it? And that's why he tells us that parable, to make it so personal. But when he said here that he
found the sheep, remember where he laid it? On his shoulders. Why did he do that? Carrying
it out of danger. He's so strong he could just
pick up the sheep. I wonder how heavy the sheep
was. Regan, he's a big old sheep. It doesn't matter. Why? Because
He has a strong hand, doesn't He? He has a ruling arm. So He
picked up the sheep and laid it on His shoulders and He carried
it out of danger. That shows His strength. But
boy, our text here says something else. Our text here says that
when He gathered His sheep, look at this, He carried it in His
bosom. I like that, don't you? Where
is His bosom? Here next to His heart. That
shows His affections. And we need both of these. We
need a strong Shepherd that can lay us on His shoulders and carry
us. And we need a loving Shepherd
that will take us into His heart and hold us next to His heart. And in Jesus, our Savior, we
have both. We have both. He gathered the
lambs with His arm, His mighty ruling arm, And yet that arm
is so kind and tender that it can gently lead those that are
with young. See that? He has this ruling
arm, this strong hand, and yet it's so gentle it says He gently
leads those that are with young. In the Lord's flock there's all
kinds of sheep, aren't there? There's old sheep, there's young
sheep, There's the ewe mothers, the mothers that has the little
lambs, they're pregnant with lambs. And then you have the
little newborns. And isn't it something that you
have a shepherd so wise that he knows how to lead the entire
flock? A shepherd is a wise person.
He has to know sheep. Jacob was a shepherd. And remember
what he told Esau? He said, Esau, I'm going to have
to stay back with all these sheep because if we drive them too
hard, We'll kill them. We've got mother sheep and we've
got little baby sheep. I tell you, it's a smart shepherd
that knows how to take care of sheep. And the Lord Jesus Christ
is a wise shepherd. And He can take care of the old,
hardened, tough sheep. And He can take care of the little
baby lambs that's just a few days old. He knows how to care
for His flock. Our shepherd loves the sheep.
more than the sheep love themselves. He sees danger when they don't.
Sometimes He leads them beside of still waters. He makes them
lie down in green pastures. And other times He leads them
in the valley of the shadow of death where there's great danger.
And if He didn't lead them, they wouldn't make it through that
valley. They'd never make it through the valley of the shadow
of death. But you know what David said
about the valley of the shadow of death? He said, He leads me
through it. He leads me through it. I tell
you, when we get in that valley, we want a shepherd, don't we?
We want a shepherd that knows how to lead us through it and
won't forsake us to fall into some pit. He leadeth me through
the valley of the shadow of death. And there was these two things
that David said comforted him. And this shows you the Lord knows
how to lead His shepherd, His sheep. David said, Thy rod and
thy staff, they comfort me. Sometimes people that don't know
about the rod and the staff, they never studied it. They don't
know what these things even mean. You don't run into any young
people that studied this that don't know what it means. But
this staff, it had a hook on it. You've seen pictures of the
shepherd, you know, used his walking stick with a big hook.
And what they said this hook was for, when a sheep started
out of the path where he was taking them and getting into
danger, he'd run that and grab them by the back leg and he'd
pull them right back in the path. Sometimes he'd catch them in
a broiler thicket and he'd put it around the neck and he'd drag
them out of the broiler thicket. And this rod They carried, usually it was
for the animals, the enemy. Boy, a shepherd could use this
rod. He could whip. He could whip
a wolf with this thing. But sometimes, sometimes they
used it on the sheep. I was reading a book by Mr. Keller. He was a shepherd. up in Maine, and he was writing
about extensively on sheep because he'd cared for them for years.
And he told sometimes how the shepherd took extreme measurements
to correct a sheep. And he said he had a sheep, one
of his sheep that he couldn't catch. And when he tried to hem
it up, it would run away from him. And he said, I went by her
one day and got close enough with my rod. And he said, I wheeled and broke
her front leg. I wheeled and broke her front
leg. And he said, she goes limping,
but I can catch her now. I can catch her now. See, he
needed to catch her. He needed to pour oil on her.
He needed to shear her. She needed to know the shepherd.
But she was so wild. The shepherd took measures. And
even though it hurt and she had to go limping, now the shepherd
could get to her and handle her. Sometimes the Lord does that,
does He not? I was also reading where He talked
about a little more extreme measurements. He said He had an older sheep
that kept crawling through the fence. getting under the fence
and through the fence, and she was training the other sheep
into some bad habits. And just out of the blue, he
said, I butchered her. I butchered her. Boy, would the
Lord take such extreme measurements? Well, He's the sovereign shepherd.
He knows how to handle us, doesn't He? He knows how to handle us. But that's what David said comforted
me. I have such a shepherd. that
He'll take whatever measurements it takes to keep me with Himself
and near to Himself. He won't let me stray. And aren't
we prone to wonder, brothers and sisters? Aren't we prone
to leave the God we love? Isn't it easy for the world to
get in our hearts and we flee from the shepherd? We do that,
don't we? Aren't you glad for that hook
that pulls you back? And sometimes the rod that will
maybe hit your side, or perhaps even break a bone. You remember
when Jacob was wrestling with the Lord? Remember what he did
to old Jacob? He touched the hall of his thigh.
And all Jacob could do then was hang on. But he went limping
the rest of his life, didn't he? Went limping the rest of
his life. What a good shepherd. He loves
his sheep more than the sheep love themselves. The Bible gives
us the history here of the shepherd. He gives us the history of the
sheep. But here in verse 27 and verse 28, if you want to see
the history in a nutshell of the shepherd, look at it in verse
27. Why saith thou, O Jacob, and
speaketh, O Israel, My way is hid from the Lord? My judgment
is passed over from my God. Hast thou not known? Hast thou
not heard? that the everlasting God, the
Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither
is weary, there is no searching of his understanding. You want
to know the history of our Shepherd? He's the everlasting God. Study
that out if you can. Study that history if you can.
Jesus, our Shepherd, is the everlasting God. Let's look at the sheep just
for a minute. The sheep. Let's consider three or four
things about these sheep because there's no sense talking about
the shepherd if he don't have sheep, is there? He's the shepherd with sheep.
First of all, where did he get his sheep? Where did the shepherd
get his sheep? You got sheep, you had to get
them someplace, didn't you? You had to buy them. You had
to inherit them. Somebody gave them to you? Well,
the Lord Jesus tells us where He got His sheep. Listen to John
10, 29. My Father which gave them to
Me is greater than all. Where did He get His sheep? The
Father gave Him His sheep. All that the Father giveth Me
shall come to Me. The Father gave him this gift,
an untold number out of Adam's race from the beginning of time
before time and said, My son, these are yours. I give you them
to redeem and finally bring them back to heaven at last. And when all is said and done
and the Lord Jesus has them there in heaven, This is what He's
going to say, Father, behold I and the children that you gave
to me. That's where He got them. His
Father gave them to Him in that everlasting covenant of grace
made between the Father and between His Son. Let me quote Hebrews
13, 22 again. Now the God of peace that brought
again from the dead the Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of
the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant. The Father said, My son, I'll
give these to you, and I'm going to give you a lot more. I'm going
to give you all power in heaven and earth. I'm going to give
you a name that's above every name, and I'm going to swear
unto you that you're going to be a priest forever after the
order of Melchizedek. And the son said this to his
father, Father, lo, I come to do your will. I delight in your
law. And he sealed his part of the
covenant with his own blood. That's why it's called the blood
of the covenant. And the father will never go
back. He'll never renege on that covenant. The Son has already
sealed His part with His blood. The elect of God, the sheep of
God, are sure to be saved. They are sure to be saved. They're
the gift of the Father to the Son. I tell you, if you had a
father that you loved, I love my dear father, and if you've
got a parent that you love and they left you a gift, they gave
you a gift, you wouldn't take nothing for it, would you? My
dad gave me a little XX case knife. And it's not worth very
much. But you know what? There's not
enough money in here or in this county to buy that knife. Why? It was the gift of my Father.
And I've got it in a safe place and I'll never lose it. And here's
what the Lord Jesus said about the sheep that the Father gave
to Him. This is my Father's will, that of all which He hath given
me, I should lose nothing, but raise it up again at the last
day. Why? It's not because you're
so valuable in yourself. You're just a poor, dumb, ignorant
sheep. But you know what makes you so
valuable? You're the gift of the Father to the Son. That's
why you're so valuable to Him. All that the Father has given
me, they shall come to me. That's where he got his sheep.
But listen to this. Here's another aspect of their
history. These sheep fell. They went astray
in Adam, just like the goats did. There was no difference
between them and the miserable goats. All we lack sheep have
gone astray. We've turned everyone to his
own way. Everybody went astray in Adam, didn't they? Here's
the only difference, brothers and sisters. The poor goats will
always be goats. They'll love their sin. Sin will
deceive them. Satan will deceive them. The
world will deceive them. Their hearts will deceive them.
And they'll justly perish in their sins. But you know about
these sheep? A great price has been paid for
them. And you know what the Lord Jesus is going to do? He's doing
it right now and He's been doing it all along. He's gathering
His sheep with His arms. He knows right where they are.
And He goes and gets them. And at first they may try to
run from Him. They may try to be so scared
and they'll flee from Him. But oh, He's got that hook, doesn't
He? He's got that hook. And He has that rod. And He can
bring them to Himself. And that He does through the
Gospel. All the Father gives to me shall come to me. Shall? Lord Jesus, are you sure? There's one hanging on the cross,
Lord. He's ready to die. Is He yours? Yes. You mean He's
coming? Even He's coming. He's coming. And He came, didn't He? Why? Why did you come? Why did you
come to the Lord Jesus? He found you, didn't He? How
many people do you know that's never come to Him? Why did you
come? Why did you come when you came?
Because you were His sheep, and He found you, and He brought
you. He shall gather them with His
arm. He has a strong arm. And Peter said, you are now returned
to the shepherd. and Bishop, the overseer of your
soul. And here's the amazing thing,
and this just thrills my soul to think about this. When I was
growing up in my teenager years, I was as wild as I could be.
I look back on those years with so much shame. But you know something? The shepherd
knew right where I was. Ain't that amazing? I know my
sheep. other sheep I have which are
not of this fold, them I must bring." I know where they're
at. I know where to find them. And
He knew where you were. And you know something? He guarded
you and watched over you until He actually found you. Isn't
that amazing? Our old Puritan forefathers used
to call that prevenient. Prevenient grace. He prevented
you from perishing until the time that He found you wandering
there. in the mountains. That's why
we return to the shepherd and bishop of our souls, because
we were His sheep. And here's some more history
of these sheep. David said this, Goodness and
mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. That's the history of the sheep.
He said, the Lord is my shepherd. And because He's my shepherd
and I'm His sheep, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the
days of my life. Can you believe goodness and
mercy is following you? Cleaning up your messes, mending
hearts that you've broken, straightening things up that you've knocked
down. Goodness and mercy. Brothers and sisters, I tell
you this much. It won't be no little comfort when you and I
come down to peel our dying heads, and we look back over our lives,
and we can say with David, goodness and mercy has followed me. It's
followed me. What's kept you up until this
time? It's not been the shepherd. He
that's good and merciful has followed you. Oh, the sheep. The shepherd and his sheep. They
feel their need of it, don't they? They feel their need of
goodness. They feel their need of mercy because their sheep,
this weak, poor, ignorant sheep. We know something else about
the history of this sheep. We can tell you their future. I know the future of every live
sheep. Now, I'm a smart man, but you
can too. You can too. Your pastor used
to say, you got the same spirit I got. Ain't that what you said
he said? You got the Holy Spirit and you got the Word. You can
be just as smart as I am. And you can say, I know the future.
What is the future of these sheep? We saw their beginning. The Father
gave them to the Son. The Son came and redeemed them.
And then the Son, the Holy Spirit, came and found them and gathered
them and brought them back. But what's their future now?
Well, listen to this. I came down from heaven, not
to do my own will, but the will of Him that sent me. And this
is the will of Him that sent me, that of all which He hath
given me I should lose nothing, but raise it up, raise it up
at the last day." That is their future. They are waiting for
a glorious appearing of their Savior, and He is going to raise
And I tell you what's going to happen after He raises them up.
He's going to bring them with everybody else up to the judgment.
And our Shepherd Himself is going to sit upon that throne, the
King. And boy, everybody will see Him
there. Everybody will see Him as He is. Now they look upon
Him and they have all kinds of silly thoughts about Him, don't
they? Talk about how pitiful He is. He's such a little weak
Jesus. But you know Him as the Mighty
Shepherd, don't you? And you'll see Him on that throne,
boy, and He's there. And nobody's saying a word. Everybody's
silent now. No bragging now. No boasting
now. Everybody's silent. Look into
Him. Every eye is on Him. Every ear
is glued on the words that He's speaking as He separates the
sheep from the goats. And He says, Come, you're blessed
of My Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared
for you from the foundation of the world. Inherit the kingdom. And He said, these shall go away
into everlasting punishment. Well, that's what they earned.
That's what they wanted, their sins. That's what they deserved. But the righteous unto life everlasting. That is their history from the
beginning to the end because they belong to the shepherd.
That's their history. And Job, it goes back to Job. He said in the 14th chapter,
listen to this. If a man dies, shall he live
again? Yes. All the days of my appointed
time will I wait till my change comes. There's a change coming.
That's our hope, isn't it? I'm glad things ain't going to
stay like this forever, aren't you? There is a change coming.
He shall change these vile bodies. All my appointed time will I
wait till my change come. Thou shalt call, and I will answer
thee, and thou shalt have a desire to the work of thy hands. That is that strong hand again.
He started the work, didn't He? He started the work. He started
it in you. And Paul said, He'll finish it.
He'll finish it. And you know what? He'll never
be finished in this life. He'll keep on working grace in
you, faith and repentance, praying, cleaving, hoping, waiting. He's
doing that in you. But when they put that old body
back in the ground, He's got a work there to do too. And He's
sitting there up there in heaven, and He's somewhat anxious about
it all. He's waiting. He has a desire to do what? To finish what He started. And
then some day He's going to step out on the portals of heaven
and all the angels behind Him, and all the souls of the spirits
made perfect, and boy, they're going to fall out of heaven.
And He's going to speak and the graves are going to come open,
and all the righteous are going to be changed into a glorious
body like His body. And then you know what the Son
of God is going to say? Now I'm satisfied. Now I'm finished. I finished the work I started.
My Father gave them to me. I died for them. I preserved
them until I called them. I began a work of grace in their
hearts. I regenerated them. They came
up to heaven and their souls to be with me. And now I've raised
their body and joined body and soul together. Now it's finished. And for all eternity, the shepherd
and the sheep We'll love each other. That's the history of
the sheep. And that's the glorious Shepherd.
Aren't you glad He's yours? Aren't you glad He chose you
to be His sheep? That's the only way to be a sheep. You keep making
yourself a sheep. And you don't turn from a goat
to a sheep. A sheep. Oh, a sheep. Lord bless His Word.