XVII The Good Shepherd, and the Sheep That Was Lost
Now you must picture to yourselves an Eastern shepherd sitting among his sheep on the mountains.
He loves them! He knows every one of them; and in return they know him, and love him. They will not follow a stranger, nor come to him if he calls them.
I heard Mr. Moody say years ago that, when he was visiting at a farm in America, he asked his friend the farmer if he might go out to see his sheep.
He remembered those words in the tenth of St. John’s Gospel: “And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the voice of strangers.”
So he asked the farmer if he might stand behind a great tree where the sheep could not see him, and then he would copy the farmer’s familiar call, and he would see if the sheep would come to him.
But when he gave the call, the sheep looked very frightened, and then they all turned tail, and ran away as far as they could go!
Yes—“they knew not the voice of a stranger!” But when the farmer, who was their shepherd too, and their master, gave the call, they turned back, and came up one by one to his side, expecting him to give them the food they longed for, and the love which day by day he lavished upon them.
This is a picture of the Eastern shepherd. He loves his sheep, as I told you; he calls them by name; he leads them out to green pastures.
If enemies come, he is ready to give his life to protect them!
If, in his absence, a hired man has to take care of them, the hireling runs away if he hears the roar of the wild beast, or sees a sudden storm coming up!
But the shepherd thinks first of his sheep. He leads them into a place of safety to escape the storm; he defends them against the wild beast with his own hand, and his own life!
Jesus is the Good Shepherd—all these good things of which I have told you belong to Him in fullness.
He calls His own sheep by name! He says to each one of you, however young you may be, your own, own name!
He calls you in loving, tender tones. He says, “Come to Me, and I will give you rest.” He says to every one who will have Him as his Saviour, “I have called thee by thy name, thou art Mine.”
In the old days, when there was a High Priest, he had a breastplate on which was engraved the names of the twelve tribes of the Children of Israel, and we are told in the fifteenth of Exodus that “they shall be upon Aaron’s heart when he goeth in before the Lord.”
This is such a sweet thought: that our names, if we love Him, are on the heart of Jesus, in the glory!
But there is another story that Jesus tells us about the sheep.
We have been thinking about the happy flock who are with the shepherd, feeding in green pastures, lying down by still waters, preserved from enemies, taken to the safe fold at night.
But our Lord tells us this story of one, out of the hundred sheep that the Eastern shepherd has, who had wandered away!
Perhaps he had thought there were fairer pastures than those which the shepherd had brought him to? Perhaps he thought that the waters in another field were more sparkling than those still ones where the shepherd had so gently led them?
Whatever was the reason, one of these sheep wandered away. At first, perhaps, only a little way off just behind a rock, or round the other side of a wood. But the farther off he went, the easier it became to wander away!
At length came the dark night, and as the shepherd counted his hundred sheep into the fold, he found one was lost!
Lost? The shepherd would not lose his sheep for anything!
He left his ninety-nine in the fold, and hurried away into the wilderness to find the one which was lost.
Through the darkness of night; through the tangles and the briars; through the deep waters of the rushing stream, on he passed; and as he went, he repeated to himself words which seemed to dwell in his very heart—“until I find it”!
On he went, weary and worn, till at last in the silence of the deep night he heard a faint cry!
Then the shepherd called, and stood listening for the answer. And again came that faint cry, and the shepherd knew that somewhere near him, in the darkness, his lost sheep was lonely, helpless, and hopeless.
Then the shepherd’s arms were stretched out to reach him, caught in the briars at the edge of an awful precipice. He leaned down over the abyss and stretched out his hands, and, regardless of the tearing thorns, he grasped his sheep, he disentangled the briars, and lifted it into safety.
But the sheep was so weary and faint that he could not walk, so the tender shepherd put him on to his shoulders, and brought him home rejoicing!
And then the shepherd called his friends together, saying:
“Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!”
And Jesus, our Good Shepherd, says: “I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth!”