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MOTLEY, CROSS-BREED, HALF-BAKED SHEEP
Before I went off to train for ministry, I used to live in an old house in Oamaru with an acre and a half of land. I had the usual garden and lawn, but I also had about an acre and a quarter of pretty rough hillside that was planted in a variety of trees and grass. The best way I found to keep the grass down and the leaves cleaned up was to have a few sheep.
When I first moved there I had no sheep and I’d never had sheep, but one of my neighbours had too many; so off I went to her house and offered to buy three. I thought I was "home and hosed" as I walked these sheep over to my place.
These sheep were easy to control; actually these sheep were starving. I carried one lamb under each arm and the old ewe that I’d brought. On seeing some grass they made a bit of a bolt for my place and straight through the gate. Yep, shepherding was a breeze and I didn’t even need a dog.
My adventure with sheep had begun. My breed of sheep, as it turned out, were motley, cross breed, half baked, deviously cunning animals, and it was only the fact that two of them were ewes and were useful for producing more sheep that they didn’t become roasts and chops along with the wether.
Once these sheep had put on condition and gained what was a normal weight and a little energy, they were off; at the slightest chance they would push through a gap under the fences, open gates and attempt to sneak out while I was sneaking into their paddock. I had procured the Houdinis of the sheep world.
Often their previous owner would phone me and inform me that they had returned. Sometimes they disappeared like a vapor only to be found hiding in flax bushes (a bit Jacobean like) at the sewage pumping station a kilometer away down the hill. Each time I would trudge off possibly with one or both sons in tow on the great sheep roundup. I always blocked the holes closed the gates and returned the errant sheep to the paddock, bless their little wooly hearts and their empty heads.
THE VOICE OF THE SHEPHERD
There once was a shepherd that lived in the Scottish highlands. This shepherd had a daughter and he would take her with him when he went out on the moors to take care of the sheep. The thing that the little girl liked best was to hear the call of shepherd. His voice sounded so free and beautiful as carried across the valleys of the moors.
As the years passed the little girl became a beautiful young woman and went off to one of Scotland's great cities--Edinburgh or Glasgow. It was there that she was determined to build a life. On her arrival, she would write back home to her parents every week. But as life began to take her by the hand, her letters soon dropped off in their frequency and soon there were none.
Rumors begin to filter back home to that shepherd and his wife that their daughter had started hanging out with some unsavory characters and they were having a very negative influence on her life. One day one of the boys from back home ran into her in the city streets and she acted as if she did not even know him. When the old shepherd heard this, he gathered a few things together and dressed in his rough shepherd’s clothes went to the city to find his daughter.
For days on end he looked for her. He looked everywhere; the slums, the rows of houses, the markets, the taverns, and everywhere in between to no avail. So after all of this searching he became very discouraged with the thought that he had lost his daughter to the evil city.
As he started the long trek back home, just as he was on the outskirts of the city, he remembered that his daughter had always loved to hear the voice of the shepherd calling out to the sheep.
So he turned around and on this quest motivated by his sorrow and his love, he began to stalk the streets. His voice rang out the shepherds call. The citizens of the city all looked at him as if he had lost his wits. It wasn’t too long as he walked the streets of one of the degraded neighborhoods that inside of one of those houses, his daughter sitting among the vermin who had led her astray, heard his voice. With great astonishment on her face, she heard that call of the voice of the shepherd, the voice of her father calling out to her. She leaped up and rushed out to the street and ran into the arms of that old shepherd, her father. It was then that he took her back home to the highlands of Scotland and brought her back to God and to decency and modesty.
This is a moving example of what happens to those who can hear the voice of a shepherd.
(From a sermon by Philip Harrelson, The Voice of the Shepherd, 8/6/2010)
We can see in our national headlines the power of unity to fulfill a common goal. Each of us will never forget what happened September 11, 2001. Out of that terrible day we saw our nation join together in unity. President George W. Bush had the support of the nation as he led the nation into the war against the terrorist who murdered so many innocent Americans. Let’s go get ’em!
But now nearly 9 month later we’ve started pointing fingers. What did our president know before the attacks? What could the government have done to prevent the terrorist attacks? The unity that was born through terror is unraveling. We have forgotten who our enemy is.
The same happens within the church. We can so easily begin to point fingers at other "sheep;" we become critical of the "shepherd." All the while we forget that we have a common enemy outside the walls of the church. Satan seeks to "steal kill and destroy". Let’s not forget who the enemy is.
HUGE RESERVES
Dr. Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ tells this story of a famous oil field called Yates Pool:
During the depression this field was a sheep ranch owned by a man named Yates. Mr. Yates wasn’t able to make enough on his ranching operation to pay the principal and interest on the mortgage, so he was in danger of losing his ranch.
With little money for clothes or food, his family (like many others) had to live on government subsidy.
Day after day, as he grazed his sheep over those rolling West Texas hills, he was no doubt greatly troubled about how he would pay his bills. Then a seismographic crew from an oil company came into the area and told him there might be oil on his land. They asked permission to drill a wildcat well, and he signed a lease contract.
At 1,115 feet they struck a huge oil reserve. The first well came in at 80,000 barrels a day. Many subsequent wells were more than twice as large. In fact, 30 years after the discovery, a government test of one of the wells showed it still had the potential flow of 125,000 barrels of oil a day.
And Mr. Yates owned it all.
The day he purchased the land he had received the oil and mineral rights. Yet, he’d been living on relief.
A multimillionaire living in poverty.
T...
Quote from Anne Landers:
“ I’ve learned plenty, including most importantly what Leo Rostea had in mind when he said,
“Each of us is a little lonely, deep inside and longs to be understood.”
I have learned how it is with the stumbling tortured people in this world who have nobody to talk to. The fact that the column has been so successful underscores, for me at least, the central tragedy of our society. The disconnectedness, the insecurity, the fear - that bedevils, cripples, and paralyses so many of us.
I have learned that financial success, academic achievement, and social or political status open no doors to peace of mind or inner security.
We are all wanderers, like sheep, on this planet.”
"MY SUPREME WEAPON IS DYING."
Joseph Ton was pastor of Second Baptist Church, Oradea, Romania, until he was exiled by the Romanian government in 1981. In Pastoral Renewal, he writes of his experience:
"Years ago I ran away from my country to study theology at Oxford. In 1972, when I was ready to go back to Romania, I discussed my plans with some fellow students. They pointed out that I might be arrested at the border. One student asked, 'Joseph, what chances do you have of successfully implementing your plans?'"
He asked God about it, and God brought to mind Matthew 10:16 -- "I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves" -- and seemed to say, "Tell me, what chance does a sheep surrounded by wolves have of surviving five minutes, let alone of converting the wolves? Joseph, that’s how I send you: totally defenseless and without a reasonable hope of success. If you are willing to go like that, go. If you are not willing to be in that position, don’t go."
Ton writes: "After our return, as I preached uninhibitedly, harassment and arrests came. One day during interrogation an officer threatened to kill me. Then I said, 'Sir, your supreme weapon is killing. My supreme weapon is dying. Sir, you know my sermons are all over the country on tapes now. If you kill me, I will be sprinkling them with my blood. Whoever listens to them after that will say, "I’d better listen. This man sealed it with his blood." They will speak ten times louder than before. So, go on and kill me. I win the supreme victory then.'"
The officer sent him home. "That gave me pause. For years I was a Christian who was cautious because I wanted to survive. I had accepted all the restrictions the authorities put on me because I wanted to live. Now I wanted to die, and they wouldn’t oblige. Now I could do whatever I wanted in Romania. For years I wanted to save my life, and I was losing it. Now that I wanted to lose it, I was winning it."
"When Chances Come" BY Willo Lou Clark
If you had been a lowly shepherd who heard the angels sing,
Would you have left your sheep alone to find the baby King?
If you had been the innkeeper - pressed & hurried since the dawn,
Would you have done the best you could, or told them to move on?
If you had been a wise man - due respect & courtly graces,
Would you have left it all behind to search in unknown places?
We cannot know what we’d have done if we had been there then.
We only know what we do now - when chances come again.
YOU HAVE TO STOOP
The announcement went first to the shepherds. They didn't ask God if he was sure he knew what he was doing. Had the angel gone to the theologians, they would have first consulted their commentaries. Had he gone to the elite, they would have looked around to see if anyone was watching. Had he gone to the successful, they would have first looked at their calendars.
So he went to the shepherds. Men who didn't have a reputation to protect or an ax to grind or a ladder to climb. Men who didn't know enough to tell God that angels don't sing to sheep and that messiahs aren't found wrapped in rags and sleeping in a feed trough.
A small cathedral outside Bethlehem marks the supposed birthplace of Jesus. Behind a high alter in the church is a cave, a little cavern lit by silver lamps.
You can enter the main edifice and admire the ancient church. You can also enter the quiet cave where a star embedded in the floor
recognizes the birth of the King. There is one stipulation, however. You have to stoop. The door is so low you can't go in standing up.
The same is true of the Christ. You can see the wo...
Frank Gallagher
These shepherds were symbolic of Jesus Christ the Good Shepherd, who would also humbly follow God’s will. Their sheep represent us as believers, in several ways:
- Sheep cannot clean themselves. Some animals such as a cat can do that, but not sheep. Likewise, we as unbelievers were not able to clean ourselves from the filthiness of sin;
- Sheep cannot defend themselves from predators. Many animals have a defense system, such as skunks and blowfish, but sheep do not. We as believers are protected from the evil one, Satan, ultimately by the power of God, and as a local church congregation by our pastor-teacher;
- Sheep cannot find food and water for themselves. They depend upon the shepherd to lead them to water and green pastures, as stated in Psalm 23. We as believers depend upon the Lord for our spiritual food and water, as well as on our daily physical needs;
- Sheep are not intelligent. As believers, neither are we when it comes to the things of God. That’s why our salvation, eternal security, and rewards depend entirely upon the work of Our Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ. We have the Holy Spirit who makes spiritual things understandable to us (2 Cor. 2)
Graham John
Foot and Mouth
The most recent attack on the foot and mouth disease that is ravaging farms in the U.K. has been the sad slaughter of thousands and thousands of unaffected cows & sheep, together with their newborn spring lambs. This is to create a “firebreak” between the infected and the uninfected farms. Some farmers have been seen on TV talking of how difficult they’re finding it to hand over to slaughter the “innocent”. But it has to be done, many admit. If there is no other way…
Our Lord Jesus is called the Lamb of God. He died, the innocent for the guilty – the pure for the polluted, to save us from the judgement on our sins.
“There was no other good enough
To pay the price of sin..
Says the old hymn. There was no other way. And there is no other way for you to avoid the wrath of an angry God. You must turn to the Saviour today & find in Him protection from the slaughter our sins deserve.
Rev. Graham John Rhondda, South Wales, UK
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