The Blessed Life of Trust
‘When He putteth forth his own sheep, He goeth before them, and the sheep follow Him; for they know his voice.” — John x. 4.
NEW images could better express the relationship between our Lord and his people than that of Shepherd and sheep, so often applied to God in the Old Testament, and appropriated by Christ Himself in the New. He had already shown that references to Himself underlay the manna, the water, and the fire-cloud. And now He shows that beneath the sweet pastoral imagery of the prophets He was ever the glorious substance and reality.
The Eastern sheepfold is a mere enclosure surrounded by a palisade. The sheep are brought into it in the evening, several flocks being committed to the care of the common keeper or porter for the night. In the morning the shepherds return and knock at the closely barred door of the enclosure, which the porter opens from within. Each separates his own sheep by calling to them; and the sheep respond, disentangling themselves from the rest, and when thus collected they follow their own shepherd, wherever he may lead.
The shepherd alone enters by the door. The robber may break in by force, the thief by stratagem; but their object is plunder and slaughter, and the sheep will neither respond to their voice, nor follow them. “A stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him; for they know not the voice of strangers.” Huddled into a corner of their pen, stricken with alarm, they dread the rough hand of the intruder.
That sheepfold is the Jewish people. The irruption into the (Kljnat. tijc true ^hthvb. 193
fold of the sheepstealer represents the audacity and hypocrisy of the Pharisees and Scribes, who had no purposes but plunder in their heart. They fleeced the flock for their own advantage (Ezek. xxxiv. 3).
In opposition to them, the Saviour comes as the true Shepherd. He has no need to scale the wall, or to establish his authority by force or guile. In Him the porter, who is well represented by John the Baptist, recognised the true Shepherd of Israel: and He was now prepared to lead forth his own to green pastures, and beside waters of rest.
I. The Putting Forth of the Sheep. — Up to the end of the last chapter it might have appeared that the whole of Israel might be included in his flock. But recent events had proved that this could not be. The Messiah, as Zechariah had foretold, had taken to Himself his two staves, “Beauty” and “Bands,” and had fed the flock for one month, but had finally been compelled to renounce the task as hopeless (Zech. xi. 10-14). The expulsion of the blind man; the decree of excommunication which had struck at Himself and his followers; the violent hostility that dogged his steps — all pointed to the impossibility of gathering the whole nation into his care.
There was but one alternative. He must bring his own from out the Jewish fold — separating them, not by force, but by his gentle voice; calling them by name and leading them out. Is not Jesus always leading us out? He calls the souls of men from the fishing-net and the toll-booth; from scenes of worldly pleasure and haunts of sin; from associations with the flock of slaughter. And the one test of their being his own is that they hear his voice and follow. Not to believe, or obey that voice, or follow it, proves that the soul is none of his
But a stronger word is used: “He putteth forth his own sheep.” The phrase is a very strong one. He casts or thrusts them out; as when He constrained his disciples to get into the ship. So was Israel thrust out of the luxurious fare of Egypt to the simplicities of the desert; so are the young eaglets thrust out by the mother bird when she stirs up her nest, and forces them to learn the joys of flight.
He puts us forth by his proi’idences. — We may have been living in some sheltered home, where love screened us from every contact with a strange and unkindly world; but suddenly the encircling arms are withdrawn, and we are driven forth to stand alone, and to act for ourselves, so far as any human help is concerned. Or we are compelled to leave the dear country village, or the ancestral home, or the land of our birth, to fare forth we hardly know whither. All that is sure is that there is no return; that we have no alternative; that the angel with flaming sword drives us out and keeps the gate behind us.
He puts us forth by the constraints of his Spirit. — We may have been living a self-contained, self contented life, shut up in some narrow circle of religious thought and life, when suddenly there break on us the voices which summon to another and truer life. We become aware of possibilities of Christian living that had never been suggested to our hearts. From some loftier peak than usual we catch sight of a wider range of truth. We yearn with eager desire for the new power, and joy, and blessedness, which look in at the windows of our soul, and beckon us to go with them; as children who ramble for a long summer day through wood and hill. It is not so much then the outward constraint as the irresistible impulse from within which thrusts us out.
He puts us forth by his direct call. — To how many a young life, all unexpectedly, there has come the summons of the Master, “I am about to evangelize such and such a district, and I want you to accompany Me.” To students in the great seminaries of America, to bowed heads and hearts in conventions at home, to souls worshipping in the loneliness of the shrine, there have come voices, biddmg them arise and depart, because they are to be sent far hence to the heathen. What heart-searching, what tremour, what mingling of fear and hope, of expectancy and anguish, sweep over the heart when first it hears its name spoken by the Master’s lips, and rises up to follow where He leads the way!
If you are his own, it is certain that in some one of these ways you will hear his voice, and feel his crook, putting you forth. The fold is warm and sheltered, and you are accustomed “Ic fea6£tlj me.” 195
to it, and shrink from the unknown; but it is bare of grass, and lacks the fresh breeze and dew of the mountain-side; there can be no true peace and satisfaction within its walls; beyond its precincts the true life awaits you; and to that the Good Shepherd puts you forth.
II. The Shepherd’s Lead. — “He goeth before them.” This is the place ever assigned to Him in the Old Testament. “He leadeth me by the still waters.” “Thou leadest thy people like a flock.” He permits none of his own to go along a path which He has not trodden, and in which He has not had previous experience. There is only one exception to this — the experience of sin. With this single exception, “He was tempted in all points like as we are.” Take heart, O trembling believer! However strange and hard your path seems to you, if you look closely at it you will detect in its dust the footprints of the Shepherd; and where He has preceded you, you need not fear to follow.
And it is not only true that He passed through all possible experiences of human life during those wonderful years of his sojourn on our earth, drinking every cup, exposing Himself to every grief, tried by eveiy woe, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest; but in addition. He accompanies and precedes by only a step each timid child that steps forth from the warm fold to follow Him. To the eye of faith He is always a little in front — removing the stones; selecting the least difficult paths; bending back the briers; driving before Him the wild beasts or robbers that threaten us; and conducting us as safely and quickly as He can to the sweetest, truest life.
It would seem as if the Shepherd is never so real as when we are being put forth from the fold. We could better exist without Him when we are there; but directly we emerge on the life of faith, away from the familiar and friendly, we need Him, and our heart entwines itself around Him with a tenacity which grows stronger as every new trial is met, and mastered, and left behind in the onward journey.
It may be that you cannot discern Him; but this makes no real difference. Dare to believe that if you are in his place — that is, if you are treading a path which is clearly marked out for you by inevitable circumstances and by unmistakeable inward promptings, although you cannot see Him, and the way seems lonely, yet — that He is just before you; the darkness veils, but does not obliterate Him; the Lord is going before you, and the Holy One is your rereward.
III. The Following of the Sheep. — “The sheep follow Him.” The utter dependence of the sheep on the Eastern shepherd is a beautiful emblem of our attitude towards our Lord. In those vast pasture-lands, rolling over mountain slopes, and dipping into darksome glens, brooded over by a silence that can almost be felt, there arises a very close intimacy between the shepherd and his flock. He forgets the distance between them, and becomes their friend. He is as intimately acquainted with their history, faces, and dispositions, as with those of his own children. He has a name for each, which is sufficient to bring it to his side. And common peril or privation, shared together, but cements the friendship closer.
Nor is the affection only on his side. Stupid as they appear to us, they develop under such conditions an amazing power of attachment, which they manifest in touching trust. They follow the shepherd anywhere.
Let us so trust our Lord. It often grieves the Christian teacher to find souls writing hard things against themselves, because they are attempting to acquire a certain lesson; to reach a certain experience; to attain and keep a certain attitude — altogether apart from Him: as if they had to do all this before they could count on his love and help. They are always trying to know or do something before they get to Him. Whereas the opposite is the only true and safe way; first to keep by his side and at his heel, and then to let Him lead the soul into all it must learn and achieve. Do not attempt the Christian life as a means to closer acquaintance with Jesus; but let your closer acquaintance with Him lead you to pass onward through the land in the length and breadth of it.
If He call you to know some new aspect of truth, throw on Him the responsibility of adding line to line, precept to precept, till it is clear. If He desire you to live a life of daily appropriation and dependence, trust Him to make it possible and congenial. If He bid you separate yourself from some unhallowed alliance, or to quit some unhealthy companionship, or to confess your new-found rapture, let Him understand how absolutely you look to Him to show you just how He would have you act.
Let Jesus Christ stand between you and everything — between you and circumstances; between you and dreaded trials; between you and temptation; between you and your attainments in the blessed life; between you and your projects of Christian usefulness. Follow Him, i.e., let Him go first. If He does not go forward, wait for Him. Every step taken apart from Him, or in front of Him, will have to be retraced with bitter tears.
The attitude of the sheep is siibinission. From the first its attitude is one of utter obedience to the will of another. It has no will of its own; or if it have, it is instantly repressed. So there must be the entire and utter surrender of our will to the will of Christ. This is the hardest lesson we have to learn; but everything of blessedness depends on our coming to a point at which we say, “From this moment and for evermore, in the smallest details, in the routine of daily life as well as in its great crises, I choose the will of God.” Never again to do what we wish because we wish it; never again to consult our own preferences or choice; never again to have a way or will of our own; but to follow absolutely and always the path marked out by another: this is the secret of blessedness.
The attitude of the sheep is dependence. It would be impossible to submit., if we could not also commit. But it becomes easy to do the former when we can do the latter. To have an absolute confidence in Him, to lean on Him, to look to Him for direction and help as each moment needs; to trust Him on the rocky mountain path equally as on the green sward; to believe in Him against appearances and our own hearts; to refuse to take a thread or a shoe-latchet from any other hand; to abstain, as David did, from taking advantage iqS lit gkssett Ifife of ‘^vnst.
even of a means of deliverance, which may seem ready to hand, but which would be inconsistent with his revealed will; to wait only on the Lord till He shall pluck the feet out of the net, and give the heart’s desires — this too is the secret of blessedness.
Let us quiet ourselves as weaned babes. The world is unfriendly, and life’s paths are perplexing; but He is leading us on who cannot make a mistake, who will give us just as much of rest and refreshment as we require, and who is more than sufficient to deliver us from the lion and the bear. The memory of his agony and death shall ever be with us, nerv’ing us to believe that He loves us too much, that we have cost Him too much, for it ever to be possible that we should be forsaken or neglected. And so at last we shall be folded with all the flock beside in those sweet pasture lands, in which the Lamb leads his flock unto living fountains of water, and God wipes away all tears from our eyes.