Jeremiah 23:1-3 ESV
“’Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!’ declares the Lord. Therefore thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for my people: ‘You have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for your evil deeds, declares the Lord. 3 Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply.’”
Woe to the Shepherds
Not everyone who calls himself a pastor, an elder, or a
Bible teacher is genuinely a follower of Jesus Christ. They don’t all truly
shepherd their sheep, either. Not all are operating under the power and
direction of the Holy Spirit. Many are still operating according to their own
flesh. And many are all caught up in the whole marketing of the church to the
world in order to attract the world to their gatherings, which has nothing to
do with shepherding God’s sheep but everything to do with pleasing the flesh.
Many of these shepherds are following more after the
teachings of other humans and after the thinking of the world than they are
following after the teachings of Christ and of the Scriptures. They are still
very fleshly, making decisions about the sheep based off their own experiences
or their own personalities, or off of things they have read or been taught in
seminars and such. And so they go a lot by their own flesh rather than letting
the Holy Spirit guide them in what to do and in how to lead.
Many of them today are literally enemies of Christ and his
cross and they work for Satan, not God, and they are only masquerading
themselves as servants of righteousness while truly they are messengers of
Satan. They are charlatans, wolves in sheep’s clothing, out to steal, kill, and
destroy the church and Christ and his gospel and his messengers. So they are
teaching an adulterated gospel which is leading people away from Jesus. And
they are destroying and scattering the sheep in two main ways.
First of all, by altering the gospel message to make it more
acceptable to human flesh, they have largely done away with God’s requirements
for repentance (forsaking our sins), for obedience to Christ, and for submission
to the Lordship of Christ over our lives. And thus they are giving all who will
make a profession of faith in Jesus Christ carte blanche to continue in
deliberate and habitual sin which is sending them straight to hell but on the
promise of forgiveness of sins and of eternal life with God.
Secondly, since they are trying to appease the people of the
world and human flesh, and they don’t want to offend anyone with the truth of
the gospel or to make them uncomfortable or to feel judged in any way, they are
going against those who are still holding fast to the truths of the Scriptures
and who are still teaching the whole counsel of God, and they are pushing them
away or inviting them to leave or kicking them out of their gatherings so that
they don’t upset anyone with the truth.
God has judged, he is judging, and he will judge these false
shepherds of the people and these weak-willed shepherds who care more for
themselves than they do for the flock, and who are destroying and scattering
God’s sheep. He will attend to them for their evil deeds unless they repent of
their wicked ways and they turn to the Lord to follow him in obedience to his
ways. He will judge them for adulterating his gospel and for lying to the
people and for sending away his true servants and messengers.
The Scattered Sheep
Now, not everyone who professes faith in Jesus Christ is a true
sheep. For the Lord’s sheep listen to him, he knows them, and they follow him
in obedience. Nonetheless, since our salvation is a process of sanctification
which will not be complete until Jesus returns for us, his bride, the hope of
salvation and eternal life with God is conditional on us following our Lord in
obedience and on us walking in his ways and in his truth and on us forsaking
our sins and us honoring him as Lord of our lives.
We must walk (in conduct, in practice) according to the
Spirit and no longer according to the flesh, and we must no longer live in
slavery to sin but now as slaves of God and of his righteousness. Sin must not
be our practice, but righteousness is to be what we practice. And we must walk
in obedience to his commands or we don’t know him and he doesn’t know us and we
will not inherit eternal life with him. For many will hear one day, “Depart
from me you workers of iniquity! I never knew you!” But they thought he did.
So, when these false shepherds remove from the gospel God’s
requirements for submission, repentance, and obedience, they are giving a death
wish to all who follow after their lies whether or not they ever genuinely
believed in Jesus, for faith in Jesus requires that we continue to repent, and
we continue to obey, and that we continue in Christ and in obedience to him
until the very end in order for us to have salvation from sin and eternal life
with God. For if we do not, we will not inherit eternal life with God.
[Lu
9:23-26;
Jn 6:35-58; Jn 15:1-11; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-17; Eph 4:17-24; 1 Pet 2:24; 1 Co 6:9-10, 19-20; 2 Co 5:10, 15; Tit 2:11-14; Jas
1:22-25; Rom 12:1-2; Eph 2:8-10; Gal 5:16-21; Eph 5:3-6;
Gal 6:7-8;
Rom 2:6-8; Matt
7:21-23; Heb 10:26-27; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Jn 3:4-10]
And then those who are genuinely following Jesus Christ with
their lives, who are listening to the Lord, and who are following him in
obedience, and who are teaching the true gospel, they are being cast aside,
rejected, persecuted, mistreated, forsaken and forgotten. And this is because
not many want to hear their messages anymore, for they want to hear the
messages which tickle their itching ears and which appease their flesh and
which give them freedom to continue walking in sin. And so God’s true servants
are forsaken.
Fruitful and Multiply
But all this can be overcome! Not one of us has to succumb
to this! We can conquer. We do not have to be devastated by it or to be
defeated, for our future is not dependent on any human and what he or she might
think of us or say about us or do to us, for that matter. For our God is fully
sovereign over all that he has made, and he made us, and for those of us who
are following him, he has called us, and he will make a way where there seems
to be no way, for he works in ways we cannot see.
Also, the fact that so many of these shepherds are teaching
lies can be overcome, too. Not one of us has to believe their lies. We all have
a choice to believe the truth or the lies. God has put within each one of us
the knowledge of him so that we are all without excuse. So, it isn’t that we
don’t know right from wrong, but many choose to do wrong and to ignore the
Lord, and now they are being given permission to do so, and so those who are
leaning that direction will be easy targets for the lies.
So, just saying here that, even though these shepherds have
let us down in one way or another, and they have not fulfilled their God-given
roles, or they have made a pretense of being of God when they are not, it does
not remove our responsibility before God to be who he has called us to be. We
can choose to say “No” to them and “Yes” to God and to go with God and not with
man, and to let the Lord lead us, and to not let man influence the decisions we
make for our lives.
The Prayer
Written by David Foster, Carole Bayer Sager,
Alberto Testa and Tony Renis
I pray you'll be our eyes
And watch us where we go
And help us to be wise
In times when we don't know
Let this be our prayer
When we lose our way
Lead us to a place
Guide us with your grace
To a place where we'll be safe.
I pray we'll find your light
And hold it in our hearts
When the stars go out each night
Remind us where you are.
Let this be our prayer
When shadows fill our day
Lead us to a place
Guide us with your grace
To a place where we'll be safe.
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