Shepherds!

“Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God to the shepherds: “Woe to the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flocks? You eat the fat and clothe yourselves with the wool; you slaughter the fatlings, but you do not feed the flock.”’” Ezek. 34:2-3.

Those who sleep, sleep at night; but we are children of the day. As such, we should know how a shepherd should conduct himself: In the love and longsuffering of Christ, he should feed and tend the flock of which the Lord has made him an overseer. In the days of old in Israel, the shepherds did many things for which they could be blamed. They looked after themselves and neglected the flock. They sought whatever was to their own advantage while allowing the flock to go without. They pressured the ones they should have cared for, those who had been entrusted to their care, until the sheep gave their last penny and were scattered on the mountains without a shepherd.

It is a responsibility to be entrusted with souls—souls who need to be cared for with insight and understanding so that they can become partakers of divine nature. Great love in the Spirit is required in order to nurture the lambs and feed the sheep.

There are also shepherds in our day, and I do not in any way mean shepherds who are appointed by the state, who have their eyes set on the most lucrative positions. I mean that there are shepherds who have grown up from among the people, shepherds from whom you should be able to expect to receive something and in whom the multitudes have confidence. When these shepherds are unfaithful in their task, it is much worse. When shepherds who have been filled with God’s Spirit and have been a great blessing to many turn aside and are captivated by self-exaltation and self-admiration, then things are really bad. When the shepherds feed the sheep with accounts of their daily lives, stories of their travels, talk about how people bid them farewell at the docks, about who shows up to meet them on their arrival, and about where they sleep, eat, and preach, then things are bleak. Poor sheep. People in Northern Norway, in America, or elsewhere are supposed to be nourished by accounts of what their shepherds are doing from day to day and from meeting to meeting.

The apostle Paul asks, “Who is Paul? Who is Cephas?” And we can be tempted to ask, “Who do the shepherds of our days think they are, since they have so much to say about themselves? And who are these ignorant sheep who are so blindly captivated by a mere man who has so much to say about himself?”

There might be some hope if the shepherds would just open their eyes a tiny bit so they could begin to hate their own works and forsake them. However, some people preach that they never do anything worth hating. On the contrary, they believe that their lives and deeds are wonderful and pure. They see nothing to hate, judge, or forsake; it would be dangerous to entertain such thoughts. Instead, everything they do is done very well. Their plans about what they intend to do and what they might do in the future are, of course, all according to the counsels of God! They have never made a mistake, because they themselves are always the greatest, and who would dare to criticize them? And it’s no problem for a new convert, who has recently given up most of his vanity, to fill in when the shepherd is away, just as long as he is esteemed and people look up to him. If he is a good performer, cultured, animated, and captivating for his audience, it doesn’t matter if it’s just an act.

To hate such folly would be a dangerous teaching, because once a person has received the Spirit of God, there mustn’t be any trace of self-acknowledgement, humility, or remorse. That would just be bondage and apostasy!

But how is it going for the sheep under the leadership of our present-day shepherds? Are they being led from strength to strength and from victory to victory? Are they growing up to become a perfect man in Christ? Is their knowledge of God increasing day by day? Are they focused on purifying themselves daily? Are they being instructed and taught to daily take up and bear their cross? Does the shepherd make sure that the sheep get food and that nothing troubles even the smallest lamb? Does he know them by name, and does he know how to feed the lambs? Does he tend the sheep and the lambs? Does he himself lead the sheep and say, “Imitate me, just as I also imitate Christ”?

Or does he feed himself, talk about himself, and praise people who serve, honor, and exalt him?

We can truly ask, “For who has stood in the counsel of the Lord, and has perceived and heard His word? Who has marked His word and heard it?” Jer. 23:18.