Devouring the Sheep

Thursday, June 8, 2023

These people are as useless as dried-up springs or as mist blown away by the wind.  They are doomed to blackest darkness.  They brag about themselves with empty, foolish boasting.  With an appeal to twisted sexual desires, they lure back into sin those who have barely escaped from a lifestyle of deception.  They promise freedom, but they themselves are slaves of sin and corruption.  For you are a slave to whatever controls you.  And when people escape from the wickedness of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and then get tangled up and enslaved by sin again, they are worse off than before.  It would be better if they had never known the way to righteousness than to know it and then reject the command they were given to live a holy life.  They prove the truth of this proverb:  “A dog returns to its vomit.”  And another says, “A washed pig returns to the mud.” 

2 Peter 2:17-22

The backstory on this part of Peter’s letter is the Apostle’s warning about leading people away from God, and into a twisted lifestyle of sin.  It is proclaiming sin as holy, and is the upside-down version of what God desires for each of us.  Peter calls this kind of leader useless – slaves to their own sin; they lead others astray.  The metaphors, dog and pig, are always surrounded by filth.  Dogs cannot ignore what has come up from inside them, and pigs are hopelessly drawn to the mire.

A troublesome reality of the church’s marching orders is Jesus’ command to love.  I don’t disagree with the Lord, just saying:  we mess up what He’s saying.  Loving is not simply embracing everything and everybody.  If a person is a serial killer, we can love them; embracing their lifestyle is altogether a different matter.

Preacher, where did you come up with that notion?  Well, the seeming dichotomy of loving people, but rejecting their lifestyle is the example of God, Himself.  In many passages of Scripture we learn that God is the very essence of love.  Jesus proved that God so-loved everyone, he gave his life on Calvary’s cross.  On the flip-side of that are the many passages pointing to how this loving God will bring judgment for lifestyles that reject Him.  Listen to how another apostle, Paul describes God’s judgment for those who say they love God, but choose to prove just the opposite with their actions, their lifestyle of perversion:

Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God?  Don’t fool yourselves.  Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God.  1 Corinthians 6:9-10

Leadership (bishops, and a predominance of clergy) of the tribe in which I have served the past 18 years (United Methodist) have moved closer and closer to accepting homosexuality as a valid lifestyle.  It is proclaimed as loving.  In practice, however, it is elevating perverted sexual desire over self-discipline, and honoring God’s command.  Those who do so are “loving” neither the churches they are leading into disaster, nor the ones who practice their sinful ways.  They are merely heaping up judgment on their own heads.

For You Today 

Question for those second-guessing a church, now in full-blown division/schism:

Is it a right decision to stay “united” and, without words, affirm a sinful lifestyle in rebellion to God’s way…or is it better to stand with God’s Word and separate?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,500 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper explore some of these:   Living in Sodom  and  Legacy of Lies and Out of the Frying Pan Into the Fire and                                     He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands 

Title Image:  via Pixabay.com   Images without citation are in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©   

The Sheep of His Pasture

Monday, May 1, 2023

Shout with joy to the Lord, all the earth!  Worship the Lord with gladness.  Come before him, singing with joy.  Acknowledge that the Lord is God!  He made us, and we are his.  We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.  Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise.  Give thanks to him and praise his name.  For the Lord is good.  His unfailing love continues forever, and his faithfulness continues to each generation.  

Psalm 100:1-5

Sheep are not warring creatures, they’ve been domesticated for thousands of years, and are by nature gentle.  They communicate with sounds and body language, much like any species, locating food, alerting the flock to predators, and singling-out their family position.

Perhaps one explanation of why God’s Word characterizes the people of God as sheep, and tells us to shout loud praises to our Lord, is because sheep will bleat loudly and continuously when near their food source.  Domesticated sheep tend to view their shepherd as their food source.[1]  That has some strong implications for the relationship between God and the sheep of His pasture.

The sheep of God’s pasture have a gentle posture.  In teaching the crowds of would-be followers he offered rest and strength to weary sheep:

Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you.  Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  Matthew 11:29

John’s Gospel changes the metaphor from Shepherd and Sheep to Vine and Branches, but the relationship is clearly the same:

“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches.  Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit.  For apart from me you can do nothing.  Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers.  Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned.  But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted!  When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples.  This brings great glory to my Father.  “I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love.  When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.  I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!  

John 15:5-11

For You Today 

Sheep with a Shepherd, and Branches with the Vine…earthy examples of the way God loves and provides.  This is an open invitation to join the flock, stay close to the Good Shepherd, and have eternally-overflowing joy.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,500 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper explore some of these:   Flat Tire Worship  and  Of Sheep and the Shepherds Song    

Title Image:  via Pixabay.com   Images without citation are in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©  

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[1] North American Nature

Of Sheep and the Shepherd's Song

 

Monday, May 9, 2022

Shout with joy to the Lord, all the earth!  Worship the Lord with gladness.  Come before him, singing with joy.  Acknowledge that the Lord is God!  He made us, and we are his.  We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.  Psalm 100:1-3

I saw before me what seemed to be a glass sea mixed with fire. And on it stood all the people who had been victorious over the beast and his statue and the number representing his name.  They were all holding harps that God had given them.  And they were singing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb:  “Great and marvelous are your works, O Lord God, the Almighty.  Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations.  Who will not fear you, Lord, and glorify your name?  For you alone are holy.  All nations will come and worship before you, for your righteous deeds have been revealed.”  Revelation 15:2-4

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.  John 10:27

The imagery of God’s people as sheep is plentiful in Scripture, and a common metaphor for those who follow the Shepherd.  Less on the front burner is that of a Chief Shepherd who is also a sheep.  Yet, the connection is unmistakeable.  In any account of the Incarnation of Christ, He is the Lamb, who will be slain – a sacrifice for sins.  The Shepherd is also a sheep. 

Leaping from the Incarnation to the eschaton, the last days, and of Christ’s coming, and our gathering ‘round the throne of God to worship the Ancient of Days, the meaning of my sheep hear my voice, and they follow me is Revelation’s flock singing the song of Moses and the Lamb.  It is here we see that glorious condescension of the Christ of eternal glory stooped to enter the manger.  He became one of us, that we might recognize Him, and hear his voice.

While in seminary in the port city of New Orleans, our family hosted two Japanese officer trainees for a day.  They spoke no English, and we were clueless as to their language.  We all pointed, gestured, and did whatever possible to convey meaning to our conversation.  In the end, all we could do is smile and misunderstand. 

In Eden, God spoke human language, and Adam and Eve understood.  By the time of the tower of Babel[1] humankind had gotten far enough away from God to not listen for His voice.  They lost the sound of their Master, like wandering sheep straying from their shepherd.  That is, by the way, the story of most sin…selfish wandering, mindlessly grazing on whatever satisfies a momentary appetite.  God sent prophets to remind them of what the Shepherd’s voice sounded like; one after another the prophets were ignored, and eventually slaughtered to stop their bleating.  The wandering continued, unhearing.  

Finally, God sent his son to be a sheep…some heard, others prepared a cross.

In the final account of Revelation, the continuing, eternal story of after the end, the restored Eden will be filled with the sound of God’s flock, singing the song of Moses and the Lamb.  Even those who have died will hear his voice, and follow Him.  The sheep will hear the Lamb, one who became one of us, to speak clearly the love of God.

For You Today

One day our journey will be complete, and the flock will lie down together in perfect harmony with all creation.  And we’ll sing.  We’ll sing the song of the Lamb throughout eternity.  And we’ll be on key, in perfect harmony!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road with Jesus; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title image: Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©  

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[1] See Genesis 11

Gathering Up the Sheep

[1]

Wednesday, May 15, 2019

“The Israelites are like sheep that have been scattered by lions.  First the king of Assyria ate them up.  Then King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon cracked their bones.”  Therefore, this is what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies, the God of Israel, says:   “Now I will punish the king of Babylon and his land, just as I punished the king of Assyria.  And I will bring Israel home again to its own land, to feed in the fields of Carmel and Bashan, and to be satisfied once more in the hill country of Ephraim and Gilead.  In those days,” says the Lord, “no sin will be found in Israel or in Judah, for I will forgive the remnant I preserve.     Jeremiah 50:17-20

No matter how powerful both Assyria and Babylon were as dominant political and military powers in their days, they were no more than tools in the hand of God to straighten-out his unruly children in Zion.  Every despot who conquered Israel lived long enough to regret his actions.  God’s protection over his flock is never in question; neither is his retribution on those who want to mess with the apple of His eye.  One commentator expressed what it was like to be the King of Babylon when God’s hammer fell:

…when the cup of God’s fury went round the king of Sheshach, Babylon, drank last.[i]

Whether you drink last or first, the judgment of God for messing with God’s chosen is a bitter cup.

I think very often, and sometimes for long periods of time, about being born in a privileged land, a country with so many blessings from the hand of God.  I was privileged to be educated in wonderful schools, serve in our country’s military during Vietnam, raise a family, and serve as a pastor…all in freedom from oppressive dictators. 

These days I muse a good bit on my country’s place in the world as an economic and political force.  As a nation, America is powerful in commerce, military might, political stature, historic leadership, and the natural resources to back just about any mountain we choose to climb.  The pensiveness that rumbles around in my soul about all that blessing comes in a sense of questioning the purpose of all that blessing, as well as on which side of God’s plan and history we actually stand.  Is it true, as our currency proclaims, that we trust in God?  Or have we turned to trusting more in ourselves?  At the risk of being cynical, I must say I fear it’s the latter.  But, risk or not, here’s why I think that; it’s happened because we have trained our children to live by the mantra of personal choice over ethical and moral higher ground, or sacrificial living.  I hear it frequently, and, frankly, I said it to my children when they were young, you can be anything you want.  Now, when I said those words to my kids, I was thinking of that higher aspiration of children becoming wise, industrious, marvelous paragons of virtue, models of fearing God, and loving all people.  But, (can we talk here?), what do children hear when we say such things?  The immature mind of a child hears:  life is a platter at the buffet line, and I’m gonna grab whatever I want. 

Despite the best efforts of the likes of Hallmark and Dr. Seuss (and many others) to convince us that children are altruistic and idealistic by nature, and only learn war from adults…the fact is that human nature (possessed by every human child) is warlike and selfish, grabbing like Jacob gripped Esau’s heel coming out of the womb!  When children are in charge, so is selfishness, anger, hitting-back, prevarication, and churlish pouting when they don’t get their way.  If you doubt that, you’ve not watched our government at work.

For You Today

Well, really, for all of us today, it’s time to train our children, rather than turn them loose at the buffet line.  And the best training is for adults to BE adults, setting as the standards of our homes what God has laid out for all of us in His Word, to be the sheep of His pasture, His very special possession.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day.

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[1] Title Image: Pixabay.com  
             Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from The New Living Translation©

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[i] Matthew Henry’s Commentary, Jeremiah 50

Total Trust

[i]

Thursday, June 1, 2017

What joy for the nation whose God is the Lord, whose people he has chosen as his inheritance.  The Lord looks down from heaven and sees the whole human race.  From his throne he observes all who live on the earth.  He made their hearts, so he understands everything they do.  The best-equipped army cannot save a king, nor is great strength enough to save a warrior.  Don’t count on your warhorse to give you victory—for all its strength, it cannot save you.  But the Lord watches over those who fear him, those who rely on his unfailing love.  He rescues them from death and keeps them alive in times of famine.  We put our hope in the Lord.  He is our help and our shield.  In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name.  Let your unfailing love surround us, Lord, for our hope is in you alone.  Psalm 33:12-22^(NLT)

The closer we get to July the more anxious I get each year.  It’s not just because my birthday falls at the end of June, and I’ll mark another trip around the sun; mostly it’s because we always have that Independence Day thing to deal with.  That thing is the tension between being loyal to the privileged land of which I am a citizen, and being thankful for the country through which this citizen makes his pilgrimage.

There…I’ve done it again…said something in preacher-code.  You know what that means; when a preacher gets near the sacred cow he’s got to talk in non-threatening, low tones, using words that leave some wiggle-room in case it offends anyone.  In the case of the birthday of America, those low tones must include a bow towards patriotism. 

Tension for the preacher on Independence Day when it comes to doing the obligatory patriotic flag-waving is found in what every Jewish child remembers when he reads Psalm 33 or any of the countless Scriptures calling for trust in the Lord; the land in which you live is nothing; God is the only shield of protection for any people.  You can stamp In God We Trust on all the currency you can imagine, but if your trust is really in your system of government, a strong economy, the president you elected, or military power, you’re headed for trouble.

Historically one of the reasons Americans took note of what a Presidential hopeful’s spiritual life looked like is because governing is all about making choices.  And electorates always wanted assurance that the person sitting in the most powerful seat on planet earth was driven from within by a commitment to make moral, God-honoring choices, more than just pragmatic, economic advantage or power brokering choices.  All the framers of the Constitution may not have been Evangelical 5-point Calvinists, Congregationalist or Wesleyan, but they didn’t squirm when God was invoked.

For You Today

A Christian is a citizen of Heaven, so this coming Independence Day when you salute the flag and sing God Bless America, remember, you’re an alien here!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

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NOTES

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 ^I Title image: Bundesarchiv, Bild, via Wikimedia Commons

Lost Sheep

I have wandered away like a lost sheep; come and find me, for I have not forgotten your commands.  Psalms 119:176 (NLT)

There’s one thing about lost sheep – no matter how far they’ve wandered, and in what predicament they’ve managed to become entangled – they always remember the shepherd’s call.

Powerful people can also be lost sheep.  Sometimes it is that very power which diminishes the powerful sheep’s ability to remember the shepherd’s call.  And when the narcotic of power begins to have its full effect, it can make the power-full person frantic…LOST!

The drama being played out in the halls of American government these days reminds me of desperate sheep.  The narcotic-deprived sheep are bleating at one another, drowning out the shepherd’s voice.  And these lost sheep have begun to realize nobody’s listening to them.  The president wants his debt ceiling pacifier back; the speaker wants his healthcare rattle left alone.  Baa, baa, and baa!

What can work?

Matthew wasn’t always an apostle.  He started out in government – a tax collector (talk about a lost sheep!).  When the Good Shepherd called Matthew to be his disciple, Matthew invited all the other lost sheep tax collectors and “other disreputable sinners” ^{(Matthew 9:10)} to his house for a party!

(Had one of those LOL moments when reading this Scripture.  Couldn’t Matthew have invited “reputable sinners” to the party?  After all – there was a preacher in attendance!)

The point of the party was to gather other lost sheep, get them relaxed, settled down and quiet enough to hear the shepherd.

I had a friend who told me long ago about an incident that happened at a public beach.  A man in the water got disoriented and began to thrash about, calling for help.  The lifeguard sprang into action, swimming out to rescue this lost sheep.  But the frantic man kept yelling and fighting-off the lifeguard.  Finally the rescuer clocked the rescuee, knocking him into submission.  Then he pulled the soggy sheep to the safety of dry land.

The so-called “powerful people” who are running things (or so they think) in Washington would do well to get quiet and listen for the shepherd’s voice, before they need a lifeguard.

Today

Let’s take time to pray for the lost, frantic sheep in the halls of Congress.  

And what about us?

Why are we running as fast as we are?  

Can you really hear your Shepherd’s voice that way?

Is it not time to be on our knees?