Hearing the Shepherds Voice

On our recent trip to Israel, I met an actor in Nazareth village who portrayed a shepherd who was tending his goats.  As we approached the coral that the shepherd was guarding, we reached in to pet the goats that were clustered as close to their shepherd as they could get.  He was on the outside of the pen while they poked their noses through the slats to reach him.  Some of us ladies walked up to the pen, but by then the goats were walking away from the front of the pen.  One of the ladies called out to the goats to come back.  She spoke several times only to be completely ignored by the goats.  The Shepherd saw what was happening and spoke two words in Hebrew to the goats and they instantly responded and returned to the front of the coral where the shepherd stood.  The goats appeared not to hear the strange voice at all.  The voice of the woman was so unfamiliar that they didn't even lift their heads to turn and look at her in curiosity.  

How often do we turn our attentions away from the voice of Christ to listen to the voices of the unsaved or wrong teachers?  We look to man first and when their teaching fails, we clamor to hear from God, He is our second choice rather than our first.  

This episode with the shepherd reminded me of the Words of our Lord when He said "my sheep know my voice and they obey."   In this real life picture of the goats obeying their master we see not only obedience but immediate obedience and great joy in that obedience.  The goats loved to be with their shepherd.  We watched as the shepherd opened the coral door to let them out and walk away from the pen.  The goats stayed so close to the shepherd that he could barely take a step.  They stepped on his feet and jumped up on him to stay close.  

I loved this real life message that God was showing me.  The Lord Jesus Christ wants us to be as those goats, clamoring for every moment with Him, following Him no matter where He goes, keeping our attentions on Him every moment. The goats did not just follow Him because He commanded, but because they loved Him.  There was no hesitation in their obedience because they loved to please him.  

We should be so in love with our Savior that it is His voice we listen to first and all other voices that are not familiar to His commands and directives are ignored, given no attention at all.  Do we live in the confidence that we can hear His voice to the point of knowing the difference between His commands and the false prophets and teachers?  Do we keep our head straight ahead, heeding not the unfamiliar voice of the world or those who do not understand what God has told us? 

If we love Him, we take our instruction from Him and only listen to those who walk closely with Him.  We listen only to those who know His Word and are obeying it.  When someone comes along to divert our attention from Him by human knowledge, we should pay them no mind whatever and even correct them that they may not influence us.  

The more we remain silent and do not address wrong teaching, the greater chance we have of being sucked into the lies of the evil one.  We must mentally fight the deception and verbally refute it when it comes at us.  The longer we ignore a problem the more likely that problem will grow into worse and worse disobedience.  

If we desire to be close to our Savior, we must stay close to His Word daily and intimately in conversation with Him. As long as the goats stayed very close to the shepherd, they were safe with no chance of being deceived or harmed.  We have a lot to learn from that shepherd and his goats.  We can love our Shepherd as deeply and completely as those goats loved their shepherd, but to do so, we must set aside our own desires and pride, to trust Him completely.

There were other wonderful lessons from the trip to Israel, but the Lord impacted me with this one because, I believe, if we get this principle right, all other matters will fall in line with His will.  If we seek Him with all our hearts and follow the Shepherd closely through His word and prayer we will clearly hear His voice not being deceived by false teachers or riddled with false guilt and manipulations from our culture.  We will be strong, bold and confident in our walk, not wavering in our convictions no matter who comes against us or how many friends we may lose.  

In this present culture good is called bad and bad is called good.  Unrighteousness is celebrated and righteousness spurned.  Those who attempt to bring God's standard to any question are labeled judgmental and unloving.  The popular ways are in opposition to our Lord and His commands, and the unpopular ways are those that honor the commands of Christ.  We are in those end times the Lord speaks of in 2 Timothy 3:1-5 "But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come:  For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such turn away!"  

The Lord tells us to withdraw from such people so that we will not be influenced by them.  We may visit with them long enough to give them the gospel but they can not be our close friends.  God says in 1 Corinthians 15:33 "Do not be deceived: 'Evil company corrupts good habits." 

This is what has happened to the church in these last days.  We have become so accustomed to non-believers frequenting our churches as visitors that we have softened God's message by watering down the truth so as not to offend the non-believer.  If we offend him, he may not come back.  I say, what is the purpose of a non-believer staying in the church if he is not seeing the filthiness of his sin becoming convicted over it.  We should preach a bold truth, love the unbeliever enough to be honest about the sinfulness of sin, and giving him the good news that Christ gave his life that others might live.  Without a bold gospel message, we only make a non-believer comfortable and feeling good about himself, making it more difficult for the next person God sends to give him the true message.  Each time a non-believer hears a false gospel; his heart becomes a little more hardened to the authentic gospel of Christ.  We will be held accountable for our "fear of man rather than God."  

Our purpose is not to get the non-believer to like us, but to present a gospel of truth that he might love Christ.  We must stop focusing on being like and appreciated and keep our hearts set on telling the whole truth that the hearers might become saved and join us in heaven when this life is over.  Do we care more about Christ's commands and the eternal soul of the unbeliever than we do about our own comfort?  That is the question each one of us needs to ask the Lord, and then act upon what He tells us.

Let's follow the Shepherd; He has all the answers to everything perfectly!!!