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‘My flock became meat to every beast of the field, because there was no shepherd.’
Eze_34:8
For it is terribly easy to be a false shepherd. Through carelessness, through the neglect of my duty, through easy-going indifference, as well as by actually doing spiritual harm to others and deliberately leading them into sin, I may be marring and ruining a precious human life. It does not need me to be flagrantly wicked; it simply needs that I should be unthinking and selfish.
Perhaps my Lord has entrusted me to the care of some other souls—the souls of the children in the home or in the school. What a heavenly privilege it is, and what a stupendous responsibility!
II. Above all things I must dread lest I should be a hireling shepherd.—Am I sufficiently alive to the infinite hazards which beset the children, the daily risks they run, the enemies they are ever encountering? Am I impressed profoundly enough with the unmeasurable possibilities which lie latent and slumbering in those young hearts, and which it should be my care to educe and develop and guide in the right way? Am I filled as I should be with a wise, patient, overcoming, invincible love—a love which bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things? These are questions which pierce deep and demand much. Yet I ought to press them home, and to make sure that I can answer them in God’s way. I would not have Him say to me—‘I will require My sheep at your hand, and will cause you to cease from feeding the sheep.’ There is an intolerable loss, a penetrating anguish, in such a word as that.
Illustration
‘The shepherds of this chapter are not the religious leaders of the people, but rulers, who sought in their government, not the good of the people, but their own selfish ends. But the statements made by the prophet may be rightly applied to rapacious priests, who care more for the fleece than for the flock. Pastors are required to feed the flock of God, not for fifthy lucre, but as ensamples for the sheep (1Pe_5:2-3). It is their duty also to strengthen the spiritually diseased, heal the sick, bind up the broken in heart, and seek the lost.’