Down to Earth But Heavenly Minded

“In all their affliction He was afflicted” (Isaiah 63:9).

“And He said to me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for My strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

“He has said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee” (Hebrews 13:5).

“JESUS! Thou art enough
  The mind and heart to fill,
Thy patient life — to calm the soul,
  Thy love — its fear dispel.”

“Still in Thee love’s sweet savour
  Shone forth in every deed,
And showed God’s loving favour
  To every soul in need.” (J. N. Darby.)

The Friend of Sinners

For one brief hour only is the veil that covers the first thirty years of our Lord’s life drawn aside, and one saying of His alone during that period is recorded for our learning. But what a revelation of sinless, holy perfection, and readiness to bear the yoke of service for the blessing of mankind, does that one saying reveal! “How is it that ye sought Me? Wist ye not that I must be about MY FATHER’S BUSINESS?” It is probable that at the age of twelve a child begins definitely to choose between evil and good; and the Lord is shown to us in this beautiful passage as making His choice; He refused the evil and He chose the good; as it was written by the prophet, that Emmanuel would. His Father’s business — His Father’s will — this to Him was good and perfect and acceptable, and with this will treasured in His heart He lived His youthful days, until the due time came for His manifestation.

“A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver,” and “A word spoken in due season, how good it is.” Such were all the words of the Lord; every one of them came forth in its own time and circumstance, and none more fitly spoken than this word. In the record of His words also, all are divinely placed. If a Divine Person, divinely perfect and blessed, came into the world for the eternal blessing of men, it is only fitting that a Divine record of His coming and His words and ways, also divinely perfect and blessed, should be given, that those for whom He came might have a perfect assurance as to it. Admit the former, and the latter follows in logical sequence. To suppose that God would send His only-begotten Son into the world that we might live through Him, and having done that, allow an imperfect, contradictory human record to be the only record of His life and death here, would be to suppose Him to be guilty of colossal folly. The record must be as perfect in its own sphere as the One whose life and mission it records was perfect in His, or else we have no sure knowledge or certainty of these things upon which depends our souls’ eternal welfare.

If the Holy Scriptures are what the critics say they are, mere ancient, human documents, in which are recorded events which the writers did but poorly remember, to be tested by human scholarship, which, by the way, commences its test by a decided bias against them; if they may be cut and criticized, accepted or rejected, in parts or wholly, then, where are we in this matter? The angel’s triumphant declaration that He brought “good tidings of great joy” when He announced the birth of Jesus is a mockery; we know not whether our great Redeemer did ever say, “Come to Me all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Such wonderful words may have been put into His mouth, as Shakespeare put great sayings into the mouths of his characters. Did He really warn men against “the damnation of hell,” and speak those blessed words about the many mansions in His Father’s house? We cannot say unless the record of them is divinely perfect, and divinely sure.

We believe in God, and we are confident that if “God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life,” He would see to it that having given “His unspeakable gift” for men, they should be in no uncertainty about it; hence are the Scriptures God-breathed; the men who wrote them were moved by the Holy Spirit; they had these things, not by hearsay, or from their own imperfect observation, but “from the very first” from the source of all true knowledge, from God Himself. Hence the record of our Lord’s words is a divine record, and the words are divinely placed, so that they shine like apples of gold in pictures of silver.

It is in Luke’s Gospel that these words are alone recorded, and how beautifully they fit in to the character of this Gospel.

The Gospel of Luke is the Gospel of “My Father’s business.” It is the Gospel of grace, for this the Father’s Name implies.

It is the Father who, in the very heart of it, sees His prodigal son afar off, and has compassion upon him, and runs to meet him while yet he is a great way off, and falls on his neck and kisses him; and cries in His gladness, “Let us eat and be merry: for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.” Yes, Luke’s Gospel is the Gospel of grace to guilty sinners, and the Lord was the vessel of this grace His Father’s business was His business. He was here to commence it, to carry it on, and to finish it, and the fact that He is crowned with glory and honour at His Father’s right hand, is the proof that He has most blessedly done it, as is the fact also that millions are rejoicing in the grace of God which has brought salvation to them.

Being the vessel of God’s grace He was, and is, the Friend of sinners. Mark His first words in public testimony as given to us in this Gospel. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.”

He came to men bruised and broken and blinded, and bound by sin, and said to them: “This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears,” and they all wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of His mouth.

In each Gospel the form of the opposition from His foes brings into greater prominence the chief feature that the Gospel presents. It is so here. The religionists did not like grace, they could not understand it; so full were they of their own importance that they marvelled that Jesus did not pay court to them and seek their patronage; they grew angry and scornful when He sought the company of sinners, and this is their chief complaint in this Gospel; against this they shouted their opposition constantly.

In Luke 5:30 they murmured against His disciples, saying, “Why do ye eat and drink with the publicans and sinners?”

In Luke 7:34 they grow abusive and say, “Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners.”

In Luke 15:2 they say with bitter enmity, “This man receives sinners, and eats with them.”

And again in Luke 19:7, “they all murmured, saying, That He was gone to be guest with a man that is a sinner.”

They spoke the truth in their hatred, and that which they thought was His shame was His glory, as a countless host of sinners saved by grace will declare to His eternal praise.

Not to the proudly religious did He come who, though wise in their own conceit, were “fools grown insolent in fooling; most, when the lost were dying at their doors.” He came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance; “the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which is lost.”

He said, “Fear not,” to sinful Simon (Luke 5:10); “I will — be thou clean,” to the poor foul leper (Luke 5:13); “Weep not,” to the broken-hearted widow (Luke 7:13); “Thy sins are forgiven,” to the weeping sinner at His feet (Luke 7:48); and “To-day, shalt thou be with Me in paradise.” to the dying robber (Luke 23:43).

He came to do His Father’s business, and for this there was given to Him the tongue of the learned [or instructed], that He should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary; His ear was wakened morning by morning, to hear as the learner (Isaiah 50:4). But who was He who thus lived in entire and daily obedience to His Father’s word, so that He might carry on His business? Isaiah 50 tells us this also. He says: “Wherefore, when I came, was there no man? when I called, was there none to answer? Is My hand shortened at all, that it cannot redeem? or have I no power to deliver? behold, at My rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness: their fish stinks, because there is no water, and die for thirst. I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering” (Isaiah 50:2-3).

Yes, this is He who came from heaven to be the sinner’s Friend, and to bring to the poorest and the worst the saving grace of God. He is the Creator, who came to redeem with outstretched arm; but it involved Him in a life of suffering and shame amongst men, and in hatred from those who loved Him not. The One who with hand omnipotent draws the curtain of night across the heavens, says: “The Lord God has opened My ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back. I gave My back to the smiters, and My cheeks to them that plucked of the hair: I hid not My face from shame and spitting” (Isaiah 50:5-6).

Wonderful Friend of sinners! who would not cast aside their own righteousness and pride to make Thy acquaintance! and count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Thee!

The Lord and the Home Life

To assure us of His constant and particular care for us in all our circumstances, God has taken infinite pains in His sure and holy Word: it is bright with many faithful sayings in regard to it, and beautiful with many concrete cases in which His perfect care for those who trust Him is illustrated; but nothing can be more conclusive and convincing in regard to it than the life of our Lord Jesus on earth.

Let us consider, then, how the Lord Jesus acted in regard to the matters domestic, and the general needs of those whom He loved, as shown us in the Gospel of John. In that Gospel, be it remembered, He comes forth as the Word, who was with God, and who was God — the great Creator of the universe become flesh for our blessing. It is in this Gospel that He said: “He that has seen Me has seen the Father.” Hence as we behold His tender mercy ever flowing forth, we see what the Father is, for thus He has revealed Him.

Is it not, then, most worthy of note and full of comfort to all who need comfort, that in this Gospel, and this alone, He is shown to us as a GUEST AT A WEDDING, rejoicing with those that rejoice? And is it not equally significant that in this Gospel, and this alone, He is also shown to us as A WEEPER AT A GRAVE SIDE? The wedding is the beginning of the home life, and may represent its most joyous period: the sealed grave is the close and the breakup of it, the darkest day of all. And the Lord, who came to earth to show to us the Father, was at both: and is there a day between the two when He is absent? No. He has said “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,” and that, be it noted, again in connection with the home life (Hebrews 13:4-6).

There are profound depths of spiritual meaning in these two incidents, and we should certainly seek these, but in doing so do not let us miss that which lies clear and plain upon the surface. Jesus, who was the Creator, the only begotten Son of God, the revealer of the Father, associated Himself with His own in the joys and sorrows of their home life. Perish the thought that we may only know His presence at the meetings for prayer or worship: that He only connects Himself with what are known as religious services. If this were all, then our religion were artificial and dead, and our Lord useless to us in our trials, and scarcely of more value than the dumb idols of the heathen. But He comes into the home life when He is allowed, comes in all the plenitude of an inexhaustible grace, rejoicing if we rejoice, and Himself becoming the source of a joy that earthly circumstances cannot yield: and standing by us in days of stress and sorrow, to sympathize with and support the heart that looks to Him. How near this brings Him to us: how real it makes Him: how tender and accessible it shows Him to be.

If this is the case (and only those who do not know the Lord will deny it), then all we have to do is to bring our need to His notice. At the wedding in Cana this was done and He supplied the lack. Happy bridegroom and bride who were wise enough to ask Jesus to their marriage. At the sorrowing home in Bethany this was done, and it was not done in vain. We behold Him as He stands with Mary prostrate at His feet. Listen while she pours out her grief before Him. See her as she looks up through her weeping into His dear face, and see, His cheeks are also washed with tears. Yes, He cares. How beautiful must He have seemed to her that day! How His sympathy must have swallowed up her sorrow! What a revelation of His heart were those tears! What intimacy with Him did Mary’s sorrow yield her!
“The bud had had a bitter taste,
   But oh, how sweet the flower.”

Christ became supreme in her love. She had learnt in that silent walk by the side of Jesus to the grave of her brother how fully and tenderly He entered into her grief: how able He was to lift her out of the depths and sustain her by His sympathy: how every question that could arise in her mind as to the rightness of God’s ways with her was settled in Himself, and how His love, so perfect and true, for it was God’s love, was able to heal the wound and fill the void in her heart: and those were lessons, and that was an experience, that no mortal words can describe, but the result of it appeared when in silent adoration she poured the precious ointment upon His sacred feet. And what He was to Mary “yesterday,” He is “to-day” to all who will bring their sorrow to His feet. And in Him is God revealed, turning that which seems only evil into everlasting good.

The same blessed care is most beautifully expressed in the Lord’s words to Zacchaeus: “To-day I must abide at thy house.” This was not said for the chief of the tax-gatherers alone, but for us also: it is the way the grace of the Lord compels Him to take towards all whom He has sought and saved, and so it can be said that salvation has come to all who are His; salvation not from the penalty of sin merely, from hellfire at last, but for every day of the journey to the homeland, for He Himself is salvation to us, and He is an everyday Saviour, who will never leave us nor forsake us.

What a comfort lies here for all about whom the storms of trouble sweep! The Lord is with them, and every sorrow may be laid at His feet and every difficulty told to Him. That life which appears to have the least sorrow has its difficulties and burdens, and none of us have sufficient wisdom or strength to deal with these. But He is sufficient for little trials and for big, and so precious are we to Him that He will never abandon us. Only let it be realized that the grace of God brought Him down to us, not only to save us, but to abide with us, and that He is ever by our side to support and succour us and to sympathize with us, and it will change the aspect of every sorrow and produce the song where the sigh has been. It is the realization of His presence that can lead the saint of God to say, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for THOU ART WITH ME: Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me” (Psalm 23). And if “He has said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,” we may boldly say, “The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do to me” (Hebrews 13:5-6).

Observe carefully that the Lord did not merely say to Zacchaeus, “I must abide with thee,” but “AT THY HOUSE.” He was interested in the family of the man whom He had sought and saved. A place was to be found for Him in the home circle, so that not only the individual needs and difficulties, but those of the household, might also be brought to His notice.

The Lord of Winds and Waves

When the disciples launched forth upon the Sea of Galilee on that evening of which three of the Gospels tell, they needed but little faith to put their Master into the helmsman’s seat and commit the steering of the ship to Him, for the wind was fair and the sea was calm. But when the storm uprose and the shore lights were lost in the darkness, and they found that He had fallen asleep in the place that they had assigned to Him, it seemed to them that they had jeopardized their safety. The good ship might have had some chance of outriding the gale if the helm had been in the strong and capable hands of one of the sons of Zebedee, or if wide awake Simon had had control, but what hope could there be for it in such a sea while the helmsman slept? As the tempest grew in violence their terror increased, until, when it seemed that the mighty billows would break them utterly, they awoke Him with that cry, made bitter by unbelief, “Carest Thou not that we perish?” And in that cry their Master’s power over the storm and His love to them were alike arraigned.

What shame must have been theirs when in answer to their cry He rose up from His sleep and calmed the elements with a word! How outrageous must their doubts of Him have seemed when the winds retired at His bidding and the waves obeyed Him as a dog obeys its Master! Ah, why had they no faith? They might have stretched themselves beside Him and known the wonder of unbroken peace in the tempest, and made that night most memorable by their confidence in Him. They might have shared His peace with Him, for it was not indifference that marked that one recorded sleep of His, but peace, wonderful, beautiful, unruffled peace in the wildest storm that ever beat upon that sea. And they were not one whit more safe when that great calm spread itself upon the waters than they were when the great billows thundered upon them, for the Man who slept in their storm-tossed ship was the Lord of the universe, and whether in peace or in calm they were in His care. Had they but realized this they might have honoured Him and saved themselves much worry, for if His hand was on the helm all was well.

Let us beware lest we fail in our confidence in the Lord as those fearful men failed. We may have spoken of safety in Him in fair weather, but when sailing upon stormy waters let us hold firmly to the fact that He cannot fail. Have we committed ourselves to His keeping? He is most worthy of our trust. Can we say as said Paul of old, “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him against that day”? Do we know His love and His wisdom so well that we can stay our minds upon Him and put the helm of our tiny craft into His hands and leave it there? Do we ask sometimes, “Carest Thou not?” Let the Scriptures give the answer: “Casting all your care upon Him; for He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7).

Held up on the Waves

It was night, and the disciples of our Lord were afloat upon the Sea of Galilee. He had remained upon the quiet mountainside in prayer to His Father, but He looked through the darkness and beheld them toiling uselessly, for the waves rolled high. His heart was moved with compassion as He saw how the storm baffled them, and from His peaceful retreat He stepped out upon the sea to go to them. His appearance, as He strode from wave to wave, affrighted them, but His voice quickly calmed them. How sweet must have been the peace that filled them when they heard Him say, “BE OF GOOD CHEER: IT IS I: BE NOT AFRAID”! Aye, it is good to hear the voice of the Lord above the night-storms and to know in days of stress that He is nigh.

But Peter, impulsive and full of admiration for his Master, and ready to dare much to be near Him, left the boat to join Him where He walked. Then he found himself in circumstances that were new and strange to him — circumstances in which the creature could only sink and perish. But here comes in the loveliest bit of the wonderful story. He felt his desperate need and cried out to His Lord, and “immediately Jesus stretched forth His hand and caught him,” and held him up. And together with the Master of every storm Peter walked on the very crests of the waves. The gale still raged fiercely and the sea surged and swished about his feet, but he was held up by almighty power and he walked by the side of his Lord, erect, fearless, and comforted.

Now let us understand the story. The Lord who sits above the water floods, and rules the waves from His throne of eternal calm, does not send succour to His saints as a sympathetic onlooker who knows nothing experimentally of the sorrows they endure. No. He came down upon the waves, He came from the eternal peace of heaven into the storm where His loved ones laboured: the winds blew and the waves tossed about Him. When His disciples saw Him, they were affrighted and supposed that He was a spirit, but He was not a spirit. HE WAS A MAN, AND HE IS A MAN. This is the amazing thing. Because the children were partakers of flesh and blood He, the Lord of Glory, likewise took part of the same, that He might know in His own experience the fierceness of the storms that beset our weak humanity: and He was tempted in all points as we are, apart from sin, and so He can succour us with a sympathy that is perfectly human though divine.

It was the hand of a Man, in which was the very power of God, that held up Peter on that memorable night. It is the hand of a Man — of Jesus, who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities — that is stretched out to us, and that holds us up upon the very waves that have leaped to our destruction. He is the Son of God, eternal in His being, and omnipotent in power, yet a man who loved us enough to die for us that He might take from our souls the very fear of death and make us triumph evermore.

We want our readers to lay hold of this great truth, not as a theory, but as a fact to be known first to faith and then blessedly in their experience. Peter’s was an individual experience, he had it for himself, but it is an experience that every Christian may have when seas of trouble roll around. Yes, each for himself may be supported by that hand of gracious power and be made more than a conqueror in the very circumstance that threatens to swallow him up. What encouragement there is for us in the story — Peter’s need and distress stretched out and reached the Saviour’s heart, and the Saviour’s hand stretched out and reached His sinking saint, and with his need met, his fears calmed, and his faith strengthened, Peter walked hand in hand with his Master until the storm ceased.

The Good Shepherd

The hand that bruised the head of the devil and smashed the power of death is the hand that holds the sheep of God securely for ever, but John 10 was not given to assure the sheep of Christ that they are eternally safe. It is often used for that purpose, and no doubt it has yielded comfort in that way to thousands of harassed souls. But that is not its purpose. The sheep of Christ should not need to be assured of their safety. It should be sufficient for them that they are HIS sheep. Can He let them slip? He is THE GOOD SHEPHERD. He laid down His life to deliver them from every foe. He has taken it again to gather them into one flock — the flock of God. Can one amongst these perish? Impossible! His greatness, goodness, love, and power forbid the thought entirely. They are safe. But the precious words of this chapter were not spoken, and preserved, to assure the sheep that they are safe, nor to occupy their thoughts with themselves at all, but with Christ. The chapter is about the Shepherd. It was written that we might see His greatness and hear the melody of His voice, and, as a consequence, know the supreme blessedness of following Him.

“He that enters in by the door is the Shepherd of the sheep.”

The door is the appointed way of entrance, and by that way He came — by the way that was marked out by the prophecies of old, which spake of Him. Others had come claiming to be Christ, but they had proved themselves to be thieves and robbers, actuated by vain-glory, and making gain of the sheep: they did not come in the appointed way. He came into the fold (Israel), fulfilling the Scriptures. His entrance into the fold is given in the earlier chapters of Matthew, in which Gospel He is presented as the Messiah of Israel, and these chapters are significant with the phrase “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet.” And at His exit out of it given in the closing chapters of John, we are told often that things were done to Him “that the Scripture should be fulfilled.”

There are prophecies which tell of His glory: how, as the Sun of Righteousness, He shall arise with healing in His wings, and fill the earth with the knowledge of God — for that time we wait: but there are others which tell us that “He was despised and rejected of men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” These prophecies mark out a path of humiliation and suffering for Him: they show Him trodden under foot by the proud of the earth; “His visage so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men.” He gave His back to the smiters, and his cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: He hid not His face from shame and spitting. He was perfectly submissive to the will of Him that sent Him. The Lord God opened His ear and He was not rebellious, neither turned away back.

Now mark well who He is who trod this path of submission to God, and of suffering from sinners, who was buffeted by men because He would obey God. He says, “At My rebuke I dry up the sea. … I clothe the heavens with blackness, and I make sackcloth their covering.” He is the mighty Lord of the universe.
“Heaven’s arches rang as the angels sang,
   Proclaiming His royal degree —
 But of lowly birth came the Lord to earth,
   And in great humility.”

Thus is He shown to us as the Shepherd of the sheep, gentle and submissive, meek and lowly of heart, the Servant of God and the Servant of men, yes, even of those who hated and derided Him. Have we seen the glory of that life of His — the glory of its humility?

HIS DEATH UPON THE CROSS.

“Verily, verily, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.”

He has become the door of salvation and liberty for the sheep, the God-appointed and only way of blessing, but He has become that door by giving His life for them. There was no other means by which He could deliver them, for they were sinners every one, and held in the power of death. So the sword awoke against Him who is the Shepherd, who has proved Himself to be the Shepherd by standing between that sword and the sheep. “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray: we have turned every one to his own way: and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” It is not here a question of physical pain; of the thorns, the smitings and the nails: nor of all the shame and degradation connected with His suffering a malefactor’s death: undoubtedly our Lord felt these things with an intensity of which none other could be capable: but there was more than that at Calvary, for “It pleased the Lord to bruise Him: He has put Him to grief” (Isaiah 53:10). It was Jehovah’s sword that smote Him when His soul was made an offering for sin: the billows of His wrath rolled over Him as He stood as the Substitute in the place of the sheep.

He gave His life for the sheep. He entered the field where death seemed to hold an undisputed sway, and there He annulled him that had the power of death, that is, the devil. As David beat down the mighty giant in Elah, so has the Good Shepherd, by His dying, destroyed the great foe, and wrought deliverance for the sheep.

He laid down His life, no man took it from Him. He had power to lay it down and power to take it again. These are wonderful words, proclaiming the fact of His Deity, for no creature could so have spoken, and yet in this same connection He says, “This commandment have I received of My Father” (ver. 18). How startling is that which greets us here. The supreme power of Deity was His, and yet He shows Himself to us in absolute submission to the Father’s command. But further, this commandment of the Father’s had the sheep entirely in view. His purpose was that they should be saved from every foe, and He has found a new reason for loving His well-beloved Son in that He laid down His life for them. These are wonderful things for the heart’s meditation. Have we seen the Good Shepherd in the glory of His love?

HIS RESURRECTION FROM THE DEAD.

“Therefore doth My Father love Me, because I lay down My life that I might take it again.”

He has taken His life again, that, as the Great Shepherd, He might gather the sheep of God into one flock. His voice sounded amidst the dead legalism of the Jews’ religion, and the sheep within that fold heard it and followed Him out of it: His voice was also to ring tenderly and clear over the far-away mountains of sin, that His “other sheep” from among the Gentiles might also be brought, that there might be ONE FLOCK and one Shepherd. Not a fold now in which the sheep should be held together by the high walls of law and ordinance, as the Jews had been kept from the nations: nor yet by rules and regulations, either written or unwritten, but a FLOCK held together by the all-sufficiency and attractive power of the ONE SHEPHERD.

This is the beginning of the revelation of the oneness of the Christian company. It is developed in the thought of the family having God as FATHER, and still further in the body and its one HEAD, which is Christ: but there is a sweetness about the thought of the one flock which is entirely its own, and it is this: the sheep are not united to each other organically, as are the members of a body, but each individual in the vast flock of God is attached to the Shepherd by an intimacy known to itself alone. “He calls His own sheep by NAME.” “I know My sheep and am known of Mine.” It is because we know Him that we belong to the one flock. He has a special name for each one of us, each of us is —
“Called by that secret name
  Of undisclosed delight.”

We shall fully understand its meaning when we see Him in the “saint-thronged courts” above, but now our ears should be so keenly attent to His voice that we should be learning it here. There should be with each sheep a secret history of soul with the Shepherd, increasing in blessedness as the days go by.

How precious is this oneness to God, and to Christ, and to everyone whose heart is intelligent in divine truth. “I am the good Shepherd, and I know those that are Mine, and am known of those that are Mine, as the Father knows Me and I know the Father: and I lay down My life for the sheep” (N.T.). This is an intimacy and communion that creature thought could never have conceived, and which can only be enjoyed by the Holy Ghost.

“There shall be one flock and one Shepherd”; this is the purpose of God, and, blessed be His name, it abides true, for there can be no failure in the one Great Shepherd. It is true for God, and true also for the faith and affection of every sheep that is contented to hear the Shepherd’s voice and follow Him. Have we seen Him as the Great Shepherd, in the glory of His all-sufficiency for the whole flock of God?

HIS SUPREMACY OVER ALL EVIL.

“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me: and I give to them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand.”

These words were spoken to those who believed not, and they were the declaration of the Lord’s ability to keep and bless His sheep. Those Jews who urged Him to tell them plainly whether He was the Christ or not were seeking some sign that would satisfy their sensuality, a sign such as He had given them when He fed the multitude. They wanted a king who would give them the bread that perishes, and bless them according to their own carnal thoughts, but for the Bread of God they had no taste. But His sheep heard His voice: they said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.” And this life He gave to them, a life outside of the world and nature, a life which was manifested to them in Him, and which belonged to the home out of which He had come.

He gives this life to His sheep, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of His hand. Neither decay within nor foes without can rob Him of those whom the Father has given Him. He is their life and protector, and He is supreme in His glorious power. Can any sheep have a doubt since He is its Shepherd? If when crucified in weakness He annulled the power of the devil, what will He do in the glorious strength of His resurrection? Shall He not be triumphant over every force of evil, and that for ever? It must be so, and He declares in this His supremacy, that He will hold all who are His. Have we seen Him in the glory of this great power?