“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” -John 10:27
“It is not for the flock of sheep to know the pasture the Shepherd has in mind. It is for them simply to follow Him.” -Elisabeth Elliot via Twitter
“For thus saith the Lord God; Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out.” -Ezekiel 34:11
This He does at the first when His elect are like wandering sheep that know not the Shepherd or the fold. How wonderfully doth the Lord find out His chosen! Jesus is great as a seeking Shepherd as well as a saving Shepherd. Though many of those His Father gave Him have gone as near to hell-gate as they well can, yet the Lord by searching and seeking discovers them and draws nigh to them in grace. He has sought out us: let us have good hope for those who are laid upon our hearts in prayer, for He will find them out also.
The Lord repeats this process when any of His flock stray from the pastures of truth and holiness. They may fall into gross error, sad sin, and grievous hardness; but yet the Lord, who has become a surety for them to His Father, will not suffer one of them to go so far as to perish. He will by providence and grace pursue them into foreign lands, into abodes of poverty, into dens of obscurity, into depths of despair; He will not lose one of all that the Father has given Him. It is a point of honor with Jesus to seek and to save all the flock, without a single exception. What a promise to plead, if at this hour I am compelled to cry, “I have gone astray like a lost sheep!”
[from Faith’s Checkbook by Charles H. Spurgeon]
“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.” -Psalm 23:1
“The only safe place for sheep is by the side of the shepherd, because the devil does not fear sheep; he just fears the shepherd.” -A.W. Tozer via Twitter
“For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, I Myself will search for My sheep and will seek them out.” -Ezekiel 34:11
This He does at the first when His elect are like wandering sheep that know not the Shepherd or the fold. How wonderfully doth the Lord find out His chosen! Jesus is great as a seeking Shepherd as well as a saving Shepherd. Though many of those His Father gave Him have gone as near to hell-gate as they well can, yet the Lord by searching and seeking discovers them and draws nigh to them in grace. He has sought out us: let us have good hope for those who are laid upon our hearts in prayer, for He will find them out also.
The Lord repeats this process when any of His flock stray from the pastures of truth and holiness. They may fall into gross error, sad sin, and grievous hardness; but yet the Lord, who has become a surety for them to His Father, will not suffer one of them to go so far as to perish. He will by providence and grace pursue them into foreign lands, into abodes of poverty, into dens of obscurity, into depths of despair; He will not lose one of all that the Father has given Him. It is a point of honor with Jesus to seek and to save all the flock, without a single exception. What a promise to plead, if at this hour I am compelled to cry, “I have gone astray like a lost sheep!”
[from Faith’s Checkbook by Charles H. Spurgeon]
“And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to My voice. So there will be one flock, one Shepherd. –John 10:16
“I have other sheep. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice.” John 10:16 Missions cannot fail. -John Piper via Twitter
We believe in the eternal security of the saints. First, because they are Christ’s, and He will never lose the sheep which He has bought with His blood and received of His Father.
Next, because He gives them eternal life, and if it be eternal, well then, it is eternal, and there can be no end to hell, and heaven, and God. If spiritual life can die out, it is manifestly not eternal life, and that effectually shuts out the possibility of an end.
Observe, further, that the Lord expressly says, “They shall never perish.” As long as words have a meaning, this secures believers from perishing. The most obstinate unbelief cannot force this meaning out of this sentence.
Then, to make the matter complete, He declares that His people are in His hand, and He defies all their enemies to pluck them out of it. Surely it is a thing impossible even for the fiend of hell. We must be safe in the grasp of an almighty Savior. Be it ours to dismiss carnal fear as well as carnal confidence and rest peacefully in the hollow of the Redeemer’s hand.
[from Faith’s Checkbook by Charles H. Spurgeon, June 7 entry]
“I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever.” -Psalm 89:1
I will sing the wondrous story
Of the Christ Who died for me.
How He left His home in glory
For the cross of Calvary.
Yes, I’ll sing the wondrous story
Of the Christ Who died for me,
Sing it with the saints in glory,
Gathered by the crystal sea.
I was lost, but Jesus found me,
Found the sheep that went astray,
Threw His loving arms around me,
Drew me back into His way.
I was bruised, but Jesus healed me,
Faint was I from many a fall,
Sight was gone, and fears possessed me,
But He freed me from them all.
Days of darkness still come o’er me,
Sorrow’s path I often tread,
But His presence still is with me;
By His guiding hand I’m led.
He will keep me till the river
Rolls its waters at my feet;
Then He’ll bear me safely over,
Where the loved ones I shall meet.
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Story Behind the Song
Twenty-one-year-old Peter Bilhorn approached Pastor Francis Rowley one Sunday night after the evening service. The year was 1886; the place was North Adams, Massachusetts. Young Bilhorn had been converted the previous year, and already he was using his musical talents for the Lord. “Why don’t you write a hymn for me to set to music?” he asked Pastor Rowley.
Rowley’s response was this Gospel song, which originally began “Can’t you sing the wondrous story?” For Bilhorn, who was a singer as wella s a pianist and organist, it was an ideal personal testimony. As an unconverted teenager, he had started his music career singing in Chicago taverns. He understood the line “I was lost but Jesus found me—found the sheep that went astray.”
Bilhorn went on singing the wondrous story the rest of his life, writing two thousand songs, designing a portable folding organ for evangelistic use, assisting evangelists like Billy Sunday, and ministering around the world with Christian music.
[from The One Year Book of Hymns, July 10 entry]
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