THE GOOD SHEPHERD

Verse First.

"The Lord is my shepherd;

I shall not want."

The handling of the material in this psalm is very artistic. The primary idea is expressed in the opening words, "The Lord is my Shepherd"; and then, to the end of v. 4, follow inferences from it, mentioning in detail the different things which one who is a good shepherd will do. Of these inferences the first is included in this first verse, "I shall not want." This is the sole negative inference; those that follow are positive.

1. A Profitable Practice.

Not long ago, on opening a new book — a translation from the Dutch — on the Lord’s Parables, I was struck with the way in which the subject was divided. First were discussed the parables taken from agriculture, of which there were said to be seven; then those taken from the work of the vinedresser, of which there were six; then those taken from the work of the shepherd; then those from the industry of the fisherman; and so on.,

It brought home to me more distinctly than I had ever observed before, how the common life of Palestine was all swept, for purposes of illustration, into the teaching of Christ — with what an observant and sympathetic eye He had looked upon the common occupations of men, and how suggestive they had been to Him of spiritual analogies.

I suppose, the four occupations to which I have referred were the most common in Palestine. There was, first, agriculture: this was the basis of existence, and in it the body of the people were employed. Then there was the occupation of the vinedresser: every sunny hillside was covered with vineyards, and at the time of the vintage the whole land was filled with the songs of those who gathered and those who trod the grapes. Then there was the occupation of the shepherd: the hills which were not suitable for the cultivation of the vine were clothed with flocks; and every village had its droves of great and small cattle, which were led out to the pastures every evening. Then there was the labour of the fisherman, which Jesus could not possibly omit, because it was so conspicuous in the part of the country in which the principal scene of His ministry lay.

It was not only, however, nor was it first by Him that these features of common life in the Holy Land were beautifully described and used as vehicles for conveying spiritual truth. In both the poetical and prophetical parts of the Old Testament we find the same practice in full operation. How often, for example, in the Psalms and the Prophets, are the people of God compared to a vine, of which God is the husbandman; and every single step in the history of the vineyard, from the time it is cleared of stones and fenced in from the surrounding waste on to the point where the wine is in the cup and at the owner’s lips, is made use of to illustrate some aspect or other of divine truth. Still more common, if possible, is the use for the same purpose made of the shepherd’s calling. As early as the age of the patriarchs, God is called the Shepherd of Israel; and in a hundred different forms subsequently this thought recurs, every phase and incident of the life of the shepherd and the life-history of the sheep being turned to account, as in the unspeakably beautiful words of Isaiah, "He shall feed His flock like a shepherd; He shall gather the lambs with His arm and carry them in His bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young."

Here, then, we see a distinct and prevalent habit of the religious mind. The inspired teachers perceived in the common occupations of daily life innumerable hints and suggestions of heavenly truths, and they taught those who received their teaching to brood upon these analogies as they engaged in their ordinary occupations.

Now this is a precious habit; and we also — both those who teach and those who are taught — ought to cultivate it. The aspect of our modern life is, indeed, very different from that ancient one. Though we still have in our population the agriculturist, the shepherd, and the fisherman, we are not an agricultural but a commercial people, and we have a vast number of other occupations. Some of these may not be so poetical or suggestive as the occupations of a simple open-air existence. But many of them — such as the calling of the builder, the banker, the manufacturer, the engineer — are pregnant with instructive and impressive suggestions; and there is no occupation which is altogether unable to yield such nutrition to the brooding mind.

Existence is ennobled when, besides the prose of mere loss and gain, its occupations thus whisper to the heart the poetry of spiritual suggestion; and our modern world would be a far happier place if it had poets who could thus interpret the hidden meaning of common things. It is not, indeed, destitute of these; but they are required in far greater numbers. I like to think of the poets who are still to be. There are Homers and Shakspeares, Miltons and Burnses, still to be born. The generations of the future will read glorious books which we have never seen, and be inspired with songs, full of melody and joy, which our ears have never heard. What these strains of the future will be we can only guess; but no office of poetry is so valuable as that of dignifying common life by revealing the filaments by which it is connected with an ideal region — the life spiritual and eternal.

Meanwhile, let us be thankful for this, that every man is in some degree a poet. There is an inarticulate poetry which never goes into words or books, but warms, delights and refines the soul in which it simmers. The apprentice has it who, as he measures a yard of ribbon or sells a pound of sugar, is thinking of how trade unites the races of the world and makes all men servants one of another; the working man has it who, as he chisels a stone for its place in a building, is thinking how the providence of daily experience is shaping himself for a place in the temple of God; the servant has it who, as she sweeps a room or scours a vessel, is praying that her heart may be a clean abode for the habitation of God’s Spirit. Even the scavenger may be rapt by it out of the gutter, where he is employed, up to the heavenly places; and, if he is, then in the genuine attributes of manhood he far excels the gentleman in broadcloth who may despise him, as he passes, if the soul of the latter does not soar above pounds, shillings and pence.

2. A Fruitful Analogy.

Although all lawful occupations will yield some analogies to divine truth, there are, of course, certain which are more fertile in this respect than others; and the religious language of all ages seems to prove that in the occupation of the shepherd such analogies are particularly obvious.

Perhaps, indeed, this was more the case in the East than it is in this country. The shepherds of our border hills are a superior class of men, and their care for the flocks entrusted to them is exemplary, but the Oriental shepherd was brought much nearer his sheep, and his affection for them was more peculiar. By two circumstances especially was this demonstrated — the one, the well-known fact that, instead of driving his sheep, the Oriental shepherd goes before them, whilst they follow; the other, the fact that he not only knows his own sheep by head-mark, as, I suppose, our shepherds also do, but calls each of them by its own name. In our mountains it is not unusual to see sheep on the hillside with no shepherd in sight, especially where there is an enclosing wall or fence, the presence of a shepherd being not always necessary. But in the East, sheep are never seen without the shepherd. In Eastern fields there are no fences, and danger is never far off: the wolf or the panther may be prowling about, or the robber from the desert may be on the watch. Our shepherds go out in the morning with nothing but plaid and staff; but in the East, even at the present day, the shepherd goes afield armed to the teeth with gun, sword, or other weapons; and it is no very unusual incident for a shepherd actually to sacrifice his life for his flock.

Of course all shepherds are not alike faithful or affectionate; but we can easily believe that David was an ideal shepherd. We remember how he slew the lion and the bear by which his flock had been attacked; and, even if we were unacquainted with these incidents, we could imagine how his generous heart would have gone out to the creatures under his charge, and how his courage would have prompted him to sacrifice himself for their protection. We may be certain of this, too, that the intensity of David’s fidelity became to him an interpreter of God’s faithfulness to those over whose welfare He had pledged Himself to watch. In the same way, it is the man who is himself the most affectionate and loyal father who best knows what is meant by the fatherhood of God. And in general, we may lay down the rule that it is the man who loves his occupation and is doing his daily work with all his might who will best perceive the divine lessons it is fitted to teach.

The shepherd’s care of his sheep begins with the most elementary wants of existence, but it mounts up, through successive stages of attention and kindness, till it may culminate in the sacrifice of his life on their behalf. At every step this has its counterpart in God: we are dependent on Him for our daily bread; and upon numerous steps the tale of His grace has to be told, till we come to the astounding fact that "the Good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep."

Thus the relation of God to the soul of man is attractively and suggestively set forth by the relation of the shepherd to the sheep. Perhaps on the opposite side — the relation of the soul to God, which is the other half of religion — the analogy is not so serviceable.

Here also, indeed, there are pathetic hints of the truth. The sheep has a tendency to stray and lose itself. So all we, like sheep, have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way.

There are some animals, such as the dog, which, though lost, have a remarkable faculty of finding their way home. The sheep is, however, I should think, deficient in this kind of intelligence: if lost, it has no instinct for finding itself again. Here also, it may be said, the analogy holds. When man lost God, he would never of his own accord have come home. God had to come after him.

But none of the righteous ever knew

     How deep were the waters crossed,

Or how dark was the night that the Lord passed through,

     Ere He found the sheep that was lost.

          Out in the desert He heard its cry,

          Sick and helpless and ready to die.

 

Lord, whence are those blood drops all the way

     That mark out the mountain track?

They were shed for one who had gone astray,

     Ere the Shepherd could bring him back.

          Lord, whence are Thy hands so rent and torn?

          They were pierced tonight by many a thorn.

As we say this of the human race as a whole, so of every individual soul it may be said that it never could and never would have returned of its own accord. God has to send forth His Spirit to seek, to strive and persuade. "No man can come unto Me, except the Father, which hath sent Me, draw him."

But the responsibility of man to yield to these strivings of God’s Spirit, and his freedom either to continue in sin or to come home to God, are very imperfectly represented by anything in the case of the sheep. So especially is the choice by which we turn away from all other masters and acknowledge God as our own God — the most important moment of religion on man’s side.

There are also other points at which the relation of the sheep to the shepherd does not express very well the relation of the soul to God. But of nearly all analogies the same is true — they illustrate only a limited number of points, while at other points they break down. And our wisdom is to bring into the light those aspects of the truth which an image fairly illustrates, letting the others fall into the background. The image of the shepherd and the sheep illustrates so many points so well that there is no need of forcing it to do work for which it was not intended.

3. A Golden Promise.

The first inference drawn from the great statement "The Lord is my shepherd," is, "I shall not want" This is merely negative; yet how priceless it is 1 In the strength of such a promise a pilgrim might almost travel the whole way.

Many people are haunted all their days with the fear of want; and, although they have no real trouble today, they are continually borrowing it from tomorrow, and so allowing their entire existence to be overshadowed. Many even of the young are haunted with the dread that, however well they may live and however honestly they may work, the world may have no room for them and may not even afford them their daily bread. But this is a morbid and unbelieving state of mind, and not in accordance with facts. Society is always in need of upright men and women and honest workers, and does not grudge them their wages. The fact that we have been brought into existence is a proof that we are needed; and the likelihood is strong that a sufficient share of what is required to sustain existence will be ours, if we are willing to do our part to deserve our place. This is the cheerful philosophy of Jesus Himself: "Consider the lilies of the field how they grow: they toil not neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your Heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?"

Can we say, then, that poverty never can overtake the godly? I once heard the late Mr. Spurgeon, in his own church, read a psalm in which this verse occurs: "I have been young and now am old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, or his seed begging bread." After reading the verse, he paused and remarked, "David, being a king, may never have seen this spectacle; but I, being a minister and better acquainted with poor people, have seen it often." That was a very bold statement Let me quote to you another of an opposite tenor. I was once walking through a poorhouse with the manager, a wise and kindly man, and, being pained with what I had seen, I said to him, "Tell me, now, what proportion of the inmates of this house have been well-doing people, and have been brought here by no fault of their own." "Well," he answered, "I know them all well, and I am acquainted with their histories, and, I am sorry to say, there is not a single one of the sort you have indicated."

These are widely discrepant statements, and perhaps both of them might mislead. An enormous quantity of abject poverty- — probably a far larger proportion of it than in the present temper of the public mind would be readily believed — is due to vice; in our own society it is especially due to drunkenness. Character and well-doing, on the contrary, usually lift at least to the level of honest poverty, with which the dignity and sunshine of life are not incompatible. Besides, where character and well-doing are, there is the power to rally against misfortune: poverty may crush for a time, but the God-fearing spirit will rise above it, and life will improve as it proceeds. On the other hand, however, modern society is so complex that many have to suffer for the wrong-doing of others; and it would be blind and cruel to doubt that sometimes the deserving may sink into destitution, and that in the almshouse, and even the poorhouse, there are saints of God.

What do these exceptional cases prove? Do they prove that sometimes God’s promise fails? If we look to Jesus, we shall understand the mystery. Though He spoke so cheerfully of God’s good providence, yet He had to say Himself, "Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head"; and He died forsaken and outcast. Still, through all, He kept His eye fixed on God and never doubted that out of the darkest misfortune He would cause to be born a higher good. Nor was He disappointed; for out of His bitter shame has come His exaltation, and out of His loss and suffering the salvation of the world. So out of the mysteries of God’s providence will there be born glorious surprises for His other children also. His resources are not exhausted in this life: even after death He can still justify Himself. If God causes any of His saints to want one thing, it is only that He may give a better.

Deep in unfathomable mines

     Of never-failing skill

He treasures up His bright designs

     And works His sovereign will.

 

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take.

     The clouds ye so much dread

Are big with mercy and will break

     In blessing on your head.