We turn to focus on the next phrase in this our inspired Psalm 23: ‘You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.’ To understand this we once again draw on the experience of those who know from first-hand experience of keeping sheep, the problems of these fascinating animals that are likened to those problems of us human beings. Sheep, we are told, are especially irritated by flies and other winged parasites which buzz around their heads and make their lives a misery disturbing bites and deposition of parasites. The Handbook of Bible Times and Customs lists over twenty varieties of flies that can be found in the Middle East –warble flies, nose flies and so on. ‘Sheep are especially troubled by nose flies’, says one shepherd, for they ‘buzz about and around the sheep’s head, attempting to deposit their parasitic eggs on the damp, mucous membranes of the sheep’s nose.’ Do you know or can you imagine the amount of deadly parasites that seek to deposit themselves on us. So irritating can be the effect that sometimes a sheep will beat its head against a tree or a rock wall in order to find relief. Do you know the amount of irritations that humans suffer without knowing that these irritations are coming from deadly parasites and germs that have found their ways into our body, but God saves us from their deadly blows unknown to us? Which is why an alert shepherd, when he sees this taking place, goes to the sheep and bathes its head in olive oil which could be likened to anointing the head? This bathing of the sheep’s head with olive oil results, almost immediately, in a dramatic change: Gone is the frenzy and restlessness caused by the flies and soon the sheep begins to quietly graze or lie down in peaceful contentment; which is exactly what the anointing of the Holy Spirit of God is meant to do to us. Perhaps at this very moment you are facing an endless bombardment of irritations and difficulties and stresses that are causing you to become worried, downcast and fainthearted. All you have to do is Draw Near to our Lord Jesus –your/our heavenly Shepherd and He will grant you calm and peace in life. In this generation of ours, one sure way to draw near to our Lord Jesus Christ is to read His Words in the Scripture and in the Gospel and begin to practice them. It is important for us to spend some moments in quiet prayer and contemplative meditations and let Him bathe your hurts in the soothing oil of His Holy Spirit. So with all of this divine knowledge and wisdom, let us rise and go our way in the knowledge that no matter how frustrating life’s circumstances and situations, that the divine Shepherd is only a prayer distance away from you, seek Him and try draw close to Him to assist and help you. It is important to know that Worldliness is always drawing us away from our God, so let us always make efforts to resist the attractive dragging of worldliness on us in an effort to push us away from God knowing that we are never lost when we are close and near to our Lord God Almighty!

Now let us read Ezekiel 34:1-16; And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 2 Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them, even to the [spiritual] shepherds, Thus says the Lord God: Woe to the [spiritual] shepherds of Israel who feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the sheep? 3 You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you kill the fatlings, but you do not feed the sheep. 4 The diseased and weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the hurt and crippled you have not bandaged, those gone astray you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought to find, but with force and hardhearted harshness you have ruled them. 5 And they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild beasts of the field. 6 My sheep wandered through all the mountains and upon every high hill; yes, My sheep were scattered upon all the face of the earth and no one searched or sought for them. 7 Therefore, you [spiritual] shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: 8 As I live, says the Lord God, surely because My sheep became a prey, and My sheep became food for every beast of the field because there was no shepherd—neither did My shepherds search for My sheep, but the shepherds fed themselves and fed not My sheep— 9 Therefore, O you [spiritual] shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: 10 Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require My sheep at their hand and cause them to cease feeding the sheep, neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more. I will rescue My sheep from their mouths, that they may not be food for them. 11 For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, I Myself, will search for My sheep and will seek them out. 12 As a shepherd seeks out his sheep in the day that he is among his flock that are scattered, so will I seek out My sheep; and I will rescue them out of all places where they have been scattered in the day of clouds and thick darkness. 13 And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries and will bring them to their own land; and I will feed them upon the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited places of the country. 14 I will feed them with good pasture, and upon the high mountains of Israel shall their fold be; there shall they lie down in a good fold, and in a fat pasture shall they feed upon the mountains of Israel. 15 I will feed My sheep and I will cause them to lie down, says the Lord God. 16 I will seek that which was lost and bring back that which has strayed, and I will bandage the hurt and the crippled and will strengthen the weak and the sick, but I will destroy the fat and the strong [who have become hardhearted and perverse]; I will feed them with judgment and punishment.

The Lord in this chapter brings some heavy charges against the false shepherds of Israel which is also extended to us. God’s accusations against them and by extension also to us as listed in the passage before us may be summed up under two distinct leading heads: 1. Theirs and our sins of commission, and 2. Theirs and our sins of omission. Greediness, selfishness, cruelty, and violence were/are still deeply stamped on all their and our decision and actions in life. According to the searching revelations of our God they/we fed themselves/ourselves– they ate the fat and clothed themselves with the wool – and with force and with cruelty they ruled the flock. These were their sins of commission which by extension is also our own sins of commission. And to this sin of commission they/we added, sins of omission. The diseased they did not strengthen, neither did they heal those who were sick, neither did they bind up those who were broken, neither did they bring again those who were driven away; neither did they seek those who were lost. Are we doing differently? And what was the consequence of these sins of commission and omission on the part of the shepherds? That the sheep were scattered – that they became prey to all the beasts of the field – that they wandered through all the mountains and upon every high hill – and that none did search or seek after them. Is the situation different today? Are our general overseers and the administrators of all the big orthodox Churches not using the proceeds of Church to better their lives in negligence of the people? They are using Church proceeds to make themselves richer building empires for their children as extended as possible without caring for the people! But the people themselves have their own foolishness in that they do not even know what belongs to their peace! People are still in such false places. But the Lord does not confine Himself to the false shepherds – He also files a bill of charges against a portion of the flock itself– “As for you, my flock, this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will judge between one sheep and another, and between rams and goats. Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture? Must you also trample the rest of your pasture with your feet? Is it not enough for you to drink clear water? Must you also muddy the rest with your feet? Must my flock feed on what you have trampled and drink what you have muddied with your feet? Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says to them: See, I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. Because you shove with flank and shoulder, butting all the weak sheep with your horns until you have driven them away, I will save my flock, and they will no longer be plundered. I will judge between one sheep and another.” Ezekiel 34:17-22 Remember that our bible reading was from verse 1 to 16, if we had ended there, you would not know that it is not only the shepherds that have faults, the flocks, that is the congregations themselves have their own faults too as seen in verses 17 to 22. But because the shepherds have neglected their duty – and because the fat and the strong among the flock themselves have thrust with side and with shoulder, trodden down the good pastures, and polluted the streams, shall the sheep be mortally injured? Shall they perish through the neglect of the one and the violence of the other? True, they are scattered upon every high hill – true, they have no shepherds to take kindly notice of them – true, they are sometimes gored and sometimes starved, true, the flocks have their own faults. But when man forsakes, the Lord God takes them up. No! They shall derive benefit from their very loss– they shall have God for their Shepherd instead of man. Blessed exchange of Creator power for creature weakness, of divine love and faithfulness for human neglect, cruelty, and worthlessness! When man fails, our God takes up and over being in control, saying: “15 I will feed My sheep and I will cause them to lie down, says the Lord God. 16 I will seek that which was lost and bring back that which has strayed, and I will bandage the hurt and the crippled and will strengthen the weak and the sick, but I will destroy the fat and the strong [who have become hardhearted and perverse]; I will feed them with judgment and punishment.” (verses 15,16). Our text falls of itself, so to speak, into or under two specific leading divisions– I. The promises that God makes to His people generally, and in an especial manner to the diseased portion of them. II. His threatenings and denunciations against the fat and the strong. Let us take them stepwise: I. The PROMISES that God makes to His people generally, and in an especial manner to the diseased portion of them. If we look at this cluster of promises made to the flock of slaughter, (for it is to the flock of slaughter that the Lord God here speaks), we shall find that the first two have a more general and comprehensive bearing than the rest: “I will feed my flock, and cause them to lie down, says the Lord.” Food and Rest are needful for every sheep and every lamb – these two factors are indispensable for the sustentation of life itself – and therefore promised alike to all. “His divine power has given unto us all things that pertain to life and godliness…;” as seen in Second Peter 1:3 and therefore food, without which there is neither life nor godliness. So you see you cannot get everything about the word of God concerning an issue in one place in the Bible, rather the word of God is scattered all over the Bible and it is left for us to be finding them where they are and joining them to get complete knowledge and wisdom of God concerning particular issues of life! Again preachers are fond of shortening verses and if you take only the shortened part of the verse, you will miss the mark, you have to get all! For instance, ‘’His divine power has bestowed upon us all things that [are requisite and suited] to life…through the full personal knowledge of Him Who called us by and to His own glory and excellence (virtue).’’ In this generation of the Second Advent make personal efforts to know God’s Word and live by them; do not depend entirely on the shepherds because a lot of them are in business for their stomach and as such there is every tendency for misleading the flock! The problem is that the shepherds did not, or could not feed flock. The shepherds feasted while the flock fasted – the shepherds ate the fat in the parlor, while the sheep could not get a nibble upon the mountain. Shall the sheep then die of malnutrition? Shall first wool, then fat, and then flesh waste off their bones, until at last they drop down dead under the hedge with nothing but their sunken eyes to feed the ravens? No, says the Lord, “I will feed them.” Is the promise of our Lord God Almighty! So let us seek and draw near to our God to be fed. 1. “I will FEED my flock.” This implies that the flock is hungry – no more, that it hungers after that peculiar food which alone can satisfy it. Spiritual hunger is a sure mark of life. Do you often hunger spiritually? Remember the Lord’s own words are, “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness” as seen in Matt.5:6, this is spiritual hunger! Hunger, we may observe, has a peculiar relation to suitable food. The lion does not hunger for the food of the lamb, nor the dove for that of the eagle. “Feed me with food,” prays Agur, “convenient for me” as seen in Prov.30:8 ‘’Remove far from me falsehood and lies; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me,’’ prays Agur, literally, “appointed,” that is, suitable to my appetite, ordained by yourself to satisfy it. Thus, according to Agur, a soul spiritually hungry cannot eat trash, because trash cannot satisfy the soul. God’s own mark against “a deceived heart” is, that it “feeds upon ashes” as seen in Isa.44:20. All these words God has already given us but we are not learning them, why because worldliness or secularity is distracting us according to Agur! Try read the words Agur in Proverbs thirty (Prov. 30). A living soul cannot, then, feed upon the ashes of its own righteousness – for ashes indeed they will be found when the lightning stroke of God’s righteous law has burnt up all creature loveliness. Nor can it feed upon superstitious ceremonies found in Churches today, or the mummeries (pretentions) of Popish Paganism, either in the full court dress of the Catholic Chapel, or the undress of the Puseyite Church. Nor can it feed upon the, “form of godliness”–upon the barren mountains of dead, dry Calvinism–any more than as it grows on the heaths and wilds of erroneous Arminianism, the Dutch Reformers aspect of Protestantism. No, the Bible itself, that sweet and sacred record, that blessed revelation of the mind of God–even upon the letter of that the soul cannot feed unless God Himself turns it into food for him. For the promise runs, “I will feed My flock.” The food, the only real food of the soul must be of God’s own appointing, preparing, and communicating or feeding. Remember that the principle is that the babe on the mother’s lap must be fed spoonful by spoonful, and that by the hand of the parent. The food must be put into the mouth of the babe, and such food only as is suitable for the growth of the babe by God Himself into the babe’s mouth. You can never deceive a real hungry child or babe! You may give it a plaything to still its cries, it may serve for a few minutes – but the pains of hunger are not to be removed by a doll or a sucker or plaything. A windmill or a horse will not allay or put at rest the cravings after the mother’s breast until it is satisfied. So it is with babes in grace or true believers. A hungry soul cannot feed upon playthings. Altars, robes, ceremonies, candlesticks, bowings, mutterings or speaking in tongues, painted windows, intoning priests, and singing men and women–these dolls and wooden horses–these toys and playthings of our today’s religious babyhouse, cannot feed nor truly satisfy the soul that, like David, cries out after the living God (Psalm 42:23). Christ, the bread of life, the manna who came down from heaven and ascended, is the only food of the true believing soul: “He who eats Me,” says our Lord God, “even he shall live by Me.” “I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eats of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (John 6:51). A true living soul knows when it hungers as much as the babe in the mother’s arms knows when it hungers – and knows also when it drinks down the pure milk of God’s Word as sensibly and as truly as the natural child knows when its hunger is allayed or put to rest by the mother’s breast. The Lord says, “I will feed My flock.” They shall indeed suffer first the pangs of hunger to teach them to value my feeding them – for “the full soul loaths a honey-comb” (Prov.27:7). Loathe, feel intense dislike or disgust for. No more, generally speaking, a certain painful experience is required to produce this appetite. Look at the laborer. What an appetite he has, he eats voraciously! How he relishes his food, coarse though it is! What gives him this appetite? Why, hard intense work. He is not your ‘delicate invalid’, or your ‘fine lady’, that lolls upon the sofa all day long, and whispers at dinner, “I think I can just pick the wing of a chicken;” but he has well earned it, for he has been working while you have been sleeping. So it is with the spiritual laborer, for such there are in the kingdom of God that made our Lord to say: “Come unto Me, all you who labor” in Matt 11:28 –and buttress it further saying, “Labor not for the food which perishes, but for that food which endures unto everlasting life” as seen in Jno.6:27. “In all labor there is profit…” (Prov.14:23). To labor under a burden of sin, against powerful temptations, a body of sin and death, and a whole host of lusts and corruptions, will make a man hunger after a righteousness (as food) better than his own, because he knows on grounds of reality that his righteousness is error prone. We rarely cry out for the living bread until we are brought down to the starving point. Then, when nothing will satisfy but Lord Jesus, God steps in with this Word, “I will feed.” Sometimes it shall be a promise – sometimes a glimpse of Lord Jesus – sometimes a sweet assurance of a saving interest in His blood and righteousness – sometimes a smile – sometimes a sip or taste of His mercy, goodness, and love. Whenever any Gospel Truth is applied to the heart – when faith embraces it, hope anchors in it, and love flows toward it, then the soul is divinely fed. Hunger is then sensibly allayed when a true soul is divinely fed–the Word of God tastes sweet – Lord Jesus is received into the heart – and as the sheep lies and chews the cud, so the soul meditates and ruminates on the truth of God, and enjoys it over and over again until its whole body, soul and spirit is permeated by it! Never be satisfied with the mere letter of truth. Seek to have fulfilled in your own individual and happy experience that declaration of our Lord Jesus saying, “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life” (Jno.6:63). Always allow this word to be active in you! 2. “I will cause them to lie down.” Poor things! Restless indeed they were. Not a spot of soft tender grass was there on which they could repose their weary limbs. Did they seek the good pasture? The best was eaten up, and the rest trodden down. Did they long to lie down by the still waters? They were jostled away by the fat and the strong – and the little they could get was fouled. Thus were they ever on the drive, hurried to and fro, far from rest and peace. Lively emblem of a soul that, like Noah’s dove, finds no rest for the sole of her foot on the floating carcasses of a ruined world! What a restless being is a tempted child of God! How unable he often is even to rest locally, to take his chair, and sit quietly by his fire-side! It is recorded of the prisoners, who in the first French revolution were awaiting in their dungeons the summons to the ‘dread tribunal of blood’, that some passed nearly all their whole time in walking up and down their cells. So sometimes under trials and temptations, we pace up and down the room as if we sought to dissipate the exercise of our minds by the exercise of our bodies – or rush into the streets and fields to pour the heart out in sighs and groans, the restless mind acting and reacting upon the body. And as an exercised child of God often cannot rest physically, so cannot he rest spiritually. He cannot rest in his own righteousness, nor in a sound creed, nor in a form of godliness, nor in the opinions of men, nor in anything that springs from or centers in the creature. There always is something uneasy – either in himself or in the ground on which he would repose. Sometimes it is strewed with thorns and briars – sometimes beset with sharp and rugged rocks. Sometimes the barking dog or howling wolf – sometimes the sturdy ram or butting goat – sometimes the goad of the savage driver – and sometimes the fears and anxieties of his own timid heart, prevent it settling down to rest and sleep. And yet, but for these restless, uneasy feelings, how many even of the Lord’s own family would settle down short of gospel rest? Some would settle down in false religion – others in the world – some would make a god of their own righteousness – and others, like the foolish virgins, would securely sleep while their lamp was burning out; with huge wastefulness. But there is that restless, painful exercise where the life and grace of God are, that the soul cannot, if it would, settle down in any rest but that of God’s own providing: “There remains therefore a rest for the people of God” (Heb.4:9). That rest is Christ – the blood, righteousness, love, and grace of the Lamb of God. The Lord says, “I will cause them to lie down.” They cannot lie down then when they please. How everything is of grace! Every gracious movement is so from God, which they actually cannot lie down except He causes them. They are like the babe which cannot lay itself down in the cradle. The mother’s arms are as needful to lay it down as to take it up. So the Lord is said to cause Israel to rest (Jer.31:2). And David says, “He makes me to lie down in green pastures” (Psalm.23:2). Thus the Lord sometimes leads His sheep in the green pastures and beside the still waters. Then He makes them to lie down. “I will give you rest,” says Lord Jesus. This rest is Himself. No more, it is God’s rest. “My rest,” He calls it. “If they shall enter into My rest” (Heb.4:5). Lord Jesus is the true Sabbath, the rest of God and the rest of man. God rests in His love – when we can rest in that, we are of one mind with God. All rest short of this is a delusion, and cannot give you real rest. Now have you ever found any rest for your soul? If you have ever felt any measure of real rest, however short it may have been, it has only been in Lord Jesus and His finished work, and by the blessed Spirit bringing into your soul some sweet testimony of your personal interest in it. Into this rest we enter only by faith, as the apostle speaks, “We who have believed do enter into rest” (Heb.4:3). But this cannot be until we cease from self, as Paul speaks, “He who has entered into His rest has ceased from his own works” (Heb.4:10). As long as you are trying to get some comfort from your own works, you will never enter into rest. It is by believing, not by working – by the gospel, and not by the law – by Christ, and not by self, that rest and peace are entered into and enjoyed. The two promises which we have been considering – food and rest, are applicable to all the flock, and to each individual member of it, food and rest being alike needful for all. But we now come to a series of promises, which have a special relation to particular cases. The sheep, through neglect and cruelty, had fallen into a miserable condition. Some were “lost;” others “driven away” – some “broken” in limb, wind, and constitution – and some “sick” and half dead with malady and disease. Must all of these perish, and feed the vulture and the jackal? No! – says the Lord, “I will search for My lost ones who strayed away, and I will bring them safely home again. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak.” When they are abandoned by the shepherds, and in themselves helpless and hopeless, ready to perish, the Lord graciously steps in with His own Almighty arm. 1. “I will search for My LOST ones.” In the figure of a lost sheep there is something singularly suitable, semblance and appropriate to a poor, erring, straying child of God. Of all animals the sheep is eminently the most silly – and it is usually not maliciousness, but silliness, that leads it astray just like most of us humans. Often through mere folly, it wanders away and becomes lost. But now comes the difficulty. How shall it get home again? The dog, the ox, the very swine can find their way home. But the sheep has neither the scent of the hound, nor the sagacity of the hog. When it wanders, it loses its way altogether. But it rarely wanders without getting into some mischief just like us. The teeth of the dog, and the tusks of the wild boar protect them – but the sheep is utterly defenseless. Every beast is against her. Need we go far to find the parallel? Who is so foolish and silly as regards his best interests as a child of God? Who so apt to wander? Who so unable to return? Who so exposed to a thousand enemies? Who so defenseless against them all? And indeed, a sheep may wander far – I dare not say how far! The longer I live, the more I see and know of the evils of my own heart, the more tender I should be in limiting how far it may wander. But it will never roam beyond the bounds of covenant love, will never fall out of the arms of mercy into hell – will never get beyond the eye and hand of the Good Shepherd, for He has a piercing eye and an outstretched hand, a long arm and a strong arm. But He says, “I will search for My lost ones.” With the Lord, to seek is to find. The earthly shepherd may look, and look, and look in vain – down, down in some far away mountain cleft the sheep may lie. But the all-seeing eye of the heavenly Shepherd reaches the most secluded, distant spot – and one word from Him finds the wandering sheep. The sheep know the voice of the Shepherd. He never speaks in vain – however far they may have wandered, one word recalls them. For, with all their folly, they have the distinguishing mark of a sheep – love of the Shepherd – and therefore, when he speaks, it drops into the heart, and brings them back. Thus he finds his poor lost sheep, lays it upon his shoulder, and brings it home rejoicing – it may be mangled and torn – sadly scratched with thorns, bleeding in head and limbs, with its fleece ripped and soiled, perhaps its wool half pulled off – but still living, warm, panting, breathing, clinging close to the bosom of its Almighty Deliverer. What a mercy to be a sheep! To have any one mark of belonging to the flock of slaughter! To have one grain of grace – I say sometimes the hundredth part of a grain, how unspeakable the mercy! O, to have life in the soul – it may sometimes be at a low ebb, very low, but to have a spark of the life of God in the bosom! Worlds cannot purchase it, and worlds cannot destroy it. Do not write yourself lost, because you are tempted on every hand. Despair is one of the strongholds of Satan. His first object is to draw you away, and then to tell you there is no hope, that by plunging you into despair, he may hurl you into greater depths of sin. Let us always resist sin and sinning despite how Satan presents the temptations to us, God be our helper! 2. “And bring again those who were DRIVEN AWAY.” Satan does not deal with all alike. He is a master of deception and deceptive strategy– he knows how to adapt his devices to everyone’s constitution and disposition. He did not spread the same net for Peter and David – nor work in the same manner upon Solomon and Jonah. To some he is a serpent, and to others a lion – to this man a tempter, to that man an accuser. He fires David’s eyes, and swells Hezekiah’s heart – sets Asaph in slippery places, and makes Job and Jeremiah curse the day of their birth, Satan know how to deal with each one of us to the extent that we could nearly ‘kwuhe onu’. Thus some he allures into evil, and in its mazes they become for a time “lost;” others he “drives away.” This he sometimes does by injecting blasphemous insinuations and suggestions – as if he would thereby drive them headlong into suicide or despair, and because we are bereft of God’s word, we lack ways of guiding ourselves with it. Careless sinners he tempts to presumption – but where he sees a work of grace begun, there he tempts to despond of salvation altogether. But besides these temptations of the enemy, some seem from the very tenderness of their consciences “driven away.” Their feelings are so acute and sensitive – sin is laid upon them with such weight and power, and they see and feel themselves such monsters of iniquity, which it seems as though the very holiness and majesty of God drove them away from His presence. They dare scarcely speak lest they be cast and condemned under the Word – or pray – lest they add sin to sin; these are some of the difficult tendencies that make many people afraid to boldly speak out or confess exactly what is happening inside their heart or mind hence many deliverance exercises usually ends uncompleted. Thus, they are driven away out of fear, by the very majesty of God, by their own apprehension of Him as a consuming fire, and by the terrors of His holy and righteous law. Thus it was in time of old and even today! The children of Israel could not bear to hear “the awesome trumpet blast and a voice with a message so terrible that they begged God to stop speaking.” (Heb.12:19). Bounds were set round that fiery mountain, and they were thus driven away from its precincts. So whenever the law comes with condemnation to the conscience, it drives the soul away. As guilt and wrath drove Adam away from the voice of the Lord, to hide himself among the trees of the garden, so a sense of guilt and wrath drives the soul away from the presence of God. Do you see what is happening to many people why it appears as if people are not ready to solve their problems because of fear? But, besides what takes place in the first work of grace in the soul, even afterwards, often, in after stages, a sense of guilt through having fallen into some sin, or in any way having wounded and defiled the conscience, will drive away the soul from God which explains why many people like to worship in none Living Churches than in Living Churches, hence you begin to see scanty or few people in Living Churches. So under this condition of being Sensible of its Guilt and Shame, the wounded and defiled conscience or soul fears to approach God just as Adam and Eve did, and by staying away from God makes the matter worse, and the breach harder to be healed. This is why many people prefer to remain in their sinful condition rather than cooperating with God’s Holy Spirit for true deliverance! Sometimes these fears work so strong, as almost to make a man give up his very profession. He says to himself, “I cannot go among the people of God – they would shun me, if they knew what I was – I cannot, I must not go to hear the truth, for I shall only hear my own sentence – and therefore I had better stay away – nor will I ever open my mouth about religion again, lest my place be among the hypocrites.” Thus, by their very doubts and fears and sensitiveness of conscience, they are driven away from the very presence of God which otherwise was meant to save them. But the Lord has respect unto these also. He says, “I will bring again.” This shows they were formerly in the enjoyment of His comfortable presence – that they had been embraced in the arms of mercy – that they had been enfolded to the bosom of love – but they were driven away by their sinful condition. Guilt, temptation, Satan, doubts and fears had driven them away from the shelter of the tabernacle. Yet the promise runs, I will “bring again those who were driven away.” Do you now understand? Here in House we have so many of such people, so we are looking forward to seeing them return! But how? By nothing but a sense of mercy. It is not by frowns, but by smiles. “I drew them,” says the Lord, “with the cords of a man,” (that is, the tender feelings that are bound up in the human heart,) “with the cords of love” (Hos.11:4). You may thunder, you may lighten, and you may take the whip and flog a poor backslider. But you can never flog him home to Christ. He must be drawn by mercy, by the goodness of God, by the love of God which leads to repentance through conviction of sin and a yelling to be helped. How was Peter brought back? By that ‘tender look’ which Lord Jesus gave him, as He stood in the hall of the high priest, that look of mingled love and reproach permeated his heart and stirred up a zeal and a longing. It was this that made Peter go out and weep bitterly of his wrong attitude towards his Master. A frown would have driven him into despair, and made him hang himself by the side of Judas – but that ‘tender look of mingled reproof and love wounded and healed’ at same time, filled heart and eyes with the deepest grief and sorrow – and yet poured such a healing balm into his mourning soul that when Lord Jesus was risen from the dead, and by His angel sent him a special message that He would see him again in Galilee, and with joy he leaped into the sea to meet Him instead of running away out of fear, when he stood on the shore of the lake Tiberias. But for that look and for that message of a promise of seeing Him again, Peter would rather have leaped to the bottom with self-reproach, than leaped to the shore with love and affection and so it is with us today. Thus was brought again poor driven-away Peter. By this example of our Lord we learn that we are to handle sinful wounded souls with great care so as not to drive them away from God’s presence! And thus too, by the voice of pardon, was brought again poor driven-away David. For the Lord devises means that His banished sons and daughters be not expelled from Him and His Presence all the days of their life! 3. “And will bind up those who are BROKEN.” Some then in the flock are broken, broken in wind, limb, and constitution. 1. Some are broken-winded, asthmatic and coughing all the day long, unable to travel, and lying down at every step, with gasping mouth and panting flank. There are spiritual asthmas and winter coughs among the Lord’s family. Poor feeble ones that cannot step without a sigh or a groan, wheezing at the least exertion, and dying away up every little hill. 2. Others are broken in limb. They have slipped down a precipice, and broken a leg. And doubtless, there are many more limbs broken than you know of. It is not everybody that shows his broken leg. Many poor children of God have had their secret slips, which have broken all their bones, and yet known only to God and themselves. Who is there that is not, more or less, guilty of slips with the eye, with the tongue, with the hand, the foot, the ear, or the heart? Sometimes this breaks the arm, so that it is not lifted up as it should be in prayer, and is, from being crippled, unable to embrace the Son of God – sometimes the leg, so that it cannot readily run the race set before us. 3. Others are broken in constitution. Sickness and disease have gradually drained away their native strength. Their wisdom is broken, their righteousness, their strength, their resolutions, their false hopes, their creature religion – so that “the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint” (Isa.1:5). But the Lord says, I will “bind up that which was broken.” He swathes up the tender chest, and heals the gasping, panting lung – He kindly sets the broken bone, and puts it into close alignment again just as He did to the man’s ear that Peter cut off. It shall not be like many a limb that the doctors set which leaves a limping leg ever after, but it shall be stronger and balanced than before. And the broken constitution He renovates by the balm of Gilead, so that the soul renews its youth like the eagle. 4. But, besides broken wind, limb, and constitution, the Lord’s people have broken hearts – and a broken and a contrite heart is in God’s eyes of great price. None but He Who made the heart can first break it, and then bind it up – but He can do both effectually. To this man God looks – for He has promised to look “to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembles at my word” (Isa.66:2) – and with him He dwells. “For thus says the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy – I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones” (Isa.57:15). And where the Lord dwells, He binds up. So let us allow Him dwell us! 5. But the same blow which breaks their heart often breaks their confidence. So David found it. The same Psalm which says, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,” breathes also the prayer, “Cast me not away from Your presence” (Psalm 51:17, 11). There was perhaps a time when they could speak confidently of what God had done for their souls, and believed in their very hearts that the Lord loved them, and gave Himself for them. But this true confidence (for there is a true as well as a false one) is often so sadly broken that they cannot put it together again. But the Lord has promised to “bind up that which was broken;” and this He can do by one look, one word, one smile, one beaming in of His Presence and Grace. Every scattered bone and joint now drops into its place – and the whole is then so firmly swathed round with love as to be as strong or even stronger than before. You have come sometimes to hear, perhaps with scarcely a hope in your soul – you have been so knocked about by sin and Satan, and have got into such places, that you have dreaded and feared whether there was a spark of grace in you – and yet, when all seemed utterly gone, and you at your wit’s end, a line of the hymn, or a word dropped in prayer, or something in the sermon, all of a sudden entered into your soul, and came with such overwhelming power, that your very heart was melted within you and you begin to feel capture by His Love and Care. At times like this was a binding up that which was broken – and the confidence which before was like a dislocated limb, or a foot out of joint, unable to bear any weight or pressure, leaps, like Naphtali, as a deer let loose. 4. “I will strengthen those who are SICK.” Peculiar maladies require peculiar remedies – but here is a general remedy, a family medicine. The Lord not only has strong remedies for desperate diseases – but in the divine medicine chest He has His restoratives and cordials. “Oh, feed me with your love—your ‘raisins’ and your ‘apples’—for I am utterly lovesick!” (Song of Sol.2:5). She was in a swoon, and needed a reviving cordial to restore her. So a poor fainting soul may come to hear the preached gospel, or may open his Bible, and say, “What is here for me? When I hear any deep experience described, that seems to cut me off as too deep – and when I hear great manifestations entered into, that cuts me off as too high. So I seem to be a strange being, a peculiar out-of-the-way creature, that can neither dive nor fly, sink nor rise.” Well, you are sick – you are like one in a hospital, ill of a malady that puzzles all the doctors. At last one more skilful than his brethren, says, “There is no peculiar disease. But the man, like many of our London/Nigerian patients, is suffering from lack of nourishment, dying from sheer exhaustion. He needs better blood put into him. He must have some good food, wine, and a nourishing diet to recruit his strength and put new life into his body.” Thus acts the great Physician, Jehovah Rophi saying, I “will strengthen that which was sick!” The blood and righteousness of Lord Jesus, that flesh which is food indeed, and that blood which is drink indeed, is given to the hunger-bitten wretch to revive him as with a heavenly cordial. There is balm in Gilead – there is a Physician there – to that balm and to that Physician sin-sick souls seek. If you have a real case, you may depend upon it; there is a remedy in the family chest. It is not found out yet–at least you may not have found it, but there is a drawer, and in that drawer there is a draught devised by infinite wisdom and compounded by everlasting love. It is indeed a remedy such as no learned physician of the school of the Pharisees ever prescribed, or an apothecary wise in his own conceit ever compounded – but yet the very thing, the very thing. And when that drawer is opened, and the draught brought out, and you take it, you will be able to say with David in the joy of your heart, “Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless His holy name” (Psa.103:1).

But I pass on to the second part of our subject, where the Lord leaves His dear family, the sheep of His pasture and the flock of His hand, to utter a very sad and striking denunciation– “But I will destroy the fat and the strong – I will feed them with judgment.” Hard words! Heavy tidings! I scarcely know heavier tidings through the whole Word of God. For, look at the two characters whom the Lord threatens to destroy. They are “the fat” and “the strong.” A man, may be both this, though very, very consistent – religious, highly religious, in the common sense of the word. Let us, therefore, go a little beneath the surface, and examine its spiritual meaning. 1. One thing is very evident – that the people spoken of as “FAT” and “strong,” are not afflicted with any disease – if they were, it would soon pull the fat off their bones. They are in very good case – and the reason is, they have no wasting malady. Is not this a description of many, too many in the professing Church of Christ? “Surely,” say they, “we are not such very great sinners – and if our heart is bad, we do not want to hear it spoken of.” But if these people had a severe malady, they would be very glad to have the symptoms of that malady described. And if they found day after day they were losing flesh, and gradually wasting, they would want to know the cause, whether it sprang from a consumption, or a diseased liver, or some internal malady. So when a child of God finds his strength and flesh going, and he is pining away for his iniquities, as the Scripture speaks (Ezek.34:23), let Pharisees speak as long as they please, he likes to hear the malady opened up as he feels it. But “the fat” and “the strong” cannot bear the sight of affliction. They are like healthy people going into the wards of an hospital. O how it disgusts them! Here is a man with an abscess – there a poor woman with a cancer – here one wretch coughing up his lungs, and there another in the very agonies of dissolution. How repugnant is every sight and smell! So it is in a religious sense. The whole, the stout, the fat, and the strong, never like to be amongst the sickly, the consumptive, and the cancered. But the Lord says, He will “destroy the fat.” There is no promise of mercy for them – no gracious intimation that the Lord will seek them, bring them again, bind up, or strengthen them. They need it not – are in good situation – are fat and strong – have neither ache nor sore – and therefore need no remedy from the Physician. So let us be wise, and not long to be like them! 2. But hard labor will keep down fat. Where will you find a country laborer carrying much flesh upon his bones? Where will you find, to come lower still, a hard-worked horse carrying much fat and flesh? So in grace – labor with temptations, do a deal of hard work by fighting hand to hand against the flesh and the devil – and you will find that it will rub off your flesh. From this, therefore, we gather, that the people against whom the woe is pronounced do not know much of heart work nor spiritual conflict. Free from sickness and labor, the two great wasters of flesh, “their eyes stand out with fatness” (Psalm 73:7). Then know that labor is a blessing that frees you from Fat! But there are also “the STRONG.” Such are those who know nothing of their own wickedness and sinfulness. “What have I to do with sin? Sin! I can keep it at arm’s length – I can conquer it at once with a knock-down blow.” Such is the spirit, if not the language, of many who feel they are strong. As to Satan, his temptations, they fear not. Doubts and fears? They have gotten miles and miles, leagues and leagues beyond them. This is wide encampment ground. Many who bitterly anathematize (criticize someone or something strongly) each other, pitch their tents on the ground of creature confidence. Papist, Pharisee, Antinomian, have all room for their maneuvers, here. Are you one of them? Now, I do not say that even a child of God may not for a time be entangled in this snare – for we are poor fools, the best of us, and have all gone aside into some by-path or other. But if year after year a man goes on laying on fat and strength–ignorant of sickness, sin, and sorrow, needing no support of a heavenly arm, no remedy from an almighty Physician–God has in this portion of Scripture treasured up a very hard word against him, “I will destroy the fat and the strong.” How? By cutting them off? – sending them to hell at a stroke? No. If He did, London would be at once depopulated – it would be like Lisbon after the earthquake. If the Lord struck down every presumptuous wretch, every ungodly sinner in the act of sinning, the metropolis would be a wasteland. Nay, I do not know how many corpses we might not have in this chapel. But the Lord has other means of executing vengeance best known to Him. He says, “I will feed them.” What! The Lord feed them? Yes, He will. “I will feed them.” With wisdom? No! Mercy? No! The flesh of Christ? No! Gospel promises? No! “I will feed them with;” (what an awful word is coming!) “Judgment.” I will leave them alone. That is the meaning of it. The way, then, in which the Lord destroys “the fat and “the strong” is to give them up to their own delusions, to their own errors, to their own follies. And this judicially. God does not tempt, nor is the author of sin – but as He judicially hardened Pharaoh’s heart, so judicially He feeds these with “judgment,” merely by leaving them in a way of sovereign righteousness to fill up the measure of their own iniquity, and to walk after the imaginations of their own evil hearts. Now when is a man fed with “judgment?” When he is inaccessible to all reproof, beyond the reach of all admonition and of all warnings – when he deliberately embraces error, and feeds upon it – when he wraps himself up in his own delusions, holds a lie in his right hand, and rejoices in it. We can scarcely credit there can be an individual professing great light and knowledge, who has arrived to that degree of presumption and confidence as to have no checks of conscience, no remorse for the past, no apprehensions for the future – no confession, no supplication, no prayer, no desire after God’s manifested favor and mercy, but is satisfied with a form of religion, wrapped up in notions without the power, and rolled up in doctrine without the sweet application of God’s truth to the soul. Yet, you may depend upon it, there are many, very many, both in town and country, ministers and people, whom the Lord is feeding thus with judgment, abandoning them to their own devices and delusions, not taking pains to strip off the veil, but leaving them to settle quietly down in the belief of a lie, or in a notional faith and profession of the truth. Here we are in deceit thinking we are wise! Wisdom is of God, and only when you are truly with Him and ask that He will give to you. Let us always try to be with our Lord and God in sincerity and in truth! Examine yourselves on which side of the line you stand, if you would be honest with your own consciences. You are a professor, I presume, by your coming here. Now you must very well know in your soul whether you are hungering at times after food; restless, lost, driven away, broken, and sick. Now if there be any such experience in your heart, to you belong all these sweet promises. They are yours, really yours. The Lord that has made them will surely fulfill them. So make time to call and be with Him! But there is room, much room for holy jealousy on which side of the line we stand. Perhaps you may be one of “the fat and strong,” and not one of the sick, or the broken, or the driven away. You way have no experience either of sorrow or joy, of trouble or deliverance – or, what is worse, may secretly despise God’s tried and exercised family. But O, what a mercy to have some soul experience of the bitterness of sin, the evil of the heart, and the manifestations of Lord Jesus! The worst of all cases, is to have no experience and no desire after any, but to be satisfied with the perishing things of time and sense, or the knowledge of the truth without the power, with the form without the reality. There is every need to be very careful and wise!