the Voice part 11

Our Shepherd speaks loud and clear to us.So why are we currently experiencing a famine in the Word?

My paternal Grandpa was a countryman. He spent his entire life in rural Somerset and the ways of the countryside were second nature to him. I adored my Grandpa Hill. He died when I was eleven, but throughout my childhood I spent so many hours in his company, delighting in the tales and marvelling at the wonders of Creation he unwrapped for me. His tales were of animals and birds, trees and fish, poachers and parsons, gypsies and gentry. All was connected to the countryside and country ways. Wonderful William Thomas Hill died in the Lord sixtyfive years ago but he lives in my memories, so I’ll know him instantly when I see him again.

He worked as a thatcher of hay ricks and many is the time when he took me on the carrier of his old bike and I would spend the day mooching around a farmyard while he was up ladders, working at his trade. I loved being with him: but I loved his stories too. “Tell me another one, Grandpa!” was the refrain. And he always obliged! Grandpa Hill knew a lot of farmers and when he was a young boy, he said there were enormous numbers of sheep wandering over open land on the hillside above his old home. Many individual flocks ran and grazed together to make up this vast mingled group. The sheep belonged to a variety of owners, all of them local farmers. Care of the sheep was in the hands of shepherds employed by the farmers. When a shepherd wanted to isolate the sheep that fell under his jurisdiction, there had to be a system for singling out those owned by his employer. He wouldn’t want other sheep to come ambling out of the general mix to confuse things. The answer was to call them by name. But whose name?

Of cattle and sheep …

Lindy’s mother used to farm cattle. She owned a herd of Ayrshires and each individual animal was given a girl’s name. The cows knew their own name and readily answered to it. Ada, Annabelle, Amarylis, Abigail …

But my Grandfather said farmers did not treat sheep in that way.  Sheep never had an individual name. The sheep did have a name; the name of the owner. One of the local sheep farmers was Mr Hallam (not his real name). He owned a lot of sheep. So in order to call out his animals, the shepherd could be expected to call “Out Hallam!”and the Hallam sheep would come trotting out of the mix. This was fine in theory, but for some strange reason Mr Hallam’s employees always referred to him (behind his back) as “Squeaker”!

He normally left his shepherd to get on with the work of caring for his sheep, but on one occasion, Farmer Hallam decided to go up the hill to see for himself. He noticed the shepherd shuffling his feet uncertainly and suspected the reason straight away. The shepherd started calling: “Out Hallam! Out Hallam!”Nothing happened. After several embarrassed attempts, the farmer said to his shepherd with a grin, “You silly b****r! You might just as well call ‘Out Squeaker!’ or we shall be up here all day and all night too!”The red-faced shepherd called “Out Squeaker!”and out trotted the sheep!

Jesus and the shepherd

I was recently reminded of that far off but amusing anecdote of my Grandpa’s as I was working on the first part of John 10.No prizes for guessing what it’s about. It’s the passage about the
shepherd and his flock. In verse 3 our Lord Jesus describes a Middle Eastern shepherd who in this case is also clearly the owner of the flock. They are definitely his sheep. The shepherd has engaged a ‘watchman’ to remain with the sheep all night, lying across the doorway of the sheepfold in order to keep the flock safe from robbers and predatory animals.

Sheepfolds in the First Century, were of varying sizes depending on the size of flock to be housed. They were built of rough stones topped off with mud, had four sides about a metre and a half high, with a gap in one wall that was used for access. A watchman/hireling – or sometimes even the shepherd himself would fold himself into the gap to act as a ‘door’ – a protective barrier keeping the sheep in at night and keeping unwelcome visitors out. Understandably this was a feature of warm weather husbandry. (In winter months, the sheep would be housed in buildings or caves close to the shepherd’s home). Each warm morning, the man in the gap would wake and shift himself out of the entrance, so that the sheep could go out and find pasture.

In the case of a large mixed flock, the shepherd/watchman/hireling would have to call the sheep out. What name would he call? The name of the owner/shepherd or course!  So we can say that the sheep respond to the voice of the shepherd for two reasons: first, they recognise the sound of his voice and second, he uses his own namethat they have come to know through experience of his care. They hear the name, know it and obey that voice.

“I tell you the truth”, said Jesus, “The man who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate, but climbs in by some other way is a thief and a robber. The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The watchman/gatekeeper opens the gate for him and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognise a stranger’s voice.” (John 10:1-6).Jesus used this illustration, but those who heard Jesus did not understand what He was telling them.

Recognising the Voice

Notice how in our Lord’s description the sheep listen to the shepherd’s voice and as soon as they hear it, they rouse themselves, expecting to get the call to come out. Then He calls them by name and leads them out. The mere sound of his voice encourages them and comforts them: they know they are secure because He is there. But now He is using His name to lead them forward into the path He has chosen for them in order to take them to better pasture than before.

The link between John 10 and Psalm 23 is compelling and obvious and rewards faithful scrutiny. Who has Jesus in mind? It is important to remember that the chapter and verse divisions have no place in the original text. Those were added by a well-meaning monk several hundred years ago as a way of making it easier for non-academics to find their way around the text. It was not entirely successful. Sometimes the divisions interfere with the flow of the text and can lead to confusion. In this instance we detect such an unnatural division.

There is nothing in the text to suggest that there is a break between 9:41 and 10:1. Our Lord Jesus is still addressing the Pharisees and so His comments about thieves and robbers who care nothing for the sheep but want to use them to serve their own ends, have a deep impact on them. They would have had no illusions about our Lord’s meaning and it did nothing to endear Him to them.

The Voice of the Shepherd

Listening for the authentic Voice: There is such a thing as a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.The prophet Amos spoke about it (Amos 8:11), “The days are coming”, declares the Sovereign Lord, “when I will send a famine through the land – not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord. Men will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the Lord, but they will not find it.”

Prophetic passages of Scripture have a power that resonates through the running centuries. This is certainly one such. I would say that while the description fits many ages, it has tremendous relevance at the moment.

The Lord does not ignore man’s attitude to Him. Man thinks he is his own god, but the great Creator, Sovereign Lord God does not stand idly by. There come moments of reckoning. He expresses His anger on a regular basis. He tells man, collectively and individually, that life apart from Him is not possible, that inherited spiritual capital drains away and, left to himself, man becomes progressively unable to cope. The expressions of God’s anger against sin and rebellion work out in a million ways every day. One aspect of His judgement is the withdrawal of blessings which have been despised. A particular example lies before us in the verses from Amos. The Bible:Our Lord has sent a famine of hearing His words.We have despised the words of the Lord and now He has sent famine.

And this is not simply a feature of our rebellious and godless society, it is an increasing feature of the churches: many of which once had a vibrant feeding programme for their sheep. But no longer. The general standard of teaching and subsequent feeding on God’s Holy Word is at starvation level. Small wonder that we are despised by the world as irrelevant;  we have little strength left. The most popular churches are those that have a low threshold of preaching and teaching and a high threshold of noise. All this while those folks desperate for the Word, who are starving hungry for the reality of God, are required to seek their foodin halls and homes where they gather in small numbers as hungry souls on the verge of collapse.

The voice of the Shepherd needs to be heard. He calls in order to identify Himself as against the false shepherds. He then calls us out into the pasture He prepares for us. We need to feed properly. It is our source of life. Isn’t it intriguing that the Lord says He will send a famine of hearing the words of the Lord? As with Pharaoh, a deliberate, ongoing hardening of heart results in the Lord hardening the heart … and closing the ears.

O listen for the Shepherd’s voice calling His precious Name. “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! Here I am. Come to Me. I want you for Myself. Listen for My Voice. Ignore these strangers who seek to beguile you. I wait for you.”