I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land
A terrible doom, and an invaluable privilege
I. A terrible doom. “For I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land.” What is the doom? The abandonment of God.
1. This abandonment came after great kindness. For long centuries He had manifested the greatest kindness to the Hebrew people. From their rescue from Egypt down to this hour He had been merciful to them. “My Spirit will not always strive with man.”
2. This abandonment involved inexpressible ruin. They were given up to the heathen cruelty of one another and to the violence of foreigners. If God abandon us, what are we? This will be the doom of the finally impenitent. “Depart from Me.”
II. An invaluable privlege. “I will feed the flock of slaughter, even you, O poor of the flock.” “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” “When He saw the multitudes He wast moved with compassion towards them, because, they fainted and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd. ”I am the Good Shepherd,” said Christ. Conclusion--Thank God, we are not abandoned yet. God is with us as a shepherd. He is seeking the lost and feeding those who are in His fold. (Homilist.)
Abandoned
The saddest spectacle earth can show is a shipwrecked life--the terrible loss of all the possibilities humanity involves. If a man quenches the light God gives him, and by self-indulgence and unfaithfulness so debauches his spirit that at last he is deserted by every angel of purity and goodness, and becomes unvisited by even the desire for any spiritual attainment, then there is a lost soul in the most awful sense, whether here or in the world to come. (Dr. Macleod.)
And I took unto Me two staves--
Two shepherd’s staves
In the next place is represented Christ’s undertaking of this charge, and His going diligently about it, signified by two shepherds’ staves the first whereof, called Beauty, holds forth the sweet and beautiful order of His Covenant, and the doctrine thereof, whereby the Church is directed in faith, worship, and obedience of God. The second, called Bands, signifies that policy in Church and State whereby they are kept one, and without schisms among themselves.
1. Christ the Mediator became as obedient servant, and is willing, and takes pleasure to be employed for His Church’s good; and will have a tender consideration of their case.
2. Christ in His care over the visible Church, bath an especial eye to His elect, and the regenerate in it, how abject-like soever they seem in the eyes of men, or in their outward condition.
3. Christ is a faithful shepherd, singular and incomparable in His care and diligence about His people for, saith He, “I took unto Me two staves,” whereas other shepherds use but one.
4. The Covenant and doctrine revealed by Christ unto His Church, as it sets forth the beauty and excellency of God, so it is beautiful and sweetly ordered in itself, so as faith and obedience sweetly work to others’ hands, and make the followers thereof to be beautiful and excellent above all people; for “the one staff I called Beauty.”
5. As unity and concord in a Church is a fruit of Christ’s feeding His flock, so policy and order, whereby unity is preserved, is a rich blessing. “The other I called Bands.”
6. Christ’s performances are answerable to His undertakings: what He saith He doth; and His practice will never give His promise the lie: for unto His promise, “I will feed,” is subjoined, “And I fed the flock.” (George Hutcheson.)
The staves of Beauty and Bands broken
I. Unity from union with God is national beauty. It is the union of the members of the body with the head which gives to the entire frame its dignity and beauty. A headless trunk has no beauty, but when body and limbs are fitly framed together, that symmetry is attained which God intended. The beauty of a tree consists in the union of branches by union with the trunk. The unity of the Hebrew nation was destroyed by their wilful severance of them selves from their Divine Head. Lack of union with God brought discord into the nation and destroyed their national beauty (Psalms 133:1-3.).
II. Men must have a soul shepherd, and when God is rejected they must have a bad one. If a road is known to one person only, any other man who offers to guide the traveller must be his enemy. If a man is deeply wounded, he must have help from some one outside himself, and the quack who undertakes to heal him, and is ignorant of the proper way to treat him, will be likely to be his murderer. There is but one Being who is acquainted with the soul’s needs; if He is rejected, any other must harm the soul. God claims to be the only Saviour. “There is none beside Me” (Isaiah 45:21). Christ warned Israel against false shepherds, yet, as a nation, they chose them and rejected Him, and as He only could really lead and feed them, their choice necessarily issued in their ruin.
III. Sin disinherits men and nations of their God-given portion. (Outlines by London Minister.)
Beauty and Bands the two staves of the Divine Shepherd
As long as sin will be in the world the oppressor and the oppressed are sure to be here; for it is in the nature of sin to make men hard, cruel, and oppressive. The exaltation of a man above his fellow men in wealth, honour, authority, and power is no reason whatever why he should despise and oppress them, but, on the contrary, it should be a reason for him to deal kindly towards them. The wealth of the rich man should be an inducement to him to remember the poor, and the strength of the strong should be an inducement to him to help the weak. For a consolation to the oppressed in their sufferings and a warning to the oppressor, the Bible teaches in a clear manner that God will surely visit the one in mercy and the other in judgment; the same hand that bestows favours graciously and tenderly upon the oppressed holds the sword of vengeance above the oppressor. In this chapter God said that He was going to visit the rulers of His people in judgment because they were oppressing them. “Thus said the Lord my God: Feed the flock of slaughter; whose possessors slay them, and hold themselves not guilty; and they that sell them say, Blessed be the Lord, for I am rich and their own shepherds pity them not.” How abominable this must have been in the sight of God! After accumulating wealth through cruelty and oppression they sanctimoniously praised God for prospering them. But while these unjust and oppressive rulers were thus justifying themselves, destruction overtook them. “For I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land, saith the Lord,” etc. But when God visits the oppressor in judgment He does not forget the oppressed in their poverty, sufferings, and misery, for He said, “So I fed the flock of slaughter, verily the poor of the flock.” So in the text we have a striking and beautiful picture of the Lord Jesus as the Great Shepherd of souls. It has been truly observed by an able commentator, that no image of Christ has so deeply impressed itself upon the mind of the Church as that of a shepherd, as is shown by Christian literature and art, and our hymns and prayers. The Eastern shepherd would never be seen without his staff or crook. But reference is made here to two staves, and David says of the Lord as his Shepherd, “Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.” In our text there are names given to the two staves; one is called “Beauty,” and the other “Bands,” which are to be taken emblematically to show that the Lord Jesus Christ the Divine Shepherd will lead, protect, beautify, and unite His people as one great and glorious flock.
I. The Lord Jesus Christ feeding His people, “Lo, I fed the flock of the slaughter, verily the poor of the flock.” When their own shepherds pity them not, the Divine Shepherd makes them to lie down in peace and security in the green pastures of spiritual blessings, and leads them beside the still waters of heavenly influences. He lives for the sake of His sheep, and so they find in Him their true Shepherd. Naturally the objects of our greatest care and anxiety will have the largest place in our affections, and it is not easy for us to conceive the tender affection and close attachment that would gradually grow between the Eastern shepherd and his sheep.
II. The Lord Jesus Christ protecting and guiding His people. With the staves the shepherd rules, protects, and guides his sheep. He uses the crook to prevent them from going astray, and to pull them back from dangerous places. God’s people, like sheep, are very prone to go astray. He very often draws them by His crook from temptations and dangers which they are not in the least aware of. Think of a promising young man, who has been brought up in a religious family, enticed by bad companions into the forbidden paths of sinful pleasures; but before he falls over the precipice of destruction, the Good Shepherd, through sickness, or the death of a companion or a near relation, mercifully draws him back by His crook. The apostle Peter wandered far astray, but Christ followed him faithfully, and gently brought him back. The Divine Shepherd dealt in a similar manner with Thomas, who had wandered far into the wilderness of doubt and unbelief. And we do not know from how many dangers and temptations we have been rescued by the Divine Shepherd with His crook.
III. The Lord Jesus Christ beautifying His people. He will bring out to its highest perfection the beautiful individuality of each one of His followers. This is taught by the symbolic name of one of the two staves, which is called “Beauty.” God, under the old dispensation, through various means and ministrations, aimed at ennobling and beautifying His people; and notwithstanding all their faults, they looked beautiful compared to the idolatrous nations by which they were surrounded. In the Book of the prophet Jeremiah they are called a “beautiful flock.” Their God, who is called the Shepherd of Israel, had made them beautiful by saving, protecting, and guiding them, and richly bestowing His blessings upon them. So does the Lord Jesus Christ in a similar way sanctify and beautify His people; from His love, gentleness, care, faithfulness, and self-sacrificing Spirit there goes forth a mighty influence silently to purify their nature and ennoble and beautify their character. He washes them in His own blood, and beautifies and adorns them with His own heavenly Spirit. This is the beauty of holiness, “And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us.” They are changed into the image of Christ from glory to glory by the influence of His Spirit dwelling in them. We can say that the Great Shepherd is perfectly impartial in the bestowal of His sanctifying and beautifying influences upon all God’s erring children, whom He strives to gather together into one beautiful flock. The sun is perfectly impartial in the distribution of its heat and light, which bring out the beauty of the flowers and the trees. One flower cannot say to another, The sun has taken more trouble to beautify and adorn you than me, for it shines equally the same for all. So Christ the Sun of Righteousness distributes its purifying and beautifying influences equally impartially to all
IV. The Lord Jesus Christ uniting His people. In the union of the human and the Divine in the person of the Good Shepherd all men are virtually united in Him, and He will not rest satisfied until all are actually made one in Him. This blessed truth is implied by the name of the other staff, which is called “Bands,” which teaches that the Divine Shepherd not only sanctifies and beautifies His people individually, but also unites them socially into one great and glorious company. As the shepherd carefully gathers his sheep together into the fold, so Goes Christ gather all men together. Moses, Socrates, Plato, Gautama, Zoroaster, John, Peter, Paul, Mohammed, Luther, Wesley, and others are all His under-shepherds, and ultimately He will bring all their flocks together. He has died for all, seeks all, and will save all. “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw an men unto Myself.” The shepherd feels restless and uneasy if one sheep is waning, in the fold. So Christ the Good Shepherd will not feel satisfied until the last erring sheep has been safely brought into the heavenly fold, and He will not leave the wilderness as long as there is one wandering sheep to be brought home. (Z. Mather.)