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The Desire of Ages
was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away;
... but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them.”
Ezekiel 34:4
.
In all ages, philosophers and teachers have been presenting to the
world theories by which to satisfy the soul’s need. Every heathen
nation has had its great teachers and religious systems offering some
other means of redemption than Christ, turning the eyes of men away
from the Father’s face, and filling their hearts with fear of Him who
has given them only blessing. The trend of their work is to rob God
of that which is His own, both by creation and by redemption. And
these false teachers rob man as well. Millions of human beings are
bound down under false religions, in the bondage of slavish fear, of
stolid indifference, toiling like beasts of burden, bereft of hope or
joy or aspiration here, and with only a dull fear of the hereafter. It
is the gospel of the grace of God alone that can uplift the soul. The
contemplation of the love of God manifested in His Son will stir the
heart and arouse the powers of the soul as nothing else can. Christ
came that He might re-create the image of God in man; and whoever
turns men away from Christ is turning them away from the source of
true development; he is defrauding them of the hope and purpose and
glory of life. He is a thief and a robber.
“He that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.”
Christ is both the door and the shepherd. He enters in by Himself.
It is through His own sacrifice that He becomes the shepherd of the
sheep. “To Him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear His voice: and
He calleth His own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when
He putteth forth His own sheep, He goeth before them, and the sheep
follow Him: for they know His voice.”
Of all creatures the sheep is one of the most timid and helpless, and
in the East the shepherd’s care for his flock is untiring and incessant.
[479]
Anciently as now there was little security outside of the walled towns.
Marauders from the roving border tribes, or beasts of prey from their
hiding places in the rocks, lay in wait to plunder the flocks. The
shepherd watched his charge, knowing that it was at the peril of his
own life. Jacob, who kept the flocks of Laban in the pasture grounds
of Haran, describing his own unwearied labor, said, “In the day the
drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep departed
from mine eyes.”
Genesis 31:40
. And it was while guarding his father’s