Scott Moore: Welcome to the "Building Faith and Family"podcast with Steve Demme.  I'm your host, Scott Moore. Thanks for joining us today. Good morning, Steve. How  are you today? 

Steve: I'm pretty well. Thanks. How are you? 

Scott: Good. I think I'm mostly over my cold, even though I still sound a little sick. Steve: You sound 100 percent better than last time. 

Steve: I'm thankful for AC. We're in another heat spell right now, and my poor  puppies, I take them out early in the morning. I take them out late at night, and  during the day, we have some brief forays to do their business. 

Scott: Fun, fun. It's been brutal this summer. 

Steve: Today, we're going to continue our series on God's attributes. This one is, as I  mentioned before, from Psalm 100. The first four verses go like this. "Make a joyful noise unto Jehovah all the Earth. Serve Jehovah with gladness. Come  into His presence with singing. Know that Jehovah, He is God. It is He Who made us.  He's our creator, and we are His. We are His people and the sheep of His pasture." That's what we're going to talk about today. He is our Shepherd. "We enter His gates  with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. We give thanks to Him and bless His  name." 

Psalm 95 echoes this thought, "He is our God. We are the people of His pasture and  the sheep of His hand.” There's a lot of wonderful expressions in the Psalms. Let's pray. Thank you, father, for your big shepherd caring heart. As much as we've  heard about this subject, which is wonderful, I pray You'll give us new insights today.  In Jesus' name, amen. 

Scott: Amen. 

Steve: I think we've talked about this a little bit, but there have been seasons in the  homeschooling movement that I've observed since we started in the early '80s, which  is now over 40 years ago. 

During those 40 years, there have been trends. For example, there was a dress code.  If your wife went to a homeschool conference, there's a good chance she would have  a denim dress in the 80s. Correct? 

Scott: That was a trend. That's for sure. 

Steve: I'm getting into trouble already, but anyway. Then there was a trend where  many of us made our own bread. We ground up our wheat berries and we milled it,  which by the way, I am now doing in our family because I had a unique desire to do  that, and I baked bread yesterday.

Then many of us had farmettes, if I can call it that. We were raising chickens, raising  goats, but it was part of the package. Nowadays, everything is classically oriented,  and you have to sprinkle essential oils on it. 

Anyway, there are seasons that we've gone through. None of them are bad. It's just  that's what we did. I remember as we acquired goats I learned a lot. I had grown up in  the city. I literally did not know where milk came from until my wife had our first son.  I am not making this up. 

I assumed you just bought milk at the supermarket in those big plastic gallon  containers. Actually, I'm so old that I recall when we used to have a milkman who  came to our house. You had a little wooden box outside their front door, and he  would take your clean bottles from the week before and replace them with new ones. Scott: I'm old enough to remember that briefly in my childhood. We had that for a  little while. 

Steve: My dad used to drive a milk truck. 

Scott: Nice. 

Steve: Anyway, so I didn't know where milk came from. I was a jock. I grew up in a  suburban culture. I didn't know very much about nature. We wanted our kids to grow  up with a normal childhood similar to the Laura Ingalls Wilder days, and so we bought  chickens and goats. No “kidding.” I couldn't resist that one. 

One of the surprises for me in raising goats was they were really nice. We owned one  buck for breeding, and the bucks were...they were bucks. I won't go into it, but they  were gross. However the does and the kids were delightful. 

I have pictures of my children lying out in the field, leaning against a goat, taking a  nap. The goat was sitting there chewing grass, and my sons are playing with them  and lying on them. They were four, five, six years old. 

Yet in scripture, goats are not spoken of favorably, whereas sheep are. We're referred  to as the sheep of His hand. He's our shepherd. My next‑door neighbor grew up in  Jerusalem. He came to Christ over there. Part of his education was in Lebanon. One of his mentors from Lebanon, a pastor, came to his home. He needed a ride after  he had visited my friend. I had a couple hours in the car with him, and I was looking  forward to peppering him with questions about sheep and goats. 

One of the first questions I asked him was, "Why is God so tough on goats and he's so  positive on sheep?” I added, "I've talked to people that have raised sheep, and they  had very little positive things to say, whereas, 'I have goats, and think they're  wonderful.'" 

He looked at me and said, "You poor people in America, you're really handicapped for  not growing up in a Middle Eastern agrarian society because this is the context of  scripture. It's the context of the whole Bible from Genesis all the way to Revelation." 

I said, "Well, what is it about goats and sheep?” He looked at me and said one  sentence, which was awesome. It was worth the whole trip. He said, "You can lead a  sheep, but you have to drive a goat." 

I knew exactly what he meant because my goats would not go in at night unless I was  behind them with… a certain broom that was pretty beat up. I would hold it up to the  left, and they would move to the right, and then vice versa. I had to pretty much push  them into their quarters at night. 

Whereas sheep, you make a noise, they follow you. They know the shepherd's voice.  He even said this, and since I have been to Israel, I've seen it. "If you see a herd of  goats, you'll see a little boy in the back of them with a stick and a handful of rocks.  He's got to keep them moving. If you see a herd of sheep, you'll see them following  their shepherd." 

You can lead sheep, but you have to drive goats. Isn't that convicting? Scott: Definitely. 

Steve: I thought of that many times. I hope God doesn't have to lead me with a  two‑by‑four and a handful of rocks. I hope I'll be sensitive to the Holy Spirit and learn  to listen to Him. 

I'm going to give a brief overview of the Old Testament. We know that, first of all, the  early fathers were all shepherds. In Genesis 46 and 47, when Joseph was in Egypt. His  brothers were coming up, and he was prepping them. 

He said, "Listen, Pharaoh's going to say to you...You tell him, 'Look.' When he asks  you, 'What's your occupation?' you say, 'Your servants have been keepers of livestock  from our youth even until now, both we and our fathers.'" 

He said that so that they could dwell in Goshen, which was a wonderful place to live,  and also because a shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians. We see that in  Genesis. In Exodus, of course, we have the Passover lamb.  

In Leviticus, we have an animal from a flock mentioned. Leviticus 3:6-8, "If his  offering for a sacrifice, a peace offering to Jehovah is an animal from the flock, male  or female, he shall offer it without blemish. If he offers a lamb for his offering, he  shall offer it before Jehovah, lay his hand on the head of the offering, and kill it in  front of the tent of meeting." 

There was a sacrificial system with goats, sheep, and lambs. And of course, we have  Isaiah 53, one of the most incredible passages speaking of Jesus, the suffering lamb  of God.  

Most of the time, if you mention shepherd to somebody from the Old Testament,  they're going to say "David was a shepherd,” and he was a shepherd. Psalm 78 captures this concept, "He chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which he  loves. He built his sanctuary like the high heavens, like the Earth, which he has founded forever. He chose David, his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds.  From following the nursing ewes, he brought him to Shepherd Jacob, his people,  Israel, his inheritance. With upright heart, he shepherded them and guided them with  his skillful hand.” 

David was not only a shepherd of real sheep, David was the shepherd of God's people.  He wrote Psalm 23, which I love to read because it's so wonderful, but I thought many  times that David made the connection because he was a shepherd which is a hard  occupation.  

Shepherding was not the best occupation. David was the youngest of the boys, and so  he was stuck with this job. He got the short end of the stick. While he was out there  shepherding his father's sheep, he learned much about what it means to be a  shepherd. 

He learned how to provide for his sheep. He learned how to find water, find food,  while protecting them from bears and lions. All these things, he learned while he was  out there taking care of these sheep. He didn't learn it so that he could write a book  on being a shepherd, he learned it so he could learn about Jehovah, Who was His  shepherd. 

Psalm 23, "Jehovah is my shepherd. I have all that I need. He lets me rest in green  meadows. He leads me beside peaceful streams. He renews my strength.” David, the  shepherd, is talking about Jehovah, the ultimate shepherd. 

"Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid for You are close  beside me. Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me. You prepare a feast for  me in the presence of my enemies. You honor me by anointing my head with oil. My  cup overflows with blessing. Surely, your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me  all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of Jehovah forever.” I don't know if you can hardly beat that as far as an expression of what God looks  like. God is our shepherd, and He takes care of us. Through Him, we have all that we  need, and we are never alone. 

Psalm 80:1, "Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, You who lead Joseph like a flock, You Who  dwell between the cherubim, shine forth.” Jehovah is an incredible shepherd, and He  is the one that's leading Israel, and He has His under shepherd, if I can put it that way,  Whom He has appointed, King David.  

There are prophecies in Ezekiel about David being the shepherd again. With that background and this context, consider Matthew 2:6, "You, O Bethlehem, and  the land of Judah are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, for from you shall  come a ruler who will shepherd My people, Israel." 

We have Jesus from the same tribe as David and a descendant of David. God in the  flesh, God the great shepherd in heaven, now has an earthly shepherd on Earth, and  His name is Jesus. At the end of His earthly ministry, Jesus said to His disciples, "You  will all fall away because of Me this night, for it is written, I will strike the shepherd,  and the sheep of the flock will be scattered." 

When you put all these together, you see this clear undergirding in the Old Testament  of what a shepherd looks like in the form of David, David describing God as his  shepherd. Then when Jesus appears on the scene to these people who grew up in an  agrarian society, "Hey, I am the shepherd." 

It's really beautiful when you put the whole thing together. There are examples of bad  shepherds as well. In Ezekiel 34, God gets after the rulers of Israel saying, "Prophesy  against the shepherds of Israel who have been feeding themselves instead of feeding  the sheep, eating and clothing themselves with the wool, slaughtering the fat ones  but not feeding the sheep. You haven't bound up the sick and the injured. You have  not brought them back. You have ruled them with force and harshness.” I summarized some of this. It's an awful chapter. 

With that context, then you see what Paul says in Acts 20:28. "Pay careful attention to  yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to  care for the church of God, which he obtained with His own blood.” He's talking to the  shepherds of the New Testament church. 

He said, "Do not be like these shepherds in Ezekiel 34, but care for them. Pay  attention to them. These are people that He purchased with His own blood. This is  your flock.” Beautiful. I'm leading up to the perfect picture of what I believe a  shepherd is, and I can't do this without reading big chunks of John chapter 10. "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but  climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber, but he who enters by the  door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him, the gatekeeper opens, the sheep hear his  voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out." 

I have to stop here because the man that I was talking to, the pastor from Lebanon,  his name was Maziat, taught me that if you lived in a village, where most people in  the Middle East live for they don't live in the big cities of Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, they  live in these smaller towns. 

He described a scene which occurs every morning as all the sheep come into the  square. They're all milling around. The shepherds take their positions at different  points on the square because they're going to take their sheep out into the fields, and  they take turns going to different fields in different places. 

The shepherds stand up and they make their noise, and then they turn their back and  begin walking away from the square out into the fields. The sheep separate  themselves and follow their shepherd. 

They don't need dogs in there moving them around. They don't have to have fences  and gates. The sheep hear the voice of their shepherd. He calls his own sheep by  name and leads them out. 

Mariah told me, "I even tried to imitate a friend’s garb. I put on his shepherd  garments. I put on his headdress. I put on everything so I would smell like him. Then I  even imitated his voice. I really tried hard to imitate his shepherd friend's voice, and  yet when he uttered it, the sheep did not budge. 

Recall that Jesus knows His sheep, and his sheep know Him. I'll read this again. "The  sheep hear His voice, and He calls His own sheep by name and leads them out. When  He has brought out all His own, He goes before them. The sheep follow Him, for they  

know His voice. A stranger, they will not follow, but they will flee from Him, for they  do not know the voice of strangers.” This figure of speech, Jesus used with them, but  they did not understand what he was saying to them.  

I'm so thankful I had that opportunity to listen to a man who was from that culture  describe this because when I had read those verses, that's what I had pictured. I  pictured Jesus standing up, calling us by name, and we hear Him, and we follow Him.  We won't be dissuaded, we won't be led astray by a stranger. Jesus goes on in John  10. "Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep." 

I've been told that when you go out and if you're going to spend the night with your  sheep, that you make an encampment, you might say, like a circular place, perhaps  up against a big rock formation or something, and then you put briars all around it,  

so there's only one entrance. That's where the shepherd lies down, and that's the door  of the sheep. 

That's what I picture when I read this. "I am the door of the sheep. All who came  before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the  door. If anyone enters by Me, He will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.  The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. 

"I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The  good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a  shepherd, who does not own the sheep sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep  and flees. The wolf snatches them and scatters them. 

"He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good  shepherd."By the way, whenever you see that I am, there's about 10 of them in the  book of John, it's ego eimi in Greek. It's I am, as God's name is, I am that I am,  Yahweh, Yahushua, Jehovah. 

"I am the good shepherd. I know My own, and My own know Me. Just as the father  knows Me and I know the father, and I lay down My life for the sheep, and I have other sheep that are not of this fold, I must bring them also, and they will listen to My voice  so there will be one flock, one shepherd. 

"For this reason, the father loves me because I lay down my life that I may take it up  again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to  lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I received from my  father." 

Then to finish up the chapter which was at the feast of dedication. "The Jews gathered  around him and said, 'How long will you keep us in suspense? If You are the Christ,  tell us plainly.' 

"Jesus answered them, 'I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in My  father's name bear witness about Me, but you do not believe because you are not  among My sheep. My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. I  give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of  My Father's hand. 

"My Father Who has given them to me is greater than all. No one is able to snatch  them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one.’" That's when they picked up  rocks and started getting ready to throw at Him. 

He had said, "No one will snatch them out of My hand. My father Who has given unto  me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand." That's a big verse in my Christian experience because when I initially heard the gospel  as a teenager. I would follow faithfully for a while, then I'd fall back, then I'd follow for  a while, then fall back. This went on for a couple years. 

I pictured God reaching down, and I had to grab ahold of His finger, and I kept letting  go and falling. I kept letting go and falling. When I read that, I said, "Oh, that was an  incorrect picture. God reached down, and He took my hand, and He won't let it go." No one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I'm not holding on to God's  hand, He's holding on to me. He's holding on to us, His people. 

There are a couple more passages in the New Testament along this. "You were  ransomed from the feudal ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable  things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ like that of a lamb,  without blemish or spot.” (1 Peter 1 where Peter is connecting with Leviticus. 1 Peter 2, "You were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the  shepherd and guardian of your souls.” 

Revelation 7:17, "The Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their Shepherd, and He  will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from  their eyes." 

As I've been studying the tabernacle for many years now, I see that Jesus is not only  the lamb, He's also the High Priest offering the lamb. This is the same picture you get here. The lamb in the midst of the throne will be the shepherd, taking care of all of  us, sheep, our great shepherd. How does that bake your noodle? 

Scott: Yes. Wow. John 10 is one of my favorites in that whole chapter, knowing his  voice and I can sit and bake in that one for a while. That's so powerful. What was that,  1 Peter or the guardian of your souls? Man, that's powerful. 

Steve: 1 Peter 2:25, “the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.” 

Scott: I'll let that one ruminate for a while. That's beautiful. 

Steve: To be faithful to all of scripture, there's a ton of passages. I'll read one short  one because of the time, but there's a bunch of them at the end of Ezekiel 34, where  it talks about the lousy shepherds. 

Steve: "Behold, I myself will search for My sheep and will seek them out.” The 15th  verse, "I myself will be the shepherd of My sheep. I Myself will make them lie down,  declares the Lord Jehovah." 

He's talking about the 10 tribes which have been scattered all over the world. It says  in Jeremiah 31, "Hear the word of Jehovah. He that scattered Israel will gather Him and  keep Him as a shepherd does his flock." 

When you folks who are listening to the podcast, are reading through the prophets,  such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, you will see this theme all through there that God  has His eye on His people. Even those that He has scattered, He's going to bring them  back. 

Let's close with a great benediction found in Hebrews 13:20-21, “May the God of  peace Who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the  sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant equip you with everything good that you  may do His will, working in you that which is pleasing in His sight through Jesus  Christ, to Whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.” 

Thank you, Father, for being our great, caring shepherd. Thank you for being the  guardian of our souls. Thank you that none can snatch us out of our great Father’a  hand. We worship You and love You afresh this morning. Amen. 

Scott: Amen. That's our show for this week, folks. Thanks for joining us for the  Building Faith and Family podcast with Steve Demme. If you have a question for the  show, email Steve at spdemme@Gmail.com. Thanks for joining us. Have a great week.