A DIVINE INDICTMENT

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Oct 19, 1904

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 30, No. 41.

A DIVINE INDICTMENT.

Of the true Shepherd, the prophet says: "He shall gather the lambs in His arms, and carry them in His bosom."

God has set in the earth His watchmen, His ambassadors, His shepherds; and of every one will He require the faithful performance of the work which He has placed in their hands.

Speaking to His watchmen, the Lord says: “If the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand.” Eze. 33:6. So Christ says of His professed servants, who, when His coming was near, would be reveling in the pleasures of this world, “The Lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for Him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites; there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Matt. 24:50, 51. This scripture is but one of many which show that at the time when Christ’s second advent is near, many of His professed followers will be far from Him, doing their own will and following after their own pleasures.

In all the history of the world there never was a time when there were so many tempting pastures for false shepherds as now, nor a time when there was so great need for shepherds who would give their lives for the sheep, who would search out the lost and straying and bring them back to the fold of Christ. The lost are falling and dying on every side, while many a false shepherd is pressing a downy couch. The hungry are crying for food, while many a false shepherd is regaling himself at a table heaped with all the bounties of garden, field, forest, and river. While many a wealthy false shepherd is basking in the genial warmth of his palatial residence, thousands of poverty-stricken peasants are shuddering in the clutch of penury, and shivering in the gusts that burst through their broken windows; or, while such shepherds recline in the cool, refreshing shade of some mountain retreat, or doze in the balmy breezes of some seaside resort, poverty moans and swelters and bakes, and gasps out its life, in the hot, stifling air of the tenement districts of the great cities, going down to a hopeless death in the most wretched misery.

Many of the churches have evolved into fashionable societies, select clubs, self-centered, working for the maintenance of their own social standing, and leaving undone the work to which they were called. The list of those who have gone down to their ruin while the church was seeking its own pleasure will be a terrible one when the record is complete.

This is the condition which prevails throughout the world to-day; and God, foreseeing the condition, has pronounced a searching indictment against such work and such workers. That indictment applies to-day; first, because the condition exists to-day; and second, because this indictment immediately precedes the entry of the Lord’s flock into the pastures of promise. Here is the Lord’s own language to His professed servants:—

“Thus saith the Lord God unto the shepherds: Wo be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks? Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them that are fed; but ye feed not the flock. The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither

have ye sought that which was lost; but with force and with cruelty have ye ruled them. And they were scattered, because there is no shepherd; and they became meat to all the beasts of the field, when they were scattered; . . . yea, My flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them.” Ezekiel 34.

This is a divine indictment against those who have been set to feed the flock of God, and, having lost the love of souls, have given their time to the service of self, ruling over, and feeding in luxury upon the flock which they were set to feed, caring naught for its welfare, heeding not when some lose hope and fall out by the way to become victims of every beast of prey. This condition is making the church as a body a prey to every prowling beast of error, every representative of the great deceiver that roams the earth to-day. The doctrines of eternal truth are compelled to give way to the foibles of fashion, and social functions take the place of the study of the Word, till so little is known of what the Lord does require that the individual is unable to distinguish error as such when it comes to him in the garb of plausibility. Thus do the sheep become “meat to all the beasts of the field;” thus has the flock become “scattered upon all the face of the earth;” and thus have such shepherds proved themselves unworthy longer to have charge of the flock.

Christ designed that His followers should be ambassadors for Him in this “foreign country.” “Now then we are ambassadors for Christ.” 2 Cor. 5: 20. The ambassador never becomes a subject of the country to which he is sent, never takes part in the governing of that land; but thousands of the professed followers of Christ have virtually anchored themselves to this world, have become subjects of this world, and take a strong hand in ruling it, as well as the flock over which they had been set.

Now, the One who has the power to appoint has also the power to indict and remove; and this is what God has done in the thirty-fourth chapter of Ezekiel. After the indictment, the Lord says, “I am against the shepherds; and I will require My flock at their hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the flock; neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more; for I will deliver My flock from their mouth, that they may not be meat for them.” “I will feed My flock, . . . I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick; but I will destroy the fat and the strong; I will feed them with judgment.” Verses 10, 15, 16. The judgment with which God will feed the false shepherds will be the judgment of that Supreme Court whose decisions can never be reversed, but must stand to all eternity, fixing forever the fate of the false.

Christ did not call His followers to lives of luxury or to the service of self, and yet many who profess to be His are living for self, and seeking for luxury and ease. In comparison with the lives of such false shepherds of to-day, witness the hardships of Paul, the shipwrecks, the scourgings, the prison life, the howling mobs, the stonings, the cruel death. Witness the faith of Stephen, of Peter, and of John, and what they bore in defense of the truth and for its advancement. Witness the lurid sacrifices of the faithful followers of Christ in the cruel burnings of the Dark Ages, and witness the faithful work being done for God to-day by the few who value His service more than life. Upon such does not fall the fearful indictment of the Judge of all the earth. To such Christ will say, “Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” Matt. 25: 21.

The work of God is too sacred, too solemn, too important to permit of self-service or indulgence in the deceitful pleasures of the world; and he who takes the yoke of Gospel service in all sincerity, realizing the nature of the work to which he is called, will shun such indulgence as the pitfalls of death which they are. But upon those who yield to the enticements of ease and luxury there will fall the terrible indictment of the great Judge. Let the shepherds feed the flock, and watch over the flock as those who must give account of their shepherdship in the day of God. Christ was the great Example of true shepherdship, and he who will not follow Christ can not shepherd the flock of God.