Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them that are fed: but ye feed not the flock.
Ezekiel 34:3 condemns shepherds who feed themselves from the flock, taking its best food and clothing for their own use and destroying its well-fed members while refusing to feed and care for the people entrusted to them. Unfaithful shepherds use their office for their own pleasure, profit, honor and ease, feeding themselves instead of the flock and offering food that tastes strongly of self. They starve the people by withholding plain, searching, practical truth, giving formal religion with no Saviour and poor, confusing teaching instead of the bread of life, so that souls perish for want of proper instruction. To truly feed the flock is to be a wise, tender and faithful shepherd who takes personal responsibility for souls, giving wholesome spiritual food and comfort and help in heart, home and all dealings rather than driving with the uplifted whip. Shepherds who leave the flock unfed bear responsibility for souls that perish through their neglect, yet the Lord of heaven still has care for His own, and their need must not go unmet because of the failure of blind shepherds.
Meaning and Setting
Ezekiel 34:3 condemns Israel's shepherds for serving themselves from the flock's resources, taking its best food and wool for themselves and slaughtering its well-fed members while failing to feed and care for the people entrusted to them. It portrays leaders who exploit rather than feed and protect the flock, taking the flock's benefits for themselves while neglecting their duty to those in their care. Though picturing the cruelty and greed of rulers in Israel who lived off their people and destroyed the well-fed while refusing to feed the flock, it reveals the secret of the fall of Babylon and of many other kingdoms since the world began. Instead of being a protector of men, power becomes a proud and cruel oppressor. The chapter is a warning to guard against the great deceiver and against acting under his power.
Self-Seeking and Harm
Unfaithful shepherds turn the office into provision for themselves, using it for their own pleasure, profit, honor and salary while the flock goes unfed. Entrusted with responsibility they do not know how to carry, they fail to seek wisdom from God and lead others into false ways, offering the flock food that tastes strongly of self instead of truly feeding the people. Ministers who draw pay yet do not nourish their congregations with the bread of life are feeding themselves and not the flock, taking its resources while neglecting its spiritual needs.
They are idle consumers and not producers, bringing no fruit to the church because they do not themselves receive grace from God to impart to others. This describes laborers in many places, including laborers in Iowa, who are not doing the work they should do and are not reaching the high standard that their knowledge of the truth requires them to reach.
Instead of nourishing and saving the sheep they tear them to pieces, pretending to feed them while wounding them and leaving them bleeding. They prepare and lead determined rebellion, meeting faithful work with opposition, falsehood, insult, prejudice and jealousy. Their miserable influence lays a heavy burden of deep mental trial upon faithful workers whose whole interest is in the cause, so that intense labor is required to rescue the wounded sheep from them.
They poison the flock with criticism, faultfinding and suspicion instead of giving healthful spiritual food, making the work of the church harder, and they kill those that are fed instead of reforming them. A shepherd must protect and nourish the people in his care, and those responsible for appointing shepherds must ensure they faithfully care for the sheep and lambs. Where this fails, as with ministers who leave the people without a true shepherd and without a fair chance, the flock is left unfed.
They leave the sheep unprotected and unhelped, letting them be harmed, scattered or led into danger without warning or protection. They stand back and excuse themselves while one man is weighed down and crushed beneath censure, failing to take their share of burdens to ease him and by their course laying more burdens on him than all the people do. Such unwise and false shepherds do not feed the flock, and the poor sheep suffer under them.
A self-centered shepherd accepts the office without becoming a burdened mouthpiece of God, caring far more for himself than for the poor sheep. He is careless in words and deportment, feels no burden for souls, and does not go forth to his labor weeping and praying that souls might be converted. The result is a marked contrast to the requirements of God's Word and a reversal of order, in which the sheep must carry the burden of caring for the shepherd by warning, reproving, exhorting and weeping over his reckless course. Had he labored weeping and praying, he would have been sowing seed that would spring up after many days and bear fruit to the glory of God.
Starving by False Teaching
Self-serving neglect leaves the people without the instruction they need, and they perish for want of it. Instead of plain, close, searching, practical instruction like Christ gave, unconsecrated watchmen without deep love to God or fellow men give formal religion with no Saviour. Feeding themselves while taking from the people without tending their spiritual or practical needs, ignorant pastors neglect their congregations and leave them perishing in ignorance of Scripture and of God's power.
The flock is left spiritually hungry by poor, ineffective teaching instead of nourishment with the bread of life. Confusing interpretations of their own, wrong spiritual provender, and misinterpretation of Scripture are given for food instead of clearly taught law and Word and the gospel of truth. Keen discernment is required to discover what kind of food is being given to the flock. Withholding the Bread of Life in wicked communities kills those that are fed.
Rejecting truth that requires self-denial, false shepherds disregard God's law and commandments and destroy the plain paths the flock needs. Reading Scripture through transgression, they teach that the law is not binding, persuade people to reject received truth, treat obedience as optional, breach their trust, and lead churches into backsliding and destruction. Their false teaching leads people to reject God's law and persecute its keepers, ending in ruin and despair when the deceived recognize the deception and condemn those who led them astray. Those who knew the truth about keeping the commandments just as written, yet acted a lie to link in confederacy with the disobedient with no personal earnest effort to save souls, will in the judgment be charged by the lost with their loss, who will say persuasive intense earnestness exalting righteousness and truth as life and death would have changed their lives while forgiveness was within reach.
In Italy this self-feeding shut away the higher classes, when denominational ministers and leaders refused their churches to anyone preaching doctrine different from their own. The people were left in amazing ignorance of God's Word and of how to preserve health, so the message of warning did not reach the very ones who needed it. In towns from Cooranbong to Queensland the shepherds fed themselves but fed not the flock, leaving God's precious ones as sheep having no shepherd, ignorant of the Scriptures and starving for the Word while searching and needing someone to explain it. In Maitland ministers left the people without a true shepherd and without a fair chance, killing those that are fed instead of reforming them. Elsewhere the unfed are ignorant of present truth and its bearing though they have the Word, given no pure winnowed truth, perplexed over their Bibles and crying for someone to explain the Scriptures and come to help them.
Faithful Shepherding Required
To feed the flock is to be a wise, faithful and tender shepherd who takes individual responsibility to see what needs to be done and meets it with tenderness and love in heart and home and in all dealings wherever laboring, giving comfort and help and the hand that feeds rather than driving with the uplifted whip. Faithful shepherds receive the truth that requires self-denial and share the truth that nourishes the people instead of using the flock for their own benefit and exploiting even its strongest members. In meekness they sit at the feet of Jesus to obtain right views of God's character, follow Christ the perfect pattern in whom Jehovah was manifested and in whom Heaven was enshrined in humanity, and give plain, close, searching, practical instruction like Christ gave instead of formal religion with no Saviour that leaves the people to perish for want of proper instruction. They clearly teach God's law and Word, for confusing people with their own interpretations leaves the flock unfed and may lead souls to perish. To feed is to bring both the gospel and the law, especially the precious light of faith and the righteousness of Christ, and to withhold that help and rob the churches of it is to eat and clothe oneself while starving the sheep.
God entrusts His flock only to wise shepherds who provide wholesome, carefully prepared spiritual food rather than poison, for shepherds who use the flock for their own benefit while failing to care for it are unfit to lead. A shepherd must protect and nourish the people in his care, since criticism, faultfinding and suspicion poison them instead of giving healthful spiritual food and make the church's work harder, and those responsible for appointing shepherds must ensure that they faithfully care for the Lord's sheep and lambs. The church has been and will be tried by men entrusted with responsibility they do not know how to carry, who fail to seek wisdom from God and lead others into false ways, presenting to the flock food that tastes strongly of self instead of feeding the flock truly.
Feeding means sharing burdens to ease the weighed-down, and shepherds who stand back and excuse themselves while one man is weighed down and crushed beneath censure, failing to take their share to ease him and laying more burdens on him than all the people do, are unwise and false shepherds under whom the poor sheep suffer. It means caring for souls beyond preaching and not letting temporal matters absorb the time and attention that should be given to souls, but ministering to the needs of sinners, visiting believers when sick, inquiring after those absent, going to help those whose spiritual danger is known even when they have long stayed away from meetings, and laboring to restore those who have given up the truth to the fold of Christ, for neglect of this personal shepherding leaves members tempted and lost. A minister who preaches yet leaves sick or absent believers unattended and fails to seek those whose faith is faltering does not feed and care for the flock. Feeding means getting acquainted with the people in their homes, visiting every family possible, identifying with the people labored for, binding the messenger to the sheep and lambs and properly binding off the work, and strengthening, comforting and establishing the weak at the right time so they become rooted, grounded and established in the faith. This personal house-to-house labor cannot be supplied by proxy nor shifted upon wives or some other person, and God will never sanction such neglect; neglecting this most essential part of the ministry brings the rebuke of God, leaves the work not half done and souls ungathered, and no excuse will be accepted for it, and it must be done even if far less public preaching has to be done, for places are lost when messengers refuse this work because it is not pleasant business.
Faithful shepherds tell a person his mistake and his danger and reprove wrong conduct they know is not right, rather than letting fear of rejection keep them from reproof, and they give associates the benefit of corrective light they themselves received instead of withholding it and leaving them in darkness about error to be led astray. That duty to give light in clear lines remains even when the one in error will not acknowledge that his course is wrong and will not receive anything that does not harmonize with his own ideas. Teachers and rulers must be disciplined by disappointment, hardship and affliction, and unless willing to learn meekness and lowliness from Christ they are not fitted to teach, for their example of self-righteousness does nothing to advance the work of God and many leading men dishonor the Lord as false shepherds who lead the flock astray.
Where shepherds feed themselves and leave God's precious ones as sheep having no shepherd, ignorant of the Scriptures and starving for the Word and searching needing someone to explain it, the standard must be lifted in new territories with presentation of the truth accompanied by the Holy Spirit. God has a people among these neglected companies who are ignorant of present truth and its bearing though they have the Word, perplexed over their Bibles and crying for someone to explain the Scriptures and come to help them with no pure, winnowed truth given them, and the remedy is to seek for them and open the Word to them line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little, bearing patiently with them as children in understanding while waiting for fruit as the husbandman waits for the early and latter rain. Accepting the office of shepherd means being a burdened mouthpiece of God with a burden for souls rather than caring far more for self and being careless in words and deportment, and laboring weeping and praying that souls might be converted sows seed that will spring up after many days and bear fruit to the glory of God instead of reversing the order so the sheep must carry the burden of warning, reproving, exhorting and weeping over a reckless course.
Accountability and Rescue
Shepherds who feed themselves while leaving the flock unfed are accountable for that failure, for the warning of Ezekiel 34:2-10 is that unfaithfulness in the pastoral office brings guilt upon those who bear it. They are to teach God's law and Word plainly, and when they confuse the people with their own interpretations the flock is left unfed and souls may perish through want of proper food. That responsibility for perishing souls rests upon the unfaithful shepherd, though it does not excuse the listeners who reject God's Word for human sophistry.
Unfaithful watchmen insult God by letting the standard of truth lie in the dust and by misleading the people instead of feeding them, giving them wrong spiritual provender for food. God will hold souls responsible for lacking keen discernment to discover what kind of food is being given to His flock.
Such shepherds knew the truth about keeping God's commandments just as written, yet fed themselves instead of feeding the flock and made no personal, earnest effort to save souls. They treated obedience as a matter every man could regard as he pleased, and acted a lie in order to link in confederacy with the disobedient. Their false teaching leads people to reject God's law and to persecute its keepers, ending at last in ruin. In despair the deceived recognize the deception and condemn the shepherds who led them astray. In the great day when every man is judged and receives according as he obeyed the law of God's kingdom or transgressed to the last, those they deceived will turn upon them and charge them with their loss, saying that persuasive, intense earnestness exalting righteousness and truth as a principle of life and death would have changed their lives while forgiveness was still within reach.
False ministers do not feed the flock but tear it to pieces, preparing and leading determined rebellion. They meet faithful work with opposition, falsehood, insult, prejudice and jealousy, and instead of nourishing and saving the sheep they wound and tear the poor sheep and leave them bleeding. Because the sheep are thus wounded and torn, intense labor is required to rescue them from such shepherds.
Ministers are shepherds charged to visit and feed the flock, and to leave the poor sheep unvisited and unfed is the sin of blind shepherds. The sheep have done nothing to deserve being left without care, and their need must not go unmet because of the shepherds' failure or unwillingness to invite help. In Italy this self-feeding appeared in denominational ministers and leaders who shut away the higher classes by refusing their churches to anyone who would preach doctrine different from their own, so that the very ones who needed the message of warning did not hear it and the people were left in amazing ignorance of God's Word and of how to preserve health. Yet even so the Lord of heaven has a care for His own, the purchase of His blood. To feed the flock is to bring them the gospel as well as the law, especially the precious light of faith and the righteousness of Christ, and to withhold that help and rob the churches of it is to eat and clothe oneself while starving the sheep.
Ezekiel 34:3 condemns shepherds who feed themselves from the flock, taking its best food and clothing for their own use and destroying its well-fed members while refusing to feed and care for the people entrusted to them. Unfaithful shepherds use their office for their own pleasure, profit, honor and ease, feeding themselves instead of the flock and offering food that tastes strongly of self. They starve the people by withholding plain, searching, practical truth, giving formal religion with no Saviour and poor, confusing teaching instead of the bread of life, so that souls perish for want of proper instruction. To truly feed the flock is to be a wise, tender and faithful shepherd who takes personal responsibility for souls, giving wholesome spiritual food and comfort and help in heart, home and all dealings rather than driving with the uplifted whip. Shepherds who leave the flock unfed bear responsibility for souls that perish through their neglect, yet the Lord of heaven still has care for His own, and their need must not go unmet because of the failure of blind shepherds.
Meaning and Setting
Ezekiel 34:3 condemns Israel's shepherds for serving themselves from the flock's resources, taking its best food and wool for themselves and slaughtering its well-fed members while failing to feed and care for the people entrusted to them. It portrays leaders who exploit rather than feed and protect the flock, taking the flock's benefits for themselves while neglecting their duty to those in their care. Though picturing the cruelty and greed of rulers in Israel who lived off their people and destroyed the well-fed while refusing to feed the flock, it reveals the secret of the fall of Babylon and of many other kingdoms since the world began. Instead of being a protector of men, power becomes a proud and cruel oppressor. The chapter is a warning to guard against the great deceiver and against acting under his power.
Self-Seeking and Harm
Unfaithful shepherds turn the office into provision for themselves, using it for their own pleasure, profit, honor and salary while the flock goes unfed. Entrusted with responsibility they do not know how to carry, they fail to seek wisdom from God and lead others into false ways, offering the flock food that tastes strongly of self instead of truly feeding the people. Ministers who draw pay yet do not nourish their congregations with the bread of life are feeding themselves and not the flock, taking its resources while neglecting its spiritual needs.
They are idle consumers and not producers, bringing no fruit to the church because they do not themselves receive grace from God to impart to others. This describes laborers in many places, including laborers in Iowa, who are not doing the work they should do and are not reaching the high standard that their knowledge of the truth requires them to reach.
Instead of nourishing and saving the sheep they tear them to pieces, pretending to feed them while wounding them and leaving them bleeding. They prepare and lead determined rebellion, meeting faithful work with opposition, falsehood, insult, prejudice and jealousy. Their miserable influence lays a heavy burden of deep mental trial upon faithful workers whose whole interest is in the cause, so that intense labor is required to rescue the wounded sheep from them.
They poison the flock with criticism, faultfinding and suspicion instead of giving healthful spiritual food, making the work of the church harder, and they kill those that are fed instead of reforming them. A shepherd must protect and nourish the people in his care, and those responsible for appointing shepherds must ensure they faithfully care for the sheep and lambs. Where this fails, as with ministers who leave the people without a true shepherd and without a fair chance, the flock is left unfed.
They leave the sheep unprotected and unhelped, letting them be harmed, scattered or led into danger without warning or protection. They stand back and excuse themselves while one man is weighed down and crushed beneath censure, failing to take their share of burdens to ease him and by their course laying more burdens on him than all the people do. Such unwise and false shepherds do not feed the flock, and the poor sheep suffer under them.
A self-centered shepherd accepts the office without becoming a burdened mouthpiece of God, caring far more for himself than for the poor sheep. He is careless in words and deportment, feels no burden for souls, and does not go forth to his labor weeping and praying that souls might be converted. The result is a marked contrast to the requirements of God's Word and a reversal of order, in which the sheep must carry the burden of caring for the shepherd by warning, reproving, exhorting and weeping over his reckless course. Had he labored weeping and praying, he would have been sowing seed that would spring up after many days and bear fruit to the glory of God.
Starving by False Teaching
Self-serving neglect leaves the people without the instruction they need, and they perish for want of it. Instead of plain, close, searching, practical instruction like Christ gave, unconsecrated watchmen without deep love to God or fellow men give formal religion with no Saviour. Feeding themselves while taking from the people without tending their spiritual or practical needs, ignorant pastors neglect their congregations and leave them perishing in ignorance of Scripture and of God's power.
The flock is left spiritually hungry by poor, ineffective teaching instead of nourishment with the bread of life. Confusing interpretations of their own, wrong spiritual provender, and misinterpretation of Scripture are given for food instead of clearly taught law and Word and the gospel of truth. Keen discernment is required to discover what kind of food is being given to the flock. Withholding the Bread of Life in wicked communities kills those that are fed.
Rejecting truth that requires self-denial, false shepherds disregard God's law and commandments and destroy the plain paths the flock needs. Reading Scripture through transgression, they teach that the law is not binding, persuade people to reject received truth, treat obedience as optional, breach their trust, and lead churches into backsliding and destruction. Their false teaching leads people to reject God's law and persecute its keepers, ending in ruin and despair when the deceived recognize the deception and condemn those who led them astray. Those who knew the truth about keeping the commandments just as written, yet acted a lie to link in confederacy with the disobedient with no personal earnest effort to save souls, will in the judgment be charged by the lost with their loss, who will say persuasive intense earnestness exalting righteousness and truth as life and death would have changed their lives while forgiveness was within reach.
In Italy this self-feeding shut away the higher classes, when denominational ministers and leaders refused their churches to anyone preaching doctrine different from their own. The people were left in amazing ignorance of God's Word and of how to preserve health, so the message of warning did not reach the very ones who needed it. In towns from Cooranbong to Queensland the shepherds fed themselves but fed not the flock, leaving God's precious ones as sheep having no shepherd, ignorant of the Scriptures and starving for the Word while searching and needing someone to explain it. In Maitland ministers left the people without a true shepherd and without a fair chance, killing those that are fed instead of reforming them. Elsewhere the unfed are ignorant of present truth and its bearing though they have the Word, given no pure winnowed truth, perplexed over their Bibles and crying for someone to explain the Scriptures and come to help them.
Faithful Shepherding Required
To feed the flock is to be a wise, faithful and tender shepherd who takes individual responsibility to see what needs to be done and meets it with tenderness and love in heart and home and in all dealings wherever laboring, giving comfort and help and the hand that feeds rather than driving with the uplifted whip. Faithful shepherds receive the truth that requires self-denial and share the truth that nourishes the people instead of using the flock for their own benefit and exploiting even its strongest members. In meekness they sit at the feet of Jesus to obtain right views of God's character, follow Christ the perfect pattern in whom Jehovah was manifested and in whom Heaven was enshrined in humanity, and give plain, close, searching, practical instruction like Christ gave instead of formal religion with no Saviour that leaves the people to perish for want of proper instruction. They clearly teach God's law and Word, for confusing people with their own interpretations leaves the flock unfed and may lead souls to perish. To feed is to bring both the gospel and the law, especially the precious light of faith and the righteousness of Christ, and to withhold that help and rob the churches of it is to eat and clothe oneself while starving the sheep.
God entrusts His flock only to wise shepherds who provide wholesome, carefully prepared spiritual food rather than poison, for shepherds who use the flock for their own benefit while failing to care for it are unfit to lead. A shepherd must protect and nourish the people in his care, since criticism, faultfinding and suspicion poison them instead of giving healthful spiritual food and make the church's work harder, and those responsible for appointing shepherds must ensure that they faithfully care for the Lord's sheep and lambs. The church has been and will be tried by men entrusted with responsibility they do not know how to carry, who fail to seek wisdom from God and lead others into false ways, presenting to the flock food that tastes strongly of self instead of feeding the flock truly.
Feeding means sharing burdens to ease the weighed-down, and shepherds who stand back and excuse themselves while one man is weighed down and crushed beneath censure, failing to take their share to ease him and laying more burdens on him than all the people do, are unwise and false shepherds under whom the poor sheep suffer. It means caring for souls beyond preaching and not letting temporal matters absorb the time and attention that should be given to souls, but ministering to the needs of sinners, visiting believers when sick, inquiring after those absent, going to help those whose spiritual danger is known even when they have long stayed away from meetings, and laboring to restore those who have given up the truth to the fold of Christ, for neglect of this personal shepherding leaves members tempted and lost. A minister who preaches yet leaves sick or absent believers unattended and fails to seek those whose faith is faltering does not feed and care for the flock. Feeding means getting acquainted with the people in their homes, visiting every family possible, identifying with the people labored for, binding the messenger to the sheep and lambs and properly binding off the work, and strengthening, comforting and establishing the weak at the right time so they become rooted, grounded and established in the faith. This personal house-to-house labor cannot be supplied by proxy nor shifted upon wives or some other person, and God will never sanction such neglect; neglecting this most essential part of the ministry brings the rebuke of God, leaves the work not half done and souls ungathered, and no excuse will be accepted for it, and it must be done even if far less public preaching has to be done, for places are lost when messengers refuse this work because it is not pleasant business.
Faithful shepherds tell a person his mistake and his danger and reprove wrong conduct they know is not right, rather than letting fear of rejection keep them from reproof, and they give associates the benefit of corrective light they themselves received instead of withholding it and leaving them in darkness about error to be led astray. That duty to give light in clear lines remains even when the one in error will not acknowledge that his course is wrong and will not receive anything that does not harmonize with his own ideas. Teachers and rulers must be disciplined by disappointment, hardship and affliction, and unless willing to learn meekness and lowliness from Christ they are not fitted to teach, for their example of self-righteousness does nothing to advance the work of God and many leading men dishonor the Lord as false shepherds who lead the flock astray.
Where shepherds feed themselves and leave God's precious ones as sheep having no shepherd, ignorant of the Scriptures and starving for the Word and searching needing someone to explain it, the standard must be lifted in new territories with presentation of the truth accompanied by the Holy Spirit. God has a people among these neglected companies who are ignorant of present truth and its bearing though they have the Word, perplexed over their Bibles and crying for someone to explain the Scriptures and come to help them with no pure, winnowed truth given them, and the remedy is to seek for them and open the Word to them line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little, bearing patiently with them as children in understanding while waiting for fruit as the husbandman waits for the early and latter rain. Accepting the office of shepherd means being a burdened mouthpiece of God with a burden for souls rather than caring far more for self and being careless in words and deportment, and laboring weeping and praying that souls might be converted sows seed that will spring up after many days and bear fruit to the glory of God instead of reversing the order so the sheep must carry the burden of warning, reproving, exhorting and weeping over a reckless course.
Accountability and Rescue
Shepherds who feed themselves while leaving the flock unfed are accountable for that failure, for the warning of Ezekiel 34:2-10 is that unfaithfulness in the pastoral office brings guilt upon those who bear it. They are to teach God's law and Word plainly, and when they confuse the people with their own interpretations the flock is left unfed and souls may perish through want of proper food. That responsibility for perishing souls rests upon the unfaithful shepherd, though it does not excuse the listeners who reject God's Word for human sophistry.
Unfaithful watchmen insult God by letting the standard of truth lie in the dust and by misleading the people instead of feeding them, giving them wrong spiritual provender for food. God will hold souls responsible for lacking keen discernment to discover what kind of food is being given to His flock.
Such shepherds knew the truth about keeping God's commandments just as written, yet fed themselves instead of feeding the flock and made no personal, earnest effort to save souls. They treated obedience as a matter every man could regard as he pleased, and acted a lie in order to link in confederacy with the disobedient. Their false teaching leads people to reject God's law and to persecute its keepers, ending at last in ruin. In despair the deceived recognize the deception and condemn the shepherds who led them astray. In the great day when every man is judged and receives according as he obeyed the law of God's kingdom or transgressed to the last, those they deceived will turn upon them and charge them with their loss, saying that persuasive, intense earnestness exalting righteousness and truth as a principle of life and death would have changed their lives while forgiveness was still within reach.
False ministers do not feed the flock but tear it to pieces, preparing and leading determined rebellion. They meet faithful work with opposition, falsehood, insult, prejudice and jealousy, and instead of nourishing and saving the sheep they wound and tear the poor sheep and leave them bleeding. Because the sheep are thus wounded and torn, intense labor is required to rescue them from such shepherds.
Ministers are shepherds charged to visit and feed the flock, and to leave the poor sheep unvisited and unfed is the sin of blind shepherds. The sheep have done nothing to deserve being left without care, and their need must not go unmet because of the shepherds' failure or unwillingness to invite help. In Italy this self-feeding appeared in denominational ministers and leaders who shut away the higher classes by refusing their churches to anyone who would preach doctrine different from their own, so that the very ones who needed the message of warning did not hear it and the people were left in amazing ignorance of God's Word and of how to preserve health. Yet even so the Lord of heaven has a care for His own, the purchase of His blood. To feed the flock is to bring them the gospel as well as the law, especially the precious light of faith and the righteousness of Christ, and to withhold that help and rob the churches of it is to eat and clothe oneself while starving the sheep.