“I will set up one shepherd over them, and He shall feed them ... and He shall be their shepherd.” Ezekiel 34:23.
‘Jesus found access to the minds of His hearers by the pathway of their familiar associations. He had likened the Spirit’s influence to the cool, refreshing water. He had represented Himself as the light, the source of life and gladness to nature and to man. Now in a beautiful pastoral picture He represents His relation to those that believe on Him. No picture was more familiar to His hearers than this, and Christ’s words linked it forever with Himself. Never could the disciples look on the shepherds tending their flocks without recalling the Saviour’s lesson. They would see Christ in each faithful shepherd. They would see themselves in each helpless and dependent flock.
‘This figure the prophet Isaiah had applied to the Messiah’s mission, in the comforting words, “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom” (Isaiah 40:11). David had sung, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want” (Psalm 23:1). And the Holy Spirit through Ezekiel had declared: “I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them.” “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.” “And I will make with them a covenant of peace.” “And they shall no more be a prey to the heathen; ... but they shall dwell safely, and none shall make them afraid” (Ezekiel 32:23, 16, 25, 28).
‘Christ is the door to the fold of God. Through this door all His children, from the earliest times, have found entrance. In Jesus, as shown in types, as shadowed in symbols, as manifested in the revelation of the prophets, as unveiled in the lessons given to His disciples, and in the miracles wrought for the sons of men, they beheld “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), and through Him they are brought within the fold of His grace. Many have come presenting other objects for the faith of the world; ceremonies and systems have been devised by which men hope to receive justification and peace with God, and thus find entrance to His fold. But the only door is Christ, and all who have interposed something to take the place of Christ, all who have tried to enter the fold in some other way, are thieves and robbers.
‘“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.’
Lift Him Up, page 202.
‘From the earliest times there have been very close ties between men and the gentle, harmless sheep, perhaps because, being so helpless, they require more of man’s care and thought than animals of more strength and intelligence. And do you know that the way to cultivate love is to bestow kindness and thoughtful care? So every good shepherd learns to love his sheep, because they need so much of his attention.
‘One of the first things that we are told in the Bible is that Abel “was a keeper of sheep.” No doubt his work among the sheep taught him many lessons of the Lord’s love and care for him, which made him obedient and faithful to God.
‘The riches of kings and princes in the old patriarchal times of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, consisted largely of their immense flocks and herds. You can recall many incidents in the Bible that show this, and many scenes in which the sheep are a part of the picture.
‘The cause of the separation of Abraham and Lot was that their flocks and herds had become so large that the land could not bear both. There was continual strife among the herdsmen, all anxious to get the best pasturage for their own flocks and herds. Think of the evening scene at “the mouth of the well” in “the east country” to which Jacob fled from the wrath of Esau. While he waited at the well, making enquiries about his uncle Laban who lived near, “Rachel came with her father's sheep; for she kept them.”
‘And during all the years that Jacob served Laban for the love that he had for the beautiful shepherdess, his work was “to feed and keep his flock.” When he left, he described his anxious and faithful care for them in the words:-
“Thus I was: in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night; and my sleep departed from mine eyes. Thus having been twenty years.”
‘The occupation of Moses in the land of Midian for forty years was that of a shepherd; he “kept the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law.” And it was when he was leading the sheep that the Lord appeared to him in the burning bush.’
‘Of the shepherd boy David I need not remind you, for you know well the beautiful shepherd psalm in which he sings of the love and care of the Lord our Shepherd for us, the sheep of His pasture.’
E. J. Waggoner: Present Truth, July 26, 1900.