CHRIST AND HIS SHEEP

Is God your friend? Is Christ your friend? Then, look up with comfort; all is yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s. Everything shall work together for your good; the very hairs of your head are numbered; he that toucheth you, toucheth the apple of God’s eye. But then beware of resting on your conversion. You that are young believers in Christ, you should be looking out for fresh discoveries of the Lord Jesus Christ every moment; you must not build upon your past experiences, you must not build upon a work within you, but always come out of yourselves to the righteousness of Jesus Christ without you; you must be forgetting the things that are behind, and be continually pressing forward to the things that are before. My dear friends, you must keep up a tender, close walk with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let me, therefore, exhort you that have obtained peace to keep a close walk with Christ. I am grieved with the loose walk of those who are Christians, who have discoveries of Jesus Christ; there is so little difference beween them and other people, that I scarce know which is the true Christian. Christians are afraid to speak for God — they run down with the stream; if they come into worldly company, they will talk of the world as if they were in their element; this you would not do when you had the first discoveries of Christ’s love; you could talk then of Christ’s love forever, when the candle of the Lord shined upon your soul. That time has been when you had something to say for your dear Lord; but now you can go into company and hear others speaking about the world bold enough, and you are afraid of being laughed at if you speak for Jesus Christ.

Believers are made partakers of the divine nature, and from Jesus Christ they receive grace for grace; and every grace that is in Christ is copied and transcribed into their souls; they are transformed into His likeness; He is formed within them; they dwell in Him, and He in them; they are led by the Spirit, and bring forth the fruits thereof; they know that Christ is their Emmanuel, God with them and in them; they are living temples of the Holy Spirit….

If the Lord is your righteousness, let the righteousness of your Lord be continually in your mouth. Talk of, oh talk of, and recommend the righteousness of Christ, when you lie down, and when you rise up, at your going out and coming in! Think of the greatness of the gift, as well as of the Giver! Show to all the world, in whom you have believed! Let all know by your fruits, that the Lord is your righteousness, and that you are waiting for your Lord from heaven! Oh study to be holy, even as He who has called you, and washed you in His own blood, is holy! Let not the righteousness of the Lord be evil spoken of through you. Let not Jesus be wounded in the house of His friends; but grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, day by day. Oh think of his dying love! Let that love constrain you to obedience! Having much forgiven, love much. Be always asking, What shall I do to express my gratitude to the Lord for giving me His righteousness? Let that self-abasing, God-exalting question be always in your mouths. “Why me, Lord? Why me? Why am I taken, and others left? Why is the Lord my righteousness? Why is He become my salvation, who have so often deserved damnation at His hands?

If we once get above our Bible and cease making the written Word of God our sole rule both as to faith and practice, we shall soon lie open to all manner of delusion. Our blessed Lord, though He had the Spirit of God without measure, yet always was governed by, and fought the devil with, “It is written.” This, the apostle calls, the “sword of the Spirit.”…

Sheep, you know, generally love to be together; we say a flock of sheep, we do not say a herd of sheep; sheep are little creatures, and Christ’s people may be called sheep, because they are little in the eyes of the world, and they are yet less in their own eyes.

“Learn of me,” said our blessed Lord; what to do? To work miracles? No: “Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart.”

If you belong to Jesus Christ, He is speaking of you; for, says He, “I know My sheep.” “I know them.” What does that mean? Why, He knows their number, He knows their names, He knows every one for whom He died; and if there were to be one missing for whom Christ died; God the Father would send Him down again from heaven to fetch Him. “Of all,” saith He, “that thou gavest me,… none of them is lost.” Christ knows His sheep; He not only knows their number, but the words speak the peculiar knowledge and notice He takes of them; He takes as much care of each of them as if there were but that one single sheep in the world.

And you, dear sheep, that are already in His hands, oh may God keep you from wandering; God keep you near Christ’s feet; I do not care what shepherds keep you, so as you are kept near the great Shepherd and Bishop of souls. The Lord God keep you, lift up the light of His countenance upon you, and give you peace.

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