To the Lambs of the Flock (2)

Robert Murray McCheyne (1813-1843)

2. What Jesus does for His flock

(1) He died for them—“I am the Good Shepherd: the Good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep.” This is the chief beauty in Christ. The wounds that marred His fair body make Him altogether lovely in a needy sinner’s eye. All that are now and ever shall be the sheep of Christ were once condemned to die. The wrath of God abode upon them. They were ready to drop into the burning lake. Jesus had compassion upon them, left His Father’s bosom, emptied Himself, became a worm and no man, and died under the sins of many. “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” This is the grace of the Lord Jesus. Everyone in the flock can say, “He loved me and gave Himself for me.”

(2) He seeks andfinds them—we would never seek Christ if He did not seek us first. We would never find Christ if He did not find us. “The Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which is lost.”

I once asked a shepherd, “How do you find sheep that are lost in the snow?”

“Oh,” he said, “we go down into the deep ravines where the sheep go in storms; there we find the sheep huddled together beneath the snow.”

“And are they able to come out when you take away the snow?”

“Oh no, if they had to take a single step to save their lives, they could not do it. So we just go in and carry them out.”

Ah, this is the very way that Jesus saves lost sheep. He finds us frozen and dead in the deep pit of sin. If we had to take a single step to save our souls, we could not do it; He reaches down His arm and carries us out. This He does for every sheep He saves. Glory, glory, glory be to Jesus, the Shepherd of our souls. Oh, children, let Jesus gather you. Feel your helpless condition and look up and say, “Lord, help me.”

(3) He feeds them—“By Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.” If Jesus has saved you, He will feed you, He will feed your body. “I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.”

The birds without barn or storehouse are fed;
From them let us learn to trust for our bread;
His saints what is fitting shall ne’er be denied,
So long as ’tis written—The Lord will provide.

He will feed your soul. He that feeds the little flower in the cleft of the craggy precipice where no hand of man can reach it will feed your soul with silent drops of heavenly dew.

I shall never forget the story of a little girl in Belfast, Ireland. She was at a Sabbath school and gained a Bible as a prize for her good conduct. It became to her a treasure indeed. She was fed out of it. Her parents were wicked.

She often read to them, but they became worse and worse. This broke Eliza’s heart. She took to her bed and never rose again. She desired to see her teacher. When he came, he said, “You are not without a companion, my dear child,” taking up her little Bible.

“No,” she replied—

“Precious Bible? what a treasure
Does the Word of God afford!
All I want for life or pleasure,
Food and med’cine, shield and sword,
Let the world account me poor.
Flaving this, I ask no more”

She had scarcely repeated the lines when she hung back her head and died. Beloved children, this is the way Jesus feeds His flock. He is a tender, constant, almighty Shepherd. If you become one of His flock, He will feed you all the way to glory.

3. Jesus cares for lambs

“He shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom.” Every careful shepherd deals carefully with the lambs of his flock. When the flocks are traveling, the lambs are not able to go far; they often grow weary, and he puts his gentle arm beneath them and lays them in his bosom. Such a Shepherd is the Lord Jesus, and saved children are His lambs. He gathers them with His arm and carries them in His bosom. Many a guilty lamb He has gathered and carried to His Father’s house. Some He has gathered out of this place whom you and I once knew well.

Before He came into the world, Jesus cared for lambs. Samuel was a very little child, no bigger than the least of you, when he was converted. He was girded with a linen ephod, and his mother made him a little coat and brought it to him every year. One night as he slept in the holy place, where the Ark of the Lord was kept, he heard a voice cry, “Samuel!” He started up and ran to old Eli, whose eyes were dim, and said, “Here am I, for thou didst call me.”

And Eli said, “I called not, my son; lie down again.” A third time the holy voice cried, “Samuel!” And he arose and went to Eli with the same words. Then Eli perceived that the Lord had called the child; therefore Eli said, “Go, lie down: and it shall be, if He call thee, that thou shalt say, Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth!” So he went, and he lay down. A fourth time (how often Christ will call on little children!) the voice cried, “Samuel! Samuel!”

Then Samuel answered, “Speak, Lord, for Thy servant heareth.” Thus did Jesus gather His lamb with His arm and carried him in His bosom, for “Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him; and the Lord revealed Himself to Samuel in Shiloh” (1 Samuel 3).

Little children of whom I travail in birth till Christ be formed in you, pray that the same Lord would reveal Himself to you. Some people say that you are too young to be converted and saved, but Samuel was not too young. Christ can open the eyes of a little child as easily as that of an old man. Yea, youth is the best time to be saved. You are not too young to die, not too young to be judged and, therefore, not too young to be brought to Christ. Do not be content to hear about Christ from your teachers; pray that He would reveal Himself unto you. God grant that there be many little Samuels amongst you.

Jesus cares for lambs still. The late Duke of Hamilton had two sons. The elder became ill with consumption (tuberculosis) when a boy, which ended in his death. Two ministers went to see him at the family seat near Glasgow where he lay. After prayer the youth took his Bible from under his pillow and turned to 2 Timothy 4:7, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness;” he added, “This, sirs, is all my comfort.” When his death approached, he called his younger brother to his bed and spoke to him with great affection. He ended with these remarkable words, “And now, Douglas, in a little time you will be a duke, but I shall be a king.“

Let me tell you a word of another gentle lamb whom Jesus gathered and whom I saw on her way from grace to glory. She was early brought to Christ and early taken to be with Him where He is. She told her companions that she generally fell asleep with these words, “His left hand is under my head, and His right hand doth embrace me” and sometimes on these, “Underneath are the everlasting arms.” She said she did not know how it was, but somehow she felt that Christ was always near her. Another time she said, “I think it’s the best way to make myself as loathsome as I can before Him and then to look to Jesus.” When seized with her last illness and told that the doctors thought she would not live long, she looked quite composed and said, “I am very happy at that.” She said she could not love Jesus enough here; that she would like to be with Him and, then, she would love Him as she ought.

To her tender, watchful relative she said, “I wonder at your looking so grave. I’m surprised at it, for I am the happiest person in the house. I have every temporal comfort, and then I am going to Jesus.” After a companion had been with her, she said, “Margaret quite entered my happiness; she did not look grave but smiled; that showed how much she loves me.”

When sitting one evening, her head resting on a pillow, she was asked, “Is there anything the matter, my darling?”

‘“Oh,” she said, “‘I am only weak. I am quite happy; Jesus said,‘Thou art Mine.’”

Another day, when near her last one, someone said to her, “Have you been praying much today?”

“Yes,” she replied, “and I have been trying to praise, too.”

“And for what have you been praising?”

“I praise God,” she said, “for all the comforts I have. I praise Him for many kind friends—you know He is the foundation of all; and I praise Him for taking a sinner to glory.”

These are a few of the many golden sayings of this lamb of Christ who, I trust, is now safe in the fold above. Would you wish to be gathered thus? Go now to some lonely place; kneel down and call upon the Lord Jesus. Do not leave your knees till you find Him. Pray to be gathered with His arm and carried in his bosom. Take hold of the hem of His garment and say, “I must—I dare not—I will not let Thee go except Thou bless me.”

O seek Him in earnest, and seek Him in time,
For they that seek early shall find;
While they that neglect Him are hardened in crime,
And never can come to His pure blessed clime—
They perish in anguish of mind.

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