Tom Hinkle ~ Sheep

Tom Hinkle ~ Sheep ~ Salem, OR 6-5-2005

115 - "Other sheep I have that wander
In this world so dark and cold.
To my love they still are strangers,
For they are not of this fold,
On the mountains bleak and dreary,
By the crags where shadows lie,
From the valley, in the evening,
I have heard their plantive cry."

Mark 6:34-44 - And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people and was moved with
compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd: and he
began to teach them many things.
35 - And when the day was now far spent, his disciples came unto him, and said. This is a
desert place, and now the time is far passed:
36 - Send them away, that they maygo into the country round about, and into the villages
and buy themselves bread: for they have nothing to eat.
37 - He answered and said unto them, Give ye them to eat. And they said unto him, Shall
we go and buy two hundred pennyworth of bread, and give them to eat?
38 - He saith unto them, How many loaves have ye? Go and see. And when they knew,
they say Five, and two fishes.
39 - And he commanded them to make all sit down by companies upon the green grass.
40 - And they sat down in ranks, bu hundreds, and by fifties.
41 - And when he had taken the five loaves and the two fishes, he looked up to heaven,
and blessed, and break the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before them: and
the two fishes he divided among them all.
42 - And they did all eat, and were filled.
43 - And they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments, and of the fishes.
44 - And they that did eat of the loaves were about five thousand men.

I have always felt it strange that the disciples recorded this account by telling of the
loaves and fishes and not a word of what Jesus taught that day, it says that he taught them
many things. (verse 34: It would seem that the disciples were far more impressed by
what they saw than by what they heard. This same verse tells us that Jesus saw these
people as sheep without a shepherd, and he had compassion on them. How many of us
see ourselves as Jesus sees us? How does the Lord look on me? Just what does he see in
me? Yes, he sees all our faults and failures but remember this, he had compassion on
them. It would be so sad if Jesus just saw us as we see ourselves, warts and all! But had
no compassion on us. Maybe we feel just fine in ourselves, we think we have never ever
done anything wrong, but if Jesus looking on us as sheep only saw us as we see
ourselves, we'd never get any help that way.

When the shepherd looks over his band of sheep, he not only sees them as a great band
of sheep, but as individuals. A good shepherd learns to know each sheep in his band, he
knows which ones are the strong ones, and which ones are weak and need extra help. He
knows which ones are the bossy sheep. The good shepherd sees the lack, but he has the
remedy for that lack.

One of our friends, a lady, has sheep she cares for. She subscribes to a magazine about
sheep. I was looking through that magazine one day when I ran across an article that said
- that sheep left on their own without a shepherd that eighty percent of them would be
dead within a year and all would be dead within two years. Sheep have so many things
wrong with them that they can't fix themselves, they need the shepherd to care for them.
It has been said of sheep that, they are born looking for a place to die. Sheep are so
dependent on the shepherd. That is something we need to realize every day, we need the
shepherd.

I have often wondered what Jesus taught that day when he fed that multitude. What do
you teach sheep that don't know the shepherd? First of all have you ever seen a sheep in a
circus? There is no way you can teach a sheep tricks, they can't be taught to stand on
there heads, or jump through a hoop, sheep just aren't entertainers are they. Oh, but sheep
can learn something that is so easy and that is to follow. What we need to learn and the
only thing a sheep needs to learn is to follow. John 10:27 - My sheep hear my voice, and
I know them, and they follow me. Sheep are great followers, even to the extent of
following another sheep. Shepherds know the great danger of sheep following sheep. If
one old ewe falls over the cliff, the next, and the next will just follow her right over the
edge too.

A good story about this is about a little boy, named Johnny, he was asked by his teacher,
Johnny, if you had twelve sheep  in a pen and one got out how many sheep would you
have? Well, Johnny being a farm boy said, none. The teacher again asked him how
many sheep would you have? And she got the same answer. The teacher said, Johnny you
don't know your math, and Johnny said, Teacher you don't know your sheep! Sheep love
fellowship, if you see an old sheep off by its self, you had better be seeing about her,
because she is sick. A healthy sheep doesn't have to be made to go to meeting because
they just love fellowship.

Well, we might ask, how do you teach sheep to follow you? You feed them. You feed a
sheep and they will be in your back pocket forever. Ninety-nine percent of the shepherds'
responsibility is to feed the sheep. If you feed them they will follow. That is the only way
that God leads his people. My favorite job in caring for cattle was at feeding time. You
just drove out to the pasture with hay and call and here comes the cows. (My brother
cared for cattle up in the Steens Mountains, these cows were wild, but when the tractor
came out in the field pulling the sled with hay on it those old cows would crowd around
that sled while Glen dropped off the hay for them. I can;t recall his even calling them, the
sound of the tractor did the trick.)

I went wit a man to feed his flock, this man didn't call the sheep, but made a trilling
sound to which the sheep responded. Later I was out in that same field and made that
same sound, well I think one old sheep raised her head, the rest didn't even take notice.
I had made the same sound, but the voice of the shepherd was not in it. Lots of men and
women go out preaching the Bible, but the voice of the shepherd is not in it.

I love this 23rd Psalms that speaks of the shepherd and the sheep and how the shepherd
maketh his sheep to lie down in green pastures. It has been said that those sheep rested
easy because they were not worrying about where their next meal was coming from. But I
remembered that when I was in Ireland a couple of years ago how i saw white sheep for
the first time. Usually when we see sheep, they are a gray color and in Wyoming I even
saw red sheep. Those red sheep had been bedding down near a red hillside that dirtied
their wool with red dust. But over in Ireland everything is green over there and the
sheep rest on that green grass, no dirt to dirty their wool. The only reason the wool on
those sheep was white was because it was clean. We too can be cleansed daily by the
blood of the Good Shepherd wh gave his life for his sheep. What Jesus would like for us
to do id to be found lying in green pastures.

A few years ago a book came out called, "You Are What You Eat." It was about eating a
good healthy diet. You are going to be directly affected by what you feed on in this world
too. There are people who feel if they go to meeting on Sunday that they can do what
ever they want the rest of the week, but how do you counteract the poison that you are
feeding on all week? We need to spend more time in prayer, prayer the place where we
can be fed on those things that help us to have a healthy spiritual life. (I've been known
to say to the doctor, if it's not broke don't fix it. But how do I really know if something is
wrong if I don't go to the doctor and have myself checked out?) A good shepherd checks
his flock out daily, looking for ticks, for cuts and bruises, sore eyes. Some sheep have so
much wool on their faces that they can't see, needing the shepherds attention. We need to
go to our Good Shepherd and stand the inspection to see how we are fairing spiritually.

Those verses in Mark tell us that they were in a desert place, a barren place, but Jesus said
for them to sit down on green grass and feed them. The disciples said just send them 
away. Jesus said feed them. Then when all was fed the left overs were to be picked up,
why? If Jesus could make bread all that easy, why pick up the fragments? Perhaps he
wanted them to see that there was more left over than they had started out with. When
Jesus and his disciples left that place it tells us many followed him, some because of
the natural bread, but hopefully there were those who really saw the miracle and wanted
more of that miracle worked into their lives.

There are four places in the Bible where it uses the word backbiters. Two in the New 
Testament and two in the Old Testament. Romans 1:30, II Corinthians 12:20, Psalms
15:3, Proverbs 25:23.

One of our friends, a lady again, buys two lambs every Spring at weaning time, feeds
them out and butchers them in the Fall for meat. This one year she noticed the old
shepherd was carrying a staff and when one old ewe passed by he gave her a good crack
on the head, she was quite taken aback by this and by the language he used. When he
struck the same ewe the second time she asked him why? She had to explain to him that
she wasn't questioning his judgement but just wanted to know why. So he told her, she's a
backbiter and if she isn't cured of it soon she will die. She is a bossy ole ewe and likes
to take the other sheep by the nap of the neck and bite them, it really dosen't hurt the other
sheep, but she gets a bit of wool in her mouth and swallows it, soon she has so much
wool in her gut she dies. (In a cat you call it hairball) It wasn't to save the other sheep
that the shepherd struck her but but to save that biter herself.

Just what is a backbiter? The dictionary says - To speak maliciously about:an absent
person) or slander. Or to talk about others behind their back, that is not going to hurt the
other person, but it does great harm to the one doing the slandering, if it is kept up from
day to day ones system is poisened as surely as they were taking arsenic. (Back in the
long ago days men used to take a small dose of arsenic thinking it would make them
more viral, many of them died of arsenic poisoned because of this.)

Sheep love light. At the Roman convention grounds is a band of sheep. The owner keeps a
big yard light on at night because the sheep love to sleep under the light. I asked the
owner about that and he said that the bears had been bothering the sheep, but when they
were under the light the bears stay away. Bears don't like light, and they knew that they
got shot if they came near. Satan doesn't like light either, so let us stay near the
shepherd where the light of the gospel can shine down on us, keeping us safe from the
predators of this world. Satan hates light and God will never allow him in the light.