23:1
“Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture!” The civic and religious leaders were meant to look after the sheep, to lead them in the ways of the Lord and to protect them. Instead they were destroying the sheep. Leaders destroying their people is a common occurrence in history. We see it in extreme ways with the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao Tsu Tung, Mugabe, Pol Pot, but we also see it in less extreme, but very harmful ways, with the so-called liberal elite. God will not stand by forever.
23:2,3
When the Lord takes action there will be two components to it. One is judgement upon the bad shepherds, the second is to shepherd the flock properly. Instead of caring for the flock, they had scattered them, so punishment would come upon the shepherds. For the second aspect, the Lord would gather the sheep Himself, He would rescue them from the countries “where I have driven them”. Note this last phrase. The flock would suffer because of the shepherds, they would be exiled. When we have bad leaders we suffer the consequences. But God will rescue His people from those consequences. He would bring them back to their proper pasture, and they would be fruitful and multiply. People get messed up and destroyed by godless teaching and godless societies. This does much damage and harms people, but God will restore the damaged people.
No comments:
Post a Comment