Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 652
Delivered on Sunday Morning, October 1, 1865
“He shall feed His flock like a shepherd.” Isaiah 40:11.
OUR Lord Jesus is very frequently described as the Shepherd of His people. The figure is inexhaustible, but it has been so often handled that I suppose it would be difficult to say anything fresh upon it. We all know and are very glad and comforted in the knowledge that the Lord Jesus Christ, as our Shepherd, exercises towards us all the kind and necessary offices which a shepherd performs towards his sheep. With gentle sway He rules us for our good—“Let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; for He is our God and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.”
He guides us—“And when He puts forth His own sheep He goes before them and the sheep follow Him, for they know His voice.” He provides for us—“The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures: He leads me beside the still waters.” He protects us from all forms of evil. Therefore, “though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil, for He is with us: His rod and His staff, they comfort us.” If we wander, He seeks us out and brings us back. “He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.”
If we are broken, He binds us up. If we are wounded, He heals according to His own Word, “I will bind up that which was broken and will strengthen that which was sick.” The sheep is an animal of many diseases and many needs and so the Christian is an individual of many sins and many infirmities. But as the shepherd endeavors to meet all the needs of his flock, so our Lord Jesus succors all the blood-bought company in all their needs. We propose to illustrate the great doctrine of the text in a Scriptural, and therefore we hope in an interesting, manner. First, we shall consider in connection with the text, Old Testament illustrations. In the second place, New Testament descriptions. And, in the third place, impressive applications.
I. We commence with OLD TESTAMENT ILLUSTRATIONS of the manner in which the Lord Jesus Christ discharges the office of feeding His flock like a shepherd. Out of five great types we begin with Abel, the shepherd slain. The second man who was born into the world was a shepherd and was, in many respects, typical of our Good Shepherd. “Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.” Abel was a type of the Savior in that, being a shepherd, he sanctified his work to the glory of God and he offered sacrifice of blood upon the altar of the Lord. The Lord had respect unto Abel and his offering.
This early type of our Lord is not very full and comprehensive, but it is exceedingly clear and distinct. Like the first streak of light which tinges the east at sunrise, it does not reveal everything—but it clearly manifests the great fact that the sun is coming. Abel is nothing like so complete and perfect a portrait of our own Lord Jesus as other shepherds of whom we have to speak—but as we see him standing as a shepherd and yet a sacrificing priest offering upon the altar a sacrifice of sweet smell unto God—we discern there, at once, the picture of our Lord, who brings before His Father a sacrifice of precious blood, to which Jehovah ever has respect.
Abel, the sacrificing shepherd, was hated by his brother—hated without a cause. And even so was the Savior—the spirit of this world, the natural and carnal man—hated the better Man, the accepted Man in whom the Spirit of Grace was found. And the man of the world rested not until His blood had been shed. Abel fell and sprinkled his own altar and his sacrifice with his own blood. And he must be blind, indeed who cannot behold the Lord Jesus slain by the enmity of man while serving as a priest before the Lord.
Abel is the type of Jesus the slain shepherd. Let us attentively consider him. We have been reading in the tenth chapter of John, this morning, that the Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep—let us weep over Him as we view
Him stretched upon the ground by the hatred of mankind at the foot of His own altar of sacrifice, pouring out His blood. We read of Abel’s blood, in the New Testament, that it speaks. “He being dead yet speaks.” “The Lord said unto Cain, The voice of your brother’s blood cries unto Me from the ground.”
Herein we have a blessed type of the Lord—His blood had a mighty tongue and the import of its prevailing cry is not vengeance but mercy—
“The rich blood of Jesus slain Speaks peace as loud from every vein.’” It is precious beyond all preciousness to stand at Jesus Christ’s altar and to see Him, Himself, offered there as a whole burnt-offering acceptable unto God! To see Him lying bleeding there as the slaughtered Priest and then to hear the voice of His blood speaking peace in our consciences, peace in the Church of God, peace between Jew and Gentile, peace between man and his offended Maker—speaking peace all down the ages of eternity for blood-washed man! Abel is first in order of time and Jesus first in order of excellence.