Drink Clear Waters

With Jesus Christ as our Good Shepherd, we will always be looked after continuously with love and care.  Unlike a hireling who would flee at the hint of danger or who avoided the hard, dirty work of providing for the needs of a flock,  Jesus laid down His life for all who would become the sheep of His pasture by faith in Him.  God had strong criticisms for pastors or shepherds of his flock in Israel who sought personal profit rather than the good of God's people entrusted to them--strong words Christians ought to lay to heart today.

In Ezekiel 34, God chastised priests and rulers in Israel who were feeding off the flock rather than feeding the flock.  Those who were meant to serve God's people felt entitled to be served by others and failed to do all the things good shepherds do for sheep.  Shepherding does not mean leaders ought to be controlling, intrusive or demanding of others, for we ought to follow the example of Jesus who loves, gives, serves, forgives and helps others without taking thought for His own life.  Rather than seeking those who were lost, strengthening the diseased, tending the sick or binding the broken, the shepherds in Israel ruled with force and cruelty (Eze. 34:4).  Their heavy-handed treatment caused God's people to scatter, and the LORD would hold His shepherds to account.

Seeing the priests and leaders in Israel were not fulfilling their calling before Him, God promised to step in and do all that had been neglected.  This ought to be a great encouragement to God's people who have experienced hurts and cruelty from people especially in churches.  God would seek out and deliver His people from everywhere they had been scattered and return them to Himself.  He asked a searching question to those in the flock that is appropriate and relevant for all God's people in the church to consider today in Ezekiel 34:18-19:  "Is it too little for you to have eaten up the good pasture, that you must tread down with your feet the residue of your pasture--and to have drunk of the clear waters, that you must foul the residue with your feet? ¹⁹ And as for My flock, they eat what you have trampled with your feet, and they drink what you have fouled with your feet."  Again, in context this rebuke concerns the whole flock of God--not just the shepherds or leaders.

While the word of God preached from the pulpit is important and powerful, this passage shows us all the people in God's congregation have the capacity to trample and "muddy the waters" so to speak.  God used an analogy of sheep that eagerly tromped into the water and polluted it by stirring up mud, sediment and refuse with filthy hooves.  When other sheep followed them to quench their thirst, they were left with muddy, impure water because of sheep that preceded them.  How can Christians muddy the waters?  By stirring up doubts or contradictions, confusion and bias, by putting yourself and your opinions before others.  People can be contentious for all to agree with them over secondary issues or regarding personal convictions, and they foster divisions rather than edifying one another in love because they do not focus on what God has clearly said.  God forbid pastors or Sunday School teachers would muddy the waters with their own agenda and cause people to depart church spiritually hungry and thirsty because we neglected to provide the pure water of the word.  Ezekiel 34 teaches us those who hear also have a responsibility before God not to pollute the clear waters by their meddlesome agitations, to ensure others have access to the pure, life-giving spring that comes from Jesus Christ.

Those who have been subjected to muddy waters can look to the LORD with joyful expectancy.  In contrast to those who foul clear water with their feet, see what God has promised to do in Ezekiel 34:23-26:  "I will establish one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them--My servant David. He shall feed them and be their shepherd. ²⁴ And I, the LORD, will be their God, and My servant David a prince among them; I, the LORD, have spoken. ²⁵ "I will make a covenant of peace with them, and cause wild beasts to cease from the land; and they will dwell safely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods. ²⁶ I will make them and the places all around My hill a blessing; and I will cause showers to come down in their season; there shall be showers of blessing."  God has fulfilled His promise through Jesus Christ who is the Good Shepherd and has established the new covenant in His own blood.  No longer do we need to fear beasts or demons in the darkness, for Jesus will protect us wherever we are.  By faith in Him we are safe, secure and all our needs abundantly provided for.  We are not subject to drinking the muddy waters because God has showed His grace upon us and made us a fountain of the Living Water of the Holy Spirit who indwells us.  How awesome and wonderful is our Good Shepherd Jesus who loves, protects and provides for our needs always!