By Alan Dean, retired Seventh-day Adventist pastor
Our Saviour desires to save everyone. Paul states in Hebrews 7: 25 “He is able to save them to the uttermost those that come unto God by Him (Jesus), seeing He ever lives to make intercession for them.” But not everyone chooses to come to God. We tend to be too willing to go our own way. So God sometimes chooses to use various means of discipline in an attempt to change our course.
In his book, “The Shepherd Evangelist”, R.A. Anderson tells of a tourist who, walking across the Scottish hills, enjoying the beauties of the lake country, saw a shepherd with his sheep resting at noon.
The sheep were browsing. As he drew near to the shepherd, he noticed one sheep lying down. It was evidently hurt, and the shepherd was speaking words of love and assurance to the young sheep.
“Do you have a sick one there?” asked the tourist. “Well, not exactly sick,” said the shepherd. “He has a broken leg.”
“Oh, how did it happen? An accident I suppose.” But the shepherd hesitated to say. Finally he told the story.
“This fellow is a good sheep. He has all the earmarks of a leader, but he was willful and wouldn’t come when I called. He would always lead the flock the wrong way. I tried to teach him, but he was obstinate. He wouldn’t trust me. I decided I’d have to do to him what I had done to others before. It was hard, but I knew it would work. I prepared splints and bandages; then holding him down, I took the young fellow’s leg in my hands and broke it over my own like this,” and he showed how it was done. But his voice choked and his eyes were brimming.
“Then I set the leg,” he continued, “and bound it up. That was weeks ago. Since then every mouthful of food and every drop of water this fellow has had, he has taken from my own hands. Every day I carry him out to the field, and every night I take him back again. We have learned to love each other, for we have suffered together. In a few days I will remove the bandage, and he will be my leader, for he has learned in pain what I could teach him in no other way.”
The discipline was hard, but necessary because the young sheep wouldn’t listen to the shepherd. Jesus, our divine Shepherd, often uses trials, sorrows, and afflictions to discipline us. But even before these come He makes preparations to bind up our wounds. In sympathy and love Jesus shares in our afflictions. He then will bring us healing and comfort, and prayerfully we learn the lesson of trust that He has for us.
What a wonderful Saviour and marvelous God we have!
