the scripture reading, Ezekiel 34, because we're going to look at Jeremiah 23 in our series, in Jeremiah, and both of these chapters are key chapters about the danger of false shepherds in the church. So Ezekiel 34, beginning in verse one. The word of the Lord came to me. Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and say to them, even to the shepherds, thus says the Lord God. Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves, Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with wool. You slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep. The weak, you have not strengthened. The sick, you have not healed. The injured, you've not bound up. The strayed, you've not brought back. The lost, you've not sought. And with force and harshness, you've ruled them. So they were scattered. because there was no shepherd and they became food for all the wild beasts. My sheep were scattered. They wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. My sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth with none to search or seek for them. Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord. As I live, declares the Lord, surely because my sheep have become a prey, And my sheep have become food for all the wild beasts, since there was no shepherd. And because my shepherds have not searched for my sheep, but the shepherds have fed themselves and have not fed my sheep. Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God, behold, I am against the shepherds. And I will require my sheep at their hand and put a stop to their feeding the sheep. No longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths that they may not be food for them. For this says the Lord God, behold, I myself will search for my sheep and I will and will seek them out as a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered. So will I seek out my sheep. And I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel by the ravines and in all the inhabited places of the country. I will feed them with good pasture. And on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord God. I will seek the lost and I will bring back the strayed and I will bind up the injured and I will strengthen the weak and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice. As for you, my flock, thus says the Lord God, behold, I judge between sheep and sheep, between rams and male goats. Is it not enough for you to feed on good pasture that you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture and to drink of clear water that you must muddy the rest of the water with your feet? And must my sheep eat what you have trodden with your feet and drink what you have muddied with your feet? Therefore, thus says the Lord God to them, behold, I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep, because you push it with side and shoulder and thrust at all the weak with your horns till you've scattered them abroad. I will rescue my flock. They shall no longer be a prey. And I will judge between sheep and sheep. And I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, And he shall feed them, he shall feed them and be their shepherd. And I, the Lord, will be their God. And my servant David shall be prince among them. I am the Lord, I have spoken. And essentially what you have there is Ezekiel's version, extended version of Psalm 23, right? As the Lord brings us, and John chapter 10. They all are tied in together and the one is necessary to help understand the other. These are great promises. of the Lord's preservation of his elect, of his remnant, and his dealing out of justice to the wicked who have oppressed and scattered them. Well, you can follow along either in your handout or you can turn there in your Bible to the 23rd chapter of Jeremiah. which is a central passage in God's word, again, parallel in many ways to Ezekiel 34, regarding the tactics and nature and motives of false shepherds that creep in among the people of God. Let's ask the Lord's blessing then on the ministry of his word. Father, we thank you for the truth of your word Thank you that the living word, the Lord Jesus Christ has come into this world, that he has spoken and he's taught us and given us ears to hear and eyes to see. We thank you, Father, that we're able to open up the pages of your written word and your spirit makes those words live and we recognize them as your word. We pray father then as we as we look at this chapter of Jeremiah. That you would teach us you'd make us wise about evil and and thankful even more thankful to you for our salvation in Christ and we pray this in Christ name, Amen. By now. We should all be familiar with the fact that John Chapter 10. is often called the Good Shepherd chapter, where Christ says of himself, I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own and my own know me. And if you'll just compare that statement with what we just read in Ezekiel 34, then that's like a super condensed version of Ezekiel 34. The promise of the promised Good Shepherd that is announced in Ezekiel 34, Jesus says, I'm him. I'm, I am, I'm the good shepherd and when Ezekiel 34 is talking about the Lord, that the Lord will sort out between the, what, the goats and the sheep or the whatever, the, the fat ones and the lean ones and so forth, then you see that and just in this statement that Jesus makes, I know my own and my own know me, all right? So these are, these are the truths about Christ that he was announcing. And he was announcing then to the Jews, who should have been familiar with Jeremiah 23 and Ezekiel 34, that he was the promised good shepherd the true the true shepherd sent sent by the father he is the he is the messiah he's the one who leads us into green pastures and besides still water in contrast to the wicked false shepherds and he is telling us that he has come on the scene and he is gathering his true flock and he says as he goes on in john chapter 10 that All of those whom the Father has given to him, that's the language used down in Jesus' prayer in John 17, that all of those that the Father has given to him, the elect, will hear his voice. And they will recognize his voice without fail, they will follow him, and they will not follow a stranger, okay? There's a few chapters, particularly in the Gospel of John, John chapter six, for example, John 10 here, actually any one of these by themselves, that if you look at those, you will become a Calvinist. Maybe somebody's shaking at that and saying, I don't want to be a Calvinist or whatever. Well, what I mean, of course, is that you will recognize that the acronym TULIP and those five key doctrines that sometimes are referred to as the doctrines of grace, it's the gospel really, that they're true. And it really can't be avoided just by looking at those particular chapters. Person every human being that has ever been ever lived and is today a christian Ever will be that that truly knows christ has been born again The reason they are The reason you're a christian. You're a christian is because in eternity past the father chose you Based it on no merit, no deserving features in yourself. He chose you by his own good pleasure and because of that. He gave you ears to hear and eyes to see so that when you heard. Christ voice when you heard his truth when you heard the gospel, you perked up and you. Knew it was true and and other people sitting around you are like either they hate it or they are oblivious to it, but you recognize that this is this is the good shepherds. The good shepherds voice, right? So people who profess to be Christians, but they persist in following and listening to a false shepherd. They aren't Christians. If they really knew Christ, they would not be listening to a stranger. So all of those truths and more are there in John chapter 10. Now, in all of church history, as you study the history of the church, in fact, even if you just read the New Testament itself, and it's true in the Old Testament too, but in the New Testament, As we see church history playing itself out in the New Testament and in the Bible, you find that a lot of it is written because of false shepherds, right? Think of Paul's letter to the churches at Galatia. Or think of actually most all of his letters, right? And Peter's and so forth. They're writing them because There are false shepherds, false teachers who have crept into the church, right? Jude says they've crept into the church, so I like to refer to them as creeps. You know, that's what they are. They're creeps. They come and sneak in without shame among us, and then they teach their false doctrines with the result, as we'll see, that they scatter Christ's sheep. They scatter and they destroy. This has always been the case from day one, that there are these false shepherds, false teachers, false preachers, and so on. And we are very foolish if we minimize or want to ignore and remain naive to this fact. Paul says to the Galatians, Galatians 3, oh foolish Galatians. who has bewitched you. It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. I gave you the gospel in such clarity that it was as if you were standing there at the cross when Christ was crucified for you. And now somebody has come along and taught you false doctrine, and you are being led astray. And he says, you are foolish, foolish Galatians. And that's how it is today. who claim to be Christians don't want to hear about, you know, I want to hear nice things. Well, you know what? If you really think about it, hearing what scripture has to say about these false shepherds, is good stuff. It's encouraging stuff because whenever evil is revealed and justice is promised from God against them, it's freeing and it's life-giving. And so it's a very foolish thing to want to say, I don't want it. You know, it's just not that bad. I remember I was teaching a home Bible study one time years and years ago. And Verla's dad was there. I guess they were there visiting or something at our house. I was teaching the Bible study at our house. And I was teaching on this kind of a thing about false teachers. And I remember he perked up, he wasn't a Christian, but he said, well, I just want to say something. You know, there's a lot of good people in this world, you see. And you'll hear people say that, even who profess to be Christians. Well, come on, you're being too negative. There's a lot of good people in this world. I would counter that statement. I don't think the Bible teaches us that there's a lot of good people in this world. I think it would say there's actually very few because what we regard as good, right? What do you mean by good? There's only one who is good. So at any rate, this is a serious matter. It's not overstating the case to say we have an enemy who never sleeps, never, and he is always at work to try to destroy and scatter Christ's flock. And that's how it's always been in church history. That's how it always will be until Christ comes again. So this subject of false shepherds among the people of God warrants careful consideration. We need to know what they look like. We need to know what their tactics are. We need to know what their motives are. And we can know because the Bible tells us. And so when we look here at Jeremiah 23, for example, we must not make the mistake of assuming, well, you know, Boy, Jeremiah was having a tough time of it. It was really bad back then. There was a lot of false shepherds in his day, right? Well, you know what? Paul told Timothy, 2 Timothy 3, that all scripture, all of it, all of it, the whole thing, all scripture, includes Jeremiah 23, is inspired by God, and it's profitable for our correction, our training in righteousness, so that we can be equipped. We can be equipped. So we want to look seriously at every part of scripture that we are studying. And that's how we have to approach chapter 23. So here we go. Let's look at the first eight verses of it here. Jeremiah 23, beginning in verse one. Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture, declares the Lord. Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for my people. You have scattered my flock and have driven them away and you've not attended to them. Look at the play on words here. Behold, I will attend to you. for your evil deeds, declares the Lord. Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I've driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed. Neither shall any be missing, declares the Lord. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch. And he shall reign as king and deal wisely and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days, Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called, the Lord is our righteousness. Therefore, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when they shall no longer say, as the Lord lives, who brought up the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt, but as the Lord lives, who brought up and led the offspring of the house of Israel out of the north country and out of all the countries where he had driven them, then they shall dwell in their own land. All right, then, the chapter begins with a pronouncement of God's woe against these false shepherds. Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture. And he goes on to tell them, rebuke them. You've scattered my flock and you've driven them away. And so this is what the Lord thinks of these false shepherds. He speaks through Jeremiah, he pronounces his woe, it's a strong word, his woe upon them. What is it? It's God's curse. Cursed are you. It's his condemnation of them. Jesus pronounced the same condemnation on the Pharisees and other Jewish leaders, you remember? Woe to you. scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites. So when Jesus did that, these Pharisees, these guys, they knew exactly what the implication of his words were. He's saying to them, you are exactly like the false shepherds that were condemned by my father in the days of Jeremiah. So the Lord calls them shepherds, but they're false shepherds. They're not his shepherds. These would have been, who were they? Well, they were the prophets and the priests that were ministering then in the day. They were supposed to speak God's word in truth. They were supposed to feed God's people with with the bread of his word, they were supposed to lead them in paths of righteousness and obedience to the law, but instead they preached lies and they attached the Lord's name to those lies and claimed then, and they perverted the true worship of God. Now, this matter of the false shepherds destroying and and scattering you see this this is reflected um we saw it in john 10 didn't we where the lord is speaking about his sheep that have been scattered and he's gonna he's you know i have and then he says i have sheep that are not of this fold he's gonna he's gonna gather them he's gonna gather them all in so when we hear of in reading jeremiah When we hear of the false shepherds effecting destruction and scattering upon the people, initially, we think of that temporal judgment that was coming in the form of the Babylonians, right? Because that really did, literally, the Babylonians invaded. They destroyed Judah. They destroyed Jerusalem. And they did scatter the earthly covenant people of God out into the nation, took the survivors captive, and so on. But there is more here than just that historic scattering and destruction effected by the Babylonians. And we know this because of the language that is used. The Lord, through Jeremiah, calls the people that have been scattered by these false shepherds, the sheep of his pasture, he calls them my people, and he calls them my flock. And then he goes on to speak about how one day, and let me read it to you again, one day, Then I will gather, verse 3, I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I've driven them and I will bring them back to their fold and they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will set shepherds over them who will care for them. They shall fear no more nor be dismayed neither shall any be missing and then he goes on to talk about the messiah i will raise up for david a righteous branch and he shall reign as king and deal wisely and shall execute justice and righteousness so this language you know oftentimes in the bible prophecy has like a double fulfillment and so we do have that return that in that gathering of scattered captives back in to jerusalem in the days of uh ezra and nehemiah right and so they they come back but but though the old testament as is true so often is a picture It's an earthly picture of eternal heavenly truths. And so here, this kind of language, my flock, my people, the sheep of my pasture, the remnant of my flock, I'll gather out of all the countries. There'll be shepherds who truly care for them. I will raise up for David a righteous branch. Those words and promises cannot be referring even fundamentally to the days of Ezra and Nehemiah. Rather, it is a promise that in Christ, all of God's true sheep, all of his flock, all of his elect would be gathered. And that and that Christ the Good Shepherd would come. He would. He would call them. They will recognize his voice and and and it says not one shall be missing, right? Neither neither shall any be missing, and that's reminiscent of Jesus statement to his father that no one shall pluck them out of my hand, right? Not a not a not a single one. All of his flock. will be saved. How is this affected? It's affected in Christ. This language is new covenant language. It's a promise of what we have in Christ in the new covenant. And that what could never be true in Old Testament days, you see. Listen to John 10 again. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who's a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming, leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he's a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me. Just as the father knows me, and I know the father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep. That are not of this fold. I must bring them also and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock one shepherd. And so this is Jesus speaking about doing the very thing that Jeremiah and Ezekiel 34 are talking about as he has come. He's come to affect the salvation of his of his flock and bring them and call them and bring them to to himself. So with that background. And thinking primarily then about the true flock of God, his his elect. Who is it? primarily that false shepherds destroy and scatter, right? Primarily, who is it? The counterfeits, the false shepherds in Jeremiah's day, did lead in the destruction of the nation and the scattering of the Jews who survived, but it is always Christ's true flock, his remnant, that are scattered by the false shepherds. We've seen this in Jeremiah. You're going through Jeremiah, and Jeremiah says, for instance, he'll say, so I decided that I would look for just one righteous person in the land, in Judah, among his countrymen. And he couldn't find one. He couldn't find one. He was thinking, well, it's just the poor that are ignorant. I'll go to the upper class, and surely they'll understand. And they didn't either, right? He couldn't find them. And what you see then is the false shepherds in Jeremiah's day were saying things like, peace, peace. Everything's gonna be fine, even all the while the people are walking in sin. And what was the response of the people? Did they scatter? No, they didn't scatter. They loved it. The people loved it so. They wanted to hear that ear tickling message. So they didn't scatter. So, who then is it that is scattered by false shepherds? It is Christ's true flock. It's his true people. It's those people that really are his sheep, that really do love the gospel. The others are not persecuted and scattered and destroyed. You know, you think about the message of the Book of Acts, primarily. The message of the Book of Acts is Yes, it's about the proclamation of the gospel going out, but one of the reasons that the gospel was taken out to all the nations was because Christ people were scattered. They were scattered by persecution from the false shepherds of the day. So what does this mean for us? It means that these are things we have to be really wise about. It means that We live in the last days, and every day is getting closer and closer to the time when Christ comes again. What do we know about the last days? They are going to grow increasingly wicked. And where is that wickedness primarily going to be found? Well, it's going to be found in the person of false shepherds. Where are the false shepherds? They are in what claims to be the church, what claims to be true religion. And as that increases, what we can expect is for Christ's true people to be scattered. That's what happened in Jeremiah's day. That's what happened in the book of Acts. That's what's been happening all through the history of the church. They were Christ's true people were scattered. And another reason that they were scattered is not just because of persecution, but they were scattered because they recognized that these shepherds were not true shepherds. And they were looking for and yearning for Christ, the good shepherd, wanting to hear from him, you see. Right now we're able to reach Christ's people literally around the world because of technology and they hear it, they know it, they recognize the Good Shepherd's voice in the scriptures, but We want to be wise in this regard. This is kind of a side note, but maybe it's something that all of us should be thinking about right now. And that is that as the time towards Christ's return comes and evil is increasing, particularly in the church, and church is reigned over by false shepherds and so on, We should not be at all surprised. And I don't think you have to be some kind of a conspiracy theorist to think this. We shouldn't be surprised at all if someday, someday, all of a sudden the media giants just say, we don't like that stuff that you're putting out, so we're going to put an end to it. And you wake up one morning and all of your accounts are closed. They're just shut down. Then what do you do, right? At that point, what do you do? Well, guess what? The church grew before there was social media. There are other forms of communication, but these are the things that, and people, the people who are primarily going to be leaders in that kind of oppression and trying to shut down the word of God, generally speaking, they have been, Christian leaders. They're false shepherds, you see. That's what happened. That's the story of the persecution of the church. Consider the days of the reformers and so on. But here's the point. Whatever happens, Christ is going to bring, without fail, every single one of his sheep He's gonna get the gospel to them. They are going to hear and they're going to follow him. Now, how widespread is this problem? Well, let's read on here in verse 9, Jeremiah 23. Concerning the prophets, my heart is broken within me, all my bones shake. I'm like a drunken man, like a man overcome by wine because of the Lord and because of his holy words. And here's the word that really shook Jeremiah. For the land is full of adulterers. Because of the curse, the land mourns and the pastures of the wilderness are dried up. Their course is evil and their might is not right. Both prophet and priest are ungodly. Even in my house, in the temple, I have found their evil, declares the Lord. Therefore, their way shall be to them like slippery paths in the darkness into which they shall be driven and fall, for I will bring disaster upon them in the year of their punishment, declares the Lord. In the prophets of Samaria, okay, Northern Kingdom, right, false prophets, and so in the prophets of Samaria, I saw an unsavory thing. They prophesied by Baal and led my people Israel astray. But in the prophets of Jerusalem, I have seen a horrible thing. They commit adultery and walk in lies. They strengthen the hands of evildoers so that no one turns back from his evil. All of them have become like Sodom to me and its inhabitants like Gomorrah. Therefore, that says the Lord of hosts concerning the prophets, behold, I will feed them with bitter food and give them poisoned water to drink. For from the prophets of Jerusalem, ungodliness has gone out into all the land. And here you see then, I think an example of what is the greatest threat to a nation. What is the greatest threat to a nation? It really isn't what most people think as bad as it is to have corrupt civil authorities and the Lord sees that as a great evil and will hold those evil doers accountable. Notice here, however, that there is a greater evil. And it was rampant in the days of Jeremiah, as it is today. And it was what? It was the evil of the prophet and priest. The prophet and priest. Primarily, fundamentally, ungodliness in our nation, I don't think it fundamentally stems from the world out there. It stems from false shepherds. who have crept in to the church in increasing numbers and they're teaching a false gospel. Think about this principle. As evil as Baal worship idolatry was, the Lord, and it was in the Northern Kingdom, the Lord regarded the evil of the prophet and priest in Judah to be even worse. It's one thing to blatantly embrace an idol, but it's a greater wickedness to continue to use the Lord's name, to claim to speak for him, to lead worship in his house, all the while living as Sodom and Gomorrah. You see, it's the evil within, the evil that creeps in, the false shepherds. It's this kind of thing, Isaiah 1. Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom. Give ear to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah. And he's talking to Israel. What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices, says the Lord? I've had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts. I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or of goats. When you come to appear before me at the temple, Who is required of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings, incenses and abomination to me, new moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations. I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates. They become a burden to me. I'm weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you. Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood. And this is why, this is what was going on in Jeremiah's day, and this is why he was so shocked and sick in heart. Concerning the prophets, my heart is broken within me. All my bones shake. Both prophet and priest are ungodly. Even in my house, I've found their evil, declares the Lord. You see, it is a grievous thing to see in our day, in visible local churches, a false gospel being taught, being embraced, and right in the so-called house of the Lord, right? That's far more evil than seeing it in some government entity. You remember, I think we watched R.C. Sproul's history video one time, and in one of them he was speaking about Martin Luther's trip to Rome. Martin Luther was a young priest. This was, I think, probably before his conversion. But here's Sproul's description of what Luther found when he went to Rome for the first time. Five hundred years ago, an obscure Augustinian monk from the monastery in Erfurt, Germany, had a crisis experience on this very spot. I think Sproul was there at the time in standing on that place. Now in 1511, when Luther came here, like all the rest of the pilgrims, he had to ascend the staircase on his knees until he got to the top of the stairs. And in a wave of doubt, he stood up and said aloud, who knows if it's true? Luther's visit to Rome was one of the most disappointing episodes of his entire life. He was overwhelmed by the obvious presence of corruption among clergy here in the city, and all the attempts that he had made to find peace with God through his work in the monastery were dashed. in the smithereens with the disillusionment that they experienced there. So there is a similar grief to what Jeremiah was experiencing when he sees the prophet and priest, they're all corrupt. They are false shepherds. And so he was just devastated by it, you see. Now, what was the message that these false shepherds were teaching. And it's the same today. The devil always has the same playbook. So what do we find out from Jeremiah? What were these guys preaching and practicing? Well, here it is, verse 16. Thus says the Lord of hosts, do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. They say continually, to those who despise the word of the Lord, it shall be well with you. And to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, no disaster will come upon you, for who among them has stood in the counsel of the Lord to see and to hear his word, or who has paid attention to his word and listened? Behold the storm of the Lord. Wrath has gone forth. A whirling tempest, it will burst upon the head of the wicked. Anger of the Lord will not turn back until he has executed and accomplished the intents of his heart. In the latter days, you will understand it clearly. And so here, just in those verses, we see the heart of the false gospel that prophet and priest were living and teaching. and which false shepherds today always, always, always embrace, all right? And it's this. This false gospel gives people an empty hope, a vain hope, gives them false promises in the Lord's name. They claim to be promises from the Lord, but they're false. Second, the source of this false gospel, the message that they preach, their theology, is a wicked invention of their own minds. The only vision they have they create in themselves. And here's what happens among false shepherds. They communicate these false visions and these false messages with each other. And it spreads just like, now there's a pandemic to be afraid of, right? There's a spiritual pandemic that sends people to hell and it spreads like wildfire. They have, you can see, just think of a conference or some kind of an annual meeting together of all these false shepherds in the name of the Lord, right? And how much of this, false gospel is disseminated then this goes out then to to all of the churches and then here's here's the heart of their message see it appeals to the masses it shall be well with you the people they preached to were wicked sinful and unrepentant they were hypocrites and counterfeits and yet the message they heard from prophet and priest was it shall be well with you no disaster will come upon you and and elsewhere in jeremiah we hear it described as them saying peace peace when in fact the uh the assyrians are in jeremiah's case the babylonians were knocking at the door invading oh it's it's going to be fine there's no problem here after all the temple of the lord the temple of the lord you know we're nothing nothing nothing to fear You don't see any scattering of the Lord's flock in this, but there was a scattering. This wicked message scattered the true people of the Lord, because if you disagreed with it, if you, like Jeremiah, he's saying the prophet and the priests are corrupt, well, then you're going to be persecuted, you see. Christ's chosen, his elect, his true sheep are being scattered today. They've always been scattered. Read Hebrews 11 toward the end of that chapter and listen to it describe the experience of Christ's true people in this world. They're in caves, right? They're persecuted, they're martyred, and so on. They're scattered, they're being, they're excommunicated, they're put out of the temple, you see, for professing Christ. And so that scattering is happening, and there's this gathering of the counterfeit because the false shepherds are telling wicked people it shall be well with them. Now think about that. I mean, you have to acknowledge that that is what goes on in most local churches. This is what is happening in most local churches. Wicked people who refuse to repent, no matter how they're living, they're being told the Lord loves them, the Lord forgives them, they're on their way to heaven, it will be well with them, disaster will not come upon them. That's what typical evangelical Christianity today is, that's the message that is being proclaimed. Now, oftentimes the false shepherds will deny it, but in practice, that is exactly what is happening, you see. It is a false gospel. These are thieves and robbers who have crept into the church. I wrote a blog article last week, and I think it's going to be published this week. And I was writing about these verses in Mark 12. And in his teaching, Jesus said, beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces, and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, who devour a widow's houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation. In those few verses, Jesus identifies identifying traits of false shepherds. And we'd be very wise to pay attention to them and think carefully about how those very characteristics of how they look today. We need to be wise. They are scattering the true flock of God. Another thing, you know what false shepherds do? They create what I think you could call a, and this is one reason the sheep are scattered, they create what you could call a cognitive dissonance. in Christ's people, cognitive, in your thinking, okay? And there's a dissonance, there's a conflict, a fog, a confusion that's going on. And it goes like this. Here's a person who, by all appearances and by his own claims, is a shepherd, a pastor, a leader, theologian in Christ's church, among Christ's people, OK? So they look like that. But the message that they preach, the message they preach, doesn't, you know, and they add credibility to it themselves because they're the ones that are saying it. Well, they must know. But then there's this conflict which arises when God's people read the Bible. They read God's words. That's what sparked the Reformation, wasn't it? People got a hold of the scriptures. They got a hold of the Bible. And they began to see, well, hold on here a minute. Something's messed up. The pieces don't fit here. This is what these guys are saying. But it looks to me like this is what the Bible is saying. And you see, this is why Rome always said, You can't have a Bible. You people are ignorant. You're not capable of understanding it. Only the priests can have it. And of course, the priests didn't even preach it. But we will tell you. We will tell you then what it means. So here you are. I bet you've had this happen to you. Here you are reading the Bible. Let's go back to John 10 for a minute, all right? I'm the good shepherd. My sheep know my voice. They recognize me and they follow me. A stranger they won't follow. What's hard about that? I mean, why is that difficult? Well, the reason it's difficult is because false shepherds come along. Well, you see now, He didn't really mean exactly. You have to understand this. There's a deeper nuance in this that you need. Yeah, but it looks like this is what he is saying. And I think I've told you before, I had that experience a couple of times in seminary. There was one professor there that was teaching a class in soteriology, the doctrine of salvation. And I can't remember exactly what brought it up. But after the class, I asked him. What about First John, you know? What does it say? And I wasn't even trying to argue with him at the point. I was still functioning on the assumption that he knows a lot more than I do. So I was looking at this. It just says, you know, John says, First John, he just says things like this. If a guy claims to be a Christian, but he's walking in sin unrepentantly, he's a liar, okay? He's a liar. He hates his brother, and he's a liar. That's what he says. And I remember that that guy, I don't remember exactly what he said, but he went on at length with some convoluted explanation that was something like, well, you know, for John, John in the New Testament, John, he's the For John, he's more of the black and white approach here. That's for John. But the implication being that, well, the rest of the Bible, though, is a little bit different and so forth. That professor, not too many years later, dumped his wife and ran off with some gal that he was counseling. And I guess he would say that he was still a Christian. But it creates this dissonance. And in this day, When false shepherds are definitely on the increase and a false gospel is being preached, we cannot be careless. We have to be able to recognize their traits and we have to be in God's word. And if you're a Christian, you need to know that you have the ability to hear Christ's voice. Do you understand that? You have the ability to hear Christ's voice. It isn't just Rome that sets up some priesthood through which the Bible can only be interpreted. It happens among evangelical churches as well. It's not overtly stated, sometimes it almost is, but it is covertly practiced. The implication of, well, here's the guy with the seminary degree. Here's the guy with all this learning and so forth. And he says this, so then you know it must be true. And after all, who am I? And then that kind of a person will feed that kind of an attitude. One of the things that the Reformation stood against Rome for was that Rome denied the priesthood of all believers. The word of God says that we are a priesthood, a holy nation, a holy priesthood that God has raised up. And Jesus flatly says, he flatly says that we are able, the newest Christian, because of the spirit of God in them, is able to hear Christ's voice and recognize it. And furthermore, recognize the voice of a stranger, A false, a false shepherd. And people who claim to be Christians, but they're running after a false teacher, a false shepherd, are demonstrating that they don't know the Lord then at all. Here's a little passage here that I think this throws some light on. I was thinking about this this last week. Christ's faithfulness to us as the good shepherd, as he promises to find and preserve his flock. It's in Matthew 18. What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them has gone astray, Does he not leave the 99 on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray? Now, think about this. How has that passage been taught to you, to us, most of the time? We equate going astray with sin, with rebellion. Here's this rebellious sheep, you know, and uh christ is going to go after because after all god loves everybody right so he's going to go after this sheep okay verse 13 if he finds it truly i say to you he rejoices over it more than over the 99 that never went astray so it's not the will of my father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish what this is is a statement of exactly what we've seen from good shepherd passages in the Old Testament. Ezekiel 34, Jeremiah 23, Psalm 23, and John 10, Jesus said, I have other sheep. They're scattered. They've been scattered by the false shepherd. And even if it's just one, even just one, he's going after that. sheep that's been scattered, and he's going to bring that sheep home safely into his kingdom. And in addition to that, we can be encouraged by all of this because you can know he is going to deal with every single one of these false shepherds. Woe to them. Father, we thank you for your word. Thank you for your justice. Thank you for your faithfulness in calling us out of darkness and into light. And we pray, Father, that you might grant us the privilege of being able to be used by you to take the gospel to your true sheep who've been scattered, who you've given ears to hear and eyes to see, and that we might be able to show them Christ. And we pray this all in Christ's name, amen.