“God and Man–The Duality of Jesus Christ“
God and Man–The Duality of Jesus Christ
Pastor and author A.W. Tozer
March 27, 1955
The 11th verse, and the 17th and 18th, where our Lord Jesus says, I am the Good Shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. Verses 17 and 18, Therefore does my Father love Me, because I lay down My life that I might take it again. No man taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of My Father. Let us pray.
Dear Lord Jesus, Thou art the Good Shepherd. In ancient days Thou didst lead Israel and Joseph like a flock. And Thou art the same unchanged Lord. And Thou art leading them that trust in Thee. We pray that tonight Thou wilt add at least one sheep to thy flock who is lost now but will be found.
O Lord Jesus, encourage us on the hard, heavy, rough way. Make the clouds to roll back and the skies be a little brighter, our hope a little sharper, our faith a little brighter. Help us tonight. Bless these friends who have come out here this cold winter night and will now listen while thy word is being expounded. O Lord, Thou hast said, preach the word. We pray thou grant that we might rightly and worthily expound Thy truth this evening. In Christ’s name, amen.
Here in these verses, we have wonderful, lofty truth. Truth that is beautiful and inspiring, but we also have profound difficulties for the intellect. But I do not apologize, nor do I admit that there is any problem for faith. There is none. I remember the little stanza by Faber when He says, How thou canst love me as thou dost, and be the God thou art, is darkness to the intellect, but sunshine to the heart. What is darkness to the intellect may be sunshine to the heart. The effort to simplify and explain all the profundities of the Christian faith, are ill-timed and ill-considered. There will always be that which is blindness and darkness to the mind, but joy and sunshine to the soul.
Now the difficulty lies in verse 17. Therefore, doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life that I might take it again. Now there is the difficulty. That God’s love for the Son arose and arises from His willingness to lay down His life for His sheep. Because you remember that our Lord Jesus also said in praying to His Father, Thou lovest Me before the foundation of the world, back before time was, the Father loved His Son. Then, therefore doth the Father love Me, because I lay down My life for My sheep.
Now there lies the difficulty. You might simply pass that over, but if you’ll do a little bit of thinking, and certainly if ever there was a time when God’s people ought to think, now is the time. If ever there was a time when we ought to consider deeply the things pertaining to our faith, now is the time. If we think deeply, we would say, well, how could it be that if the teachings of the Christian faith are right, how could it be that God loved His Son only because He was willing to die on a cross and rise again? Well, it’s darkness, or rather it’s twilight to the intellect, but I do not think that it’s beyond our explaining.
You see, my friends, the Christian faith teaches, because the Bible teaches, the two natures of Christ. Christ is not two persons, but the two natures of Christ. This is taught in Christian theology. It has been taught down the years in Christian theology that Jesus has a divine and the human nature. Let me read to you from the ancient creed.
You that are of Dutch extraction and know something about the Dutch Reformed Church, the Dutch Reformed hymnal, you will find this somewhere in the back of your Dutch Reformed hymnal, and you’ll find it also very many other places. It says this in a long explanation of the mystery of the Trinity. It says this, furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation that we also believe rightly the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Now remember, this dates back to the fourth century and is called the Athanasian Creed. This is part of it. For the right faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man. God of the substance of his Father, begotten before all worlds. Man of the substance of his Mother, born into the world. Perfect God and perfect man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting. Equal to the Father as touching his Godhead, inferior to the Father as touching his manhood. Who, although He is God and man, yet is He not two, but one Christ. One, not by the conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by the taking of the manhood into God. One altogether, not by the confusion of substance, but by the unity of person. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ.
Now that is the teaching of the Church. Down the centuries she has believed that Jesus Christ was born or begotten of the Father before all worlds but born of the substance of His Mother into the world, being perfect God and perfect man. Equal to the Father as touching His Godhead, inferior to the Father as touching His manhood.
Now we’ll explain that as we go along, because that says it for us. You know, part of learning is not getting new information, but having somebody that’s smarter than you say things for you that you wish you would have said. That’s part of learning, brethren. It isn’t that you get new information so much as you get it said for you so you can get right hold of it, so it fits into your head and into your heart.
This says for me what I never could have thought of if I lived to be 118 years old, I never could have said it. But now that somebody smarter than I am said it for me, and I realize that it’s Scriptural and fits the word of God to a tee, I can quote it and say, Now I wish I had said that. That’s it.
Now, the two natures of Christ, that’s where we find the explanation here. That He was a man and that He is man is not hard to prove. He was born as other men are born. That is, He was born of a woman. He was baby-sized when He came into the world. I don’t know how much He weighed. I don’t know how much Jewish babies weigh, but I suppose they weigh average, maybe eight, nine, six, eight, nine pounds, boys a little more than girls. But I guess maybe, say that this man, Jesus, say weighed eight pounds. Let’s say He weighed eight pounds, nine pounds, when He was born of a Jewish mother into the world.
And as soon as He was born, He began to eat and cry and grow. And He drank, of course, His mother’s milk. And when He got older, He drank the milk that they provided Him and ate food. And He worked in His supposed father’s shop and He slept. And they had to wake Him in the morning and imagine come and pull Him out of bed as they do little boys. For He was a boy among boys.
Remember it always. He was a man. And sin accepted, He lived like other men. Sin accepted. And the weaknesses contingent upon sin, He had none of them. But He was a man. And I’m sure that Mary, His mother, had to come lots of times and wake Him twice. I never knew a boy to get up the first time. The boy that gets up the first time he’s waked, unless it’s Christmas morning, never was born. And so, huh? Never, never. Nobody, no boy ever gets up. And I don’t think any girl when they’re first waked.
I mention this not to cheapen our conception of Christ, but to humanize it and to show you that this Jesus was born a baby and cried like a baby and ate like a baby and was looked after like a baby and grew like a little boy and ate and drank and worked and slept and finally died. He was a man.
And He called Himself the Son of Man. He loved that title. He was the only person that ever called Himself that. I do not think that, if I think I’m right, that anybody in the New Testament ever called Jesus the Son of Man. But He called Himself the Son of Man. Just as Abraham never said, God is the God of Abraham, but God said, I am the God of Abraham. And Jacob, surely Jacob never would have said, God is the God of Jacob, but God said, I am the God of Jacob.
So, nobody ever said, thou art the Son of Man, but Jesus said, I am the Son of Man and talked about Himself as the Son of Man. And Pilate, when the great old judge there or king, when He saw Him standing before Him the day before the crucifixion or the morning of the crucifixion, He said, ex homo, behold the man. There’s the man. He was struck with the manhood of the man Christ Jesus.
Now we know that He was a man. I don’t think that anybody would doubt that. Our Jewish friends admit that and say that He was. And some of their leaders say that He was the flower of Jewish manhood. So we all agree, Jew and Gentile and Catholic, on this, that Jesus was a man.
Now that He was and is also God is also shown in the Scriptures. He said, for instance, before Abraham was, I am, and I am is the name of Jehovah. Therefore, when He said before Abraham was, I am, He was using the same words, title, I am, as Jehovah had used, though Jesus was not Jehovah, but the son of Jehovah by eternal generation.
And He said, I saw Satan as lightning fall from heaven. Now that was before the foundation of the earth. And therefore He said it, and He must have been God. And He said, destroy this temple and I will raise it up the third day. And He said, the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sin. And He said, the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of Man and they that hear shall live. And He said, He that has seen Me has seen the Heavenly Father. And He said, whatever ye ask the Father in My name, the Father will give you. And He said in prayer, the glory that I had with Thee before the world was, and Thou lovest Me before the foundation of the world.
So, He claimed here that He went back of creation, claimed that He went back before the world was, claimed that He had such power that the Father would give anything in His name, claimed that He had power on earth to forgive sin, claimed that He had power to raise the dead, claimed that if they destroyed His body He would rise again the third day, claimed that He antedated Abraham and saw Satan in the ancient beginnings fall from heaven.
Now there’s what He claimed for Himself, this Man of whom I’ve spoken. And I say bluntly to you, my listening people, that He was either God or lunatic and there is no middle ground. We do Him no honor and we do not complement our own intellects when we say that He was a good man only. If He was but a good man and not God, then He was a frightfully deceived man to the point of being psychopathic. He was either God or He was lunatic.
Now let us pick out the best men that the world ever knew and let us put in their mouths the words that He spoke so quietly, so calmly. For remember this man Jesus was not a raving maniac. He was not a flaming-eyed, long-haired dreamer that walked about a demagogue rousing the multitudes. He did not lift up His voice nor make his voice heard loudly in the streets, but He walked quietly among the people and only His deeds of power and His wonderful quiet words made Him any different from other men.
He looked so much like all the other Jews that walked up and down in Jerusalem that the very Roman soldier did not know which one He was. The only way they could know which one to crucify was if Judas planted a kiss on Him. He said, I know him. I have been with Him three years and I will kiss Him and then you grab Him. That will be the one.
So, He was betrayed with a kiss. If He had stood out a noble, strong, tall, shining face, beautiful one, they would not have had to go to plant a kiss on His cheek to tell which one He was. There was no beauty in Him that men should desire Him. He looked like other men. And yet the things that He said put in the mouth of any other man that ever lived would turn that man into a blasphemer and a lunatic.
Let us imagine Abraham or Moses. Let us take Moses, the lawgiver. Let us hear Moses say, Before Abraham was, I am. Well, do we know He could not have said that? We know the mother of Moses, and we know that Moses was in descent from Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. We know that Moses would have been a lunatic if He had said, Before Abraham was, I am.
Let us imagine David saying, destroy my body and I will raise it up the third day. Imagine Daniel saying, I have power on earth to forgive sin. Imagine Paul saying, The dead shall hear my voice and they that hear shall live. Imagine John saying, He that has seen me has seen the Father. Imagine Augustine saying, whatever ye ask the Father in my name He will give it you. Imagine Martin Luther saying, the glory that I had with thee before the world was. Imagine it if you can. It would make lunatics out of those men.
Not a one of them dared say it. Not the sweet singer of Israel, not the mighty harpist Isaiah, not the strong seer Ezekiel. No man dared say it, and no man could say it. And the man who said it was either right in saying it and therefore was God, or He was wrong in saying it and was mentally deranged.
But now I ask you, my brethren, could a man who thought He was God and who thought He had seen Abraham and before Abraham was, He was, who thought He could forgive sins only and was deceived, who thought that if He died He’d rise again, who thought that He had been with God before the foundation of the world, who thought that He had power in His name that prayers could be answered, who thought only that the dead should hear His voice and should rise. Suppose He only thought that, and it wasn’t true?
How then, I want to ask you, could He have done the wonderful deeds that He did? Why did the mothers bring their baby to have Him bless them? Why did the poor harlot crawl to His feet and be forgiven? Why did the publican and sinner come to Him and receive words of mercy? Why did that group, that group composed of the finest, some of the finest of the Jewish nation, why did they turn their eyes upon Him and love Him and see Him go into heaven and hear Him say that He would come back again? And why did they rise and in His name go forth to preach Him to the nations?
And why is it that wherever He is preached, men are better for it? You cannot preach a lunatic and make men better. You cannot go to Skid Row and tell a drunkard, here, believe in this lunatic, and the drunkard believes and gets free from his drunkenness. You cannot go into a death cell and preach a lunatic and have that man ready to die, die happy and singing hymns. You cannot go to a man who is bound in the throes of drink and gambling and say to that man, here, believe on this lunatic, and have him get up and believe in that man.
You cannot sit down at the bedside of a dying man and read to him out of the letters of a lunatic and that man smile and raise his feeble hand and mutter the sweet name as he goes off into the next world. You cannot take the name of a lunatic to Borneo and have them turn from head hunting and head shrinking and cannibalism to be hymn singing, joyful, happy people loving each other and living and working and doing fine deeds for other men. You cannot go to the depths of Africa and there among the mud huts and the thatched roof shacks, talk to people who eat their own relatives or eat those of other tribes.
You cannot go and preach to them a lunatic and have them stop their cannibalism and stop their idolatry and burn their idols and turn their eyes toward God in heaven and believe and stop their drinking and stop their taking of drugs and live good, happy, restful, blessed lives. No, no, my friend.
You cannot preach a lunatic and for two thousand years have people come from every clime and nation and tribe and tongue and people around the world and come and give of their substance to help the church. You cannot preach a lunatic to a young man and have him go and give up all and go to the ends of the world for nothing, for a cheap, poor little salary that you couldn’t live on in America one month. No, no, no.
These are not the words of a lunatic. Before Abraham was, I am. All a lunatic can do is make other lunatics. All a man who is a psychopathic case can do when he talks is make other people like himself.
But this quiet, peaceful, peace-loving, loving Man makes others like Himself. And the man of bad temper quiets down, and the man who beats his wife stops beating his wife, and the man who gambles begins to spend his money for groceries and good furniture, and the man who lies around drunk comes home now nights and sleeps in his own bed, and the thief stops stealing, and the liar stops lying, and the drunkard stops drinking, and the jealous person begins to hate his jealousy and seek to be freed from it. And the mean man starts being sweet-tempered, and the evil woman starts being friendly and kind.
This Man does it, and He does it because He is God. He does it because He is of the substance of His Father begotten before the world was, and of the substance of His mother born into the world. A reasonable soul and human flesh consisting, who though He is both God and man, yet is He not two but one Christ. One not by the degrading of His Godhead into flesh, but by the lifting up of manhood into God.
Oh, the nobility of this kind of truth, my brother. You don’t have to apologize for this. You don’t have to go among men looking down at the ground and wishing you were a modernist. You don’t have to go anywhere in the world and take a back seat and say, I’m sorry, but I want the lowest place because I’m just a poor Christian. The noblest, loftiest truths that ever crowned the mountain peaks of thought are found in the New Testament.
And He says, Therefore doth my Father love Me because if the Father had loved Him without any cause from the foundation of the world, if He had been with the Father before a star shone or a mountain reared its head, if He had been with God before there was an angel or a seraphim or an archangel by the sea of God, why did He have to say, Therefore my Father loves Me because I laid down my life for the sheep?
There were two natures there, my brethren. Equal to His Father as touching His godhood, less than His Father as touching His manhood. When He talked about Himself as God and equal with God, He spoke these wonderful words. But when He talked about himself as man, He humbled himself and spoke meekly as man.
Now let’s give you some examples here to illustrate what I have in mind. His two natures are here. He spoke sometimes of His godhead and sometimes of His manhood. When He said, I and my Father are one, He spoke of His ancient and unborn godhead. When He said, My Father is greater than I, He spoke of His manhood. When He said, Thou lovest me before the foundation of the world, He spoke of His godhood. When He said, therefore doth my Father love me because I lay down my life, He spoke of His manhood. When He said, all men should honor the Son as they honor the Father, He spoke of His godhood. When He said, The Son can do nothing of Himself, He spoke of His manhood.
So, the Son is God in Himself, but not God of Himself, but of the Father alone. So, there’s the darkness of it, but I think there’s a little light in that darkness.
A man wrote me a five-page letter and accused me, among other things, of being too metaphysical. He heard me preach once and said He didn’t like it. But He accused me of being metaphysical. I don’t know whether He called this metaphysics or not, but I know that it has gotten into our hymnbooks, and we have sung it, and the simple people who don’t know what the word metaphysics means have sung it. Little, black-robed ladies down the years and noble bearded men as well as fine young people have risen and sung of the deity of Jesus and of the wonders of God. They have sung the psalms of David and the golden sentences of Paul set to sweet music by a Bernard or a Montgomery or a Watts or a Wesley.
So we have here the Good Shepherd. So, when you read in the Bible and it sounds humble and lowly, and He disclaims any credit or any power or any wisdom or any goodness, no, He’s talking about His manhood.
And then when wonderfully He speaks boldly as though He were God—remember He’s speaking about His Godhood—who though He be both God and man, yet is He not two but one Christ, God that He might represent God the Father, man that He might represent us, and that He might unite God and man in one holy Person, that He might take God by His right hand and man by His right hand and clasp them together and acquaint them one with another and introduce the wandering sheep to the Heavenly Father. And He said here, the Good Shepherd giveth His life for His sheep. No man taketh it from Me. He was not a martyr.
Let us not listen to those who paint a picture of Jesus as a good man who went too far, a good man that was so extreme and so zealous that they finally slew Him and He became a martyr to a noble idea. He said, No man taketh it from Me. Not all of Jewry could have done it. Not all the armies of Rome could have done it. In the Old Testament we read of Elijah, and they sent out fifty men to take Elijah. Elijah looked up casually and said, look down there, God. He said, Fifty men. Fire came down and destroyed those men. It was repeated over and finally one man came crawling on his hands and knees and said, Please, Elijah, please.
He said, don’t burn me. How much more could this man? He said, If I wanted to, twelve legions of angels would come to My help now. Legion, they tell me, a thousand. He said, these could have come to my aid. No, no man taketh it from Me. Because He could say, Before Abraham was, I am. Destroy my body and I’ll raise it again. I have power to forgive sin. I will speak and the dead shall rise. I will sit on the throne of My great glory and before Me shall all nations come for judgment.
No man could have taken His life away from Him. A Stephen they could kill. A James they could kill with the sword. But Jesus they could not have touched. No man taketh it from Me. He wasn’t a martyr. The man who wrote about the martyr and the maid and all, He was wise enough to begin with Stephen and not with Jesus. He said, that martyr first whose eagle eye could scan beyond the blue.
That was Stephen, not Jesus. Jesus was not a martyr. No martyr lays his life down. They take away from him. But He said, I lay it down of Myself. He was a sacrifice, not a martyr. John the Baptist said, Behold the Lamb of God. And the Lamb is dear to the heart of every Jew, dear to the heart of every Jewish family from the days of Moses and the Passover. The Lamb, the Passover Lamb, they all had the Lamb. And I still guess in some Jewish circles they still do have the Passover Lamb or go through some kind of ceremony that dates back there.
But when John saw Jesus, He said, Behold the Lamb. It wasn’t a Gentile that said, Behold the Lamb. It was a Jew that said it. And He didn’t say it about a Gentile. He said it about another Jew, for Jesus was a Jew. Behold the Lamb of God. So, He was a sacrifice, not a martyr.
Now, it was by the covenant between the Father and the Son. I have power to lay My life down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father. There was the covenant and the full agreement between the Father and the Son. He came from the heart of the Father to take flesh by the agreement of the Father and by the agreement of His own heart in covenant with the Father that He might die for His sheep.
Now, the Shepherd has three offices. The Good Shepherd, John 10:11, we’ve talked about, dies for His sheep. And the Great Shepherd in Hebrews 13 lives for His sheep. And the Chief Shepherd in 1 Peter 5 comes for His sheep. Notice that Hebrew passage, a very wonderful passage. It says, Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that Great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do His will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. He is here called the Great Shepherd of the sheep. What is He as a Great Shepherd doing? As a Great Shepherd He is at the right hand of the Father, caring for His sheep, praying for His sheep.
Arise, my soul, arise, we sang tonight. Shake off thy guilty fear as the Bleeding Sacrifice that in thy behalf appears. Who is that bleeding sacrifice? The man, Christ Jesus.
That Great Shepherd is a good, faithful, loyal Shepherd. He voluntarily laid down His life for His sheep. And you know He laid down His life for you, whether you believe it or not. He laid down His life for you, whether you knew it or not up to tonight. He laid down His life for you, whether you ever do anything about it or not. He did it. He put you everlastingly in debt, this shepherd, by laying down His life for the sheep. And if you turn against Him and smite the very cheek that was once dead on a cross for you, it’s still true. The Shepherd laid down His life for the sheep, the good, faithful Shepherd.
Now the Great Shepherd, above all man’s hate, and above death, and above sickness, and above time, and above space, and at the right hand of the Almighty God, He sits and advocates above, the Savior by the throne of love. And on His hands are the names of His people, and on His shoulders and cut into His bosom, like the high priest of the ancient temple, He carries the names of His people. My poor little name, so little known in this world, but there engraven on the stone carried by the great high priest, Jesus Christ, at the right hand of God, the Good Shepherd, the Great Shepherd, the Shepherd of Israel, and the Shepherd of His people.
So, He’s there, the Great Shepherd. But that’s not all. First Peter 5 says, feed the flock of God which is among you. You see, He had this in mind. Peter had heard this 10th chapter of John spoken by Jesus himself, and so He said, feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, willingly, not for filthy lucre’s sake, but of a ready mind, neither as being lords over God’s heritage, but being ensamples to the flock.
And when the Chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away. Here He’s called the Chief Shepherd. As the Good Shepherd, He dies for His sheep. As the Great Shepherd, He lives for His sheep. And as the Chief Shepherd, He comes for His sheep.
Brethren, the next major event in the history of the world will not be the dropping of a cobalt bomb on Moscow or New York. It will not be the defeat or the victory of Russia. It will not be common commercial supersonic travel. It will not be any of the scientific wonders that will certainly develop within the next few years. It will not be any of those things. The next major event in the history of the world will be when the Chief Shepherd appears to crown His faithful people and take His flock out of a dingy, sin-blasted world to take them to be with Him. That’s the next major event of the world.
Now, I don’t know when it’ll happen. Don’t you dare to interpret what I say as being that I teach that the Lord will come tonight or tomorrow. I don’t know when He’ll come. I’m not that close to the secret counsels of the Almighty. I only know that there’ll never be an event as major as that event when He does come. If it’s a thousand years or a hundred or ten or five or one, when it comes, it’ll be an event second only to His first coming.
When the Chief Shepherd appears, then He shall crown those who have been faithful to Him. There’s a motive, you see. There is an objective. There’s something to drive at. There’s a reason for being a Christian.
I want to close now by asking, He is the Good Shepherd and He died for you. And He is the Great Shepherd and He is pleading for His sheep. And He is the Chief Shepherd and He’s coming for His sheep. But I want to ask you, are you one of His found sheep? Are you one of His found sheep? The Good Shepherd.
I heard the voice of Jesus say, come unto me and rest. Lay down, thou weary one, lay down thy head upon My breast. I came to Jesus as I was weary and worn and sad. I found in Him a resting place and He has made me glad. I heard the voice of Jesus say, I am this dark world light. Come unto me, thy morn shall rise and all thy days be bright. I came to Jesus and I found in Him my star, my sun. And in His light of life, I’ll walk till traveling days are done.
Have you heard His voice calling you home? Have you come? Will you come? Will you come now? The Good Shepherd who claims you by right of life laid down. If He wanted your money or wanted your vote, I wouldn’t represent Him. If He wanted to make you a victim and a blind follower, I wouldn’t represent Him. But He proved that He had nothing to claim from you by giving you all He had. He poured out His life for you, wonderful love.
And when the Good Shepherd gave His life for the sheep surely, He wasn’t out to get anything from the sheep. He doesn’t want anything you have; He wants your love. Remember that the shepherd-sheep relationship is a relationship of faith and love, not a relationship of law, but of faith and love and loyalty and trust.
So, you can right now, where you are, turn your faith and love to the Shepherd of the sheep. And right where you are, you can this minute believe and put your trust in the great Good Shepherd who died for you. And from the right hand of the Father, He’ll be your Great Shepherd. And when He comes as the Chief Shepherd of the world, He’ll receive you and take you to Himself. Are you, His sheep?
Oh, I think of myself as being a pretty scrubby sheep. Sheep come in with cockleburrs in their wool and Spanish needles and chunks torn out where they sneaked under a barbed wire fence, and bruises where they carelessly batted up against a sharp rock. But they’re still sheep, and they’re still recognized by the shepherd, and they’re still known by him, and they still know his voice.
And that’s what He meant when He had David write, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, and He leadeth me beside the still waters, and He restoreth my soul. What does that mean, He restoreth my soul? Why, his soul got bit out of quack, and the Great Shepherd restores his soul again.
And He anointeth my head with oil, and only one person out of ten thousand knows what it meant. He anointeth my head with oil. But the old Jewish shepherds used to call their sheep in at the cool of the day, when the night birds were beginning to croak in the dark shadows of the trees, when the first stars were appearing.
As He stood in the door, and they passed by him, and He grabbed each head and pulled it up and looked down at the face. And if there were any scars or rather new, fresh wounds where maybe they’d gotten bumped or some old sheep had batted them or they had bumped into a rock or had gotten scratched, He had a horn of oil, and He carefully poured this oil and rubbed it into the sore. The next morning it was beginning to heal, and in a day or two it was all right. He anointeth my head with oil.
My cup runneth over, and how many know what that means? The shepherd not only had his horn of oil for the sheep that had a bruised head, but He had a bit of water there for the sheep that had been too slow or too stupid or too stubborn. When the Lord let them beside the still water, the sheep was too busy and didn’t get a drink.
And so, when the shepherd looked at him, He notices he’s thirsty, and so He has some water for him. My cup runneth over. He gives him a cup of water, not a little stingy, grudging cup, but runs it over. The sheep gets all He wants.
Well, all I want to know is, tonight, is He your Shepherd? If He isn’t, this would be the night, the very night.