?
....
Guest
When the Lord called Himself "The Good Shepherd", He also compared humanity to sheep; in doing so, Jesus really captured how humans tend to behave. We tend to follow "the herd", we recognize for a long time the faces of people that we encounter, and we can become stressed when isolated from others. And we do one other thing that is characteristic of sheep: when frightened, we run. When confronted with danger, a sheep's instinct is to flee from it; a sheep has what is called a flight zone, which is an area around it that if crossed will cause a sheep to panic and flee. And many times, we as human beings do very much the same thing; sometimes figuratively, sometimes literally. But we do flee, we do run, and when we do, it most often is to get away.
We see in Scripture that we are not the first to do so; here's a rundown (pun intended) of folks in Scripture who fled:
"When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. Then the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” He said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.” (Genesis 3:6-10, NASB 1995, emphasis mine)
You can be sure that when Adam and Eve heard the Lord, they may not have run too far, but they fled far enough in the garden to try to hide from the Lord.
Nor would they be the last to flee:
"Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” And he said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground. Now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you; you will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth.” Cain said to the LORD, “My punishment is too great to bear! Behold, You have driven me this day from the face of the ground; and from Your face I will be hidden, and I will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” So the LORD said to him, “Therefore whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold.” And the LORD appointed a sign for Cain, so that no one finding him would slay him. Then Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden." (Genesis 4:9-16, NASB 1995, emphasis mine)
Rather than repent of his sin, Cain first tried denying any knowledge of it, then claiming that God was punishing him too harshly! Cain's final reply to the Lord was not repentance, but to flee His presence.
Jacob would also run; not once, but twice:
"So Esau bore a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him; and Esau said to himself, “The days of mourning for my father are near; then I will kill my brother Jacob.” Now when the words of her elder son Esau were reported to Rebekah, she sent and called her younger son Jacob, and said to him, “Behold your brother Esau is consoling himself concerning you by planning to kill you. Now therefore, my son, obey my voice, and arise, flee to Haran, to my brother Laban! Stay with him a few days, until your brother’s fury subsides, until your brother’s anger against you subsides and he forgets what you did to him. Then I will send and get you from there. Why should I be bereaved of you both in one day?” (Genesis 27:41-44, NASB 1995)
Because Jacob had taken Esau's blessing, Jacob had to flee for his life! He went to his uncle Haran, whom he ended up working 14 years for. Haran tricked Jacob by making him first work 7 years for Leah, then 7 years for Rachel (the whole story of Jacob's trickery and flight is in Genesis chapters 25-31). Jacob would end up fleeing from Laban in the night:
"Then Jacob arose and put his children and his wives upon camels; and he drove away all his livestock and all his property which he had gathered, his acquired livestock which he had gathered in Paddan-aram, to go to the land of Canaan to his father Isaac. When Laban had gone to shear his flock, then Rachel stole the household idols that were her father’s. And Jacob deceived Laban the Aramean by not telling him that he was fleeing. So he fled with all that he had; and he arose and crossed the Euphrates River, and set his face toward the hill country of Gilead."[ (Genesis 31:17-21, NASB 1995, emphasis mine)
Moses would be another who would flee:
"Now it came about in those days, when Moses had grown up, that he went out to his brethren and looked on their hard labors; and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brethren. So he looked this way and that, and when he saw there was no one around, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. He went out the next day, and behold, two Hebrews were fighting with each other; and he said to the offender, “Why are you striking your companion?” But he said, “Who made you a prince or a judge over us? Are you intending to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and said, “Surely the matter has become known.” When Pharaoh heard of this matter, he tried to kill Moses. But Moses fled from the presence of Pharaoh and settled in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well." (Exodus 2:11-15, NASB 1995, emphasis mine)
What we see in all these stories is a common thread of two instances: 1) rather than heeding the Lord, they relied on their own understanding at the time, ans 2) they ended up fleeing the consequences of their actions. Yes, Jacob would end up becoming Israel and having 12 children, and Moses would lead the nation named for Israel out of captivity in Egypt.
But we also noticed that Jacob and Moses returned from whence they came, at the behest of the Lord:
"“Then the angel of God said to me in the dream, ‘Jacob,’ and I said, ‘Here I am.’ “He said, ‘Lift up now your eyes and see that all the male goats which are mating are striped, speckled, and mottled; for I have seen all that Laban has been doing to you. ‘I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar, where you made a vow to Me; now arise, leave this land, and return to the land of your birth.’”"(Genesis 31:11-13, NASB 1995, emphasis mine)
"The LORD said, “I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings. So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite “Now, behold, the cry of the sons of Israel has come to Me; furthermore, I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them.Therefore, come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?” And He said, “Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain.”" (Exodus 3:7-12, NASB 1995, emphasis mine)
When sheep panic, they tend to flee for what they consider safety. But when they do so, what they see as "safe" may not always be so and they can end up trapped in a precarious situation, injured in an inaccessible place, or the worse: wolves can run them down and devour them. Like those sheep, we too can flee for what we deem as "safe", only to discover that in our panic, we have blundered into the situation that we so longed to escape.
And like those same sheep, we too can end up prey for the "wolves" that prey upon those that are "on the run":
"Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?" (Matthew 7:15-16, NASB. 1995, emphasis mine)
So, where do we run?
Not where, but to whom:
""I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father."" (John 10:11-18, NASB 1995, emphasis mine)
Jesus told us exactly who He is: Jesus Christ is I AM (the same God Almighty who appeared to Moses at the burning bush to tell him to return to Egypt), and that He is the Good Shepherd. In times of trouble where we are scared and we do not know what to do, instead of fleeing for what looks like safety we are to come to Him. He is our Rock, upon which is the only true safety in this world; everything else is shifting sand:
"Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow." (James 1:16-17, NASB 1995, emphasis mine)
In these last days, this world is being shaken hard by the Lord before He comes to bring His bride home. We may very well be tempted to flee to what we consider safety, and the world will certainly do its' best to entice us with promises of safety, unity and what it calls "tolerance". But we would do best to remember that wherever the Lord asks us to go or do, he has gone before us as the shepherd did in Psalm 23:
"The LORD is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside quiet waters.
He restores my soul;
He guides me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil, for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You have anointed my head with oil;
My cup overflows.
Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever." (Psalm 23, NASB 1995, emphasis mine)
Sooner or later, all of us must stop running; if we don't, either we will be worn down by the wolves or trapped in a precarious place. The only safety that exists is when we trust the Lord with our needs, hopes, dreams, fears and worries. We see this graphically when the Lord struck Jacob's thigh and caused the tendon to shrink. Not being able to run, Jacob had to depend upon God alone to protect him from Esau's wrath. And like Jacob, the time has come for us to stop running...
...After all, the Lord Jesus came for the one lamb who was lost from the 99.
I bid you all peace.
YBIC,
-Sojo414
We see in Scripture that we are not the first to do so; here's a rundown (pun intended) of folks in Scripture who fled:
"When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. Then the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” He said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself.” (Genesis 3:6-10, NASB 1995, emphasis mine)
You can be sure that when Adam and Eve heard the Lord, they may not have run too far, but they fled far enough in the garden to try to hide from the Lord.
Nor would they be the last to flee:
"Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” And he said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground. Now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you; you will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth.” Cain said to the LORD, “My punishment is too great to bear! Behold, You have driven me this day from the face of the ground; and from Your face I will be hidden, and I will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” So the LORD said to him, “Therefore whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold.” And the LORD appointed a sign for Cain, so that no one finding him would slay him. Then Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden." (Genesis 4:9-16, NASB 1995, emphasis mine)
Rather than repent of his sin, Cain first tried denying any knowledge of it, then claiming that God was punishing him too harshly! Cain's final reply to the Lord was not repentance, but to flee His presence.
Jacob would also run; not once, but twice:
"So Esau bore a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him; and Esau said to himself, “The days of mourning for my father are near; then I will kill my brother Jacob.” Now when the words of her elder son Esau were reported to Rebekah, she sent and called her younger son Jacob, and said to him, “Behold your brother Esau is consoling himself concerning you by planning to kill you. Now therefore, my son, obey my voice, and arise, flee to Haran, to my brother Laban! Stay with him a few days, until your brother’s fury subsides, until your brother’s anger against you subsides and he forgets what you did to him. Then I will send and get you from there. Why should I be bereaved of you both in one day?” (Genesis 27:41-44, NASB 1995)
Because Jacob had taken Esau's blessing, Jacob had to flee for his life! He went to his uncle Haran, whom he ended up working 14 years for. Haran tricked Jacob by making him first work 7 years for Leah, then 7 years for Rachel (the whole story of Jacob's trickery and flight is in Genesis chapters 25-31). Jacob would end up fleeing from Laban in the night:
"Then Jacob arose and put his children and his wives upon camels; and he drove away all his livestock and all his property which he had gathered, his acquired livestock which he had gathered in Paddan-aram, to go to the land of Canaan to his father Isaac. When Laban had gone to shear his flock, then Rachel stole the household idols that were her father’s. And Jacob deceived Laban the Aramean by not telling him that he was fleeing. So he fled with all that he had; and he arose and crossed the Euphrates River, and set his face toward the hill country of Gilead."[ (Genesis 31:17-21, NASB 1995, emphasis mine)
Moses would be another who would flee:
"Now it came about in those days, when Moses had grown up, that he went out to his brethren and looked on their hard labors; and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brethren. So he looked this way and that, and when he saw there was no one around, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. He went out the next day, and behold, two Hebrews were fighting with each other; and he said to the offender, “Why are you striking your companion?” But he said, “Who made you a prince or a judge over us? Are you intending to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and said, “Surely the matter has become known.” When Pharaoh heard of this matter, he tried to kill Moses. But Moses fled from the presence of Pharaoh and settled in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well." (Exodus 2:11-15, NASB 1995, emphasis mine)
What we see in all these stories is a common thread of two instances: 1) rather than heeding the Lord, they relied on their own understanding at the time, ans 2) they ended up fleeing the consequences of their actions. Yes, Jacob would end up becoming Israel and having 12 children, and Moses would lead the nation named for Israel out of captivity in Egypt.
But we also noticed that Jacob and Moses returned from whence they came, at the behest of the Lord:
"“Then the angel of God said to me in the dream, ‘Jacob,’ and I said, ‘Here I am.’ “He said, ‘Lift up now your eyes and see that all the male goats which are mating are striped, speckled, and mottled; for I have seen all that Laban has been doing to you. ‘I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed a pillar, where you made a vow to Me; now arise, leave this land, and return to the land of your birth.’”"(Genesis 31:11-13, NASB 1995, emphasis mine)
"The LORD said, “I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings. So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite “Now, behold, the cry of the sons of Israel has come to Me; furthermore, I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them.Therefore, come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?” And He said, “Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain.”" (Exodus 3:7-12, NASB 1995, emphasis mine)
When sheep panic, they tend to flee for what they consider safety. But when they do so, what they see as "safe" may not always be so and they can end up trapped in a precarious situation, injured in an inaccessible place, or the worse: wolves can run them down and devour them. Like those sheep, we too can flee for what we deem as "safe", only to discover that in our panic, we have blundered into the situation that we so longed to escape.
And like those same sheep, we too can end up prey for the "wolves" that prey upon those that are "on the run":
"Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?" (Matthew 7:15-16, NASB. 1995, emphasis mine)
So, where do we run?
Not where, but to whom:
""I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd. For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father."" (John 10:11-18, NASB 1995, emphasis mine)
Jesus told us exactly who He is: Jesus Christ is I AM (the same God Almighty who appeared to Moses at the burning bush to tell him to return to Egypt), and that He is the Good Shepherd. In times of trouble where we are scared and we do not know what to do, instead of fleeing for what looks like safety we are to come to Him. He is our Rock, upon which is the only true safety in this world; everything else is shifting sand:
"Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren. Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow." (James 1:16-17, NASB 1995, emphasis mine)
In these last days, this world is being shaken hard by the Lord before He comes to bring His bride home. We may very well be tempted to flee to what we consider safety, and the world will certainly do its' best to entice us with promises of safety, unity and what it calls "tolerance". But we would do best to remember that wherever the Lord asks us to go or do, he has gone before us as the shepherd did in Psalm 23:
"The LORD is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside quiet waters.
He restores my soul;
He guides me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil, for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You have anointed my head with oil;
My cup overflows.
Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever." (Psalm 23, NASB 1995, emphasis mine)
Sooner or later, all of us must stop running; if we don't, either we will be worn down by the wolves or trapped in a precarious place. The only safety that exists is when we trust the Lord with our needs, hopes, dreams, fears and worries. We see this graphically when the Lord struck Jacob's thigh and caused the tendon to shrink. Not being able to run, Jacob had to depend upon God alone to protect him from Esau's wrath. And like Jacob, the time has come for us to stop running...
...After all, the Lord Jesus came for the one lamb who was lost from the 99.
I bid you all peace.
YBIC,
-Sojo414
Last edited by a moderator:
