Psalm 95:7 For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. To day if you will hear his voice,… People of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Some writers try to amend this sentence, because the poetical figure seems complicated. It is much better to leave it in its poetical suggestiveness. It indicates familiarity with Eastern shepherding. The shepherd lives with his flock day and night; feels for them a personal affection; tends them in all their times of need with his own hands. So the Eastern sheep and shepherd figures, for God and his people, are stronger and more suggestive than we can realize if we keep ourselves to Western shepherd associations. In so carefully putting people into one sentence, and sheep into the other, the psalmist reminds us that God's sheep are moral beings, and the mere physical relations of shepherds to their sheep do but represent and illustrate the moral relations in which God stands to his people as moral beings. So we rise into a sphere in which we need the help of another figure - that of the father and his family. The "Lord our Maker" here brings God before us as the Universal Creator; and as the Founder of the Israelite nation. I. OUR MORAL RELATIONS WITH GOD INCLUDE OUR CHARACTERS. Illustrate from the shepherd's estimate of each sheep. But the end at which the shepherd aims is health, fatness. The end at which God aims is cultured, developed, perfected character. And this is the Divine aim forevery man, and the Divine work in every man. If we can see the issue more plainly reached in some men than in others, this need not dim our confidence that the work is going on in all. II. OUR MORAL RELATIONS WITH GOD INCLUDE OUR MOODS. For no man can study human nature without observing that men are constantly acting, on occasion, out of harmony with their characters. The difficulty of dealing wisely with children lies in their occasional strange lapses and oddities. God bears shepherd-like relation to the odd moods of his moral beings. III. OUR MORAL RELATIONS WITH GOD INCLUDE OUR SINS. This brings us into a very familiar field, and opens to view the redeeming and sanctifying work of God. These moral relations of God to us are the real reason why we should "worship and bow down." - R.T. Parallel Verses KJV: For he is our God; and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. To day if ye will hear his voice, |
    |