The story is told of a shepherd and his flock who were moving slowly along a country road. Just as they reached a bridge which spanned a river running deep in a rocky ravine, something alarmed the flock.
It may have been nothing more frightening than a piece of paper, blown by the wind, but for a moment the flock stood still in panic. Then a leader of the flock, bolder than the rest (or more “spooked” than they) took a big jump, cleared the bridge railing and disappeared.
In a flash, another had done the same thing. Then another, and another, and another, and another. The shepherd did all he could to stop them, but it was too late. Each sheep seemed to be suddenly possessed with the idea that it must be a right thing to do since everybody was doing it.
Only a very few were restrained, and in a matter of seconds the rocks below were covered with dead and dying sheep.
Are human beings so very different? Would we follow the crowd just because “everybody’s going that way”? To be “in” with the crowd you must live as though you had no soul to be lost or saved, no sins to account for, and no eternity to spend. As the prophet Isaiah said, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way.” But let us remember that the biggest crowds cannot make the wrong thing right.
If you ignore your soul and its needs, you personally are wrong. If you shut God out of your life, you are wrong. If you regard the Lord Jesus Christ as a mere historic Person of no particular interest to you, you are wrong. If you just live for your own pleasure, thrusting your sins into some dark corner of forgetfulness, you are wrong. And it is not a valid excuse to say, “Oh, but everybody’s doing it!”
“Wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat...and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Matt. 7:13-1413Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: 14Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it. (Matthew 7:13‑14)).