A FRIEND who was traveling in the East heard that there was a shepherd who still kept up the custom of calling his sheep by name. He went to the man, and said: “Let me put on your clothes, and take your crook, and I will call them, and see if they will come to me.” And so he did. He called one sheep, “Mina, Mina!” but the whole flock ran away.
Then he said to the shepherd, “Will none of them follow me when I call them?”
The shepherd replied, “Yes, sir, some of them will. The sick sheep will follow anybody.”
Let us learn a lesson from the healthy and sick sheep, and if we with purpose of heart cleave unto the Lord, we shall not be drawn away from following Him, the true Shepherd, by those who pretend to be shepherds but are not.
The Lord says to each of us who are His, “Follow thou Me.” “My sheep hear My voice,... and they follow Me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish.” John 10:27, 28.
“And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him; for they know not the voice of strangers.” John 10:5.
ML-05/26/1963