lambs – Emmanuel Pentecostal Church Gateshead Resources

Saturday 9th – Isaiah 40:21-31

We come today to the last verses in Isaiah 40, and today I will bring the devotion from verses 28-31 ‘Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.’

These verses commence with two question, ‘Have you not known?’ and ‘Have you not heard’? Known and heard what? That ‘the LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.’ That is good, but listen further, ‘He does not faint or grow weary.’

I want us to think sheep and Shepherd again, and when it says ‘The LORD is . . .’ think ‘The SHEPHERD is and then consider what it says about this Shepherd. ‘He does not faint or grow weary’

You can ask any farmer who works alone during the lambing season and they will tell you that it is hard work and it can be very tiring because you have to be available to watch the flock day and night, it is a 24 / 7 job. And the first night or two are not so bad, but then you begin to get faint and weary through lack of sleep, through toil and hard work and through the demands of needing to give the sheep your full attention. NOT SO WITH OUR SHEPHERD! He does not faint or grow weary and imagine the size of his flock! Imagine also how awkward and time demanding some of the sheep might be and yet he looks after the flock with his full and undivided attention.

Continue the picture of these verses referring to the Lord as our Shepherd, and it tells us that not only does he not grow tired and weary but that he gives power to the faint and to him who has no might he increases strength. Taking Thursday’s thought, he sees us when we are like the weak helpless lambs and he is willing to nurture us back to strength and to revive our cold hearts. Without wanting to seem irreverent with my illustrative mind, there have been many times when the Shepherd has needed to wrap me in a hessian sack and warm me up, and bottle feed me till I have gained strength again. Maybe that is where you are today, feeling weak and helpless, maybe low in spirit, allow the Shepherd to nurse you back to strength again, to revive your faint heart and to reinvigorate you in your weariness.

See, there is not one of us who can say we never feel like this, verse 30 says ‘EVEN the youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted.’ We all know periods of weakness and lacking in power or strength spiritually, but our Shepherd in his care for us comes to renew.

The final verse is so well known, ‘but they who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength’ – there is no doubt about it – we need to know what it is to come and to wait in the Shepherd’s presence, come into his ‘farmhouse’, come into the warmth of his love and care and know what it is to mount up again with wings like an eagle, to run and not be weary, to walk and not faint.’

Thou Shepherd of Israel, and mine,

The joy and desire of my heart,

For closer communion I pine,

I long to reside where thou art.

The pastures I languish to find

Where all who their shepherd obey

Are fed, on thy bosom reclined,

And screened from the heat of the day.

Ah! show me that happiest place,

The place of thy people’s abode,

Where saints in true happiness gaze

And hang on a crucified God.

Thy love for a sinner declare,

Thy passion and death on the tree;

My spirit to Calvary bear,

To suffer and triumph with thee.

‘Tis there, with the lambs of thy flock,

There only, I covet to rest,

To lie at the foot of the rock,

Or rise to be hid in thy breast.

‘Tis there I would always abide,

And never a moment depart,

Concealed in the cleft of thy side,

Eternally held in thy heart.

How good is the God we adore,

Our faithful, unchangeable friend,

Whose love is as great as his power,

And knows neither measure nor end.

‘Tis Jesus the first and the last,

Whose Spirit shall guide us safe home,

We’ll praise him for all that is past,

And trust him for all that’s to come.

^{Charles Wesley CCLI 788682}

Thursday 7th – Isaiah 40:9-20

The heading for these verses at verse 9 in my ESV Bible says, ‘The Greatness of God.’

We considered the greatness of God in earlier devotions, for today I want to consider his greatness in the context of what it says in verse 11, ‘He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.’ We are back to the Lord as our Shepherd. His greatness in his gentleness.

I had got to the point of preparing the devotions for this week, I had done the ones for Sunday – Tuesday and suddenly when it came to yesterday’s devotion I had for the first time while preparing the devotions over this period of time hit a brick wall! I had two attempts at putting something together but scrapped them, but deep inside I felt it needed to be about lambs! I ended up putting my planning and prepping aside and going for a walk. The next morning, I felt an inner witness to devote the three days mentioned as yesterday to Isaiah 40 and as I went through it you’ve, probably guessed it, there it was in the chapter, the word ‘lambs’ – ‘He will gather the lambs in his arms.’ (v11) So this is our subject for today. Believe it or not, while I was preparing this actual devotion I had an email from Iain and it was pointing me to a song he had discovered that morning it was at this point of my prepping that I decided to listen to it and guess what it was called? ‘Gentle Shepherd come and lead us for we need you to help us to find our way.’ wow, talk about a confirmation!

There are lots of beautiful things we can see in this world around us, and to me one of the most beautiful is to see a field of sheep and to look at all the lambs playing, running around and skipping together.

A happy farmer is the one who has had a successful lambing season, but every farmer or shepherd knows that during the lambing season there will always be loss, lambs that are still-born or a ewe that has died during birthing leaving orphan lambs. It then becomes the responsibility as soon as possible for the shepherd to do what he can to provide for the orphaned lamb. It could be an adoption with another ewe, or it may be to have to hand rear it, the lamb to become what we call a ‘tiddler’. Being a farmer’s son, I have been involved in this, I was never going to be a farmer, if I had had to remain on the farm it would have either have been as a maintenance worker with the machinery etc or as a shepherd. There was an inbuilt instinct in me from a youngster for the sheep, maybe that was God planting a spiritual seed in my life in preparation for being a shepherd for his flock, the Church and in particular you as the flock he has placed under my care in the present.

We often had orphan lambs which became tiddlers, they would be the lambs that we would bottle feed and during lambing season the farmhouse would become like an animal hospital as the weak, cold and starving lambs would be brought in from the cold and warmed up, wrapped in hessian sacks (sometimes in the Rayburn oven with the door left open or into an electric clothes airer that my mum had) and then fed. Often it was us the children that had the responsibility of feeding them every day. Eventually when they were strong enough, they would be placed in the barn with other lambs until time for them to go out into the field with the other sheep with their lambs. It was particularly during lambing season that you would see the gentler side of the farmer / shepherd.

Our Scripture tells us that the Lord who is our Shepherd is a gentle Shepherd, he knows those who are his sheep (Psalm 100) and he cares for us. These verses tell us that he TENDS his flock, that is he looks after our needs, he feeds us, he watches over us, he checks us over, he heals the wounds, he keeps us safe and should it be needed he lovingly corrects us. I love to picture the Scripture when it says that as a shepherd he gathers the lambs in his arms – I don’t know what you imagine here, but I see us as the sheep especially when we may be afraid, or downhearted, or even broken-hearted, and he the Shepherd stooping down to picks us up, to scoop us up into his arms and hold us tightly, close to his chest, where we can hear his heart beat. It reminds me of the well-known poem ‘Footprints’ where there seems to be only one set of footprints in the sand, and the conclusion is that in those moments I was carrying you in my arms. (poem at the end)

We have touched several times over the weeks about the Lord as Shepherd and us as his sheep. Today may we learn that we can always trust our Good Shepherd, he will never fail us or let us down, whatever our situation, he is with us, ready at a moment’s notice to pick us up and hold us close to his side.

One night I dreamed a dream.

As I was walking along the beach with my Lord.

Across the dark sky flashed scenes from my life.

For each scene, I noticed two sets of footprints in the sand,

One belonging to me and one to my Lord.

After the last scene of my life flashed before me,

I looked back at the footprints in the sand.

I noticed that at many times along the path of my life,

especially at the very lowest and saddest times,

there was only one set of footprints.

This really troubled me, so I asked the Lord about it.

“Lord, you said once I decided to follow you,

You’d walk with me all the way.

But I noticed that during the saddest and most troublesome times of my life,

there was only one set of footprints.

I don’t understand why, when I needed You the most, You would leave me.”

He whispered, “My precious child, I love you and will never leave you

Never, ever, during your trials and testings.

When you saw only one set of footprints,

It was then that I carried you.”