Hirelings

“When you adjust, you are dead. If you adjust, you are done. But if you dare to stand, the world will adjust to you. I can promise you that. Not all will adjust to you, but at least some will. We are not going to be sheep running over the precipice because other dumb sheep are running over it. We see the precipice – we know it is there. We are listening to the voice of the shepherd, not the voice of terrified sheep. The terrified, intimidated sheep are going everywhere.” AW Tozer

Jesus tells us in John 10 to be careful about who we allow to have charge over the sheep. There is someone hired and paid to watch over them but as soon as the wolf shows up, he flees (v. 12). He runs because he doesn’t actually care about the sheep at all. His concern is getting paid wages and keeping himself from harm. Sheep aren’t that smart, they go where the crowd goes whether it’s to safety or over the precipice, which is why its vital that we sheep know and recognize the Shepherds voice. Earlier Jesus says that His sheep will not follow the voice of a stranger, but because they know their Shepherds voice, they will hear their name and only follow after Him (v. 4-5).

The trick of satan is to cram so much junk into our heads that we believe everything and nothing all at once. The Shepherds voice gets drowned out with all the other voices and before we know whats happening, we are living with a certain confusion and fuzziness that we can’t even pinpoint. We should be shouting truth from the rooftops but instead we find ourselves sitting out on the fringe watching as the loudest voices pull more and more sheep into their fold.

The loudest voices aren’t always right. God’s Word tells us that “God is not the author of confusion but of peace…” (1 Corinthians 14:33). Friends, grace-filled Christians aren’t Christians who say “yes” to every voice they hear. The grace Jesus preached went hand in hand with standards of truth. They work wonderfully together. Saying “yes” to all the voices all the time has gotten us into a lot of trouble. The reason our culture is off the rails is because people have stopped hearing the voice of the Shepherd and allowed their heads to be filled up with every loud and clanging thing that comes their way. Right now, loud is winning the battle.

Hirelings try and turn the absolutes into optionals. They want us to think boundaries are obstacles to be overcome. Their words sound loving, but they will never ever go to bat for the sheep. “They began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused” (Romans 1:21). Too many opinions and not enough truth lead us down a dark path. This is why we have to be so careful about who we allow to speak into our lives. Just because someone has a conference tour or a bestselling book doesn’t mean we don’t need to filter their human wisdom through the lens of God’s Word. Too many voices. We gather information from all kinds of sources we think may know better and are more confused than ever.

My kids made me watch the movie Twister a couple weeks ago, by the fifth tornado I was checked out, but the end made me think about something; our heroic storm chasers are facing down a massive F5 tornado and have (naturally) cornered themselves in a flimsy old barn. They run to an outlying building where they anchor themselves to some steel pipes. The building and barn are blown to bits and the pipes are the only thing left intact, because they were anchored deep in the ground. The voice of the Shepherd is like that steel pipe, it keeps us from being blown away when the storm comes. Anchor yourself to a wood barn and you can forget it, you’re done for.

Friends, too many of us are tying ourselves to flimsy things that are not going to support us when a storm hits. Voices that say they are for us but are standing stubbornly against the Jesus of truth and grace. It pains me to see Christians twisting themselves into pretzels trying to explain away the Word of God in order to please the masses or even the  neighbor next door. People are more receptive than we think to truth, they crave it actually, we all do.  It’s like sitting through an entire lunch with a giant piece of lettuce stuck in your front teeth and your friend never says anything. I’d want to know if there was lettuce in my teeth, or toilet paper dragging from my shoe… what kind of friend ignores the truth and doesn’t speak up?! It’s not loving to hand ourselves or others over to the hirelings who aren’t going to be there when trouble comes.

God and His word are wonderfully, amazingly clear and uncomplicated. If we aren’t already tied to it, there’s no way we will be able to sustain the secular winds that are blowing our direction every day. It’s a choice to listen to the Shepherds voice. It’s also a choice to go with the sheep. Sin eventually gives birth to death, it’s a fact. Lets be careful not to adjust too much to the voices of the hirelings, no matter how well-intentioned they may seem. Let them adjust to the Jesus we demonstrate, the Shepherd of grace and accountability, and if not, let us hold steady anyway.