Editorial - You Are My Flock

by Joy Hunting

"'You are my flock, the flock of my pasture; you are men, and I am your God' says the Lord GOD … 'Indeed I myself will search for my sheep and seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock on the day HE IS AMONG HIS SCATTERED SHEEP, so will I seek out my sheep and deliver them from all the places where they were scattered on a cloudy and dark day'" (Ezekiel 34:31,11,12).

The prophet makes an interesting observation regarding the way the Lord God Almighty identifies Himself with His people Israel, "the flock of my pasture" . He Himself will have a personal interest in seeking after His own sheep; He does not delegate this exercise to others, but Himself goes about searching for those who are His own sheep, those who will recognize the Shepherd's voice and follow Him. Indeed He says "HE IS AMONG HIS SCATTERED SHEEP" and "IN ALL THEIR AFFLICTION HE WAS AFFLICTED" (Isaiah 63:9).

There are evil attacks; there are persecutions; there is anti-Semitism; there has even been the Holocaust – they are no mystery: they're all plainly spoken of and fore-warned about in the Bible, as for example through Moses in Deuteronomy 28. And for this reason we cannot blame God. Even denying God exists, whether you're a leader or a rank-and-file member of society, doesn't change the fact that God is presently, as He always has been, very much involved in the affiars of His people Israel. And "he has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; nor has he hidden his face from him; but when he cried to him, he heard" , according to David in Psalm 22.

He is searching for His sheep individually. He is with them in suffering. He is "among his scattered sheep" on every "cloudy and dark day." Nearly five hundred years after King David's time the Lord said: "I will establish one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them -- my servant David. He shall feed them and be their shepherd. And I, the LORD, will be their God, and my servant David a prince among them; I, the LORD, have spoken" (Ezekiel 34:23,24). And this He will surely bring to pass.