"Shepherds 101"

"Shepherds 101"

"And I the LORD will be their God, and my servant David a prince among them; I the LORD have spoken it.  And I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land: and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods."

(Ezekiel 34:24-25)

Ah, David, an example of "Shepherds 101!"  He was the shepherd, next only to the Main Shepherd, Jesus Christ our Lord.  David is mentioned 1,127 times in the Bible, more than any other person.  David was a man after God's own heart, and as a young shepherd boy, his trust in God was such that he expected God to help him slay the lions and bears that came to attack his sheep.  If you want to sleep in the woods, it's best to have little ole David around  ...  even as a young lad, he was fierce and fearless.  

David, being anointed by Samuel

David was anointed three times, the first time in Bethlehem by Saul; the second time was for part of Israel; and the third time was for all of Israel, the latter anointings in Hebron.  Why is this important?  "Anointing," anytime, anywhere, anyhow IS of utmost importance.  God had His eye on David, and no doubt, the holy love songs in the dark moonlit pastures with the tinkling lilting of the harp, moved God to select him from an early age.  David had this fearless edge, even though his heart was full of melodies and psalms, that intricacy of phrases and soul-stirring wording, which still moves the coldest of hearts today.

David and Goliath

David had his exploits, and so do our shepherds in this hour.  Our "godly" Shepherds, Pastors and Prophets, over the sheep in our Churches today, spend their time weeping between the porch and the altar, fighting the wolves in sheep's clothing, warring with devils and demons, protecting their flocks by night, hearing the distant thunder, discerning the face of the skies, testing and gauging the winds, following the cloud by day and the fire by night, and moving with the directional unction of God  ...  They are Shepherds in need of our constant prayers of protection, for if the Shepherd is destroyed, the sheep will scatter  ...  

Everett Fox of jhom.com explains nuances of David's life as a shepherd, and when he was king, exquisitely:  "As a youngest son and a shepherd, he rises from powerless beginnings; his youth is marked by unparalleled success as soldier and incipient leader; he is loved by women and by Jonathan, the crown prince (who should be his rival); he miraculously escapes death on numerous occasions in his flight from Saul; his path to the throne is enabled by overzealous subordinates, whose bloody deeds on his behalf somehow do not reach as far as their master; and ultimately he is able to unify a tribal society, secure lasting peace, and create a new order based on a triad of dynasty, royal city, and temple."

Further, Fox states, "No one in the Bible gets away with anything, not Jacob, the ancestor of Israel, not Moses, the liberator and lawgiver himself, and not even the charismatic and beloved David, as much as he is said to 'strengthen himself in YHWH his God,' as noted in I Samuel 30:6, and despite the fact that he is credited in biblical tradition with writing some of the world's great religious poetry in Psalms."

David, in shame, after Nathan,

the Prophet, reveals his sin

The most Anointed ones of all are the most vulnerable of all.  The power and greatness, that God grants to His chosen, should be taken with great trepidation.  Those who watch for our souls, who stand guard in the moonlight, who beat the wolves away from the helpless sheep, who carry the torch of truth, who lead the march with authority  ...  who drip with anointing  ...  They are the stalwart David's of our day, and we can never pray too much for them  ...  God will always have One who is a Moses, a Joseph, a Jeremiah, a Paul, a David  ... a Shepherd, as He is  ...

  

There are not many David's, those nighttime lonely moon gazers, those lovers of God with new worship phrases always on their minds, those dreamy-eyed far off thinkers who never seem to be "here," the humans who appear to not inhabit mortality, those that don't fit in with the unholy mundane surroundings of earth, those visionaries who are years ahead plotting the route from years ago, those with eyes ablaze with the two that don't seem to go together: love and prophecy, those who would rather meditate and cogitate than relate, those who look into your eyes and know what you're about before you say even a word, those who live an ethereal eagle existence  ...  those who are ever far "away" with God  ...

"Shepherds 101" teaches us that David's are 'pasture people;' and, I know, that may sound rather out of touch to you, and not socially acceptable, but they actually socialize very well, because they know that they know  ...  You feel uncomfortable around them at times, because they seem to be way ahead  ...  and they are  ...  They dwell in a realm beyond the borders; they expand with God's universal vision; they see what others don't see; they feel what we wish we could feel  ...  They dance to music we can't hear  ... 

(Visit promiselandchurch.net and theexperience238.com.

PromiseLand Church, Austin, Texas, Pastor Kenneth Phillips)