We may judge ourselves tonight by considering whether or not we are Christ's sheep. Do we acknowledge ourselves as belonging to him, spirit, soul, and body? Do we regard ourselves as being, in relationship with him, no wiser, no stronger, than sheep to a shepherd? I know some who are certainly not sheep of Christ's flock, for they will be led by nobody in heaven, or on earth; but must have their own sweet way. They are critics of the Bible, not disciples of it. They might be very good dogs, but they are very abnormal sheep. They would make very respectable wolves, for they are great with destructive criticism; but they certainly are not sheep; and their disposition and spirit are such that they would scorn the character, if they understood it. "What! to go where I am led? To lie down where I am told to lie down? Not to choose my own way? Just to see nothing, and know nothing; but to have my eyes always on the Shepherd, and my wisdom subject to his? To be shepherded by another mind than my own? Is it so? Am I to be nothing but a sheep to the Lord Jesus?"
Yes, it is true; and therefore the modern wise man and woman are indignant, and proudly repudiates the character of a sheep. As for us, we accept all that the name implies. O brothers and sisters, we can act as a man or woman before other people, but when we come before our Lord, as the sheep is a mere animal in comparison with its shepherd, so we feel ourselves to be less than that. How often have we cried with David, "I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you." [Psalm 73:22] O my Lord, in your presence I sink as low as low can be, and you become very high, yes, everything to me, the Shepherd of my weak, vacillating, trembling spirit!
--C.H. Spurgeon
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