7 Sermon Illustrations on Relationship With Christ

A traveler once asserted to a Syrian shepherd that the sheep knew the dress of their master, not his voice. The shepherd, on the other hand, maintained it was the voice they knew. To settle the dispute, he and the traveler exchanged dresses, and went among the sheep. The traveler in the shepherd’s dress called on the sheep and tried to lead them, but “they knew not his voice,” and never moved. On the other hand, they ran at once at the call of their owner, though thus disguised.

A friend of mine was in Syria, and he found a shepherd that kept up the old custom of naming his sheep. My friend said he wouldn’t believe that the sheep knew him when he called them by name. So he said to the shepherd:

“I wish you would just call one or two.”

The shepherd said, “Carl.”

The sheep stopped eating and looked up.

The shepherd called out, “Come here.”

The sheep came, and stood looking up into his face. He called another, and another, and there they stood looking up at the shepherd.

“How can you tell them apart?”

“Oh, there are no two alike. See, that sheep toes in a little; this sheep is a little bit squint-eyed; that sheep has a black spot on its nose.”

My friend found that he knew every one of his sheep by their failings. He didn’t have a perfect one in his flock.

I suppose that the Lord knows your and my failings as well. There is a man that is covetous; he wants to grasp the whole world. He wants a shepherd to keep down that spirit. There is a woman down there who has an awful tongue; she keeps the whole neighborhood stirred up. There is a woman over there who is deceitful, terribly so. She needs the care of a shepherd to keep her from deceit, for she will ruin all her children; they will all turn out just like their mother. There is a father over there who wouldn’t swear for all the world before his children, but sometimes he gets provoked in his business and swears before he knows it. Doesn’t he need a shepherd’s care? I would like to know if there is a man or woman on earth who doesn’t need the care of a shepherd. Haven’t we all got failings? If you really want to know what your failings are, you can find someone who can point them out. God would never have sent Christ into the world if we didn’t need His care. We are as weak and foolish as sheep.

One of the occupations in Australia is sheep-raising. There are large ranches upon which many sheep and lambs find food, and the shepherds guard their own.

One day a man was arrested for stealing a sheep. The man claimed that the sheep was his own, that it had been missing from his flock for some days, but as soon as he saw the animal he knew him.

The other man claimed the sheep, and said he had owned him since he was a lamb, and that he had never been away from the flock.

The judge was puzzled how to decide the matter. At last he sent for the sheep. He first took the man in whose possession the sheep was found to the courtyard, and told him to call the sheep.

The animal made no response, only to raise his head and look frightened, as if in a strange place and among strangers.

Bidding the officers take the man back to the court-room, he told them to bring down the defendant. The accused man did not wait until he entered the yard, but at the gate, and where the sheep could not see him, he began a peculiar call. At once the sheep bounded toward the gate, and by his actions showed that a familiar voice was calling.

“His own knows him,” said the judge. (Text.)