A Word in Season: Feeding and Resting (Ezekiel 34:15)

Ezekiel 34:15 and God’s Promise to Feed His Flock

The Lord God speaks with words of sweet promise and assurance when he says in Ezekiel 34 and verse 15 I will feed my flock and I will make them lie down says the Lord God. In the context he is setting himself in deliberate and distinct contrast with the false and the cruel shepherds of the days in which Ezekiel was ministering the word of God.

These were men who saw God's people as a source of revenue, as a resource to be abused, a people from whom they could get what they wanted rather than to whom they could give what the people really needed.

God’s Mercy Against False Shepherds

God was grieved with such a disposition, his people were abused, they were abandoned, they were suffering, they were bruised and they were battered, they were being scattered far off. And so God himself steps in and he says I will gather my flock and I will then care for my people.

I will do what others will not and are not doing. And so God in his mercy gathers my flock. If we think of what that means for us it's the work of the good shepherd of the sheep, the incarnate son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

He has his sheep and he goes out to find them. He brings them to himself. He finds them lost and wandering, rebellious, hungry, needy. And he picks them up, he gathers them to himself, he carries them home and then he watches over them and he keeps them all the days of their lives.

Christ Feeds and Cares for His Church

God feeds his flock. There's distinction and there's affection there. There's a people that God has set his love upon. There's a delight in them and a desire to do them good. And that is the disposition with which the Lord God still looks upon the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And he has undertaken to feed the sheep. There's a need for us to have our souls supplied with every good thing from the word of God. There are doctrines that we need to understand, instruction from the word of God to fill our hearts and to fire our affections.

There are warnings that we need to keep us from wandering into wrong paths. There are exhortations we require in order to help us maintain our pace in the way. There are promises that we require in which we rely in order to sustain our souls in times of trouble and distress.

There are rebukes we need when we do go astray to bring us back into the way. There are encouragements that are required in order for us not to flag but to strengthen our hearts and our hands. God is willing and able to feed us in all these ways and he is determined to do so.

The Pastor’s Task and the Blessing of the Lord’s Day

I will feed my flock, he says. I have the means and I am able to use them in order to accomplish the ends. It's one of the particular works of the under shepherds of the sheep, the pastors of God's flock, to feed the flock of God.

If they abuse or overlook or disregard the sheep, God himself will deal with them. But they are appointed when they are faithful and true to do this work of feeding. And God says, I will do it. I will raise up such men, I will employ such men, not because I want them to have prominence but because I want my sheep to be properly cared for.

It is God's congregation for which he has a true and a deep regard and he will do all that is necessary in order to feed and sustain our souls. And that's one of the great blessings of the Lord's Day.

It's a day when we gather in order to obtain the food that our souls need. It is the day pre-eminently when we hear the word of God declared to us and all those promises and encouragements, those truths, the blessings that we need, the warnings and rebukes and exhortations upon which our souls rely.

These things come to us then as God, the great shepherd of the sheep, cares for his own. So let us go to feed and having fed, let us rest in what God has said because not only will God feed us but he will make us to lie down.