Learn to Know the Shepherds Voice — Erlo Stegen

Jesus Christ, the Door and the Shepherd

I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, he who does not enter in by the door into the sheepfold, but climbs up some other way, is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.

The watchman opens the door for this man, and the sheep listen to his voice and heed it. And he calls his own sheep by name and brings and leads them out. When he has brought his own sheep outside, he walks on before them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.

They will never, on no account, follow a stranger, but will run away from him because they do not know the voice of strangers or recognize their call. Jesus used this parable, this illustration with them, but they did not understand what he was talking about.

Recognizing the Lord’s Voice as His Sheep

May God grant that we'll understand some of this which he has been talking about. The Lord Jesus, as the good shepherd, says, his sheep know his voice. We can twist this slightly and look at it from another angle by asking a question.

Who are his sheep? His sheep, in other words, are those that know his voice. But it is quite shocking if, amongst Christians and Christian circles, how often people are faced with this problem that they say, we don't recognize the Lord's voice, or it is so difficult to know the Lord's voice.

How will I get to know that this is the Lord's voice? We have much difficulty in that. I don't know why that is so. Maybe because we are human. But strangely, the sheep have got no difficulty in knowing their shepherd's voice.

We may ask the question, but why is it that we have difficulty in that? And you know, friends, it's of greatest, it's of paramount importance that every individual, every child of the Lord knows the Lord's voice.

If we don't know that voice, we won't get on very well. We'll get off the rails. The rails are the Lord's voice. And what worse if we get off the rails? If a train, if a train gets off the rails, it's always a great tragedy.

A loss, a lot of cost is involved. Sometimes it's not only the trucks that are damaged, but lives as well. The same thing in our lives. Don't say, if I get off the road, well, it doesn't really matter, that just affects me.

It doesn't only affect me. We are supposed to be the salt. We are supposed to be the light. And when I sin or get off the rails, many people may die with me and because of me. So it's of greatest importance that we know the Lord's voice.

We should actually go so far as to say, if a person doesn't know the Lord's voice, ask him the question, are you really a child of the Lord? Are you a sheep? I remember some years ago when I was in Switzerland, we attended a service in Lausanne.

And the minister had come from the Far East. And it was actually his first sermon in that church. And he told us how he and a group of other ministers made a tour through Turkey and those countries where there are still shepherds that are very primitive, that haven't changed over the last couple of centuries.

The Shepherds of Turkey and the Recognition of Their Voice

And they made it a point to visit these people. And when they got into those hills and mountains, he said, they found that a couple of shepherds would club together, maybe four or five, and then they would have one fold, just one fold for their sheep.

He explained to us what kind of a fold it was. They just took poles, erected them one pole next to the other. These poles are very high, eight, nine, ten feet, so to make it difficult for the wild animals to climb over the wall.

The door is very narrow. It's only so broad that one shepherd can stand in the door with one sheep at a time going through the door. Then the shepherd will stand there and bend with his hand down, and every sheep just goes under his hand.

He moves with the hand over that sheep. And by that touch, he knows and notices immediately if there's something wrong with that sheep. And he says they went to the one fold, and they stood there in the morning, and the first shepherd came along and stood in the door and called his sheep.

And all of a sudden, some sheep moved their ears, lifted their heads, and came and went through the door. And all the other sheep stood there motionless, without moving. It was very interesting, he said.

Then the next shepherd came and did the same thing, and then only his sheep reacted. The others just stood as if they were deaf. Then one of the ministers, who's a brilliant imitator, went to the other shepherd and said, Now tell me, when you call your sheep, what do you say?

He said, Repeat the words. I want to get it straight. And he repeated the words over and over again. And he said, Is this how you say it? Yes. So he said, Now you wait. He went to the gate, he stood there, he called, and all the sheep were deaf.

He called again, but the sheep didn't react. So he says, Well, you come along and call. He came, he stood there, without any fuss or noise, he just called. They moved their ears, lifted their heads, they came.

He shook his head, he said, I can't understand it. Then he said, Now tell me, what do you do now? You see, a shepherd doesn't call them out of the flock, out of the fold, and just leave them. No, the shepherd goes on before.

Now he says, Now tell me, how do you lead them? Well, I call them. What do you say? This is what I say. He says, All right, give me another chance. I'll try once again. I'll try to do a better job. So he went in front of the sheep and he called.

And they didn't follow. He called again. He said the same words. But somehow they noticed it wasn't the right voice. And they didn't move. He tried to. Do you think if he would have taken the staff, the hat, the jacket, or that shepherd, then they would have followed him?

No. And you can strip the shepherd. And he'll go before them and call. And they follow. They explain such a thing. The sheep seem to get more right than what we do, don't they? The Lord Jesus even says if the stranger comes, they won't listen to him.

They'll even run away from him. But it's strange that we children of God find it so difficult and sometimes are trapped in following even the wrong shepherd. And only after we're in the open space, miles, seemingly miles away, then suddenly we realize, we get to the realization, my, I've made a mistake.

I've listened to the wrong voice. And as I said, it's of greatest importance that we know the Lord's voice. It's not enough that only the ministry. Every individual, every Christian should know the Lord's voice.

Won't there be confusion if everybody's got to listen and know the Lord's voice? No, not at all. That's the time when there'll be perfect oneness. That's the time when there'll be perfect harmony. There'll be no friction.

We'll all listen to the one and same voice. And as soon as it's the stranger's voice, then we know, know that's not his voice. You see, that's the kind of instinct in the sheep, which has got to be in us as well.

And as our brother Lombard said, that we won't just follow anything, that we know this is the voice of the stranger, and that we won't just follow a blatant lie, but that there'll be this relationship between us and the Lord, and that's a personal relationship.

That's something that has got to be there, that must be there. That current must go through the line. If that current isn't there, the line is broken. And if you don't hear his voice, we may doubt whether he'll hear your voice, if that line is broken.

And it's this personal contact, this relationship with the Lord, which is heaven. That's heaven, that relationship with the Lord. But when that bond is broken, it's darkness. Something has gone wrong.

But if that is there, then it's light. Even if it may be pitch black around you, there'll be no darkness, because that relationship, that contact with the Lord is right. As I've touched on it, the Lord comes, the shepherd comes, takes his sheep out of the fold.

He doesn't leave them there, they'll get scattered, they'll get lost. The animals will take hold of them. They may fall into the pit. He goes before them. We cannot take a step on our own. We cannot make a decision on our own.

The Lord has got to go before us. Every step of our lives, we've got to have that consciousness, that assurance, that knowledge. He goes before, and that we don't take a step unless he has taken a step.

And the sheep, they just stand if he stands, and carry on if he carries on. Now the Bible even goes a step further and doesn't say the Lord Jesus just stands in the door. The Bible says he is the very door.

We'll have to go right through him. Now friends, how is it possible that we go through him, that we are in him, and yet still we don't know his voice? And if we have neglected that, we've neglected the greatest thing, that which is of the greatest importance in our lives.

No Christian can grow and develop in faith unless he knows the Lord's voice. Often in the Bible, over and over again, especially when the Lord wrote the letters to the churches, he said, he that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says.

Every time again, he that hath an ear, let him hear. And may I say right now, your life is worth absolutely nothing if you don't know the Lord's voice. You're just a hindrance and an obstacle in the Lord's kingdom and in his work.

The Christians could get along better without you than with you. All the Christians that don't know the Lord's voice, and then they fall for any voice and make a mistake. But real ones like the Paul of old, he says, even if an angel should come down from heaven with a message, let that angel be anathema, cursed, perfluked, if that angel doesn't say what we tell you.

That's how sure he was about it. Where are men and women like that in the world today? That's the kind of people that will shake the world. The devil will hate them naturally. The devil doesn't hate the person who isn't a danger to him.

The more God uses you, the more opposition, the more hatred, the more forces will go against you. But if your life is a tool in the devil's hand, he won't stick into your face. He'll tap you on your shoulders and say, well done, my faithful servant.

And he seems to have many of them who aid him in his satanic and evil work. Everyone, whether you're a child, a grown-up, middle-aged, or what you are, you're never too old, you're never too young, you should know the Lord's voice.

Abiding in the Shepherd’s Presence

Now, how does the sheep get it right to know the shepherd's voice? I remember once, when we were in Germany, western Germany on the border, we went to look at the wall, and right next to the border was a shepherd.

Till that time, I didn't know a real shepherd. When we got there, I immediately noticed the sheep, the flock and the shepherd, and I asked the driver to stop. I took my camera, I ran, and the shepherd was leading his flock, his sheep.

And I just ran, and I asked him, I said, will you just stop for a moment, I want to take a photo. He says, I've got no time to stop. I said, please, I come from Africa, and I want to take a picture of you.

I don't know whether he acted like that just because he had a German head or what, but he says, I've got no time for that. He just carried on, he wouldn't stop. And I had to take the photo while running ahead of him.

And then I drew close to him, and I said, Ma, what have you got in your hand? A rod with a hook. I said, what's that hook for? He says, if I want to catch my sheep, that's how I take this hook and hook them with it.

I said, just show me. He says, no, I won't do that. It's only if I need to do it, then I'll do it. I won't play around with my sheep. I had met a shepherd for the first time in my life. I said, are you with your sheep always?

As we carried along, he wouldn't stop. He says, I'm with them every day. There's no Christmas for me. There's no Easter for me. There's no holiday. There's no Pentecost. I'm with my sheep all the time.

Whether it rains, pours, or snows, I'm with them. He says, I've been doing that for the last 20 years. I just looked at him. I thought, oh my. Then I learned something. You see, they know him because they abide in his presence.

He's always with them. They're always, they're born there. He's with them. They know him. He calls, and they follow him. If we want to know the Lord's voice, we'll have to abide in him. We'll have to live with him.

We'll have to stay in his presence. And may I say something? We've got to practice to know his voice. We should know his voice better than any voice in the world. We should know the difference between the voices.

This is the shepherd. This isn't the shepherd. The bond, the relationship with the Lord Jesus should be such that we shouldn't be confused, even if the world, all the world goes against it, but that you, amongst a thousand or millions of voices, out of all those voices, you recognize the Lord's voice.

It's a pity that some people know the voices of certain stations on the radio better than the Lord Jesus' voice. You can switch on the radio. Then they say, oh, Lorenzo Marx, that's that station. They know it.

Some know, that's my mother calling me. That's her voice. A child may even know the mother's voice. A small child may even know a mother's touch. In the dark, the child doesn't see the mother, but the mother touches that hand and the child is quiet.

Why is it then that we grown-ups and we children of the Lord have such difficulty in knowing the Lord's voice? It's not to our honor, such a thing. Actually, it's a disgrace and a dishonor. We should know the Lord's voice more than anything else.

Testing Voices by Scripture and Spiritual Fruit

How do I get to know the Lord's voice? May I use some examples? You may carry on, drive, be in the car while you drive along. You feel, I shall see so-and-so today. You think, well, it's the Lord's voice.

And as you carry on, another voice says, no, not today, you can go another day. Now you've got two voices. Now, which is the Lord's voice? Which is the shepherd's voice? Now, the one voice says this, the other voice says this.

Now, I'm being pulled asunder into one direction or the other. Maybe people come along. They say, you should do this. Others say, do that. And, oh, if we've got to listen to people, we'll end in the madhouse.

But we'll have to know the Lord's voice. And the Lord may even speak through a person. But no matter in what kind of way He speaks, you'll have to know His voice. Now, this is the Lord's voice. And then you can start making it your aim and praying, Lord, I want to know Your voice.

I must know it. And how marvelous, if I know it, then He can go before, and I'll be safe from making so many wrong decisions, making mistakes, afterwards regretting it, becoming even a fool, telling people it's God's will that I should do this, the next thing, I never do it.

It's good that there are so many fools that don't notice it. But there are a few exceptions where a person says, Ja, maar wat nou? Heet moos gesed, is die wil van die ere. En hij het het nooit gedone.

Does God change His mind? No, we change with the wind. But the Lord doesn't. If He says something, it will be like that. We've made a mistake, but it's difficult to admit it. As some dear friend once said to me, he says, Do you think the Holy Spirit makes a mistake?

I laughed. I said, Why? He says, I think He does. How often doesn't the Holy Spirit say something and it doesn't work out? It doesn't happen. I said, No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I think the Holy Spirit is still the Spirit of truth.

There's something wrong somewhere else. Now, to know the Lord's voice. Now, I use that example. I'm just using it. You may drive along. Visit this man. Look him up. Then another voice. No, don't. You're in between now.

Should I? Shouldn't I? Should I? You can't live, carry on living a life like that. You'll be tossed to and fro by any wind. So, what will you do? Maybe it's good, who's got a wife, a very good, a wise wife, can go to his wife and ask her and do what she tells him.

The poor man that hasn't got a wife. But the closest bond should be between you and the Lord. The closest. And then you've got to get that straight. You pray and say, Lord, I can't carry on serving two masters.

Here are two forces. The one exactly the opposite to the other one. I can't live a life like this. I've got to know, Lord. I'm seeking your will. I want to be led by thee. Show me your voice, dear Lord.

Then you can say, Lord, I've got to know your voice. Now I pray, please make it clear to me. Lord, I don't want to sin. I don't want to tempt you. But, Lord, I'll take the first voice and I test it. Test everything.

Everything has got to be tested. You can test it in various ways. You can test it with the word of God. You can test and know it by the fruit, by the result. And then you pray and say, Lord, I felt I should go and see that person.

Now another voice comes. I don't want to sin. I don't want to tempt you. But, Lord, I've got to know your voice. Show me. Which is your voice? Now, Lord, I'll listen to this first voice. I'll turn in and go and see that person.

Maybe you turn in, you go. When you get there, you find the person on the stoop, on the brandy, or beside his car. And he'll say, how did you know that I was here? I'm just moving. I've been away, or I'll be away.

Then you'll say, thank you, Lord, so it was you who led me here. It worked out the right way. Then I say, what was that voice like? And I recall when that voice spoke, what it was like. What was the other voice like?

What did that voice do? Oh, maybe this was just a still small voice. The other voice maybe pressed me. Or maybe louder. The other voice used common sense. Oh, all right. Thank you, Lord. You carry on.

The next time something may happen, and I want to share with you an experience of a certain man. He was in a certain place, and he had a friend. He was very close with his friend. And then some people attacked his friend.

And he thought, well, maybe they've got good ground to do this. He sinned. He shouldn't have done that. But because it was his friend, he sympathized with him. And when that friend had left, he said, men, I'm going to go to my friend and comfort him.

In his wrong, he thought he'd go. He said, Lord, do you want me to go? And then he felt in his heart he shouldn't go. He should just leave it, keep quiet. But he says, no, I can't. What will my friend say?

What will he think? I'll leave him in the lurch. So the person went to that man. He went through the house. It was dark. He wanted to knock at the door. And as he went, all of a sudden, he bumped his head against the wardrobe.

And he did this so the blood was flowing. He had to go back and wash his face in the bathroom, put some plaster on his forehead. When he bumped his head, he said, thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. I knew before I went that I shouldn't.

But I took other things into consideration and listened to other voices. Thank you, Lord, that you stood in the way and you stopped me. You see, and sometimes the Lord uses that donkey, as he did when he stopped that prophet.

And God used this obstacle. And he said, thank you, Lord. But afterwards he doubted it. I went. This is what happened. Now, Lord, was that devil that stopped me, or was it you, Lord? He says, Lord, grant, I want to test this.

And he prayed. And he said, Lord, I'm going to go to that person and ask him whether he was in at eight o 'clock that evening. So he went to that person and said, brother, tell me, last night, eight o 'clock, were you in your room?

He says, no, I was out. He said, thank you, Lord. That confirms that. It warned him. Then you'll be able to distinguish the voices. And the time will come when you'll be able to sing. This is God telling me this.

And you can rest assured, if you don't do it, it will work out the wrong way. And you can pray. Look, Gideon prayed an angel appeared to him out of heaven, spoke heavenly words. But he wasn't satisfied with it.

Because the devil can even come as an angel of light. He can. Wouldn't be the first time. And the devil is at his fiercest when he uses the Bible. When the devil is really trying his best, he'll come with the Bible in his hand, as he did to the Lord Jesus.

But the devil, when he comes with the Bible, he'll always just take one side. He'll take a portion of the Bible. He doesn't take the other side. When he came to the Lord with the Bible, the devil, the Lord Jesus didn't say, No, that's the wrong doctrine, that isn't like that.

He said, Yes, but it is written as well. And very often with doctrines you'll find that people emphasize one side and not the other. And that's what the devil likes to do. He just takes the one side. We believe in this teaching.

I like to say, I believe, believe in both. People say, One saved, always saved. I just use that as an example. Then I say, Yes, I believe that, but I believe the other side as well. Otherwise, it wouldn't be necessary to have all the warnings in the Bible.

And you'll find that if a person just takes one side, well, then I'm safe, I can do what I like. It's true, God is love. I believe it with all my heart. But it's dangerous just to use that, because the devil uses it most.

And that's why even Jehovah's Witnesses come into being because God is love and God couldn't do such a thing. Reject a person and that the person should perish in hell. Can't be such a thing. That's just by the way.

When the devil comes, he may come with a verse. He may come with a vision. He may come with a dream. He can come with a revelation. He may come with prophecy. He can come with many things. But the witness of the Spirit has got to be there.

We've got to hear and hear what the Spirit says. We've got to know the Lord's voice. As soon as we don't know it, we'll start wavering. We'll start doubting. And you know a person who doubts is a double-hearted person.

He's like a wave that's tossed to and fro. Today like this, tomorrow like that. He can't walk as straight as a dive and be led by his heavenly shepherd. And then, day by day, you concentrate on that. Lord, I want to know your voice.

I want to be led by you. I must, Lord. It's of vital importance because, dear friends, you remember the words that disobedience is exactly as grave a sin as witchcraft. Disobedience and witchcraft is in the same category, the same sphere.

You get the same points for disobedience as for witchcraft. But we don't treat it like that. If a Christian went to the witch doctor, went to the witch, we say, what a terrible thing. He's fallen. He's backslidden.

And then a person is disobedient, and we don't even notice it. We don't pay any attention to that. God's Word says disobedience is the same sin as witchcraft. All over the Christian world, we know that the occult can bind a person.

Occult power, a whole lot. And Christian leaders in the world say a person will not get free from the occult unless he has confessed his sin and openly, speaking it out, not alone with the Lord, in the presence of a servant of the Lord.

You may go around the world. They'll tell you that. That they extruved and they found that a person who is bound by occult powers has got to confess and repent of it. And in the name of the triune God, go against it.

Disobedience, Saul, and the Cost of Rejecting God’s Voice

Now what does God say? Disobedience has got the same effect, sin, as witchcraft. You see the necessity of knowing the Lord's voice. Because, well, if we don't even differentiate and don't know the Lord's voice, we'll just carry on.

And the Lord speaks, and we don't even heed it. We don't even hear it. And we know how disastrous and how fatal it is. Just look at the king of Israel, Saul, because of disobedience. And the prophet, who was a true prophet, said, So what is this that I hear in my ears?

He covered his transgression. He justified himself. He made excuses. Instead of just stepping out and saying, I've sinned. But he tried to justify himself. Instead of just openly declaring, I have sinned, I plead for mercy.

And then the prophet said, Don't you know that obedience is more acceptable to God than sacrifices, than the fat of lambs and bullocks? That God is more interested in obedience than giving, than sacrificing.

Sacrifice, you may give your life, you may spend your life, pour out your blood. That is not as acceptable as obedience. And what happened to that? He lost his position. He lost his anointing, because he was disobedient.

He listened to other voices from within and from without. He naturally blamed others. It's the people that pushed me and forced me into this. But he should have stood. And even if they would have killed him for it, he should have stood.

And maybe they never killed him. Maybe he would have overcome the whole nation and saved the situation. And where did that person, who had received the Spirit of the Lord, end? He committed suicide. He was disobedient.

Somewhere back, we can take another example, Aachen, he was disobedient. And what happened? Death was the result. He was a curse to his whole family. And not only to the family. I use the example of a train.

That if the locomotive gets derailed, a lot of harm is done by it. And they do everything to get it back onto the rails as soon as possible and rectify that which has gone wrong. If you sin, much harm is done, much harm.

Only eternity will show us how much harm has been done because of our sinning. Maybe countless numbers of people will cry out and say, We've been having, but we're in hell today because of so-and-so, rightly or wrongly.

But much harm can be done because people look at you and they say, So-and-so is a Christian, without realizing it. They just know it, just like little children know what's going on with their parents and woe to that parent that sins with his child or her child.

Woe to that person because that's deeply embedded. I know of a person who doesn't want to put his foot in a church. If you speak to him about Christianity, he'll take you out of the house. In his youth, he lived with Christians and he looked through them.

And he says, Don't come to me with Christianity. I don't want to know it. Consciously or unconsciously, something happens in people's heart when they see a Christian sinning and when they see a Christian living an easygoing life, serving two masters.

Only eternity will reveal to us the damage that has been caused by our disobedience. The whole army of Israel was defeated because of one man being disobedient and no other person knowing about it. And they didn't know why are we powerless, why are we defeated.

Many were slain that day and never were raised from the dead again. They died for time and eternity because of disobedience in the heart. Can you understand now why God says and the prophet who had those eyes to see and prophesied and said, Don't you know that disobedience is the same as witchcraft.

And maybe, maybe a Christian is bewitched and he doesn't know it. He's bewitched. He's spellbound. He can't be free. He can't open up like a flower. There's no sweet scent that comes out of his life. He can't even pray.

He can't even testify. He can't even win swords. He can't even be on fire for the Lord. He's a slave. He's an Egypt, slave of sin. Maybe his bones will rot in the desert and he should be more than conquering.

His life should be such that it could shake the world. But he's been shaken, not even by the world, by his petty little circumstances. Maybe his own household, maybe his own children. Why? There's witchcraft, disobedience.

The Lord speaks and you don't heed what he says. If we heed, we'll live. If we don't heed, the Bible says we'll die. If we carefully listen to what God tells us, we'll never be under. We'll be on top.

Read Deuteronomy 28 and then you'll hear when you heed that which God commands you, all the blessings that will follow you. But if you are disobedient, all the curses that will be yours. It would be interesting if everybody would just read that at home, Deuteronomy 28.

Following the Shepherd in Obedience and Discernment

That shows us the necessity of listening and heeding what God tells us and to be obedient. It's time that we, who call ourselves sheep of the Lord, follow our Master and follow the shepherd. Get to know his voice.

Pray earnestly about him. Say, God, I don't want to sin. I don't want to grieve you. But I've got to know. I've got to get to know your voice. How can it be that I'm a Christian for many years and I don't even know my Lord's voice?

And he's the closest? He should be my best friend? I should abide in him? And yet I still find difficulty. Naturally, a person who knows the Lord's voice, he won't just go out and say, This is the Lord's voice.

This is what God says. He'll never do that. You'll know him by his spirit. He'll be careful just to say, Thus says the Lord. But the person who isn't sure of himself may say so. And somebody may be sure that that assurance doesn't come from above but from below.

But to know the Lord's voice. He leads them out of the fold. He calls them by their name. They know. Then they follow him. And when a stranger comes, they run away. And a stranger is just any other voice.

They don't need it. And they don't just say, Oh, because it's now my shepherd calling me. That's the head. That's the coat. That's the staff. They know the voice. The voice. When Ananias came and told Peter, Everything is here, there was a voice that Peter heard.

He said, No, Ananias, that isn't the case. Why did you lie against the Holy Spirit? There are different gifts. There's the gift of knowledge, a gift of wisdom. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about this knowing the Lord's voice.

And that's a must. And when he spoke about this, they didn't understand what he was talking about. But every sheep should understand. And if we don't know the Lord's voice and we don't follow his voice, we'll go from defeat to defeat.

But if we know the Lord's voice, we'll go from victory to victory. May God grant that every one of us who calls him the Lord's sheep, a sheep of the shepherd, that that relationship will be right and that we'll know his voice and have an ear to hear.

Shall we pray? Lord Jesus, thank you for your word. Thank you for reminding us once again that your sheep hear your voice. And they not only hear your voice, they follow you. And grant that we will be truly your sheep, and proving it by knowing your voice and following your voice, so that you may go before us and that we'll follow you wherever you may lead us.

Amen.