We Are Sheep

This isn’t easy to write about. A young pastor in our church just committed suicide this past Monday. The church is reeling from this. He left behind his wife and two small children.

It’s hard to wrap our minds around things like this. Questions race through my mind. Why did he do this? Why would he deprive his two young boys of a father? Why would he deprive his wife of a husband? He was a pastor, couldn’t he get help? What’s going on here?

As I’ve thought and thought about it, a thought keeps occurring in my mind. We are in the last days. Jesus is coming soon! We have an enemy that prowls around like a roaring lion. He wants to take us out. It’s what he does. And because of these two facts: WE NEED TO BE CAREFUL! We can’t grow complacent. We can’t let our guard down. God warned us in His WORD, that the Devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking whom he can devour.

I wrote about suicide before. Another guy who I followed on social media, attempted suicide. I talked about the enemy there.

We can’t wander away from our Shepherd at any time. We are helpless sheep. That’s what God calls us – sheep. Sheep need to be led by the Shepherd. And that’s exactly what a shepherd does. He spends his whole day, outside, protecting his sheep from predators. And just like real sheep, we need protection. And the only way we’re going to have protection is if we stay close to our Shepherd. We’ll get hurt or killed if we wander off.

And because we are sheep, we can’t assume we can take on the predators all by our lonesome. Sheep can’t take on a wolf and expect to live to tell about it. So we too, can’t expect to take on the enemy all by ourselves. We are sheep. We have no defense system on our own. Wolves and lions are excellent predators. They know how to hunt and they’re physically stronger and capable of taking down sheep.

I’m not trying to be sensational here, but if a sheep wanders away, THE ENEMY WILL HUNT YOU DOWN! God would not have warned us if this wasn’t an issue.

These are the last days. Protect yourself. Stay close to the Shepherd – Jesus Christ. Stay in the Word. Constantly pray. Keep yourself in fellowship with other Believers. Don’t, for a second, let your guard down. You can’t afford to. None of us can. WE ARE HELPLESS SHEEP!

This pastor allowed the enemy to take a bite out of him. And then another and another. And when it was too late, He was already gone. Don’t let this happen to you, Believer. Just like a warrior has to get ready for battle, we need to do the same. We need to put on the armor to protect ourselves. We need the helmet of salvation. We need the breastplate of righteousness. We need the sword of the Word.

I don’t mean to sound like a pessimist, but things are only going to get worse. STAY CLOSE TO THE SHEPHERD, SHEEP! You can’t afford not to.