Scattering the Sheep

576 - Today's Prime Time Devo comes from: 2Sa 17:2,,3, “I will come upon him while he is weary and weak, and make him afraid. And all the people who are with him will flee, and I will strike only the king. 3 "Then I will bring back all the people to you. When all return except the man whom you seek, all the people will be at peace." (2 Sam 17:2,3) I want to spend one more day on this passage simply because it is so......devilish. And I hope that you will have an added urgency to pray for pastors. There was a “Far Side” cartoon several years ago that had two deer engaged in a conversation. One of the deer had an outline of a shooting target on his chest, and the other deer says, “Bummer of a birthmark Hal.” Well, pastors have similar marks and are prime targets for the evil one. Ahithophel, (a type of instrument of the devil) says, “I will strike only the king.” And in Zech 13:7, we read, "Strike the Shepherd, And the sheep will be scattered;” Get the leader to fall and the flock is put in great danger. Moral failure of course is always a danger to the credibility of the pastor's message, but perhaps a more dangerous threat is the pastor who speaks from the pulpit with compromised lips. Jer 23:17 says, “They (False prophets) continually say to those who despise Me, 'The LORD has said, "You shall have peace"'; And to everyone who walks according to the dictates of his own heart, they say, 'No evil shall come upon you.'" Such prophets have been stricken by that liar the devil and the spirit of this world, and their compromising message scatters the flock and leads them to down the path of destruction. Speaking of these compromisers in Jer 23:1, we read, “ "Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture!" says the LORD. Ahithophel asserts that with the king gone, the people will be at peace with Absalom, (a type of Satan) it is the same with compromised pulpits. There is a warning about the acceptance of compromising teachers in 2Ti 4:3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; Lord, give us true shepherds who preach Your truth without compromise!