Christ Is Not A Goat-Herder

Reminds me of Charles Haddon Spurgeon words...

http://www.lincolnstandard.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=2255&SectionID=26&SubSectionID=26&S=1

 

If you've ever tried to get a bunch of goats to all stand on the left side of you, you'd realize in a flash that indeed, the goats have to be herded. Sheep are easy. Them goats just run all over, eating your shoelaces and nibbling on your staff.

 

true.
and there is a goatherd, Satan.

the sheep, however, do need to be herded.
that animal is so stupid he wouldn't know he's about to step on dung if it were a foot away, and a sense of direction so crossed he doesn't know east from west and has to rely on his master's voice, or the tingling bells of the lead sheep.

 

now, my question is: why are the un-elect referred to as goats ? and why are the elect referred to as sheep ?

 

um...because they are part of the "world"?

Do I have a problem with God's sovereignty? No. Do I have a problem with YOUR definition of God's sovereignty? What do you think?

The above bolded is true, but it is also true that He love the WORLD, which the sheep and goats are both part of.

Sheep are referred to as the jews too, btw, as are the "elect".

 

What about the dogs?


Jesus: "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."

Canaanite woman: "Lord, help me!"

Jesus: "It is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs."

Canaaanite woman: "Yes, Lord; but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from their masters' table."

Jesus: "O woman, your faith is great; it shall be done for you as you wish."

 

Dogs are gentiles.

 

This is simply YOUR interpretation of Mt 25:1-13 combined with Mt 25:31-46, rip.

Where does Mt 25:31-46 say "I never knew you?"

Um, Mt 25:31-46 SPECIFICALLY talks about merit -- "You fed Me. You gave Me drink." You are SO transparent, rip!


The simple answer is that "sheep" are BELIEVERS, period. Don't try to read foreknowledge into the parable and remove all doubt of your shameless Calvinism.

skypair

 

Sheep

Jesus looked into the multitude and called them sheep, not His sheep, but sheep without a shepherd.

When they slaughtered sheep they would let a goat lead a sheep up a ramp that lead to a pit where they were slaughtered the sheep. The goat would jump off right at the end and the sheep would continue into the pit.

See a goat is a false teacher leading poor sheep into a pit to die.

Those people are out there without a shepherd being lead by false teachers, and you are so deceived to believe that they are goats.

All I can do is pray for you that you will see the truth in His word.

A false teacher knows what he is and knows what he is doing but continues to do it.

Jesus has rejected His own not because they were not His, but because they received Him not. Jesus tells us that if we disown Him before man, He will disown us in front of the Father.

If they follow the goats they are goats if the receive Jesus they are His sheep.

Jesus did not come to condemned the world but to save it and made us the messenger of it, until judgment time comes the separation of the goats and sheep they are all sheep and all have hope.

2 Corinthians 5:
16So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21God made him who had no sin to be sin[Or be a sin offering] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

 

Yes, a goat can become a sheep. Look at the life of Paul, slaughtering Christians right and left. Then he, too, became a disciple of Christ. I will never subscribe to the belief that there are people, whom God has created, fearfully and wonderfully, that are destined to Hell from the moment of birth, no matter who witnesses to them, or how many times they've read the Word of God. This point of view about sheep and goats is elitist, and prideful.

love,

Sopranette

 

Unfortunately, this is not a Scriptural position and does not acknowledge that salvation belongs to the Lord - not to Man - we lost any right and ability when Adam sinned against God.

 

Oh, yes it is. It's very basic scripture. "For God so loved the WORLD, that He gave his only begotten Son, so that whoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Notice He doesn't select a certain group, but includes the whole world.

love,

Sopranette

 

Yet, out of the whole world, only a portion, "whosoever believes", will be saved.

The questions you have to answer scripturally is "Who will believe?" and "Where does belief originate?"

 

Right, and it is the sheep who believe. We don't become sheep by believing; it is the other way round. Jesus said in John 10.26:

"But you do not believe, because you are not of My sheep, as I said to you."

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He did not say, "You are not of my sheep, because you do not believe."

 

That is not quite correct. He did not call them sheep; they (the multitude following Him) were like sheep. Mark 6.33-34:

33 But the multitudes saw them departing, and many knew Him and ran there on foot from all the cities. They arrived before them and came together to Him. 34 And Jesus, when He came out, saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion for them, because they were like sheep not having a shepherd. So He began to teach them many things.

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Perhaps you could give us some biblical authority for that idea. Apart from references to actual, four-legged goats, the only place where I can see goats mentioned in the New Testament is in Matthew 25.31-33:

"31 When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. 32 "All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. 33 "And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left."

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The context there is not false teachers, but "false doers", as can be seen from the subsequent verses of that chapter. The bible sometimes calls false teachers "shepherds", as for example in Jeremiah 50.6:

"My people have been lost sheep. Their shepherds have led them astray; They have turned them away on the mountains. They have gone from mountain to hill; They have forgotten their resting place."​

And in one place, Zahariah 10.3, the false teachers are referred to both as shepherds and as goatherds:

"My anger is kindled against the shepherds, And I will punish the goatherds. For the LORD of hosts will visit His flock, The house of Judah, And will make them as His royal horse in the battle."



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But I have been unable to find a single instance in Old Testament or New of false teachers being called "goats". Perhaps you can help, and tell me where this is found.

I am afraid you have lost me there. In one paragraph you say that those who follow goats (who, in your view are false teachers) are themselves goats. But in the very next paragraph, you say that until judgment time comes, "they are all sheep and all have hope." How can some be goats and at the same time all be sheep?