S39 || When Shepherds Devour Their Sheep || Ezekiel 34:1-22 || Session 39

Corrupt shepherds devouring their own sheep - it's a jarring image that cuts straight to the heart of spiritual leadership gone wrong. When those entrusted with caring for God's flock instead exploit them for personal gain, they face divine judgment.

Ezekiel chapter 34 delivers this powerful warning through a scathing indictment of Israel's leaders who had abandoned their sacred duty. Rather than strengthening the weak, healing the sick, or seeking the lost, these shepherds were feeding themselves at the expense of their flock. God's response? "I myself will search for my sheep and seek them out." Eleven times God declares what He will personally do to rescue His scattered people.

This ancient message resonates profoundly today as we examine modern church leadership. While many pastors serve faithfully - some barely able to support their families despite full-time ministry - others have transformed spiritual authority into lucrative empires. We share heartbreaking stories of ministers forced to leave ministry because they couldn't feed their children, alongside troubling examples of churches targeting wealthy demographics while abandoning ministries to those with limited financial means.

The episode explores how Jesus's claim to be "the Good Shepherd" directly references this Ezekiel passage, creating a powerful contrast between corrupt leadership and His own sacrificial care. When Jesus spoke these words to the religious authorities of His day, He was making a deliberate connection they couldn't miss - identifying Himself as the fulfillment of God's promise to personally shepherd His people.

Whether you're a church leader, congregation member, or spiritual seeker, this teaching offers wisdom for discerning authentic spiritual guidance from exploitation. Join us as we uncover this often-overlooked passage that challenges us to examine what true shepherding means and reminds us that when human leaders fail, the divine Shepherd remains faithful to His flock.

Chapters

• 0:00 Bad Shepherds Who Devour Sheep
• 10:16 Ezekiel's Warning to Corrupt Leaders
• 16:14 Modern Church Leadership Issues
• 23:00 God Takes Back His Flock
• 28:04 Israel Remains God's Chosen People

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:17

Shepherds are supposed to take care of a flock of sheep. That's their job, is to watch over the sheep, keep the sheep out of danger. But what happens if the shepherd is not doing his job? What happens if the shepherds are taking advantage of the sheep? This happened back in Ezekiel's day. And today, on reasoning through the Bible, we're going to see if the same thing might be happening today in our churches. Hi, and welcome. I am Glenn. I'm here with Steve. Our ministry goes verse by verse through the Word of God. And some of these dark corners in the Old Testament that are often neglected are so rich and so powerful and so applicable to our lives today. And we're going to see that as we continue to reason through the book of Ezekiel. If you have your Bible, open it to Ezekiel chapter 34. We're going to start there. Steve, can you read the first 10 verses of Ezekiel chapter 34?

SPEAKER_00: 1:13

Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and say to those shepherds, Thus says the Lord God, woe, shepherds of Israel, who have been feeding themselves, should not the shepherds feed the flock? You eat the fat and clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat sheep without feeding the flock. Those who are sickly you have not strengthened, the diseased you have not healed, the broken you have not bound up, the scattered you have not brought back, nor have you sought for the lost, but with force and with severity you have dominated them. They were scattered for lack of a shepherd, and they became food for every beast of the field and were scattered. My flock wandered through all the mountains and on every high hill. My flock was scattered all over all the surface of the earth, and there was no one to search or seek for them. Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord. As I live, declares the Lord God, surely because my flock has become a prey, my flock has even become food for all the beasts of the field for lack of a shepherd, and my shepherds did not search for my flock, but rather the shepherds fed themselves and did not feed my flock. Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will demand my sheep from them and make them cease from feeding sheep, so the shepherds will not feed themselves anymore, but I will deliver my flock from their mouth, so that they will not be food for them.

SPEAKER_01: 3:14

We're familiar with the idea of a shepherd. So, Steve, what are shepherds supposed to do with a flock of sheep?

SPEAKER_00: 3:20

They're supposed to be a guide to the sheep to direct them to green pastures to feed on and water from which to drink. They're also to be a protector of the sheep to keep them from the prey that might come in and take the sheep out. They're also to keep them together. If some of the younger ones stray off by themselves, they become more vulnerable for prey, the wolves or the bears that might come along, or even lions to devour them. So they're to keep the sheep together and keep them from scattering. So they're they're basically to be a guide and a protector of the flock of sheep.

SPEAKER_01: 4:02

Exactly. What does this passage here say the shepherds are actually doing?

SPEAKER_00: 4:08

They're not paying attention to the flock, that they're taking advantage of the flock, that they're paying more attention to themselves, they're fattening themselves and doing things for their own good, and they're just letting the sheep become prey for the animals and letting them scatter. So they're basically have advocated their job as a shepherd.

SPEAKER_01: 4:29

What's almost comical, it's it's so bad, is that the shepherds are supposed to be the guides, the protectors. And what God accuses these shepherds of is actually eating the sheep. They're fattening themselves instead of growing the sheep so that you could harvest the wool or sell the sheep. No, the shepherds are eating the sheep. The middle of verse two, they are feeding themselves. Verse three, they slaughter the fat sheep. Instead of protecting them, they're slaughtering them. Verse four, they don't take care of the sick and the injured. At the end of verse eight, quote, feed themselves and not feed my flock. Instead of protecting the sheep, they were eating them. Verse four, they did not strengthen the sick and the injured. They did not look or bring back the lost. They were supposed to keep track of the lost and go find them and keep them together. Sheep are not good at protecting themselves. Three times in this section, God talks about the sheep being scattered, and the shepherds were not looking for them. Remember, King David started out as a shepherd. He was a good shepherd. He protected the sheep from bears and lions. That's what a shepherd was supposed to do. But these particular shepherds were eating the sheep, letting them get lost, and not looking for them. And it was just a really bad set of shepherds. Steve, where do we see shepherds used as parables and illustrations in the New Testament?

SPEAKER_00: 6:08

Well, we see Jesus used them as illustrations many times. He has one where he talks about going after the lost sheep. He says, What shepherd, if he has a hundred sheep, does he leave the 99 to go off and search for the one lost sheep to bring them back? He also says that he's the good shepherd. So he uses this illustration of being a shepherd and protecting and going after the lost sheep several times throughout his ministry.

SPEAKER_01: 6:39

In John chapter 10, he uses this illustration. As you just said, Steve, he said, I am the good shepherd. And he was speaking to the Jewish leaders at the time. They would have immediately recognized what he was saying and made the connection with this particular passage in Ezekiel chapter 34. God had accused the Jewish leaders of being bad shepherds. So when Jesus came and looked at the Jewish leaders and said, I am the good shepherd, he was basically making a backhanded insult to them being evil shepherds. The connection couldn't have been more clear. Steve, I have to ask the question: how do we apply this to our church leaders today? Do we have church leaders today that are guilty of the same thing? Do we have pastors out there that are enriching themselves off of the flocks instead of going out and seeking the lost and taking care of the needy? Do we have bad shepherds in our churches today?

SPEAKER_00: 7:44

Let me say first that I think the vast majority that we have very good shepherds that take care of their flock and very dedicated shepherds that put their life together in order to feed the sheep and do it in a proper way. So I wanted to preface this, but we also have other shepherds that are nothing but feeding off of the flock. They look at the flock as just being able to supply them with money so that they can have lavish lifestyles, jets to fly all over the world, large houses and estates that they use and continually fleece the flock, asking them for money. In fact, there's even been reports that some of the modern day workings of a church is that when the visitors come in, they look at the address of the visitors. If they live in some sort of an affluent neighborhood, the pastor themselves give them a call, welcome them to their church, but they don't do that common call to someone else who doesn't have an affluent address. So again, I want to say that not all pastors are that way, but there are pastors that are that way. And those are the ones that should be avoided. If they're not properly taking care of the flock and feeding them through the proper breaking down and rightly dividing the word of God to them on a regular basis, and if they're basically just having them there to entertain them versus giving them the word of God, then those pastors should be avoided.

SPEAKER_01: 9:19

If we ask the question whether we have pastors today or not that are fleecing the flock instead of caring for the flock, I think we have to answer in the positive, yes, there are some. Now, I too have to preface this with a quick personal story. In my business career and church career, I've known two men that were in secular business. They went to seminary nights and weekends on their own money, got a seminary degree, and then left secular business to go pastor churches. After three or four years, they came back. These were two different men in two different instances. And after a while, they came back. And I asked both of them independently, why did you leave the church and come back to secular business? And they both had the same answer. I couldn't feed my family. One of them said, I was pastoring a church working 60-hour weeks. I had a wife and two kids. I looked it up. What I was getting paid by the church was so low that I was below the federal poverty line. I qualified as poor, although he was working 60 hour weeks. My friend, there are many pastors like that out there that are struggling. They're having to take side jobs just to feed their kids. The one that told me that, he said, if it was just me, I would have done it, but I wasn't going to see my kids suffer. And so there are churches out there that just can't afford to feed their uh pastors and pay them adequately. And if you're in a church like that, my friends, a worker is worthy of his wages. Our good pastors need to have a comfortable living. That said, there are pastors that have approached churches like they would a business and they've figured out a way to make large sums of money that are making many millions in their income. And I know this to be true because it's public knowledge. And as you said, Steve, some of them are really looking at the visitors and do they live in an expensive home? They look up the local property tax records and put a special emphasis on them and trying to get them to come back. That's a direct violation of the book of James. Another thing that is all too common in our churches today, it's no secret, they know that certain age groups of people are able to give more. And other age groups of people just don't have as much money and won't give as much. So some churches, some leaders will change their services in their church and change the ministries to aim at age groups that give more money. And they will dump ministries that serve populations that are just as needy, but they don't have as much money. So they run churches like a business. There are churches out there that talk about target audiences and age groups, and they're trying to get just the people that are more wealthy in there so that they can get them to give more. Some of these pastors, they buy sermons, they don't even have to wrestle with the word of God. They're running their churches like a business. My friend, if you are getting into kingdom work so that you can become wealthy, then you need to find a different line of work because that's happening all too often. I've struggled with this concept for a while why do we have these men that are just here trying to manipulate things so that they can become wealthy? This is just one man's opinion. I think I can lay it at the feet of large denominations and large megachurches simply because there's too much money and too much power at stake and the weak flesh of all of us succumb to the money and the power. I tend to tell people now if you're in a church with one of these men that really wants to climb the ladder of the denomination and really wants to grow a megachurch, then I would suggest finding a pastor that really has a heart for the sheep and will take care of the needy and will wrestle with the word of God rather than just use it as a tool to make money.

SPEAKER_00: 13:25

I would also add to this that obviously your local church needs to be supported and you should give to your local church for that support. But if you have extra funds that you want to give, I'd like to encourage you to give it to other types of ministries that are in need of funds on their own. I think many times these large churches, the more funds, the more wasteful in their spending that they get. You know, when you have a tight budget, you have to think about what you're spending it on. And whenever you have a very large budget that is very easy to reach, sometimes these churches have a tendency to be a little bit wasteful. If you want to support other ministries after supporting your local church, I would encourage that. There's plenty of small ministries that are out there that are teaching and preaching the word of God that could use those overflow of funds from the various people that are giving money to their local churches. If you have overflow, think about supporting other ministries beyond just your local church.

SPEAKER_01: 15:14

Verse eight Note it here that God speaks of the sheep as my flock. So here's the next question: Who owns the sheep? Is it the shepherd or someone else? Is the shepherd the owner of the sheep or what?

SPEAKER_00: 15:30

God is the owner of the sheep. I would want to point out here that the sheep that are being talked about in this chapter are the nation of Israel. That's the sheep that's being discussed here. In fact, that's the people group that's being discussed all throughout Ezekiel. So while we can make application from the New Testament of the sheep that God goes after and the lost sheep, and take that to be both Gentile and Jewish people coming to salvation, we shouldn't take it out of the context of what we're talking about here. My sheep that he is talking about is the nation of Israel itself. And he's very clear about that. That's his people group, that's his flock that he's discussing in this chapter and all throughout Ezekiel.

SPEAKER_01: 16:24

We said a minute ago that Jesus spoke of himself in John 10 as I am the good shepherd. He also keeps going with that theme in John 10. He says, quote, My sheep know my voice, John 10, 27. He said, They were yours, and you gave them to me in John 17, 6. So Jesus uses this theme of him being the good shepherd and the Jewish leaders being poor shepherds. So Jesus can reach back here into the Old Testament and pick up this illustration and apply it to his situation. Many a preacher has used that as the congregations in the New Testament being sheep, because the New Testament uses that. That's a very valid thing to do, is to reach back into situations into the Old Testament and apply them to the church today. Now, what we can't do, what is illicit, is to then take a New Testament doctrine and then reach back into the Old Testament and reinterpret the meaning, the original meaning to the original audience as being something different. That is illicit. As the New Testament tells us, these things happened to ancient Israel, were examples for us. So we can take the stories all throughout the Old Testament of Abraham and Isaac and Moses and David and all these stories and Ezekiel and apply them to a New Testament salvation and even New Testament doctrine. That's perfectly valid. What is illicit? I'll give you an example of what is commonly done that's poor. The New Testament uses an illustration of a temple building as applied to Christians. We are living stones, it says. Well, you what you can't do is take that figurative illustration and reach back into the Old Testament and say, well, the temple never was really there as a building. That's an illicit thing. You can't take a New Testament allegory, a New Testament illustration, and reach back and reinterpret history as if the history didn't really happen. No, the temple was a real physical building that the Apostle Paul is using as an illustration, an example, a figurative application. So here, as you well said, Steve, what's the context of the book? My goodness, what have we been talking about for 30 chapters now? What has he talked about over and over to the point of nauseum? Is judging Jerusalem and judging Israel over and over again. So the flock in context, very clearly Israel. Can we take this and make some application to New Testament salvation? Yes, of course. But its original context is the lost sheep of Israel. And it will never mean less than what it originally meant to the people that were hearing it. And when he says here, my flock of Israel, then that's exactly what he's talking about. And when we get to these future chapters, when he says, I'm going to bring you back to the land, then it will never mean less than what it meant to the original audience. Is that what you were kind of reaching for, Steve?

SPEAKER_00: 19:36

It's exactly what I was reaching for, that the people in the New Testament, as Jesus told these parables and illustrations about being the good shepherd and the leaving the 99 and going after the one, I think that they clearly would have linked it back here to these verses in Ezekiel to let them know this is the Messiah, this is the one that is going to come and has been spoken about as being the good shepherd. In fact, we're going to get into those verses here in just a second that the good shepherd is going to come. So we sometimes lose the flavor of the New Testament teaching by not knowing some of the references from the Old Testament. What I mean by that is we can take the illustrations that Jesus made of being the Good Shepherd, of being the gate, of going off and seeking the lost one, bringing it back. All of that we can make application to our salvation and what he has done and come for us for salvation very well without the Old Testament. But it's like eating a meal without seasoning, without salt or pepper. It's a meal that satisfies the body and is nutritional to the body, but the flavor isn't quite there. When you have these Old Testament sections here that we have studied through and we know and we understand, then when we come to some of these illustrations, when Jesus comes on the scene and says, I'm the good shepherd, then all of a sudden Ezekiel becomes the salt that's on that flavorful food and makes it a little bit more meaningful. Oh, this is the good shepherd that was spoken about back in Ezekiel and the lost sheep and my sheep, and where God condemned the shepherds in the Old Testament, the Hebrew scriptures, and he's condemning the leadership that we have today, it all starts to fit together like pieces of a puzzle for Jesus to make an illustration. I am God, I am the Messiah, I am this good shepherd that was spoken about back in Ezekiel. So can we make application to these illustrations in the New Testament? Yes, we can, but if we don't understand the Old Testament books, then sometimes we might lose some of the fine details and flavor that goes along with them.

SPEAKER_01: 22:14

So to wrap up that lesson in verse 10, God says he's going to remove the shepherds because they weren't feeding the sheep. He says he's going to take those sheep out of your mouth. You were eating them, and I'm going to stop that. So church leaders today are to feed their sheep. The sheep will go where they're fed. And if you just feed your sheep, then that's the flock you were given. Shepherds should not be jealous of other shepherds down the street that might have a bigger flock. We are to feed the sheep that the owner of the sheep has given us as overseers to take care of. Next, we're going to see what God is going to do. And notice as we read this, how many times God says, I will do something. I'm starting in verse 11. For thus says the Lord God, Behold, I myself will search for my sheep and seek them out. As a shepherd cares for his herd in the day when he is among his scattered sheep, so I will care for my sheep and will deliver them from all the places to which they were scattered on a cloudy and gloomy day. I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries and bring them to their own land, and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel by the streams and in all the inhabited places of the land. I will feed them in a good pasture, and their grazing ground will be on the mountain heights of Israel. There they will lie down on good grazing ground and feed in rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I will feed my flock and I will lead them to rest, declares the Lord God. I will seek the lost, bring back the scattered, bind up the broken, and strengthen the sick, but the fat and the strong I will destroy, I will feed them with judgment. As for you, my flock, thus says the Lord God, behold, I will judge between one sheep and another, between the rams and the male goats. Is it too slight a thing for you that you should feed in the good pasture, that you must tread down your feet the rest of your pastures? Or that you should drink of the clear waters that you must fowl the rest with your feet? As for my flock, they must eat what you tread down with your feet and drink what you foul with your feet. Therefore, thus says the Lord God to them, Behold, I, even I, will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep, because you push with side and with shoulder and thrust at all the weak with your horns until you have scattered them abroad. Therefore, I will deliver my flock, and they will no longer be a prey, and I will judge between one sheep and another. Eleven times I counted, he says, I will do something. So, Steve, who is taking charge here to make sure things get done correctly?

SPEAKER_00: 25:04

It's God Himself that is going to come back once again and is going to gather the sheep to himself and take care of the sheep and also be a judge over them, but he's going to do it. He's no longer saying, I'm going to leave it up to other shepherds to do it. I'm going to take it upon myself.

SPEAKER_01: 25:24

The shepherds have proven unworthy. So the owner of the sheep, the Lord God, says, I'm going to take charge to make sure that they're protected. God will take care of his sheep. Notice what God says about the sheep. Verse 11, he says, My sheep. Verse 12, my sheep. Verse 15, my flock. Verse 17, my flock. The sheep very clearly here belong to the Lord God, and He is going to take care of them. Steve, does God care about His sheep?

SPEAKER_00: 25:57

He does care about His sheep. And it's not up to us to decide whether or not they're His sheep. That is one of the popular things today amongst many denominations to say that the nation of Israel has rejected Jesus as their Messiah. So therefore, God has nothing more to do with them. It's sections of scripture like this that to me, Glenn, makes it very clear that no, they are his sheep and that he is going to gather them and he's going to take care of them. And that it's going to happen at a time in the future to us, because the descriptions that he gives here are things that are going to happen. Yes, Jesus came to the lost sheep of Israel. Yes, they rejected him, but that doesn't negate these Old Testament prophecies of what's going to happen one day in the Messianic kingdom where the true Messiah, Jesus Christ, is once again going to gather and take care of all of the block of Israel who will at that time will be a believer in Jesus Christ, their Messiah.

SPEAKER_01: 27:10

Steve, you brought up an excellent point. There are people today that claim that just because Israel has rejected their Messiah, then therefore God has cut off Israel as a nation in his program completely. Well, my friend, I just submit the book of Ezekiel. What have we seen? Two dozen chapters where God was condemning Israel over and over and over again with very strong language because of centuries of disobedience. Yet here in this chapter 34, he calls them my flock, and I'm going to protect them. The rejection of Jesus as Messiah was indeed bad, and God judged them for it and will continue to be until they accept Christ as their savior. But I submit that is no worse than the golden calf. It's no worse than all of the idols they brought in in the book of Judges. It's no worse than the idols they brought in under Solomon and all of the kings and the continued centuries full of idol worship and rejection of God over and over again. As we've pointed out as we've gone through the scriptures, we're hard pressed to find any point where they ever had true faith in God. If it's a few isolated people here and there, but as a nation, we're really hard-pressed to find that there were very many people at all that for any extended period of time. Yet here we have clearly God saying, I'm going to protect my sheep. And we're going to see when we get to chapter 36, God's going to make it abundantly clear. He says, It's not because of your obedience, it's because of my promise, because of my name. With that theme, look at verse 14. What does God say he's going to do with his sheep in verse 14?

SPEAKER_00: 29:01

He tells them, I'm going to feed them in a good pasture, and their grazing ground will be on the mountain heights of Israel. That's going back to the land itself. And they're going to lie down on good grazing ground and feed in rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. So it's very plain and clear to me, just reading the text for its purpose and its meaning here, that at some point God is going to take his people, the nation of Israel, and take them back to their land where they will live, and they will be there under abundance, and they'll be there under peace, and they'll be there grazing in a good way, and the pastures will be good back again in the land. And as I mentioned before, the time frame for that is going to be the messianic kingdom. That's going to be the period whenever this particular verse is going to be fulfilled.

SPEAKER_01: 29:58

And if you have any question at all on that, then come back next time because the last part of chapter 34 reinforces this idea even greater that God is not done with his people from national Israel. He makes it abundantly clear.