Luther:
No Christian can now reasonably complain that
he is forsaken. It may be that one is in need of money and earthly property;
another may be deprived of health; and a third may want something else, so that
it might appear that we were in the midst of wolves and without a shepherd, as
Christ also says: “Behold, I send you as sheep into the midst of wolves.” We
can see it with our own eyes, every day of our life, how the Christian Church
is in the condition of a sheep which the wolf has seized by its fleece and
which he is about to devour. It may seem sometimes as if we were without a
Shepherd. But thus it must be, else we would not seek our only comfort in our
true Shepherd’s reed, which sounds so invitingly when Christ says: “My sheep
know my voice.”
If we obey this voice and follow it, we can
then truly say that we know our Shepherd and that we are known of Him. Nor can
the devil injure him who heeds and follows the Word of the good Shepherd. No
matter what may betide our person under the providence of God, or our
possessions, or our household, we will ever hear the voice of our Shepherd, who
cheers us with these words: Ye are my dearly purchased flock who know my voice
and who I am; I will not forget you. Such recognition has its foundation in the
Word and in faith; on none other can it rest; therefore Christ declares: “I
know them even as the Father knoweth me and I the Father.”
Volume Two, page 199.
