The Shepperd
The preacher was up late trying to get his sermon together, then he slept an extra twenty minutes longer
than usual. His wife had left early to pick up a few people that needed a ride to church this morning. He was
already going to be a few minutes late now as it was. Then the preacher walked outside and found out that
he had a flat tire.
The preacher looked over and seen his daughter’s ten speed bike, the church was only about six blocks
away- so why not. It had been a long time since he had ridden a bike- some say you never forget how. Of
course the last time he was about twenty years younger- fifty pounds lighter- and he wasn’t trying to steer
with one hand, while carring a briefcase in the other.
He wiped out the bushes at the end of the driveway, bounced off the curve and landed on the hood of his
neighbors parked car. “Maybe I should just walk”; he thought for a moment before trying it again. A few
blocks later he had his confidence back and was seriously thinking of trying to ride with no-hands, like he
use to do as a kid.
Then the preacher realized that Satan was trying to get him to do something that would most likely get
him hurt or even killed. The preacher said; “Everytime I try to do something for the Lord, here you come.
Get thee behind me Satan.”
He passed by a young teenage boy walking down the sidewalk near the church carring a basketball. The
preacher nodded his head and smiled, he didn’t have a free hand to wave. The boy never saw nothing like
this before- “Some old guy in a three piece suit, riding a girl’s bicycle and carring a briefcase? ”
When you apply the front brakes too hard, the back wheel flies up in the air and so does the person riding
it. The preacher (thinking it was the back brakes on the bike) landed flat on his back, with his papers going
in every which direction. All this happen right in front of the church building and to where the boy could
see it also. The boy picked up some of the papers the wind had blown his way and he handed them to the
preacher.
The preacher said; Thank you young man, I almost made it to the church in one piece. The boy asked;
Hey mister, how much does it cost to get in a big church like this? The preacher said; It doesn’t cost
anything, God’s church is free to all. The boy said; Well I heard you had to have alot of money to go to a
big church like this. The preacher said; That old Satan spreads alot of lies around to keep people out of
churches. Why don’t you come on in and find out what the Devil is trying to hide from you?
The boy told the preacher that he had actually wanted to go there for a long time, but nobody had ever
asked him before. “It’s harder than you think to get in” said the boy. The boy went on to tell of how- he and
a friend of his, had tried sitting on the church steps as the people were going in, but everyone just walked
around them and nobody asked them if they wanted to come in.
The preacher said; This is the way of sheep & shepperds sometimes, the ninety and nine will walk around
the one and just leave him there for the lion to devour. The shepperd doesn’t want to leave the ninety and
nine to go looking for the one that was lost. Some shepperds are just hirelings and do not want a big bunch
of sheep to tend for all the time, just enough to draw in a good pay.
The boy said; I think when the owner of the sheep comes, he will hold all the shepperds accountable for
the lost sheep. The preacher said; Lets go inside and try to feed the ninety and nine, then how about you and
me go looking for that freind you spoke of earlier. You never know when the owner might show up.
