“Brethren, you have to feed Christ’s sheep. Our Lord says, ‘Feed! Feed! Feed!’ He begins with, ‘Feed My lambs.’ My little lambkins, or young Believers — these need plenty of instruction. ‘Feed My sheep’ comes next.
Feed the middle-aged, the strong, the vigorous — these do not require only feeding — they also need to be directed in their Christian course and to be guided to some field of earnest service for Christ — therefore shepherd them.
Then in the last, ‘Feed My sheep,’ you have the gray-headed Believers in Christ. Do not try to govern these, but feed them! They may have far more prudence and they certainly have more experience than you have and, therefore, do not rule them, but remind them of the deep things of God and deal out to them an abundance of consoling Truths.
There is that good old man. He is a father in Christ. He knew the Lord 50 years before you were born—he has some peculiarities and in them you must let him take his own course—but still feed him. His taste will appreciate solid meat.
He knows a field of tender grass when he gets into it. Feed him, then, for his infirmities require it. Feed all classes, my Brothers—that is your main work—mind that you not only get good food for the sheep, but feed them with it!
A farmer one day, after he had listened to a simple sermon which was the very opposite of what he generally heard, exclaimed, ‘O Lord, we bless you that the food was put into a low crib today, so that Your sheep could reach it!’ Some Brothers put the food up so high that the poor sheep cannot possibly feed upon it.
I have thought, as I have listened to our eloquent friends, that they imagined that our Lord had said, ‘Feed my giraffes.’ None but giraffes could reach the food when placed in so lofty a rack! Christ says, ‘Feed My sheep’—place the food among them. Put it close to them.”
–Charles Spurgeon, “Feed My Sheep” Sermon #3211, p. 6. As cited on http://www.spurgeongems.org/vols55-57/chs3211.pdf (accessed April 16, 2012).
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