<TITLE>06. Par 20-23</TITLE>L-20 What does that mean? When we're having an old fashion revival and lambs are born every few minutes, the shepherd's laying right among his flock, watching to see that those little fellows come into the kingdom in the right way. Hallelujah. I'm so glad that He's on duty day and night. He said, "I'll never leave thee, neither will I ever forsake thee. I'll be with you always, even to the end of the world."
David said, in the Psalms, "If I make my bed in hades, He's there."
Oh, no matter where you are... If the undertaker puts you under the ground and shovels six foot of earth on top of you, he could never hide that sheep from the Shepherd. He knows exactly where you're laying, and you're marked. Some glorious day He will call and I'll answer. Oh, how marvelous. The sheep know His voice; a stranger they'll not follow.

L-21 Why must the shepherd be on duty at all time? He must be sure that none of his sheep's lost. Aren't you glad of that? If the shepherd loses one sheep, it's a reproach on the shepherd. "He that heareth My Word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath Everlasting Life, and shall never come to the judgment; but's passed from death to life." Shepherds won't lose his sheep. Now, if you're a sheep, all right...
"All the Father has given Me will come to Me. And all that will come to Me, I will in no wise cast out. But I'll give him Everlasting Life." And though the undertaker puts him in the ground, he, my sheep, will hear My voice and I'll raise him up at the last day. Praise be to the living God. "My sheep hear My voice." Jesus said, "At that day, all that's in the grave shall hear the voice of the great Shepherd and shall come forth (Hallelujah.), come forth to Everlasting Life." Oh, to that great day of the coming of the sheep's Shepherd.

L-22 Sorrows of tears can never keep the Shepherd away. Corruption, He proved it at the grave of Lazarus. Lazarus was one of His little lambs. And he was laying in the body, bottom of a pit, a stone rolled over it; his body was molded; the nose had dropped in; the skin worms were eating him up. But the Chief Shepherd come up to the grave. And He knows His sheep by name. And if He speaks your name now and calls you, you answer. For there's going to be a time, said the prophet, that He will call and I will answer Him.
Lazarus was four days' dead. His body was corrupted. But the Shepherd spoke, and corruption knew its Master. And the soul that was four day's journey, turned back into that body. And that body that had been embalmed, no blood, the cells was broke. He was rotten in the grave. But the Shepherd of Life spoke the name of His Lamb, and His lamb let out a bleat and said, "Here I come."

L-23 Oh, He is a marvelous Shepherd. Let Him feed you. He will feed you on His Word. The Holy Spirit lives by the Word of God. That great Shepherd of the flock... Certainly. He cannot lose one. It would be a disgrace. You say, "Brother Branham, you mean that?" That's what the Bible said.
Look. God told Israel way down in Egypt, "I have given you Palestine." Now, He could've just went up there and excommunicated the whole thing, run them all out with a plague, killed them all off. He could've went up there, and sent fear among them, and drove them out of the country. But He said, "Israel, it's yours. You go get it." They had to fight for every inch of ground they stood on.
And every promise in the Book of the great Shepherd is to His sheep. But, brother, He will never come down and drive it away from you; you've got to fight for every inch of that promise, but it's yours. It belongs to you.


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