A Parable.

There once was a big flock of sheep grazing on a beautiful mountain side with sweet green grass. Within that flock the Shepherd had introduced a number of sheep dogs for protection of the flock from wolves and other predators who would want to eat the sheep, especially the younger or weaker ones which they would usually target.

Some sheep who were extremely fearful didn’t like the sheep dogs because they were bigger and more fierce than most of the sheep, and began to mock and demean those sheep dogs, wanting other sheep to join them in their derision against the sheep dogs. Those sheep called for the sheep dogs to be removed from the flock.

When the sheep were attacked by wolves and had even young innocent sheep carried off to be eaten, the fearful sheep blamed the sheep dogs. They said that the danger was with …teeth. So the remaining sheep dogs would need to be defanged so that the sheep would be safe. In fact, the sheep went so far to say that all of the sheep must also have their teeth removed so that all of them would be safe, and so it became the new ‘law’ of the flock.

Needless to say .. that when enough of the sheep agreed with the fearful sheep .. and there were less sheep dogs who also were defanged, and most of the sheep now also had no teeth, that the wolves attacked in force in a pack. What happened? Most of the flock was killed. Why? The wolves NEVER defanged themselves, but had earlier planted several wolves within the flock wearing sheep skins, that had begun the idea that sheep dogs were bad, and everyone needed to be de-teethed. So the fearful sheep began to agree with those wolves in sheep’s skins, and bullied any sheep that didn’t agree with them.

Did any of the sheep ask the Shepherd why the sheep dogs were needed and why He put them there? Did those fearful sheep ask the Shepherd what they could do to be better protected and aware of attacks? Did those fearful sheep go to the Shepherd for their protection in the future?

Obviously not.

Truth? 

Evil exists. Evil does not follow ANY law. You cannot defeat evil by weakening the ‘law abiding’, and passing stupid new laws that weaken the flock by listening to the wolves. If you weaken the protection of the flock you are setting it up to be killed. Wolves exist.

But do you know what’s scary? Most sheep won’t understand this parable. Why? They’ve been listening too long to wolves in sheep’s skins. They can’t tell what real sheep look like, or know what their Shepherd wants for them.

Pause and think about it. Does this parable have any modern day parallels? Hmmmm….