Following the Leader
Let me share another lesson from the springbok migrations of the late 1800s in South Africa - their behaviour paints some interesting pictures from which we can learn a lot.
Lawrence G. Green writes this in the book we've been looking at this week: "There was an ex-trooper of the old Cape Police named Cochran who had to patrol the south bank of the Orange River in 1897, along a fence put up in the hope of keeping the rinderpest out of the Cape Colony. Cochran saw the migrating springbok charge the fence along a front of five hundred yards and bring it down. The leading springbok fell and were trampled and crushed, and the stench was so revolting that people had to be employed digging trenches and burying the buck."
The Danger of Fallen Leadership
Perhaps there is a spiritual lesson here. When leaders fall and get trampled and crushed, there is much damage and destruction. I suppose this is why the qualifications for spiritual leadership in the New Testament are so high - because your leaders need to be people you can trust. If your leaders are going to try run through God's fences instead of staying with the bounds He has set for His people, things are going to turn pretty bad.
The verse that most frightens me in the whole Bible is in Matthew 18, where Jesus says these words: "If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea." (Matthew 18:6) And perhaps a close second is from Jesus' brother, who said: "Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly." (James 3:1) If you're a leader of God's people, teaching them spiritual truths, you have to take it seriously indeed. You can't be leading people astray. It's catastrophic for them, of course, and it's catastrophic for you too.
The Stench of Bad Leadership
Green said that an awful stench arose when those springbok got crushed in the fence. Now, there was a time in Israel's history when they were so full of sin that God said this to them: "I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me." (Amos 5:21) The leaders, in that time, had essentially rammed their people into a fence and crushed them. And I do so pray that I am not such a leader! Daily I pray that through the Spirit of God I may stay faithful and lead the flock under my care - including you who get my devotions - in the right direction, and not toward destruction.
Consider your leaders - the people you trust to teach you from the Word of God. Are they sound in their theology? Or have they strayed from the truth? Are they casual, care-free, and prayerless? Or are they dedicated to truth, to Scripture, and to prayer?
Whatever you do, don't follow the one who runs you into a fence and causes you to give off an awful stench to God.
