{"id":6249,"date":"2016-08-16T03:49:28","date_gmt":"2016-08-16T08:49:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/following-the-judas-goat\/"},"modified":"2016-08-16T03:49:28","modified_gmt":"2016-08-16T08:49:28","slug":"following-the-judas-goat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/following-the-judas-goat\/","title":{"rendered":"FOLLOWING\n  THE JUDAS GOAT"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal'><b>Topics:<\/b> Compromise; Influence; Satan; Sheep; Teens; Temptation<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal'><b>References:<\/b> Psalm 119:176; Isaiah 53:6; Matthew 9:36; 1 Peter 2:25<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height: normal'>Shepherds and ranchers tell us that sheep are virtually defenseless against predators, not very resourceful, inclined to follow one another into danger, and absolutely dependent on their human masters for safety. Thus, when Isaiah wrote, \u201cWe all, like sheep, have gone astray,\u201d he was referring to our tendency to move as an unthinking herd away from the watchful care of the Shepherd.<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent: 18.0pt;line-height:normal'>A documentary on television was filmed in a packinghouse where sheep were being slaughtered for the meat market. Huddled in pens outside were hundreds of nervous animals that seemed to sense danger. A gate opened that led up a ramp and though a door to the right.<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-indent: 18.0pt;line-height:normal'>To get the sheep to walk up that ramp, the handlers used a \u201cJudas goat.\u201d The goat did his job very efficiently. He walked to the bottom of the ramp and looked back. Then he took a few more steps and stopped again. The sheep looked at each other skittishly and then began moving toward the ramp. Eventually, they followed the goat to the top, where he went through a little gate to the left, while they were forced to turn to the right and to their deaths. It was a dramatic illustration of unthinking herd behavior and the deadly consequences it often brings.<\/p>\n<p class=MsoNormal align=right style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-align:right;line-height:normal'>\u2014James Dobson, <i>Life on the Edge<\/i> (Word, 1995)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Topics: Compromise; Influence; Satan; Sheep; Teens; Temptation References: Psalm 119:176; Isaiah 53:6; Matthew 9:36; 1 Peter 2:25 Shepherds and ranchers tell us that sheep are virtually defenseless against predators, not very resourceful, inclined to follow one another into danger, and absolutely dependent on their human masters for safety. Thus, when Isaiah wrote, \u201cWe all, like &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/following-the-judas-goat\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;FOLLOWING<br \/>\n  THE JUDAS GOAT&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6249\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}