There is a doctrine that is very near and dear to our hearts as American Christians, a doctrine which is known as the priesthood of all believers. But it is a doctrine which exists in the Bible alongside another doctrine which is much less congenial to the American spirit, and which for that reason if often eclipsed in the American church.
The AUTHORITY (and with that the RESPONSIBILITY and the ACCOUNTABILITY) of the church's ordained elders.
Why did God's people turn away from the Lord the way they did, after all that they had done for them, all that he had shown, all the miracles that he had performed on their behalf? The almost universal answer that the Bible gives to that question is, as he says in verse 8, it is the fault of the priests and rulers, and the prophets of God's word.
'I will require My flock at their hand' (Ezek 34:8).
This did not excuse the people of God. For as he goes on to say in Jeremiah 5, '... my people love to have it so. But what will you do in the end?” (Jer 5:31). Nevertheless, these ordained shepherds of God are the ones responsible for their spiritual collapse.
Baxter: “I'm afraid, yea I have not doubt, that the day is near when unfaithful ministers will wish they had never known the charge of souls. But that they had rather been colliers, or sweeps, or tinkers than pastors of Christ's flock. When besides all the rest of their sins, they shall have the blood of countless souls to answer for.”
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