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There was a time when there were very few fences in America. Much of the land in what is now the western United States was open rangeland until the 1890s. Ranchers would allow their animals to wander about most of the year. Once per year, the various ranchers would send representatives to round up the cattle and separate the herds belonging to the ranches. Unbranded cattle would be branded. But how did they know what brand to place on the unbranded calves? The process was simple.

Theodore Roosevelt owned two ranches in Dakota Territory in the 1880s. He describes these roundups in his autobiography. He states, “Each calf was branded with the brand of the cow it was following.” It was simple. It was obvious. It could be that occasionally, for some reason, a calf followed the wrong cow and ended up branded wrongly and sent to the wrong ranch. It was rare, but I suppose it may have happened occasionally.

Thankfully, people are not branded like cattle these days. So how do we know which people belong to which owner? It is simple. We watch them. Those following Satan’s herd belong to Satan. They may deny it. They may take offense at the identification. But the habit of following Satan’s herd invites the identification. If we do not want to be identified with Satan, if we do not want to be marked with his brand and sent to his ranch, we had better stop following his cows.

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Scripture links/references are from BibleGateway.com. Unhighlighted scriptures can be looked up at their website.