John, pt. 62 | John 10:1-10

John 10:1-10 and the Test of Spiritual Sight

If you will, at this time, take your copy of the scriptures. We will continue in John chapter 10, verses 1 through 10. John chapter 10, verses 1 through 10. And this will be our 62nd message in this glorious gospel.

Let me open us up in prayer. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Lord, we at this time are looking to you in your word, asking you through this vessel, your manservant, Lord,.

To speak, speak to your people, Lord.

Fill in the gaps where I am inadequate. Hide me behind this precious and glorious book that reveals to us your plans, your will, and our eternity. But most important, your Son. Please, in his name, the name of Jesus the Christ, we pray this.

Amen. Alright, let's look at the text. John chapter 10, verses 1 through 10. Jesus speaking. He is speaking to the Pharisees who were asking the question, are we also blind? He says, truly, truly I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber.

But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him, the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice and he calls his own by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.

A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers. This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

So Jesus again said to them, truly, truly I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and go in and out and find pasture.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. In my study of this, I came across a story. This is something that has happened in past history.

It's not really something that is practiced today in our area, but it is practiced still today, but it's not common to practice today. And it's the practice of a Judas goat. A Judas goat is sent into the foe, the sheep foe to blend in and deceive.

And the Judas goat is meant to lead the sheep to the slaughter. And as this Judas goat who has blend in to deceive is leading them to the slaughter, in some instances they'll have like a little side door that this goat is smart enough to slip into.

Or sometimes the goat itself will go into the room for slaughter, but the goat will be spared so that it can blend in and deceive other sheep foes. The whole purpose of this is to confuse the sheep in order to get the sheep to go where the hoarders of the sheep want them to go.

And as you know, it's to the slaughter. And it's called the Judas goat because of Judas Iscariot, who was the deceiver in the apostles, right? He was numbered among the apostles. He was numbered, he was called by Jesus as a disciple and he betrayed Jesus.

He blend in, he looked like all the other disciples and yet he deceives them and betrays Jesus Christ. Our theme for this Lord's Day is the test of spiritual sight. And this has been our theme for the last two Lord's Days.

And my proposition is this, it's the same one we've been looking at. Jesus the Christ has always been the only way of salvation. All who are with the Father today in heaven are there with the Father because of what Jesus Christ has done.

Old Testament saints were looking forward to a promise given to them in the scriptures by God. We, in hindsight, are looking back at that same promise. Jesus Christ has always been the way, the only way.

Jesus says of himself in John 14, six, he says, I am the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through me. So when he says he's the way, it's the way to the Father. When he says he's the truth, that means what you believe about Jesus matters.

It matters. It has eternal principles. It matters. If you believe that Jesus is not the Christ, when you die, you're going to bust hell wide open. God is going to throw both soul and body in hell. If you believe that Jesus is the Christ, that is the foundational principle upon the church.

That's how the church is built. And he is the life, meaning, if you are his when you die, yet you shall live. You shall live. The test of spiritual sight has to do with where you put your trust. What are you trusting?

Are you trusting in your own ability to keep the law or are you trusting in Jesus? Do you think so highly of yourself that you think that you, by good words, can position yourself with the Father in heaven?

Or are you trusting in something that was done for you by the Father through Jesus Christ? Who are you trusting? The gospel of John chapter one, verse 17, has been a pivotal verse throughout this whole gospel.

And in it, it said, for the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. And I ask myself, and this is not toward y 'all, but this is for Christians all around the world. Christians, why would we ever choose the law over grace?

Why would we ever? Choose the law. Do this and live or this was done for you. Like if there's a door, if there's two doors to enter into, one door says do this and live and me knowing that I'm not good at doing things, right?

Or there's another door that says something was done for you so that you could live. Guess what door I'm choosing? The one that's done for me, right? Grace. Like I've never been good at tests, right? I've failed them all.

Like I'm not good at doing things. Give me a list of rules and probably the only thing I'm good at doing is breaking the rules in and of myself. I need an alien righteousness. I need someone to please God for me in my sin.

Why would we ever choose our own efforts over the finished work of Jesus? It is beyond me. But the Bible gives us the answer. It says that there is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof, it leads to death.

It seems right when I go to work and I receive a paycheck. I done something to earn something. That seems right.

It doesn't seem right to sit on my couch and receive a paycheck. That's not right. That's not how things work. And yet it's counterintuitive when it comes to this gospel message. You can do nothing to earn your favor with God,.

But God himself has done it all. Jesus paid it all, all to him. I owe death has caused that crimson stain. He washed it, why it's not? He has done it all. And I want to enter into the door of grace. And what Jesus is doing here in John chapter 10 is given to us a word picture.

And in this word picture, Jesus explains to them as well as you and I, three mysteries.

Three mysteries.

And in our outline, I want us to look at this section in three ways. And these are the three mysteries. The mystery of his covenant, the mystery of Christ, and the mystery of his kingdom. And we've already walked through this, but we're going to walk through it again.

The Mystery of His Covenant

So point number one, the mystery of his covenant. Point number two, the mystery of Christ. And point number three, the mystery of his kingdom. And as we transition in the last two weeks, John chapter 10 has been fundamental.

It's been foundational. My goal was to lay a foundation for the framework of Baptist covenant theology. You heard me mention this before, and it was one of the answers that I gave at the conference that if I hold in this bottle of water, if I let it go, let's look at the video here.

If I hold this, I'm used to using my right hand. If I hold this bottle of water right here, it's not over the pulpit, and I remove my hand, what happens? It falls and there's a big mess. There's no foundation.

But if I lay it here, my hand's holding it, and I remove my hand, what happens? It stays because it's on a foundation. And the problem with most people who try to teach the Bible, they have no foundation.

And if they do have a foundation, it's on sinking sand. The storm comes, the wind blows, and it knocks it over. There's problem verses throughout the scriptures. And I can tell you as someone who studies the Bible and who has been commissioned to teach the Bible, I do not want problem verses.

I want a systematic system, a foundation that's gonna allow me to look at any verse and to interpret it with that one foundational way of interpreting the Bible. And I believe that is Baptist covenant theology.

That is my framework. I am unashamedly telling you the system by which I interpret the Bible, it's Baptist covenant theology. I believe it leaves no stone unturned. It gives answers to every verse in scripture.

And as y 'all know, I'm passionate about that. But can't tell, here you go, here's your sign, right? And what I really want us to see was that the covenant of grace promised in Genesis 3, verse 15, that it was fulfilled by Jesus Christ.

It was fulfilled.

That the covenant made by Jesus in his blood, the new covenant is the covenant of grace promised to us in the old covenant. I also believe because of the text and its interpretation, I wanted to point out the distinctions between the kingdom of God.

I told y 'all that there's actually two kingdoms of God that's actually spoken about. You have the earthly kingdom of God, which is made up of the physical descendants of Abraham. So this is where we have the descendants of the Jews, right, the Israelites, the physical descendants of Abraham, right?

God calls Abraham and through Abraham, he creates from Abraham an offspring. And this offspring is a nation and this nation becomes a kingdom and it is looked over, it has a king over it, David. While the heavenly kingdom of God is made up of the spiritual descendants of Abraham.

Those who have the faith of Abraham, old covenant, earthly kingdom of God, new covenant, spiritual kingdom of God. The spiritual descendants of Abraham have both the Jews and Gentiles who are one in Christ.

And I'm gonna say something that's very controversial. I wanna get a shirt made that says this, and it is this, the church is Israel. The church is Israel. We were a wild, the Gentiles were a wild olive branch that was grafted in to the olive tree, which is God's people, which is Israel, all right?

God's plan, the new covenant is for his church, those that follow Jesus. Abraham followed Jesus. He believed in Jesus and therefore he is saved through the new covenant. It was credited to him as righteousness.

It is debited to us as righteousness. He was looking forward, we are looking back. We, the church, God's people are Israel. In John chapter 10 verses one through 15 has to do with the physical Jews. It has to do with the Jews, the physical descendants of Abraham.

So as you look at John 10, his response all the way to verse 15, he is talking, when he speaks about the sheep, he's talking about the Israelites, the physical descendants of Abraham. He's not talking about Gentiles.

The Gentiles are not brought in until verse 16, excuse me. Look at verse 16. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also that, and they will listen to my voice so that there will be one flock, one shepherd, Jews who believe in Jesus.

Gentiles who believe in Jesus. Two sets of sheep brought into one fold, the people of God, true Israel. Now, with that said, let's look at the outline. That only took 17 minutes. Point number one, the mystery of his covenant.

Look at verse one, the first verse of chapter 10. Truly, truly, right here he's saying, listen to me, pay attention. I got something to say. I say to you, the Pharisees, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, which is himself, but climbs in by another way, which is through the law, through Moses, that man is a thief and a robber.

Jesus is calling the Pharisees a thief and a robber, and here it really shows the heart and the deceptiveness of the Pharisees. Please turn with me in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 23. Matthew chapter 23.

We're going to read verses one through four, verse 13 and verse 15. Matthew chapter 23, beginning in verse one. Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, the scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses's seat, so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works that they do.

For they preach, but do not practice. What do we call people like that? Hypocrites. They preach, but they do not practice. They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger.

Look at verse 13. But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces, for you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would go to enter in. You see, this right here has to be speaking about a different kingdom, because they were born in the physical kingdom, the earthly kingdom.

They were born physical descendants of Abraham, and Jesus says, for you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces, for you neither enter yourself. You see that? This is two different kingdoms that the scriptures are speaking of.

Look at verse 15. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites, for you travel across the sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him, right here, twice as much a child of hell as yourself.

The Pharisees were spiritually blind doing the work of the devil. The devil had caught them in his snare. They're thinking that they're doing the will of God while all the while they're doing the will of the devil.

They are taking God's holy law, and what do they do with it? And the same thing that we see take place in Genesis, at the Tower of Babel, these people gather together and they're trying to build a tower to reach God.

They themselves take what God has given to them, his holy law, and they've turned it into a structural framework to get to God. And not understanding that God himself condescended to them. Turn with me to prove my point even further, to 2 Corinthians.

We're going to read together chapter three, all of it. And we're going to break this down little by little. Look at verse one of chapter three. Paul speaking to the Corinthians. Are we beginning to commend ourselves again?

Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letters of recommendation written on our hearts to be known and to be read by all. Ladies and gentlemen, when you leave this building, people are reading the book that you are.

I mentioned in Sunday school earlier that I heard in my study this morning, someone say, sin begins when worship ends. You don't want to sin, continue to worship God. Continue in our life, live worshiping God.

Verse three.

And you show that you are our letter from Christ delivered by us.

Right here.

Written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God. Not on tablets of stone. What was written on tablets of stone? Say it. It's hard to say it, isn't it? It's hard to say it. The law, the 10 commandments.

But on the tablets of the human heart. Pointing us to Ezekiel chapter 36, verses 25 through 27. And in verse 27, we see that God writes his law, the 10 commandments, on our hearts. He's given us the Holy Spirit in us that causes us to keep that law.

Not to earn salvation, but because we have salvation. God's law is holy. These people misused God's law and they are being rebuked. Such is the confidence that we have through Christ towards God. And as we continue this, you're gonna see how bad it got.

Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us sufficient to be ministers, right here, of a new covenant. That means there was an old covenant.

Not of the letter, speaking of the tablets, but of the spirit, speaking of the heart. For the letter kills those tablets. Moses, this old covenant, kills. But the spirit, this new covenant, this law on our heart, gives life.

Now, if the ministry of death, what is that? Old covenant, the law, Moses. If the ministry of death, that's the old covenant, that's the law, that's Moses. Carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses' face because of its glory, right here, which was being brought to an end.

Is that covenant still for today? It was being brought to an end. It says the same thing in Hebrews 8.

It's vanishing away.

At the destruction of the temple, no more. It's no more visualized. That's the old covenant. Will not, verse 8, will not the ministry of the spirit have even more glory? Speaking of the new covenant, why do we elevate the old covenant over the new covenant?

You're entering into the wrong door. You're entering into Moses.

For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, and there was, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all because of the glory that surpasses it.

Imagine walking outside on a beautiful sunny day. And you pull out a flashlight. I always keep a little one in my pocket. You never know, right? And imagine you're outside, it's sunny, and the sun is shining, and you take a flashlight, and you shine it at the ground that the sun is on.

You can't see this little light on the ground because of the glory of the sun. Let's take it even further. Imagine if this flashlight wasn't, that it wouldn't be consumed, right, was side by side with the sun.

Even with a telescope, you would not see this light next to the glory of the sun. That's the old covenant in comparison to the new covenant. The glory far exceeds. And yet people today want to wrap themselves in Moses and not in Christ.

Shame on us.

Shame on us.

Verse 11, for what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent, the new covenant, have more glory. Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end.

Like I wonder sometimes as people read this chapter. But their minds were hardened, for to this day, when Moses is read, to this day, excuse me, when they read the old covenant, the same veil remains unlifted because only through Christ is it taken away.

Yes, to this day, whenever Moses is read, the veil lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

That's speaking of the new covenant. And we all with unveiled face, behold the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For the spirit of, excuse me, for this comes from the Lord who is the spirit.

Now look at verse chapter four, we're gonna read to verse six. This is gonna kind of wrap things up. Therefore, speaking of, since the old covenant had glory and it's ended, and the new covenant has come and it's much more glory, right, Moses cannot stand in comparison to Christ.

Therefore, having this ministry, the new covenant, by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. But we renounce disgraceful and underhanded ways, speaking of the way that they were using the law. We refuse to practice cunning or tampering with God's word.

But by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. Right here, listen. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.

Verse four, for in their case, those who are perishing, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, which we are being conformed to.

Verse five, for what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord. We ourselves are his servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, let there be light, shines out of darkness, has shown in the hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Now take that picture, Jesus being the son and Moses being this flashlight. The law was given to us through Moses. That dim light, it was glory in it, but it was dim. But grace and truth outshines it.

It comes through Jesus Christ. Amen. Now go back to the gospel of John. I wanna show you something in chapter nine. Again, we've looked at this several weeks, but chapter nine, verses 28 and 29, you can hear it straight from what the Pharisees were saying and they, the Pharisees, reviled him, the blind man who was healed, saying, you are his, speaking of Jesus, you are his disciples, you are Jesus' disciple, but we are disciples of Moses.

You see that? Verse 29, we know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from. The religious leaders were using Moses to climb in so that they could steal and rob the shepherd with the goal of making them the sheep twice as a child of hell.

I'll just say it, twice as much as a child of hell.

As they were.

The mystery of the covenant is anchored in Jesus and is seen throughout the old covenant scriptures as a promise. And the seed of the serpent, the descendants of Satan, you could say, the seed of the serpent has always tried to prevent people from entering into the covenant by believing the promise.

Genesis chapter three, verse 15 says this, God speaking to the serpent, pronouncing a curse on him, says, I will put enmity. This is intense hostility. That's what that means. I'm going to put intense hostility between you and the woman, between Eve and between the serpent.

There's gonna be intense hostility. And between your offspring, offspring of Satan, and between the offspring of a woman. And he, an offspring that comes from the woman, which we would say is Jesus, shall bruise your head.

This happens on the cross and you shall bruise his heel. Satan has offspring and they're at enmity. They're at war, intense hostility with the seed that comes from the woman. When you read the scriptures, you see all these nations coming against the Israelites.

The Israelites were commissioned to bring about the promised seed that would bring in the new covenant, Jesus Christ. Oh, if Satan can pollute the waters, right? Oh, if Satan can pollute the waters. If I had this bottle of water, it's good water.

But if I take a little bit of toilet water and put it in there, it's no longer good water. It's polluted. It's no good.

It's not gonna serve the purpose of quenching my thirst.

Because I ain't having it, right? I'm hurting, but I ain't that bad, not yet. Satan is trying to pollute the waters all throughout the Old Testament. You see this, they're trying to destroy the Jews. If he can destroy the Jews, Jesus would not be born and would not crush his head.

And as we saw in John chapter eight, the religious Jews are of the devil. Turn with me back to John chapter eight. Look at verse 39. John chapter eight.

We'll read a verse 44.

And they answered him, these are the religious leaders. Abraham is our father. Jesus said to them, notice this, if, that's a conditional statement. If Abraham were, if you were Abraham's children. Remember, they're physical descendants.

This has to be speaking of something else. Spiritual descendants. Both in, if you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works of Abraham. But now you are seeking to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God.

This is not what Abraham did. Pointing back to Genesis chapter 18, where Abraham saw God and he ran over to him and he bowed down and he worshiped. And this God that he saw is the Christophany of Jesus Christ.

Abraham saw Christ in Genesis chapter 18 and he worshiped him. Verse 41, you are doing the works your father did. They said to him, we were not born of sexual immorality. We have one father, even God.

And Jesus said to them, if, conditional statement, God were your father, you would love me. For I came from God and I am here. I am here, he said. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. God sent me, the father sent me.

Verse 43, why do you not understand what I say? And the answer is, it is because you cannot bear to hear my words. Look at verse 44, you are of your father, the devil. These religious leaders are seeds of the serpent.

They're at enmity with the true seed of the woman. You are of your father, the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him.

When he lies, he speaks out of his own character for he is a liar and the father of lies. God told Adam not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. For the day that he does, he will die.

This is what he's talking about.

You are a murderer from the beginning.

You conned yourself into the garden, deceived the woman who deceived her husband. Women, men don't always listen to the wife, right? I was just playing, thought I'd bring that in.

Yeah.

Lighten up the crowd, right? He deceived the woman. The woman deceives the man. The old covenant was only until Christ. When Christ came, he brought the new covenant, the covenant of grace, and God's people are those that are in the new covenant.

The Mystery of Christ

Point number two, this one will go quick. The mystery of Christ.

Look at verse two.

You're probably like, how is he going to get to all 10 verses? We're working on it, okay? Trying to figure it out myself. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. Verse two speaks about how the shepherd entered through the door.

And last week we saw that Jesus was both the door and the shepherd. His entrance had to do with him being the promisee that came through the covenants just as the covenant of grace passed through the covenants.

Everything spoken about him, about this concerning the seed, this Messiah was fulfilled in his first coming. He was born in about three or four BC. He was baptized in 27 AD and he was crucified in 30 AD.

This was this time period where all these prophecies had to be fulfilled. 300 prophecies concerning him. Some of these are on already and not yet stage. And they will be fully realized at the consummation of the kingdom, which will be when Jesus Christ returns at the second coming.

It's been said that the mathematical equation to fulfill even eight of these prophecies would be 10 to the 17th power. For all y 'all like me that's not really good at math, that's one and 100 quadrillion.

That's a one with 17 zeros. One and one with 17 zeros would be the chances that a person could fulfill even eight prophecies and 300 had to be fulfilled. There's an analogy out there. This is what a lot of people are saying, right?

They say that you can take the state of Texas and take silver dollars and 100 quadrillion silver dollars could fill up the state of Texas two foot. And it says, and then you take one, that one, that one and 100 quadrillion and you take that coin and you put an X on it.

And then as you're flying over the state of Texas, you toss that coin out. And then it says that you have someone to land in Texas, the whole state of Texas. They're surrounded by these coins. And the likelihood of fulfilling eight prophecies would be on his first try, blindfolded, he reaches down and picks up the one that has the X.

That's the likelihood of fulfilling eight of these prophecies. And Jesus fulfilled them all. Look with me real quick at the gospel of Luke. Chapter 24, verse 44. This has to do with the road to Emmaus.

Jesus is walking with his disciples. They did not know it was him. He reveals himself to them, but he says this in verse 44. Then he said to them, these are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you.

Right here.

That everything written about me and the law of Moses and the prophets and then the Psalms, this is speaking about the whole old covenant, must be fulfilled. Must be fulfilled. All these prophecies concerning him must be fulfilled.

Like I said, some of them are in a already and not yet stage. Just like the kingdom of God, it's here, but it isn't. Just like you, if you're in Christ, the Bible says that you are right now in heaven with him, sitting with Christ, and yet you are here with me today.

It's an already and not yet. He has fulfilled these things. Point number three. The mystery of his kingdom. We're going to look at, this is gonna be taken from verses three through 10. First, let's look at verse three.