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Today is 1st Timothy chapter 2. Paul wrote this pastoral epistle to young Timothy, instructing him on how to, basically what he'd have to do to pastor the church in Ephesus.
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And here in 1st Timothy 2, there's a great deal of emphasis of public prayer in the church.
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And Paul encourages Timothy to lead the church in praying for all kinds of people of all strata and society all over because God is saving people from everywhere.
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All kinds of people, rich, poor, wise, unwise, great sinners, lesser sinners, perhaps, if we can use that term.
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And then he also gives some instruction on the proper order for the church.
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And so, Jason, if you'll read and pray please. First of all then,
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I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.
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This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
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For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and man, the man
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Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.
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For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle. I am telling the truth, I am not lying.
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A teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling.
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Likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self -control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness with good works.
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Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man.
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Rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.
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Yet she will be saved through childbearing if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self -control.
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Let's pray. Our gracious Father, we are so grateful that we can approach the throne of grace because of Jesus Christ and His meditatorial work.
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We're thankful, Lord, that we are in union with Christ, that we are one with Him. And Lord, it is such a grateful thought to know that we are joint heirs with Christ, not because of anything that we have done, but because of what
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You've done. And Lord, we thank You for the reminder to pray. Lord, oftentimes we get stuck in a rut where we pray for our own needs and for our own wants, and yet we forget that we are called to pray for all persons.
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And we pray, Lord, that we would do that as a church, that we would lift up our elected officials and other people in positions of authority, that we would pray that You would meet them with grace and truth.
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We pray that You would grant them the repentance that leads to saving faith, and that there would be a widespread revival throughout this town, throughout this state, throughout this nation, throughout the world.
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Lord, we desperately desire to see more men and women come to Christ so that more men and women will praise
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Your great name. And Lord, we pray that as we open up the Word today and as we hear about the
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Good Shepherd, that You would help us to remain focused, that we would truly understand who
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Jesus Christ is and what He has done and what He continues to do and what
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He will one day do. So Lord, be with us now as we open up Your Word and as we continue to worship
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You. Thank You, Lord, in Jesus' name, Amen. Alright, let's turn to the 10th chapter of the 4th
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Gospel. John. We enter a new chapter today,
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John chapter 10. And as such, we begin to consider a new theme in this discourse of Jesus.
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And so it's in this passage that we will consider the claim of Jesus, I am the
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Good Shepherd. Now this is a theme that continues throughout the chapter. It's stated forthrightly, of course, but we're not going to address that today.
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But rather, we'll occupy our attention, focus our hearts, Lord willing, on the first 10 verses,
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John chapter 10, verses 1 through 10. And so we'll read this, and I'm reading from the
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New King James Version. Most assuredly, this is Jesus speaking, of course, most assuredly
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I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs up some other way, the same as a thief and a robber.
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But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.
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And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.
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Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.
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Jesus used this illustration, but they did not understand the things which he spoke to them.
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Then Jesus said to them again, most assuredly I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.
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All who ever came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.
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I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.
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The thief does not come except to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly.
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In John 9 we gave attention, of course, to the man who was born blind to whom
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Jesus gave sight. And it served as an occasion for Jesus to demonstrate that he was the light of the world, which he declared back in John 8 verse 12.
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And John 9 through that miracle was a demonstration of him being the light of the world.
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And how God illuminates mankind to know the truth about God and to know him.
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Well, here in John chapter 10, the metaphor is no longer Jesus as the light, but rather Jesus as the shepherd of the sheep, as well as the door, which we'll be addressing today.
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Or perhaps better, the gate to the sheepfold to whom the sheep gain entrance into a safe haven from which they are able to depart and return from their lush pastures each day.
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And so the Lord, of course, is drawing from something that was common in that day, in that region.
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Now, it may seem that this is a very sharp and distinct break between John chapter 9 and John chapter 10.
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But actually the teaching of our Lord in this chapter flows out of the events of John chapter 9.
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There really is a connection. Chapter divisions sometimes are not all that placed best.
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It sometimes breaks up the continuity of the narrative. And this narrative of chapter 10 actually flows from chapter 9.
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The man to whom Jesus gave sight had been maltreated, of course, and cruelly excluded by the established shepherds of Israel.
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He had been excommunicated from the synagogue. But Jesus is shown to be the true shepherd in contrast to those false shepherds.
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This true shepherd by whom his sheep may experience peace and life, even abundant life, as he leads them and they follow him.
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D .A. Carson, and I'm going through a lot of commentaries, but I'm increasingly finding this is probably the best one that I have available to me.
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Donald Carson made this point. The thematic break between chapter 9 and 10 is not as radical as first appears.
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The healed man has been roughly treated by the religious authorities and thrown out of the synagogue.
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What John next writes then is that many thieves and robbers destroy the sheep while the good shepherd leads his own from the sheep pen and into his own flock.
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So there you have the continuity between the two chapters. Then Herman Ritterboss, a
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Reformed commentator of the 20th century, he wrote a theological commentary on the
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Gospel of John, which is quite good where he deals with the major themes of the
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Gospel. He wrote of the connection between chapters 9 and 10, even though again at first appearance it seems to chapter 10 to be a sharp break in a new setting.
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And so Ritterboss wrote, the retrospective they in verse 6, and that's the pronoun referring to they didn't understand what he said in verses 1 -5.
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The retrospective they in verse 6 and the sharply polemical thrust of the parable are in any case the material continuation of the general trend of the preceding chapters, of Jesus' criticism of the
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Jews, spiritual leadership, and of their inability and unwillingness to understand him.
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With the solemn opening of verse 1, that would be of chapter 10, this is now subsumed under the new and grand theme, the
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Good Shepherd. This theme comes up directly after chapter 9 in a sharply antithetical form, should not surprise us.
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Great contrast between chapter 9 and 10. For where else in the Gospel is the antithesis between good and bad shepherds clearer than in the conflict around the formerly blind man who was abused and cast out by the
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Jews but searched out by Jesus as a lost sheep of the house of Israel? Where else is hearing the voice of the good shepherd demonstrated more clearly than in the healed man's clinging to Jesus and his persistent refusal to pay attention to the voice of the
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Jewish leaders? What at first seems an all too abrupt transition, this proves to be a highly meaningful application of the theme familiar also in the other
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Gospels of Jesus' pastoral care for the sheep who have no shepherd.
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And so there is a continuity here as this Gospel unfolds before us.
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And I think we can see a direct connection between chapter 9 and 10 literarily when we consider verses 19 through 21 of chapter 10 in which the evangelist describes the reaction of the people to the teaching of Jesus.
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Therefore there was a division again among the Jews because of these sayings, and many of them said, he has a demon and is mad.
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Why do you listen to him? And others said, these are not the words of one who has a demon.
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Can a demon open the eyes of the blind? And so way down in verse 21 of chapter 10 he calls the readers,
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John is calling the readers back to the miracle of chapter 9. And so there again you see a flow, a continuity.
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And so chapter 10 is not just kind of thrown on, but rather it's a continuation.
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Now as we work through the first 10 verses, we may consider a three point division.
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We have the figure of speech of Jesus as the shepherd of the sheep, verses one through five.
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And then again, verse six, we have the failure to understand his meaning by the Jewish leaders.
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It doesn't specifically say Jewish leaders. I'm assuming that's who the pronoun they refers to.
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And then thirdly, the figure of speech of Jesus as the door, or perhaps better the gate of the sheepfold.
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And that's in verses seven through 10. So let's begin to work through this. The figure of speech of Jesus as the shepherd of his sheep, verses one through five.
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We first read in verse one of our Lord declaring that there were those who pose a danger to his sheep, even when they should be dwelling safely within the confines of the sheepfold.
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Most assuredly I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.
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Now, this is a very important statement of our Lord as indicated by his initial words, most assuredly
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I say to you. And we've seen that before, haven't we? In fact, we've seen it 14 times before.
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Thus far in the gospel. And it's translated as most assuredly in the
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New King James. But again, this is the Greek words that are translated most assuredly are the words amen, amen, or amine, amine.
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And it's translated in the King James, verily, verily. And I believe in the ESV, truly, truly.
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The very repetition of the word brings emphasis. Jesus is giving emphasis to what he is about to declare.
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And I kind of think that the New King James translation most assuredly somewhat diminishes the stress that the
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Lord Jesus is pressing upon his hearers. And so this is only used in the gospel of John, this doubling of the word amine, amine, verily, verily, 25 times in John's gospel.
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And this is the 15th occurrence, I think, I believe. And then, of course, alongside or along with the words verily, verily, truly, truly, amine, amine, you have also the statement
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I say unto you. And so these words at the beginning of verse 1 indicate a transition from the dialogue of chapter 9 between Jesus and the man and the man of Jewish leaders to a straight monologue of the
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Lord in John chapter 10. He's not interacting with people a lot in these first verses of chapter 10.
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He did in chapter 9. He goes from a dialogue back and forth to a strict monologue here at the opening of John chapter 10.
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And so the Lord's about ready to make a significant declaration to which all who are standing before him should understand and take to heart.
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This is important. So Jesus said, Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.
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The sheepfold would be a pen, of course, into which the shepherd would guide his sheep every evening when they would come in from the field, stay the night.
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And the sheepfold served to protect the sheep, of course, from natural enemies as well, like wolves, lions, and bears, but also to protect in a measure from thieves.
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But the sheep were not entirely safe in the haven because thieves and robbers were a threat. They would rustle the sheep away from what was supposed to be their place of refuge.
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And again, throughout this monologue, the Lord is suggesting that the corrupt
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Jewish leaders were doing just that with the Lord's flock. Now, although it's not stated directly, it would be a mistake not to view our
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Lord's reference to a thief and a robber to be a depiction of the Jewish leadership. They were very corrupt and cared nothing for the sheep.
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And they showed that in their dealing with this man whom Jesus restored or gave imparted sight to in John chapter 9.
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They were only concerned about themselves and their power, their prestige, their possessions.
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And so their treatment of the man bore that out. But whereas, in contrast to how these corrupt leaders abused this man and others, here was one, even
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Jesus, who would serve him as a good shepherd serves his sheep. Now, one can look to the
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Old Testament. In fact, if you have your Bible with you, you might turn with me at this time to Ezekiel 34 because we want to read that chapter.
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It's rather long. One can read this passage with Ezekiel 34 as a backdrop.
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The message of Ezekiel 34 was delivered in the days of God's judgment upon Judah in the 6th century
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BC when God was going to bring the Babylonian Empire down and destroy
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Judah and Jerusalem. And it was largely because the people were corrupt because they had corrupt leaders.
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They had false shepherds. And in Ezekiel 34, God speaks through his prophet
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Ezekiel and God declares himself to be the true shepherd of Israel. And within this prophecy of Ezekiel 34,
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God promises that he is going to remove the false shepherds and establish a good shepherd who would be the son of David.
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And so one could really look at what the Lord was teaching here in John chapter 10 as a realization of what was prophesied 600 years before in the prophecy of Ezekiel.
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And so here's Ezekiel 34. I know it's a little longer, but let's have some patience as we consider this word.
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The word of the Lord came to me, saying, Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel.
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And the shepherds of Israel then would not just be priests but the political leaders of Israel.
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Prophesy and say to them, Thus says the Lord God to the shepherds, Woe to the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves.
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Should not the shepherds feed the flocks? You eat the fat and clothe yourselves with the wool. You slaughter the fatlings, but you do not feed the flock.
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The weak you have not strengthened, nor have you healed those who were sick, nor bound up the broken, nor brought back what was driven away, nor sought what was lost.
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But with force and cruelty you have ruled them. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and they became food for all the beasts of the field when they were scattered.
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My sheep wandered. Here if you notice God is really describing Himself as a shepherd here.
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My sheep have wandered through all the mountains on every high hill. Yes, My flock was scattered over the whole face of the earth, and no one was seeking or searching for them.
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Therefore, you shepherds, hear the voice of the Lord. As I live, says the Lord God, surely because My flock became a prey, and My flock became food for every beast of the field, because there was no shepherd, nor did
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My shepherd search for My flock, but the shepherds fed themselves and did not feed My flock.
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Therefore, O shepherds, hear the word of the Lord. And then we'll give attention and emphasis to verse 10.
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Thus says the Lord God, Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require
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My flock at their hand. I will cause them to cease feeding the sheep, and the shepherds shall feed themselves no more.
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For I will deliver My flock from their mouths, that they may no longer be food for them.
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And the Lord Jesus, of course, denounced the Jewish leaders of His day, indicating that God was taking away their leadership from His people, and He entrusted it to His twelve disciples, because they were followers of Him.
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He entrusted the care of His people to them. Verse 11, For thus says the Lord God, Indeed, I Myself will search for My sheep and seek them out.
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As a shepherd seeks out his flock on the day he is among his scattered sheep, so I will seek out
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My sheep and deliver them from all the places where they were scattered on a cloudy and dark day.
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There you have God as a shepherd going after His stray sheep. And I will bring them out from the peoples, gather them from the countries.
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It speaks about the return of exile from the Babylonian exile, but also a calling out of people from all over the world to faith in Jesus Christ, coming back to the
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Zion, the heavenly Zion, following the shepherd, leading them to their homeland, bring them to their own land.
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I will feed them on the mountains of Israel and the valleys and all the inhabited places of the country. I will feed them in good pasture, and their foals shall be on the high mountains of Israel, and there they shall lie down in a good foal, feed in rich pasture on the mountains of Israel.
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I will feed My flock and I will make them lie down, says the Lord God. I will seek what was lost and bring back what was driven away, bind up the broken and strengthen what was sick, but I will destroy the fat and the strong and feed them in judgment.
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And as for you, O My flock, thus says the Lord God, behold, I shall judge between sheep and sheep, between rams and goats.
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Is it too little for you to have eaten up the good pasture, that you must tread down with your feet the residue of your pasture, and to have drunk of the clear waters, that you must foul the residue with your feet?"
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I think it was Calvin that said they muddied the good wine of the
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Lord with their foul ways, something like that. And as for My flock, they eat what you have trampled with your feet, they drink what you have fouled with your feet.
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And therefore, says the Lord God to them, behold, I Myself will judge between the fat and the lean sheep, because you have pushed with side and shoulder, butted all the weak ones with your horns, scattered them abroad.
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Now, here it is. Again, we want to give emphasis to this because here is the prophecy pointing to the coming of the
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Lord Jesus. Therefore, I will save My flock, and they shall no longer be a prey, and I will judge between sheep and sheep, and I will establish one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them,
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My servant David. He shall feed them and be their shepherd, and I the
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Lord will be their God, and My servant David. And we don't have time, but we would make an argument.
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He's talking about the son of David. He promised David these things, and it's to the son of David, even
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Jesus Christ, where this is realized, and My servant David, a prince among them, I the
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Lord have spoken. And then it speaks about the new covenant in verse 25.
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I will make a covenant of peace with them, and cause wild beasts to cease from the land. They will dwell safely in the wilderness, sleep in the woods.
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I'll make them and the places all around them My hill of blessing, and I will cause showers to come down in their season.
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There shall be showers of blessing, and then the trees of the fields shall yield their fruit. The earth shall yield her increase.
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They shall be safe in their land. They shall know that I am the Lord when I've broken the bands of their yoke, delivered them from the hand of those who enslaved them, and they shall no longer be a prey for the nations, nor shall beasts of the land devour them, but they shall dwell safely, and no one shall make them afraid.
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I will raise up for them a garden of renown, this is paradise, and they shall no longer be consumed with hunger in their land, nor bear the shame of the
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Gentiles anymore. Thus they shall know that I the Lord their God am with them, and they the house of Israel are
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My people, says the Lord God. You are My flock, and the flock of My pasture. You are men, and I am your
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God, says the Lord God. And we would regard that as a prophecy of the coming of the
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Lord Jesus, as the Good Shepherd. And in John chapter 10, it would seem the way
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John is portraying Him, the Lord Jesus, that He is the realization of these promises.
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And we make no apology of seeing spiritual truths and spiritual applications in Ezekiel 34.
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When we read the Old Testament, we are to understand it, interpret it, Christologically. We are to see
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Christ on every page. And here in Ezekiel 34, we see the Good Shepherd prophesied, foretold by God Himself.
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And so, here in John 10, our Lord Jesus was declaring the intending overthrow of the
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Jewish leaders of Israel. God Himself would assume His role as the true Shepherd of His people, who would raise up another
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Shepherd on His behalf, the Son of David. And one could argue, again, that by Jesus' claim in John 10,
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He was the Good Shepherd. That He was making the claim that He is the God of Israel. He's the
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Good Shepherd, just as God is the Shepherd in Ezekiel 34. It's really a declaration of Jesus' deity, as well as the promised
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Shepherd who would come to deliver His people. Jesus, the Good Shepherd.
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Now, Jesus had declared in verse 1, again, Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same as a thief and a robber.
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And then in verse 2, He said, But he who enters by the door is the Shepherd of the sheep.
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Here, the meaning of the door is not significant. And that's important to recognize.
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It becomes significant later on in verse 7, but here in the first five verses, the door is not significant.
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We should resist, by the way, the desired effort to find a spiritual reason or meaning for every detail in a parable.
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And in order for us to understand this, we might answer the question first, what is a parable?
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Because a great deal of error is perpetrated by reading meaning into details where there really is no license, no biblical warrant to do so.
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And so what is a parable? Of course, a parable is a short story that's taken from everyday life in order to illustrate a spiritual or moral truth.
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So how should parables be interpreted? And we would advocate, of course, with great care and caution.
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Probably 30 years ago, I thought, Well, I'm going to preach a series on the parables of our Lord. And I got a whole bunch of books together, you know, from Standard Works and whatnot and started studying through it.
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And I was appalled at what I read. It seemed like few of them agreed with one another.
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And there was so much reading into these parables, things that just weren't there.
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We should understand the great danger to interpret parables as if they were allegories. What is an allegory?
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An allegory is an artificial story that's invented by the teacher who's able to assign meaning to many of the details of the story, details having a hidden spiritual meaning.
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Parables are not allegories by definition, although some of Jesus's parables do have some allegorical characteristics here and there, like the parable of the sower.
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But in those instances, Jesus always defines what those elements within the parable mean.
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Thankfully so. Can you imagine the various interpretations of the seed sown among stony soil if Jesus didn't interpret that detail to his disciples later on when he was alone with them?
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You don't attempt to interpret details of a story unless those details themselves are defined and interpreted within the passage.
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And so we would say that you are not to find the meaning of a term within a parable unless there's a rather obvious meaning implied, and I think we have that here in John 10 with the thief and the robber to the
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Jewish leaders. And so, a word of caution, where Jesus himself does not interpret a detail of a parable, avoid doing so yourself and be skeptical about anybody who does.
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Please. Because parables are stories taken from everyday life, naturally there will be details within them to fill out the illustration, but many times the details have nothing to do with the overall lesson of the parable.
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And so again, there are often details within a parable simply fill out the account, which were never intended to be interpreted as having direct spiritual application.
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And this is the case in verses 1 to 5 with the doorkeeper. He's the doorkeeper to the pen and the shepherd goes in by the door, by the doorkeeper.
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It would be a mistake to try and find a spiritual application for the doorkeeper.
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It simply reflects what was commonplace in that day. Flocks of sheep were often kept in a collective pen at night.
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The various shepherds, each with a flock, would come to this community pen in the evening and they would put their flocks in there and there would be a doorkeeper right at the gate opening and closing the gate, allowing the shepherd and his sheep to go in.
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And then the doorkeeper would probably guard the pen overnight. And then in the morning, each shepherd would come.
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The doorkeeper would open the door, the gate, and the shepherd would then call out his sheep by name and his own sheep would come out when they heard his voice.
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And he called each sheep by its own name and this is how they would separate the flock.
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They were all bunched in the same pen at night, but they would separate themselves as each shepherd kind of stood outside and called them onto himself.
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And in fact, I came across this little note here. It's in your notes, this footnote. H .V.
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Morton gives an account of this sort of thing. By the way, I put SIC, sick, in brackets there.
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I hope you know what that means. When you're quoting someone, you don't have a license to change their wording, but sometimes you find something that is grammatically incorrect.
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And it certainly is here. That pronoun or that article, indefinite article
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A, should be A -N, right? Because it's before the vowel
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A in account. So it should be H .V. Morton gives an account. So I put sick in there just to indicate it's not right.
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H .V. Morton gives an account of this sort of thing. Early one morning I saw an extraordinary sight not far from Bethlehem.
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Two shepherds had evidently spent the night with their flock in a cave. And the sheep were all mixed together and the time had come for the shepherds to go in different directions.
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One of the shepherds stood some distance from the sheep and began to call. First one, then another, then four or five animals ran toward him, and so on, until he had counted his whole flock.
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And then George Adam Smith, this is a classic book by the way, the Historical Geography of the Holy Land, tells of three or four shepherds separating their flock solely by their peculiar calls.
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And of course this is clearly the backdrop of what our Lord Jesus was saying here in this passage.
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We then read in verse 4, And when he brings out his sheep, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.
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The shepherd does not just turn them loose, but he leads them and they follow him. Biblical leadership is one of leading by example, even as oversight is provided, which includes protection and preservation.
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So for example, when Moses was looking for a man to replace him, he knew he was about to die. The people of Israel were about to enter the
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Promised Land. He prayed to God that God would direct Moses to the man of his choosing.
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Then Moses spoke to the Lord, saying, Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a man over the congregation, who may go out before them and go in before them.
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That's the language of a shepherd. Who may lead them out and bring them in, that the congregation of the
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Lord may not be like sheep which have no shepherd. And that's the leadership model of scripture.
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You lead, you don't drive, you lead sheep by example primarily, pointing them to the word as well.
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God gave to Moses Joshua to succeed him, and then of course Joshua faithfully led Israel for 28 years.
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And God has given us the Lord Jesus, who will of course faithfully lead us through eternity.
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Well, we then read in John 10, verse 5, of the faithful following of the sheep to their shepherd.
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Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.
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And what is reflected here is the conviction and commitment of the Lord's people to cleave to Jesus Christ as their shepherd, and to Him only.
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You can't drive a true Christian away from Christ. Not going to happen. When the
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Lord Jesus calls one of His sheep to come to faith in Him, and repentance from sin, in order to receive salvation, nothing will deter them.
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He will see to it. They hear His voice, and they come running. They may hear other voices, perhaps close friends, even family calling them back, but nothing will deter
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Him when He hears the voice of His shepherd to come on to Him. And when
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I was considering this, I couldn't help but think of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and how he depicted
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Graceless. That was the name of Christian before he began his pilgrimage.
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Graceless lived in the city of destruction, but he kept reading this book that told him he was damned, and he needed salvation.
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He became known, of course, as Christian within the story. And so Christian began to flee the city of destruction.
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And we read of the voices that would call him back, but he refused to hear them.
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Here's a little portion from that. So I saw in my dream that the man began to run, and now he had not run far from his own door, but his wife and children, perceiving it, began to cry after him to return.
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But the man put his fingers in his ears and ran on crying, Life! Life! Eternal Life!
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Reference to Luke 14 .26. And so he looked not behind him. A reference, no doubt, to Lot, Lot's wife, perhaps.
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But fled towards the middle of the plain, and the neighbors also came out to see him run.
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And as he ran, some mocked, others threatened, some cried after him to return. Among those that did so, there were two that resolved to fetch him back by force.
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The name of one was obstinate, the name of the other pliable. Now by this time the man was got a good distance from them, but however they were resolved to pursue him, which they did, and in a little time overtook him, they said to the man,
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Neighbors, then said the man, Neighbors, wherefore are you come? To persuade you to go back with us.
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I won't read the rest. Of course he refused. In fact, he tried to persuade them to travel with him.
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The fact is that nothing would deter Christian from seeking the salvation of his soul.
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And the Lord Jesus made it very clear that a true disciple, a true Christian, nothing will deter him or her from coming to Christ.
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In fact, the Lord Jesus said that in order to be his disciple, you can't love anything, anyone else more than he, more than him, but rather you must love him supremely, above family, above friends, even above your own life.
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And of course that is true of every true Christian because of the grace of God.
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He puts that within us, a concern and a desire. I must pursue
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Christ and follow him because I hear his voice and nothing will deter me if the
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Lord enables me to pursue. And so nothing would deter a Christian from seeking the salvation of his soul.
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And when the Lord in his sovereign grace purposes to call one of his sheep to himself in order to save him from his sin, it's though the sheep hears the voice of the good shepherd calling him.
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And so we would ask of you today, do you hear the shepherd calling you by name?
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Maybe you're not a Christian, you haven't been. But do you hear him calling you personally, individually?
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Have you come to know and believe that the Lord is true? And do you see the Lord Jesus as the only one whom
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God the Father has given to be a good shepherd of your soul? And do you hear him calling you?
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Then do not hesitate, do not procrastinate, but get up and follow him.
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Purpose to do so and let nothing deter you. Get in his word and read of him, learn of him, talk of him, ask others of him that you know that know him.
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Of course we're not saying that you may literally hear his voice, but it's just as real and true as if you did hear him literally, isn't it?
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It's real to the soul. When God puts forth his grace to save someone, nothing's going to prevent it.
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The Bible speaks about God's sovereign grace and his power, and his grace is more powerful than any sin that can prevent you or keep you from coming to him.
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When the Lord Jesus seeks out his sheep, he finds them, and he brings each and every one to himself, thankfully.
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Now, in verse 6, we read of the failure to understand his meaning by the Jewish leaders.
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Jesus used this illustration, but they did not understand the things which he spoke to them.
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Now, this is a third person plural, personal pronoun, they.
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It's not definite. We're assuming it is the Jewish leaders, and I think that's the case.
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Yes, there were times when the disciples did not understand him also, but it seems within the context he's referring to the
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Jewish leaders that were listening to him. They were clueless. By the way, our
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New King James Version reads that Jesus used this illustration in verse 6. I forget how the
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ESV uses, does it use the word illustration also? The ESV in verse 6?
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I forget. I think maybe it does. Interestingly, John never uses the
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Greek word translated as parable within the fourth gospel. The Greek word for parable is only used in the synoptic gospels,
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Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And it would seem by John using this word illustration, translated illustration here, he's showing that you're not supposed to apply a spiritual hidden meaning to every detail, that he's just declaring a lesson, a spiritual lesson, an illustration to illustrate certain truths.
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But these Jewish leaders did not understand him. Now we come to verses 7 -10, and here we have another figure of speech, different than the first.
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Verses 7 -10, the figure of speech of Jesus as the door of the sheepfold.
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Let's read these verses again. Then Jesus said to them again, Most assuredly I say to you,
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I am the door of the sheep. All who ever came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.
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I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.
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The thief does not come except to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
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Now in verses 1 -5, the illustration showed Jesus as the shepherd of the sheep.
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Verse 2. But this is a different illustration in verses 7 -10.
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Although, in the second illustration, many of the same details in the first illustration are repeated.
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For example, in both illustrations you have a sheepfold. It's stated forthrightly in the first, it's only assumed in the second.
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In both the first and second illustration, there is mention of the door of the sheepfold. In the first, however, the door is rather incidental, in that the true shepherd enters that door.
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But in the second illustration, the door is Jesus himself. It's a different illustration.
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There is mention of a thief in both illustrations. However, the first illustration, the thief is also linked with the idea of being a robber.
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And then, of course, in both illustrations you have sheep. And so there are similarities.
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There are differences. And the reason we emphasize that is that it's pretty common among commentators to argue that verses 7 -10 is an explanation of verses 1 -5.
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But it really isn't. It's a different illustration entirely. Although it uses similar or same terms.
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And so in the first illustration, Jesus as the shepherd of the sheep led them in and out of the sheepfold.
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In the second illustration, Jesus is himself the door or gate through which entrance into the sheepfold is gained.
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This entrance into the state of salvation is a blessed and abundant life dwelling with God's people.
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And Jesus is the only way that one can enter into this sheepfold.
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Now let's work through the details of this second illustration. Verse 7. Then Jesus said to them again,
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Most assuredly I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. In verse 1 -5, again,
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Jesus is the shepherd of the sheep. Brings the sheep through the gate. Here in verse 7, he is the gate. In verses 1 -5,
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Jesus is shown to be the pastor, the shepherd of the sheep. Here he is shown to be the door or the gate of entrance for the sheep into the sheepfold.
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Our Lord begins this second illustration in verse 7 in the same way he began the first illustration in verse 1.
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He made the word, declared the word, Most assuredly. Same words as we saw in verse 1.
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Verily, verily, in the King James. Amin, amin, in the Greek. Truly, truly, in the
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ESV. I say to you, clearly it's a different and distinct illustration from the first.
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And the way he introduced it in verse 7 sets it apart from the first. There are similarities, but there are distinctions.
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And so this is the 16th of 25 occurrences in John's Gospel that we read of this duplicating of word.
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Verily, verily. And so verses 7 -10 is not an explanation of verses 1 -5.
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It's another illustration that expands and enhances our understanding of Christ as the only way of salvation.
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In verse 8, Jesus claims to be the only legitimate bringer of salvation available to the people of the world.
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Jesus said, All who ever came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.
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Now, we live in a world today, of course, in which the claim to be true, in which that claim excludes all others to be false, that claim, of course, is regarded to be a manifestation of bigotry and intolerance.
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But this is what Jesus was declaring here, very clearly. He made the claim that only
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He of all who had ever come before Him in history, claiming to be a leader of spiritual or religious people, only
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He is legitimate as the way to come into a relationship with God to have salvation.
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He is the door or gate to the sheepfold and there is no other. The true people of God only come through Him and no other.
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That declaration itself is going to get a negative reaction in today's world, but it's a truism.
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This, of course, is not a repudiation of all the leaders of the Old Testament, such as Abraham, Moses, and the prophets, for they all testified of Christ.
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He is the only way. It is a repudiation of all religionists, all religious teachers, other than those that point to Jesus Christ.
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We believe that the Christian faith is exclusively true and the only way of salvation.
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As one wrote, the ensuing verses suggest, all whoever came before me excludes from the indictment such leaders as Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and others who heard
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God's voice in former times, and who served Him faithfully in terms of the covenant. In other words, it doesn't exclude them.
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Nevertheless, the expression surely hints at more than despotic leaders who care more for their own gain than for the sheep in their care, thieves and robbers.
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It sounds rather to be a reference to messianic pretenders, and there are a whole lot of those who promise the people freedom, but who lead them into war, suffering, and slavery.
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The freedom Jesus wins for His people will be achieved not by sword and shield, but by a cross. And if large crowds are taken up by pretenders, the real sheep do not listen to them.
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I like Calvin's comments, he was even clearer on the matter.
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In short, Christ testifies that all the doctrines by which the world has been led away from Him are so many deadly plagues, because apart from Him there is nothing but destruction and horrible confusion.
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And meanwhile, we see of what importance antiquity is with God, and in what estimation it ought to be held by us when it enters, as it were, into a contest with Christ.
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That no man may be moved by this consideration that there have been teachers in all ages who gave themselves no concern whatever about directing men to Christ.
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Christ expressly states that it is of no consequence how many there have been of this description or how early they began to appear, for it ought to be considered that there is but one door, and that they who leave it and make openings or breaches in the walls are thieves.
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And you might say, well, that sure is direct. He's only reflecting the same directness that Jesus Himself declared when
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He said He was the door. In short, Jesus Christ makes the claim that only through Him may a true saving relationship with God may be experienced.
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And then, of course, later in John 14, He'll state the matter clearly when
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He declares, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through Me.
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He really made the same declaration here. I'm the door. I'm the only way to come into God's people, the sheepfold.
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We then read our Lord's claim in verse 9. I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.
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Here, Jesus is shown to be the only means by which a person may begin to experience and enjoy the blessing of God.
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He alone. As sheep are protected within the safety of the enclosure, then are daily and safely given access to the lushness of their pastures, so the
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Lord Jesus gives entrance to life from God and life before God in peace and security.
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Jesus said, if anyone enters by Me, he'll be saved. And so the whole idea of salvation is at the heart of His words here.
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What is salvation, basically? I think that needs to be defined today.
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Salvation is, includes, but is much more than only the forgiveness of sins.
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Biblical salvation is the work of God through His Son Jesus Christ to save His people from their sin that has alienated them from the life that is in God alone and has damned them, that sin that has damned them by Him.
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And so the result of salvation is that a sinner formerly alienated, condemned before God, is brought into an eternal, saving covenant relationship with God.
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And the covenant language used throughout the Bible to describe this relationship is when God declares,
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I will be their God and they should be My people. Salvation is, includes forgiveness of sins, but it's much, much more.
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And if people are presenting the gospel only this is how you can have your sins forgiven, they're not preaching the full orb of salvation that's in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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We listed a whole number of effects of sin from which we need to be saved.
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There's nine of them. We're not going to go through them. We send these notes out, of course.
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They went out in many places, Africa, India, South Africa, Nigeria, well, many places,
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Europe. And I include some of those things because I know that they're going into certain hands that would probably profit from that.
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But I knew that we wouldn't have time nevertheless. And so let's drop down to verse 10a now at the conclusion of those nine aspects of salvation that Jesus Christ brings to us.
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In verse 10a, Jesus declared, the thief does not come except to steal, to kill and destroy.
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He doesn't just say that all others failed to give life. He says that they are actually bringers of death.
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Those who promote false religion or a false teacher are thieves. Matthew Henry wrote of these thieves.
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Observe the mischievous design of the thief. Verse 10, the thief cometh not with good intent, but to steal, to kill and destroy.
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First, those whom they steal, whose hearts and affections they steal from Christ and his pastures, they kill and destroy spiritually.
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For the heresies they privately bring in are damnable, deceivers of souls or murderers of souls.
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Those that steal away the scripture by keeping it in an unknown tongue, he's referring to Catholicism and Latin masses there, by the way, that steal away the sacraments by maiming them and altering the property of them, that steal away
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Christ's ordinances to put their own inventions in the place, room of them, they kill and destroy.
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Ignorance and idolatry are destructive things. And secondly, those whom they cannot steal, whom they can neither lead, drive, or carry away from the flock of Christ, they aim by persecutions and massacres to kill and destroy corporally.
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In other words, bodily. And he that will not suffer himself to be robbed is in danger of being slain.
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But in contrast to the thief, we read in verse 10b, I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
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In contrast to the thief, the false religionist, who desires misery, deprivation, and destruction of the people, that's what he brings about, whom he falsely claims to be their benefactor, the
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Lord Jesus has designs and desires only for the good of his people. The thief's designs, wrote
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Ryle, the thief's designs on the sheep are wholly malicious. The good shepherd's plans for them are entirely benevolent.
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In other words, good and kind. He desires and promotes their well -being. He's not content that they should eke out a bare and miserable existence.
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He wants them to live life to the full, and to have plenty of good pasturage, and enjoy good health.
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And the good shepherd shows himself to be a good shepherd, because the welfare of the sheep, not his own, is his primary care.
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And so, our salvation is not just a cancellation of our guilt because of our sin, it's the impartation of life in its fullness by God through Jesus Christ.
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This means a life of blessedness now, and of course manifold blessedness in the life to come.
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Some argue that life more abundantly is probably speaking about eternity. I don't know. It may be.
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I don't know. But the fact is, Jesus is the one who gives life meaning, and purpose, and value.
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And as one wrote, by these words, Jesus offers paradise to those once condemned to death, not merely to those in the first century, but also to the contemporary reader of the gospel.
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And he makes that declaration to us today, doesn't he? And those of us who have heard him call us, and we came running in faith, even perhaps with initial resistance and defiance, he moved in us to come running to him.
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We know what that means, and to experience life, and even life more abundantly here, and certainly in the hereafter.
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And so if you know him, go forth from this place rejoicing in the consolation that's in Christ. And if you came here this morning not knowing him,
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I pray you go forth committing yourself to seek him. Believe on him. If you don't hear him calling you, ask him.
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Call on me, Lord. Save my soul. Reveal yourself to me.
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Deliver me from my sin. Let me experience, receive this life, and life more abundantly.
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Amen? Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word and the glorious, glorious Savior that you've given us in Jesus Christ.
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Indeed, he is our Good Shepherd. And we thank you, our God, for the security that we have in him, having been brought safely into your sheepfold.
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And we have that Good Shepherd watching over our well -being, and he leads us out and brings us back into the fold each and every day, watching over us and preserving us even unto his heavenly kingdom.
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We pray, our God, that you would help us as Christians to exhibit this glorious life in our attitudes, in our words, in our actions, as we interact with people that are strangers to these things each and every day of our lives.
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And we pray, our God, again, that you would manifest yourself savingly in a wonderful way in these days.
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May the Lord Jesus summon, call many of his sheep to come into his fold, for we pray in Jesus' name.