Perseverance of the Saints

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I invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to John chapter 10, and hold your place at verse 27.
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I want to begin today with a question, but this question is meant to be somewhat rhetorical, so I would invite you not to yell out an answer.
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But I do want you to answer in your mind and in your heart, because this is the question of today's sermon, and this is a question that is a divisive question.
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It divides churches.
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It divides believers.
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I've even seen this question divide families.
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And the question is this, can salvation be forfeited? Can salvation be lost? That's the question.
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A few months ago, we did a conference here at the church.
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The title of the conference was called The Perseverance of the Saints.
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Brother Andy, Brother Mike, and I made our case, our collective cases, for the doctrine of perseverance.
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And the doctrine of perseverance is simple, that a person who has genuinely been saved will never be lost.
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That is the doctrine in its simplest of terms.
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I mean, we could make it longer, but couldn't make it any shorter.
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Those who have genuinely been saved will not be lost.
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And I want to say this because I know immediately there are a thousand objections that come into our mind when you hear someone say that.
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When you hear me say salvation cannot be forfeited, cannot be lost, you immediately start thinking about Bible verses, or you immediately start thinking about maybe people in your life that you've seen come to faith and then abandon the faith.
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You immediately start thinking of all of these objections.
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And I am an apologist by nature.
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An apologist does not mean one who goes around saying, I'm sorry.
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But an apologist is a person who is given to defending things.
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My preaching is usually very apologetic.
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It's defensive in nature, not defensive in a bad way.
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But when I'm preaching, I usually deal with all the objections.
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You're used to this, right? So here's the objection to this.
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Here's the objection to this.
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But today, I'm going to go in a different direction because we spent an entire day just three months ago going over the objections to this.
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I mean, didn't we, brother? We talked about all of the objections to perseverance.
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So today, instead of dealing with the objections, I want to simply proclaim the doctrine.
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But I encourage you, if you have questions, if you have objections, please come and talk to me or Andy or Mike.
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Maybe you've come from a church where you were taught different.
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Maybe you have some passages, as I said, that are in your mind that you can't reconcile.
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The goal of this entire series has been to help clarify these doctrines.
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So if you have questions, I want you to know that none of us, and let me tell you something, it's so exciting when people call me with a Bible question.
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Not always exciting when you call me for other things.
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Sometimes it's really something hard, but when you call me to want to talk about scripture, I'll be, I mean, brother Mike and I talk on the phone for hours and it's usually about the Bible.
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You know, brother Andy and I talk about the Bible because it's a lovely thing to talk about.
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If you have a Bible question, we want to talk to you.
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Understand that.
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It's what we're here for.
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And I'm excited to preach this text today because I've taught on the doctrine of perseverance many times.
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I've preached through the doctrine of perseverance in our academy.
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I've preached in our conference.
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I've preached on it many times, but I've never preached this text.
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I noticed that.
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I went back through all my notes.
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I've never preached John 10 on the subject of perseverance, which is interesting because this is one of the most pivotal passages on the subject and I've never addressed it.
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So I was like, wow, how did I miss this? I didn't miss it, but I just didn't cover it.
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In fact, if you have a MacArthur study Bible, I want to read what's in the notes.
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It says this, no stronger passage in the old Testament or the new Testament exists for the absolute eternal security of the believer.
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Talking about John 10, 27, 28.
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No other passage exists that is stronger for the absolute eternal security of the believer.
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And because this passage does make such a strong assertion, many people try to twist it.
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Many people try to turn it on its head or try to find a way that it's not simply saying what it's obviously saying.
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They'll try to find some loophole.
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They'll try to have some way that somebody can be lost after they've been genuinely saved.
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But such an approach, in my opinion, does a disservice to Christ and to this text.
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Because in this text, what Jesus does so clearly is he guarantees the final eternal life of all of his sheep, which are his elect people.
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So let's stand together.
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We're going to read John 10.
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We're only going to read verses 27 and 28.
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This is in the larger context of Jesus' interaction with the Jews.
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But we don't have time to go through everything, so we're going to focus verse 27 and 28.
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My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
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I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.
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Father in heaven, I thank you again for your word.
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May you bless the reading of it and the preaching of it in Jesus' name.
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Now for those of you who have not been with us, we began five weeks ago today on looking at the doctrines of grace, and the doctrines of grace create the acronym TULIP.
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The acronym TULIP stands for, do it with me, Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace, and the Perseverance of the Saints.
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So today is the final petal on the TULIP.
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It's the P, the final letter in that acronym, and you say, well, where did that acronym come from? What does it mean? If you want to know that information, go back and listen to the previous sermons.
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I don't want to spend all of our time on that today, but understand that this is part of what makes us a Reformed church.
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Not all of it, but this is what helps us to understand.
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We are in line with the Reformed tradition.
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We are what is called Calvinistic, Calvinistic.
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We are Calvinist by confession.
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We are Calvinist by our beliefs, and you say, well, who is Calvin? Again, I've taught so much on that in the past, I don't have time today.
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But understand that these doctrines are not true because John Calvin taught them.
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They're not true because Aurelius Augustine taught them.
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They're not true because they have been held by the church for 2,000 years.
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They are true because they were proclaimed by the Lord Jesus Christ and the apostles.
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And in fact, what I'm going to show you later is all five points can be found in John chapter 10.
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That's going to be closer to the end of the sermon, but all five points of Calvinism, total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and perseverance of the saints can all be found in John chapter 10.
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We could have just done this, we could have just done an exposition of John 10 and got through all of them.
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I stated from the outset that the entire tulip rests on the T, which is total depravity.
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Remember that if you were here for the first week? I said if you believe in total depravity, which says this, that no one comes to God on their own.
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No one comes to faith without the work of the Holy Spirit.
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Jesus says no one can come to me unless the Holy Spirit draws, unless the Father who sent me draws him in and I will raise him up on the last day.
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Jesus said no one comes to me unless it is granted to him by my Father.
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Remember these things.
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No one can come.
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Why? Because we have a problem and the problem is we are dead in sin.
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We have no desire to go to God.
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We have a desire to live our lives as we see fit.
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We have a desire to be the king of our own lives, to be the sovereign of our own souls.
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And when God enters the picture of our life, we do not want that because we do not want anyone sitting on the throne of our heart except ourselves.
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And it is God who comes and changes the heart.
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It's God who comes and breaks the heart of the sinner and takes out the heart of stone, gives him a heart of flesh.
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It is God who does the work.
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If man is totally depraved and is sinful, and he is, then man is unable to please God apart from a work of grace.
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God must elect unconditionally because none would meet the conditions.
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Christ must die specifically, not just potentially to secure their salvation.
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And the Spirit must give willing hearts so that men will come.
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I put a few things on the screen.
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Manoah, if you don't mind, I have three screens today to go with the service, and this is the first one.
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I want you to read this.
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If God has chosen the elect before the foundation of the world, and Christ has died to secure their salvation from sin, and the Spirit has given them a willing heart to believe, by the way, salvation is a Trinitarian work, then the final perseverance and ultimate salvation of that person is an absolute certainty because salvation is a work of the Trinity, not of a person.
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You see, when you begin to start thinking of all the ways you can lose your salvation, you have to be thinking in the categories that you somehow earned your salvation.
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You have to be thinking in the categories of, I procured it, therefore I can forfeit it.
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But when God is the one who does it, then everything changes.
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God would not begin the work of choosing, atoning, and converting only then to go and be frustrated in the loss of that person.
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When I first began to look into Calvinism, I was 24 years old, I think, around that time, and I was being sort of attacked from every side because it was certainly unpopular.
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This is not the popular theology of many churches, and I remember I was fighting it myself.
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I told you guys this in the first sermon.
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I was fighting it myself.
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I didn't want to believe these things.
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I didn't want to believe in predestination, election, all those limited atonement.
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I didn't want to think.
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So I found a book that was supposed to be like the silver bullet.
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It was going to destroy Calvinism.
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It was called Grace, Faith, and Free Will by Robert Piccirilli.
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Grace, Faith, and Free Will was supposed to destroy Calvinism.
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So I got it because I wanted to hear the argument.
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What is he saying? What's this going to destroy this system? Because again, I didn't want to believe it.
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And as I read his book, it became very clear from the very first chapter and on through the end of the book that his basic premise was this.
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Salvation can be lost, therefore Calvinism is untrue.
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That was his whole argument.
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Salvation can be forfeited, therefore Calvinism is untrue.
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And I will give Dr.
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Piccirilli this.
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If he was right, that's logical if the premise was correct.
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But is the premise correct that you can lose your salvation? Because I will tell you this.
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If you believe you can lose your salvation, then the rest of the TULIP cannot be true.
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So as much as the TULIP depends upon the T, it does not exist without the P.
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Because the same God who saves you is the God who's sanctifying you.
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The God who converted you is the God who's carrying you.
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And so that has to be understood that there is a relationship between conversion and sanctification.
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That the same God does both and he's carrying you through to the end.
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This is why it's called the perseverance of the saints, but some people prefer preservation of the saints.
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Because while we are persevering in the faith, it is God who is carrying us.
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It is God who is persevering through us.
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The Bible said it is God within us that we would will and do his good pleasure.
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So with all that as a precursor, I want us to read back in our text.
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We're going to look at verses 27 and 28, but I want us to see the context.
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We didn't read this in our opening, but I do want us to read through the context.
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Because actually the context begins, we could go back to chapter 9 and talk about the blind man and how that created this serious issue with Jesus and the Jews and this thing.
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But we're going to start at verse 22.
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Because this gives us the setting of this conversation.
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It says in verse 22, at that time the feast of dedication took place at Jerusalem.
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By the way, the feast of dedication, also known as the feast of the Maccabees, is also today called Hanukkah.
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It is the celebration of the Maccabees retaking the temple when it had been overcome and overrun by the Syrians.
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And the Maccabees went in, took it back, and supposedly a miracle took place.
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The Bible doesn't say this, so this is extra biblical, but it says that they only had oil for one day, but that the oil lasted for eight days until they were able to make more oil and have more oil for the lamp.
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And so the idea, this is why they have eight days of Hanukkah, right, is they light the lamp for eight days, and it's a celebration of what supposedly had happened, that miracle.
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And we see Jesus is in Jerusalem at the time of the celebration of the feast of dedication.
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And it says it was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the colonnade of Solomon.
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Now, the colonnade of Solomon would have been an area that was covered, and again, mentioning that it was winter probably sets the scene.
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Jesus is in an area where there is some cover from the elements, there's some protection from the winter cold.
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And verse 24 says, so the Jews gathered around him and said, how long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.
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I love the answer Jesus gives.
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Verse 25, Jesus answered, I told you.
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Now, if you go back through the Gospel of John to find a place where Jesus said, I am the Christ to them, it's hard, but Jesus is about to say something.
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Listen to what he says.
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He says, I told you, and you do not believe.
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The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me.
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You see, what Jesus was doing proclaimed who he was.
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I told you through what I do.
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You see, a man was born blind.
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I healed this blind man.
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I have healed lepers.
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I have healed invalids.
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I have healed people who could not walk.
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I have healed people who could not hear, could not talk, could not see.
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You see these works.
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I have told you through what I am doing, but you do not believe.
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By the way, just stop right there.
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Think about this people who is around Jesus and how he he's looking them in the face.
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He says, but you do not believe if Jesus were here today and he were talking to you directly.
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Would he say the same to you, but you do not believe you've heard the word, but you do not believe you've seen the truth, but you do not believe.
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That's what he said to them, but then he says this.
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You do not believe because you're not part of my flock.
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You do not believe because you're not among my sheep.
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I'm going to deal with this a little more later, but I want to say it now.
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Notice the order of language.
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Jesus didn't say you're not my sheep because you don't believe.
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He said, you don't believe because you're not my sheep.
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Understand the difference.
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Listen to it again.
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He didn't say you don't you're not my sheep because you don't live.
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He said, you you don't believe because you're not my sheep.
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That's huge.
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And then he says in verse 27, my sheep hear my voice.
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I know them.
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They follow me.
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I give them eternal life.
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They will never perish.
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No one will snatch them out of my hand.
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We see over and over.
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They them, they them.
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It's the it's the sheep.
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My father who's given them to me is greater than all.
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No one is able to snatch them out of my father's hand.
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I am the father are one.
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Important distinction in this whole passage is the distinction between the sheep and the not sheep.
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The sheep and the not sheep, if you look back over chapter 10, you go back up to chapter 10, verse one, truly, truly, I say to you, who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs in another way.
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The man is a thief and the robber.
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But he who enters by the door, the sheep is the shepherd.
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Right.
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So Jesus has been using this metaphor for this entire chapter.
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Jesus has been using this metaphor for this entire section.
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And the metaphor is this.
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There's a shepherd.
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There are sheep.
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And then there's are those who are not sheep.
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And you might think that's easy, but it's as easy as it may be.
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Understand, we mustn't miss that.
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Because consider what Jesus says throughout chapter 10 about the sheep.
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Number one, he says the sheep are known by him.
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My sheep listen to my voice.
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I know them.
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I know my sheep.
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You know what the Bible says? The Bible says our name is graven on his hand.
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But he knows us.
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The Bible says our name is written in the book of the lamb from the foundation of the world.
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He knows his sheep.
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If you go back to verse 11 and verse 15, you'll see he lays down his life for his sheep.
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Verse twenty eight and twenty nine, he preserves his sheep.
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So the entire chapter is about the juxtaposition between the sheep and the not sheep.
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The sheep hear his voice and know him.
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Verse twenty seven.
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The sheep follow him.
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Also, verse twenty seven.
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There's a video on YouTube.
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Of a I think it's in Germany, but don't quote me on that.
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But there's a a group of people standing in there and there's this this flock of sheep out in a field and they're all yelling for the sheep.
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And you see the people will go out and they'll yell and they'll yell and nothing.
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The sheep just sit there.
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They're eating.
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They're not doing anything.
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They don't care.
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And they'll holler and that sheep don't do anything.
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Finally, one guy steps out from the crowd and hey, you know, whatever noise, I'm pretty sure that went in.
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But I was waking you up to some of you dozing.
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Gotcha.
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Yeah.
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But as soon as that guy came out and made his noise, the sheep, all of their heads pop up and they all come toward him because he was a shepherd.
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The sheep knew the voice of the shepherd.
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They didn't know everybody else's voice.
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They didn't recognize the ladies who were calling or the men who were shouting.
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They recognize the voice of the shepherd.
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My sheep know my voice.
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But compare that to those who are not the sheep.
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Jesus says, you're not my sheep to those who don't believe.
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And he said, you don't believe because you're not my sheep.
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You know what the Bible calls the people who don't believe? Goats.
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And very quickly, just hold your place in John 10 and turn over to Matthew, chapter 25.
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Go to verse 31, Matthew, 25, verse 31.
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It says in verse 31, when the son of man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.
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Before him will be gathered all the nations and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
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And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on his left.
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So picture this, if you will.
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This is a picture of the final judgment, by the way.
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Jesus has returned and he is now looking at the nations of the world.
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Every tribe, tongue, people and nation, according to Revelation, chapter five and verse nine.
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It says that from every tribe, tongue and nation, there will be those who sing the praises of the lamb.
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There will be sheep from every tribe, tongue, people and nation.
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So the the final judgment will not be divided by color.
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It will not be divided by language.
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It will not be divided by where you were born or how tall you are or what you look like or how you sound.
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But on the last day, the last judgment, there will be one division and it will be the division or are you a sheep or not? You're either his sheep or you are not his sheep.
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And Jesus in this context, you're either a sheep or a goat.
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There's only two types of people in this world.
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I don't care where you came from.
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I don't care what your background is.
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I don't care what you look like.
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I don't care what your language is.
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We make we always talk about pride and being Americans or pride and being Floridians or pride and being Southerners, I understand that, but.
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I just spent some time up north.
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I'm very glad to be home.
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But at the end of the day.
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Those things are all superfluous and superficial.
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What matters is my sheep or my goat.
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And on the last day, that's all that will matter.
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And here's the thing that's very interesting, and you can argue with me about this later if you want to.
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The Bible never shows a time where a goat becomes a sheep.
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The sheep are lost and then they're found.
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But we don't see goats becoming sheep.
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Because Christ knew his own from the foundation of the world.
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That's an important distinction.
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So today, if you're a sheep and you're not yet a believer, it means you're a lost sheep.
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But you are either a sheep or a goat.
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If you put the next screen up, I read this because this is an important statement, too.
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If you are a believer in Jesus Christ.
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If you have been effectually drawn to faith in him by the work of the Holy Spirit and you know your sins are forgiven by the finished work of Christ on the cross, then you are part of his flock.
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At some point, you heard the voice of the shepherd and you came running.
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Amen.
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So here's the thing, maybe you're a lost sheep today.
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Maybe today you have not yet bowed the knee to the Lord Jesus Christ, but you hear his voice.
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My sheep hear my voice.
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I know them and they follow me.
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What is keeping you from following the shepherd today? If you are not, is it that you are a goat or that you are a lost sheep? Do you hate the shepherd or do you hear the loving words of the shepherd and you love him back? Look with me again back in John 10 at verse 27.
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My sheep, whose sheep are they? They're his.
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They're Christ.
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They belong to him.
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My sheep hear my voice.
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I know them.
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By the way, the word no, when the Bible uses the word no, I've explained this a thousand times.
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I want to say it one more time.
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When the Bible talks about God knowing someone, it's never in the sense of passive knowledge.
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Like I would say, well, I know this person or I know that person.
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When God, when it says I know someone, it's in the context of relationship in the same way that we see throughout the Bible.
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When God knew Israel, Amos chapter three, verse two, you only have I known of all the nations of the world.
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I know you like no other nation.
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What does Jesus say to the one who comes to him at the end of the age who doesn't believe? Depart from me.
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I never knew you.
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Right.
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Knowing in that sense is relationship.
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Jesus says, I know them.
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I know them.
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I've known them from the foundation of the world.
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I know them and they follow me.
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I give them eternal life.
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How long? Eternal, not I give you life until you mess it up.
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I give you life until you can't cut it anymore.
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I give you life until you can't remain sanctified.
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I give you life until you make the mistake and fall away.
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No eternal is either eternal or it's not.
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I give them eternal life and they will never perish.
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That would be enough to convince me if Jesus ended the sentence there, it would be enough to convince me that salvation is not of me, it's of him.
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And he's the one saving and he's the one keeping.
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He says, I give them eternal life, not partial life, not temporary life, not a little bit of life, but I give them eternal life.
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They will never perish.
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That would be enough.
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But then he adds to this, this wonderful aside where he says, and no one will be able to snatch them out of my hand.
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And I have heard people say it and you might be thinking it.
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So let me go ahead and respond.
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I've heard people say, well, sure, no one can snatch me from Jesus, but I can choose to leave.
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And that's the argument that's usually used against this doctrine and against this verse.
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Allow me to respond by saying, do you think that you are more powerful than God? When we was in Cincinnati, we decided to go downtown and eat.
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And we ate at a restaurant that was in a big building.
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It was like a little deli at the bottom of this large building.
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And we were in the center where you couldn't see anywhere except big buildings.
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Didn't like it at all, felt like I was in a concrete jungle.
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But we decided to walk down the street with the kids.
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And I don't know about you, if you've ever walked in this big city with your children, but you don't hold their hand like this.
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You sorry, you hold their hand.
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Right.
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And I don't even hold their hand.
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I hold their wrist because that puts their fist becomes like a little knot on the end of a rope.
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You know, I've got I've got faith in this hand and JJ in this hand.
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And I'm holding their little wrists.
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And I tell you what, it would have taken all of the Cincinnati Reds to get my hands off.
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It would have taken every one of them Bengals to get my hands off my kids because my hands were locked onto my children.
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And this is the idea, well, I could just walk away.
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Christ said, they're in my hand and no one can snatch them away.
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Who is holding whom? He's holding us.
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He's the one who's got the hold.
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Not you.
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You are saved by the power of God.
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You are held by the power of God, not by the power of Keith, not by the power of you, but by the power of God.
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Jameson, Fawcett Brown and their wonderful commentary say this is the impossibility of true believers being lost in the midst of all the temptations which they may encounter does not consist in their fidelity and decision, but is founded upon the power of God.
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It's God who holds us.
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But here's the wonderful thing.
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Here's the additional part.
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Go to verse 29.
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Jesus said, no one will snatch them out of my hand.
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My father.
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Who has given them to me, by the way, that takes us back to John six, because the Bible says all the father gives me will come to me and the one who comes to me, I will not do what I will not cast out another promise, right? He says the father has given them to me and he says, my father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of my father's hand.
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I and the father are one.
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Now, listen, I had a professor in school, Dr.
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Jerry Powers.
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He was my favorite.
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Jennifer and I loved him to death.
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He used to pray with us all the time.
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And Dr.
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Powers would have his pen and he would any time this verse would come up, he would take his pen out of his pocket and he would say, now, I want you to imagine this is you.
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And he said, and Jesus has you in his hand and he is in the father's hand.
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He said, you are secure.
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I'll never forget that illustration, I just remember him holding that pen.
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Tight, I am in the hand of Christ, we in the hand of the father, and no one will take us out if you'll pull the next screen up for me, brother.
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If we are held securely by the shepherd and that hold is compounded by the grip of the father and these two are united in the purpose of the great Trinitarian work of salvation, I and the father are one.
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Jesus says this is reminding us they are one and what they're doing with us and for us and in their nature, they are one.
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And this is the thing.
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How could we ever be lost? The one who came to save us came from the one who sent him to save us, to save us, and we are saved by the power of the spirit.
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How could we be lost? One of the things that Armenians, and by the way, if you don't know the language, Arminianism is the opposite of Calvinism.
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In fact, the whole idea of the five points of Calvinism is in a response to the five teachings of the Arminian position or the remonstrance is what they were called.
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And the thing that kills me about that position is they have a perpetually and eternally frustrated God because they have a God who's constantly trying to save and just can't because he's bound by your will, he's bound by your desires, he's bound by your decisions.
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And the Bible says God saves.
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God doesn't ask permission to save, but that God saves.
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The Bible says God does not try to save, but that God saves.
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The Bible says this, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw nigh unto God through him.
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That's Hebrews chapter 7, verse 25.
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Save to the uttermost.
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That means save completely.
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Save to never be lost again.
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So it really comes down to the question, as I asked earlier, what did you contribute to your salvation? If the answer is nothing, what could you possibly contribute to lose it? Jonathan Edwards said this, he says, you contribute nothing to your salvation except for the sin that made it necessary.
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You contribute nothing to your salvation except for the sin that made it necessary.
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So if you are saved, if you are truly saved, then you are secure in him.
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Now, I said I was going to show you something earlier, and I do want to, I want to draw to a close with this.
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I said I was going to show you how all five points are in John chapter 10.
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And this is not only drawing the end of the sermon, this is drawing the end of the series, because we are now at the end of the five points of Calvinism series.
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Next week, we're going to be back in Genesis 17.
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Boogie, boogie, boogie, we're going to get on down the road.
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But today, we're going to end this series.
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We looked at five points, total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, perseverance of the saints.
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Here they are, all in John 10.
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Total depravity, you do not believe because you're not my sheep.
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Why is it that people remain in unbelief? Because they're not his.
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That's it.
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The unbeliever does not believe because he has no desire to believe because he's not a sheep.
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Unconditional election, my father has given them to me.
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That's the father's work.
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Now, compare that to John 6, 37 again.
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Limited atonement, Jesus said, I lay down my life for the sheep.
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I lay down my life for the sheep.
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Irresistible grace, my sheep hear my voice.
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I know them and they do what? They follow me.
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They hear the voice and they follow the shepherd.
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And perseverance of the saints, they shall never perish.
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It's all there, folks.
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And somebody says, well, you only believe that because Paul wrote about predestination.
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Now, I believe in election and predestination because Jesus Christ proclaimed these truths.
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Jesus Christ proclaimed that all the father gives me will come to me.
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And the one who comes to me will in no wise be cast out.
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My sheep know my voice.
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I know them and they follow me.
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And they will never perish.
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And no one will snatch them out of my hand.
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That is the promise.
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If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, that's the promise made to you.
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Your salvation is secure, not in what you do, but what in Christ has done for you.
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In fact, let me tell you this.
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If you ever battle with assurance, most people who battle with assurance start looking at themselves immediately.
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Do I do enough? Am I reading enough? Am I praying enough? Am I taking communion enough? Am I coming to church enough? Am I doing these things? All those things are wonderful and all those things are ways that we grow in grace.
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And all of those things are important in the Christian life.
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But when you start looking at what you do, you will always come up short.
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If you want assurance, look to Christ and what he has done.
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And know that only in him do we have eternal life.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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I thank you for the truth of the word and I thank you for the confidence that the word gives us.
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The word gives us the confidence that if we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, we will be saved.
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If we repent and trust in him, the Holy Spirit will come and make his home within our heart and we will live forever in him.
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I pray, Father, that today those who are sheep here will hear the voice of the shepherd.
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Those who are believers will be comforted and those who are lost sheep will be called back to the fold and Lord, that they would come running at the voice of the shepherd, that they would run to believe, that they would run to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And Lord, I do pray that you would do a work that only you can do.
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Only you can change a heart, Lord.
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Only you can take a person who is lost and make them found.
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Only you can take the wretched sinner and make him a part of your family.
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And that is what you do, Father.
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You take the wretched traitor and you give him a seat at the table.
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You give him a new name.
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You call him your son and he gets to call you father.
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Lord, let us trust in you today.
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And let us now enjoy communion as we remember what Christ has done for us on the cross in his name.
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Amen.