when he said, it is finished.
I spent the next 15, 20 minutes of my drive home talking to him
about what it is. What that word means, it is finished.
You know, the Greek of that word is just one word. It's just one
word. It's the only word of Greek. Not that I'm claiming I know
anything about Greek much at all, but it was the one word
of Greek that I taught all my students back in my days in India.
I wanted them to know what that word meant and what it is in
Greek. And it is just paid in full. If you had a debt, and you had
a bill and the bill was written out and you went to the shopkeeper
and you owed them $1,000 and you paid the $1,000, they would
take your bill and they'd write across that bill. It is finished. that all of the elect children
of God, O God's holiness, O his justice, O his law, O him in
any way whatsoever, is now paid in full. We have a glorious saviour
and we have a gospel that's so simple, isn't it? It's a gospel
in one word, isn't it? Finished. Finished. Done. And yet, and yet we live in a
world where the professing Christian church
is almost universally in the hands of these people that the
Lord here calls thieves and robbers and strangers and hiles. That's what our Lord promised.
It doesn't mean that he has been dethroned. It just means that
what he has promised is going to happen. You just read. Read
if you have time. Go to the last will and testament,
as it were, of the Bible writers. You go to 2 Peter and 2 Timothy
and you go to Jude. You go to all of those people
as they finish their lives. and their witness to the Lord
Jesus Christ, the one thing that was heaviest, heaviest on their
heart was the fact that the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ was
going to be beset by these people. And they will have a religion
and they will have a name to live, but they will be dead. And we've got to remember the
context of this conversation in John chapter 10 when the Lord
Jesus Christ explains to these people who they are, that they're
standing in the midst of all of this conversation is that
blind man. And standing in the midst and
hearing this conversation are those who, in the words of John
9.39, who claim to see. They claim to see. How many in this world claim
to see? They claim to see what righteousness
is, they claim to see what holiness is, they claim to see who God
is. And what's the testimony of the
Lord Jesus Christ just prior to these words? He says, For
judgment I am come into this world, that they which see not
might see. The blind will be given life. Those who cannot see in themselves
why God would save them, those who cannot see anything in themselves
but sin and rebellion against God, Those who are mercy beggars,
they'll see, they'll see, won't they? And they which see might
be made blind. The reality is these people in
John chapter 10 that the Lord Jesus Christ is speaking to have
witnessed the greatest miracles you could ever wish to hear.
They had heard God speak to them directly in and describe them
and describe himself in the most glorious term with the very evidence
of him being the Messiah standing there before them, that blind
man. That's a messianic miracle. He alone opens the eyes of the
blind. He alone is the one that creates
light out of darkness. We still have huge ministries
today which are based on people seeing because you give them
evidence. These people have the most extraordinary evidence you
could ever wish to have. Three and a half years of the
Lord Jesus Christ, God Almighty, walking in their midst, declaring
himself God in the plainest way possible, and yet they are blind. One of the things that we ought
to be made deeply and seriously aware of, and it's only a work
of God, is to know how vulnerable we are. Why these stories in
the Bible? Why these extraordinary pictures?
So that we would be humbled. We would be humble from our position
of pride. We would be humble when we say,
well, I stand now because I, you fill in the blanks, because
I know certain things, because I've done certain things, because
I associate with certain things. We are all of the creation. All of the created beings in
creation are deceivable, aren't they? And yet these people stood
before God Almighty and said, we can see, we can see that you
are a demon possessed imposter. So why does God do all that he
does? Why does he do it all? Why does
he do? Why does he save his people the
way he does? There's a great word, it was
one of the best gospel words in the Bible college I went to,
and there wasn't a lot of gospel beyond it really, but up in the
meeting hall, the assembly room or whatever it was you'd like
to call it, but the room where I met was a notice that a woman
had put up there. She was the wife of the principal
from a long, long time ago, 100 years ago or more, and it was
From Ezekiel chapter 36, why does God do anything? He says,
for mine holy name's sake. That's why he does it. That's
why he does everything. For mine holy name's sake. These thieves and robbers that
we read about there, these strangers, these are all around the sheepfold. They're always around the sheepfold.
They have, in Luke's gospel, there's an account of Satan having
a palace and he keeps his goods in peace. And it doesn't matter
what section or wing of the palace is when Satan has people, has
his goods, he's always keeping them in peace and it doesn't
matter whether your part of the palace is the Buddhist part of
the palace or the Islamic part of the palace or the Roman Catholic
part of the palace or whatever part of the palace. And probably
out in the doghouse out the back, there's the atheist part of the
palace, isn't it? And Satan keeps them all in peace. Satan's attacks. are focused
on the Lord Jesus Christ and focused on him gathering his
people together. So where do the thieves come?
The thieves come to the sheepfold. Where do the robbers come? They
come to the sheepfold. Where does the hireling get his
activities? At the sheepfold. All of the
attacks of Satan are directed against the Lord Jesus Christ
and him crucified, and they are directed against the place where
the Lord Jesus Christ and him crucified is lifted up. We long
for the peace and we pray for the peace of Jerusalem, but the
church of the Lord Jesus Christ is a church that's always in
a battle, isn't it? And we are so thankful that our
great and sovereign God comes into this world as a mighty warrior
and he takes his people out of Satan's palace and Satan is enraged
against them and he brings them to his sheepfold and the sheepfold
is continually under attack, isn't it? All of created beings
are capable of falling, and you be wise, and I must be wise. When we think we stand, you be
careful you don't fall, says God. You be careful you don't
fall. We stand because of Him. We stand
because of grace. We stand because He stands. We
stand only because He makes us to stand. See, the angels were
in the most remarkable created existence you could possibly
imagine. I have no idea what it was like to be a created angel,
to be in the presence of God. And they fell. A third of them
fell. from that position. And there
is no redeemer and there is no redemption for them. They fell
and were left to fall. And the elect angels, the chosen
angels, were preserved. Not because they were strong
themselves, they were preserved because God preserved them. Adam
and Eve were in the most remarkable creation. They walked with God
in a perfect creation. They had no sin and they fell. Noah's descendants In no time
at all they were involved in the most appalling idolatry,
building a tower to heaven to escape the possibility of another
flood and to make a name for themselves. Israel was redeemed
by the mighty hand of God and in no time they fell into wickedness
and idolatry. And after Sinai, after the remarkable
restoration and the revelation of God at Sinai, they fell into
unbelief and wickedness again and God killed 600,000 of them
in the desert. Israel went into the promised land, and it was
exactly as God said. It was a land flowing with milk
and honey, and the cities were built for them, and the gardens
were planted for them. All they had to do was go in and take
it, and they did. And in no time at all, they fell. You read the
book of Judges, and think of the appalling things that they
fell into in the most privileged position. Judah and Benjamin, the tribes
that are represented here by these people in John chapter
10, they'd been in the captivity and they'd been returned by the
gracious hand of God and the miraculous hand of God, causing
Cyrus to say, you go and build that temple and I'll pay the
bill for it, and returned all of those goods, those gold and
extraordinary things. And in no time at all they fell
again into terrible idolatry and then they picked themselves
up again and were redeemed in some way from the wickedness
of it and they set themselves up in the 150-200 years before
the Lord Jesus Christ came and they'd organised themselves so
that they'd never fall again. And they're the very people here
who are standing opposed to the Lord Jesus Christ. The Church
of God had the Gospel proclaimed purely and perfectly, didn't
it? The Holy Spirit spoke and caused
those men to proclaim the Gospel with absolute perfect purity
and clarity and simplicity, declaring the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And what happened to the church? In no time at all the church
was ravaged. The church is planted by Paul.
They had the gospel, they had it with purity, they didn't have
it mixed like we have. We have to be dragged out of
false religion into the truth of who God is by the sovereign
hand of God. My point simply is And if we're going to know who
the thieves and robbers are, and we're going to know who the Highlings
are, and we're going to be protected and preserved from them, then
the very words of the Lord Jesus Christ here in John chapter 10
are incredibly important to us. His actions and his words and
his declaration, he's speaking to his sheep. These blind people
never heard what he said. They never heard what he said. And yet, if the Lord would allow
us and cause us to hear his voice. I want you to be reminded that
our God is absolutely sovereign and all this was working for
his glory and his good and the good of his people. Always, always,
isn't it? The Lord is on the throne of
all of these things. So these thieves and robbers,
The Lord makes a solemn declaration at the beginning in John chapter
10 verse 1. He says, verily, verily. Where he says truly,
truly, solemnly, solemnly, he says, you take heed. We take
heed to all of the word of God, but we take heed particularly
to what he says when he says, verily, verily. He says, he that
entereth. See, notice that these people
enter not. They do get into the sheepfold.
They do get into where the sheep are. That's what he's saying,
isn't it? They enter in. They enter in. They don't enter
by the door. They don't enter by Christ Jesus. They don't enter because he sends
them. They don't enter as his servants. They enter in, they
enter in, and they're thieves and robbers, thieves steal by
deceit and robbers steal by force. They climb up and get in. They climb up by their own personal
exercise and activity. They climb up in such a way that
they can enter in. There has never been a false
teacher who wasn't attractive and appealing. There was never
a false teacher who wasn't charismatic. There wasn't a false teacher
who was anything other than one who came in the clothing of a
sheep. And what do they rob the sheep
of? What do they steal from the sheep? Can the true sheep ever be lost
eternally? No. You read verses 27 and 28
of John chapter 10. No man can pluck them out of
my hand. No man can pluck them out of
my father's hand. They are, all of the sheep of
God, are perfectly secure and safe. The Lord Jesus Christ died
for them. They are secure in him. Can the true sheep of God ever
lose the blessings of God? No. Because the blessings are blood-bought
blessings, aren't they? Where do we get the blessings?
When do we get the blessings? He's blessed us. Ephesians 1
is so glorious, isn't it? Ephesians 1. He's blessed us.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who
hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places
in Christ. How many? All of them. Where are they? in heavenly places,
they're not going to get corrupted by the things of this world,
not even going to get corrupted by the things that are in me,
or you, or anything else, are they? And where are they? They're in heavenly places and
they're in Christ. He's blessed us with all of those
things. Nothing's going to touch them and take them. According
as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. Having predestinated us under
the adoption of children by Jesus Christ, to himself according
to the good pleasure of his will. That's what he's doing. So all of the blessings, the
sheep are perfectly secure, aren't they? And the sheep can't lose
any of the blessings and it's all because of the grace of God.
So what then is stolen? What do they rob and steal? Well, you know from your own
personal experience, brothers and sisters, that you can lose
the joy and peace of believing. You can lose the joy and peace
of believing for a season, can't you? We spend so much time, like
David did, with our tears. Our pillows wet with our tears.
We walk through the valley of the shadow of death. There are
so many circumstances and things that go on that cause us so much
distress in this world. What else is stolen? The comfort
of fellowship can be stolen from us, can't it? There is a comfort,
there is a joy. If you've had the joy of fellowship,
then you know what I mean. The joy of fellowship is a precious
thing and a fragile thing and it can be taken from us and we
long for it to be restored and returned. We can lose a clear
view of the saviour and the glory of his works. He doesn't tell
us to fix our eyes on the Lord Jesus Christ as the author and
finisher of our faith unless we need to have our eyes fixed
on Him. Because where do our eyes go? They're wandering all
over the place, aren't they? They're looking in for evidences. They're looking to this world.
They're looking all over the place. We can lose sight of the
precious promises of God, sealed with His precious blood. We can
have stolen from us the justifications assurance, the sweet assurance
that God says it is done, it is finished and all is done for
you. We can lose that rest from our
labours, the thieves and the robbers, the thieves and the
robbers. The thieves and robbers internally
and externally, the thieves and the robbers have access because
we just have Adam's flesh, don't we? And we are continually in
a state. of not being able to do the things
that we can do, and we continually, if the Lord's done a work in
our lives, we're continually crying out like Paul in Romans
7, O wretched man that I am right now, O wretched man that I am
while I'm preaching, O wretched man that I am when I'm singing
and praising, O wretched man, who's gonna rescue me? Thank
God. Thanks be to God. So the thieves
and the robbers are turning the eyes of people away again and
again and again from the glories of the Lord Jesus Christ. The
true shepherds are bringing their flock before the throne of grace
again and again and again. While you want to be reminded,
I want to hear the gospel again, brothers and sisters. I need
to hear the gospel as good news. I don't want to hear a message
that tells me I've got to do something to make this work for
me. I want to hear a message of done. I want to hear a message
of a sovereign God who works in the hearts of his people.
I want to hear a message that we looked at a few weeks ago
in Ezekiel 34, where God again and again says, I will and they
shall, I will and they shall, I will and they shall. read the
promises of God, the glories of the eternal covenant where
God says I will be their God and they shall be my people and
I will always work things for their good in this world. Thieves
and robbers come and disturb the sheep. Listen to what Ezekiel
says in Ezekiel 13 about the false teachers. The false teachers,
they disturb the sheep's feed and they nourish the goats in
their deception. He says, because with lies you
have made the heart of the righteous sad. That's what happens to thieves
and robbers, aren't they? They're robbing God of His glory.
"'Because with lies you've made the heart of the righteous sad,
"'whom I have not made sad,' says God, "'and you've strengthened
the hands of the wicked, "'that he should not return from his
wicked way.'" The thieves and the robbers are promising life
to the wicked and they're discouraging the righteous. Thieves and robbers
and their strangers. The stranger is one that doesn't
belong, does he? It's a foreigner. It's not one
of one's own family. It's an enemy. It's an alien.
All that ever came before me were thieves and robbers. All
of God's servants go with the Lord and the Lord goes before
them. Those that come before him, those that come before him
are not going with him. All of God's servants, all of
God's servants. Go, and wherever they go, the
Lord Jesus Christ is gone before them and he goes with them. This
is his work, this is his church. He says, feed the church of God
which he has bought with his precious blood. You feed my lambs,
the lambs are always his. You feed my sheep, they're always
his sheep. The Lord Jesus Christ goes before
us all the time. This is his church, it's not
my church. They're his sheep, not my sheep. I need to treat
them with the respect that they are his sheep. God gives ascension
gifts to his church and the Lord Jesus Christ watches over. He's
a jealous God for his sheep. The thief cometh not, verse 10,
for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I am come that they
might have life, and they might have it more abundantly. I am
the good shepherd, verse 11. And the good shepherd giveth
his life for the sheep. But, now here is this contrast
I want us to spend a few minutes looking at, this contrast between
the good shepherd and the hireling. Listen to the description of
the hireling. The hireling is not the shepherd. He's not come
from the shepherd. He's not of the shepherd. The
hireling, whose own sheep are not, The hireling sees the wolf
coming. leaves the sheep and the wolf
captures them and scatters the sheep. The Highling flees because
he is a Highling and careth not for the sheep. And again the
contrast, I am the Good Shepherd. So on either side of these verses
about the Highling, the Lord Jesus Christ reminds us he's
the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd, I know my
sheep and are known of mine. What's a Highling? Quite simply,
it's someone who can be bought to do a job. I suppose one of
the most graphic ones that we ever had was when we were pleading
with the people in a church, a big church here in town. We
were pleading with them to just honour the word of God. We were
pleading with them to just bow to the word of God. And the pastor
organised for another famous preacher to come down from Sydney.
And the famous preacher distorted knowingly the word of God in
the morning sermon, distorted it openly and knowingly, and
made a lie out of what he was declaring. He made a lie about
God as the centerpiece of his message and repeated it about
20 times in a morning message. And they had a snack before the
evening service And I happened to be sitting with him, and Norm
was at the table with me, and there were four or five of us
there, and I handed him the Greek New Testament. I said, that word,
that phrase you used this morning is not in there. And he knew
exactly what the word was, and he knew where it was, and he
knew exactly And I thought, well, this is
going to be very interesting. And ten minutes or so after that,
he stood up to preach. What did he do? He had admitted
to us that what he said in the morning was a lie. He was standing
before people, lying about the Lord Jesus Christ and him crucified. And he knew it. And he stood
up. and spent half an hour standing
before people, declaring himself to be someone sent of God to
speak on God's behalf, and he made the lie for the next 30
minutes or more more emphatic. And he was looking at us, and
I was about from here to where Taslo is, away from him, and
I was looking at him thinking, what on earth is going on in
your soul between you and God? And what are you doing to these
sheep that are here? He was paid, brothers and sisters,
he was paid. He was a hireling. As he stopped, he's gone on continuing
to do exactly the same thing. In fact, he went on to be the
head of a department for preaching in a big Bible college. These words were written nearly
2,000 years ago, and they are written because they're true,
exactly what's happening today. The hireling is someone who can
be bought. God's servants cannot be bought. God's servants, they don't need
your money. God's servants don't need the
esteem of people. God's servants are speaking to
an audience of one. We are unto God says 2nd Corinthians
chapter 3 we are unto God a sweet savour of life unto life and
death unto death we are unto God we preach to God God is our
audience we are weak God's servants and in that weakness
we are made to be utterly dependent upon God to give us a message
we're utterly dependent upon God to bless the message to the
hearts of these people God's servants can't be bought and
God's servants want you you to be in the presence of
the shepherd. God's servants care about your eternal souls
because they have been in the presence of God and they know
the value of their own soul because it's been redeemed with the precious
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. This man was making the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ a common thing, a thing to be trodden
on underfoot before those people. He that is the hireling, verse
12, and not the shepherd, whose own sheep are not, sees the wolf
coming. So that man, that man like multitudes
of others. These verses are just so poignant. A number of times I've spoken
to people in positions of authority and said, will you please five years in a missionary school
and I met hundreds and hundreds of missionaries and I had private
conversations with so many of them and I'd ask them what they
were preaching and I'd say, will you please think about what the
Bible says? I remember spending time with people who were very
senior leaders in big organisations and I would spend half an hour
talking to them about Ephesians chapter 1 and the glory of the
grace of God and they'd never heard it before and they went
off doing their own things. The hireling is the one who acts
in the place of a shepherd but really he gives access to the
wolf. So where does the wolf get in? Because the hireling
has been there. The piling sees the wolf coming. He sees the wolf. This man knew
that that was a lie that day in church. He knew that he was
telling lies. That's the wolf, isn't it? The
wolf is any lie about God, any lie about people in the reality
of their state, a lie about what's going to happen when they meet
God. He sees the wolf coming and he leaves the sheep in the
hands of the wolf. sheep left by a hireling, and
what's he do? He flees. He flees. And the wolf catches them. See,
he knows the wolf's intention. May God protect us from being
hirelings, brothers and sisters. May God protect us from being
bought by anything. May God protect us from hearing
messages that are from the lips of hirelings who do it for covetousness. We keep thinking that covetousness
is all to do with money, but there's a covetousness for the
esteem and the power and the prestige of man, isn't it? All
the false prophets were covetous. All the false prophets gave assurance
and peace that wasn't from God. All of the false prophets, all
of the highlings, make the door into the sheepfold very wide. They make the door to heaven
very wide and very broad. The false prophets always make
salvation cheaper than it really is. The salvation is something
that you attain by something you've done, rather than salvation
being entirely in the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. The thieves and the hirelings
always say that sin is an outward act, and if sin is just an outward
act, then you just polish up your outward act and you'll be
fine. Sin is what we are, brothers and sisters. Sin is a noun, it's
what we are. Sin is a heart problem. A new
heart, God must give, and a new creation, God must give. Religion
is about polishing up the old man. God is about the creation
of a new man. The false teachers always say
that godliness is just an outward act, but godliness is Christ
in you, the hope of glory. They scatter. The wolf catches
them. Satan is a prowling, roaring
lion, seeking whom he may devour, and they scatter the sheep. So
what's the sign that the wolf's done his work? How do you know
he's been at work? The scattered sheep. They're
scattered from one another, and they're scattered from the good
shepherd, aren't they? They come in sheep's clothing,
and only, only the Good Shepherd will expose the false. And he
flees, verse 13, because he isn't hiding and he cares not for the
sheep. He doesn't stand, he just flees. He flees to his own comfort,
he flees to his own security. And what's the measure of it? He cares not for the sheep, he
has no love for the sheep. He has no love for the shepherd.
He just has one love. He has self-love. He loves himself more than he
loves the Lord Jesus Christ. I want us, as we close, to be
reminded The one issue is that at the heart of the Gospel and
the one issue that the Highling and the thieves and the robbers
and the strangers want to do, they want to deny the glory of
the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. They want to say that I want
to say that you must do something to make the work of the Lord
Jesus Christ effectual in your life. I want you to go back under
some system of law and some works. can earn his wages still and
tell you so much that's true, but they can miss Christ. And if you miss Christ, brothers
and sisters, you miss life. You miss everything altogether.
The Highling makes a way for the wolf to attack the sheep
because he's ignorant of who God is. And he's ignorant of
who he is. Listen to the context of it,
brothers and sisters. The people the Lord Jesus Christ
is speaking to here are people he says he's made them blind.
see, if God sends a strong delusion to a false teacher that they'll
believe the lie of freewill works religion, are they deluded? Are they sincere and deluded? Yes they are. Do you think the
Galatian false teachers were sincere in leaving Jerusalem
and going all the way up there into Turkey and And going into
the very churches that Paul had planted, do you think they were
sincere? They really were, weren't they? Sincerity's not the answer,
is it? It's the truth. It's the truth
of who the Lord Jesus Christ is. And just in closing, I want us to see the Good Shepherd's
response. In the midst of this, when he's
talking to the hirelings, and he's talking to the thieves,
and he's talking to the robbers, and there before him is the blind
man, and there before him is that woman, and there before
him are the sheep of his enclosure, his apostles are there with him,
what's his response? What's he teaching us about our
response when we are confronted? with this sort of opposition
and enmity against the gospel when false teachers and hirelings
abound and entered the sheepfold. This is what our Lord did, didn't
he? He preached his absolute sovereignty. I am the good shepherd. I am the door of the sheep. I
am come that they might have life and they might have it more
abundantly. I lay down my life that I might
take it again. I'm absolutely sovereign over
life. I'm absolutely sovereign over
all life, and I'm absolutely sovereign over all life. The
Good Shepherd preached eternal election. All that the Father
gave me will come to me. He wasn't dethroned by these. Let us not be dethroned. Let
us not lose the comfort and the joy. He preached particular redemption. He says, I lay down my life for
the sheep. He didn't lay down his life for
the goats. He didn't come for the goats, he came for the sheep.
He preached the preservation and the perseverance of the sheep,
didn't he? No one's going to pluck them
out of my father's hand. No one's going to pluck them
out of my hand. How secure are the sheep? They're in the hand
of God Almighty, the Lord Jesus Christ. And that hand is in the
hand of the Father. Who's going to get to them? He
says they're safe. They're safe, brothers and sisters.
They're secure. He preached the glory of God
in the salvation of sinners. What a glorious stand our Lord
Jesus Christ made. He was no highling. He laid down
his life for the sheep. He didn't flee from when the
wolf came. I love what happened when these wolves finally had
their meeting and Satan had entered into Judas and they'd all joined
hands together at the Sanhedrin. They sent off that huge army
down to arrest the Lord of glory in the Garden of Gethsemane.
And he went out to them and he says, I'm God. And they all fell
down backwards and he gave them all the power, all of these highlings,
he gave them the power to stand up again. And then he said to
them, he says, you can have me and you let these go. He says
to the holiness of God and the justice of God, he says, you
can have me and you let these go. He gave himself into their
hands and he stood as he always does and as he does right now,
brothers and sisters, he stands between us and all of our enemies
and says, Not once in the gospel accounts
is one of his children ever expected to defend himself when the Lord
is present. He steps in, doesn't he? He steps
in between them, just like he did with that woman caught in
adultery, and he says, she's mine. I'm not condemning her.
I'm not condemning her. And he sent all of these wolves
and these hirelings away. When Satan bears his vicious
teeth and seeks to devour the shepherd stands victorious, and
he always did. He went to the cross as a sovereign,
triumphant God, and he triumphed over them. He triumphed over
them. What a door of access we have. One thing about a door, and I'll
close, you can be too big to get through a door. You can be
too big, you can be too big headed, you can be too proud, you can
be too, you can carry too much of your own stuff to get through
the door. You can never be too small.