It's good to be with you again.
What a privilege it is to meet together, to worship our Lord
and Savior, Jesus Christ. What a great honor. I'm thankful
for this privilege to preach the gospel to you. This morning,
you'll take your Bibles and turn with me to John chapter 10. John
chapter 10. My text will be found in verse
9. The title of this message is
Salvation by the Door. Salvation by the Door. Jesus
said, I am the door. By me, if any man enter in, he
shall be saved and shall go in and out and find pasture. Now, our Lord Jesus Christ begins
this chapter with a parable, a parable of the shepherd and
the sheep. It's a very simple parable. Most
everybody, especially in this time he said this, knew something
about the relationship between a shepherd and the sheep. Most
of them probably were shepherds. Most of them knew shepherds.
They understood this parable. It's a very familiar thing to
them. And he begins out by saying truly,
truly, verse 1, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door
into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same as
a thief and a robber." He says, truly, truly, a very simple fact,
that one that doesn't enter in by the door, you have a sheepfold,
and there's a door, there's one door into this sheepfold, and
if you see a man climbing up over the wall, if you see a man
digging under the wall, you can plainly see he is not the shepherd. He is a thief. He had come to
steal the sheep. And in verse 2, he said, But
he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.
And to him the porter openeth, and the sheep heareth his voice,
and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his
own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him, for
they know his voice, and a stranger will they not follow. but will
flee from him, for they know not the voice of strangers. And saying, there's a man, he
comes in by the door. There's a porter there, a man
who guards the door. He sees the shepherd, he recognizes
the shepherd, and he opens gladly to the shepherd. The shepherd
then comes in and calls every one of his own sheep by name.
His sheep hear His voice, they recognize Him, and they follow
Him out. He takes them, He puts them out,
and leads them wherever He wants them to go. Very simple parable. Anybody misunderstand that? I
love the simplicity of our Lord's parables. They're very simple.
And like I said, most of these people understood the physical
parable. But look at verse 6. This parable
Jesus spake unto them, but they understood not what things they
were which he spake unto them. What did that mean? They understood not. Every one
of us, we're not shepherds. We don't own sheep. Maybe you
didn't, I don't know. But most of us don't. And yet
we understood this. What does it mean that they did
not understand these things? What it was, they did not understand
the spiritual application of these things. Jesus used a common,
familiar parable, an earthly thing, but his focus, his point
was to make a spiritual application of these things. And that's what
they did not understand. They did not understand them
because they were dead. They had no life. They did not
understand these spiritual things. But notice Christ's compassion.
Notice his mercy in that he doesn't leave men to wonder what he means. He then goes and explains to
us what the parable means. Jesus tells us plainly that he
is represented here by two characters in this parable. He is both the
door and the shepherd. He is both the door, he said
in verse seven, verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door. And again, our text in verse
nine, he says, I am the door. In verse 11, he says, I am the
good shepherd, the good shepherd that giveth his life for the
sheep. Now the sheep, who are they?
They are the elect. They are his own sheep. The shepherd goes into the sheepfold
and calls who? His own sheep. They are his own. How are they his own? They are
his own by gift. God gave his sheep to him. You see that in verse 29, when
he said this, the Father which gave them me. They're given sheep. They're not only given sheep,
they're purchased sheep. He said, I laid down my life
for the sheep. He purchases his own sheep with
his own blood. And these sheep are bought, these
sheep are purchased, and also these sheep are manifested. They
are manifested in two ways. They hear His voice and they
follow Him. Now, today, I want us to just
look at this character of Jesus as the door. The door. What does He mean by, I am the
door? He said that in verse 7 and 8. Jesus said, Verily, verily, I
say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. All they ever came
before me are thieves and robbers, and the sheep did not hear them.
In this parable, he tells us of a door, and this door is guarded
by a porter, porter, and only, the porter will only open this
door for the shepherd and allow him into the fold. It was the
porter that must protect from imposters. That was the job of
the porter. Some say he laid his whole self
over that door so that no one was allowed, even if he was asleep,
he had a trip over to get in the door. You couldn't get in
except he opened this for you. And everyone who attempted was
a thief and a robber. So then, the door only fits one
person. Only one person, the shepherd. The door is intended to show
forth only one person. It's only to open for one person,
the shepherd. And yet I tell you that they
are one and the same person. Jesus Christ is both the door
and the shepherd. The shepherd. Those people that
Jesus spoke to, they surely know this. When he was talking about
a shepherd, they understood he was talking about the Christ.
The Christ. They understood that the character
of the shepherd, according to the word of God, was a picture
or a representation of the Christ who was to come. Go to Ezekiel
chapter 34. Ezekiel chapter 34, you look
at verse 11. The scripture says, for thus
saith the Lord God, behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep
and seek them out. How? As a shepherd seeketh out
his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered,
so will I seek out my sheep. and will deliver them out of
all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark
day. Look at verse 22. Therefore will
I save my flock. They shall no more be a prey. I will judge between cattle and
cattle. I will set up, listen, one shepherd over them. And he
shall feed them. And notice who this is. Even
my servant David. He shall feed them. He shall
be their shepherd. And I, the Lord, will be their
God. And my servant David, a prince among them, I, the Lord, have
spoken. And we know that David here,
we're talking about David's son. David's son. God promised that
David's son would sit upon the throne. David was already dead. He was already passed away at
this time. He's speaking of Christ. He shall set up Christ, the son
of David, to be the shepherd. The Christ, the one God.