It is very important to understand
the setting or the context of John chapter 10. It really isn't
of any benefit to us to go directly into a commentary or an exposition
of John chapter 10 unless we understand this is vitally connected
to John chapter 9. In John chapter 9 we find that
our Lord has healed a man of his lifelong blindness. The Savior spit, spit him on
some dirt, some dust that he picked up, and he mixed up spittle,
rubbed it on the man's eyes, so you go, told him, said, you
go wash, and he washed and he came forth with his blindness,
a thing of the past. And people, neighbors began to
ask him, who did this for you? And he said, a man named Jesus. I was thinking that'd be a good
title for a message right there, a man named Jesus. Because he
is the God man. He's the man God sent into this
world to save sinners by his substitutionary sacrifice. He
is the great I am, and he is also the man who God sent. He's the great I Am and he's
the man, a man called Jesus. And so then they called his parents,
the Jews did because, and the Jewish leaders, they wouldn't
know who did this for him. And so they called his parents
in and said, was he really, was this your son really blind? Said,
yeah, he was blind from birth. Well, what happened to him that
now he sees? Because all of the neighbors,
everybody who's known this man, they were very well acquainted
with him that he was a helpless man. He had to be led around. He's blind from birth. What happened
to him? Who healed him? And the mom and
dad said, well, as far as his blindness was concerned, that's
true. He was born blind. But as to
how he was healed and who did it, we cannot tell. If you read
John chapter nine, they couldn't tell and they wouldn't tell because
they feared excommunication from the synagogue. Because anybody
who said that Jesus of Nazareth was the son of God and attributed
miracles to him, they threatened to kick him out of the synagogue
and couldn't ever come back again. And so then further questioning
to the man, the Jews, the Pharisees asked the man again, who did
this? And he said, why do you keep asking me that? Are you
gonna follow him too? That's what they said. And then
they were insulted. And eventually, they excommunicated
him from the synagogue. Said, get out of our church and
don't ever come back. And then, The Lord Jesus found
him. He finds his lost sheep. And he says to him, do you believe?
Do you believe on the Son of God? He said, I don't know who
he is. Who is he? Christ said, I that
speak unto thee am he. He said, I believe, and he fell
at the feet of the Savior and worshiped him. And the Jews were angry. They
were mad. These were the false shepherds
of Israel. And so really it's kind of unfortunate
in a way that there's a chapter division here because it tends
to lead you to think, oh, it's a brand new situation. No, it's
not a brand new situation. It's a continuation of chapter
nine. And you picked up on that, I'm
sure, when it said in verse 21 of John chapter 10, others said,
these are not the words of him that hath the devil. Can a devil
open the eyes of the blind? Can a devil give sight to a blind
man? So you can see this is all, this
all flowed out of that. And then our Lord began to speak,
and he had some very harsh things to say about these religious
leaders. And I'll address this message
to you. I'll address it under two headings. First of all, false shepherds,
and then the true and caring shepherd, our Lord Jesus Christ. Watch how he describes the false
shepherds, and he describes all of them together under one as
if it was one. Because all false shepherds are
essentially just alike. Now, they have different characteristics,
they say different things, but they all have a works-based salvation. All of them deny salvation by
the free and sovereign grace of God through the Lord Jesus
Christ only and his work of redemption. So they're all alike. And so
our Lord Jesus, he addresses these men as being as though
they were one shepherd, one shepherd. Notice how he describes them. in verse one of chapter 10, verily,
verily. Now that should have got their
attention. And it certainly gets our attention whenever we read
that the Savior says verily, verily, amen, amen, truly, truly. That's what that means. I say
unto you, who's the you? That's the question. The you
is all of those false shepherds. That's who he's addressing. Verily,
verily, I say unto you, he that entereth not by the door into
the sheepfold, but he climbs up some other way, the same is
a thief and a robber." Now, here's the problem with these false
shepherds. They would seek to enter into the kingdom of God
by some other way. But there is no other way. That's
why the Lord Jesus Christ said, I am the door. See, they thought
they could get in anyway. They made allowances for just
about every way to enter into heaven, to enter into the kingdom
of God, except the way of grace through the living way, the Lord
Jesus Christ. That's the way they despised. They didn't want anybody to enter
into that way, and they wouldn't enter into that way. They sought
to enter into favor with God, enter into salvation, enter into
heaven by a way that God had not appointed. Now, learn this
right from the get-go of this message. There is but one way
to God. There are not several ways. There's
not the Baptist way and the Catholic way and the Lutheran way and
the Presbyterian way. There's one way, and that's God's
way. And God's way is by a person, the Lord Jesus Christ, and His
work of salvation accomplished upon the cross of Calvary. The
Savior said, I am the door. Later on, He would say, I am
the way. But you see, these religious
guys said, there are other ways. There are other ways. And this
is what men are saying today. You got false shepherds, false
prophets, false preachers all over the place. And they say,
well, you know, as long as you're sincere, You mean business with
God, and you have good intentions. Just believe God and believe
in His love, and you'll be all right. Our Lord Jesus Christ
said, I'm the door. You want to enter into glory?
You want to enter into salvation? There's just one way. It's not
your way. It's not the way of false religion.
It's not the way of doing good. It's not the way of living by
the golden rule. It's not the way of being a fine
person, an outstanding citizen in the country. It's not the
way of being a good neighbor. The way to God, the way to glory,
the way to salvation is the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the way. There
is no other way. But you see, these guys would
come in some other way, and that's what they were teaching to people. the way of works, the way of
self-righteousness. They made another way into the
sheepfold. They offer another hope. They
offer another mediator. When our Lord says, it's not
of him that willeth nor of him that runneth, but of God that
showeth the mercy, the false shepherd says, God's done all
he can do. Now the rest is up to you. Christ says, I lay down my life
for the sheep. The false shepherd comes along
and he says, Christ died for everybody. Christ died for your
sins and your sins will be put away if you, if you add your
faith to what he did. The false shepherd says forgiveness
and righteousness and redemption are possible since Christ died
if you only accept him. But if you won't accept him,
all that he did for you was for naught. That's the language of the false
shepherds. The false shepherd says the spirit
wants to quicken you if you'll just let him, if you'll give
him permission. You see, a false shepherd would
turn you away from the gospel of saving grace. That's what
the false shepherd does. The false shepherd would turn
your eyes away from a wounded, bleeding, substitute, dying for
sinners to satisfy God's wrath, to put sins away that turn your
eyes away from him to a sweet little baby in a manger. So warm and cuddly. And they don't present salvation
by his sacrifice. They're false shepherds. And they won't enter in by the
one door. They try to sneak in some other
way. They hated Christ. They hated the way of grace.
Make no mistake about it, preachers today who do not preach the gospel
of God's free and sovereign grace. They don't preach full accomplishment
of redemption by the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. They stay
away from the effectual work of the Spirit of God. Make sure
you understand they're enemies of the gospel. You know, our Lord, and you can
read in Matthew chapter 23, He blistered them with his words,
didn't he? You read Matthew 23. Woe unto
you, scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites. He said that over and over again.
And he said it publicly, publicly. He didn't pull them aside and
say, let me talk to you men in private. No, they taught this
stuff openly to the multitudes, and so he's going to expose them
openly. They weren't nice men, they were
liars. They weren't true shepherds,
they were false shepherds. They didn't care about anybody
else, they cared about themselves. They wouldn't go into the kingdom
of God by way of the man, the God-man Christ Jesus, didn't
want anybody else to go in either. And there'll be preachers today,
there are preachers today who will warn people, don't listen
to those who preach that sovereign grace message. Don't listen and
stay away from them. But here's the problem. Life's
in the truth. Death is an error. And all the multitudes who've
been fooled and duped by these false shepherds. You see, they always turn people
away from the gospel of Christ to another gospel, which Paul
says in Galatians chapter 1, in reality isn't another gospel
at all. A false shepherd tries to ruin
you as far as the truth of the gospel of grace is concerned. He wants to lead you away from
the simplicity of Christ only. And he'll preach to you another
Jesus and another gospel by the power of another spirit. They preach another way into
the kingdom of God. And then he identifies them as
being thieves and robbers. A thief stole privately. A robber
stole openly. That certainly set forth these
false prophets, these self-appointed shepherds of Israel. They were
thieves and robbers. They tried to steal the Lord's
sheep. who's in this whole setting, who is the sheep that is especially
being focused on? The man who is born blind. That's the sheep. And they would
steal him away from the shepherd. They would rob the shepherd of
the glory of saving that man by his grace. They were thieves
who would try to take from the Lord that which was his own property. You see, the sheep belong to
the shepherd by divine gift. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. And him that cometh to me, I
only know why it's cast out. He mentioned that later in this
passage about the gift of the Father. Look over in verse 29. my Father which gave them me."
When did the Father give this man and all of the sheep to the
shepherd? Well, before the world began.
But these men would lay hold on this precious grace-ordained
blind man This sheep that would be redeemed by the blood of the
shepherd, they would lay hold to that sheep and steal him away
from the shepherd. Our Lord called them thieves
and robbers. They're trying to steal one of
his sheep, and in doing that, steal God's glory, steal the
glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. They're thieves and robbers. You see, even when our Lord Jesus
healed the blind man, was he a sheep then? Of course he was
a sheep then. He was a blind sheep. He was a lost sheep. He was a
wandering sheep. He was an ignorant sheep. But
he was one of the sheep entrusted to the shepherd in the covenant
of grace. He's one of the sheep that belong
to the shepherd. And these men, despising Jesus
of Nazareth, they tried to steal his property. It'll never happen. False shepherds will never get
a hold of a sheep, not one of his sheep, but they sure will
try. And they'll talk to people. You're
not going over there, are you? You're not listening to that
message, are you? Well, you know, they don't have
very many. Come over with us. You know, we got a big church
where we are. You're not going over there,
that little group over there. And false shepherds will try
to draw you away. Draw you away from the only gospel
that can do you any good. The only message of grace. The
only message of salvation. Try to pull you away. That's
what they were trying to do to the blind man. Give God the glory. Forget about
this man that you say healed you. thieves and robbers. That's what
they were. And our Lord didn't hesitate
to denounce them. Tell you something else he said
about these false shepherds, he said they were hirelings.
What they did, they did for hire. I was telling Brother Bill and
I were talking back in the study before anybody else got there,
I was telling about, I've just been reading lately about these
false preachers today and how wealthy they are. I mean, they're
millionaires. These guys that people see on
television and they rob widows' houses, send Get, send us your
social security check and so forth. One of them who lives
out in Texas, he's got a worldwide ministry. He is worth $740 million. million dollars, got three jets,
fancy jets. I was reading the bill. He said
he can't fly a regular airline because he wants to talk to God. He's not going to ride in a tube
with demonic people. I don't think I'll ever get a
jet. I'm thankful that Delta lets me ride on one every once
in a while. I tell ya, they're hirelings.
They don't care about the sheep. If you wanna know how blinded
people are spiritually, they keep givin' money to these crooks. That's amazing. They keep givin'
money. The Jimmy Swaggarts and people
like, they're multi-millionaires. The Joyce Meyers, the Kenneth
Copelands. You know, when he died, Billy
Graham was worth $100 million. Why didn't they do good with
that? Talking about send a contribution
to feed the hungry, do it yourself. Rome, Rome, don't get me started. All that gold and all that, the
paintings over there, they could feed the whole world. wealthy
beyond financial estimation. And our Lord had just the right
word for the false shepherds back then and the false shepherds
of every age. They're hirelings. They don't
care about people. And they sure don't care about
the glory of God. Find you somebody who cares about
the glory of Christ Jesus and camp under that man's ministry. Listen with all the ears you
got, because God doesn't bless error. He blesses the truth, the truth. And you know what he also calls
them? He says they're strangers. The false shepherd is a stranger,
which means he belongs to somebody else. And the false shepherds today,
the false preachers, who preach another gospel, get into heaven
another way, they're strangers. They belong
to somebody else. Our Lord pointed his finger at
those Pharisees, those teachers, and said, you are of your father,
the devil. And boy, that fired them up. He didn't hesitate. He didn't
hesitate to rebuke them. They preached their message openly.
He didn't hesitate to rebuke them openly. He called them what
they were. Why, if they were left up to
these men, that man that the Lord Jesus had healed, he would
have followed them. And that'd be the blind leading
the blind. And they're all gonna fall in
the ditch. You better be careful what voice you listen to. You
see, the sheep hear the voice of the Son of God. And over and
over again in this passage of Scripture, Talks about the sheep
hear his voice. The voice of the shepherd. My
sheep hear my voice. They hear the gospel. They hear
the gospel. He says in one place up here,
he says, notice in verse five. He says, A stranger will they
not follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the voice
of strangers. They're not going to listen to
a stranger, and they're not going to listen to a false gospel.
If you've been taught the truth of the gospel of God's free and
sovereign grace to sinners through the doing and the dying of the
Lord Jesus Christ, you cannot sit under another voice. You'd
be miserable. Miserable. You see, his sheep
love his voice. They hear his voice. They believe
his voice. They believe his gospel. That's why I have good hope for
Adam and Eve. Because you know what you read
in Genesis chapter three? After Adam had sinned and that
plunged him and Eve and the whole human race in the state of depravity. and separation from God, they heard the voice of the Lord
calling in the cool of the day. That gives me hope for them. They heard his voice. Will you
hear his voice? His sheep hear. And another voice,
a voice that's anti-grace, A voice that's anti-God's sovereign authority. A voice that lies about Christ
Jesus and his successful work of redemption. That's a voice
they won't listen to. They'll tune it out. True story. Years ago, I was young in the ministry. And Brother Mahan had come preach
for me, and we hadn't had a vacation, hadn't had an opportunity to
get away because I didn't make enough money to get away. And he invited us up here. He said, we'll put you up in
a motel and take good care of you. Just get away for a little
bit, you and Nancy and the kids. And so Susanna was just a baby
then, and David just a little bit older, and so we came up
here. And I invited a man to speak for me, and I told him, I said, well, you know
how I believe? He said, yeah, I do. And I said,
well, preach for me Sunday, will you? I'll be glad to. And I came
up here and had a really good time. Thank y'all. You've always
been generous. It's always been a generous church.
Always good to preachers. even young preachers. And I went
back home, and I went by to see one of the deacons, and he said,
oh, come in, let me tell you what happened, why he is gone.
I said, what? He said, well, he said, that
fellow you got to preach for you, he preached from Isaiah
53, six. And he said, that verse starts
with all and ends with all, and there's some of these preachers
that don't believe that Jesus died for all, and don't believe
that God loves all. And he said, he started preaching
like that, and he said, guess what? We all turned him off.
We just, we didn't listen to him anymore. And he figured out
pretty soon that he had made a mistake stabbing our preacher
in the back and lying to us. And very quickly, he closed the
service. And I told the congregation,
I said, I apologize for getting him to preach. I won't do it
again. But I said, just to show you how God can bring good out
of evil, you folks, by what you've told
me, indicate to me you understand the gospel of God's sovereign
grace. And I said, while I hate the
fact that that man stabbed me in the back, and more than that,
He preached a false gospel from my pulpit. I said, it showed
me the Lord has taught y'all the gospel. And another voice
you won't hear. And I never listened to that
man again. I always wanted to hear, and we
always want to hear the voice that's telling the truth. that's
honoring God. These false shepherds, they didn't
honor the Lord. But let me tell you about the
true shepherd. He's the true and caring shepherd. Let me tell
you about him. He identifies himself in verse
11. He says, I am. I am the good
shepherd. I am. Who is he? He's God over
all, blessed forever. Who is he? He's the ever-existent
God. He's the everlasting Lord. From
everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. He said, I am that I
am. And John's gospel specifically
focuses on the deity of Jesus of Nazareth. If he isn't God,
he didn't save anybody. But he was and is God, always
shall be God. God manifest in the flesh. So
whatever he did, and had to be successful because he's God.
Because God can't fail. I remember back in Bible college,
we had a textbook on the book of Revelation. And this writer
said, hell is a colossal monument to the failures of the eternal
God to save everybody that Jesus died for. When I read that, I
just shuddered. The failures of God? The failures
of God? If you ever hear any man preach
and he talks about what God can't do, the failures of God, that's
a voice you don't want to listen to anymore. I threw that book
away. I didn't even want it in my library.
There's some books in my library, there's some I borrowed, it'll
say at the beginning of it, I've read it, and maybe a few things
I didn't like, and I'll say, you know, overall this is a good
book, but beware. His book, it was just total garbage. I just threw it away. Our shepherd, he's God. He's
the great I am. That's his identity. He said, I am the good shepherd.
Here's his quality. He's good. There's only one good,
and that's God. And here's his office. He's the
good shepherd. He's the good shepherd of the
sheep. He's the shepherd of the Father's
appointing, of the Father's calling, of the Father's sending. He's
the shepherd to whom the care of the sheep has been entrusted. Your salvation, you who believe
the gospel, your salvation was never and is not now and never
will be dependent upon you. Your salvation is dependent upon
your shepherd, the shepherd of the sheep. And of all those that
the Savior was given, he's lost nothing. Never has lost one of
his sheep and never will. He's the shepherd. And there's the Savior, the good
shepherd's sacrifice. It says he giveth his life for
the sheep. He giveth his life. He lays down
his life for the sheep. That means in the stead of, as
the substitute for the sheep. He died for his people. Listen,
if he died for me, there's no way I'm gonna die. What kind
of justice would that be? That's why with every fiber of
my being, I just absolutely despise that heresy of universal redemption. That just burns me up. Now you
want to get on my bad side, you start promoting that. Because
that says that Jesus was a failure. And it puts salvation, the glory
of salvation puts it squarely upon the sinner who's going to
decide whether Christ's sacrifice was a good thing or not so good. Whether it was effectual or ineffectual. Won't have any of that. Not gonna
have any of that from this pulpit. Christ gave his life in the stead
of his sheep. He gave himself over to the justice
of God, who punished him in the stead of his people. What did
he give? What did he give? His life. He said, I am the good shepherd.
The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. Well, the
hireling, he flees when the wolf comes. But I tell you, when the old
serpent, that roaring lion, came after the shepherd's sheep, our
shepherd took him on. And he went to the cross of Calvary
and crushed his head. took care of him for us. He laid
down his life. What's the extent of the shepherd's
sacrifice? For the sheep. For the sheep,
not the goats. See, there's another group of
people here that the Savior mentions, the shepherd mentions. He mentions
them up here later in the chapter. Look at verse 24, and I'll give
you this and I'll quit. Then came the Jews, and I've
told you a number of times, and I'll keep repeating it, because
I want everybody to understand this. Most of the time when the
Savior speaks about the Jews, He's speaking about the Jewish
leaders who were in total opposition to Him. So verse 24, then came the Jews. Round about him, they encircled
him. I guess they thought they could
intimidate him. I don't know, make him fearful. They're gonna try to kill him,
gonna try to stone him. They encircled him and they said
to him, how long do you make us to doubt? How long do you
keep us in suspense? You gonna keep us in suspense
always? If you're really the Christ,
the Messiah, the sent one of God, tell us plainly, tell us
openly, right here and now. And Jesus answered them. He said,
I've told you. I've told you. You believe me
not. The works that I do in my Father's
name, they bear witness to me. But you believe not, and I'm
going to tell you exactly why it is that you don't believe
me. Because you're in another group. You're not of my sheep. You're
not my lost sheep. You're not my wandering sheep.
You're the goats. And that's why you don't believe. As I said unto you, my sheep,
they hear my voice. They hear my gospel. Will you
hear this gospel? Do you love this gospel? The
voice of the Lord, I do. I love this one, I don't wanna
listen to any other voice. Well, I'll tell you what, if
you love the shepherd's voice, it's because he knows you. And therefore you follow him.
And he gives you eternal life. and you're never gonna perish.
I like the wording of that. Never perish, nobody's gonna
pluck you out of his hand. Who's he talking about? He's
talking about those Jews who would pluck that blind man, that
formerly blind man, plucking him out of the shepherd's hand. That's not gonna happen, he says.
He may be a weak believer, He's a new believer. He's a new convert. But he has a mighty shepherd
who's going to keep him safe. And these wolves are going to
try to sink their claws into him. They ain't going to get
him. They're not going to steal him
away from the shepherd. And if you're one of the Lord's
sheep, they're not going to steal you away. He said, you're never gonna perish. And nobody's gonna pluck you
out of my hand. My father which gave them me
is greater than all. Nobody's gonna pluck him out
of his hand either. This is our shepherd. And he's
the way, the way, the door. There's no other door into the
kingdom of God. There's no other way of salvation.
One door, one way. That's a living way, a new and
living way. That's Christ the Lord. Do you hear his voice? Will you
hear his voice? I love his voice, don't you?
I love his gospel. I love to preach it to people
who love this gospel. And I'll preach it to people
who don't love the gospel, too, and with the prayer that the
Lord will cause them to love the truth. Oh, how sweet his
name is. You know, many years ago, John
Newton wrote, he wrote several excellent songs. I've got all
of his songs in a book in the office. But he wrote, of course
he wrote Amazing Grace, you know that. But he also wrote another
one in our psalm book, number 53, number 53, How Sweet the
Name of Jesus Sounds in a Believer's Ear. His name is sweet and his
voice is sweet. His voice is his gospel. Number
53, find that hymn in your song book, number 53.