I want you to open your Bibles
this morning to the Gospel of John. John chapter 10. That 23rd Psalm that was read
begins with the man David saying, the Lord is my shepherd. name that was given for the Lord
Jesus Christ just particular to that day, or particular just
to David, or maybe even just particular to the Old Testament? No, it was not. Because here
in John chapter 10, Christ speaks of Himself as the Shepherd. And I thought about it this morning
that I would like to be what is said of John the Baptist in
the last, or next to the last, verse of John 10. It says, "...and many resorted
unto him, and said, John did no miracle, but all things that
John spoke of this man were true." And the only way that I can assure
that what was said of John could be said of me, is for me to speak
the things that Christ said of Himself. I'm not trying to come
up with something novel and new. I'm trying to set forth and proclaim
the Word of God. And Christ, as I said, speaks
of Himself as the Shepherd. Look down in verse 11. He says, I am the Good Shepherd. Later on in Hebrews 13, He is
referred to as the Great Shepherd. the blood of the great shepherd. And then Peter also, by the Spirit
of God, refers to him as the chief shepherd. Those are names
given of Christ in his Word. And as such, he is the shepherd
of a flock. As a matter of fact, He Himself
describes them as a little flock, saying in Luke 12, Fear not,
little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give
you the kingdom. They are little as far as compared
to the great masses of humanity. But the Shepherd's glory lies
in this. It lies in His keeping all the
sheep. It doesn't lie in Him saving
every man and woman on this earth. It lies in whether or not He
can save and keep the sheep, this little flock. And then if
you look in verse 3, it says that He calls His own sheep by
name. To Him the porter openeth, and
the sheep hear his voice, and he calleth his own sheep by name."
He did so to Saul of Tarsus on the Damascus road. Saul, Saul,
why persecutest thou me? He did when he stood under that
tree that Zacchaeus had climbed and hid himself in. He called
him by his name. And it says also in verse 7 that
he's the door of the sheep. Then said Jesus unto them again,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door. I'm not one of the doors. I'm
not one of the ways to God. I'm not one of the lies or one
of the truth, I am the door to God. And in calling these His
own sheep, He says also and shows also that not all are His sheep. As a matter of fact, the greater
part of those that He is here talking to, These religious Pharisees,
these moralists, these fundamentalists of his day, look down in verse
26. He says to them, but you believe
not, because you're not of my sheep, as I said unto you. And all we have to do is go over
to Matthew 25, and we find there all of humanity, as they are
brought and come before the judgment of God, all are divided into
two groups. And these he calls also the goats. The one on the one side, these
sheep, he says, come and enter in these blessings that the Father
has aforeprepared for you. And to these others, these goats,
he says to them, depart from me and go out cursed into everlasting. This is what Christ says. And He refers to these here in
this text and elsewhere, He refers to them as My sheep, His possession. How is it that these are His
sheep? Well, He says that they are His
because the Father gave them to Him. Several times they are
referred to as these that the Father hath given Him. And not
only that, they are His also because He's the Creator of them. You know that? All things were
made by Him and there was not anything made that was not made
by Him. He's there because He created
them. He even says, all souls are mine. Can I not do with mine own what
I will? And then there is also these
especially because He bought them, He redeemed them. That's
what it says. He redeemed them. He redeemed
them by His blood. And not only that, these are
the ones that He loves. Rather than saying, as everybody
does, he loves everybody, these are the ones that he says that
he loves. Look down in verse 14. He says, I am the good shepherd,
and know my sheep, and am known of mine. He says, I know my sheep. And this word know here has to
do with knowledge. It is also translated in other
places as new, and it has to do not with general knowledge,
but with a special intimate knowledge and relationship. I may say that
I know of the President of the United States, but I don't know
him. I may say that I know of an individual
somewhere that actually exists, that is, I believe that he exists,
but I don't know him like I know you, Roger. You see, this is
the same knowledge that we find in Scripture set forth, you know,
when it says that Adam knew his wife, and she conceived, and
she brought forth Cain. That intimate knowledge that
is spoken of when it says of Joseph that he knew not Mary
till she had brought forth her firstborn son, and he called
his name Jesus. I know them means I love them. Look down also in verse 27. He
says, my sheep hear my voice and I know them. Do you suppose
He doesn't know every person in the world? He knows of and
knows everything about every person. But of these sheep, He
says, I know them. I've loved them with an everlasting
love. It is that kind of love that
is singled out in Scripture when He says concerning the husband
and the wife. He says it is a picture of Christ
and His church, and He says to the husband, Husbands, love your
wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for it. This isn't a general love. This
is a particular and definite love described by Paul in 2 Timothy
when he says, Nevertheless, the foundation of God standeth sure,
having this seal, the Lord knows them that are His. He knows them. He loves His sheep. And furthermore, what he says
is here that these sheep are the ones that he died for. You can have whatever kind of
view of the atoning work and cross death of Christ you want
to, but it better be in exact identical harmony with what he
says. Somebody said, well, Christ died
for everybody. Let me see what Christ says here
in verse 11. This Good Shepherd, He says,
I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd gives His life
for the sheep. You say, that's your doctrine.
Absolutely it is. But it's my doctrine because
it is the doctrine of Christ. He's talking about who He dies
for. I give my life for the sheep. And just in case we don't quite
understand it, look down in verse 15. He says, "...as the Father
knoweth me, even so know I the Father, and I lay down my life
for the sheep." In other words, Christ is saying here that He
gives or submits His life to death for the sheep. He gives His life as a sacrifice
for the sheep. He lives and He dies and suffers
as the substitute for these sheep. He says, I gave my life, a ransom
for many. And when we read in Isaiah 53,
long before he ever came, in that very well-known passage,
Isaiah 53, he says, "...all we like sheep have gone astray,
we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid
on him the iniquity of us all." Somebody says, well, that must
mean that Christ died for every single person. Think about this
in the light of God's justice. Think of this in the light of
Christ's coming into this world to pay a sin debt. If divine
justice receives at the hand and life of Christ the death
for every single person in the world, then divine justice would
also require that they all go free. But that isn't what it
says, is it? He says, I give my life for these
sheep. I lay down my life for the sheep. And so Isaiah is led by the Spirit
of God in that same Isaiah 53 to go on in description of Christ. He was taken from prison and
from judgment, and who shall declare his generation? For he was cut off out of the
land of the living. And then the next words are these,
"...for the transgression of my people was he stricken." Unless
we should fall into that error, of imagining he is simply talking
about the Jews or those who might have been present at that very
hour. Look at what he says in verse
16. He says, "...and other sheep
I have." You see that? I'm not going to try to get them. I'm not going to wait to see
what they decide. I'm not going to in some way
wonder as to whether or not I'll ever have them. I'm not talking
about empty seats in heaven and such foolishness as that. He
says, "...of the sheep I have which are not of this foe." They
are not of this Jewish foe like you might be. He says, "...them
also." What? must bring. I must bring them. Why? Because the Father has committed
their care, their soul salvation, their every blessing in the hands
of this great Shepherd, and His glory depends on it. The carrying
out of the Father's will depends on it. He has no way that He
can fail. He says, "...them also I must."
and there shall be one foal and one shepherd." So I'm here to
tell you this morning, if you are one of God's sheep, Christ
will bring you unto Himself. He has not sent me or any true
preacher of the true gospel out to see if or when or maybe or
something. He has sent us out with a message
from God concerning the shepherd and what he'll do for the sheep,
and He will bring them. He will. Now these things being
true as they are, these things which cannot be truthfully denied,
we come down to this question, are you, am I, one of Christ's
sheep? Now there are those who say,
well, One day, some people are going to wake up in eternity,
and they're going to find out that they were one of God's sheep.
Or they say, it really doesn't matter or not whether they hear
the gospel, no need really to preach the gospel, really no
need to tell men what Christ says or what He did. If they're
going to be saved, they'll be saved anyway. No. No. And the reason is because
God, who has surely ordained the end, He knows exactly who
His sheep are. He knows that He cannot fail. None could stop Him from saving
them. He knows exactly that that last
stone in the building that He describes by the prophet will
be put in place with shoutings of, Grace! Grace! And none will
be absent. He knows that. But He has also
ordained means. Means. He's the God of means. And He uses means to bring that
into pass for one great reason. He's glorified in the means as
well as in the end. The gospel of Jesus Christ, the
truth of what Christ says about Himself, and what those who are
led by the Spirit of God say about Himself, they give glory
to God. And the reason why that men exalt
so-called free will, or free agency, or all these other foolish
names that men have adopted, they do so in order to have God
not be in control of things, but the will of fallen sinners
to be in control of it. They say stuff like this, God
has done all He can, and now it's up to you. Heaven help us
if that's the case. He says the natural mind is entity
against God. He says to these very Pharisees,
you will not come to me that you might have life. You won't
do it. These sheep, by nature, are as
rebellious and as blind and as great as sinners. Some of them
may be even more great a sinner than every other person, every
goat would be. So are you one of Christ's sheep? Well, let me ask you this. Have you ever been lost? Have
you ever been lost? Listen to what the Lord Jesus
Christ, He Himself, said that He came to do. He said, "...for
the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost."
And you know the problem with us is none of us by nature We've
got such a high opinion of ourselves. We're so self-righteous in our
own nature, the way we look at things, especially of ourselves. We compare ourselves to somebody
like Charles Manson or Jeffrey Dahmer or the biggest drunk or
the biggest dope addict in the community. We compare ourselves
with them and by that kind of standard, we look pretty good. How do you look compared to the
man Christ Jesus, who never had a wicked thought, never committed
a sin, never did anything displeasing the Father, always was in Himself
the One who knew no sin? How do you compare to Him? Now you can compare to me and
you can say, Compared to that preacher, I'm looking pretty
good. Boy, that's a low standard. That's
a low standard. And you see, God is the only
one, His Spirit taking His Word, convincing us of this fact and
reality that we're sinners, that we're lost. Because the truth
of the matter is this, if you haven't ever been lost, you haven't
ever been saved. What is it to be lost? Well, you can go over in the
Gospel of Luke. And in the Gospel of Luke, the
15th chapter, there is a three-part parable given by the Lord Jesus. It has to do with some sheep. It has to do with a coin. And it has to do with a son.
It's that chapter where we read about what is called the prodigal
son. Do you remember? Well, here is
this first part. It has to do with these sheep.
Guess what kind of state they're in? They're lost. How are they
ever found? The shepherd goes out and he
seeks that one lost sheep till he finds it. And he lays it on
his shoulder and he brings back that sheep, rejoicing with his
friends and saying, this was that lost sheep, but I've gone
until I found him. The second is a coin. And a woman
has this coin, but the coin is lost. Isn't that something? Lost. And what does this woman
do? The Bible says that she turns
that house upside down, and she sweeps every corner till she
finds it. And she rejoices. And then there's
that lost son, when he has come back to the Father. and he's
received by the Father. He's desiring to only be as one
of his father's servants, and yet the Father comes to him and
gives him the best robe and the ring of sonship. And when his
brother has something to say about it, he said, it's right
that we should make Mary. Why? He said, because this my
son was dead. Dead to all good, dead to all
relationship. He was dead, but now he's alive. He's lost, but now he's found. So lost we are that if God leaves
us to ourselves, We'll wander all our days in this world in
a spiritual blindness, thinking we're on our way to glory, and
at the same time, all the time, really be on our way to hell. How deceived can we be? Well,
you just go look in Matthew 7. And he says, broad is the way
that leads to destruction. And many there be that go therein. Straight is the gate, and that
is simply Christ Himself, the one way, the one truth. Straight is the gate that leads
to life. And few there be that find it.
Who finds it? Those that Christ reveals. He's
the shepherd. The shepherd leads the sheep.
How are they brought? They're brought to see that He's
the only way, that He's the only salvation, that He's the only
righteousness that God will accept. And yet some, Christ says in
that same chapter, some will stand up before Him in that day
and so confident and so self-satisfied they'll be in who they are and
what they've done, they'll say, Lord, Lord. Have we not prophesied
in your name? Have we not done many wonderful
works? Have we not cast out devils in
your name?" And he says to them, depart from me, you that work
iniquity. You know what iniquity is? Iniquity
is simply inequity. In other words, here's a standard
over here, and you have to equal the standard, and all that doesn't
equal the standard is what? Iniquity. Here's a standard of
holiness and righteousness and justice. You see, God, if you
ever find out how God is, He'll have to bring you to this book
in order to find out what He says that He is. Because there
are a lot of gods out there that men invented, that men talk about,
that men hold up as God, some kind of big generic God. And
when you begin to tell them exactly how God is, let me tell you how
God is. He hates sin in His holiness
and in His justice. He hates sin to the extent that
when He charged the sins of these sheep to His Son, He turned His
back on Him and put Christ to death. You say, I thought it
was the Romans that did that. I thought it was the Jews. He
says that he, by the determinate counsel and for ordination of
God, was taken and by wicked hands were slain. That's how
much he hates sin. And in that hour bearing the
sins of his people, paying the price of the sin-debt of these
sheep, the shepherd cried out to the Father, My God, My God,
why hast Thou forsaken me?" Why would God forsake His Son? Because He was there as the substitute
for the sheep. My friend, the sad thing is that
so many grow up in morality, and they can honestly say outwardly,
that they don't steal or lie or cheat or all these things. But what they don't realize is
that every thought, every motive, everything we do and even we
ourselves are nothing but sin. I've got that little darling
granddaughter that you know is the apple of my eye. And I would
hold her when she was born, just a little tiny thing, and she
was the glowing picture of innocence. I thought, you know, surely this
can't be a sinner. And we take her and we do our
dead level best to train her and to teach her right from all
these things, but you know, she can act like the devil himself. That's right. Why? Now does she do the things that
she does when we try to keep her in a good environment, try
to instruct her, why does she do these things? Because of who
she is. Because a sinner begat a sinner. And all the way back to the family
tree in Adam, we're all alike. You may be female, I'm male.
You may be young, I'm old. You may be rich, I'm poor. It
doesn't matter what those distinguishing things might be. All have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. Jeremiah is used of the
Lord, who says, My people have been lost sheep. Their shepherds
have caused them to go astray. They have turned them away on
the mountains. They have gone from mountain
to hill. They have forgotten their resting
place." You're just wandering around here, lost sheep, until
the shepherd goes, And he takes that staff, got the hook on the
end of it, you know, shepherd's staff, and he reaches down to
that lost sheep who's tangled all up in the briars and the
bushes and can't save himself, and he hooks that hook around
him and brings him to the resting place. That's Christ. Have you
ever been lost? Well, here's another thing. Have
you ever heard the shepherd's voice? Look down in verse 5. He says, "...and a stranger will
they not follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the
voice of strangers." Look down in verse 8. "...all that ever
came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not
hear them." Why don't they? Why don't they hear Him? Oh,
they may entertain for a while in their sins and their foolishness
and blindness. They'll entertain all voices
but for the grace of God. But when He sends His Spirit
with His gospel, it says that they hear His voice. My sheep hear my voice. How does the shepherd speak? Well, my land, He's speaking
right here to us. Can we hear this? Will we just
shut our ears and our minds to what He said here about Himself
and about His sheep? Will we just walk out of this
door? If we continue to do so, we're not His sheep. God hath
in these last days spoken to His people through His Son. That's what it says in Hebrews
1. The sheep hear the shepherd's
voice. We have references in Scripture
like this, where the shepherd says this, He that hath an ear,
let him hear. Say, I'm not believing that stuff,
preacher. You don't have an ear. Because this hearing involves
not just the mind, but the heart and the affections and the will.
He says this, "...he that is of God, heareth God's words."
That's what he said to those Pharisees. And he continues,
"...you therefore hear them not, because you're not of God." You
weren't chosen of God, you weren't loved of God, you weren't redeemed
of God. If you were of God, if you were
one of the shepherd's sheep, He'll bring you in sometime to
hear His voice. I remember when the Lord first
began to deal with me, there was one thing, one thing in particular
that He convinced me of. And that is that this book is
His Word. It doesn't just contain His Word.
And as He said, if any man speaks not according to this Word, it's
because there's no light in him. He convinced me that it didn't
matter if it was my mama, or my daddy, or my sister, or my
brother, or my best friend. It didn't matter who it was if
they did not speak according to this Word. There was no light
in them. Now granted it cost. I found
out right away what it means to be identified with the truth. with the gospel that gives all
the glory to God. See, that's what this is all
about. The shepherd is the one who takes care of the sheep,
not the sheep don't take care of the shepherds. These pitiful
preachers, they're standing up there begging, saying, God needs
your time, and God needs your talent, and God needs your time,
and God needs you, and all... God does not need anything. He is the self-existent One and
self-sufficient One and has been for all eternity. He said, if
I needed something, I wouldn't ask you for it. I wouldn't ask
you for it. And that's why His people are
not a bunch of people who run up and down this world begging
a lost world to prop up their God. Will you give something
to the church? Will you buy our broomsticks
or our peanut brittle? Will you come to our chicken
fries and all this? What God is in, He'll provide
for. And right here is the 30-year
plus proof. Never had a yard sale, a bake
sale, a fun drive. No, the shepherd takes care of
the sheep. What I have, He gave me. and the same with you." Paul
writes to those Ephesians, and he said, he writes to them as
believers, and that's what these words are written for, the Lord's
sheep. He said, now you, He blessed
you and chose you from eternity past, and he said, you were brought
to trust Christ, in whom you trusted. When? You say, well, I've always believed
on Jesus. An old preacher once said, that's
a little too long. He said, in whom you trusted,
after that you heard the word of truth. Because you only find
out about the true Christ. when you hear the word of the
truth. What is the word of the truth?
He said, in whom you trusted, after that you heard the word
of the truth, the gospel of your salvation. The gospel of your
salvation? That's not what men preach in
our day. They preach the gospel of how to be saved. which is
really the gospel of how to save yourselves. You make your decision,
you make your choice, you do this, you walk down this aisle,
you shake this preacher's hand, you choose to go into a pool
of water, whatever it is. That's not what I preach. To
God's people, to these sheep, I don't know who they are, but
bless His name, He does. He knows. I have the good news. Christ
has saved you. It's the gospel of your salvation
that God was in Christ reconciling you unto Himself. It's the gospel
that He's done it all. It's the gospel that when He
hung on that cross, it is true what He said concerning His people. It is what? Can you finish anything? It's
dawned on me of late that I've got a whole lot of projects in
my life that I'm going to come down to the end one of these
days and they just aren't going to be finished. But he came and
he successfully accomplished and finished the work of redeeming
and saving his sheep. And the gospel is the giving
out of this good news to them. There's not a command for you
to do. I hate doo-doo religion. It's done. It's finished. It's accomplished. You say, well,
preacher, what are we supposed to do? Thank Him for it. Honor
Him by it. Identify with Him. Follow Him. Because that's what it says.
Paul writing to the Colossians, he talks about the hope. Now
the hope is not what men make hope to be in our day. Hope is not just a wish. Hope
is a confident expectation. The hope which is laid up for
you in heaven whereby you heard before in the word of the truth
of the gospel. And you can just mark this down.
This sad, pitiful time in which we live. This sin-cursed world
which keeps manifesting itself for what it is more and more
every day. And this so-called Christian
nation in which we live, which God is bringing to show that
we are anything but that. If you ever have any hope, It'll
be a hope that's revealed in this gospel. And it is the hope,
the good hope of grace in Christ. I have hope. I was talking to
somebody yesterday, and man, they were consumed by this dismal
outlook. Economically, politically, every
kind of other, ethically, it's just all bad, isn't it? But you
know what? I have hope. It's not in you. Not in me for sure. Not in who
will get selected president. Not in this nation. Not in this
world. My hope is in Christ. The fact
that God has already blessed me with all spiritual blessings
in Christ Jesus. All of them. I'm not going to
lose anything. Alright, here's the next question
on this. You want to cry sheep, are you following the shepherd?
He says, I love my sheep, I know my sheep, my sheep love me, and
they follow me. Now the important thing there
is that little pronoun M-E. They follow me. There have been a lot of people
who have been following preacher so-and-so, or they've been following
this one and that one and the other, and now they're in this
terrible disgruntled state because this preacher or that person
that they had such high esteem for, they made a terrible mistake,
they embarrassed them or they forsook them, something like
that. That's what men always do to you. And I got news for
you, that's what we do for them too. He said, the sheep follow
me. Not a denomination, not a little
local religious organization, not all these things that are
just waiting there. I always feel so sorry for these
young Marines, their families, when they come in, to this basin,
they drive out of the front gate of the basin. Well, they don't
ever get out of it, really. There's these embracing arms of false
religion. We've got something for you kids.
We've got something for you to have a good time. We've got something
for you single folks that ain't married and you old folks that
are on your last leg. We've got something for everybody.
We've got one gospel for everybody. The only hope there is. He says,
they follow me. Peter said, you were as sheep
going astray, but are now returned unto the shepherd and bishop
of your souls. And when John sees the church
in the Revelation, that's who he sees, at least part of what
he sees. He sees this group of people.
They are described as a people that were redeemed from among
men. A people out of every nation,
kindred, tribe, and tongue. And here they are. And he asks
who they are. And he's told this, "...these
are they which were not defiled with women." That's kind of weird,
isn't it? What he's saying there is, And
she is described in all her parts here in the Revelation, false
religions are all portrayed as this harlot who seduces men. That's why these were not defiled
with women, for they are virgins. These are they which follow the
Lamb whithersoever He goeth. These were redeemed from among
men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb." They don't
just follow somebody who is abstractly and mystically even called Jesus. No, they follow Christ in His
redemptive character. They follow the Lamb. They follow
Christ in His sacrificial death. He's the Lamb of God that takes
away sin. They follow Him in His example. They follow Him, as John said,
with us wherever He goes. That is, they follow Him through
all the persecutions and trials and fire that come from being
identified with Him. Here's another question. Has
the Shepherd given you eternal life? Look at verse 28. I give unto them eternal life. What is eternal life? We'll say,
well, we're going to live forever. Everybody's going to live forever.
When He made us, He breathed into us the breath of life and
we became living souls. The body will go back to the
dust until that appointed time, but we are still what we are,
living souls. The devil tries to fool men and
does some. They say, well, I'm tired of
all this mess, I'm just going to end it all. Did you ever hear
that expression, out of the frying pan and into the fire? That's
what suicide is. It is appointed unto man once
to die, granted. But after this, the judgment. That rich man, when he died,
it says that he lift up his eyes in hell, being in torment. Oh me, it's not the end. But what is eternal life then?
Eternal life is to know the true God. That's right. John 17, verse
3, Christ says, "...before the Father, and this is life eternal,
that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ,
whom Thou hast sent." It's to know God, the true God, in the
only way He can be known, in Christ. Through this one Mediator. in this one high priest, through
this one sacrifice. John says, and this is the record
that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His
Son. He that hath the Son hath life. But I don't know if I've got
the Son. Well, those who have the Son simply find out this,
that it is the Son that has them. John says, and I quoted it yesterday
in a funeral, he said, he that believes on the Son, not just
this person who says, well, I believe in Jesus. No. To believe on something
means to rely totally on it. To love it fully. To rest in
it completely. You say, I believe there's a
bridge that goes across New River. Well, you just believe it exists. To believe on it is to go right
out on the middle of that bridge, stop right there, stay there,
and to depend that it will never fall or fail forever. And then there's this one, will
you perish? Listen, I give unto them eternal
life, and they shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them
out of My hand. My Father which gave them Me
is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of
My Father's hand." People always want to know, you know, they
run up to you and say, do you believe this? I want to ask you
a question, Pritchard. Do you believe in once saved,
always saved? And I always ask them this. Who saved you? It all depends
on who saved you. If your salvation is based on
something that you experienced, or something you felt, or something
you decided, no. But if Christ saved you, from
old eternity to eternity future, absolutely. If the shepherd saves
his sheep, they're safe. They're safe. They'll never perish.
So, the reality of it is, based on God's testimony, will you
perish? Based on God's justice, you remember
the hymn writer? God cannot twice demand, first
at my bleeding surety's hand, and then again at mine? Will
God be just if Christ died in my place? Would He be just to
send me to hell? That is so much an abomination
to think of it. Based on His faithfulness. Will you perish? And then sometimes
we say things like this, I believe, but I'm afraid of what I'll do. When the truth of the matter
is, then you don't really believe at all. Because you believe in
part that some way your salvation or your being kept is based on
what you do or don't do, rather than on what He did. You see,
if you look around and you find any hope or any assurance based
on what you've done, or what you're trying to do, or what
you hope to do in the future, that's a bad assurance. We're
kept, Peter says, by the power of God. through faith unto salvation
ready to be revealed in the last day. I like what Jude writes. Now unto Him that is able to
keep you from falling and to present you faultless before
the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. That's Him. That's Him. So it kind of amounts to this,
based on what he says, based on what he has done, based on
his immutable, unchangeable, and faithful being, I'm not going
to perish. You say, well, preacher, don't
be so cocky. You might go out tomorrow and
rob a bank. I might. But if I'm one of the Lord's
sheep, I may fall. And I may fall seven times. He
said, but I'll lift him up every time. And we do fall. I'll tell
you in religion, that was the hardest thing to keep up. That
exterior, you know, that got to look holy and act pious and
all that. That is a hard job. Sometimes I'll... Pretty often
I'll go down to the little restaurant down the road here and I'll be
there in the morning and I'll be in my jeans, maybe a work
shirt, I don't know. I'll be eating around the table
with a bunch of fellas and I see people walk in, they know who
I am, they think, what's he doing sitting with that crowd? Because
I'm a sinner just like they are. Because my Lord was a friend
of publicans and sinners. And I sure am glad He is. Because
that's what I am. So can we say with David, this
Lord, who is the Lord, is my shepherd. You can take yours
if you want to. This one's mine. Well, if this
Lord is your shepherd, I can say this, you shall not want
You will not lack. You will not be disappointed.
You will not be dealt with in the matter of your sin, because
Christ already has dealt with it. And you can say with old
David, that the trail dogs of God's grace, you'll never go
in one direction or the other direction, but what, they're
not there. Those old trail dogs, you know
about them? They're called grace or goodness and mercy. And he
says, surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days
of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. As the hymn writer said, the
King of love, my shepherd is. Father, this morning we pray
that You would make Your truth, make the Good News of the Gospel
to be real, to be believed by Your sheep. Lord, Your sheep
will hear Your voice, and they'll follow You. You love them, You
know them, and You're known of them. You're loved of them. We thank you and we pray in the
name of Christ. Amen.