John chapter 10. What a passage. Let me read verses starting verse
22 and go through verse 29. John chapter 10. Starting verse 22, And it was
at Jerusalem, the feast of the dedication, and it was winter,
Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch. Then came the
Jews round about him and said unto him, how long dost thou
make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us
plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you
and you believe not. The works that I do in my father's
name, they bear witness of me. But you believe not because you're
not of my sheep As I said unto you, my sheep hear my voice,
and I know them, and they follow me. I give them unto them eternal
life, and they shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand. My Father, which gave them to
me, is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them
out of my Father's hand. I'll stop there. This, I just love the word of
God that there's absolutes. There's not really many absolutes
in this life other than death, but they are absolutes in the
word of God. And they're for his people. They're
for his people to comfort, encourage, and help us in times of need.
And we have times of need all the time. But before we get into
this passage, we need to answer three questions. The first one
is who's speaking? Who's speaking here? Well, that's
obvious. Verse 23, Jesus walked in the temple, Solomon's porch. And then again in verse 25, Jesus
answered them. So Christ, the almighty God,
the infinite redeemer, the savior of sinners, that's who's speaking.
Secondly, to whom is he addressing? Well, particularly in verse 27,
my sheep hear my voice, I know them and they follow me. That's who he's specifically
addressing. And thirdly, what is he What is he addressing? Well, verse 28 and 29, I give
unto them, the sheep, eternal life, they shall never perish,
neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. And then he repeats
this phrase, my father which gave them me is greater than
all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my father's hand.
So he's addressing the keeping, the keeping of these sheep. If
you're one of his, And maybe you don't know if you're one
of his. I pray that this message would illuminate that as to whether
you have a saving interest in Christ or you do not. But if
you do, if you do, nobody can take you out of the
Father's hands, none. So what we unashamedly believe
here and what is clearly revealed in the scriptures is what the
old timer said the eternal security of the saints, the saints of
God, or I like to put it in another way, God's ability to keep that
which he initiates and to finish that which he starts. So the
saints are going to be kept. But the reason why we're kept
is because what he starts, he can finish. In this one verse,
I'm going to specifically look at verse 28. I've got four points. It's not going to be long. I
give unto them, Christ says, I give unto them the sheep eternal
life. They, these sheep shall never
perish, neither shall any man pluck these sheep out of my hand. And then he addresses it again,
my hand, my father's hand. If you've seen Christ, you've
seen the father. We have just four questions,
four questions in this one verse. And four, not questions, four
reasons or four statements as to why these sheep, are kept,
why these sheep are kept. The first one, why are they kept
safe? Why are they, well, why will
they persevere? First of all, because these sheep,
and I'll pause, these wayward, sometimes wandering, sometimes
lost, most of low degree, not really too smart, and oftentimes
these sheep in danger. These sheep are kept and kept
safe because they are Christ's responsibility and He is God
incarnate in the flesh. So that's the first thought.
Is my sheep hear my voice? Who's this I? Who's speaking? It's the Lord of Glory. He's
speaking. So that's why these sheep are
kept. That's why these sheep will persevere.
It's Christ's responsibility and he is God of God. He himself
has said in John chapter 6 and verse 39, this is the Father's
will which hath sent me that of all that he has given me I
should lose nothing, nothing. but should raise it up at the
last day." This is the word of God. No, never will they perish. Perish the thought. Christ will
bring home all for whom he has suffered, bled, and died for. These blessed ones, these ones
addressed in our text, though as vile and as bad as any, we
have nothing we can boast of, will be received by the Father,
and not only received, But Luke 15 tells us when one of these
sheep, when one of these sinners, these vagabonds, or whatever
term you wanna give to these sinners, he says, likewise, I
say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of
God over one sinner that repents. One sinner, not only will we
be received, but there's joy every time a sinner is brought
into the fold, brought into repentance and faith. Secondly, why are
these safe? Because as our text says, I give. There's grace. You can't read
much in this book without coming across grace. They are safe because
our text says he gives freely eternal life. And I give unto
them eternal life. Eternal. Just that word. And I like how Spurgeon makes
a comment. It's eternal. Well, it's eternal. It's to define it. It's everlasting. It's never ending. It's perpetual.
And as hell is, so it's everlasting. So is heaven. Spurgeon once said,
if spiritual life can die out, then it's not eternal. It's not
perpetual. It's not everlasting. Eternal. That effectively shuts out the
possibility of an end. Eternal life. We see, you know,
atheists and agnostics, it's like you die and that's it. No,
no, not at all. Actually, Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3 makes
this statement in verse 14, I know that whatsoever God does, it
shall be forever. I give unto them eternal life. It shall be forever. Nothing can be put to it, nor
anything taken from it. And God does it that men should
fear before him. So this life that is given us
by grace, through faith, through the accomplishments of Christ
is eternal. Thirdly, notice furthermore in
our text, again in verse 28, the one great I am says, they
shall never perish. Not only does he freely give
them eternal life, but it's almost as though he's redundant. Well, this word never, And I
don't know the Greek and Hebrew, but I got tools that tell me
what it says. So, it's a double negative. No,
not at all. They shall never, no, not at
all, perish. They shall never perish. It's
the words And I like, some of these older writers, they would
often say this, and I've noticed it more and more in my devotional
readings. They say, do words have meanings?
Do words have meanings? You know, when we speak and we
communicate, and that's why sometimes in this country and different
countries, words have different meanings, but we're all Americans
here. And so if words have meaning,
as the old writers would say, this is one of many of God's
absolutes. They're never, never. No, not
at all. They shall never perish. They'll
never perish. God cannot, this word cannot
be altered or changed. Perhaps in 2 Samuel, and I got
to thinking, and I love connecting different verses of scripture,
but you remember in 2 Samuel 23, when these are the last words
of David, he said, God hath made with me an everlasting covenant.
ordered in all things and sure, maybe this is what this is referring
to, never perish. Why? Because our God is a covenant
God. And the Son, the Savior, ratified
this covenant. All things written against us,
says Ephesians, He put them out of the way. He cast them behind
His back, never to be remembered anymore. Perhaps that's what
David is referring to, never perish, that sure and steadfast
covenant. The greatest of obstacles or
the greatest of obstinate unbelief cannot change our Heavenly Father's
care and compassion for his dear people. John 15, greater love
hath no man than this, then somebody lays down their life for their
friends. Did he not? Did he not? You see, it's just like it stacks
up. I just love how the wording of the scripture, I would have
never thought of anything like this. One verse packed with comfort
and assurance to all the wandering, lost, distressed, depressed sheep. One verse, I give unto them,
in the I we've discussed, that's the sovereign, majestic, holy
Father, and the Son, and the Spirit, I, the Trinity, give
unto them eternal life, which never ends, and they shall never
perish. Never, not at all. Where's our
hope? Who's our hope? This is why we
shout clearly and loudly, salvation belongs to our God. He's sovereign,
he's majestic in the doings and dyings of Emmanuel. For this
reason, Christ had to come into the world. People still can't
figure that out. If man were to write this book,
it would have been, you'd have seen a lot more about man patting
himself and I did this and I did that. They would have never,
ever. Matter of fact, this is the only religion Muslims and
Joseph Smith and all this is only religion that's that the
the death of the testator Because now the will's in force And we
wouldn't have thought of that We would definitely not have
thought of that. We would have had to get ourselves in here
somewhere, some glory, some benefit, some praise, but this is why
we shout salvation. This is why Jonah shout. Salvation
is of the Lord. I've told you this time and time
again. I don't know much about grammar, though I know of shows
origin. Salvation is of the Lord. We contribute basically, well
not even basically, we contribute absolutely nothing to our salvation.
I was pulling out, I don't know why I keep them, but I got a
stack of quotes and then I print stuff out and I put it in my
bulletin board or whatever. And I got this little quote and
I asked Melinda, I said, did I put this in the bulletin? She
said, I think I did. She said, I think you did too.
So I didn't put it back in the bulletin, but I like this saying,
it kind of raises the eyebrow. So you really have to listen,
but there's an old uneducated sinner and the Lord had saved
him. pastor or preacher was saying,
you know, how did the Lord save him? He said, well, God did his
part and I did my part. When you hear that, the little
radio, you know, the antennas come up, what do you mean you
did your part? And the preacher was like, what do you mean you
did your part? He said, well, God did the saving. and I stood in his way. That's
what we do. And then Spurgeon said, yeah,
we always resisted and we're obstinate and we try to lean
on to our own understanding, which we're not supposed to.
We're supposed to lean on to his way, his righteousness, but
we contribute nothing. Our sin, our pride, our unbelief,
they are our greatest hindrances to coming to know Christ. That's
why We bless his holy name in Psalms 110, he makes us willing
in the day of his power. It's gotta be that way. Because
if that were not that way, we would never come to him. You will not come to me that
you have life. We know that's for sure. So I look at this again
in this last thought, this fourth thought. My sheep hear my voice,
says Christ, and I know them, says Christ, and they follow
me. My sheep will follow me. And I give unto them eternal
life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand. And then he goes on to say this
again, this phrase, no man is able to pluck them out of my
Father's hand. Now I don't understand, I don't know why there's a redundancy,
but it must be important if he said it twice in these two verses.
Lastly, Why are the sheep safe? Why are they secure? And why
are we kept? To finalize the lesson, he declares
his people are in his hand. Come here and come see a man
that told me, says the lady, everything I ever did. In another
passage of scriptures, the Pharisees were upset with the soldiers.
Why have you not arrested him? And he said, Never a man spake
like this man. Never a man spake like this man. Never a man had the authority
that this man. Never a man lived like this man
or died like this man. And never a man rose from the
grave like this man. Come here, come see a man, the
God man, unlike any prior or any one after. We defy anyone
to ever pluck These poor, weak sheep out of his sovereign, omnipotent,
unchanging hands of power, grace, and pity. Can't be done. Can't
be done. Neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand. Well, someone once says, well,
I can do it. Now, aren't you, are you a man
in this context? Man, woman, boy, or girl, you
can't do it. Can't do it. Brethren, let us not fear, let
us not trust in carnal confidence. He, I, the shepherd, he is our
savior. He is our redeemer. May he cause
us to rest and have peace only in the hollow of his almighty
hands. You see, it's a losing battle.
Paul realized that. You know, who are you to kick
against the pricks? We're not going to win. Never rest in or
on the creature man, nor in our own ability. Simply flee to him. Come to him. Trust in him. He and he alone has accomplished
all the things necessary to obtain and secure eternal life. I give
unto them. eternal life, and they shall
never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand. Simply trust in Him. Ask God
to give you grace, to give me grace to continue to come to
Him. And when we come to Him, we don't
stop. The believer does not stop. Peter
says, unto whom coming? We keep coming to Him. We keep
trusting Him. His salvation is not a one-time
deal and then it's over. We keep coming to Him. And then
we find out that those who endure to the end, the same shall be
saved. Well, how are we going to endure
to the end? Are we going to, like in Galatians, start in the
Spirit and then be made perfect in the flesh? Not at all. Not
at all. We're going to keep looking,
keep trusting, keep worshiping him. Like little children. Like little children, we can
learn something from our from our kids. Implicit trust they have
for the parents. Or people who they know and they
trust. So be like them. Be like them. May God. Get the
honor, the praise and the glory. Ben, would you close us?