I want to read this morning from
the book of Ezekiel and chapter 34. We'll begin at verse one. Ezekiel
34 and verse one. The word of the Lord came unto
me saying, son of man, Prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and say unto them, thus
saith the Lord God unto the shepherds, woe be to the shepherds of Israel
that do feed themselves. Should not the shepherds feed
the flocks? Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe
you with the wool. ye kill them that are fed, but
ye feed not the flock. The diseased have ye not strengthened,
neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound
up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which
was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost,
but with force and with cruelty ye have ruled them. and they
were scattered because there is no shepherd, and they became
meat to all the beasts of the field when they were scattered.
My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every
high hill, yea, my flock was scattered upon all the face of
the earth, and none did search or seek after them. Therefore,
ye shepherds, hear the word of the Lord. As I live, saith the
Lord God, surely because my flock became a prey and my flock became
meat to every beast of the field, because there was no shepherd,
neither did my shepherds search for my flock, but the shepherds
fed themselves and fed not my flock. Therefore, ye shepherds,
hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord God. Behold,
I am against the shepherds, and I will require my flock at their
hand, and cause them to cease from feeding the flock. Neither
shall the shepherds feed themselves any more, for I will deliver
my flock from their mouth, that they may not be meat for them. For thus saith the Lord God,
Behold, I, even I, will both search my sheep and seek them
out. 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. and
I will bring them out from the people and gather them from the
countries and will bring them to their own land and feed them
upon the mountains of Israel by the rivers and in all the
inhabited places of the country. I will feed them in a good pasture
and upon the high mountains of Israel shall their fold be. There
shall they lie in a good fold and in a fat pasture shall they
feed upon the mountains of Israel. I will feed my flock, and I will
cause them to lie down, saith the Lord God. I will seek that
which was lost and bring again that which was driven away, and
will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which
was sick. But I will destroy the fat and
the strong. I will feed them with judgment. And as for you, O my flock, thus
saith the Lord God. Behold, I judge between cattle
and cattle, between the rams and the he goats. Seemeth it
a small thing unto you to have eaten up the good pasture, but
ye must tread down with your feet the residue of your pastures,
and to have drunk of the deep waters, but ye must foul the
residue with your feet. And as for my flock, they eat
that which ye have trodden with your feet, and they drink that
which ye have fouled with your feet. Therefore thus saith the
Lord God unto them, Behold, I, even I, will judge between the
fat cattle and between the lean cattle. Because ye have thrust
with side and with shoulder, and have pushed all the diseased
with your horns, till ye have scattered them abroad, Therefore
will I save my flock, and they shall no more be a prey, and
I will judge between cattle and cattle. And I will set up one
shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David. He shall feed them, and 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 it. And I will make with them a covenant
of peace, and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the
land. And they shall dwell safely in
the wilderness, and sleep in the woods. and I will make them
and the places round about my hill a blessing, and I will cause
the shower to come down in his season, there shall be showers
of blessing. And the tree of the field shall
yield her fruit, and the earth shall yield her increase, and
they shall be safe in their land, and shall know that I am the
Lord when I have broken the bands of their yoke and delivered them
out of the hand of those that serve themselves of them. And
they shall no more be a prey to the heathen, neither shall
the beast of the land devour them, but they shall dwell safely
and none shall make them afraid. And I will raise up for them
a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunger
in the land, neither bear the shame of the heathen any more. Thus shall they know that I,
the Lord their God, am with them, and that they, even the house
of Israel, are my people, saith the Lord God. And ye, my flock,
the flock of my pasture, are men, and I am your God, saith
the Lord God. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading from his word. Turn with me please to John chapter
10. John chapter 10. And look at verse one. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
he that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth
up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he
that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.
To him the porter openeth, and the sheep hear 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. This parable spake Jesus unto
them, but they understood not what things they were which he
spake unto them. Then said Jesus unto them again,
Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. All
that ever came before me are thieves and robbers, but the
sheep did not hear them. I am the door by me if any man
enter in he shall be saved and shall go in and out and find
pasture. The thief cometh not but 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. The good shepherd giveth his
life for the sheep. But he that is in hireling, and
not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf
coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth. And the wolf catcheth
them, and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth, because
he is in hireling, and careth not for the sheep. I am the good
shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. And the
father knoweth me, even so know I the father, and I lay down
my life for the sheep. and other sheep I have, which
are not of this fold, them also I must bring, and they shall
hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd. Therefore doth my Father love
me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No
man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power
to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment
have I received of my Father. May God bless to us this reading
from his word. In John chapter nine, in the
previous chapter to that which we have just read together here,
the Lord Jesus Christ opened the eyes of a blind man, a man
that had been blind from birth in an extraordinary miracle. a miracle that amazed the crowds
and angered the Jewish leaders. And the reason why it was so
disturbing to the Jewish leaders was because of the way in which
the Lord applied the lesson of the healing of this man. You see, these leaders, they
hyped themselves. They presented themselves as
the guides and the shepherds of Israel. That was who they
were. That was what they presented
to the people. These were the people who had
studied the scriptures. These were the people who knew
Moses. These were the people who lived
by the law of God. And with their long coats and
their tassels, with their scripture readings and their prayers, with
their street corner pomposity, They made it look as if they
knew what the people needed, and they taught the people their
lies. They were the would-be pastors
and preachers who thought that they should lead and teach the
people about God. In Jeremiah 3, verse 15, we're
told that God would give to his people
pastors according to his own heart that would lead and feed
with knowledge and understanding. So when Jesus came and healed
this blind man and used the healing of this blind man to say to these
who thought they were the shepherds and pastors of the people of
God, you're not the shepherds and pastors of the people of
God. I'm the shepherd of the people of God. You are blind
leaders of the blind and you're both going to end up in the ditch. These men were thoroughly offended. He describes at the beginning
of John chapter 10, coming out of the amazing miracle in John
chapter nine, these teachers as thieves and robbers. Not pastoring sheep, but hurting
the sheep. Not leading the sheep, but damaging
and destroying the sheep. He identified himself as the
good shepherd, as the true shepherd. Indeed, as the door of the sheep
by whom, if they entered in, they would come into the true
understanding that these false shepherds could never teach the
people of God. The Lord Jesus Christ, as we
read in Ezekiel 34, is that plant of renown. What on earth is a
plant of renown? When I first came to this area,
when I first came to Great Falls and Shoro, one or two of the
farmers went to great lengths to tell me how good quality grass
was grown in this area. How that they had the finest
grass that was grown in the fields around about here that was taken. My, you know, they told me that
we even take this grass to Kentucky to feed the finest racehorses
that America can produce. This grass goes all over the
world. Imagine sending grass all over
the world. But hey, that's what they do
from Montana. That is grass of renown. Who is the plant of renown? The
plant of renown is the Lord Jesus Christ. The plant of renown is
the one who feeds the flock on the finest spiritual nourishment. That's what the Lord Jesus Christ
does. These false shepherds were thieves
and robbers. They were fleecing the sheep.
They were eating of the sheep. They weren't giving nourishment
to the sheep, understanding to the sheep. The prophet says at
the very end of Ezekiel 34, I am the Lord your God and you are
men. I'm not talking about sheep and
grass. I'm talking about men and women
and spiritual truth. And I'm talking about one that
I will raise up, a prince amongst men, my servant David, the Lord
Jesus Christ, who will be the door of the sheep and he will
receive as the good shepherd, as the nourisher of the sheep,
and he will bless his people. And the Lord Jesus Christ is
that promised prince amongst men, given to the sheep of God's
pasture. Now there's a lovely picture
that the Lord paints there as he gives this parable, as he
gives this story, this message to the people and the priests
and the scribes realise that he's speaking about them and
they get all offended. But then the words of the Lord
take another turn. Dare I say they take a darker
turn. Because as we read together from
verse 11 through to verse 18 in John chapter 10, the Lord
is no longer simply speaking about feeding and nourishing
and opening the door of understanding to his sheep. Now he's talking
about dying for the sheep. for giving up his life for the
sheep, for laying down his life for the sheep. And in John chapter
10, verse 11, 14 and 15, he says, I am the good shepherd and the
good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. He says, I know
my sheep and I'm known of mine. I lay down my life for the sheep. Here was a new dimension altogether. In verse 18 he says, No man taketh
it from me, but I lay it down by myself. I have power to lay
it down. I have power to take it again.
A new dimension enters into the Lord's words with respect to
his care and his charge for this sheep of God's people. And here we enter into the greatness
and the majesty and the wonder of the Lord Jesus Christ's mission
and ministry for God's people. Sure, certainly, absolutely. He was a teacher and a guide
and a figurehead. Oh, he was the greatest teacher
that this world ever knew. And he guides his people into
truth, absolutely. And he is the captain. He is
the leader. He goes before his sheep and
he leads them out and he calls them and they follow him and
they know who he is. But there's more to Christ than
just a teacher. And I fear that that is largely
missed today. The Lord Jesus Christ was not
simply replacing the Jewish leader's false teaching with some new
and better and more relevant teaching. He didn't just come
to show us how to live that we might follow after the pattern
of his example. He came not to show us how to
live, but to give us life. He didn't come to make us better,
He came to make us holy. He came to make us pure. He came
to justify his people and make us right with God. And that's
what God had been talking about in Ezekiel 34. That was the covenant
of peace that was given into the hands of Christ that he had
made between the eternal persons of the Godhead for the redemption
and salvation of the people of his choice. The Lord Jesus Christ
came in order to secure by his death to fulfil by his sacrifice
every requirement necessary to obtain the benefits and the blessings
of that covenant of peace for those who were its beneficiaries
under the promised plan of salvation. To pay, to pay with his precious
blood every demand of a holy God and an offended and breached
and broken law. The Saviour did not do that by
his teaching. He didn't do it by his miracles
or his works. He did it by his death and by
his sacrifice. We have been thinking a little
bit in recent weeks about the simplicity that is in Christ. And we've thought about the simplicity
of the Lord Jesus Christ's coming into the world. Though he was
God in all of his majesty, in all of his transcendence, in
all of his mighty creative power, in all of those incommunicable
attributes that are part of his glorious person, yet, he became
a man and he entered into our realm. He entered into our world. He took upon himself our flesh. We have thought a little bit
about the simplicity of the Lord Jesus Christ's life and how the
things that he said and did, the miracles, they filled the
people with wonder and yet, It was so transparent, it was so
straightforward, it was so easy to hear him and the common people
heard him gladly. And now we are being confronted
with the Lord Jesus Christ's death and the simplicity that
is in Christ's death. The death of the Lord Jesus Christ
was such a straightforward, simple, easy thing to see happening and
coming as his enemies came against him. And yet in that one single
act, that is the experience of every single person in this world,
for it is appointed unto men once to die, the Lord Jesus Christ
accomplished something amazing and wonderful. So I want to think
about the simplicity that is in the death of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And the first thing I want to
point out to you is this, that the Lord Jesus Christ was a real
man and he died a real death. And we don't forget that our
saviour is God, but it was in his humanity that he died. It was real flesh that was bruised
and beaten and sliced and cut. It was real blood that flowed
from those wounds. It was real nerves that ached
and scarred under the abuse of his enemies. It was body and
soul in exactly the same way as we are possessors of body
and soul. that the Lord Jesus Christ brought
to that cross and to Calvary. He knew pain, and he knew fear,
and he knew revulsion, and he knew horror, and he knew doubt,
and he knew anguish, and all of them were real. and all of
them were experienced in the heart, in the soul, in the flesh,
in the body, in the mind of our Saviour, Jesus Christ. The only
difference between the Lord Jesus Christ and you is that He had
no sin. Thus, in a sense, being without sin
All of those senses that he had were more heightened, more acute,
to appreciate and realize and experience all of the terrible
things that were happening to him. He understood completely
the significance of all that was being done to him. And the
divine nature of our saviour did not in any way diminish his
suffering, but rather it enabled him to
bear much more than an ordinary man would ever have been able
to endure. The full extent of the wrath
of man and the full extent of the wrath of God was poured upon
his body and his soul. The Lord Jesus Christ was a real
man and he died a real death. Another thing I want to think
about with respect to the death of the Lord Jesus Christ is this,
that his death had a purposeful design. there was a plan to the
Lord's death. What do I mean by a purposeful
design? Well, God had spoken about sending
a shepherd, about gathering his sheep, his people, and about
feeding them and protecting them and for enfolding them taking
them into good pasture, preserving them. But all of those blessings,
everything that God had promised, all the good things that God
promised to His people, they were predicated, they were founded,
they were based upon the satisfaction of God's holiness and His justice. None of those blessings could
come upon men in their sinful state. None of those blessings
could come upon us in that condition of rebellion that we were in.
What distinguished, what made the difference between these
people of whom the Lord said, you are my sheep, you are my
flock, and those shepherds that he said that I am opposed to
you, I am against you, and I will judge you, and I will hold you
accountable. Why can he be good to one and not the other? How
can a holy God be good to anyone and bless them and shower his
promises of grace and mercy upon them? Only by finding a satisfaction
for his anger and his wrath and his judgment upon sin. And that was the purpose of the
Lord Jesus Christ's coming. That was the design in the shepherd
being revealed, being called, as Moses said, from amongst men,
a prophet that they would hear, the Lord Jesus Christ. Man's
sin, all men. The sin of everyone demands and
requires retribution. The wages of sin is death. And justice demanded punishment.
But love sought a way of escape. Holiness can't be compromised. So mercy sought out a substitute. the soul that sins must die. So grace provided a plan of life
and peace by sending a representative who would substitute himself
for the people of God's pleasure and the people of God's love. And this covenant of peace that
was the design and purpose of God in sending the Great Shepherd,
the Good Shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ into the world, was built
upon God Himself in the person of the Eternal Son, bearing the
punishment for the sins of His people, carrying the cost, the
cost of redemption, the cost of the sin that had been committed
and accomplishing in his own body every covenant obligation. This was the purpose, this was
the design behind the Lord Jesus Christ's coming. He was the lamb
slain from before the foundation of the world. His was the body
prepared that the Lord Jesus Christ took to come and do the
will of His Father and save His people. Right from the very beginning
of the announcement of His birth to Mary, His mother, it was to
this end that He would save His people from their sins. Now, most people preach the death
of the Lord Jesus Christ as being for everyone, as being general
and universal. As if the death of the Saviour
makes salvation possible for everyone, but doesn't actually
by itself save anyone. That teaching we must repudiate
and we must speak against. Because the death of the Lord
Jesus Christ was the death of one who was sent as a representative
and as a substitute for his people. It is a particular death. This is the design. This is the
purpose, this is the plan behind the coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ and nowhere in scripture do we read that the Lord Jesus
Christ died for everyone. Nowhere in scripture is it even
suggested that he died for everyone. or to make salvation possible
for everyone so that it is contingent upon the will of the individual
to either accept or reject that possibility that Jesus has provided. It's just not there. It's a foolishness
and it is foreign to the testimony of the Word of God. The Lord
Jesus Christ came to gather the sheep of God. He came to represent
His sheep. They are called His church. They
are called His elect. They are called His people. They
are called His little ones. And He came, actually, to save
those little ones. To save His people from their
sins. Not to make salvation a theoretical
possibility for everyone, if in time the right words be said
and the right deeds be done in order to bring those individuals
into the experience of some notional salvation. That is a hollow and
a vacuous idea of salvation and it has no substance or foundation
in the word of God. The Bible says Not the foolish
preachers of our modern age, but the Bible says that he carried
our sins, that he bore our sins, that he became sin for us. Who is this one? This is the
Lord Jesus Christ. Whose sins does he take? those who are chosen to salvation
in the election of grace. We were reading about that on
Wednesday evening. John chapter 10, verse 11 then,
this passage that we read, the Saviour says, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his
life for the sheep. The Lord has told us in Ezekiel
34 that He distinguishes between the cattle, He distinguishes
between the sheep, He distinguishes between the ram and the he-goat. He knows the difference, He makes
the difference, He distinguishes between. The Lord Jesus Christ
came to give His life for the sheep, not for the goats. There
will be a people to whom the Lord will say in a day to come,
depart from me, I never knew you. In John 10, 14, he says, I am the
good shepherd. I know my sheep and am known
of mine. Paul tells Timothy, the Lord
knoweth them that are his. So the death of the Lord Jesus
Christ was the death of a real man. The death of the Lord Jesus
Christ had a purposeful design to it. The death of the Lord
Jesus Christ was a representative death. And the death of the Lord
Jesus Christ was successful in what it accomplished and achieved. The sacrifice that he made accomplished
the purpose for which it was made. Consider with me for a moment
the implications of the Lord's failure in this task. Imagine
for a moment that the Lord hadn't succeeded in coming into this
world and paying the price It would say that what the Bible
tells us of the preciousness of his blood was incorrect, that
it wasn't precious enough. Indeed, it didn't do what it
needed to do and therefore it was worthless. It would say that the death of
the God-man of the Lord Jesus Christ was futile because it
had failed to accomplish what it was intended to do. It would
say that the price was wasted. It would mean that the Son of
God was eternally ashamed that he had come to do something and
he hadn't been successful. It would mean that the resurrection
was a lie. Let no one ever say that the
Son of God failed in his purpose or in his design or in his work. He was successful. There will
be no one in hell because the Lord Jesus Christ's blood was
worthless. The prophets, they told what
the meaning of the sacrifices of the Old Testament meant. And they looked forward, not
to the blood that was spilled on the altar, but to that precious
blood of which that altar blood was but a type, a picture, a
metaphor, the blood of the Lamb of God. The apostles in the New
Testament, they testified to the accomplishments of the Lord
Jesus Christ. The words and the works of our
Saviour bore witness in his own ministry to the success and the
glory of his death. He satisfied all the requirements
of God's holiness for that people whom he represented on the cross. So in the couple of minutes that
I've got left, I'm just going to touch upon one or two key
words that shows the success of the Lord Jesus Christ's sacrifice. The Lord Jesus Christ atoned
in his death for our sin. He reconciled us to God. He made peace with God on our
behalf by the blood that he shed on the cross. He made peace.
In Romans chapter five, verse six and 10, we read these words. For when we were yet without
strength, when we couldn't help ourselves, In due time, Christ
died for the ungodly. When we were enemies, we were
reconciled to God by the death of his son. Now, those words,
that passage, those verses, they tell us that our peace was forged
with God while we were enemies. We were justified before God
while we were enemies. It's nothing to do with our obedience. We're not justified when we believe. We're not justified when we act
positively. We're not justified when we do
what God wants us to do, when we obey his commandments. We
were justified. We were made righteous. We were
found reconciled to God while we were enemies. while we were
opposed to him, Christ died for the ungodly. In Romans 5 verse
11, we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ by whom
we have now received the atonement. The Lord Jesus Christ's shedding
of blood was successful and we have been atoned for. That word
simply means that we are made one with God, at one with God. The Lord Jesus Christ atoned
for our sins. The Lord Jesus Christ redeemed
us by his blood. That blood, which we have already
spoken of as being precious, precious in its value, was sufficient
to pay the price of our indebtedness, to redeem us back. In Acts chapter
20, verse 28, it says that all the flock which he hath purchased
with his own blood. We're a purchased people. That's what the phrase peculiar
people means. We are a purchased people, a
peculiar people, a people that the price of Jesus' blood has
been spent to recover and to redeem. Ephesians 1.7 says, in
whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of
sins according to the riches of his grace. We're atoned for by the blood
of Christ. We're redeemed by the blood of Christ. We're justified
by the blood of Christ. He has made us righteous by carrying
our sins in his body. The sword of God's judgment was
unsheathed and unleashed against the Saviour as he hung upon the
cross. It was the death of the Lord
Jesus Christ. that made us right with God and
forged that peace and reconciliation, that made us what we never could
be by ourselves, not by a million years of good works, could we
have attained the holiness that God required, the righteousness
of justification. But Jesus Christ, in His one
act of obedience, in His death, did it for us. Being now justified
by his blood, says Paul to the Romans in 5 verse 9, we shall
be saved from wrath through him. And the Lord Jesus Christ cleansed
us by his blood. He has washed away our sin. He has washed away our guilt.
He has cleansed our conscience. He has shown us that our sin,
though grievous, though mighty, though iniquitous, though it
would sink us a thousand times into an eternity of hell, has
been taken away and has been removed. It has been taken as
far as the east is from the west. It has been hidden in God's forgetfulness. 1 John 1, verse 7 says that the
blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin. It speaks of that one in Revelation
1, verse 5, that loved us and washed us from our sins in his
own blood. So it's not by the work of man,
and it's not by the will of the individual, but it is by the
death of the Lord Jesus Christ that our salvation is accomplished. And the Lord Jesus Christ has
sanctified his people. In his death, we are holy, we
are sanctified, we are perfect by his blood. Hebrews 13, verse
12. Brother was speaking about this
last night at the mission. Wherefore Jesus also that he
might sanctify the people with his own blood suffered without
the gate. Sanctified us by his blood. And Christ glories. He glorifies
his people in his death. He is glorified. He is glorified
in the success of his accomplishments. He has been given that place
in heaven of all glory, of all majesty. And we glory in him. We glory by what he has achieved
for us. It's a cross of shame, but it's
a symbol of victory. In Galatians 6 verse 14, God
forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus
Christ. John 17 verse 4, I have glorified
thee on earth. I have finished the work which
thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou
me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee
before the world was. And that's exactly what God did.
This man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever,
sat down on the right hand of God. All the gifts of love, all
the gifts of grace, all the gifts of mercy and peace flow to God's
people, the people of his choice. Through the death through the
sacrifice and through the cleansing blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ. The Lord spoke about the covenant
of peace that he would forge, that he had forged. for the well-being
of his people and how that the Lord Jesus Christ would come
and that he would gather up his people by the sacrifice of himself
that they might be the recipients and beneficiaries of all the
graces and blessings of that covenant of peace. and we rejoice with David to
enter into the realisation of the fact that that covenant promise
of grace and mercy is the portion and part of those who believe
and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. He hath made with me an everlasting
covenant, ordered in all things and sure. For this is all my
salvation and all my desire. Amen.