Take your Bibles and turn with
me now to John chapter 10. We're going to be looking at
quite a few things in this chapter, but I want to begin and try to
give you a good explanation of these first five verses which
deals with a parable. Everything that he says in this
chapter is based on this parable. If you have a wrong understanding
of the parable, you'll have a wrong understanding of the chapter
all the way through. So let's read together these
first five verses. 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, and they know his voice. And a stranger will
they not follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the
voice of strangers." Now, I want to begin our study this morning
in John chapter 10, and most of the old writers and research
that I did on this chapter believe that this is a continuation of
his arguments to the Jews who always question his office and
question what he said and his right to say it. And indeed that's
what the ministry and in fact what all things are about is
just a continuation of God's purpose which he purposed from
the beginning. All these things are but a continuation. I stand here and preach." This
is a continuation. God's purpose. He purposed the
preaching of the Gospel and the teaching of the Word of God.
But these Jews, they denied His person and office as the Messiah
and refused to acknowledge Him in any way whatsoever because
He didn't go to their schools. And he didn't approve. He didn't
publicly approve or put his approval on their schools and on their
priesthood and on the things that they actively taught. And so they went around and tried
to tear down, tried to expose in some way him as a false prophet. And they questioned his authority
and his teaching and all these things. And he warned of their
doctrine. They were in opposition to one
another all the time. There was never a time when they
were friends with one another. They were in opposition from
the get-go, from the very beginning. This thing was said in opposition.
And all through his ministry, the Lord defends Himself. And
He warns of their doctrine. He called them hypocrites and
blind. He said Satan was their father,
and he said God purposely hid his gospel from these wise and
prudent men and revealed it unto Baal. And so you find him all
through his ministry defending himself, defending his offices. And he gives evidence after evidence
of these things, but is rejected and slandered by the Jews who
believed him to be an imposter. So here again in John chapter
10, the Lord sets Himself forth in His pastoral office. That's
what this chapter is about. He sets Himself forth in this
pastoral office as the prophet, that prophet which Moses spoke
of years and years and years before. He is that prophet. He is that pastor. He is set
forth as the leader of His sheep and as the great shepherd of
His sheep. And he points to the scribes and Pharisees in this
parable and all through this chapter, and he calls them hirelings
and wolves and murderers and thieves. And in the first five
verses of this chapter, he gives this parable. And it was very
common in that day, but it's not common in our day and not
common in our country. I grew up as a very small child
up in northern Ohio, and we were right in the middle of sheep
country, farm, big farm country, hogs and sheep and cattle and
corn and fields you couldn't even see across back in that
day, farms that had been passed down from generation to generation. And I know something about these
sheep. because I've watched them in
the field, wild. I've watched the farmers, how
they handle them and stuff. And how they handle them is nothing
like what this parable talks about. This was something that
was common in, I guess, what you'd call the Orient. It was
common there. The closest thing we had to it
in our country is like our dogs and stuff, that we named these
dogs and named these horses. My dad used to have a big old work horses, mules and stuff,
and they had names. And he talked to them. And they'd
listen. They'd obey. He'd tell them to
gee or haw, and they'd go left or go right. He talked to them
old mules and things. And that's about the closest
thing we have in our country of what was going on here. But
in that country, they didn't drive sheep. They led them. They
walked out in front of them. They called them, and the sheep
were used to hearing that call, used to hearing that voice, and
they'd come out and they'd follow that shepherd. And that shepherd
led them. He stayed out in front of the
flock. He wasn't behind them with a whip. He was in front
of them. He didn't have a dog chasing
them around. They knew him. There was no fences. None of these things were around.
There was just the shepherd and the sheep. And so this was a
common thing. It was something that folks could
quickly, and they understood exactly what he was talking about,
but we don't. So for those of you who don't,
I've researched this thing a little bit, and a sheepfold is a pen
that a shepherd before dark, all these shepherds that were
out there, would bring their flocks into this pen. And it
was a high-walled pen made out of, most of them were made out
of rock and some of them made out of stone and wood and interwoven
together. And they had high walls on them,
walls that wolves and whatever else was around, whatever predators
were around, couldn't get up over. Thieves and robbers couldn't
climb up over this thing and then drag a sheep away. And it
was made out of heavy stone. You couldn't just tunnel under
it. There was no way to get into this sheepfold. And there was
only one door to the sheepfold. One way in, one way out. And
the shepherds would bring their sheep down to this pen, and they
had one man in charge of this thing, and he was called the
porter. They'd bring these sheep in here and give the porter charge
of these sheep, and the porter knew the shepherd that brought
them in, and he recognized the shepherd who'd come to claim
them. And so he sets this parable forth
to these people and they understood what he was talking about. He
comes to this pen. The shepherd comes to this pen
and he tells us in the parable that he heard his voice. The
shepherd spoke and the sheep heard his voice. I've got this
little dog at home. Russell calls him a devil dog.
He's just old and blind and spoiled and every so often I have to
take him down to the vet and board him when we go out of town
or when we have some company at the house. He'll bite anybody. He'll bite me if he's just blind,
he can't see. But he goes down there and his
ears is down and he's shaking and he don't like it down there.
He don't like being boarded. And we go down to get him and
she goes in and the vet will go back and get him and when
she brings him out his ears is all down and he's just shaking
and scared and Kathy will speak to him. Soon as that dog hears
her voice, it's all you can do to hang on to that dog. Because
that dog identifies in her voice the comforts of home. He identifies
in her voice that food that's in His dish and that water that's
always there for Him, that hand that always strokes His head,
that warm body that He cuddles up against and sits in the chair
with. He identifies those things. When Christ comes and He gives
this call to His sheep, it's not just a call. It's not just
a general call. There is a general call that
goes out in the Gospel that falls on everybody's ears. That's an
external call. But this call of God's sheep
is a call that intertwines with their inheritance. It intertwines
with them as sons. It intertwines with the promises
of God. So you've got no connection to
those promises. Those promises are given to His
sheep. That's what he's telling these Pharisees. You assume that
you're sheep. The only way that you can know
that you're a sheep is if you hear the shepherd's voice. Because
that voice is what connects you to those promises and that comfort
and all those things that God has. Salvation is of the Lord. It's His gift purposed to those
who shall be heirs. You can't make yourself a sheep.
He made you a sheep when He chose you in Christ before the foundation
of the world. What this call is about is to
reveal to you what you are. That you're a sheep. There's
no other way to know. No other way to know. And that's what
this whole thing is all about. He said, there's no way that
you can know me as the shepherd unless you hear my voice. And
there's no way for you to know you're a sheep except to hear
my voice. That's what he tells them, and
he goes all through this chapter. And I find here, I find six very
fundamental truths in this parable that are unquestioned evidences
of Christ's eternal union with his sheep. You see, the religion
of man is built on the assumption that God loves all men. That
cannot be true. If God loved all men, then he
lied when he said it. Because he said, Jacob have I
loved, and Esau have I hated. Well, you said Esau done certain
things. Now, that was said before either one were born or either
one ever did any good or evil. And he said it that the purpose
of God, according to election, might be established forever,
unquestionable. And he said these things to these
two boys. So there are six fundamental truths here. And this religion
of man is contrary to these things. It's built on the assumption
that God loves all men, that Jesus Christ made it possible
for all men to be saved, and that every man has an opportunity
to become one of His sheep. But in this parable, the Lord
paints a different picture. There's no way you can take free
willism, universalism, and make it fit John chapter 10. I don't
care how you turn it, how you twist it, it's not going to fit.
He tells us in this parable that he is a particular shepherd of
a particular flock. That's what he tells us. He said
there was a shepherd, a certain man went down and he put these
sheep in there. How'd they get in there? He put
them in there. That's how they got to be in there. They were
put in there. So let's look at these six things
concerning this statement here. First of all, he declares himself
to be a particular shepherd over a particular flock because he
comes to the door. He comes to the door. And if
you read anything at all about a sheepfold, you'll learn quickly
that it only has one door. One way in, one way out. How did they get into the sheepfold?
They came in by the shepherd. Isn't that what it says in Ephesians
chapter 1? All spiritual blessings of the Father were poured out
on you according as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation
of the world. That's how you got in the sheepfold,
through the shepherd. The only way you're coming out
is when the same Shepherd comes and calls you out. The same One
who puts you in is going to be the One who brings you out. And we're going to get into this
a little deeper this morning in the main message. But here
in John 10, verse 29, He said, My Father which gave them Me
is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of
My Father's hand. I and the Father are one. And
this calling of the sheep had everything to do with who put
them in the sheepfold to start with. Not one sheep in the fold
was called out that was not placed in there by the shepherd. All the rest of the sheep stayed,
John. None of them come out. None of them come out. They all
stayed in there. His sheep were His sheep before
they were mixed with the hireling sheep. His sheep were His sheep
before the world was. They came in by the shepherd.
Christ is God's first elect and all the rest were chosen in Him. Now that's what the Scripture
says. They're all chosen in Him. In Colossians 1.18 it said, He
is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning. That's where we come from. He's the firstborn from the dead
that in all things He might have the preeminence. You can't join
the church any more than these hireling sheep could become one
of His. You can't join the church. We
are the church. He made us the church. He chose
us in Him before the world was. I've got to agree with Winston
on one thing that he says a lot, and that is that it disturbs
him when men start talking about how they got saved. You can't
get saved. You can't get saved. You can't
save yourself, and you can't make God save you. If you're
saved, it's according to the purpose of God. God hath called
us. That's what we're talking about
here this morning, this calling. God hath called us with a holy
calling, not according to our works, but according to His own
purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus before the
world began. That's 2 Timothy 1.9. You see
what I'm saying? This thing's of God. It's not
of you. We've heard it since we're this
big. Make your decision. Choose this. You've got a free
will. We've heard that nonsense. on TV, radio, from our parents,
from the churches we attended. We've heard that only one problem
with it, it's not according to the Word of God. It's not how
God saves sinners. The only way in is through the
door. Look here in John 10, verse 7. He said, I'm the door of the
sheep. All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers, but
the sheep did not hear. I am the door by me if any man
enter in. He shall be saved and shall go
in and out and find pasture. I'm the door. I'm the one who
put them in. I'm the one who can take them
out. I'm the only one who put them in and I'm the only one
who can take them out. Now somebody else may come up
to the door and stand there and pretend to be a shepherd, but
the porter recognizes him. He don't turn sheep loose. He
don't turn them loose. The calling out of his sheep
is the claiming of what is rightfully his. He's not there to get as
many sheep as he can. He's not there to make it possible
for a good many sheep to come out. He's not there hoping at
least some of the sheep will be willing. He's there to call
out his sheep. And they're coming out. They're
coming out. Just like he did this poor blind
beggar that they didn't have a problem with him until he believed.
Then when he believed, they said he had a devil. Why did they say that? Because
they didn't recognize him as a sheep. They called and he didn't
respond. Christ called and he responded. Calling out his sheep is the
claiming of what is rightfully his. He's there to call out his
sheep. And he comes to the door to be
recognized by the porter and claim what's rightfully his.
Here's the second thing I want you to see. The porter knows
who he is. He recognizes him. He stands
before the porter. You see, here's the problem with
all this. Men go to seminary or their pastor
says, any of you young people might feel like feeling that
call to preach, feeling that urge to preach. You come up here
on a certain night and they come up and they dedicate them and
first thing you know they got these boys signed up going down
to seminary and they go through and they catechized and all the
doctrines and all the training and they come out and they give
them this little slip of paper that says Dr. so and so and got
all these letters and things after their name and they hang
it up there and then somebody comes along and they got their
resume out and the church needs a pastor and so they call down
there and they say, well let me see if I can find you one
and they go in there in the file and here's one right here and
they pull his name out and they send him down and he starts pastoring
the church and he preaches and he does all these things. There's
only one problem with that. The porter don't recognize him. And God's sheep ain't coming
out. There's nothing that frightens me any more than that. I don't
have any doubts about his ability to save. I don't have any doubts
about his purpose to save. But am I his shepherd? That constantly
worries me. Constantly worries me. And every
now and then he confirms it. He confirms it. But I want you
to see the shepherd, Christ. He comes up here before this
door and the porter looks him in the face and looks him up
and down and he knows who he is. And it said, he openeth. He openeth. And he calls. And
he calls. Nobody can fool the porter. God
is the porter. Both God the Father and God the
Holy Spirit are represented in this parable. You see, when he
put the sheep in, it was a night scene. I want you to try to vision. This was before darkness set
in. This is before the enemies came
out to prowl. This is before dark. And the
shepherd comes down and he commits his sheep to the porter. That's
God the Father. Choosing us in Him before the
world was. Putting us in a place of safety.
Our life is hid with Christ in God. Ain't that what Paul said?
That's right. We're in the pen. Walled up. And the porter's in there with
us. Now comes the morning scene. The shepherd comes and stands
before the door. and the porter openeth." Now,
he's representing a different scene to us. He's representing
the work of the Holy Spirit opening that door for the shepherd to
call. To him, look here in chapter
10, look up here. Verse 3, to him the porter openeth
and the sheep hear his voice. Can you see that? This door has
to be affectionately opened. The only one who can open it
is the shepherd. But he speaks to the porter and the porter
knows who he is. He opens the door. He opens the door. It's the same porter who received
him at his hand, the same porter who acknowledged his person when
the flock were put into the fold. He knows the pasture of his sheep
and he knows all those pastures he separated to the work. The bringing in of the sheep
in that night scene. And then there's the morning
scene. And look here, here's the third thing I want you to
see. The sheep hear His voice. And there are several things
here I want you to see. First it said, the porter openeth,
and the sheep heard His voice. He's the one who opens. The Holy
Spirit of God opens the door, and Christ is the door. There's
a beautiful picture of this if you'd like to study it this afternoon.
You can look over in Luke chapter 24. The disciples were walking
along there disgusted and just ready to throw in the towel on
that road to Emmaus. They saw Him crucified and He
was taken down and put in a tomb and a stone rolled up over the
door and sealed in there and three days had passed. They started
to hear what they believed to be rumors of His resurrection
and different things, and they were walking along. They were
just totally disgusted. And the Lord appeared to them,
but He didn't reveal to them who He was. And He walked along
there with them, and He began to talk to them, and He started
back there in those books of Moses. And he started telling
them about these things that must come to pass, this suffering
of Christ. And then he moved over to the
prophets, and he went all through the prophets, and he taught them
about those things. And then he revealed himself
to them and sat down and had fellowship with them. And they
said, boy, when he disappeared out of their sight, they said,
didn't our hearts burn within us as we walked along the way?
And he opened to us the Scriptures. And then he appeared to them
again over in Luke 24-44, and he said unto them, These are
the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you,
that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law
of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms concerning
me." Now listen, then opened he their understanding that they
might understand the Scripture. The porter openeth. What's he
open? He opens the understanding. That's
what he opens. He opens to us an understanding. Never had it before. Never had
it before. But he opens these things to
us. The porter openeth, and then
the sheep hear his voice. I tell you this, men and women
justify their election in their hearing of the gospel and believing
on the Lord Jesus Christ. If you go just a little further
into this chapter, and we'll be concentrating on these things
all by themselves in the days to come, Lord willing, but he
says this, the Pharisees got disgusted with him, disgusted
with his parables, disgusted. They knew what he was saying.
And they knew that what he was saying was a charge against them,
that he was slandering them. And out of disgust, they just
told him, they said, if thou be the Christ, tell us plainly.
He said, I told you. I told you. But, he said, you
believe not, because you're not my sheep. I already told you,
my sheep hear my voice. They hear my voice. Alright,
here's the fourth thing. His sheep know his voice. Over
in 1 John 2, the apostle He warns of those who profess faith but
still love the world. They make a profession of faith
in word only, and they agree for a while, but their hearts
are not changed. They don't rejoice in this call. They don't relate this call like
his sheep does. They make this empty profession
of faith, and the love of the world soon turns them. That deception
of that old nature, that darkness of that old nature, pretty soon
it turns them. And pretty soon they go out the
door. And John said, they go out from us because they were
not of us. For had they been of us, they
no doubt would have continued with us. Now watch this. 1 John 2, verse 19, they went
out from us. But listen to what he says next.
Verse 20. But, he said, you have an unction
from the Holy One and know all things. That's why you don't
go out. That's why you don't go out. I've not written unto
you because you know not the truth, but because you know it,
and that no lie is of the truth. What I'm saying is this, there
is a divine right of authority associated with this hearing
and by this authority we're given the ability to hear and discern
and understand what we hear. We actually understand it where
we didn't before. How come? Over in the book of
John, in the very first chapter, it says he was in the world And
the world knew him not. We've been studying that back
in Genesis, how the world before Israel come along, before the
tabernacles, before the prophets, before the Word of God was written,
we studied that how Christ was preached by these old men, which
gospel began back in the Garden of Eden, passed on to Abel. By him, he still speaketh, he
said, by old Abel. And we come down through time
with Noah, and now we're in the study of Abraham, and we're talking
about, he said, I was in the world, but the world knew me
not. The world as a whole rejected that gospel. Just like Nimrod,
and just like Cain, and just like all these other men, Ham,
and all these other men, they rejected it. And they ran off
with multitudes of people. The world knew him not. And then
there was a time when he came unto his own, his own nation
that he separated from the other nations, his own people and his
tabernacle and his priesthood and Israel as a nation, all these
things. He'd come unto his own and his
own received him not. That's what we're talking about
here this morning. These Jews wouldn't have him. They wouldn't
have him. They never would have him. Never
would. But he said, as many as received
him, Now listen to what he says, "...to them gave he power to
become sons of God, even to them that believe on his name, who
were born." That's how they got the power, they were born. Not
of blood, not because they were Jews, not by their own will,
not by the will of man, not by the will of the flesh, born of
God. By this new birth there is a
calling whereby this authority of God is received, and men become
willing, and they hear, and they obey the gospel, and they rejoice
in these things. All right, here's the fifth thing.
It says they follow Him. And I don't have a lot to say
about this this morning, but I want you to understand this.
His sheep are followers. If you know anything whatsoever
about a sheep, you know this, they follow. They don't lead,
they follow. You can't hardly ruin a sheep.
You take him and scare him and he'll run out there in a big
circle and come right back to the folk. He's not a leader. He's not going
to run out here and show somebody else what to do. Sheep are followers. They follow. They hear. They
obey. Not in their nature. to rebel
than their nature to obey. A believer shows his affection
for Christ and his trust in the Savior. He shows it no better
than he does in his willful subjection to Him and His authority. Paul
said to those Thessalonians, he said, I know your election
of God because you've become followers of us. Talking about
him, and the other ministers that ministered to Him, you become
followers of us and the Lord. That's how I know your election.
The one thing that natural man won't do is bow. He won't do
it. I don't care. You can take the whole law and
put it on him, he won't bow. You can put him in hell and he
won't bow. You won't find a sinner in hell.
None of the examples you're given of men in hell, none of them
repent. They feel sorry for the folks
back home and don't want them to come over there, but they're
not in a state of repentance even in hell. He's not going
to bow. And then last of all, and I'll
hurry with this, it says a stranger they won't follow. They'll flee
from Him because they know the voice of strangers. And I've got something here that's
It was very costly for me and very painful for me to learn,
but it would be of some help to you if you could hear what
I'm saying. And a lot of these young preachers,
some of them that I've had come and speak here and some of them
who are actively engaged even now in the pastorate in some
things, it's His voice that's heard in the Gospel as it's presented
to you by God's chosen ambassador. He told his disciples to go and
preach, and he said to them, he said, He that heareth you,
heareth me. When I stand and preach, I can't
be concerned about whether or not I hurt your feelings. I don't
stand up here on purpose to see if I can offend somebody. Sometimes
I'll make a shocking statement to you, but I do that because
you're so ingrained from your youth up in these things that
you assume to be so that I want to shock you and bring your attention
to the fact that they're not so. But whether I offend you
or whether I don't, I stand before God. I'm His ambassador. It's Him that I'm worried about.
At the end of the day, it's not what you think about the message
that worries me, it's what he thought. I represent him. I represent him. And that's all
I want to do when I bring this message is honor my God. That's
what I'm out to do. And his sheep, I tell you, you
can't make one of them mad by honoring their God. They love
the shepherd. You honor him, they're tickled
to death. Tickle to death. And I'll tell you this, all these
seminaries and Christian schools and training that any church
can do can't make a pastor. Can't do it. And that's what
these Jews were stirred up like a hornet's nest over. He didn't
go to our school. He didn't send it to Peter Gamaliel.
He didn't do these things. We're not going to have him.
Not going to have him. And he was the shepherd. He was
the shepherd. So I shouldn't think it strange
if somebody says that to me.