If you would, please turn back
in your Bibles to John chapter 10. Somebody made the statement the
other day that time is relentlessly eroding all that we know and
love. Now those are profound words and we know there's another song
that says that life is filled with swift transition. Naught
of earth unmoved shall stand. And I thought a great deal about
the first statement that I made, and I of course agree that it's
true as far as earthly things are concerned. But as far as God's truth and
the gospel, that endures. That endures for
eternity. Scripture speaks of our Christ
being the same yesterday, today, and forever. No erosion there. And we know that the Bible speaks in the book
of Revelation about the everlasting gospel. No erosion there. So I take courage this morning
to know that there is no erosion with the things that we have
known that has made a difference in our heart relationship to
God. Nothing has changed, regardless
of what happens here in this world. I want to read a couple
of verses. I had to come back to this chapter. I have loved this chapter. It
is one of my favorite chapters in all the Bible. I said one
of my favorite. But there are so many good things
in this chapter, so many things that challenges the heart, that
I felt impressed of the Lord to deal with a couple of verses
here. And that is verse 28 and 29. And 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. Now those
of you that listened carefully as our brother Randy read this
chapter, I'm sure that there were many verses that stuck out
to you. I want to read something that
was written by a brother who I never met. I missed him by
an hour or two. He passed away in 1968 at the
age of 64 years old. And he preached a lot and
he was an evangelist and was a solid preacher of the gospel. And he wrote this that I want
to read to you, share it with you at the outset of our message
this morning. Brother Ralph Barnard wrote this. He says the preaching of sovereign
grace is not an enemy of true evangelism. Let me hasten to
say that the preaching of sovereign grace will kill deader than a
doornail the message and method of present-day evangelism. And
some of us believe with a deadly intensity that the false message
and method must be killed before the true message and method can
become effective. We further believe that the only
way this can be done is by the preaching of truth about God,
the truth about man, and the truth about Christ, who died
and lives that God might be just and justifier. Now, these lines
will appeal to no one who is happy about the results of present-day
evangelism. But should you be one of many
who mourn here, you will join in the task of raising up again
the standard of sovereign grace. A sovereign Christ is almost
unheard of in church circles today. A Christ into whose hands
all things have been given, who has all authority, who gives
life and quickens whom he will, who decides the destinies of
all men, who is Lord over all flesh. Present-day evangelism,
for the most part, poses the question, what will you do with
Jesus? Bible or true evangelism poses
the question, what will the sovereign Christ do with me? Present day
evangelism says to men, believe and be born again. Bible evangelism
says to men, be born again so you can believe. The one makes
the new birth depend on an act of man. the other an act of God. Present-day evangelism takes
for granted God's mercy and grace, rather marveling at them in adoration
and worship. Hear Paul say, I obtain mercy. Hear Peter say, to all who have
obtained like precious faith. How I long to hear this note
in the churches today. And I'd say amen, a hearty amen. to what we read there. A sovereign
Christ is almost unheard of in our churches today. What a statement. Well, when I read this tenth
chapter of the Gospel of John, I could not help but believe
and see the sovereignty of God anew and afresh as it was set
forth. Imagine one coming that says,
I am the door of the sheep. Here he is, a man born of a woman,
born into this world, 33 years old, and he has the audacity
to say, I am the door of the sheep. And then further he went
on to say that I am the good shepherd. Now if you were to
hear him say those words, not knowing what you know about the
complete gospel story as it is set forth in the word of God,
I wonder what you would have thought of this man. I wonder
if you could have said, well, this must be the God-man, this
must be indeed the sovereign. He said, I am the door. Imagine
him making that statement, I am the door, by me if any man enter
in, he shall be saved. Here's this man, standing before
others, saying, making these statements, which I'm sure many
felt was absurd. That he would say, I am the door,
by me, if any man enters in, he shall be saved. By me. He's
got to enter in by me. Now this is the sovereign Christ
speaking, you see. And so he said, I'm the good
shepherd. And he says, the good shepherd gives his life for the
sheep. And then he went on to say, I'm
the good shepherd and know my sheep, and I'm knowing of mine. The Father may know of me, even
so know I the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. Well,
how do you do that? Well, he didn't reveal right
then how he was going to do it. But he was going to lay down
his life at the commandment of the Father. And then listen to
this statement. And he said, I've got other sheep.
I've got some right here. And he said, I've got some other
sheep which are not of this fold. Them also I must bring. There
shall be one fold and one shepherd. Therefore doth my father love
me, because I lay down my life for the sheep. I lay down my
life that I might take it again." What? Here's a man who says,
I'm going to lay down my life, and not only that, but I'm going
to take it again. This is sovereignty, is what
it is. Absolute sovereignty. Total sovereignty. I have, he
says, I will lay it down, no man takes it from me. Says, I
already know that. Because the Father sent me into
the world and at the appointed hour, I will lay down my life. No man's going to take it from
me. There isn't a soul in this building here that can say, I
know that nobody's going to take my life from me. Every one of
us are vulnerable. Every one of us could walk out
of this building and somebody drive up beside of our automobile
and shoot us, and we'd be gone out of this world. Some drunk
could hit us on the highway and take our lives. But here's the
Lord Jesus Christ. He says, no man takes it from
me, but I lay it down on myself. What kind of a man would make
a statement like that? Well, beloved, I'll tell you
the kind of man who'll make a statement like that is the God-man, the
man who is sovereign and in total control of all events and all
things. He says, I have the power to
lay it down, and then he says, I have the power to take it again. My, what a statement. What a
powerful statement. I've got the power to take it
again. Well, hallelujah, that sounds
so wonderful to me, a poor mortal whose tent is kind of beginning
to be taken down. It sounds wonderful to me to
know that the Lord Jesus Christ, that he has the power to take
it again. And you know what happened? He
did take it again. And the Lord Jesus is now seated
at the right hand of the Father in eternal glory. He says, this
commandment have I received of my Father. Now there's no wonder
that what happened in verse 19 happened when it says there was
a division therefore again among the Jews for these sayings. Somebody
was listening to what he said, don't you suppose? And so there
was a division, a sharp division between the Jews because of these
sayings. And you wouldn't wonder why,
because they imagined him to be a poor mortal just like themselves. And they said, well, he can't
do anything more than we could. This has got to be a a lie, he's
a fake, he's an imposter, he's just talking through his hat
to hear his head roar. He is not able to make these
claims and make them stick. Well, and many of them said,
he's got a devil. This guy's crazy and is mad. Why hear him? Why would you listen
to somebody rant and rave like this that says he's a door and
that all the sheep must enter in through him to be saved? Why would you listen to somebody
that's talking about no man will take his life from me. He'll
lay it down of himself. Why would you do this? Don't
listen to him. He has a devil and he's mad. Others said these are not the
words of him that hath a devil. Well, they remember what happened
in the ninth chapter, how he opened the eyes of the blind.
And they ask the question, can the devil open the eyes of the
blind? And so the Lord Jesus Christ has set forth his sovereignty
in this chapter. And then he goes on up here,
and let's move along here. He says in verse 26, there was
some question about them believing or not believing. And Jesus said,
but you believe not. You believe not. What an awful
indictment. But you see, all they had to
go on was what they could see with their eyes, unless there
was something in their soul that would trigger faith and make
them say, this is no ordinary man. This has got to be the Messiah. This has got to be Christ the
Anointed One. This must be the Sovereign from
Heaven. And so he said to them, but you
believe not. But you believe not. Now you
folks have the wonderful advantage of having the revelation of Scripture. Every one of you poor souls,
there is a Bible at hand for you. And you have the advantage. And you remember Paul speaking
about the Jews. He said, what advantage then
hath the Jew? And he said, much in every way.
Chiefly because the oracles of God are committed unto them.
They have the word of God. And I would ask you the question,
Who is better off, a man who has the Word of God or a man
who doesn't have it? Well, of course the answer is
the man who has the Word of God has the advantage, humanly speaking. And so this morning you all have
a Bible, or you have one at your disposal, one you can get a hold
of. And my friend, you need to read this book, you need to study
this book, and you need to see how that God was in Christ reconciling
men unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them, and
how that God has given unto the church that word of reconciliation
to go forth and preach that men should be reconciled to God through
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. But if you're here this morning
and it can be said of you, but you believe not, but you believe
not, my friend, I beg you in Jesus' name, and I would do all
that I could to assist you and to help you to face the obligation
of the Word of God, and as the Scripture sets forth the truth
about the Sovereign Christ, that you would bow to Him, that you
would submit to Him, that you'd find you a place to pray, and
you would seek the Lord until faith is kindled in your heart
in the Lord Jesus Christ. Okay, and so he said now, He
said, but ye believe not, and he gives a reason here why these
folks did not believe. Now you see, we have a lot of
people in our day that we have rubbed shoulders with who is
of the opinion that we should not preach the deeper things
of the Word of God or things that are so plain as far as doctrines
are concerned that the natural man is just going to destroy
the natural man as far as his religion is concerned. that we
should not preach those things to a mixed congregation of sinners
and saints, but only should speak of them whenever we have the
elite saints together, super saints together, people whose
systems can take the meat, they say, of the Word of God. Well,
was that the habit of our Lord? Was that His way? Absolutely
not. That was not His way. Now, we've
been criticized for preaching the plain doctrines of Scripture
to a mixed crowd, people that are in and people that are out.
But I'm telling you that our Savior did not hesitate to preach
the deeper doctrines of the gospel to the most mixed assembly. And
you listen to hear what he said. He said, but you believe not.
And he gives them the reason why they do not believe. Now
this is very important for you to see. It'll kill you, but it's
important for you to see it. And if you see it, my friend,
you're going to be different from this hour on. Because the
Lord Jesus said, you're not of my sheep, as I said unto you. That's the reason you don't believe.
You're not one of my sheep. I lay down my life for the sheep.
I come to provide the sheep the door by which they can come in
and find pasture, go in and out and find pasture. They can come
in and be saved. But he said, you don't believe
because you're not of my sheep, as I said unto you. Now we know
that this kind of preaching got our Lord in many difficult situations
because he was forward to preach the doctrines of scripture and
make statements that men could not handle in the flesh. And
you remember where the Lord Jesus grew up. You remember in Luke
4 when he went into the synagogue and read the scriptures. And
you know that in Luke chapter 4, verses 25 through 27, he began
to talk to them about there being many lepers in Israel in the
days of Nahum and the Syrian. And how that there were many
widows. and how that God passed them all by, and he went and
chose Nahum and the Syrian to heal of his leprosy, and chose
the word of Nahum to be blessed in the time of drought and famine. And it infuriated those of his
hometown, and they sought to kill him. They sought to kill
him, stone him to death, because they could not take that. But
our Lord did not hesitate to tell them. He did not lower his
standard of doctrine. He just set it forth and let
it accomplish what it would. If it made them angry, it made
them angry. And if it softened their heart
and broke their heart, then praise be unto God. But the same sun
that hardens the wax can melt, also can melt at the same time. And so the gospel is in the hands
of the Lord to use as he would. Now the notions that certain
truths are not fit to be preached to a general assembly, but to
be kept for special gatherings of the saints, I believe is horribly
mischievous. Christ is all for openly proclaiming
his truth. The Lord Jesus said in Matthew
10 and verse 27, what I tell you in darkness, that speak you
in light. And what you hear in the ear,
that preach ye upon the housetop. Now what a tremendous verse of
scripture that is. But our Lord says, whatever I
tell you in darkness, I want you to speak it in the light.
And you know our Lord often comes to us in dark times with precious
messages, precious words, precious truth that stays our hearts and
strengthen us in the faith. He said, and what you hear in
the ear With a hearing ear, he said, I want you to climb up
on the housetop and I want you to preach that. I want you to
preach it. Now, you know, that gives a lot
of people trouble because they say, well, I don't know where
you're getting what you're saying. Have you ever had anybody say
that to you? I don't know where you're getting all that stuff.
And I do remember this so well back when I was just a young
fella. in my late teens. Anytime you
would bring up the subject of the doctrines of God's grace,
how my soul, people around you, just couldn't tolerate you. Just
get hysterical about what you had to say about the grace of
God. They had trouble with you obeying
a scripture like that. But my friend, I'm praying, and
we've been so blessed here. We are so blessed. We listen here to God's servant, Aaron, from week
to week. Every once in a while we hear
some things that just thrills our souls. And we know that God
is blessing his church and blessing his word. And I think of the
trials that this church had a few years back when it could have
easily went in a direction that was not the direction it should
have gone. And how the Lord preserved and
kept this church going in the right direction. And now we see
the evidence of God at work and dealing through his messenger,
and I praise God for a young man who is 25 years old who is
willing to get up. And what he's heard in the ear,
he's willing to shout it from the housetop. Now, beloved, that
is rare. rare in our day and time. And
I want you to know that I am thankful to God and I praise
his name. And whatever the sacrifice we've
made a few years ago, my friend, God has owned it and God has
blessed it. And I praise his name for that. Now there is no truth that we
need to be ashamed of. And there is none that will do
any harm. No truth will do any harm to
God's eternal purpose. Now, it might not fit into your
scheme of things, what you have as far as your particular idea
of how things ought to be, or your plan for your life, or what
you want to accomplish as far as you're concerned. Now, it
may harm that. It may kill that dead. for the
truth to be preached plainly, but it's not going to harm the
purpose of God. God will use that word and bless
that truth to the accomplishment of the salvation of his people.
In 2 Timothy 3 and 16, I want you to just listen carefully
to these words. All scripture is given by inspiration
of God and is profitable. for doctrine, for reproof, and
for correction, and for instruction in righteousness. It's all profitable. All profitable. So then, would
you agree with me that it's a very mischievous or horribly mischievous
thing to hide? We grant you that every truth
can be twisted by different ones. And I've known that to happen,
and you know that has happened too. But even this would be less
evil than the concealment of truth. If we stop preaching a
doctrine because of the possibility of somebody perverting it, we'll
never preach anything at all. Let that be remembered. You say
somebody's going to get a hold of that preacher and it's just
going to tear things up. It'd be worse for you to conceal
that truth than it would be for you to preach it and leave it
in the hands of the Lord. Leave it in God's hands. So the Lord Jesus flashed in
the face of his adversaries this grand but humbling truth, you
believe not because you're not of my sheep. Your unbelief is
an evidence that you were not chosen, that you've not been
called by the Spirit of God, and that you're still in your
sin. You say, well, now if you tell a lost man that, he'll just
go out of the business of trying to be saved. My friend, if you
tell one of God's sheep that, and he's not yet come into the
fold, I'll tell you what it'll do. It'll disturb him to the
foundation. And it'll make him get alone
with the Lord somewhere. These are solemn words and solemn
truths. Get alone somewhere, Lord. That
maybe I have no right to eternal life, that I have no I have no
interest in the Savior's shed blood. You mean I cannot be saved? That's disturbing to a man's
soul. I will not hesitate to say, if
you're in unbelief at this hour, that you are so because of your
unbelief and because of your being not one of his sheep. And
if time proves that wrong, praise be unto God. I do know that the
Lord has His people, and He will call them. Now I want to hurriedly
give you three things here in verse 28 and 29. Just give you
three things. First of all, we have here our
Savior, our sovereign Savior, giving the gift of eternal life. He gives the gift of eternal
life. And then secondly, we have Him giving a promise. And thirdly,
we have him giving us divine security. So we have a divine
gift, a divine promise, and a divine security, all coming from our
sovereign Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, let me say that
eternal life comes to every man who has it as a matter of gift. A divine gift. Now, the scripture
says that as the father hath life in himself, so has the son. So is he given for the son to
have life in himself, that he might give life to as many as
the father has given to him. No man possesses eternal life
when he comes into this world. He's got to get it as a gift
from the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the only one who has it.
And he must give it to you as a gift. The sheep of Christ do
not work for or merit the gift of eternal life. They do not
barter for it. It is given as a gift from the
Lord Jesus Christ. It is in his hands to give it. Now, beloved, we do not know
of anyone who has eternal life, it being
a home-grown product with them. We know of nobody that has ever
been saved by their own effort and by their own works. Romans
6.23 says, The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is
eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ. Romans 4 and 10
says that if thou knewest the gift of God, our Savior speaking,
and who it is that is speaking to you, you would have asked
of him and he would have given you living water. If thou knewest
the gift of God. Beloved, salvation, eternal life
is the gift of God. And then in Ephesians 2, 8 and
9, familiar verses, For by grace are you saved through faith,
that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works,
lest any man should boast. So if you have eternal life,
you got it as a gift. That's how you got it. You got it out of the hands of
the God-man, the sovereign Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He gives
his sheep. eternal life. He gives it to
them. He gives it to them. Well, hallelujah. It's not a
reward for service done. Somebody said it's a prerequisite
for service. To the divine promise. Now, our
Lord says, I give unto my sheep eternal life. And then he said
this, and they shall never perish. They shall never perish. That
is a tremendous statement. You mean, Lord Jesus, that you
can say 2,000 years before John Mitchell was
ever born and come into this world, that he would never perish? You mean you can say that? Well,
absolutely, he did make that statement, didn't he? He said,
If I give unto my sheep eternal life, they shall never perish. Observe, if you will, that in
this promise there is no restriction. It includes all time, whether
it was those who believed on him in the first century or those
who believe on him now. They shall never perish. I give
them eternal life. Life that lasts forever. And
they shall never perish. It includes all contingencies. It includes the young, the old,
the middle-aged. They shall never perish. It includes
all contingencies. Now you listen to me carefully.
Are they tempted? Yes. The sheep, they are tempted. Do they backslide? Yep, they
backslide. Are they unfaithful? At times
they are. Are they cold hearted? Only God
knows where our hearts are today. I thought this week if we had
some kind of a monitor that could be placed upon every child of
God, you know like a heart monitor? a monitor that would monitor
our devotion to Christ, our love for Christ, our nearness to Christ,
our subjection to Christ. I figure that probably not too
many of us would leave the glass on the monitor open for anyone
to sneak up and look, because every one of us would be ashamed.
That's right. We'd all be ashamed, would we
not? Do they have doubts and fears? Yes, they have doubts
and fears. But my friend, listen. This takes in all the flock.
The promise is not to some, but to all the sheep of Christ. If the believer moreover, in
the believer moreover, As they receive this promise, they shall
never perish. They, at the same time that they
are dealing with all of these things that I have mentioned
about the temptation, the backsliding, the unfaithfulness, the cold-heartedness,
and the doubts, at the same time we know that there is going on something in their souls,
that God is working in their souls. It is God which worketh
in you, Paul said, to both will and do of his good pleasure,
Philippians 2.13. God's working in you. You say,
well, it don't seem like it. Well, you just believe what the
Word of God says. God says that He's working in
you. He which hath begun a good work
in you, some of you have memorized that verse, Philippians 1, 6,
will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. The poet said,
the work which wisdom undertakes, eternal mercies ne'er forsakes. God has made a promise to all
of his people. It includes all contingencies. And he's made this to all the
flock. The promise is not to some, but to all the sheep of
Christ. Now, that brings me to the third
thing, and I'm going to move on here, and that is the divine
security for all of this. How could you say this, dear
Lord Jesus, that they shall never perish? Well, he goes on to say,
neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. Nobody's going
to get them out of my hand. They're in my hand. As they're
upon my heart, they're in my hand. And then he goes on to
say, 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 read some
very good things by Arthur W. Pink. that I thought was outstanding
and I'd just like to share them with you in closing
here. He says that it is quite impossible
for a sheep to become a goat and for a goat to become a sheep. For a man who has been born again
to be unborn, neither shall any man, any one, pluck them out
of my hand. Here the Lord anticipates another
objection, for the fertile mind of unbelief has rarely evidenced
more ingenuity than it has at this point in opposing the blessed
truth of the eternal security of God's children. When the objector has been forced
to acknowledge that this passage teaches that life given to the
sheep is eternal, that those who receive it shall never perish,
he will next make shift by reply. True, no believer will destroy
himself, but what of his many enemies? What of Satan, ever
going about as a roaring lion, seeking whomever he may devour?
Suppose a believer falls into the toils of the devil, what
then? This, assures our Lord, is equally impossible. The believer
is in the hand of Christ, and none is able to pluck from thence
one of his own. Tease and annoy him the devil
may, but seize the believer he cannot. Blessed, comforting,
reassuring truth is this. Weak and helpless in himself,
nevertheless the sheep is secure in the hand of the shepherd.
My Father which gave them me is greater than all, and none
is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand." Here the Lord
anticipates one more objection. He knew full well that there
would be some carping quibblers who would be foolish enough to
say, True, the devil is unable to pluck us from the hand of
Christ, but we are still free agents, and therefore could jump
out if we chose to do so. Christ now bars out this miserable
perversion. He shows us how that it's impossible
for a sheep to perish, even if it desired to, as though one
ever did. The hand of Christ is beneath
us, now get the picture, and the hand of the Father is above
us. Thus we're secured between the clasped hands of omnipotence. Isn't that a glorious picture? Now he says, no stronger passage
in all the word of God can be found guaranteeing the absolute
security of every child of God. Note the seven strands in the
rope which binds them to God. Listen to this carefully. First,
they are Christ's sheep, and it's the duty of the shepherd
to care for each of his flock. To suggest that any of Christ's
sheep may be lost is to blaspheme the shepherd himself. That's
the first strand. Secondly, it is said they follow
Christ, and no exceptions are made. The Lord does not say they
ought to, but declares they do. If then the sheep follow Christ,
they must reach heaven, for that is where the shepherd is gone.
Third strand, to the sheep is imparted eternal life. To speak
of eternal life ending is a contradiction in terms. Fourthly, this eternal
life is given to them. They did nothing to merit it.
Consequently, they can do nothing to demerit it. Fifth, the Lord
Himself declares that His sheep shall never perish. Consequently,
the man who declares that it is possible for a child of God
to go to hell makes God a liar. Sixth, from the shepherd's hand
none is able to pluck them. Hence, the devil is unable to
encompass the destruction of a single one of them. Seventh,
above them is the Father's hand. Hence, it is impossible for them
to jump out of the hand of Christ, even if they tried to. It has
been well said that if one soul who trusted in Christ should
be missing in heaven, there would be one vacant seat there, one
crown unused, one harp unstrung, and this would grieve all heaven
and proclaim a disappointed God. But such a thing is utterly impossible. I thought those were very good
comments on that verse. And I pray that God will use
these things to challenge your own heart. It's wonderful to
know that there's never been one jewel that's been stolen
from his crown. Never been a jewel. Think of
all the people that would have taken us out of the hand of Christ
along the way, if they could have. Satan cannot point to one sheep
and say Christ couldn't keep you. The poet said that we may stumble
through weakness, we may be overtaken in a fault, surprised with a
temptation, but we should be led back again. Grace shall preserve
your following years and make your virtues strong. You remember the song, the old
song that says, the protection of his child and treasure is
a charge that on himself he laid. I don't know whether we can sing
that or not. Do you know the name of that, Mitchell? The protection
of his child and treasure on himself he laid.