The Good Shepherd

… And when he put his horses and sheep, he goes 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 paid, and shall go in and out, and sign pasture. The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I am come that they might have life, and that 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 hiring, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf running, and leadeth the sheep, and fleeth, and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and care is not for the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine, as 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. There was a division, therefore, again among the Jews for these things. Now those of us who know our Bible will probably remember that the previous chapter, chapter nine, is occupied with the incident of the man whose eyes were opened by going to the pool of Shiloam and washing. And the poor dear fellow, having been thus wonderfully blessed, became a kind of target for the opposition of the Pharisees. They cross-examined him, and he had a rather trying time, very evidently. And at the end of the story, the Pharisees threw him out of the synagogue because of his confession of what the Lord had done for him. Then it was the Lord Jesus took the opportunity of finding the man and revealing to him who he really was. He said, Do you believe on the Son of God? And the man said, But Lord, who is it that I might believe on him? And the Lord Jesus said, I who speak to you am he. The man believed and worshipped him. Now the Lord here begins to speak, and I think we find an explanation of what was really happening. Did you notice that it said in verse six, This parable takes Jesus unto them. So here we've got one of his parables. He's talking in parabolic form. Under the figure of a shepherd and sheep who were in a fold, he pictures himself, the true coming into the enclosure, which we might call the Jewish home. God has called those people out. Originally, through their ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, he had called them out. And he had, like a number of sheep, enclosed them so that they might not be defiled by the corruptions that filled the world all round about them. The very essence of their position as Jews was they've got to keep themselves apart from the Gentile nations with their idolatry. They were like a little enclosed garden, to use another figure. But it was a fold with these sheep. And the Lord Jesus said, in effect, now there have been pretenders. Yes, before Jesus actually was born, we know there were several men who came pretending to be leaders, really pretending to be the long-promised deliverer, what the Jews call the Messiah. But they were fraud. The Lord says they were thieves and robbers. They did not enter the sheepfold by the appointed way. God had indicated a certain door through which the true Messiah, the true Christ, when he came would enter. For instance, he must be the son of a virgin. That was plainly declared in the beginning, the early chapters of Isaiah's prophecy. He must enter through that door. And there were many other things indicated which showed a kind of pattern of entry. The true Messiah would fulfill these predictions. He would enter by that door. Well, there were those who came and they didn't. They were just thieves and robbers. If you read the remarks of Gamaliel in the early chapters of Acts, when he put a spoke in the whistle of the Sadduceean hatred against the Apostles, he reminded them about Judas in the days of the taxing and feudal. He mentioned one or two of these fraudulent individuals who came, protesting to be the real Christ. No, he said, the real shepherd of the sheep will enter by the door that God has indicated and the portal will open to him and the sheep will hear his voice. Look at verse 3. And he will call his own sheep by name. And what? Now you know the average Jew would have said, oh well, when this wonderful predicted deliverer comes to our nation, this great Messiah, oh, he will polish up the fold. He will make it a vastly better place than it's ever been before he came. But was that what he came to do? No. You see, the Lord Jesus is really in a parable form, in a simple way, giving us the divine program. He's saying, in effect, now this is what God has before him as the program of events. He had come, the true shepherd, and he had come into the Jewish fold where there were many sheep in those days, many Jews, many of this people that God had called. But amongst them were his own sheep. Those who really responded to his voice. In the first chapter of John's Gospel, we get mentioned a few of his own sheep. One was called Andrew and one was called Peter. The Lord, he was Simon, the son of Jonah. But the Lord said, no, no, you're going to be Peter. And one was called Samuel. And there were others whose names were not there mentioned. But these responded. They believed. They received Jesus when he came and proved themselves to be what he called his own sheep. And what does he do? He called his own sheep by name, as I pointed out in the first chapter of John's Gospel. And he leads them out. Why, that would have been a tremendous surprise to the ordinary Jewish people. What, they would have said? You mean to say that the Messiah, this great promised deliverer, when he comes, he's going to come amongst the sheep. And a certain number of the sheep are going to recognize him and listen to his voice. And they're going to be called his own sheep. And he's going to lead them out. Yes, that was what he was going to do. The poor man in the previous chapter, if you'll allow me a very colloquial phrase, they chucked him out. Well, anyhow, he was outside the Jewish fold. And the Lord is virtually saying, yes, yes, yes. And that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to call my own sheep and I'm going to lead them out. Well, you say, into what? That's a very pertinent question, isn't it? Yes, the Lord knew. Everybody would ask that question and so he answers it in the preceding verses. But just notice that when he puts forth his own sheep, he says, he does it before them. Ah, what that meant for him. He was the first to go outside. Yes, he was rejected. He was crucified. He died as the last chapter of Hebrews tells us. He suffered without forget. Jesus is going to call the people outside the Jewish order of things. And that, as I dare say, my dear friend, most of you know very, very well, is what he has been doing now for 1900 years. Calling souls, as we shall see, out into that which he has instituted as the result, the direct fruit of his own death and resurrection. He goes before. He died, so to speak, out of the Jewish fold in order to start something which is entirely new. And he says the sheep, the true genuine sheep, in other words, those who really believed on him, they will follow him into this outside position as regards the Jewish fold. Now, look at the parable. They didn't understand. But the Lord Jesus goes on to further explain the matter when he says to them, very well, verily, verily, or as we might say most emphatically, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. He's talking, of course, of those who were brought up in Jewish circles, the Jewish sheep, the sheep of the pasture. We are the sheep of this pasture. Yes, they were. God called them into that privileged position. But now Jesus is saying, I'm going out of this before you by death and resurrection. And you're going to follow me. You're going to be identified with me. And my exit will be your exit from the Jewish fold. Those who came before me, they were thieves and robbers. The sheep didn't hear them. I am the door, he says. But now he's thinking not of the door of exit, but of the door of entrance. Because he says, by me, if any man enter in, and he specifies three things. First, he shall say. Second, he shall go in and out. And third, he shall find pasture. Now, we'll pause there a moment. And we'll just look at this and a little bit test ourselves. The Lord Jesus is saying, in effect, I'm going to introduce salvation in its true and proper sense. For those who are my sheep, and whom I'm leading out of the Jewish fold. You know, the dear people of God, the saints of God, who lived in Old Testament times, couldn't talk about justification as we can, or even forgiveness as we can. I say we Christians today. Look, if you'd lived in those times, you heard the law. And I did. We lived in those days. We heard the law. And one day we thought, oh, look here. You know, yesterday, that which we did, obviously I'd forgotten. I have transgressed the holy law of God. I go to the priest. I say, priest, look here. I'm very troubled. Yesterday I did this. And I realize now I never ought to have done it. What am I to do? He would, I suppose, have said to me, well, if you've done that, you must bring your offering, your sin or your trespass offering. And when you brought your trespass offering, whatever it was, your trespass offering, and it is offered according to the law of Moses, and you see it offered, you could have walked away. I could have walked away with a comfortable feeling in regard to what? That particular sin, that trespass that my conscience told me I had committed. One trespass, one offering in relation to the trespass. But I might say, well, my dear priest, I've got 101 sins. I've got a thousand sins. I haven't done anything. No, the priest couldn't say, now, look, you stand absolutely cleared of all your gifts. No, that's what we can say today. That's what the preacher of the gospel is entitled to say. He's entitled to quote the verses we have in the tenth chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews. The spirit of God is the witness to the one who believes in Christ, who has died and risen from the dead, and the witness is their sins and their iniquity. Will I remember no more? It's been very well said. It's been very well said. That infers that he's remembered the once things, only, no more. You wouldn't say I'll do that no more if you'd never done it at all, would you? No. It infers you've done it once. Why did it once? Because it wasn't success. I'll do it no more. Right. I understand you. God says, I'll remember them no more. Then did he remember the once he did when Christ died? One of our hymns says, all thy sins were laid upon him. Jesus bore them on the tree. God who knew them laid them on him, and believing thou art free. Yes, my dear friends, we Christians ought to realize the wonder of that which we enjoy. We've got a salvation in its fullness which could not be known or enjoyed by the most pious believer before Christ came. We might know he was one of God's favored ones, but he hadn't got what we've got, the knowledge of what's been accomplished sacrificially in the death and resurrection of Christ. But, not only salvation, he said, look, I'm going to lead my sheep into liberty. I think in one word, shall go in and out. Now, I'm going to give an application to that for a moment. You see, no Israelite could go in, even the priest, who should go into the holy place, but he couldn't go into the holy of holies. On one day, every year, the high priest, only the high priest, only with the blood of the great offering, only enveloped in a cloud of insects. He could go, perhaps rather tremblingly, into this wonderful enclosure where there's the ark and the cherubim, but it's proof of the blood. And what is really the Spirit of God saying in that? We are told of the night of heathens. What would signify this? That the way into the holiest of all would not yet be made manifest. Jesus is saying here, yes, but it's going to be made manifest as the fruit of the shepherd, the true shepherd coming and going out of the fold by his death and resurrection. Yes, today, the saint can go in to the holiest in spirit, not yet in body, in spirit, in a way that no Old Testament saint could do, and even go out. That was another thing prohibited. Supposing a young Jew was said to the high priest, oh priest, I'm concerned about these poor Gentiles. I would like to go on a mission to, where shall I say, Rome or Athens or somewhere. My dear boy, you mustn't do that. You know you might fall in love with a girl there and want to marry her. You mustn't marry a saint. You must keep yourself to yourself. You read in the book of Nehemiah what a terrible business there was when some of them started marrying Gentiles. They couldn't go out. They were to keep inside the enclosure of the little Jewish body with their temples and their sacrifices. There was no real liberty to go in, and there was certainly no liberty to go out. They had no gospel to preach in all the world. When the Lord Jesus said to his apostles after the resurrection, go ye into all the world, that was an absolute novelty. Nothing like that had ever been said before. So the Lord Jesus is here predicting. You see, he's got before him, before God, he puts it in a nutshell, the divine program, the age in which we are living. We are living in a wonderful age where salvation and fullness may know. We have liberty of access into the presence of God in spirit, prayer, thanksgiving, praise, worship. We have instructions to go out, and we find posture. Now there, of course, he's using the figure still of the sheep. In other words, good spiritual food. The Christians have the opportunity of having the heart filled with what really nourishes and builds up. Of course, I'm afraid there are too many Christians today, let me say a practical word, who are like sheep nibbling at rather poisonous kind of pasture. They're trying to find their joys in all kinds of things that are no spiritual good to them whatever. And they are often half-starved, poor thing. They're not feeling where they might feel. I only say that as a practical word. That's how it appears to me. I'm not throwing stones at you any more than at myself, because that's the trouble. You see, in this very enlightened day in which we live, there are more than 10,000 things today bidding for our attention. I sometimes tell the young people I'm sympathetic. When I was a youngster, there weren't these things. I wasn't tempted to waste valuable time nibbling away at all kinds of things that there are today. No, they weren't there. Perhaps I was able to read my Bible if I hadn't read it a bit when I was young. I don't know that I should have had so much time when I was older and had other things perhaps which were service for the Lord in gaining my attention. No, the program of the Lord Jesus is this. He comes amongst his own people, the Jews, their little enclosure. He's rejected, he's cast out, but he draws out his own sheep. And are they the losers? They are not. They are great gainers. They are brought into salvation, into liberty, and into pasture. And not only that, because he now contrasts himself with the thief. He says the thief comes, he's out to steal or kill or destroy. Now I'm come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly. I think it would be right for me to say to all of you, there would be no life at all for us or anybody save on the basis of the work that Christ has wrought. His death lies at the basis of all life. The life that will be enjoyed in the coming age of millennial blessedness here on earth. They'll owe it to the death of Christ. But to us today, there is not only life, but life more abundantly. I think it's a good thing to ask ourselves, am I going in for the real life which Christ has made known and revealed? Abundant life. Yes, I'm afraid, brethren, you know, we've got to look at ourselves, whether we're young Christians or old Christians. There is a life. It isn't merely the divine spark, so to speak, which is in every true sense. But life is often used in scripture in that second sense, in which we use it in ordinary conversation. You're the young man of the world. What is it? I'm going out to see life. See, I'm talking to you. You can't look. That's a life puzzling for scientists. What is this life? Yes, we all know the difference between a live person and a dead one. That one's got life and that one's gone. What is it? You can't see it. No, but you can see it in its manifestation. I know what the young man means. He thinks to have a jolly time and perhaps a bit of sin and vice. He's going out to enjoy himself, so he thinks, in the things that the world calls life. Now, we Christians have got life. We are brought into the knowledge of God as our Father. We are impressed by the Holy Spirit of God. We have most blessed things to occupy our heart's affections and our devotion to our risen Lord. Things that are really life. The Lord says, I'm come that they may have life. They wouldn't have spiritual life at all, but I'm come that they may have it abundantly. To reveal such things, an abundance of things, that they may walk in the power of an abundant life. A wonderful fact, you see. This is the divine program which the Lord had before him, in order that that might be, of course, as the good shepherd. He gave his own life for the sheep. Then, in verse 12, he contrasts himself not with the robber, but with the hireless. Here's the shepherd who's only looking after the sheep for his wages. He has no vital interest in the sheep. He does his duty, we can hope. But, in an emergency, he's not going to sacrifice himself on behalf of the sheep when the wolf comes. So, he runs away. They don't really belong to him. Now, the Lord Jesus, you see, is the contrast to the hireling. The hireling flees because he is a hireling. And he doesn't care for the sheep. There's no kind of link between him and the sheep that he is supposed to be attending and watching. In contrast to that, look at verses 14 and 15. Now, I may tell you that a very slight alteration in the translation makes the meaning of our Lord more clear. May I read it this way? I am the good shepherd, and I know my sheep, and am known of my sheep, as the Father knoweth me, and I know the Father. He's saying, in effect, there's a link, a very great intimacy, between himself as the shepherd and the sheep, who are really his. Of course, you may say, well, that's something you would never find. Today, if I were to appeal to Mr. Shell here, who had some sheep out in the fields, he might tell me that he has a very good man who looks after the sheep. But they're his sheep. But even so, there's a vast difference between the human mind and heart and the poor sheep, isn't there? There can't be actually very much kind of concert between them, no. But the Lord says, now there is. He's using the figure to illustrate what, by the grace of God we now know. He says, now look, I'm the good shepherd, and there's going to be, between the sheep and myself, an intimacy. Now, I think that's the word I should use there. I think I've heard other people use it. An intimacy which, in its wonderful character, is reminiscent of the intimacy that exists between the Father himself and the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And that intimacy is established again on the basis of his death. I lay down my life for the sheep. Here indeed is a wonderful thing. A thing, of course, that you cannot find. I was only trying to illustrate that a moment ago when I thought of the Mr. Shell sheep. No, the ordinary, the owner of the sheep. There isn't, there's something there which you don't find amongst the man who's there entirely. But there's not this intimacy that the Lord Jesus indicates here. How can it be? Now, in the light of what is revealed in the epistles, I think I can confidently tell you how it can be. By the gift of the Holy Ghost. By the indwelling Spirit. This intimacy is possible. If we read that wonderful chapter, the 8th of Romans, in which the indwelling Spirit, the Spirit now given to the believer, is presented to us in its various capacities. We find that he is life in the believer's heart. He is the one who gives us the knowledge of the Savior. He is the one who has the power of discernment. If you look and read the second chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians, you'll find that by the Spirit that's given to us, that we are enabled to hold happy, intimate communion with our risen Savior. The Lord is saying, I'm going to institute something which far outshines anything that was known in the days before he came. I'm going to bring my sheep into this wonderful position where they may have intimate knowledge and communion with me. He doesn't think how he's going to do it here, therefore I appeal to the epistles, which make it plain that he does it in the gift of the indwelling Spirit of God to those who believe. And then there's one thing more. And I think we'll all thank God for this. What? Why, he says in 16 Acts. One thing more. There are other sheep I have. And they're not of this fold. Gentile sheep. Sheep who never were enclosed in the Jewish fold. There are other sheep I have. And he says, them also I must bring. Oh, thank God for that must. I was never in the Jewish fold. I was never a sheep. I was one of the poor Gentiles. And I expect you all have to say the same. If he hadn't said, I'm going to do all this gathering out the sheep out of the fold. Out of the Jewish enclosure. I'm going to bring them out. I'm going to give them this and this and this and this. And I'm going to find other sheep who were never enclosed in the Jewish fold. And I must bring them. You know, I've heard preachers speak about the three musts in John 3. Have you ever heard a sermon on the three musts? As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. Nothing without his sacrificial death. You must be born again to Nicodemus. Yes, because of our utterly lost and ruined estate. Presently John the Baptist says, yes, and he must increase. And I must decrease. But here's a fourth must. He says, I must bring. But he's been doing it for hundreds of years. He's doing it today. Only a week or ten days ago I listened to a young fellow come back from a few years in the Belgian Congo. He's a clever chap. He has some very excellent slides. I saw some of these people. God has suddenly begun to work amongst the most degraded pride. Our dear friends out there have known these people. Hardly a rag on their bodies. Not stark naked, but as nearly as you can be, men and women. Black matted hair. They never wash in water. They rub themselves with all kinds of oils and things. They're filthy, dirty, stinking people with masses of black matted hair which is never by any chance washed. I'm sure of all this. And then we saw some pictures. There's this person, savage and filthy. There's the same person converted to God. Yes. He's finally the most extraordinary human. I'm not surprised that it says in the second of Ephesians that in the coming age God is going to show the exceeding. The word really means surpassing. The surpassing riches of his grace and his kindness to us through Christ Jesus. Think of Michael the Archangel or Gabriel. They've been watching the whole of this awful tragedy from the sin of Adam and onwards. And they've seen these creatures. And that fearful looking individual, man or woman, redeemed. Their very faces beaming with happiness. Clothed simply in those hot clouds. And by and by they're going to shine in the image of Christ. Angels, ain't this beautiful? Very wonderful that God should be kind to Israel and put them as he will in a glorious condition here on earth. The Lord said I'm going to gather these sheep, these other sheep, and I must bring them and they're going to hear my voice. And there shall be one, now the word is not fold. Those who know the Greek term, there is flock. There shall be one flock and one shepherd. That's expounded in the second chapter of the epistles of the Ephesians. Where we find how God makes both one. Those who he calls out of Jewish circles and those who he calls out of Gentile circles. There's going to be one flock and one shepherd. Now look, some of you may be saying in your minds, oh my, this is all very idealistic. This is the ideal. But look at the practical things today. Yes. Yes. Practically, sad to say, we've come very short. There are many dear Christian people so entangled in false religious systems that they don't rejoice in their salvation. They do trust Christ, but they think perhaps they've got to go to purgatory. And until they get out of purgatory they couldn't exactly rejoice. Oh yes, I know what you refer to very well. Yes, there are. Yes, they do truly trust the Savior. They're not in the enjoyment even of the salvation that we may rejoice in as knowing the Savior. They have no liberty. There's not much spiritual food. You say, well, the adversary's got to work to spoil it. Yes. But he won't spoil it eventually. You find the saving grace and the liberty is theirs even though the adversary may have spoiled their present enjoyment of it. So with these other things, I can imagine some of you saying, what does the Savior say? There's going to be one flock and one shepherd. You see, the flock, the shepherd is the center of the flock. You know, it is so in Jewish circles. Sure, of course, it's a rule there are some dogs running about, aren't there? But there's no doubt the shepherd was the central attraction in these very ancient days. And he did know the sheep and the sheep seemed to know him and knew his voice. And he said, there's going to be one flock. You would say, oh well, but that was a poor savage African. Well, never mind. He said it was the one flock. That was a rabbi before he got converted. Very fanciful. Yes, but he'd been converted and he's in the one flock. All kinds of strange folk. If you look at them in their unconverted condition, but they're all in the one flock. You say, well, look, why, we've got this church at the Watts College and this chapel and that chapel and that meeting hall and that mission. Yes. But when the Lord Jesus comes, I'm supposed to take ten minutes. I'll say ten seconds after he comes and the resurrection of the dead saints and the transformation of the living saints. There'll be nothing but the one flock. Your isms and your posses and your missions and your everything. Mine too. We've all simply vanished. We shall see the one flock called into the presence of the one shepherd. What he purposes, that he will do. And we can thank God for that. Yes, it's based, again, he makes it most plain in verses 17 and 18. It's based on his death and resurrection. That was necessary if all this was to come to pass. He had power over authority to lay down his life. He had power over authority to take it again. This was the commandment from the Father. He came to do it. And we, my friends, look back and say, the wonder thing for us is, it is all done. Divinely accomplished. Now I close by calling your attention to the last verse I read. The Lord had been unfolding these wonderful things. But there was a division, therefore, again among the Jews. Of these saints. Well, I hope there's no division here because of these saints. I hope there's nobody out here, any young person going to shake their head, no, I don't care if Jesus said this. I shall just go my own way. I want to live my own life. No, I hope we've all said Lord Jesus' wonderful saying. We praise and bless ye for them. Where our faith is centered in thee, we repose our souls upon the great work which thou didst predict thou wast about to accomplish by death and resurrection. We receive these sayings. We rejoice in these sayings. And upon these sayings, our lives are going to be good. Well, it's a grand thing, my dear friends. I'm an old believer now. I'm an old believer. Sometimes folks look at me and tell me they hardly believe me when I have to tell them how old I am. But you know, I've been doing it very feebly, but I've been in the Christian path of life now for many years. It was in early May 1890 that peace with God entered my soul in a long time, isn't it? It can soon be 68 years. And I sometimes tell people it's the only thing I know which, as you go on through life, will get better and better. Everything else wears out. You're close to it, by the least. And other things wear out. And the things that charmed you when you were young, they don't. I sometimes used to tell people, my dear, when I was a small boy, if somebody had put a 6mm tip in my hand, I would have been delighted. I shouldn't be transported with enthusiasm if you offered me a 6mm tip today, if I were doing anything for you. I met a dear man down at Blyth, who was one of the pilots. And when I met him, he said, why, dear Lord, the last time we met? I said, no, I don't. Captain Sadler, isn't it? Well, he said, I was a boy in my father's house at the Welsh Revival. You came down and gave away cracks. And when you left, my father said to me, look here, whatever his name is. I forget what his name is. You've got to go and carry one of Mr. Holt's bags to the station. I forgot it. This, he said, might have been the present for a good number of brethren around that I've been there. So I said, well, did you? He said, yes. He said, yes, I carried your bag to the station. The last time we met, when I was 10 or 11 or 12 or 13 years old. I said, when are you? I gave it to you. You gave me sixpence. And I thought you were a perfect hero. You can imagine my retinue standing down. They were rather tickled. I was rather tickled myself. I said, well, I've earned heroism, haven't I? Very cheaply. Yes, I think he intimated that a few sixpences would be needed to make him feel that anybody was a hero today. Yes. Things wear out. What pleases the little child? Well, I think there's nothing on it. And so it is. It's only a little parable. Things wear out. But the thing that doesn't wear out, the path of the just is as the shining light. It's more and more unto the perfect day. I hope there'll be no division amongst us as we say. And every one of us will say, Lord Jesus, thou art the object of my faith. It is centered in thee and in the work that thou didst accomplish. Let me pay attention to the things that thou didst indicate as being the design program for the moment in which I'm privileged today. …