It is good to praise the Lord. This is my first time here. Already, I feel at home. I see a lot of faces that I recognize, so I feel that it is not like I am amongst strangers. You know, we all love the Lord and we love His Word. Let us open up with a word of prayer:
Dear Heavenly Father:
We come thanking You and praising Your Holy and Righteous Name. Lord, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for this fellowship. Lord, we thank You for the nuggets of truth, Lord, that You have hidden within Your Word, Lord. It is such a joy to gather these truths up and just share them with our friends, with out brothers and sisters in the Lord, so that we can all just feast off of Your Word. Father, we just thank You again and again for this. Lord, we ask, Father, that if anything is taught here, Lord, that is not in line with Your Word, Father, we ask that You would forgive. We thank You again and again that You do hear us and that You do all things after the council of Your will, for it is in Jesus’ Name we pray. Amen.
Amen. Okay, we are going to be speaking from John 10. In John 10, the Lord tells us a lot of things in this particular chapter. Of course, we can not go through the whole chapter, so we will just go through a few of the verses that are here. Maybe next time, we can continue on. I have to keep an eye on the time. I am going to read the first six verses in John 10. It says in John 10:1-6:
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.
Now, the Lord is telling us, He is zeroing in on these first six verses. We know that the whole Bible is a parable, but He is letting us know that this is a parable that He is saying. These first five verses are a parable. We are going to take a look into what it is that He is saying here so that we can try to glean the spiritual part to this.
In John 10:1, he says:
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.
Who is the “door”? He tells us who the “door” is in John 10:7:
Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep.
So we know that the “door” is representative of the Lord Jesus. He is talking about a “sheepfold” and He being a “door into the sheepfold.” This is where the “sheep” are. If you “climbeth up some other way,” then you are “a thief and a robber.” I would not want to be a thief or a robber.
What He is talking about here is salvation. If your salvation is based on another “way,” this is a warning. The Lord Jesus says in John 14, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me,” so there is only One “way.” He says in Proverbs 16:25, “There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death,” so there is only one “way” to get to Heaven. If your salvation is based on any other “way” other than through the “door,” the “door” being the Lord Jesus Christ, then He is telling you that you are “a thief and a robber.”
If a salvation does not deal in grace, God’s grace, then it deals with man’s thinking or a manmade gospel, and the Lord tells us about different gospels. We read in Galatians 1:6-9:
I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.
The Lord does not want us to miss this. He says it and then He turns around and says it again, to make sure that it sinks in, because this is very serious. Everything in the Bible is serious, but sometimes God puts an emphasis on things like this here.
This “other gospel” is close to the Gospel, but it is not the Gospel of Grace. It is a gospel of works. That is what it is. It is a gospel of works, and if it is a works gospel then that would mean that you are trying to climb up or get to Heaven, not through the “door” but through some other “way,” some other gospel, “any other gospel,” which is a false gospel. If it is not the true Gospel, then it is a false gospel.
So God tells us a lot about false gospels, false teachers. If it is not the right “way,” it is the wrong “way.” There is no middle ground, so Christ is the only “way.” He is the “door.” He is the One who has paid the “way” for our salvation. It is His salvation plan, and it is the only “way” to Heaven. The only “way” is through the “door,” and we know now who the “door” is. Christ is the “door.”
Let us take a look at some of the words in this verse. We will look at the word “climbeth.” It is only translated as “climbeth” right here.
In John 2:13-14, it says:
And the Jews’ passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting:
This word “went up” is the same word as “climbeth” in John 10:1, the verse that we are looking at. Notice what they are doing here:
…and found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting:
These kinds of things should not be done in God’s house, you see. These are things of men. Later on in John 10:8, He says:
All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them.
You see, a manmade doctrine, what it does is it steals God’s glory from Him. It takes the glory from the Lord. In other words, it is not by grace but it has man’s flavor in whatever particular gospel it is. It tends to not give all the glory to the Lord, or praise or honor. It wants to keep it for itself. It is stealing God’s glory or robbing Him of His praise.
“Oh, I did something. I accepted Christ.” This is what the free-will gospel proclaims. Or, “I got baptized.” “Oh yes, I speak in tongues.” These are the things that they would proclaim, and then they would be proud about this or that or the other. “I did this or I did that or I did the other.” This is stealing God’s glory and robbing Him of His praise!
God is saying, “All that ever came before Me are thieves and robbers.” These men who were there in the temple were selling doves and doing things like money changing—all kinds of things. This is when the Lord Jesus said, “My house is the house of prayer.” They were not supposed to be doing these things in there.
This is just like what is going on today. All kinds of things are going on inside of the churches, and this is why the Lord is judging the churches now.
Let us go back to John 10:2. He says there:
But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.
Let us take a look at this word “shepherd.” In Psalm 80, God gives us a good description of just who the “shepherd” is. In Psalm 80:1-3, we read:
Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock; thou that dwellest between the cherubims, shine forth. Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh stir up thy strength, and come and save us. Turn us again, O God, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.
Is there any doubt as to who the Shepherd is? In Psalm 80:1, He is talking about this Shepherd who “dwellest between the cherubims.” The Cherubims were a picture of God and this is where the Mercy Seat was. It was on the Ark of the Covenant. So here we read about the “Shepherd of Israel,” the Shepherd of God’s people. This is spiritual Israel. We want to show that the Shepherd is the Lord. He is the Lord Jesus. As a matter of fact, in Psalm 23, it says, “The LORD is my shepherd.”
Let us now look at Isaiah 40:10-11. It reads:
Behold, the Lord GOD will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him: behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him. He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.
Do you see how tenderly the Lord cares for us? We are His “sheep.” He is the Shepherd, and we are His “sheep.” If the sheep go astray, the shepherd has to go find them. He has that staff with the crook on the end. If the sheep get caught in a crevice or something, he can reach down there and grab them and pick them up. Then he brings them back to the fold.
Sheep get into trouble all of the time. If you notice, sheep are not aggressive animals. They are real timid creatures, very timid. If a sheep gets a little burr or something on it, it starts whining, “Baaa!” It will whine like this until the shepherd comes over to find out what is wrong with it. He will clean it off and take the burr off of it, then the sheep will go back to doing whatever they were doing, playing and all, but sheep do not hunt. All they do is just eat grass.
Sheep are not very smart animals. As a matter of fact, if they are thirsty, the shepherd has to lead those sheep down to where the water is. First of all, the water has to be still water. The water can not be all churned up, because they are scared of things like that. The shepherd can get the sheep within ten feet of the water and turn that lead sheep and the other sheep will walk around and follow the lead sheep until they drop dead of thirst, only being ten feet away from the water.
This is how we are! We are so helpless, like sheep, without The Shepherd, without the Lord Jesus. He has to care for us, and He cared for us so much that He laid His glory aside. He came down through forty and two generations and He went to the Cross, and He did this before we were born and before we even knew Him. But He knew us from “before the foundation of the world,” the Bible tells us.
How this happened, I have no idea. My mind just gets boggled when I try to figure out, “How did He know me?” When you get into your salvation and when you get into trying to understand how it is that you became saved, you know that you were elected, but it gets to a point where you just have to let it go and say, “I can not do it!” You just have to praise the Lord that He did elect you to salvation, if you are one of God’s children.
Let us go back to John 10. We know who the “door” is. We know who the Shepherd is. In this verse that we read, we know who the “sheep” are. We also know that from time-to-time, the Lord Jesus is the “sheep” also because when John the Baptist saw Him coming, he said, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”
So let us look at John 10:3:
To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out.
Who is the “porter”? It is translated as “porter” right here in John 10:3 and in Mark 13:34. These are the only two places where this word is translated as “porter.” In Mark 13:34, we read:
For the Son of man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch.
In John 18:16, we read:
But Peter stood at the door without. Then went out that other disciple, which was known unto the high priest, and spake unto her that kept the door, and brought in Peter.
This phrase, “kept the door,” is the same word that is used in John 10 for “porter.” So the “porter” is someone who “kept the door,” which would be the Holy Spirit. Does He not keep us? He keeps us! The Lord keeps us by His Spirit. We really can not separate the Lord from His Word. The Bible says that God is God in Three Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
We can not really understand how He can be Three Persons. He has many, many names—Jehovah. I could stand here all day, more than likely, and just go through all of the Names that He has: the Door, the Shepherd. These are just only a few that we are talking about now. I do not really understand the Godhead and how He could be One God, yet reveal Himself in Three different Persons. I can not understand this.
This next phrase in John 10:3 says:
…and the sheep hear his voice…
This is a very, very important and interesting phrase. All of the phrases are important, but this is very interesting: “and the sheep hear His voice.” If we are the “sheep,” His “sheep,” we are going to “hear His voice.”
Now, this is not a “voice” in my head or an audible “voice” like they would hear in the Old Testament, or different things like that. In the New Testament, this is His voice—the Word of God. This is the “voice of the Lord.”
Never let anyone tell you, “God told me to tell you something: this, that, or the other.” This is the “voice of the Lord,” His Word, and God’s “sheep hear His voice.” Not everyone hears His voice.
I know that when I was coming up, my grandmother would take me to church all of the time. I would hear the Word of God, but I did not know the Lord. I did not know Him, but now after all of these years, now when I read His Word, it is not the same. It is not the same.
You hear His “voice.” When He calls you, you are going to come. You are going to come to Him, but you are going to do this in His time, in His time schedule, His timeframe, not in yours. You can not choose. You can not say, “Well, on this particular day and hour and time, I came to the Lord.” No!
This is just like in John 3, when He was talking to Nicodemus. He was talking to him about being born again. We read in John 3:3-7:
Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.
Here it is right here in John 3:8:
The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.
If you are saved, if you are “born of the Spirit,” you do not know when the Holy Spirit came to you. You do not know when God saved you, to put it like that.
In the secular world, they say, “Well, if you are speaking in tongues, then the spirit came to you. That is your day. That is your time. That is whatever.”
They have to point to something, but see, like we started to talk about earlier, it is stealing God’s glory. It is not something you did. God is saying that it is not anything that you did. He did everything. He elected you. He chose you to salvation, from the beginning. This is why He has to get all the praise, all the honor, and all the glory for our salvation. No one or nothing is to get anything outside of this. This is all through Scripture. God is not going to share this with someone else.
Sometimes they say, “Well, he did 99% and you just have to do this one little thing, this one little extra thing. It is so tiny, it is just as if it is nothing.” But if you mention it, it is something.
I just want to read this verse, and we hear this over and over and over again. We read in Ephesians 2:8-9:
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.
God makes this pretty plain right here. It is “not of works.” If it was “of works,” then you would boast about it. You would brag about it.
He knows us. He knows our frame. We have that little bit of pride that is in us. We have to…we just have to do something, even if it is just this one little thing, “I accepted Him, but that is nothing.” They say that it is nothing, you see.
I am sure that a lot of us used to think this way until the Lord opened our eyes. He had to open our eyes. Someone in our same household can be sitting right next to us and they can not see what we are talking about. It hurts. Yes, it does hurt. But God is the One who makes these decisions.
Maybe this individual, he or she, their eyes were not opened at the precise moment that your eyes were opened, but this does not mean that the Lord is not going to open their eyes. There is always the hope of salvation. Today is still the Day of Salvation. We all, one time or another, had to have our eyes opened.
This is why it is so important that we do not brag or boast about whatever it is that we know or the fact that we are saved and another individual is not saved, because the Bible says, “But by the grace of God I am what I am.”
We pray for these individuals. We pray that the Lord might save them. At the same time, we have to continually examine our own selves. We have to examine ourselves. The Lord tells us this quite often, “Examine yourselves.” “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith.”
In John 10, we were talking about His “sheep” hearing His “voice,” and His “voice” is the Word of God. Let us turn to John 1. I am sure that this is one of the many verses that we have memorized. We read in John 1:1-5:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.
Now, we were talking about the “voice of the Lord.” We now know that this is His Word, and His Word is the Lord Jesus. In John 1:14, it says:
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
This is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the living Word. Here it is. It is right in front of us! The Lord is His Word. When we read this Word, God is actually talking to us. When we want to talk to Him, we talk to Him in prayer. This is the whole communication process right here. There is nothing else.
In the Old Testament, “at sundry times,” God brought His Word through the prophets. They would declare His Word, but what the prophets did is what we do! When we witness to someone, we are declaring what God says.
At no time is anyone standing up here going to really express what “they” say. We may use an example, but when it comes to God’s Word, He is the One who is speaking. He is the One who is saying whatever the verse is. Whatever the problem is, God is the One who is saying it. God may have used Peter or Paul, different writers in the Bible to write His Word down, but God is the One who is speaking, and God has to open our eyes to this fact.
The other thing is that we can not make someone else see this. We can not make someone else see something. “Can you not see it?” How many times did I say this to someone years ago? “Can you not see it?” I did not know. I did not realize what God was doing. He was opening my eyes, but yet, a person right next to me might be someone whose eyes the Lord has not opened. It does not mean that He will not. There is still hope, but we can not get angry at someone because they can not see something. “It is right there! It is right there! Why can you not see it?” They can not see it because God has not opened their eyes. So this is how the child of God hears His “voice.”
We will give a couple more examples. Turn to Isaiah 55 and I will just use this one other verse here. In Isaiah 55:3, He says:
Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.
See, if you do hear His voice, when He opens our ears to “hear” and our eyes that we might “see,” it says, “Your soul shall live.” “Your soul shall live.” So this Word is powerful! God uses His Word to save His people.
Back to the next phrase in John 10:3:
…and he calleth his own sheep by name…
Now, this is personal. This is pretty personal right here. I mean, He knows my name? He, the One who spoke and the world leaped into being, the One who created all the worlds, the universe!
I tell you, some of those science shows that show you what is out there, it just boggles my mind. It boggles my mind that, number one, it is even out there, and number two, that these people who are so intelligent think that all of this happened through a big bang. But see, their eyes are not opened. This is the way it is. God has not opened their eyes. But I look past this and I am just praising the Lord. We are the only planet where there is life. They have been looking and looking and looking. There is no other life anywhere else. “Oh, yes there is. There is this; there is that.” Well, when you find it, let me know. This is how it is.
But He knows us by name, by name! He knows my name—my name! And each one of us can say this, “He knows my name!” This is so precious! It is so very precious. He knows my name. He tells us in Revelation 13:7-8:
And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
He said, “whose names are not written in the Book of Life of the Lamb.” So the ones who are written in the Book of Life, in the Lamb’s Book of Life, “from the foundation of the world,” if you are saved, your name is written in that Book! It is written there! It does not do any good to change your name. Sometimes people change their name for different reasons or whatever, but if your name is in that Book, it is going to be the name that you were born with—I would venture to say this. This is only a speculation, but it would have to be your name.
I will close with Revelation 17:8, it says:
The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.
You see, your name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. God knows your name! We will stop here and maybe be able to pick it up next time, Lord willing.