John 10

John 10:1-18

CHRIST’S MISSION John 10:1-18. THIS morning we continue the study of the life of Christ. The page I propose to take from that life today is not the text in order, considered from the standpoint of a careful harmony of the Gospels; but that circumstance in no wise militates against its interest. Every leaf of the Gospels contains its precious treasures. Truly, the poet had occasion when he wrote: “How precious is the Book Divine, By inspiration given! Bright as a lamp its doctrines shine, To guide our souls to Heaven. “O’er all the strait and narrow way Its radiant beams are cast; A light whose never-weary ray Grows brightest at the last.” These eighteen verses are no exception to such claims. Their truths are many and marvelous. I have elected to discuss three this morning, suggested by three statements of Jesus regarding Himself: 1. “I am the door of the sheep”; 2. “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly”; 3. “I am the Good Shepherd, and the Good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep”.I want to discuss these three claims under three subjects: The New Birth, The Abundant Life, and The Blessed Lordship.THE NEW BIRTH This doctrine is known to John’s Gospel. He records for us the Lord’s conversation with Nicodemus, and the plain statement: “Ye must be born again”, in answer to which Nicodemus replied: “How can a man be born when he is old”? It is only another way of asking, “How can a sinner find not only access into the Divine presence, but come into the experience of Divine favor, and consequently be adopted into the family of God?”In this text Christ says, “I am the Way”, a claim which, considered in the light of the context, presents Christ as the simple Way to God; Christ as the sole Way to God, and Christ as the satisfactory Way to God.Christ is the simple Way to God. “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life”. That philosophy of salvation is so simple, and in such strange contrast with uninspired philosophies, and even so diametrically opposed to what the natural man imagines, that many stumble on account of it. They are willing to take the way of suffering; they are willing to believe in the way of good works; but Christ, the Way, is “to the Jews foolishness and to the Gentiles a stumbling block.” I shall not soon forget how an intelligent young woman in the city of Lafayette, Ind., after having listened to John 6:37 : “Him that cometh to Me I will in no wise cast out”, exclaimed, “And is that all I have to do, just to come to God in Christ? Just to come as I am?

Just to come now at this instant?” And when I answered in the affirmative, she kneeled and with upturned face and closed eyes, said, “Lord, I come! I accept Thy promise to take me!” From that moment she stood amazed at the simplicity of the plan of salvation, and said over and over again, “For years I have been stumbling because I did not see how simple the plan was. I did not take God at His Word, Christ, the Way.”Christ is the sole Way to God. That is suggested in this context: “All that ever came before Me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them. “I am the Door: by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture” (John 10:8-9). You remember that in another Scripture we are told that if one “climb up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber”. In Acts we read, “There is none other Name under heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved”. The words of Jesus are, “No man cometh unto the Father but by Me”. The man who supposes that he can be a Christian, and yet repudiate Christ, has, by his philosophy, put the Scriptures away. The man who thinks he can come to God and ignore Christ, denying His Deity, as Unitarians do, sets himself in opposition to the plain teachings of the Word.I read an illustration a few days since which will bring this within easy understanding. A girl was standing on the platform of an Ayrshire station not long since.

Hailing an official, she asked if the train started from that station. He replied, “For where?

Let me see your ticket.” Upon looking at it he said, “No, you are at the wrong station.” Two railroads ran through the town. The station she wished to go to was on the other one. She could not, therefore, get to her destination by the train she was proposing to board for the simple reason that it was not on that line. The writer remarked: “Some people would like to go to Heaven but they are trying to make a start from the wrong station and they are attempting to travel by the wrong route. There is but one station from which to start and that is Calvary; there is but one Way, that is Christ. To be sure, the girl who was about to board the train at the wrong station was in ignorance of the way; but she was convinced when the official of the road gave her the information; she did not set up her ignorance against his knowledge, and she did not stop to argue about one way being as good as another.

When she received the instruction she started for the right road.” Why is not her conduct an example to men and women? Christ is the Way and none other.

Why then lose time about it?Christ is the satisfactory Way to God. “I am the Door: by Me, if any man enter in he shall be saved, and go in and out, and find pasture” (John 10:9).The phrase “in and out” is a suggestive one—into the presence of God, for acceptance; out into the field of service; into the Divine Presence for salvation; out into pastures green for refreshment; into rare experiences; out into rich opportunities. Dr. J. H. Jowett, of New York, is easily one of the great preachers of the world; possibly the most famous of the now living ones. Speaking of this verse, “I am the Door”, he says, “The door to what?

Into everything where we ought to go. The door into the central rooms of everything.” Then he adds, “The way into the Holy Place is not through the synagogue, but through the Christ; not through an organization, but through the Christ; not through any mode of ecclesiastical procedure, but through the Christ.

Jesus Christ is the Door into the Holy and blessed life of God. Through Him we enter into the sacred life of which holiness is the light, and love is the atmosphere, and peace is the bond of communion. He is, therefore, the Door from the wilderness of guilt into the rich pastures of grace.”And that remark of Jowett’s reminds me of Moody’s illustration when he was yet engaged in his great evangelistic work. He used to tell the story of the Scotch girl who wandered away from God and father’s instruction and mother’s counsel, and went deeply into sin; and one night in a wild fancy in the city of Edinburgh she concluded that before she committed suicide she would go out and look once more upon the home where she was born and spent her youth. When, in the middle of the night, she came into the neighborhood again, and finally up to the mother’s gate, it was dark, and so she lifted the latch and stole in. As she went up the path she got the scent of the old flowers, the mignonette and pink, and she moved on until she came to the door of the cottage, and to her surprise found it wide open.

And then, in fear lest harm might come to the old mother, she called, and the mother answered, and she said, “Mother, I have found the door open.” And the old Scotch mother got up and came down, and said, “Maggie, it is many a long day since you went away, but always the prayer has been in my heart, ‘Lord, send her home’; and I said, ‘Whether she come by day or night I want her to see an open door and know her welcome.’” And that night the girl was clasped in mother’s arms and love, home and forgiveness suggested the Divine love and the possibility of Divine pardon, and so by the open door of mother’s cottage she found her way back to the open door of Christ, the Way into Divine love and redeeming pardon. Christ is the satisfactory Way!But Christ passes from this statement to a second, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).THE LIFE The Scriptures, then, when properly interpreted, mean two or three things.1st, Christ alone is the Author of life; 2nd, Christ is the Arbiter of all grace; 3rd, Christ proposes abundant blessing.Christ alone is the Author of life. “In Him was life”. Some of us believe that is a literal fact and not merely a moral proposition. We do not believe that life came by chance; we do not believe that evolution was the way of it; we do not believe that it started from atoms and by some strange and fortuitous power found its way to higher and higher forms. We believe that all science speaks with John concerning Jesus, “All things were made by Him and without Him was not any thing made that was made”, and that “in Him was life”. John having taken this position never departs from it; and concerning it John compromises with no man. There were philosophers in John’s day, and even back of it, who had their explanations of life.

Lucretius preceded him by a hundred years, and his philosophy parallels Darwinism at almost every point; and yet it did not impress John as being the truth. In the fifth chapter of his Gospel he quotes Jesus as saying, “As the Father hath life in Himself’, so hath He given to the Son to have life in Himself”.

That is the independent life; that is the origin of life, and that is the source of all life. That is Christ alone.The city of Birmingham, Eng. has a splendid water system. Any housewife can turn the faucet and a refreshing stream is at hand; but it comes from the beautiful lake Thermer beyond in the far heights, a lake which has its springs in itself; it then is the source, though the supply is found in every house of the great city; and when, therefore, you find a man or woman living the true spiritual life, then Christ is simply manifesting Himself and the overflow of His life is found.Christ also is the Arbiter of all grace. He gives eternal life—“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish”.Dr. Dale, the famous divine, says, “The power and perfection of our moral and spiritual life are a perpetual revelation of the power and perfection of the life of Christ.

There is no limit of holiness in us that is not in Christ. As the life of Christ is revealed in us in richer and nobler forms, the moral and spiritual glory of Christ is the ultimate ideal to which we are continually approaching.” That is what Paul means, doubtless, when he writes of Christ, “In you the Hope of glory”.When I was a student in the theological seminary, Dr.

Frank Kerfoot was my professor in Latin and theology. He had come away from a notable pastorate in the city of Baltimore, and out of his past-total experiences he takes this incident and records it as an explanation of my contention that Christ is the Arbiter of all grace. He says, “I had a woman in my congregation who had been very anxious about her soul’s salvation. She was a highly cultured woman, a teacher in a young ladies seminary—the principal of it; and the school was of high grade. She had passed the age of childhood and had almost passed the age of youth. She did not find it easy to become a little child and accept the Lord Jesus as such.

The struggle with her was long and hard but after a while she was able to trust herself to Christ as her Saviour. One morning she came forward, and when I went down from the pulpit to receive her experience and give it to the congregation, instead of having anything to say to me or the congregation, she put into my hand a sheet of paper on which was written three stanzas, every one of which argued that salvation is all of grace, and that Christ is its sole Arbiter.

Her poem read: “I sought the Lord, but afterwards I knew He moved my soul to Him who sought for me. It was not that I found, O Saviour true; No, I was found of Thee. “Thou didst stretch forth Thy hand and mine enfold, I walked and sank not on die storm-vexed sea, But not so much that I on Thee had hold As by Thy hold on me. “And now, I wake, I love; but the whole Of love is but my answer, Lord, to Thee; Lord, Thou wast long beforehand with my soul, Always Thou lovedst me.” And on that remark Dr. Kerfoot comments, “Brethren, is there a man or woman here who does not realize that in his or her experience that does not express the truth? You thought you came to Christ. You thought you walked, and you did exercise as absolute freedom of the human will as ever you did in anything in human life, but as the years go by, you have come to feel, ‘I am what I am by the grace of God.”“I sought the Lord, but afterwards I knew He moved my soul to Him who sought for me.” It is predestination. It is God’s agency and God’s providence. But let us not split hairs over the doctrine, but fall back upon it in the midst of life’s struggles and conflicts, as you would fall into the arms of the infinite Father and realize, “Oh, blessed be God, these little lives of ours are interwoven with God’s eternal purposes, and are subjects of God’s grace!”Christ dispenses abundant blessing. “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” Dr. Jowett, in his volume, “Brooks by the Travelers Way”, in speaking of the relation that we sustain to Christ, illustrated by the vine and the branches, reminds us that the energy of the vine flows into the branches, and that the energy of Christ fills His own, so that our moral powers are sharpened; the judgment is quickened. According to Dr. Jowett, it is when Christ flows into us that conscience will flower into more exquisite discernments; the will will sweeten into a rarer willingness; obedience will become more and more choice, and affection grow richer in benevolence and discernment,” for, as he says, “The fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness.

When the Divine sap flows into human life, the branch bears all manner of fruit. Life is not morally lopsided.

It is full and abounding in an all-round moral excellence.” And why do we come short of it? Why is it that we who are Christians (at least have professed His Name) are poor in spirit, lacking in strength, wanting in courage, devoid of capability? Dr. Jowett has a suggestion here, “As the damp atmosphere will blunt the edge of the finest razor, an unclean spirit can impair the acuteness of the rarest mental and spiritual power as well.”Dr. Alexander Whyte of the Old Country asks a question which forces the majority of us into confusion, and fills us with shame. He says, “Suppose that a faithful and exact record has been kept in Heaven of the amount of time we have spent the last year in prayer, and meditating upon the matters of eternity, what would it be?

How would the record read to-day? And how would it read in the last day?

Would not its meagre amount sufficiently account for our little progress in grace; for our lack of peace, and our lack of power over temptation and against sin?”We come now to our final phrase for this morning’s study.“I am the Good Shepherd: the Good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep. “But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth; and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep” (John 10:11-12). THE BLESSED This Lordship involves a personal relationship. “I am the Good Shepherd”. We have a personal Saviour. My Christ is Truth; and He is more, He is the One of Truth. I should be sorry to accept any philosophy that took away my personal Lord; and many to-day might properly say to Mrs. Eddy, “They have taken away my Lord. Where nave they laid Him?” The personal pronoun is one of the precious things of God’s Word. Apart from its employment the Twenty-third Psalm would lose its meaning.“The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters: “He restoreth my soul; He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His Name’s sake. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me. “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever” (Psalms 23:1-6). Did you ever stop to reflect upon how prominent a part the possessive pronouns play in this Psalm? “The Lord is my Shepherd”. That word “my” expresses the most blessed Lordship that life knows. “My sister”—that differentiates her from all the other girls in the world; “my mother”—that sets her apart from every woman, no matter how noble the others may be; “my brother”—positively I pity those who can never employ that phrase! You must call it “the child” not “my child!” You know not that sweetness—“my child!” And yet, I pity more the man who cannot say, “My Christ!” The one interpretation of the “Song of Solomon” that is accepted by practically every spiritually-minded man is that it is a putting figuratively of the affection that should exist between the Bride—the Church, and the Husband—Christ. And do you remember how Solomon writes, “I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine”? Do you ever stop to think of the part this possessive pronoun plays in the great hymns of the Church of God?No one will forget, “My God and Father, While I Stray.” We used to sing, “My God, How Endless is Thy Love!” And yet again, “My God, Is Any Hour so Sweet?” “My Jesus as Thou Wilt.” “My Gracious Lord, I Own Thy Right,” etc. Oh, it is blessed to live in the possessive case! “My Lord, my Shepherd is!” This Lordship makes an abundant provision more . We prayed this morning, “Give us this day our daily bread”. If children trust their parents for the day’s provision, why should not saints trust their Saviour? I know why men fail of this abundant provision. It is sin that shuts us from the sight of His face and bars us from the One who is the Source of all grace, and it is fear that destroys faith. The first creates the second.

It is the conscious lack of merit that keeps men from approaching the Master, and makes them afraid to come to the feast that He Himself has spread.Charles Spurgeon tells the story of “a certain king who was accustomed on set occasions to entertain all the beggars of the city. Around him sat his courtiers, all clothed in rich apparel; the beggars sat at the same table in their rags of poverty.

Now it came to pass that on a certain day one of the courtiers had spoiled his silken apparel, so that he dare not put it on, and he felt, ‘I cannot go to the king’s feast to-day, for my robe is foul.’ He sat weeping, till the thought struck him, ‘To-morrow, when the king holds his feast, some will come as courtiers, happily decked in their beautiful array; but others will come and be made quite as welcome, who will be dressed in rags. Well, well, said he, ‘so long as I may see the king’s face and sit at the king’s table, I will enter among the beggars.’ So, without mourning because he had lost his silken habit, he put on the rags of a beggar, and he saw the king’s face as well as if he had worn his scarlet and fine linen. My soul has done this full many a time, and I bid you do the same; if you cannot come as a saint, come as a sinner, only do come, and you shall receive joy and peace.”This Lordship assures adequate protection.Christ Himself said, “The Good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep”. With earthly shepherds, one might lose his life for the sheep, and yet the sheep perish; but not so with the Lord who is our Shepherd. When He gives His life for us, it is that ours might be saved. We are saved by His death, for in death He is with us and for us, and in death He is conquering our enemy.I read a story awhile ago of a man in the far West who came upon a grizzly bear.

A vigorous fight ensued. The man, equipped with a knife, drove it to the bear’s vitals as they contested in strength.

Torn and bleeding he dragged himself aside to die, and in a little note that they found at his side was written, “The bear killed me, but I also killed him.” It has its kinship in the sacrifice of Christ. Satan nailed Him to the Cross, but in the hour and article of death, He, Christ, killed the Adversary and then, in turn, “conquered over death itself and the grave.”The believer is, therefore, under the protecting hand of this Conqueror.Some one has said that we are nowhere and never safe for a single minute without God. But is not the opposite true, namely, that everywhere, and at all times, we are safe, the Lord with us? You have heard that tender little story of the lad who became frightened in the night, and, quitting his own bed, crept into that of his father; but as the storm increased, the lightning flashes grew in number and the thunder peals shook the building. He was restless, and leaped up from his pillow again and again, with fear evidently upon him. Finally he said to his father, “Father, have you got your face turned toward me?” “Yes, my lad.” “Can I put my hand in yours?” Accorded that privilege he laid his head snuggly into the pillow against his father’s forehead and slept—a sleep of perfect quiet.

The peace of broad day was in his soul since father was present and was watching over him.Our Great Shepherd neither slumbers nor sleeps! His face is toward us!

Our protection is adequate!