Truth For Life

Guest (Male): Some people think that all religions basically worship the same God. We just have different names for Him. As a result, they assume that everyone has access to Heaven. But is that true? Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg looks at what Jesus had to say.

Alistair Begg: Our scripture reading is from John chapter 10, and reading from verse 7 to verse 18, and then from 27 to 29. So Jesus again said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.

I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me. Just as the Father knows me and I know the Father, and I lay down my life for the sheep. And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also. And they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.

For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father. Verse 27, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one."

Oh God, how gracious and good you are to speak to us in the world by means of our conscience, in your Son, the Lord Jesus, in our Bibles which now are open before us. And it is for your voice that we long. It is your voice we want to hear.

We want to be able to say, "I heard the voice of Jesus." And so come by the Holy Spirit, we pray, and help us as we speak, as we listen, in order that we might understand and believe and love and trust in you. And we ask it in your name. Amen.

Well, let's take our Bibles as I say, and we begin at the seventh verse, as we continue, if you're visiting with us, our studies in the truly, truly statements that are recorded for us by John in his gospel. Last time we ended in verse 6 by noting the fact that we're told that the figure of speech that Jesus had used in describing the flock and the shepherd and the fold in the first five verses was not understood by those who were listening to Him.

We said when we began chapter 10 that although there is a chapter break in our Bibles that would not have been present in the original, and we assume that in many cases a number of people have been present in this kind of dialogue ever since Jesus had made His great statement, "I am the light of the world, and whoever follows me will not walk in darkness." And in the course of that, these listeners to the words of Jesus are failing to understand what it is that He's saying.

And at the end of chapter 9, if your Bible is open there, you remember that the man has been healed from his blindness, and this picture of blindness, spiritual blindness is to the fore. And these Pharisees can see something, but they think they can see more than they can see, and they say, "Are we also blind?" And the fact of the matter is that yes, they actually are. And there are none so blind as those who will not see. And in verse 26, which we didn't read, Jesus explains to them, "The reason you do not believe is because you are not among my sheep." It is those sheep who are His own who hear His voice, who understand His voice, who listen to His voice, and so on.

Now, having introduced the picture in the first five verses of the sheepfold and the shepherd, He now goes on to address it again to provide, if you like, a fuller explanation. But don't assume that what He's actually doing is picking up these first five verses and dissecting them and making application to them. Rather, He's picking up on these metaphors, which He has already introduced and applying them as He sees fit. For example, at one point in the first five verses, He goes in before them, He goes out before them, and later on here the sheep are going in and they're going out and so on.

After I studied this for a while, I said there are just three points that we need to understand. There is one door, there is one shepherd, and there is one flock. And we'll look at them in turn. First of all, in verses 7 to 10, there is one door, one door. Jesus said to them, "I tell you, truly, truly, I am the door of the sheep." Now, that metaphor of a door occurs elsewhere in the New Testament at various times. For example, in Luke where the parable is recorded, "Make sure," says Jesus, "that you enter through the narrow door," that you enter through the narrow door.

When in the Acts of the Apostles, Paul and Barnabas have arrived in Antioch and are reporting to the people that they meet there of all that God has done, Luke records that they tell them that God had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. So we won't belabor that. If you look "door" up in your concordance, you can have fun with it. What we should know, and I think it is significant, that this is the only passage in which Jesus actually makes reference to himself in this way. "I am," He says, "the door."

Now, I wouldn't want an answer to this. This is rhetorical, but I wonder, does anyone remember what our first truly, truly was? Again, please don't embarrass me by trying to answer. But it was back in the 51st verse of chapter 1 where when we looked at that and Jesus said, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see Heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man." And as we struggled our way through that, we said, "At least we understand this. Jesus is making it clear that He is the ladder that reaches from Earth to Heaven and from Heaven to Earth."

So, right at the very first truly, truly, He is the ladder that gives to us the point of entry. By the time we get to chapter 14, if we ever do, we know chapter 14:6, Jesus says, "I am the way, and the truth and the life." And here He is, the door. He actually has already said to Nicodemus, not using the terminology, but making the same point, "Unless a man is born again, he will never enter the kingdom of Heaven."

And what Jesus is making clear is what John makes clear through his whole gospel, and that is that all of this has been recorded so that men and women might understand that Jesus is the Christ, that He is the Messiah, and that by believing on Him, they will have life in His name. And the short and important point is simply this: Jesus is the only door to God. Jesus is the only door to God.

Notice what He says in verse 8, "All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them." The commentators spend volumes on trying to make sure we understand those to whom He is referring in terms of thieves and robbers. Clearly, He's not talking about Moses. He's not talking about the prophets who were the good prophets. In fact, you will notice He says, "All whoever came before me are thieves and robbers." Present tense.

All who have come, and they've come and they were still coming in Jesus' day, there were all kinds of false prophets roaming around as Jesus was there. All who have come professing to be teachers, those claiming honor for themselves, those who are false prophets, the Pharisees who've done a terrible job of caring for the sheep. All of them, however they present themselves, says Jesus, are thieves and robbers.

Now it is important that we recognize too that Jesus is speaking as it were to the shepherds of Israel. And it is important that they have to enter through Jesus. They have to enter through Jesus. If men are to bring other men into God's fold, they must first enter it themselves. "I am the door. By me, if anyone enters in," only by me.

Richard Baxter, the Puritan pastor from Kidderminster many, many years ago, in speaking to the Anglican clergy of his day, chided them, warned them, he said, "Because some of you as shepherds offer the bread of life to men and women, yet you have never yourselves entered in to the provision that God has made by means of His bread." In other words, "You're offering to them something that you have never tasted yourself."

Now, we are not to be surprised by this, the reality of unconverted pastors, unconverted ministers, unconverted professors of religion and of Bible, who have never actually themselves entered through the door.

Now, notice what He goes on to say, "The sheep, the sheep did not listen to them." The people who came before, who were thieves and robbers, attracted all kinds of people, but the sheep did not listen to them, because the sheep do not listen to the voices of the stranger.

I wonder if you ever considered this as an indication that you are actually in Christ, that one of the indications that you or I rest sufficiently in who Jesus is and what He has done, one of the evidences to that end, is what we do not listen to, or to whom we do not listen. That there are all kinds of voices calling in all kinds of directions, offering all kinds of fixes and so on.

And we recognize that there may be good, bad and ugly in it, but at the very heart of it all, we listen for the voice of the shepherd. The sheep given by the Father to the Son, whom we met in John chapter 6, have spiritual discernment. Discernment is one of the evidence that again that a person has become a Christian, that it changes the way they view things. Things they once listened to, things they once believed in, they no longer believe in it. It is not simply that they have a had a re-alteration of their the framework in their in their heads.

Once they were blind and believed they saw everything. They listened to these voices. They were foolish, lost in a multitude of people saying, "Come this way, come that way, you can go the other way." But now they don't, and it's even a surprise to them. "How is it that I have this understanding?" Look there, we're back in verse 5, "A stranger they won't follow, but they will flee from him, for they know not the voice of strangers."

So Jesus repeats it, verse 9, "I am the door. By me, if anyone enters," by me, notice, by me, and only by me. You remember in in The Silver Chair where Jill is having that conversation with Aslan about whether she can come to Aslan and and get a drink because Aslan seems so scary to her in the vastness and power and majesty of His might and of His mane.

And I won't rehearse the story, but you remember how it ends, where eventually she says, "Well, you know, it is so scary that I dare not come and drink." And Aslan says, "Then if you don't come and drink, you will die of thirst." "Oh dear," said Jill, coming another step nearer, "I suppose I must go and look for another stream then." "There is no other stream," said the lion.

Think about it, loved ones, why are we, why are we concerned about Pakistan? Why are we concerned about the lost sheep on the the the reaches of Sub-Saharan Africa? Why are we taking our people and turning them into export models, whether it is in Kent or in Lakewood or wherever the world it is? Why are we doing this? For only one reason, that Jesus, the door has dispatched His followers to be about His business.

The contrast couldn't be clearer, could it? You see the contrast in verse 10, "The thief comes only to steal, kill, destroy." Jesus says, "I've got nothing to do with that. I came that they may have life and have it more abundantly." Abundant life, delivering us from the consequences of our foolish choices, setting us free from the grip and hold of sin, unleashing us into pastures new, into a life that is lived, if you like, in the fascinating realm of all that God has for those who He makes His children.

Abundant life, abundant life. Let me ask you a question. Do you think that the average person in America when they think about Christians, thinks in terms of abundant life? Oh, you should meet my friend at the work. He's a Christian. Man, you want to talk about abundant life, you should meet him. Or she works in my lab. There's such a smile on her face. She's a genuine soul. I don't know what is up with her. It's strange to me. I don't know, maybe it's some kind of abundance or something. I don't know what it is.

It's a real tragedy when our evangelistic endeavors falter. Not because people have decided that what we have to say isn't true, but because of the way we have tried to convey it and the way in which we've conducted ourselves, it seems to be abominably dull. Dull. The Christian thing seems to be to walk down into a narrow road, into an enclosed environment, into a cage-like existence. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I came that they might have life and that they might have it in its fullness. When Jesus speaks to the woman at the well, who thought that she had life, right? Life for her was relationships, multiple relationships. She lives with a guy. She's had five husbands. She's at the well by herself. And Jesus says, "You know, if you would take the water that I give, it will be a spring of water in you, welling up to eternal life, welling up to eternal life." There's nothing dry or arid about it. It's actually a powerful renovation within the very intrinsic essential self. This is what is happening, He says.

And of course, the people in the town were amazed when she showed up. She went back into the town to say, "Come see a man." Goodness, I bet they'd heard her say that many times, many times. Hey, do you want to see a man? Who's their man now? Oh, no, no, not that man. Come see a man who told me everything I ever did.

Everything she ever did, the good, the bad and the ugly. How could He expose that except that He was the shepherd? Except He pours in the balm of oil and the grace and the mercy and goodness. It's all there. Don't be put off by the idea of eternal life.

I have I have conversations. I've told you this before about eternal life, how the idea of eternity is a scary thought in many ways. But actually, I've been thinking about it some more and I realize, and maybe it's time to understand this, but we think wrongly when we think about eternity just as an extension of the duration of life, an extension of life's duration. So it goes on and on and on and on and on.

But no, because eternal life is not something that is first of all out there, it is first of all something that is present here. Today, the reality of it brought into a new dimension. If you like, it is the it is an intensification of the experience of life, an intensification of the experience of life. They come, offering all kinds of stories. They'll steal from you. They'll destroy you. All the false gods of the false teachers are self-depleting idols.

Jesus. Life. Life as you can scarcely imagine it. I woke up this morning with "Happy" in my mind and then I found it. I'm sure this came from America, this song. It sounds American rather than Scottish. Do you know it? It goes like this, "You ask me why I'm happy, and I'll just tell you why. Because my sins are gone. And when I meet the scoffers who ask me where they are, I say, 'My sins are gone. They're underneath the blood of the cross of Calvary. As far away as darkness is from dawn in the sea of God's forgetfulness.' That's good enough for me. Praise God, my sins are gone." You see, that's the issue. That's the issue. "I am the door. He who enters by me will be saved."

Discover abundant life. I also remembered this morning something that I'd written in one of my little blot books. 2009, I was speaking at Mount Hermon, the conference center in Northern California. And I must have been talking along these lines because a lady came up to me and she said, "I want to tell you a true story. A friend of mine was suffering through brain cancer and its treatments. His relationship with Jesus was such that the nurse on duty wrote in his chart as a critical comment, 'Inappropriately joyful.'"

And the lady said, "Since then, it's become one of my goals." Are you prepared to be thought crazy because you've got such a grin on your face in the midst of sadness and pain and persecution and disappointment?

Guest (Male): You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. We'll hear more about the exclusive claims of Jesus tomorrow. In the meantime, I had the opportunity recently to sit down with Alistair, and we talked about what he's been doing at Truth for Life and what he's passionate about as he looks forward. He talked about his desire to continue encouraging pastors. One of the ways he's doing that is by hosting small group one-day pastor's seminars on preaching and pastoring. Here's a little of what he had to say about it.

Alistair Begg: Yeah, indeed we. We've got a purposeful element in that here, actually in the building. In fact, in a couple of days we'll have another group of, I think we can handle about 40 or 45 men. And they come from all over the place. And it turns out to be a very enjoyable experience. Beyond that, Bob, what I've found very, very interesting, and this is unsought, is that everywhere I've been essentially since the 1st of January this year, I have either been invited expressly to places where there are tons and tons of young pastors. They're just looking for somebody who needs to have stood the test of time, you know. They just stayed on the horse. Because there are all kinds of challenges along the journey of pastoral ministry. And so that has actually been a delight to me to find myself all over the place and find the same story being repeated is both daunting and challenging and and it's actually very encouraging.

Guest (Male): Well, this ongoing work that Alistair is doing is just one of the ways that we are fulfilling our mission to strengthen the local church. And these one-day seminars like on preaching and pastoring have been made possible because of your faithful giving, in particular the consistent monthly giving we receive from our Truth Partners. That enables us to plan future events, using the resources we know have been committed. So, a great way to support our effort is to join the Truth Partner team. Signing up is quick and easy. You decide how much you'd like to give each month. You can become a Truth Partner by going online to truthforlife.org/truthpartner, or you can call us at 888-588-7884. Thanks for listening. Tomorrow we'll consider the awesome fact that Jesus doesn't just know the church as a whole. He knows each one of us by name. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the learning is for living.