Gospel of John Chapter 10
In chapter 10 Jesus was confronted at the Festival of Dedication while he was in the temple courts walking in Solomon’s Colonnade. People began to ask him how much longer it would be until you tell us if you are the messiah, stop with the suspense and tell us plainly.
Jesus began to give an illustration using sheep since that is something the Jews would be familiar with. During his story he said a few things that were not only pertinent during his day, but equally pertinent today. He told them in verse seven: “Then Jesus said to them, again, Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All those who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep do not listen to them.”
What I would like readers to consider is how many times you have attended a service and were not fed, did not receive any spiritual nourishment, and had a challenging time with the message because somewhere deep inside yourself there was a voice saying do not listen. I know there are those of you who have experienced this and when you left you wondered why bother returning. What I am going to say now is that there is nothing wrong with you but there is something wrong with the one delivering the message and I say that that individual is like one who has claimed over the fence to enter the sheep pen to do harm—either knowingly or not. Try and grasp that the religious orders of today are not particularly different from the religious orders of Jesus’s time on earth, and the people today are not that different from those who were around during Jesus’s day. People are constantly looking for signs and for someone to tell them what their position is in the Lord. However, the biggest difference today is that many people are filled with the Holy Spirit, and it is these people who can discern fact from fiction. People constantly looking for a sign, a miracle, or proof, and are looking for a leader to save them are lost sheep.
In verse two through four Jesus says: ”But the one who enters through the door is the shepherd of the sheep. For this one the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hears his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. Whenever he sends out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.”
Here is the difference between those who jump the fence and those who enter through the door. The one who jumps the fence can read to you, produce a rational that matches the secular world while the one who enters through to door feeds the sheep with knowledge from above because the Holy Spirit has led them to understand the path that God has placed before us.
During Jesus’s day, the people wanted to stone him because he claimed to be the son of God, or God, and Jesus rebukes them because they did not know the scriptures like Psalm 82:6 where God said: I said, ‘You are “gods”; you are all sons of the Most High.’ Today, people who have entered by jumping the fence would discredit a person speaking the truth of the scriptures and even cause a person to doubt and eventually leave.
My point with this article is to point out that not all who claim to be Christian are, and not all you claim to be a teacher have that gift. Be discerning and pray for all those who are lost and read the book.
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