John Lesson 30

Introduction

In John chapter 10, verses 19 through 21, the scripture said there was a division, therefore again among the Jews for these sayings. And many of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad. Why hear ye him? Others said, These are not the words of him that hath a devil. Can a devil open the eyes of the blind? The scripture here shows that among the Jews who heard Jesus there were disagreements. Some of them thought that surely he must be of God, others said, Oh, he cannot be of God. In fact, the religious leaders were trying to say he was demon possessed, and men should not listen to him. You’ve been studying with us from John, you recognize that the setting for our text today is from John chapter ten, and then it goes back into the ninth chapter of John, on an occasion when Jesus had healed a man who had been born blind.

Never before this had such a miracle been worked. In fact, never before this had anyone born blind been made to see. And it caused quite a stir in Jerusalem. The religious leaders did not want to accept the fact of a miracle, because they did not want to accept Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. And as we said it in John chapter 9, they first began to inquire, was he really born blind? And when the parrots affirmed that he had been born blind, then they tried to question the man himself, and by what means did he make you able to see, and and why don’t you reject him? We don’t know where he’s from. And Jesus, of course, had worked a miracle, and that meant that God had borne power through him, testifying that indeed he was of God.

Even as Nicodemus had affirmed back in John chapter three and verse two, no man can do these miracles that thou doest except God be with him. So the signs that Jesus worked were as evident proof. They were powers of God. They were signs that Jesus is the Son of God. The religious leaders unwilling to accept that he was the Christ, the Son of God, tried to find other means of rejecting him. And as Jesus closed, as we close the John chapter 9 at least, Jesus was saying to these religious leaders, You’re blind, because you say we see, and yet you’re rejecting Jesus as the Christ. Whereas there are others who, like the blind man himself, though he was physically blind and then made to see, he also was one who spiritually did not know the Christ, but he came to know him and said, Lord, I believe.

And then as we continue on in John chapter 10, we realize how that how that Jesus described himself as the good shepherd, and that was a contrast between these religious leaders who were false shepherds, who were not really concerned about the sheep of God, who were not concerned about God Himself and His will, so much as they were concerned about their own place and their own position. And he said they are like hirelings. They’re like robbers and thieves who who’d come over and into the fold of God and and they would steal his sheep or kill his sheep. They’re not interested about God’s way. Even to this day there are some religious leaders who who, like the Jewish leaders of the first century, are concerned only about lining their pockets and and and they are not really concerned about preaching the word and a distinctive message of truth versus error and pointing out what is false.

And thus they themselves uh have created problems in the religious world. There are many divisions today. And there are those today who question what is truth, what is right. So it was in the first century. Some said Jesus is is the Christ. The false shepherds were saying, Oh no, that’s not the right way. It meant that the people themselves had to listen and think and study for themselves. And that’s what we ask of you. Do not take the words that I say, do not take the words of any man. But you take your Bible. And let’s let the Bible speak. We call this program Let the Bible speak, because we emphasize speaking where the Bible speaks, and being silent where the Bible is silent. We’d like to encourage you to take your Bible.

In fact, open with us to John chapter 10 and set it together, the words of truth. And if they’re being in division religiously, let it be settled on the basis of what said the Scripture. What does the Christ say? What is the word of God about the matter? We’d like to invite you to participate in our free Bible correspondence course. We’re not asking for your money. In fact, it won’t cost you anything except a little time and a little effort upon your part to take a Bible and open it and read for yourself the words of truth. We’ll be sending out twenty-six different lessons on the gospel of John, and they will be the study notes that we use in these programs. And it will be questions, and you’ll have to get your Bible open and read.

There are others who do not want to study that that long, or 26 lessons, and so we’d like to offer another course as well. It’s an eight-lesson study, and it talks about a survey of the Bible and gives you some understanding of how to become just a Christian. Either course is yours, free of charge, just simply write in at the post office that is shown uh post office box that is shown on the screen, or else give us a call and leave your name and and your address, and we’ll be glad to send it out to you promptly. Now if you have a new testament open, I’d like you to read with me further in John chapter 10, beginning in verses 22, reading through verse 26.

1. Ye Believe Not Because Ye Are Not My Sheep

Where the scripture says, and it was at Jerusalem, the feast of dedication, and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon’s porch. Then came the Jews round about him and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you, and you believe not. The works that I do in my Father’s name, they bear witness of me. But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. In this passage, uh the scripture gives us a time that was a feast of dedication. Now, in John chapter seven was the last dating that we had, and that was called the Feast of Tabernacles. The Feast of Tabernacles was six months before the death of Jesus Christ that took place at Passover time.

Now this feast, feast of dedication, occurred a little over two months since uh since Feast of Tabernacles. And that placed the time of this text about three and a half months before his death. The feast of dedication was a commemoration of a time when the temple itself had been purified and rededicated. About a hundred and sixty-five BC, the Syrians under a man named Antiochus Epiphanes had come in and had desecrated the temple, had offered swine, in fact, upon the altar. And uh three years later, in one sixty-two BC, under the leadership of Judas Maccabeus, this feast of dedication had had been instituted. And it was a week that became very patriotic in the life of the Jews, because they knew it was a time in memory of that temple being cleansed of what the Syrians had done.

At a time when the temple had been rededicated. So the scene really is a very a very patriotic week. A very a time in which there was intense patriotism among the Jews. And so the religious questioned Jesus, uh, if you’re the Christ, tell us plainly. Now that might sound like they’re sincere. That sounds like, if you’ll just let us know, we’ll be glad to accept you as the Christ. But that’s really not the occasion. Jesus, in fact, said, I’ve told you, and you believe not. He had told them many times. Not only that, he’d worked miracles. The works that he did testified who he was. They were not sincere and trying to find out whether or not he was the Christ. It’s much like when when even they questioned the man who’d been born blind and after he was healed, and they said, If you’ll just tell us, tell us how you were healed, and and that blind man in John chapter 9 and verse uh 27 said, I’ve told you already.

And if I tell you again, will you believe? They weren’t about to believe. They didn’t want to believe. And in fact, the scripture says that that they they had stubborn wills. In verse 25, he said, I told you you believe not. It didn’t matter what Jesus said or what he did, they weren’t going to believe. And as verse 26 says, Ye believe not because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. They had closed minds and closed eyes and hearts. They were not his sheep. This verse is sometimes used by the advocates of irresistible grace or of certain selection of God, as though God elects only a few to be his and and rejects all others. Calvinism really teaches this kind of concept that that everyone does not have the equal chance to be saved.

That only those God has elected even before the earth uh was made. But that is not the teaching of this passage, and it’s not the teaching of the scripture. Well, Jesus is simply saying here is that your stubborn wills have kept you from believing. It’s you’re not my sheep because you refuse to, but the fault is yours. It isn’t God who did not choose you, but it’s your fault who did not choose God. In John 7 and verse 17, Jesus said, He that willeth to do my will shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God. If you want to know the truth, you can. But if you want to believe what you’ve always believed, regardless of what is shown or said in the Word of God, you’ll keep right on believing that.

God will not force truth upon you. God did not force these religious leaders to accept the Christ. That had to be of their own free will, their own choice. And when they refused to choose him as the Christ, then they were not his sheep, and they are lost. In John 5, verses 39 and 40, Jesus said of them, You search the scriptures, for in them ye think you have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me, and ye will not come to me that you might have life. They even took the Bible or they took the scriptures that they had at that time, the old testament scriptures, but they wouldn’t accept them. They wouldn’t accept them because they had their minds made up. And they are religious people today who study the word that way.

2. My Sheep Hear My Voice and Follow Me

They have their minds made up, and it doesn’t matter what the Bible says, they’re not about to change. Let’s not be of that disposition. Let’s learn a lesson from how these religious leaders themselves fail, and let’s not follow after them. But continuing now in John chapter ten, verses twenty-seven through twenty-nine, my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My father which gave them me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand. What a great verse. Jesus had illustrated earlier in John chapter ten about the sheepfold and how the shepherds would bring their different flocks into that fold.

And then when they would come to get them, just the voice of the shepherd, the the sheep would follow. Now a sheep of a different flock wouldn’t follow any shepherd, only the shepherd of that one flock. And so he says there there are many different kind of religious groups even. And they follow different shepherds. There are some false shepherds and they have some sheep who are following after them. They hear the voice of those shepherds. But he said my sheep hear my voice. You’re going to be saved you’ll come to the Christ and you’ll take what he says and hear his words and test them. Don’t follow the voice of others who do not give a thus saith the Lord if you want to be the sheep of the Lord.

But furthermore Jesus said I give unto them eternal life. There is a sense of security. There is an assurance for those who are the sheep of the Lord. There’s a safety in Christ. He says they shall never perish neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. What what great peace and assurance there is to know this eternal life. Now this verse has also been misused. There are those who like to read it and say oh see there once saved always saved. It’s impossible to fall away. But again that would contradict some other passages in the Bible and that’s not what this verse is really say. The Bible thus teach security of the believer. But I want you to notice the security of these sheep are those verse 27 and verse twenty uh twenty eight are those who hear my voice and who follow me.

It is to them that I give eternal life and these the ones who shall not be plucked out of my hand. It is conditioned upon hearing and following. So long as we hear and follow the word of the Lord, there is security. The believer who hears and follows is secure. Romans chapter eight teaches a passage or teaches the truth that that if God befalls, who can be against us? He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elected is God that justifieth? Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea, rather that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God who also maketh intercession for us.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall have tribulation or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. Now hear this grand passage. Romans 8 39 38. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. So long as we are following the word, following the Lord, hearing him, then my beloved, there is a sense of security, and no one can pluck us out.

False teachers can come along, and they cannot lead us astray if we will test them by the book. The devil and all of his power cannot pluck us out of God’s power of salvation unless we permit him to.

3. Can a Believer Quit Believing?

Is can a can a believer cease believing? The doctrine of once saved, always saved, in essence says that a believer cannot quit believing. But because once a believer, does that mean that a man loses his power of choice? Does he no longer become uh is he no longer a free moral agent with right of choice? Is it is it that he might choose uh only to be a Christian and from thereafter he has no more choice in the matter? Now that’s the real key. Can a believer quit believing? Can a believer stop hearing the Lord? Can a believer stop following the Lord? Listen to the warning in Hebrews chapter 3 and in verse 12, where he says, Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God.

Notice the passage is addressed to Christians. Take heed, brethren. And notice furthermore, he warns, lest ye depart from God. You can’t depart from God if you’ve not been with him. So he’s writing it to a people who are in God. They were in fellowship with God. And he says, Take heed lest you have an evil heart of unbelief. But he says in Hebrews 3 13, exhort one another daily while his call today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we are made partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end. So long as we keep on hearing and following, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, that’s those who will be made partakers of the eternal inheritance.

In Hebrews 4 and verse 1, he said, Let us therefore fear lest a promise being left to us of entering into his rest. Any of you should seem to come short of it. Hebrews 4 and verse 11, let us labor therefore to enter into that rest lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief, even like the Israelites who perish in the wilderness. Indeed, the Bible warns that we can move, be moved away from the gospel. In Colossians chapter 1, verses 21 through 23, he says, You that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now had he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblamable and unreprovable in his sight. If ye continue in the faith, grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached to every creature which is under heaven, whereof I Paul made a minister.

Here’s a warning. And if you continue in the faith, don’t be moved away from it. Or indeed an individual who is once a believer can become an unbeliever. And when he stops following, so it is he’ll be lost. Though we’re once saved, we can turn and be lost. Even like in Ezekiel 18 and verse 24, the passages passage talks about one who turns from his righteousness. And when he turns from his righteousness, he bring upon him death. In 2 Peter chapter 2, verses 20 through 22, he talked about man who had once escaped the pollutions of the world and become entangled again therein. He said the latter state is worse than the first. Indeed, the Bible talks about some who have once been saved, and yet who will be lost.

4. I and My Father Are One

Now Jesus Christ gives assurance, but remember it is assurance to the one who is trying to live faithful to him, who continues to hear and believe. But let’s look further in John 10, verses 30 through 33, Jesus said, I, my Father are one. What a great statement. The Jews understood that Jesus was claiming to have the nature of deity. I and my Father are one. And it’s quite evident they believe that because the next verse says they took up stones. Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, Many good works have I showed you from my Father. For which of these works do you stone me? The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy.

And because that thou being a man makest thyself God. Well, Jesus claimed, I and my Father are one. Now, first of all, let’s observe that he was not saying that the Father and the Son are one person. There are those who teach a doctrine called Jesus only doctrine, and they want to say that the Father and the Son are the same person that the Father in heaven and came, made himself the Son on earth. But the Bible does not teach that. In fact, you remember at the very baptism of Jesus in Matthew chapter 3, verses 13 through 16, you have the Son who was baptized, and the voice from heaven saying, This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove.

You have all three personalities represented at his baptism. And furthermore, even when Jesus gave the great commission, he said, Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. There are three. Three personalities of Godhood. That’s Matthew 28 and verse 19. But now Jesus said, I and my Father are one. What do you mean? Well, they’re one in purpose, they’re one in aim, and they’re one in will, they’re one in power. Christ said, I came to do the will of the Father. I’m willing to do what is his will. He came to carry out the commandments of his father. He’s not the same person. But he possessed the same nature of deity, even as Philippians chapter two, verses six and seven.

Though he was in the form of God, he counted it not a thing to be grasped or held on to. He emptied himself, one translation gives it. He took upon him the form of a man, being made in likeness as a man, the form of a servant, even. He was in the nature of Godhood, he became manhood. The gospel of John itself testifies to that in John chapter 1, verses 1 through 3. That in the beginning, the scripture said that was the word. The word was with God. And the word that was with God, he said was God. Indeed, the book of John from the very first few verses describes Jesus as deity. He is the word, the expression of the Father. He himself possessed the nature of deity.

And yet he came to the earth to illuminate the Father. And so he could say, I and my Father are one. I possess the nature of deity. Now the Jews understood that claim. There are those today who do not understand the claim of Jesus. There are those who would say that Jesus was a good man and he was a prophet of God, but he wasn’t really deity. Even our Jehovah’s Witness friends, like I say, he was not eternally of the nature of Godhood. They say that he was first created as an angel, and he later became a God, is the way they say it. But the Jews understood what even Jehovah’s Witnesses today do not understand. For the Jews understood that he claimed to be God.

He possessed the nature of Godhood. And that’s why they took up stones to stone him. When Jesus said, Why do you stone me? What good work have I done? It’s sort of an irony that he’s he’s casting upon him. I’ve done many good works. Which good work are you cruci are you are you stoning me for? They said, Well, not for a good work, but because you’re blasphemous. You see, the law of Moses did command that there should be death for blasphemy, speaking against the name of the Father. But Jesus, Jesus did not commit blasphemy. In John chapter 5, verses 17 and 18. Jesus had there made himself equal with God. They understood that he did the works of the Father, equal in the sense that he possessed the nature of Godhood.

And when he healed the afflicted man, he said it was by the power of my Father. They understood his claim in John chapter 8, verses 58 and 59, when he said, Before Abraham was I am. They understood that he claimed to be eternal in nature. They understood his claim. Why do men today reject and say, Well, he never claimed to be the Son of God, or who never claimed to be eternal. They need to study the gospel of John, don’t they? For the Gospel of John says the Son came to illuminate the Father. He is not the Father. But he is one with the Father in purpose and will and aim. Much like he prayed in John 17, verses 20 through 23, when he talked about believers.

He said, Neither for these do I pray, or neither for these only do I pray, but for them also who believe on me through their word that they may be one, as thou father art in me, that they may be one in us. Now all believers are not one person, but we are united. Believers in Christ, the sheep follow only his voice, and they are united. And that’s what he sent. That’s what he said when he said, The Son and the Father are one. They are united, they are in agreement, perfect agreement. And so as believers are one, the Father and the Son are one. Not one person, but united as one. Now the Jews understood what he said. They understood what he meant. And they took up stones to stone him for being blasphemous, because thou, being a man, makest thyself God.

5. I Said I Am the Son of God

But now read further. In verses 34 through 36, Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said ye are gods? If he called them gods, under whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken. Say ye of him whom the Father has sanctified and sent into the world, thou blasphemous, because I said I am the Son of God. You see, that’s very clear in verse 36. Because I said I am the Son of God. I had a Muslim friend one day who told me that Jesus never claimed to be the Son of God. That’s only what his disciples said about him. But right here, Jesus said, I said I am the Son of God. The Jews understood that was his claim, and Jesus very clearly made that his claim.

But he said furthermore, and he didn’t take back from that claim, but he said, furthermore, even the scriptures, the old testament scriptures, call rulers gods. These judges of Israel were representatives of the Father. They were representatives of God. And in Exodus 22 and verse 28, and in Psalm 82 and verse 6, at least these two references speak about these judges as being gods. Now, they were not deity, they did not possess the nature of Godhood like the Son does, but they were representative of the Father. And therefore Jesus said, even if they could be called gods, if the Son, who has been set apart, sanctified, and he’s been sent into the world, and the Father is born testimony to the works like he has, it’s surely not blasphemous that I should be called God, or to say I am the Son of God.

6. Believe the Works

He indeed stood up for what he claimed to be. Now reading in verses 37, uh uh yes, verses 39 through 42, Jesus said, verse 37, If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works, that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in him. Therefore they sought again to take him, but he escaped out of their hand, and went away again beyond Jordan into the place where John at first baptized, and there he abode. And many resorted unto him and said, John did no miracle, but all things that John spake of this man were true, and many believed on him there. Indeed, here were some who who Jesus said, If if you just don’t accept my words, at least accept the works that I did.

The works of the Father have done through me, they testify who I am, the Son of God. Do you believe the works of Jesus Christ to be the Son of God? They prove who He is. Jesus escaped out of their hand. We’re not told how he left their midst. But he left their midst when they tried to take him or arrest him. They tried to kill him, but they could not kill him until his time was come, until it was according to the will of the Father. But he goes now, the scripture says, to a place where John at first baptized, and in John chapter 1 and about verse 28, we learn that was at the Thabora beyond Jordan. And there were many who had heard John, no doubt, and who had who had prepared the way for the Christ.

Conclusion

John had testified, as we read in John chapter 1. John the Baptist testified that Jesus was the Lamb of God, that he was the Son of God. Here are people who are willing and ready to believe. And in fact they say John said, and they did believe that he is the Son of God. Do you believe on him? John did no miracle, but John was full of the Spirit. You can be full of the Spirit today if you will accept Christ. Mark 16 16 says, He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved. Do you believe on him? Make him your Christ. We bid you God’s feet.