SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/30/2016 6:51 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-3 Jesus is the true Shepherd of the Sheep
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: John 10:1-6
Message of the verses: “1 "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does
not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way,
he is a thief and a robber. 2 “But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of
the sheep. 3 “To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he
calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 “When he puts forth all his
own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his
voice. 5 “A stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him,
because they do not know the voice of strangers." 6 This figure of speech
Jesus spoke to them, but they did not understand what those things were which
He had been saying to them.”
As we
continue looking at the “figure of speech” in John 10:3 we see that His sheep
hear His voice when He calls them out, and in this verse He is talking about
calling them out of Israel into His messianic fold. Now in our past Spiritual Diaries we have
talked about an effectual, divine call to salvation, and this is what is pictured
here. This effectual, divine call to
salvation is given by the Holy Spirit to unbelievers that God chose in eternity
past, something that at best is difficult to understand, but true. Earlier in our study of John I quoted a
rather long section from one of John MacArthur’s sermons entitled “Twin Truths,”
and in that sermon he talked about the twin truths of one coming to know the
Lord as Savior and Lord. God’s call to
salvation and also the responsibility of the repentant sinner to respond to
that call, and I also mentioned in earlier SD’s what a Sunday school teacher
taught me many years ago about this effectual call when he said that “The Holy
Spirit is like the God-Father, He gives you an offer you cannot refuse.” Now as we go on in this verse we can
determine that Jesus calls His own sheep by name, because they are His, as
their names were “written from the foundation of the world in the book of life,”
as seen in Philippians 4:3. John 6:37
tells us “"All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who
comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.”
Next in
verse three we see that after He calls His sheep that He ‘leads them out.” And in verse four we read that “He goes ahead
of them, and the sheep follow Him.” When
I was much younger I remember going to a friend’s farm who had sheep and their
sheep just were placed in a pasture, but that is not the case in the Middle
East as the sheep there are lead by a shepherd as he goes before them to make
sure it is safe to travel on, for there is danger lurking as there are holes
they can fall into and there are cliffs they can fall off, and remember sheep
are not too smart. I read a story or
hear a sermon about how sheep go to slaughter in a meat packing plant. What they do is get a male sheep to lead them
into the place where they will slaughter them, and all the sheep follow them
right into where they will be killed with this led sheep getting out of the way
right before the others go into the slaughter house. They have a name for that sheep, it is called
the “Judas” sheep, a name we can understand why it is called that. Now Jesus is the true Shepherd and we have
mentioned the 23rd Psalm as a picture of how He leads, and cares for
us.
Why do the
sheep follow the Shepherd? It is because
they hear His voice. John MacArthur
quotes from Philip Keller’s book “A Shepherd Looks at the God Shepherd and His Sheep,”
an author we mentioned earlier. “The
relationship which rapidly develops between a shepherd and the sheep under his
care is to a definite degree dependent upon the use of the shepherd’s
voice. Sheep quickly become accustomed
to their owner’s particular voice. They
are acquainted with its unique tone.
They know its peculiar sounds and inflections. They can distinguish it from that of any
other person.
“If a
stranger should come among them, they would not recognize nor respond to his
voice in the same way they would to that of the shepherd. Even if the visitor should use the same words
and phrases as that of their rightful owner they would not react in the same
way. It is a case of becoming actually
conditioned to the familiar nuances and personal accent of their shepherd’s
call.”
We will continue
this discussion in our next SD as we will conclude this section by looking at
verses five and six.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I am thankful that the Spirit of God gave me
a call that I could not say no to. I
also am thankful for the leading of the Lord in my life, as it is my desire to
hear His voice as He leads me, and I believe that from the reading and studying
of His Word, along with the preaching of His Word is where He speaks to my
heart.
My Steps of Faith for
Today: I want to be like Elijah when
he heard the “still small voice” of the Lord, and followed it.
Memory verses for the week:
(Romans 6:4-5) “4. Therefore we
have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was
raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in
newness of life. 5. For if we have become united with Him in the
likeness of His death, certainly we shall be in the likeness of His
resurrection,”
Answer to yesterday’s Bible question: “Exodus.”
Today’s Bible question:
“What did Elisha tell Joash, king of Israel, to do with his arrows?”
Answer in our next SD.
7/30/2016 7:34 AM
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