Shepherd’s Call

Transcript

Alright, thank you very much. And hello again, radio friends. How in the world are you? Yes, this is your friend, Bob Cook, and I’m glad to be back with you to share from the Word of God.

These days, we’re working around in the Gospel of John. And now I’m going to begin studying with you and commenting on some of these verses and other passages from God’s Word that enlighten the text. In chapter 10, where our Lord Jesus said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you.” Now, a small thought here, you want an enriching Bible study for yourself? Go through the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and pick out the verses where Jesus our Lord said, “Verily, verily,” because that word… We don’t say verily today, we say, “Well, you can bank on this, you can take this to the bank, you can depend on this.” If you were to transliterate it, it means, “Truly, truly, I say unto you.” The second truly is added for emphasis, this is really true. Now you pick out the passages where Jesus our Lord says, “Verily, verily,” and you’re gonna have a rich Bible study. You try it for yourself.

Anyhow, in this 10th chapter, He starts out by saying, “This is really true, you can take this to the bank, you can depend on this, this is absolutely true.” He says, “He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold but climbeth up some other way is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him, the porter openeth, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the voice of strangers.”

Now, the Lord Jesus said those words in a parable type of utterance, they’re figurative, and yet they’re very real because later on, He says, “I’m the door of the sheep. I’m the door. By me if any man enter in, he shall be saved and go in and out and find pasture.” Then he says, “I’m the shepherd, I’m the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.”

We’ll talk about some of those things when we get down to that part of the chapter, but right now, He says, “Anybody that tries to avoid the door.” What is the door that He talks about? Well, as you read all of your gospel record in the New Testament books, you find that they all agree on one thing, that there’s only one way to get through to the presence of God. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me.” Paul the Apostle said, “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” “No one comes to the Father,” Jesus said, “except I draw him, unless he be drawn to the Spirit of God who works in your life.” Paul says, “The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance.” There’s just one way, that’s what he’s saying. One door, anybody else that tries to avoid it, he’s not up to any good. He’s a thief and a robber.

There were great many cults in our days and it must be admitted that many of them have good thoughts in their scheme of belief. That’s what makes them so enticing. Not everything about false religion is bad but it’s a detour around God’s saving grace. I’ve had so many conversations with people who were followers of some cult or other, and they would agree hardly, “Oh, yes, Jesus is wonderful. Oh, yes, yeah.” And then they would agree with generalities about the Lord Jesus Christ. But when it came down to a discussion of what He really is and what He does, that is, that He is indeed God the Son and that He came specifically to die for our sins and that there isn’t any other way to be saved but to repent of your sins and trust the Lord Jesus Christ to save you by His grace. When you brought it right down to bedrock, then there was a waffling and there was a changing of the subject. And if you persisted, there was a good deal of irritation.

Hubert Mitchell and Dick Riley stayed all night in the airport in Kolkata waiting for Merrill Dunlop and for me. They knew I was coming in in the early morning hours. Actually, we landed not quite 4 o’clock in the morning. What an awful hour to have to get off on an airplane. But they couldn’t come to the airport at that hour because the buses stopped running at that time, at 10 o’clock of an evening.

And said they took the last bus out to the airport, Dum Dum Airport in Kolkata, any of you people who’ve been overseas, you’re familiar with the place, aptly named I think. But anyhow, there they were and they spent all night from the time they arrived at the airport, which would have been shortly after 11 I suppose, took the 10 o’clock bus. They spent all night witnessing to people in the airport: The officials, the customs officials, the police, the porters, everybody.

But there was one conversation which I remember to this day, funny how things stick in your memory. That was 1948, it’s now 1988. 40 years ago, a man said and I quote, “They’d been talking to him about Jesus as being the Savior and being Lord of all,” and this man said to them, “If you say Jesus was a good man and a great teacher I will be your friend, but if you say Jesus is Lord of all, I will fight you and fight Him until you both get out of India.” That’s something, isn’t it?

Now, that’s the mentality you see. That’s the mentality of those who are without Christ and who either are the followers of some cultic system of belief or some of the great world religions. And you have to say, again, “You cannot say that everything about these dear people is bad, they have some good principles. But the problem is they detour around the gospel or they omit it entirely.” You understand me?

People say, “You’re against me because I don’t agree with your belief.” No, I’m not against you, I love you. But I have to tell you that there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. And that He Himself said, “I’m the door. By me if any man enter in, he should be saved and shall go in and out and find pasture.” Using the figure of speech of sheep and shepherd and sheepfold, our Lord Jesus gave us this great foundational truth that you don’t get through to God any other way. And that’s an insult to the proud spirit of human beings who say, “Listen, I’m alright.”

Like the man who said, “Listen, I’m not going to become a Christian.” We were trying to win him to Christ on a Saturday morning out in Los Angeles. He said, “Why should I humble myself and get down on my knees and say, God forgive me for my sins when I’m such a nice guy?” See, that’s the problem.

Oh, centuries ago, God lamented as He spoke through his prophet, “Ye will not come to me, that you might have life. I said, ‘Ask for the old paths wherein is the good way and walk therein and ye shall find rest unto your souls.’ But ye said, ‘We will not walk therein.'” And the crowd standing around the cross as our Lord Jesus was paying the price of your sin and mine, dying for us as God’s passover lamb, they said, “We will not have this man to reign over us.” Oh, listen, beware of the kind of attitude that tries to detour around simple, direct, uncompromising, yielding to Jesus Christ. Let Him take control of your life.

So he says, “To him the porter openeth and the sheep hear his voice, he calleth his own sheep by name and leadeth them out.” I want just to comment on some of these phrases because they are so precious once you understand what he’s saying. The sheep hear his voice, the sheep follow him for they know his voice, they know not the voice of strangers. Does Jesus speak to you? Yes, the answer is yes, He does. How does He speak to you? Number one: Through the Word of God. We have the Bible, the inerrant, infallible Word of the living God. And God speaks through His Word. Isaiah says, “To the law and to the testimony for if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” Anything that is contrary to or detours around the plain truth of the Bible is error. So God speaks through His Word.

Oh, how precious it is when you’re in a crisis situation or a time of great stress or trial to open the Word of God and start reading it and find that God the Holy Spirit guides you to passages that are just from Him for you. I can recall on one occasion when I was facing a very important occasion, and I was nervous about it frankly because I just wanted somehow that God would speak to the people and I was praying and looking in the Word of God. Reading and praying and frankly, worrying and then I found this blessed passage over in Isaiah, “He confirmeth the Word of His servant.” And then I found the passage in the gospel that said, “The Lord working with them and confirming His Word with signs.” And I said, “God, you can confirm your Word and you said you would, I’m gonna trust you for it.” Well, He stood by me on that occasion as He has so many times before and since. You can trust the voice of God as He speaks to you from His Word.

What else? He speaks to you by the indwelling Holy Spirit. My father used to call it a hunch. I would say, “Pop, why do you do this?” He said, “Just a hunch, boy. I’ve been praying and I got this hunch.” [chuckle] That’s what he called it. The Holy Spirit of God will whisper to your heart something that He wants you to do or something He wants you to say or something He wants you to become. Whatever it may be, listen to the voice of the Spirit of God.

“As many as are lead by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God,” we read there in the Book of Romans 8. Yes, God speaks to you oftentimes through the voice of the Holy Spirit of God and the combination is a very precious thing, read your Bible and then listen for what God is saying to you in your heart, and then write that down. Read your Bible and pray and listen to what God the Holy Spirit will say to you and then write that down lest you forget it. You’ll find some very precious things that God is saying to your heart. The voice of the shepherd. We’ll talk about that again the next time we get together.

Lord Jesus Christ, Thou great good shepherd, will Thou lead us today, may we hear Thy voice and obey it. I ask in Thy name, Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!