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Word from Scotland
by Sandy Shaw
In John Chapter and at verse 27, we read, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them and they follow Me”. Now, that is spiritual safety and security and gives such reassurance. Jesus speaks about giving such people eternal life and explains that they will never perish, and how no one can snatch them out of My hand.
That is all so wonderfully true but I have known of those who have jumped out of His hand, and who have decided that they want nothing more to do with Almighty God or Jesus Christ. That is a sore painful reality that we have to accept.
In our passage, Jesus, the Good Shepherd, speaks, and those who are His hear His voice, and they hear and they obey. This is a key. This is one of the secrets to spiritual growth and development and maturity.
He speaks and we obey. He knows every single sheep and Jesus is always giving to His sheep. This how you can know that are one of His sheep. He will be coming to you and giving to you graciously and feeding you and nourishing and strengthening you. Not only are we in His hands, but we are also in the Hand of God the Father.
If you are Christ’s and belong to Jesus Christ, it is not your weak hold of Christ that is so vitally important, but Christ’s strong hold of you.
We have to say “if” when we are speaking to a group of people, because we can never be sure and we can never know that everyone belongs to Jesus Christ, but if the relationship is real, the reality will be revealed by love and obedience and willing service.
If the relationship is real, that relationship is unbreakable.
A shepherd knows how healthy a sheep is by the way it eats. How healthy is your appetite for the Word of God?
Verse 30. “I and the Father are one.” We are one team, doing one thing, together. Nobody else in the whole world has ever dared to say that. That is what makes Jesus Christ unique. Today there are many going around saying that there are many ways to God. No. No. Jesus says that no man comes to the Father except by Me. Now, that is anathema to various folks, but it just happens to be true.
Verse 31. Again, the people took Jesus the wrong way. That is the risk any preacher and teacher must take.
Jesus knows he must not die, just yet, and this is the worst situation so far. Jesus asks, “What have I done wrong?” And, the answer comes – “It is not what you have done but what you have said. You are trying to make yourself out to be what you are not. You are claiming to be God, but you are a mere man.”
Jesus goes on to quote from Psalm 82, about the judges who sit in the courts of Israel and God warns them about making false judgments. They were as ‘gods’ in as much as they had a man’s life before them. The judge was acting as God. It was as if the judge for that moment became God, as God appoints the judge to act as His representative, and the judge must carry out God’s will in that situation.
The judge in our country, when passing the death sentence, when we had the death penalty, used to put on a black cap and make reference to Almighty God, because of the seriousness of the circumstances.
Jesus is saying – I am God’s representative and the Father has sent me into this world. You have no right to accuse Me of blasphemy. They attempted to seize Him. They tried to arrest Him, but He escaped.
Jesus goes away into the fresh air and away from all the Pharisaic theology, and away from all the unbelief, down to the Jordan river where it all began.
The three years are almost over. Jesus has around three months left before laying down His life – before the Lamb of God sheds His blood on the Cross to wash away our sin.
People came to Him and said, “John never performed a miraculous sign, but all John said about you was true”. What an epitaph! To have someone say about you, that everything you said about Jesus Christ was true!
Remember John said – Here comes the Lamb of God. Look at Him. He is the one who will take away your sin – and he is the one who will baptise you with the Holy Spirit. These were the two significant things John said about Jesus.
Through these verses John’s message confronts us. Look at Him. Look to Jesus Christ. Empty your life of sin in repentance. Turn from all wrong, so that He may wash you – and then fill you and anoint you and empower you.
In that place many believed in Jesus. That is where to be – where people believe in Jesus and where people come to believe in Jesus.
There is more than one key in this crucial passage.
Alexander 'Sandy' Shaw is pastor of Nairn Christian Fellowship in Nairn, Scotland. Nairn is 17 miles east of Inverness - on the Moray Firth Coast - not far from the Loch Ness Monster!
Gifted as a Biblical teacher, Sandy is firmly committed to making sure that his teachings are firmly grounded in the Word.
Sandy has a weekly radio talk which can be heard via the Internet on Saturday at 11:40am, New Orleans time, at wsho.com.
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