Lovers of God

The parable of the Good Shepherd

Jn 10:1-21 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. 7 So Jesus said to them again, "Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 "All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. 9 "I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. 11 "I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. 12 "He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13 "He flees because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep. 14 "I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, 15 even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. 16 "I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd. 17 "For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. 18 "No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father." 19 A division occurred again among the Jews because of these words. 20 Many of them were saying, "He has a demon and is insane. Why do you listen to Him?" 21 Others were saying, "These are not the sayings of one demon-possessed. A demon cannot open the eyes of the blind, can he?"

If you look back a bit in the gospel of John, you will see that Jesus was doing amazing things amongst the people. He healed the royal official’s son in Capernaum (Jn 4:46-54). In Jerusalem, at the pool by the sheep gate, He healed a man who was sick for 38 years (Jn 5:1-17). He fed 5000 (Jn 6:1-14) and walked on water (Jn 6:15-21). He healed a man who was blind from birth (Jn9:1-34). All the while, He was also teaching the people and the Pharisees, trying to get them to understand who He really was – the Son of God who was to soon become the Lamb of God who came to take away the sins of the world.

However, many of them simply refused to believe Him. They found fault with the fact that He healed on the Sabbath, and He tried to explain to them why it was okay for Him to do so, but they didn’t get it.

He tried to explain to them why there were unable to understand Him, but that only made them angrier.

Finally, He uses this parable to explain to them that believing in Him is the only way to have your sins atoned for. He is the door through which all must enter the kingdom of heaven. He is the good shepherd to lays His life for the sheep. They still didn’t get it.

In the end, they got so angry, that they killed the only sinless man who ever lived, and the only man who atoned for all the sins of all of mankind. Is there a greater crime than that?

What can we learn from this? If you lived there and then, would you have believed? Let’s not hastily assume that we are any better than them.

Believing that Jesus was the Son of God was (and is) critical to being saved; you cannot be saved if you believe otherwise! But it was so difficult for those people to believe – they simply couldn’t believe that God could become man.

Even today, God speaks to us, and many people refuse to believe other critical things about the Christ. They just want to go with the flow. They don’t have an open mind, but would rather stick to the theology of their denomination and their circle of friends. They don’t want to be labeled as heretics. They don’t want to check the Scriptures (and their assumptions) carefully. They too end up persecuting the true prophets of God while thinking that they are serving God. They too end up in Hell.

You have to be a certain type of person to hear what God is saying, and to obey. I elaborate on this in more detail in my book, ‘The Secrets of Understanding the Bible’. It is critical to be, and remain, the kind of person who ‘has ears to hear’. Otherwise, we will go astray.