John 10:1-5 KJV Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. [2] But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. [3] To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. [4] And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. [5] And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers.
I. INTRODUCTION—THE VOICE OF THE SHEPHERD
There once was a shepherd that lived in the Scottish highlands. This shepherd had a daughter and he would take her with him when he went out on the moors to take care of the sheep. The thing that the little girl liked best was to hear the call of shepherd. His voice sounded so free and beautiful as carried across the valleys of the moors.
As the years passed the little girl became a beautiful young woman and went off to one of Scotland’s great cities—Edinburgh or Glasgow. It was there that she was determined to build a life. On her arrival, she would write back home to her parents every week. But as life began to take her by the hand, her letters soon dropped off in their frequency and soon there were none.
Rumors begin to filter back home to that shepherd and his wife that their daughter had started hanging out with some unsavory characters and they were having a very negative influence on her life. One day one of the boys from back home ran into her in the city streets and she acted as if she did not even know him. When the old shepherd heard this, he gathered a few things together and dressed in his rough shepherd’s clothes went to the city to find his daughter.
For days on end he looked for her. He looked everywhere; the slums, the rows of houses, the markets, the taverns, and everywhere in between to no avail. So after all of this searching he became very discouraged with the thought that he had lost his daughter to the evil city. As he started the long trek back home, just as he was on the outskirts of the city, he remembered that high daughter had always loved to hear the voice of the shepherd calling out to the sheep.
So he turned around and on this quest motivated by his sorrow and his love, he began to stalk the streets. His voice rang out the shepherds call. The citizens of the city all looked at him as if he had lost his wits. It wasn’t too long as he walked the streets of one of the degraded neighborhoods that inside of one of those houses, his daughter sitting among the vermin who had led her astray, heard his voice. With great astonishment on her face, she heard that call of the voice of the shepherd, the voice of her father calling out to her. She leaped up and rushed out to the street and ran into the arms of that old shepherd, her father. It was then that he took her back home to the highlands of Scotland and brought her back to God and to decency and modesty.
-That is a moving example of what happens to those who can hear the voice of a shepherd.
II. THE FOCUS OF THE TEXT
-In our generation, the sheep know the voice of the Shepherd:
• It speaks of the Apostolic Doctrine.
• It speaks of the Apostolic Lifestyle.
• It speaks of the Apostolic Tradition.
-We cannot afford to ignore it or to pass it off as an insignificant voice in our lives. It is the only voice that can save us.
John 6:66-69 KJV From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. [67] Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? [68] Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. [69] And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.
-In this passage, Jesus was clearly painting a picture for his followers:
• The Sheepfold—Would become the Church.
• The Shepherd—Would be Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd.
• The Porter—The pastor and spiritual leadership in the Church.
-The Church is the safest place in the entire world! There is no way to place a monetary value on the Church in this world. Despite that fact, there are enticements of the devil that would do their best to get people to walk away from the Church.
-Some may wonder why there is so much pressure in this time. Pressure in the home, in the family, in the work-place, in the schools, in the government, it is literally at every juncture of life that this is taking place. The pressure is because of the times we live in. . . the time of the imminent return of Jesus Christ.
1 Timothy 4:1-3 KJV Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; [2] Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; [3] Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.
2 Timothy 3:1-5 KJV This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. [2] For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, [3] Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, [4] Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; [5] Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
-It is important that the Church hears the voice of the Shepherd. He can lead us into green pastures and beside still waters. He can lead us into the shade out of the heat of affliction. He can bring us into the light and away from the darkness.
-If you notice there are some very clear indicators in this passage of Scripture that shows the relationship between the sheep and their Shepherd:
• v. 3—The sheep hear His voice.
• v. 3—He calls each of the sheep by name.
• v. 3—He leads them to various places.
• v. 4—They know His voice because they are familiar with it.
• v. 5—They will not follow a stranger.
A. The Voice of the Shepherd
-The shepherd is equipped with a number of different tools that helps him to fulfill his task—a rod, a staff, a canteen, and a bag. He uses the rod for correction, the staff for guidance, the canteen to pour refreshment, and the bag to carry various tinctures, oils, and ointments to heal the sheep.
-But perhaps the shepherd’s greatest tool is his voice. With his voice, he can call to the sheep.
• He can call them to higher and safer paths to walk in.
• He can call them from the wilderness of destruction.
• He can call them with the voice of comfort that adds security.
• He can call them from their wanderings.
• He can call them to make the necessary adjustments leading to green pastures.
• He can call them from the entrapments of the dangers of the way.
• He can call them to the sheepfold to be protected at night.
-The shepherd who worked the hills of Israel depended largely on the sheepfold to protect his sheep. The sheepfold was a type of enclosed barn that had a secure covering and walls of protection. It resembled more a house than a barn and provided great security and warmth.
-Frequently the shepherd would spend the night and sleep among his sheep. As time passed, those sheep became very comfortable in his presence. In fact, there was great security that came to their minds simply because of the presence of shepherd.
-All the while this voice is calling the sheep it is leading us into righteousness, holiness, into food and refreshment. He will shelter us with protection and safety.
-At the call of His voice we are called from the world, from idolatry and false tenets of worship—into all Truth. We follow the path that He took. . .
1 Peter 2:21-24 KJV For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps: [22] Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: [23] Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously: [24] Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.
Revelation 14:4 KJV . . . . These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. These were redeemed from among men, being the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb.
-The more familiar you are with this voice the less likely you are to follow a stranger. It is unlikely you will be entrapped by the devil’s temptations and delusions if you are familiar with this voice.
-In the days of ancient biblical times, there were occasions when two or three flocks would intersect in a pasture. They would mingle together and become a large flock. Yet the shepherds never worried about this because when that shepherd would begin to call out or even to sing, his sheep would alert to his voice and begin to separate from the other sheep of the various flocks.
-Those that linger and never follow are the strays and the mavericks of the lot. They failed to get acquainted enough with the voice of the shepherd and never found the security of the flock.
B. Can You Remember Hearing The Voice of the Shepherd?
-Do you remember the first time you heard that voice call? I can remember some of those first times that I heard that voice call out to me.
• It was in a Sunday School class in the old white house.
• It was in the altars at the old white house we called a church.
• It was in a bedroom when I would pray after getting off the bus in the afternoons.
• It was when we first started the all-night prayer meetings on Saturdays years ago.
-But the true reality is that the voice of the Shepherd was calling to me a long time before I ever started actually hearing it. That Shepherd was looking for me long before I was even aware of His presence. It was calling to me for a conversion. It was calling for me in change my direction.
-That voice calls us by name just as it called out to the disciples. You Thomas. . . You Mary. . . You Matthew. . . You Mary Magdalene. . . You. . . Come and follow. . .
• That voice is calling to a conversion.
• That voice is calling to a fresh avenue of service.
• That voice is calling us to live a higher life.
• That voice is call will ultimately call us to Heaven.
III. THE SPECIFIC CALLS OF THE SHEPHERD
-There are some specific calls that the voice of the Shepherd calls us to.
A. A Call from Brokenness
-Before the Shepherd can ever call us into anything productive, He has to call us from the brokenness of sin on our lives. Sin is a destructive force and when it is finished, nothing will be left.
John Owen—Sin will not only be striving, acting, rebelling, troubling, disquieting, but if let alone, if not continually mortified, it will bring forth great, cursed, scandalous, soul-destroying sins. (From Overcoming Sin and Temptation)
John Owen—Sin sets its strength against every act of holiness and against every degree we grow to. Let not that man think he makes any progress in holiness who walks not over the bellies of his lusts. He who does not kill sin in his way takes no steps towards his journey’s end. (From Overcoming Sin and Temptation)
-Sin never plays fair with men and women. In the end it is always destruction and mayhem in their lives.
Romans 5:8-9 KJV But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. [9] Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
-While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. . . That is a voice calling us from the brokenness of life and the battering of sin.
Philip Keller tells a story in his book, Lessons from a Sheep Dog, about how that a bedraggled collie named Lassie came into his possession. One day he happened to notice an ad in the paper that simply said: Border collie to good owner. Currently uncontrollable and chases children and cars. So he found the address in the city and discovered a horrible situation.
He founded a collie penned up in the backyard of a home and it was obvious the dog had been neglected. It’s coat was a tangled mass full of burrs, thorns, and dirt. Additionally, it was clear that there were several generations of ticks and fleas burrowed down under this dog’s fur. But the real clincher was the chain about its neck and another chain attached to its back leg.
Keller writes that he went up to the dog and it began to bark and growl and snap at him with a menace that raged in its soul. The owner informed him that the dog was 2 years old and had “gone wrong and was totally useless.” He was told that this dog was beyond hope and help. Keller also knew that at 2 years of age this dog had probably learned all it could and would never be reformed. But despite that fact, he decided to take a chance on it.
He finally managed to get the dog in the back seat of his car for the long ride into the country. Periodically he would reach around and attempt to touch the dog and she would growl and snap at him. Upon arriving home, he finally managed to get the dog out and put her into the place he had fixed for her. He had built a fine kennel with clean bedding. He had a large bowl of water and a dish that had food heaped on it. But this dog ignored it all. She refused to eat, to drink, or to enter the kennel. Any attempts to pet her or to touch her were rejected. Any attempts to speak kindly to her were met with low growls and bared fangs.
Finally at a loss, since she was not eating or drinking, Keller decided that to keep her from wasting away, he turned her loose. Off she darted like a deer to the woods behind the house and Keller wondered if he would ever see her again. In fact several months went by before Keller saw her again. He had almost given up on her and then one evening as he was moving some sheep from one pasture to another he looked up and saw her crouched down on rock above the pasture. She was watching intently every move of the shepherd and his flock. Her instincts were starting to kick back in and she was being drawn in by the shepherd and the sheep.
He noticed as time passed that she would come nearer to him in the evenings as he sat in the edges of the pasture watching the sheep. When he would see her, he would flip small bits of food from his pack to her and she would slip up, take them and then run back a safe distance away. But during her trek to get the food, Keller would speak clearly and softly to her in an attempt to win her over. Finally as it turned out, the collie finally lost all of her fear and through the kindness of Keller became one of the best sheep dogs he ever had.
-The times are too many to count that I have seen broken folks come into the Church, pressed by their problems. They had chains on their necks and chains about their feet that so constricted them they could hardly walk and function.
-I have also noticed that in time as they kept coming, the grace of God gently worked on their spirit. Whether it was the praying they heard, the singing they heard, the gentle moving of the Spirit, the power of the Word, or the fellowship of the Church, all of it working together turned their lives around.
-That is what takes place when the voice of the Shepherd reaches through to those who are willing to heed that voice.
-What of the broken men the Lord called?
• The man of Gadara.
• Simon Peter.
• Mary Magdalene.
• The Woman at the Well.
• Fred Hyde, who has gone on to his reward, a troubled alcoholic.
• Charlie Mahaney, one of the most colorful evangelists anyone has ever heard, a jailbird.
• Jeff Arnold who God rooted up and decided to save.
-That list is endless and it even includes people here. God called us from a place of brokenness into a place of fruitfulness.
• Great ministries have come out of brokenness.
• Great lives have come out of brokenness.
• Great churches have come out of brokenness.
• Great sermons have come out of brokenness.
• Great songs have come out of brokenness.
• Great consecrations have come out of brokenness.
• Great prayers have come out of brokenness.
-Come out of the broke places of sin and spiritual danger and into a walk in the Spirit.
B. A Call To a Higher Life
-So if the voice of the Shepherd calls us from a place of brokenness, that voice will also call us to a higher life. That is the way it is with the Shepherd, he calls us from places that we hated and now calls us to the higher life of prayer, of sacrifice, of holiness, of bearing a Cross, and into a place of godly influence.
-Numerous times Jesus and the other writers of the Epistles emphasize over and over the higher call of the Kingdom will require everything.
• The rich young ruler must sell all and give to the poor.
• Peter and Andrew must leave all of their nets.
• Matthew must leave all the takings from his tax tables.
• Paul must leave all of his religious education, position, and pedigree behind to be in the Kingdom.
Matthew 22:37 KJV Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
-There was a time that James and John wanted to sit on either side of Jesus when He came into His Kingdom. The answer to that is striking.
Matthew 20:22 KJV But Jesus answered and said, Ye know not what ye ask. Are ye able to drink of the cup that I shall drink of, and to be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? They say unto him, We are able.
-The fact of the matter is that Jesus was asking them if they could pay the price for what they were asking for. History bears out the fact that they did. James died a martyr and John was the only disciple that was not martyred but it was not because they did not try to kill him.
-This merchant man who sold everything to purchase the pearl had a heart with a single-minded focus. It required for him to be given to thinking. We do little thinking in our day! Our minds are constantly under the assault of frivolous and superficial distractions.
Os Guinness writes in The Call about Blaise Pascal. He was a man who had a fire of passion for God. He was a mathematical genius, inventor, grandfather of the computer and modern risk theory. Additionally he was well versed in physics, philosophy, and theology, one of the greatest thinkers who has ever lived. He wrote a masterpiece of Western literature-Pensees (pronounced Ponsay.)
But there was an event in his life that few in Pascal’s day knew about. On the evening of November 23, 1654, he was 31 years old and had just experienced a close brush with death in a carriage driving accident. That night he had a profound encounter with God that changed the course of his life. Pascal was a notoriously fast driver and skeptics were ready with their scorn. “My friend,” Voltaire, the atheist, scoffed to one of his friends, “never weary by saying that since the accident on the Neuilly Bridge, Pascal’s brain was damaged!”
Pascal’s experience lasted from 10:30 P.M. until 12:30 A.M. It is often determined to be the turning point in his life. What he went through strained and finally shattered the capacities of his language—and the man given to great words could only describe the encounter with one word—fire! But the experience was so precious and decisive to him that the sewed the parchment record of it into the lining of his coats and wore it next to his heart. That experience literally lit up his life in such a fashion and fanned into a blaze a life that ended up being sold out to God.
-That is what the voice of the Shepherd is calling for us to do with our lives. . .
• A quest for excellence in all that you do.
• A rising to a spiritual life that literally forces you into a place of influence.
• A call for growth that stretches you as never before.
• A fixing of our eyes and hearts on the author and finisher of our faith, Jesus Christ.
• A deep learning that can only come from the Master and never from books, seminars, podcasts, and websites.
-It is such a high calling that it becomes the driving force of your life.
• It keeps you up at night!
• It is unrelenting!
• It won’t let you quit or give up!
• It whispers to you in the day-time!
-Jesus said, “Follow me!” two thousand years ago and it literally changed the whole scope of history!
C. The Voice of Memory
• If there is a call from brokenness.
• If there is a call to a higher life.
• Then, lastly, there is a call of the memory.
-Memory is an interesting thing. The older I get the more that I have discovered that I remember the things I don’t need to remember and have forgotten the things that I need to remember.
-The facts are that our memory serves as a crucial reminder that sometimes helps us to keep our spiritual equilibrium. We can look back to times of spiritual productivity and fulfillment and understand that this is the place that exalts God the most.
-Instead of letting the devil beat you down with condemnation about your current place of lack, ask yourself the question, “At what point in my life was God being exalted the greatest?” Find that place and then move into an avenue of association with some people who will help you to fulfill the will of God.
Philippians 3:13-15 KJV Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, [14] I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. [15] Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.
-Put this back into your spirit again. . . I am going to be different in 2010! We are five months into 2010 and I can see some things that God has already done in some of your lives. Your spiritual walk is going to be grueling at times and there will be hellish obstacles placed in your path but keep on pressing.
-I can see the effects of our prayer revivals. . . we are indeed doing what Leonard Ravenhill wrote in his book “Revival Praying.” God is moving if you will just lift the eyes of your faith.
From the times surrounding the Holocaust, there is a very powerful story that comes from the gathering of the children from the orphanages that Pastor Steve Pixler told me about. He said that after World War II there were thousands of Jewish orphans that had been scattered about Europe and placed in Catholic orphanages, convents, and monasteries. They had diligently worked to convert these children and were doing all that they possibly could to erase from their young minds the impact of Judaism.
This was so distressing to the Jewish rabbis that they approached the governments in Germany, Poland, France, Great Britain, and other countries and asked if there were some way that they could possibly find these orphans and bring them to the homeland in Israel (post 1948). They were met with scoffing by the officials but finally they agreed that they would allow them to go to the convents, monasteries, and orphanages and give them the opportunity to find their children.
They went about it is two ways. The Jewish rabbis would put on their prayer shawls and their beanies and they would walk into those places after the lights had been turned out for the night, at 9:30 or 10:00 P.M. or early in the mornings, at 5:00 or 5:30 A.M. and they would begin to sing out the Shema. . . .
Deuteronomy 6:4-5 KJV Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: [5] And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
When those little Jewish kids would begin to hear that, they would rise up out of their beds and begin to cry out, “Momma. . . . Momma. . . Momma!” Their mothers had so instilled something in them in the past that they could not forget it.
IV. CONCLUSION—POWER IN YOUR PAST
-That is the voice of the Shepherd. . . the voice of the memory that is calling for us to rise up and meet the challenges of the Spirit in our times as we never have before.
-If there were some way that I could do something to pull something from your memory that would tell you that your past has a something powerful in it, I would do it.
• There is a revival somewhere in your past.
• There is a prayer meeting somewhere in your past.
• There is a victory somewhere in your past.
• There is a song somewhere in your past.
• There is an altar somewhere in your past.
• There is a evangelism effort somewhere in your past.
Philip Harrelson
May 9, 2010
