THE GOOD SHEPHERD
A. A. Brown
John 10: 9–16; 6: 65–We live in an age in which there are visual aids to education which help the retention of things in the mind by directing them not only to the ear but to the eye. In days gone by there were none of these aids. The teaching came just through the teacher. I suppose those of us who are older remember certain schoolteachers who influenced our lives because of their ability to teach, to hold our interest. In this passage in John 10 we have One, the Lord Jesus, who taught. There is no teaching like the teaching of Jesus. In His first preaching recorded in Mark’s gospel He said, “Repent and believe in the glad tidings”, Mark 1: 1–5. That was His word, His preaching. I wonder whether everyone here has answered to this appeal of Jesus.
He is the good Shepherd. We would follow Him. In this country the sheep are driven, but in the east the flock follows the shepherd; he goes on before them. The good Shepherd goes before and we follow. It says in another scripture that He has left us a Model that we should follow in His steps (see 1 Peter 2: 21). The good Shepherd is worthy of our following Him.
The Lord Jesus is a blessed, glorious, living Man, and He is speaking of Himself here in John 10. He speaks of how things were then and how things would be. He had come to His own, the Jewish nation, and they had refused Him. “He came to his own, and his own received him not”, John 1: 11.
Is He being received tonight? There is no public acclaim of the good Shepherd. He has been rejected. Why are there such terrible conditions, distress, and lawlessness amongst men? May I tell you why? It is because the One who was the good Shepherd and who was also the Prince of Peace came to this earth, and He was rejected and slain. In one of His parables the Lord Jesus speaks of one who, having a vineyard, let it out to husbandmen and sent bondmen to receive of the fruit of the vineyard. But each one of the servants was rejected. The prophets who had been sent from God to the Jewish nation were rejected. Then the lord of the vineyard said, “What shall I do? I will send my beloved son, perhaps when they see him they will respect him”, Luke 20: 13. He sent His Son, and He was killed. The Prince of Peace has been rejected and crucified. Have you ever thought whose this world is? It belongs to the One who created it. Do you believe that? Do you believe in a special creation for “By faith we apprehend that the worlds were framed by the word of God”, Hebrews 11: 3 or have you listened to some who say it all began with an explosion in space? Creation began with God.
In the southern hemisphere there is a group of stars called ‘The Southern Cross’. Who made these? Men have given them a name, but the One who created all the stars “giveth names to them all”, Psalm 147: 4. He made the worlds—not only the planet we live on, but the worlds.
But He came to this world, to His own, and He was rejected.
Is Christ accepted today? How many are on the path of discipleship? We can thank God for those who are on it. I would like everyone here to be on that pathway, to follow the good Shepherd, to know Him as the One who cares, the One who tonight can be your Saviour and Lord, the One who is prepared to be a Friend to you, to enter into every detail of your life. He says, “I am the good
shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep”. He has proved it. I would like you to consider what it has cost the Lord Jesus that you might have your sins forgiven, receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, embark on a new way of life, and be supported in it by the good Shepherd above and the Holy Spirit here.
It is not only that the Lord Jesus will save you from your sins. He has given Himself a ransom for all. Do you believe He died for you? If you believe, a new life opens up, and what a life it is! The Saviour will lead you, He will see you through and He will be faithful to the end. Is there any other of whom that could be said? “Jesus ... having loved his own who were in the world, loved them to the end”, John 13: 1. The good Shepherd loved His own through everything, but not only that, He came “that they might have life”. I wonder if everyone here knows what it is to enter into that life. It is a wonderful thing. The Lord Jesus came, as He says, “that they might have life, and might have it abundantly”. Have you satisfaction? You cannot have satisfaction apart from Jesus. You cannot have life abundantly except in Him.
“In him was life, and the life was the light of men”, John 1: 4. If you want light, you will find it in Him, and our glorious Lord will give you this kind of life, life in abundance. Everything else is marked by moral death. Everything else here is marked by disappointment, by frustration. But if you have Christ you find satisfaction.
Do you realize that the world around you is energised by the enemy of your soul? He would occupy your mind and your affections with anything that excludes Christ. This world, of which the devil is the prince, is going on to judgment. But God is extricating persons from it and bringing them into another world, a world marked by resurrection
life. The Lord Jesus says, “I am come that they might have life, and might have it abundantly”. He will see you through and He will sustain you. “If any one enter in by me, he shall be saved, and shall go in and shall go out and shall find pasture”. The Lord Jesus would bring satisfaction into your life. Those things that would appeal to us naturally, that would hold us, can drop off under the expulsive power of a fresh affection. Having Christ, you are able to set these things aside. I suppose there is something that appeals particularly to each one of us. For one it may be activity on land, for another it could be the sea, as the poet said, ‘And all I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by’. Such things can have tremendous attraction. There may be nothing evil in them, but they come between me and my Saviour.
But He makes an appeal—“If any one enter in by me, he shall be saved, and shall go in and shall go out and shall find pasture”. That is, you will be fed. You will be fed with food of which there is no lack. You will enjoy the service of the Lord Jesus on high and of the Holy Spirit here below, and the company of those who have come the same way to the Saviour and found in Him their Shepherd, their Lord, their all. Paul says, “For me to live is Christ”, Philippians 1: 21. I am sure every one of us here who follows Jesus would desire to say it too.
Now the Lord Jesus was here teaching among the Jews, and there were those who came to Him and followed Him. They composed a flock. Each town in Palestine had a synagogue where the Scriptures—what we now know as the Old Testament—were read. The synagogue was recognised. Those who wanted to find the true God would go to the synagogue. But the Lord Jesus was introducing what was new. He speaks of “other sheep”—“I have other sheep which are not of this fold”. He is speaking about the Gentiles. He was prepared to protect and keep those Jewish believers who came to Him, but by His death and resurrection He was about to introduce a flock, “there shall be one flock, one shepherd”. In Christian language, that is the assembly, the church here and the Head in heaven. Oh the glory of that One who has ascended on high! No matter what standing anyone may have naturally, there is Only “one flock, one shepherd”.
Dear friend, have you received Jesus, the good Shepherd who laid down His life for the sheep? Have you begun to appreciate that pasture in which He can lead you? Do you appreciate the company of those who believe in Him? Do you realize that there is practical salvation in that company? Eternal salvation is only through the blood of Jesus, but there is present practical salvation in being in the joy of the Christian circle as subject to the Lord Jesus. It is one of the blessings of being in His kingdom, present practical salvation from this world as a system independent of God.
There is one flock and one Shepherd. If this has laid hold of us, we shall not go away. In John 6 many had gone away back and the Lord turns .to the twelve, and says, “Will ye also go away?” Surely none of us would go away from that One, the good Shepherd. The Lord’s question puts a responsibility upon us. Simon Peter answered, Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go?” To whom could you go? To whom could you go who would offer you anything like this which God offers you? Peter says, “Thou hast words of life eternal”. He is the only One who has them, the only One from whom you can receive them. “For God is one; and the mediator of God and men one, the man Christ Jesus”, 1 Timothy 2: 5. That sets aside every other. You are given the opportunity to come and to stay, not to go away. To whom can you go? “Thou hast words of life eternal”. In that passage Peter speaks for the twelve. He would be a representative man. He was speaking as one whose heart had been secured by the Lord, and said, “We have believed and known that thou art the holy one of God”. In Luke 5 Peter says to the Lord, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, Lord” (Luke 5: 8). But the Lord did not depart. He stayed, and so did Peter. May every one of us here have these links secure for time and for eternity through the work and the Person of the Lord Jesus, for His name’s sake.
Address at Melbourne
16 February 1985