Gospel of John, 9:33-10:6
John · Mike Doyle · May 11, 2008
Gospel of John (2008), No. 19
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492610405435

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, we have, we're in John. From a lesson standpoint, we're in lesson 15, we're in chapter 9. Towards the end, I think I made it to question, did I make it through 13? What we're talking about here is the Lord Jesus cured a man who was born blind. and he was blind from the time he was born that way.

And a couple of main issues, one he did it on the Sabbath, which doesn't it seem like he's always performing miracles on the Sabbath. He's always sort of poking at these super legal Jewish people. But it gives him a great opportunity to demonstrate, primarily I think to us, the difference between what's going on in a religious environment and what's going on in a grace environment. And there is a difference, and we'll hopefully talk a lot about that today.

Now this man, because he's born blind, obviously was not privy to He wasn't like the Apostle Paul where he got to study under Gamaliel. He didn't get to study at all. Probably everything he knows, he knows because he's heard it. And yet, once he is cured, or once he can see, his spiritual intelligence is really interesting to see.

Because he sees things that even the Pharisees don't see. And everybody around don't see. And even his parents come in, and the Pharisees try to put the thumb on them, and of course they chicken out, is what they do. They say, well don't ask us, go talk to him. And we don't know, he was blind, yeah, but we don't know anything about how he got healed and who healed him. So leave us out of it.

And the reason was, is that they were fearful that if they aligned themselves with the Lord Jesus that they'd get thrown out of the temple. And that's kind of what the deal was now that anybody who claimed to be a disciple of Jesus would be boosted out of the temple. Now, in Judaism, the temple is everything. It's like Courtney's fraternity. Boy, if you...

So, when we get down to verse 15 of chapter 9, The Pharisees asked him again how he had received his sight and he said, he put clay in my eyes and I watched and I see. See how simple his answer is? He doesn't give him a long theological dissertation. He just says, he put clay in my eyes and now I see.

And so there's witnesses here. We talked about the Jews demanded two witnesses. In verse 20, his parents answered him and said, we know that this is our son and he was born blind. So the deal was that the Jews are saying, well, like a blind person in the temple wasn't known by everybody? Sure he was. But the Jews are trying to, or the Pharisees are trying to tweak this thing so that, well, maybe he wasn't blind. Maybe Jesus didn't do this.

And they're trying to come up with, because they're blind, they're trying to come up with some way to discredit what happened. So they've asked the parents, and so the man himself and the parents, and you have to have two witnesses, right? To a miracle or two witnesses to any testimony. Who are the witnesses here? Who are the witnesses? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father?

The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? The father? In verse 27-33, where did this man's spiritual intelligence come from? And he has tremendous spiritual intelligence if you read through, and we don't need to read through, I don't think, 27-33, maybe we'll look at some of it.

He answered and then said, I told you already, and you didn't listen. Now this guy has really taken on the Pharisees. He's uneducated, he's not in a position to enter into some theological debate with him, but he's certain about what's happened to him. So he says, I told you already, and you didn't listen.

Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciple? And they reviled him and said, you are his disciple, but we are Moses' disciple. We know that God spoke to Moses, for as for this fellow, we do not know where he's from. The man answered and said to them, why? This is a marvelous thing, that you do not know where he is from, yet he has opened my eyes. Now we know that God does not hear sinners, but if anyone is a worshipper of God and does his will, he hears him. since the world began and has been unheard of, that anyone opened the eyes of one who was born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing. They answered and said to him, you were completely born in sins and you are teaching us, and they cast him out.

Now, where did this guy get all his spiritual intelligence? How did he get to be so savvy? What do you think? He simply believed. Yeah, he simply believed. And his whole viewpoint is, well, fellas, let's see, I was blind and now I see. And here's how he did it. That's his entire story. And he's sticking with it. No matter what the Jews try to tell him. What this points up, I think, is within the confines of a religious environment, people are interjecting. You know what the word interject means?

It means that you have already made up your mind about how a system ought to be, your religious system. And so you spend all your time in the Word of God finding verses that will back up your system. So here the Jews are, they've got their system, right? And they will not listen to anybody or anything that seems, no matter how true it is, outside of their system. And that's what you have and have had, I think, in all of human history when it came to religion. This is the epitome of a religious system. And so what happens if you don't conform? What does the system do to you? It boots you. You're out. And that's what they did to this guy. And this guy, all he's saying to him, wait a minute, I've told you this two or three times, don't you get it?

I used to be blind and now I can see. And then he says, well, why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to be one of his disciples? Oh, that was a shot at him. And back and forth they go. And they're talking about sinners and all of these reasons why he couldn't be blind and now see. But you know, he's sitting there and he's looking at him. And he can see. And they don't have any, so what do they do?

Out he goes. Okay? I think... Mike, the other thing I like, you know, simple, in simple belief, but he also, you know, these great theologians sitting there, he blows their doors off by, God doesn't listen to a sinner, does he? Yeah. He can't be a sinner then. Yeah. He accused him of being a sinner. Sure. And he tears their whole argument down. A simple man, no big, you know, quoting verses, doing everything, he basically destroys your argument in one little sentence there. And then, you know, they can't respond other than throw him out.

That's right. That's exactly right. Jack? That reminds me of that verse in the New Seed by the start of Jesus. Yes. Do you remember that verse in Hebrews is towards the end that we are to go outside the camp bearing his reproach? You know that verse?

Let's see if I can find it quickly. What's being set up here and the same thing that's set up in Hebrews that when you get towards the end of Hebrews, Let's see if I can find it quickly. I think it's in 12. I can't find it immediately. It's in 12 and 13. Where did you find it?

The exhortation of the writer of Hebrews is to come outside the camp. And what the book of Hebrews points out is that the camp is the Jewish system. It's the religious system. So the exhortation is to leave the system, come outside the camp, bearing his reproach.

So when you leave the system, you're going to bear his reproach. You're going to suffer for it. And I think that's one reason why you see, if you look at the location in which Christ was crucified, he was crucified outside the city. His reproach happened outside the city of Jerusalem, not inside of it.

So there's a lesson to be learned here, and as we go on, we'll see in Lesson 16 more of the same, because I think it's interesting for today for us to understand as we grow, the difference between being a member of the body of Christ, living under grace, and being in a religious system. Now you can come out of a system like I did, which was Catholicism, and it is a system.

And it's intimidating, and it's designed to keep you under the gun. And if you come out and live under grace, you're the one that's really excited. The people you left have no idea what happened to you. And you do suffer reproach. I remember The first week after I was saved, I was at somewhere with a bunch of my old friends, and a woman said to me, if you have become one of those Jesus people, I'm never going to talk to you again. And quietly in my heart, I went, thank you, Lord. You know? You understand? Because I knew I had left them. And what she was saying to me is, if you leave us, you're going to suffer my reproach. I'm never going to talk to you again. Of course, I was cocky enough then to say, phew, good. Mike, I think it's 1313. Where is 1313? 1313, say it. Let us then go to him outside the camp bearing the disgrace he bore. an enduring city, but we were looking for the city that is to come.

Okay, lesson 16. Boy, I took care of that quick. The Jewish leaders were trying very hard to find fault in this man and Jesus who had healed him. Why could they not see the truth that was evidenced by the miracle? What's the reason? Why couldn't they see what was really going on?

You think about it. How plain does it have to be? A man who is blind is healed on the Sabbath and these guys won't acknowledge it. Sounds like those political guys we mess with. They won't acknowledge it. Why won't they? Why are they so stubborn against it? I think they were spiritually blind in one instance anyway. OK, but what lies underneath being spiritually blind? It takes away from their power and control, their spiritual pride. What I'm looking for is unbelief.

The thing is, and have you not experienced that in religious environments, that you can deal with people, I've said this a long time, there are too many theologians, like there are too many lawyers, and they have their system, And if they see something new, if they don't believe it, they don't have any understanding about it. They don't see grace. When we taught the grace class, what was really interesting about that class is a lot of people through the course of the class, we would talk to and come up to us and say, gee, I never knew that before. I never understood grace like that before, that kind of thing.

And what's interesting about it is, is that if you live under grace by faith, the things you see are amazing. because God functions only on a grace system. He does not function on a cause and effect. If you do this, I'll bless you. If you don't, you're going to pay for it. He functions totally on a grace system, and to come to that understanding is a really neat thing.

So, man being fallen in evil is unwilling to believe in the goodness of God, and that's really what this was, above all. in his grace and in himself. The conclusion is irresistible. Unbelief resists everything where God is concerned. Unbelief resists everything where God is concerned. So you say, well, I've got to understand it before I believe it. Do you? Do you? No, you don't. If God says it, that ought to be good enough. You trust him with what he tells you, even if you're not from Missouri. Even if you don't have a full explanation of what it is, if you believe him, he'll work it out.

So what did such deeds on the Sabbath pronounce to the Jews about their whole system and their relationship with God? This thing was done on the Sabbath, purposely on the Sabbath. What did it show? about the whole Jewish system from God's perspective? That he set aside the law. Satisfied the law, but how about the system? How about the whole Jewish system? Was there much grace in the Jewish system? No, according to the Pharisees, you couldn't heal somebody on the Sabbath. How dare you do that? So what does it show about the Jewish system? About God's perspective of what He thought about the system. It wasn't His system anymore. That's exactly right. He was going to replace it. He was not going to back it up anymore.

It demonstrated that God was done with their Sabbath system. And at this point, up to this point, a lot of the miracles that Jesus did, it seems like He picked out the Sabbath to do them. He did it on purpose to demonstrate grace. So it shows, I think, what God thought of Israel and what they had evolved to.

Go ahead. Did you pretend to zeal for the law? uphold the Sabbath and they called healing a man work. Yeah. See, the Sabbath is a day of rest, right? Supposedly. And the Lord Jesus himself is working on the Sabbath. But he's working to deliver man and to bless man. That's what he's doing. And he's doing it on the Sabbath. I think his works alone prove that there was no possible Sabbath for them because God himself was working. If God and Christ is working on the Sabbath, then the day of rest is not yet here. See that? The real Sabbath isn't here yet.

Okay, you look confused. No, I'm just wondering. I'm going to move on. Is it a good thing to be cast out of a religious system? Yes. Why? Then you can learn something. That's a great answer, isn't it? You can rest. I've always loved the word religion because the core word in Latin is regulation. Religious systems are systems of where hope for reward and fear of punishment and here are the rules. So to be cast out of a religious system means you're cast out into grace. And you have to live by faith.

It's come to that. So discuss the difference between a religious system and membership in the body of Christ. Let's talk about that for a minute. What's the difference? We've talked a lot about the religious system. Let's talk about what it's like to be a member in the body of Christ. What's that?

Being led by the Spirit. We're a lot freer. We have the spirit within. We are free to do what he wants us to do. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. We are free to do what he wants us to do. Organization versus organism. Organization versus organism. OK, what else? Self-effort versus self-actualization. Self-effort or self-actualization. Motivated by grace rather than statutes.

How do you get into the body of Christ? You have to pay your dues. This is a really interesting question. Do you get into the body of Christ by believing? How many think yes? Come on you chickens, how many say no? I don't know if there's lots of cowards in here. Answer no, you don't. How do you get into the body of Christ? How do you get into the body of Christ? You're baptized into it by the Holy Spirit. That's how you get in.

You've got to believe first. Then it's all up to you. There's two events, they're simultaneous but they're two events. You believe unto salvation and the Holy Spirit baptizes you into the body of Christ. Separate but simultaneous events. So when you're placed into the body of Christ by the Holy Spirit, you're uniquely placed by Him where He wants you and He gifts you out and suits you out for that specific place that you're in and He gives you all the grace and all the gift to function there as he would determine. Not you, him. He does it all. That's a much different system or organism than in a religious system. Because in a religious system, what happens? We don't follow the rules. Yeah, and everybody's kind of the same. You get to be a pew parasite, so you're in pew four, seat five. And you do all of these things. And if you do enough of them, maybe we'll think you're pretty cool.

Or God will bless you. The other big difference about the body of Christ is that once you're in it, the game is virtually over in terms of your acceptance. There's nothing left for you to do to be acceptable. You had to be acceptable to get in. Does that make sense?

Taken from The other part about the body of Christ is, what's the focus in the body of Christ? Christ. Christ himself, who is the head of the body. And what is the purpose of the body of Christ? What's it for? Why did God come up with it? Haven't we done something else? To glorify Him. Yeah, He does it to glorify Him. Now think about that for a minute. For all eternity, how is God going to manifest His glory to His creation?

How's He going to do it? You're not going to do it through the Father because you can't see Him. You're not going to do it through the Spirit because you can't see Him either. How's He going to do it? Through the believers. He's going to do it through the Lord Jesus Christ, right? And His body.

So those of you who don't think you're very important, keep in mind that for all eternity God is going to manifest His own glory through you. That's special. That's really special. the glory of God will be manifested to the entire creation for all eternity through everybody in this room at the same intensity as the head because you're connected to the head as his body. That's really something. That God would do it that way is just mind-boggling to me and I would have settled for a lot less. But think about what he's doing.

That's a whole different thing than being a Jew. you know, or a Presbyterian. We are linked with Christ. Ephesians 5.30 says, For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. We are linked with all each other.

Romans 12.5 says, So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one member is one of another. And we, as individuals, we are members in particular. of the body of Christ. That is not religion. When Jesus finds the man, he asks him, if he believes in the Son of God or the Son of Man, it's probably a better translation, what two things is this man to believe? Let me set this up. The Lord cures this guy, heals him so he can see. The guy goes through all this religious nonsense with the Pharisees and ultimately they throw him out of the temple.

It's like if you work in one of these high security companies and if you quit or you're fired, they haul you right to the door right now so that you can't take anything with you because of all the big secrets. This guy is on his way out of Judaism. He's out. They're going to do the prayer for the dead. He's gone. And the Lord waits until this happens.

They're looking for Jesus and he's saying, well, I don't know who the guy was. He put this stuff in my eyes. I didn't see him then. And I went down to the pool and I watched and, wow, I could see. But I don't know who he was. Maybe if I heard his voice.

The Lord waits. Why do you think he waits? Maybe it's a good question to start with. Why does he wait? He waits for the right time. That's right. He waits for the right time. The guy's out. And now he comes up to him. In my mind, I see him walking up beside this man and saying, Do you believe in the Son of Man? The Son of God? And the man says, well, who is he? And I will. So what does he ask him to believe? There are two things. The obvious one is, do you believe in the son of God? But what's the other thing? That he's seen him. What's that? That he has seen him. Yeah. I think there's two things. One, do you believe that I'm he? And do you believe that I've done what I've done?

So, salvation for us is the same way. We like to focus on the gospel, but the faith is not only in the gospel, it's in the person of the gospel too. Our faith, like this man's faith, must be resident in a person. Because what good is the doctrine without the person backing it up who says it?

You see that? My faith in the Lord Jesus Christ leads me to believe what he tells me without him having to explain it to me. Because I trust him. He wouldn't tell me something that wasn't true because my faith is in him as a person. Yeah, bless you. It's in the doctrine, yeah. But more importantly, it's in him, the person. Could that be divine truth? Could you say that? I would say it's more personal. He's the object. He is the object of my faith because he himself is truth. He's not in possession of the truth. He as a person is truth itself.

Let me illustrate it this way. If Donna peeked in the door and said something to me, we're going to go somewhere at 1230. I would believe her. Why? Because I know her. And she wouldn't do that, she wouldn't put her head in here and say we're going someplace at 1230 and then I'd be ready to go and nobody would be there. I believe her.

What she said is really important, but who she is is a lot more important. Who the Lord Jesus is is a lot more important. Because then when he says something, you'll buy it. You'll believe it. even if you don't really understand it, because your faith is in the person. And that's what the Lord Jesus was saying to him, right here.

Do you believe in the Son of God? I'm He. Me. See that? Faith was in the person of Jesus and His testimony. So let's trace a little bit the steps of this man's growth in faith. Somebody do it. What's the first thing about his that begins to happen in this guy's life that are steps of faith with him. What's the first thing? You are thinking of the progression of how he perceives Jesus? Yeah, how he got to where he is right now. First he says that he is the man they call Jesus. Then he says he's a prophet. Then he says he's the son of man, then he calls him Lord, and then after prophet, then he's from God. Then he says he's the son of man, and then he calls him Lord.

I would add one more to that. The very beginning is when the Lord puts the clay on his eyes. Because he lets him do it. And he says to him, putting the clay on your eyes, get down to the pool and wash them off. It took faith to do that. It took faith to do that. So that's the beginning. Something that sounds fairly simple. So he washes off the clay and he's healed. He has enough faith to make it from wherever the Lord Jesus is down to the pool and wash it off.

Some people don't have that much faith. He owns the work of the Lord done with simplicity and the force of truth, but he doesn't know, and what he doesn't know, he owns with the same frankness. If he doesn't know something, when they're asking him, he says, I don't know that. What I do know is what I've experienced and seen up to this point.

He resists the attacks, I'm sorry, the attacks on his faith only strengthen him. See that? When these Pharisees get in his face a little bit, what does he do? He gets right back at them. He says, look, I don't know what you're talking about. All I know is I was blind and now I see. And he's looking at them like, fellas, how tough is that?

And he's led by the goodness of God in divine work, which had already touched his soul and given him eyes to see. In finding himself out of the synagogue, he is soon in the presence of Christ. And how tough was it for him when the Lord Jesus says to him who he is? How difficult was it for him to immediately call him Lord? Not at all. I would say that in every one of our lives who have been brought to the Lord, after somebody like me, I met the Lord at 35, I can look back and see the same pattern in my life.

The Lord starts out on me with the little things and leads me to a point where He says, I'm Jesus the Savior. I say, yes you are. I believe you. And I had no idea that He was doing all of this back here. So, let's see. What was the stated purpose for the Lord Jesus coming? Let me find a verse. Verse 39. Am I moving too fast? I'm really moving down, huh? That's alright. What's the stated purpose in verse 39? In verse 38, then he said, Lord, I believe, and he worshipped him. That's really simple. calls him Lord, I believe, and worshiped him. And Jesus said, for judgment I have come into this world that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind. So why did he come here?

For judgment. So does that mean that, how do I say this, does that mean that the judgment, he just, he's already said he didn't come in to condemn the world, because why? Why didn't he come to condemn the world? What's that? In Christ there is no condemnation. But he loved the world so much that he didn't come to condemn it. Yeah, it's already condemned. See, he didn't come to condemn it. It's like trial's over, judgment's been made. Don't need to do it again. It's already done. The world's already condemned. But he comes to judge. What does judgment here mean?

Interesting how he says, for Jaja and I have come into this world that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind. That's the part I don't totally understand. I understand the other. What we're going to do maybe to make this understandable hopefully, I'm going to put that here, we'll go down to the next few questions and I think it will get answered.

Question 8, were the Pharisees offended by Jesus saying that they were blind? Because if you look at it, in verse 40, then some of the Pharisees who were with him heard these words and said to him, are we blind also? Jesus said to them, if you were blind you would have no sin, but now you say, we see, therefore your sin remains.

Now that should be a clue. Why were they upset? that he says, you're blind. They wanted to answer the question. Yes, they were upset. Why? I think they expected Jesus to exempt them from blindness. All of you guys are Pharisees. Yeah, you're not blind. They're Jews. Yeah, you're Jews. Oh, we have a ticket into the kingdom. So judgment is said to fall on those who are blind. And he includes them. Tinney, you know, he said, this makes Jesus the pivot on which human destiny turns. Yeah, what a saying. So he's the pivot.

If he's the declarer of who sees and who doesn't see, it takes all the authority away from them. They thought they could see. Hey, you know, if you're a Jewish scribe or Pharisee, in your mind, you know, you've got triple vision. You can see, you're like Superman, you can have an x-ray vision. But if the Lord Jesus stands in front of you and says, no, you're blind, it upsets you. Did the Pharisees accept the fact that they were blind? They looked at themselves as being those who guided the blind. Didn't they?

So the light of those in darkness, but now they've come up against the true light. I'm the light of the world. So here they are standing in front of the light of the world. And so, which brought out the nothingness that their pretensions have. Do you see that? Now, if you were blind and you confronted, came in contact with the Lord Jesus, how would you get sight? The first thing is you would admit that you were blind. Isn't that what he's saying? Those that are blind, I'll make them see. Those who think they can see, what will happen to them? They'll become blind, like the Pharisees. So that answers your question. The pride that the Jews had, they wouldn't bow to the Lord Jesus, and so therefore they were blind.

If you look at Romans chapter 1, where Paul talks about that man is without excuse, that God has revealed himself to all men by his creation and in their conscience. Right? So all men have some vision, don't they? They can see. But if they don't accept God as God, and they don't honor him as God, what happens to them? They go blind. I mean, they go into darkness so fast, In three or four verses there, they're into debauchery and they don't see a thing. They've become evolutionists. I'm not going there. So, there's some vision in all men. But if you reject God, what happens? You end up in abject darkness pretty quick. Pretty quick. Okay, and it's pride that usually does it. Why does a non-believer, insisting that he sees, remain in his sins?

Let me give you, and I'm sure everybody in this room has heard this excuse, I'll call it, once in your life. You're talking to somebody who's a non-believer, who's a friend and you really care about him, and you're laying the gospel on him. and they give you this answer. You know, I've done enough good things in my life that when I die, God will accept me. You ever heard that before? Every one of us has heard that. What does that prove? It proves the blindness of men. Doesn't it? It proves that they don't see.

They don't see reality. Because underneath all of that is their pride that they think they're good enough. We're doing a Ben Franklin close, and if I do a couple of good things, God is going to say, OK. When the truth comes out. And that's blindness. So there's no reason for you getting upset the next time one of your friends tells you that. They're just blind. And unless you admit that you're blind, admit that you're lost, you'll never see the light. So you have to wonder when the Lord uses sometimes drastic means to bring somebody to the Lord, or drastic means to get you to grow spiritually because you're walking around in darkness. You know why now.

I've encountered people who believe that each nationality or whatever, each ethnic area has its own God, and it's, you know, that we are egotistical because we think Jesus is the only way. Yeah. The Irish, their God was Jack Daniels. We think... Well, I'm talking about Allah, and I'm talking about whoever, you know. They think that I'm just real narrow-minded. Well, you are. You're really narrow-minded.

Because what you have done is that you have placed your faith in the Creator, and they put their faith in some of his creatures. That's really what's happened. And by putting faith in creatures means that you get to be God. Because you get to determine how God is going to be. If you put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, You let Him determine the rules and who God is because that's who He is.

This goes back to 1 Corinthians 2.14.

It's foolishness, it's can't think, you never want. It basically says it's foolishness until. You know what I think about that when you, you know, the things you learn, you know, or you may look at the Bible, but until you are a new creature in Christ, you can't see it.

And then once you do, I mean, then the book becomes a living word that You know, you see more and more every time we study it. There's new things. You were blind before, but now you have eyes to see. You're a new creature. You're able to see spiritual things because you are a spiritual creature now.

I think that 1 Corinthians 2 is so critical for a growing believer to understand that the natural man cannot receive the things of God, their spiritual discernment, he cannot know them. So I mean, we talk to people and say, well, you know, that person's coming along to be a believer.

No, they're not. No, they're not. It has nothing to do with whether they want to. It has to do with whether they can or not. This is the wooing. You don't understand it, but you're being drawn. In the John where it says the Father draws. So you don't understand it, but you're being drawn. So when you say they're coming, well they are being wooed through the Spirit, through the Father drawing them. What's interesting about the drawing process is that I remember this as clearly as it happened yesterday, although it was 30 years ago now. The Lord drew me right up to what seemed in my mind to be an invisible barrier. And I knew that I couldn't go any farther and that the barrier, the next step was death.

I knew that. Yet I knew that he wasn't going to give me a little taste of anything until I believed him. And I did believe everything that he told me was true. I didn't argue the facts. I knew they were true. The point was, did I believe that my believing in him would save me for all eternity? That news was too good for me. I've got to do something. There's got to be some credit on my side. And I even said to him a few times, well if you're going to save me, give me a taste. Nope. You just trust me. He's a good Catholic.

And when I did believe, then I saw. I understood and believed the information was true, but I didn't see Christ until I believed. You see that? That make sense? You believed it intellectually. I did. Oh, I was totally convinced of the facts. There wasn't any doubt in my mind the facts were true.

The thing that bothered me was, boy, if I believe him, what if he's lying to me about my security? I mean, the hardest thing for a religious person to come to is the fact that if you believe in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ, your destiny is sealed.

And I remember this guy said to me, well your life is going to be over when you believe. I said, well I'm probably going to live another week or two. He said, yeah but your destiny is secure now for all eternity. You will be, you are, he said in the study of the Bible the rest of your life will just be a study of who you now are. I thought, well that's kind of cool. But who I now am, 30 years later, I'm just beginning to understand who I am, who we are in Christ, what we have been given. I think it goes back into the importance of the identification.

When you asked earlier what is the key or whatever, mine is death. When you realize in identification there is death, there is no going back after that. Once you have death and a new life, like you said, it's Christ climbing back up on the cross. How do you reverse that? You are a new creature in Christ and when you understand the death, how do you go back? Yeah, it's only my arrogance that we didn't think I could go back. Yeah, that kind of helps secure an understanding and identification that it's death. Once you have death, you can't go back. John 10, 28 and all those come in and secure it. The Lord looks at you smilingly and says, too late, I got you. It's too late for you, which is wonderful. I'm glad it's too late.

The next part has to do with chapter 10. I think there is not much of a time difference between the end of 9 and the beginning of 10. What the Lord is going to do here in the beginning of 10 is He's going to continue to set forth the consequences of those who would reject Him. And He's going to disclose more of His grace, but He's going to use the sheep to demonstrate that. So, in the first, I'll probably just get done reading these in the bus, don't worry.

The first six verses of 10, Most assuredly I say to you, He who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same as a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them. And the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of a stranger.

Jesus used this illustration, but they did not understand the things which he spoke to them. So let's see if you understand them. The first question I asked was, people understand what, you guys all being agricultural farmers, you know what a sheepfold is? Somebody explain it.

It's a corral. And it's got an entrance and an exit. One gate. And the sheep go in there for protection. So that none will be lost and none will be a prey to To the sheep on there because they tell them to. I mean the sheep are pretty dumb. Oh they're dumb. There's nothing dumber than sheep. So they don't. They don't. They put in there. That's a that's a Maryland. There couldn't be a better point than that.

They don't go in there for their own protection, they're put in there for their protection. So all of you who think you've got this thing by the tail, realize if God puts you in the body of Christ for protection, you can stick yourself in there. Now, what does entering by the door mean? He that enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.

That's a criterion. You're done. We'll pick it up next week. Give us something to ponder. Yeah, just close. Dear Father, how we thank you for your grace towards us and that you have placed us in your son and members of his body and his bride, that we are to grow in that frame of reference into the glory of the Lord Jesus. We thank you, we pray in his name. Amen.