Shepherd Knows His Sheep

God's Most Glorious Display of Attributes in Salvation

0:03 Almighty God has made the most full and the most brilliant display of all of His glorious attributes in the work of rescuing sinners through the person and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. God has many theaters in which He displays His attributes. His attributes are simply the outshining of who He is as a glorious and a magnificent God. They are not little parts which all together make up God.

0:40 They are God in all of His glorious unity, shining forth in various ways, displaying who He is. His beauty, His intricate wisdom seen in the complexity of a snowflake. His majesty. Majestic power seen in mighty snow-capped mountains.

1:03 Something of God's magnificence and something of the overwhelmingness of His being seen in the pictures sent back from the Hubble spacecraft and the vastness of the galaxies of the universe. But I have asserted in my opening sentence that God's most glorious display of all of His attributes. Is made in conjunction, not with the vastness of the cosmos, the intricacy of the snowflake and all of the other things that manifest God's beauty, God's wisdom, God's power, His overwhelmingness. But they are manifested in conjunction with the salvation which God has both planned, procured and applied to guilty, hell-deserving sinners. And one of the most marvelous aspects of that salvation which most fully displays God's glorious attributes is the absolute certainty of that salvation with respect to all for whom it was planned,

2:24 for whom it was procured, and to all who were saved. And to whom it is applied. And whenever we begin to be acquainted with this wonderful aspect of that salvation, namely, that once brought within its orbit, we are forever within its orbit. Whenever we begin to be acquainted with that truth, often called the perseverance or the preservation of the saints, there's a text that one will see.

2:58 And we will find in systematic theologies, in devotional books and in other ways in which this aspect of God's glorious salvation is set forth in Scripture. There is a text that again and again comes to the fore. It is that text to which I want to direct your attention tonight in the time allotted. It's found in John chapter 10.

3:21 John chapter 10.

The Imagery Employed: Christ the Shepherd and His Sheep

3:25 And I shall read something of the immediate context. John chapter 10. chapter 10 and verse 22 through verse 30. And it was the feast of the dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in Solomon's porch. The Jews therefore came round about him and said to him, How long do you hold us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you, and you did not believe me. The works that I do in my Father's name, these bear witness of me. But you believe not, because you are not of my sheep. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them unto me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one.

4:40 Now it is verses 27 to 30 that in a very special way are one of those epitomizing texts in Holy Scripture which state in unmistakable language that once we are brought within the orbit of the salvation planned, procured, and delivered, we will be saved. And applied by the triune God, once there, we are forever there. And I want us to spend a few moments looking at this passage under three very simple headings. First of all, the imagery employed. The imagery employed. In this passage, the Lord Jesus likens himself to a shepherd, and all who have presently embraced his salvation are likened to sheep. My sheep hear my voice. And this imagery of sheep and shepherd was introduced earlier in this chapter. In the beginning of the chapter, you have what for some is a difficult thing to sort out because we are not personally acquainted with the practices of Middle Eastern shepherds in the first century, where he refers to himself as the door, and then later on, he refers to himself as the door. And then later on, he refers to himself as the door.

5:59 And then later on, he refers to himself as the door. And then later on, he refers to himself as the shepherd verse 4 when he has put forth all his own he goes before them and the sheep follow him for they know his voice and a stranger they will not follow but will flee from him for they do not know the voice of strangers verse 11 i am the good shepherd and the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep and then right on through that section he is likening himself to a shepherd and his people to sheep and in our text in particular verse 27 he speaks of the sheep as his sheep whom he knows and to whom he gives eternal life so from this passage we know that the sheep are those who have come into this world to give life to the sheep and to the sheep this personal relationship with the Lord Jesus. And according to the context, they come into that relationship to Him as the Good Shepherd, particularly the Good Shepherd who lays down His life for the sheep. Note again, verse 11, I am the Good Shepherd, and the Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. Verse 15, Even as the Father knows me, and I know the Father,

7:25 and I lay down my life for the sheep. Verse 17, Therefore doth the Father love me because I lay down my life. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down.

7:45 In this short compass of verses, four or five times, in this conversation, context of setting Himself forth as the Good Shepherd of His sheep, He wants us to think of Him as the Shepherd who supremely lays down His life for the sheep. So as the sheep are related to Him in this personal, intimate way, it is a personal, intimate relationship founded upon the Shepherd's act of laying down, His life for the sheep. Whoever the sheep are, they are related to Jesus, the Good and the Great Shepherd in the context of His voluntary laying down of His life. That is, they are related to Him on the basis of His voluntary substitutionary death in the room and stead of His people. Voluntary, vicarious, curse-bearing, under the wrath of God, so that we should never think of such glorious passages as Psalm 23, as some kind of general, ubiquitous relationship that all men have to the Great Shepherd. The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.

9:11 There is but one way in which sheep become bonded to this Shepherd, and that is in the embrace of His cross. So the image, the imagery employed, is that of Christ the Shepherd, His people, the sheep. The sheep bonded to Him in a very special way in the context of the Shepherd who lays down His life. But then having noted the imagery employed, note with me secondly, the security affirmed.

The Security Affirmed: Eternal Life and Preservation

9:44 The security affirmed. And it is affirmed both positively and negatively. Notice the positive affirmation in verse 28. I give unto them, that is my sheep, eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand.

10:09 I give unto them eternal life. On the basis of His laying down His life for His sheep, that which He grants to them is the donation of His blood, His grace is nothing less than eternal life. And according to the Scriptures, eternal life is both a quality of life and a duration of life. It is a quality of life.

10:39 Eternal life is a distinctive kind of life. And what is the distinctiveness of that life which is eternal? Jesus Himself defines it for us in chapter 17. John 17 of this same Gospel.

10:54 John 17, verse 2. Even as you gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom you have given Him, He should give eternal life. And this is life eternal. He's going to define eternal life.

11:12 This is it. That they should know You, the only true God, and Him whom You did send, even Jesus Christ. Eternal life is a quality of life. And that quality is nothing less than a heart acquaintance with the one true and living God and with His Son, Jesus Christ.

11:36 This is life eternal. That they should know You. Not know about You. Be acquainted with You, but know You.

11:46 As a man knows his wife, and there is interpenetration of mind and soul, and will and body, and knowledge at the deepest level. This is life eternal. Not to have God paraded by us in the collection of notions and concepts that never touch and win and woo and capture the heart. This is life eternal.

12:12 That they should know You, the only true God, and know Jesus Christ whom You have sent. Not know much about Him, His church, His ways, His people, but to know Him as a living, loving person knows another person. This is life eternal. It is a quality of life, but it is also a duration of life.

12:39 We turn back to John chapter 4, and we find these words from the lips of our Lord Jesus in verse 14. In speaking to the Samaritan woman, offering her eternal life under the image of living water, these words, John 4, 14, Whosoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up into eternal life. What I give them here and now of myself and my salvation is like an artesian well that will spring up that will spring up that will spring up that will spring up from within them bubbling forever and ever and ever and ever. It is a well springing up into eternal life. And here, the security of all the sheep is wonderfully, positively affirmed. I give to them not a temporal taste and experience of eternal life.

13:47 I give to them eternal life. Life that begins here and now as they come into a saving knowledge of my Father and of myself, of my Father through myself, for no one comes to the Father but by me, and he that hath seen me hath seen the Father. He that does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. He says that this life into which we enter now is not only a quality of life but a duration.

14:21 And in so stating our Lord affirms positively the security of all who truly experience eternal life. I give unto them nothing less than eternal life in quality and in duration. But then three times he makes the affirmation negatively. Notice it.

14:46 I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish. They shall never perish throughout the rest of their earthly pilgrimage and life and on through death and resurrection and judgment and as one eon rolls upon another in the endless ages of eternity they shall never perish. And, second negation, no one shall snatch them out of my hand as the great and the good shepherd who lays down my life for the sheep. I gather my sheep to myself. I hold them. I protect them. I encompass them with my own protective grace.

15:41 No one shall snatch them out of my hand. A third negation, verse 29. My Father who has given them unto me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I actually heard someone say cheekily, ah yes, none can snatch them out of Christ's hands.

16:01 None can snatch them out of the Father's hands. But it doesn't say they can't jump out of his hands. Trying to prove that this eternal life is nothing, is not really eternal life. But it is life that we may possess if ultimately we continue to make sure that we possess it. But the words of our Lord Jesus do not point us in that direction at all. For under the imagery employed, there is this security affirmed and the marvelous capstone to that security is verse 30. I and the Father are one.

16:41 One in our God-ness, in nature, in what we are as Father and Son in the mystery of the triune God, one in purpose that we should confer nothing less than eternal life, as Jesus said in John 6, 38 to 40. I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him that sent me. And this is the will of Him that sent me, that of all that He has given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it at the last day. This is the indefectible will of the Father that Jesus has come to fulfill. So we've looked at the imagery employed, Christ the Shepherd, all the possessors of His salvation likened unto sheep. There is a security affirmed, but now, thirdly, note with me their identity described. What is the precise identity of these people who are in this unspeakably glorious position of being Christ's sheep, those for whom He died, those whom He has brought to Himself, those whom He and the Father hold so that they can never, never perish? How are they identified? Look at the

The Identity Described: Hearing Christ's Voice

18:02 text, verse 27. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And everything that follows is with respect to these described. I give unto them, and they shall never perish. No one shall snatch them. Who is the they and the them? It is the sheep. But what is their precise identity as described by the Lord Jesus Himself? And surely none knows better the distinguishing marks of His sheep than the Great Shepherd who dies and who lives to make them His sheep. Well, there are two very identifying marks simply stated in these words. My sheep are hearing, present tense verb. My sheep are hearing my voice. The

18:59 identifying mark of the sheep is the hearing ear. They are hearing my voice. Our Lord already asserted this in chapter 10, in verse 3. To Him the porter opens, and the sheep are hearing His voice. And He calls His own sheep by name and leads them out. Who are His own sheep? Those who hear His voice. Now, in what sense are the sheep identified as those who are hearing the voice of Christ?

19:37 Well, first of all, they hear His voice when the Great Shepherd who laid down His life for them in the course of their life history, effectually calls them to Himself, speaking to them, through the word and promise of the Gospel. Look at verse 16 of this chapter. Other sheep I have. They are already sheep in the Father's eternal electing love and purpose, in the Father's donation to me, all that the Father gives me. Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold, that is the fold within Israel. Them also I must bring. The Good Shepherd, the Great Shepherd, is not to lose any of the sheep. Those whom the Father has marked out in His eternal electing love and given to Him as the donation of grace, given to Him the responsibility of doing all that was necessary, that they should enjoy a righteously founded, a justly procured salvation.

20:48 He must lay down His life. These He must do. He must bring. And how are they brought? Look at the rest of the text.

20:56 And they shall hear my voice. And they shall become one flock under one shepherd. They shall hear. They shall become.

21:12 No one can claim to be a sheep of Christ because somehow He has pried into the Father's eternal electing love. And has had laid bare before Him for Himself or for another. Ah yes, that's one of those who are already Christ's sheep. No, none of us can know He is Christ's sheep in terms of prying into God's secret electing purposes.

21:38 We can only know when we have heard and have become. The other sheep, I know them. They don't know themselves. But when I come, and in the word and promise of the gospel, I declare to them their desperate need of what I have done on behalf of sinners.

22:02 And when I come in the word and promise of the gospel and declare to them that as the good shepherd I've laid down my life for wandering hell deserving sinners who are like Isaiah's vast flock of sheep that has gone astray, each one having turned to his own way. They hear the word of promise. He that believes on the Son has everlasting life. Come unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.

22:34 Him that comes to me I will in no wise cast out. Come, come. He says they hear my voice. He is not saying that in gathering His sheep among the nations outside of Israel throughout the entire age of the church that He is going to come and personally in His glorified being, speak with an audible physical voice. No. But it is nonetheless Christ's voice that is heard in the proclamation of the gospel. And that's why Paul can say in Romans 10 in that tightly knit chain of argumentation that if people are to be saved, they must believe on Christ. And how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?

23:23 And when a preacher comes, in the authority of Christ, with the word of Christ, proclaiming the truth of the salvation of Christ, His true sheep are gathered into that one fold when they hear His voice. Beyond the explanations the preacher gives, beyond the illustrations, beyond the entreaties, the appeals, the earnestness, the tears, the pleading, they hear the voice that captures them and they can no longer resist. And they say, O Lord Jesus, You who love sinners and poured out Your life's blood on behalf of sinners, how can I go on in the folly of clinging to that which can only damn me by refusing that which only intends to give me life and that eternal? And they capitulate gladly and joyfully and in the disposition of repentance and faith, they turn from their sin and their self-will and their self-determination and they embrace one whose love conquers them and subdues them, wounds and wins them. The identifying mark of the sheep is they hear my voice. They hear it initially,

24:51 powerfully, efficaciously in the proclamation of the gospel.

The Identity Described: Continually Hearing Christ's Voice

24:58 But then, it's a present tense verb. It doesn't say my sheep heard my voice, calling them, promising them rest, forgiveness, eternal life, adoption into the family of God, the gift of the Spirit, and all the blessings of grace. It doesn't say my sheep heard. Look at the text. My sheep are hearing my voice.

25:25 The mark of the true sheep of Christ, is that they have a fundamental internal disposition of utter openness to the word of Christ. To the word of Christ when it is promising, to the word of Christ when it is commanding, to the word of Christ when it is comforting, to the word of Christ when it is convicting, to the word of Christ when it distills like gentle dew upon upturned flowers, to the word of Christ when it breaks in upon them like jagged lightning, nails them to the pew, and says you are the man. It's your sin and yours and yours that must be dealt with. If it's the voice of Christ, they hear it. My sheep are hearing my voice. It is the infallible, identifying mark of the sheep.

26:25 They are hearing the voice of Christ. When that voice calls them, to humble themselves, confess their sins one to another, when that voice calls them to cut off right hands and pluck out right eyes to maintain moral purity, they hear His voice. When that voice calls them to rear back on their hind legs and resist the spirit of this world, when the voice of Christ says be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind, they are hearing the voice of Christ.

27:01 Have I beat it? That's the identifying mark. Not some of them, the real dedicated ones, the real super duper fat, healthy sheep. My sheep are hearing my voice.

The Identity Described: Following Christ

27:14 But then notice the second identifying mark. And they are following me.

27:24 And they are following me. What they hear goes right down to their feet. And they are following me. And what their feet do have a direct relationship to the person of the great and good shepherd.

27:44 Notice he doesn't say, they hear my voice and they obey the commands. They hear my voice and they obey the precepts. That's true. But you see, our Lord makes it intimate and personal.

27:58 They hear my voice and they are following me. Not following their parents, and doing just enough to get mom and dad off their back. Or just enough to persuade their elders that maybe the root of the matter is in them so they can get baptized and come into the church and get a Christian husband or a Christian wife. Because they don't want a whirlwind scoundrel for life's partner. No.

28:26 They hear my voice and they are, what, following me. They are enamored and attached to a person. Who loved them. Laid down his life for them.

28:41 So it's not the naked word. It is the word dropping from the lips of the good shepherd. Who laid down his life for them. Who is committed to preserve and keep every one of them so that none of them will perish.

29:00 They follow me as by my word I lead them into the kind of personal life that marks them out as my sheep. As my word leads them into the kind of domestic life that marks them out as my sheep. With husbands loving, with sensitive sacrificial self-denying love that treats their wives as their own flesh. As solicitous for the wife's well-being. Emotionally.

29:37 Physically. Spiritually. As they are for the members of their own body. I've never met a man yet who had a sliver rammed up under his fingernail and said, oh, it's just a sliver under my fingernail. Take care of it three months from now.

29:50 No, no. I don't care what his job is, how important he is. You get a sliver under your fingernail and I tell you everything stops till you get it out. That's how you're to love your wife. Her slivers are yours.

30:03 You love her as being your own flesh. Is it an emotional sliver under the nail of her soul? At her problem, let her work it out. That's not following the voice of Christ who said, love her as Christ loved the church.

30:21 Oh, yes, but no less much my sheep here. They follow. Oh, but I didn't have a good example in my life. Who cares what your father's example was?

30:34 You have Christ as your model. Love her as Christ loved and gave. Are you following him then? Are you following him in domestic relationships? You children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. In social relationships, in church relationships, in every area addressed by the great shepherd, the mark of his sheep is, they not only hear and say, oh, isn't it wonderful we heard the voice of Jesus today. They're not only marked by the open ear, but by the willing and the obedient foot. And that foot, moves at the direction of the person who has won them by his grace.

Obedience as the Manifestation of Salvation

31:21 In fact, it is only such who have any grounds biblically to say they are his. Hebrews 5 and verse 9. One of the few verses that uses the term eternal salvation in all of the New Testament. And notice what the writer to Hebrews says about that eternal salvation and who has it.

31:44 Speaking of our Lord Jesus, verse 8 of Hebrews 5. Though he was a son, yet he learned obedience by the things which he suffered. And having been made perfect, that is, having been made a perfect Savior, not from imperfection to perfection, but from the perfection of unspotted sinless humanity to the perfection of empathetic humanity, joined to deity in the theanthropic person, having been made perfect, he became unto all them that are obeying him the author of eternal salvation.

32:33 Oh, you say, I have that eternal salvation. Oh, I love the truth. My sheep, they're in my hands. None can snatch them.

32:41 And the Father's hand is over my hand and none can snatch them from the Father's hand. The onus is on you to demonstrate the identifying mark. He is author of eternal salvation to all who are obeying him. Our obedience does not procure the salvation, nor does it ultimately secure the salvation. It is the manifestation that we possess it.

33:07 We're his sheep. My sheep are hearing. My sheep are following me. The language is clear, unmistakable, and the Lord Jesus knows better than any of you how to describe his true sheep. And he's described them. Their identity is described. And then you see, nestled in the midst of those two identifying marks, Jesus said, and I know them. That is the ones to whom I am related in intimate, personal, saving relationship.

33:47 The ones that I know, that I am prepared to say, ah, that's one of mine. Open ear and willing foot. If you're not sitting here tonight marked by open ear and willing foot, Jesus does not claim to know you.

34:09 He does a better job of saving than he's doing in some of you who say you're saved.

34:17 If his love cannot conquer your love of the world, and your love of self, and your love of your own will and your own way, what kind of love is it that leads you, what is it, to the very things that nailed him to the cross?

34:35 I lay down my life for the sheep, and the way that I give them the identifying marks of the sheep is by the revelation of my love that breaks them and seduces them and brings them into the orbit of being willing, hearing, obeying sheep.

35:03 That's what the text says. The imagery employed, he's the shepherd, his people are the sheep. The security affirmed, I give to them eternal life, a life of quality, a life of duration. Their identity described, they are hearing my voice, and they are following me.

The Ground and Proof of Being Christ's Sheep

35:25 I say by way of application, and I want to underscore so that one can mistake what I'm saying. The ground of our position as sheep is nothing in us. It's what he has done, and it is all in him. He lays down his life for the sheep. Why?

35:47 Because the sheep are human beings who are guilty, in Adam, who are dead, who are deserving of the wrath of God, and there is no omnipotence in God himself that can bring such people into an intimate relationship of fellowship without the issue of sin being dealt with. And so the ground of our being his sheep is not in our hearing or in our following, our obeying. The ground is in his laying down his life for us. But the proof that we have embraced him as the good shepherd, who has laid down his life, is is that His love in sacrificial self-giving for us has conquered us and brought us to the place where we love to hear His voice and we love to follow Him.

36:50 It's 2 Corinthians chapter 5 in different language. The Apostle says in verse 14, For the love of Christ constrains us, it holds us in its grip. For we thus judge, if one died for all, therefore all died, and that he died for all, that they who live should no longer henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him who for their sakes died and rose again. Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh, yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet henceforth know we Him no more.

37:25 If any man is in Christ, a new creation, the old is past, the new has come, and all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ. That's Pauline language for the very truth we have in John chapter 10. The ground of our acceptance is the laying down of His life. The proof of our acceptance is that we've become part of the flock that He says He recognizes and He's glad to be identified with.

38:00 I know them! Those who are hearing, those who are following, they do not follow perfectly, but they do so purposefully. They do not follow with equal zeal, but they follow as the old writers said universally. They do not mark out any area of life and say, if Jesus has anything to say about that, I could care less.

Practical Application: Conquering Worldliness in Media and Dress

38:27 I don't want to know what He says. That's the problem with some of you. I know young people, and I want to get very blunt. You have marked out the area of your music and your entertainment and said, I don't care what Jesus has to say, if anything, about that area.

38:43 That's my music! That's my entertainment! That's my delight! Keep your hands off!

38:50 And you know it, and I know it! How can you claim to be a sheep until you're ready to take every single CD, every single video, and put it on a table, and get down on your knees, in front of it, and say, Lord Jesus, shepherd who laid down your life, who died for sin, the sins of listening to things I ought not, looking at things I ought not, Lord Jesus, whatever is in these CDs that's displeasing to you, help me to see it. Help me to recognize it. May I be willing to smash it.

39:25 Are you willing to do that? Oh, no, I don't. Yeah, I know. You can dip and you can rationalize, but the issue is you're not willing to do that.

39:33 Yeah, I know. You can dip and you can rationalize, but the issue is you're not willing to do that. You're willing for the cross of the great shepherd to be laid over your CDs and over your videos. And until you are, don't kid yourself that you're one of his sheep.

39:44 With many of you, that's going to be the rubbing point. You live in a media-obsessed generation, and the devil has his hooks in a whole generation with the sounds and sights produced by all the gadgetry. And if you're going to be real, and count for Christ, this issue, you've got to settle. I know you can go out of your head and say, Oh, Pastor Martin was on his hobby.

40:13 That's a cop-out. Because you're not going home and doing what I said. I've got no fear to go home and take every CD I have, even one that's got the best of Johnny Cash on it. Okay?

40:30 The one you listen to is opera and hymns. What do you know I listen to? Take every one of them. Say, Lord Jesus, if listening to any of that puts any distance between you and me, in any way fills my mind with things that ought not to be filled with, Lord Jesus, I don't want it.

40:49 I want you. I want nothing to disturb my communion. I'm ready to take every DVD. There aren't many.

40:55 Most of them have been given to me. And every video. And lay it before him. Are you?

41:01 Are you? You ready? You ready to do it? You young women, you ready to go to your closet and stand before every piece of clothing and say, Lord Jesus, you say that the thing that should mark me as a woman, the first thing God addresses when he gives particular directions to women in 1 Timothy, where he's dealing with behavior in the church, what's the first thing he addresses?

41:25 Not your heart, but your clothes. I will therefore that the women dress modestly. And you stand in front of your closet with every piece of clothing and say, Lord Jesus, I want to hear your voice and I'm ready to follow you. Is this modest?

41:42 And if you are, and if you don't know, find an honest dad. And if you haven't got an honest dad, find one. There's a lot of us here in the church and we'll tell you until you're ready to do this. Folk, your Christianity is floating around on the issues that don't really touch where you live.

42:04 You ready to do that? You ready to do that with every facet of your life? Dear folks, this is Christianity attachment to Jesus that we do not willfully knowingly seek to be. We attach in any area.

42:21 My sheep are hearing my voice and they are following me. It's not rules and regulations. It's a person who's won us and overcome us by his love. And as we heard this morning, we want an alternate thoroughgoing Christian lifestyle that makes the world look and say, wait a minute, we need this and this and this and this and this to find a little sweetness in life, to suck.

42:48 A little meaning. They are not worshiping at the shrine of this, this, this and this. And they've got a joy that we know nothing about. What in the world makes these people tick?

43:01 And then we have the joy of giving answer to everyone who asks the reason of the hope that is in us. Dear folks, that's Christianity. That's Christianity. When you worship at the same shrine as the worldings, what in the world is there about your Christianity that would ever whet their appetite?

43:19 Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

43:19 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

43:22 Yeah. You can sit as my daughter and my sister did the evening after the Lord took my beloved home. Someone had given us months ago to my wife and me some, what do you call them? Whatever.

43:42 When they give you something, you go out to a restaurant, spend them there. What do they call that certificate? You know what they call whatever it is. My wife and I were never able to use it.

43:52 So because we had been under a lot of stress, I said to Heidi and Joyce, I said, let's go out to. Let's take a nail and celebrate my loved ones home going. We sat at that table and the young waiter came and he saw that we were a happy bunch. And I told him, as you know what we're here for, so I said, we're celebrating the fact that my wife went home today.

44:15 She's in the presence of Jesus. And through my tears, I told him of what our joy was. I tell you, we had the years of that young man. I got a chance to speak to him about the savior.

44:26 He's newly married. And I told him, God, I never intended your marriage should be a two way affair. He intended that Christ should be at the center of it. We had his ears because he saw something that he couldn't explain.

44:42 Does the world see anything in you that they can't explain or you just blend in with the idea? Well, you've got to be like them to win them. Now, if you're like them, you've got nothing to win them to that's worth anything. That's the curse of this notion.

44:56 We've got to be bop our music and we've got to modernize our worship. So the unconverted person, comes in, can feel at home. We'll play his kind of music. We'll talk his kind of jive talk.

45:08 Nonsense. Let the world come in. See our joyous, God centered worship and say, what in the world are these people got? It's something I know nothing about.

45:21 And then we're able to tell them of the hope that is within us. Dear people, you're going to tolerate me here as your pastor. I think I've got a few more sermons left in me. This is where we're going by the grace of God.

45:33 Are you with me? Are you with me? My sheep hear my voice. They follow me.

Blessed Assurance and Evangelistic Appeal

45:41 I give to them eternal life and they shall never perish. Blessed assurance, blessed assurance that once in Christ, always in Christ. And at the end of the day, not because we have so resolved and so mortified and so determined to press on that we made. But because we've got a great and a good shepherd who's committed to keeping us and bringing us safely at last into his blessed presence.

46:17 Oh, sitting here tonight. Are you one of the sheep? They say, well, if the sheep is what you've described from the Bible, Pastor Martin, I'm not one of them. Listen, Jesus said other sheep I have.

46:32 They're not yet of this fold. They should hear my voice. Have you heard the voice of Christ in the preaching? Have you heard something that's gone beyond what any human voice could do in reaching into the inner chambers of your soul and causing you to say, Oh God, I want to know the forgiveness of sin.

46:51 I want to know what it is to possess eternal life. I want to be able to look death straight in the eye and say, Death, you're the last enemy. But all you can do is chase me up to heaven. My friend, that's waiting for you in Christ.

47:06 If you go to him, he's promised to receive all who come unto him. May God grant that you go to him and you'll find him a gracious, welcoming savior. And you become part of that one flock under the rule and governance of that one great shepherd. Let's pray.

47:35 Our Father, what thanks can we render to you that you have given us? Such a savior as our Lord Jesus. Lord Jesus, we worship and thank you for your willingness to lay down your life for the likes of us. We thank you that no man took it from you.

47:54 You laid it down, but you took it up again. And you are the living Lord. We thank you that you live this night to receive any who will come to you. And we pray that some will.

48:06 We pray, Lord, that you would dig out the wax in our spiritual ears. That we may be more keen to hear your voice. That you will take away the paralysis that so often afflicts our feet. That we might quickly and cheerfully follow you.

48:23 Lord Jesus, help us. That we may be those sheep whom you gladly own. Because men see in us, and you see in us, those undeniable identifying marks of those whom you own. As your own.

48:41 Thank you for your word. Thank you for your presence. May your spirit seal that word to our hearts. For your name's sake, we pray.

48:51 Amen.