Hello and welcome to the broadcast. We're continuing today in John chapter 10. We want to look at it for observation, interpretation, and application. Stay tuned for our broadcast. Reading John 10, the first six verses, it says here that Jesus said, 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. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth, And the sheep hear his voice, and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the voice of the stranger. This parable spake Jesus unto them, but they understood not, what things they were which he spake unto them. What an interesting portion of scripture. Well, it starts out here, verily, verily, I say unto you, who is the you? You can always ask yourself when we're studying the Bible who's talking. And who is he talking to? Well, in the previous verse, in 41 of chapter 9, it says, Jesus said unto them, if ye were blind, ye should have no sin, but now ye say, we see. Therefore, your sin remaineth. Your sin. You religious hypocrites. They were called Pharisees. And so he's talking to them, and he continues in verse 1 of chapter 10, saying, Verily, verily, I say unto you, unto you, He is using the illustration here that the blind man has just been healed, and he is saying to these Pharisees that you are blind leaders of the blind, and we know that, because it says in verse number 6, they understood not what things they were which he spake unto them. Spiritually, they were blind. Now, we said as we began this broadcast, the way to study the Scripture is first observation, then interpretation, and then application. Observation is observing something carefully so as to gain information. Information is knowledge, and knowledge is simply the accumulation of information. Then once we have the information, we need to have interpretation of that information. In other words, interpretation is explaining the meaning of something. And third, we need to have an application, and that is putting something into operation. This Bible is not written here just so we could stuff it in our brain cells and then brag about how much we know about the Bible. It is written for our admonition, especially, it says in the Bible, upon whom the ends of the world are coming. Here we are there. So we need to observe it, we need to interpret it, and then we need to make the application. Now, let's just read these verses again for observation. He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the voice of strangers. This parable spake Jesus unto them, unto those Pharisees, but they understood not what things they were which he spake unto them. All right, there's some observation. Let's just go in now and see if we can do a little interpretation. We have a lot of things mentioned here. We have the shepherd, we have sheepfold, we have a thief, we have a robber, we have the porter, and we have the strangers. The sheepfold in verse 1, the shepherd in verse 3, we have the thief and a robber in verse 1, the porter in verse 3, and the stranger in verse number five. Now in verse one, Jesus is the shepherd. The Pharisees are the thieves and they are the robbers. Now in Israel, in that day back when Jesus was here, it was very common for every city, every area, to have a common sheepfold. And shepherds would come in out of the pastures and they would bring their sheep into the sheepfold. When they would get to the sheepfold, which was an enclosed area, many different shepherds would show up there at the door, and they would have their sheep. And at the door was a porter, and it was the porter's responsibility to keep that door shut all night so that animals could not get in there and kill the sheep, or that robbers could not get in and get the sheep. Some robbers would come and get them just simply for the money that they could have in selling those sheep, and others would kill them for the food. And then when the shepherds would bring these sheep and leave them with the porters, the shepherd would go home for the evening and get a break from being out in the field all of the time. When the shepherd would come up to the door, before he would let his sheep go through the door, he would take his rod and he would lay his rod across the door low enough so that the sheep could not get through. He would stop the sheep and individually check every sheep to see that they were okay. This actually corresponds with Ezekiel chapter 20 and verse 37, where it says there, I will cause you to pass under the rod and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant. It's talking about Israel, talking about the Lord gathering Israel into his kingdom. And that's the basic interpretation of this portion of scripture. Well, in the morning, the shepherd would come to the door for their sheep. and they would call them by name. The sheep would come out and the shepherd would lead them to pasture. The shepherd, it says, would come to the door for the sheep. The thieves and the robbers, it says here, they will go up some other way. They'll crawl over the wall down around the corner where nobody can see them. Well, to the Pharisees, Jesus said, I am the door. They didn't like that. They spent their time picking up stones, trying to stone him from the time he began preaching until they finally got him crucified. They didn't want Jesus to be the door. They were the ones that are going to do it some other way, it says here in this portion of the scripture. Now, the sheepfold, the interpretation of the sheepfold is Israel. Christ is the shepherd, the sheep are the individual Jews, the sheepfold is the nation of Israel, and they are referred to in the Word of God many times as mine elect. When God's talking about elect, He's not ever talking about electing someone to salvation. And so to Israel he said, I am the door, I am Israel's Messiah, verse 7. He said in verse 9, I'm the door. He's talking about being the door to the kingdom. Well, the thieves and the robbers were the religious hypocrites that are of course called Pharisees here and Jesus said in Matthew 23 15 that you make proselytes out of these people and your converts are twofold more the child of hell than you yourself. That's pretty plain. Chapter 34 the Bible says the word of the Lord came unto me saying son of man prophesy against the shepherds of Israel Israel prophesy and say unto them thus saith the Lord God unto the shepherds. Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves, should not the shepherds feed the flocks? Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool. Ye kill them that are fed, and ye feed not the flock." He goes on to talk about not taking care of the diseased sheep, etc., etc. That's what this portion of Scripture is referring to here. That's what it's all about in this message. that Jesus is preaching to the Pharisees here in John chapter 10. That is the interpretation of this portion of Scripture. Well, what about an application? These things are written for our admonition, the Bible says, upon whom the ends of the world are come. So in verse 3, once again, we have the porter, we have the sheep that hear the shepherd's voice, he calls his sheep by name, he leadeth them out, he goeth before them, they follow him, they know his voice. What is that all about? Well, an application for us in this age in which we are living is simply this. Jesus said in verse number 16, other sheep I have which are not of this fold. What fold? The Jews, the nation of Israel. Other sheep have I which are not of this fold. And that, of course, refers to the Gentiles and it refers to us in this age in which we are living. So in this local church age that we're living in for the last 2,000 years, people have been trusting Christ as their personal Savior. And the Lord has set it up so that we would have local churches established, and that we would have pastors, and this is a sheepfold. Well, the sheep in our day and age, they come into the sheepfold here for three hours, and unfortunately, But life is life. For every three hours we spend at the local church learning about the things of the Lord, we spend 165 hours in the world. Well, the shepherd is Christ, and he is bringing his sheep. He is leading his sheep into the sheepfold. When someone gets saved, they need to get themselves into a good, solid Bible-believing church, a good, solid Bible-believing church. I know they're getting fewer and they're harder to find, but that is what they need to do. A new Christian without a local church is like a newborn baby without parents. You just need some guidance and some direction, but we need to be very sure that that guidance and direction is following the Word of God. Well, we have the porter, and that of course refers to the pastor, And so he's there at the sheepfold. Now, the sheep, the Bible says, hear the shepherd's voice. That's the plan. It's not to hear the pastor's voice. He's going to preach the Word of God, and the Word of God should be coming to the listener, and he should be able to hear what God has to say. Verse number three. Verse number three says, he calls them by name. Do you realize when you sit in church sometimes, the Lord wants to call you by name? What's your name, George? What's your name, Bert? What's your name, Sandra? What's your name? The Lord knows your name, and what he wants to do is speak to you individually. It's not, let's just get together and sing praise, sing announcements, offering, and we'll all go home and have lunch. He wants to talk to you. He calls you by name. But then it says in verse 3 that He leadeth them out. Yes, He does. You're not going to stay in the church all week. He will lead you out, and there you go for that 165 hours in the world. And what we need to be doing as we're out there in the world is following Him. It says in verse 4, He goeth before them and they follow Him, and they know His voice. They don't follow strangers, it says in verse 5, they flee from them. They don't know the voice of the stranger. And so, when you go out the doors of that church, what we need to do is for the rest of the time before we come back there and fellowship together with some other believers, is that we need to follow Him. He will lead us if we will let Him. He won't force us. But you get out there in that world, you can go on your own path, or you can let Him lead you. It's very important to let Him lead you. Well, we read here again, they, the Pharisees, understood not. They understood not. They had no idea what the Lord was talking about here. However, in this age we're living in, the Bible says, when He, the Holy Spirit, has come, He will guide you into all truth. Jesus was Often rebuking his disciples in Matthew 16, 11, he says, how is it that ye do not understand? We have no reason whatsoever for not understanding. The Bible says, when the Holy Spirit has come, he will guide you into all truth, into all truth. All truth is all truth. Well, Jesus said to these Pharisees in verse number 11, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. But he that is an hireling and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth. And the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. You want to read about that in Ezekiel 34. It's very detailed there. The hireling fleeth, because he is a hireling, and careth not for the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. And the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father. I lay down my life for the sheep." And then he said, as I mentioned, other sheep have I, referring to us. He said in verse 17, Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life for the sheep I lay down my life that I may take it again." There's an interesting verse 18, no man taketh it from me but I lay it down of myself, he said. Well then in 19 we read there was a division, some said he's the Messiah, some said he was mad, and there was a division. and said, can a devil open the eyes of the blind? Some say he's just a devil. That's pretty serious talk. Well, we'll have to pick it up here again tomorrow. Be sure and tune in to our broadcast. We're all out of time again. you