September 21, 2014
Scripture:
Hymn 227 - I was a wandering sheep
Prayer
John 10:1 & 2
This chapter is about three doors. The “verily verily” at the beginning of the verse, can be translated “truly truly.” These words are spoken 25 times in John’s gospel, and they are always spoken by Jesus. They are there to add emphasis to what He is about to say: what He said here is important.
A sheepfold is a pen for sheep. Some sheepfolds are made of stone, others of logs or a fence. Some are square, and others circle. There are no holes in the walls, and the “door” is really just an opening in the wall.
The reason the shepherd would put the sheep in the fold was to keep predators away from them. But the predators would have been able to get through the door: these predators were not only animals, but also other people. So how do you keep the predators from coming through the door? Once, a man was being shown a sheepfold. He asked the shepherd, “Where is the door?” The shepherd replied, “I am the door.”
The Lord was not giving a lesson in farming: He was talking about Himself. We are His sheep. This is a figure of speech, just like when Jesus says “I am the door”; you wouldn’t expect to see a door with hinges. We are His sheep because we follow Him. Another time Jesus used a figure of speech is in Luke 20, when He compared Israel to a vineyard. Vines are only good if they bear fruit, and Israel needed to do just that. Sometimes we are like vines that bear fruit, and other times we are like sheep that stray.
The sheepfold can be seen as a type of the people of God. There was One that came to the sheepfold of Israel, but “He came unto His own and His own received Him not.”
Jesus entered that door when He was born, and next week we’ll read how He was in the centre of His people Israel.
Acts 17:19-34
Silas and Timothy were still in Berea when Paul went to Athens, so he scouted the intellectually-inclined city alone. The Athenians were hungry for new ideas, and they heard Paul speaking about Jesus and the resurrection. They thought he had some new gods that they hadn’t heard about, so they asked him to speak to them and took him to Mars Hill to do so. The people of Athens had some concept of spiritual things, but Christianity was entirely new to them. It’s probably safe to say that they’d never heard about Jesus or the resurrection before.
Darby says that human knowledge is blind. God doesn’t reveal Himself to human knowledge. His way is plain enough that “the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein” (Isaiah 35:8), but the path takes faith. Today’s intellectuals hate the word faith, yet they exercise it every day.
An atheist once asked, “How could God damn a bunch of atheists, when He hasn’t given them enough evidence to believe in Him?” With these thinkers, Paul started with creation. Look around you. That’s evidence enough. Today, people don’t think that God is necessary to explain life, but that’s where Paul started with these folks.
Paul told these people that he perceived them as “too superstitious” (Darby: given over to demon worship). Satan was involved in all their idolatry. They had collected gods from all different nations and peoples to the point where—just in case they had missed One—they had an altar to “The Unknown God”. Paul told them that they were ignorantly worshiping this God. In spite of all that they knew, they admitted that there was something that they didn’t. Paul wanted to tell them about this Unknown God.
Where did Paul start? As we said before, “God that made the world and all things therein.” You wonder if these men ever wondered, “Where did I come from?” Today many taught, “You came from nothing.” From their quest for knowledge, these men must have known a lot about tangible things, but Paul was the one that told them, “God made all that.”
Why do people today bury Creation in Evolution? Because they don’t want to be accountable to the Lord of Creation. These idolaters were used to giving gifts to their gods, but our God is the one that provides us with the sacrifice necessary for our sins. He also gives to all life, breath, and all things; so we can’t give Him anything He doesn’t already have.
There was no Judaism in Paul’s talk, for in verse 26 he says that God “hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation.” This brings up an interesting point: there is a boundary to human habitation. We can’t go far without needing special suits and artificial environments to keep us alive. God has set up boundaries for us.
Human knowledge is blind. It doesn’t reveal God. Science doesn’t contradict God, but God will be found when “you search for [Him] with all your heart” (Jeremiah 20:13). It’s not in our mind or intellect—which are good things—that we find God; but rather in our hearts. An atheist was once asked, “If there is a God, and you were standing before Him, what would you say?” The atheist replied, “I would ask, ‘Why didn’t you give us more evidence of Yourself?‘” God can be found, if you search for Him correctly. He’s close by, and we can reach out to Him.
Hymn 338 – I love my Saviour, my precious Saviour
Prayer