Dennis Tuuri

It’s a delight for us to have learned so many psalms over the last 19 or 20 years that we’ve been in existence as a church. It’s also delightful to mature and go from one version of a psalm that is better, more consistent with the actual psalm itself. And at camp this last week, for those of you that weren’t there, we learned a new version of Psalm 80 that I think is a more correct rendition than what we just sang.

Although what we just sang is certainly good and we praise God that he taught it to us. I bring this up because the psalm was, you know, again deliberately chosen for today’s message. Today’s message is on Jesus in chapter 10 as the good shepherd. God is pictured as the shepherd of Israel in Psalm 80. And in a very important aspect of this Psalm 80, after addressing God as the shepherd of Israel, he’s addressed as one who dwells between the cherubim. And the request is to shine forth. Several times throughout the psalm we just recited, God shines on us with his face and we shall be saved.

This section of chapter 10 comes in the middle of John’s gospel, the section that has to do with Jesus as the light of the world, and that’s the proper context in which to understand what we’ll read here. The relationship of the shepherd and the light shining forth and the salvation and victory of his people is all brought together in John chapter 10.

We’ll be in John chapter 10 for several weeks, but we’ll begin today by reading verses 1-21 and mostly providing an overview, but dealing with this first section of John chapter 10 verse by verse as well. So the sermon text is found in John 10:1-21. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

We will not read verse 22, but that shows us that verse 21 and 22 mark a break in the sections. While consistent to the theme, verse 22 moves on to a separate occurrence at the feast of dedication.

So John 10:1-21. You may follow along with this reading in the orders of worship themselves. I’ve laid it out in a structure that seems to break into natural sections, and you may follow along there as well or in your own Bibles.

John 10:1-21:

“Most assuredly I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs up some other way, the same is 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. Then Jesus said to them again, “Most assuredly I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who ever came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief has not come except to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly.

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees. And the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep. I am the good shepherd and I know my sheep and am known by my own. As the Father knows me, even so I know the Father and I lay down my life for the sheep.

And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold. Them also I must bring, and they will hear my voice, and there will be one flock and one shepherd. Therefore, my Father loves me because I laid down my life that I may take it again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from my Father.

Therefore, there was a division again among the Jews because of these sayings. And many of them said, “He has a demon and is mad. Why do you listen to him?” Others said, “These are not the words of one who has a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?”

Let’s pray. Father, we know that a demon cannot open the eyes of the blind. And we know that we need the power of the Lord Jesus Christ and the power of the Spirit that he has sent forth into the world to teach us this word, to open our eyes that we may behold wondrous things from your law, to shine the light of your word into our very hearts, at the center of who we are, and transform us.

We pray that your Spirit then would illumine, bring light to this text. More than that, that through that light would cause our light to shine yet brighter as we leave this place and go into the world. Thank you, Father, for your most holy word, for your Spirit who teaches us the things of our Savior, that we may be lightbearers into this world. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Please be seated.

The scriptures of course have a great deal to say about shepherding. In the very first instance of Adam’s vocation, he calls the animals. He shepherds the animals. He gives them names. So here we have Jesus, the second Adam, as a shepherd of sheep. The first sacrifice in the Bible is part of the flock that Abel brought. Adam taught his son Abel to be a shepherd. So again, this importance of this calling to us—the importance of sheep as, I said, the first sacrifice. Jesus is the Lamb of God.

Earlier in this gospel we read that he was the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. All the world. So all the world is being brought to salvation through the work of the Savior. And that is pictured in the scriptures.

Moses, that great man of the Old Covenant, was a shepherd also. For 40 years he was a shepherd in the wilderness before God called him to shepherd his people. Even today, in places where families can accomplish this, they have one or two families here. I think the Foresters certainly, who are training up their boys, and part of the way they train them up is to have them be shepherds. And still in agricultural communities, this is a wonderful thing to remind them of—that really, in a sense, this is what we’re called to at the center of who we are.

Shepherding turns a little more technical in a technological culture, but still it’s basic to the understanding of man and basic to the understanding of who we are in Christ our Savior. And it is excellent training. If we can’t have sheep and goats and horses and such, pets—dogs, cats, etc.—are good training for our children in terms of their responsibilities to shepherd their family later, particularly men, but also the wives will be shepherds as well in the context of the home.

If the boy treats his pet with either neglect or maliciously, we can say that may well be the tendency as he gets his own family, his little ones under his control and oversight.

Moses was a shepherd. The first two kings of Israel were shepherds. We forget this about Saul. But when we find Saul, he’s a shepherd. He’s looking for his father’s flocks, which were lost—which is interesting. David is in the context of the lambs that are there of his father. Both the first two kings of Israel are shepherds. They’re training as well to become kings. And we’ll see this relationship of shepherding to kingship as we go through this text today.

The Lord God himself, of course, even in the Old Covenant, is defined as the shepherd. He is the one who will tend his flock like a shepherd. In Isaiah 40, he’ll gather the lambs in his arms. He will carry them in his bosom and gently lead those that are with young. Gather the lambs in his arms and carry them in his bosom. We recite this verse usually in the context of baptism. It’s a picture of the shepherd. God himself defines himself as a shepherd in the context of his people.

So we have a long line of biblical truths leading up to this particular text, where Jesus says he is a shepherd.

Now, there’s a context for this section. I want to spend some time on this. And I know that, you know, it’s a long review, but we want to take some time to think through what we’re coming up to in this text. We’re going to look at the context specifically in the Gospel of John. We want to look at the understanding that people had of shepherding that would bring understanding to this text, which we wouldn’t have otherwise. We want again to look at a few texts from the Old Testament that correct our focus on what it means that Jesus is the good shepherd.

We have kind of a romantic version or view of many things in our culture, and certainly sheep is one of them. You know, we think of sheep as these little cute lambs that we see in Walt Disney movies. You know, kind of a romantic view that they’re just really neat creatures. But, you know, in point of fact, they’re dirty, smelly, really stupid or unintelligent creatures. They need a shepherd. They really can’t exist without one very well. And they’re prone to a lot of complaining. They do a lot of bleating even when full.

So we have a view that we need correction on. And we have a view of the shepherd in the context of the church. It’s somewhat romanticized as well. We think of the shepherds, the pastors of the church, and we think of Jesus as the good shepherd in terms of, you know, some of these paintings where Jesus has a little lamb in his arm and he’s smiling, which is all true, which all is certainly good. Psalm 23 is the picture of Christ’s care in that way. But if we look at the greater context of this, I think it puts a little different emphasis on some things here.

So we want to spend a little bit of time on this context. We want to talk first about the relationship to the greater flow of the Gospel of John. And so, first of all, we notice in this text that there’s a definite link back to what just happened in chapter 9 with the blind man being restored to sight. And remember that the end result of that was his being expelled from the synagogue. So the shepherds in the synagogue kick this man out, and then Jesus comes along and gathers him in.

And so there’s a definite relationship here. There’s a relationship because the text doesn’t break at chapter 10:1. The topic changes, but there’s no narrative break indicating something that’s changing now, like there will be in verse 22, whereas at the feast of dedication that’s going to happen. So the text just kind of goes on. There’s a chapter break correctly, because there’s a new subject. But there’s also a link in verse 21 back to chapter 9. Verse 21 says, at the end of these verses, “Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?” So there’s a definite literary marker at the conclusion of this section back to chapter 9.

We’re to read chapter 10:1-21 in the context of chapter 9—of this man being kicked out by undershepherds who are not faithful and being brought in and shepherded by Jesus. And also chapter 9 is about sent ones. Jesus saying not just him but those disciples who are with him are to be sent into the world as he was sent by the Father. So he sends us. So this relationship of Jesus, his disciples ruling in the context of the church or synagogue—all of this is brought into this text.

Chapter 9 is linked here. But we also see a link to chapter 8, because this idea that Jesus is demon-possessed. This was a subject that first came up in chapter 8. You know, after Jesus does his instruction there in chapter 8, where he says he’s the light of the world, they then say that he’s demon-possessed, and he says they’re seed of Satan. So there’s also a link here in verse 21, not just back to 9, but back to chapter 8 as well.

And chapter 8 is this thing that kind of links up with 7, in that we had the water festival at the feast of tabernacles. Chapter 8 happened in the context of the feast of tabernacles, and it was the fulfillment of the light lighting ritual, where Jesus is really the light of the world. So it has these connections to the text that help us to understand what light is in relationship to blindness, shepherding, the disciples of Christ who were called as undershepherds and then rule in the context of the synagogue. And all these things are things we’re supposed to bring into chapter 10 as we begin to think it through and make application in our lives.

Another aspect of being linked to chapter 8 is that chapter 8 transitioned out of a period of a lot of discussion about water. Jesus is, you know, the living water. And that followed a discussion of Jesus as the bread come down from heaven. And now we have Jesus as the one who is the light of the world. And this we’ll see goes on through chapter 12. This will round out this middle section of the Gospel of John.

And we said it seems like in John’s gospel, what we’re going through is this movement of the holy place of God, the place the priest would go. And you know, many churches have a baptismal font. When the Lutherans were here, they had a light of the eternal presence. And it made for a good illustration of what worship is and how it relates to these articles of furniture in the Old Covenant, and how it relates to the movement of this text.

When you come in the doors of the church, many churches place the baptismal font at the entrance. Our service begins with confession of sin. Jesus washes us like he washed the disciples at the last supper in chapter 13, their feet. He cleanses us. Okay? So water is applied. That’s why we have baptisms at that point of the service—baptism and then the later cleansings by confession of sin and God’s reviving heavenly water coming upon us. It’s assuring us of forgiveness that we’re new creatures.

And then we come in and we come into the house of God, and he then feeds us. So in the context of the holy place, there was the laver where you’d wash things off. And then you would go to the table of showbread, and also wine was set on that table in the after the wilderness period. And so there’s this food and drink that happens.

So in our worship service, we’re cleansed from our sins—the ones we’ve committed this past week. We’re assured of that cleansing that happens, of course, not just on Sunday, but we’re assured of the forgiveness of our sins. We’re washed. And then God brings us here to feed us with the word and then with the sacrament. And so we eat the word of God, and he gives us food at the table. And so you have these two poles of communication of God’s strength to us—through the preaching of the word and the partaking of the sacraments.

But this is all to a particular purpose. This is not that we’ll just go back to our sheepfolds and be happy and content and then go out and suffer problems during the week and then come back and get refreshed again. No, this is to the purpose that you are commissioned then to go out as sent ones, as Shiloh individually and corporately. We’re sent ones. Jesus is the light of the world. He isn’t just feeding and strengthening his people. He’s not just cleansing them, but the worship service moves to empower us to take this transformation of who we are through the word and sacrament, through the assurance of forgiveness, and take the message of God to change the world, to drive back the darkness of the world by being lightbearers for him.

We can think of as these lights that shine up in the ceiling. We’re to reflect the light of the Lord Jesus Christ as we go forth. We’re commissioned to be lightbearers in the context of the world. And the Gospel of John is moved that way through a lot of baptismal, watery images to then food and drink images, as in chapters 5 and 6, 7, and then into light images as he closes off the section where he goes to his own, but his own don’t receive him. Not they don’t receive him. In terms of these three movements of the heavenly place, we can also relate this to the relationship of the flow of the creation week itself.

The creation week begins with light. And Jesus comes in the first part of John’s gospel, and he’s the light that gives life to men. Jesus comes as the second day—firmament, waters above, waters below. So we have the water imagery. Third day, first fruits. He feeds his people, causes them to grow. Jesus was, you know, bread and water. Fourth day, sun, moon, and stars. And that’s the section we’re in. Jesus is the light. He already has declared himself to be the light in the beginning of the gospel. But here at the center, he’s the light in the sense of reflecting now and referring to lesser lights. That’s the point of this. That in John chapter 10, we always read this in the context of sheep. Jesus is the shepherd and these bad Pharisees are being contrasted to Jesus, yes. In a sense. But in a broadened sense, we want to remember that the fourth day are the reflected lights of God himself from the first day—sun to rule the day, moon to rule the night.

And the fourth slot in these progressions, same as in John, the real emphasis is on the shepherds of churches and state, pastors and kings and rulers who are to reflect the light of the great, the good, the excellent shepherd who is unique in being God, but who then calls his people to be lightbearers—sun, moon, and stars.

And so when we understand that flow, this biblical context, it helps us to approach this text in a little different way than we traditionally have. And it helps us to understand then why, for instance, it’s linked back to 9—the false undershepherds of the synagogue. And why Jesus is talking about shepherds who shepherd in his name, that they enter into the flock by his name. Talk about somebody other than just himself. Talk about the pastors of the church and the pastors of the state.

Now the light going on here also is important. We say this is in the section of light. But you say, “Well, Dennis, there is no light in this text.” Well, for the sheep to hear the voice, right? This is the distinctive thing. And I’ll be talking about this in a separate sermon totally. The sheep hearing the voice of the Savior, of the shepherds, and following the voice. This is akin to a light shining in darkness. They do not hear or respond to the voice of the stranger. But they hear now the voice of the one who shepherds them.

Additionally, as we’ll see in just a moment, the shepherd of the Old Testament, the preeminent human shepherd, was a lamp. He was a light. And if the shepherd is seen not just as some fuzzy little pastor who likes to get along with a lot of people and, you know, pat you on the head occasionally, but rather as a ruler, and if the kings are seen as shepherds, then we see this fourth day association—ruling and reigning. And that the shepherd really is the lightbearer.

And David was that, as we’ll see in just a minute. And the voice of the shepherd enlightens the mind we can say then of the sheep, and they follow the voice of Jesus as they hear it through shepherds. You know, this is another correction we bring to this text. We bring a correction that it’s not you know, a romanticized view of sheep. We shouldn’t have a romanticized view of what shepherds are in the church. This is not a place where you come and get spiritual ouchies taken care of to go out and get some more ouchies this week. I mean, there’s a sense in which that’s true, or to bind up the things that are hurt and all that sort of stuff. But this is additionally an armory.

We’ll see this in a couple of minutes. Very distinct allusion in this text to the fact that the shepherd leads the sheep into victory. So we don’t have a romanticized view of the shepherd or the sheep. And we don’t want to have a romanticized or evangelical view of the voice of Jesus here that fails to understand that this context draws our understanding as we begin to think about it, not just to Jesus, but to the undershepherds of Jesus in the church and in the state.

We’re not to have a view of the voice of Jesus as being you off in your personal closet, your prayer room, and hearing the voice of Jesus just through the scriptures. It was interesting. I have a conversation. I’ll repeat this again, maybe in a week or two when I talk explicitly about the voice of Jesus through the shepherds through the people. But Pastor Hatcher and I were having a conversation at Kent, and he talked about. We were talking about sermon preparation.

He said that when he was an evangelical in the context of the evangelical church, they teach you this at the Moody School of the Bible as well—even evangelical church. The way you prepare a message is first of all, it’s just you and the text. Don’t read any commentaries. Don’t read Calvin or anybody else. Just you and the text. What does the text say? And then after you’ve got all that work done and you’ve prepared your message, then you can go to the commentaries and make sure you’re not going to preach heresy.

That’s kind of like that. See, it’s a view that says that you don’t want these presuppositions of other men to get between you and the text. But Hatcher said, “You know what I never really thought of till the last few years is: what about my own presuppositions? What glasses am I wearing as I come to the text?” You see? And gone with that evangelical view of sermon preparation, there is this evangelical view that the sheep hear the voice of Jesus directly through the word, apart from the preaching of the word.

Now, that does happen clearly. But as we’ll see in a future sermon, the voice of Jesus comes through people 95% of the time in the Bible—through other men talking to you, certainly through the preaching of the word. And we miss all of that if we come to this text at the presupposition that the only shepherd that’s being referred to is Jesus. No. Jesus is being referred to there. There’s a wolf that’s referred to at the center of the text as well. Undershepherds to Jesus are being referred to in the text. Under shepherds, the Pharisees are being rebuked by Jesus for not being proper shepherds. So this helps us to correct this view of who we are when we see the other contexts and the way this text flows.

So the voice of Jesus, the voice of the shepherds, is light shining. We had a camp this last week with these kids with all these lightsabers, right? And so in the providence of God now, we’ve got this culture, right? Yeah. Got these lightsabers. Yeah. So, and they are ways to do combat. And another science fiction movie I like from years ago is Dune. And in Dune, the weapon is the weirding module. It’s the very voice spoken that can destroy and break down walls and people. And certain names spoken are killing words or words of power and destruction.

So the name of Jesus, the idea is spoken into this culture, and walls fall. And Jesus’ voice is kind of like this weirding module. The voice of his people speaking through the word. The voice of Jesus is heard through that. And Jesus’ voice is like the lightsaber. The lightsaber also is a picture of conquering in this world by lightbearers who go into it. So we have this connection of light and voice in our common culture today. And this fits very well with the biblical truth that it is the voice of Jesus that changes the world.

Now, I know you didn’t catch this as we read through Revelation 1, the picture of Jesus’ light there. There’s a seven-fold picture of who Jesus is. Revelation begins at the brightness of his countenance. It ends at the brightness of his countenance. And right at the center is his voice—his voice, sound of many waters. Light of Jesus. The light is transmitted in the context of the world through his voice, through the voice of his people. So you sort of understand what we’re doing here.

Shepherds are lightbringers to people, to bring them out of darkness into light. God’s people then are the sent ones who go out, speak words related to the gospel of our Savior, bring light and conquer in the context of all of that in their culture.

A few words about the agricultural context as well should be in place. And I’ve already said a few things here. You know, sheep, as we said, are animals that are very needy. They’re smelly. They’re very—they cannot clean themselves. They don’t have the ability, you know. Their wool is such that it tends to collect dirt and smelly things. They can’t clean themselves. So they’re really a smelly animal, okay? And they need other people to clean them. And so it is with you. And so it is with me.

See, Proverbs says that he who separates himself isolates himself and rages against all sound counsel, because you’re never going to be clean. You’re going to get dirty and dirtier. But you don’t have a sense of that. And so your dirtiness is not dirty to you. Pretty soon it even becomes righteousness to you—the fact that you’re weird and unique and different in all your perspectives. We need a shepherd. We need a flock. And so sheep are a picture of that.

They’re unintelligent. According to Rushdoony, they will actually, if one sheep walks over a cliff, without a shepherd there to stop the whole thing, they’ll all just kind of trot off over the cliff. They don’t understand that that’s very dangerous to them. They’re defenseless, of course. They’re very easy to be killed. And in fact, they’re so fearful. I saw a sheep once, years ago. I was on a farm for 6 months or so. The farmer had both cows and sheep and he had a dog. His young dog hadn’t really been trained yet how to act around sheep. It was spring, and the little lambs were running around, and one dog just chased down a little lamb.

And the dog didn’t kill him, but the lamb would have died. It just laid down. It got frightened. It just laid down. The farmer went out, picked it up, whacked it on its behind, and okay, so it comes back to life and runs away. Sheep are defenseless. Their very fear will cause them to lay down and die in the face of attack. And of course, they’re very—they can’t defend themselves. So they need shepherds to help them. And as I said, even full sheep, you know, will continue to bleat for more food. They’re complainers, as you and I are too.

It’s why the Bible tells us, don’t be a complainer. Don’t be a whiner. Because that’s what we tend to be in Adam. So it’s important this view of sheep. It’s important. Rushdoony talks about his own father who had sheep and talked about the way sheep would be shepherded then, as is also true 2,000 years ago. There would be a man who was the porter who was kind of like over a series of small flocks. He was like the one that was over all the flocks. And then they would take young men, young boys, and train them to have a particular group of flock—six, seven little sheep. The sheep would learn to respond to the young boy’s voice.

The porter would be over these young boys. He would allow—he was the doorkeeper, okay? And they would build these pens where three sides were rocks piled up so that predators couldn’t get in, right? So you got the guarding function that we all know about from the Bible, and a little opening. And the opening at the beginning of the pen would be just wide enough to lay out the porter’s—what do you call it—sleeping bag. It’s not a sleeping bag, like a sleeping bag, right? His bedroll. And so he’s the door, right? You can’t. The sheep have to go through him to get in the pen. But more importantly, these individual shepherds had to be known by the porter.

The sheep wouldn’t follow the porter into the pen. They would follow their own young lad who was their shepherd. They’d be trained to listen to his voice. According to Rushdoony, again, research showed that the sheep would not respond to the shepherd’s clothing. They took the young boy’s clothes, put it on the other guy, put his scent on the other guy. It wasn’t the scent or smell. Wasn’t his clothing. It wasn’t recognizing his face even. It was his voice, literally, that the sheep follow.

And so the voice becomes all important here. And we have this idea in this text where there is a porter who’s either letting some sheep come in, or shepherds rather bringing their sheep, or not. And so all this is kind of important to bring to the text. So the porter is the one who would let the sheep come in and out. The shepherds would be the one who’d have to have permission from the porter over a particular flock. And so that’s kind of part of the imagery that happens here. It assumes that we know this kind of stuff about shepherding.

Now, one more thing before we get into the actual text. And we’ll be spending a couple three weeks in this text. Again, we should look at all of the Bible in terms of what this is. I have on your outlines the rest of the Bible, the Old Testament. David as lamp. And I’ve got a number of references there. But again, this is to show you that the scriptures speak of David as the shepherd, of course, but also as the lamp of Israel.

In 2 Samuel 21:17, we read that the men of David swore to him, saying, “You shall go out no more with us to battle, lest you quench the lamp of Israel.” So David is the lamp. First Kings 11:36, to his son, “I will give one tribe that my servant David may always have a lamp before me in Jerusalem.” First Kings 15:4, “For David’s sake, the Lord his God gave him a lamp in Jerusalem by setting up his son.” So Solomon is another lamp. So King David, King Solomon are lamps in the context of Jerusalem, or lights.

You’ll remember that the light in the context of the holy place shines over the people of God represented by the loaves on the showbread. And so light is a picture of being overseen. These lights give you light. Kind of govern you. If we turn off all the lights, you can’t really do what you could do following along your Bible, etc. They oversee us. And David was the overseer. Solomon was the overseer and so was a lamp. And I have, and then 2 Chronicles 21:7, “He had promised to give a lamp to David and to his sons forever.” And so these kings that reigned after David—and David of course is the preeminent shepherd.

And what I’m trying to draw, the association I’m trying to show you here, is that shepherd—we always think of it in terms of the church and the pastors of the church. But David was not really an ecclesiastical shepherd in that sense. He was not part of the priestly tribe who taught people God’s word and led them in worship. Rather, David is a king. He is a civil ruler, right? And so David as the civil ruler is this light.

We understand that. But David as the civil ruler is also described as a shepherd, just as we read in Psalm 80. In Psalm 78, we read that God is rejecting the tent of Joseph. He did not choose the tribe of Ephraim. There’s a transition going on that Psalm 78 talks about as we went to the monarchy. Verse 68 says, “But he chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which he loved. He built his sanctuary like the heights, like the earth which he has established forever. He also chose David his servant, took him from the sheepfolds, from following the youth, that had young—” He brought him to shepherd Jacob his people and Israel his inheritance.”

So David is the preeminent shepherd of the Old Testament. But he is this in the context of being of the tribe of Judah, to be the king over his people. So when we read shepherd in the Old Testament, you know, it’s not—we should not have just a pastoral view. It’s a civil magistrate view. And what that does is it makes us think of the civil magistrate just a little differently.

If the shepherd is a shepherd king in the Old Testament, and if then Ezekiel 34 in its prophecy against the shepherds of God are prophesying against not just ecclesiastical rulers but civil rulers, and if we keep in mind some of the proper things of what the shepherd does in terms of making sure the well-being of his people, helping the blind and the halt and the lame, feeding and strengthening weak people—does this begin to change our view of the civil magistrate just a tad? I think it does. I think it challenges some of the things that we have read and emphasized for the last 20 years in this church.

It challenges a libertarian view of the civil magistrate that its only job is to punish the wicked. It seems like David has a more comprehensive view of the well-being of the tribes of Israel in mind. Now, we want to, you know, don’t want the welfare state. We don’t want womb to the tomb, you know, social security from the civil magistrate and all that stuff. But let’s be careful that our vision of the civil magistrate is formed by all of the word of God and not just by a slice of it.

Back here when the tribes were formed up, God moved from tribes to the monarchy to the empire later. And it seems like there’s a transition in terms of civil rule that was proper and was maturation. Okay. David and Solomon drew the administrative districts of the Old Testament across tribal lines. Something matured. It didn’t change. No negative connotation. In fact, you turn to Ezekiel 34. This is of course the biggest passage that is sort of related to John chapter 10.

Ezekiel 34—a whole chapter is prophesying against the shepherds of Israel. And I’m not going to get into the last half, which is very explicit direction to sheep and their responsibility here. You know, God chastises the shepherds. He judges them. But then he goes to the sheep and says, “What are you doing getting filthy? I don’t care if you had bad shepherds. You’ve got obligations too.” But he begins in verse 1: “The word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel.’”

See, now if we bring just, you know, a short view of this, a Disney romanticized vision of this, then we’re going to say this is just a prophecy against individual pastors in the church. But it’s more than that, as we’ve just seen. Shepherd in the Old Testament is a king. I think that we have to take at least secondarily, and maybe primarily, that who’s being addressed in Ezekiel 34 is the kings of God as well as the ecclesiastical authorities—and we wouldn’t want to leave them out—but these are civil authorities, I think as well. These are the shepherds.

“Woe to the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves. Should not the shepherds feed the flocks? You who eat the fat and clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings, but you do not feed the flock. The weak you have not strengthened, nor have you healed those who were sick, nor bound up the broken, nor brought back what was driven away, nor sought what was lost, but with force and cruelty you have ruled them.”

Oh, you see what I’m saying? About how we got to rethink a little bit our vision of a biblical view of the civil magistrate. If these are at least by way of application also the kings of Israel who failed to be like Solomon and David, the kings also have some accountability or responsibility to strengthen the weak. Not just to feed the bureaucracy. See, not to build up their own houses. That was, as we mentioned a couple weeks ago, that was the wicked guy Shebna, who all he was interested in was building his own house as the king’s porter.

No, Eliakim wants to build up the people of God. And here the civil magistrate should be feeding the flock somehow. The weak you have not strengthened. But by implication, the civil magistrate is supposed to think about the weak. You’re supposed to think about the sick who were healed. I mean, it’s not wrong for civil magistrates to desire good healthcare in the context of the world. And it’s not wrong for the civil magistrate to say, “We want people fed—those that work.” Right? I mean, the Bible says, “If you don’t work, you shouldn’t eat.”

Now, see, I know some of you—what is he talking about? Going to have a welfare system again? No, we’re not talking method yet as to how the king might do that. But what I am saying is that George Bush should not go to bed at peace just because he can defeat external enemies. He should want his people bound up. He should want this nation Christian once more. He should be praying to that end, knowing that only in Jesus Christ can people really be healed, really be given sight, really fed.

It is an obligation of the great undershepherds in our country to desire this country to be a Christian nation and to work toward that end. So, you know, he said this many times. In Micah, “What three things are required of men? You’re supposed to do justice. Yes, civil magistrate, do justice. But you’re also supposed to love mercy, and you’re supposed to walk humbly with God.”

The Democrats are not wrong in desiring to see mercy shown to people. Bush’s phrase, “compassionate conservative,” is right on target. That’s from Micah. We’re not just supposed to be conservative at punishing the wicked. We’re supposed to be compassionate, having a desire—the civil magistrate as well—to see people bound up. Now, the Democrats and Republicans neither at this point in our country’s history do it humbly before God. And so the Democrats want long prison sentences. The Republicans want long prison sentences instead of restitution. Democrats want welfare state instead of thinking of different ways the civil magistrate can move the population and the church is to take care of this problem.

So the whole Bush idea of “thousand points of light,” energizing the church to do those tasks that are mostly in the context of its jurisdiction, individual families—this is right on target. Absolutely. The civil shepherd and magistrate should have this kind of desire to see the flock bound up.

So if we take this whole context here of what the shepherds are who are being chastised by our Savior, and what the good shepherd is, and take a whole Bible approach, that affects the way we do political action. That affects the way we see how God’s communication comes to his people. How does that voice come through? That affects that. You see? So that’s the stuff we want to bring to the text. There’s a governing aspect.

All right. So, you know, again, we’re moving in this context. We’re trying to get the light of the world shown so that we can go out and be lightbearers. We want those of us that are involved in assisting the civil magistrate to encourage them to be the good shepherd. We want to understand that undershepherds are addressed here. It’s their voice that goes out.

So now with all of that in mind—that there’s this ruling thing going on, there’s this undershepherd thing going on, there’s addressing the civil magistrate as well going on—now let’s go to the text itself.

And very simply, this text is pretty easy in its overall structure. Jesus has this illustration—the New King James Version some call it a proverb. He gives them this manner of teaching. The first five verses are just that. This is the teaching. People don’t get it. The Pharisees that he’s talking to—remember that we’ve not made any transition in who he’s talking to. At the end of chapter 9, he was rebuking the Pharisees, saying, “If you knew you were blind, then you’d be able to see. But since you think you see, your sin remains.” He’s addressing the Pharisees. He’s addressing the rulers. He’s addressing the undershepherds who have kicked out a sheep out of the fold, their fold, who have taken over the fold, not by accepting him, but by going around some other way. You see?

So it’s all linked back to 9. And Jesus does this teaching. They don’t understand the teaching. He gives them a little more light. Isn’t he gracious? We don’t get it at first. He continues to teach them. So the second teaching is an exposition of what he’s already taught them. And it moves ahead a little.

The second teaching he has says is that he’s the door. He says he’s the shepherd. But then he moves on to say what the goal of this is. He begins with critique here in terms of what they’re not doing correctly. But as he moves to his own exposition of what he just said, after their darkness, he expands it, but he gives the purpose of what it’s all about and the route to which an undershepherd is properly associated to the shepherd.

So we’ll see that he explains it more and unpacks it. And then the end result of that is division. You know, then they say, well, something’s demon-possessed. Oh, no, he’s not demon. So we see it again? The purity of the gospel being preached by our Savior and its implications brings first division. Okay, so that’s the flow. He teaches them, they’re confused, he teaches them more, and then some understand it, some don’t. But there’s division that happens.

Okay, so first the general teaching itself. And I’ve laid this out in an ABA structure because that’s what he does. He begins the teaching by addressing the negative—shepherds, the guys that are not doing the job right. He’s still talking to the Pharisees who kicked people out of the church and refused the great shepherd.

He says, “Most assuredly I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.” You see? See why it’s so important? You could think here he’s talking about individual sheep coming in. He is not. He’s talking to the Pharisees still. He begins negative in this section. He goes to the positive and he goes back to the negative in this teaching. But in the next, the explanation, he’ll begin with the positive, then go to the negative, positive, negative, positive.

He then begins to explain who he is. But he begins with critique because he’s speaking to these Pharisees that kicked the man out and who are in darkness. He begins with them. They are the ones—in other words, if we read the text correctly—they are the ones who have entered the sheepfold as undershepherds, right? Young guys, undershepherds to the great shepherd of Israel. But they have not entered into control of the institutional church correctly. They have not come through the Lord Jesus Christ. They have not come to their position of power and rule by acknowledging Messiah and who he is.

See, they’re not just rejecting Christ. Now, they had rejected him and actually were becoming leaders. We could go into a deep explanation of the intertestamental period, but suffice it to say that the entire priestly order was set on its head with specific disobedience to killing off the right priests who were supposed to rule God’s people as they were restored and instead inserting a high priest that was not of the correct lineage. They had asserted to themselves authority as opposed to obtaining authority through the great porter who oversees all the other sheep.

You know, Ezekiel 34 that we just talked about. Remember the context. His people are in wilderness, right? They’ve been—they’re in exile. And he says at the end of that passage that he’s going to make a covenant of peace with them again and he will be the shepherd that binds them up, will bring them back in the land. So Ezekiel 34, in addressing poor shepherds, says, “Your poor shepherding caused me to send my people into exile, but I will shepherd them and bring them back into a good place.”

It’s a movement. It’s a new exodus that’s going to happen as the restoration covenant—the aspect of the development of the biblical covenant, the Old Testament, preparing for the New Testament culmination of the true covenant of peace. That restoration covenant was this movement from wilderness back to the land.

What is Jesus saying then as he speaks to these undershepherds, and both the priestly cast as well as the Pharisees and the governing cast, and Herod himself of course is an Edomite. He shouldn’t be there. So he’s saying the whole authority structure of Israel—you’ve usurped power and authority because you haven’t gone through the proper door, which was the anticipation of Messiah coming and him.

So that’s who he’s addressing here—undershepherds. He’s not saying the sheep. He’s saying you who care for the sheep have climbed in some other way to rule my people. And he’s upping the ante here in his discussion with these false rulers. He is saying you guys that I’m speaking to are thieves and robbers. He’s called them already “the serpent synagogue of Satan,” the serpents, or sons of Satan rather.

Now he’s calling thieves and robbers. He’s doing it in a way that will not precipitate his arrest yet. He’s doing it by way of a teaching and illustration. So they can’t charge him with this yet. He’s always doing that, right? He’s always setting the things in stories, parables. He’s not afraid of them. It’s just not his time yet. When he gives up his life, he’ll give it up, but not now. So he says it in this other way, but don’t misunderstand. He is saying to the false shepherds who rule not for Jesus and who don’t do what he says he does—we’ll get to that in a couple minutes—he’s calling them thieves and robbers, the ones who cast out the blind man.

And so they’ve come under way. But Jesus—he talks about his undershepherds. “He who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.” So what he’s saying is there are undershepherds who are going to enter legitimately by the door. He is the door. Okay? And there are shepherds. “To him the doorkeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.”

See here we have a new character brought in—this porter idea I talked about. The doorkeeper who is overseeing undershepherds. That’s what he’s saying at the end of this teaching. He refers to his Father. The whole basis for him owning the sheep and his relationship with sheep is because the great doorkeeper of the Father, he has relationship with the Father, and he’s doing what he’s doing as an undershepherd, so to speak, but a sent one by the Father. He’s doing it because his relationship with the Father.

So the teaching begins and ends by again telling us of this relationship of son to Father. So Jesus is the door, and he’s saying that the proper shepherds are those who come in through the door—Jesus—and it’s the porter, the Father, who lets Jesus exercise this function, who now opens and shuts to the different shepherds.

The sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. Again, these young men in the illustration, both 2,000 years—for 2,000 years—these young shepherds of small groups of sheep have named their sheep, and the sheep learn to respond to their very name. The individuality of the oversight of these undershepherds is given to us here as again an indication that these are undershepherds.

When he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them. The sheep follow him, for they know his voice. So he’s a leader. He’s bringing them into the safety at times. He’s leading them out into somewhat more danger, but to places of pasture so that they can feed and follow him. So the true shepherd’s voice is heard in the context of the undershepherds.

True undershepherds enter the sheepfold by Jesus, the door. And these undershepherds then are recognized, their voices are recognized by the sheep. And then he returns to the problem with the Pharisees. “Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of a stranger.” I think they don’t know the voice of strangers. So the blind man was one who had been regenerated, and they kicked out. But he’s also fleeing away. He wasn’t worried about being kicked out. He was bold because he didn’t recognize their voice. They weren’t the voice of Christ speaking to the flock.

So Jesus begins by saying that you guys are bad undershepherds. The good undershepherd is the one who exercises authority and office of the church and state by means of submission to the door of the Lord Jesus Christ, who has given been given authority to exercise over the undershepherds by the great doorkeeper, the Father.

All right, they don’t understand it, though. They’re still in blindness. And so he says then that he taught them, but they didn’t understand. So he graciously teaches them again. He uses this illustration. They didn’t understand the things that he spoke to them. Jesus says to them again.

So what we have here is an unpacking of what he’s already said and a further explanation. And I’m very sorry for this part of my outline. I got it wrong a week ago when I first made this up. I tried to avoid everything being chiastic. I thought maybe we had a parallel, A-B here. We’re talking about, you know, C on your outline, to the text, C—further explanation. And I’ve got 1, 2, 1, 2. Well, it isn’t right.

If you look at the text, verse 7, Jesus says to them again. So this is the repetition of the teaching, the explanation. “Most assuredly I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.”

I incorrectly put that together with the next verse on your outline. So understand what’s really going on here is he had just talked about—he was critiquing them, went to the good undershepherds, critiqued them. In his explanation though, now he starts with the assertion of who he is. “I am the door.” Then he contrasts them to him in verse 8.

And again here, the door of the sheep is the one who—you know, the undershepherd who had laid out his bedroll—so he would block the way to exit. He would keep the sheep safe. A wolf had to come over him, and he would keep the sheep from going out. They would have to go over him to get out. And so he would lead them out if he wanted to.

One Bible commentator, years ago, talked to a shepherd in the Middle East, and the guy said that he was the door of the sheep. Wasn’t a Christian, but this was the common practice. He was the door of the sheep because he’d lay his bedroll down in front of the sheepfold. And, you know, if a wolf couldn’t get in without him being knowing about it, and the sheep couldn’t get out without him leading them out. And so guarding and then leading them out to nurture—guarding and nurture is what the door and the shepherd is.

So Jesus says he’s the door of the sheep. And then he critiques them. “All whoever came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.” So he says negatively, not only are you guys thieves and robbers, but you’re in a long lineage of false priests, false prophets, bad kings, and none of them did it correctly either. And so he’s critiquing them again and says that they’re—again, he’s referring to their lineage, spiritual lineage, that they were involved in.

Then he, at the very center of this context, in verse 9, he says, “I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.” Again, the context here shows that he’s talking to shepherds, and he’s saying he’s not talking here about the individual sheep—he’s not the passive shepherd laying on the door which sheep have to go through but other guys can’t go through. No, he is now speaking of himself as the overshepherd. And the individual shepherds bring their flocks back by getting entrance through him. You see?

And so it doesn’t mean that if you come into the sheepfold, you’re going to be saved in the evangelical eternal sense of the word. I mean, that we can kind of read that into the text. It’s an illustration of that perhaps. We know that Jesus is the door by which all men must go through to be saved. That’s certainly a truth, and it may be an application of the text. But in the first understanding—what the text is actually saying—he’s talking about undershepherds.

These undershepherds will be saved. They’ll be safe from him because they know that they’re seeking entrance through him who is the door. On the other hand, the thieves and robbers—Jesus is dispossessing them. They are not safe from Jesus. He knows they’ve climbed in, and he will deal with them. He will destroy the apostate church and the apostate state of Jerusalem. They’re Egypt, a spiritual Egypt. They will be destroyed in AD 70.

So he’s saying that undershepherds who have their office by means of his oversight and belief in him—these people will be safe. They’ll go in and go out, find pasture. Now the thief, on the other hand, doesn’t come except to steal and kill and to destroy. So “I am the door,” and these bad guys are bad guys. Now they have been bad guys a long time. The wrong guys are trying to break in some other way. But at the very center of this expanded teaching is the fact that the shepherds of God—the pastors, the civil rulers—these men are undershepherds who are safe from the Lord Jesus Christ and who will perform this function of going in and going out to find pasture.

And then he critiques them again negatively. “Thief doesn’t come except to steal and to kill and to destroy.” And then he says that the goal of all of this—at the end, “I am the door. For I have come, I am Shiloh.” Actually, let me reread that. “I am the door, for I have come.” Actually, I’m looking at the text, and I’m going to say this—the goal. “I have come that they may have life and that they might have it abundantly.”

One last point today, and this drives home, I think, kind of everything that I’ve been saying. “Going in, coming out.” What does that mean? How many of you know? May God grant us children who in the time will reach our age understand what this is saying without having to go back to the concordances the way I have to do.

Going in and coming out. What he’s saying here is directly—it seems—playing upon an Old Testament text we didn’t say yet, which is Numbers 27. Look at Numbers 27, please.

And now what’s happening here is they’re making preparations to go into the land, just like Ezekiel, you know, was prophesying of the return to the land of apostate Israel. It’s like Jesus is going to lead them, right? Feeds them in the wilderness, brings them across the Red Sea, bringing them out of Egypt into the promised land. Numbers—they’re coming out of the wilderness. They’re ready to go to the promised land. But Moses can’t go. Moses can’t lead the people in.

So verse 15: “Moses spoke to the Lord, saying to him, ‘Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a man over the congregation who may go out before them, go in before them, who may lead them out and bring them in.’ And then in verse 21, ‘He shall stand’—that is Joshua. So God is going to appoint Joshua to do this.”

“He shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall inquire before the Lord for him by the judgment of Urim. At his word they shall go out and at his word they shall come in.” Going out and coming in is a picture of the offensive movement of the church to take territory. It’s not just you bring them in at night and keep them safe. You send them out in the day and they have fun in the pasture. That’s not the idea. This is the greater Joshua. Yeah. This is his name. Joshua, Jesus. Same name. And this is the one who Joshua is a picture of, that God is appointing over his people.

The false shepherds keep saying Moses said this. He’s saying I’m Moses. I’m the greater Moses. He’s the greater Joshua. And the purpose of him being your shepherd, dearly beloved sheep, is to take you, bring you in, and send you out that you might conquer the good land, that we are well able to take and to overcome.

And this isn’t new just in this section of Numbers. In Joshua 14:11, Joshua at the end of his life here at the beginning—he’s described as one who will lead the people of God, going out, coming in into victory. And at the end of his life in Joshua 14, he says, “I’m as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me. As my strength was then, even so is my strength now for war. Even my strength is good now for war, both to go out and to come in.”

See? Bookends of Joshua’s life. He’s going to have the Spirit of God to send God’s people forth. Going out and coming in—moving here, moving there, doing stuff that they might conquer the land. At the end of his life, he says the same thing. I have the same strength for war that we can finish this job. And war is described as going in and coming out.

You see this whole thing? The shepherd—the purpose of your shepherd in the church, the undershepherds, or in the state—is not just to pat you on the head, make you have a kind of a neat time. “Going my job, Elder W.’s job, Sukrit’s job in India,” other men’s job, our job is to lead the flock to take territory. Sukrit’s vision is for all of India—and it’s for the Bengali people—not just to bring them to salvation, but to equip them as mighty warriors for the Lord Jesus Christ to change the face of our world by bringing his light and his blessings, his fiery stream proceeding from his throne.

This is what the Bible says going out and coming in is all about. That’s why in First Peter 2, which we’ll read at the end of the service, Jesus—we return to the great shepherd who is also called the bishop. The shepherding function of Jesus is in relationship to his ruling or overseeing function as the great bishop of all his people.

So your pastors exhort and encourage you to take land this week, to apply the word of God in your particular vocation, your recreation, your family, this culture. This is what our job is properly before God.

It’s interesting: how do we do this? Well, a couple of things. First, the kings were the same way. Saul, when he gives David a command in First Samuel 18, we read that he made David his captain over a thousand, and David went out and came in before the people. David behaves himself wisely in these things—going in and coming out.

The kings—see, the bishop, the overseer here—led his people in battle. Thousands of people, by going in and coming out. First Kings 8. Then David’s son understands this. He understands that going in and coming out is—and he understand that David did it according to First Samuel wisely.

What does David—what does Solomon pray for when he gets wisdom? Oh, he wanted to be real smart, yeah. Wanted to be smart, but for a particular purpose. First Kings 3:7, “Now Lord my God, thou hast made thy servant king instead of David my father, and I am but a little child. I’m not mature. He says I know not how to go out and come in. I don’t know how to wage war for you. I don’t know how to be, you know, the great one that takes this kingdom and moves it toward empire.”

And because he prayed that—because God had said, pray, what you ask, what you want—and Solomon asked for wisdom to wage war, to expand territory, to take the image that God gives us in heaven into all the earth, because he prayed this thing. It says it pleased the Lord. That’s what we—that’s what he’s saying here.

Verse 10: “The speech pleased the Lord.” Isn’t that wonderful? We can do things. We can pray for particular things. We can work in such a way as where it pleases the Lord. It’s not really part of what I’m saying today in terms of this message of the shepherd is the one who leads people into victory. But boy, I’d just be sinful to just pass over that. What a tremendous blessing—that as we seek wisdom to go in and come out, to wage offensive warfare for the Lord Jesus Christ, these things please God. Makes him shine on us. Makes his face smile, the way you’re pleased with your children when they’re godly—a great heavenly Father. He’s Father’s Day today.

Our heavenly Father beams upon us when we desire this kind of wisdom and its correct purpose.

Now, in 2 Chronicles 1, same thing—same instance being told a little different perspective. Solomon there said, “Give me now wisdom and knowledge that I may go out and come in before this people, for who can judge this thy people that is so great?”

See? You see, going in and coming out—at the very center of the first portion of the explanation of what Christ is talking about—tells us what the job description of the pastors in the church and the state are. They’re to equip God’s people, guarding them, feeding them God’s word and sacrament, that you may go forth from this place as lightbearers. That’s your job. That’s who you should think of yourself as. Those who have been called as the army of Christ.

Yes, he shepherds you. Yes, he has the great pastoral concern. Yes, he and his undershepherd should know you by name. Understand what that means. It’s of course of who you are. The name is a picture identity of who you are. But to the end that we may correctly pastor you—not just to get you through the week so you can come back next week and rest up again, but to equip you for this job of coming in and going out, to equip you for the job of changing this country, which is just like Israel, right?

What are the similarities between 2,000 years ago? We were established as the city on a hill, as the new Israel of God. Our civil governments were founded, maybe not as purely as we’d like, to live them in, but founded upon this understanding of what the civil government was supposed to be. And yet we become Egypt. This country has moved from Israel to Egypt. And the judgments of God begin to come upon us in great measure.

Homosexuality is a judgment from God for churches and a culture that did not punish sexual immorality. All we do is rail against homosexuals without railing against sexual immorality in the context of the church. Woe be to us. May we individually then be judged by God. Homosexuality is not what’s bringing the judgment of God. It is what is the judgment of God upon a wicked people. Terrorism etc. We’re being judged by God.

What is our job? Our job is to go out there and in the context of this judgment take the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ so that informs all of what we do, that we may be once more the Israel of God.

How do we do that? Well, there’s opportunities in life. And let me just mention one of them in conclusion. We said last time we preached, last week, Jesus looked for opportunities, right? The night is coming when no man can work. Young people in our church—let’s say ages the teens, 13 through 25. There’s an opportunity set before you right now that you didn’t have before.

The wisdom of Solomon, who asked for wisdom that he might lead his people, the wisdom of Solomon tells you in Proverbs that you have a moment of opportunity here that will pass before you know it to establish your household and to establish the base in that household for affecting our broader culture. That should be your vision. You have a moment of opportunity. It will pass. You’ll make decisions in a few years in terms of what kind of friends you choose, how you approach the new liberties you have, and certainly how you go about establishing your household, that will solidify things for you.

Everything is open to you now—day of opportunity. But that door will close, is closing already on you. What should you do? You should listen to your fathers. You should honor your fathers. You should seek to be holy children, now more than ever. You’re beginning to interact with the world. You’re being led in and out by God in terms of his army. But what are you going to do when you see Canaan? What are you going to do when you see the allurments of it?

You’re going to see the world now in a broader sense. You’re given greater freedom. You have the possibility now of being friends with the world, which is exactly what Proverbs warns you against. Bad company. We want to engage it. We don’t want to be friends of it. Now more than ever, young people in our church, ages 13 through 25, understand you need to be holy. You need to be thinking about how you dress, how you act, how you interact.

We are going to lead you forth. Don’t worry, you’re not going to get cloistered off someplace and not go to war. Your pastors here in this church, the pastor that God’s given you, and your parents, pastors in the culture, the Christian culture we’re in contact with—we’re going to lead you forth. Don’t worry about that. You worry about being affected by that world because then you won’t go out and back and forth successfully. You’ll be Egypt. You’ve been raised as Israel in this church. Don’t go out and be spiritual Egypt, because if you are, the judgments of God will come upon you as surely as they were coming upon Jerusalem and would find themselves crushed by the mighty hand of God in AD 70. And surely as this Christian nation is finding itself crushed once more under God’s hand.

You don’t want to be crushed. You want to be Ezekiel, who’s standing up and speaking to this culture. And you want to be holy ones before God. You want to have a sense of holiness. That’s your strength as you go about this important time of your lives.

And fathers, you’re to be the undershepherds. I’ve talked about the church and the state, but families. God has given you a little flock—six or seven. It’s the model usually in the shepherding areas of California, at least. Many of you have two, three, four, six kids. Don’t grow weary of doing what’s right now. Grab those teenagers by the ear if you have to, or by the butt, if not the ear. Apply yourselves diligently to putting into these children holiness before God as we move forward as an army.

We can’t take the culture. We can’t take the world if we’re part of them. We don’t understand what elements, you know, can be redeemed and what can’t. If you don’t understand draws as opposed to the goals of it, you know, be very careful, parents, what you’re allowing your kids to do, how you allow them to dress.

This is the model: the Lord’s Day. I talked about it last week. There should be a pomp and ceremony about this that is proper. If you cannot understand, young people, that today is the time to dress well, to dress in a holy, very distinctive manner from the culture around about us, to honor the Lord God’s presence—we come before to worship. If I can’t, if your pastors can’t get you to see that, and if your parents can’t get you to see the holiness of what we do today, how are you going to take it into the world? How are you going to be different tomorrow?

I pray God that he would on this Father’s Day cause the young people as they come up to offer themselves anew to God, to understand you’re being trained as mighty warriors. You’re not just sheep who are just hanging out. You’re mighty warriors, and you war in the beauty of holiness. Now more than ever, it’s a time to honor your parents with your very words, to bless them with your words, to speak forth. Hatcher—what a wonderful thing for my life when he said at the last talk when a bad time comes and a trial happens, immediately verbalize: “I had to think as a Greek would think about things. Verbalize. Thank you, God, for this problem.”

See? And I’m telling you, honor your parents today,