John 10:1-6: Stop! Thieves!

Presented to the Nipawin Corps, 18 January 2009
By Captain Michael Ramsay

John 10:1 “I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber.

I grew up in Victoria BC, a city that has around 300 000 people; so, It was very busy and it is a little bit different from Nipawin, Saskatchewan. One thing of the many things that is a bit different is that here – most people use the side door or the back door but back there people always come to the front door. Always. I confess that we were confused more than once when we first arrived here because, inevitably, the doorbell would ring, the kids and I would then run to the wrong door wondering why nobody was there.

I remember when I was little: one day when I was 7 or 8 (about Rebecca’s age) I stayed over at my grandparents for the night. They lived on Shelbourne Street, which is a main street, a busy road that runs towards downtown from the Gordon Head area where we lived. It was 2 or 3 in the morning and the traffic or something else had woken me up and no one else was up so I decided to get up and go downstairs – and since no one else was up, I decided to help myself to a cookie or some cereal or something like that…

The stairs down came past the side door of the house and I remember nearing the bottom of the stairs at 2 in the morning and looking right at the door when, all of a sudden, there is a burglar. He is on the other side of the door: the handle starts to turn. I freeze. I don’t know what to do. It is a robber, a burglar of some sort, someone trying to break into the house; I know because he is at the side door and he can’t open the door and instead after a couple of attempts he goes away. As an eight year-old, the momentary panic of being only a few steps away from a prowler is really quite scary. I am sure that I did not even breathe much less move in that very tense moment.

I also remember that later that year I had another similar encounter. This time I was at home. Now my bedroom at home was at the front of the house – right by the front door (which was the door that everybody used) and my room was literally walled with widows. Each window had a long opaque blind that ran from the ceiling down to the bottom of the window.

Again it is 2 or 3 in the morning and this time I hear a noise outside so I peek out the window nearest my bed and I see a strange car out front. I slowly crawl to the next window and look out again and I see a strange man emerging from the car. I creep along, out of view, nearer to the door and look out the next widow as the man is walking up our front walk. I then sneak up to our front door – it has a large window in it as well and there is no blind on it – I sneak underneath the window and make sure that the door is dead-bolted. I then sit underneath that window I hear the man come thump, thump, thump, quietly but audibly up the stairs. Then the man reaches out and… rings the doorbell…

Then I shoot up like a bolt (of lightening) quickly, right in front of him and – as surprised as I was – this poor fellow was even more so as he falls halfway down the staircase in fright! It appears that he was a cab driver who had gotten the wrong address.

Our text today (John 10:1-6) speaks more about the first of my two stories than the second. It says, Verse 1, “…the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, [he] is a thief and a robber,” it says.

What does this mean? What is Jesus talking about? We know that someone who needs to sneak into some place, someone who hasn’t been given the key or the alarm code probably is a thief,[1] a prowler, or someone who is up to no good[2] but what is Jesus talking about here in this passage?

Jesus is talking about the religious leaders, the Pharisees and Sadducees, and the previous would-be messiahs.[3] He is speaking about the religious leaders. He is calling them the thieves. He is accusing them of trying to lead the people of Israel astray. He is accusing them of trying to steal God’s sheep.

In our own world today who might be the equivalent of these religious leaders of Jesus’ day? Who are the one’s who are trying to lead us astray? Who are the ones that are trying to steal God’s sheep? John tells us that indeed there are many antichrists (1 John 2:18ff, 4:3; 2 John 1:7) and we know that the devil himself is like a roaring lion (1 Pet 5:8) but who are those who are trying to climb into the fold and carry us away?

In Canada, one such thief is most certainly the Atheist. Canada was intentionally founded on Christian principles. The Christian God is not only mentioned in our constitutional act of 1867 (the BNA act) but also our constitutional act of 1980 and our motto claims for Canada the promises of Psalm 72: including but not limited to the promise that the Lord will have dominion from sea to sea in this country.[4]

In BC, Atheism is now the largest worldview/religion represented.[5] They have succeeded in their fight to have only their worldview re: prayer, etc. represented in the schools across this country. In municipalities in Ontario, of course, the atheists are hunting down people who dare to pray in meetings and having them charged with a crime. [6]

In Ottawa, recently the government decided that we will no longer open every session of parliament in prayer. (No wonder things are going as poorly as they have been for the last couple of years! – really). Across the ocean, in England, I learned this week that atheists are even taking out ads on billboards in order to provoke God and lead us away from the security of Jesus, our shepherd. And in Tisdale here in NE Saskatchewn, as we have mentioned before, the old age home has given away the Bibles that were for the seniors to use, telling ministerial that they do not want to have them there anymore. The atheist is sneaking into the world’s sheepfold, the Canadian sheepfold, the prairies and Saskatchewan sheepfold and carrying off both the young and the old – whomever he can lay his hands on.[7]

It is not only the atheist though. The polytheist is also climbing over the fence. The polytheist calls out to the sheep that Jesus is not your only shepherd. You can follow whomever you want, he says: one god is as good as the next. The polytheist believes that there are many gods – each a god like the other. ‘Anyone of them can be your shepherd,’ they cry from over the fence, ‘you don’t need Jesus,’ they claim as they climb into our pen.

These days too there is the pantheist (and the panentheist)[8] sheep stealer: she is climbing over the fence and telling the sheep to not only follow her or some other shepherd but she is happy if the sheep to follow even the trees and the stars. The pantheist believes that God is in everything, anything: even the snow-covered bush, even possibly the fence of our very sheep pen, the food we eat, and the people we meet, this thief says are all part of the same shepherd. ‘Anyone of them can provide the same protection and love for us that our shepherd, the true shepherd can,’ the pantheist claims. ‘Anything at all – even this pen [hold up a pen] - can take care of you as much as any great shepherd,’ the pantheist shouts, ‘What do you need your shepherd for?’

There is more than that climbing over our fences in this country here today too. Judaism and Islam – always in the news these days; they each claim to worship the God of Abraham (Cf. John 8:30-59; Matt 3:9.10, 8:10-12; Luke 3:8ff, 13:22-30, 16:19-31.). They each claim to worship the God who created the heavens and the earth. They each say, ‘forget about your shepherd, Jesus, climb over here to us. We know the way. Trust us’ (Cf. John14:16). (We can see from the Middle East today what happens if we trust them and their apparent ‘gods of war’ instead of our shepherd, the ‘Prince of Peace’)

And speaking of the gods of war – let us not forget the capitalists and the democratic republicans, who are climbing over our fence - the latter tells us that we should just follow the other sheep because the majority is right the majority of the time (like secular humanism /atheism) and the former tells us that indeed we should follow our pocket books, the stock market, and the economy because the economy could never let us down could it? … Oh wait, it is. The world is in an economic crisis right now actually!

There is even more than that. There are also people climbing not only into the pen of our country but also into the fold of our churches. Paul tells us to be aware of anyone who teaches us a false gospel or a different gospel (2 Cor 11:4, Gal 1:6). We have denominations that have thrown out the gospel, the good news, entirely from their churches. We have churches that use the name of Christ/Christianity who do not officially hold that the Bible is the inerrant word of God. On the other extreme, we have pseudo-Christians (I have heard them on the news) who are so filled with hatred that they encourage us to war for some secular government or a particular political or an economic system. We even have churches in this country and in this very town that promote the so-called ‘prosperity gospel’, which upon one read of Job, the Pentateuch, the prophets, the gospels or any of the Bible actually will let the discerning lamb know that this is no shepherd, no gospel at all…

And these are only a few of the thieves that are climbing over our fences. Any, John says, who deny Jesus is the Christ (1 John 2:22, 4:3), any who are with us and then preach against Jesus (cf. 1 John 2:19), anyone who preaches that Jesus is not the Christ and that he did not come himself in the flesh (2 John 1:7), John says, is a thief and an antichrist.[9]

Ten verse two records that “The man who enters by the gate [however] is the shepherd of his sheep”. Verses four and five: “… he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.”

Well, we know that Jesus is the Christ. We know he is the shepherd – do we recognise his voice? How do we know that we are following him and not some impersonator? How do we recognise his voice?

By obeying him (3:36, 7:16-17), by accepting his testimony (3:33), and by doing what is true (3:21), by believing and obeying (4:49-50; 14:15, 23-24; 15:10), Jesus says that his very food is to do the will of God (4:34; cf. 6:38). It is only as we hear and learn from the Father (6:45), as we really do search the scriptures that we will notice that they point to Jesus (5:39) so that indeed we can come to him and believe and if we continue in his word then John tells us that then we are truly Jesus’ disciples (8:31). We are his sheep.

Jesus laid down his life for us like he said the good shepherd would do (1:11) and he asks no less of us. He tells us (13:45) that they will know we are Christians because we love one another, and if we love Christ we will obey his commandments (14:15, 23-24; 15:10) and he says, John 15:13, that no one has a greater love than to lay down one’s life for his friends. We are to love Jesus and love each other as he has loved us so that indeed we will offer up our very life for Christ and for ourselves…how do we recognise the voice of God?

By hearing, testing, believing and obeying. As we trust and obey we will find indeed that there is no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey – we should obey but we should not worry for indeed there is comfort in the scriptures today. We read in 10:3, that Jesus calls us all by name and we – because he loves us – we will recognise his voice (10:4). He promises that we will recognise his voice.

I am reminded of a story, a children’s book by P. D. Eastman from 1960 entitled, “Are You My Mother?”

In this story, a mother bird leaves her egg in the nest to go look for some food. While she’s gone, the egg hatches, and the baby bird sets off to find his mother – but, because he was born after she left and before she returned – he doesn’t know what she looks like. His search leads him to ask a variety of animals and machines. He asks a kitten, a hen, a dog, and a cow, in turn, “Are you my mother?” They each reply, “No.” Then he sees an old car. This can’t be his mother for sure. Desperately, he calls out to a boat and a plane, and at last, hoping he has found his mother, he climbs onto the teeth of an enormous steam shovel, a power shovel. But he is surprised by this giant machine, as it shudders and shakes and it roars into motion. He can’t escape. “I want my mother!” He cries. Finally, it deposits him back in his nest, where his mother is returning. When she returns, when he sees her – even though she had gone before he was born – when she came back, he knows her and he loves her because she knew and loved him first.

So it is with our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ: He promises that we will recognise his voice, just like the little bird, just like the sheep. We need not be tempted out of the nest – or out of the sheepfold - by all the false shepherds. We need not worry, for Jesus promises when He returns we will indeed recognise His voice. This is the comfort of today’s scripture passage. Jesus promises that indeed, we will recognise his voice.

Let us pray.

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[1] Merrill C. Tenney The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:John/Exposition of John/ The Good Shepherd discourse (10:1-21), Book Version: 4.0.2 : “’Thief’ and ‘robber’ are different in meaning. "Thief" (kleptes) implies subtlety and trickery; "robber" (lestes) connotes violence and plundering. The latter term was sometimes used of bandits or guerrillas. The purpose of both was exploitation; neither was concerned for the welfare of the sheep.”
[2] But cf. police dog story from Are You The One To Come Or Should We Expect Someone Else? (Matthew 11:1-11) . Presented to Nipawin and Tisdale Corps on December 16, 2007 by Captain Michael Ramsay. Available on-lie at: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2007/12/are-you-one-to-come-or-should-we-expect.html
[3] The argument will develop that the thief is any who try to lead God’s sheep astray (false prophets, cf. v. 7) which is what in is fact anyone does who points not towards Jesus. Towards the end of the discourse Jesus points out that those who do not recongnise his voice also are simply ‘not his sheep’. Cf. also Merrill C. Tenney The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:John/Exposition of John/ The Good Shepherd discourse (10:1-21); Everett F. Harrison, Everyman’s Bible Commentary: John The Gospel of Faith. Moody Bible Institute. (Chicago, 1962), 61-62, Gail O’Day, “John” in NIB IX, Ed. Leander E Keck (Abingdon Press Nashville, 1995), 669.
[4] Cf. for a detailed discussion of this point, Psalm 72: the Credit Card of Justice and Righteousness. Presented to Nipawin and Tisdale Corps 01 July 2007 by Captain Michael Ramsay. Available on-line at: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2007/08/psalm-72-credit-card-of-justice-and.html
[5] No religion / Atheism is now the largest religion / World View in BC: StatsCan: http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census01/Products/Analytic/companion/rel/bc.cfm
[6]cf:http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1040356828066_95///?hub=TopStoriescf. also Christianity Today: Parents Flee Public Schools: "Christians in British Columbia, Canada, are worried that courts are undermining their religious rights in the classroom.” http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2003/march/12.23.html Cf. also the Atheist website, nodeity.com: http://nodeity.com/chamberlain_v_SD36.html re 'One Dad, Two Dads, Brown Dads, Blue Dads' - You can read the Supreme Court Decision re. Questionable books: http://scc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/index.html - The following phrase is interesting - 'The School Act's insistence on secularism;' this begs the question why must our be subjected to the secularist Worldview; neither BC not Canada were settled or founded upon that mythology. There were other problems with the books as well. CBC.ca: "This story has problems with punctuation and grammar throughout. The spelling of 'favourite' is inconsistent, switching from the Canadian to the American," said board chair Mary Polak about Asha's Mums. The board also criticized the book's depiction of men.(http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2003/06/13/samesex_books030613.html).It is serious that even though the book is unsatisfactory for education young people, that it was deemed necessary for our children to be exposed to it. The courts it appears are more interested in promoting a secular-atheist worldview than they are about providing a quality education for our children. The federal government has the jurisdiction to make laws to protect its citizens. The Supreme Court is only allowed to interpret the laws in theory. Cf. The National Post: ‘Gay couple gets input into school curriculum’, http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=80dd8007-ef56-40a7-809d-37936b9d4179&k=51593&p=1. Cf. also ‘Secular-Atheist's religion secures making the promotion of Homosexuality mandatory in the BC school system.’ Lifesite.net: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/jun/06060101.html cf. also 'Documents Reveal Government Signed Over Control of Education to Homosexual Activists': http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/jun/06061907.htmlcf. also: Peter Corren (né Cook) and Murray Corren (né Warren) — 'Corren is a combination of their former names — are LGBT-rights activists from Vancouver, British Columbia whose complaint before the BC Human Rights Tribunal led to an agreement by which the provincial Ministry of Education will consult them on how gays are presented in the school curriculum': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_and_Murray_Corren. Cf. http://www.secularontario.ca/peterbexam06dec13.html, CBC.ca: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2007/01/26/prayer.html , CanadianChristianity.com: http://www.canadianchristianity.com/cgi-bin/na.cgi?nationalupdates/070201prayer
[7] Cf. for a detailed discussion of this point: Michael Ramsay. The Journal of Aggressive Christianity, Issue 56: Be Bold for the Gospel: a look at Philippians Chapter 1. Avail on-line: http://www.armybarmy.com/JAC/article6-54.html
[8] Pantheism definition From the Stanford Dictionary of Philosophy. First published Tue Jun 4, 1996; substantive revision Thu May 17, 2007. “Pantheism is a metaphysical and religious position. Broadly defined it is the view that (1) "God is everything and everything is God … the world is either identical with God or in some way a self-expression of his nature" (Owen 1971: 74). Similarly, it is the view that (2) everything that exists constitutes a "unity" and this all-inclusive unity is in some sense divine (MacIntyre 1967: 34). A slightly more specific definition is given by Owen (1971: 65) who says (3) "‘Pantheism’ … signifies the belief that every existing entity is, only one Being; and that all other forms of reality are either modes (or appearances) of it or identical with it.” Available on-line at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pantheism. Cf also the Panenthesist (http://www.gotquestions.org/panentheism.html). Related to Process Theology, panentheism is essentially a combination of theism (God is the supreme being) and pantheism (God is everything). While pantheism says that God and the universe are coextensive, panentheism claims the God is greater than the universe and that the universe is contained within God. Panentheism holds that God is the “supreme effect” of the universe. God is everything in the universe, but God also is greater the universe. Events and changes in the universe effect and change God. As the universe grows and learns, God also increases in knowledge and being.
[9] Cf. Mark 13:32-37: Hope for a Happy New Year! Presented to each the Nipawin and Tisdale Corps 30 November 2008 by Captain Michael Ramsay. Available on-line: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2008/11/mark-1332-37-hope-for-happy-new-year.html.