It was the best Christmas present the world had ever
seen. It was a present more precious than anything that had been given before
or since.
The surprising thing was: people said NO THANKS
In fact, they did more than say no thanks they spat
at him, swore at him, nailed him to a piece of wood and killed him. Because,
you’ve guessed it: the greatest Christmas present of all was the GIFT of God’s
One and Only, Precious and Holy, Son, Jesus
Sadly, many people REJECTED HIM, the baby in the
manger ended up nailed to the cross
You see with Jesus it was impossible to sit on the
fence. You were either for him or against him, you either loved him or hated
him.
Jesus life made everyone sit up and think. His
miracles were so amazing, his teaching was so challenging, his love was so
transforming, that you had to react one way or the other, you just couldn’t sit
on the fence. You couldn’t be a don’t know: you had to make up your mind. And
so many people rejected him.
Of course, not everyone rejected him, then, as
today, it is true that: SOME HAVE ACCEPTED HIM:
John tells us the wonderful news: Some however,
did receive him and believed in him; so he gave them the right to become God’s
children John 1.12
How did they accept him? By believing in him, yes.
But also by receiving him. Believing on its own is not enough you need to
receive him aswell.
You can believe something exists without it making
any difference to your life. Let me explain what I mean. Imagine the prime
minister, Tony Blair arriving at Buckingham Palace for one of his weekly
audiences with the Queen. He is waiting in an ante-room and the Footman goes
into Her Majesty’s presence to announce that the Prime Minister has arrived.
FOOTMAN: Your Majesty, the prime minister is here
QUEEN: How lovely, I am so pleased.
The Queen carries on writing at her desk
FOOTMAN: Ahem, Your Majesty the Prime Minister is
waiting to see you
QUEEN: I believe you. I am a strong believer in the
Prime Minister’s existence. Some people say there is no such person as Tony
Blair but I firmly believe that there is.
FOOTMAN: Aren’t you going to RECEIVE him Ma’am?
won’t you invite him into Your Presence?
QUEEN: No, I don’t think so. But I am glad he is
there. It is a great comfort to me to know that he is always there looking
after us. Knowing that you can always turn to him when you’ve got a problem.
But no I don’t think I will invite him in. Not today, thankyou.
The footman leaves somewhat bemused to explain to the
PM that the Queen will not receive him today.
You can believe in someone without receiving them,
without actually welcoming them into their lives. The Queen is unlikely to
treat her prime minister in that way, but there are many people who believe in Jesus in the sense that they
believe such a person existed but they
haven’t yet received him into their lives. He is still standing outside
waiting to come in
Are you one of those people ?
In Revelation 3.20 Jesus says:
‘Here I am,’ I stand at the door and knock.
If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him
and he with me.’
Jesus may be knocking at the door of your life. Will
you open it and welcome him in, this Christmas?
Jesus wants to know you personally to be your
Saviour and your Lord. Will you receive him into your life? If you do you have
his promise that you will remain with him forever and have a whole new
relationship with God:
Some,
however, did receive him and believed in him: so he gave them the right to
become God’s children John
1.12
To find out more about how to become a
Christian please go to How to find peace with God
Food for eternal life: John 6.44-58
It’s been an exciting week at the vicarage. My wife
has been personally selected by Sainsbury’s to buy a mobile phone. Sadly
she wasn’t in to receive the joyous news in person so I had to take the call. A
very nice man told me that Mrs Jenkins has been personally chosen for the
privilege of buying a mobile phone from no less an organisation that J
Sainsbury PLC.
Until
that time, rather naively, I thought if you wanted to buy something at
Sainsbury’s you just turned up, took what you wanted off the shelves, and paid
at the till. I realise now it’s a strictly invitation-only affair.
Well Ruth certainly had cause to feel grateful and
highly honoured, although I must say that as this call went on I started to get
the impression that Sainsbury’s weren’t quite as choosey as I first thought.
When I explained that the lady of the household was out at work, the man at the
other end of the line said ‘well, would you like to buy a phone from us,
Sir?’
But enough of that madness, what about those truly
privileged, marvellously blessed people who have been chosen by God for
eternal life? Jesus speaks about them in verse 44:
WHAT GOD DOES FOR YOU
44
"No one can
come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at
the last day.
Some
people get worried about verses like that. ‘Isn’t that a bit unfair? they ask
themselves ‘what about people who are not Christians? Why doesn’t God draw them
too?’
Those
are important questions that we can’t do full justice to now. It’s enough to
say that verses like these should encourage us to proclaim the Gospel widely
because it is through the Gospel that God actually calls and draws people to
himself. Also we should say say that verses like these in the Bible are
designed to reassure and encourage Christians that God has been actively
involved in their lives before they came to faith, in the process of them
coming to faith, and will continue to be so involved until the day they die.
When
we think about it, we can all see how God was working things out and drawing us
to himself, long before we had any thought of becoming a Christian. Without
that influence we would never be here today.
So, rejoice. If you are a Christian here today’ it’s
because the Father wanted you to be. You were personally chosen and selected by
him. As you came to faith, whether suddenly or or very gradually, it was
because the Father was drawing you, lovingly, gently, persistently bringing you
to himself.
Rejoice,
too, if you are a Christian, that you have a marvellous future ahead of you,
because Jesus personally promises to raise you from death on the last day. You
will surely die, but Jesus will surely raise you from the dead.
The fact that God is at work means that your faith
doesn’t just depend on you. That’s good to know in the times when you’re
struggling, when the going gets tough as a Christian and when God feels
distant, and you even begin to doubt that you are a Christian.
It’s
good then to know you are a Christian because of God’s intervention in
your life, to remember that there is a much more powerful force in your
Christian life than your own will and determination, which at that time may be
very weak, and that is the will of God, and that he has guaranteed eternal life
to you us his word.
A great verse to remind us the truth of all this is
Philippians 1.6
he
who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of
Christ Jesus.
You may have seen those DIY programmes on the telly about
those men – it is usually men – who are a sort of walking DIY disaster area.
They start all kinds of jobs all over the house but they never finish them.
Their despairing wives are pictured in a half finished kitchen with wires
hanging out of sockets, sink hanging off walls, etc saying ‘he never finishes
anything.’ God is not like that. If he starts a work in your life, he’ll finish
it. He won’t leave it half way through and go on to another job.
Trust God – you really can. If he has called you by his
grace, his grace will be sufficient to keep you going when the going gets
tough:
Tis
grace that brought me safe thus far,
And
Grace will lead me home
Jesus puts it like this: (verse 39)
39 And this is the will of him who sent me,
that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the
last day.
That is, if you like, God’s side, what God does: drawing to
himself and giving us his promises, but what about our side of things: what do
we have to do? Jesus goes on to speak about that:
WHAT YOU MUST DO
53 Jesus
said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son
of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
What does it mean to eat the flesh and drink the blood of
Christ?
a)
Is Jesus talking about communion?
There are three reasons to think he wasn’t:
1. This episode occurs a long time before the first celebration of the Lord’s Supper which in any
case is not even mentioned in John’s Gospel. If it was about communion you
would expect that to be said.
2. If it was about communion then it would suggest that the act
of communion on its own could give you eternal life, which would contradict not
just the whole Bible, but the very words that Jesus has just spoken in this
chapter, namely that it is faith that saves us, and not
the performance of actions or ritual.
3. When the Bible does talk about communion it always speaks
of the ‘body’ of Christ but never ‘flesh.’ Jesus uses a completely different
word here from the word he was to use at the Last Supper.
b) So what does it mean to eat the flesh
and drink the blood of Christ?
The clue comes in verse 51
51
I am the
living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will
live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the
world."
‘My flesh that I will give.’ The future tense
is important, he is looking forward to a definite point in the future when he
will give his flesh for the life of the world. Clearly he is talking about the
cross.
So the flesh and the blood means the cross, the great act of
self-sacrifice by Jesus of himself in our place. To eat his flesh and to drink
his blood means to depend upon that death to believe in and trust in it
wholeheartedly
It’s a bit like two patients who go to the doctor with
identical ailments
in both cases the doctor prescribes a new wonderdrug. ‘Take
it three times a day for a week’ and you’ll be fine says the doctor. Patient number one does exactly that, he
trusts the doctor, he believes in the new drug, two weeks later he is fit and
well. Patient number two doesn’t trust doctors, and
he doesn’t trust drugs, he leaves the tablets on the mantelpiece, two weeks
later he is worse.
The person who eats the flesh and drinks the blood of Christ
is the one who takes God’s prescription seriously, who knows the only way to
get spiritually well and is to trust in God’s wonder cure, the cross.
What about you? Have you understood that the cross is God’s
medicine for sin? Have you taken the medicine into your own life?
Of course
there is a kind of link with communion. It is not that this passage is about
communion but that communion is about this passage. This passage speaks about
the cross and communion also points to the cross.
It is not communion that saves, but the cross to which
communion points. It is not eating bread and drinking wine on its own that
makes you are partaker in Christ, it is faith in him, trusting in him and
having a relationship with him . When you have that faith, communion enriches,
deepens, and strengthens that faith because it takes us back to the foot of the
cross and the body broken and the blood poured out for us
53 Jesus
said to them, "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son
of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has
eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
There is only one way to be saved: by the cross. There is
only one way to be saved that is by the flesh and blood of Jesus given for the
life of the world. There is only one way to be saved and that is by trusting,
depending, and leaning upon that great work that Jesus did there
That is what it means to eat the flesh and to drink the
blood - for the death of Jesus to become as much part of your life, to become
as much what you depend on for your life, as the food you eat and the drink you
drink.
Many,
many people today are searching but the trouble is they do not know what they
are searching for. Many people are looking for a sign, some sort of indication
that they are on the right road. Some message from out there…. to show them
the meaning of life the universe and
everything.
In a recent survey 76% of Britons said they had had
a spiritual experience of some kind. 55% said they believed that someone or
something was looking after them although they don’t know who or what it was.
People are looking in all kinds of places. you have
only got to look at the Mind Body and Spirit section of a bookshop to discover
that. Eastern religions, the occult,
New Age philosophies, astrology, even Witchcraft and Paganism, are all avenues
being actively explored by millions of people in the West.
People are searching but there are so many different
options and there are no clear signposts.
In 1940 when it seemed that a German invasion was
imminent the Government ordered that all signposts be removed from the
Britain’s roads. The aim was to confuse the invading armies. It would certainly
be very difficult to navigate your way around the road network without signs.
Some of us, me included, find it difficult enough to do it even with signs.
Britain
in 2001 seems like a place where, spiritually speaking, all the signs have been
removed and no one really knows where they are going.
That’s why of all the Gospels, John’s Gospel which
we return to today, is so relevant, so powerful, so helpful because John is the
Gospel of Signs.
John out of the four Gospels is the writer who was most
interested in signs. He prefers to use the word ‘sign’ where the other Gospel
writers use the word ‘miracle.’ John’s Gospel contains seven great signs. After
each sign there is a ‘discourse:’ there is a block of teaching from Jesus. His
Gospel is put together like a sandwich: sign/discourse/sign/discourse etc.
And at the end of the Gospel John tells us what
these seven signs are for:
30 Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the
presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have
life in his name.
- John 20
These specially selected signs have been recorded by
John in his Gospel for you and for me and for the confused generation around
us. They are signs to help us believe in Jesus. They are signs to lead us on
the path that leads to eternal life.
The very thing we most need: a sign from God has
been provided.
Today’s reading contains the healing at the pool,
the third of the seven signs of John’s Gospel. OK so it’s a sign but what is it
a sign of? What does it actually say to each of us?
Let’s look at that now:
1. A sign of the new age dawning
A day is coming where there will be no more
sickness, no more suffering, no more death, no more crying, no more injustice.
It is a day that a suffering world longs for. It is the day described in
Revelation the last book in the Bible:
1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.4 He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."
Revelation 21
The healing of the paralysed man is a foretaste of a
day that is certain to come. It’s an advance instalment. It’s a trailer for the
new heaven and new earth, just like a trailer for a forthcoming TV programme. Just
like the first ray of light at dawn heralds the coming of a new day, so Jesus
healing miracles heralds the new age coming.
Of course, this healing is just a beginning, just a
sign. Jesus healed only one man and John tells us that there were a ‘great
number of disabled people’ at the same place and disease, disability and
illness continue to this day, as we know only too well. But it’s a sign, a sign
that God’s new world will come, that disease and illness and disability are
temporary, that God will give all his people new and perfect bodies after the
resurrection. It is a sign that encourages us look forward and wait with
expectation. Modern healing miracles function in the same way.
The Jews got the point immediately: ‘he was even
calling God his own Father making himself equal to God’ (verse 18) they said
among themselves. Tey knew that what Jesus was doing and what he was saying
amounted to only one thing: a claim to be God, and they were scandalised by it.
Ultimately what all the miracles, all the signs
point to is Jesus himself. They are all there to help us understand who Jesus.
That too is a great theme of John’s Gospel. At the very beginning of his book John tells us:
14
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his
glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace
and truth.
And at the end of his book he says:
30 Jesus did
many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not
recorded in this book. 31 But these are
written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,
and that by believing you may have life in his name.
The man who was healed didn’t know who Jesus is but with the benefit of
hindsight we can see the truth. This is God come to us, visiting us in person,
showing us what God is like.
A young man was praying, desperately seeking to find
God more fully, to know God more deeply, he picked up a Bible and it fell open
at: John 14.8-9:
Jesus replied ‘Whoever has seen me has seen the
Father’
A
world that is looking for signs need to see Jesus. A world that wants to know
the meaning of life needs to listen to Jesus. The person who wants to be in touch
with God, needs a relationship with Jesus
In these signs Jesus reveals his true identity and
he draws attention to himself as God, the maker of the universe who has taken
human form and come to live amongst us, as such he can do things no one else can
do. He doesn’t just talk about the kingdom of God, he makes it happen. In fact
he personifies and embodies God’s kingdom.
Heaven has come to earth because the king of heaven
has set foot on earth
3. A sign of the conflict to come
Already
a storm is brewing. Jesus has so far only performed his third sign but already
there is trouble:
16 So,
because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him.
18 For this reason the Jews tried all the
harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even
calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
Who could object to the healing of a man who had
been an invalid for thirty eight years? Who could criticise an act of pure
compassion and goodness? But the Jews of the time were angry with Jesus, angry
with the claims he was making about himself, puzzled by his miraculous powers,
and affronted by what they saw as his disrespectful approach to the Sabbath
John wants us to know that even this early in Jesus
ministry, many of his own people were plotting to kill him. John wants us to
know this because he knows the cross was Jesus finest hour. It was the finest
hour for you and me because of what Jesus was to do there and achieve.
Because the cross is the most astonishing, amazing,
wonderful, perplexing sign of all.
To many people it is nonsense or worse than nonsense
but says, Paul, it is the power of God and the wisdom of God. It is the power
of God because through the cross God dealt with sin and death once and for al.
It is the wisdom of God because it was in this way that God decided to save the
world.
Look at the healing of the paralysed man. Think what
that says about the new heaven and earth that God will bring into being. Think
what that says about who Jesus is
Look at the sign of the cross. Think what that says
about God’s love for you and how he has dealt with your sin.
Believe in these signs God has given
Bread for the
hungry: John 6.25-40
1n May 1995 I was asked to speak at a special
assembly to mark the 50th anniversary of VE Day. ‘The only thing is’
said the head teacher ‘we would rather you don’t mention the war.’ At this
point I thought I was entering a kind of re-run of the famous Fawlty Towers
episode about the Germans. You know the one where Basil keeps saying ‘whatever
you do don’t mention the war!’
‘No’, said the kindly headmaster, ‘don’t talk about
the war just talk about peace, just tell the children that today we are giving
thanks for 50 years of peac.e’
‘50 years of peace?’ I thought to myself, on my home
from that school visit, ‘have I missed something?’ What about Korea, what about
the Falklands, what about Northern Ireland, what about the Gulf what about the
myriad of other conflicts that have convulsed the world since 1945 in Vietnam,
in Angola, in the former Soviet republics, in the Middle East , in places too
numerous to mention?
And
the melancholy fact is that 83 years almost to the minute after the end of the
First World War, and 56 years after the end of the Second, we are at war again.
Today on the 11th day of the 11th
month we rightly remember and honour the those who gave their lives in the
service of this country. Especially we give thanks that between 1939 and 1945
this country and the world was saved from domination by a godless and hateful tyranny. We remember those who have
died in other conflicts, too. We think of all those who have died as a result
of the horrifying terrorist action of September 11. We grieve for the bereaved
families and weep with them. And, yes, because we are followers of Jesus, we pray
for our enemies.
But we know only too well, that peace eludes us -
not just at the international level, but at the local level, and unless we know
Jesus, here in our hearts too.
Our sinful suffering world needs a message from God.
We need to know the secret of what life is all about. We need to know how to
live in a way that pleases God. We need to know about life after death. Jesus
teaches us all these things in our reading today from John 6:
I
don’t know if you remember the advert with the slogan ‘I am only here for the
beer,’ Jesus makes a similar point to his hearers on this occasion: you’re only
here for the bread
26 Jesus
answered, "I tell you the truth, you are looking for me, not because you
saw miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.27 Do not work for food that spoils, but for
food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.
They had been at the feeding of the five thousand.
They had a had a good feed and they were here hoping there might be another
free lunch, courtesy of Jesus
But, says Jesus, what I have to offer is something
much better, of much more long-lasting
significance:
35 Then
Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go
hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.
The miracle of the feeding of the five thousand was
a kind of visual aid, a way of showing that Jesus could provide – not just
bread for the stomach but real lasting sustenance for the soul, too.
Bread in the world of the Bible meant the very
essence of life. It was your staple diet. It is what you depended on as your
chief source of nourishment. Here Jesus is saying that to know him is as vital
for your spiritual life as have to have food to eat is for your bodily life.
There is a song by Matt Redman with the line ‘it’s
all about you Jesus’ That’s what Jesus himself taught. Life, death, why we’re
here, it’s all about Jesus.
September 11 has made us ask many questions. It has
unsettled us. None of us know what the outcome of these events will be. There
may be further terrorist attacks. There will certainly be many more economic
casualties. There is a new uncertainty in the air, a new note of fear
It’s a time to get back to basics, to think about
what life is really all about
to realise once again: it’s all about you Jesus
To
remember what Jesus says:
I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will
never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.
Then
they asked him, "What must we do to do the works God requires?"
It’s a good question. Jesus had already said to them ‘do not
work for the food that spoils but for the food that endures to eternal life.’
In other words he was saying: don’t put all your strength, all your effort and
concern is just getting those things that keep body and soul together. There is
more to life than shopping, more to life than things, more to life than what you wear or what you eat.
Instead, says Jesus, concentrate on what will give you real
spiritual life. Focus on what will enable you to live forever not just for the
next day. That is the thing you should work.
Ok, they, say so what is the work that God requires of us?
Here Jesus gives a revolutionary answer:
29 Jesus answered, "The work of God is
this: to believe in the one he has sent."
He gives an answer that is the opposite of what most
people instinctively think to be the case. It’s not a question of doing,
says Jesus, it is a question of believing.
All the other religions in the world say do this
or do that. But, Christianity
says done, because Christ has done everything necessary for our salvation
by his death on the cross. There is nothing more for us to do to be
saved, except to accept what he has done for us.
What we must do is to trust in what he has done.
That is why Jesus answer to what ‘work’ a person needs to do to receive in eternal
is simply this: believe, lean upon me, trust in me.
39 And this
is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given
me, but raise them up at the last day.40
For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes
in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day."
And that brings us back to Remembrance Day. You
might have done, as I have, stood in one of the war cemeteries in Northern
France, and gazed at acres and acres of beautifully kept graves, memorials of
young men in their late teens and early twenties, the most poignant of all
being the thousands with no name at all but just the simple inscription ‘A
soldier of the Great War’ and below it the words ‘Known unto God’
Who can stand there and not be moved and be struck
by the sheer power of death and the horror of war? Can anyone say anything
constructive in the face of that?
Jesus can!
In fact, it was in cemeteries that he performed his
greatest miracles. Lazarus had been dead for four days, but Jesus went to the
tomb and cried ‘Lazarus come out.’ The dead man came out alive. Jesus comment
on that was to say ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me
will live even though he dies.’
Not long after that the power of resurrection was
seen in his own body on the morning of the first Easter.
Jesus is in the business of resurrection. It is his
promise that everyone who believes in him will be raised to new life with him
forever
This is the Father’s will, this is what Jesus came
to do.
And how about you? Have you believed in Jesus? Are
you ready are you prepared?
Those
terrible events of September 11 have demonstrated to us how suddenly and
unexpectedly death can come to any of us. We need to be prepared. We need to
have heeded Jesus message. We need to have believed in him.
We need to know that we have done the one thing that
God requires of us if we are to enter heaven and the life of eternity. We need
to know that we have believed in Jesus.
I want to give you the opportunity this morning to
say ‘yes, Jesus, I believe in you today.’
To find out more about how to become a
Christian please go to How to find peace with God
Jesus calling you
by name: John 10.1-10
Events like the tragic murder of Holly Wells & Jessica Chapman, strike a
note of terror into the heart of every parent and, I daresay, grandparent, too
We fear for our own children. We wonder what to tell
them to keep them safe. How do we help young children who by nature are trusting of adults to distinguish between the
friendly person in the park who means them only good and that other person who
is a wolf in sheep’s clothing?
But knowing who to trust is not just a problem for
kids, it’s a problem for us adults, too. In a world of hundreds of competing
voices how do you know which one’s telling the truth? There are so many
different people saying ‘our way is the right one,’ so many different
religions, so many different cults, so many different philosophies, so many people
claiming to know the secret of health, wealth, happiness.
Who’s right?
And may we even ask that question any more? Aren’t
we supposed to respect all views, all religions, all traditions. Isn’t it
arrogant, isn’t it discriminatory to think one is better than the other? Isn’t
it bad form to denigrate another person’s sincerely held beliefs?
Not according to Jesus. Our Lord took a robust view,
to say the least, of the other religious teachers, philosophers, and peddlers
of the secret of eternal life that surrounded him. Not for him the notion
that we must respect one another’s
traditions as equally valid expressions of the truth. Listen to his words:
8 All who ever came before me were thieves and
robbers
According to Jesus there is TRUE RELIGION which
leads to salvation
and FALSE RELIGION that doesn’t and you confuse the
two at your peril:
During holiday club our seekers had a visit from a policeman
and they heard about ‘stranger
danger.’ It’s a sad fact of life that even
our youngest children need to be warned about those who intend them harm, but
adults needed warning too about Spiritual Stranger Danger, and that’s what we
get in this passage:
Spiritual Stranger Danger
"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 .
John 10.1
On the whole thieves and robbers prefer not to enter
through the front door of the house, their route of entry is over a garden
wall, through a side gate and in through a side door, French window, or
carelessly unlocked window. It was the same in Bible times, the man who entered
the sheepfold by some other way that the gate was up to no good
He was a thief and unlike the shepherd he did not
have the best interest’s of the flock at heart, instead Jesus warns:
he comes only to steal and kill and destroy (10)
These are the false teachers, the ones who will
mislead the flock and will harm the people of God. When St Paul left the
Christians at Ephesus after two year’s concentrated ministry , he warned them
of the dangers ahead:
Keep
watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you
overseers. Be shepherds of the church of God, which he bought with his own
blood. 29 I know that after I leave,
savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. 30 Even from your own number men will arise and
distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. 31 So be on your guard!
Acts 20.28-31
There