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. 2 The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep.
Following closely on the heels of the preceding chapter and still speaking to His hostile hearers, in our verses for today, our Lord emphatically continues His conversation with the Pharisees regarding their spiritual blindness by which they were leading others into the pit. Jesus states the following in both Luke and Matthew regarding these leaders of the sheep of Israel:
39 He also told them this parable: “Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? 40 A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher. Luke 6:39-40 (NIV)
13 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. 15 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are. Matt 23:13-15 (NIV)
Jesus came down the hardest on the false teachers and hypocrites in His day and rightly so. His words demonstrated that false religion was utterly abhorrent to God and deserving of severest condemnation. Beginning this parable with what would have been a common experience of His hearers; Jesus develops an analogy by describing a morning shepherding scene. A shepherd would enter through the gate of a walled enclosure which held several flocks in one large sheep pen. The enclosure would have been guarded at night by a watchman who would stand guard to prevent thieves and robbers from breaking and entering. Anyone striving to enter by climbing over the walled area would have no good purpose in mind – their actions would have been for loss and destruction of the sheep only. By contrast the shepherd always entered by the gate – every true shepherd of God’s people makes use of the gate. Such a man is duly commissioned by the owner of the flock and is recognized by the sheep – they have no need to enter like a thief or a robber. Later in this same chapter Jesus proclaims He is the gate:
7 Therefore Jesus said again, "I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. John 10:7 (NIV)
We should be red flagged by this as well; every teacher is false if they come to us by any other Way and Name but Jesus’. He is the Way, He is the Truth and He is the Life. Many of our modern day ministers know nothing whatsoever about Christ, except perhaps in Name only.
“Unconverted ministers are the dry-rot of the Church. When ‘the blind lead the blind,’ both must fall into the ditch. If we would know the value of a man’s ministry, we must never fail to ask, Where is the Lamb? Where is the Door? Does he bring forward Christ, and give Him his
rightful place?...No one can hope for eternal life who knows not Christ, who is the life, and by that door enters the fold.” J. C. Ryle
Like these Pharisees, many unconverted leaders of our present day churches have not entered by the door themselves making them unable to show it to others through their lives. While we are certainly called to speak the gospel of Christ we are called to live it as well. It is vastly more than head knowledge – it is a changed life that woos others to our Lord – He being the only One that can truly transform a life.
5 But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: 6 Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did. 1 John 2:5-6 (NIV)
As Christians, we should never let our guard down in what we choose to believe and what we are motivated to conform our lives to – always taking what we hear back to the Truth of God’s Word. Who is it we listen to? Who is our teacher? We are to be like the Bereans, who were commended for constantly checking Paul’s words to make sure he was on target. We find in Acts:
11 Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. Acts 17:11 (NIV)
"God does not honor men and women and their deeds or their books or their organizations. The Father in heaven delights to honor His Son. It is only the Life of the Lord Jesus - His activity, clothed with you and displayed through you - that ultimately will find the approval of God." Major Ian Thomas
“Be examples in all countries, places, islands, nations, wherever you come, that your life may preach among all sorts of people.” George Fox