[Andy Duran] Throughout the Bible, one illustration that is given is the illustration of God being a shepherd, and His people being a sheep or sheep. It's a wonderful illustration with depth of meaning and full of good images. However, growing up in a modern society, images drawn from this illustration can often be missed. I, too, must admit growing up without any ranch or farm experience, I have to lean on several… sometimes I have to lean on extra-biblical resources, maybe some historical background commentaries, or what each person did in that time that the Bible was written for gaining insight on certain customs and experiences that come from working the ground, or shepherding a flock, or many other agricultural systems that I'm just not aware of.

I didn't grow up learning those things. If you don't know, I grew up in North Dakota. There was a lot of farms, but I grew up in the city. Definitely not as big of a city as Cincinnati, but nevertheless, a city. And so often, when shepherding a flock during this time, during the biblical times, flocks would have been relatively small, maybe 10 to 20 sheep per shepherd. A hundred sheep would be a very large flock, something that you wouldn't often see too many times. A shepherd would be with his flock all the time, only taking breaks may be different parts of the night if sharing a sheepfold with other flocks. You see, sometimes, they would build permanent enclosures for sheep, maybe a stone wall, and they would all share.

Maybe several shepherds would share a bunch of sheep in the same area, and they would take turns guarding the gate and guarding for any type of predators or different things. But a lot of times, shepherds would stay with their sheep. They would know their sheep, sometimes even giving them names, giving them names that apply to different physical characteristics. They would tend to their sheep. They would watch out for them. They would protect them. They would medically tend to them if need be. They would love their sheep.

And in response, the sheep would know their shepherd too. It would. Since this illustration of sheep and shepherds is used in the Bible throughout several places, I've heard over the years several stories about shepherds and sheep. One time, there were these two men that were traveling down the road, and they came upon two sheepfolds that had kind of mixed amongst themselves and blocked the road. So while this guy was driving down the road, he had to stop for all the sheep that were in the middle of the road. And somehow he knew that they were mixed sheepfolds, there was multiple shepherds.

And while the man was waiting for the sheep to disperse and to separate, he had wondered amongst himself, he said, "I wonder how these sheep are going to get separated. How does the sheep know which shepherd to go with?" And while he was waiting for the sheep to get off the road, he wasn't waiting that long, and each shepherd began calling his own sheep. And his own sheep, listening to the certain distinct calls, would all travel to their own shepherd, and leave the big group. One by one, each of the shepherd's sheep began to gather to their own respected shepherd.

You see, sheep hear and know their own shepherd's voice. Turn with me, if you would, over to John 10. We're going to take a look at some scriptures here in John 10 as we begin today for some background into our topic of discussion today. John 10, I'll read several scriptures here. As a means of laying the foundation, let's look at John 10:1. "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 strangers."

It's interesting, it continues by saying, "Jesus used this illustration, but they did not understand the things that He spoke to them." Later on…  we’re not going to read all the passages here in John 10, but later on, Jesus identifies Himself as the door, but also as the Good Shepherd, the Good Shepherd, the one that is watching over the flock. If you look at Verse 14, it says, "I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and I 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."

Let's jump over to verse 22. We'll hit another little section here, Verse 22 says, "Now it was the Feast of Dedication in Jerusalem, and it was winter. And Jesus walked in the temple, in Solomon's porch, then the Jews surrounded Him and said to Him, 'How long do You keep us in doubt? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.'" Jesus continued and He answered them, He said, "I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in My Father's name, they bear witness of Me. But you do not believe, because you are not My sheep."

You see, sometimes, there's other sheep that are not Jesus' sheep. And He continues by saying, "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me." The topic that we're going to look into today, if you haven't picked it up yet, is about shepherds and sheep, looking at this idea of three elements to give us an idea of hearing the True Shepherd, about the True Shepherd, Jesus Christ, and then our relationship to Him. So let's take a look at this. And we've started in John 10. The first point that we'll pull out, the first element that we'll discuss is that, as Jesus' sheep, as the flock of God, we should hear the Shepherd's voice. We looked at it in verse 3, it says, "To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice." We need to hear the shepherd's voice. There's two main aspects of this concept. First is to hear or to listen, to give your ear or to pay attention to.

What are we to listen for, though? I think that's a logical question. If I tell you, "We should hear the shepherd's voice," what should we listen for? Look at Hebrews 1. I want to turn to two scriptures that support the idea of voices and what we are to listen for. Hebrews 1:1. It's a nice introductory scripture to the book of Hebrews. Hebrews 1:1 says, "God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the works [worlds].” You know, God has been speaking to mankind throughout all of our history.

He's been giving words through multiple ways, various ways, primarily through the Word in the Old Testament, and then the one that became Jesus Christ, the Word, in the New Testament. But it could have been through prophets, and angels, and all sorts of messengers through the Old Testament. But you see, at the same time, as He's been speaking to mankind, He's instructed us to hear those voices, those words from God, the lessons, and the instructions, and the commands. You know, we have been spoken to by God through Jesus Christ. Let's look over in another passage in John 12, John 12:44. John 12:44, we see another little example here of this idea that God the Father has been speaking to us through Jesus Christ for a long time.

John 12:44, "Then Jesus cried out and said, 'He who believes in Me believes not in Me but in Him who sent Me. And he who sees Me sees Him who sent Me. I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness. And if anyone hears My words and does not believe, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him— the word that I've spoken will judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken of My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak."

What we can pull out here is that Jesus Christ, when He came as a physical man, wasn't some rogue actor, you know, going on His own words and his own message in a different message. No, it was one fluid message throughout the whole Bible, the Father and Christ working in harmony. The Father's words that Christ spoke, it was through His authority, through their plan, the plan of salvation for all mankind. And so that can answer the question of, what should we be listening for? If we should hear the shepherd's voice, we should be listening to the voice of God, the voice and the words that God has given us in His Bible. And there's no doubt about it. We have many voices in the world around us today. There's an interesting scripture in Daniel 12:4. It's often pointed to as an end time prophecy, which it definitely is, but there's a little tidbit of information there that really fits in with this idea of many voices in society today.

Daniel 12:4, we see Daniel given an instruction concerning an end time prophecy that he had been given. It says in verse 4 of Daniel 12, "But you, Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book and tell the time of the end; many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall increase." You know, our times definitely match this passage. Well, one, we have the indicator in the time of the end. We're definitely in that era of mankind, the end time, but running to and fro, running to and fro, you know, traveling with the least amount of effort. You can travel around the world in hours now, something that they probably thought was unfathomable before, a truly remarkable time. But not only that but if you fit it with the context, running to and fro searching for knowledge. And it says, "And knowledge shall increase." You know, knowledge is increasing, and it has increased.

You know, in my previous employment, I guess you could say, I worked with computers. I did software engineering, computer science and all that. And the rate of which some of that stuff increases and the amount of knowledge that goes into building those different chips and different chipsets in computers just exponentially grows doubles power, or doubles power efficiency every six months, or whatever the different stat they're on now. But the main point is, the knowledge that we have to build those things, and the things that we're learning is just increasing ever so fast. You can look at it in the sense of like a collective knowledge as well. How many people are maybe not so handy on their cars or their home? Maybe not something everyone wants to raise their hand to.

I owned a home before we moved here, and I loved working on it, but I never had the knowledge myself to work on that home. But what did I do? I went to YouTube, and I looked up how to do it, right? As a collective society, we have an immense amount of knowledge, and it's so easily accessible nowadays. There's all these voices out there and all this knowledge out there, and we're hearing all these voices, all these different things being said. it's easily consumed. It's so easily consumed that people actually don't readily remember that information.

You know, if you ask a lot of people that constantly look up things on their phone… Well, I can't remember the statistic exactly, so I won't repeat it. But, we can't easily remember that knowledge because it's so easily accessible. We put no work and effort into remembering or finding this knowledge. You know, I was thinking about my own time going through like a university system. I only have a bachelor's degree, which I think is around 120 credit hours, if that sounds familiar, I don't know. It was a long time ago.

So I was trying to do the math. You know, maybe some classes were five credit hours, some were four. So let's say on an average, maybe we had 40 professors. I had 40 different professors. You know, maybe I had… you know, give or take, maybe they doubled up. But I thought about my own experience through the university system, and we had 40 different professors, all with different voices, all with different tones, all with different plans, all with different things they were telling me.

Now, granted with computer science as my major, there wasn't a whole lot that conflicted with the Bible. But nevertheless, there were a lot of voices coming at us in everyday society, right? And so we have all these multiple voices that we're hearing, it's important to truly hear what matters, right? It's important to hear the very words of God preserved for us in the Bible, or to put it in another way, to hear the Shepherd's voice.

I read a story once, it's attributed to Kermit L. Long. Not sure who that is. I couldn't find where it was in its original, but "Two men were walking along a crowded city street. Suddenly, one of them turned to the other. He said, ‘Listen to that lovely sound of a cricket.’" Now if you're like me, I found this story… crickets aren't even that lovely, so why are we listening for it? But nevertheless, he continued on, he said… “However, the other man couldn't hear the cricket and replied, ‘How can you hear such a small sound of a cricket amidst such the roaring sounds and bustling sounds of the streetcars and the different horns?’"

“You see, being a zoologist, the man had trained his ears to listen of sounds of animals. However, he didn't explain that to his friend at that time. Instead, the man reached into his pocket and grabbed some coins,” right, some quarters, some dimes, whatever it may be, and he threw it on the floor… or threw it on the street, excuse me. “And in an instant, in a moment, most of the people around kind of tweaked their eyes. They're looking for that coin. They heard that coin hit the street. You see, the coin, although as quiet as the sounds of a cricket, a lot of people heard it on the busy street floor. And he turned to his friend and he said, ‘You see, we hear what we listen for.’" We hear what we listen for.

And I think that's a very important point that we need to tune into the Word of God to hear the True Shepherd's voice amongst all the voices we have around us. There's a second aspect that I mentioned. If we turn back to John 10, so the first aspect was just the simple hearing and the listening to the Shepherd's voice. A second aspect is that we must know the Shepherd's voice. John 10:4, it says, "And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice."

The Greek word for "know" here is a little bit more of a stronger active word. I believe it's eido. It means to know, or to see, or to pay attention, or come to understand. It's a stronger one than just casually listening, but you know the voice when you hear it. When it happens, you go, "I know that voice. I know where that person spoke before. I may not be able to see his face, I may not be able to tell you what he looks like, but I know that voice." It's more active and kind of contrast with that first concept of just hearing the voice. You see, brethren, because that's important. We must know the voice. We must discern between the voices. Look at 1 John 4.

1 John 4 starts by saying, “Beloved…" This is in verse 1, 1 John 4:1, "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world." See, we need to ask ourselves, "Do what I am hearing match the words of God? Am I testing whether something is pure or not? Am I testing it?" You see, because we have the purest form of truth, in most of our laps, I see a lot of Bibles out there.

I probably can't see the ones on the phones, but we have the purest form of truth right in front of us, don't we? The purest form. It's God's Word. We should be putting everything we hear through the funnel of God's Word. "Does this match what I get every day? Does this match what I'm hearing in my university? Does this match what I'm hearing in my elementary school?" We need to put it through the funnel of God's words, you know, not believing in any false Christs. You know, people are even coming in Christ's name. We can look over Matthew 24.

Matthew 24, a section of the Bible commonly known as the Olivet prophecy. Matthew 24:4. "And Jesus answered and said to them: 'Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, “I am the Christ,” and will deceive many.'" See, brethren, because many false Christs have come throughout the ages, and we hear many false voices in today's world, and we should funnel them through the Word of God. We should test all things. If you apply this to the day that Jesus was speaking and what this record is writing about, the false prophets, the false shepherds of the time when Jesus was combating that with calling Himself the True Shepherd were the Pharisees.

And the sermonette brought this point out very well. The Pharisees, as mentioned, you know, weren't feeding the flock. They weren't giving them water, they weren't taking care of them. They weren't giving them the spiritual meat they should have had. They were self-righteous. Those were the false Christs of the time. You know, it's interesting, and this applies to pretty much everything in life, all the voices we hear. There's really no exception. I hope when you're listening to the words that I'm saying, you're really funneling them through the words of God, “Is what Andy Duran is saying right now match the Word of God?” And I take no offense to that. That's what we should be doing.

You can think of like instruction and some guidelines we get for services. And 1 Corinthians, it says, "Let two or three prophets speak and let the others, judge." That's kind of what we do in services, right? We let two or three people speak and the others judge not for like condemnation or anything, but is what this man is saying true? Does it line up with the Word of God? You can think of another example like the Bereans. If you think in the 17th chapter of Acts, what do the Bereans do? Do you remember the story of the Bereans?

It said they listened with all readiness, they took the words that we're saying with all readiness, and they received them all. But what did they do with them? They didn't just take them all and accept them all 100% true. They judged them according to the Scriptures. They funneled in everything they heard to the Word of God. They heard the voice of the Shepherd, but they also knew the voice of the shepherd. They used God's Word as a funnel.

And so our first element we can see, and that we would need to remember is that we should hear the Shepherd's voice, listen, pay attention to this voice, knowing this voice, God's plan, God's Word from other voices we hear in the world around us. Another element that we can learn from in John 10 is that we should understand the shepherd's voice. I know it sounds a little similar, but we should strive to understand the shepherd's voice. Let's go back to the analogy of the sheep again. It's interesting because if the sheep, if all they did was listen, and knew who their shepherd was, but they didn't understand the voices that he was giving them, it wouldn't do them a whole lot of good. You know, if they were just listening to the shepherd's voice, it wouldn't have done them the greatest thing.

We must understand the voice, must understand, "What is the shepherd telling me? Are we going inside the pen? Are we leaving the pen? Are we going over to this side or that side?" If you're not understanding what the Shepherd is telling you, it can be difficult to move forward. You know, I've also read through different commentaries that even some shepherds train their sheep to hear certain like melodies and flute melodies to do different things. Well, I thought that was pretty interesting. You know, they even understood different flute melodies.

I'm going to pair this with a scripture in Jeremiah 31, Jeremiah 31:33. If you're familiar with… it's a good memory scripture for the New Covenant concepts. Jeremiah 31:33 says, "But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law in their minds, and I'll write it in their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord."

You know, we need to truly understand the Word of God, truly understand it and internalize His instructions, His laws, and His commands. It should be written on our minds, right? That intellect. It should be written in the hearts where we want that emotional side of things that we want to obey God, that we want to strive to understand what He's telling us, right?

Let's go over to Matthew 13, Matthew 13:10 because we're on the aspect of we should strive to understand the shepherd's voice. Matthew 13:10 says, "And the disciples came and said to them, 'Why do You speak to them in parables?'" So we see here the disciples asking, "What's the purpose of parables? Why do you speak with such weird stories, and why don't you just tell us straight up different things." They wanted to know why. “But Jesus answered them and said, "Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.’"

You see, "Because it's been given to them to understand," is what he says, You know, by extension to us, by all those that God is calling throughout His time, to know the mysteries of God, to know and understand the plan of God, the things that are mysteries to everyone else. It's by the Spirit of God that we understand these things, you know, by ourselves, in and of ourselves, we can only understand what? The things that are flesh. But of the Spirit, we can understand the Spirit of God. But there are those that are not going to understand now. They hear as it says, but they do not hear, they do not understand. They see but they don't see, as he says. They don't perceive. They don't see those things to be true. They don't quite get it.

Continuing in verse 14, it says, "And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says, 'Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive; for the hearts of this people have grown dull. And their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them.'" It says, "But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it." Again, the same concept of they didn't hear, they didn't see, they didn't understand, they did not perceive.

You know, although there's a part that Satan has to play with blinding those around us, blinding of the mind of those in the world, constantly deceiving anyone that'll give them an ear to listen, there is a part that's very personal that comes out here in Isaiah, or in Jesus quoting Isaiah. It says, "For the hearts of the people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing and their eyes they have closed." Their eyes, they have closed. It's a personal action there. Their hearts have grown dull, their ears, they are hard of hearing. They've closed their own eyes. They don't want to understand at times. And this is a warning to us that if we don't continue to follow the words of God, sometimes we can close our ears off from hearing the True Shepherd's voice.

You know, do we fully comprehend the wonders that are up in the Bible? You know, we've had all these words of God that have given to us over thousands of years that have been preserved, truly remarkable things. Jesus Christ said the words that He spoke are life. Very wonderful things that we have in our Bible. We must start by hearing and knowing the voice of the Shepherd, Jesus Christ, knowing the words of God that He has brought us, but it shouldn't stop there. We should strive to understand them too. We should strive to understand the shepherd's voice.

Third and lastly, another element that we can learn from John 10. Let's turn back to John 10:4 again. John 10:4. "And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice." And then let's jump to verse 27. "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me." So another element that we can learn from here is that we should strive to follow the Shepherd, the hearing, and the listening, and the knowing of the Shepherd's voice, the striving to understand his voice should produce in us an action. It should produce in us an action to follow the shepherd. We should strive to follow after the True Shepherd, walking in his footsteps.

I think of analogies if you have a son or a daughter… Just this morning, Ezra… I was getting ready for services, and I was tying my tie. Ezra ran into my bedroom and grabbed one of my ties, and he says, "Tie my tie Papa," in his language. And so I stood him up on the sink in the counter, and I tied his tie for him, and then I tied my tie, and he was so happy to follow in my footsteps. It's just a tie. I thought it was interesting, I was like, "Well, I guess you can enjoy ties now because you're going to hate them later."

But it reminded me of this point as I was preparing for the sermon, I thought, "How wonderful is it that he wants to follow in his dad's footsteps? How much ever more should we want to follow in the True Shepherd's footsteps and God the Father's footsteps?" What this is producing in us should be an action. We should be wanting to follow in the footsteps of the True Shepherd. Let's look over 1 Corinthians 8:1.

1 Corinthians 8:1. 1 Corinthians 8:1 says, "Now concerning things offered to idols." Now, we haven't totally changed topics, but there's an interesting point here. "We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies. And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, this one is known by Him."

You see, gaining knowledge just for intellectual sake, just for gaining knowledge sake, puffs up. It inflates. It makes us feel like we know everything when truly we don't, right? Makes us believe we know more than we aren't. You know, going back to the point one and two, listening to the True Shepherd, knowing the True Shepherd's voice, striving to understand, it has to produce an action of wanting to follow in the True Shepherd's steps.

We shouldn't stop at just hearing and trying to understand. We must be driven to action. This idea that in verse 2, "And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know." And verse 3, "But if anyone loves God, this one is known by Him." But we should be striving to follow in the True Shepherd's footsteps by loving God. It's an action, a godly love. You know, if you've heard of the Greek word, agape, that sacrificial love, that more godly love, that when you see agape used throughout the New Testament, it more than not relates to a godly form of love, a sacrificial love, a love where you'd be willing to die for your brothers and sisters. That's truly an action that's a loving action.

We know also, we don't have to turn there, but the concept of for this is the love of God that we keep His commandments, right? This action, it's a love that produces action that we follow in the True Shepherd's footprints. Let's turn over to 1 John 2, 1 John 2:3. Very similar to what I just quoted in 1 John 5:3. But in 1 John 2:3, it says, "Now by this we know that we know Him, if we can keep His commandments. He who says, ‘I know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked." We should strive to follow in the footsteps of the True Shepherd, walking as He walked.

Let's look over at another passage in James 1, James 1:21. This following His footsteps has a certain look to it. It has a certain deep-rooted change that needs to happen inside of us. James 1:21 says, "Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls." You know, I alluded to this point a little bit in Jeremiah 31. I didn't bring it out because I was in the understanding section of the sermon.

But Jeremiah was pointing out of this time when there was a real change that was going to take place with an inner change. Right? Here we see, with meekness, the word for meekness gives us the idea of a perfect, teachable heart, having a perfect teachable heart of an implanted word. That word for implanted is about this concept that's built… it's a built part of us. It's something deep down within us. It's this idea of a deep-seated change of the word, the plan of God, the Words of God, the gospel, the very words of the shepherd.

Let's continue on. In verse 22, it says, "But be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving yourselves." Again, this is an action, doing the words and not just hearing them. You know, hearing God starts with listening but needs to produce an action in our lives. Verse 23, "For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's like a man observing his natural face in a mirror, for he observes himself goes away and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does." You know, we should be using the Words of God to examine ourselves.

If you were around for the morning service, Mr. Hall gave a topic about showing… I don't need to recap his whole message, but about us emulating Christ, showing the image of Christ within ourselves. And he gave the point in his introduction, I think we're, what? Fifteen weeks-ish away from Passover? And it's a good time to start reevaluating our lives, examining ourselves. You know, we should be using the words of God to examine ourselves as James is alluding at here.

You know, following in the shepherd's footprints, following in God, using the law of liberty, not restricting, but a freedom, freedom to live, a freedom from the death penalty. That's really what we've been given. Verse 26, "And if anyone among you thinks he is religious, and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this one's religion is useless. Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world."

James is contrasting these two objects here, the pure religion and useless religion. You know, a loving heart and useless mechanics. You know, do we truly love one another? Do we truly want to give ourselves all for each other, even on to the point of death? Also visiting, spending time with those truly that are in need. He says visiting the orphans and those… What does he say? Excuse me. Visiting the orphans and the widows in their trouble, you know, those that really need us in our different times. We should be spending time with them. Because as we can find throughout the Bible, we see that our True Shepherd cares for us as individuals. And in following after our True Shepherd and God the Father, we should care about our brethren as well, and not just those in the Church, but also those outside the Church.

I think Galatians 6:10 says, "As often as you have opportunity, do good to one another, especially those of the household of faith." You know, giving this idea that we should do good to those outside the household of faith too. And then also keeping our own selves unspotted from the world, you know, not mixed or dwelling only in the light, but… sorry, not mixed with light and darkness, but dwelling only in the light, Right?

Let's continue on in John 6 as we're beginning to conclude here. John 6, there's a tremendous amount of wealth and knowledge and depth to the scriptures here in John 6, and we won't take the time to read all of it, obviously. But we'll read a little bit for context. Let's start in verse… I'm sorry. Yeah, let's start in verse 41. "And the Jews then complained about Him, because He said, 'I am the bread which came down from heaven.'" This is John 6, now 42. "And they said, 'Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that He says, 'I have come down from heaven’? Jesus had answered them and said, ‘Do not murmur among yourselves. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up in the last day.’"

So we continue reading on, Jesus then says, “I am the bread of life," in verse 48. “'Your fathers ate manna in the wilderness, and are dead. So is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of the bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give in My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.’ And so the Jews started to quarrel among themselves, and they said, 'How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?'"

It was a very difficult saying that He was bringing them. They didn't quite understand. They heard the voices, and they heard the words, but they didn't comprehend what he was saying. "Jesus said to them, 'Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.'" This concept, pointing to this idea of a New Testament Passover, taking the bread and the wine, representing the body of our Savior and the wine, the blood. "Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up in the last day."

He continues, saying… there's a scripture here a little later, in verse 61, when Jesus… I'm sorry, I lost it. Oh, it's further down. I'm sorry. Verse 66. “From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.” You know, what He was saying to them was such with deep meaning and a hard thing to digest, they just truly didn't understand what He was saying, and so they stopped following Him. And so Jesus then turns to His 12, and He says, "Do you also want to go away?"

“But Simon Peter answered Him, 'Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. Also we have come to believe and know that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’" He basically told Jesus, "Of course, we're going to follow You. You have the words that are of eternal life. Why would we walk away from that?" They were striving to understand, and they chose to follow after the True Shepherd. It's a remarkable section of Scripture.

As we begin to conclude today, let's turn back to John 10. John 10, and while we're doing that, I'll share with you another story that I read recently concerning sheep and shepherds. Apparently, this is a true story. I couldn't find the exact court records of it. So in Australia, there was this court case, there was a certain man who was arrested for stealing sheep. Now, stealing sheep would be a pretty serious crime, especially if your livelihood and everything you depend on are livestock.

However, they arrested man vigorously protested that it was one of his own that has been missing for many days. He had claimed that his sheep belonged to him and was part of his fold but had run off and just got mixed up, and he was not sure where it went. And so when the case was brought before the courts, the judge wasn't sure how to handle the case. There is no markings, there is no identification on the sheep. He didn't know whose sheep the one belonged to, whether it was the plaintiff or the defendant. But when he was struggling to come to a decision, the judge finally decided to put it to the test.

He ordered for the sheep to be brought into the courtroom, and then the judge then ordered the plaintiff to step outside the courtroom and call the sheep to himself. Well, the sheep raised its head, bleated a bit, but went on normally ignoring the plaintiff's calls, not aware of who was saying or what was calling him. Likewise, the defendant did the same. And when this accused man made his call to the sheep, immediately, the sheep raised its head and began leaving the courthouse and moving towards the defendant. It was obvious that this sheep recognized the familiar voice of his shepherd. "His sheep knows him," said the judge, "Case dismissed."

You see, brethren, Jesus used an analogy of Himself being the True Shepherd. And as sheep that are of God's fold, we ought to hear, and listen, and comprehend His voice. We must strive to understand His voice, the words of our Father that has been given to us through Jesus Christ. Understanding the words are truly of everlasting life. And so let's read here as a close, John 10:27-29 again. "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father's hand. And I and My Father are one."

So let's remember to always hear our True Shepherd. And in doing so, always choose and strive to follow Him.