Christ Is The Good Shepherd (J40)

Christ is the good shepherd; we are His sheep;
We know His voice; we listen; we obey;
No one can enter the gate He does keep,
Unless their sins His blood washes away!
For them, His life He gives, then takes it back;
That they might have life—have it to the full;
He goes ahead to prepare, not a shack,
But a mansion; that life none can annul!
Some of the Jews said, “He is raving mad,
And, surely, he must be demon-possessed;”
But others said, “No demon ever has
Healed a man born blind, nor so many blessed!
“I have other sheep; they’re not of this fold;
There’ll be but one flock; one shepherd,” He told!

Scripture Quoted John 10:1-6 (NIV)
" '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. The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, 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.' Jesus used this figure of speech, but they did not understand what he was telling them.”

Commentary on John 10:1-21 (NIV)
Still in the temple courts, Jesus introduces a new analogy for Himself and His followers—He is the shepherd, and His followers are the sheep. The Jews understood well what He was telling them about sheep and their shepherds, for sheepherding was a common part of their economy. Because of the dullness of their spiritual insight, they could not perceive how the idiosyncrasies of sheepherding related to a self-called Messiah and them. Throughout the Old Testament, God had used the “good” and “bad” shepherd idea to describe the good and bad leaders of Israel, both for the government and religion. God's perspective of His followers is that they are like sheep to their shepherd. The Messiah was promised to be the Good Shepherd who would rid the poor citizens of Israel of bad shepherds (See Zechariah 11:4-17, for example). He was to rule as both King and High Priest in one office, which is the type of government God had wanted from the beginning. It is evident that the Pharisees were the “bad” shepherds Jesus was to eliminate.

Jesus made several important statements in this Scripture. He said that no one could enter the “gate”, which refers to the gate of heaven, but by Him. This is referred to as the “one way”, in a derogatory manner, by modern postmodernistic culture; that is, Jesus tells the world here and in many other places that the only way for an individual to enter heaven is to believe in Him. That is a true statement. He also says He has “other sheep”, referring to Gentiles. The Jews had thought that Jehovah was theirs exclusively. And Jesus speaks publicly of His dying as a man and being resurrected as God. There is a lot of theology in these 21 verses.

"That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)