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The Sheep, The Sheep Pen, The Gate, The Gatekeeper, The Good Shepherd And The Bad Shepherds
John 10
The Lord Yeshua is known for teaching in parables.
Why did He teach in parables?
Several reasons:
A parable is a short story that’s easy to understand. It’s used to explain things that are harder to understand, especially spiritual truths.
Parables are interesting.
They’re easy to remember.
They cause you to think, reflect, meditate, ponder about spiritual truths.
Messiah taught in parables to make the truth clear to those who were willing to hear and obscure to those who lacked genuine spiritual interest.
Why did Messiah want to hide the truth from those who lacked interest?
For the same reasons He told us not to throw pearls before swine. Truth is a precious thing. It should be loved and respected. It should not be treated poorly.
And giving too much truth to someone who is not interested in the truth harms him. He hears the truth, rejects it, and digs himself deeper into a deadly hole.
And if he persists in rejecting the truth, since he knows more of the truth and has rejected it, his punishment will be more severe. So not giving too much truth is a mercy to him.
The Sheep, The Sheep Pen, The Gate, The Gatekeeper, The Good Shepherd And The Bad Shepherds
John 10
The Pharisees were spiritual elites and religious leaders. Most of them had decided that Yeshua was a false prophet and wanted to kill Him. In spite of this, Yeshua cared for them and tried to help them by telling them that they were wrong about Him and about themselves. They needed to reconsider their thinking about Him and about themselves. To do this, He told them a parable about sheep, a sheep pen, a gate, a gatekeeper, a good shepherd, and bad shepherds.
Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper 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.
Imagine an area enclosed by a wall. It has sheep in it. It has a gate. It has a gatekeeper. The good shepherd enters by going to the gate. The gatekeeper knows him and opens the gate and allows him to enter the enclosure. The shepherd knows his sheep and the sheep know him. When he calls to them, they follow him. He takes them out of the sheep pen and leads them to food and water. He leads them by going ahead of them. He doesn’t lead them by driving them from behind.
In contrast to the good shepherd are the bad shepherds. They are not the legitimate shepherds of the sheep. They want the sheep but have no right to the sheep. That makes them thieves and robbers. They want access to the sheep but don’t go to the gate or the gatekeeper. Instead, they climb over the wall. The sheep aren’t familiar with them and their voice and run away from them. This is easy to understand.
And, as happened so frequently, the people Yeshua was speaking to didn’t understand. Yeshua used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees did not understand what he was telling them.
Yeshua knew they didn’t understand His parable, and because it was so important for their well-being to understand it, He explained it to them. Therefore Yeshua said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me – just as the Father knows me and I know the Father – and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.
Yeshua is the gate for the sheep. Only those who go through Yeshua can experience meaningful life in this world followed by eternal life in the world to come.
The way we go through Yeshua is by faith – by knowing He is the Son of God, and Risen Messiah and Lord, and making a serious commitment to follow Him.
Yeshua is the good shepherd. He is the true leader of the Jewish people. And He is the best kind of leader. He genuinely cares for us. He is not motivated by self-interest but by love for us. This is seen by Him leading us from in front, and by protecting us from wolves, and by His willingness to lay down His life for us.
The gatekeeper opens the gate for the good shepherd. God the Father is the gatekeeper. He is the guardian of the Jewish people. He wants good men to lead us. The Father knows Yeshua is the best leader. The Father approves of Yeshua and has given Him the authority to be the leader of the Jewish people.
The sheep are those Messianic Jews who follow Yeshua. They know Him. They know his voice. They know He is the Messiah and Lord and Son of God. They know that everything He has said is true. They have faith in Yeshua and His teachings. They are loyal to Him and His teachings. They know Yeshua and Yeshua knows them.
The other sheep that are not of this particular sheep pen are the chosen remnant from the other nations – Gentile Christians.
Yeshua promised that there would be one flock and one shepherd. That means that He knew that even though He was sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, His message would go to the other nations, and one new man, a new united humanity, people who are reconciled to God and to each other, and who are under Yeshua’s great leadership, would result.
And what Yeshua predicted would happen, did happen. Jewish apostles brought the message that alone can save people to those outside the land of Israel, and the chosen ones from every tribe, people, language and nation have joined us. There is one flock made of many peoples, and one shepherd.
In contrast to Yeshua, the good shepherd, are the bad shepherds. Throughout the centuries, even though the Jewish people are the Chosen People, and have been greatly blessed with many spiritual blessings, and should have had the best leaders, we’ve had many wretched leaders – false prophets, wicked priests and evil kings.
These Pharisees were more of the same. They did not know God. They did not know the Son of God. They mixed truth with error. They were motivated by self-interest. They cared more about themselves than the people they led. They were not our true leaders. They did not have spiritual authority. And the Jewish leaders of the past 2,000 years, and the leaders of today are more of the same.
The greatest need of the Pharisees was to recognize that Yeshua is the Good Shepherd, turn to Him and follow Him. Then they could have been the leaders they should have been. Then they would have been a great blessing to the Jewish people. And we learn from Luke, in Acts 15, that some of the Pharisees did just that.
Another parable about bad leaders and good leaders: The Landowner, The Tenants, The Servants And The Son
Matthew 21
Yeshua told the following parable during the week before He died. Passover was approaching. He was in Jerusalem for Passover. He was in the courts of the temple. The leaders of the nation – the chief priests, the elders, the Pharisees and the Torah-teachers were there, interacting with Him. They had rejected Him and wanted to kill Him. Yeshua knew there would be very serious consequences for rejecting Him and wanting to kill the Son of God. He warned the leaders about those consequences – which is a good and gracious thing to do.
Listen to another parable: There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit.
This is easy to understand. Now for the truths that are harder to understand: The landowner is God the Father. The tenants, to whom the Father rented the vineyard, and who were expected to pay the rent by giving the landowner part of the grape harvest, are the leaders of the Jewish people.
The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said. But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’ So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
This is easy to understand. The servants of the landowner are the good prophets, priests and kings. God the Father sent them to us to lead us into God-honoring living. However, more often than not we rejected them and mistreated them. Some of them we killed.
God the Father is gracious and merciful and slow to anger and was not put off by this. Instead, He upped His game. He increased His efforts and sent us more good leaders, especially prophets. However, we treated them in the same wicked ways.
Then God the Father upped His game again, to the highest level. He sent, not mere servants, but His Son. The Son is so much greater than the servants, the prophets, priests and kings who came before Him. The Son is like the sun, powerful and glorious, which sends forth great amounts of light that makes life and sight possible. The servants, the prophets, priest and kings were like the moon, much smaller than the sun, and which has no light of its own, and merely reflects the light of the sun.
God made it clear that Yeshua was His Son. The Father enabled Yeshua to do and say things that were so much greater than the things that the prophets, priests and kings did and said. The Father made it clear that Yeshua was His Son and therefore worthy of the greatest respect, obedience, loyalty.
God sent His Son that we might believe in Him and be saved by Him and learn from Him; that He might lead us closer to God and the ways of God; that He might lead us into God-honoring living. However, the leaders did the same to the Son as they did to so many of the good prophets, priests and kings. They rejected Him and killed Him.
There are terrible consequences for that kind of wickedness, disloyalty, unbelief. Scary Yeshua continued: “Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?” He will bring those wretches to a wretched end,” they replied, “and he will rent the vineyard to other tenants, who will give him his share of the crop at harvest time.”
This is easy to understand: God the Father would judge the wicked leaders who rejected His Son. And that’s what happened in the destruction of Jerusalem about 40 years later.
The other tenants to whom the vineyard was rented and who shared the grape harvest are those men who recognized that Yeshua is the Messiah and the Son of God – men like the apostles. They would become the leaders of Messiah’s Community.
Messiah reinforced His teaching by quoting from the Scriptures, which Yeshua believed are the divinely inspired and accurate and true and trustworthy Writings of God. How wonderful to have the very same Scriptures that Yeshua had – and His divinely inspired teachings too! Yeshua said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the Lord has done this and it is marvelous in our eyes’”? This is from Psalm 118. The stone is the Messiah. He is strong. Tough. Solid. Enduring. A stone can used for building and for destroying. Messiah does both.
He is the stone that the builders, the leaders of Israel, rejected. But God overruled their wicked decision and made Messiah into the cornerstone, the large and strong stone used to support a building.
What building? The temple. The place where God lives: not a temple of wood and stone, but human beings in whom God lives by means of His Spirit. Yeshua is like a stone. He is the strongest one, who gives salvation and strength and stability and eternal life to the rest of us. Without Him the Father could not make us an eternal fellowship in which He lives.
Another consequence for rejecting the Messiah: their leadership would be given to new leaders who followed the Messiah. Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. Yeshua prophesied that the leaders who rejected Him would be removed from their place of authority. Their authority would be transferred to the leaders of Messiah’s Community. And that’s what happened. The kingdom of God, God’s rule of His people, is now found in Messiah’s Community. That is where true spiritual leadership is now. That is where salvation and life and the presence of God is now.
Messiah is the cornerstone of everything that God is building. You want to be part of an eternal fellowship of God the Father, Messiah the Son, the Holy Spirit, and the chosen ones of all the ages? You need the cornerstone. You must believe in Yeshua, love Him, follow Him, obey Him, proclaim Him.
A stone can used for building and for destroying. Messiah does both. If you reject Him, it’s like someone who falls very hard against a big stone and gets broken to pieces. Scary Yeshua said: Anyone who falls on this stone will be broken to pieces.
If you refuse to become loyal to Him, He will be like a heavy stone falling on you and crushing you. Scary Yeshua warned: Anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.
Heavenly Father, You’ve made it clear that having good leaders is essential. Thank You for Messiah, who is the greatest leader. And thank You for the leaders who serve under Him in His Community. We pray for the leaders of Shema, that they would always serve Him well.
We pray for the other leaders in Messiah’s Community throughout the world, that You would bless them, help them, enable them to be faithful and true to You and Your Word. Where they are in error, correct them. Where they are sinning, enable them to turn to You.
Lord God, there are terrible leaders in Messiah’s Community, who are unfit to be in Your service. I pray that You would remove them.
Finally Father, I pray for the current leaders of the Jewish people, that You would help them recognize that Yeshua is the Messiah, the Son of God, the risen Lord and Savior; that they would turn to Him with all their hearts, so that they could lead the Jewish people wisely and well into true, God-honoring living. Amen.