The Rich and Satisfying Life
In illustrating for us the rich, satisfying life he has for us, Jesus uses the image of a sheep pen. “I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture” (John 10:9, ESV). In the pen, his sheep are safe from all enemies. They feed on the “good pastures” of God’s kingdom, enjoying health, peace, and freedom.
It is this blessed life that our enemy, the devil, seeks to steal from us. Satan is bent on destroying our precious faith, and Jesus describes him as a thief who sneaks into the pen: “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber…. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:1,10).
If there is anything Satan wants to steal from us, it is the life God has designed for us. He does this by seeking to remove us from the “good pasture” (i.e., crucial spiritual food) that Jesus has given us. Immature Christians are most susceptible, as long as they remain on a diet of “milk,” never advancing to the meat of God’s Word. They are especially subject to Satan’s wiles in times of crisis. They spiral into a panic, filled with fear and worry, thinking, “I don’t know how to make a decision. Where are you, God?”
I saw this happen a lot when I was on the pastoral staff of Times Square Church in New York City. The teaching that people fed on there was deep and meaty, drawn from the dedicated study of God’s Word. Imagine my shock whenever parishioners told me they had skipped services to go hear a known charlatan whose only focus was money. How could they do that after a steady diet of solid, biblical food?
This brings up a second hindrance every Christian faces: the alluring gospel of a false teacher. Jesus teaches, “A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers” (John 10:5). Such “strangers” look, sound, and dress like any good pastor, but the gospel they preach gradually leads people away from Christ to the destruction of their souls.
It is absolutely necessary that we learn the voice of our Savior and be able to distinguish it from the voices of false shepherds. How do we do this? “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). The only way to detect a counterfeit is to know the original intimately. Only by immersing ourselves in God’s pure Word will we become intimate with the look, sound, scent, and taste of that which comes from heaven.