Turn with me to the Gospel according to John, chapter 21, from verse 1.
After these things Jesus manifested Himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias; and He manifested Himself on this wise.
There were together Simon Peter, and Thomas called Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two other of His disciples.
Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing.
They say unto him, We also come with thee.
They went forth, and entered into the boat; and that night they took nothing.
But when day was now breaking, Jesus stood on the beach: yet the disciples knew not that it was Jesus.
Jesus therefore saith unto them, Children, have ye ought to eat?
They answered Him, No.
And He said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and ye shall find.
They cast therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes.
That disciple therefore whom Jesus loved saith unto Peter, It is the Lord.
So when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his coat about him, for he was naked, and cast himself into the sea.
But the other disciples came in the little boat; for they were not far from the land, but about two hundred cubits off, dragging the net full of fishes.
So when they got out upon the land, they see a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon, and bread.
Jesus saith unto them, Bring the fish which ye have now taken.
Simon Peter therefore went up, and drew the net to land, full of great fishes, one hundred and fifty and three: and for all there were so many, the net was not rent.
Jesus saith unto them, Come and break your fast.
And none of the disciples durst inquire of Him, Who art Thou? knowing that it was the Lord.
Jesus cometh, and taketh the bread, and giveth them, and the fish likewise.
This is now the third time that Jesus was manifested to the disciples, after that He was risen from the dead.
So when they had broken their fast, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me more than these?
He saith unto Him, Yea, Lord; Thou knowest that I love Thee.
He saith unto him, Feed My lambs.
He saith to him again a second time, Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me?
He saith unto Him, Yea, Lord; Thou knowest that I love Thee.
He saith unto him, Tend My sheep.
He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of John, lovest thou Me?
Peter was grieved because He said unto him the third time, Lovest thou Me?
And he said unto Him, Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou knowest that I love Thee.
Jesus saith unto him, Feed My sheep.
Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdest thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not.
Now this He spake, signifying by what manner of death he should glorify God.
And when He had spoken this, He saith unto him, Follow Me.
Peter turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved following; who also leaned back on His breast at the supper, and said, Lord, who is he that betrayeth Thee?
Peter therefore seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do?
Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou Me.
This saying therefore went forth among the brethren, that that disciple should not die: yet Jesus said not unto him that he should not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?
This is the disciple that beareth witness of these things, and wrote these things: and we know that his witness is true.
And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that should be written.
Now, shall we just bow together in a word of prayer?
Lord, we do just bow here in Thy presence, and we are very thankful to Thee that Thou hast promised that the Spirit of truth will lead us into truth. Lord, we just want to ask Thee that Thou wilt cause that ministry of the Holy Spirit to be fulfilled in our midst this evening. Meet us, Lord, we pray.
We ask, Lord, for a spirit of quietness to come upon this gathering. We pray, Lord, for the children. Wilt Thou give the mothers wisdom, and wilt Thou give the children quietness, we pray, and help us, Lord, to be able to attend to Thee?
We do not want this time to be wasted or in any way futile. But we pray, O Lord, that Thou wilt shut us in with Thyself, that we may hear Thee; and, in hearing Thee, something may be done in our hearts and lives for eternity. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.
The burden that has been on my heart for these times in these evenings has been to do with the love of God. It came out of that little word of the Apostle Paul, as it is recorded in his letter to the church at Philippi, chapter 1 and verse 9:
I pray that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and all discernment;
that ye may approve the things which are excellent;
that ye may be sincere and void of offence unto the day of Christ.
“I pray that your love may abound yet more and more.” The Lord Jesus said, in some of the most solemn words He uttered, “Because iniquity shall abound, the love of the many shall wax cold.”
No single believer should ever think that he will escape that category, but by the grace of God. All of us—our hearts can grow cold. We can become lukewarm. The love that we had at the beginning may evaporate, and somehow we substitute that devotion and love for the Lord with things—with work, with truth, with teachings, with sacrifice even.
We need to take heed to the Lord’s word in this matter: that our love may abound yet more and more. Far from waxing cold, it may abound yet more and more unto the day of Jesus Christ.
Last night I spoke about the divine command:
Hear, O Israel: the Lord thy God, the Lord is one.
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
and with all thy soul,
and with all thy mind,
and with all thy strength.
And the second is like unto it:
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
Upon these two hangeth the whole law, and the prophets.
Tonight I want to speak about the divine challenge: “Lovest thou Me?”
The story contained in John 21 is a very wonderful story. It is almost an epilogue. If you look at the end of John 20, it seems as if John had finished his Gospel. He ended it like this:
Many other signs therefore did Jesus in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book:
but these are written, that ye may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God;
and that believing ye may have life in His name.
Then it seems as if he felt it was not finished, and the Spirit of the Lord drove him back to writing this epilogue. He writes the epilogue which, in fact, has become a vital part in the whole of this Gospel.
I said last night that we must always take note when God repeats something. In the Bible, we have certain things which are repetitions. For instance, last night we dwelt on Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Old Testament. That is, in fact, a repetition of the law—a giving again of the law.
One wonders why the Lord should have spent so much time and so many chapters in this precious Book we call the Bible going over what He has already given us. We would feel there are so many things we would like revelation and illumination on, so many things we would like information on, so many questions we would like answered. But instead, it is as if God goes right back to the beginning, to Genesis, and traces the whole story again.
There is, however, a significant addition. For the first time—only once before in those four books—He speaks about His love for them lying behind everything, and therefore being satisfied only if they will love Him with all their heart, with all their soul, with all their mind, and with all their strength.
John is also such a repetition, in one way. Now, we have to be careful, because we have three Gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—and we call them the Synoptic Gospels. They are the Gospels which are histories. They give us the facts.
They give us the story of the birth of the Lord Jesus, the life of the Lord Jesus, the anointing of the Lord Jesus, the ministry of the Lord Jesus, the death of the Lord Jesus, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and the ascension of the Lord Jesus. They give us the facts from different angles. One speaks of Him as King; another speaks of Him as Servant; the other speaks of Him as Man.
But when we come to John, he speaks of Him as God. It is not in the same way as the other Gospels. He goes over the whole story again, but his Gospel is an interpretation, as if John is saying, “Now, there is something you must understand which underlies everything in these other Gospels.”
You may not fully understand Who Jesus is, and what is the significance of the Lord Jesus, unless you understand what I am going to communicate to you. So the Gospel of John occupies a very special place indeed. It is as if you come into the holy of holies again in the Gospel of John. I think most of us feel that when we read this Gospel.
It is not without significance that this Gospel ends with this story of the Lord Jesus and His foremost disciple and apostle, Peter. We have read the story, and I do not need to go over it. But there are one or two things we need to say about the questions of the Lord, so that we might understand.
When Peter said, “I go a fishing,” Peter was this kind of man. We do great injustice to Peter when we think of him as some impetuous, impulsive, empty-headed kind of individual. Sometimes you hear Peter described as if he was all fire and emptiness—sort of all emotion and feeling, ready to jump in where fools would never tread, the one to go ahead without thought.
I do not think this is true of Peter. I think Peter was a rugged man. He was a real he-man. He was a man who had a brain. He had not been to any academy; he was a fisherman. But he had intelligence. He had a rugged personality. He was as tough as they come.
He was not impetuous simply in an empty-headed way. He was the kind of man who took the helm because it was natural to him to take the helm. He was the kind of man who spoke up because it was natural to him to speak up. He did what came naturally. He was a tough man.
When Jesus met him in this marvellous story, cooked him and the other disciples a meal, and had breakfast with them, He suddenly said, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?”
Now, the old Peter would have said, “Lord, of course I do—much more than all of them.” But this is where we cannot perhaps put it quite into English, because in the original we have two words used.
Jesus said, “Do you love Me completely, absolutely, comprehensively, with your whole being?” Peter said, “Lord, You know I have a brotherly affection for You.”
He used another word, phileo. It is a word beautifully used in the New Testament, and with real power. We are to love the brethren fervently, it says in one place. In other places too it uses this word, but it has not got quite the same fullness or comprehensiveness as the word Jesus used.
Then the Lord Jesus said to him, “Tend My lambs.” Then He said the second time, “Simon, do you love Me with your whole being—completely?” And Simon said, “Lord, You know I have a brotherly love for You.” Jesus said, “Shepherd My sheep.”
Then the third time Jesus said to him, “Simon, son of John”—and here is the wonderful thing—“have you got a brotherly affection for Me?” Peter said, “Lord, You know everything. You know I have a brotherly affection for You.” Jesus said, “Tend My sheep.”
The divine challenge.
This Gospel soars into the heavens right from the beginning. It begins, just like the book of Genesis and just like the old covenant begins:
In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
Then it says:
And the Word became flesh,
and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.
And we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father.
It is a wonderful revelation of the Person of the Lord Jesus—not just the Son of Man, or the Son of God, but God the Son: the very mind of God revealed.
What does a word mean? Do you know what a word is? A word is a thought expressed in a concrete form. What I am trying to do, by the grace of God, is to communicate thoughts by words.
I do not know whether you are understanding anything, but the idea is that these thoughts up here, which are invisible and intangible—as far as you are concerned, you do not see them, you cannot hear them, you do not know what I am thinking—these words take those thoughts and express those invisible thoughts in a concrete way so that you can understand. It is a communication.
Jesus is the mind of God revealed. Jesus is the heart of God revealed. Jesus is the thoughts of God in concrete form. Jesus is the manifestation of God, so that when we see Him, we see God; when we hear Him, we hear God; when we touch Him, we touch God. He is the Word.
We would never be able to understand God, comprehend God, or taste God, if you know what I mean, apart from the Person of the Lord Jesus. That is how this tremendous Gospel begins.
Then, by the Spirit of God, John begins to take us through all kinds of incredible things. First, we come to that great statement of the Lord Jesus: “I am the bread of life.”
Bread is absolutely necessary to live. We have to eat bread to live. Jesus did not say, “I give you bread.” He did give them bread. He broke bread and fed five thousand in one place, and broke bread in another and fed four thousand men only. The women must have been, if we go by the normal congregation, at least two-thirds more.
“I am the bread of life.” Not, “I give the bread of life”; not, “I break the bread of life”; but, “I am the bread of life.” He is the One Who is, as it were, the very nature of God in a way that you and I can become partakers of—not to be too subjective, to make Jesus a thing—but by Him, through His saving work, we become partakers of the divine nature.
“I am the bread of life.” What a tremendous thing. In this Gospel we have the story of the feeding of the five thousand and this great statement of Jesus: “I am the bread of life.”
Then, a little farther on, we have the next great statement:
I am the light of the world:
he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness,
but shall have the light of life.
Jesus is the light of the world. He does not just manifest the light of the world; He said, “I am the light of the world.” If we follow Him, we shall have not the light of knowledge but the light of life.
He in us becomes an inward understanding of God, an inward understanding of ourselves, an inward understanding of one another, and an inward understanding of the purpose and goal of God. Then we read of a blind man getting his sight.
Then we go on a little more, and what do we find? A marvellous statement for anybody who has any Jewish blood: “Before Abraham was, I am.” They reeled back at that. How could He be before Abraham was born? Yet He said, “Before Abraham was, I am.”
It was as if He were saying, “I am the explanation of the history of God’s people. I am the significance of all God’s dealings with His people. Before Abraham was, I am.”
God had revealed Himself to Moses in that burning bush as “I am.” When Moses said, “What is Your name?” He said, “I am that I am.” Jesus took up that unmentionable name of God and said, “I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. Before Abraham was, I am.”
A few more chapters on, we come to John 10, and Jesus said:
I am the door: by Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved,
and shall go in and go out, and shall find pasture.
“I am the door.” Not, “I point to the door”; not, “I introduce you through the door”; but, “I am the door.” I am the gateway into the kingdom of God. I am the gateway into the presence of God. I am the door by which you can come in, and go out, and find pasture.
Then He went on:
I am the good shepherd:
the good shepherd layeth down His life for the sheep.
This Gospel of John is unique. You do not find any of this in the other three Gospels. It is as if John goes right back and says, “Now you have got all the facts. You have seen Him as King; you have seen Him as Servant; you have seen Him as Man. But I want to reveal something about the Lord Jesus that underlies the whole.”
God has not given you things; He has given you a Person. God has not given you an it; He has given you a Him. His unspeakable gift is His Son. He has given Himself in the Person of the Lord Jesus.
Then we go on to John 11 and that amazing story of when Lazarus died, and Jesus wept. You remember the words He said:
I am the resurrection, and the life:
he that believeth on Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live;
and he that liveth and believeth on Me shall never die.
He did not say, “I am the One Who will raise the dead and give you life.” He said, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Death is only a transient experience. It is just a kind of chrysalis out of which we pass into another dimension of life. Is that not wonderful?
Sometimes we are afraid if we feel that Jesus is far off and we are here. But when it comes to the day when we die, if the Lord does not come for us before, what a comfort it will be to know that He is the resurrection and the life, even in our dying hour.
Then, in John 14, Philip said, “Lord, we do not know the way to the Father. Show us the way.” He said, “Have I been so long time with you, and you still do not understand?”
I am the way, and the truth, and the life:
no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me.
He did not say, “I point to the way, I preach the truth, or give the truth, and I produce the life.” He said, “I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by Me.”
Then perhaps the most remarkable and mysterious statement of all, in John 15:1:
I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman.
Any good Jew hearing the Lord Jesus at that time knew what He was talking about, because on the coins at the time of our Lord Jesus was stamped a vine leaf. Everybody knew that in Herod’s temple, one of the most amazing sights, Josephus says, was the great filigree golden vine in the porch of the temple.
Every child of Israel could see it when he brought his sacrifices. He looked up beyond the head of the priest to the porch of the temple, and he could see that golden vine. If you had said to any good Jew in those days, “What does the vine symbolize?” he would have said, “Us. We are the vine—the covenant people of God, the chosen people of God. We are the vine, and God is the husbandman.”
Of all the things Jesus ever said, that must have caused those apostles’ minds to reel. He said, “I am the true vine,” as if He were saying, “I am the nation. I am the people of God. I am the bride of God. I am the nation of God. I am the covenant.”
How could He be? If He had said, “I am the Messiah of the people,” we could understand it. If He had said, “I am the high priest,” we would understand it. If He had said, “I am the Messianic King,” we would have understood it. But how could He say, “I am the true vine”?
“I am the vine; ye are the branches.” He never said, “I am the trunk; you are the branches.” That is how we all mentally understand it: He is the little trunk and we are the big branches.
If you have seen vines growing in the old way—not the Italian way, but the old way, as they still are in many parts of Israel today, in Judea and Samaria—you will see that they have a very little trunk and great branches.
Many people say, “Oh, we understand Jesus. He said, ‘I am the trunk; you are the branches. Abide in Me and you shall bear much fruit.’” He did not say that. He said, “I am the vine; you are the branches,” as if He were saying, “I am the whole vine. I am the totality of the vine.”
“I am the root, and the trunk, and the branches, and the leaves, and the tendrils, and the blossom, and the fruit—and you are in Me. You are not as big as Me, but you are in Me. Abide in Me, and I in you, and you shall bear much fruit.”
Oh, what a revelation. What a revelation.
We do not realise just how tremendous these things are. Here we have this Book, and many of us have never understood: “I am the vine; My Father is the husbandman.” It just washes off us.
Wonderful. He is the bread of life. Wonderful. He is the resurrection. Oh, wonderful. He is the light of the world. Marvellous. “I am the vine.” Oh, what a lovely thought—union. Union. Lovely. It is lovely.
This Gospel of John is fathomless. It is an ocean of spiritual meaning and experience unexplored. This is all that Jesus said.
After John 15 we enter into the last account of His passion, His anguish, His death, and His resurrection. It is as if John came to the end and said, “Oh, I have written these, and many other signs which I could have told you about, that you might believe, and that believing you might have life in His name.”
Then, I suppose, like some of us writers, he thought, “Well, that is it.” But then, I suppose—I do not know how it happened—he must have felt uncomfortable. He went back and looked at it and said, “There is something missing.”
I suppose the Lord Jesus said to him, “Yes, there is another incident. You remember when I met you all when you went fishing with Peter. John, do not leave that Gospel where you finished it. It is not finished. You have not yet come to the heart of the matter.”
The heart of the matter is not that you have knowledge of all mysteries, not that you understand My Person and the fullness which the Father has pleased to centre in Me for you.
The key is this: Do you love Me?
Do you love Me with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your mind, and all your strength?
What is the greatest need amongst the people of God today? Some would say, “Oh, if they could only have more knowledge of the things of God.” I think we would all say, “Yes, there is a dearth of understanding among the dear people of God.”
But you can have a great understanding and still miss the mark. You could even understand the Gospel of John, and somehow miss the whole point were it not for John 21, which is not an afterthought but brings us right into the very heart of the matter: “Lovest thou Me?”
Do you love Me fully, completely, with your whole being?
Just note for a moment: it is not things. It is not truth. It is not teaching. He did not say, “Do you love the truth I have given you?”
It is a good thing to love the truth. The psalmist said, “O Lord, I love Thy truth.” It is a good thing. It is a good thing to have sound doctrine in a day when there is very little. It is a good thing to have pure doctrine in a day when there is very little pure doctrine.
But that is only part of the matter. The essential matter, the heart of the whole thing, is: do you love Me with all your being? And if you do: “Feed My lambs. Tend My sheep. Feed My sheep.”
We are back again. You will find in these few evenings that I am really saying the same thing again and again. I hope it is not boring you stiff.
What are the two great commandments?
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart.
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
“Lovest thou Me?” “Lord, You know that I have a real affection for You.” “Feed My lambs.”
Everything of eternal value comes out of our relationship to the Lord Jesus, out of our love for Him. You can have all the knowledge, all the understanding, all the zeal, all the energy, and be immersed in work for Him; but if this relationship to Him of love is missing, it profits you nothing.
Nothing goes through into the city of God. There is no gold, no precious stone, and no pearl.
That is why this greatest of the four Gospels ends with a challenge: “Do you love Me? Tell Me. Do you love Me?”
Or are you preaching out of duty, preaching mechanically, working for self-satisfaction, somehow or other simply going through the motions? Do you love Me?
What a revelation of the grace of God in this last chapter. He understood that apostle.
The Lord Jesus could have said the third time, “Do you love Me with your whole being?” He would have known that poor Peter would have simply nearly gone under. Something had happened to Peter. We will come to that in a moment.
He could not say what he would have said a few months or weeks before. He said, “Lord, You know everything.” But the third time Jesus did not say, “Do you love Me completely, fully, with your whole being?” He said, “Peter, Simon, have you got that brotherly affection for Me?”
Peter said, “Lord, You know. You know everything. You know I have got it for You.” Then He said, “Feed My sheep.”
The Lord Jesus comes to you tonight. I do not know how moved you were this morning, or whether God has been able to get anything into you in the last two days. But I do know this: it is not your tremendous understanding of truth, even of church truth, even of the purpose of God, that finally counts in eternity.
It is whether tonight you can answer this question of your Lord, your risen and glorified Lord: “Do you love Me?” It is an inescapable challenge.
The consequence of such love, as I have already pointed out, is not that we shall be closeted with Him and forget the world around us, or forget everybody else, and somehow live in a wonderful atmosphere of meditation and reflection.
The Lord says, “Feed My lambs. Tend My sheep. Feed My sheep.” This kind of love for Him, this relationship to Him—and not to things—must result in service: a sacrificial, loving service toward the flock of God.
Sheep are not easy creatures. I used to think, before I knew a little more about sheep through asking various questions of sheep farmers, that keeping sheep was a nice easy way of making a subsistence livelihood—not making a fortune, perhaps, but having a few sheep and letting them get on with it.
In the Middle East, of course, we have sheep going back to the capital twice a year. It is one of the funniest sights in Jerusalem to see, in the spring and autumn, whole flocks of sheep going right through the high streets on their way from the south to the north, and then half a year later on their way back again down to the Bethlehem area.
Those scraggy old sheep—the Oriental kind, the kind they have in China as well, not the Western kind—with the great fat rump tails at the back and those round faces. Sheep are strange.
I used to think they were the dumbest of all creatures. You thought you could do anything with a few sheep. You sat down under a tree through the day, let the sheep get on with it, and somehow they brought you a livelihood. You did not have to bother your head about them; you could sit there playing a flute.
That is the sentimental picture of a shepherd sitting on a rock, playing a flute while his sheep wander all over the mountainside. I have found out since then that sheep are not quite so easy.
A sheep farmer told me that to really have healthy sheep, you must inspect them every day personally, each one. They have such a capacity for foot rot and such a capacity for sores in their coats that they need to be inspected each day.
This explains the relationship of the shepherd to the sheep. He has to inspect them every day and gets to know them. To me, the sheep all look alike, I can tell you. But to the shepherd, he gets to know their little idiosyncrasies. He can tell one from another.
I have always found this relationship of shepherd and sheep quite remarkable. I remember one day, walking down from where I was staying near the Mount of Olives into the old city, I saw a whole lot of flocks. I knew there were four large flocks, each numbering about one hundred and fifty or one hundred and sixty sheep, and they were all mixed up together.
Then I saw a most extraordinary sight. I saw a little short shepherd, an old white-haired gentleman, with an enormous sheep in his arms. He had just scooped her up out of the midst of a whole seething mass of sheep, taken her across, and dumped her in another flock.
You may think I am dim—and I am, when it comes to sheep—because I thought to myself, “How did he know that?” There was no dye on it, as in modern things. How did he know that sheep was not his? Yet he sorted it out.
They all looked the same to me. They all looked scraggy. They all looked silly; they all looked dumb. They all had the same colour pattern and the same queer faces. Yet he dived into the midst of about fifteen sheep, lifted one out, and went over.
Once I was down in the south of Sinai, and I wandered off from the others. They were looking at the coral and diving down to see the undersea world. I walked round to where there was a Bedouin village right next to the Red Sea.
There was a woman with an enormous flock, and she was watering them. Then I suddenly saw her turn round and look into this seething mass of at least a hundred creatures. She bent down, took a stone, flung it with deadly aim, hit one on the back, and it jumped up, bolted out of the flock, and went over to another.
I could not speak her language, so I could not say, “How did you know?” To me, they all looked alike. They were all fighting to get to the water. Yet she spotted one sheep out of that hundred that was not her flock, and she sent a stone with deadly accuracy which hit it on the back, and out it went to its own flock.
Sheep are incredible creatures. Not only do they have a tendency to disease and must be looked after and tended, but the shepherd has to look for pasture. It is not like here, where you have plenty of green or plenty of hay.
In the Middle East, the shepherd has to have foresight. He has to think where he is going to lead those sheep the next week, because he knows the pasture will only enable them to live for a few more days. He has to think of some other pasture.
When Jesus said to Peter, who was a fisherman, “Lovest thou Me?” and he said, “Lord, You know I have an affection for Thee,” He said, “Feed My lambs.” “Simon, do you love Me?” “Lord, You know I have an affection for You.” “Shepherd My sheep.” “Simon, do you have an affection for Me?” “Lord, You know everything. You know I have got this affection for You.” “Feed My sheep.”
Sheep have a tremendous tendency to get into trouble. I have been working amongst the Lord’s people for some years now, and I can well understand why the Lord calls us sheep. We have a terrible tendency to disease. We have a terrible tendency to get into trouble, and sometimes we lead one another into trouble.
I remember years ago, when I was young and in England, hearing Alan Redpath tell a story. He was on holiday in Scotland, and he said that as the ferry came into a place called Rothesay, in the Western Highlands, all these sheep were coming in and going on to the quay.
The men on the quayside had left some great crates. As the first sheep came to the crate, it did not go round. It hesitated for a moment, then went back and leapt over. So the next one hesitated and then leapt over. To my amazement, all these hundreds of sheep did not go round; they all leapt over.
Then one of the men on the quay felt sorry for the sheep. He went and pulled the thing away. What do you think happened? They all leapt over an invisible crate.
The Lord’s people are amazing people. We follow one another, and we do things. Sometimes, a hundred years later, we are following a method which is long outdated. We are doing evangelistic work as if we were living one hundred and fifty years ago.
We dress like it, we speak like it, we do all kinds of things as if we were living in a time of great revival two hundred, three hundred, or four hundred years ago. We are jumping over the invisible crate.
Sheep.
Now, I know you are sheep, but it is sometimes hard to recognise that I am a sheep. Do you understand what I mean? We all say, “Oh, so-and-so is just like that. Just like that. They need so much care, so much attention.” But, of course, me—well, I am not like that.
But we all are. We are all sheep. We have all turned our own way, but the Lord has laid the iniquity of us all on Him. Sheep.
The work, the service, even the sheep, must never come in the place of the Lord. Is it not interesting? The Lord Jesus did not say, “Simon, son of John, do you love My lambs? Simon, son of John, do you love My sheep with your whole being?”
He did not even say, “Simon, do you have a brotherly affection for the sheep? Do you have a feeling for them?” No. He said, “Do you love Me with your whole being?” “Lord, You know I have an affection for You.” “Feed My lambs.”
That is the right way round, but we are always putting it the other way round. We are always getting wrapped up with the work, with the service, with the people, with the saints. The first thing is our relationship to the Lord Jesus.
It is not for nothing that the Apostle Paul said, “Hold fast the Head, from Whom the whole body.” In other words, when we hold fast the Head, we find the body. When we try to hold fast the body, we lose the Head.
Whole movements have gone off the rails because they have held to one another instead of holding to the Head. Our great safety and security is our relationship to the Head—not just holding fast the Head, but a real, true, total love for Him.
Now I must draw this time to an end, but there is something else I want to say. I have talked about the challenge of the Lord: “Do you love Me with your whole being?” I have talked about the consequence of that love: “Feed My lambs. Tend My sheep. Feed My sheep.”
I want to speak about the necessary experience.
We must not overlook Peter’s experience which lies behind all this, or we will miss the whole point. Did you notice what the Lord Jesus said to him the first time? “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?”
The Lord knew just what He was saying and what He was doing, because the old Peter would have said, “You know, Lord, I love You far more than them all. I am ready to go with You into prison. I am ready to die for You—at least with You.”
That was the old Peter of a week before. Something had happened to Peter.
Peter had a self-manufactured Christian life. He had a kind of self-manufactured service. He had been three years with the Lord Jesus. I cannot think of any theological seminary like that: three years, not under some great godly tutor, but under the tutorship and training of the Lord Jesus Himself—three whole years with the Master.
He had lived with Him. He had slept in the same room with Him. He had eaten with Him. He had been involved in miracles, signs, and wonders. He had personally heard the Sermon on the Mount. He had heard these great discourses. He had heard Jesus say, “I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world.”
He had been with the Lord Jesus in all these things. He was the one who was up on the Mount of Transfiguration with two of the others when suddenly the Lord Jesus was transfigured in glory. He was one of the four that was taken in and saw Jairus’s daughter raised from the dead. He was one of the inner circle of the twelve. He had been in on everything.
He was not only with the Lord, he not only knew the Lord firsthand, he not only heard the Lord, he not only experienced the authority and power of the Lord—he was the first with revelation.
He was the one who, when Jesus said, “Whom do you say that I am?” answered, “Thou art the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus said to him, “Simon, son of John, flesh and blood did not reveal that to you, but My Father Who is in heaven.”
He was the first in revelation. It was to this Peter that Jesus said, “To you will I give the keys of the kingdom of heaven.”
This Peter had been on evangelistic campaigns where, when they came back, Jesus said to them, “I saw Satan falling out of heaven like lightning.” They came back and said, “Master, the dead have been raised, the lepers have been cleansed, the sick have been healed, the demon-possessed have been made sound.”
I would have thought if you had had three years like that, you might feel that you had a right to speak for God. You might feel you had a right to be a leader amongst the people of God. You might feel that you had a right to communicate truth to them. You might feel that you had a right somehow to organise campaigns or whatever.
But there was a fatal weakness in Peter, and that fatal weakness is in every single child of God.
We find it best described in Luke 22:31, in the words of Jesus:
Simon, behold, Satan asked to have you,
that he might sift you as wheat:
but I have prayed for thee,
that thy faith fail not;
and do thou, when once thou hast turned again, establish thy brethren.
Peter said unto Him, “Lord, with Thee I am ready to go both to prison and to death.” And He said, “I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day, until thou shalt thrice deny that thou even knowest Me.”
Simon, Satan hath obtained thee by request. The New American Standard Bible puts it simply: “Satan has demanded permission to have you.” What a wonderful word.
Satan can never get a believer without permission. No one who has been given by the Father to the Son can ever be tampered with by Satan but by permission.
What was the aim? Satan had demanded permission that he might have you, that he may sift you as wheat.
I think God always uses Satan to sift us, in many, many ways. Satan is the agent; God gets the grain, and Satan gets the chaff. Satan is so self-centred that he still goes on and on and on. He does not seem to realise that God uses him to do something in a believer.
“Satan hath obtained thee by request, that he may sift thee as wheat.” Now, I would have thought that if we take the story of Peter’s denial and collapse, there was no grain—it was all chaff. Everything was chaff.
He said with oaths and curses, “I do not know this Man.” And not before the high priest. If the high priest had appeared in all his regalia and confronted Peter and said, “Now, you have been with this impostor, Jesus,” and Peter had quivered and said, “Oh, no, I do not know Him,” I might have understood it.
But it was a little servant girl, a slip of a thing. She came up and said, “You were with Jesus.” And that great rugged man quaked. He said, “I do not know Him.” Three times.
Obtained by request. Here is divine love in action. Listen: “I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not.”
Do you know why I stand here tonight? Because Jesus has prayed for me many times. Do you know why you are here tonight? Because He ever lives to make intercession for us.
Oh, the times unbeknown to us when Jesus has said to the Father, “Father, do not let her faith fail. Do not let that which is of Myself in him be destroyed. Bring him through with what is of eternal value. The rest Satan can have.”
“That thy faith may not fail.” How would you have described this chapter in Peter’s life? Would you not have called it the collapse of his faith? If someone had said, “I do not know the Man,” with oaths and curses, you would have thought, “Oh, that is the collapse of his faith.”
Not the Lord Jesus. He said, “I prayed for you, Simon, that your faith will not fail.” So all that failed was the superficial, self-manufactured stuff. It was the surface stuff.
The real faith, which was the gift of God deep within his heart, was there. It never failed. Jesus only had to look at him with one glance, and in that moment his God-given faith broke out in bitter cries and tears.
So it is with every true child of God. Jesus has only to look. Sometimes He does not even have to say anything. When we have gone through this kind of experience, He looks, and in that moment we are back with Him.
What happened to Peter has to happen to every true servant of the Lord in some degree. We all start out when we are first saved to serve the Lord, but so much of it is self-manufactured, is it not?
Our faith, which we think is so great, is really superficial. Our confession: we say, “Lord, I will go anywhere for You. Lord, I will do anything.” We stand up in meetings and dedicate ourselves to the Lord, but the Lord is not taken in by any of it. He loves us so much that He takes us on.
It is as if He plays along with us and says, “Okay, okay, I take you.” But He knows, just like Peter. He never kept on saying to Peter every time Peter said something, “Peter, you are all wind. You are all wind, Peter—an empty, noisy gong, a clanging cymbal. That is all you are. You will come to it.”
No. The Lord Jesus went along beautifully. He encouraged what there was of the Lord. He said, “Flesh and blood did not reveal that to you; My Father revealed that to you.” He commended him. He encouraged him. He comforted him.
Sometimes He rebuked him: “Get thee behind Me, Satan. Thou savourest not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men.”
But the Lord Jesus was never taken in. He knew that all that so-called Christian character, Christian work, and service was all a façade. It would all collapse in a moment of time. He had prayed for Peter that he would not fail.
Now, this message will only be for some of you, I am afraid. All of you, if you go on with the Lord, will have to come to it in some degree. But some of you may have come to this place.
Seemingly, you have lost your faith. Seemingly, you are devastated. Seemingly, you are desolated. All that you once knew has just evaporated. All that you once held so zealously and forcefully somehow has a question about it.
It is as if God has blown the whole superstructure of your Christian life to pieces. Do not be afraid. Jesus has prayed for you. You have got to go this way.
Because only when you come through will you hear the lovely words of your Lord: “Do you love Me with your whole being?”
If Jesus had said that earlier to Peter, he would have said, as I have said two or three times, “Of course I do, Lord. I love You with my whole being. I will die for You.” Jesus would have known it did not mean a thing.
Now He said it twice, and those words of Peter—“You know I have got an affection for You, Lord”—meant more to Jesus than if he had said, months before, “I love You with my whole heart.” This time Jesus knew it was real.
The man was in love with Him. The man had a devotion for Him, but he was afraid to go beyond and use the words that he would have used a few weeks before. His whole superstructure was blown sky-high. God had got him down to the basic foundation.
“You know I have got an affection for You.” Jesus did not let him get away. “Simon, do you love Me with your whole heart?” “Master, You know I have a feeling for You. I have an affection for You.” “Shepherd My sheep.”
Then it was as if Jesus said, with gentleness and tenderness in His eye, “Simon, have you got an affection for Me?” Peter said, “You know everything. You know I have got an affection for You.”
Jesus said, “Feed My sheep. I am with you, Peter. We are on the basis of reality now. You are going to be the man who opens the door—first to the Jew, and then to the Gentile. I am with you.”
Dear people of God, is it not an amazing thing when we consider that this love of God has to lead us in the end to laying down our lives for Him and for one another?
You notice how the words end: “Do you love Me? Follow Me.”
It was not for nothing that Jesus said to him, “You will be carried where you would not,” for He spoke of Peter’s death, a death that was actually physically like his Lord’s.
Only, if we believe church tradition, at the last moment Peter asked for one thing to be granted to him, and it was granted to him. He said he wanted to be crucified upside down because he was not worthy to be crucified in the same way as his Lord.
“Follow Me.”
You can give your body to be burned, and it will profit you nothing. You can give all your goods away to feed the poor, and it means nothing unless there is love.
“Do you love Me?” the Lord says. “Lord, You know I love You.” Then He says, “Feed My sheep, and follow Me.”
That will mean you will have to lay down your life. The love of God leads us just to that: that we might lay down our lives for Him and for one another.
I do not know what the response of your heart is tonight to the words of Jesus. I pray that you cannot escape it, that God will somehow keep you to this matter.
Not, “Do you understand?” Not, “Do you know?” Not, “Are you ready for sacrifice first?” Not even, “Are you ready to serve first?” But, “Do you love Me?”
May God give us grace to love Him with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength, and to love our neighbour as ourselves. Shall we pray?
Dear Lord, we pray that we may hear Thy voice in the quietness of our own hearts, speaking to each one of us.
Help us, Lord, we pray, to respond to Thee. Do not let us escape, we pray, Lord, from this challenge of Thine.
But grant, we pray, Lord, that we may be enabled to face up to it, and may be enabled to seek Thee. We ask it in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.