Encouragements for our troubled times No. 10
COVID-19 Series | Date: 28 May 2020
The Elders and Deacons want to encourage the members and those who regularly meet with us through this weekly letter. If you have news which you would be happy to share with the fellowship or request for prayer, then please let us know.
A message from your Pastor
John 10:27-30
“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. I and My Father are one.”
One of the bonuses of being in lockdown is that we have more time to think and meditate on the things of our faith. Now, this can be a good thing: normally we live busy lives and have little time for such things as meditating on the things of God, but this can also create problems. We may find that our thoughts are overcome with doubts and fears that we find difficult to think through. One of the most common is the fear that we are not eternally secure because of our sins and failures; that we will not be found worthy on the day that the Saviour comes for His own. For our encouragement, here is a text that makes the eternal security of all who are redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus abundantly clear.
Our eternal security is not in our control but is entirely in the hands of God. In verses 26-27 Jesus tells the Pharisees that they do not believe because they are not His sheep; if they were, they would hear His voice and follow Him. We only believe upon the Saviour because we are already His sheep and, because we are His sheep, when He calls us to come and follow Him, we believe and follow after Him. If we were not loved by Him before the beginning of the world, elected by Him to salvation, granted eternal life in Him, predestined to hear His voice and to follow Him, and are now the recipients of the Holy Spirit, Who brought us to Him and Who now is the guarantee of our inheritance in Heaven (Ephesians 1:14), then we would never have believed. Look also at verse 28 where Jesus says “I give them eternal life and they shall never perish”. Not one part of our eternal security, therefore, is down to us, it is a gift from God Himself, which He promises never to take away (“and they shall never perish”).
We are eternally secure because our eternal security is not in our hands but entirely in the hands of Almighty God. In fact, we are in those almighty hands twice over. In verse 28, Jesus assures us that we are in His almighty hands, eternally secure because no one is able to snatch us out of His hand. He will not let us go because he has paid the entire price for our salvation, and will not now give us up and allow anyone to snatch us away (not even us). And how can anyone snatch us out of His hands? He is Almighty God and He has promised that we shall never perish. Now, if we are still in any doubt of our eternal security, our Saviour assures us that we are kept, not only by His almighty hand but by His Father’s almighty hand also (verse 29). Undergirding the almighty hand of our Lord and Saviour is the almighty hand of our Father, who gave us to the Saviour for this express purpose, that we should have eternal life. It is, therefore, absolutely impossible that anyone, including ourselves, can take us out of those almighty hands, nor induce our God to give up those He has purposed to have for His own for all eternity. Toplady summed this great truth up in this glorious hymn:
