The fight we all have is to hear His voice, and then after we hear His voice, another battle is to yield to His voice and to follow His voice! God never said following Him is popular or easy, but He did say, HIS SHEEP HEAR HIS VOICE, and HIS SHEEP FOLLOW HIM. John 10:1-5 tells us that by trying to enter into His fold through a different door, we are considered as a thief! We must enter through His door! He calls His sheep as His own sheep; He calls them by name and leads them out! Out of where? Out of deception, religiosity, the world, and evil ways. The Holy Spirit is the porter! He opens the door. It is not only the Word but the Spirit on the Word that leads us to the Father’s house. His sheep know His voice, and the stranger they will not follow! He is the Word made flesh. He is the Holy Spirit, He is the creator, and He said, “My Words are spirit, and they are life” (John 6:63).
The stranger has to have a strange voice! Many don’t recognize the voice of the stranger because they don’t recognize the voice of the Shepherd! Many hear this and that voice but can’t discern that that voice is of the stranger! If you go just by the Word you have, you will miss Him! Sheep learn the shepherd's voice and not just the words. Someone could try to copy His words and could say the same words the shepherd says, the same commands, but the sheep will just ignore them because they get so familiar with the tone of the voice of the shepherd, and they begin to build this trust.
They only trust that voice and no other. Anyone can quote the scripture, the Bible; even satan tried to tell THE WORD (Jesus) the Word, and THE WORD (Jesus) quoted the WORD back (Matthew 4:1-11), and the stranger with the strange voice, the devil, the hireling, the thief, fled until satan had another apt time to come back to Jesus who was a sheep. He was and is a shepherd. Our example. This makes me think of how anyone can use the written word to steal, kill, and destroy! Hirelings, pharisees, preachers, cessationalists, anyone! This is why the Spirit has to be first, or the same word that saved you can bind you! The fight of your life relies on recognizing these voices. The goats hear whatever they want to hear. The sheep choose to hear only the voice of the shepherd. They follow Him. They are ministers who are oracles, and they are spirit-led as well. They carry the essence of the shepherd as well.
Religious people hang around the cross, but the remnant and the sheep pick it up! You may hang out around people who pick up their cross, but you don’t pick up your own cross! “The bread that I eat, you need to eat, too. The way that I am is the way you need to be, too,” says God. The battle that we are in is who am I going to follow and which voice I want to hear! There are so many voices: the voices of the flesh, arrows by night, and the voices of the second-realm witchcraft. But I need to say, “Get behind me, satan” (Matthew 16:22-24). The voice tempting Jesus was not the voice of the Father! The voice of a stranger can come from even satan himself dressed up as a minister of light and righteousness (2 Corinthians 11:14-15). This is sinister and horrific, but it is written. This is why God and we are so persistent to guide and to draw you so close to the Shepherd, to His voice, and to His presence. This is why the Spirit and the Word are one. One without the other is deceptive and is not the Spirit of God.
A sheep is always a disciple, but a disciple is not always a sheep. You can be a disciple but not a sheep. The pharisees have their own disciples. Nicodemus has his own disciples. John has his own disciples (John 1:35-42 ), but he had enough sense to point them to the Sheperd as we see in this passage: “He it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose” (John 1:27), and he said that he must decrease so the Shepherd can increase (John 3:30). Many have their own disciples.
But now, think about the ability to follow instructions. We can be Esther or Vashti! When He calls us, and we don’t respond, we embarrass the Bridegroom! Rebellion is so strong in some sheep that they end up doing exactly the opposite of what they were told. Vashti wants to do what she wants to do (Esther 1:12-14). She did not respect the voice of her King! She was unsubmissive. “Queen Vashti has not only wronged the king, but also all the princes, and all the people who are in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus. For the queen’s behavior will become known to all women, so that they will despise their husbands in their eyes, when they report, ‘King Ahasuerus commanded Queen Vashti to be brought in before him, but she did not come” (verses 16-17). Now, we can look at this unsubmissive attitude that’s coming up as justified for so many reasons, especially in this modern time, as so many are so far away from the Truth. But regardless, there were consequences for her rebellion, especially since she was a leader’s wife!
“If it pleases the king, let a royal decree go out from him, and let it be recorded in the laws of the Persians and the Medes, so that it will not be altered, that Vashti shall come no more before King Ahasuerus; and let the king give her royal position to another who is better than she.” Verse 19
Make sure you don’t ignore God even when He wants to expose ungodly behavior like Vasthi’s behavior. When God brings things to our ears and exposes things, we should always ask: “Is that me?” This is a place of humility where we all have to be. When Jesus mentioned the betrayer, even the disciples had that humble attitude in asking if it was them (Matthew 26:22).
When THE KING speaks, we should run; but when THE KING speaks, we ignore it. What does this tell you? It tells you that the spirit of Vashti (a rebellious spirit) is manifesting, or it means we do not know the voice of the Shepherd. The reason for ignoring it can only be one of these two reasons. Period. When the King speaks, life comes in! Every time THE KING speaks, something happens. Are you just a disciple or a sheep?
I can’t just call myself a sheep. Just reading the red letters does not make me one. Only a sheep obeys His voice! The disciple can read the word and do all the dos, but when it is time to obey His voice, they won’t. Sheep live among the crowd but they don’t follow the crowd. Sheep hear and know the voice. This is what God meant when He said about “having ears to hear” in the book of Revelation. Not everyone has ears to hear; not all have ears to obey, ears to understand and to follow. These are trained spiritual ears, and they are only on the sheep!
We can always change the title of a message, but we can’t ever miss the voice of the Shepherd. Even when I am preaching, I need to be sensitive to the voice of the Shepherd at the same time that He is speaking through me! He speaks to me saying, “Pray for this person,” “Hurry up,” “Slow down,” “Skip this scripture,” “Add this one.” I know that sheep will go wherever God sends them. If you are just a disciple, you may give up halfway. When the cross gets heavy, when persecution starts happening, those who were just a disciple will blame somebody else. I am not here to hear the voice of the Shepherd for you! But you should hear Him through the Word, the Spirit, and the Body of Christ. Put your hand in the basket and eat the bread.
Some don’t eat the bread, some eat the bread for other reasons, and some keep eating the bread of Herod (Mark 8:14-21), filled with the world, and filled with the antichrist spirit. Some eat the bread of the pharisees with the leaven of hypocrisy, with sin, pride, self-righteousness, and condemnation, but Jesus is the bread of life and the bread of sincerity, truth, and affliction!
Right after He did a huge miracle, we see in John 6:22-27 that the disciples went alone in the boat, and they saw Him on the other side. They called Him RABBI! Jesus was teaching them, but it does not mean they were HIS SHEEP. This was a large group that found boats to run after Him. See, most of the crowd stayed back and headed home after they were filled and saw the miracles. We are not talking about the 12 chosen ones but those who found Him later.
Jesus rebuked them because they were seeking Him, not because of the miracles, but because they ate the loaves and became full! You want to be fed, but you don’t want to be a sheep! It is all about their belly! Jesus said to them, you are not seeking me because of the miracles you saw but because of the loaves you ate and were filled with. What is He saying? The miracles were the sign pointing to Him, the bread from heaven (John 6:51), showing and proving that He was who He said He was! The loaves were what filled their flesh, their desires, and their bellies. They went out of their way to find and seek Him out for what He could give and do for them, not for who He was for them. So, it is like seeking God’s hands and not His face. Here is how we know if we look at the next verse 27. He said, “Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed.” Laboring not for the meat (food) that perishes but for the meat that endures forever. Forever points to everlasting life, and that is reserved for those who the Father has sealed! This is His Word that will not come out and go into the draught but will remain in our hearts forever. “Do you not understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth onto the belly, and is cast out into the draught?” Matthew 15:17 and Mark 7:19: “Because it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly, and goeth out into the draught, purging all meats?” This bread stays. You are the basket! The church is the basket; we become the fragments that remain and multiply.
Just because you are a sheep today does not mean you are a sheep tomorrow! A sheep keeps following Him because they hear His voice! It is not that you will only hear His voice, but you will be hearing His voice and so many others as well. The other voices will be always speaking! But the sheep will not stop following Him, their Shepherd!
We follow the Shepherd in our house, on the street, on our jobs. We are to follow Him every time and everywhere. When we come together, whatever the Shepherd says, we follow. But the disciples say, “Well, I don’t have to do it now. I don’t have to follow the voice of the Shepherd. I don’t feel it.” A sheep does not have to understand, to know, to agree, or obey in order to follow! They just follow His voice. Some will call you dumb; some will call you cultish, some will say, “What a waste of a life.” Some will mock you. So what? “Labor not for what perishes…” Disciples still work hard for the food that does not last. Labor for the food that perishes not! The Father has sealed us! Here is the intention revealed: Why do you labor for that? Disciples eat but only sheep eat the bread that does not perish. In our earthy and religious minds, we know, even the 12 were called disciples, yes, but they became sheep! Remember, the pharisees had disciples, John the Baptist had disciples, gurus have disciples. They may change their title to coach or mentor but it’s all the same scenario, and remember, even satan has them. This is why it is not good enough to be a Berean; we have to be a sheep!
I am going to stop focusing on the disciples and on the goats! My heart cares so much for them, but I must focus on the sheep! If you don’t want Jesus, then we can end up wasting time with the goats. Jesus always knew His sheep, even when they did not know Him as a shepherd after a while. Jesus knows the hearts.
So, are you a sheep, or are you just hanging around them? Goats are always around the sheep, but they are there to get what they can steal from the sheep. Jesus showed us by saying, you followed Me because of the loaves and you are full, not because you are My sheep. You can be a disciple without being a sheep; you can be a disciple and be a goat, following along in the flesh or in your humanity and religion, but not in your heart and in obedience, but a sheep can be a disciple and a friend of the Bridegroom. When He calls us to Himself (Matthew 10:1), He will lead us to everlasting life!
John 6:47…Verily I say unto you…. Many are dead because their own belly killed them, their own desire. They were following Moses, but they were not sheep! They were just disciples. He did miracles as from God. He instructed them but they became goats. Just because you are called does not make you a sheep! Just because you are chosen either. The bread that you eat from the Shepherd stays in. Eat from Him, don’t labor for the bread that perishes! Whatever does not perish comes in and remains forever! He is the bread of life. “Eat My flesh, drink My blood,” He said!
The bread that went inside the 12 baskets remains. That is why 12 baskets are still filled with bread! Because the bread of Jesus never ends; it is life, it is not perishable! He said, “I AM THE BREAD that comes down from heaven!” Sheep eat! Others are there for other reasons, for what God can give them in the natural. Some people reading this don’t eat this bread! They may receive but poop it out later! That bread is not everlasting in them! The sheep do not complain about what kind of bread has been served. But the bread of Herod and the pharisees will always come out of our hearts and go into the draught! But the bread put in those 12 baskets, the government of God, the 12 apostles, has everlasting life! But you keep focusing on the basket, the water pot…Focus on what is inside! Let’s think about the number 12: 12 tribes together, making 24 elders 12 x 12 x 1000 who represent 144,0000 thousand. That turns into the kingdom of God, every tribe and every tongue blood-washed and sealed. Meaning every sheep, every tongue. That is sealed by God, and they have their name written in the Lamb's Book of Life, the book of the sheep.
It is all about obedience. Vashti decided…”I am not showing up.” How many times do we do exactly the same? The bridegroom and the Bride are so familiar now that the Bride does not honor the bridegroom anymore. We become so familiar with the husband or so familiar with the Body that we won’t do what they are telling us to. Some people think, “Me and Jesus are so tight, I don’t need to listen to anybody else.” Be careful with these kinds of people who deny the fold and act like they are special secluded sheep. Mavericks! “God showed it to me first;” They have those thoughts! For the sheep, nothing stands in their way of obedience. They don’t say, “Let me pray about it.” They just do it! They don’t need to pray about following because the narrow way is The Way. They can’t be deceived because they are humble.
Sheep do not pray about it. They just follow Him! Jesus was the sheep that never questioned the Father. He was not the shepherd of Himself. The Father was the shepherd. “I do nothing unless I see my Father doing it” (John 5:19). Fasting and praying are just basic things that we do! But for a sheep, that is not even work. It is a lifestyle. Following Him is a lifestyle. “Go tell John all the things I have done because of my Father leading” (Luke 7:22). His sheep hear Him, follow Him, and know Him. He only divides them away from the goats (Matthew 25:32-33). He divides the sheep and disciples but never divides the sheep from the sheep.
The bread that He gives us is His flesh (John 6:51). Who eats it has eternal life! Labor for this bread that does not perish! Jesus said all of this in the synagogue. Imagine what a shocking thing to hear: “You are all dead!” These words should draw you into two places: anger or repentance! The real bread of life makes a lot of people angry because they pretend to be disciples but do not want to become a sheep! Jesus always exposes the intentions of the heart. Only sheep can see what the disciples cannot see. Mark 8:18 is asking us: “Having eyes, see ye not? and having ears, hear ye not? and do ye not remember?” He said these words in Mark 8:15: “Watch out; beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.” The leaven means the mixture that man puts in or adds to the precious words of Christ and also means leaving parts of the Words out. Then you are not a sheep anymore but a disciple, a student of theology, a modern-day Berean who follows the letter into their own delusions with pride, arrogance, haughtiness, and judgment. They stoned and killed all the prophets that came before Him, but they are doing the same up to this day. Not even discerning the spirit they are of. Now, when you don’t receive the voice of the Shepherd in the Body of Christ, you are the one stoning and crucifying Him all over again just as they did to the prophets before him!
“From that time many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him” (John 6:66). It makes mention not of the crowd, not of the sinner, but it was saying that from that time on, many of His disciples did not follow him anymore. Why? Because they were not sheep! They counted the cost of His words, decided it was too hard, and that it was not worth it. They had a reason that made them turn back to their own ways.
Let’s see how others went out of their way to follow Him. Many saw what Jesus was able to do, all of the miracles, 5 thousand people saw it. Now, He went to the other side of the sea and told hard sayings. John 6:66…Those other disciples abandoned Him as well. Just like the crowd. None of the people who heard the sermon on the mount went home blessed. They went home only with their belly full! This is so common, even more so today. We have made the Gospel very weak with our culture and our traditions. They were hearing Him but they were not eating Him! They walked with Him no more. They heard with ears of man and religion but not ears to hear, receive, and take in to eat the words that bring life, bread from heaven!
Jesus did not come for disciples; He said He came to “make disciples of all the nations” (Mark 16:15-16) but also gather “My sheep”. But He also said in the end there will be goats and sheep, tares and wheat, vessels of gold and silver, wood and hay (1 Corinthians 3:12), full lamps and empty lamps! He came for the sheep! Yes, to make disciples but to be a sheep. So many disciples are just trying to disciple people, but they are far away from being sheep. Ten thousand instructors, Paul said in 1 Corinthians 4:15, but very few fathers. Shepherds and the sheep pick up their cross. Where should I go? Only you have the words of life. But every day you will have a chance to go away. God will not go after the disciples, but only after the sheep. Yes, Jesus named them disciples at first, but they were apostles. They were tested, and they were committed Sheep!
Read in Luke 19:16-26 what a sheep should do daily. Sheep follow the hard word; disciples pick and choose which one to obey and what they want to study. When the disciples – not the 12 - heard about losing their lives, they gave up because they were not eating the bread of life! They were filled with hypocrisy, the bread of the seven mountains of influence, lies, selfishness, and their dreams. The bread Jesus says perishes and is for filling their bellies. A sheep is not afraid of losing its life because THE SHEPHERD did it for their sake, so a sheep will choose to lose everything and go all the way to the cross to gain everything just as the Shepherd did for His own pasture and fold! The coming Bride, the two becoming One, and the Glory that He had He gives to His sheep. We can hear about bread, but it does not mean we are eating it because if we eat His bread, we will never perish; but if you eat and labor for the bread that perishes, you will still die. Eternal bread is Jesus. We hold on to the Truth. Even if we see the corruption and the anti-Christ spirit in these so-called religious institutions.
“My sheep hear My voice”… Hearing His voice is not complicated. You can’t be discipled and taught how to hear it. Hearing His voice is a promise for them that follow Him. It is the very thing that makes you a sheep. You shall know “my disciples by these fruits” signifies there will be self-claimed disciples or those who think and say they are, but only the sheep bear the fruit of their Master, Teacher, Rabbi, and leader. “They shall follow me all the way to the cross, to the eternal life. My sheep hear My voice, not their own voice. They will not follow the voice of their bellies; they will not follow every wind of doctrine; they will hear my voice in the midst of distraction. They will hear Me,” says God. This is not an idea; this is a promise; even in the silence, He is speaking.
Religion will point you to things that are coming on Earth and never to the things that are coming from the Father. Those who carry the voice of the Shepherd will always lead others to the shepherd! To everlasting life! This is eternal life! This is the way of the master! This is Christ! This is the bread that we receive that does not and is not wasted! Religion will exclude you from your participation in the Glory of God. I will not deny the power.
When He asks us to do something, the sheep do not ask questions; they don’t need to because they know Him! If you think you know Him, if you think you have been a great disciple, today is the day to really hear His voice, to really follow Him.
This is why Jesus was talking to the churches in the last day, “for those who have ears to hear”…this word is only for you! For those who have ears to hear what the spirit, what the shepherd is saying. He says, “I am not talking to anybody else but to My sheep!”
It does not matter how sweet the voice is, how lucrative, how encouraging, how tempting it may sound, I will refuse to follow, and for this reason, I will follow His voice!
“Lamb of God, today, I will eat Your flesh and drink Your blood! It doesn’t matter all the other voices. I decree and declare, “Jesus, fill me with Your voice. If it is your bread, I am hungry, and I want to eat this bread. I repent for following anything else. This bread will continue to follow me until overflowing. Let me be those fragments in your basket, in your Body, in your church today. I turn from every single sin of pride. And I thank You because today, I will hear the shepherd and will follow Him wherever He leads me. Feed me with this bread of life, in Jesus’ name!”
Today is the day of freedom! Today is the day for the sheep and the Shepherd to have an encounter! To eat His flesh and drink His blood, not just read the book and gain knowledge but to become the book with Him. Today is the day for you to be just as He is! If you used to hear His voice, and now you can’t even hear Him, you are weary and heavy.
You know you are a disciple, but you don’t even know if you are a sheep anymore! If you are listening to this message, just ask Him to forgive you and make you hungry for Him in sincerity and clarity. You don’t want to follow any other voice! Decide today to be His sheep and not only His disciple, and you will always hear His voice and no other! Amen.
Shane W Roessiger
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