Jesus declared that, as our Good Shepherd, He would guarantee to His sheep everlasting life, because He would die to save us.
Christ also promised that He would find and bring into His fold His other sheep, not of the household of Israel, and there would be one fold, and one shepherd.
Therefore, the Savior commanded His disciples to preach the Gospel in every nation.
But there was opposition to offering the Gospel to the Gentiles. Peter was taught by the Holy Ghost not to resist the commandment to preach the Gospel to the Gentile Cornelius. Gentiles were said to be unclean, but God declared otherwise, and when Peter proclaimed the Gospel to Cornelius' household, immediately, they trusted in Jesus!
Their filling with the Holy Ghost was the irrefutable proof that Christ had redeemed them, and they were His sheep.
When some Jewish believers rebuked Peter, he testified to God's stamp of approval, and the apostles rejoiced that salvation had come to the Gentiles also!
But opposition to Gentiles being brought into Christ's fold continued. Unbelieving Jews even objected to Paul's preaching the Gospel to the Gentiles.
Paul preached faith in Christ's sacrifice, which justifies sinners when the law never could. He warned his synagogue audience of the danger of rejecting Messiah and His Gospel, that it would result in their perishing forever.
The Gentiles were eager to hear how Christ would forgive their sins and reconcile them to God, but when Paul preached to them, and many trusted in Jesus, some of the Jewish unbelievers were envious, and ran Paul out of town.
But nothing can stop Jesus from finding and gathering his far away sheep into His fold!
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John Pittman Hey was born in 1961 in Jackson, Mississippi, to Godly parents who from the beginning raised him in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. With child-like faith he came to Christ on his fourth birthday at his mother's knee. He received his education at church...