Benjamin Ramsbottom
Benjamin Ramsbottom (1929-2023) was a Strict and Particular Baptist preacher. In 1967, he was appointed pastor of the church meeting at Bethel Strict Baptist Church, Luton, Bedfordshire, a position he held for fifty-five years.
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The Good Shepherd
This is one of those glorious I ams of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Really, all of them are precious. “I am the Door”; “I am the Resurrection and the Life”; “I am the true Vine.” So we might go on. “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” And here, “I am the good Shepherd.” “I AM,” as revealed to Moses at the burning bush, is the name of Almighty God, and it can never be given to any other. It speaks of His eternal, everlasting, unchanging character, the great I AM.
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The Lord Jesus In Control
Special emphasis is laid in the Word of God on the feeding of the five thousand, all these events in this chapter, the wonderful miracle that took place. What is outstanding: of the Lord’s many miracles, this is the only one which is recorded in each of the four gospels. So there is no vain repetition with the Lord, and if anything is repeated, it is because the Lord Himself would place a special emphasis on it, and on its importance.
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The Power Of The Resurrection
Have you ever noticed that throughout the Acts of the Apostles, whenever the apostles themselves were preaching, the theme was always the resurrection? You have it when they spoke to the priests concerning the raising of the lame man. You have it in the preceding chapter and in this chapter when they preached to the people. You have it in the following chapter: “Him hath God exalted ... to be a Prince and a Saviour.” And you have it all the way through: the resurrection, the vital theme of the preaching of the apostles.
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What Think Ye of Christ?
This is a chapter full of questions. Probably more questions come in this chapter than in any other part of the gospels. First of all, the Pharisees try the Lord with their questions. Next, their enemies the Sadducees try with their questions, and afterwards the Pharisees come back again – they did not give up – with more questions. It is very, very clear that they did not ask the questions to learn the answer. They were trying to entangle our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
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All Our Times Appointed
None of us chose the time when we were born and none of us will choose the time when we shall die. These times are divinely appointed and nothing can ever alter them. Neither did we choose the circumstances in which we were born; neither can we choose the circumstances in which we shall die. All these things are divinely appointed. The wise man says, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die.”
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Seedtime And Harvest
God’s ancient people were an agricultural people. They lived close to the land. That is why you have so many references, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament, to farming, and one thing that continually comes in: the sowing and the reaping, and the harvest time, and often there is that emphasis that as we sow, so also we shall reap.
