Well, twice in this passage of
Scripture, once with Eutychus, we are reminded of the dangers
of falling asleep. For those who fall asleep and
are the Lord's, there is a danger in losing our confidence and
losing the joy of the salvation of the Lord, but the Lord's children
can never ever be lost. But there is a danger, of course,
for those who drift away. These elders are told by Paul,
and this is part of preaching the whole counsel of God, is
to warn people, as the Lord Jesus Christ did again and again and
again. He warned people about the dangers of falling away,
the dangers of falling asleep. And he says in Acts, Paul says
in Acts 20, 28, take heed therefore unto yourselves and to all the
flock. So the first warning is to take
heed unto yourselves. Take heed unto yourselves. Watch
closely, that word take heed means. It means to sort of draw
close to you. Don't let the things of God drift
away from you like the Hebrews. In Hebrews 2 people talk, they
just drift away. There you are with your little
boat tied up to a wharf and gradually as it rocks around the rope is
loosened and then it just slowly drifts down the river. There
is, in the Scriptures, a continual warning from our Lord Jesus Christ,
a continual warning to take heed to yourselves. Set your heart,
says Job 7.7, set your heart upon Him, be attentive, turn
your mind, guard yourself, beware. The Lord Jesus Christ warned
us about false shepherds and He warned us about the dangers
of falling asleep. There is in your bulletin a lovely
article by Horatius Bonar on, it's titled No Oil, and it's
a warning about falling asleep, and it's the warning given to
the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew chapter 25, and the story's a
familiar one of the wise and foolish virgins Let's turn there
in Matthew 25 and just look at the dangers of falling asleep
and the reason we need to watch ourselves. This is the Lord Jesus
not long before his crucifixion and his resurrection. He says, Then shall the kingdom
of heaven be likened unto ten virgins which took their lamps
and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were wise and
five were foolish. And they that were foolish took
their lamps and took no oil with them. But the wise took oil in
their vessels with their lamps, while the bridegroom tarried,
they all slumbered and slept. So here we have ten virgins,
all slumbering and sleeping. They all look exactly the same,
don't they? They're all there with the same
purpose in mind, they're all called virgins. They all had
lamps, they all had some oil in their lamps. And at midnight, at midnight
Eutychus fell out of that room, at midnight. It's a special time
isn't it, the changing of the days at midnight. There was a cry made, behold
the bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him. Then all those
virgins arose, so at this stage they're still all exactly the
same, and trimmed their lamps And the foolish said unto the
wise, Give us your oil, for our lamps are gone out. But the wise
answer saying, Not so, lest there be not enough for us and you. But go ye rather to them that
sell, and buy for yourselves. And while they went to buy, the
bridegroom came, and they that were ready went in with him to
the marriage, and the door was shut. Afterwards came also the
other virgin, saying, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Verily
I say unto you, I know you not. The Lord Jesus Christ is reminding
us to watch there. Paul is saying to the Ephesian
elders on that beach, he's saying, you watch, you take heed. You
be mindful of these things. You take heed therefore unto
yourself. If you don't take heed unto yourself,
there is no point you taking heed unto the others. You can't
take heed of others unless you have taken heed to yourself.
Take heed. It's a warning and a lesson for
pastors in churches, but it's also a personal warning for all
of you, isn't it? You will go, you will go, according
to the Lord Jesus Christ, where you follow. And God's servants,
God's servants are honest about the frailty and the weakness
of their flesh. And God's servants have one thing
in mind, don't they? They have one thing in mind,
that you go to the Lord Jesus Christ. You go to Him and you
cling to Him and you look to Him. There will come a great
day and no pastor stands before a congregation without an awareness
that there's a mixed multitude before him, as there was before
the Lord Jesus Christ, as these virgins picture it. You see,
they have so many things in similar, don't they? They have the same
name, they wear the same dress, they're on the same errand, they
both have lamps, and they both slumber and sleep. The issue, and the big thing,
isn't it, the big difference between them all, is the oil
in the lamp. See, there is, in this parable,
there is such a thing as a profession of religion and a proclamation
of religion without that having the root in the heart, without
Christ dwelling in you. The reality is that false faith
and false religion can go a long way in this world and it can
rise very, very high in the esteem of men. What is highly esteemed among
men is an abomination to God. And there is, there is a difference. And the difference is only ever
seen, the difference is only ever seen when the Lord Jesus
Christ is revealed. All of us have come in one way
or another out of religion that had so many external things that
seemed so fine, creeds and confessions, a history a history that they could look
upon, and a mass of people who were joined with them so that
they could say, look at all the people who are doing exactly
the same things as us. And the reality is that when
the Lord Jesus Christ comes personally in the preaching of the Gospel,
there is an exposing of people before Him. And it won't be always
seen by the eyes of the flesh of men." You've got to remember
when Samuel was sent to Jesse's house to examine those sons and
to anoint some of them, I'm sure Jesse looked across and thought,
dear oh dear, I've got this fine, look at them here, these very,
very fine young men. They are the prize of Israel
in terms of their digger and in terms of all of the other
things. And God says, I didn't want him, and I didn't want him,
and I didn't chose him. And he chose a little shepherd
boy who wasn't even there. God makes a difference, and God's
difference is a difference that's revealed when He comes. See a religion without the Holy
Spirit and Eutychus is a picture of us in our fallen slumbering
state that we are by a sovereign hand of God brought back. And
we have in these verses a warning for us to take heed to yourselves. You see a religion, as Banar
says, a religion without the Holy Spirit profits nothing.
There is a religion of the intellect. There's a religion of the essence.
There's a religion of the imagination of the flesh. There's a religion
of the creed, a religion of the liturgy, of the catechism, a
religion of nature, of poetry, of sentiment, of mysticism, a
religion of humanity. Christianity without Christ. What would that be? Worship without
God, what would that be? So religion without the Holy
Spirit, what would that be? It is incumbent upon God's servants
to issue the warnings of Scripture. The Lord Jesus Christ warned
and warned and warned again. And the Church of the Lord Jesus
Christ, one of the remarkable things about the Church of the
Lord Jesus Christ is there is nothing more secure and more
stable and built on a more solid foundation than the Church of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing in all of this creation.
God's foundation stands firm. It's built upon a rock. It's
built upon eternal covenant purposes. It's built upon the very character
of God, upon this rock, this confession that the Lord brings
into the hearts of His people. That confession didn't come from
Peter. The Lord said to him, your father which is in heaven
has revealed this to you. It's an eternal revelation of
the glory of our God. And yet, in the eyes of this
world, in the eyes of men, and no doubt in our own eyes, the
Church seems extraordinarily small. an extraordinary fragile
and the enemies mounted against it are the most severe in so
many ways, aren't they? We'll talk about grievous wolves
in the second half of our time together. We'll talk about those
who will arise from amongst you. It will have grievous wolves
on the outside entering in. It will have a world of enmity
against it. It will have Satan in all of his disguises. He must
rise as an angel of light. He comes and he subtly, he subtly
takes people away and leads them to hell. And yet the Church,
yet the Church is the most extraordinarily strong, the most extraordinarily persevering
body in all of this world. all of the empires of this world
will disappear and all of the religion of this world will disappear
and the children of God go on. They begin a worship of God by
their regeneration in this world and they have a worship of God
that goes on forever and ever. You see the Church of God, the
Church of God and the security of the children of God is as
safe and secure as the one who has made the covenant. See our
strength, brothers and sisters in Christ, doesn't rest and is
not reliant upon the strength and the power and the wisdom
of men. Paul was going to spend the rest of his days either in
jail in one way or another. and having his head taken off,
and the Church in Ephesus, the Church in Ephesus and the Church
in Nara and the Church throughout the world will continue on as
strong and secure, achieving God's purpose, God's eternal
purpose. World without end, until this
world finishes, the Church of Jesus Christ is as healthy as
it could ever wish to be. The Church of Jesus Christ is
as secure as it could ever wish to be. But that... All of that being
said, there are throughout the Scriptures a warning to us to
take heed, a warning to us to be wise, to be wise about who
we listen to, to be wise about how we listen, to be wise about
how we live in this world. Paul could say, you've seen my
manner of life for all of these years. Don't hide things from
God, brothers and sisters. Live as openly before God and
as openly before men as the Lord will permit. Take heed. Take heed to yourselves. Take
heed. Hold in your mind. Hold in your mind it means. Hold
in your mind what he's just said, what he's just going to say to
all the flock. over which the Holy Ghost has
made you over, says, hold in your mind the Church of God.
And how do you feed the Church of God? You feed the Church of
God with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Listen to what
he says, which he has purchased with his own blood. The Church is secure and a certain. As the resurrection of the Lord
Jesus and His exaltation to glory, all of which is the fulfilment
of eternal covenant purposes, He purchased a church. He reserved
a church for Himself. We'll see that the false teachers
want to take that away from God's people. They want to take away
from them the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. They want to take from us the
beauty of our Husband. The beauty of His person, the
beauty of His work, the glory of who the Lord Jesus Christ
is. Take heed, therefore, unto yourselves. Paul, writing to
Timothy, says to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4, verse 5, Watch thou in all
things. When I finished my last 12 months
with the young people at Hebron, they asked if they could, for
that 12 months, do a Bible study. We did a Bible study for the
whole year based on one verse of Scripture, which is 1 Timothy
4, verse 16. So every morning we would meet,
and the young men that wanted to come, into the common room
that we had, we'd come there and we'd have a cup of coffee
or hot chocolate before school and we would take this verse
and we pulled this verse apart for 12 months in various ways.
1st Timothy chapter 4 verse 16, take heed unto thyself and unto doctrine. So what's
your life first? Take heed unto thyself. Are you
living by simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ? Are you trusting
Him in all things? Does He get all the glory in
your life? Do you live like Paul that he
counts his life not dear unto himself? Do you live like Paul
who knew that he was going to die and set his face like a flint
to go to Jerusalem not knowing what was going to befall him?
He had a promise from God. Abraham was told to go to a place
and he said, where is it? You don't have to worry about
where it is Abraham, you just go to a place that I tell you,
you just go. Abraham went not knowing where
he was going and when he got there he realised that it wasn't
an earthly going that he was going to. He was looking for
a city whose builder and maker is God. Foundations, eternal
foundations, Abraham was looking for. And so do all of his faith
children. Take heed unto yourself, says
Paul to Timothy, and unto the doctrine. The doctrine. Doctrine in the Scriptures is
always singular. False teaching in the Scriptures
is always plural. There is one doctrine. One doctrine,
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. A successful, reigning, redeeming
Saviour. Take heed unto thyself and unto
doctrine, continue in them. For in doing this thou shalt
both save thyself and them that hear thee. Paul was not denying
that salvation is by sovereign grace. And he wasn't denying that the
sovereign grace of God and the Spirit's work in the lives of
God's people causes them to take heed and to watch. Take heed and to watch. You see, we are all sheep and
we are all liable and prone and always being led. We have in
the providence of God, shepherds given to the Church of God who
are after His own heart and they are promised to feed His people
with knowledge and wisdom. God sends His servants. He makes His people overseas
and so they have a responsibility, as Paul had a responsibility,
He could look at this world around him and say, I just have one
task, don't I? I have one task to complete.
I have to testify to the glory of the grace of God in Christ
Jesus. He has one person to be faithful
to. He'll be faithful to his Saviour,
faithful to his word of promise. He'll declare his truth, he'll
defend his truth, that he encourage others to believe in his truth. And he knows that having proclaimed
the gospel, God will do a work in the hearts of his people and
he can lead the Lord to sort out the fruit. Take heed to yourselves. What a remarkable statement he
says, makes in verse 26 of Acts, He says, I take you to record
this day. You have a record of my life. I take you to record
this day. I am pure of the blood of all
men. He has performed the watchman's
duty. It's a reference to Ezekiel 33
verse 6. The watchman stands on the parapets
of the city's walls, doesn't he? And he looks out. The watchman
is out to look out and warn people of what is coming ahead is to issue the warnings as God
brings those warnings to bear in the lives of His people. He's
free of the blood of all men because He hasn't shunned. He hasn't held back from declaring
unto you all the counsel of God. Whatever God says, Whatever God
declares about His Son and His character, we do not shun from
declaring it. We delight in the character of
God. We find our comfort in the declaration
of the character of God. We love the fact that He's absolutely
sovereign. We love the fact that in that
sovereignty He made an eternal covenant. We love the fact that
He's faithful to that eternal covenant. We love the fact that
in that covenant the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, was made a
surety and in that covenant He took absolute responsibility
for all of the people that God the Father has given Him. Yours
they were, the Lord said of His people. They belong to you, the
Father, and you've given them to me but they've been entrusted
into the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ. And from that moment
on Those people, that church, that universal church is perfectly
secure in this world. And to reveal the wonder of His
faithfulness to His promises, He will allow that church to
be battered and bruised and tossed around by all of the enemies
of this world. Why? so he can get great glory
for himself, so that when these things that he's promised come
along, his children would find him faithful. They would. When he says take heed, they
will take heed. He will work all things in their
lives, and it'll all be good. There is no spiritual harm that
can ever befall you, my brothers and sisters in Christ. The Lord will have His Word honoured
in this world, and He'll have His Word honoured in the lives
of His people, and He'll have His Word honoured in the lives
of those that prove themselves not to be His sheep. The Lord Jesus Christ in His
Word and the Blessed Holy Spirit who takes His words and takes
the things of the Lord Jesus and makes them known to us. God
only ever speaks to the sheep. I can only ever speak words of
warning and words of comfort to the sheep. These warnings in the Scriptures
are for believers. The unbelievers are so dead spiritually
that it doesn't matter what you do to them, it doesn't matter
what evidence you bring before them. The grievous wolves and
the false teachers that arose in the church of Ephesus read
this letter again and again and again and had it read out to
them. Diotrephes in John's third epistle. Diotrephes had the letter
of John probably in his hands and certainly had it read to
him. And it meant absolutely nothing to him. See, my appointed task, my brothers
and sisters in Christ, is to speak comfort to you. To speak
comfort. Our God is faithful. Our God is faithful. I do love the Song of Solomon
very much and I trust that you might find it a delight to reflect
upon it and a delight to read it. The Song of Solomon finishes
with those glorious words in chapter 8. She had been tossed
and turned by all sorts of things, the sins of herself and sins
of others. And she's pictured in chapter
8, verse 5. She's coming up from the wilderness. She's coming up from this wilderness. And how is she doing it? She's
leaning on her beloved. She's leaning on her beloved. And she has a prayer to him.
Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm, for
love is strong as death. That's how strong the love of
the Lord Jesus Christ is. He went to Calvary's tree and
he bore all her sins away. That's love. And she finishes
with another prayer. She says, the companions hearken
to your voice. There are other people. Your
companions are hearing your voice, my beloved. Cause me to hear
it. Cause me to hear it. And then she says, make haste,
my beloved. You come a-running as you promised
to come a-running to your children in this sin-tossed world. May the Lord cause us to delight
in his faithfulness. Let's have a break.