Okay, let's turn back in our
scriptures to Acts chapter 20. I'd just like us to read these
few verses from 28 on to verse 31. Take heed therefore unto
yourselves and to all the flock. over which the Holy Ghost hath
made you overseers, and feed the church of God, which he hath
purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my
departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing
the flock, Also of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse
things to draw away disciples after them. Therefore watch and
remember that by the space of three years I cease not to warn
everyone night and day with tears." The preaching of the whole Council
of God is a preaching that necessarily involves warnings. And as I said
earlier, here we have this remarkable scene on the beach at Miletus
with these 20 men in tears, in tears that they won't see Paul
again, in tears for the depth of the love and the bonds that
they had, which are now, from this human point of view, going
to be broken. And Paul finishes this time with
them by reminding them, yet again, that the grievous wolves which
had followed him throughout his ministry, the grievous wolves
which had followed the Lord Jesus Christ, the grievous wolves which
have attacked the church ever since the day of Cain's murder
of his brother Abel, the natural man hates God. The natural man loves his religion
that allows him to talk about God, but the natural man, the
mind of the natural man is enmity against God. So Paul has warned
these men and he's asked them to take heed. And he says that
he's lived before them in such a way that they can remember. He says, verse 31, therefore
watch. And remember that by the space of three years I ceased
not to warn everyone night and day with tears. He says in verse
29, for I know this. How did Paul know it? How do we know anything for sure
and for certain? We know this. For I know this. We know it because it's written
in the Word of God first and foremost. That's how we know
things. Because God has said. And then we see the evidence
of it throughout this world and we see the evidence of it, I
trust we see the evidence of it today. The Book of Acts is
a book that's a history of the early church 2000 years ago,
and if it's not the history of your life and the history of
this church, then we need to be very, very mindful of what's
happening in and around us. The Lord Jesus Christ warned,
didn't he? He said, Beware of false prophets which come in
among you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening
wolves. He said to that little flock
that he was sending out, he says, go your ways to his disciples
in Luke chapter 10. Behold, I send you forth as lambs
among wolves. Nothing, almost nothing more
fragile in the kingdom of animal husbandry than a lamb amongst
a wolf. nothing more vicious and ferocious than a wolf, and
he sends them out as lambs amongst wolves, and the lambs are going
to be fine." Thank you very much. He speaks in John chapter 10,
our Lord Jesus Christ, of the hireling, and they see the wolf
coming, and they leave the sheep and flee, and they flee watching
and knowing that the wolf catches and scatters the sheep. Paul
says to these people, I've lived faithfully and openly before
you. He says, I have preached faithfully
and openly before you in private and public and I've kept back
nothing from you. He has in his time, it would
appear from what we hear here, read here, he says, I know this
after my departing, it seems as if he had kept the grievous
wolves at bay to some extent. from the church in those three
years that he is there. He knows this. He knows this. Here we have the description
and the warning to the pastors and to the churches about grievous
woes. And they are marked here. I think
there are six marks that I have found in these few short words
from our Lord and we do well to think about them. The first
one of course is that after my departing the first activity
of those who are enemies of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ
is some sort of subterfuge. They are subtle. Why did they
wait until Paul had gone? Paul in his bodily presence was
weak and his speech was contemptible. He had held those Jews who were
lying in wait for him and in verse 19 they brought him tears
and brought him many trials. But he had stood face to face
and toe to toe with them as it were. And you cannot refute the
gospel of free and sovereign grace from the scriptures. You have to use other methods. You have to use deceitful and
subtle methods. We and I have been accused by
many people in words and in practice of being a false teacher for
this last 15, possibly 20 years now. And one thing that is true
of me, and I believe is true of all of you, is that the teachers
that stand opposed to us and those that stand opposed to the
Gospel and refuse to join with us and refuse to, as Paul says
in Romans 10, to submit to the righteousness of God in the Lord
Jesus Christ, to simply bow to who the Lord Jesus Christ is
from the Scriptures. One thing that marks their behaviour
is that they've always said lots of things amongst themselves
Not one of them, not one of them in all of these years has come
to me and said, I'm concerned about your eternal soul. Here
are the scriptures, and this is what the scriptures say about
the Lord Jesus Christ and salvation in Him. And this is what you're
saying, and it's wrong. Never once, not once, people
are happy to denigrate us and denigrate me to any who will
listen to them. And those people who would parade
themselves around as great evangelists and having a great passion for
the Gospel have one group of people and one person in particular
that they think are beyond their Gospel. And that's us. They'll say all sorts of things
grievous walls if they can They will enter in. So Paul kept back
nothing and he declared the whole counsel of God and these Jews
were plotting that word lying in wait in verse 19. It says
they're plotting. The Jews plotted against the
Lord Jesus Christ again and again and again. It's extraordinary
how their plots went on and the more they plotted the more the
Lord Jesus Christ revealed himself to them and the more evidence
they had that he was the sovereign Christ and the sovereign God
that he claimed to be. Paul found these grievous wolves
a cause to be humble and a cause for tears. God's servants God's
servants are not hard-hearted and cold-hearted toward any of
the lost in this world, and I pray that the Lord would give you
soft hearts. The door of the Church of the
Lord Jesus Christ is wide open. It's wide open for people to
go, and it's wide open for people to come back in. As lying in wait of the Jews
which befell him, he says, says in verse 19, they befell him.
It was not something that he invited, it was something that
befell him. The plots and the schemings of
the Jews continued. You might recall in Acts that
they plotted and schemed against the apostles after the Day of
Pentecost. They plotted and schemed against
Paul and they followed him and chased him around wherever he
was. They pursued him. They pursued him from Philippi
to Thessalonica, from Thessalonica to Berea, and they kept on pursuing
him, and even in the previous chapter they were still lying
in wait for him. Years and years later, They pursued
him in Galatia, they pursued him in Macedonia. We'll find
that they keep pursuing him. Paul describes the fact that
he fought wild beasts in Ephesus. There's no record of him fighting
wild beasts. I think the wild beast that he's talking about
is the wildest beast that has ever graced this planet. And
that's a human being, and especially a religious human being. So these
enemies come from outside, don't they? It says there in our verse
that they, these grievous fools, they enter in among you. They enter in among you. So to enter in among you they
must look as if they are part of the flock for a while. So
why did they wait? Why did they wait? To prove their
deceitfulness. To show to the Church of God,
as I said earlier, God's warnings and God's instructions in the
scriptures are always and only for His people. See the flock
would now appear vulnerable without Paul there. In Acts 19 we find
that the Roman governors of that district had actually stood beside
Paul in that riot and it says that they were his friends and
now that Paul is gone the church is vulnerable. These grievous walls. One of the marks of the grievous
walls is in that verse 29, it says, after my departing shall
grievous walls enter in among you. There is a promise, isn't
there? There's a promise from God that
the grievous wolves will enter in among you. There is a warning
from God and there is a command of God that you test the spirits,
you test those who are preaching to you. You examine yourself
to see that you're in the faith. You wouldn't be asked to test
and you wouldn't be asked to examine if the Lord didn't make
it clear how you could do so. And it's simply, do you abide
in the doctrine of the apostles? Do you believe? Has God given
you a living and real faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as simply
as He's revealed in the scriptures in all of the glory of His character?
a Christ who purchased with his own blood. And when it talks
about his own blood in verse 28, it's talking about the blood
of God. What a remarkable thing that
2,000 years ago, on that little hill outside of Jerusalem, the
blood of God was spilt upon this planet. The blood of God was
spilt when the Lord Jesus Christ was circumcised at the temple
on the eighth day as a sign of His covenantal engagements, a
sign of Him being one with His people. His life's ministry on
this earth, in a sense, began and ended with blood. But it
was the blood that wasn't shed in vain. He didn't shed his blood
for all the world. He shed his blood for the Church.
You can read it there, the Church of God, which he has purchased
with his own blood. Isn't it remarkable? The statement
is so plain and so simple. It's a statement that is denied
by almost the religious world in its entirety. When they want
to say that God loves you and the proof of God loving you is
that Jesus died for you and now the Holy Spirit is wanting you
to wanting you to be saved. And on top of that they say you
can save yourself now. They have turned faith, which
is the gift of God, into a work. And so by your activities you
can appropriate all of these things. That's not what this
verse says, brothers. It's not what the Scriptures
say. So there is a way of testing and examining, and it's all to
do with Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And it's all in the
simplicity and the purpose of God relates to one person in
one act, at one time in history, fulfilling all of what the Old
Testament said about Him. And then that history is revealed
in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. These are His acts. These are His words to the Church
of God. a living Lord Jesus Christ who
is God who sits on the throne of this universe. And He has made promises. He
has made promises. There shall be false teachers
among you. You can read about the promises
of them in the Old Testament. In Deuteronomy 13 they were told
that they were going to have prophets who arise and they will
speak and they will cause Remarkable things to happen and then lead
you astray to another God. Again and again throughout the
scriptures we are warned and warned and warned again about
the false teachers. Paul says to the Corinthians
in 1 Corinthians 11-19, there must be heresies among you. That word heresy is to choose. Believing in the Lord Jesus Christ
is not a choice. You have met Him, and He has
met you, and He has given you new life and faith and trust
in Him. You're not making a choice, brothers
and sisters. There must be heresies among
you that those which are approved may be made manifest. Paul delightfully
declares in Acts 24, 14, after the way they call heresy, after
the way all the Jews and the religious people call heresy,
so worship I, the God of my fathers, believing all things which are
written in the law and the prophets. There are, there is, the promise
of false teachers amongst the people." No wonder he could say
in his letter to these Ephesian elders, you put on the whole
armour of God, Ephesians chapter 6. Just turn there briefly with
me. In Ephesians chapter 6 he would
only be asking people to put on the whole armour of God if
there was a need for armour, if there was an enemy. You put
on the whole armour of God. He says in verse 10 of chapter
6, Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord in the power of His
might. What a great place to have your
strength, brothers and sisters, in the power of His might. Put
on the whole armour of God that you may be able to stand against
the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh
and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers
of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness
in high places. Wherefore, take unto you the
whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the
evil day, and having done all, to stand." So there's a promise. So when you see false shepherds
and false teachers arise, and you can see them all over the
place, they're not hard to find these days. I want you to be reminded of
the faithfulness of God. God is faithful. God is faithful. He's faithful to His word of
promise. And because He's faithful to His word of promise, He's
faithful to His word of promise to His people. In all of the final words of
the writers in the New Testament, There are warnings against false
teachers. It's hard to find a page of the
New Testament that doesn't, in one way or another, deal with
false shepherds. If what we're saying about the
Lord Jesus Christ is the truth, then necessarily everything and
everyone that stands opposed to that truth is standing opposed
to God. They shall. God is faithful to
His promises. And He's also faithful in allowing
these false shepherds, these grievous wolves, to do their
work amongst the flock of God. Isn't that extraordinary? He's faithful. God sends false
teachers. God deceives them. God deceives them. Turn with me quickly to Ezekiel
chapter 14. You know the passage in 2 Thessalonians
which we quote so often that God sends them a powerful delusion
that they'll believe the lie and he does it in judgment and
justice because they refuse not the love of the truth. They might
acknowledge something of the truth, the Lord Jesus Christ,
they might acknowledge things about him but they don't love
him. Let's start in verse 6 of chapter
14, we'll just look at it very briefly. Therefore say unto the
house of Israel, thus says the Lord God, repent and turn yourselves
from your idols and turn away your faces from all your abominations.
For every one of the house of Israel, this is at the time of
the destruction of Jerusalem, when God was going to bring the
promises that he promised in Deuteronomy 28 and 29 to bear
on those people and there would be babies eaten by their mothers.
in that city, and it would be utterly destroyed. Turn away your faces from all
your abominations, for every one of the house of Israel or
the stranger that sojourneth in Israel, which separated himself
from me, and setteth up idols in his heart, and put as a stumbling
block of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to a prophet
to inquire of him concerning me." So these are people who
are going to church, asking a so-called preacher about God and what's
going to happen. I the Lord will answer him by
myself. And I will set my face against
that man and will make him a sign and a proverb." These false teachers
that we have in Acts and these false teachers that are promised
throughout this last 2,000 years and we have witnessed, they are
there for a sign. They are there for a sign and
a proverb. And I will cut him off from the
midst of my people and you shall know that I am the Lord. And
if the prophet that Prophet be deceived when he has spoken a
thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet." Is that the God you worship,
brothers and sisters? This is the God that's revealed
in the Scriptures. He sends powerful delusions and
when He sends powerful delusions people are deceived. Multitudes
are deceived. I the Lord have deceived that
prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy
him from the midst of my people Israel. And they shall bear the
punishment of their iniquity. The punishment of the prophet
shall be even as the punishment of him that seeketh unto him. They're solemn words, aren't
they? God will deceive a prophet, and if you join in with the deceived
prophet, you will have his reward. See, the people of this world
and people in religion can play games, as I often say, with the
things of God and with the things of eternity. God is not playing
games. God will not have his people
to not see these things as deep and serious. No wonder Paul had
tears. No wonder these elders had tears. They're grievous wolves,
back to our text in Acts 20, 29, they're grievous wolves.
Grievous, that word means heavy and weighty and burdensome. What a thing, what a thing to
be described as, as a wolf. What are wolves like? Wolves are incredibly intelligent.
Wolves hunt in packs. Wolves subtly track. Most of
the animals in this world don't come seeking after us. You go
to them and you'll find yourself in trouble. You go into their
territory, you'll find yourself in trouble. Grievous wolves come
after people. They are intelligent, they hunt
in packs, and they are incredibly destructive. But the word also
means that heavy and weighty and burdensome. So they lay these
burdens upon people. The Lord Jesus Christ says, come
unto me, all you that weary and heavy laden, and take my yoke
upon you. take my yoke upon you and learn
of me." We can learn about the Lord Jesus Christ, but to learn
of him. We can learn from him, but to
learn of him is to learn of his character. And then he says,
I will give you rest. I will give you rest. For I am
meek, he says, take my yoke upon you and learn of me. For I am
meek and lowly in heart. What a remarkable description
of our God. What a remarkable description
of our Saviour in relation to his people. He's lowly in heart
and he's meek. And you shall find rest for your
souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden light." The commandments
of our God, the commandments of our God to believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, to rest all of the hope of all of our salvation.
They're not grievous, says John in 1 John 5. They're not grievous,
they're not burdensome, they're not heavy. It's the gospel of
the grace of God. It's the gospel of the obedience
of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's the gospel of the finished
work of the Lord Jesus Christ. He has borne all of the burden,
brothers and sisters. He's borne all of the burden
of our requirement to love God with all of our heart and soul
and mind and strength. He's borne all of the burden
to obey all of the commands of God. He's borne it all. And He
did it with delight and with ease. The law wasn't a burden
to the Lord Jesus Christ, but he's taken that yoke from his
people. It's called the Word of Grace.
You'll see there in verse 32 in our text. It's able to build
you up. It's able to build you up. Not by placing a burden of doing
upon believers. Satan's lie is always, do this
and live. You shall be his guards. You
can make the decision. You'll know. You'll know what
is right and wrong and you'll be able to choose the right over
the wrong. The shepherd leads his flock
and they follow him. He doesn't drive the flock. He's
able to build you up. He's able to give you an inheritance. You don't get an inheritance
You don't get an inheritance by your activity, you get an
inheritance by who you are in relation to someone else. Among all those that are sanctified,
there's the glory of the Gospel, isn't it? That he set apart his
people and they're holy to him. They're perfectly holy. It says
without holiness no one will see the Lord. We'll see him in
all of his glory and we'll delight in him in all of his character.
These people, these grievous wolves, they enter in among you.
After Paul's leaving, Satan lies in wait like a roaring lion,
seeking whom he may devour. It says that they crept in unawares. Paul says to the Galatians, who
has bewitched you? Who has cast a spell over you? That you should be removed from
him who called you into the grace of God, into another gospel. The Lord warned of these false
teachers. He said, Verily, verily, in John
10.1, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into
the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way. They waited for
Paul to leave, didn't they? And they creep in. But climbeth up some other way.
The same is a thief. A thief is one who's determined
to deprive someone else of his goods. and a robber. A thief and a robber. Someone
who does that same thing with violence. The thief, says the
Lord Jesus Christ, comes to kill and destroy. Grievous wolves. The next characteristic of them
is they're not sparing the flock. They're not sparing the flock. They're not caring for the flock I just treat the flock as a wolf
treats sheep the false shepherds and the false
teachers that went in amongst the Galatians. They wanted to
make, according to Galatians 6.12, they wanted to make a fair
show in the flesh. How do they enter in? They must
look very much like the sheep. And not only that, they must
look as if They have all of the credentials from a human point
of view to lead and to guide other people. They make a fair
show on the flesh. They look very good with their
religion and their knowledge and all of their worldly wisdom
and all their heritage and all the other things that men can
boast in. They constrain you, Galatians 6.12, they constrain
you to be circumcised that they may glory in your flesh. So the flock is the flock of
God. You belong, brothers and sisters in Christ, you belong
to the Lord Jesus Christ. He says, feed my sheep. He owns
them. The task of the shepherd is the
task of shepherds in this world, isn't it? We are to feed you.
Shepherds are to feed you with knowledge and wisdom, with knowledge
of who the Lord Jesus Christ is. He is the wisdom of God. To feed you with the glory of
his gospel and the very person of his, to feed you with what
he's done on Calvary's tree, to feed you with what he's doing
right now, sitting on the throne of glory and gathering his people
to himself. They constrain you to be circumcised
that they may glory in your flesh. The first question you'll be
asked about our church when you go out into this world amongst
the religious people, almost universally, is how many people
do you have there? How many people? As if somehow
the size of the gathering proves that God is with people. It only
matters, brothers and sisters, that one person is here and one
person does the gathering. He says, when two or three are
gathered by me, he's there. And if he's here, I'm happy,
thank you very much. And if he's not here, then let's
go and find some other place. How many? Fair show in the flesh. As Paul says to the false teachers
in 2 Corinthians 10, they commend themselves and they compare themselves
among themselves. When I was in reformed religion,
one of the things that is characteristic of reformed religion all the
time is they're talking about this person's godly life and
what a great witness and what a great example that person is. They're always comparing other
people with others. One comparison that matters,
brothers and sisters of Christ, is how you compare to the Lord
Jesus Christ. Because that's how good you have to be to get
into heaven. You don't have to meet some earthly standard that's
contrived by men. Peter says of these grievous
wolves, through covetousness, so they don't spare the flock.
The flock is just merchandise for them. Through covetousness,
with feigned words, they'll make merchandise of you. Just merchandise. They want you to be in their
church so they can get your money and they can get the honour and
glory of having you on their roll. With feigned words. That feigned word is the word
we get plastic from. Plasticine. It's a moulded word. They'll mould their words, won't
they? When they're with reformed people, they'll even talk about
the doctrines of grace. And when they're with people
who hate the doctrines of grace, they'll talk about man's free
will. They'll mould their words. Paul kept back nothing from them. What you saw of Paul in private
is what you saw of him in public, and what he declared in public
he declared in private, and he never had any reason to change
it, because he was serving one master. These people are serving
themselves, and they make merchandise of you. Peter says that they
privily, they privily enter in among you. It means that they're
sly and artful, like grievous wolves. Their plan is laid deep,
and it's done with caution. You can read about these people
throughout the scriptures. Nehemiah has a great description
in Nehemiah chapter 6 of the activities of people called Sanballat
and Tobias. These people, they'll bring in
damnable heresies. They spare not the flock. They had no love for the flock
and no care for the flock. Jude speaks of these people in
Eccles and brute beasts in Jude 10. And what they know, they
know naturally. And by what they know naturally,
they corrupt themselves. And just when the church thinks
that it has the grievous wolves that enter in, measured and marked
before them, and maybe in some way constrained by the people
standing as one together for the gospel, we have what happens
in Acts 20 verse 30. We'll look at this next week,
Lord willing. But also of your own shells shall men arise, speaking
perverse things to draw away disciples after themselves. There is, there is in the midst
of this As difficult and painful it is to talk about those things,
and as difficult it is to deal with them when you meet these
grievous wolves, and as painful it is to see brothers and sisters
and people that you love taken captive by these grievous wolves.
There is a great comfort, as I said earlier, when we see these
things we know that our God is faithful. Now God has been faithful
to his word and he will honour his word of promise. You see,
the only hope, the only hope for God's children is in those
beautiful verses in Acts 20.32. Paul says, I commend you, he
says, I entrust you, I deposit you to God. I deposit you, I leave you in
God's hands. See, no harm will come out of
all of these things to God's people. And the false shepherds
will never hear a word in any real and meaningful way. I commend
you to God and the Word of His grace, which is able to build
you up See, God is able to do it. He'll build His church, and
He'll build the individuals in His church, and He'll give you
an inheritance among them which are sanctified. The Lord Jesus
Christ is our inheritance, and you, brothers and sisters in
Christ, are His. Let's pray. Heavenly Father,
we pray that You would continue to cause us to take heed and
to watch for ourselves, Heavenly Father. We pray, Heavenly Father,
that you'd cause us by the warnings of Scripture to be ever watchful
of the things that we do in this world, the things that we are
led to believe in this world. And we praise you, Heavenly Father,
that you call upon us to test things and you provide us a test
and the test is simply the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Now Father, we thank you that
He bought a church with His blood. We thank you and praise you that
that blood was not shed in vain and that church is not only bought,
that church is preserved and reserved for Him and that all
of His people, all of His blood-bought people will come, Heavenly Father,
come to that throne of grace to find help in our time of need. Make us to be needy, Heavenly
Father. Sinners are ever needy. Make us to know that we're sinners
and make us to know, Heavenly Father, the wonder and the glory
and the power and the efficaciousness of the blood of your dear and
precious Son. Make His blood to be precious to us. Make His
broken body to be precious to us, and make His presence to
be precious to us, our Father. Keep us and guard us, for Christ's
sake, we pray in His name, Amen.