Well, welcome, and we're in our
continued Bible study in the book of Luke, in chapter 10.
We began chapter 10 last week, and we kind of leaped ahead a
few verses to verse 5, as Jesus had sent out these 70 to preach
the gospel, and He gave them instructions. And we're just
going to read the portion that we're going
to be dealing with today, starting in verse 1. After these things,
the Lord appointed other 70 also. And we looked at all the things
that went on in chapter 9, and there was just a long list of
wonderful acts of grace that we looked at in chapter 9. And
he said, after these things, the Lord appointed other 70 also
and sent them. 2 and 2 before his face, and
to every city and place whither he himself would come." Remember
in the beginning of chapter 9, he had sent out the 12 with the
same instructions, and now he's sending out 70. Therefore he
said unto them, the harvest truly is great. But the laborers are
few. Pray ye, therefore, the Lord
of the harvest, that he would send forth laborers into his
harvest. It's interesting that he says
pray for this and he's doing it, that very thing. And then he says, go your way. Behold, I send you forth as lambs
among wolves. Carry neither purse, nor script,
nor shoes, and salute no man by the way. And into whatsoever
house you enter, first say, peace be to this house, and if a son
of peace be there, our message last week, A Son of Peace, and
we went into all that, what that involved, and how the Spirit
would be there before preparing the hearts, like Lydia, the Seller
of Purple, that we read about in Acts, and she gave attention
to the things that were spoken to her by Paul. If a Son of Peace
be there, your peace shall rest upon it, and if not, it shall
turn to you again, and in the same house remain, eating and
drinking such things as they give, for the laborer is worthy
of his hire. Go not from house to house, and
into whatsoever city you enter, and they receive you, eat such
things as are set before you, heal the sick that are therein,
and say unto them, the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you. But into whatsoever city ye enter,
and they receive you not, go your ways out into the streets
of the same, and say, Even the very dust of your city, which
cleaveth on thweed, do wipe off against you. Notwithstanding,
be sure of this, the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you. And so we're dealing mostly with
the beginning of this block of Scripture today since we kind
of leaped ahead a little bit last time. But I thought it was
important that we understand what they would be running into
if a Son of Peace be there, if one that the Spirit of God has
been there and prepared their hearts. to hear the gospel, they're
going to say, come in and welcome. And they'd be like those Gentiles
that, oh, we'll hear more of this. And the Gentiles were glad
to get the word of God and so on, as we find in Acts chapter
9. But today I wanted to look at the first few verses here. Therefore said he unto them,
the harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few. Pray, therefore,
the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labors into
his harvest. Go your ways. Behold, I send
you forth as lambs among wolves. And then he gives them the instruction,
and don't take anything with you. Depend on me for everything. So we're looking at this. We often say in our Bible class
that hardly anything takes place in the New Testament that wasn't
from the Old Testament. So with that, let's turn back
to Numbers 11. If you would turn in your Bibles
to Numbers 11, verse 16. In Numbers 11, 16, the Lord said
unto Moses, Gather unto me seventy men of the elders of Israel,
whom thou knowest to be the elders of the people, and officers over
them, and bring them into the tabernacle of the congregation,
that they may stand there with thee. And I will come down and
talk with thee there, and I will take of the Spirit which is upon
thee, and will put it upon them, and they shall bear the burden
of the people with thee, that thou bear it, not thyself alone. Notice all the I wills that God
says he's gonna do, and then he says, and the result will
be they shall, I will and they shall. And Moses went out and
told the people the words of the Lord. and gathered the seventy
men of the elders of the people, and set them round about the
tabernacle. And the LORD came down in a cloud,
and spake unto him, and took the spirit that was upon him,
and gave it to the seventy elders. And it came to pass, that when
the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied, and did not
cease. That doesn't mean that they said,
well, next week the weather's going to be good, and you're
all going to be wealthy, and here's some other crystal ball
stuff. When they're talking about prophesying, they're talking
about prophesying of the gospel, talking about the sacrifice of
the Lord for the redemption of the church. And so they prophesied
in the camp. And then in verse 27, and there
ran a young man and told Moses and said, Eldad and Medad do
prophecy in the camp. They didn't go out with the rest
of the 70. And Joshua, the son of Nun, the
servant of Moses, one of his young men, and answered and said,
my Lord Moses forbid them. And verse 29, and Moses said
unto him, Envious thou for my sake, would God that all the
Lord's people were prophets, and the Lord would put His Spirit
upon them. So, you know, it's kind of the very
same thing that we found in Luke chapter 9, where the 12 had been
sent out, and they came back and they said, oh, we saw one
casting out devils in thy name, and we forbade him. And the Lord
said, forbid him not, for he that is not against us is for
us. Isn't that an interesting connection there that we find
similar, almost the exact same circumstances? Boy, and nobody
needed the gospel preached to them more than those people in
the wilderness. And you know, the same thing we find happened
back there is happening in the Lord's time here. And most of
those people died in the wilderness because the gospel preached to
them didn't profit them not being mixed with faith. And he says,
here, sometimes you're going to go to somebody's house, and
they're going to say, come in. We would hear more of this. And
other people are going to say, well, get out, never come back,
and throw stuff at you. So that leads us to our next
segment here. He says, behold, in verse 3,
he says, go your ways. Behold, I send you forth as lambs
among wolves. So he begins, behold, I send
you forth. by divine sovereign decree, command
of the Lord God Almighty, I'm sending you forth. And then he
says, as or in the manner of or as it were lambs among or
in the midst of wolves. Now That seems like kind of an
oxymoron kind of a thing. You know, you'd think the shepherd
would be protecting the sheep against the wolves, not sending
them out among them. So we're going to kind of look
at what all that means here this morning as we look at this. It's interesting, in my life
I've been exposed to both of these things, physically as well
as spiritually. I had my 4-H project when I was
a youth was a lamb. I raised it from a little bitty
thing up until it got big enough to go take it to the fair and
auction it off. It needed a lot of care. If you put something there for
it to eat, it could eat it. And if you left it out in the
pasture, it would graze. Kind of minded its own business
and didn't bother anybody. They don't have sharp teeth,
so they can't chomp you. They're pretty defenseless and
dependent. And yet they have an intrinsic
value throughout time. They've always been valuable
because they produce wool and meat. And as we learned through Exodus
and Leviticus, they were used as a picture of the Lord himself. And we'll look at that here in
a minute. But you know, where the lambs,
sheep have an intrinsic value, wolves not so much. Mostly they
try to get rid of them because they do a lot of damage and they're
destructive. That's the way the Bible pictures
them when we look at them through scripture. Wolves are ravenous,
bloodthirsty, hungry, fierce. They're pictured as having fierce
resistance to the gospel. They're destructive. They're
enemies of righteousness. They're figurative of false prophets
and described as devouring the flock. We find all those terms in the
scripture. And, you know, that's really
all of our nature before regeneration. We kind of all fall into the
wolf category before we're saved, and we're enemies of God, we're
enemies of righteousness, we don't want much to do with those. Which of the prophets haven't
you killed?" They're stoned, you know, as the Bible says.
So, you know, the wolves, they're a metaphor for enemies of the
church and God. They chase, they scatter. They
seek out a weak individual and pull it down and devour it. They try to separate one out.
When you watch them up in the north, they'll get after a here
in this area they might go after some deer or elk or something
and they would chase after a little herd of them and find out which
one of them is weak or old or crippled or whatever and they
single that one out, separate that one from the flock and then
they might relay that until it wears down to where it can't
outrun them anymore and then they pull it down, they separate
it, then they pull it down, they pluck it out of the flock and
then tear it down and devour it. And by itself, it's pretty
defenseless against that kind of an attack. So, you know, one
of the places where we find the most about sheep and wolves is
in John chapter 10. So we could turn over there to
John chapter 10. It starts right out talking about
sheep and the sheepfold. John chapter 10. Verily, verily,
I say unto you, he that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold,
but climbeth up some other ways, is a thief and a robber. So he's
making this allegory between the sheep, which are intrinsically
of value to him and the church. And he said, you're of much more
value Many sparrows, even the very hairs of your head are numbered.
That's the value that the Lord places on you. He that entereth
in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. And to him the
porter openeth, and the sheep hear his voice. And he calleth
his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And he put forth his
own sheep, and he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him,
for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not
follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the voice of
strangers. This parable Jesus spake unto them, but they understood
not what things they were which he spake to them. Then Jesus
said unto them, I am the door of the sheep. So he explains
it to them in terms that are pretty clear. And all that ever
came before me, or some other way, are thieves and robbers.
But the sheep didn't hear them. I am the door. By me, if any
man enter in, he shall be saved, shall go in and out and find
pasture. The thief cometh not but for
to steal and to kill and to destroy. I am come that they might have
life and that they might have it more abundantly. I'm the good
shepherd, the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. But he
that is a hireling and not the shepherd, whose own shepherd
the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the
sheep, and fleeth, and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth
the sheep." So we have another kind of a mixed allegory here
where you have a hireling, you have the sheep, and you have
the wolf. So you have a hireling that's in charge of shepherding
the sheep or watching over them, But he's not giving them the
gospel. He's not giving them the things that would protect
them from that wolf. And he sees the wolf coming and
takes off and abandons them. And then the wolf comes in, catches
them, and scattereth the sheep. And the hireling fleeth because
he is a hireling and careth not for the sheep. I'm the good shepherd
and know my sheep and have known of mine." And he says, I lay
down my life for the sheep. So now he's saying, I'm sending
you out like lambs in the midst of wolves. And so it's interesting
that these words that he uses to describe the activities of
the wolf, this scattering, this separating, this plucking. He
addresses those things a little bit further on in John chapter
10. They're in my hands. No man plucks
them out of my hand. They're in my Father's hand.
No man can pluck them out of my Father's hand. So we're pluck-proof
twice, as it were. You know, in the Old Testament.
In Ezekiel 22, verse 27, it said, Her princes in the midst thereof
are like wolves ravening the prey to shed blood and to destroy
souls to get dishonest gain. Boy, that just describes a lot
of religious activity in a nutshell there, doesn't it? They're just
for dishonest gain. They don't really care about
you. They just want the dinero to come in. Beware of false prophets
which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they're
ravening wolves." That word ravening means to seize, to catch, to
pluck. And it kind of gives the intimation
of the act of extortion, too, in there somehow. And in Acts
20, verse 29, he says, For I know this, that after my departing shall
grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock."
Well, this word grievous, it means burdensome or adding a
great weight. And kind of gives you the idea
that what we usually find is They're not satisfied with the
results of the gospel, so they try to add a bunch of things
on there like Paul wrote about in the New Testament. They try
to incorporate back into the law and works and you still have
to do this and you still have to do that. Salvation by grace
is not enough. So they add a burden, they add
a great weight there. And they're wolves, they're just
ravening wolves. And you know that lamb by nature
is really defenseless. A lamb is really even less able
of itself to survive among wolves than a mature sheep. A mature
sheep is just a bigger meal for them. They can run a little faster,
but not fast enough to out distance a wolf. So they can't outrun
the wolf. They can't physically out fight
the wolf. And isn't that what the Scripture tells us? You know,
our battles are not physical, they're spiritual in nature.
And that's what we rely on Christ for. The battle is out there
in the foyer, it says, the battle isn't yours, it's the Lord's. And the lamb, because of its
vulnerability, needs protection. In our human nature, we think
that the Lord, our Great Shepherd, should be protecting us all the
time. Nothing bad should ever happen to us no matter what.
Well, He should be protecting us instead of sending us out
among the wolves. And yet we find that He does
that very thing according to His purpose. Because we're all
wolves to start with. And we have to go out there.
And you know that the Lord tells us that We're valuable to Him. We're more valuable than many
sparrows. Our hairs on our head are numbered.
And yet, He looks at things from the eternal view. I think many
times of, you know, when Paul is describing his activities
prior to regeneration, he said, I was on my way to Damascus with
orders from the religious guys to go to Damascus and arrest
the sheep. and to bring them bound back
to Jerusalem for trial and possibly execution." That is separating
out the flock like a ravening wolf. That is tearing them down
and killing them. And you know that he said, you
know, I did all those things. But I was ignorant when I did
it. And that's how we all are in our state of deadness and
sin and trespasses. And then he says, after that
I was saved. I was going about preaching the
Gospel, and sometimes I was shipwrecked and all drowned, and sometimes
they'd stone me, and sometimes the wolves would drive me out
of town, and sometimes I'd be beaten thrice with rods. And he says, you know what? It was all for the furtherance
of the Gospel. And he says, I looked at him
in that way. And that's kind of the way we have to look at
it as the church today. And we go out as lambs among
wolves to declare the gospel. And you know, mostly here in
this country and in this time and this age, we're Not much
bad happens to us. We might get some bad publicity
or somebody might write a bad thing about us in the newspaper
or tell us to our face something we don't really want to hear,
but then you just have to kick off the dust of your feet and
go your way. By the definition of being lambs,
it's just a metaphor for us being entirely dependent on the Lord
for all these things and to trust in Him, not only in this world,
but in the world to come. It's an allegory used extensively
to refer to the Lord God Almighty, our Savior. And this is most
interesting. You know, a lamb speaks so clearly
of the character the Lord must assume in order to achieve the
redemption of the church. In his natural state, by definition,
he's almighty, he's all-powerful, he's the very source of life. He must therefore become that
which He is not by nature. He must become a lamb that's
vulnerable, a lamb that's killable. Because He could not be killed
in His natural state. And this metaphor, this picture
was presented clearly in Exodus in chapter 12 in the Passover
lamb. chapter 12 verse 3, Speak ye
unto the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this
month they shall take them every man a lamb according to the house
of their fathers, a lamb for a house. And if the household
be too little for the lamb, let him take his and his neighbor
next unto his house, take it according to the number of the
souls. Every man according to his eating shall make your account
for the lamb, and your lamb shall be without blemish. A lamb that had problems was
not acceptable. It had to be a spotless lamb. It had to be without blemish.
A male of the first year, you shall take it from the sheep
or from the goats. How humbling for the Most High,
the Almighty, to submit quietly to this treatment. You know,
when they went to arrest him and Peter tried to defend him,
he says, no, I'm a lamb. I must, remember the lesson we
had on the four musts? I must be taken. I must be rejected. I must be
tried, convicted, killed, and then raised again the third day.
He said, if I wanted to, I could turn them all into charcoal right
here. If I wanted to, I could call
12 legions of angels to defend me because I'm the almighty.
I'm the captain of the Lord's host as our pastor has been bringing
that lesson from Zachariah. But he said, I have to be a lamb.
I have to be able to be vulnerable. In Isaiah 53, where it describes in kind of
detail this process. He was oppressed, he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth. He's brought as a lamb to the
slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth
not his mouth. How pictorial of that persecution
that he put up with the rejection, the shame, and the spitting.
We were talking about this Hebrews 12-2 this morning in our meeting
that we had. Looking unto Jesus the author,
the captain of our salvation, the finisher of our faith, who
for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising
the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne
of God." And you know, when he sends out the disciples, he says,
you know what? They hated me in the world. and you're not better than me.
If they hated me, they're going to hate you. If they mistreated
me, they're going to mistreat you. It's just a function of
the nature of man as a wolf versus the nature of the church as a
sheep. That's just how it is. So what are we to learn from
that? What is the church to learn from that? As we mentioned earlier,
we normally expect the shepherd to protect us from the wolves.
And what we've learned so far is He says, don't take anything. Take no script, take no extra
shoes, no nothing. Depend on the Lord for everything
and trust in His purpose. You know, a few minutes ago we
were examining the defining characteristics of wolves and we learned that
their aim is to chase with the goal of separating us, plucking
us out of the flock and devouring us. Boy, they're in the religious
world. The worst wolves are in the religion. The worst ones, the ones that'll,
they're kind of working a pack. And they'll try to, if they find
out they've got a sheep in their midst, they will try to root
that out. Because they want mostly wolves
with them. Beware of false prophets which
come to you in sheep's clothing. You know, they say, Mike was
mentioning this morning, he says, they say words from the Bible. Baptism and gospel and being born again. And they say
all these words, but they don't know what they mean. They have
no clue what those really mean. But they say the right words,
so it makes them sound kind of official. And yet, they're just
wolves in sheep's clothing. And inwardly, they're ravening
wolves. Their aim is to seize, to catch,
to pluck. to separate you out. Well, you
know, we have words from the Bible that tell us what God's
promises are regarding this. Turn with me, if you would, to
Romans, the eighth chapter. In Romans, the eighth chapter,
in verse 35, it says, who shall
separate us from the love of Christ? If you're truly a born-again
believer, if you've been by the hand of the Sovereign Almighty
God, been given the new birth, they're not going to be able
to separate you out. Shall tribulation or distress
or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword, as it is written,
for thy sakes we're killed all the day long, we're accounted
as sheep for the slaughter. I got this big wall of books
there in my study, and in one of the books there, I hardly
ever crack it open, because I just can't bear to read it. It's called
Fox's Book of Martyrs. It just makes me cry when I read
it, because the ravening wolves would take a sheep and just tear
them, trying to get them to recant and deny the grace that bought
them. And they said, nope. Can't do
it, even though it means my life. You might be able to kill my
body, but you're not going to be able to kill my soul, and
my soul belongs to the Lord." And so they would. They said,
okay, you called it. And they would kill them in an
atrocious manner. Sex or age had nothing to do
with it. They were equally ravenous in
tearing down anyone that was against them. I have that book,
but there's not a crease in it where I've read it. One or two
pages, and I say, oh, that's it. It's just too awful. And
my heart goes out to those people, but I know that they're with
the Lord, and they're saying like Paul said, It was for the
furtherance of the gospel to accomplish the purpose of the
Almighty God somehow that maybe we don't see in this life, but
we trust in that. So we have the sure promises
of the Lord written to us. For thy sake we're killed all
the day long. We're counted as sheep of the slaughter. Nay,
in all these things we're more than conquerors through him that
loved us. For I am persuaded that neither
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers,
nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature like a wolf shall be able to separate us
from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." And
then again we read a portion from John chapter 10. And I mentioned
it earlier from John 10 28 29. I give them eternal life and
they shall never perish Eternally neither shall any man pluck them
out of my hand And my father which gave them me boy. That's a powerful phrase right
there somebody was given to the Lord and Is greater than all
no my father which gave them me is greater than all and no
man is able to pluck them Out of my father's hand and you know
Some in religion teach that if some misfortune befall us, as
has often been the case throughout history, like these ones in Fox's
Book of Martyrs, or like Paul being shipwrecked and all these
things happened to him. And they say, boy, God must be
mad at him if that happened to him. God is angry with him. And, you know, somehow it's a
punishment. Well, you know, Paul said, It
was all for the furtherance of the gospel, somehow. It was all
according to God's purpose and aim. And so the understanding
that we have from the Spirit is just that, that many suffered
the ultimate penalty caused by Paul when he was yet a wolf.
And he says, oh man, I did horrible things before I was saved to
the church. I persecuted them beyond measure.
took them to be executed. He says, I was holding on to
this young man's coat while they stoned him. And I assented to
that. I egged him on, because I was
a wolf. And yet, he heard that gospel
that that young man preached before that he was stoned. So many of these things that
we read about, going lambs among wolves, physically it just doesn't
sound very appealing. And so we're kind of opposed
to that in our natural state, yet in the eternal context, we
find that really it's not very consequential for us, but used
by God according to His purpose. So, since we all are by nature
and birth, spiritually speaking, wolves, who by nature resist
the gospel, are destructive to those who bring it, and are by
nature's enemies of righteousness, that's all the scripture tells
us, practically read all that in Ephesians chapter 2 verse
3, among whom we all had our conversation in times past, in
the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and
of the mind, and whereby nature wolves, the children of wrath,
even as others. The only help for that is the
gospel. And we have to go among them
to declare the gospel. And if the Spirit prepares their
hearts and they're a son of peace, they'll want to hear it. Thy
people shall be willing in the day of thy power. If not, they're going to be wolves.
the gospel of the lamb slain from before the foundation of
the world. So go your way. Behold, I send you forth as lambs
among wolves, carrying neither purse, nor script, nor shoes,
and salute no man by the way. And into whatsoever house you
enter, first say, peace, reconciliation to God the Father through the
Son. And if a son of peace be there,
Your peace shall rest upon it, and if not, it shall turn to
you again." So we'll stop there, and we'll proceed forward next
time. You know, it talks about the
ones where the gospel is rejected, where mighty works were done.
Oh, what awful circumstance awaits them for unbelief. Well, we'll
stop there. And in the meantime, as always,
be free.