Well, good morning. If you care
to open your Bibles with me to Matthew chapter 10, we'll continue
our study of Matthew chapter 10 this morning. We're delighted
to have the coffees with us this morning. I've asked Luke if he
would to come lead us in prayer before we begin. Our Heavenly Father, Lord, how thankful we are that
You've brought us together to worship Thee. Lord, make us to
understand how blessed we are and how wonderful it is that
You've made us to come here, that You've given us a desire
to come and worship You. Lord, we pray that that would
be the reason that we come. Lord, we ask that You get us
here with our children by any means necessary, but we pray
that At the same time, You would give us a pleasure and excitement
to come and worship You. Lord, if we had any true idea
of how great things You've done for us, Lord, we would be in
the best mood we could ever be in when we came here to worship
You. Lord, we pray that You'd be with the pastor here this
morning, You'd be with Frank as he teaches and preaches to
us Be with all Your men that will stand up and preach Your
Word. Lord, we pray that You would use them to speak the truth
with clarity, simplicity, and fervor that would make it to
be effectual to our heart. Lord, we also pray that You'd
be with the men and women that teach our children. Lord, we want so much that You would teach
them and plant the seed that You might Call them out and save
them, Lord. We pray you'd make us do everything
we could and give us the words to answer questions, to speak
of you and to make us behave in a manner that would show them
how important this is to us. Lord, we praise your name and
give you thanks. We ask forgiveness for our many
sins in Christ's name. All right, Matthew chapter 10,
I've titled our lesson this morning, Wise as Serpents, Harmless as
Doves. Our text begins in verse 16.
The Lord says, Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst
of wolves. Be ye therefore wise as serpents
and harmless as doves. Now, the verses of our text this
morning, the Lord is teaching us the manner in which that we
preach the gospel. What the Lord is teaching the
disciples here who will become the apostles, this applies to
all of us even if we don't teach and preach. The Lord is teaching
us the attitude, the manner that we're to have when we witness
to others about the Lord and about salvation in our Lord Jesus
Christ. So first, our manner is the manner
of sheep. He said, I send you out as sheep.
Now we preach or we witness to someone, we're to have the attitude
of a sheep, of God's sheep. A sheep are not out there on
their own. You don't find maverick sheep
out there blazing new trails. Sheep follow the shepherd. And
that's the way that we're to live, following the Lord, our
great shepherd, following Him in everything, speaking of Him
and Him only. We're to live like a sheep, not
like a wolf, and we're to talk to people about the Lord. And
we witness to people and talk to them about the Lord We're
to do it as a sheep, not as a wolf. We're to live dependent upon
the Lord, not a self-sufficient wolf, but completely dependent
upon the Lord. And when you talk to folks about
the gospel, especially if they start to get mad at you, don't
attack them. Don't attack them. That's what
a wolf would do. Don't attack them like that, but speak to
them as a sheep. where the shepherd is, to follow
him, where the shepherd leads his people in the green grass
for our souls and the still waters for our souls. It's just one
sheep telling another sheep about the shepherd, about where he
leads in the green grass of his word. And some people will absolutely
love what you say about the Lord. They're going to love hearing
about salvation and him. They're going to love hearing
about the shepherd. Those are the sheep. When you find God's
sheep, this is a universal truth. Sheep love to hear about the
shepherd. They always do. Wolves don't. Wolves like it
when the shepherd's not around. But sheep are always going to
love what you say about the shepherd, but many won't. The Lord calls
us sheep among wolves. We're not just out here talking
to other sheep all the time, are we? No, we're sheep among
wolves, among wolves who hate the gospel, who hate the shepherd
and who would like to devour the sheep if they can. So since
this is true, as we, our manner is the manner of sheep, we also
need wisdom to avoid being devoured by the wolves. So second, our
manner is to be wise as serpents. Now notice here, the Lord says,
wise as serpents. You know, when I read here a
moment ago about serpents, there's things that came into everybody's
mind about serpents. Well, be wise as a serpent. Don't
be like a serpent in every way. Don't be like a serpent in other
ways, but only in this way. Be wise as a serpent. So this
is what the Lord means. Look with me at James chapter
3. When the Lord here is talking
about wisdom, he's telling us to pray for wisdom. Pray that
the Lord give us wisdom from above. Part of this wisdom of
living as a sheep among wolves is to live wisely following the
shepherd. You know, it's a dumb sheep that
strays away from the shepherd, isn't it? The wise sheep will
follow the shepherd. James chapter three and verse
13. Who is a wise man and endued
with knowledge among you? Let him show out of a good conversation,
good conduct, his works. with meekness of wisdom. Now,
a wise person's wisdom is going to be seen in how he conducts
himself. He does it in meekness, like
a sheep, with meekness. And he shows that with good works
and kind works. But a person who's bitter, they're
always picking fights. That person doesn't have this
wisdom. Look at verse 14. But if you have bitter envying
and strife in your hearts, glory not and lie not against the truth.
Now don't lie and say you've got this wisdom when you don't.
This wisdom is peaceable. It seeks out peace. Verse 15. This wisdom is, let me say this
first, this kind of wisdom to, to not be always, you know, picking
fights and it, you know, there's envy and bitterness in our heart. It's just the natural heart that
we have. So this kind of wisdom that seeks peace doesn't come
from in here. Doesn't come from, it's got to come from above.
And this is what the Lord is telling us to pray for. Now,
verse 15, this wisdom descended or this kindness, this wisdom
that has strife in your hearts and this, that kind of wisdom
descended not from above, but it's earthly, sensual, devilish
for envy and strife is there's confusion and every evil work. But the wisdom that is from above
is first pure, peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated. full
of mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisy.
And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that
make peace. This is the kind of wisdom that
comes from above that seeks peace, that seeks peace and pursues
it. And we're to pray for this kind
of wisdom to seek peace, to not seek to go to war with somebody
all the time, but to seek peace. And we need to pray that the
Lord Give that kind of wisdom to us because it does not come
naturally. So be wise as a serpent in this matter of seeking peace.
Don't be deceptive like a serpent now. Be wise. Don't be deceitful
like a serpent and have a split tongue where you have two different
messages. When you talk to people about
salvation, about the gospel, about God's word, have one message,
one message. It's the message of Christ. It's
not the message of Christ. And then plus, we're going to
have all this good Christian works and good Christian living.
No, there's one message. It's the message of Christ. Let's
preach it constantly, unmistakably and clearly. But when we preach
this is an even and when you talk to folks in your everyday
life, we need to be as we speak, pray for wisdom, pray that God
would give us wisdom, wisdom, to preach Christ. You know, let's
seek to preach and talk to folks in the power of the spirit, not
in all of our well thought out human arguments, not in the logic
that makes sense, you know, to the human mind. Think, well,
if I can just say this, this will make sense to their mind.
If it makes sense to their mind, their natural mind, it's not
going to do their soul any good. We need to seek the God to give
us wisdom and the ability to preach in the power of the spirit.
And this is why I'm saying when you witness to others, don't
try to package it in a way that's appealing to the flesh. Again,
if it's appealing to the flesh, it's going to be damning to their
soul. Just tell the truth. Just tell of Christ. Don't try
to tell it in the wisdom of this world and what will make sense
and appeal to the wisdom of this world, because the Lord says
the wisdom of this world is foolishness. Just simply in plain Tell folks
what the Lord has done for you. Now, a big part of what the Lord
is talking about here when he talks about this wisdom is prudent,
prudence. The word, the word wise that
the Lord uses here means prudent. Now, snakes have a natural wisdom
or prudence that they will avoid trouble if possible. You know,
if a snake, if it's possible for them to escape trouble, they
almost always do. It's very unusual to see a snake
seeking out a fight, unless it's cornered or it needs to feed
or something. A snake has this ability, this prudence to get
away from bigger things that could cause it trouble. Snakes
almost never expose themselves to danger needlessly. That's
the kind of wisdom that the Lord's talking about here. Don't bite
off more than you can chew. And I'll give you an example.
I heard Dan told me this about a snake, boa constrictor. This woman had a pet boa constrictor. Now that tells you something
about somebody who's got a pet boa constrictor. And this, she would
wake up in the mornings, and she had this boa constrictor
for a long time apparently. And she would wake up in the
morning, and that boa constrictor would be laying beside her in
her bed, just stiff and straight out as could be. And she thought,
well, that's never done that before. What is this thing doing?
She thought something was wrong with it. She took it to the vet.
You know what the vet told her? That snake's measuring itself against
you to see if it's big enough to eat you. It wouldn't have
done it. That snake was not going to eat
her and try to take her on until it was bigger than her. That
snake had the wisdom, the prudence, not to bite off more than it
could chew. to expose itself to danger needlessly. That's
what the Lord is talking about. We need this wisdom to avoid
unnecessary trouble. Now, the key is unnecessary.
To avoid unnecessary trouble in the wolves that live around
us in this world. Let me give you a few examples
that just puts this right on our everyday life. First one
is work. You know, when someone is paying
you to work, You know what you ought to be doing? Work. That's
what you ought to be doing. When you're at work, work. And
don't ever use religion as an excuse not to work. I've seen
people do that. Don't do that. Do not do that.
Do not use religion as an excuse not to work. If you want to do
it on your breaks or when you're not supposed to be working, you
know, that's fine. We ought to be witnessing to people, but
don't say, well, we're not too busy to work because we're talking
about something important, religion. Nothing will bring reproach faster
on your belief, faster than laziness. Nothing will bring reproach upon
the gospel more than a lazy worker. I've seen it. I've seen people
who talk about their faith all the time, and they're the laziest
man on the job. And other people told me, I don't
care what he believes. I would never go to church with
him because he's so lazy. He doesn't work. Nothing will
bring reproach on a gospel faster than that. And it's going to
bring trouble to you. I mean, laziness should bring
the boss down on you, shouldn't it? I mean, shouldn't it? Aren't
you supposed to be working? So wisdom, prudence, is work
when you're supposed to be working. And talk about religion. Talk
about the Lord when you're not supposed to be working. See,
don't bring unnecessary trouble on yourself just by being obnoxious
and saying, well, they can't say anything to me here on the
job because I'm talking about religion. That's just being obnoxious.
That's bringing unnecessary trouble on yourself. Here's another example. And if you haven't found yourself
in this situation, you will. You find yourself in a crowd
of people. They disagree with you. They're kind of ganging
up on you and questioning you. And when you find yourself in
that position, pray for wisdom. Look here, this is what the Lord
says in verse 17, back in our text, Matthew chapter 10. The Lord says, but beware of men,
for they will deliver you up to the councils and they will
scourge you in their synagogues. And you should be brought before
governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony among them and
the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up,
take no thought how or what you shall speak, For it shall be
given you in that same hour what ye shall speak. For it's not
ye that speak, but the spirit of your father which speaketh
in you. Now, I know today we don't find
ourselves literally in court, you know, civil trials and courts
for believing the gospel. But we do find ourselves among
people who do not believe what we believe and they kind of gang
up on you and make you feel like you're on trial. Well, when that
happens, Don't give thought about what you're going to say. Don't,
and this is what that means. Don't try to figure out a way
to answer so that it sounds like, oh, we believe the same thing.
Don't do that. Don't give a thought to how to
say it so you won't get in more trouble with these people. Just
tell them the truth. Don't try to figure a way to
answer them so they won't be mad at you. Don't worry if they're
going to get mad at you or not. Just tell them the truth. And
pray that the Lord will give you the words to say, words that
are not spoken in anger, because you're going to get angry. I
mean, I'm assuming you're like me when somebody does that to you,
you get angry. Pray that the Lord give us wisdom to say things
to them according to his word, according to his word, not our
creed, not our theology, not what all the great theologians
of the past have said, but what does God's word say? You know,
quote as much scripture as you can, and I know that we don't,
most of us don't have the ability to call up scripture like that,
you know, when you're under pressure like that. Well, tell them, just
wait, and let me come back to you on this. And look up scripture,
give them as much of God's word as you can about what you believe,
about how salvation is in Christ. And don't just, Don't think that
if I can say this just right, then they're going to believe.
Because if we say something with our wisdom, it's not going to
profit them anyway. But God's word will. See, the only way
anything that's said to them is going to profit them is if
the Lord speaks to their heart. We need to remember what the
Lord says, not you speaking anyway. It's the Lord that's speaking
through you. His spirit is speaking through you. So pray that the
Lord We'll do that. He'll speak through us and he'll
enable us to use his word that people might see Christ. Remember
the when somebody gets you in that situation, they're kind
of gathered around you and they're arguing with you and you know
that you feel like you're on trial. Your goal in that situation is
not to try to justify yourself. The goal is that they see Christ. That's the goal. Now I'll show
you a good example in Daniel chapter 3 about how to speak
in these situations. Daniel chapter 3. You know the
story here. Well, Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego, the great statue that Nebuchadnezzar built and wanted
everybody to bow down and worship it. And Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego would not. And they're called before the
court. They're called before the king. And he can do with
him as he will. He can kill him if he wants and
do whatever he wants with him. Daniel chapter three, verse 13.
Then Nebuchadnezzar in his rage and fury commanded to bring Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego. And they brought these men before
the king. Nebuchadnezzar spake and said unto them, is it true,
O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego? Do not ye serve my gods nor worship
the golden image which I have set up? Now, if you be ready,
that at what time you hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp,
sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, you fall
down and worship the image which I have made, well, it'll be well
with you. But if you worship not, you should
be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning, fiery furnace,
and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king,
O Nebuchadnezzar, We're not careful to answer thee in this matter.
We don't have to think up the right words to how to answer
you in this manner. If it be so, our God whom we
serve is able to deliver us from the burning, fiery furnace, and
he will deliver us out of thine hand, O King. But if not, be
it known unto thee, O King, that we will not serve thy gods, nor
worship the golden image which thou hast set up. See, they didn't
have to think and be careful about how are we going to say
this in such a way Nebuchadnezzar will be mad at us. They didn't
do that. No, they weren't careful in choosing their words. They
said, we just don't have to put a lot of thought into this. We're
not worshiping your idol. God is God. We're not going to
worship your idol. We serve the true and living
God. Now that's a wise answer, isn't
it? But here's the thing about being wise as a circle. in avoiding
unnecessary trouble. Sometimes trouble's unavoidable. I mean, sometimes you just can't
avoid it. I want to read to you what Matthew
Henry had to say upon this matter. It's just sometimes trouble's
unavoidable. He says, it's not inglorious
for Christ's soldiers to quit their ground. He means to quit
the battleground, to retreat, provided they do not quit their
colors. provided they do not quit the
flag of the nation that they defend. It's all right to quit
the battleground as long as you don't abandon Christ our manner.
That's what he's saying. He went on to say, they may go
out of the way of danger, but they must not go out of the way
of duty. Now, if you can avoid danger
without compromising the gospel, this is what he's saying. That's
fine to avoid danger, but never avoid danger by compromising
the truth. Now that might get you out of
some trouble with men, but here we're talking about avoiding
unnecessary danger. If we compromise the truth to
get along with men, well, now we've exposed ourselves to unnecessary
trouble with God. So we're not going to, we're
not going to compromise the gospel to get along with men. And that's
the wisdom that we pray the Lord would give us to how to, how
to handle those situations. And Lord gives us an example
of what he's talking about in verse 21, Matthew chapter 10. And the brother shall deliver
up the brother to death. And the father, the child and
the children shall rise up against their parents and cause them
to be put to death. And you should be hated of all
men for my namesake. Now be sure it's for the Lord's
namesake, not because you're being a jerk, but for my namesake,
for the Lord's namesake. But he that endureth to the end
shall be saved. But when they persecute you in
this city, flee ye into another. For verily I say unto you, ye
shall not have gone over all the cities of Israel to the son
of man become." Now this is what the Lord's saying, be wise. Be
wise about the people around you. Be wise even about people
who are close to you, your family members. You just be wise and
remember our Lord was betrayed with a kiss, wasn't he? From
someone who's close to him, and we probably will be too. Be wise
knowing that there are false brethren in the faith, just like
Judas was. That's still true today. So when
you're betrayed like that from a family member or from someone
that you thought was in the church family, they betrayed you and
you're under attack over the gospel. You just tell them what
you believe. Now, don't hold anything back.
Our Lord has commanded us to preach the gospel of the kingdom
in every city. The gospel of the kingdom is
the gospel of Christ the King, Christ the Sovereign Savior.
That's what we're commanded to preach in every city, in every
situation. So you do that. You witness to
that and don't you hold anything back. And particularly now with
your family, but even someone who's been in the church that
may have turned out to be a false disciple. If you talk to them
and they just will not listen to you, they will not believe
the gospel. They just won't have it in peace. And here's what
you do. You leave them alone. Just leave
them alone. That's part of this wisdom to
avoid unnecessary trouble to have peace. Now, when it's your
earthly family, I understand that you can't leave them alone
and never see him again. And I am not counseling you to
do that. Everybody understand that? I
am not counseling you to do that. This is not a cult. You do not
have to ruin your family relationship with someone in your family if
you've tried time and time and time again to tell them about
the gospel. And if they just will not have
it, then leave it alone. Leave them alone. And that applies
to a false brother when he's revealed too. You know, just
leave them alone. Now this is just good advice
in dealing with our family members. We all have family members who
do not believe the gospel. Now tell them the truth. Who
do you love on this earth more than your family, your father,
your mother, your brothers, your sisters, your aunts and uncles?
You love them. Tell them the truth because you love them.
Give them, I'm kind of exposing, you know,
I lived at a certain time, tapes. I don't know if anybody gives
out tapes anymore. Give them CDs. Give them links, you know,
to sermon audio or something. Give them bulletin articles.
Write down scripture for them. Tell them the truth because you
love them. But if they will not hear, then
don't ruin your relationship with them. Just don't do it.
Listen, you got one set of parents. You got one mama and one daddy.
You got one set of siblings. You got one set of aunts and
uncles. If they just refuse the gospel
that you love, the gospel that you believe, that you cling to,
then leave alone and enjoy the relationship that you can have
with them. Don't compromise the gospel to
do. I mean, that's the underpinning of everything I'm talking. Don't
compromise the gospel to do it, but enjoy the earthly relationship
that you can have with them. There is some common ground that
you can have on this earth to enjoy with your family members.
You know, if this city is too dangerous, go to this city. If
this topic is just too dangerous, go to another topic. That's just
being wise as a serpent without compromising the gospel. All
right, so we're to be a sheep, we're to be wise as serpents,
and our third, our manner, is to be harmless as doves. Now,
doves are peaceable animals. Doves are made for peace, not
war. You know, when there's peace
or the Olympics or whatever they have and they want to show, oh,
we're all here together at peace, they lay off a whole bunch of
doves. Doves are symbols of peace. David, when he was under attack,
wished he had the wings of a dove so he could fly away to a place
of peace and have rest. Look at Philippians chapter two. The word harmless means simple. It means pure or sincere. And
here that word again is used again in Philippians chapter
two, verse 14. Do all things without murmurings
and disputings that you may be blameless and harmless, but be
sincere, peaceable, the sons of God without rebuke in the
midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom you shine
as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life, that
I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain,
neither labor in vain, that you may be blameless and harmless,
that you're sincere, that this is pure. Your belief, your faith,
your gospel, this is pure. And the apostles talk about being
blameless and harmless before men. Be sincere before. Don't be a religious hypocrite.
Don't do that. Be harmless. Be sincere. Be sincere
about believing Christ. It goes back to what I said a
little bit ago that the point of this conversation you're having
with someone that disagrees with you is not to justify yourself. It's that they believe Christ,
that they see Christ. Well, be sincere about believing
Christ. Be sincere that your goal really is for them to see
Christ and believe Him like you do. Be sincere in holding forth
the word of light, the light of Christ. And by that sincerity,
I mean this. When you're talking to somebody,
and I know we get angry, we tend to act in anger and pop off like
Brother Henry used to say. But be careful that you don't
start acting like you think you're better than somebody else, because
you know something they don't know. Now, that's true. If you believe Christ, you do
know something that they don't know. You know someone that they
don't know. But that's no reason to get full of pride, is it?
Is it? I mean, you who know the Lord,
why do you know him? He gave you the gift of faith, didn't
he? Oh, he was gracious to you. So we've got nothing to be proud
of. So when you preach, when you witness to somebody, do it
like a dove. Talk to them in a kind, peaceable
way, like a dove who loves war and not peace. But also doves
are known for mourning. So when you talk to someone about
the gospel, you pray for them, you think about it, you preach,
whatever it is, talk to them in a mourning way. Number one,
mourning over your sin. over your sin. Talk to people
about the Savior as a sinner who mourns over our sin, because
our sin is real. It's real. And we should mourn
over it. Even as we rejoice that the Lord put away our sin by
his sacrifice, we still yet mourn over our sin. Luke ended his
prayer asking, Lord, forgive us of our sin. We still mourn
over it. So talk to people sincere, like mourning over your sin while
you rejoice that the Lord's want to put it away, mourning over
sin. But secondly, this talk to people sincerely caring for
them, not caring to justify yourself, caring for them, talk to them
sincerely, mourning over their sin and their refusal to believe
Christ. Talk to them, praying that the
Lord will grant them repentance. genuinely caring for them, genuinely
caring that the Lord would grant them repentance, that the Lord
would forgive their sin. People are much more likely to
listen to somebody who talks to them in that manner, aren't
they? If someone talks to you as a
she, who's following Christ, who loves Christ, who's following
Christ, who wants you to follow Christ, and talks to them as
a person that's got a little bit of wisdom, and some tenderness
and peacefulness about them. You're much more likely to listen
to them, aren't you? That's what the Lord's telling us here. Be
as sheep, wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. All right.
Well, I hope the Lord will bless that and use that to be help
to you.