SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/19/2018
9:56 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “Guard the Flock”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Acts
20:29-31
Message of the
verses: “29 “I know that after my
departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; 30 and
from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw
away the disciples after them. 31 “Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a
period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears.”
I have mentioned that the word “therefore”
is found 904 times in the NASB95 and perhaps it could be stated that this “therefore”
is one of the more important uses of the word in the Scriptures. One more thing that I want to mention and
that is that I have been looking at a study of how our Lord Jesus Christ is our
Shepherd over the past week or so and it has become very important to me in
looking at this study, and one of the places that I have been studying this
truth is found in Psalms 22-24. “We will see that Psalms 22, 23, and 24
make up a trilogy on Christ the Shepherd.
In Psalm 22 we see that Christ the Shepherd dies for the sheep (John
10:1-18). Then Psalm 23 describes the
Great Shepherd lives for the sheep and cares for the sheep (Heb. 13:20-21) Then
is Psalm 24 we will see the Great Shepherd returning for His sheep and
rewarding His sheep for their services (1Peter 5:4).” This quote comes from a SD from January of
2012 when I studied Psalm 22. We have
been mentioning that Pastors or Elders, (the same Greek Word) are the ones who
are to shepherd the flock that God gives them as they are accountable to the
Lord for the flock that the Lord gives to them and we can see that Paul takes
this very seriously.
Paul had no doubt that after his
departure that savage wolves would come into this church not sparing the flock,
and we know that from our study of Revelation chapter two that this did take
place and it began by the Ephesian believers getting so busy that they forgot
their first love. A believer can get
their priorities out of balance and begin to do things on their own, not
listening to the Spirit of God instructing them in what they should be
doing. This means that they are
following the flesh and not following the Spirit. When one looks at where the city of Ephesus
is today there is nothing there but rubble, and so what Paul did say to these
leaders did come true. What happened to
this church at Ephesus happened from the inside and not really from the outside
as the leaders of the church were not guarding the flock like Paul tells them
to do. Paul writes that “from among your
own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw the disciples
after them.” John MacArthur writes “Perverse
is from diastrepho, which means ‘to
distort,’ or ‘to twist.’ False teachers
twist God’s truth for their own perverted ends.
‘Dray away’ is from apospao
and could be translated ‘to drag away’ or ‘to tear away.’ If the undershepherds are not valiant, Paul
warns, the wolves will drag their sheep away to devour them.”
We have mentioned that what Paul
said about this church would happen. Timothy
was the Pastor of the Ephesian church when Pau wrote to him and Paul condemned
the false teachers who had arisen from within the Ephesian congregation. “3 As I urged you upon my departure for
Macedonia, remain on at Ephesus so that you may instruct certain men not to
teach strange doctrines, 4 nor to pay attention to myths and endless
genealogies, which give rise to mere speculation rather than furthering the
administration of God which is by faith.
5 But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience
and a sincere faith. 6 For some men,
straying from these things, have turned aside to fruitless discussion, 7 wanting
to be teachers of the Law, even though they do not understand either what they
are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions (1 Timothy
1:3-7). “1 But realize this, that in the
last days difficult times will come. 2
For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant,
revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving,
irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of
good, 4 treacherous, reckless,
conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to a form of
godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these. 6 For
among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed
down with sins, led on by various impulses, 7 always learning and never able to
come to the knowledge of the truth. 8 Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses,
so these men also oppose the truth, men of depraved mind, rejected in regard to
the faith. 9 But they will not make
further progress; for their folly will be obvious to all, just as Jannes’s and
Jambres’s folly was also (2 Timothy 3:1-9).”
In 1 Timothy 1:20; 2 Timothy 1:15; and 2:17 Paul names some of these men
who are causing trouble in the Ephesian church.
We will now look at the warning that
Jude gives from his epistle about the insidious danger of false teachers who
arise from within the church:
“3 Beloved,
while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt
the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the
faith which was once for all handed down to the saints. 4 For certain persons
have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this
condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness
and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ (Jude 3-4).”
“10 But
these men revile the things which they do not understand; and the things which
they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals, by these things they are
destroyed. 11 Woe to them! For they have gone the way of Cain, and for pay they
have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam, and perished in the rebellion of
Korah. 12 These are the men who are hidden reefs in your love feasts when they
feast with you without fear, caring for themselves; clouds without water,
carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted; 13
wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam; wandering stars,
for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever. 14 It was also about
these men that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying,
"Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of His holy ones (Jude 10-13).”
“16 These
are grumblers, finding fault, following after their own lusts; they speak
arrogantly, flattering people for the sake of gaining an advantage (Jude 16).”
We will continue looking at how the
church leaders should guard their flock in our next SD.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: One of
the things that a believer inside a church can do to help prevent things like
this from happening is to know the Scriptures.
Paul wrote in the 17th chapter of Acts about how the Bereans
were “more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word
with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these
things were so (Acts 17:11).” That is
the spirit that all believers should have as they study the Word of God making
sure that their leaders teach the truth.
My Steps of Faith for Today: “Study to
show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly
dividing the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15).”
Answer
to yesterday’s Bible question: “Isaiah”
(2 Kings 19:1-2).
Today’s
Bible question: “How many stories were
in Noah’s ark?”
Answer
in our next SD.
7/19/2018
10:37 AM
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