SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/20/2018
11:30 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
PT-2 “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.”
The first thing I want to say is that this is the second
time that I have attempted to do this Spiritual Diary as I mistakenly deleted
the first one which I have to say was a bit upsetting to me. I wanted to point out that I believe that I
wrote that the troubles from the Ephesian church came from the inside, but
after looking at verse 29 we see that there was also outside trouble.
This SD will mostly be a quote from a man named Charles
Jefferson who is quoted in John MacArthur’s commentary as he describes the
importance of the shepherd’s vigilance:
“The Eastern shepherd was,
first of all, a watchman. He had a
watchtower. It was his business to keep
a wide-open eye, constantly searching the horizon for the possible approach of
foes. He was bound to be circumspect and
attentive. Vigilance was a cardinal
virtue. An alert wakefulness was for him
a necessity. He could not indulge in
fits of drowsiness, for the foe was always near. Only by his alertness could the enemy be
circumvented. There were many kinds of
enemies, all of them terrible, each in a different way. At certain seasons of the year there were
floods. Streams became quickly swollen
and overflowed their banks. Swift action
was necessary in order to escape destruction.
There were enemies of more subtle kind—animals, rapacious and treacherous:
lions, bears, hyenas, jackals, wolves.
There were enemies in the air, huge birds of prey were always soaring
aloft ready to swoop down upon a lamb or kid.
And then, most dangerous of all, were the human birds and beasts of prey—robbers,
bandits, men who made a business of robbing sheepfolds and murdering
shepherds. That Eastern world was full of
perils. It teemed with forces hostile to
the shepherd and his flock.
“When Ezekiel, Jeremiah,
Isaiah, and Habakkuk talk about shepherds, they call them watchmen set to warn
and save.
“Many a minister fails as a
pastor because he is not vigilant. He
allows his church to be torn to pieces because he is half asleep. He took it for granted that there were no
wolves, no birds of prey, no robbers, and while he was drowsing the enemy
arrived. False ideas, destructive
interpretations, demoralizing teachings came into his group, and he never knew
it. He was interested, perhaps, in
literary research; he was absorbed in the discussion contained in the last
theological quarterly, ideas had been lodged in the heads of a group of his
leading members. There are errors which
are as fierce as wolves and pitiless as hyenas; they tear faith and hope and
love to pieces and leave churches, once prosperous, mangled and half dead.” (The Minister
as Shepherd [Hong Kong: Living Books
for All, 1980], 41-42, 43-44)
Paul who was truly a faithful shepherd made it a point to
warn his flock, and I suppose that means all his flocks. Paul says that “night and day for a period of
three years” that he “did not cease to admonish each one with tears.” John MacArthur writes “Admonish is from noutheteo, which refers to giving
counsel with a warning involved (cf. Col. 1:28).” “28 We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with
all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ.”
I have to say that as a believer in Jesus Christ I have
had a desire to “Study to show yourself approved to God, a workman that needs
not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15).” That is why I named my blogs 2 Timothy
2:15. I make it a practice to listen to
sermons that are preached and desire to learn from them, but if I hear
something that does not go along with the Word of God I will take the time to
lovingly talk to who it is that is preaching and confront them about this. While living in Hawaii and going to a church
while there the praise team sang a song that was not Biblically correct. There were different Pastors who attended
there and none of them said anything about it.
I spoke to one of the members of the praise team who said that when she
looked the song up on the internet there was a word that was changed, and that
word made the song not measuring up with Scripture. As believers we all have to be on alert, and
to do that we must fulfill what Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:15.
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
question: “Three” (Genesis 6:16).
Today’s Bible
question: “In whose name did Peter heal
the lame man at the temple?”
Answer in our next SD.
7/20/2018 11:59 AM
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