Ex 20, verse 28.
Keep watch over yourselves, and all the flock
of which the Holy Spirit has made you
overseers, be shepherds of the Church of God,
which He bought with His own blood.
I know that after I leave, savage wolves
will come in among you and not spare
the flock.
Even from your own number, men will arise
and distort the truth in order to draw
away disciples after them.
So be on your guard.
Remember that for three years I never stopped
warning each of you, night and day, with
tears.
Now I commit you to God and to
the word of His grace which can build
you up and give you an inheritance among
all those who are sanctified.
We will read this far.
If we could take just one verse singly
out of this text, we could choose verse
28 and look at the many different points
it contains.
Which says, Keep watch over yourselves, and all
the flock of which the Holy Spirit has
made you overseers, be shepherds of the Church
of God, which He bought with His own
blood.
Let me just touch on a few points
there.
Firstly, keep watch over yourselves and all the
flock which the Holy Spirit has made you
overseers of.
Do you see how God emphasizes the importance
of watching over yourselves?
That's where God starts.
There is the possibility that Satan can deceive
a person, where a person becomes
obsessed with wanting to save others but fails
to care for themselves.
They don't watch over themselves and it's so
dangerous.
If we neglect ourselves, our own relationship with
God while we are so concerned about others
and we forget to preach to ourselves, Never
neglect your own personal relationship and walk with
God.
Never, in your eagerness to save others, you
do more harm than good by your preaching
and your going around the world, unless you
take care of yourself first.
Paul says that the Lord had revealed to
him that he was soon to be taken
away from the earth.
We don't have time to mention all the
places that he had been to and
the context of what was happening here and
the places where he was, but he felt
compelled by the Holy Spirit to be in
Jerusalem at Pentecost time.
And when he traveled around, he then got
to this place where he asked to speak
to the elders or the bishops of the
Ephesus church, Ephesian church.
He said to his colleagues on the team
that he was with to get into the
ship and to go around the coast.
It was perhaps about 40 miles from one
port.
It was a way quite far around, but
to walk one could take a shortcut of
about 20 miles.
Remember that recently he had been preaching in
a place where he had spoken the whole
night and one young man sitting in the
windowsill had fallen down below and died and
Paul, by the power of God, raised him
from the dead.
It was in these areas that this incident
happened, that he said to them, You get
onto the ship and go around.
I will be taking the shortcut.
Maybe he needed to rest.
Perhaps in preaching so late he was exhausted.
Maybe he needed a time alone with God.
And then he says, Now keep watch over
yourselves, you overseers.
When you've done that, also the flock.
Now what does he mean by saying, You
overseers, see to yourselves?
Let's read a little bit about what the
word of God has to say regarding overseers.
The word of God says, The
word of God says, I've said before that
you should take the Bible and study it,
asking God to reveal to you what your
role means, you as a wife or as
a husband or as a child.
But what does the word teach you?
Remember we are on the theme of God
over yourselves.
You who are overseers over others.
In 1 Timothy 3 verse 2 it
says, Now the overseer must be above reproach.
It must be a person who is above
the accusations of misconduct.
Be without reproach.
Examine yourself.
Ask yourself, Is there anyone who can point
a finger at my life?
One who preaches the gospel must be above
reproach.
You as a Christian, you must be like
this because you also are one who oversees
others.
He must be the husband of but one
wife.
Are there those who have many wives?
Here it says that it is to be
a case of a man having one wife.
The Bible says that if you look lustfully
after a woman, you have already committed adultery
with her.
In other words, you have another wife.
And has to be temperate
and
self-controlled.
Now there are many points about this which
I can't delve into because I want to
complete the message that I have.
Do you know what it is to be
self-controlled?
Are you able to control your own tongue?
Or are you a gossiper?
Or are you a busybody, putting your nose
into the affairs of other people and harming
the work of the Lord?
One who is respectable.
Speaking of uprightness and being straight.
Hospitable and one who is able to behave
in a good way.
One who is hospitable to visitors.
Now that's not easy.
Some people say, no, they'll come in and
finish our food off.
And yet, an overseer should be one who
is hospitable, who brings in visitors.
To be
hospitable
is to be a habit and to be
the norm for an overseer.
To be hospitable is to be a habit
and to be the norm for an
overseer.
And they couldn't lean on an excuse like
we don't have enough food because overseas ministers
are paid very well.
And they couldn't lean on an
excuse
like we don't have enough food because overseas
ministers are paid very well.
And I give you this tip, you who
are Africans, see this in the word of
God, study this for this is what the
Bible says, be hospitable.
And you might find that though you have
just a little rice and hardly anything, God
is able to bless it and increase it.
Have you grasped that point or do you
need it to be repeated?
Have you grasped that point or do you
need it to be repeated?
We limit God's blessings and we are the
ones who limit His miraculous power because of
our lack of faith.
And one sees it in some of the
villages in the Lord's region that He wasn't
able to work miracles because they lacked faith.
And it continues in our text to say,
one who is able to teach.
Are you able to teach one who is
confused and has gone astray and made insane
by the devil that you are able to
bring a wise word and something that would
be apt and suitable for the person?
Not given to drunkenness.
Not violent.
But gentle.
Not quarrelsome.
Not a lover of money.
One who manages his own family well.
And who sees that his children obey him
with proper respect.
Is that understandable to you?
Or are you drowsy and you haven't slept
last night?
I'm just reading this to you.
You can see for yourself how much God
is speaking to you.
Maybe you say, well I'm not a preacher.
What if God says to you on judgment
day when you excuse yourself that you weren't
a preacher where God says, but I wanted
you to preach through your life and through
your shining out to others.
Verse 5.
If anyone does not know how to manage
his own family, how can he take care
of God's church?
He needs to know how to control his
own family, children.
This has an implication for children of Christian
parents too.
If you are going off the rails as
a child of a Christian family, you are
murdering your own parents.
Verse 6.
He must not be a recent convert or
he may become conceited and fall under the
same judgment as the devil.
To see how exalted is this calling, how
important it is.
See also how slippery it can become where
if it is a person who is recently
converted, they can become conceited and proud and
fall.
Verse 7.
He must also have a good reputation with
outsiders so that he will not fall into
disgrace and into the devil's trap.
If we were to call your colleagues and
neighbors, would they have a good testimony about
you?
Guard yourselves.
Watch over yourselves.
How you live.
Then there is another verse.
Chapter 6 of Timothy.
Verse 10 of the same first letter to
Timothy chapter 6.
For the love of money is a root
of all kinds of evil.
Some people eager for money have wandered from
the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
To love money.
What can a servant of God begin to
love money?
Loving money is the root of all manner
of evil.
It can lead to sexual immorality.
It can lead to all sorts of other
sins.
Some people eager to gain riches have wandered
from the faith.
So Paul says that some have even wandered
from the faith itself.
Where did it begin in the love of
money?
To love money.
You who are a Christian, do you hear
what God's word says?
That the love of money can take you
right off the track.
The pity is that the devil can so
harden a person that even this becomes something
that cannot penetrate the hard heart.
But if a person reaches the point of
such hardness that they cannot even hear the
word of God itself, then they need to
simply be dispelled, removed from the window, excommunicated.
If a person reaches the point of such
hardness that they cannot even hear the word
of God itself, then they need to simply
be dispelled, removed from the window,
excommunicated.
Do you hear that this is able to
take you off the track, the love of
money?
And Paul says that I have preached with
you, I have beseeched you, I have begged
you for these three years, day and night,
weeping.
For Paul had come across some churches where
they had fallen into immorality and gossip and
witchcraft, even in the churches.
A tragic state of affairs, whereas the church
should be glorious, full of light, beaming forth
its light.
Things are evil in the world today.
Now a text says guard over yourselves and
then guard over the flock.
I have mentioned how Paul said, be on
your guard, for you must remember that for
these three years, day and night, I have
never stopped warning you with tears.
Then he says, keep watch over yourselves and
all the flock of which the Holy Spirit
has made you overseers, for He has put
you in that position.
That may be a wrong translation, overseer.
In actual fact, it's a bishop.
Because overseeing might seem like a manager who's
isolated himself in a high position and not
part of the flock itself.
No, you are part of the flock as
well.
For an overseer or bishop is not one
who is to rule over the church, but
he is part of the church itself.
He is from the same source and he
is of the same type.
He is also of the flock, having been
called out of sin, made new by the
Holy Spirit and then called to help with
the flock.
God has made you to be part of
the church and then to help oversee, not
oversee in the sense of ruling over, but
you are simply a part of the same
flock, but you are called to help with
the church.
And it is the Holy Spirit himself who
has called you into this work.
He is the one who has put this
burden on your heart regarding the souls of
others.
He has said, look after them, help them,
feed them, enlighten them.
And it is God himself who helps you
with the right thoughts and with the right
ideas to assist people to have wisdom to
get through to them.
Then God works through you and corrects others
through you.
What an awesome and what a great responsibility.
Wow to you if you are guilty on
judgment day and you haven't been this to
the church.
We are called to a great work.
We are called to a
great
work.
We are not just called to be a
mission just like all other missions where they
have a mission school and they have Sunday
services.
We are not called to be that stereotype,
but to be vessels in the hands of
the Lord, usable to him.
A certain person of a skin color not
the same as mine who said, it
is not wrong to steal.
It is wrong if you get caught.
That is your problem.
It is not wrong to lie.
The wrong lies in this, that you are
caught.
You can cry if you are caught, but
if you are not caught, then don't regard
it as sin.
Now it says here that this is the
church of God.
It is not my church.
It is not your church.
It is God's.
And if you defile the church of God,
remember it is not your church.
It is his.
It belongs to Jesus Christ and he awaits
you.
The Germans have a certain road sign
where they put
vulture signs over dead trees.
Implying that if you hunt illegally, you can
do it, but you poacher, we are waiting
like vultures to catch you.
We are
waiting
like vultures to catch you.
And in the same way, a person at
the end of their antics, they get themselves
killed.
If you want to really show off and
be boastful, then do it outside of your
car.
Don't speed and mess up the lives of
others.
That is why we say when you drive,
pray and do it earnestly, not just a
habitual prayer, but something that means business with
God, because an accident can happen, it can
so easily happen to you.
If it does happen, start asking yourself, did
I sincerely pray with my heart?
We have been called to live with God,
to walk with him, with God himself, and
then to be above reproach, being a blessing
to those around us.
Therefore, be on your guard.
Be careful regarding who you are, as you
are in this church.
He says, in being shepherds of this church
of God, remember that it's not your church,
it's not just a church, but belongs to
him, bought with his own precious blood.
If you meet with a triune God, he
will ask you, were you aware, did you
reckon with the fact that these people were
bought with my own blood?
We ought to show the greatest respect and
dignity to these people, bought with the very
own blood of Christ.
Therefore, Paul says, if I eat meat, and
a brother is weak, or who is weak,
is stumbled by the meat I eat, let
me rather not eat that meat, for my
brother was bought by Christ, Christ died for
him.
Even if you see an Afrikaner, remember he
is bought by Christ, Jesus died for him.
Or you see a colored person, reckon with
it that Jesus died for him.
Or an Indian person, or a Muslim person,
reckon with it that Jesus died for him.
That person should be precious to you,
remember they are bought people.
They have been bought not with silver, or
gold, or precious things, but with his own
blood.
Then Paul says, I now take my leave
of you, and I know what will happen
after my departure.
For some will come in among you, the
flock, being savage wolves.
That is very sad, painful.
Where a person says, but Lord, will it
mean that the work becomes vain?
One says, one asks, Lord, does that mean
that it is the end of the church
when Paul was with it, that all his
work was in vain, and that it is
just handed over to wolves and hyenas?
And
Paul says, Some
of your own number will rise up in
order to drag other people after their own
group.
You see Satan works in two ways, he
attacks from without, and from within.
Ought that not to make every member of
the church to be one who is sanctified?
And make your whole life to be driven
with the purpose of the Holy Spirit being
in control?
Some people, it says, will rise up so
that they can drag other disciples after themselves.
O, be wide awake, have your eyes open,
do not be foolish in this respect.
Driven by their own lusts, they will gather
together their own splinter groups, their own groupings,
so that they can call that the church
of God.
O, there's nothing as terrible as the blind
leading the blind.
Is there no one who will rise up
and speak out and be open and say,
don't you see that this person is pushing
his own agenda?
It's not the work of God, but his
own work.
Examine your life.
Ask, what drives you?
Is it your own desires and things are
to encircle yourself, it's just for your own
selfish desires, or is it around Christ and
for him?
I saw some lions.
Now, lions hunt buck, deer.
A lion doesn't just go into the middle
of the herd of buck just to go
right to the center of it.
The lion is an observer.
It sets its eyes on the herd and
then picks out a chosen target.
Even a leopard, you'll watch, it'll observe.
It aims for a certain target.
It'll look for one that is weaker.
Amazing to see the way that the lions
hunt.
They'll look for the weaker animal, the one
that is limping, and then they fix their
eyes on that and they go for it.
And then it goes straight for its victim.
And then it goes
straight
for its victim.
While the other members of the herd are
going this way and that way in front
of the lion, they would be prey, but
it disregards them for it has fixed its
eyes on one prey.
It follows.
It
follows.
Its attention is only on that one animal,
its prey, and it goes for that even
if there are other animals, even if there
are zebra and other wild animals that pass
by and are within its reach, it fixes
its eyes only on that one.
If the Bible says take care of itself
in the Greek, it means fix your eyes
on one thing right to the end.
Take your eyes, fix your whole attention on
that single goal right to the end.
The lion taught me that lesson these days.
But you find that people aren't as focused
as that hunting lion.
Instead, their attention is just blown about by
whatever wind drifts their way.
If there's a noise, they look in that
direction.
You find that they are purposeless.
I don't know what it will be like
in heaven.
I don't know what it will be like
in heaven, whether I'll get the opportunity to,
but I'd love to be able to shake
the hands of Paul, to congratulate him.
Congratulate him for being so single-eyed, for
having his fixed purpose, not being distracted right
to the end.
Not distracted by anything.
He said, even if others take along their
wives, that's not my intention or I have,
it's nothing to do with me.
They are welcome to do it.
I have one goal in mind.
He never, never took his eyes from that
goal.
He taught us by his life what it
means to have your eyes fixed on the
goal, fixed on the prize.
Keeping your mark there, running towards it to
win the race, not being sidetracked by anything
else.
I remember a certain child telling me, when
I grow up, I'm going to come to
Guasizabantu and I'm going to preach the gospel.
Three or four years later when I met
with him, I asked him, now when you
are finished with school and that, what are
you going to do?
He said, I'm going to become a businessman.
I said, oh, that's fine.
We don't need people in the business of
preaching the gospel if they are not single
-minded like this boy.
One day they say something, the next day
they say something else.
And they are double-minded.
They don't speak one thing.
They are not known for their masculine manhood.
They just play the role of silly women.
It has nothing to do with any good
woman.
I speak of silly women.
What type are you when you pray?
What do you pray to be?
But Paul, from his
conversion
and forever after that, since he met with
Christ, he never was a cause for tears
that others should bewail his condition.
Not at all.
Instead he cried for others.
Now you know the story and excuse me
if I repeat it.
There was a king who had a beautiful
daughter.
A real princess, dressed appropriately and modestly as
well, not like you find women dressing today
or girls who show as much of their
body as possible or their belly button with
a ring in it, know that such people
are but dirt.
Then a young man wanted to marry the
princess.
He was also aware that there were many
other suitors for young men who are very
keen when it comes to marrying and you
find that some though have their brains like
that of a chimpanzee.
There's only a little bit of it, just
here in the front.
They marry as well by the way, you're
not the only one, you're in good company.
The king wondered how he would solve the
problem because there were so many young suitors
wanting to get the princess.
So he decided upon a plan.
He decided on a cross-country course.
One could illustrate it with a track going
from here to Silverstream, Crownscope and around.
A specific course that a young man would
have to run within a specific time to
get the hand of his daughter.
He said to himself, I'm not going to
worry about their looks, whether he's got a
long nose or a flat nose, whatever he
looks like, as long as he is strong
and single-purposed and is able to set
himself to the task and accomplish it, whether
he's educated or not.
A person who can set their eye on
the goal and not be sidetracked and get
to the goal, to the final destination.
A young man came, said, Your Majesty, I'd
like your daughter's hand in marriage.
He said, Fine, on condition that you can
run this course, say, for instance, going to
Crownscope, where there'd be a Silverstream, a person
to check that you get there, then to
that point, then that point, and you must
accomplish it within a certain time frame.
But then on a certain plane, he
decided to put something that would be visible
from afar.
He took a golden shoe, and
he put this on just a little hill,
and he made it to be evident, this
golden shoe, that it would be visible from
afar.
In some places, there was a steep descent
and steep climbs here, it tested a person's
strength.
When he got to the last plane, he
could see from afar something flashing in the
sun.
He wondered to himself, as he was running
the course, and more and more this began
to obsess his mind, what could it be,
that thing glittering in the sun?
And he got closer and closer to it,
but this thing had been put just a
little off the track.
And when he got close to it, he
decided just to take a slight detour to
get to this thing flashing in the sun,
and when he got there, it was pure
gold, a golden shoe, heavy, of great worth,
he said to himself.
He put his hand inside it, he gazed
at it, and wondered where did it come
from, whose was it?
And for some time, he examined this golden
shoe from every angle.
And then, as he was examining this golden
shoe, he suddenly remembered that he was running
for the hand of the princess.
He put down the shoe and continued running
as fast as before, but when he got
to the destination, it was found that it
was that very time which he had spent
gazing at the shoe that he was short
of for the set time.
And the king said, I thought you would
make it, but you can't, because you were
distracted.
He complained and said, forgive me.
Though he begged for forgiveness, and for another
chance, the king would hear nothing of it.
He said, if you could not keep this
purpose in mind, and complete the task, you
don't deserve my daughter's hand.
I will not give her hand to yours,
and he could never marry her.
We are called, we are commissioned, and we
are told that we cannot accomplish this task
if we do not guard over ourselves, as
well as the church, which has been bought
by the of Jesus.
We are not running for a woman.
We are not running to get the hand
of any woman in marriage.
We are seeking God, we are running for
Him, we are running for Jesus Christ, or
will we be found to not be real
men, to just be dirt?
If you've been sidetracked, if you've ended up
in the mire of sin, I tell you
today, repent.
You must repent.
Turn from your sin, otherwise your future is
woeful.
And if you don't understand what I'm telling
you today on judgment day, may God remind
you that I told you today.
That's why I say to you, repent, turn
from those things today, now.
Let's stand to our feet.
Lord, I ask, I pray to you.
Lord, I do not ask that you would
raise up doctors and professors in our midst.
I don't ask for that today, but that
you would raise up Pauls in our midst.
Lord, there are so many doctors and professors,
but the world continues to degenerate and be
corrupted.
That is why, Lord, I ask, together with
those who are upright of heart, that you
would raise up Pauls in our midst, that
we would be able to spread the gospel
as he did.
Amen.