And that's
one of the reasons why our Lord Jesus
sent his disciples to preach the gospel.
Let's turn to Matthew in chapter 10.
For here you've got our Lord with the
closest of his colleagues, the twelve disciples around
him.
And he's given them instructions that later on,
with maybe some qualification, I'm not sure, he
will give to the whole church.
That is, all those who were gathered together
on the day of Pentecost and who were
there on the Mount of Ascension when he
was taken back to be with the Father.
We're glad to have you here this evening
at the Tab, and if you're a Christian
person then this reading has direct relevance to
you, and if you're not then I want
to pick out some of the implications in
a little while as we come around the
Word and as it's enforced as we come
around the table.
So Matthew in chapter 10, the Lord Jesus
called his twelve disciples to him and gave
them authority to drive out evil spirits and
to heal every disease and sickness.
These are the names of the twelve apostles,
first Simon, who is called Peter, and his
brother Andrew, James son of Zebedee and his
brother John, Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew
the tax collector, James son of Alphaeus and
Thaddaeus, Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot who
betrayed him.
These twelve Jesus sent out with the following
instructions, do not go among the Gentiles or
enter any town of the Samaritans.
Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel.
As you go, preach this message.
The kingdom of heaven is near.
Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those
who have leprosy, drive out demons, freely you
have received, freely give.
Do not take along any gold or silver
or copper in your belts.
Take no bag for the journey or extra
tunic or sandals or a staff, for the
worker is worth his keep.
Whatever town or village you enter, search for
some worthy person there and stay at his
house until you leave.
As you enter the home, give it your
greeting.
If the home is deserving, let your peace
rest on it.
If it is not, let your peace return
to you.
If anyone will not welcome you or listen
to your words, shake the dust off your
feet when you leave that home or town.
I tell you the truth, it will be
more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the
day of judgment than for that town.
I am sending you out like sheep among
wolves, therefore be as shrewd as snakes and
as innocent as doves.
Be on your guard against men.
Let me introduce you to a most surprising
trinity.
Here is our Lord, and He has given
instructions to His disciples, and therefore He is
giving good advice to those of us who
are in direct spiritual descent from His followers.
The sixteenth verse of Matthew 10, I am
sending you out like sheep among wolves, therefore
be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent
as doves.
Sheep, snakes, doves.
If you would have selected three animals that
our Lord might have brought together to use
in metaphorical sense to instruct you and me,
I very much doubt whether if we had
passed a sheet of blank paper around the
tabernacle evening congregation, anyone would have elected these
three as coming together.
This little evening's series, which I am bringing
to conclusion, somewhat hasty conclusion this evening to
prepare the way for a new series on
parables, is one which we entitle The Lord
in His World.
Now, the Lord Jesus does have every right
to do in this world what He wishes
to do.
It belongs to Him.
But there are those in our world who
have done things which are displeasing to the
Savior.
The devils come in, and with squatter's rights
He's set up His kingdom.
And so you've got this tension between the
world as it should be, the world as
the Lord Jesus wants it to be, and
the world as it is now.
And the way in which the world is
going to move to be the place that
the Lord Jesus wants it to be is
as He uses men and women to the
proclamation of the gospel up to that point
when He shall return to this world and
cleanse it from every vestige of sin.
So here is our Savior talking to His
disciples and telling them how to act in
His world.
And you can learn from what He has
to say about these animals.
I think one of the most bestial incidents
I've ever heard—and goodness knows in my lifetime
I can think of quite a lot—but one
of the most reprehensible ones occurred last week
when French farmers threw live sheep onto
fires and had them burned.
Now, don't get too proud of your patriotism
that you are not French, you are British.
What we do to sheep in shipping them
to Spain as live cargo, and what Commonwealth
countries in Australasia do to sheep in shipping
them as live cargo to the Middle East,
these animals accustomed to the green of the
grass and the wind of the plain, they
panic when they sense the smell of salt
and the lack of stability on the ocean.
We need to hang our heads in shame
in the way that we treat the animals
that God has placed in His world.
Spurgeon said you can tell a man a
lot about a man by the way that
he treats his animals.
And therefore, there are some awful commentaries available
as evidence on the twentieth century and the
way that we behave to the animal charges
in our trust.
Well here is our Lord Jesus, and I
believe that He was kindly disposed towards animals
as He was kindly disposed towards men and
women.
And He is speaking to His disciples, and
He is telling them how they are to
behave from the dominant characteristic in certain animals
as they move into Israel and as they
commence the first evangelistic thrust of His gospel
from the lips of other people apart from
Himself.
And He talks about them being sheep.
And the teaching is, be different at any
cost.
Be as sheep sent out amongst wolves.
And I'm suggesting that says, be different at
any cost.
He didn't say go out into the world
as sheep amongst goats.
There is a correspondence between sheep and goats
which when I've been in Turkana, northern Kenya,
is so close that from the air I
can't tell the difference.
But there is all the difference in the
world, obvious to someone whose life is not
amongst animals between sheep and wolves.
And our Lord Jesus is telling us that
as His disciples we go into the world
and He thrusts us forth to bear the
dangers that are attendant upon any sheep as
they have dealings with, rub shoulders with, wolves.
When our Lord earlier on in this gospel,
the ninth chapter, makes reference to ordinary men
and people, He says in the thirty-sixth
verse, He saw the crowds and had compassion
on them because they were harassed and helpless
like sheep without a shepherd.
And here He is sending His disciples into
the world as sheep amongst wolves, not sheep
amongst goats.
What do sheep do when they move amongst
wolves?
Well in the context in which our Lord
is teaching, it's pretty obvious they will still
remain as sheep.
I know we have an expression about being
a wolf in sheep's clothing, but there will
never be for the disciples as they move
around Palestine the possibility of them identifying with
those who are opposed to the teaching of
the Lord Jesus.
They won't be as Pharisees.
They won't be as Sadducees.
They will go out into the world as
sheep amongst wolves.
And therefore they will recognize the danger.
Sheep don't fight, do they?
Sheep when confronted with danger, they are not
aggressive.
And when Jesus sends people out into the
world, He reminds us through His servant Paul
that they go into the world not with
carnal weapons, but only with spiritual weapons.
When the church gets politically involved, then the
church betrays its message, its reason for being.
The church is to go into society to
act as sheep amongst wolves, to remain sheep,
recognizing the danger and realizing that it is
none but the shepherd who has directed them
to engage in this hazardous enterprise of being
amongst wolves.
Now Jesus will never tell disciples to do
in His day nor today what He hasn't
been prepared to do Himself, will He?
The Bible tells us, speaking of our Savior
as a sheep, He was led as a
lamb to the slaughter.
He never became a wolf.
He never in any way compromised upon His
message.
He recognized all the dangers, and ultimately He
is put on the cross.
But when John in his revelation, the last
book of the Bible, speaks of our Lord
Jesus, he speaks of Him in terms of
the lamb that was slain.
And he draws the conclusion that because of
the bravery of our Lord Jesus coming into
the hostile world that was His in His
day and is still hostile to the gospel
today, He nonetheless was able to triumph over
the power of sin and hell.
He says to the disciples, be sheep, be
different at any cost.
But then He goes on and He says,
identifying the serpent, be intelligent in every situation.
I'm sending you out like sheep amongst wolves,
therefore be as shrewd as snakes.
There are certain characteristics about sheep which are
helpful for us to understand the way that
we are to conduct our Christian lives –
frailty and need for direction and for provision
and so forth.
And the sheep is really a sacrificial animal,
giving wool and ultimately giving His life unwillingly
for meat.
But there is that about the sheep that
you can't transfer and say that should be
part of Christian discipleship.
Jesus does not call dumb people.
Dullness, stupidity has no virtue in the Christian
community.
So when our Lord speaks of animals and
the way that we can learn from animals,
He not only singles out the sheep, but
surprise, surprise, He puts the spotlight on the
snake, the serpent.
And He tells us, in effect, be intelligent
in every situation.
Those of you who are knowledgeable about the
Bible will recall that in the third chapter
of the book of Genesis, we are told
that the serpent was the craftiest of all
the creatures.
Now instead of craftiness, let's read wisdom.
Instead of intrigue, let's move into what is
nearly a synonym, insight.
Be like the serpent in the wisdom that
he has, in the insight which is part
of his nature.
Christians don't have to be dumb, they can
be intelligent.
Be as sheep, be different at any cost,
never like wolves.
Be as serpents, intelligent in every situation.
The serpent glides along quietly.
As believers are to glide through life quietly,
not bringing attention to themselves, not engaged in
seeking for personal publicity, but being the quiet
disciples of our Lord Jesus, directing all praise
and all attention to Him.
Serpents are wary of man.
They move out of the way of human
beings, generally so, in case such a person
should take a stick and smite the serpent
on his head.
And there is a sense in which our
Lord Jesus identifies this aspect of the serpent
and applies it to the disciples.
Verse seventeen, be on your guard against men,
ungodly men, who might in some way cause
you to compromise on the gospel.
Be careful as to the close friendships that
you have, as to the way in which
you spend your time.
Be as wise as serpents, gliding quietly, wary
of men.
And doing another thing that a serpent, a
snake, can do so brilliantly, getting into places
that few other animals can get into.
As the snake slides through the hole and
into the cave as it widens out in
the bowels of the hillside.
So the Christian will want to be able
to move where no other has ever been
able to penetrate, in winning the confidence and
the respect of those who are outside the
gospel, who need to hear it.
Slide through Galilee and Palestine, through the whole
of the promised land.
This is what our Lord is telling His
disciples.
Be as serpents.
Penetrate areas which we have not as yet
touched with the gospel.
Squeeze through, bringing attention not to yourself, but
to the Lord God and the gospel that
I am teaching you from Him.
Be as sheep, be different.
Be as serpents, be intelligent.
But not just the sheep or the serpent,
but also the dove.
As shrewd as snakes, as innocent as doves.
Be innocent at all times.
The dove is a lovely bird.
Moves into prominence in Scripture through Noah, not
so?
The faithful bird who flies out across where
the waters have been and brings back a
twig in its beak and hands it over
to Noah, so that Noah is aware that
there will be life after the flood on
earth.
It will still be a habitat for man.
There is no horn on a dove.
There is no cloven foot.
He can damage nothing.
When our Lord Jesus uses the word innocent,
it actually means unmixed, transparent, pure.
That's how the disciples are to move into
the world, don't you see?
That's how you and I are to move
into this world that belongs to the Lord.
As sheep, never confused with wolves.
As serpents, showing intelligence.
As doves, being innocent.
Now Jesus never gives instructions without those instructions
have been somehow illustrated by himself.
So this unusual trinity from the animal world,
when you think it through, is fleshed out
by way of illustration through the Saviour.
He came into the world as a sheep
and there on the cross he died with
the ferocity of the wolves yapping by his
heels even before his life had been delivered.
Here is our Saviour and he moves around
the villages of his native Galilee and down
through Samaria into Judea and wherever he goes
there is that same accolade, no man ever
taught like this man.
He stands in front of Aaron and he
comes before Pontius Pilate and he does battle
with the priests and it's his acumen, it's
his intelligence, it's the way that he can
control every situation that stands out and makes
you realize that this is no ordinary man.
He is as a serpent with all wisdom.
And as for the holy dove, who convicts
me of sin?
Look into the secret areas of my life
where no one has ever been.
See if you can find any inconsistency there
at all.
Which one of you can find anything, any
mud that will stick on me?
To the extent that a coarse Roman soldier,
so impressed with our Lord Jesus in the
last moments of his agony and as much
as his mouth utters no obscenity and there
is no lack of composure says of him,
surely this was the righteous man.
He teaches from the animal world and he
directs his message to you.
Like a sheep, be different, no compromise.
Like a snake, be intelligent, not dumb.
Like a dove, live holy, a life that
illustrates the fact your sins have been forgiven
and you've been filled with his spirit.
Brothers and sisters, tonight we worship this Lord
Jesus who illustrates the truth of his teaching.
Let's sing about him.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, sweetest name on earth, how
can I, a sinner, come to know its
worth?
I have seen the glory of his tender
face.
I have felt with wonder thrills of holy
grace.
Wonderful compassion reaching even me, bows my humble
spirit in captivity.
Number 60.
Jesus,
Jesus
Christ, Jesus Christ, Still
living, I exalt you, Jesus, my
sacrifice.
I exalt you, my Redeemer and my Lord.
I exalt you, worthy
Lamb of
the Father.