Dennis Tuuri

We remember that God has given us government in this world. The government is upon the shoulders of Jesus Christ. And we should look then to his scriptures for a model of how church government should operate.

The section of Acts 20 which we read this morning, the charge to the elders from the church of Ephesus, is important also because it gives us a charge by Paul when he was in effect convinced that he would no longer see these men. In other words, he was going to what might possibly be his death at Jerusalem. He was gathering together the elders from the church of Ephesus where he had ministered in that area for almost three years. The church had grown and prospered greatly. And so it’s important to see what Paul says in his parting words to this group of men who represent the whole church, the congregation in Asia there, which was, as I said, a large church at that time.

Now the words of men when they come close to being with people no more, or when they come close to dying, are important. The frivolities of much of our conversation tend to leave, and people get very serious in those particular times. So I was thinking of this passage and of that fact that it was kind of like a farewell speech of Paul to the church at Ephesus. I thought of Judge Beer several years ago when he had taken a very bad turn for the worst and came into the hospital from his home.

We really thought at that particular time that he would probably only be with us a couple more days. And it was just remarkable—I’ve told the story to many other people, and several of you were there of course that evening—how happy he was with all the blessings that God had given to him. Here was a man on his deathbed yet rejoicing before God, holding up his hands and saying, “Isn’t it wonderful what God is doing?” And this in spite of the fact that he was very close at that time—we thought within two days or so—of dying.

I remember too that evening, or it might have been the next day (I’m not sure), sometime in that immediate vicinity. Several of us were there. I remember Takashi was there one evening, and I was there, and the judge grabbed hold of him and pulled him close and said, “Keep close to these guys at this church. God’s doing something here. It’s very important. Stay with them.” And he was really convinced that what we were doing here at Reformation Covenant Church was extremely important.

And as I said, this was on his deathbed. These were important things he was trying to convey. Over the next few months, he was very plain spoken in some of the things that he said to myself and other men of the church in terms of some of the things that we’d have to guard for in this church and some things that we should do in terms of moving people toward a more self-conscious apprehension of the faith.

Paul here is in that same position. He’s giving his farewell speech and he’s very blunt. He’s very straightforward about what the elders need to know in order to do their job effectively. These are like minimum requirements then of eldership in the church. This farewell address to the people—it’s interesting that Paul just said, calls the elders the people together. Now, you remember when we started this study on church government, we talked about four groups of people from the old covenant community.

And in Joshua 23, verses 2, 3, and 4? Remember Joshua 23:2-4? We talked about those four groups that we got from Joshua’s farewell speech, as it were, to the men that would succeed him in the ministry. Joshua 23:2 says, “Joshua called for all Israel and for their elders, for their heads, for their judges, and for their officers and said unto them, I am old and stricken in age. You have seen all that the Lord your God hath done unto all those nations because of you, for the Lord your God is he that hath fought for you.”

And Joshua then in chapters 23 and 24 gives his charge, as it were, his farewell address to the leaders of the covenant community. In verse 2, we see those four groups mentioned: the elders, the heads, the judges, and the officers of Israel.

And so we talked about those four officers in the old covenant. Here we have a new covenant equivalent, as it were, of a man departing from an area in which he ministered and calling together the representatives of that church to give them a charge. He calls together the elders of the church of Ephesus. Jesus did the same thing. Prior to the last supper, Jesus had talked to his disciples in Luke 21. He had gathered the twelve together to give them final instructions, as it were, upon what was going to befall them in the next years they had to look forward to, and then to give them charge about those things.

Now this passage in Joshua is particularly important because we’ve said before that Acts has some similarities to the book of Joshua. Joshua tells of the going forth into the promised land by the people of God in obedience to his promises and gaining an inheritance from God. And Acts, we’ve said before, has much similar language—in Acts the gospel is going out over the entire world. It’s gaining converts for Jesus Christ. It’s the expansion of the kingdom of God, not just in a restricted area, but over the entire known world at that time.

And so Joshua 23, verses 2 and following in that chapter can be seen in a correlative fashion to the portions of Acts that we just read this morning. And we’ll make more correlations as we go along.

In any event, the charge then of Paul to these elders—Aracham in his commentary on the book of Acts calls it the pastoral manual of the New Testament. It’s a charge for the elders. But in so doing, as he gives himself as an example to the elders for them to follow, he also gives us qualifications for the elders. He tells us how they go about doing their function as elders. He talks about what was going to confront them as elders of the church, what they’d have to beware of.

And so I guess that some people have been saying that we really need a job description for eldership. And I guess Acts 20 comes very close to that in this charge to the elders at Ephesus. And over the next few weeks we’ll try to develop that job description of the position of elder in the church.

This morning, though, we want to talk specifically about one aspect of that job function, which is the shepherding or guarding function that the elders were to have. And I suppose mostly we’re going to be looking at verses 28 through 32 in this passage this morning. We’ll go back to much of it in the next couple of weeks. Acts 28-32. And I’ll reread these four verses.

“Take heed therefore unto yourselves and to all the flock over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood. For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them. Therefore, watch and remember that by the space of three years, I cease not to warn everyone night and day with tears. And now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of his grace which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.”

Those are the verses we’re going to deal with this morning. We have basically six points.

The first point we want to make about the eldership and doing their guarding or shepherding function here is that the elder must guard the church by being aware of the dangers to the flock. Paul tells them in verse 28 to take heed. And then he goes on in verses 29 and 30 to tell them why they have to take heed to themselves and to the flock.

He says in verses 29 and 30 that there are two types of people that they have to guard the flock against. Verse 29 talks about grievous wolves. And verse 30 talks about people that speak perverse things, drawing away disciples after them.

So I think that what we’ve got here—now some people would say that the grievous wolves are also internal elements within the church that need to be defended. The flock needs to be defended against. But I think instead what he’s talking about here are two different groups. One being an external threat to the church and the other being an internal threat to the church.

Now the church at Ephesus had—Paul himself had gone through some of those external problems in terms of people trying to come against the church in Acts 19. And maybe you want to look at that a little this afternoon for some of your Sabbath readings this afternoon. Might be a good thing to do.

But you remember in Acts 19 the faith was prospering in the city of Ephesus. There was a tremendous cult worship there of Artemis or Diana. Those two words mean the same thing. It’s talking about the goddess worship of Diana. And you remember there was a big controversy. Demetrius the silversmith got together a bunch of people saying, “These guys are wrecking our profession. You know, we can’t make these idols as much anymore because so many people are turning away from the idols to turn to the faith of God, Jesus Christ. And so we have to do something about these men.”

And so they then got a couple of the converts. They were going to—they had them in a kind of a riotous situation which was finally dispersed after several hours when the authorities came in and said, “If you’ve got problems, take it to the law courts. You can’t do things unlawfully here.” But in any of that, the church had already had to suffer a lot of persecution from outside.

And I think that the grievous wolves that he talks about probably are external threats to the church as opposed to internal threats. But then in verse 30 he does talk about the internal threats as well when he says that “among your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things.” Now the word “perverse” there means to turn somebody away from something. It means to take them off the course.

In Acts 13, we have a specific instance—the same word used in relationship to somebody who is actually doing these things. And so it’s a good example to us of what Paul is talking about by perverse men. In Acts 13, verses 6-8, we read about a man—let’s see, Elymas the sorcerer. It says, “When they had gone through the isle of Paphos, they found a certain sorcerer, a false prophet, a Jew whose name was Bar-Jesus, which was with the deputy of the country, Sergius Paulus, a prudent man who called for Barnabas and Saul and desired to hear the word of God. So we have here a man turning to the faith, okay—he wants to hear the word of God. But Elymas the sorcerer (for so is his name by interpretation—actually that means—that’s what his name means translated)—he was the sorcerer. He withstood them, seeking to turn away the deputy from the faith. So he was seeking to pervert the deputy from the faith by turning him away with false words.”

And he said, “O full of all subtlety and mischief.” Then Saul, who is also called Paul, full of the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him—on Elymas the sorcerer, the man who had perverted people from the faith. And then he pronounces a curse upon him, and he goes blind for a season.

But Elymas the sorcerer there was seeking to turn away another man, a man who was seeking to turn to the faith. He was a perverter of the faith. And so in verse 30, when we talk about perverse speakers, it’s not the same thing that we might think of as perversity today. It’s simply turning away from something, which is of course the base of all perversion.

It’s interesting that this word also is used of Jesus. The Jews when they brought Jesus before Pilate accused him of perverting the nation. They accused him of perverting the nation by refusing to acknowledge Caesar as king and saying that he was a king. Not just that Caesar—Caesar wasn’t their only king. Well, they said some lies there in terms of whether or not he said they should pay taxes to Caesar. But I suppose in the truest sense of the word, he was perverting the nation.

Jesus was because he was turning the nation away from faith in Caesar and away from a civil ruler who was not ruling according to God’s law, and preaching to them the gospel of the kingdom, and that he was the King of kings and Lord of lords.

So it’s interesting that in this context Paul himself—when he identifies the gospel that he preaches, in verse 25 he identifies that gospel as the kingdom of God. He says in verse 25 that he had gone preaching the kingdom of God.

And so I suppose truly understanding the nature of the gospel itself is perverting men—or turning men away from the false faith and turning them to the true faith. But people will come along after that and come in within the church and pervert them by taking disciples after themselves.

And so we have an internal threat to the church as well as the external threat.

Now our Lord told us that these two particular elements of threat to the church would occur also. In Matthew 7:15, Jesus talked about the false prophets who would come in sheep’s clothing but inwardly were ravening wolves. This is an internal threat to the church—people within the church who appear to be Christians, who appear to be sheep, and yet are actually going to devour the sheep by turning them away from the true faith.

In John 10, Jesus says that he is the true shepherd. And let’s just turn to that for a minute. It’s really important to this whole idea of guarding and shepherding the flock of God. In John 10, verses 9-13, Jesus says, “I am the door. Now, you know, that’s really important because when we talk in our communion service, of course, we have reference to Jesus being the door. He is himself the door. Anybody who teaches another way into heaven or another way into righteousness with God is a false prophet.

Anyway, Jesus identifies himself as the door. ‘By me, if any man enter in, he shall be saved and shall go in and go out and find pasture. The thief cometh not, but for to steal and to kill and to destroy. I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth. And the wolf catches them and scattereth the sheep.’”

So you have both internal and external elements of danger to the flock in this passage as well. You’ve got the hireling, who is the person internal—the ravening wolf, the wolf in sheep’s clothing as it were. And you also have an external threat, the wolves in this passage before. In John 10, where the wolves are going to come in and tear apart the flock.

Well, these same things are true of the church throughout church history. You’ve always had external threats to the church. You’ve always had internal divisions within the church that are in fact seeking to turn men away from the true faith. And the same thing is true today.

Now, we’ve talked a lot about the external threats to the church in this church. Several years ago, we talked a lot about the state Department of Education and its being ravening wolves, as it were, among some homeschooling families in the state who are seeking to teach their children from the word of God. And we did something about that legislatively to guard those families.

And now there’s a tremendous danger that we’ve talked about much over the last six months—the child abuse industry that’s growing in this nation. And anybody who has done just a small amount of reading in that area will recognize that it is a true threat to the families of the churches of God in Oregon and across this nation. Indeed, there are people self-consciously committed to the fact that the family should be done away with, that the family is the worst possible thing for children. And the family is a God-given institution.

So it’s important that we guard families against those external threats of the child abuse industry, those elements of the children’s services division that would seek to destroy godly families by denying godly discipline.

I suppose some of you probably watched the town hall show last week, and the CSD people said, “Well, we don’t care if a person gets spanked a little bit and has a little bit of bruising. That’s not what we’re talking about.” And during that break, by the way, I pointed out to them—I had the copy of the rules right in my hand—and I said, “Well, you do care. Here’s the definition. If I don’t report it, you’re going to find me. And this says by definition, that is child abuse.”

This week I was called by a man who knows a Christian family down in Corvallis who’ve lost five children to CSD in the last couple weeks, including a nursing baby. The reason for that was that their fourteen-year-old daughter had been spanked by them. And at the jurisdictional hearing that was held, she testified to the fact that they had hit her between five and eight times on the behind with a spanking stick that was fifteen inches long, quarter inch diameter—a normal rod that you or I would use. Probably spanked her between five and eight times.

As a result of that, the judge found them guilty of excessive punishment and then continued to the removal of five children away from the family. To get the children back, they have to now go through psychological evaluation at the hands of CSD. And I don’t have the transcript of the hearing yet. I’m going to try to get it. But I’m told by the person that was at the hearing—who’s a homeschooler that we’ve known for several years down there—that their Christian faith was made an issue by Children’s Services Division in terms of their punishing their children.

So these are real things, and it’s becoming more and more apparent to people that the people that want to destroy the family and destroy the people of God in this country and in this state as well are on the move. They’re on the march, and they are an external threat, as it were. They’re wolves at the door of the church, at the doors of the families of those churches.

But the scriptures seem to place more emphasis upon the internal problems. And we have those problems in the church as well. And you don’t read about them necessarily on the front page of the Oregonian. You don’t read about them in much literature. But we know that there are great problems within the church itself.

One example of that is the rampant Arminianism that is found in the churches today—the belief that man can somehow, by his decision, by his fiat will as it were, compel God to save himself. The idea that man is the one who initiates salvation and not God. That’s a perversion of the faith. It’s drawing people away from the true faith the scriptures teach us.

And as such, it results in a perversion of the faith and a drawing away. It’s not unexpected that people who begin from that base of man’s ultimate authority in terms of salvation then turn as well to man’s ultimate authority in terms of ethics. And of course, churches—ninety-nine churches out of a hundred today—teach men and women in their congregations that they can decide somehow, with the gift of the Holy Spirit to direct them, apart from the scriptures what’s right in a particular situation and what’s wrong.

They turn away from God’s revealed word and God’s law and turn instead to the mind of those people who have decided by themselves to become Christians apart from the grace of God and have decided now by themselves what is correct in terms of their Christian life.

I suppose it’s logical then that their ethics have followed their soteriology—that the way they live follows the fact that they believe that they gave life to themselves.

And I suppose the last logical position that they would take—and we would differ with them on, and it is logical although it’s incorrect—is a pessimistic view of eschatology. If I believe that I was the one ultimately in charge of whether or not I was a Christian or not, and if I believe that I was the one who’s going to decide what’s right or wrong in the world, will I be pessimistic in terms of the future as well? Because I know myself, and I know I sin, and I know that I’m weak, and I know that apart from God I can’t do any of these things. But they believe they can, and so they end up with pessimistic eschatology as well.

This is a perversion from the faith. It’s a perversion from the faith that has affected all of culture. We have children’s services division going rampant, the educational establishment going rampant in this country because the faith of the country departed from God’s standards. Men were converted internally in the church first. And as a result of that, we’ve backed away from all these areas.

We said the civil government is autonomous. It doesn’t have a relationship to the law of God. It doesn’t have to rule by the law of God. And in fact, we don’t want it to rule by the law of God. It’s the last thing in the world we want the civil magistrate to do is to enforce the law of God. So what does the civil magistrate do? He says, “Fine, that’s great for me. I’ll make up my own laws. I’ll look at my own worldview and apply those things.” And they’re being very consistent about it.

The position that the children’s services division is taking in terms of destruction of the family is entirely consistent, given their premise that there is no God, that he has not revealed himself in the scriptures. Their revelation—their own mind—says that’s wrong. The family is not a God-given institution. So they move against it.

The point is that the emphasis in the scriptures is upon the internal problems of the church, and the internal problems of the church have produced the problems that we see in our society.

I think one of the things that just thrilled Judge Beer in the last few years of his life was the fact that he could see in this church—and not just in this church but in other churches throughout the country, in the writings of various men—a recapturing of that biblical faith, a turning back to the fundamentals of the faith that will have an effect on society, and seeing the scriptures in relationship to the rest of society. And that’s why he was so pleased, and that’s why he told people, “It’s important to stay with this group and with any group that’s speaking the word of God from a self-consciously biblical perspective.”

It’s interesting that Christianity Today and its critique of Christian Reconstruction—just such an interesting article to me. They basically correctly identified three of the important elements of Christian Reconstruction being presuppositional apologetics, theonomy, and postmillennialism. And they correctly ascertained in their article. They said, “It’s certainly true that what they’re trying to do here is be biblical about these things. Let the scriptures determine our apologetic. We begin with the word of God. We don’t try to prove the word of God to somebody else. Let the scriptures determine our ethical standards. We look to the law of God, not to some kind of natural law. And let the scriptures determine what our eschatology is.”

They quoted Reverend Rushdoony, who said that he doesn’t look to the papers for his view of the future. He looks to the scriptures, and the scriptures say that every knee shall bow.

But the interesting thing was they quoted those things as if there were some kind of oddity—you know, as if it was just the strangest thing in the world that somebody would go self-consciously to the scriptures for their apologetic, for their ethic, and for their view of the future. Well, in point of fact, it is an oddity today. And that’s incredible as well. And that’s why we have the kind of society we have.

Christianity Today went on, however, to very stupidly say in their summation of the article at the beginning that—implying that Christian Reconstructionists want to use the political system to establish or set up God’s kingdom. Now, here they had a group that they had correctly understood to be biblicists in terms of all these things. That’s the preaching of the gospel of Christ is going to produce the kingdom. And yet they turn around and accuse them of wanting to set up the kingdom of God through the political process. Quite a perversion of what actually is going on.

But in any event, the elder has to understand the nature of these things. He has to understand the nature of the wolves that are at the door in terms of the CSD or whoever it is. And he has to understand the nature of true doctrine and the perversions of men that seek to pull men away from that faith. He has to understand those things. That’s part of his guarding function. He must understand the dangers.

This two-fold danger—exterior and interior—is also talked about in Ezekiel 33. Now Ezekiel 33 and Ezekiel 3 are important passages. Paul says in the verses before the section we’re looking at here, in verses 26 and 27, “I take record this day that I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.”

And then in verse 28, he calls the elders overseers. Now both those things—both those things—it should be evident to us that he’s talking about Ezekiel 33 and Ezekiel 3 as well. Why is that? Well, let’s turn to the passage, and you’ll see how obvious this is.

Ezekiel 33, verses 1-9: “And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, ‘Son of man, speak to the children of thy people, and say unto them, When I bring the sword upon the land, if the people of the land take a man of their coast, and set him for their watchman; if when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet and warn the people; then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning, if the sword come and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet and took not warning. His blood shall be upon him. But he that taketh warning shall deliver his soul. But if the watchman see the sword come and blow not the trumpet, and the people not warned, and the sword come and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity. But his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand.’”

God’s saying, “We have watchmen on the towers. If he blow, if he sounds the alert and people ignore the alert, the blood guiltiness is upon their head. If the watchman doesn’t sound the alert, however, the blood guiltiness is upon his head.” And he goes on to tell Ezekiel, “So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel. Therefore, thou shalt hear the word at thy mouth and warn them from me. When I say unto the wicked, ‘O wicked man, thou shalt surely die,’ if thou dost not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity. But his blood will I require at thine hand. Nevertheless, if thou warn the wicked of his way to turn from it, if he do not turn from his way, he shall die in his iniquity, but thou hast delivered thy soul.”

And this is what Paul is saying. He’d been the watchman. He’d been the faithful watchman who had preached the gospel of Jesus, who had warned men from the word of God of the judgment to come, and had given them the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Having done that, he could then say in verse 26—rather, in verse 26—that “I am pure from the blood of all men because in verse 27, I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.”

Paul was saying that he was that watchman, and he was saying that you elders are watchmen as well. You have to do the same thing. The word “watchman” is somebody who stands on top of a tower and watches over the area to see what’s occurring. Or he watches in the church to see what false doctrines may be coming up from various men in the church who are actually false sheep. And so he also calls the elders of Ephesus, in the very next verse, overseers—episcopoi—overseers. Looking over an area, taking sight over, control over an area, watchmen as it were. That’s what the word means.

I believe there’s a correlation between this watchman looking over the area to see the dangers and the elder who is to be the overseer, seeing the church, seeing the wolves on the outside and the wolves on the inside who may be attacking the church.

And so Ezekiel 33, in these passages 1-9, talks about external threats—people coming against the city—and he talks about the internal threats as well—people who don’t turn away from their sin interior to the city and as a result will be killed by God and brought his judgment upon them.

So Paul says that he is innocent from these things, and elders should become innocent or pure from the blood of all men. How do they do that? This leads us to our second point.

The elder guards the church by teaching the whole counsel of God’s word.

Paul said he was a watchman. He said he was innocent. He said he was innocent because in verse 27, “I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.” Again, in verse 28, we’re talking about the overseers. What does Paul tell them? He says to them, “Take heed to yourselves and to the flock over which the Holy Ghost has made your overseers. And what’s the result of their guarding function? Take heed to feed the church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood.”

Paul said that it is important to feed the church—to take the word of God, to distribute it to them, to teach it to them, and to teach their responsibilities in light of it.

Verse 21, Paul identifies that gospel that is the essential part of the teaching. In verse 21, he says that he testified to the Jews and to the Greeks, “repentance toward God and faith toward Jesus Christ.” In verse 24, he says that he testified to “the grace of God.”

And these things should remind us of the essentials of the gospel—that men have to be convicted of their sin. They have to be warned of their own wickedness, turned from it to the gospel of Jesus Christ, the good news.

Now, to the extent that the church has taken the law of God and kicked it out the back door in terms of sanctification, as a result of that, over the years, what’s also happened in the church is they’ve taken the law of God out of their preaching. And as a result, men are no longer convicted and brought to salvation. Salvation has no longer become a process of repentance, of a turning to God and away from your evil deeds and the true sorrow for them, and turning to faith in Jesus Christ and the gospel of the grace of God.

No, salvation now is another option. It’s a way to make your marriage better. It’s a way to make your family better, maybe even to make more money at your job—your pagan job that you’re involved with where maybe you’re ripping off all your customers. That’s okay. The gospel is put on as another floor, as it were, on the house instead of ripping out the foundation and starting all over. Why is that? It’s because the law of God has been despised by the churches. It’s been kicked out the back door in terms of sanctification. It’s been removed from the preaching, and men are no longer brought to repentance.

In relationship to a teaching of God’s word, they’re no longer brought to conviction. And if they’re not brought to conviction, they’re not saved. The scriptures say that the gospel has both these elements to it: repentance toward God and faith in Jesus Christ. If a man doesn’t understand his own guilt before God, his own violation of God’s word, then there’s no good news to him of salvation. It’s kind of halfway decent news to know that your marriage can be better. But if he understood his judgment that he had brought upon himself by his own activities, and God’s righteousness coming upon him in judgment, then he’d say, “That is good news. If I can get away from that, it’s good news. I’m sorry for my sins, and I turn to God in faith.” That would be good news to the man—to recognize that God had saved him from judgment through sending his own son to die on his cross, purchased with the blood of his own son, Jesus Christ.

Well, repentance and turning to God is the essential of what we’re to teach the flock of God. But it has more ramifications than that. It goes on to have ramifications for every area of life.

And as I said before, in verse 25, he equates his preaching with the kingdom of God. He had gone preaching “the kingdom of God.” And so the kingdom of God is more than just a returning to God at one particular point in one’s life. It is an entrance into a whole other way of life.

Aracham in his commentary again says that the gospel involves a kingdom. “Repentance is the entrance into a society and faith is the principle of life in it.” Repentance isn’t simply a way to achieve fire insurance. Repentance is entrance into a society, into a way of life, into a kingdom under a king—Jesus Christ—and has ramifications for all of one’s life.

And so Paul says that he was free of the blood of all men, not simply because he preached the gospel in a truncated fashion, but because he preached the gospel in its expanded fashion, in its entire fashion, teaching the kingdom of God.

And so he says in verse 20 that he did not keep back anything that was profitable unto you, but have showed you and have taught you publicly and from house to house. He didn’t keep anything back. He taught the whole of the scriptures to these people. He didn’t just leave them with the simple message that “there’s destruction coming. You better turn or be saved.” No, he went on to talk about the implications of that salvation and the demands made by the king upon those who have by repentance entered into a society that was ruled by King Jesus.

He had to preach all the word to them, keeping nothing back.

Now, again, the churches have been just incredibly poor at teaching the whole word of God. Most of us, us who’ve spent, you know, ten, fifteen years under church teaching and then come to a full apprehension of biblical faith—you know, we don’t even know what’s in the Old Testament. You read some of these things that people write in terms of the prophecies of the New Testament, the book of Revelation, and show the relationship of that back to the Old Testament. Or I look last night and see the relationships between, for instance, Paul’s speech to the Ephesians and Joshua’s speech in Joshua 23. There you see all these correlations in the scriptures. But you know, we should have known those things years ago. We should have been taught to hold the scriptures years ago.

Why? They didn’t even teach us a third of the scriptures in any depth. They kept back two-thirds and kept it a closed book to us. It’s incredibly poor.

Even those people that have become somewhat more reformed and more Calvinist from their perspective—I don’t know how many times I heard that election was, you know—I remember what it was called—stuff you had to keep away from new believers. Only tell them when they get pretty mature in the faith about election and God’s predestination. Well, that’s incredible, isn’t it? I mean, God’s election and God’s predestination is central to his character as being a sovereign God.

And we’re going to keep back the fact that God is sovereign over man when we convert to the faith, and hold it later on for high school, as it were, in terms of his development as a Christian? We’re going to hold back a central teaching of the element of God’s character, his sovereignty? I mean, without God’s sovereignty, you don’t have a God anymore, do you?

And yet, I was told, you know, “Election was something we don’t want to teach people till they get quite along in the faith. Maybe when they get to seminary or something, then they can begin to think through the implications of election.” But God’s word says that election should be taught, and it should be taught in the preaching of the gospel itself. It says that they have to understand that God is the one who requires these things from them. That it’s the preaching of the gospel of grace of God that brings people to salvation in Christ. It’s the grace of God brought to them. It’s not their own decision.

And Paul makes that clear throughout this speech to the Ephesian elders.

Well, Paul wasn’t like that. He taught all the word of God and all its ramifications for their life. Verse 27, he says the same thing—that he was not guilty because he declared unto them all the counsel of God. Declared unto them all the counsel of God—again, teaching scriptures and their total implications for the believer’s life.

And the elder, if he’s going to guard the church, must guard the church by teaching all his content must be filled with all the scriptures, all the ramifications of entrance into a society reigned over by Jesus Christ.

Notice also that Paul says that he did this both publicly and also house to house. Again, in verse 20, he says that he taught you publicly and from house to house. And then later on in the chapter, in verse 31, he says, “Therefore watch. Remember that by the space of three years I cease not to warn everyone night and day with tears.”

Paul didn’t just restrict his teaching of the scriptures to a weekly meeting. No, he taught house to house. He taught everyone—every last one of the people. And so it’s true that elders, if they’re going to guard the flock of Jesus Christ, must teach good doctrine from the public meetings that they’re assigned to. But they must also go house to house to people, teaching them also individually and in small groups as well.

And then also notice that one of the methods used in the verse we just read, in verse 31—”I cease not to warn everyone night and day with tears”—to admonish people is part of the elder’s job description as well. Not just simply to put forth a logical message, but he has to recognize there are going to be elements of which people need personal admonishment. They need to be called up for the responsibility that they have under God in certain areas that they may be falling short in. Admonishment is necessary.

In 1 Corinthians 10:11, we read that the judgments of God in the old covenant people were written for our instruction. And in our communion service, we have that every week—written for our instruction. And somehow that word “instruction” loses a little bit of the impact of the Greek word here, which means to warn. It has an element of warning or confronting people. Actually, that’s what it has to do with. And I think that we should understand when we read that these things are written for our admonishment, not for our intellectual attainment only, but to drive us to action—to drive us away from those things that would bring God’s judgment upon us.

And so the elder has to admonish people as well as part of his method. He has to, in other words, from these things we’ve said here—he has to teach a biblical worldview. He has to show how the scriptures relate to all of life. But then he also has to admonish in specific details when people need encouragement in the faith in a particular area where they’re falling short—in an area. He has to admonish them specifically as well.

So the elder in guarding—guarding the church—must teach the whole counsel of God’s word.

Third, the elder guards the church by guarding himself.

Verse 28 says—he says here, “Take heed, not just to the church. He says, “Take heed therefore unto yourselves and to all the flock.”

Take heed to yourselves first.

In Luke 21, our Lord—in that farewell speech I was saying to the twelve before the last supper—just read that in Luke 21:34-36. Jesus says the same thing to the twelve now: “And take heed to yourselves lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness and cares of this life, and so that day may come upon you unawares. Verse 36: Watch ye therefore and pray always that ye may be kind worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass and to stand before the son of man.”

Now Jesus knew he was talking to people that would be the rulers of the church, the leaders of the church. And he warned them to take heed to themselves, that they not fall, that they be persistent and consistent in the faith.

Joshua does the same thing in Joshua 23, which we’ve talked about earlier. It would be a great thing for you to look at Joshua 23 and see some of the correlations between Joshua 23 and Acts 20. We’ll talk more about that in the next few weeks, hopefully. But for now, Joshua 23:1 says, “Take good heed therefore unto yourselves that you love the Lord your God.”

Okay? And remember now, he’s gathered together the covenant leaders of the covenant community—the elders, the judges, the chariots, the heads, the “ro” as it were, the strong men, the heads of the armies and whatnot. “Take good heed therefore unto yourselves that you love the Lord your God. Verses 6-8: Be therefore very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the book of the law of Moses, that you turn not aside therefore from it to the right hand or to the left, that you come not among these nations—these that remain among you—neither make mention of the name of their gods nor cause to swear by them, neither serve them nor bow yourselves unto them, but cleave unto the Lord your God as you’ve done even to this day.”

Elders must be persistent in acknowledging their own areas of weakness as well and seeking to guard themselves as well. All take heed to themselves. And so recognize that they’re part of the flock as well and not immune to the same problems the flock will be endangered by.

Fourth, the elders must guard all of the flock.

This is obvious, I suppose. But in verse 31, as I said earlier, he “ceased not to warn everyone night and day with tears.”

The flock as a whole must be guarded by the elder. The flock has to be guarded in every particular instance as well. In other words, Jesus said it was the good shepherd who went after the one lost sheep to find it and to keep it.

The shepherd—the under-shepherd under Jesus Christ—the elder must guard all of the flock.

Fifth, the elder must recognize he faces terrible judgment if he should fail to perform his guardian function.

Just a couple of verses here. In Zechariah 11:17, it says, “Woe to the shepherd that leaveth the flock. The sword shall be upon his arm and upon his right eye. His arm shall be clean dried up, and his right eye shall be utterly darkened.”

The shepherd that doesn’t perform his function of guarding the flock, but leaves the flock when there’s danger, has a woe placed upon him. The woe represents all the curses of covenant breaking—curses upon them. And the shepherd that fails to perform his duty of guarding the flock has pronounced a woe upon him in this verse.

Before us again, in Jeremiah 23:1-2, “Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture, sayeth the Lord. Therefore thus saith the Lord God of Israel against the pastors that feed my people: Ye have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not visited them. Behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the Lord.”

God says the pastors that do not guard his flock are prone to great judgments from him.

Now, that’s obvious to us because we know the scriptures teach that the greater the responsibility a man has, the more accountability he has. The greater judgment will come upon him for failing to perform his responsibility.

First Peter, chapter 5, and chapter 2 as well tells us that Jesus Christ is our great shepherd and the great bishop or overseer as well of our souls and of the flock. For a man to fail to perform his function that God has given him to guard the flock makes him an anti-shepherd. Instead of following the great example of Jesus Christ, he turns from that example and so aligns himself not with the people of God but with the enemies of God.

In Psalm 78, that we’ve been reading for the last two weeks now, we see the perpetual conflict of the people of God. And we said last week that people are—we are to teach our children to become one of the people of God. Or if they leave the people of God, they become one of the enemies of God.

And so the pastor who fails to fulfill his responsibility of guarding and shepherding becomes part of Antichrist and the system that would seek to destroy God’s people. And so blood guiltiness is upon his head in Ezekiel 33. If he fails to do that job, he continues to have blood guiltiness upon his head, and God will require it of him.

We’ve talked in the past in this church about God’s judgments often taking the form of the way they will their failure to live up to God’s commands. In other words, if a person doesn’t take care of the widows in the land, then God says he’ll produce a widow for that man—his wife will become a widow. The same thing’s true of shepherding.

In Ezekiel 34:16, God, talking about the false shepherds—the people that don’t do what they’re supposed to do—God says that verse 16: “I will seek that which was lost and bring again that which was driven away and will bind up that which was broken and will strengthen that which was sick. But I will destroy the fat and the strong. I will feed them with judgments.”

The context here is with the false shepherds—the pastors that don’t do their job. Those pastors will be fed. They didn’t feed the flock. They’ll be fed with God’s judgment.

So the elder has to recognize that he faces terrible judgment if he fails to live up to his responsibilities to guard the flock.

And then finally, the sixth point: the elder knows that it is God who is able to fit him for the task that’s before him.

If he has these terrible responsibilities for him, then we understand the more why Paul in verse 32 says, “And now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance.”

And by the way, if you look at that word “inheritance” and compare that to what Joshua says back in Joshua 23, and how he was telling them that if they avoided all these things, they’d have an inheritance in the land, you see more similarities between this passage and Joshua 23.

But in any event, this commendation of the elders to God and to the word of his grace—again, right back to the way that God speaks to us through his scriptures as being the thing that can build them up. And it will give him an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.

The elder recognizes that it is God and God alone who can properly fit him for his task. And so he must recognize that he has been commended to God for a reason. He needs God’s assistance in this, and ultimately he has to rely upon God’s strength.

And again, in the book of Joshua 23, he says that these things have happened because the arm of the Lord was with us, not because of the strength of men. And the elder recognizes the same thing.

Having done that—having fulfilled these six functions of the eldership, knowing the danger, feeding the flock, guarding himself, guarding all of the flock, recognizing terrible judgment upon him if he doesn’t do these things, and then relying upon God—the elder can count on good success from God to come.

And this church at Ephesus that had this tremendous instruction from Paul did prosper in the faith. Saint Ignatius wrote forty years after—well, I don’t know, somewhere around probably ninety or ninety-five AD—of the church at Ephesus. He said this: “You all live according to truth and no heresy has a home among you. Indeed, you do not so much as listen to anyone if he speaks of anything except concerning Jesus Christ in truth. I have learned that certain persons pass through you bringing evil doctrine, and you did not allow them to sow seeds among you. For you stopped up your ears that you might not receive the seeds sown by them. You are clothed from head to foot in the commandments of Jesus Christ.”

And so the elder can count on success from God as he performs his function correctly in the midst of God’s people. And so the church at Ephesus succeeded as well.

Now, these same things that I’ve been talking about here were really part of the reason why we had some of the admonitions read last week in our ordination service. And you can see some aspects of these as we go through some of these questions.

One of the things that Pastor Phelps read to us—read to me, rather, from my response—was the following: “Will you then give your faithful diligence always to minister the doctrine and sacraments of the discipline of Christ as the Lord hath commanded and as the church hath received the same according to the commandments of God, so that you may teach the people committed to your cure and care with all diligence to keep and observe the same?”

Now, that’s important that that be part of the charge to the elders because we’ve seen from these passages, the elder must feed the flock. He must take heed to take the scriptures and to feed them to the flock of God.

Additionally, one of the questions read was, “Will you be ready with all faithful diligence to banish and drive away from the church all erroneous and strange doctrines contrary to God’s word and to use both public and private admonitions and exhortations as well to the sick as to the whole within your cures?”

So there we have the guarding function that he must drive away heresies. He must understand the doctrines that are perverting the church and must drive them away from the church.

Additionally, we read the following: “Will you be diligent in prayers and in reading the holy scriptures and in such studies as help to the knowledge of the same, laying aside the study of the world and the flesh?”

The elder recognizes he must guard for himself. And so he must give himself over to a thorough study of the word and of the scriptures and of also to prayer to God.

“Will you be diligent to frame and fashion your own self and your own family according to the doctrine of the church, to make both yourself and them as much as they are able wholesome examples and patterns to the flock of Christ?”

Again, the idea that he must guard himself and his own family as well in order to fulfill his functions as an elder.