Learning from animals

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 Thaddeus, 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 16th 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 has set up His kingdom.

And so you have 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's speaking to His disciples and He's 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 rubbed 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 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 men.

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 what other, 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 clove on foot.

He can damage nothing. When our Lord Jesus uses the word innocent, it actually means unmixed, transparent, pure. That's how the disciples were 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. And 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 is His acumen, it is His intelligence, it is the way that He can control every situation that stands out and makes you realise 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, inasmuch 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 have 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. Let's stand and praise the Lord.

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, sweetest name on earth, how can I a sinner come to know its worth? What a strength, sweetest heavenly grace, led us to the love of faith, in the truth of the Lord. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, glory to His name. I still have shame.

Jesus, Jesus, Savior, I have seen the glory of His tender face. Reaching even me, in captivity. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, sacred name.

Jesus Christ, Son of God, dead of willingly to die, that I the guilty one may know the blood once shed, still freely flowing, still cleansing, still healing. I exalt you, Jesus, my sacrifice. I exalt you, my Redeemer and my Lord.

I exalt you, worthy Lamb of God, and in honor I bow down before your throne.