Why Paul Warns Believers to Beware of Dogs

Welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a 30-minute walk through the Scriptures, teaching in-depth Bible truths that change people's lives. Now here's your host, Les Feldick. Okay, good to see all of you back again, and this will be our fourth program this afternoon, so we'll soon be out of here and head for home. Okay, for all of you joining us on television, we are just an informal Bible study, and we don't adhere to any one denominational handle, and we just simply want to open the Scriptures and teach whoever you are, wherever you are, how to study the Word and how to comprehend it. I guess the one thing that we've been able to do more than anything is to separate Israel from the Church, and I think when you do that, then the Bible becomes so much easier to understand. And of course when you separate Israel and the Church, you separate Peter and Paul. Now they both serve the same Christ, of course, but always remember that Peter held forth before the cross, and of course shortly after in the early book of Acts, but it was still based on pretty much his Kingdom Gospel. But everything that Paul writes concerns the resurrected, ascended Lord, and from that place ascended in glory, Christ revealed all these things to the apostle of the Gentiles. And so consequently this is what we try to be reminding people, that Paul's apostleship is strictly to the Gentile, and especially to Gentile believers. That's who he writes to. Now that doesn't mean we cast aside anything of the rest of Scripture, we use everything. Everything fits beautifully, but it's just like dovetailing, and you can't just mix it all up, but you keep it dovetailed, or like a jigsaw puzzle, let all the puzzles fit, and it becomes an exciting book to study. So then if we can come back, well I guess I should make mention of our tapes and books and so forth. I know the guys are ready, there they are, and so we do have all the past programs that are available, either in video, audio, or the printed page, and if you can use any of those materials, you call us on the 800 number, and we'll send a list of Table of Contents, or we can just simply send out if you know what you want. Okay, this is Bible study, and again we always like to spend as much time in the Scriptures as we possibly can, but turn with me again to where we just left off in Philippians chapter 2, and so we are to be in the midst of a crooked and a perverse nation, and remember things are no different today than they were in the Roman Empire. In fact if you know anything of history at all, you know that history repeats itself, and all the things that brought down the Roman Empire are going to bring down our western civilization, if not America by itself. So always be assured that historically these things are happening over and over and over, and so this is not just unique to the Roman Empire, but even for us today that we are in a crooked and a perverse nation, among whom we are to shine as lights in the world. Now verse 16, we are to hold forth the Word of Life, that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain. Now of course we covered this several programs back, but the day of Christ is the end of the church age, when Christ will come to the air, and call the body of Christ unto Himself. And then the Antichrist will appear, and the 7 years of tribulation will unfold, and God will finish doing what has been programmed for the nation of Israel. Now I know, and I've said this before in a program, there is getting to be more and more opposition to a pre-tribulation rapture, and more and more are teaching that the church will go into it or through it, but always remember our best argument is that you cannot mix law and grace, and law. And so we are of the age of grace, and the church didn't fit in the Old Testament economy, it won't fit in the tribulation economy, because both those ends were Israel under the law, and we have no part or parcel with that. And so always remember that before God can pick up and finish His last 7 years of the nation of Israel, the Gentile church, the body of Christ, has to be removed, and consequently then that's what we call the Day of Christ, when Christ will indeed return to the atmosphere and call the church to Himself, and then we go back into glory. Now the Day of the Lord, that's a different story. The Day of the Lord is the beginning of wrath, and vexation, and judgment, and that of course is what will follow the Day of Christ. But Paul doesn't refer so much to the Day of the Lord as he does to the Day of Christ, because I think I put it in one of my newsletters here last spring, that it just makes common sense that if all of the origins concerning the Body of Christ, the terminology, the doctrine, the organization, in other words the term of pastors, and bishops, and deacons, all comes from Paul, nowhere else, and the indwelling Holy Spirit, which is the down payment on a believer, only in Paul, and it follows then that if all of these aspects of the Church Age have come from the writings of Paul, then the end of the Church would have to be there as well. And indeed it does, and that's why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, "...behold I show you a mystery. We shall not all die, but we shall all be changed." Which of course is referring to the Day of Christ, when He will descend to the atmosphere and call us out. Another thing I would like to point out is that with the Rapture, with the Day of Christ, or the calling us out to the atmosphere, and then back into glory, there is not a word about attending cataclysmic judgments. There is nothing to indicate that just before the Rapture the sun will be turned into blood, and the moon darkened, and all that. None of that! But for the Second Coming, that's all you see. The horrors of the wrath of God that will attend the Second Coming, but never the Rapture. We are just going to be silently taken out, and the world will probably think it's good riddance if they miss us at all. But they're not going to be an attendant cataclysmic event, but rather the Day of Christ will be that sudden, silent disappearance of the believer. So much for that, now if you'll come back to verse 16. He says, I may rejoice, and of course you've got to remember that Paul really thought that he would live to see the day when Christ would return and take the Church out, and that's why he says that he might rejoice in the Day of Christ. Then he continues on in verse 16. I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain. Well now that's obvious isn't it? Here he had suffered all the privation of scourgings, and whippings, and shipwrecks, and imprisonments, and he lists them all back there in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, how he suffered for the sake of the Gospel. Well how would the man have felt if after all of that sacrifice in the human era, and then to see it all just disappear and fall apart? It would have been heart breaking wouldn't it? But see this is what he's saying, these Philippians were not letting him down, and he could readily see that he had not run in vain, he had not labored in vain, but indeed it was all coming to fruition. Now then verse 17. Yea, he said, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all, because of all that God had done throughout the Roman Empire, but as I said here a few programs ago, especially when He was seeing the Roman guards, when He was seeing people in the palace, coming to a knowledge of His Gospel, and of His Christ. Verse 18. Ephesians 2. For the same cause also do you joy and rejoice with me. Now it�s a two way street, and I know most of you don�t have as much opportunity as I do, but almost every day we get a letter where someone has come to know the Lord, or they have led someone to the Lord. We had one lady sometime ago, she had written, and she said, I wish I could just have the joy of leading someone to a saving knowledge. Well it wasn�t until a couple of months later, and here comes this thrilling letter. I mean you could almost tell from her opening word, that she had been able to win a co-worker to the Lord. That�s what it�s all about, and it�s a thrilling experience. So we have this opportunity that when folks share their joy, it thrills us, and even as we share our joys and our victories, we know it causes you to rejoice. So this is what Paul is talking about, that they were maintaining their faith, they were seeing the Gospel going out, and even though he was confined to a Roman prison, yet the news was getting back to him, and how it thrilled him. Now we come down to verse 19, and we have again a reference to his son in the faith, Timothy. Now you�ve got to remember, and always have to keep these things in consideration, that here in probably around 64 or 65 A.D., the Roman Empire of course was illustrious, and when you go over and look at the ruins of some of the Roman cities and the roads, they certainly weren�t cavemen, not by any stretch of the imagination. But their communications were slow, travel was slow, and ship was probably the fastest way to go from one place to another. And so you�ve got to take that into consideration. So he has to send Timothy from Rome to go around the southern end of Greece, and back up into the Aegean Sea in order to get to Philippi. So he�s going to send Timothy to go up to Philippi, with no doubt the idea of bringing back to Rome a report as to how those Philippian believers were doing. And then verse 24, as we said in an earlier program, I think Paul was hoping and thinking that he would win his court case, and would be released. Now of course some theologians think he did, and that he was arrested a second time when he was martyred, but as I put all these things into balance, I still have to feel that he only had one imprisonment, and he did not secure his release. But if he did, so be it, and he may have had another year or two to revisit the churches. But whatever, he says in verse 24, with that hope in mind that he would win that court case and be released. So he says, I trust in the Lord that I also myself shall come shortly, physically, not just in the Spirit. But since there is nothing definite, I suppose it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, who was a citizen of Philippi, my brother in the faith, companion in labor, fellow soldier, but your messenger. He had come from Philippi, come down and ministered to Paul�s needs in prison in Rome, and the poor fellow must have just about died of some kind of an illness or something. Verse 26, for he longed after you all, and was full of heaviness, because that you had heard that he had been sick. In other words, when the Philippians heard that one of their co-believers, Epaphroditus, was nearly sick unto death, they were really upset about it. Then in verse 27 Paul says, Indeed he was sick, nigh unto death. But God had mercy on him, by sparing his life, and bringing him back to health, and not on him only, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. In other words, Paul was shared the sorrow of losing this good friend and fellow soldier, Epaphroditus. Now verse 28, so now he not only sends Timothy, but he also sends Epaphroditus, and so he says, I sent him therefore the more carefully, in other words, I made sure that he was strong enough physically to make the trip. Because you want to remember, he had to go from Rome, down around the boot of Italy, down the Mediterranean ways, and then all the way up the Adriatic Sea in order to get to Philippi. And so that would take someone with full health and strength. And so he says, I had to be careful that he was fully capable of making the trip. So I sent him therefore the more carefully, that when you see him again, you may rejoice, realizing how close he had come to death, and that I may be the less sorrowful. Verse 29 and 30, we'll rush on, I want to get into chapter 3. "...receive him therefore in the Lord with all gladness, and hold such in reputation, because for the work of Christ he was nigh unto death." Now that's all we know, and you can speculate all we want. He may have picked up a disease on route from Philippi to Rome, or he may have run across an accident. We don't know. But we do know that Epaphroditus fought a real life battle, but the Lord spared him, and brought him back to complete strength. And so he says, he was nigh unto death, not regarding his life. So something could have happened that was on route to Rome, and he may have been attacked by robbers. I've never been able to read anything that indicates what his problem was. But it was to supply your lack of service toward me. Now as we come into chapter 3, we're getting closer to the end of this letter. We're not going to finish it by any means. But we'll go into the chapter, and finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. Now I trust you've all been keeping track of this constant reference to joy and rejoicing, in spite of their circumstances, in spite of the persecution and the constant pressure that was on all the Gentile believers, as well as Paul in prison. I say Gentile believers, you always have to remember that the Judaizers hated Christianity. And this is no put down on the Jewish people. After all, they could see that Christianity was making inroads into their religion, which they had enjoyed for two thousand years, going back to Abraham. Now nobody wants somebody to make inroads in their religion. You know that. Religion is an integral part of most people, and when you start fooling around with their religion, they get uptight real fast. Well it was the same way here. The Jewish people were fighting Paul's little churches tooth and nail, because it was a complete change of direction from Judaism, and that's what grace and law is. So like I said earlier, they had all this pressure from the pagan world, and they had this pressure from the Roman politicians, because empire worship meant more to the Roman intellectuals than mythology did. And so they had it from every direction. So Paul says, "...rejoice in the Lord, to write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe." Now comes the warning, beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision. Has anything changed? Nothing's changed. This is just as appropriate for you and I today, as it was for the Philippians in 65 A.D. Let me take you back to 2 Peter chapter 2. Now granted Peter writes primarily, and I say that specifically, not exclusively, but he writes primarily to Jews who were scattered throughout the Roman Empire, and I think they were probably little congregations of Jews. I'm not sure yet, but that's what I'm thinking more and more, that these were little congregations of kingdom age Jews who had not yet really come under Paul's Gospel per se, but it doesn't make any difference. The warning is the same. And so now he says in 2 Peter chapter 2, verse 1. There were false prophets among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you. So it's nothing new. The devil has used every device to confuse the issue, way back in Israel's past, and on up into Israel's future. So he said, There shall be false teachers among you, who prevalely or secretly will bring in damnable or horrible heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways." Now I don't know how many of you are acquainted with the medical term, but what does the word pernicious do? Well pernicious anemia just eats up the red blood cells, destroys them, so that a person will just gradually get anemic and white as snow, because this disease is eating the red blood cells. Now the word pernicious is appropriate here, because that's exactly what false teachers are going to do with the teachings that these believers are resting on. They're just going to keep chewing them up, until finally there is no spiritual life left in it, and their pernicious ways. 2. By reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of, through covetousness, they want anything that they can grab. And so through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you." In other words, you know what's a good name for them? They're con men. I just read in the Daily Oklahoman this morning before we left, that a bunch of hoods hit up some poor elderly lady and used the Y2K bug as a scam, making her think that it was some kind of a disease, and that they would protect her from it for so many thousand dollars, and she paid off. I mean, con men. And we shake our heads, how can people succumb to something like this? But they do, and it's the same way with spiritual things. All the con men can come along, and they can make all these things sound so good with their feigned words, and they make merchandise of you. 3. Whose judgment, now of a long time, lingereth not, their condemnation slumbereth not. God knows what they're doing, and as we saw in an earlier program, they're going to come before Him, they're going to stand before Him at the great white throne, and then they'll bow the knee and recognize who He really is. Well then, come down to verse 12. This is one of my favorite scriptural descriptions of false teachers, these people who are conning the masses. Verse 12, these false teachers, as natural, in other words, they have no spiritual life, but as natural, brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things they understand not. What's it talking about? These false teachers, for the most part, hate the message of grace. They hate it, and so they'll speak evil of it, and so they speak evil of the things that they understand not, and shall utterly perish in their own corruption, and shall receive the reward of unrighteousness as those who don't even wait for dark to start their riotous living. They can do it in the day time, in other words, that puts them in a category by themselves. Back to Philippians chapter 3. Ephesians 2. Beware of the dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision, and I�m sure that that that�s a word making reference to the Judaizers who wanted to put the Gentiles especially back on the list. I want to have to take you back to Acts. We spoke to a Sunday school class several weeks ago, and I used these verses, and you�d be surprised how many of those people came up after the class and said they never knew this was in their Bible. And I�m sure they�re not alone. There are multitudes that don�t know that a lot of these things are in our Bible. But back here in Acts chapter 15, and we�ll just look at verse 1, but we have to do this quickly. And remember what Paul�s warning was, �Look out for those of the concision.� And here it is, Acts 15 verse 1, and of course this is dealing with the Gentile congregation up at Antioch. Acts 15 verse 1, And certain men came down from Judea, and they taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved. Your Bible says it, and it�s just shocked them. They didn�t know this was in their Bible. Well they�re not alone. And then you come on up to verse 5, and they even added more than just circumcision. Acts 15 verse 5, And there were certain of the sect of Pharisees who believed, so they were members of the Jerusalem church. These believing Pharisees said that it was needful to circumcise them, that is Paul�s Gentile converts up in Antioch, that it was needful to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the Law of Moses. That�s what your Bible says. Now what does that tell us? This is what the early Gentile churches were up against. And as soon as Paul and Barnabas, or Paul and Silas, or whoever he�s helped may have been, as soon as they left town, and left this little congregation to themselves, in would come these kind of people, and say, �Well now wait a minute, you can�t just go by what Paul says alone. You have to be circumcised, and you have to keep the Law of Moses.� Well what were they really trying to do? Make proselytes of them. And so Paul says it hasn�t stopped when he wrote to the Philippians. It�s still a constant threat. Well now for you and I today, we don�t have to deal with circumcision, we know that. But all the other things that deal with legalism keep bombarding the New Testament, Grace Age believer, every day. Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, OK 74552, or call 1-800-369-7856. Remember, all programs are available in printed form, audio cassette, and videotape. Be sure to tune in next time to Through the Bible with Les Feldick.