Who Is the Hireling?

Tom:

We are continuing with the Gospel of John and presently we are in John:10:11I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.
See All... which I will read again and pick up with verses 12 and 13.“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 catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep.The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep.”Now Dave, before we go on this is a bit about what we have been talking about in our other segments.There are those who deceive; there are those who are in ministry and not just in ministry, but there are those who are in it for themselves and are leading many astray and care not for the souls of the people who follow them.

Dave:

The hireling, it’s quite obvious as Jesus explains it, he doesn’t really have a heart for the sheep.He doesn’t know the shepherd.He’s not the shepherd of course.Jesus said I am the Good Shepherd.In the next verse, “I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.”If you hire someone to do a job and his heart isn’t in it he can neglect his duties and particularly when a wolf comes and his life is in danger then he flees and there are people who have become pastors because it’s a good job.In Europe it pays well.

Tom:

Well it’s a state church.

Dave:

They get their salary from the state and you get some prestige; people look up to you.People look up to Catholic priests, they used to anyway and maybe now they have some second thoughts, but certainly every priest shouldn’t be tarred with the same brush as those who are pedophiles, but there are people who have just gone into this as a profession and you can see it in their actions, you can hear it in their sermons.They’re not going to offend anyone.They’re not going to tell the truth.Well Paul talks about it in 2 Timothy 4 when he says the time is coming when they will not endure sound doctrine, but will heap to themselves teachers having itching ears.We’ve talked about that in the past.They want the compliments of the people.They don’t want to be a Jeremiah and say what God wants them to say because then they might kill you.Well you would lose your job.We have pulpit committees and they hire someone.Well if you were hired by this group, then they could fire you, therefore you must be very careful.I think this is what Jesus is talking about.A false shepherd who claims to be the shepherd of the sheep, a shepherd under Christ who is the true Shepherd.Peter writes in his first epistle: “The elders which are among you I exhort, I am also an elder he says, take the oversight of the flock, the church, not by constraint, but willingly.Not for filthy lucre, he says, but of a ready mind.In other words, you are serving the Lord, Christ, he goes on to say.What you do, you do it to God because of your love for him and your love for the sheep.But the hireling, sadly, it’s sad that Jesus would even have to mention this because obviously he’s not talking about just sheep and shepherds, or pseudo shepherds, but this is an illustration of what happens within the flock of the Christians.

Tom:

Yes, the body of Christ.

Dave:

Yes, Paul in Acts 20 remember from Miletum he calls the elders of Ephesus (a tremendous passage) and his last words spoken—he wrote to them later, but these are the last oral words of Paul to these elders.Verse 28 he says: “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.” This is exactly what Jesus was talking about.Israel in the Old Testament, Jeremiah, the prophets, take the rabbis, the leaders, the priests of Israel to task and they say, “You have not fed the flock of Israel.You have starved them, or you have given them poison.You’ve led them astray and so forth.For I know this after my departing, that’s after his death 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.So Paul is talking about false shepherds too and we have them in the church in abundance sadly.

Tom:

Yes Dave, Paul lived at a time in which he didn’t have Christian media.Christian radio, Christian TV, and so on.I mention this because my heart goes out to good shepherds, pastors who are doing everything they can to go by God’s Word, to really feed his sheep as Jesus said to Peter, “Feed my sheep.”Yet what they are up against is just unbelievable.Because before their congregation they may speak, probably the average now is probably 45 minutes on a—

Dave:

Ohh that’s long Tom.

Tom:

Okay, on a Sunday and then maybe the pastor gets another maybe an hour Wednesday evenings and so on.And probably a small part of the congregation shows up for the mid-week service and so on.Now during that time these sheep are being fed by all these others out there whether it be on TV, or radio, magazines and so on and they can’t even figure out where they’re getting their information from in terms of discernment and so on.Wow!Now Paul said that he wept night and day over this concern.It’s just a difficult situation.

Dave:

Yes, not easy for the pastor or teacher, or teaching elder to straighten out on a Sunday morning in a few minutes all the heresy that they’ve been absorbing during the week before.

Tom:

Just by osmosis, they are not even thinking it through, just letting it come in.

Dave:

I remember the first and only time I was ever invited to the NRB, National Religious Broadcasters, that must be 20 years ago at least.They didn’t invite me back.They wanted to me to speak to the—

Tom:

Well Dave, I know what your message was and I can understand why.Tell them the name of your talk.

Dave:

Well no, they wanted me to speak to the television owners and managers and I just mentioned I said Paul talked about Hymanaeus and Philetus who concerning the truth have erred saying the resurrection is passed already and they overthrow the faith of some and I said you know, supposing Hymanaeus and Philetus owned a world wide television ministry today and they weren’t overthrowing the faith of some, they are over throwing the faith of multitudes, what would you do?How do you police your ranks?How do you correct one another?There was dead silence.They don’t correct one another.This is why we have so much heresy on radio and television.

Tom:

That was twenty years ago and it’s worse.Beyond belief.

Dave:

They get together for their well National Religious Broadcasters convention every year.Do they tell one another, hey wait a minute, we’ve got some false teachers out there, brethren we’ve got to get back to the Bible.We’ve got to be true to the Word of God, we’ve got to earnestly contend for the faith.Are there exhortations about that?No, it’s popularity and who has the biggest audience.Robert Schuller has the largest television audience out there as far as we know on 170 TV stations around the world, or maybe that’s just in America and says that well, more that one million Muslims and thousands of pastors and hundreds of rabbis listen to him every week.Can you imagine what kind of a message you could bring that the rabbis love it and Muslims love it and evangelical pastors love it?What kind of compromise is this? You would really have to be brilliant to walk that thin line, but you’re not going to be true to the Word of God.So I think we have some hirelings.I think we have some people who are in it not just for money, but for popularity, for power, to be well thought of and well spoken of who are serving men and themselves rather than God.And Jesus lays it out pretty clear and says, “I give my life for my sheep and if you are going to be true under-shepherds under me, you would give your life too and you would say with Paul, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me and now the true Shepherd is leading me and going back to Acts 20 he says feed the flock of God which is among you which he hath purchased with his own blood.So he is saying Jesus is God and he purchased his flock with his own blood.Now you must be true to him.This is what Jesus is saying.I think it is pretty straight forward.Well Tom, it speaks to my heart and I know it speaks to yours.I mean the Lord has given us the wonderful privilege of being on the radio.Are we just going to try to build up ourselves and get people to love us and follow us and say nice things about us or are we going to be true to the Shepherd who gave his life for the sheep?

Tom:

Dave I know it’s your heart and my heart as Tozer said, we don’t want to be any more than sign posts.We want to point people to God, point people to his Word, and encourage people to check things out.Check out what we say.Get into God’s Word.Be a thoughtful Christian; grow in the faith, that’s the only way.

Dave:

Amen.