Godbey's Commentary - Acts - Romans - Enter His Rest

no authority but God’s Word. It is the very audacity of Satan to invade God’s Church through the
instrumentality of his preachers, i.e., the “grievous wolves” predicted by Paul. Oh, how they have
scattered, torn and devoured God’s flock in all ages! The word “heresy” means separation. Hence
all separation from God and His Word is heresy. Such is the predominant influence of Satan in this
awfully wicked world during these dark ages of Satanic triumph, that he actually perverts everything
pertaining to truth and righteousness, calling evil good, and good evil. Hence the Lord’s people, in
all ages, have been anathematized and slaughtered under charge of heresy. It was true, they had
separated from the devil and his people, and were heretics from their standpoint. So it is, this day,
very difficult to walk with God in the beauty of holiness and the clear light of His Word, the fullness
and freedom of His Spirit, without constant collision, ostracism and persecution by the great human
ecclesiasticisms, antagonistical to God’s Word and Spirit, and claiming a right to domineer human
conscience, which is the prerogative of God alone. Hence we live amid the awful fulfillment of the
Pauline prediction of these “grievous wolves,” i.e., carnal men, “speaking perverse things, in order
to draw off disciples after them.”
32. “And now I commend you to God and the word of his grace, being able to build you up and
give you an inheritance among all the sanctified.” How infinitely potent the precious Word of God!
and how little appreciated by His professed followers, while it is despised and hated by the wicked.
The Bible assures us that none but the sanctified shall get to heaven (Hebrews 12:14), and here we
are assured that the Word is able to sanctify us. God help us to appreciate it as never before.
33-35. Here Paul protests to the Ephesian elders his felicitous salvation from paltry pelf,
asseverating that he had toiled with his hands making tents, not only for his own temporal support,
but that of his evangelistic helpers and the Lord’s poor. Paul is clear in his deliverances on
ministerial support as a right of the preacher and a duty of the people. Yet he is ever and anon
explicit, along with Jesus, in his denunciations of a hireling ministry, who really turn out to be those
“grievous wolves” lacerating, scattering and destroying the flock, and Ezekiel’s unfaithful
shepherds, clothing themselves in the wool and devouring the fat, reveling in their tents while their
flocks are “scattered on every hill and in every deep valley,” invaded by wild beasts and robbers.
Here Paul reminds them of the words of the Lord Jesus, “It is more blessed to give than to receive,”
thus winding up that memorable valedictory to the greatest church in Western Asia through their
representatives.
36. “Saying these things, putting down his knees, he prayed along with them all.” If you would
be in the Apostolic succession you must always have an ample supply of kneeling grace. Prayer is
the greatest privilege on earth, magnetizing heaven and bringing it into the heart. Without it this
world is the ante-room of hell. Available prayer makes you indefatigable on the knee-drill. Lord,
burn out of us all of the devil’s starch that keeps us from kneeling.
37. “Great was the lamentation of all, and falling on the neck of Paul they continued to kiss him,
38. “Especially grieving over the word which he had spoken, that they are about to see his face
no more. And they accompanied him to the ship.” Some of the holiness people emphasize the holy
kiss, not without ample divine warrant, as we see in case of this memorable valedictory.