Luke 10:3 states, “Go your way: behold, I send you forth as lambs among wolves.”
According to my Google search (and I’ve heard it before), wolves very rarely attack humans, much less kill them. From personal experience I can tell you that a pack of howling wolves can keep you up all night and make you wonder why you are “sleeping” in a tent. There is always a chance that my case could be the rare case.
In our text, Jesus was speaking to the “seventy” who He sent out two-by-two, to go ahead of Him into the cities and places where He was going to come. The wolves He was speaking of were likely the scribes and Pharisees. The seventy lambs would be going into the area north of the Sea of Galilee. The three main cities were called the “triangle”: Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum (Luke 10:13-15). Jesus pronounced a woe on each of the cities. Capernaum, the headquarters of the Pharisees, received the greatest woe. Verse 15 says, “And thou Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, shalt be thrust down to hell.”
In Acts 20, Paul was at Miletus when he sent for the elders of the church at Ephesus to come to him for some last words before he left their region (Acts 20:17). Listen to his words in verses 29 and 30. “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.”
The saying, “scum rises to the top,” can sometimes be true in the church. Perhaps with the Pharisees it came from exalting themselves. Ezekiel gives us a clear picture in chapter 22:26-28: “Her priests have violated my law, and have profaned mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they shewed differences between the unclean and the clean, and have hid their eyes from my sabbaths, and am profaned among them. Her princes in the midst thereof are like wolves ravening the prey, to shed blood, and to destroy souls, to get dishonest gain. And her prophets have daubed them with untempered mortar, seeing vanity, and divining lies unto them, saying, Thus saith the Lord God, when the Lord hath not spoken.”
In our text, Jesus did not send the seventy disciples out as sheep among wolves, but lambs among wolves. There is something special about lambs—they can be squeezed, handled, and cuddled. The old sheep tend to smell and act obnoxious. The new Christians in the church are the most likely to bring others into the fold. Satan is surely after them.
When Jesus sent forth the 12 disciples in Matthew chapter 10, He called them sheep instead of lambs. They had been following Him long enough to grow—hopefully not smelly and obnoxious. His advise to them in verse 16 is “…be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.” Jesus said that the wolves would be known by their fruits. Let’s pray and wisely guard our new lambs, yes, LAMBS AMONG WOLVES!
