Things To Be Aware

Matt. 7:15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

Three Greek words are translated "beware" in our English Bible, all of which stress watchfulness and potential danger. In a world under the control of Satan, there are many of his devices which can deceive and undermine the faith and life of the unwary Christian.

The verse listed above cautions against false prophets who appear to be true prophets (or teachers, or pastors), but whose apparently spiritual teachings are subversive of Biblical truth. John warns that "many false prophets are gone out into the world" (I John 4:1), and Jesus said they "shall deceive many" (Matt. 24:11). Jesus also warned that His followers should "beware of ..... the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees" (Matt. 16:12). These sects have their respective modern counterparts in the hypocrisy of legalists and the skepticism of liberals, both of which are destructive of true Biblical faith and life.

Very relevent to today's humanistic intellectualism is this warning:

Col. 2:8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.

This is the Bible's only reference to philosophy, here equated evidently with "vain deceit."

Finally, the apostle Peter says: 2 Peter 3:17 Ye therefore, beloved, seeing ye know these things before, beware lest ye also, being led away with the error of the wicked, fall from your own stedfastness. In context, Peter is referring to those Christian brethren who have distorted the Scriptures in order to seek an accommodation with the naturalistic worldview of establishment intellectuals. (2 Peter 3:3-6,17 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: As also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things; in which are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction.) Thus, Peter, John, and Jesus Christ Himself would urge constant wariness on our part.

A devotional thought by Henry Morris