I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them. So be on your guard! ACTS 20:29-31
UH OH…
As Paul says farewell to the Ephesian elders, he says, “So be on your guard!”
It’s one thing for there to be savage wolves looking for a flock of God to tear apart. But if that flock is alert and on the lookout ready to sound the alarm, the damage will be minimal, if at all.
Often, though, God’s sheep behave like sheep. Gullible, they are all too willing to be led astray, encouraging the wolves to “bring it on.”
Isaiah faced this problem. God told him….
“…these are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to listen to the Lord’s instruction. They say to the seers….“Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions…stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel!” ISAIAH 30:9-11
And when God’s people are unsuspecting or just plain rebellious, bad things happen.
For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 2 TIMOTHY 4:3
The downward spiral continues as believers get…”tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. EPHESIANS 4:14
This coming Sunday, Erik Thoennes will begin to explore the ways that false teaching makes its way into the Church, and what can be done to inoculate ourselves from getting the disease.
Amid the heresies’ germs floating in the air, be confident of this, “the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials.” He has the unrighteous in his crosshairs, while he holds the righteous in the palm of his hand.
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