Tag Archives: false prophets

As fast as lightning (Matthew 24:23-28) June 4, 2016

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Today’s Bible reading plan:

Read it in a year – Luke 9-10

see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)

Today’s Devotional

Matthew 24:23-28
Jesus: I cannot say this clearly enough: during this time, someone will say to you, “Look, here is the Anointed One!” or “Aren’t you relieved? Haven’t you seen the Savior down there, around the bend, over the hill and dale?” Do not believe them. False liberators and false prophets will appear, and they will know a few tricks—they will perform great miracles, and they will make great promises. If it were possible, they would even deceive God’s elect. But I am warning you ahead of time: remember—do not fall for their lies or lines or promises. If someone says, “He’s out there in the desert”—do not go. And if someone says, “He’s here at our house, at our table”—do not believe him. When the Son of Man comes, He will be as visible as lightning in the East is visible even in the West. And where the carcass is, there will always be vultures.

What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?

My wife and I were fortunate enough to purchase land the day our subdivision opened lots for sale and chose the highest lot in the neighborhood. From our backyard we can see the Tower of the Americas in downtown San Antonio, twenty miles away. From the front of the house we can see the city of Boerne eight miles away. The vista is beautiful. We see miles in every direction from our little piece of the world.

One other thing happens on the top of this hill, though, that I really enjoy. I kind of like thunderstorms. In thunderstorm, we see lightning strikes everywhere around us. We’ve never been hit by lightning, but because we can see so far in the distance, when thunderstorms hit, we see them forever. The skies are bright for a long time as they advance toward us and as they retreat from us. Especially in the middle of the night, the light shows are magnificent.

Some of you might think I’m a little crazy because I think storms are so beautiful. My dog thinks so. He’s terrified of storms and hides when they come around. But I’ve always enjoyed watching them. The shear power and majesty hidden in the clouds helps me recognize once again the absolute authority God has over this earth.

But those thunderstorms also remind me of these verses in Matthew and Paul’s description of Jesus’ coming again in 1 Corinthians 15. Jesus says everyone will know of His return. Like lightning in the East is visible in the West. That’s the way it is on my hilltop. Sometimes I don’t know where the lightning is, I just know it’s really bright because it stuck somewhere around us and whole sky lit up when it did.

That’s how it will be when Jesus returns he says. His coming will be like lightning. Paul says it will happen in the blink of an eye. Just think about how fast the blink of an eye. It’s measured in milliseconds. And just that fast, Jesus will come, take His redeemed with Him and be gone at the rapture. That’s fast. It’s like a lightning strike He says. Ever try to capture a lightning strike on film. You almost have to take a move and then capture the one or two frames within the movie on which the strike occurs. If you wait to push the button to activate the lens when you see the strike, you will already have missed it. That’s how fast Jesus’ return will be.

So I don’t listen to anyone who says, “Follow me, I’m the one.” There are a bunch of them out there, though. Some of you are old enough to remember Jim Jones and the purple cool-aid. Then there was David Koresh and the Waco bunch. Those made national news, but they are not the only self proclaimed messiah’s in the world. Lots of people follow lots of false messiahs who tell them what they want to hear. They give them false hope or tickle their ears with good sounding words, but end up eternally with the same fate as those in Waco and Jonestown. Death. But spiritual death. Eternal death.

But if Jesus’ return will be as quick as lightning, no one who sticks around longer than a couple of milliseconds is Him. That should be our first clue about anyone who claims they are the anointed one, the messiah, God’s special messenger come to take us home. If we would just read God’s word and understand what it says, we could not be fooled by such cult leaders who get so full of themselves they can’t see past their ego and then blind others with what they think is their wonderful message. It’s only more garbage.

Remember that lightning analogy Jesus uses? Remember that blink of an eye analogy Paul uses? It won’t take long for Jesus to take His own home with Him. Everyone will see Him, just like I can see the light from thunderstorms light up the sky all around my house no matter which direction the strikes happen. They are so brief, but in that moment, they turn the night into day. And just that quickly, one day I’ll be caught up in the air with Him when He comes again. 

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.

Be careful in these days! (Matthew 24:11-12) June 1, 2016

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Today’s Podcast

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Today’s Bible reading plan:

Read it in a year – Psalms 63-65

see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)

Today’s Devotional

Matthew 24:11-12
Jesus: The love that they had for one another will grow cold because few will obey the law. False prophets will appear, many will be taken in by them, and the only thing that will grow is wickedness. There will be no end to the increase of wickedness.

What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?

How much should we concern ourselves with Jesus’ prophecy to His disciples about these end time happenings? What do we need to look for ourselves and how can we know if we are part of that group Jesus talks about or are we okay with God as we listen to His predictions? Have we let our love grow cold? Have we let ourselves be taken in by false prophets? Are we slipping into wickedness instead of righteousness?

Those are serious questions we need to answer for ourselves as we think of Jesus’ words today. So lets take a look at ourselves over the next few minutes.

Jesus says others will know His followers by our love for one another. But do I really love others? Do I help in times of need? Do I share their burdens with them not just in prayer, but in tangible ways so they recognize that I care for them as I would my flesh and blood brothers and sisters? Or has my love for fellow Christians become reduced to acquaintances at worship services and maintaining some friendships with the same few in my socio-economic level?

Do I really love the way Christ loved those that followed Him? Then a further question, do I love my enemies and pray for their salvation, their blessing, their success? Or do I do everything I can to trip them up, defeat them in some way, repudiate their character at every turn? Has my love grown cold?

How about the question of false teachers? Do I even know how to recognize false teachers when they come? There are a lot of good people in the world that are still lost. There are more that will twist and turn the scriptures to say what they want them to say for their benefit and forget the rest. Do I know how to recognize them and make sure I stay away from their teaching?

Do I listen to what teachers and prophets say and test it against God’s word to see if it really matches with the whole word of God? Do I test the validity of the prophet’s priciples and his life to see if he lives what he preaches? Do I check his behavior against God’s word to test the validity of how he lives the gospel in front of others? Do I follow a prophet because he makes me feel good or because his message sometimes convicts me and challenges me in areas of my life that need to become more Christlike?

I hear a lot of false prophets today that tell us a lot of things that don’t agree with God’s word. Sure they take a verse or two from His word, but they take it out of context and use it inappropriately and twist the whole tenor of God’s command to us to live holy and righteous lives. They ignore the whole of God’s word to focus on the few verses that appeal to them and lead others astray with them. Those are the false prophets Jesus talks about.

Satan did the same in the Garden of Eden with Adam when he talked about the tree of knowledge. Satan did the same thing with Jesus when he used the Psalms to entice Jesus to abandon the Father’s plan. The false prophets will use pieces and parts of scripture to entice us toward evil. So how do we know we might be subject to the teachings of false prophets? Test their teaching against the whole of God’s word. Put their single verses back into the context of God’s word. Don’t let a single verse of two dictate the flavor of the message, but rather understand the whole of God’s message.

How do you do that? Read His word! It’s only 1500 pages. That’s really not that long if you think about it. Read about four pages a day and you’ve read it in a year. Read and know God’s word and you will discern the difference between the false prophets and those proclaim the whole word of God.

What happens when we listen to and follow the false prophets that Satan sends? We experience an ever increasing growth in wickedness. Just look around and see the evidence of the false prophets’ work around us. Clearly wickedness is growing every day. Our abuse of drugs, sexual exploitation, human trafficking, the explosion of all kinds of vices throughout our country and the world. Can anyone possibly deny the growth of wickedness generation after generation since Jesus’ words to His disciples so long ago? And as He said, there will be no end of wickedness until He returns to stop it.

Should we concern ourselves with His words? Absolutely. Many will fall away. Can I fall away? I could if I fail to listen to Him and read His words and follow Him closely. So can you. Be careful in these days. 

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.

Beware false prophets (Matthew 7:15-20) February 3, 2016

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Today’s Podcast

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Today’s Bible reading plan:

Read it in a year – Psalms 12-18

see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)

Today’s Devotional

Matthew 7:15-20
Jesus: Along the way, watch out for false prophets. They will come to you in sheep’s clothing, but underneath that quaint and innocent wool, they are hungry wolves. But you will recognize them by their fruits. You don’t find sweet, delicious grapes growing on thorny bushes, do you? You don’t find delectable figs growing in the midst of prickly thistles. People and their lives are like trees. Good trees bear beautiful, tasty fruit, but bad trees bear ugly, bitter fruit. A good tree cannot bear ugly, bitter fruit; nor can a bad tree bear fruit that is beautiful and tasty. And what happens to the rotten trees? They are cut down. They are used for firewood. When a prophet comes to you and preaches this or that, look for his fruits: sweet or sour? rotten or ripe?

What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?

There are a lot of false prophets out there now days. They were around in Jesus’ time, thrived during the days of the early church, and keep on truckin’ today. In fact, if I read my Bible right, they will be around until Jesus comes again. And guess where they do their best work. If you guessed in the church, you’d be right. It’s sad, but true.

They come in with all the right words. They look religious. They quote long passages of scripture to prove their point. But when you look at their lives, they are empty shells with nothing inside. No real life. Nothing to show on the inside that would point anyone to Christ and His truth. Yet many will fall for their flattering words and mystic sounding phrases and follow them anywhere. Just look at the number of people that followed Jimmie Jones and David Koresh. Those two made national headlines because of the scores of people who died because of their false teaching, but there are dozens like them that don’t get the mass attention but are just as dangerous.

The false teachers typically pick a verse or two and blow it out of proportion to the rest of scriptures. They hang their hat on those few scriptures and build a religion around them. Then work to convince the ignorant that everyone else is wrong. I did say ignorant and it has nothing to do with IQ. It has to do with whether or not you study God’s word. Not the flavor of the month the false teachers give, but God’s word. Dare the false prophets to use any other translation than their own and see what happens. See, the beautiful thing about God’s Spirit working in the lives of His servants is that all the legitimate translations I’ve every read, and I’ve read about 30 of them through from cover to cover at this point, all say the same thing about God, Jesus, His Son, salvation by faith, good works as a demonstration of faith, a final judgment for all people who ever lived, an accountability for our actions, eternal destinations for those who believe in Jesus as the way of salvation and those who do not.

Every single translation I’ve read says the same things about those essential elements of the Christian faith. Without exception. So when someone tries to introduce something that contradicts the greater voice of all those translations that survived through centuries of scholarly criticism, I question the single voice. Those false prophets will try to twist scripture the same way Satan tried to twist scripture in his temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. The issue is, how do we discover the false teacher from the real thing?

The answer is simple. First, know the scriptures. Read God’s word and test what your teachers tell you. Go look it up for yourself. Put those thoughts and instructions back into the context of the whole Bible and the whole story or passage from which it came. Don’t let your teacher take a phrase or verse or two out of context and twist it around. Jeremiah 29:11 is one of my favorites for pointing out how we can twist scripture. It’s a great verse. Jeremiah gives the exiles a great promise from God: For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Eternal, “plans for peace, not evil, to give you a future and hope—never forget that.

What we seldom remember, is that God’s plans included continued exile for another 70 years, then only a small remnant of those who departed would return. Jeremiah wrote these words in around 570 BC. Israel didn’t have sovereign reign of their land again until the peace accords after World War II. That’s 2500 years before their future and hope of a sovereign nation came to fruition. So be careful what those prophets tell you. Go look it up! See what’s right! Listen to God more than you listen to man!

Second, look at the fruit of the teacher. Does he or she produce good fruit? Do you see the fruit of the spirit evident in his or her life? Do he have to fake it? Do his children tell you he’s the same person at home that he is at church? How does she treat those who work for her? Do you see good fruit there? How about at the grocery store and other places in public? Is he short with waitresses or does he treat them with the same gentle spirit you would expect from Jesus? What fruit do you see? It doesn’t take long for tree to show the kind of fruit it bears. Just look around and you’ll see it. Follow the good fruit bearer. You’ll be glad you did. 

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.

What’s not fair about living? (2 Peter 2), July 28, 2015

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Today’s Podcast

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Today’s Scriptures

Today’s Bible reading plans include:

Ready – 2 Peter 2

Set – Isaiah 55; 2 Peter 2

Go! – Isaiah 53-56; 2 Peter 2

2 Peter 2
1 Just as false prophets rose up in the past among God’s people, false teachers will rise up in the future among you. They will slip in with their destructive opinions, denying the very Master who bought their freedom and dooming themselves to destruction swiftly, 2 but not before they attract others by their unbridled and immoral behavior. Because of them and their ways, others will criticize and condemn the path of truth we walk as seedy and disreputable. 3 These false teachers will follow their greed and exploit you with their fabrications, but be assured that their judgment was pronounced long ago and their destruction does not sleep.
4 For God did not spare the heavenly beings who sinned, but He cast them into the dark pits of hell to be kept until the time of judgment; 5 and He did not spare the ancient world, but He sent a flood swirling over the ungodly (although He did save Noah, God’s herald for what is right, with seven other members of his family); 6 and God condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, reducing them to ash as a lesson of what He will do with the ungodly in the days to come 7-8 (although again He did rescue Lot, a person who did what was right in God’s eyes and who was distressed by the immorality and the lawlessness of the society around him. Day after day, the sights and sounds of their lawlessness were like daggers into that good man’s soul). 9 If all this happened in the past, it shows clearly the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from their trials and how to hold the wicked in punishment until the day of judgment.
10 And above all, it shows He will punish those who let the desires of their bodies rule them and who have no respect for authority. People like this are so bold and willful that they aren’t even afraid of offending heavenly beings, 11 although the heavenly messengers—in spite of the fact that they have greater strength and power—make no such accusations against these people before the Lord. 12 These people who speak ill of what they do not understand are no different from animals—without sense, operating only on their instincts, born to be captured and killed—and they will be destroyed just like those animals, 13 receiving the penalty for their evil acts. They waste their days in parties and carousing. As they feast with you, these stains and blemishes on your community are feasting on their deceptions. 14 Their eyes are always looking for their next adulterous conquests; their appetites for sin cannot be satisfied. They seduce the unwary soul, and greed is the only lesson they have learned by heart. God’s curse lies upon them. 15 They have veered off the right road and gotten lost, following in the steps of Balaam, the son of Beor, the false prophet. Balaam loved the reward he could get by doing evil, 16 but he was rebuked for crossing the line into sin; his own speechless donkey scolded him in a human voice, an amazing miracle that reined in the prophet’s insanity.
17 These people I’m talking about are nothing but dried-up springs, mists driven by fierce winds; the deepest darkness has been set aside for them. 18 They speak in loud voices empty and arrogant. They exploit the desires of the flesh, take advantage of sensual natures, to entangle people who have just escaped from those who live by deception. 19 They claim to offer them freedom, but they themselves are enslaved by corruption because whatever a person gives in to soon becomes his master. 20 Those who have been pulled out of the cesspool of worldly desires through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus, the Anointed One, yet have found themselves mired in it again are worse off than they were before. 21 They would have been better off never knowing the way of righteousness than to have known it and then abandoned the sacred commandment they had previously received and dived back into the muck! 22 In their cases, the words from Proverbs hold true: “The dog goes back to his own vomit,” and as the Greeks say, “The sow is washed to wallow in the mud.”

Today’s Devotional

From today’s background scripture God might say:

False prophets have been around since I created the first beings with creative intelligence. Even some of My messengers, created to serve Me, thought they could become more powerful than Me and learned the hard way they could not. I threw those who sinned against Me into the pits of hell for their disobedience.

False prophets in Noah’s day caused me to destroy all mankind except Noah and his family as they led people astray from worshiping Me. False prophets throughout history turned people away from Me with their convincing lies and appealing appearance. I always give you a choice as to whether you will follow Me. I don’t plead and push. It’s your choice and I will honor it.

The one area in which I withhold My power is at the point of your moral choice. You can choose to follow Me or follow the lies of the world. There are false prophets alive and well today. They tell you I’m not real. They tell you as a God of love I would never allow anyone to spend eternity in hell separated from Me. They tell you I will save everyone because of My love. They tell you the stories of My wrath are not true or at least that side of Me has changed since I came in the flesh and sacrificed Myself for you.

The false prophets tell you a lot of things. Don’t believe them. I am the same today as I was at creation. I am still slow to anger and personify love. But I am also a God of justice and wrath because I am holy. Sin must be punished. I paid that penalty, but the covenant into which you enter to benefit from My sacrifice is not a one sided contract. Like all contracts and covenants, you must be obedient to Me. You must carry out your part of the covenant. Otherwise, the consequences of the contract will be executed.

You see, I’m God. I made you. We have a contract, you and I. I’ve fulfilled My part. You can choose to fulfill your part and follow Me or you can accept the penalties that come. Your choice. You think the game’s not fair? Well, you can try to make it on your own, but how will you make food without Me? How will you make water without Me? How will you make the air you breathe without Me? I guess I get to make the rules since I provide all your sustinence. But I do let you choose how you want to play. I just want you to make the right choice. 

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.