Watch out: Be on your guard

See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.       Colossians 2:8                       

P.T. Barnum, the circus magnate, built a career on the assumption that people like to be fooled. He had a point. I’ve been thinking of the number of times when Jesus said, “Watch out!” or “Be on guard,” and His comments covered a wide variety of situations and issues. For example, He told the crowd that had gathered to hear Him on the slopes of Galilee to “watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves” (Matthew 7:15).

God knew that we needed something by which we can evaluate and measure movements, people and circumstances. This is why He gave us an infallible guide for faith and practice. It’s the sixty-six books of the Bible. In the garden, shortly before He went to the cross, Jesus said, “Thy word is truth!” (John 17:17 KJV).

If your really “watch out” as Jesus commanded, and you are on your guard as Paul added, you don’t embrace everyone and everything you hear. Yes, on occasion people might say, “You are judging!” Judgment, believed Dan Krusich, one of my seminary professors, is condemning what Scripture does not condemn whereas discernment is simply the recognition that something or someone’s conduct doesn’t conform to what God says in His Word. 

Paul told Timothy that one of the signs of the lateness of the hour is that people will be deceived, and surely that day is upon us. If being alert and awake means you are thought of as being bigoted or judgmental, then so be it. Only be certain that you come down on the side of truth and not merely your opinion that you take for the truth.

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. Romans 8:1-4