Be Still And Know

Matthew 7:15–16 “Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves. You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act.”  False prophets make an appearance in both the Old and New Testaments. Jeremiah had a particular problem with them. He believed that he was called by God to inform the people that, unless they turned back to him, a foreign nation would sweep over them and take them into exile. This was not the message that people wanted to hear. They much preferred the soothing words of the false prophets who prophesied that all would be well because they had the Lord’s Temple. But Jeremiah’s words were true and, in due course, the Babylonians attacked Jerusalem and took the Lord’s people off into exile. False prophets were a continual challenge in the early Church; Jesus sought to prepare his followers to meet them. What they needed to know was how to spot a false prophet. Jesus warned that there would be teachers who would come among t