The Enemy Within

As I was reading my devotions yesterday morning, it struck me that Jesus warned us to beware of the Pharisees and Sadducees. He didn’t caution His followers of the publicans and sinners, but rather to be on guard for the religious crowd. One thing that can be said about a sinner is “what you see is what you get.” This is not so in professing Christendom. Many times we find wolves parading themselves as God’s sheep. They look good on the outside, but these “white-washed tombs” are full of dead men’s bones.

How many Christians with means have been taken in by one of these religious charlatans? Good and godly young ladies, in their innocence, have been seduced by one of these black hearts who wear a white vest. Scores of young preacher boys have lost their faith in the midst of a Bible School, under the tutelage of one of these deceiving devils. And only God knows the number of His people that are sitting under religious externalists every Sunday, listening to a man emphasize the importance of the husk, while refusing to recognize the value of the inner kernel. Paul preached, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

You can always spot the doctrine of the Pharisees and Sadducees: their one main concern is how others see you, while never troubling themselves to inform God’s people that the important thing is how God sees them.

“Therefore it is of no great thing if his [Satan’s] ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness.”