Thought of the Day !!

Don't let anyone mislead you, for many will come in my name, claiming, "I am the Messiah," and saying, "The time has come!" But don't believe them.
Luke 21:8 (NLT)

Jesus prophesied that their would be false teachers. They often come in the form of charismatic speakers who form their own cults or just pull people away from the Truth of Christ Jesus. Some will go as far as claiming to be the Messiah. David Koresh called himself the Son of God and Lamb of God. Jim Jones believed himself to be the reincarnation of Jesus. There is a guy in Florida now growing a group of disciples and one in the Philippines who already has thousands fooled, both of which claim to be Jesus.

There will also be those who make the claim that they know when the end of time is coming. Joseph Smith of the Mormon faith, Ellan White (7th Day Adventist) and the Jehovah's Witnesses all predicted the end of time, none of which came about. Most recently Harold Camping, a self-proclaimed Bible teacher, predicted the end would come on May 11 of this year. There were billboards bought and a lot of news coverage about it. When it didn't happen, he claimed "Oops, I miscalculated. It's actually October 11." Since October I haven't heard anything about him.

The point I make is that Jesus said that there would be false teachers that would come to the vulnerable, those who've lost hope or forgotten it because of difficult times. These false teachers would be used by Satan to lead people astray and give false hope. We must be careful not to be fooled by them. We also must make sure that we don't read into the Bible what we want it to say and then teach others our opinions, stating them as fact. Otherwise we become the false teachers ourselves.

In the love of Christ,
greg