Be Wise

DEVOTION

ROMANS

BE WISE

Rom 16:17-20

17 I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. 18 For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people. 19 Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I am full of joy over you; but I want you to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil.

20 The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.

NIV

There are a lot of voices out there screaming for our attention. Good sounding voices, many with silver tongues. Eloquent speakers, dramatic looking settings, familiar names to many believers. Still they be may a cause for division among the church. Some of them are simply charlatans seeking to live a lavish lifestyle, serving their own appetites, off the offerings of believers. Many are not charlatans but are merely false teachers. There are a few who might be teaching sound doctrine, but it still is different than what we believe based on our interpretation or the statement of faith of the denomination we have agreed with and became a member. The fact is we should listen to only one voice, the shepherd God has called to be the pastor of our local church. This is why we have so much scripture regarding the sheep knowing the voice of their shepherd. In the times of Jesus there were common sheep pens dotting the countryside. At night several shepherds would gather their sheep together in the pen, usually having a wall made of stones, with on way in, or a gateway. They would sleep in this gateway to keep wild animals from entering the pen. In the morning one of the shepherds would call his sheep and just his sheep would come out of the pen to fellow him, they knew only his voice. This is the principle we are being admonished to follow. Not to listen to those other voices that would split up the herd. We have the Good Shepherd, Jesus and his is the way, the only way. He has also called us out of the pen of the world and we follow his voice. We have so many voices wanting us to follow them. How can we be sure they are speaking the same voice as our shepherd? We are to be wise and test everything against the word, Jesus. We are to be wise about what is good and innocent and what is evil. We know any voice of the world is evil, there are no good voices of the world, and every voice of the world is based on the fact that God said every inclination of their heart is bent toward evil all the time. We cannot listen to more than one voice, if we attempt to listen to more than one then we will live in confusion and we know God is not the God of confusion. So we need to watch out we are not distracted by some fine sounding doctrine which can be off base from the truth. Just because those voices have a large following and maybe written a plethora of books does not make them our shepherd, but only the voice of a stranger. We know many will be deceived in the last days, so we are being warned to be wise and know what is good and what is evil. The Spirit gives us discernment to know the difference, but we have to pay attention to him, and not our own appetite. Watch out! We can be sure the God of peace will crush Satan, all that is evil, under our feet.