False prophets.
I. OFFICIAL TEACHERS MAY BE FALSE TEACHERS. The false prophets belonged to the recognized order of prophets. No rank in the Church confers infallibility. Popes have been heretics. The authority of a teacher must be sought in his message, not in his office. It is our duty to try the spirits by their correspondence with known revelation (1 John 4:2), by the fruits of their lives and doctrines (Matthew 7:16), and by the standard of our own conscience (2 Corinthians 4:2).
II. PREACHING WHICH IS NOT INSPIRED BY THE DIVINE SPIRIT OF HOLINESS IS LIKELY BE FALSE. The prophet may have a piercing intellect and a towering imagination. Yet he will err if he be blinded by unholiness and excluded from the revelations of spiritual communion. He speaks only out of his own heart; but the heart is "deceitful above all things." Attempts are constantly made to evolve religious truth out of the inner consciousness of the thinker. No idle dreams are more delusive, since
III. CONSCIOUSLY TEACHING FALSE IDEAS OF RELIGION IS A HEINOUS CRIME. It is using the Name of God in vain (Jeremiah 14:14). It is abusing the trust of a high office for low purposes. It is likely to involve many in the toils of a fatal deception. It is easy to prophesy smooth things—easy thus to gain a vulgar popularity. But if this is done at the expense of truth, it is an awful sin. All Christian teachers should beware of the temptation to degrade their mission by aiming at pleasing their hearers instead of faithfully proclaiming the will of God.
IV. FALSE TEACHING IN RELIGION WILL BE PUNISHED BY FATAL RESULTS. It ought to be clear to everybody that the first question concerning any teaching is whether it is true. Yet this question is often ignored. The prophet is eloquent; the doctrine is pleasing; the prediction is inviting. But what of all that if it is false? The prophecy will be punished when truth is revealed by facts. Then the false prophet will suffer by the fulfillment in himself of the prophecy he denied, and the people by the coming of the evil day they were too ready to hear discredited.