You Never Know

“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.  Ye shall know them by their fruits…”  Matthew 7:15-16a

Up until a few months ago when my clock radio sounded at 5:50 a.m. on Sunday mornings, I heard the last ten minutes of a program featuring a financial counselor who offered some really good tips about finances.  He had his own financial advising firm, a website, and he always ended his program by saying, “Life is so much more than money.”  He had stated from time to time that he was formerly a youth pastor at a church, and that his wife had suffered through a serious illness in the past.  He also said that he was the father of a couple of children.  He was not an employee of the radio station, but bought time in which to air his program.  He sounded like what I would call “a good guy”.  I had used him as an example in a previous blog.

Lately I have noticed that he was no longer on the radio on Sunday morning.  I assumed that he had given it up and moved on to other things.  Well, he definitely moved on to other things.  I heard yesterday on the same radio station that he was on the run with the authorities looking for him because he had bilked millions of dollars from folks using a Ponzi scheme which lures investors into putting money into an enterprise which really doesn’t exist.  The return on the money that the first folks invest is provided by later investors.  It is pretty obvious that this scheme can’t go on forever.  Well, apparently his sins found him out.  People say when hearing something about someone that they didn’t expect to hear, “Well, you never know”, but most of the time the truth is revealed eventually, and that person that we thought was genuine in his or her faith turns out to be a counterfeit, and we are left disappointed and disillusioned.

There is a well-known actress who was shamed by her fraternizing with the enemy during wartime in the late 1960’s or early 1970’s.  Many years later, she claimed to have become a believer in Jesus Christ, but in some of the statements that she has made publicly and in some of the activities in which she has been involved are both ungodly and anti-scriptural.  There is a young woman who is a singer who was not ashamed to speak of her faith in Christ, yet, when she has appeared on different awards programs, her dress was not very modest.  I know that entertainers for some reason feel the need to show as much flesh as the FCC will allow (which is a lot more than they allowed in the past), but I have always thought that if actors and musicians had a real gift in the talent that they possessed, then why dress provocatively?  Good talent doesn’t need skimpy outfits.  And, of course, we are all hearing about the major politician who claims to be a Catholic, but is very pro-abortion.

I remember several years ago there was a man with whom my sister-in-law owned a business.  He was a believer, but his language was peppered with four letter words.  My sister-in-law tried to excuse it by claiming that cursing was what the men who worked for him understood, and for him to speak in a more inoffensive way would make the men uncomfortable or make them think he was presenting himself as “holier than thou”.  Folks can rationalize just about any kind of behavior.  If a person has truly repented of his or her sin and has placed his or her faith in Christ, then he or she is a Christian.  He or she will go to heaven when they pass away.  None of us are perfect, especially me.

However, when a person commits his or her life to Christ, there must be a change in how they speak and act.  The desire to follow a pattern of life which is no different than the way they lived before becoming a Christian indicates either a lack of seriousness about their conversion or the lack of a conversion.  Jesus said in II Corinthians 6:16-17 that believers are the temple of the living God, His people, and they are to separate themselves from those patterns of sin and idolatry that the rest of the world finds so attractive and addictive.  In the featured verse above, Jesus was specifically speaking of false prophets who sway people with lies and promises of what they can never produce with the intention of misleading them away from Christ.  However, a person doesn’t have to be a false prophet to mislead folks.  All he or she has to do is to say one thing and do another.  When believers speak and behave as people who love the Lord and desire to honor and bless Him, the pattern of their lives gives hope to those who do not know Christ and shows them a better way to live.  As previously stated, no one is perfect, but a true believer in Jesus Christ should strive for excellence in how he or she lives his or her life because folks are paying attention whether we know it or not.