All Show and No Go
“Great sorrow awaits you religious scholars and Pharisees—frauds and imposters! You are nothing more than tombs painted over with white paint—tombs that look shining and beautiful on the outside but filled with rotting corpses on the inside. Matthew 23:27 (The Passion Translation, TPT)
Having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! II Timothy 3:5 (NKJV)
These are days of great deception. There are people of influence in the world, and even in the body of Christ, who appear good, but are empty spiritually. They talk good and look good, but they operate in no spiritual authority. They are like sleek sports cars that look shiny and impressive on the outside, but inside, they are running on a lawn mower engine. They are not what they present themselves to be and are without any real power. They’re all show and no go. The Bible tells us to stay away from these people. To do so, we must be discerning and in tune with the Holy Spirit… and we must know our Bible.
On any given Sunday we could walk into any church and, on the surface, things appear to be fine. However, it is important to go beyond appearances and pay attention to our church leaders to make sure they are teaching truth and are not leading their sheep astray. A feel-good message every week might encourage us for a while, but we must be taught, fed, and built up on the meat of the Word so we can be strong and fight the good fight of faith. And the miracle-working power of God should be in operation in the house of God. If it isn’t, you need to take a closer look to find out why. We need to make sure our ministers are living godly lives and are not being hypocrites like the Pharisees were. And we must stay sensitive to the Lord because He will let us know when things are not right in a church or with a spiritual leader. And when He does, we need to have the strength of character to leave and go somewhere else. Yes, we can go to them in love and try to bring them back to the truth, but if they will not listen, we must move on.
The closer we get to the end of the age, the more deception will be loosed on the earth. The Bible teaches us to be alert and be watchful for those who teach error or who twist the truth. We must know what the Bible teaches so we aren’t taken in by those who are in error. We have to have our own relationship with the Word of God so we will not be led astray. We must adhere to the fundamental, foundational doctrines that the early church embraced.
When someone teaches anything that questions the deity of Jesus Christ, denies the virgin birth or the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, run from them like they are contaminated- because they are. We cannot allow ourselves to become influenced by them. Know the truth, live by the truth, and stay away from those in the Body of Christ who do not.
