I'd like to have you turn to a verse that's due in the third chapter of the official to the Philippians. Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord for right the same thing to you. To me, indeed, it's not grievous, but for you it is safe. Beware of dogs. Beware of evil workers. Beware of the concisions. I'm sure you know that in this very pregnant chapter it gives us the picture of the Christian life as the Apostle Paul presents it to us from his own experience. And of course his experience was indeed a truly, exemplary Christian one. In the epistle of the Philippians, he presents the Christian life in its normality, in its normal character. And you notice that in this chapter he gives a complete view of the Christian life. In fact, he starts at his birth. He tells you, taking a backward look that he was circumcised the eighth day. In other words, he has reference to his coming into the world. Then he definitely refers to the day he was saved. For he says in verse seven, what things were gained to be those I counted lost for Christ. He puts it in the past tense, and he's referring to the tremendous decision he made the day he trusted Christ. As he says in the book of Acts, he says, talking to King Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision, but when Christ appears to him in the glory, he obeys that vision and that voice, and took a most momentous decision. He says, I counted all things, the things I once boasted and was so proud of, I counted them lost for Christ. Therefore he takes a backward look to the day of his conversion. Then he goes on to speak of his Christian life, of the course that he's treading, telling us that for those many years Christ had been real to him. He was still pressing on. to the end of the way for the prize of the calling on I of God in Christ Jesus. And he winds up the chapter, of course, with the conclusion of the course, and that is the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ to take him and the rest of us home to heaven. So that the chapter gives you a distinct picture of the Christian life from the start to the end. And I have just felt that during this week I might spend a little time with you in looking at some of the wonderful features presented in this chapter. They're very practical. It just so happens that this evening, a good deal that I'm going to say, will coincide considerably with the message you heard this morning. It won't be presented as graphically, I'm sure, but it will have the same thoughts, the same ideas in general, to bring before you. Now, I am not normally one of those peaceful orators that uses peace. But in this chapter, I think I'll spend a little time with you by looking at some of the P's in this chapter. They say one of those peaceful authors is a pest, so you'll have to let me be a pest this week. We're going to speak on, I think, five P's, or very distinctly present in this chapter. First of all, we were reading this evening of the peril of the Christian past. In the second verse, the Apostle Paul three times over uses that word, beware. So you have the perils of the Christian life. Next you have the passion of the Apostle's soul. Third you have the purpose of his life. Fourth the past, the past that he proud, and finally the prospect of the coming of the Lord Jesus. And I hope that God by his fervor will help us, will help me and you in appreciating some of the precious things suggested in this very precious chapter. You notice it begins. The Apostle Paul begins this chapter and strikes a note that he strikes very frequently in his writings. He begins by urging the Christian to be a happy Christian. He says, Find me, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. For lies the same thing to you that he said it before. And he says it again in the next chapter. He urges the Christians to realize that proper being, that proper life. For the life of the Christian is a life of joy. It is just simply natural for the Christian to be happy. He ought to be nothing else but happy. He has every possible reason under heaven to be happy. Rejoice. No one has such reason to be glad as he that has been redeemed by blood as the hymns have. I believe a happy Christian is one of the most powerful testimonies to the saving grace of God and one of the greatest aids to the honor and glory of the Lord Jesus Christ in this world. We all know that the world has the idea that when you become a Christian, you lose your joy. And we know of principle because the exact opposite is truth. only we don't always show it. And that's why the failure comes in, and Paul knew that, and God knows it. So he urges us again and again to rejoice. I for myself naturally haven't got a very happy face, I guess. My wife almost tells me I look too solemn. More or less like the boy who went to Philip's visit his grandfather in the country, and his grandfather was a very solemn old Christian or a professing Christian. And whenever the boy did anything or got a little exuberant, the old man would tell him not to act that way. That's not Christian-like, to be so full of life. And so forth. Calm down a little bit. Well, one day the boy was out in the yard, and the old man had a donkey, and this boy stroked the donkey's head, a very solemn-looking donkey, and he said, You're a good Christian. You look just like grandpa. Now, it ought not to be that way, of course, with us. On the other hand, you don't need always to smile. You go up to some offices and say, smile, smile, smile. But if you're always smiling, of course, there's something wrong too. The only person I ever met that was always smiling was a lunatic. So, don't always be smiling. There are lots of reasons for not smiling. But there's no reason, whatever, in Kathar scripture goes, for not rejoicing in the Lord. Rejoice. And you notice it says, rejoice. in the world. We were, I think, reminded this morning that circumstances are not to be our strength, the joy is. Sometimes people are under the circumstances. We were told and had no business to be there. Sometimes they're above the circumstances. Circumstances oftentimes make people happy. And when circumstances are not so proficient, people are unhappy. God knows that too. And so He urges us not to find our joy in things. But in him, look what then it says, rejoice in the Lord. It doesn't merely mean that we are happy only when we think of the Lord. That means in the Lord and all that's connected with him, all the blessing he brings to us, all the riches of his grace, all the preciousness of his own person, everything that's associated and connected with the Lord Jesus Christ is where we are to find our joy. Rejoice in the Lord. Let's remember not in things merely. Well, you say, well, it's not necessary to say it, but you and I would be amazed to find our subconsciously, we often place our joy or find our rest in things. And God warns against it, because when things go wrong, we'll lose our joy. I like to tell the story of a... One of those Eastern tales, as tells you, one of those Eastern kings was very unhappy, and one of his wise men told him that all he needed to be to be perfectly happy is to wear the shirt of a perfectly happy man. So he sent his courteous out all throughout his realm, and finally way in the mountains, fast and summer, way back in the wild, they found an old shepherd who seemed to be perfectly happy, and they were so glad that they reached the end of their search. But the trouble was when they asked for a shirt, they thought the old man didn't even own a shirt. And because the moral of the story is that he could be perfectly happy and not own a shirt. And he could be perfectly unhappy and own everything on earth. And a Christian especially ought to know that, that his joy is not found in circumstances or in things. The Christian's joy is found in Christ of all that's associated with him. And if that's where you find your joy, it will be an even, settled joy. Because while circumstances change, Christ never changes. While circumstances vary, the Lord Jesus Christ is ever the same. And all the precious, eternal blessings that His grace has brought to us are unchangeably and unchangingly the same. So that We find a deep joy in rejoicing with others. As I said, joy for the Christians is the normal thing. We normally should be happy. You no doubt have often heard it said that the first time you read the word song in Scripture is when the people of Israel stood on the shore of the Red Sea where their enemies, dead, drowned in the Red Sea, death, sang the children of Israel this song. Not only when they had been redeemed by the blood, but when they had been redeemed by the water, when they had been passing through the Red Sea, not only when they had gotten rid of the judgment of God, but gotten rid of the power of their enemies. And they sang with joy. And the Christian has been set free by simple faith in Christ from the judgment of his sins. He's been sheltered by the blood. And at the same time, Scripture tells us in no uncertain terms, that we've been set free from the power of the enemy, that the Christian is free indeed, the liver from all power, and henceforth a free person, saved by the matchless grace of God and set free, henceforth not to live for himself, but for the one who dies for him and rose again. You remember Galatians chapter five tells us in the twenty-second verse that the fruit of the Spirit, among other things, is joy. Love, joy, peace, all our might. We as Christians have to be joyful for it. And I say again that joy is always there. It may not always appear so manifestly, for there are times of sorrow that come into the Christian's life. You remember it says in the Epistle of Peter that though now for a seizure, if need be, or in heaviness, or in sorrow, for the word is sorrow, for manifold temptations, that the trial of your faith, being tried by fire, might be found as a praise and honor, as a glory, as the appearing of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen, ye loved, in whom they will now see and not yet believe, in ye rejoice, with joy unspeakable, and full of glory. It tells you that while the Christian is in sorrow, at the same time he has a joy that's unspeakable. Haven't you often found that? I find it quite impossible to express the deep-seated joy in the soul. You feel so utterly inadequate to say it. It's unspeakable. It's a joy that is founded on the immovable foundation of God's matchless grace. given to us, brought to us through the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul says in another place, sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. And you can be quite sure, he wasn't always smiling, he wasn't always going about, showing a joyful experience, but he was joyful in his soul and the restful peace that he had undoubtedly would become visible to others around him. And of course, joy is a wonderful thing, like it says in the book of Nehemiah, you'll remember, the eighth chapter of Nehemiah, it says in verse ten, that the joy of the Lord is your strength. That is, power in a Christian life is found in his joy in the Lord. A lot of things too. But the joy of the Lord is your strength. A Christian, that's not a happy, is not a strong Christian. His testimony is weak. But if he's happy in the Lord, then indeed he can be a bright and happy Christian. So then let's take this home to ourselves. Rejoice in the Lord. Now in the next verse, the Apostle Paul warns against free peril that will imperil joy in the Lord. Quite evidently, because he just said in the first verse, Rejoice in the Lord. And then he says, and for you it's safe, it's something that safeguards you. And then next he says, beware. Suggesting that those three things he mentions under, beware are things that will love the Christian if he lets them of his joy. And I'm sure when you look at them you'll realize how true that is to everyday life. In your own experience and in your contact with others, people lose their joy. The devil loves them of their joy because of these three things. And I would like to suggest to you But in these three things, each time the beware is in relation to what Satan would like to do in robbing you of the joy of the Lord, and it's in relation to the upset, the Word of God has upon your life and mine. It reminds me of that verse in Jeremiah chapter fifteen, which you all know well, I'm sure, the sixteenth verse, where Jeremiah says, Thy words were found, and I did eat them, and Thy word was unto me the joy and the rejoicing of my heart. The joy of the Lord remains real to us only as if they're stimulated and kept aflame by our appreciation of all that God is and all God has done for us, and we find that in the Scriptures. And the devil knows that too. And so he will rob you of your joy by somehow or other, turning you away from the Word of God. And I believe these three bewares all have that idea in view. It's what a lack of appreciation or turning away from the Word of God will do in robbing you of your joy. There's nothing more important in a believer's life than to make sure that his food and drink is the Word of God. That's not all you do, but you must not pass a day without feeding on God's Word or meditating upon it, because that's where the danger comes in. Now, first of all, he says, Beware of dogs. And I think most of us know that the Bible applies that term. The Jews applied it to the Gentiles. They looked at contempt upon the Gentiles. They were nominally the people of God, and the Gentiles were the outcasts, even in their estimations. and they gave them the contemptuous term of dogs. But I believe in this passage it's not merely applied to Gentiles, it's God's use of it. And I believe it means that any unsaved person is figured and pictured under this expression of a dog. A dog was an unclean animal in the sight of God. The unsaved are unclean. They're not pure. And so when he says, Beware of dogs, he's simply saying this. He says, Beware. of association with the world, because the dogs are the unsaved. One way the devil will rob you of your joy is by getting to associate with this world, in one way or another. Like Paul says in Corinthians chapter fifteen, evil communications, or evil context corrupt, good manners. So beware of God's eyesake, it is a warning against association with the world. Now remember, God warns the believers. Through the Apostle John, for instance, in his official, second chapter of the first epistle, he says, love not the world. Neither things ever in the world. If any man loved the world, the love of the Father is not in him. There is a warning against loving the world. Now when God says love not the world, the plain idea, of course, is that the world is lovable. You don't have to tell a person not to love something that's most unlovable. And so when God says, love not the world, he's suggesting that there's a gradient in this world that's extremely attractive. You probably know that the Greek word, translated world, the word cosmos, literally means beauty, or orderly arrangement, beauty. When God made the world, he made it a beautiful world. And in spite of all the sin that's committed to the world, it's still a beautiful world. The scenery is beautiful. You're thrilled by it, as you see the scenery. I often wonder what it must have been before sin came in. How amazingly beautiful it must have been. I remember hearing a humorous story one day on our Adam and Cain came home from work sweating out in the fields and had passed a magnificent estate, paradise. And Cain said to his father, Dad, why don't we live there? It's a magnificent place, and Adam said, we did live there, but your mother ate us out of house and home. Well, anyway, it was a magnificent place, undoubtedly. In spite of the sin that's come into the world, the world is still so magnificently beautiful. It's beauty that God created, and not only the trees and the flowers and the grass, but the ladies. I'll look at a beautiful girl and say, what must a woman have looked like before she came in? She's so magnificent. Because I don't know how she looks before the makeup, but the way I see it. And by the way, when the girls put on makeup, they put on cosmetics. And it comes from the word cosmetics means beauty treatment. And the word comes from the world. It's the way the world does. Put on. When there isn't very much a million of you understand? I'm not finding all the ladies putting on cosmetics, but the Bible says, don't emphasize that too much. Not the outward adorning. The outward, and the word adorning there again, is the word cosmos. Not the outward beauty of place in the air, but the inward beauty of a character that pleases God, the hidden man of the heart. But anyway, when I see a very beautiful young girl, I marvel. as the magnificent power of God that can create something so attractive. And when God says, love not the world, he's saying to a Christian, here is the girl that's worth loving. Very beautiful, but she's unstable. Love not the world. There's a great attraction, therefore, to love the world. But the girl, the Lord says, don't do this. Love not the world. and Satan will get a Christian and threat by getting associated with an unbeliever when God's word warns against us. Beware of God. Beware the association with those who do not belong to the Lord. Or you are a Christian girl and he comes along, tall, dark and handsome, everything you could possibly wish. But he's no Christian. He has no use for Christ. God says, don't love us. Love not the world. A young girl said to me sometime, but I shall not help if I shall not fall in love with him. I ought to know him, you can't get away with that. When God says, love not the world, it's just the same as when he says, thou shalt not steal. Now, when God says, I shall not steal, well, I couldn't help it. I just fell in love with that bank. And wrong. You can't do it. It is just as wrong to love when God says not, or it is to steal when God says not. This was wrong. Let's face the issue. Love not the world. And God says it because it's so attractive, the attraction between the sexes that God warns against us, if the one is saved and the other is not saved. Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. And sometimes the world looks beautiful to us, for our eyes sometimes aren't as clear as they should be. We see something attractive in the world that if you could look at a little closer by, you'll find it's very deceiving. Sin often is very attractive, for there is a harvest of sorrow and shame that isn't so attractive. Some person commits the sin of immorality and maybe has to be wailed at all his life long for a few moments of illegal pleasure. They suffer the sorrows of years and all lifetime things with it. We were reminded of that too. You can have your sins forgiven, but God may not stop the consequences of the sin. but it may stay with you for all the rest of your life. Sometimes things look attractive and they're deceptive. Beware of God, he says. Beware of association with the world. I don't know whether any of you hear that way, but I've had to repeatedly ask of me. Years ago, perhaps more than lately, but I've asked of me by young people, what do you think about this? You think it is wrong for a Christian to go here or to do that? What they're actually wanting to know is how close can they come to doing wrong without doing it? How close can they come to disobeying God without disobeying? There isn't wrong. And I always answer them this way. Why don't you ask me, is it wrong to go to a prayer meeting? You don't ask me because you know it isn't wrong. And so when you want to, is it wrong to this? Because you have doubts in your mind. That's why you're asking it. And if you have doubts in your mind, don't do it. Whether you don't know what to do, don't do it. Don't try to see how close you can get to sin. See how far you can get away from it. A young girl was asked one time, or a group of people, the girl's going to a coal mine. She was asked to go along to see the inside of a coal mine. Most of them, when they came to the top, to the shaft to go down, they're dressed in common clothes, but this lady came in a white dress. And a man of a Sephardi Saddam said, Lady, she ought not to wear a white dress, and kind of petulantly she said, Can't I wear a white dress down into a coal mine? Oh, she says, yes, you can. But I can tell you one thing, you won't wear it out. You'll wear it down in, but you'll come, won't come out with a white dress. She wanted to ski, whether she could be in touch with dirt and stay clean, but you can't do that. Beware of God, that is, beware of any contact with the things of this world or this world, because they will defile you. Don't live your life, seeing how close you can come to love, but see how close you can come to pleasing Him, who has redeemed you by expression of blood. The illustration is told of a lady, a wealthy lady, who advertised years ago for a coachman to drive her fair horsemen and her carriage. And as each one was brought before, separately, one by one, she asked him, after several other questions, she asked him one inevitable question, how close can you drive a team of horses to the edge of a deep precipice? And one man would say, boastfully, I could do it within a foot and be perfectly safe. Finally, one man said within two inches, and finally she said to one man, how close can you drive to a precipice? He says, madam, I don't know. I keep away from the stars I know how. And that's the man she hired, of course. If she didn't, she was a fool. She hired the one who kept away from the trouble. And you and I are told in God's words that keep away from the trouble. Beware of God. Now, always remember, when I was a child, my mother had twelve children, ten, nine boys and three girls. And when she wandered one of us, you know, in the excitement, she'd be only called about six days before she hit the right one. If she wandered me, finally, back to me, I remember time and again saying, I'm not doing anything wrong, which I usually was. I'm not doing anything wrong, and she said, maybe not, but you're not doing anything. I want you for something. And you see, your Christian life is not what you can get away from. It's what you can get into. It's not how far you can get from sin, or how close you can get to sin, but how close you can get to Christ. How close your life can be, live for His praise and for His glory. That should be the purpose of the Christian. You know, young people, for they are tempted, I understand, very often. Something like in this way, for instance, they're going to high school and some boy will offer a young fella a cigarette and say, why don't you smoke one? You never smoked before. It's quite a thrill, you know, to be able to smoke. And he's tempted. And you know that young fella may be saying, no, I won't. No, thank you. I'm not interested in learning. And then he says, oh, you're chicken, eh? I understand that's a very popular question there, you're chicken. Well, I'll just be chicken. Because if you take the cigarette, by and by, you'll be a dead chicken. And it's better to be a live chicken than a dead one. You'll be spiritually dead if you're a Christian. If you allow statements that tempt you in that subtle way, it is the uncle's wish into all that will drive you away from God and make the word of God less effective to you. You know it says, beware of God. And I understand when it says, beware of God, it doesn't mean of their tail. See, I think it means their mouth, don't you? When I see a sign at the gate beware of the dog, I don't think they mean it on to beware of its color or its tail, but of its bite. And you know, when dogs bite, you know what you're asked to get? A disease called hydrophobia. It's composed of two very simple Greek words. Hydrophobia is water, and phobia is fear. So hydrophobia means fear of water. Now you remember, water is a type of the Word of God. And so when you are bitten by the bug of this word, you turn away from the Word of God. You learn to fear the water. You don't want it anymore. They say hydrophobia has that peculiar feature that an animal craves water and yet turns away from it. And a soul that's away from God, a Christian that's drifted away in the world in it, in his inmost souls craves the things of God and yet turns away from it. He shall afflict with the disease of hydrophobia. Beware of God, she said, because it will make you turn away from the word of God. It will kill your appetite for the word of God. I've seen it hundreds of times, and I've proven it the last time, sorry to say, in my own experience, time and again, that a little drifting away from God will make the Word of God become absolutely faceless to me. It's been that way for us. I've heard people say, time and again, oh, I have no interest. Christians are clearly Christians. At least there seems to be. You aren't invited to come to me. I'm no interested in the things that are so dry and dead. There's nothing to it. And yet we are studying God's precious words, but they have no influence. And I shall have always that which I'm sure you've heard me say before, some of you. I was brought up in the home where there were twelve children. And we all had good appetites. And food was very expensive when I was in Holland. So we didn't get many delicacies, but we got the main items. And we ate a great deal of bread. And to the best of my knowledge, I never saw a loaf of dry bread and ours. We didn't give us a ghost of a chance to get dry bread. One time my father took up with the notion of Fletcherized his food. Some of you young people know nothing about it, but a doctor named Fletcher got the notion if you want to be perfectly healthy, you had to chew each mouth for forty times. So my father tried it. He was the kind of one of these fanatics. And I thought I ate my dad. I thought I gave him, and so I did it too. I did it for one meal. By the time I chewed three mouthfuls, my daughters had cleared the table. And I found I couldn't afford it. There was never any dry bread at our house. You know, why not? Because we ate it. And the Word of God will never be dry if you eat it. It's when you don't eat it, it gets dry. And when people turn away from the Word of God, then they lose their taste for it. There's nothing wrong with the Word of God. Praise God, it's a source of unending strength and joy and blessing. It's only when your heart is away from God that it doesn't seem that way to you. And so the warning is, beware of darkness. There's a number of variety of ways to which we all know and which darkness, in which the world around appeals to Christians. Many ways, very subtle. You're hardly aware of it. Not aware of it all, oftentimes. but very real just to see. Then secondly, he says, Beware of evil workers. Now, of course, we turn to second Corinthians chapter eleven and tell you who these evil workers are. The Apostle Paul says that some are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. First, he warns against association with the world, that's God, and secondly, he warns against the devil's false teachings. In the first beware you have the world in view, and in the second beware you have the devil in view. And in the third beware, if it's quite evident, you have the flesh in view. Those same three enemies we heard mentioned this morning were in this verse. Beware of evil workers. That is, beware of the false teaching with which we know this world abounds at the present time. Yes, false teaching everywhere around you. And it says, beware of evil workers. Now how do you beware of it? Well, in one very simple way, it's presented to us in the tenth chapter of the Gospel of John. The Lord Jesus Christ said, My sheep hear my voice, and they follow me. How do you beware of evil workers? By hearing the voice of the Lord Jesus. Once you know the voice of the two shepherds, You know every voice of every false shepherd instantly. You don't have to try all false doctrines to know what they are like. All you need to know is to know the true doctrine, to know the Word of God and feast your soul upon it. Beware of evil workers. One dear brother, I know some of you here know him. I'm not going to mention his name, but I was riding with him a couple of years ago from Grouse to Detroit. In fact, I was taking him in my car, a servant of the Lord. And he was telling me this story while his whole body shook with stars. He was telling me that his oldest son, once a professing Christian, once in a family fellowship, had drifted away from God and had become apparently blatant infernal, saying some of the wickedest things against the Word of God and about the Word of God. And his brother said to me, As his son said to him, he says, Father, why didn't you ever teach me something else besides the Bible? All you ever taught me, ever mother ever brought before me, was what the Bible said. That's all I heard in the assembly. All one side of it, he said. All the handle on one side of the pipe. Why didn't you tell me the other side? Why didn't you tell me what men like Voltaire and Tom Paine and Karl Marx and all the rest of those beliefs? Why didn't you tell me this infidelity and communistic stuff? He'd taken up with it and he thought that was it. The Bible was wrong and he'd been blinded by this devilish stuff that he'd been hearing in college and that had turned his peanut brain around the wrong way. And he said to his father, why didn't you teach me the other thing? And his father gave him an answer. I thought the best I've heard for years. Father said to him, and she said, you know what I said to him? And he said it to me with tears rolling down his face. I said to him, why don't you boil your mother out too? And this boy said, what do you mean, boil your mother out too? Why is he said, you're boiling me out because I only taught you the truth. Why don't you boil your mother out for only giving you pancakes and bacon and eggs for breakfast? Why didn't you boil out for not giving us a service and garbage once in a while for breakfast? He said, you're certainly satisfied to have bacon and eggs and pancakes for breakfast, without the garbage. But you blame me, because I didn't give you the garbage. I only gave you the spiritual food. You want good food for your body, but you despise the good food for your soul. See, we only teach the truth. We don't want you to know the falsehood. There's no purpose in it, whatever. All you need to know is the true voice, and you'll know the false voice. Once you know the truth of Christ, you know everything. The Lord Jesus Christ says, the sheep hear my voice. You know, every once in a while somebody comes to my house and says, you are too, at night, and they knock at the door, and they say, who is there? They say, it's me. Now, who on earth is me? There are twenty-six hundred million people in the world, and that person outside says, it's me. When there are twenty-six hundred other million other me, how do I know it's me? I know it by the sound of the voice. And the more I've heard that voice, if it's my wife or one of my children, the more positive I am who's standing outside the door when they say it's me. That's what the Lord Jesus said. Remember, it's me. When he walked on the stormy seas, he came to the Sabbath, he said, be not afraid. In his eyes. He didn't say this is Jesus. He said, this is me. And they knew who he was by the sound of his voice. Beware of evil workers. learn to recognize the voice of Christ, read his word, study it, and you're saved God. And remember this, the Apostle Paul, beware, warns against, he says, beware. Don't think that you are so strong that you can't be led astray by something. He doesn't write it to some Christian, he writes it to every Christian here. Beware. To these Philippians who were happy Christians, he says, beware. Any one of us can be led astray. picking up with some fanciful idea that isn't exactly the word of God and that will make the word of God of less interest to us. Beware, he says, of evil words. Know the shepherd's voice, and the more you know it, the more sure you are, who it is that's speaking, and the more sure you are than anybody else speaks. It isn't telling. It says in the book Gospel of Matthew, chapter seven, Verse thirteen, I think it is, it says, Beware our false prophet which comes to you in sheep's clothing. Now that passage plainly tells you that they look like Christians, or they're dressed like sheep. But they're not Christians, they're wolves. Paul says, After my passage, I'll agree with wolves entering among you. The only apostolic succession that the Bible knows anything about. Evil wolves. And his apostle says, They're wolves in sheepcon. They look like sheep. Now how do you know whether it's a Leo sheep or a wolf with a sheep's garment on? I'll tell you how you know. The moment he opens his mouth. Or a wolf, no matter how he's dressed, he can't say bye like a sheep. He'll growl when he opens his mouth. You know it when he talks. And so beware of evil words. You can recognize them by what they say. Or perhaps I should say that no more accurate. You can recognize them by what they don't say. It's what they leave out. During the war, my oldest son, Elliot, was stationed in Montgomery, Alabama for a while, and I visited him there for a week. And I rented a room in a hotel, and he spent a week in the hotel with me, that is the night, when he was off. On Sunday morning, we wanted to go somewhere. There was no assembly there. So we looked in the newspaper and picked out the church. We thought looked as innocent as any of them. And we went there on Sunday morning. There were about three hundred servicemen there. and about a thousand against a billion. And when this service was over, and my son and I walked toward the front door, he said to me, he said, Dad, a haven't come, and a Mohammedan, and an Info, and a Confucianist, and anybody else under heaven, he said, could have enjoyed this sermon in the Christian church, except the Christians. There was nothing of Christ's in it. Now he didn't say anything wrong, the point is he didn't say anything. It's not what he said, it's what he didn't say, that made us know that he was a false prophet. It's what he didn't say. It's what he left out. Mr. Spurgeon, you see, if any man sells your loaf of bread made of soda, don't buy another loaf like that. If they leave the flour out, it may look just as nice, but it's no good. It's what he left out. That's how we recognize it. I'd like to read the verse in the second epistle of John that tells you that very thing. It says in that chapter, In verse nine, who shall have a son blesseth and abideeth not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God? He that abideseth in the doctrine of Christ. He hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine. Receive another to your house. Lead a bit of vows please. He's just been talked about the true doctrine. And he doesn't say if any man come and brings your false doctrine, but if any man comes and does not bring you the true doctrine. He doesn't point to the evil they say, but to the good that they'll leave out. For the devil is extremely clever. The way he insinuates himself, it doesn't come out at first boldly with all the false ideas. He tries to give you an imitation of the truth, and many people are roped in by it, like when people are the overwitnesses come to the home and so, they don't know enough about the Bible, and they can solve very smooth, and they don't manage to shock people. They don't tell you at first that they don't believe Christ is God. If there's no eternal punishment, they never start with that. They have a way of edging in. But if you listen carefully, you'll listen here that every vital doctrine of Scripture they leave out. It's not what they put in, but what they leave out that you have to go by. The Christian's ear is attuned to hear the shepherd's voice, and there is no shepherd's voice. There's nothing of Christ in it. And that's when he warns again, beware of evil worship. Beware of the false teachings that are bound on every hand. And again I say the perfect safeguard against that is to have the truth of God a dividing reality in your soul. Then finally he says beware of the concision. And I understand that's the word that the Apostle Paul himself coined in a sort of delusive way. The concision is sort of a mockery for the circumcision. Concision means to cut off. And the Apostle Paul is warning Christians against this cutting off thing. Circumcision is doing away with the thing altogether. That's his spiritual meaning. But constation means to keep the thing, but it is to cut off pieces. You remember John the Baptist stood by the Jordan and said, the axe is laid for the root of the tree. And when he said that, he made a more revolutionary statement, had never been heard before. In the old testament, he actually laid for the branches of the tree. The law cut off the branches that don't do this and don't do that, but leaves the tree standing. But when John came, he cut the tree down. And that's what Paul says here. Beware of that cutting of this and that of the other. Because if you say, don't do this and don't do that, you suggest that you yourself have some ability to do or not to do. You leave the tree standing, thinking it's for good still. But Paul says, no, cut it off. Beware of the concession. Beware of that idea of a negative thought, religion, of doing not doing this stuff. Christianity is not negative, it's positive. And I hope we shall look at that a little bit tomorrow night. Beware of the concession. Beware of that mere cutting off sort of thing. If you want the sample of it, Peter will give you an example. When the Lord Jesus says, all will deny thee, people said, well, maybe all the rest, but not I. All may be offended, but I won't. In other words, he didn't cut down the tree. He was proud of himself. He said, the others might, but I won't. They may be no good, but I am. He kept the tree standing whole, instead of doing away with itself altogether. Beware the confusion. Beware of this feature. that there is any good found in the flesh of man whatsoever. Good flesh or bad flesh is all evil in the sight of God. Man is no good one ever in himself. And you and I find that great blessing in our Christian life and we realize that all that's ever produced in our life is produced by God. He's pleased to use us, he works through us, but he's the one that's doing it. And now my time is up, I'm going to speak any longer, I want to save your spirit. that it teaches it that you and I don't need any power. Our Christian life is not found in power, not found in ability. It's found in no power. It's found in weakness. When I am weak, then am I strong. When I am nothing, then Christ is everything. And then Paul says, beware the disease. He's telling that the Christian needs