Scripture clearly warns us that there will be times when people who are called by God’s Name will quit listening to the actual words of God and will instead seek guidance and affirmation from other sources—even myths—all the while thinking they are hearing from the Lord.

They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the LORD, but they shall not find it.
Amos 8:11-12

This ominous promise given to Israel in the 8^th Century BC was a warning of coming judgment from God—judgment not in the form of fire and brimstone from heaven but in a manner that is actually far worse. God promised to send a famine of “hearing the words of the Lord.”

It is the same thing that the Apostle Paul warned Timothy was coming in the perilous times in the New Testament era: “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths” (2 Timothy 4:3-4).

Scripture clearly warns us that there will be times when people who are called by God’s Name will quit listening to the actual words of God and will instead seek guidance and affirmation from other sources—even myths—all the while thinking they are hearing from the Lord.

Such times are expressions of God’s judgment. Such people are deluded and under judgment. What makes this even more tragic and ominous is that Paul tells us there will be teachers aplenty who will serve this benighted passion by reassuring people that the way of error is actually the way of truth.

Such false teachers fill the earth. They are enemies of the cross and their end is destruction (Philippians 3:19-20). Those who follow them will likewise be destroyed.

So, how can God’s people guard against being led astray? How can we stand firm in the evil day?

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