“BEWARE OF MEN” [Matthew 10:17]
This
is the caution which the Son of God gave to His disciples when He
ministered among them on earth, and the Holy Ghost caused it to be
penned, that the true Church of God might use it as a watchword to
the end of time; and never since this caution dropped from the lips
of Jesus, has it been more needed than now; for men seem to vie with
the prince of darkness who shall most effectually oppose the kingdom
of Christ and the spiritual interests of His blood-bought family.
“Beware
of men,” not
merely of profane men, open infidels. Little caution is necessary
respecting them, because “The
shew of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare
their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! For they
have rewarded evil unto themselves” [ISAIAH
3:9].
But the men who assume the profession of Christianity, without
possessing its vital principle, are the men of whom the Savior’s
watchword is, “Beware!”
The
men who put on “a
form of godliness, but deny the power thereof,” whose
carnal minds and carnal interests have always warred against the pure
truth of God, and perverted the whole plan of salvation by lying
fables and human traditions, seducing the souls of millions to utter
destruction.
“Beware
of men” such
as our dear Redeemer has described, “which
desire to walk in long robes, and love greetings in the markets, and
the highest seats in the synagogues, and the chief rooms at feasts;
which devour widows’ houses, and for a shew make long prayers: the
same shall receive greater damnation” [LUKE
20:46-47].
And again, the same divine Teacher says, “they
outwardly appear righteous before men, but within are full of
hypocrisy and iniquity;” therefore
He denounces them as “serpents
and a generation of vipers, who shall not escape the damnation of
hell” [MATTHEW
23:28-33].
“Beware
of men,” even
of those who pass for evangelical men; for every grade of error is to
be found among them. Even while I am writing this paper, my soul is
distressed with the awful perversions of the Word of God which
surround me and which are advocated by men of renown; one drowning
the doctrine of regeneration in the baptismal font; another
substituting the credence of carnal reason for the faith of God’s
elect, and another denying the Son of God; while the great bulk of
so-called evangelical preachers try to dethrone Christ, and to
enthrone proud free-will as the absolute sovereign. “Beware
of men!”
—Gospel
report by preacher Joseph
Irons [1785
– 1852 A.D.]
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