“When God sends forth His servants to preach the Gospel the Devil soon after prompts his emissaries to proclaim “another gospel”: when God speaks the Devil gives a mocking echo. Satan has found that he can work far more effectively by counterfeiting the Truth than by openly denying it, hence in every age “false prophets” have abounded, and therefore we should be neither surprised nor stumbled by their number or success in our own day. We fully agree with Andrew Fuller when he said, “As this word ‘beware of false prophets’ was designed for Christians of every age, the term rendered ‘prophets’ must here, as it often is elsewhere, be used of ordinary teachers.” “Beware of false prophets” signifies in this dispensation, Be on your guard against false teachers, heretical preachers. There are no longer any “prophets” in the strict and technical sense of the term, though there are a few of God’s servants who in their gifts and special work approximate closely thereto. Those against whom we are here warned are men who have a false commission, never having been called of God to the service they engage in; they preach error, which is subversive of “the doctrine which is according to godliness” (1 Timothy 6:3); and the fruit they bear is a base imitation of the fruit of the Spirit. The chief identifying mark of the false prophets has ever been their saying, “Peace, peace,” when there is none (Jeremiah 23:17; Micah 3:5; 1 Thess. 5:3). They heal the wounds of sinners slightly (Jeremiah 8:11) and daub “with untempered morter” (Ezekiel 8:14; 22:28). They prophesy “smooth things” (Isaiah 30:10), inventing easy ways to heaven, pandering to corrupt nature. There is nothing in their preaching which searches the conscience and renders the empty professor uneasy, nothing which humbles and causes their hearers to mourn before God; but rather that which puffs up, makes them pleased with themselves and to rest content in a false assurance.
thing than it actually is, more agreeable to fallen human nature, and thus they encourage the unregenerate to be satisfied with something which comes short of true grace. So the Pharisees did, notwithstanding all their strictness (Matthew 23:25). So the papists do, notwithstanding all their boasted austerities. So Arminians do, notwithstanding all their seeming zeal for good works. So the Antinomians do, notwithstanding their pretended superior light and joy, zeal and confidence. This is the common mark of all false teachers: rejecting the Divine way, they manufacture one to suit themselves, and however they may differ among themselves, they all agree to make the practice of piety and the Christian walk an easier thing than the Scriptures do, to offer salvation on cheaper terms, to make the gate wider and the way to heaven broader than did Christ and His apostles. It is this which explains the secret of their popularity: “They are of the world: therefore speak
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