Beware the Wolves In Sheep's Clothing

Jesus said to his disciples: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but underneath are ravenous wolves.”

This statement from Jesus is as relevant to us today as it was to the disciples he was speaking to, as well as his Jewish ancestors.  It harkens back to a reading from Second Kings. During that time in the history of the Jewish people, king after king strayed from God, did evil in his sight, followed the false prophets of their time, and led the people to do the same.  

In following the lead of these evil kings, the people had abandoned the God of their forefathers and were worshipping false gods. The chosen people of God had forsaken the faith given to them by God himself. They had done this for so long that they really didn’t even know how to worship God as they should anymore. However, at this particular time, a good young king came to the throne. His name was Josiah, and unlike the past evil kings, Josiah sought to do good, and the scriptures say that he pleased the Lord. During his reign the High Priest Hilkiah found in the Temple of the Lord The Book of the Law that had been lost for as long as 75 years. When King Josiah was told that The Book of the Law had been found, he had the entire book of the covenant read aloud to the people and made a covenant with the Lord that they would follow and observe his teachings with their whole heart. Through the humility and repentance King Josiah had to turn back to God, and the leadership of his people to do the same, he did what Jesus calls us to do in our daily lives: acknowledge our sins, repent and turn to the Lord, and follow along His narrow way of prayer, self-denial, and works of mercy.

To help us understand how to recognize false prophets and the error of our worldly ways, in the scriptures, Jesus uses analogies that both the people of his time and people of the 21st century can understand, especially those who live in rural communities not unlike ours.  For example, we all know that you can’t pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles, and we all understand that good trees bear good fruit and that a rotten tree won’t. Pretty simple, right? Godly things are good, healthy, and righteous, and sinful things are not. The problem we have in today’s world is that in his deceptive and cunning way, the enemy has influenced many through tactics like peer pressure, cultural stigma, and fear of being ridiculed, to believe fully that not only is their own (and others') sin not bad or evil but that it is, in fact, actually good. The devil is pretty slick, isn’t he? After all, he is the great deceiver.  

Just think about it: not too many years ago, who would have ever believed that a decent portion of our society would believe that killing innocent, helpless babies through abortion is ok, and that those same people would fight to the death to save a puppy or a kitten.

Or that a man could claim he was a woman or vice versa and people would accept this instead of saying “no I don’t think so” and seeking to find them the mental health services they need to overcome such an illness. 

Who would have ever thought that an intelligent, educated adult nominated and placed on the Supreme Court of the USA could not (or would not) articulate what a woman is. 

Of course, these are just a few of the things going on in our world today, in addition to all the other things that have caused people to abandon God from the beginning.     

Jesus, in the Gospels, gives us a simple statement to help us identify false prophets, know right from wrong, and discern good from evil in our own lives and in the lives of those we love when he says, “So by their fruits you will know them.” But it is important to remember that Jesus is not saying, “By your opinion you will know them”, or “By the whims of the culture you will know them." He said, “By their fruits you will know them.”  Simply speaking, he’s saying that anything we encounter in life that brings us closer to Jesus is good fruit and we should accept it as such, while on the other hand, anything that leads us away from Jesus should be rejected as bad, rotten, and possibly even sinful to consume.  

But the question is: how can we know the difference? Sometimes these things are very easy to identify and sometimes not so much.  The differences can be very subtle, or we may not fully understand what’s going on. But that’s no problem; we don’t have to figure it out on our own. That’s why Jesus gave us his body the Church which is built upon Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition and the Magisterium which is the teaching authority of the Church. While we would like to, we simply don’t and never will understand everything about the faith, but Jesus does. And He expects us to follow the Church He established to give us the grace, through the sacraments, to have faith in Him and believe that even when we don’t understand and even when some of our leaders in the faith fall to the ways of the world, the Catholic Church of which Jesus is the head, will never fail us. Through the Holy Spirit, the Church will always lead us to the truth, but it won’t be easy.

Jesus tells us, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but underneath are ravenous wolves.”

Sure, negativity against the Catholic Church or even our own parish can at times be overwhelming. The enemy is always at work bringing forth false prophets to create division and separate the people of God.  To overcome this, we must humbly get over ourselves, get over our biases and opinions, and surrender our lives to Jesus, body, mind, and soul each day. We must cry out to the Lord as the psalmist says, “Teach me your way O Lord, instruct me in your statutes, give me discernment, lead me in the path of your commands, incline my heart to your decrees, turn away my eyes from seeing what is vain for I long O Lord for your precepts, and in your justice give me life.”        

 Amen