When you've got a problem, false advice is on all sides of you. And it may sound so beautiful, so wonderful, so religious -- even so biblical!
Just take a Bible verse out of context -- or what's even more subtle, change its punctuation a little -- and you've got false advice.
Take this well-known Psalm 121:1, in the old King James Version:
I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.
Have you heard that one? It sounds as if you can just fix your eyes on nature and somehow get strength.
No, no! The later versions correct that; they don't have a comma there, they have a period and then a question mark:
I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills [period]. From whence cometh my help?
And then it answers its own question:
My help cometh from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
Do you know what those hills were like in the psalmist's days? Pure treachery.
Shrines to Baal and Asherah and other pagan gods were built on hilltops, and at those shrines you could buy a false god's "protection." The hills were places of superstition and spells and magic. The people's dangers were real, but those solutions were phony.
False religions and so-called "Christians" who are misled and misleading are all around you, as thick as the Israeli hills. They're mines; they're booby traps.
You can see them on television or hear them on radio.
You can let them walk into your home, or you can walk into their reading rooms.
You can order their literature -- which on the surface sounds as if they're in favor of mother and opposed to smog.
You can go into their "churches" to "worship" -- the music may be marvelous.
Remember, Satan isn't always ugly; he can also masquerade "as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness" (2 Corinthians 11:14-15).
Where will you lift up your eyes? Be very careful.
Not to the "hills," the "high places" of Satan.
Your help comes only, only from the Lord.
Go to a Bible-preaching church. Seek our friends who fellowship around Christ. Read His Word and pray.
Fix your eyes only on Jesus.
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Let's pray:
O my Father! You know how easily Satan can mislead us! Error, deceit, wickedness is around me on all sides.
You only are my help. Keep me exposed to Your truth, and open my mind to understand it and my heart to receive it.
Fix my eyes steadfastly on Your dear Son, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. For His sake, amen.
* * * * *
I want no other rock to build upon than that I have, desire no other hope than that of gospel truth, need no other look than that which gazes on the cross.
Forgive me if I have tried to add anything to the one foundation . . . if I have attempted to complete what is perfect in Christ;
May my cry be always,
Only Jesus! only Jesus!
--Old Puritan prayer
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