Psalms

22

Matthew 7:15 Keep away from the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are rapacious wolves. 16 You shall know them from their fruits. Does anyone gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles? 17 Thusly every good tree produces fine fruit, but the rotten tree produces evil fruit. 18 A good tree is not able to produce evil fruit, nor is a rotten tree to produce fine fruit. 19 Each tree not producing fine fruit is cut down and cast into the fire! 20 Indeed from their fruits you shall know them.

Wolves, foxes, dogs, they are all of the biological family named Canidae. Out of these, wolves and dogs are called Canini, and foxes are called Vulpini. Dingos, jackals, coyotes and hyenas are also of this family. They are all Canines, and to the ancients they were all basically dogs. Herod was called a fox by Christ. The Canaanite woman was called a dog. Psalm 22 prophesied that Christ was to be killed by the “power of the dog”, which referred to the Edomites in control in Jerusalem. By all of this, we know who the wolves are. Paul warned in Acts chapter 20, that after his departure “oppressive wolves shall come in ... not being sparing of the sheep”, and then he contrasted these to the false teachers who would arise among the people themselves. So we see that while not all false teachers are wolves, we certainly must be aware of and defend against the wolves first. Christ is warning us to do this, and we have no commission to be complacent regarding these wolves! We must spot and eject them – or at least sound the alarm - it is our duty!