A more solemn word is pronounced in the New Testament against those who continue in Christendom the pernicious and deceiving work of these false teachers. It is written, "If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are" (1 Cor. iii:17). That is, believers constitute the temple of God, that is, the church. The church has for its foundation the Truth of God, the doctrine of Christ. A rejection of the doctrine of Christ, so common in our day, defiles this spiritual temple of God. It is the worst profanation. And the false leader with his work corrupts the best, the holiest. "Him shall God destroy!" May God's people heed the warning to have no fellowship with such who as hirelings do the work of false prophets. And these false prophets seduced the people. The delusion consisted in saying, Peace, and there was no peace. This is a characteristic of those who follow not God's revelation but their own hearts. While God has threatened a world which lieth in the wicked one, an age which is evil and which never can be anything but evil, with judgments to come, they preach peace and safety. He describes them as building a wall and then putting some untempered stuff, a whitewash, upon the wall. The wall is for defence. They invented all kinds of schemes and policies, political, religious and religious-political. This was done to sustain their false messages and false hopes. Then to hide the defects, they whitewashed their walls, they glazed it over with nice and high sounding phrases. Such is the case to-day. Oh! the schemes, the religious-political combinations which are used to accomplish certain ends which are nowhere authorized by the Word of God. And the whitewash, the enticing, beautiful words which are used to cover it over and make it appear as being secure! And Ezekiel was commanded to say to these whitewashes, "It shall fall!" A great storm with wind and flood would strike it and the wall, the schemes and inventions of men were to collapse (see Matt. vii:26-27). Even so the judgment came upon Jerusalem and the land of Israel and swept away the false prophets and what they had built up. Another judgment will sweep over Christendom and sweep away the "destructive critics," the false teachers and leaders of delusive movements which flourish everywhere. Then the divine mockery: "Lo, when the wall is fallen, shall it not be said unto you, where is the daubing wherewith ye have daubed it?" (verse 12). When God fulfills His predictions written in the Word, when a boasting, Christless civilization, an apostate church are engulfed in the judgment with which this present age ends, where will be the nice sounding whitewash of the false prophets? II. The False Prophetesses.