Beware! - Part 1

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ.

It's always interesting to me. People say that all the time. Well, I was born a whatever it is. I was born that. Jesus said no you weren't.

Because Jesus said to Nicodemus, what? You have to be born again. No one's born into our faith. No one.

That has to become your personal decision that you make in your life. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. You know, as Americans, we're always being warned. There's always warnings.

I mean, just think of it. The spread of the pandemic. Right from the beginning, the warning started. Side effects of the vaccine. Oh, my goodness.

Some of the early warnings. The one that was the funniest to me was they were putting tracking devices in me. So I just thought, wow, if someone's going to follow, they hire someone to follow my life. I couldn't imagine a more boring job in the whole world than that. Like, they want to know where I am.

I'm either here, home, or in between. I mean, wow. Global warming. Almost all the time now you're getting warnings of what this is going to be like. I just read in USA Today that the coastal cities on the Great Lakes could be in trouble.

They didn't say what kind, but it could be happening because of global warming. The latest bill before Congress, no matter what it is, there's a warning to it. The repercussions of the next Supreme Court decision. They give you warnings of how bad this could possibly be.

The perils of any upcoming election, no matter what election it is, all the way, every one of them has these tremendous perils in it. Now we have a lot of the inherent danger of certain particular foods, and they're always warning us. And if you think about this, even that, several years ago they told us it was really terrible to eat eggs.

I mean, that was like the worst thing. And now ten years ago they started, it's okay to eat eggs. So whatever changes eggs made, it went from the warning list to being the okay list.

And it's always been like this. Years and years ago, Russians had a satellite named Sputnik. The first satellite on Earth is about this big.

And at night you could go out and watch it fly over the sky. And people were terrified. I mean, I don't know what it was going to do, but it's about this big.

You know, and they were saying, is this changing everything? Is this going to change our... How about ozone layer? What happened to the ozone layer? I thought we were all going to be dead, because we had a thin ozone layer. But here we are.

Maybe the strangest one of all, because it had the most things attached to it. Now don't get terrified when I say this word. Y2K. Oh my goodness. We got like five years of warnings. And it turned out it was just another day. What's so sad about that for many of us is we end up wasting time then worrying and being filled with anxiety for every warning. We get all excited.

We get all upset about it. But there is a warning that we should pay very close attention to. A warning that has eternal ramifications.

And a warning that's absolutely, positively true. The reason I know that this warning came from the Son of God. Would you open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 7 and verse 15. This will be our final sermon on the Sermon on the Mount. It's been an amazing ride going through this sermon. How profound it was, the words that Jesus Christ uses.

And I called this series the Disturbing Sermon on the Mount. Because the original audience really didn't like almost anything that Jesus said. And a lot of us don't like what Jesus said.

We find it very difficult to think our way through. And one of the things that Jesus does in this. After starting out the sermon by telling us what does it take to go to heaven. What does it take to have a relationship with God.

What does it take to enter his kingdom. And Jesus said, well you have to be poor in spirit. You have to be spiritually bankrupt. You have to mourn over your sin. You have to have a purity of heart. You have to desire a relationship with God himself.

All of it internal. That's exactly the opposite of what all the Jews believed. They were taught by the scribes and Pharisees that it's all external. It's all based on what you do and God's going to let you in on the basis of what you do. And Jesus starts the sermon out after the Beatitudes. And says to them, unless you're righteous and succeeds that of the scribes and Pharisees. You're not going to heaven. Not ever.

You have no chance. And I said, what a profound effect. Then he went on and he talked about all kinds of things.

He said, how you live your life. The religious practices that you should do should be private. Not public. Remember the Pharisees did everything publicly. If they gave, they made an announcement publicly.

That they were going to give to someone. When they prayed, they prayed loudly and publicly. When they tithed, they made themselves look emaciated. Jesus says, none of that's right. It should all be exactly the opposite.

It's all internal rather than external. And as Jesus works his way through the sermon, he gets to the conclusion of the sermon. And basically he has one idea. He doesn't want you to like the sermon. He doesn't want you to admire the teaching. He wants you to make a decision. You've got to get off the fence.

There's no Switzerland's when it comes to spirituality. You're either in or you're out. You're on one side or you're on the other side.

That's what Jesus said. And he says, look, there's only two gates. There's a narrow gate and very few people find it. And there's a wide gate.

And everybody seems to be going on the wide gate. And in the narrow gate, he said, the first thing is you have to enter alone. You have to go in by yourself. You can't go in because you come from the family.

It's always interesting to me. I say that all the time. Well, I was born a whatever it is. I was born that. Jesus said, no, you weren't. Because Jesus said the Nicodemus what? You have to be born again. No one's born into our faith.

No one. That has to become your personal decision that you make in your life. He also said that you've got to find it. And he has said, and it leads to life. There's a broadway and a broad gate and everybody finds it. It's pretty darn easy.

It's very popular with people, except it ends in destruction. And he even implied last time we talked that there's no second chances here. Once you've made your decision and now you face judgment, you can't throw yourselves at that time on the mercy of God. So now he starts out and he wants to continue this warning. The first time it was a commandment to enter the narrow gate. But now he says, beware.

There it is. That's a warning. Prosecco is the Greek word beware. And it means pay attention. You have to beware of something. He said, beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. Beware of false prophets or even beware of false teachers.

He said, you better beware of this. The Jews should have been. Their whole history.

2,000 year history by the time Christ shows up. They had false prophets everywhere. They always had false prophets.

All the time. And a false prophet or a false teacher is extremely serious from God's point of view. From our point of view, it's just someone's a little.

No, from God's point of view, it's really serious. A false prophet. Hold your place here and go with me to Deuteronomy chapter 13. Deuteronomy chapter 13. Let's get God's perspective on what it means to be a false prophet. Moses writes this. If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder and the sign or wonder comes true.

Now that's an interesting way to start. Because wouldn't you think that's what validates a prophet. He's going to come and give you a sign or a wonder. And that means you should listen to him. And God says, you don't listen to people that do that.

Not at all. You see, we would be impressed by that. They did a sign or a wonder, they have to be talking the truth. Jesus, God says through Moses, absolutely not.

Because notice what he says. He said, if he gives you a sign and a wonder that comes true concerning which he spoke to you, he's saying, let us go after other gods whom you have not known and let us serve them. Now that's the worst message possible for a false prophet. God's trying to make a point. Okay, I'm a prophet of God. I just did something miraculous and I proved it to you. So now, let's not worship God anymore.

Let's worship Baal. But that's God's point. When a false prophet speaks, he always speaks a lie. And this is the ultimate lie that God sets up here. He's talking falsely.

It doesn't matter what he's done. Now watch. He says, you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or the dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you to find out if you love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul.

Interesting. So false prophets show up from God's point of view to test you. False teachers show up to test you. That's a test. God says, I'm going to let a false teacher speak. And by the way, we have tons of false teachers all around.

Many of them have their own TV shows. You know, they're around. God says, yes, so they can test you. You see, are you with me or not? It's an interesting thought when you think about it from God's point of view.

But what's the seriousness? He said, you shall follow the Lord your God and fear him, and you shall keep his commandments, listen to his voice, serve him, and cling to him. But that prophet or dreamer of dreams shall be put to death. And that's all the way through the Old Testament. If you claim you're a prophet of God and you're wrong about one thing, you're dead.

They execute you. That's the test of a true prophet of God. See, it's not like a Major League Baseball player. What's his batting average?

You know, how many does he get right out of 10? God says, no, any prophet of mind gets him all right. And it's always going to be true that way. I remember prior to the last election, I actually heard it through different people within the body that told me the story. I didn't hear it firsthand, but second, but that the number one, it made me suspicious as soon as I heard this, the number one prophet in the world, the number one prophet of God in the world prophesied who was going to win the presidential election. He didn't. How could he not? The greatest prophet in the world said he was. See, and he would be now in the Old Testament the greatest ex-prophet. He'd be dead.

You see, you don't just go out and throw that stuff out. When you speak for God, it always happens out. God is not restrained by anything. And yet apparently some people believe that there was a death sentence. And he tells them, he said, you shall purge that evil from among you.

You have to be really careful. There are false prophets. Jesus said in Matthew 24, when he's talking about the end times, he said there will be many false messiahs who come, tons of them, saying they're the messiah. Don't believe them. That's his warning back then.

What's interesting, when the apostle Paul, Peter, and even James, when they write the epistles, every single epistle has a constant theme in it for us. Every one of them. Be discerning. Be discerning. You need to be discerning. In other words, you need to know what's the difference between true teaching and false teaching. You have to be that. Remember, when Paul was writing to the Galatians, he said, O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?

What happened? Paul led them to Christ. Then Judaizers and Jerusalem came in and they said, no, Paul was only partially right. He only gave you part of the gospel.

Yes, you have to believe in Jesus Christ. He was right about it. But you also have to be circumcised.

And if you're not circumcised, you're not in. Paul said, that's another gospel. And he called it anathema, eternal damnation. He went so far as to say, if an angel from heaven came and told you that, let him be damned forever. Because they're lying.

There's always false teachers who are lying. And that's the point that he wants to make. To the Ephesians, he said, let no one deceive you with empty words.

You have to be discerning. Jesus is saying the same thing here. I want to go next, though, to John chapter 8 to show where the other source comes from.

John chapter 8 and verse 43. Now, when Jesus is speaking of false prophets in the Sermon on the Mount, he's directly talking about one group. The scribes and Pharisees.

That's who he's talking about. The scribes and the Pharisees. The religious leaders. They're the ones he's calling false prophets. And he's going to tell us in John 8 why. That's why he said to the people, if your righteousness doesn't exceed the scribe and Pharisees, you're not going anywhere.

You're lost. And nobody was more respected in Israel than scribes and Pharisees. Everyone would have taken the oath and said, they're the men who represent God. Well, listen to what Jesus said and see who they represent.

Verse 43 of John 8. He's talking to them. He said, why do you not understand what I'm saying? He said, it's because you cannot hear my word.

You can't possibly hear what I'm saying. Why? You're of your father, the devil. That's her father. You're of your father, the devil?

Yes. And you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning. Does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks, it's a lie. He speaks from his own nature.

He is a liar and the father of lies. But because I speak the truth of you, you do not believe me. Verse 47, he was of God. Here's my word, the words of God. For this reason, you do not hear them because you're not of God.

Wow. See, from Jesus' point of view, when he talked about this earlier, he said there's two ways and two gates. From Jesus' point of view, and that's all there is. No, no, there's lots of, no, just two. There's only two ways and two gates. It doesn't matter how many different philosophies are in the world, it doesn't matter how many other religions are out in the world. Jesus would say they all go through the same gate. Every single one of them goes through the same wide gate. It doesn't matter what it is. There's only two.

And then there's a narrow gate. So the Pharisees would have thought, we represent God. We're the most godly people you'd ever want to meet. In fact, they took great pride in being godly. Luke 18, I thank you, God, that I'm not like these other people, terrible sinners.

I'm a wonderful person. Jesus said, you're your father the devil, because that's the way you go the broad way and the broad gate. He's behind every bit of it. It doesn't matter if it's a religion or a philosophy.

The narrow one is completely different. Jesus is warning the people about that, and he's basically saying to us, we need to be discerning. So let's go back now to Matthew and see what Jesus says. He said, they come to you in sheep's clothing, inwardly are ravenous wolves.

That's interesting. What does God call us? Sheep. Right? So they look just like who?

Us. They just look like we look. Now, the Pharisees tried to look even more religious than that.

Man has even taken it a step further. So they put on certain garb and say, now look how religious I look. And by the way, the church hasn't been too good with that either for 2000 years. The church has spent all kinds of time just putting in religious outfits. You know, if I had an outfit on, you say, oh, look at that. That's a religious man.

I mean, it's ridiculous. And even now, not only they look like us, but, you know, when you see false teachers, they're usually amiable. They're kind of nice guys. They seem sincere.

They're saying nice things. You see, they look just like us. Jesus says, yeah, but they're wolves. The only predator to sheep in that part of the world at that time were wolves. He said they're just going to come up and they're going to take the sheep.

That's what they're going to do. And he said that to the Pharisees. He said when he called them scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites, vipers. He said because you've stolen the kingdom of God.

You see, and that's what he is referring to them about. He says, look, after he says that, he says, you will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit. The bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit. Then can a bad tree produce good fruit?

Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. You'll know them by their fruit. Wow. So he says you can discern this.

Wow, it's kind of interesting. What does he mean by fruit? There's a couple of possibilities here. I think it's two things. I think one of it is what do they say? That's fruit. And the other is how do they live?

And that's fruit. What do they say and how, he says, do they live? It's kind of an interesting thing that because they look harmless, they look like one of us, they seem positive.

Here's one test you see all the time. When they teach and speak, do they teach and speak the whole counsel of God? Almost never. They always emphasize one lie and they do it over and over and over again. And they won't even speak what the rest of the world of God says. They don't even deal with it.

It's interesting to see that. I mean, we have an extraordinarily large church in America. And the pastor of that church will tell you that something that you would love to hear. He'll tell you that God exists so that you can realize all your dreams. That's why there is a God. There is a God to make you as rich as you possibly want to be and as healthy as you possibly want to be. And there is a God and that's all he does is follow and fulfill your dreams. And we love that. People love that.

This sounds great to me. Now, he was asked and I saw it so I can report it this way. He was asked on a talk show once, why don't you ever teach or preach on sin? And he said, I'd never do that. Okay. Did Jesus ever speak on sin?

I'm just wondering. He said, I would never do that. That's negative. I would never teach or preach anything negative. What should that tell you?

Something's wrong here. You see, the whole idea, even the Word of God says to people like me, preach the whole counsel of God. The idea behind it is, but they'll select something and they'll either select a certain amount of spiritual gifts or a certain amount of prosperity and that's all they want to talk about. The other part of the fruit comes down, what is their lifestyle like?

How do they live? And that becomes an extremely important part. By the way, none of this is new to us. It isn't new to the church. The Didache is Christian writing written right at the end of the last book of Revelation written.

It's very early Christian writing called the Didache. And the Didache has a section in it to watch out for false teachers, which is interesting. They're in the first century and they're already watching out. And the Didache says there's two tests to test whether a person's a true teacher or a false teacher.

And it's kind of funny when you think about it. The first test is this, when they come and want to live in your home for a temporary time, do they live in your home for just a day or two and move on? Or do they want to stay longer?

He said if they want to stay longer, they're likely a false teacher. They just want to live off of you. And secondly, and this is so appropriate for today, do they constantly ask about money?

Are they asking you for money constantly? Now, the Didache people wrote that. I mean, that's before we even had church buildings or anything. They're saying there's guys out there trying to raise money.

There's a lot of examples of this, but I'll give you one. I can still remember a few years ago now what I would call a false teacher said that he had a $50 to $60 million private jet. But God told him he needs a $110 million private jet.

Seems funny, huh? He raised the money. People just like you and me, we gave them money.

We want to make sure. Does that add up to you at all? What did Jesus have?

Tell me all the physical possessions he had. I mean, nothing. I mean, it just amazes me that we are so materialistic as people, we want that to be true.

So that God and I can get together and I can have every possible thing I want. Their character becomes quite different as well as their teaching. He goes on and he says to me, it says to us after that, every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down, thrown into fire. They're going to end in judgment. Just like broad is the gate that leads to destruction.

He said that's the way it's going to end up. It's a very important thing to God. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com. That's oneplace.com and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.

At that website, you will find not only today's broadcast but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word, we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org.

That's fbcnola.org. At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word.