Well, this morning we come to Matthew 7 verses 15 through 20. If you would turn there with me as we near the end of our journey through Christ's Sermon on the Mount. Matthew chapter 7 verses 15 through 20. And if you would stand with me in honor of God's Word.
Let's read it together. Matthew 7 beginning at verse 15. Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognize them by their fruits. Our grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles. So every healthy tree bears good fruit but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
Thus, you will recognize them by their fruits. Let's pray together. Father, we are prone to hearing what we want to hear whether it accords with your truth or not because left to ourselves we are a people with itching ears taking pleasure in words that make us feel good rather than taking pleasure in truth that makes us good. So Lord, please rescue us from our own self-made vulnerabilities to false teaching and false teachers. Give us such a love for truth and righteousness that we make it the foundation upon which our entire lives are built. Lord, give us the heart of Peter when he said, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. So Holy Spirit, please take the word of God now and open our minds and our hearts to listen to it, to receive it as from you to the saving of our souls. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
You be seated. How do you determine if a church is a good church or if a preacher is a good preacher or if a sermon is a good sermon? We use descriptions like these all the time, don't we? Oh, that was such a good sermon. He's such a great preacher.
What a wonderful church. But what do we mean when we say these things? And more importantly, how do we determine what constitutes good when it comes to those things which most directly affect our spiritual walk? What is the standard by which we measure the goodness or the helpfulness or the value of the spiritual input that's influencing our lives?
This is what Jesus addresses in our text today. And maybe we should begin by asking, is this even important? Does it really matter all that much how nitpicky I am about the spiritual influences in my life? I mean, surely I'll know if and when I see a bad influence.
It'll be obvious and I'll just walk away from it. We'd like to think of ourselves as wise and discerning and aware of all the spiritual dangers lurking about. But the previous paragraph, the verses that we looked at last week tell the different story. Evidently, if left to ourselves, our natural bent is that we end up making all the wrong choices. We're drawn to the inviting gate and to the wide path, which means we naturally choose those things that destroy us, not the things which preserve and promote spiritual life and health. So having warned us about choosing the wrong path in verses 13 and 14, Jesus now warns us about the dangers of listening to the wrong preachers in verses 15 through 20. And these two paragraphs are connected, aren't they?
Think about it. The path we choose in life is largely influenced by the teachers we listen to. Therefore, we need to be extremely cautious who we listen to. Just like Christian in Pilgrim's Progress that we talked about last week, he could have listened to Evangelist or Mr. Worldlywise. So we have various voices speaking to us, claiming to be telling us the truth, speaking for God.
Some of those voices are good, some of them are bad. Jesus is warning us here not to be so naive as to think that just because someone claims to be the voice of God, they are the voice of God. The proposition of these verses then is as simple as this.
Oh, be careful little ears what you hear, because who you listen to will for good or for bad influence your life profoundly. Now a prophet is someone who speaks or preaches for God. And I'll be using the words prophet and preacher synonymously this morning. The assumption in our text today is that false prophets are a thing.
They do in fact exist. There are people who claim to be speaking for God when nothing could be further from the truth. Our text also assumes the tendency of unsuspecting listeners to hear and believe what these charlatan preachers are saying. If we have to be warned about false prophets, then evidently we have a susceptibility to listening to and believing false prophets, so Jesus has to tell us beware. In verses 15 through 20 Jesus tells us a couple of things about false prophets. He tells us first what they are, what their nature is, but then secondly he tells us how to detect them.
So let's use our time this morning to heed Christ's warning and to essentially immunize ourselves against this tendency we have of listening to lying preachers to the destruction of our souls. First we discover the nature of false prophets, the nature of false prophets in verse 15. And we learn two things about them. We learn that they are deceptive and we learn that they are dangerous. They're deceptive because they come in sheep's clothing but they aren't sheep.
They're wolves. Now if we read this in light of the context then I think we can infer that these deceptive prophets are preaching the gospel of the wide gate that we considered last week, of the easy way. It sounds so good. It's appealing to people and so it draws a crowd. It carries the aura of credibility but it's not the gospel.
It won't save. In fact in the end it destroys. These false preachers are like the prophets of Jeremiah's day, prophets who proclaimed peace, peace when there was no peace. They're like the teachers that Paul warned Timothy about when he said the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.
And sadly there is never a shortage of teachers who are willing to say whatever it takes to suit the passions of their hearers simply because they love a following. They give the impression that they're trying to help when they're actually just serving their own egos and appetites for the sake of fame or glory or power. They're not. But they're also dangerous. Jesus says inwardly they aren't sheep at all. They're actually ravenous wolves. Wolves are not friends of sheep. They're predators of sheep.
False teachers are not friends of the people of God. They are predators of God's people. It's not as if they're trying to do good to the church that they mean well.
No they are doing exactly what is in their nature to do. They're seeking to destroy those they have entrapped with their deception. Wolves especially ravenous wolves don't mean well and only accidentally hurt the sheep. No they mean evil and they destroy the sheep on purpose.
They are by nature deceptive and dangerous. And this is the analogy Jesus says most accurately describes the nature and intent of those who claim to be speaking God's truth but are actually speaking something entirely different. So beware of them Jesus says. Several years later Paul the Apostle Paul would repeat the same warning to the church in Acts chapter 20 Paul says to the church after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you not sparing the flock and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert.
Peter issues the same warning. Second Peter chapter 2 says there will be false teachers among you who will secretly and there's the deception who will secretly bring in destructive heresies and there's the danger and many will follow their sensuality. And that word sensuality means a lack of self-constraint that leads a person to behave in ways that violate all bounds of what is right.
Someone said a sensual person is a person who interprets divine goodness as an opportunity to ignore God and do as one pleases. Peter goes on to say in their greed they will exploit you with false words. And how do these false teachers exploit their victims?
Peter tells us they entice naive vulnerable people by promising them freedom but delivering enslavement. So false prophets are dangerous because they come to destroy unsuspecting people but they're also deceptive because they masquerade as sheep. In other words they don't seem like wolves they seem like kind hearted well-meaning sheep. Church this means that they're going to be hard to detect unless of course we have some way of testing the true character of a prophet a preacher. Thankfully Christ gives us just such a test having clued us in on the nature of false prophets. Jesus now gives us the means of detecting false prophets in verses 16 through 20. Verse 16 you will recognize them these wolves in sheep's clothing by their fruits Jesus says.
You'll recognize them by their fruits. Now verses 16 through 20 seem to include a lot of redundancy. It seems that Jesus is just kind of saying the same thing over and over again but if you look closely you'll see that he's giving us essentially two tests by which to measure the legitimacy of a prophet. The first test has to do with the man himself and the teaching itself.
The second test has to do with the consequence or fruits of the man and his teaching. In other words the first test will ask what kind of tree is this and the second test will ask what kind of fruit does this tree produce. First we're to ask what kind of tree are we dealing with. What is this preacher and his teaching actually made of? Verse 16 is he a grapevine or a thorn bush? Is he a fig or a thistle?
Because the kind of tree or plant determines the fruit. The content of his teaching and the content of his character will determine the effect, the fruit, the consequence of his teaching. So first we consider the content of his teaching.
We learn what kind of tree a spiritual authority is by evaluating the content of what he proclaims. Is what he says biblical? Does it square with scripture? I think sometimes we assume that a man, if a man has been theologically educated and ordained and he's been thoroughly vetted by his colleagues and superiors then he's safe.
But the real litmus test of his safeness as a spokesman for God is whether or not his teaching agrees with scripture. You know it may surprise us how much the Bible has to say about the importance of sound doctrine, about the necessity of keeping the teaching of the church pure by its adherence to the words of scripture. This isn't just a Presbyterian thing.
This isn't just a sophisticated suburbanite preference. It isn't a matter of catering to the preferences of intellectuals versus the simple folk. No sound doctrine, biblical content in our preaching and teaching and creedal commitments is a crucial and mandatory fundamental of the Christian faith. To be a Christian is to adhere to a certain system of belief. It's not only that but it is at least that. And to deny that fundamental system of belief is not just mildly problematic.
No, it is to sell the farm. It is to be not a Christian. It is to expose the fact that I'm a thorn bush and not a grape vine. That I'm a thistle and not a fig tree.
It's that big of a deal. Here's just a taste of the importance scripture places on sound doctrine. 1 Timothy 1, charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies which promote speculations rather than the stewardship from God that is by faith.
Certain persons by swerving from these have wandered away into vain discussion desiring to be teachers of the law without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions. 1 Timothy 4, if you put these things before the brothers you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus being trained in the words of the faith and of the good doctrine that you have followed have nothing to do with irreverent silly myths. 1 Timothy 6, if anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing.
He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth. 2 Timothy 2, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved a worker who has no need to be ashamed rightly handling the word of truth but avoid irreverent babble for it will lead people into more and more ungodliness and their talk will spread like gangrene. Titus 2, as for you teach what accords with sound doctrine. 2 Timothy 4, time is coming when people will not endure sound doctrine.
I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead and by his appearing and his kingdom preach the word. And every serious Christian says amen and agrees wholeheartedly that we should believe and obey and preach the Bible. Why then has history been a litany of just one false prophet after another, one heresy after another, one apostate after another. Abandoning the commitment to sound doctrine that we profess is so important.
Well it's because knowing that sound doctrine is important and maintaining one's commitment to sound doctrine are two different things. We know the Bible is the measuring stick of our faith but we also like to be our own measuring stick don't we? And we are geniuses at twisting the Bible to fit our wishes and at heaping up for ourselves teachers who will scratch the itch that we want them to scratch all the while convincing ourselves that what we're doing is holding fast to the faith that was once were all delivered to the saints. If we weren't bent this way Jesus would have had no need to warn us about false prophets. The reason wolves in sheep's clothing are such a threat is because truth be told we love the wolf. We love the wolf because he tells us what we want to hear while claiming that it's God's word. So brothers and sisters for our own good and for the good of each other we need to examine the content of the teaching that we deliver and that we ingest and ask is it consistent with what the Bible actually says and with what God means by what he says in the Bible or is it something else?
John Stott very perceptively said of the false preacher he often uses the language of historic orthodoxy in order to win acceptance from the gullible while meaning by it something quite different something destructive of the very truth he pretends to hold. I'm so glad to be a part of a church that holds to a tried and true confessional standard. We have a written document that while not inspired like scripture is a faithful explanation and summary of scripture and the purpose of this confession of faith is to help us avoid this ever present temptation to revise our doctrine to reinterpret scripture so that it fits the fads and the whims of our current moment.
I was canoeing the other day and the water current was making me feel like I wasn't making much progress I wasn't really moving so I stared at a fixed point on the shoreline to gauge how fast I was really moving and I realized I was drifting quite fast. A confession of faith is like that it provides us with a gauge of our theological drift a gauge that is objective and fixed not subject to the shifts and changes of of the people and influences around us and the value of this sort of gauge is incalculable when preachers claim to be teaching the word of God a claim which all wolves in sheep's clothing make the church has an objective measuring stick by which to evaluate the content of what they're saying. Beloved this will help us overcome our own biases and our cultural blind spots and make us less susceptible to the ever present wolves that lurk about trying to devour unsuspecting sheep. So when it comes to inoculating ourselves against the wolves against the false prophet the first test is to examine the content of his teaching.
The second test is to examine the content of his character. An oak tree looks like an oak tree a pine tree looks like a pine tree a godly preacher looks like a godly man and a wolf in sheep's clothing if one looks closely enough looks like a wolf and so we are to examine the character of the man. What exactly ought we to be looking for in the life of a person who claims to be speaking God's truth? Well we ought to look for the fruit of the Spirit in that person's life. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, gentleness, self-control. Are these qualities observable in the man?
Imperfectly observable yes but observable. Another thing we can examine and should examine especially with regard to authoritative teachers in the church is whether the man bears the qualifications of one called by God to teach and preach. Paul provides us with the objective character qualities to look for. He says in 1 Timothy 3 is he above reproach? The husband of one wife, sober minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, not a drunkard, not violent, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. Does he manage his own household well?
Are his children submissive to him? Is he a recent convert? Is his reputation outside of the church respectable?
Examine the character of the man and you will get a sneak peek under the sheepskin to see if there's actually a sheep in there. But there's more to detecting a false preacher than just examining the content of his teaching and character. We also should examine the consequence or fruit of his teaching and character.
What does this tree produce? First we should observe the consequence of his teaching. What kind of spiritual fruit does his teaching bear?
This goes beyond simply asking if what he says is biblical and it asks if what he says is producing biblical Christians. Paul writes to young Timothy and tells him how to identify the fruit of false teachers. And Paul says that the teaching of a false teacher produces this, envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, it breeds quarrels, it upsets whole families, it leads people into more and more ungodliness.
A thistle plant produces thistles, not figs. On the other hand, Paul says the fruit of biblical teaching is also apparent. Paul says sound teaching produces love, a pure heart, a good conscience, sincere faith and godliness and it equips the hearer for every good work and increases knowledge of the truth.
In addition to observing the consequence of a teacher's teaching, we should also observe the consequence of his character. What do his life choices and values produce? Does his life align with the content of his preaching?
Does he practice what he preaches? The paragraph that comes immediately after our text today describes the outcome of the character of a false prophet. In fact, let me read it, Matthew 7 verse 21. Jesus says, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. So interestingly, these false prophets are preaching some measure of orthodoxy. They say, Lord, Lord. At the very least, they're confessing the lordship of Christ and yet they're neglecting obedience, Jesus says. This tells us that the content of their teaching alone is not a sufficient test.
We must all also consider the outcome of their life. Jesus goes on in verse 22 and says, on that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, do we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name? In other words, these false prophets are not only orthodox to some degree, they're also capable of doing some pretty phenomenal things, miraculous things, impressive things that give the appearance of credibility, of a credible gospel ministry. They prophesy. They cast out demons. They do mighty works in the name of Jesus. But when it comes to simple obedience, they fail miserably. Jesus says to them in verse 23, I never knew you.
Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. They may be able to do flashy, sensational, attention-grabbing feats, but at the end of the day, they do not obey the law of God. We're easily mesmerized, aren't we, by the impressive abilities of false teachers, their rhetorical skills, their commanding presence, their ability to lead with confidence. We may even be drawn to the apparent success of their ministry, the sheer number of converts that they've evangelized, the size of their church, the popularity of their books, the scope of their influence. But if simple obedience to the Lord is absent from their lives, they are false pretenders, good for nothing but to be, verse 19, cut down and thrown into the fire.
You will know them by their fruits, the fruit of their teaching and the fruit of their character. As we bring this to a close, begin to think about the practical application of this passage of Scripture, I think it's important that we start by recognizing who the target audience is. There's only one imperative, one command in this paragraph, and it's right there in the very first statement, beware of false prophets. The recipient of this command is not the false prophet. There are other passages in God's Word that handle the rebuke and the admonishment and the punishment that's due to those who preach falsely, but this text is directed at the hearer, the recipient of false teaching. And so our application of this passage ought to focus on our attitude and posture towards those who spiritually teach and disciple us. Also, if this was a concern for the first disciples there in the early church of how much greater concern must it be for us today, just in light of the sheer volume of teaching that claims to be biblical instruction. We can go home this afternoon and Google Matthew 7-15 and spend the next five years working through the search results of sermons and videos and audio files and books and articles and forum comments, all of which claim to be the biblical authoritative word on the matter. So how do we take to heart this warning to beware of false prophets?
Let me suggest a few practical steps of application. First, we should acknowledge the reality of false prophets. Acknowledge the reality of false prophets. And maybe that's obvious, but we are at our most vulnerable when we're oblivious to a threat.
I suppose it's natural for us to wish that the real world were a Pollyanna world, but it's not a Pollyanna world. It's a world with wolves who dress up like sheep and say, listen to me, I'm preaching the Bible. Protection against that threat begins with an awareness, an acknowledgement of that threat. But we're not only vulnerable because false preachers are real, we're also vulnerable because we, as we've already pointed out, sometimes prefer false preachers over true preachers. It's obvious that wolves have a sin nature problem. What's not so obvious is that sheep also have a sin nature problem. We are susceptible to false teaching because we often have what scripture calls itching ears, ears that want to hear what they want to hear, whether or not it's true. And really at the root of itching ears is a pride problem, right? We want a version of the truth that will alleviate our guilt without repentance or that will boost our self-esteem by making us feel justified and vindicated and virtuous for all the choices we've made or the responsibilities we've shirked.
We want to feel good. And the message about sin and judgment and mortification and submission to a sovereign God doesn't make us feel good. Itching ears then is at its root the sin of loving myself more than I love Christ.
And it makes me vulnerable to the wolves. But then there's also the sin of loving others more than I love Christ, of putting people on pedestals because I like them or they impress me or they command respect. We might call it hero worship or personality-driven ministry, but whatever we call it, it's idolatry.
It's loving the preacher of the gospel more than we love the Christ of the gospel. And it makes us vulnerable to the destructive deception of the wolves. So we need to be honest with ourselves about our own susceptibility to false teachers.
All of this talk of false teachers and vulnerability and deception might just leave us skeptical of the whole thing and we end up throwing the baby out with the bathwater. We need to recognize that these verses are not a license to become a heresy hunter. In fact, just a few verses earlier, Jesus has condemned the sin of judgmentalism and so there is a danger in the opposite direction. The flip side of the coin is that while we need to beware of false teachers, we also need to submit to godly biblical teachers. Hebrews 13 17 makes this clear. It says, Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls as those who will have to give an account.
Let them do this with joy, not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. When I discover an actual shepherd of the sheep, by virtue of the biblical content of his teaching and the godliness of his character, I have an obligation to listen to him. So there's no getting around the fact that we will have to be discerning in the spiritual food we take in and discerning with regard to the spiritual leaders we submit ourselves to. How do we exercise that discernment? Well, as a starting point, I need to learn to evaluate the content of my teacher's teaching by its adherence to scriptural orthodoxy rather than by my emotional or intellectual reaction to it.
My response is not the gauge. The Bible is the gauge. The sermon is not good because I liked it. If it's good, it is good because it comports with scripture. Furthermore, I need to learn to evaluate the character and conduct of my teachers by their adherence to scriptural godliness rather than by the appeal of their personality to my tastes.
Just because I like someone or admire them doesn't necessarily mean they're a godly influence. And lastly, when I discover a wolf in sheep's clothing, I need to stop subjecting myself to his influence. If I'm going to take Christ's warning seriously, there's going to come a point where the rubber has to meet the road, a point at which I will have to choose godly biblical inputs into my life and stop allowing ungodly, unbiblical influences.
Why? Because my spiritual survival is at stake. Well, be careful, little ears, what you hear, and little eyes, what you read, and little hearts, what you give your affections to, because as goes the discipler, so goes the discipled.
I recognize this has not been a fun topic today. Coming to terms with the reality that there are charlatans in the church who are seeking to devour the children of God, it's disturbing. So I want to end by reminding us all that Christ is the good shepherd of the sheep. He is the all-knowing, all-powerful wolf catcher, and he has promised that no wolf will snatch his true children out of his hand.
It won't happen. Not only that, but he has also promised to provide real under-shepherds who sincerely love the flock and will faithfully lead and feed the flock. Ephesians 4 tells us that Christ has given to his church apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers to equip the saints and to build up the body of Christ until we all attain maturity in Christ and so that we may no longer be tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes. Jesus Christ will protect us from the wolves. So beware of the wolves, but do not be afraid of the wolves. They will huff and they will puff, but they will not, in fact, they cannot blow down the house that is built on Christ and his infallible word.
The question then is, have you built your life on that foundation? And that's the question we'll take up next time as we finish our journey through the Sermon on the Mount. Let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, thank you for your son, the great protector of the sheep. Help us to hear his voice and follow him. Amen.
