False Prophets Matthew 7:15-20 Introduction This morning’s passage from the Sermon on the Mount I find particularly disturbing because there is a very real sense in which Jesus takes aim directly at people like me – teachers in the church, mouthpieces for the Christian faith, pastors of congregations. And I have to admit that as I reflected on it, I found myself feeling a little nervous – what Jesus says can have a very unsettling effect on you (to say the least). Check it out – Matt 7:15-20. <Read the text> Can you see why someone like me might feel unsettled? Beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. In other words, beware of people within the church who give every outward indication that they are genuine Christian teachers, but because of who they really are on the inside (ravenous wolves), are dangerous people – dangerous to you. So I ask myself – am I one of these people? Am I really a false prophet, a person I think is one of you, but really am a wolf dressed up to look like a sheep? After all, the way counterfeits work – they only way they’re really effective – is that they are plausible alternatives to the genuine article. What makes this statement of Jesus in v 15 so unsettling is that by definition, you’d never imagine false prophets to be false prophets. They come to you with all the earmarks of a sheep. Like the devil himself who “disguises himself as an angel of light,” false prophets don’t have any easily identifiable tags or markers singling them out as people to beware of. And so I ask myself, as I look in the mirror, what if I’m one of those guys? What if I’m one of those kinds of people? But you say, “Wait! Wouldn’t you know that you’re one of those people?” Not necessarily. Look ahead to vv 21-23. <Read the text> The line “did we not prophesy in your name” makes it pretty clear that there will be people who believed themselves to be prophesying in Jesus’ name, but who were unwitting ambassadors for the devil. In v 23, Jesus says he will say to them: “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” So if you’re thinking that I should take heart that I’m not a false prophet because I don’t think I’m a false prophet, think again! I can be deceived to my own agenda. Scary. And what makes it even scarier are the consequences that Jesus lays out in v 19: Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. And the fire that Jesus is talking about here is not the literal kind. It’s the kind that John the Baptist talked about earlier in Matt 3:10-12. He says, “The axe is already laid at the root of the trees; therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not fit to remove His sandals; He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clear His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” And later, Jesus talks about this fire himself in Matt 13:41-42: “The Son of Man will send forth His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all stumbling blocks, and those who commit lawlessness, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” So when you read something like what Jesus says here in Matthew 7, can you blame me for feeling a little nervous, a little disturbed, a bit uncomfortable? It’s very searching stuff; it cuts me to the core and causes me to question my commitment to Christ. Am I really one of his? Am I one of his true sheep? And let me say at this point that this is a very, very important question not only for me to ask myself, but for you to ask yourselves. Paul tells us all to examine ourselves to see whether we are in the faith, and he’s not kidding. Too much is at stake. Too much hangs in the balance. How you will spend your everlasting afterlife is at issue. And, nothing could be more serious to you than that. So prayerfully ask yourself this morning, even as I am preaching whether you are one of his true sheep, or an imposter – a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Of course, as I said, all of this questioning pertains most directly to guys like me – to teachers in the church. And it’s a warning from Jesus to you (and to me) to be wary of false teachers, pseudo-prophets. Read it again with me. <Read the text> Now then, in this text Jesus basically tells us one thing about false prophets: they’re hard to spot, but not impossible. So his warning, as sobering as it is, doesn’t leave us in the dark – doesn’t leave me in the dark. False prophets are hard to spot, but not impossible. And that’s good news for all of us.  Hard to Spot I think you already can see that Jesus is telling us that false prophets, false teachers are hard to spot. Verse 15: Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. In other words, false prophets are people you’d never suspect of being false prophets. I mentioned this earlier. If false prophets stank like a used car salesman (forgive me all you wonderful used car salesmen out there) – but if you could spot them a mile a way, then there’d really be no need for a warning like this from Jesus. Of course, this is not to say that false prophets can’t be obvious. Clearly, there are men and women who have taught things and along the current theological landscape are still teaching things that are being called Christian, but obviously have no place in Christianity. Those obviously false things are still false…but they’re easy to spot. What Jesus is saying here is that there is a kind of false teacher who for all intents and purposes looks like a bona fide Christian teacher, but in reality couldn’t be farther from it! They are wolves in sheep’s clothing. And in case we missed the point that they are hard to spot, Jesus moves on to a different metaphor in vv 16-20 to say exactly the same thing. Read with me. <Read the text> It would be so easy if the false prophet trees produced no fruit, right? If the tree were just dead! But the problem here is that false prophet trees, like true prophet trees produce fruit also! And I would argue, in light of the immediate context, that the fruit produced by these “bad trees” is not even obviously funky fruit, but fruit that you really need to inspect in order to be able tell its true condition. Let me give you an illustration from right here in Matthew. Turn ahead to 13:24-30, 36-43. <Read the text> Do you know what a tare is? A tare is something called darnel. And darnel is a weed that looks just like wheat until it’s too late. It looks the same until pulling the weeds would mean killing your crop. This is what I’m suggesting to you Jesus is getting at back in Matthew 7. You can turn back there.  So the good fruit from the good trees and the bad fruit from the bad trees are harder to spot than at first you might think. It’s more like trying to discern poisonous berries from edible berries, especially those poisonous berries that can mimic edible varieties. False prophets are the same. They can mimic genuine prophets, true teachers in the Christian church. So Jesus tells us to be sure we’re putting ourselves under the genuine variety. “Beware of the false prophets,” he says, “they’re hard to spot.” But Not Impossible On the other hand, it’s not impossible to discern a difference; otherwise, this warning from Jesus would be pointless. If it were utterly impossible to tell the difference between true and false teachers, then he wouldn’t even bother to warn us. “Good luck! Hope you don’t get bamboozled! Go back to your homes. There’s nothing left to see here.” Jesus isn’t saying this at all. He’s saying that even though false prophets are hard to spot, it’s not impossible. There is a way to unmask them. Look again at vv 16-20. <Read the text> How can you tell the difference? Where should you look? Well, Jesus tells us nine times where to look! NINE times! I guess we’re pretty dense. Read the verses again so I can show you: 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, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits. In other words, FRUIT, FRUIT, FRUIT, FRUIT, FRUIT, FRUIT, FRUIT, FRUIT, and FRUIT! Are you following the fruit? So then, while it is difficult to spot false prophets, and even though it requires discernment and a discriminating eye, their fruit eventually gives them away. Look to what their life and ministry produces! Look closely at their produce. What to Look For? Now then, let me ask an obvious question: as we’re looking to their fruit, what should we be looking for? Let me make three suggestions: (1) their character and conduct; (2) the complexion of their followers; and (3) the content of their teaching – all of which need to be in line with the gospel (and of course) the Sermon on the Mount. Character and Conduct Look to their character – look closely at it. Do they exemplify the character and conduct described and demanded by the Sermon on the Mount? Start with the Beatitudes. Go to 5:3-10. Verse 3: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. So are they poor in spirit? That is, do they see themselves as beggars before God, as totally dependent on him for absolutely everything? Verse 4: Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Do they mourn? Over the sin in the world, yes, but even more over their own sin? And do they mourn because of what their sin has done to their savior, Jesus Christ, or do they mourn because they feel bad that they aren’t living up to the standards of goodness they have set for themselves? Verse 5: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Are they meek? Are they touchy and defensive or are they people who don’t move to defend themselves because there’s nothing in them worth defending? Verse 6: Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Do they hunger and thirst for righteousness? Righteousness that’s not their own? In other words, do they see their own record and resume as not good enough to be acceptable to God? Do they act as if they have arrived, or do they see themselves as continually starving and thirsting to God for him to give them Jesus’ record as a gift? Verse 7: Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy. Are they merciful? Are they quick to forgive? Do they see people who are down and out as no different than they are? Do they take action on behalf of the weak and needy, not as a show of superiority and power, but as a reflection of their gratitude for the hand-out of grace they’ve received from their heavenly father? Verse 8: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Are they pure in heart? Are they centered on the center? Is the gospel the centerpiece of their existence? As a result are they personally loyal to God and relationally honest with other people – what you see is what you get? Verse 9: Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Are they peacemakers? That is, are they people who are committed to the work of personal evangelism, seeing other people reconciled to God? Or are they spiritually ingrown, fixated on their selfish interests within the church rather than involved in God’s pursuit of the lost?  Verse 10: Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Have they been persecuted for Jesus’ sake? As you begin to manifest the character of the Beatitudes, you will find that people are strangely attracted to and repulsed by you at the same time! If everyone likes them, they’re probably not bold enough, and if everyone hates them, they’re probably obnoxious and arrogant. So are they people who take it on the chin for Jesus, or are they typically people that everyone likes? So, start with the Beatitudes. But don’t stop there. Go on to the life that’s described in the rest of the Sermon on the Mount. Is their life more and more conformed not simply to the behavior, but the appropriate attitudes behind the behavior demanded by the Sermon on the Mount? Now the reason I emphasize attitude over behavior is because of the subtlety factor. They are wolves in sheep’s clothing; their fruit at first looks edible. We have to emphasize the attitudes before the behavior because in point of fact, behaviors are more easily counterfeited than attitudes. You remember Ch 6, right? Hypocrites pray and give to the poor and fast just as much as sincere believers do. The issue is with why they do what they do. It would be much easier if we could say, “False teachers don’t pray or fast or give money to the poor.” Instead, we have to say, “False teachers won’t pray properly or fast properly or give money to the poor properly – every act will be propped up by some sinister motive. So we don’t want to look simply to the behavior, but to how they express their devotion, how they express their interest in living the Christian life. On the other hand, what’s inside of you can’t help but manifest itself in your behavior. If you are a false teacher, it will affect the conduct itself. Think about prayer with me. Eventually, if all you’re praying for is to make a show of your piety, if all you’re doing it for is to get people to think well of you, and not because you love God and other people, you certainly won’t pray when you’re alone! You’ll find that their prayer closet is empty. So consider their character and their conduct – what does their life look like? The Complexion of Their Followers Second, look to the complexion of their followers. Check out Matt 10:24-25. <Read the text> We have a saying that goes like this: the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. So look to the complexion of their followers. What kind of men and women are they? They will resemble their teacher. You’ll detect the “family” resemblance. It will show up in their followers. More than that, this will actually make the false teachers a little easier to spot because teachers defects tend to show up in a more pronounced way in their followers. In other words, what is distorted in the teacher will be even more distorted in the student. Let me give you an illustration. <Throwing the ball against the house while my son watches illustration> So look to the complexion of their followers. If you see something off in them, if their followers have characteristic oddities, then you should be suspicious of their teachers. The Content of Their Teaching But finally, you need to look to the content of their teaching. Where they are really at will come out of their mouths! This is as inevitable as gravity. Listen to them long enough, and they will tip their hand. You’re in Matthew 10; turn to Ch 12 and read vv 33-37. <Read the text> Here the Pharisees, the teachers of Israel, are being condemned by Jesus because of what is coming out of their mouths. Let me steal an illustration from Paul Tripp. I found it in his mustache. <Water bottle illustration> Now then, why did water come out of the bottle? Because I shook it? You might think so. It seems like the obvious answer. Well, let me restate the question emphasizing a different word: why did water come out of the bottle? Answer: because it was in there in the first place. This is how our mouths relate to our hearts, to the seat of our being, what comes out is what is already there in the first place. You can turn back to Matthew 7. All this is to say that a false prophet will eventually tip his hand; it’s only a matter of time. Look to what he says. Look to the content of his message. Look to what he’s teaching. And when it comes to the content of their teaching, one question should dominate the discussion: is what he teaches in line with the gospel? End of story. Is what he teaches in line with the gospel? Or we might put it like this: is what he teaches found on the narrow road that leads to life or the broad road that leads to destruction? Do you remember vv 13-14 from last time? Read with me. <Read the text> Two Distortions of the Gospel The narrow road that leads to life is the road of the gospel; the broad road that leads to destruction is every other way. Now last time I said that you might be tempted to think that the people on the narrow way are people who are “on the straight and narrow”; that is, the good people. And on the flip side, you’ll think that broad road living is living a morally bankrupt life – the road that’s full of bad people. But for Jesus, the world is not divided into the “good” people and the “bad” people. Instead, there are people who embrace Jesus as Lord and savior, and people who avoid Jesus as Lord and savior, and what’s interesting is that you can avoid Jesus as Lord and savior either by being good or by being bad! Religious moralists avoid Jesus as Lord and savior by developing a system of moral righteousness to put God their debt. My obedience and religious devotion beefs up my spiritual resume such that I don’t need Jesus to rescue me any more. And where there are gaps in my resume, I use Jesus to fill them in. But by and large I don’t need rescue, I need a boost! Irreligious relativists avoid Jesus as Lord and savior by ignoring him altogether and running their own lives. No one can tell me how to live my life; I determine what is write and wrong for me. Therefore I don’t need Jesus to rescue me because I reject the whole idea of lostness! I’m not lost, so I don’t need to be found! Now what is so amazing about these two approaches to spirituality is that on the outside they look like they are polar opposites – the rule-keepers and the rule-breakers (or -makers). But underneath it all they are identical – both trying to avoid Jesus as Lord and savior. That’s who’s on the broad road. Now then, the reason I’m reminding you about this is that it will help us to detect two common distortions of false prophets. Since what they teach will veer from the narrow road, you can plot it somewhere on the broad road – either on the moralistic side or the relativistic side.  And what we have seen throughout the history of the church is just that! The church father Tertullian put it like this, “Just as Jesus was crucified between two thieves, so the gospel is ever crucified between to errors.” And those two errors, those two thieves that steal from the gospel are known as legalism on the one hand and antinomianism on the other. Legalism turns the gospel into a system of achievement. Antinomianism (literally meaning “against law”) turns the gospel into a license to live according to your preferences. Antinomianism and Legalism The antinomian error – the one that says because of grace, the way you live your life is immaterial to the Christian faith lowers the standard of God’s holiness commensurate with our failure; that is, we lower the bar so that we can traverse it. Antinomians engage in all kinds of minimizing the holiness of God so as to assuage their guilty conscience for sins they’ve committed. For example, they will rationalize, blame-shift, and make excuses for their sin: “It’s not my fault.” Or they will presume on the grace of God, “God will forgive me – that’s what he does!” Or they will try to find ways to reread Scripture in terms of their preferences (e.g. legitimizing homosexuality or egalitarianism). In addition, there’s a psychological component to the antinomian thief that invariably leaks out so that you can get a sense that you’re in the presence of that error. If you are antinomian, you may feel smaller than people who have more “freedom” than you, who understand God’s “grace” and are therefore able to do more than you. This will make you hate yourself for your overactive conscience and look for ways to numb yourself to it. Therefore you will be overcome with a sense of inferiority to others with more “freedom.” In addition, you may find yourself looking down on the “rule-keepers,” the “prudes,” the “stuffed-shirts,” the “high-churched,” and the “doctrinaire.” Even though you sound open-minded and fun-loving, you are just as stuffed-shirt as the people you despise. It’s just that what you can’t stand, what you can’t tolerate are the “legalists.” So you are puffed up with a smug superiority. Legalism happens when we put our (progressive) sanctification before our justification. This is the view that your acceptance by God or yourself or others is based on your record or performance or achievements or goodness. Most often, the legalist’s Christianity tends to emphasize things you don’t do: I don’t listen to certain music; I don’t have sex before I get married; I don’t party with my friends; I don’t drink alcohol - whatever. Now that’s not to say that it isn’t also determined by things you do. It is. I go to church regularly; I do all kinds of ministry; I give to the church and the poor; I help my neighbor. And for the legalist all these dos and don’ts are ways of ingratiating yourself to God. “God, if I do these things, you owe me. You owe me a smooth, easy, comfortable life.” Your performance becomes a way of getting leverage over God. You say things like the psalmist does in Ps 73:13: “All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.” My life isn’t going right, so all my obedience has been for nothing. In addition, whenever the legalist sins, he or she feels the need to make up for it by somehow performing a deed that will outweigh the sinful thought, attitude, or behavior, like giving your wife a bouquet of roses after a fight or taking your kids out for ice cream after you’ve yelled at them or getting up two hours earlier tomorrow to make up for the time you wasted today. And like the antinomian, the legalist is psychologically “leaky.” On the one hand, he’ll be full of self-loathing and inconsolable guilt because you can’t live up to the standards you set for yourself. So you walk around very guilty and depressed with a deep sense of inferiority before God and others – you feel small, like a loser, a failure. On the other, he may be full of a sense of superiority. If you are able to live up to the standards that you set for yourself you will feel very smug and satisfied, wonder why other people in your life can’t be like you. “They need to step up and do what’s right.” “I can’t believe that so and so would do such a thing.” All this is to say that based on the Sermon on the Mount we can expect false teachers to be characterized by legalism on the one hand or antinomianism on the other. The antinomian steals from the gospel by making it a license to sin. The legalist steals from the gospel by making it a system of achievement. And both of them avoid Jesus as Lord and savior. The antinomian especially avoids him as Lord (as boss and master) and the legalist especially avoids him as Savior (as rescuer and redeemer).  And, boy! Is this subtle! It’s subtle because both errors are guilty of imbalance. Legalism overemphasizes the very real demand of the gospel (Matt 5:48: “Be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect”) and antinomianism overemphasizes the very real comfort of the gospel (Matt 6:26: “You are more valuable than many sparrows”). The challenge of the gospel is that there needs to be an equal emphasis on both – both the demand of the gospel and the comfort of the gospel; otherwise, you lose the gospel. SO THEN, here’s what you need to look for in order to follow Jesus’ admonishment to beware of false prophets: (1) look to their character and conduct: do they live in step with the gospel? (2) Look to the complexion of their followers: do their followers live in step with the gospel? And (3) look to the content of their teaching: do they preach the gospel, or one of its common distortions? Conclusion I began this morning by sharing with you how convicting this passage has been for me. I certainly do not want to be counted among the false teachers that Jesus describes here! At the same time, even as I was preparing the message, I was feeling encouraged and more assured that I am not a false teacher. I live a life in step with the gospel, which DOESN’T mean (and don’t miss this), which DOESN’T mean that I don’t sin! No way! But that’s not living in step with the gospel. Living in step with the gospel means that while the overall course of your life will be marked with personal growth and change, more than that it will mean that you will be a person who says, “Father, my repentance is half-hearted, my affection for you is cold. My obedience is never more than halfway there. I fail again and again and again. But your son died for me. He died my death and lived the life I owe. He paid my penalty. Welcome me for his sake.” Second, I see the ways that the Lord is changing you for the better! It’s amazing really. Just this week, in fact, I read a testimony from a recent membership application. Listen to what this person said:  God…eventually led us to Redeemer Bible Church….Sunday after Sunday…God spoke to me things that I had never really heard before. I have been a Christian all my life but never understood the way I have been living as if I believed in a works-based sanctification. The truth of God’s grace has been something I have heard for years but just accepted as part of the story, not grasping what it means for me personally, until just recently. To be awakened to my total depravity and worthlessness without Christ has been one of the great discoveries of my soul, setting me on a journey to true freedom. I am beginning to fall in love with the paradoxes of a faith I have had for years but feel in some ways I am freshly encountering. How encouraging is that! Third, if there’s one thing we do here at Redeemer, it is that we incessantly preach the gospel – both sides of it. The demand and the comfort of the gospel! And really, when all is said and done this is the best we can do to protect you from false teaching. I mean, there are just far too many distortions of the gospel that are out there, subtle or otherwise, in order for me (or even Jesus) to be able to give you a heads-up about all of them. Can I return to my berries illustration for a second? Do you remember when I said that the difference between the fruit of false teachers and genuine teachers is like trying to discern poisonous berries from edible ones? Well, one of the things I learned about avoiding poisonous berries is that “poisonous berry bushes vary greatly in their appearance, making identification of some toxic varieties difficult. To protect yourself, it’s best to learn which berries are edible.” In other words, what you need more than a list of poisonous berry bushes is to be an expert in which berries are edible. To be an expert in the real McCoy! As you grow in your knowledge of the gospel, you will be more and more discerning to see whether or not people are living or preaching is being given in line with the gospel. So let me encourage you today. Beware of false teachers. But to do that, do more: be an expert in the gospel. Drink deeply from spring of the grace of God. And as you do, you will be safe – safe in Jesus’ hands. Amen.