MATTHEW 7:15-20
"Beware
of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are
ravenous wolves. 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
three that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So
then, you will know them by their fruits" (NASB).
INTRODUCTION
Noted in a
newspaper personal advertisement “Yesterday in this space I predicted that the
world would come to an end. It did not. However, I regret any inconvenience
this may have caused.”
Some years ago, insurance sales
personnel had to go from house to house and place to place, to enroll clients.
Two insurance agents went to a neighborhood where an evangelist was holding a
crusade. That day they could not enroll many clients. It happened that they
came to the crusade at a time when people were giving love offering to the
evangelist.
When one of the insurance sales men
saw how much money the people were giving to the evangelist, he told his
partner, I am giving up this insurance work to become an evangelist. The rest
is history. The name of this evangelist is a household word in the United
States, if I were to mention it to you.
As we continue our series on the
theme, “Back to the Basics” I would like us to continue from where we ended last
week. The title of today’s message, however, is “The Proliferation of False
Prophets.”
I. THE WARNING CONCERNING FALSE PROPHETS V. 15
We learned from Jesus last
Sunday in His Sermon on the Mount that there are two ways, the “broad way” and
the “narrow way.” Jesus says that you are to choose the narrow way because it
leads to life. Now, Jesus warns you and me that there are some false prophets
who operate in disguise to divert us from following the narrow way. Therefore,
in verse 15, Jesus says “Beware of false prophets.” The verb beware is
an imperative, a command. That word means, “watch out,” “be alert,” “be on your
guard.” Jesus obviously assumes that there are false prophets. There is no
sense in putting on your garden gate the notice “Beware of the dog” if all that
you have at home is a couple of cats. No, you do not do that. Jesus warned His
disciples of false prophets because they already existed. Jesus regarded the
Pharisees and the Sadducees in that light. He called them “Blind leaders of the
blind.”
In warning us, to “beware of false
prophets” Jesus held that truth and falsehood excluded one another, and that
those who proclaim lies in God’s name are false prophets, of whom His followers
must be on their guard.
From Jesus’ teaching here, we learn that false
prophets are both dangerous and deceptive. The danger is that in reality they
are wolves. In the first century
Israel, the wolf was the natural enemy of sheep, which were entirely
defenseless against it. Therefore, a good shepherd was always on the look out
for wolves in order to protect his sheep. In the same vein, the church is at
the mercy of a good shepherd or wolves. The good pastor or teacher feeds the
flock of Christ with truth. The false teacher like a wolf divides the flock of
Christ by error (Acts 20:29-30). One of the major characteristics of the false
prophets of the Old Testament was their amoral optimism, their denial that God
was the God of judgment as well as steadfast love and mercy. Every true pastor,
teacher, or evangelist must balance God’s love and mercy with His judgment. The
danger is that if a preacher or teacher on one hand teaches exclusively about
God’s love and mercy, he encourages moral laxity or loose life. On the other
hand, if he teaches only the judgment of God he becomes a legalist.
In the Old Testament, no prophet had a
harder time with false prophets than Jeremiah. Jeremiah spoke to the people of
the Southern Kingdom about the false prophets: “They were guilty of filling you with vain hopes . . . They say continually
to those who despise the word of the Lord, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to
everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart they say, ‘No evil shall come
upon you’” (Jer. 23:16-17).
Similarly, God indicts the false prophets: “They have healed the wound of My
people lightly, saying ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace” (Jer. 8:11). We
have such talk going on in many Christian circles today where the people are
not living right. However, such talk, to say the least is a great disservice to
the people of God. It gave the Israelites a false sense of security. It lulled
them to sleep in their sins. It failed to warn them of the impending judgment
of God or tell them how to escape it.
It is not an accident that Jesus’
warning about false prophets follows immediately His teaching about the two
gates, ways, and destinations. One of the things false prophets are good at is
to blur the message of salvation. Some so muddle or distort the gospel that
they make it hard for seekers to find the narrow gate. Others also teach that
the narrow way is in reality broader than Jesus implied, and that to walk it
requires little if any restriction on one’s belief or behavior. Perhaps the
most insidious and pernicious of all, dare to contradict Jesus and to assert that
the broad road does not lead to destruction, but that in fact all roads lead to
God. These false prophets claim that although the broad and narrow roads, lead
off in opposite directions, ultimately both ends in life. No wonder Jesus
likens such false teachers to ravenous
wolves. They are ravenous wolves because not only are they greedy for gain,
prestige or power but also because they are ferocious, that is extremely
dangerous. They are responsible for leading some people to the very
destruction, which they say, does not exist.
False prophets are more than dangerous; they are also deceptive. In chapter seven verse six,
the dogs and the pigs, because of their dirty habits, are easy to recognize. But not
the wolves, for they sneak into the
flock in the disguise of sheep with the intention to devour the sheep.
Consequently, the unwary actually mistake them for sheep and give them
unsuspecting welcome. Their true character is not detected until it is too late
and the damage has been done.
Have you seen a false teacher who
carries a signboard, advertising that he/she is a false one? A false teacher
does not announce and advertise that he is a preacher or teacher of lies; on
the contrary, he claims to be a teacher of the truth. Every false teacher
knowing that Christians are credible people conceals his dark purpose beneath
the cloak of Christian piety, hoping that his disguise will avert detection.
Therefore, the false prophet feigns piety, and 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.
Some of these false prophets hide behind the cover of high-sounding titles and
impressive academic degrees. Some of them can say impressive prayers that would
move you to do anything they ask you to do.
Therefore, Jesus warns, “Beware.” You must be on the alert, on
your guard, pray for discernment, use your critical faculties and never relax
your vigilance. I like the name of Dr. Ravi Zacharias’ ministry: “Let My people
think.” The fact that you are a Christian does not mean that you have to commit
intellectual suicide. Christians are thoughtful people. The Bible nowhere
teaches us to leave our brains home when we come to God’s sanctuary to worship
Him. When the Bible teaches us to empty ourselves, it does not say we have to
throw away our mind. In fact, the Bible commands Christians to think
constructively and challenges us to renew our minds on daily basis. You should
not allow a person’s outward appearance such as his/her clothes, charm,
learning, doctorates and ecclesiastical honors to deceive you. You must look
beneath the appearance to the reality. What lives under the fleece: a sheep or
a wolf? One area that you need to be on your guard is that of prophecy today. Some
people today state that their words are a direct revelation from God, but this
is an incredible affront to God. It
is a subtle deception, which you should beware. The priesthood of believers is
an essential and safeguard doctrine for the Christian community. God’s word
says, “For there is one God and one
mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5).
II. THE TESTS
OF FALSE PROPHETS VV.16-20
Having warned us about the rapid increase of false
prophets, Jesus does not leave us in the dark. He sheds light on how we can
detect false prophets. In this section, Jesus changes His metaphors from sheep and wolves to trees and their
fruit, from the sheep’s clothing,
which a wolf may wear to the fruit, which a tree must bear. Jesus does this
because sometimes you and I may mistake a wolf for a sheep, we cannot make the
same mistake with a tree. No tree can hide its identity for long. Eventually it
betrays itself—by its fruit. A wolf may disguise itself; a tree cannot. Some of
you, who have gardens at you backyards, let us say you planted tomato seeds and
they sprouted. There is a certain weed whose leaves are just like tomato
leaves. However, you can detect that the other plant is weed when the time of
harvest comes. The tomatoes will bear tomato fruits, while the weed will bear
nothing. Therefore, Jesus is saying that weeds like thorns and thistles simply
cannot produce edible fruit like grapes and figs. Grapes and figs were
common in the land of Israel in the days of Jesus. Therefore, the tree and its
condition determine the character of the fruit. “Every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit” (v.
17). Indeed, “a good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good
fruit” (v. 18). The day of God’s judgment will finalize the difference, as when
non-fruit-bearing trees are cut down and burnt (v. 19). Jesus then, draws His
conclusion: “You will know them by their fruits.” What are the fruits Jesus is
talking about?
The first kind of fruit by which false prophets
reveal their true identity is in the realm of character and conduct.
Do not follow anyone who tells you that character and conduct do not matter. On
the contrary, character and conduct matter to God. Whenever the fruit of the
Spirit is conspicuously absent in a pastor, teacher, prophet, evangelist, but
the works of the flesh are more apparent in him/her, you are justified in
suspecting that the prophet is an impostor.
However, you are not to confine your
test to only a prophet’s character and conduct. A second fruit is the person’s
actual teaching. “The tree is known by its fruit (Matt. 12:33-37; cf. Luke
6:45). Therefore, if a person’s heart is revealed in his/her words, as a tree
is known by its fruit, we have a responsibility to test a teacher by his teaching.
Some preachers have double tongue. This is an attention getter because the
Apostle Paul warned the Galatian Church: “But
even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to
what we have preached to you, let him be accursed” (Gal. 1:9). The Apostle
John also provides us with another example because the Asian churches to which
he wrote his epistle had been invaded by false teachers (1 John 2:26; 4:1).
The sixteenth century reformers, led
by Martin Luther were accused by the Church of Rome of being innovators and
false teachers, defended themselves by this doctrinal test. They appealed to
Scripture and maintained that their teaching was not something new but the
recovery of something old, namely the original gospel of Christ and His
apostles. It was rather the medieval Catholics who had departed from the faith
into error. Martin Luther said, “Cling to the pure Word of God, for then you
will be able to recognize the judge” who is right. John Calvin made a similar
emphasis: “All doctrines must be brought to the Word of God as the standard,
for in judging of false prophets the rule of faith holds the chief place.”
Thank God, for the Reformers because
God used them to recover the Scriptures for us at a time when lay people were
prohibited from reading and studying the Scripture. God has given us His
inerrant word, which is the Bible and His inward witness the Holy Spirit to
guide us discern false prophets.
Jesus went a step further in drawing
attention to the motives of false teachers in addition to the substance of
their teaching (John 7:18). Therefore, in examining a teacher’s credentials,
then, we have to examine both his character
and his message. “Sound doctrine
and holy living are the marks of true prophets." The third test, which you
must apply to false teachers and prophets, is their influence (2 Tim. 2:17-18).
The influence of false prophets is determined when their teaching like gangrene
upsets people’s faith, promotes ungodliness and causes bitter divisions (2 Tim.
2:16; 1 Tim. 6:4-5; 2 Tim. 2:23; Titus 1:11; 3:9). Sound teaching by contrast
produces faith, love and godliness (1 Tim. 1:4-5; 4:7; 6:3).
To make a proper application of this
test to a teacher or prophet, what is needed is not superficial estimate of his
teaching in the church, but a close and critical scrutiny of his character, conduct, message, motives and
influence. However, this warning of
Jesus does not give you the license to be suspicious of everybody or to hunt
for false prophets. Rather it is solemn reminder that there are false teachers
in the church and that we are to be on our guard. Truth matters; for it is
God’s truth and it builds up God’s church, whereas error is devilish and
destructive. If you care for God’s truth and for God’s church, you must take
Christ’s warning seriously. God places the doctrinal purity of church on a
pastor's shoulders as the spiritual leader. At the same time, God places the
same responsibility upon you as the congregation. Therefore, the Christian
community should watch out for these false prophets and teachers because they
are many today.
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