Matthew 7:15-20

¹⁵ “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. ¹⁶ You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? ¹⁷ So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. ¹⁸ A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. ¹⁹ Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. ²⁰ Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.

 

Let me introduce you to Rev. David Hart.

Rev. Hart is a priest in the Church of England.  He is also a convert to Hinduism.

Let me repeat:  he is a priest in the church of England and also a convert to Hinduism.

In 2006, The Times, of London, published a picture of Hart offering puja to the Hindu god Ganesha in front of his house in Thiruvananthapuram, India.  As you can imagine, this sparked quite a controversy.  When asked how a Christian priest could convert to Hinduism and still claim to be a Christian, Hart shrugged off any notion that this was a problem.  Here is what he said.

Becoming a Hindu has not brought about any change in my spiritual status. The act has not shaken my Christian beliefs by even one per cent…Asking me to express my preference for any particular faith is like asking me to choose between an ice-cream and a chocolate. Both have their own distinct taste.[1]

Let me also introduce you to Pastor Thorkild Grosboll.

He pastored a church in Tarbaek, Denmark, until his retirement a few years ago.  Some years before his retirement, Gosboll said this:  “I do not believe in a physical God, in the afterlife, in the resurrection, in the Virgin Mary.”  He continued:  “I believe that Jesus was a nice guy who figured out what man wanted. He embodied what he believed was needed to upgrade the human being.”  Later, he said this:  “God belongs in the past. He is actually so old fashioned that I am baffled by modern people believing in his existence. I am thoroughly fed up with empty words about miracles and eternal life.”

His Bishop, Lise-Lotte Rebel, removed him from his post after all of this became clear.  She removed him, however, not so much because what he said was heresy that undermined the gospel, but because, as a Danish Lutheran, he is paid by the state and has a responsibility not to confuse people.  Seriously.  That was her objection.

Anyway, Pastor Grosboll objected to her objection.  Most tellingly, so did his congregation.  They were incensed that their atheist pastor would be the subject of discipline.  They loved him and wanted him left alone.  Thus, they turned out in shows of public support for him.  All of this eventually went to the courts, who….wait for it…removed Bishop Rebel from her oversight of the pastor.  There were some further wranglings over Grosboll, but, in the end, he was allowed to keep his church and pulpit so long as he…wait for this too…no longer shared his opinions with the press.  He retired in February of 2008.[2]

It is a tragic but certain fact that the bride of Christ has had to deal with false teachers in her midst for her entire existence.  Jesus warned of precisely this in our text this morning.

¹⁵ “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. ¹⁶ You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? ¹⁷ So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. ¹⁸ A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. ¹⁹ Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. ²⁰ Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.

Let us listen closely to our King and consider well His warning about the threat of false teachers in the church.

I. The Devil Sends False Prophets to Confuse and Derail Followers of Jesus (v.15a)

The first point is obvious in the words of Jesus:  the devil sends false prophets to confuse and derail followers of Jesus.  When Jesus says, “Beware of false prophets,” He is assuming their reality and their danger.  Disciples of Jesus will have to contend with false teachers teaching false doctrines that undermine the gospel of Jesus.  The teachers are dangerous, their teachings are dangerous and we must beware of them and guard against them.

As we consider false prophets, let us look at five biblical truths concerning them.

First of all, there are a lot of false prophets.  There always have been and there always will be.  In Matthew 24:11 Jesus said, “And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray.”

Second, false prophets, in general, are impressive people.  The reason they have large followings is because they are charismatic figures, attractive figures, compelling figures.  In Matthew 24:24, Jesus said, “For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.”

Notice that these people have a kind of power.  They have seemingly impressive results.  They get big numbers and can dazzle a crowd.  They are not boring.  They are not dull.  They are flashy, provocative, humorous, suave, and effective.

Third, they have large followings.  In Luke 6:26, Jesus said, “Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.”  Do you see?  “All people,” Jesus said, “speak well” of false prophets.

You can see this today in ostensibly Christian publishing.  Sometimes books are popular because they seem to be blessed by God.  They are God-honoring and biblically faithful.  But just because a book is popular does not mean that is the case.  In fact, I have seen in my lifetime numerous titles that were bestsellers among Christians that had terrible theology, that were not biblically faithful, and that presented false teachings.  So too with popular preachers.  Sometimes preachers are popular because they are saying what people want to hear.  A large following does not mean that a teacher is a good teacher.  It may mean that he is a false prophet.

Fourth, false prophets offer an appealing message, but it is inevitably one that covers up the truth.  In Ezekiel 22, false prophets are condemned with these words:

²⁸ And her prophets have smeared whitewash for them, seeing false visions and divining lies for them, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord God,’ when the Lord has not spoken.

That is a provocative and compelling phrase:  “they have smeared whitewash for them.”  That means that these false prophets cover up the truth, but they cover it up with an attractive veneer.  What they say sounds so very true, so very wise, so very right.  However, what they say is not the truth, but a lie.

Fifth, false prophets are destined for destruction and will receive the wrath of God.  In Ezekiel 13, the Lord announces the coming judgment of these false teachers.

⁸ Therefore thus says the Lord God: “Because you have uttered falsehood and seen lying visions, therefore behold, I am against you, declares the Lord God. ⁹ My hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and who give lying divinations. They shall not be in the council of my people, nor be enrolled in the register of the house of Israel, nor shall they enter the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord God.

“I am against you…My hand will be against the prophets…They shall not be in the council of my people, nor be enrolled in the register of the house of Israel, nor shall they enter the land of Israel.”  It is a terrible thing to pervert the truth of the living God.  Paul put it like this in Galatians 1:

⁶ I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— ⁷ not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. ⁸ But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. ⁹ As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

Church:  cursed be anybody who would seek to take the pure gospel of Jesus and distort it, perverting it with false teachings and strange doctrines.  Why?  Because the gospel is life.  The gospel is salvation.  The gospel points us to the very heart of God.  We dare not pervert it!

When, in the 19^th century, Soren Keirkegaard wrote his series of letters to the Danish church chastising the church for her abandonment of the way of Jesus, he said this about false teachers who had come in among God’s people:

Imagine that the people are assembled in a church in Christendom, and Christ suddenly enters the assembly.  What dost thou think He would do?

            He would turn upon the teachers (for the congregation He would judge as He did of yore, that they were led astray), He would turn upon them who “walk in long robes,” tradesmen, jugglers, who have made God’s house, if not a den of robbers, at least a shop, a peddler’s stall, and would say, “Ye hypocrites, ye serpents, ye generation of vipers”; and likely as of yore He would make a whip of small cords and drive them out of the temple.[3]

Christ will indeed deal with false teachers in the midst of the body of Christ!

II. These False Prophets Never Operate Openly, but are Almost Always Disguised as Friends and Fellow Disciples of Jesus (v.15b)

Perhaps the most pernicious attribute of false prophets is their penchant for disguising their true intentions.  False prophets never operate openly, but are almost always disguised as friends and fellow disciples of Jesus.  To communicate this fact, Jesus employed a startling image in our text.

¹⁵ “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

Imagine a wolf that dresses as a sheep so that he might sneak into the flock and kill at will.  It is a horrifying image, for it suggests that these false teachers are hard to spot but that the failure to spot them will result in devastation.  They never declare themselves outright.  They come dressed as one of God’s people.  Everything they say sounds pretty good.  There is nothing obvious about them that would reveal their pernicious intentions.

Turning to Kierkegaard again, he said this about the way that Christianity was being perverted in Denmark:

The apostasy from Christianity will not come about openly by everybody renouncing Christianity; no, but slyly, cunningly, knavishly, by everybody assuming the name of being Christian, thinking that in this way all were most securely secured against…Christianity, the Christianity of the New Testament, which people are afraid of, and therefore industrial priests have invented under the name of Christianity a seetmeat which has a delicious taste, for which men hand out their money with delight.[4]

That is true enough, and a wise warning, but let me go one step further.  I am convinced that the majority of false teachers honestly do not think that they are false teachers at all.  In other words, they themselves need to be shown this fact.  The definition of the word “Christian” has become so fluid in our day that it is now possible to hold to utterly heretical ideas and not believe that your ideas are heretical at all.  In fact, I honestly suspect that many heretics who are teaching false doctrines truly believe they are honoring God and helping the church.

I am thinking here of a man like Bishop John Shelby Spong, the retired bishop of the Episcopal Church who has made quite a nice living off of skewering the cardinal, biblical doctrines of Christianity.  A few years ago, Spong publically issued his twelve theses for a new reformation in the church.  Here they are:

1. Theism, as a way of defining God, is dead. So most theological God-talk is today meaningless. A new way to speak of God must be found.

2. Since God can no longer be conceived in theistic terms, it becomes nonsensical to seek to understand Jesus as the incarnation of the theistic deity. So the Christology of the ages is bankrupt.

3. The biblical story of the perfect and finished creation from which human beings fell into sin is pre-Darwinian mythology and post-Darwinian nonsense.

4. The virgin birth, understood as literal biology, makes Christ’s divinity, as traditionally understood, impossible.

5. The miracle stories of the New Testament can no longer be interpreted in a post-Newtonian world as supernatural events performed by an incarnate deity.

6. The view of the cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world is a barbarian idea based on primitive concepts of God and must be dismissed.

7. Resurrection is an action of God. Jesus was raised into the meaning of God. It therefore cannot be a physical resuscitation occurring inside human history.

8. The story of the Ascension assumed a three-tiered universe and is therefore not capable of being translated into the concepts of a post-Copernican space age.

9. There is no external, objective, revealed standard writ in scripture or on tablets of stone that will govern our ethical behavior for all time.

10. Prayer cannot be a request made to a theistic deity to act in human history in a particular way.

11. The hope for life after death must be separated forever from the behavior control mentality of reward and punishment. The Church must abandon, therefore, its reliance on guilt as a motivator of behavior.

12. All human beings bear God’s image and must be respected for what each person is. Therefore, no external description of one’s being, whether based on race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation, can properly be used as the basis for either rejection or discrimination.[5]

Now, it is clear that these twelve theses, by and large, present a basically atheistic view of reality, though I do not think Spong thinks of himself as an atheist.  Regardless, the overall thrust of these theses wars against biblical Christianity.  That is tragic, but, unfortunately, it is not surprising given Spong’s consistent efforts to undermine the faith.  But what I want to make most clear is this:  these theses are coming from a man who calls himself a Christian, sincerely believes he is a Christian, and sincerely believes that these theses will help the church.  In his mind, these theses do not constitute false teachings.  They constitute good teachings.  And the point is that he really does believe that these ideas are good.

He is a wolf in sheep’s clothing who really believes he is a sheep.  When he eats some of the sheep, he honestly believes he is helping the fold.

Please understand this point:  it may just be that the first person who needs to be convinced of false teaching is the one teaching it!

III. However, a Close Inspection of Fruit Will Always Reveal the Source of Any Prophet’s Message (v.16-20)

How then do we know when a person is a false prophet, a false teacher?  Jesus says that we can tell by the kind of fruit the prophet produces.

¹⁶ You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? ¹⁷ So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. ¹⁸ A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. ¹⁹ Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. ²⁰ Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.

Their “fruit” means two things:  their lives and their teachings.  It is oftentimes the case that false teachers are advancing their teachings for some kind of personal gain.  In time, the true desires of the false teachers, often sensual in nature, will become clear.  Oftentimes this bad fruit is related to either money or physical pleasures.  Jude drew a direct connection between false teachers and sensuality.

³ Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. ⁴ For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

Yes, their bad fruit may be ignoble and impure desires, for wealth or pleasure or fame or control.  But fruit, biblically, also refers to teaching.  For instance, in Matthew 12, John the Baptist said this:

³³ “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. ³⁴ You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. ³⁵ The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. ³⁶ I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, ³⁷ for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

Do you see?  The bad fruit of the brood of vipers condemned by John the Baptist was their “careless word[s],” words that would ultimately condemned them.  Friends, beware the words of false teachers.  What words constitute false teaching?  John tells us in 1 John 4.

¹ Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. ² By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, ³ and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.

When a teacher fails to exalt Jesus, to honor Christ as God in flesh, to draw men and women to Jesus, and to put the spotlight on Jesus, he or she is a false teacher.  More than that, he or she is channeling the spirit of the antichrist.  False teachers are doing the work of the devil.

Our church has committed itself to four canons: (1) An authentic family (2) around the whole gospel (3) for the glory of God (4) and the reaching of the nations.  That second canon is critical:  around the whole gospel.  That is our doctrinal canon, our canon of belief.  We are bound to the gospel of the living Christ.  We dare not, indeed we cannot abandon the gospel.  It is a rock-solid commitment of this church that this pulpit should only and ever promote the gospel of Christ.  It is a rock-solid commitment of this church that our Sunday School classes promote the gospel and reject anything that would pull us away from it.  Furthermore, it is a conviction of this church that whatever is done or said in this place must be in harmony with the gospel of Christ.

I believe in my heart of hearts that Satan does not want Central Baptist Church to disappear.  Rather, he wants us to remain where we are but abandon Christ while we are here.  He gets the victory if people continue to gather but gather around things other than Christ.  If Satan can sow false teachings, he can mock the one, true, living God.

Oh God!  Keep us close to the cross.  Keep us close to our King.  Keep us close to the gospel.  May we never abandon the truth for a lie.