Beware of False Prophets Part One

Beware of False Prophets Part One

As we come to the end of our study of the sermon on the mount, we're looking at the series of eternally important choices that Jesus lays out: we need to choose between the narrow gate or the broad gate, we need to choose between allowing influences in our lives that produce good fruit or influences that produce bad fruit, we need to choose between doing the will of God or works of lawlessness, and finally Jesus says we need to choose between building our lives on the rock or building our lives on the sand.

Let's drop into the second of four choices: influences that bear good fruit or influences that bear bad fruit. Let's read vv. 15-20 together

Matt. 7:15-20

When I pastored a church on Long Island, a family started attending the church and after a while they shared their story with me. Years earlier they had started to listen to messages from a teacher in Texas and over time they became so enthralled with his teachings that they actually moved to Texas to live in the commune that he had formed. It seemed like they had finally found the real deal - a Christian leader and community that was doing Christianity the way Jesus meant it to be, all in, fully committed, no compromise. But after awhile there were things that began to bother them and they started questioning the fruit of this ministry. Fruit like the personality cult that was more about the charismatic leader than it was about Jesus. Fruit like the no-compromise teaching that, while at first so attractive, was now crushing their spirits with legalism.

People were discouraged from leaving the compound, even to visit family for holidays, which was considered worldly and compromise. The wife, who was the one who initially was enamored by this strong teacher, found herself drowning in the soul-destroying atmosphere of legalism. Eventually she and her husband gathered the courage to leave and returned to Long Island, but their time in Texas left them damaged and spiritually fragile and it was a long and painful journey back to health for them.

Jesus warns us about false prophets who come in sheep's clothing. When we hear the word "prophet" we might think of someone who predicts the future, but foretelling the future was only one function of biblical prophets, the primary responsibility of a prophet wasn't to foretell, it was to forthtell - to speak the word of the Lord to the people. A false prophet is anyone who teaches, leads, or influences in the name of the Lord but what they're bringing isn't from the Lord. Jeremiah says the false prophets of his day ran with their message even though the Lord had not sent them. They pretended to be messengers of the Lord, but the message they brought wasn't from God.

False prophets come in all kinds of shapes and sizes: they can be a teacher, a pastor, a conference speaker, an author. They can be a cultural trendsetter, a movie director, or a musician. Anyone who teaches or influences people away from God and His truth is a false prophet.

The clothing and the character of a false prophet

When I was a little kid, my parents drummed it in my head not to ever get in a car with a stranger. He might promise me candy - which to a kid is the height of friendliness - but they are evil and dangerous and they mean to hurt me. False prophets are like that - they are deceptive. They come offering candy but they mean evil. They come to us in sheep's clothing - that is an incredible warning that they take extreme measures to deceive. Jesus is the Good Shepherd and all those who follow him are his sheep. False prophets come disguised as just another sheep - just another sincere follower of Christ. Outwardly they look nice, they look harmless, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. They wear the clothing of a sheep but they have the character of a wolf.

There is a strange phenomenon that happens when a wolf comes upon unprotected sheep -- they literally go crazy. A wolf won't just kill one sheep to eat, it will kill and kill and kill - way more than it can eat. People have come across what's known as surplus kill sites and it is disturbing to see. Sometimes a hundred or more sheep have been slaughtered by a wolf who goes on a killing spree. There's something about sheep that makes a wolf ravenous, not only to eat, but to slaughter.

False prophets may come disguised as fellow Christians who love Jesus and want what's best for the church, but inwardly they have a ravenous hunger to exploit and tear apart and destroy God's people for their own interests. It is in their nature to attack and destroy the flock of God. Paul warns the Ephesian elders in Acts 20:

I know that 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…Acts 20:29-31

The way false prophets attack and tear the flock apart is by "speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them…". They twist the Bible, they manipulate spiritual teachings to sound like they're from God, but draw disciples away from Christ and towards themselves. They might even sincerely believe that what they're teaching is from God - probably do most of the time - but the message they run with isn't from God, they've fabricated it in their own minds.

Rob Bell was the pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Michigan, one of the fastest growing churches in America. In 2011 he made the Time Magazine list of 100 most influential people in the world. That same year he wrote a book called Love Wins, in which he denies the doctrine of hell - everyone goes to heaven because God is love. One by one, Bell began to dismantle all the "hard sayings" of the Bible and make the narrow road that Jesus spoke about a four lane highway where everyone is on the right road and everyone ends up in heaven, because "love wins". It's an incredibly appealing message but it goes directly against what the God of love actually says in the Bible, and ironically it leads down the broad road that Jesus said ends in destruction.

Peter warns about false prophets and false teachers who "introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them - bringing swift destruction on themselves." 2 Peter 2:1

So if false prophets look like sincere believers, how can we recognize them? We don't recognize them by how they look, Jesus said we recognize them by their fruit. We are to be fruit inspectors! Healthy trees bear good fruit, diseased trees bear bad fruit. Looks can be disguised but fruit can't be. Before we allow someone to influence us spiritually we need to evaluate - inspect - the fruit of their teachings and the fruit of their lives. This morning we're going to consider the first point:

1. We need to inspect the fruit of their teaching

When I say teaching, I mean the full range of how people influence what we believe. What are they trying to get us to believe? Are they influencing us to believe biblical truth or are they drawing us away from the Bible to follow them?

Never underestimate the power that what you believe has on how you live. Young people, this is really important for you to hear: Apart from God, nothing has more power over your life than what you choose to believe. What we believe is like the steering wheel of our lives - it has the power to steer us in any direction! Every day we make choices based on what we believe. Where we end up in life is determined much more by our beliefs than by our circumstances. Let me say that again: where we end up in life is determined much more by our beliefs than by our circumstances. The difference between a wise person and a foolish person isn't how long they've lived; it's what they believe. There are young people who are wise (like Daniel in the Bible) and there are old people who are foolish. The difference between a wise person and a foolish person comes down to what they believe. Proverbs is all about a father trying to teach a young man wisdom by instructing him what to believe. What to believe about God, about life, about work, about morality, about honesty, about wickedness, about planning, about laziness, and so on.

Heaven or hell literally hangs on what we believe. When the prison guard asked Paul what he needed to do to be saved, Paul answered, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved--you and your household."

Romans 10:9-10 says:

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. ¹⁰ For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.

For the Christian, the Bible is the final word on what we believe. The most important question as we inspect the fruit of any teaching is: is it biblical? Does it line up to God's authoritative word? Or is it out of line with God's word? Does it contradict God's word? Does it twist God's word to say something other than the plain meaning of His word? In other words, the best way to be able to spot the false, is to know the real. Every believer has a responsibility to read, study, and know God's word for themselves.

Federal agents who deal with counterfeit money don't become experts at spotting counterfeit money by studying the counterfeit but by studying real money. A phrase used to distinguish the real from the counterfeit is "touch, tilt, look through, look at". Touch it to get the feel of the paper, tilt it to see the holographs that are imbedded in it, look through it to see the ghost-like watermark images, and look at it to see the fine lines and subtle features printed on the bill.

You don't have to be a Bible scholar or know Greek to grow in biblical discernment. Just read your Bible. Think about it, meditate on it, don't make it your goal to find deep, hidden meanings in the Bible, seek to understand the plain meaning of God's word. Then, when you hear a teaching or a message trying to influence what you think and how you believe, hold that teaching up to scripture. Be like the Bereans in Acts 17. They didn't just accept what Paul and Silas taught them - they examined the scriptures every day to verify that what Paul taught them was true. And Paul loved that! To him that confirmed that the Bereans had good character.

Never accept a teaching just because it sounds good or because the guy who taught it was really charismatic. Touch, tilt, look through, look at. Hold it up to God's word, press on it. Does it line up with God's word? If it doesn't, it's rotten fruit to be thrown out. Every Sunday here you should be doing that. I don't want you to just accept what I say - press on it, search the scriptures to see if what I'm bringing lines up with God's word. If something I say is out of line with God's word, please reject it! Let me know if you believe something I teach is contrary to God's word. It is a sacred trust to teach God's word, and I am very aware that the Bible says that those who teach God's word will be subject to a greater judgment. You know why? Because we're dealing with what people believe, and that powerfully guides and directs their lives. An unbiblical teaching today can literally bear fruit leading to destruction tomorrow.

Young people, I can talk about Rob Bell and Joel Osteen and other modern day false prophets, but I don't think most young adults - millennials - are following those kinds of guys. In some ways I think the false prophets you're encountering are more difficult to discern because there's not a single face attached to the message. The movements away from the Bible in the church and particularly for young people aren't so much personality driven as culturally driven. And so it's harder to discern and takes more effort to be alert to.

Now I want to make it clear that I'm not talking about differing perspectives on areas where legitimate change can happen. I am very aware that churches and Christians can get stuck in the mud with a "this is the way we've always done it" mentality and become closed to new ideas and new methods for relating to believers and reaching the lost. Churches can experience a hardening of the spiritual arteries and so every church should be asking itself hard questions about how we can most faithfully represent Christ and effectively minister to the needs around us. The times change and we should be flexible enough to be able to change with it as far as we can without compromising God's word or message. The church needs courageous young men and women who do that by asking hard questions and offering different perspectives on the culture we live in.

But here's my appeal as a pastor: when cultural or even what seems to be Christian influences press you to depart from clear directives in the Bible - I appeal to you to settle in your heart that God's word will be your authority. I appeal to you to ask God for the courage to stand against sheepskin teachings that seem nice and get two thumbs up with your peers and with the culture, but run contrary to God's word.

Remember two things about fruit: fruit takes time to mature and fruit propagates seeds to produce more fruit. There can be a lengthy period of time where an unbiblical teaching can seem ok, no danger, no problem. But if it distorts, contradicts, or ignores the Bible then eventually it will bear bad fruit in our lives, and we will then spread the seeds of that bad fruit to others and the potential is to harvest a crop of bad and destructive fruit.

Let's hold tightly to God's word. Read it, know it, study it. Then touch, tilt, look through, and look at every teaching to make sure it lines up with God's holy word. This will bear good fruit in our lives, and enable us to sow good seed in the lives of others.