Introduction:
Watch! (Matthew 7:15-20)
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Watch Out: FALSE PROPHETS! (Matt 7:15)
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Watch For: FRUIT! (Matt 7:16-20)
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What They DO.
John 7:18 – The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood.
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What They SAY.
1 Thessalonians 5:20-21 – Do not despise prophesies but test everything: hold fast to what is good.
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Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
Small Group Discussion
Read Matthew 7:15-20
What was your big take-away from this passage / message?
Why did Jesus say BEWARE of false prophets? What exactly is the danger?
What are examples of good fruit you should look for in a “prophet” (preacher, pastor)?
What are examples of bad fruit?
What are some topics many false prophets talk about? What are some topics they often avoid?
False prophets talk about the Bible but not out of the Bible. What is the difference?
Breakout
Pray for one another.
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Before we continue in our series on the Sermon and Amount, I want to say a few things.
In light of the events of last week, with the death of Charlie Kirk, the murder of Charlie Kirk,
absolutely horrible.
But at the same time, it's horrible.
It's not really shocking, is it?
It's not really shocking that something like that would happen.
And I would say if you are shocked that something like that could happen in our country,
then you haven't been paying attention.
It's not shocking because this is exactly the kind of climate that the Lord told us we would be living in.
Look at 2 Timothy 3.
Turn in your Bibles there for a second, please.
2 Timothy 3.
Paul says, "But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.
For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents,
ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good,
treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God."
Does that sound familiar at all?
This is where we are.
Charlie Kirk was a man who was murdered because of what he said.
Because there were people that didn't like what he said. Does that sound familiar?
The whole reason we're here is to worship God incarnate who came and said things that people didn't want to hear.
And they murdered him for it.
Yet God accomplished his purposes through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
There's a young man who spoke boldly of the Lord who was publicly executed. His name was Stephen.
God used that to advance his gospel purposes. There's a young man who spoke boldly for the Lord who was publicly executed.
His name was Charlie.
And already we're seeing God is using that to advance his gospel.
It's a little terrible for Charlie's family and friends, but Charlie himself, he's having a good day.
He is experiencing the fulfillment of the hope in Jesus Christ that he believed in.
He's having a good day.
As we had done this last stretch of the Sermon on the Mount, last week we talked about the command that Jesus gave us to enter the narrow gate.
He said, "The way is hard." And here is another reason that the way is hard.
Jesus said that we have to be willing to die.
That's the call to discipleship. For anyone who has followed Jesus, Charlie got that.
If he were here right now, what do you think he would tell us to do?
What would you tell us to go after the Lord? To seek Jesus Christ, to get in His Word?
And that's what we're going to do.
So I'd like you to bow your heads, please. I want you to please pray for me.
To be faithful to communicate God's Word as I should, and I will pray for you to have a heart open to receive what it is the Lord wants to teach us today.
Father in heaven, we live in the days that you advertised. You told us exactly what this would be like.
Father, we were just singing about how worthy you are.
Father, may we all, like this faithful saint this past week, Father, may we all demonstrate how worthy we consider you by our willingness to lay down our lives.
It's not going to get any better until our Lord returns.
Calm Lord Jesus. Open up our hearts and minds to your Word today, Father.
We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Open up your Bibles to Matthew chapter 7, and we'll be picking up in verse 15.
Last Halloween, I was at work. Aaron sent me a video at the house of a mysterious knocking.
She's going through the house recording this. There was this knocking. She went to the doors. She went outside.
Nobody but just this constant mysterious knocking. Creepy at any time, especially on Halloween, right?
Well, we found out who was knocking. We have a woodpecker problem.
Oh yeah, funny for you. We got a woodpecker problem.
So we got on the Internet to figure out what we need to do to deter the woodpecker.
And one of the things that they recommended was getting a plastic owl.
They say that owls are just like natural woodpecker predators, right?
So you're going to put an owl where the woodpeckers want to come, and that scares the woodpeckers away.
So I dragged the ladder out, and I climbed up the side of the house, and I lashed the owl to the raid on vent with thick twine.
And you know that woodpecker came back. So I went outside.
Like, what did I do wrong here? And you know, I think I see the problem.
That owl doesn't look ready to attack, does he? Looks like what we got here is a hostage situation.
And I think the woodpecker saw this and was like, "Oh, this house is awesome."
They just take my predators and lashed them to the house.
You know what I learned from this? I'm not very good at deceiving.
I can't even deceive a bird. But you know, there are, unfortunately, there are a lot of people out there today who are great at deceiving.
Last week we talked about entering the narrow gate. Jesus said the way is hard.
He said the narrow gate is hard to find. It's hard to walk.
And here's another reason the narrow gate is so hard to enter. Look at verse 15.
Jesus says, "Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves."
It's hard to enter the narrow gate because there are false prophets that are good at deceiving.
It's hard to enter the narrow gate because you have people that are standing saying that they represent God and they don't, and they're ushering people into the wide gates.
Like, well, who would fall for that? Well, according to verse 13, Jesus said many, many.
If you look at the flow of Jesus' sermon here from last week to this week, here's what our Lord is saying.
Jesus is saying strive to enter the narrow gate and beware of those who would mislead you away from it.
I want you to draw some things down on your outline. Here's what, it's really about one word today. Watch. Watch.
Watch number one right this time. Watch out. False prophets.
"Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves."
See, God has this plan to save sinners, and the plan to save sinners, it has two tracks. One track is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
"Took away our sin, provided eternal life." That's one, that's one track.
The other track that this train of salvation runs on is the gospel message being spoken through the people of God.
Satan has his counterfeits. Just as God sends his people out to usher people into the narrow gate,
Satan has his counterfeits leading people into the wide gate. And Jesus tells us in verse 15 about these false prophets that they're not always obvious, but they are always dangerous.
Do you see that? They're not always obvious, but they are always dangerous. Let's break that down. They're not always obvious, first of all.
Notice Jesus says that they're in sheep's clothing. What is sheep's clothing? That's just another way of saying, "Wool."
Our Lord wasn't talking about going to the Spirit of Halloween store and buying a lamb costume. He's not talking about that.
He's talking about a wool coat, because in those days that's what a shepherd wore. They wore a wool coat.
So Jesus is saying false prophets are dressed as a shepherd. In other words, they look like a legitimate pastor.
Oh, they sound so good and people just love them, but they're not always obvious, but they are always dangerous.
That's why I look at the first word of verse 15, "Beware." Jesus didn't say, "Take note or notice." Beware. Look out for these people.
Always dangerous. Jesus says they might look like shepherds, but inwardly they're wolves.
Number one enemy of sheep. Inwardly evil.
What does a wolf do with sheep? Does a wolf show up to feed the sheep? Does the wolf show up to care for the sheep? No.
Wolves, when they show up, they're there to take. A wolf is there to get what the wolf wants. A wolf is there to destroy the sheep.
And Jesus said that is what false prophets are like.
Jesus said you have to beware. It's all through the Bible. All through the Bible. Read Old Testament, Deuteronomy 13, Isaiah 30, Jeremiah 14.
We talked about this recently through the New Testament, Matthew chapter 24.
Almost every New Testament epistle warns against false prophets.
And here once again Jesus is calling us church to discernment.
And you've heard me say this before, that is my biggest concern for the church at large, but that is my biggest concern for this church.
It's lack of discernment.
Like, well, what's discernment? Disernment is the ability to detect what's from God and what's not from God.
My concern is for this church.
My concern is for people here who genuinely love the Lord, genuinely love His Word, being led astray.
Because more than ever we have countless opportunities to listen to junk teaching.
Internet, podcasts, YouTube. Jesus tells us to beware and church never, never has it been a bigger problem because wolves have a bigger platform than ever in history.
You have to discern who you follow, who you listen to, who you read. You have to discern.
I'm shocked at the lack of discernment that we have in the church today.
People just gobble up anything as long as it has a sticker on it that says Christian.
It's not all from God. It's not.
That's why Jesus tells us to beware. It's not all from God.
Like, well, does it really matter? Does it really matter? I mean, come on.
Aren't we just nitpicking here a little bit, Pastor Jeff? Does it really matter?
Well, let me ask you this. Imagine that you woke up tomorrow morning and you had the most severe stomach cramps.
I mean, it just felt like razors in your intestines and you're just like doubled over in pain, can't function, calling off work.
I got to get to a doctor. Which doctor are you going to?
Do you want the trendy doctor who has the most patience, who will lie to you to make you happy, but is really using you and misleading you?
Or do you want the doctor who cares about you and will tell you the truth?
You're like, well, it's a no-brainer, isn't it?
Why isn't a no-brainer there? But when it comes to Bible teaching, we want the trendy lying guy.
The wide gate leads to destruction. Does this stuff matter? Yeah, it matters, because your eternity is on the line.
And you better be sure that you haven't been ushered into the wide gate by some false prophets.
They're not always obvious, but they are always dangerous. They're dangerous to Christians.
They're dangerous to the church. They're dangerous to our families.
If Jesus, if God Himself is telling us we need to beware of these people, then we better be paying attention.
Watch out for the false prophets. You're like, all right, well, how do I know?
Like, if these people are out there and they're not obvious, but they're dangerous, how do I know?
How do I recognize them? Well, number two in your outline, watch for fruit.
Look at verses 16 through 20. Jesus tells us to beware.
Look at verse 16. He says, "You will recognize them by their fruits."
Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles?
So every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruits.
A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruits.
Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
Thus, you will recognize them by their fruits.
I gotta tell you, this is one of the most comforting passages in the Bible.
Jesus says you will recognize them. You will.
Jesus didn't say, there's false prophets out there that'll lead you to hell. Good luck.
You'll recognize them if you discern, if you care to discern.
If you take the Lord's warning to beware, if you take that seriously, you'll recognize them.
I recognize them how. Jesus said you'll recognize them by their fruits.
You mean like a tree? Yeah, like a tree.
You recognize a tree by what it produces, right?
In the same way Jesus is telling us you recognize false prophets by what they produce.
I don't really have to explain Jesus' analogy here too much, do I?
Jesus illustrates it by saying, look, good trees make good fruit. Bad trees make bad fruit.
Like, that's how you know. You're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on, hang on, hang on.
Back in verse 1 of chapter 7, I thought you said we're not supposed to judge someone's heart.
That's right. You can't judge someone's heart. That's why Jesus says to judge the fruit.
Jesus here is telling us, look, you have to judge by looking at what they produce.
Like, well, what is that? Very simply church, it's two things.
There are two things, any preacher you listen to, whether it's here or down the street or on the YouTubes
or the Facebooks or whatever, wherever you're listening to preachers, you have to look at two things.
In verse 1 of chapter 8, I thought you said, look, what is that?
I thought you said, look, what is that?
I thought you said, look, what is that?
I thought you said, look, what is that?
It'll come out. It always comes out eventually.
What's in the heart is always revealed in actions. You will recognize them by their fruit.
There's good fruit to look for.
This pastor, this preacher you're listening to, you're following. There's good fruit to look for.
What about things like humility and selflessness, repentance and obedience, generosity and hospitality?
What about the fruit of the Spirit, Galatians 5? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control?
Do they seem to have a motive to want to glorify God?
Are they a person that wants holiness and righteousness? Do they seem like they want to magnify Jesus?
There's a lot of fruit that we can talk about, but really, I guess since we're in this current sermon series, let's boil it down to this.
Let's make it this easy.
This preacher that you're evaluating, is he a Beatitude guy?
Because a true Christian and a true prophet, someone speaking for God, is someone who exemplifies the Beatitudes.
That's what our Lord is saying. You want good fruit, you're not going to find it from a false prophet.
Because nothing good comes from them.
You don't get grapes from thorns.
You don't get things from thistles, do you?
You know, Jesus made a very powerful statement of evaluation in John 7.18.
Look at this. Jesus said, "The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory."
But the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood.
The second part of that verse, Jesus is speaking obviously of himself.
That's Jesus' standard for his own identity.
But here, in the first part of that verse, Jesus is giving us a clue on how to identify a false prophet.
Look at this. He says, "The one who speaks on his own authority is the one who seeks his own glory."
See, that's the bad fruit that you need to be looking for.
That preacher that is constantly looking for more attention.
It's about his branding, his image, him being the face of it. More spotlight on me, please.
Ain't I great?
It's all about his pride, his ego, his power. Self-centered.
Watch out for that guy. Watch out for the guy that's seeking his own glory.
Self-centered and self-indulgent.
You know, these people will put on a pure and holy front, write this down.
Eventually, false prophets are found to be full of greed and/or lust.
And that comes out eventually.
You're like, "Well, Pastor Jeff, it's sort of hard to evaluate this fruit,
because this kind of stuff often gets covered." You're right.
This is the kind of fruit that's not always so readily seen,
but there is a more obvious fruit that we need to evaluate.
And that's the letter B. Listen to what they say.
Listen to what they say.
And oh, what they say matters, by the way, because Jesus says, "Beware of false prophets."
Prophets?
Prophets?
It's about someone giving a message, right?
A couple years ago, back when we were chicken farmers,
we were chicken farmers. I heard a couple people laugh.
At least that's what I like to refer to myself as.
But we went to the rural king and we got ourselves six leg horns.
And when you buy them at the rural king, they're sexed,
which means you're getting all females, right?
Because we wanted them eggs.
Well, our leg horns grew up.
They're so cute when they're little.
And then when they get to that adolescent age, they get really ugly.
And then they turn into beautiful creatures.
Like humans, right? I know you're thinking it.
I knew you were thinking it.
All right, so we had these six chickens and the one day Aaron goes,
"Hey, you need to come out and look at something. I need your opinion."
And I went outside and our one leg horn, again, just coming out of adolescence,
but our one leg horn was like, "Ah, ah, ah!"
And I'm like, "Hmm, little gene, little J-E-A-N is actually little G-E-N-E."
And you know what little gene we didn't know what he was until he opened his mouth?
And that's true about false prophets.
You might not know what they are until they open their mouth.
Listen to the message.
What am I listening for?
And this is discernment 101. We've talked about this stuff.
Disturment 101. What are we listening for?
False prophets always have a twisted view of Jesus, always.
His person, His work, who Jesus is, what He did, what it means.
False prophets always have this twisted view.
According to the Bible, the incarnation is Jesus Christ, fully God, fully man.
God became a man to die as a man for men.
That's who Jesus is. That's what He did.
He rose from the dead to give us eternal life.
That's who Jesus is. That's what He did.
And if you don't get that doctrine right, nothing else really matters, right?
And it's easy to take the shots at the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons and the Christian scientists.
And those ones are obviously off about who Jesus is and what He did.
I mean, that's so obvious. They're not really my concern.
I'm more concerned about the ones who present themselves as being biblical.
Listen to the message.
Are they accurately representing God's Word?
You've got to have discernment people.
False prophets will teach some man-centered nonsense
and they like to sprinkle in some random out-of-context verses
and non-discerning people say, "Well," he mentioned the Bible,
"so that has to be from God."
They twist Scripture to attract an audience.
Do you ever wonder how they fill those massive auditoriums?
Like, how do they do that?
Like, if they're false prophets, how are there so many people packed in to hear them?
It's because they tell people what they want to hear. That's why.
They tell people what they want to hear.
Their message is, they're going to talk about things like, look, God is love.
That's really the only thing you need to know is God is love.
Is that true? Is God love? Yes, absolutely.
You see, the problem is that's the only aspect of God that they talk about.
You know, the Bible at the same time talks about other attributes of God
that are also just as true and just as important as the fact that God is love.
God is love. That's all you're going to hear.
And if you just believe, if you have enough faith, deep down in your heart of hearts,
deep down in your hearts, way deep down in your heart, if you really believe,
you're going to be physically healed and you're going to be wealthy,
they say things like, you know what, you have the power to control your destiny.
They say things like, it's never God's will that you lack.
It is never God's will that you suffer.
And then we sprinkle in a couple of verses to make it sound like I'm saying what the Bible says.
And then the world comes along and they're like, oh, that's the kind of religion that I want.
It puts the spotlight off of Jesus and on to me.
That's the problem.
Self-centered teaching attracts self-centered people.
You know, we tend to measure success with numbers and then we somehow equate numbers with authenticity.
Listen, huge red flag, when the focus of preaching is all about our benefits, not God's glory.
I mean, that kind of preaching might be attractive to people, but not to God.
So preaching, it leads to the wide path.
Listen to what they say.
And listen, not just listen to what they say, listen to what they never say.
Listen to what they never say.
Yeah, we're going to go with that.
Are they teaching the whole counsel of God's Word?
Or do they cherry-pick topics?
It's a huge clue for false prophets.
They're never going to talk about sin or repentance or denying yourself or judgment or hell.
They're never going to talk about that.
It's all so easy.
It's nothing offensive.
It's nothing that convicts.
It's nothing that could possibly bring godly sorrow into your life.
We're not going to talk about that.
We don't want anyone to feel bad.
We just want you all to feel comfortable.
All the way to hell.
The false prophet, listen, talks about the Bible, but not out of the Bible.
And if you learn to discern the difference between those two things,
you're going to be able to spot a false prophet instantly.
They talk about the Bible, not out of the Bible.
They're not preaching a narrow gate.
And if they're not preaching a narrow gate, which gate are they leading you into again?
1 Thessalonians 5, Paul says, "Do not despise prophecies, but test everything.
Hold fast to what is good."
Any teaching that includes here, any teaching that you hear must be tested with the Word of God.
You see, in God's infinite wisdom, that's why he gave us a book.
Why?
Because anybody can walk around and say, "Well, this is what God says.
I have a message from the Lord.
Let me tell you what the Almighty is saying.
Anybody can do that."
But God gave us His Word in written form so that we could read it, and we can understand it,
and we can compare what we hear with it, and know for sure what's from God and what's not.
And here our Lord tells us, "Beware.
Beware of false prophets, because not everything called Christian is from God."
Satan is not going to make it obvious for us.
Deception is his MO, and he's going to make sure that his false prophets wear sheep's clothing.
They're going to be dressed just like a shepherd.
Like that's the worship team to come back up.
And church, I want you to stand.
I want you to stand.
We're going to get into prayer groups.
So in just a moment, I want you to stand up.
Go ahead, stand up.
Don't be shy.
And here's what I want you to do.
I want you to grab a few people near.
You're getting a little groups of about six or eight or so.
Look, we're not going to go through and count.
All right?
And if you want to stand and pray by yourself, that's your business,
but I want to encourage you to just grab a few people nearby, get into little groups.
And here's what I want us to do today.
I want us to heed the warning of Jesus.
We need to pray.
We need to pray for our church, for our families, for our little ones.
We are bombarded more than ever with false teaching.
So what I want you to do in your little prayer groups,
I want you to pray just two things, all right?
Number one, I want you to pray that we would know and love the Word of God.
All right?
And number two, that we would learn to recognize false prophets by their fruit.
Those are the two things that we're praying about now.