Check it Out

Matthew 7:15-23

Last week we finished 2013 with Jesus’ words: ask, seek, and knock, for whoever asks, receives, whoever seeks, finds, and whoever knocks will have the door opened. This should be our top priority for 2014: communicate with God. God is never bothered when we communicate our desires to him. Sometimes we’ll end up wrestling with God, but that is a good thing. Spoiler alert: God always wins those wrestling matches!

If you are reading along at home, the next passage is the one in which Jesus differentiates between the narrow road and the broad road and the wide and small gates  – the weird and the culturally normal. We went into great depth on that concept and into that passage in the series “Weird” based on Craig Groeschel’s book. Because we spent seven weeks on this passage and what it means in our lives, I’m skipping it this time, and we’re going straight into Matthew 7:15-23.

“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers.’”

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus has been focusing on motives and on the condition of the heart, and this passage is no different. Jesus starts out going after false prophets. Prophecy is one of those areas that is confusing to our culture. We think of the Old Testament prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Elijah, calling out Israel or Judah for her sins. Perhaps we even think of John the Baptist, calling people to repentance. However, since so many of us equate prophecy with foretelling – in other words, predicting the future – it can be confusing to read something like this. It can be confusing because not many people are trying to tell the future these days, and most of us can pretty easily and readily pick out the kooks from among them. But what makes it more confusing is that prophecy doesn’t need to be so narrowly defined as “predicting the future.” Prophecy also includes revelation from divine inspiration. In other words, any time someone purports to speak on behalf of God, it is, to some extent, prophecy.

Jesus goes after false prophets. In the Old Testament, the litmus test for a prophet was simple. If your prophecy was one hundred percent true, then you were a true prophet. If you predicted something wrong, or it didn’t come true, then you were a false prophet. Pretty simple and straightforward. All or nothing.

Jesus warns his followers to watch out for false prophets. They look really good; they blend in with the crowd, but they are really wolves in sheep’s clothing. Recently I have heard a lot about outsiders attacking Christians. In many places around the world, especially in Muslim countries, Christian persecution is at a fever pitch. In our own country, I have heard the phrase “war on Christmas” where it’s becoming less and less acceptable to call on the name of Jesus in certain places. Atheists seem to proliferate in the relative anonymity of the internet, and even our own county has not been free from this.

This, however, is not what Jesus is talking about. He is not taking on “outsiders” attacking Christians. He is talking about church people. There are times when the false prophet is the church leader. It is honestly a difficult thing preparing and delivering a sermon – not just because public speaking is one of the top fears in our culture. The difficulty is that the sermon is when the preacher stands in front of the congregation and says, “Thus says the Lord.” We then tell you, from the Scripture, what God says.

Sometimes a pastor can be trying to do the right thing, and they see a wrong that they know needs righted, and because it’s a big enough issue, we will shape a sermon around it. A difficulty here is that sometimes, in order to address the wrong, scripture has to be bent. Not thrown aside, but just bent a little, to fit it to the situation. Again, this is sometimes done with the best of motivation. So it gets used out of context… L

Other times, we pastors get caught up on our own hobby-horse or pet sin. I have seen this a lot recently. I have pastor friends who run the gamut of theological expression, from extremely conservative to extremely liberal. I sometimes hear some, um, interesting viewpoints from some of them. One friend is a universalist, which means he believes if God is love, then God wouldn’t allow anyone to go to Hell. So the dilemma is: do I go with my gut, or do I go with the Bible? (I’ll give you a hint – there is a right answer. Sometimes I don’t like what the Bible says, like when it says I’m supposed to forgive those who wrong me and love my enemies, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong).

Because the leader is often the most educated person in the church, theologically, anyway, he or she can sometimes sow doubt and confusion. And when we do that while we purport to speak for God, we end up being false prophets. This is why Acts 17:11 describes the believers in Berea as “of noble character.” [Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness ad examined the scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true. (Acts 17:11)] Instead of simply accepting what the preacher says, they consistently examine the scripture.

Though I have a seminary degree, there is no reason why I should be the only one in a church who knows the Bible. One of the most disappointing moments in my entire ministry was when a beloved, faithful church member died, and I was talking to her husband, who was also a faithful church member, and I asked him if there were any scriptures that spoke to them in a special way. He told me, “I’m not like [a certain person, who taught their Sunday School class]. I don’t know the Bible like that.” So, just as an aside, if you have a favorite scripture you’d like read at your funeral, write it down and stick it in your Bible. If you don’t have a favorite, get one!

But the point here is that every one of us has the responsibility to know the scripture. We are without excuse. Check what I say with the Bible. If it doesn’t match up, the Bible isn’t the one that is wrong. Don’t allow yourself to be led astray by a slick-talking preacher with an agenda.

But pastors with agendas are not the only false prophets. Remember how I defined prophecy earlier? Prophecy is revelation from divine inspiration – when people purport to speak for God. So the false prophet does not have to be the pastor or church leader. This is another reason why all of us, as Christians, absolutely must know our scriptures. There’s an old song lyric that says: If the Bible doesn’t back it, it seems quite clear; perhaps it was the Devil who whispered in your ear!

The sad thing is that there are people in churches who have agendas, and false prophets, in this passage, are those who appear on the surface to be something they are not. Every church seems to have at least one person like this: they come across as sunshine and roses, but they are poison. Jesus goes so far as to call them wolves, and, if you know sheep, you’ll know that wolves are the ferocious enemy of the sheep. I remember cartoons with wolves wearing sheep costumes to trick the sheep, but the picture of a wolf in sheep’s clothing is nothing to laugh at.

They look the part. They say all the right things. But inwardly, they are predators. I could tell you stories, but I don’t know how to do so without falling into gossip. Suffice it to say, I have first-hand experience with wolves in the church.

What it boils down to is this: Jesus is once again talking about hypocrites of the most dangerous kind: the ones who look right from the outside, but there is something wrong. Again, these are not people outside the church; they are church people. If you want to know what someone is all about – if you want to know if they are false prophets or if they speak clearly for God, Jesus gives the formula. Now, there are some people who have a high degree of spiritual discernment, and they seem to just know. Funny how sometimes when someone is deep in sinful behavior, they don’t want to have anything to do with these discerning people, because they know that that person knows. But for others who don’t have that kind of discernment, Jesus tells his followers how to figure out if someone is a sheep or a wolf.

Check it out. Look at what they do. They may really look the part. They might really seem to know the Bible, and they might talk a big game, but the proof of it is how they behave. Not just in a one-off, because anyone can pretend to be good for a moment, but what are their regular behavioral patterns?

Jesus says that we can recognize a tree by its fruit. You might not be able to tell by other things, but if the fruit is good, so is the tree. The ultimate test of the truth is in what we do, not in our claims or pretentions.

Today is Epiphany Sunday, when we celebrate the Wise Men following the star to find Jesus. Most of us know the story of the Magi from the east who came to Jesus, bearing gifts. But did you know that they illustrate the concept Jesus makes in the Sermon on the Mount?

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him.”

When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born. “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written…” (Matthew 2:1-5)

Commentaries agree that the Magi, called “wise men” or “three kings” were not even Jewish. Many even believe they were Zoroastrian priests from what is now Iran. Whatever the case, they provide a stark contrast with the leadership in Judea. Herod was of Edomite descent, so even though he practiced Judaism, the Jews of the time, especially the Pharisees didn’t consider him a true Jew. But he wasn’t the only one disturbed; the Bible tells us “all Jerusalem” was disturbed. Now, if I said, “All Washington DC is a mess” you wouldn’t take that to mean all of the people there; you would understand I am talking about our country’s leadership. The President and the Congress. So “all Jerusalem” would also entail the leadership of the nation, and the Magi got them all worked up. Verse 4 says that Herod had called together the chief priests and teachers of the law. Here is the ironic thing: they obviously knew all of the prophecies about the Messiah. They knew where the Messiah would be born. They looked the part and knew their material, yet it was the outsiders, the Magi from the east, who were really seeking Jesus, the Messiah.

These leaders were exactly the type of false prophets against whom Jesus was speaking. They would certainly have been the type to have said, “Lord, Lord, we did all these things in your name,” but Jesus will tell them, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evil-doers.”

Here is the tough part; Jesus is harsh on the hypocrite, the one who looks the part and says the right things, but he immediately follows this discourse up with the part about those who say, Lord, Lord. These are people who not only look the part, but they have been busy all along. But their hearts are not right with God; righteousness means being in right relationship with God. Being in right relationship with Jesus is of absolute importance; true righteousness is inevitable for every true follower of Jesus, but it is absolutely impossible for frauds.

And if we are in right relationship with Jesus, we will necessarily do right actions. This is why James can write that “faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” (James 2:17)

Jesus has given his followers the task of watching out for the wolves within the congregation, the false prophets, those whose actions do not match their words, but I have another warning: beware that you don’t become one of the false prophets. As I was preparing this message, I realized that we as Christians tend to talk a lot and sometimes our fruit does not match our talk. We have a purpose statement: We exist to be and to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Are we actually doing this? We didn’t baptize anyone this past year. We had no new professions of faith. It is time to turn this around. As Jesus’ followers, we are all called to make disciples. Whose life are you pouring yours into? Where are you having spiritual conversations? Who are you praying for regularly?