SPEAKER_00: This morning, Matthew 7, verses 19, or 15 through 20.
SPEAKER_00: Let me read it for us.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says this, Matthew 7, verse 15, Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
SPEAKER_00: You'll recognize them by their fruits.
SPEAKER_00: Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles?
SPEAKER_00: So every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.
SPEAKER_00: A healthy tree can't bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.
SPEAKER_00: Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
SPEAKER_00: Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.
SPEAKER_00: This is the word of our Lord, and I pray that he would seal it to you in your hearts.
SPEAKER_00: It is true that our world is overrun by false prophets.
SPEAKER_00: There are false prophets everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: People who say, The Lord told me this and the Lord told me that.
SPEAKER_00: People who say, I dreamed a dream.
SPEAKER_00: I had a dream, and the Lord told me this or the other thing.
SPEAKER_00: They make false prophecies about the future.
SPEAKER_00: They tell you who's going to win the next presidential election, or they tell you when a war is going to start, or they tell you any random future thing.
SPEAKER_00: They tell you about the future as a way to authenticate their dreams.
SPEAKER_00: And normally they are driven by dreams.
SPEAKER_00: Normally they say they had a vision or a dream where the Lord made extra revelation to them.
SPEAKER_00: I watched this week a massive prophetic conference, it was called in California.
SPEAKER_00: I was able to make it halfway through one of the sermons, and the uh the lady preacher was preaching on why it was okay to have women preachers.
SPEAKER_00: And she said, I know the Bible in 1 Timothy 2 says you shouldn't have women preachers, but the Lord spoke to me in a dream and gave me a better way to understand that passage.
SPEAKER_00: That is the normal way these kind of prophets interpret scripture.
SPEAKER_00: They elevate their dreams.
SPEAKER_00: They say, The Lord told me this.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I was there, I was having my quiet time the other day, and the Lord spoke to me so clearly and told me this other thing.
SPEAKER_00: This is often the way those false prophets operate.
SPEAKER_00: They make false statements about the future, they make false prophecies about the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Think of all the Toronto blessing.
SPEAKER_00: Remember that holy laughter phase that people went through a while ago where you were laughing in the spirit in the late 90s?
SPEAKER_00: And that gave way to uh the barking in the spirit, holy barking.
SPEAKER_00: That was kind of the zenith of that movement right there, it was the holy barking.
SPEAKER_00: It'll only be followed by the holy meowing, I think, one day.
SPEAKER_00: They make false statements about the future, false statements about the Holy Spirit, false statements about money, namely that they need yours.
SPEAKER_00: They tell you send them money, and you will be healed, or you will be happy, or you'll be healthy as long as you give them enough money.
SPEAKER_00: They make false statements about God.
SPEAKER_00: Usually that God is fine with your sin.
SPEAKER_00: That's the normal, typical way these false prophets uh operate, and what they declare is that your sin actually doesn't matter that much to God.
SPEAKER_00: God has a lower standard of holiness than you might imagine.
SPEAKER_00: You're concerned about something in your conscience or in your heart being sinned before God, but this prophet is here to tell you that you need not worry.
SPEAKER_00: God is fine with you as you are.
SPEAKER_00: They take the focus off of Christ and put it onto themselves.
SPEAKER_00: They become the sun in their solar system, they become the dominating feature, and the the gospel becomes the moon, and it is eclipsed by them.
SPEAKER_00: They do healing crusades.
SPEAKER_00: They tell you to mail in prayer requests with your money, and they will answer according to your gift.
SPEAKER_00: When I was in seminary, I uh tried one of these.
SPEAKER_00: This was an experiment only for research, I assure you.
SPEAKER_00: And I heard a uh phone number for prayer from one of these people, and so I called it and left my prayer request that I would pass my Hebrew exam.
SPEAKER_00: This is how desperate I was as a seminary student.
SPEAKER_00: And it was Robert Silton Ministries, and they mailed me back in the mail a life-size picture of Robert Tilton.
SPEAKER_00: You unfolded it, and I actually taped it on the side of my refrigerator, and he had his hands up like this, and so I could put my hands on his hands, and I was supposed to put my nose on his nose like this and pray.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord would hear my prayer through the poster of Robert Tilton.
SPEAKER_00: My roommates thought I was crazy.
SPEAKER_00: It came with the dollar bill, and the instruction said to put the dollar bill in your Bible, next to your favorite Bible passage, and then mail it back to them along with your own gift, and he would pray for your prayer request in accordance to the amounts that you sent in, in accordance to your faith, which is measured by the money you sent back.
SPEAKER_00: So I took that dollar bill and I put it in my Bible next to Deuteronomy 13, which is the test for false prophets, and mailed it back.
SPEAKER_00: And he in turn sent me a prayer scarf that he supposedly wore while praying, and a bottle of oil to anoint my Hebrew learning head, I guess.
SPEAKER_00: And at this point, my roommates insisted I tap out and research over.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what would have happened had it kept going.
SPEAKER_00: By the Lord's grace, I did pass Hebrew.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think it was because Robert Tilton prayed for me.
SPEAKER_00: And it was around that time, by the way, that 60 Minutes did an expose of him where they sent a TV crew to his uh ministry headquarters and they found these trash bags filled with unopened prayer requests in dumpsters.
SPEAKER_00: And he alleges, he strenuously denies any accusations.
SPEAKER_00: He says he went through every prayer request, he spread them around in his floor, and some of you might have remembered this, it was in the news back then, that he would spend just hours laying on top of the prayer requests and praying for them.
SPEAKER_00: He spent so much time praying for them that the chemicals from the paper and the ink had gotten into his bloodstream and was causing him strokes.
SPEAKER_00: That's how much he was praying for the prayer requests people sent in.
SPEAKER_00: You can choose which version of that story to believe.
SPEAKER_00: What these people have in common is that they take the focus off of the Word of God and put it on themselves.
SPEAKER_00: And listen, we're in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: area, so you are generally hardworking people in the government, so here for fears as you climb the ranks of the military or law enforcement or whatnot.
SPEAKER_00: And so you, just through your own worldview and your own personal history, are unlikely to get sucked into these kind of false teachers, I would imagine.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's very easy to lose sight of the fact that this is the majority of Christianity around the world.
SPEAKER_00: So-called Christianity, the biggest churches in the biggest cities all over the world are these kind of health, wealth, prosperity churches, these kind of false prophet churches, these kind of churches where the leaders make predictions about the future that don't come true and tell you if you give them your money, you will be healthy, wealthy, and wise.
SPEAKER_00: This is majority of Christianity around the world.
SPEAKER_00: We don't experience it, and so we think that it's, you know, it's otherworldly or it's exaggerated or it's far-fetched, you know, in our mind, charismatic stuff is maybe you pray in tongues when you're praying or something like that.
SPEAKER_00: Understand that this stuff here, this is majority Christianity in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Radical predictions about the future, but I could think of one example that maybe intersected with more of our world.
SPEAKER_00: You remember the Y2K shenanigans 23 years ago?
SPEAKER_00: Y2K, where you were told that if you're, you know, if you were driving at midnight on this day, your car would, you know, drive into a lake, and if you were on an airplane, you'd fall from the sky, and all the bank doors would be flung wide open at midnight, your thermostats would explode, make sure everything was powered down.
SPEAKER_00: Some of the younger people think I'm exaggerating.
SPEAKER_00: Oh no, I am not exaggerating.
SPEAKER_00: And these were always, often, not always, but often followed with people who said, the Lord told me this would happen.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord told me that famine will be in the land.
SPEAKER_00: Remember Joseph, how how he stored for seven years?
SPEAKER_00: And so you had all kinds of Christians in Bible churches that were putting swimming pools of distilled water in their backyard, filling their basements with flour and sugar and and whatever, because famine is coming January 1st.
SPEAKER_00: It's better to be safe than sorry.
SPEAKER_00: These people said, the Lord told them to tell you to do that.
SPEAKER_00: And many of you did.
SPEAKER_00: And what happened to those so-called prophets who told you this or told you that?
SPEAKER_00: What happened to them on January 1st or January 2nd?
SPEAKER_00: Man, they went to Europe with your money and came back and just filled their pulpit on January 14th.
SPEAKER_00: They went right back to business as usual.
SPEAKER_00: And many of them remain there to this day.
SPEAKER_00: These are false prophets.
SPEAKER_00: When people say the Lord spoke to them in a dream and revealed this about the future, and you know, just give them your money kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: False prophets.
SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy 13 warns you about false prophets.
SPEAKER_00: Warning against them doesn't start with Jesus here in Matthew 7.
SPEAKER_00: This goes back to the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, God told Israel he was gonna send them a prophet like Moses, which is pointing forward to the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: A prophet like Moses will come, we'll speak God's truth, we'll do the miracles that Moses did and all that.
SPEAKER_00: That'll be the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: In the meantime, he's gonna send them other prophets to confront them on their sin and prepare the way for the Savior.
SPEAKER_00: Israel doesn't want to be confronted on their sin, so they're gonna elevate false prophets to drown out the noise of the real prophets.
SPEAKER_00: So Deuteronomy 13 gives some tests for you to know if the person that comes to you is a true or a false prophet.
SPEAKER_00: What's very interesting is how the tests go.
SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy 13 says, if a prophet comes to you and says, The Lord told me in a dream, that's your first warning sign right there.
SPEAKER_00: But hear him out.
SPEAKER_00: And they say, This will happen in the future, or that will happen in the future.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and then maybe that does happen.
SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy 13 says, just because they predict the future does not mean they're a true prophet.
SPEAKER_00: If they predict their future and what they say was gonna happen happens, and then they distract you from the Lord, they are a false prophet.
SPEAKER_00: So what if they got a guess right about the future?
SPEAKER_00: So what if they knew who was gonna win the presidential election?
SPEAKER_00: Who cares?
SPEAKER_00: Demons know the future.
SPEAKER_00: Whoop do you do?
SPEAKER_00: If they distract you from God, if they obscure the gospel, they are a false prophet.
SPEAKER_00: So they say, the Lord told me in a dream, the Lord said this and the Lord said that.
SPEAKER_00: But you all are wise enough to know that if it ain't in God's word, it ain't fact.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: So people come with their visions.
SPEAKER_00: You can ignore them.
SPEAKER_00: This morning in Matthew 7, Jesus warns you about these false prophets.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is not Jesus changing topics here.
SPEAKER_00: He's wrapping up the Sermon on the Mount, he's giving his conclusion.
SPEAKER_00: I mentioned last week that the conclusion is about the wide path versus the narrow road.
SPEAKER_00: The narrow path leads to eternal life, the narrow gate goes to a narrow path, which leads to life, the wide gate goes to a wide path, and everybody, it seems, in the world is on it, and its way ends in hell.
SPEAKER_00: That was the passage we looked at last week.
SPEAKER_00: So now Jesus is warning you about false prophets.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: That's because the biggest danger, the biggest obstacle to you finding the narrow gate is the false prophets.
SPEAKER_00: The false prophets keep you away from the narrow gate.
SPEAKER_00: They see you on the wide road, minding your own business, living for yourself, living for self-righteousness, trusting in your own goodness, trusting in your own ability, just living for yourself.
SPEAKER_00: And if you slow down in front of the narrow gate, the false prophets say, Oh no, keep going, keep going.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody is living for themselves.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody, God knows your heart.
SPEAKER_00: The narrow gate, you have to count the cost.
SPEAKER_00: You have to repent from your sins.
SPEAKER_00: You've got to pick up your cross and follow Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The narrow gate is such a narrow life.
SPEAKER_00: Look how few people are on that narrow path over there.
SPEAKER_00: So few people on the narrow path.
SPEAKER_00: You belong on the wide path with everybody else.
SPEAKER_00: That's false prophets.
SPEAKER_00: They obscure the narrow gate.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus says, you be careful to enter by the narrow gate and watch out for those false prophets that'll try to hide it from you.
SPEAKER_00: These false prophets are everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: In the DC area, as I mentioned, politics brings them out.
SPEAKER_00: Every four years, you have no shortage of people who the Lord told them who's going to win the presidential election, right?
SPEAKER_00: And when they get the guesses wrong, it doesn't even slow them down.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember when President Trump was inaugurated?
SPEAKER_00: He had some of these health, wealth, prosperity preachers come to his the Oval Office and lay hands on him and bless his ministry.
SPEAKER_00: And one of them came outside afterwards and gave a said that the Lord revealed to him in a dream that a high-ranking government official was going to try to assassinate President Trump.
SPEAKER_00: So pray for him.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the Secret Service comes and follows up and wants some information, which I I find interesting, but whatever.
SPEAKER_00: What exactly did the Lord reveal to you in your dream?
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Oh, I can't give you any more information than that clergy confidentiality.
SPEAKER_00: That kind of nonsense is the mark of a false prophet.
SPEAKER_00: A false prophet.
SPEAKER_00: Well, Jesus warns you against them, and he captures the crux of their message, how they preach, how they operate.
SPEAKER_00: He gives you some warnings about them.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to give you these warnings this morning in the form of this outline.
SPEAKER_00: Four truths that are inadvertently preached by these wolves.
SPEAKER_00: Four truths that wolves inadvertently preach.
SPEAKER_00: These wolves, their lives communicate something to you, and what their lives communicate is a warning.
SPEAKER_00: Their lives communicate, namely content about evil.
SPEAKER_00: They don't mean to preach a good message to these false teachers.
SPEAKER_00: It happens to them accidentally.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus draws from their teaching these four things that are true.
SPEAKER_00: And yes, that is papyrus font, because only a false teacher would use papyrus.
SPEAKER_00: First, the first truth.
SPEAKER_00: Evil are sorry, evil exists.
SPEAKER_00: The first truth.
SPEAKER_00: The whole worldview Jesus is operating from here presupposes the existence of category distinctions.
SPEAKER_00: Good and evil.
SPEAKER_00: True and false.
SPEAKER_00: Good fruit, bad fruit.
SPEAKER_00: Healthy tree, sick tree.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is not a relativist here.
SPEAKER_00: He is embracing this worldview that speaks of right and wrong.
SPEAKER_00: There are things the Lord hates.
SPEAKER_00: There are things that make a person's ministry not.
SPEAKER_00: There are things that nullify.
SPEAKER_00: There's truth and error.
SPEAKER_00: This is anathema in our often considered postmodern worlds.
SPEAKER_00: If you're older than, I don't know, 30 or 40 or so, when you went to college, you probably interacted with relativism.
SPEAKER_00: There's probably the ethos on your college campus that what's true for you might not be true for me, and you know, two plus two is four for you, man, but not for me, or Jesus is your way to heaven, but that doesn't mean he's my way to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: We all have our own truths, you know.
SPEAKER_00: That was the kind of relativistic worldview of the 1990s, the early 2000s.
SPEAKER_00: That is not the normal worldview today in a college campus.
SPEAKER_00: If you're younger than 30, that sounds like a fictional past.
SPEAKER_00: You know, today the worldview is if you say the Bible is true, you are evil.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that your worldview is works for you, but doesn't have to work for me.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's your worldview is categorically evil and false and wrong.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the way the cultures slide.
SPEAKER_00: This is the Romans 1 kind of logic that God reveals truth, and the first interaction with it is to reject the truth.
SPEAKER_00: Second is to, you know, relativism, to, you know, what is truth after all?
SPEAKER_00: Everyone has their own truth.
SPEAKER_00: And the final stage of this slide is to totally reverse it, to reject the truth and proclaim replace it with idols, to worship yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus comes into this kind of culture with category distinctions that turn our world on its head.
SPEAKER_00: No, it doesn't matter how many people think this is true.
SPEAKER_00: If the Lord says it is false, it is false.
SPEAKER_00: Something is true if it corresponds to God in his nature as revealed through his word.
SPEAKER_00: That makes something true.
SPEAKER_00: Something is false if it goes against God and God's nature as revealed by his word.
SPEAKER_00: It's as simple as that.
SPEAKER_00: Truth and error is not a democratic system.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter if most people believe a lie, that doesn't make it true.
SPEAKER_00: Something is true if it corresponds to God and his word.
SPEAKER_00: God's truth is not concerned about being on the right side of history, is not concerned about pulling data from the field, doesn't care if most people think this sounds good or not.
SPEAKER_00: God's truth doesn't care about that.
SPEAKER_00: Something is true if it corresponds to God and his nature.
SPEAKER_00: And Proverbs 6 talks about this.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 6, 17 through 19 lists sins that are offensive to God, that God hates haughty eyes, in other words, pride.
SPEAKER_00: God hates a lying tongue.
SPEAKER_00: God hates hands that shed innocent blood.
SPEAKER_00: God hates feet that make speed to run to do evil.
SPEAKER_00: God hates a false witness who breathes out lies.
SPEAKER_00: God hates someone who sows discord among their brothers.
SPEAKER_00: God hates those kind of sins, hates them.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't matter if everybody does them.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the lie of the wide road.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, your pride is excused because you're probably good enough.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, your division, that's okay that you cause division because you're probably right after all.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you lied about that person?
SPEAKER_00: They probably deserved it.
SPEAKER_00: Your heart devises wicked plans, that's okay.
SPEAKER_00: God knows you're just doing the best that you can.
SPEAKER_00: That's false teacher kind of language.
SPEAKER_00: Excusing your sin.
SPEAKER_00: That list is picked up in the New Testament, by the way, in Galatians chapter 5.
SPEAKER_00: Now the works plural of the flesh are evident.
SPEAKER_00: Works is a plural word.
SPEAKER_00: There's all kinds of ways to serve the flesh: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these, Paul says.
SPEAKER_00: He can't even list all the ways you can rebel against God.
SPEAKER_00: Just all kinds of things like them are against God.
SPEAKER_00: In contrast, the fruit of the spirit, fruit is singular.
SPEAKER_00: Works of the flesh, infinite number of ways to feed the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: One way to have the fruit of the spirit in your life, to be conformed to the image of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
SPEAKER_00: That is the fruit of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So when Jesus says, beware of false prophets, he's forcing you to engage with a world where some things are true and some things are false.
SPEAKER_00: And the things that are false, God hates.
SPEAKER_00: Second.
SPEAKER_00: Evil exists, second.
SPEAKER_00: Evil devours.
SPEAKER_00: These false prophets are inwardly ravenous wolves.
SPEAKER_00: They're insatiable.
SPEAKER_00: They eat everything.
SPEAKER_00: You know, in the in the wild, predators have some kind of internal restraint to them.
SPEAKER_00: I don't understand how it works.
SPEAKER_00: I watch hawks and owls eat squirrels in my backyard.
SPEAKER_00: And then they're so easy to catch those squirrels.
SPEAKER_00: You think, how do squirrels even exist?
SPEAKER_00: They get eaten all the time.
SPEAKER_00: There's some kind of internal restraint to the hawks and the owls.
SPEAKER_00: They don't just eat all they can.
SPEAKER_00: False teachers don't have that internal restraint.
SPEAKER_00: They will eat everything they get their claws into.
SPEAKER_00: They devour everything.
SPEAKER_00: Zechariah 11, verse 16 says, the false teachers devour the fat sheep, tearing off even their hooves.
SPEAKER_00: That language, tearing off their hooves, what that means is they will boil even the feet to get all the meat from around the hoof.
SPEAKER_00: They don't want to leave any morsel of meat stuck behind the hoof.
SPEAKER_00: That's what a false teacher is like.
SPEAKER_00: They are never ever satisfied.
SPEAKER_00: They never have enough money, they never have enough influence, they never have enough pride.
SPEAKER_00: You devour people.
SPEAKER_00: Well, how do they really devour people in our world?
SPEAKER_00: Well, they devour people by telling you that you don't need to worry about God, that your wide road that you're on actually leads to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: That's how they devour you.
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry about sin.
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry about repentance.
SPEAKER_00: You're fine like you are.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the same way those false teachers operated in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Every generation of Israel ran against those false teachers.
SPEAKER_00: Those false teachers said one word two times peace, peace.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah is thrown into a pit because he's telling all the Israelites, you guys are going to captivity.
SPEAKER_00: Pack your bags, head to Babylon, you're out of here.
SPEAKER_00: They throw them in a pit and he's shouting from the pit, Repent, you guys are going to exile.
SPEAKER_00: They can't hear him because they fill the stage with all these false prophets that say, The Lord told me in a dream there would be peace.
SPEAKER_00: Peace, peace.
SPEAKER_00: You're not going to exile.
SPEAKER_00: God loves you too much to send you into exile.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah ran against the same thing, Isaiah chapter 30, verse 9.
SPEAKER_00: The Israelites told Isaiah that they were done listening to his prophecy.
SPEAKER_00: They'd rather have somebody come and say good things about them.
SPEAKER_00: We should remind you of Ahab and Jehoshaphat.
SPEAKER_00: Remember Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, Ahab king of Israel, they were going to war.
SPEAKER_00: Jehoshaphat said, Can we have a prophet tell us if we're going to win?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you got a prophet around, that's a good thing to ask him.
SPEAKER_00: And Ahab says, sure, and brings out prophets.
SPEAKER_00: And remember the prophets Ahab brings out, they put on horns and they dress up in costumes and they're prancing around the stage like a bull.
SPEAKER_00: And they're like, oh, as we gore these people, you guys will win in battle.
SPEAKER_00: Ra.
SPEAKER_00: Look at my horns.
SPEAKER_00: Ra.
SPEAKER_00: And Jehoshaphat says, you know, nice song and dance.
SPEAKER_00: Is there a prophet of Yahweh we can ask?
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember what Ahab says?
SPEAKER_00: It's one of the funniest lines in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Ahab says, Well, there's one prophet of Yahweh around here, but I don't like him because he always says bad things about me.
SPEAKER_00: That might be a hint that you're doing something wrong.
SPEAKER_00: So remember, they bring him out.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, You guys are all gonna die in battle.
SPEAKER_00: And he points at Ahab, you're gonna die.
SPEAKER_00: And so Ahab throws him in jail and says, Lock him up.
SPEAKER_00: And then he tells Ahab, if I he tells the prophet, Ahab tells the prophet, if I don't come back alive, you're not getting out of jail.
SPEAKER_00: You'll die in jail if I don't come back alive.
SPEAKER_00: He's holding God's prophet captive, trying to blackmail or extort God to get him to return from battle.
SPEAKER_00: And remember, the prophet just says, listen, if you come back from battle, I'm not a real prophet.
SPEAKER_00: God knows how to spring his prophets out of jail.
SPEAKER_00: That's the language of the false prophet.
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry about God.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that true prophet over there, don't listen to him.
SPEAKER_00: He only says bad things about us.
SPEAKER_00: That guy's just getting in the way.
SPEAKER_00: This is the Holy Spirit's work.
SPEAKER_00: That guy poo-poos it.
SPEAKER_00: Well, these evil men devour because they give false hope.
SPEAKER_00: They give false hope.
SPEAKER_00: They distract you from the narrow path.
SPEAKER_00: And it ends up in your spiritual harm.
SPEAKER_00: It ends up, by the way, if you look at verse 19, every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
SPEAKER_00: That's the end of these people.
SPEAKER_00: They, along with all their followers, will be cast into hell.
SPEAKER_00: Fire here is echoing verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: The wide road leads to destruction.
SPEAKER_00: Earlier in Matthew 5, Jesus says, Better to cut off your hand or pluck out your eye than to have your whole soul thrown into the fires of hell.
SPEAKER_00: These false prophets are like the stewardess on the airplane that's crashing.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they're the leaders on board.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they helped you buckle up, but they're going down with the plane, and everybody's going down with them.
SPEAKER_00: You're all going to end up in hell when you follow these false prophets.
SPEAKER_00: They encourage the flesh, they downplay sin, and their end is destruction.
SPEAKER_00: So, first, these wolves inadvertently teach us that evil exists, that evil devours.
SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, that evil is revealed.
SPEAKER_00: God does reveal evil.
SPEAKER_00: You look at this false prophet for a moment and you might not be able to tell.
SPEAKER_00: Not everything a false prophet says is false.
SPEAKER_00: You listen to all that and you think, that sounds right.
SPEAKER_00: You think, how can I tell who a false prophet is?
SPEAKER_00: Well, come back next week.
SPEAKER_00: Or come back next year.
SPEAKER_00: Time and truth go hand in glove.
SPEAKER_00: Give them enough time and they will out themselves as a false prophet.
SPEAKER_00: You're not called to police all the prophets in the world.
SPEAKER_00: You're not called to call out every false prophet on Twitter, but you are called to police your ears, to guard your heart.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you're letting yourself be influenced by somebody, it's worth asking.
SPEAKER_00: Are they leading you astray?
SPEAKER_00: Are they promoting themselves or promoting Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Give them enough time and they will be revealed.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus used the analogy of fruit here.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you plant a tree, a fig tree is going to produce figs.
SPEAKER_00: I'm an expert in fig trees right now.
SPEAKER_00: I'm in a fig tree growing phase of my life.
SPEAKER_00: It's a lot of work to grow a fig tree.
SPEAKER_00: Those thorn branches, those rose bushes, and those raspberry bushes, they call them out here, which I don't think even grow raspberries.
SPEAKER_00: You've got thorns everywhere, they're all over the place in Virginia.
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to labor to grow those things.
SPEAKER_00: You're not going to confuse the two.
SPEAKER_00: You're not going to look at a fig tree and go, I can't tell.
SPEAKER_00: Is it a vine?
SPEAKER_00: Or is it a fig tree?
SPEAKER_00: And if you are confused, come back next year or come back in two years.
SPEAKER_00: If it's growing figs, guess what?
SPEAKER_00: You found a fig tree.
SPEAKER_00: If it's just got thorns everywhere, guess what?
SPEAKER_00: You found a thorn bush.
SPEAKER_00: Time and truth go hand in gloves.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to their preaching.
SPEAKER_00: If you listen to their preaching, it's often permissive, telling you, you know what, the Lord's not concerned about these sins.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever sins are culturally in vogue, they downplay.
SPEAKER_00: Homosexuality, God doesn't care that much about that.
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
SPEAKER_00: He cares more about love of neighbor than that.
SPEAKER_00: Being straight doesn't get you to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: That's the kind of stuff they say.
SPEAKER_00: And of course they're right, being straight doesn't get you to heaven any more than loving your neighbor gets you to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: The point is, these prophets distract from what the Word of God says to mask your own sin.
SPEAKER_00: Their sermons offer encouragement but no correction.
SPEAKER_00: They talk about God's love but not his holiness.
SPEAKER_00: They deny repentance.
SPEAKER_00: They say you don't need to repent.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus loves you like you are.
SPEAKER_00: He would never tell you to repent or change something.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you think God loves you?
SPEAKER_00: They tell you, follow Jesus, but remain in your sin.
SPEAKER_00: And they do that, by the way, to cover for their own sin.
SPEAKER_00: They teach about health, they teach you about happiness, but not about holiness.
SPEAKER_00: And their followers will become like them.
SPEAKER_00: The followers become like them because their followers accumulate for themselves teachers that tell them what they want to hear.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Timothy chapter 4, verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: The time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they'll accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.
SPEAKER_00: They'll turn away from listening to truth and wander in the myth.
SPEAKER_00: And so these people say, you know, I like this kind of sin.
SPEAKER_00: This teacher excuses that kind of sin, so I like this teacher.
SPEAKER_00: So don't confuse cause and effect.
SPEAKER_00: They like that kind of sin, so they find teachers that give them what they want to hear.
SPEAKER_00: Their inward passions here, the word probably uses for passions, epithet, like internal strong desire.
SPEAKER_00: Their internal desires, that's the soil the false teacher grows in.
SPEAKER_00: Their heart has fertile soil for a certain kind of sin.
SPEAKER_00: They find a teacher that waters that sin and it grows.
SPEAKER_00: Again, in a snapshot, it's hard to tell.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says they come dressed in sheep's clothing.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think that means they.
SPEAKER_00: I know there's popular cartoons with the wolf that's dressed like a sheep.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think that's what it means.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, sheep are dumb, but they're not gonna fall for that.
SPEAKER_00: It means they're dressed like a shepherd.
SPEAKER_00: Shepherds wear wool.
SPEAKER_00: Shepherds shear the sheep, shepherds wear wool, shepherds have a staff.
SPEAKER_00: That's the telltale sign of a shepherd, is they're wearing wool and they got the staff.
SPEAKER_00: The false teacher comes, he doesn't dress like a sheep, he dresses like a shepherd.
SPEAKER_00: Sheep would see through a wolf dressed like a sheep, but sheep don't do background checks on shepherds.
SPEAKER_00: The shepherd comes, he looks like a shepherd, he's got the staff.
SPEAKER_00: Sheep fall for that.
SPEAKER_00: That's what makes them so dangerous.
SPEAKER_00: How do you reveal a wolf that's dressed like a shepherd?
SPEAKER_00: Give him a little time.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody can be a shepherd for a day or two.
SPEAKER_00: What happens when one sheep goes missing?
SPEAKER_00: A shepherd's got to go find that sheep.
SPEAKER_00: That takes work.
SPEAKER_00: A wolf, a wolf might go find him, but the wolf's not bringing it back.
SPEAKER_00: Wolf's like, ah, no need to worry about that sheep anymore.
SPEAKER_00: You found him?
SPEAKER_00: You could say that.
SPEAKER_00: The fat sheep gets stuck in the mud, it rains, they get their wool gets heavy, they get stuck in the mud.
SPEAKER_00: A shepherd's gotta go wrestle the fat sheep out of the mud and bring him back in.
SPEAKER_00: Not a wolf.
SPEAKER_00: A wolf says, I'm not wrestling that sheep, I'm gonna go eat that sheep.
SPEAKER_00: It's raining outside, the shepherd's got to bring the sheep indoors or in a covering so they don't get all matted and weighed down.
SPEAKER_00: Not a wolf.
SPEAKER_00: A wolf doesn't care if the sheep get wet.
SPEAKER_00: He wants them soaking wet, easier to catch.
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, they might dress like a shepherd for the day.
SPEAKER_00: But once trouble comes, once they get to know the sheep, when a shepherd gets to know the sheep, the shepherd likes the sheep.
SPEAKER_00: When a wolf gets to know the sheep, the wolf eats the sheep.
SPEAKER_00: That's the difference.
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, outside, in a moment, in a snapshot, it might be hard to tell who a true prophet is and who a false prophet is.
SPEAKER_00: But time and truth reveal it.
SPEAKER_00: Eventually the hireling will run, eventually the wolf will slaughter the sheep, and eventually the true shepherd will lay his life down for the sheep.
SPEAKER_00: Over time, believers grow more like Christ, and over time, false prophets grow more in love with sin.
SPEAKER_00: Job 14, verse 4 says, Who can bring something clean out of something unclean?
SPEAKER_00: What a good question.
SPEAKER_00: Who can make something clean out of something unclean?
SPEAKER_00: The answer Job gives in Job 14, verse 4 is no single person can.
SPEAKER_00: Not one person can.
SPEAKER_00: And so it is with false prophets.
SPEAKER_00: They can't lead a disciplined, godly life.
SPEAKER_00: They don't have the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: You can't tie figs to a thorn bush and call it a fig tree.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody's gonna fall for it.
SPEAKER_00: So false prophets are often given over to their own sensual desires.
SPEAKER_00: Which leads to the fourth point.
SPEAKER_00: Evil is often religious.
SPEAKER_00: These false prophets teach us that evil exists, that evil devours, that evil is revealed over time, and then fourthly, that evil is often religious.
SPEAKER_00: Some of the most sinful people that have ever existed, some of the most evil people that have ever existed are religious leaders.
SPEAKER_00: They are religious people.
SPEAKER_00: This goes against our American worldview.
SPEAKER_00: Americans love to excuse religious leaders.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's because you when you hear that somebody's religious, you assume that they're serving something bigger than themselves.
SPEAKER_00: You know, most Americans are in it for themselves, kind of capitalistic society, whatever's best for me and my family.
SPEAKER_00: And so they tend to look at religious leaders with a little bit of sympathy and a little bit of confidence.
SPEAKER_00: After all, they must be in it for something bigger than themselves.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way most Americans just instinctively think.
SPEAKER_00: But the truth is, most religious leaders are on the wide road and keeping other people on the wide road.
SPEAKER_00: Most sinful generation that Jesus is rebuking right here, where he calls them evil trees that are getting thrown into the fire, was the most religious generation that ever existed.
SPEAKER_00: And like I said, we excuse religious leaders, we'll say things like, oh, look at how many orphans they wash.
SPEAKER_00: They pour out their life in orphanages in India or wherever, and they're helping the homeless and the blind and the weak.
SPEAKER_00: And so they've got to be godly.
SPEAKER_00: They can't be that bad.
SPEAKER_00: Look at how the people they're serving, and it's that kind of ends justify the means kind of language.
SPEAKER_00: And so you overlook the fact that, yeah, they're helping all these orphans, but they're using that as a cover to keep people on the wide road, to keep pointing people to works righteousness and obscuring the narrow gate.
SPEAKER_00: And people fall for that because it's like, oh, they're religious.
SPEAKER_00: False religion exists, and the leaders of it will be judged by God.
SPEAKER_00: The devil disguises himself as an angel of light, and he comes and he fools other people, and people follow those kind of false teachers, ushering them in to judgment.
SPEAKER_00: It is better to be an agnostic than a Pharisee.
SPEAKER_00: It is better to be a harlot than a Herodian.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus in his own ministry says, it will be better for Sodom and Gomorrah than for the cities that heard his preaching and rejected it.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the most religious people deserve the most swift judgment from God.
SPEAKER_00: So don't let the idea of, oh, they're religious, they must be a good person enter into your head.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says the Lord knows their heart.
SPEAKER_00: You, if you watch them, you'll know their heart.
SPEAKER_00: No, you're not supposed to.
SPEAKER_00: Judge not lest you be judged.
SPEAKER_00: Where does the Bible say that?
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 7?
SPEAKER_00: Verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: But you are supposed to be a fruit inspector.
SPEAKER_00: You're not supposed to be naive.
SPEAKER_00: These people say the Lord speaks to them in dreams and gives them visions and directions and knowledge about the future.
SPEAKER_00: You can ignore that.
SPEAKER_00: You'll recognize them by their fruit.
SPEAKER_00: That gives us just a really powerful contrast, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: These false leaders elevate themselves, they eat the fat sheep, they exploit the sheep.
SPEAKER_00: Zechariah 11 describes these false teachers as those that exploit the sheep and fleece the sheep, and they don't go rescue the brokenhearted.
SPEAKER_00: Zechariah 11 says, the false shepherds do not rescue the brokenhearted, they don't help the weak person to stand.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, they eat the sheep and rip off their hooves.
SPEAKER_00: What a contrast with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: As we prepare our hearts for communion, the communion elements themselves provide that contrast.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus came to seek the lost.
SPEAKER_00: That's the thing a false shepherd won't do.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus came to serve, but not to be served.
SPEAKER_00: The false teachers love to be served.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus came to give his life as a ransom for many.
SPEAKER_00: The false teachers came to exalt their own life over Jesus'.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus didn't die rich.
SPEAKER_00: What little money he had, Judas stole at the end, it seems.
SPEAKER_00: False teachers die wealthy.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus gives his life for the sheep.
SPEAKER_00: He'll carry the wounded sheep on his back.
SPEAKER_00: He takes the sin of the sheep on himself.
SPEAKER_00: His body is broken so that our sin can be forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: His blood is spilt to atone for our sin.
SPEAKER_00: That's what communion demonstrates.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' last meal on earth was not in a banquet hall, not with all of the kind of servants the wealthy people have, not in a kingdom-establishing way.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' final meal on earth was a meal of humility, a meal of yielding his life to the will of the Father.
SPEAKER_00: A meal where the central feature speaks of his own death, not his own power.
SPEAKER_00: Certainly Jesus is powerful.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, I won't eat of this meal again until I do it in the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: By that Jesus teaches, he says in Luke 22, by that, by saying that, Jesus taught the ethics that his followers would have in their kingdom, where Jesus says, You are my servants, you are my citizens in my kingdom when you don't seek your own.
SPEAKER_00: When you serve others.
SPEAKER_00: Leaders of the Gentiles lorded over them, not so with you.
SPEAKER_00: That was his speech, a communion.
SPEAKER_00: What a contrast.
SPEAKER_00: As we take communion together, let it be a reminder.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord humbled himself for us, where his false teachers exalt themselves.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we're grateful for your word.
SPEAKER_00: Thankful for the clear contrast.
SPEAKER_00: It points to you in such a vivid way.
SPEAKER_00: You are the good shepherd who lays his life down for the sheep.
SPEAKER_00: You give your life so that we might live.
SPEAKER_00: We're thankful for that in Jesus' name.
unknown: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And now, for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: location, go to TMS.edu.
SPEAKER_00: I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.