False Prophets and False Disciples: Matthew 7:15-23

/ Neal Embry / Leave a comment

How do we distinguish those who claim to be Christians from those who truly know Christ in a saving way?  While we can’t ever look in someone’s heart and know what’s going on there, the Bible tells us that there are ways we can tell whether or not someone is walking with the Lord.  There is fruit born from those who are born-again.

As we near the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus discusses false prophets and false disciples: those who claim to serve God and follow Him, but are, in reality, not saved and are not known by Christ.  First, we’ll discuss the issue of false prophets.  Join me in Matt. 7:15-20.

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

Think about some of the best pastors (or any other kind of Christian leader) you know.  What strikes you about them?  Why do you consider them “some of the best pastors you know?”  What makes a good Christian leader?  Is it their preaching style, their dress, their personality?

Due to the development of technologies such as YouTube and podcasts, we now have access to a great deal of sermons online, from a large number of pastors.  I myself enjoy listening to podcasts of my favorite Bible teachers when I can find time.  I’ve benefited greatly from hearing the preaching and teaching of men like Tim Keller, John Piper and Matt Chandler.

But I’m afraid that while we can certainly benefit from listening to godly men and women all over the country, we’ve elevated someone’s ability to speak well and speak persuasively above the criteria of a holy, godly character.  That is, if someone is able to speak in a way we’ve never heard, make us think about the Bible in ways we’ve never thought about it, and has a rock star personality that nets them over six figures in Twitter followers, we think we’ve found a great preacher.

Let’s clarify: Speaking well is different than speaking the truth.  Speaking the truth of God’s Word is necessary for any Christian minister, for any Christian, really, and is certainly a mark of a godly man or woman.  But that doesn’t always equate to speaking well.  While we should aspire to do all we do with the utmost excellence for the glory of God, I’d rather have a pastor who faithfully teaches God’s Word in a boring way, than to have some false prophet teach false doctrine in an exciting, engaging way.

Jesus describes false prophets as wolves in sheep’s clothing.  They appear, externally, to be godly: they speak well, they may even have decent doctrine, and they’re persuasive.  But on the inside?  They’re ungodly and “ravenous,” and are looking to destroy God’s people.

If your pastor can preach well, but fails to love his wife and children, it’s time to find a new pastor.  If your pastor can recite sound doctrine, but fails to see the needs of his congregation and meet them, it’s time to find a new pastor.  If your pastor is engaging and popular, but fails to model the humility, love and grace of Christ, you got it….it’s time to find a new pastor.  No pastor’s perfect.  There will certainly be times pastors fail, because they’re sinners banking on the work of Christ, too, but, just like any other believer, there’s repentance and a desire to grow in Christ.

Jesus says that healthy trees bear good fruit, and that diseased trees bear bad fruit.  What’s he getting at?  He’s striking at the heart of the issue, which is, no pun intended (well…maybe), the heart.

The problem isn’t so much that a false prophet’s actions are wrong.  The problem is that they’re not saved, and their hearts are still wrong.  Their hearts aren’t submissive to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, and they aren’t resting in the love of the Savior.  They may have head knowledge, but there’s no heart knowledge of Christ.  That’s the problem.

While Jesus is specifically speaking about false prophets in this passage, he uses similar language to warn all who claim to follow Him in Matt. 12:33-35.  So this passage may not be about us, but there lies in it warning for all who name the name of Christ: make sure you’re really His.  Make sure you’re the right kind of tree.

Let’s keep going and examine verses 21-23:

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.  On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’  And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.'”

That last statement Jesus makes is terrifying.  How terrible it would be to stand before Jesus, expecting a handshake and warm reception, only to hear the King of Kings say to you, “I never knew you.  Away from me.”

So how do we know that Jesus isn’t talking about us?  How do we make sure we aren’t false disciples?

Again, Jesus makes note of their external appearance.  On the outside, they appear to be pretty awesome people.  They’re on the A-list when it comes to Christians, right?  They’re prophesying in Jesus’ name, casting out demons in His name, and doing other “mighty works” in His name! That sounds great, doesn’t it?

But to them, Jesus says, “Depart from me, because I don’t know you.”  Why?  Because while they certainly did things in the name of Jesus, they never came to know Jesus themselves.  We find an example of this in Acts 19:13-16, where the sons of Sceva go to cast out demons simply because they think themselves great, but the demons kick their butt, because they don’t know Jesus.  The demons know Jesus.  They know Paul.  They listen to them, because they have no choice….but they don’t know these guys.  These guys are phony, fake, hypocrites.

The false disciples Jesus lays out are those who typically fall into one of two categories: those who try to make up for their sin by doing religious things, or those who do religious things in hopes that no one sees their sin.

Notice what the men don’t say to Jesus.  They fail to thank Him for living a perfect life in their place.  They fail to thank Him for dying on the cross for them, so they could be forgiven.  They fail to thank Him for leading them as their Lord, restoring the image of God in them and helping them to love God.  They fail to worship Him.  In some ways, it’s almost like they expect Jesus to worship them, to thank them for their service to Him.

The reason they fail to thank Him is because they don’t know Him.  They haven’t done “the will of the Father,” as Jesus describes.  The will of the Father, according to John 6:29, is to “believe in him whom he has sent.”  They may have done some cool things in the name of Jesus, but they’ve never actually entrusted their salvation and their lives to Jesus.  They don’t boast in Christ.

False disciples are made because they have a false savior and a false lord.  Instead of resting in what Christ has done, some will do religious activities to try and earn their way into heaven.  That’s not Christianity, that’s legalism.  We don’t share the gospel because we’re trying to make God love us; we share the gospel because God does love us, and we’ve come to trust that love.  We don’t preach Christ because we want to coerce Christ to make us look good before the Father, we preach Christ because He alone gives us the righteousness and the forgiveness we need to stand perfectly accepted before our Father.

There are others who will perform religious duties to try and cover up some secret sin.  In order to hide their porn addiction, someone enrolls in seminary and tries to put on a clean exterior while their interior is rotting away.  In order to make up for that cuss word, or for that evil, angry thought, someone goes to the homeless shelter to feed the poor and encourage them.  That’s not Christianity, that’s hypocrisy.  The only answer to your sin is to repent and trust Christ to come be your Lord, and to forgive you of your sins.  That’s the only answer, no matter what you’ve done.

So how about you?  Are you a true disciple?  Is Jesus Lord of all, or are you still holding back a little for yourself?  Are you resting in Him for salvation?  Or do you still think there’s work left to do?  Trust in Christ.  And abide in Him.  We’re called to bear fruit, but Jesus makes it clear in John 15 that the only way we do that is to abide in Him and walk with Him.  He bears fruit through us.  We are, as Paul says in Ephesians, “his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which he prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

Lord, may we truly trust in you.  May we find godly leaders to listen and submit to.  May we be godly people, not by our strength and efforts, but by your grace.  May we submit to you, trust in you, abide in you, rest in you.  May we truly be yours.

God bless,

Neal E.

Death or Life: Which Will You Choose?

/ Neal Embry / Leave a comment

That seems like a pretty easy question to answer, doesn’t it?  If I were a betting man, I’d be willing to bet that 100% of people, when presented with a choice between life and death, will choose life.  I believe it’s safe to assume that we like living more than we like dying.  Most people, when they’re asked if they’d like to have eternal life, will say yes.  Again, I don’t have statistics to back that claim up, but I feel like it’s a safe assumption.

But do we know how to gain eternal life?  There’s no denying that we all want it, but Jesus makes it clear that not all will have eternal life.  Not all will be with God forever.  While we all want to have eternal life, or as Kenny Chesney put it, “everybody wants to go to heaven,” how can we know that we will go there?  How can we be sure that we have life?  Jesus has answered that question for us in Matthew 7:13-14.

“Enter by the narrow gate.  For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.  For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”

Jesus lays out two possible paths for us to be on: on a hard road, having gone through a narrow gate, or on an easy road, having gone through a wide gate.  All of humanity is on one of these roads.  There is no middle ground here.  And Jesus says the gate that we enter by and the road we are on determines whether or not we have eternal life.

The way of destruction that Jesus describes is the way of the world, the way of those who don’t know Jesus.  The gate is wide because there’s room for all kinds of beliefs, all kinds of behaviors, all kinds of (false) saviors.  There is no one way through at this gate.

It’s not hard to look at the world around us and see that there are a lot of different religious beliefs.  Christianity is not the only religion in the world.  It is certainly not the only religion that claims to be the one and only way to heaven.  This broad gate accepts all sorts of beliefs.

Some will ask, “Why is that so bad?  Shouldn’t all beliefs be honored as equally valid?”  Not if they’re not true.  There’s a reason we don’t accept the opinion that the world is flat anymore–we know it to be false.  As someone who’s crossed the Pacific Ocean, I can testify that the world is indeed round, and not flat.  There’s a reason that children all across the world lose points on their math tests if they answer that two plus two equals seven.  Two plus two is four, case closed.  And when we argue about the existence of God, and the nature of who He is, and what we must do to be in right relationship with Him, we cannot afford to treat it as just another talking point.  There is nothing more important than understanding and knowing who God is, and being in right relationship with Him.  The wide gate leads to destruction because it allows false beliefs about false gods to creep in, meaning that those who are on it are not right with the real God.

The way that leads to destruction is also easy.  On this road, there is no sacrifice, no commitment, no change.  There’s no repentance, or change in behaviors.  It is the road of the “good life,” the “easy life,” the “my life feels like a vacation life.”  It is the road that justifies sinful behavior by promoting self-rule.  It is the road of “your best life now.”  If your best life is now, you don’t know Jesus.  For those who know Jesus, we know our best life is yet to come, because our life is in Jesus, and He is coming back to finish making all things new.

So if you choose the easy road, that requires no commitment to God, if you choose the wide gate that leaves room for all sorts of “gods,” you may have an easy life here.  You’ll have fun following the “gods” of self, sex, money, power, etc.  But 20,000,000 years later, you’ll be separated from the real God, the one you rebelled against your entire life, and there will be no way to get out of hell, out of separation from fellowship with God.  Scary?  Yes.  But praise God Jesus’ sermon doesn’t end there.

Jesus next describes the way that leads to life.  This way goes through a narrow gate.  Now, understand that Jesus isn’t preaching a works-based salvation.  He isn’t saying that the gate is narrow and you have to work really hard, and do a lot of good things, to pass through it.  The gate is narrow because there’s only one way through–Him.

You enter by the narrow gate when you give up on yourself and lean on the finished work of Christ alone for your salvation, and trust in Him alone to be your Lord and to lead you in a new life of knowing, trusting and obeying Him.  In other words, we are saved, by the grace of God, through faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord.

But isn’t that, someone may ask, insulting to Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, atheists, etc.?  Yes, it is.  It’s insulting to me, too.  It’s insulting to all of us.  The cross is insulting because the cross is humbling.  We want to save ourselves.  We want to pay back our sin debt.  We want to be in control, and we want God to listen to us.  We want the Creator to be at the mercy and will of the created, and that’s just not how it works.  You can’t be your own God and have God as your God at the same time.  You can’t have life while rejecting the God who gives life.  The question is not, “Is the cross insulting?” but rather, “Will I let God kill my pride that I may be saved through Christ?”

The Christian life is hard.  Sometimes, we like to dress it up like it’s a party, where we’re constantly in worship, constantly growing to be more like Christ, always smiling and happy.  We never struggle to believe God, or to give our time and money and energy to the kingdom of God.  But that’s not the truth, and anyone who’s trusted in Jesus for more than five minutes can testify to this fact!  On top of the sufferings and struggles every person, regardless of their relationship with Jesus, experiences, such as medical problems, job loss, relationship tensions, etc., Christians are also in a war with their sin.  A Christian is one who has made Christ their Lord and has made sin their enemy.  We hate our sin.  Jesus is in charge now.  He has given us His perfect righteousness.  He has forgiven us through His precious blood.  We recoil at the very thought of offending Him because of His great love for us.  But we do sin.  And we sin a lot.  And we sin horribly.  Some of the things I most regret in my life have come after I came to know Christ.  The difference is in how we respond to our sin.  Instead of simply shrugging our shoulders and getting on with our lives, we confess our sins before God.  We agree with Him that our sin is wrong.  We trust Him to help us follow Him, and we rest in His righteousness and in His forgiveness of our sins.

That’s hard work!  There’s joy in knowing we’re forgiven, but the pain of daily repentance and the effort required to daily pursue God threatens us and entices us to turn away from Him, and live our lives like He does not exist.  But Christ has not left us that option.  He is Lord.  And those who fight sin and trust Him for the entirety of their lives will be saved, and will have a joy beyond compare in the life to come.  Let’s choose that life today.

This is not the popular way.  To renounce self and put my dependence on Christ and follow Him as Lord never has been and never will be popular.  The result of Jesus’ ministry was public execution.  The result of some missionaries’ preaching of this gospel is their death.  But will we be popular, or saved?  Will we be with the world, or with God?  Will we be famous and living the easy life, or struggling for the glory of God?

Will you choose death, or will you choose life?

Lord, may we choose you.  May we trust that you love us, that you save us, that you lead us, and that no matter how hard this difficult road gets, we won’t ever walk it alone.  May the gospel rid us of all fear and doubt and lead us to give our lives for your sake.  May you be glorified in the lives of those who choose to enter by the narrow gate and embark on the hard way.

God bless,

Neal E.