Be on Guard

We live in a very interesting time. We now take for granted having access to the world’s information at our fingertips through the internet. In seconds I can find an address, a phone number, a recipe for the next potluck, or how Kevlar works. The access we have to information is a tremendous blessing, but it all comes with drawbacks. In spite of our access to knowledge, we still lack wisdom. Though we have the greatest access to the Bible any generation has ever had, biblical literacy rates are extremely low. What used to be assumed in our culture is now questioned in light of exposure to a plurality of religious ideas. What do we believe? Who do we believe, and why? Jesus addresses this topic in the next part of the sermon on the mount.

Matthew 7:15–20 NASB95

“Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. “You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they? “So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. “A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. “So then, you will know them by their fruits.

This passage begins with the word beware, which is the only command in these five verses. Beware here does not mean to be afraid of something like you might see on a Halloween sign. Beware means to be on the alert. Look out for this. Be on guard against this. In this case, Jesus is calling his listeners to be on guard against false prophets.

It is our Lord’s desire that we practice discerning truth from error. We live in a post-postmodern society. As difficult as postmodernism is to define, post-postmodernism is even more difficult. The idea that there is no absolute truth is deeply rooted in our culture. The problem with that claim is that it makes an absolute truth claim, therefore borrowing from absolute truth to deny its existence. This idea has led to a pluralistic society where every idea is equally valid and if you claim that you have the truth, you are mocked and ridiculed.

Today, I will be using the terms false prophecy and false teaching interchangeably. Anything that teaches or leads people away from the gospel of Jesus Christ as revealed in scripture is a false teaching. It is these things Jesus wants us to be on guard against.

Every Christian should practice discerning truth from error for three reasons:

False prophets are everywhere.

The Greek word that translates to false prophet in Matt. 7:15 occurs only eleven times in the New Testament. Five of those occurences come from Jesus himself. Four of them warn of the coming of false teachers or prophets. One of them references the way Israel’s ancestors treated false prophets. Luke uses it in Acts to describe the Jewish sorcerer known as Bar-Jesus. Peter warns against false prophets in 2 Peter, John warns against false prophets in 1 John, and the rest are in Revelation referencing the false prophet, the right hand man of the antichrist.

Almost every New Testament document references false teaching or false prophecy on some level. Sometimes it is a warning against false teachers. Other times it is explaining how people have fallen away from the faith. The theme of false teaching is everywhere in the scriptures because false prophets are everywhere. The original false teacher was the devil himself and it continues to today. There is no shortage of people who have misinterpreted or misconstrued the teaching of the Bible to suit their own purposes.

Let’s take a moment to clarify our terms. A prophet is usually defined as one who speaks on behalf of God. When we think of prophets, we think of people like Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Elijah, Amos, Malachi, Haggai, and others who have books of the Bible named after them. There are two aspects to the word prophecy. The first is what is called foretelling. This is the one we think of the most when hearing this word. This is the “Thus says the Lord” type of speaking where a prophet receives a revelation from God and tells the people what is going to happen. This is what we see in the prophetic books of the Bible. The second is forthtelling. Rather than predicting the future, forthtelling seeks to explain what is happening now from God’s perspective, based on prior revelation, to God’s people for the purposes of encouragement and guidance. We could then argue that what is taking place right now is the forthtelling of the Word of God, but not the foretelling of the word of God.

I was at an apologetics conference hosted by Oakville Baptist Church just a couple years ago. There was a man there representing an organization called Watchman Fellowship. Their ministry exists to equip the church to protect against false teachings and false religions. They produced a collection of profiles, which are four page articles on various cults, world religions, and worldviews. I bought the whole thing. In the document I received, there are 150 profiles written, spanning 616 pages. False teaching and false prophets are everywhere.

False prophets are dangerous.

Jesus says false prophets come dressed in sheep’s clothing, but are really ravenous wolves. The shepherd/sheep motif is common in scripture. We as God’s children are referred to as the sheep of his pasture (Ps 100:3). Christ is the Good Shepherd. We are his sheep. Placing it in this context helps us understand how false teachers are dangerous.

Wolves are predators. They only have interest in one thing, and that’s hunting for food. Sheep are easy prey. They are not that fast, and they’re pretty dumb. A shepherd makes huge investments in keeping watch out for sheep. The shepherd’s job is to keep the sheep alive and unharmed as much as possible. Jesus is not just the guy who is in charge of us. He created us. The false teachers and prophets are very sly. They put on their church clothes and learn the church vocabulary, but then it happens. The four words that begin all sorts of trouble. “Did God really say…?” The sheep begin to question the shepherd. They begin to see things from a different point of view. A perspective shifts and it is just subtle enough that they begin to question whether the shepherd can be trusted.

There are three reasons false teaching is dangerous. First, it threatens unity. If we allow ourselves to be taken away from sound doctrine by false teaching, the unity of the body is threatened. Church splits have taken place over false teaching. New denominations spring up because of false teaching. Entertaining teachings that go against scripture are divisive, not unifying.

Secondly, they shift our focus. Paul writes the letter of 1 Timothy to his protege Timothy, who he trained for years. Timothy is taking over the church in Ephesus. Paul writes the letter to encourage and instruct him. Listen to what he says in 1 Tim 1:3-7

1 Timothy 1:3–7 NASB95

As I urged you upon my departure for Macedonia, remain on at Ephesus so that you may instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines, nor to pay attention to myths and endless genealogies, which give rise to mere speculation rather than furthering the administration of God which is by faith. But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. For some men, straying from these things, have turned aside to fruitless discussion, wanting to be teachers of the Law, even though they do not understand either what they are saying or the matters about which they make confident assertions.

Some of what some men were wanting to teach were simply wrong. Others are fruitless pursuits like myths, endless genealogies, and what Paul calls fruitless discussion. Speculation can be healthy, but it can also be a colossal waste of time, leading us to shift our focus away from the mission of Christ onto something else.

Third, we will eventually believe anything. We see signs of this today. Anyone with a “word from the Lord” is permitted to share it and then that word never gets tested, leading to all sorts of error. What is the old saying? If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.

False prophets are detectable.

We see that false teaching is detectable as Jesus switches the analogy in verse 16. We can recognize a wolf in sheep’s clothing by his fruits. At this point, Jesus changes the analogy to that of trees and their fruits. He asks a rhetorical question. Grapes and figs don’t grow on limbs with thorns and thistles. Healthy trees grow healthy fruit, while unhealthy trees grow bad fruit. Is the tree bad? You will know by the fruit it produces. Is the tree good? You will know by the fruit it produces. Is the person sitting next to you a false prophet? What kind of fruit are they producing? You see, a wolf might convincingly dress himself up like a sheep, but he will still act like a wolf. What he does on the outside cannot change what is on the inside. Eventually, something he says or something he does will give him away.

One of the saddest experiences is buying a watermelon from the store, taking it home, and cutting it open only to find out that it is flavorless. Do you know how to pick good watermelon? You need a good consistent stripe pattern. The field spot needs to be the right color. The shape of the watermelon matters. Basketball is good. Football is bad. Dry weathering spots are a ripeness indicator. But then there is the thump test. Pick it up and thump it. If the sound is deep and hollow sounding, that might be a good watermelon. If it is high-pitched and dense, the rind might be too thick. There are ways in which we determine good fruit from bad fruit.

How do you know if what someone is teaching is false? You have to know what sound doctrine it. Anything that contradicts what God has said in his word is a false teaching. The more you know the teachings us Jesus, the less likely you are led astray. Every assertion made about God, Christ, the nature of man, sin, salvation, and the church should be examined through the lens of scripture. If scripture cannot support such an assertion, then it must be discarded. The Bible is the final authority on all matters of truth about those subjects.

Don’t be lazy. Study your Bible. Develop the disciplines. There are enemies among you seeking to devour you. The way you get to learn what is fake is by knowing what is authentic. Discern truth from error. Otherwise what you believe will lead to disaster. We have the power to change the world, and our enemy knows it. This is why he sends wolves disguised as sheep to divide us, to distract us, but ultimately to destroy us. We can know who they are. We need to examine their fruit. What is it going to be? Are we going to allow bad fruit, or seek after good fruit?