The Sermon on the Mount: Right Teaching - Matthew 7:15-20

Introduction

Read Matthew 7:15-20

Matthew 7:15–20 (ESV)

“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.

Things are not always as they seem.

The church I served at in Midland actually sat outside the city limits by about 7 mins. Which means we saw many extra critters and pests than what you would typically see within the city, including rats, moles, and even snakes. We ended up getting a couple cats for our family to help fight off some of those pests.

But because of the prevalence of the pests, no matter how hard you tried, sometimes they would get into places you would not want them to be. Sometimes snakes would get inside the church and we would have to be constantly on guard for those pests. There was a time when I found a snake in one of our back classrooms in our children’s area. As I went into the room, I saw it slithering around the back wall looking for a way back outside. Of course, I was going to find something to kill it with or someone to kill it for me. But when I got one of our deacons to come check it out, he told me not to kill it because it was a “good” snake. Did you know there were such things as good snakes? Because I sure didn’t know that. I assumed if it had scales and slithered around it was automatically bad. But I guess bull snakes are the good kind and we want to save those so they can kill the bad snakes like rattlesnakes.

The deacon ended up helping to capture the snake and to release him back out into an open field to go do his good work.

In the same way that I thought all snakes are bad, sometimes we can think that all Christian teachers and preachers are good. Surely, if they claim to work for God, surely they could not be bad.

Of course, it might’ve been harder to believe decades ago before we began to see so many Christian leaders fall to temptation and abuse and even fall away from the faith. But even so, there are still teachers out there who are highly praised and followed blindly because we automatically trust that they are who they say they are.

As a part of Jesus’ conclusion to this sermon, He tells us to be on our guard against false teachers because not everyone is seeking to lead us into the way of life.

Be Careful Who You Follow

What are prophets?

Prophets are those who speak on behalf of another person.

In the biblical sense, prophets are those who speak, or claim to speak, for God.

Before the Scriptures were completed, prophets were those who would continue to reveal God’s law to the people, and His plan of salvation and redemption for when we fail to live up to His holy standard.

We do not have prophets that serve in quite that capacity anymore now that the Scriptures are complete and sufficient for life and godliness.

While we are not receiving new revelations, we still have men and women who are called by God to speak His Word to others.

These include but are not limited to preachers and pastors, worship/song leaders, Bible study teachers, evangelists, curriculum writers, media producers, such as web and social media content, and movies and tv shows, and even disciple makers who seek to share the gospel with their neighbors and help others grow in their faith.

We are surrounded by people who seek to teach others about God and what it means to follow Him.

There are false teachers among the church

But the sad truth is, not everyone who claims to speak for God really speaks for God.

Jesus says there are those who look like sheep, but who are really wolves in disguise.

This means that they look like good teachers, but inwardly they are false teachers leading them astray. Sometimes it is obvious who the false teachers are. We can often smell a cult leader from a hundred miles away. I don’t think that’s what Jesus is talking to us about through.

There are those who seem really solid because they rely on some truth mixed with falsehood to deceive those who listen to them.

Which means, We cannot simply blindly take what others say about God.

Just because they claim Christ does not mean they really follow Him, which Jesus will go into more detail in our text next week.

So just because someone is talking about Jesus, we cannot simply blindly follow them wherever they may lead.

They are wolves because they lead people to the wide gate

So why does Jesus call them wolves? This seems harsh. Why are they so dangerous?

Shouldn’t we seek unity and not divide over words and teachings? Isn’t unity more important than truth?

Last week we talked about the importance of staying on the narrow road, because only the narrow road will lead to life. These false prophets are wolves because they are leading us away from the life of the narrow way and leading us towards the destruction of the wide gate.

It is a matter of life and death that we take seriously what Jesus is teaching us here.

Learn to Discern What is True and False

So, if we are to be careful of who we follow and what we listen to, we must learn to discern what is true and what is false.

1 John 4:1–3 (ESV)

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.

This is again about exercising right judgment. We are not to judge others through a self-righteous attitude, seeking to tear others down for the purpose of building myself up. But we are to exercise the right kind of judgment that seeks to protect ourselves and others from following the wide and easy path to destruction.

Theological Triage

Now, to be clear, this does not mean that we have to be heresy hunters and try to find every smallest bit of disagreement with someone and write them off because they don’t see things exactly as I do.

This is the importance of exercising theological triage. Triage is the act of prioritizing what is truly important over secondary and tertiary issues. Just because someone teaches something you do not agree with does not make them a false teacher. For example, whether one believes the rapture to occur before the seven year tribulation vs. the rapture occurring at the end of the tribulation. Regardless of where you fall on that does not make you a good or bad teacher. This is very much a tertiary issue and should be held lightly. Or an issue such as believer’s baptism versus paedo-baptism. While what you believe may determine what denominations you might consider joining, holding to one or the other does not necessarily make you a heretic.

So what are we looking for? Jesus tells us we will know them by their fruit and John says that whoever confesses Jesus as the Christ is from God, but whoever denies Christ is not from God.

We see the bad fruit display itself in two ways and I think both ways will eventually become evident.

The bad fruit of false prophets includes false teaching

Includes teaching that elevates self and lowers Christ.

It might be elevating self through legalism and good works.

You are good enough to earn your own salvation. Yes it’s great that Jesus died, but you don’t really need His sacrifice other than as a good example for what you should do.

It might be elevating self through nominalism and licentiousness.

You are good enough on your own and you can believe in Jesus while following your own heart. Jesus died simply to show us what it means to love and accept one another. It doesn’t accomplish anything to atone for our sins because no one is really a sinner. We just need to love and accept each other for who we are.

It might be lowering Christ by elevating false gods.

Prosperity Gospel - Promising blessings, your best life now, health and wealth, if you follow Jesus.

Shai Linne - “If you are living your best life now, you are headed for Hell.” “If you come to Jesus for money, then Jesus is not your god, money is.”

It might be lowering Christ by only focusing on His love to the exclusion of His holiness and justice.

It might be lowering Christ by only focusing on His holiness and wrath to the exclusion of His love.

Exodus 34:6–7 (ESV)

The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

We see that God is both loving and compassionate as well as holy and just. Yes, God is working to forgive sin and transgressions, but He is also going to call the guilty to account. Any teacher who exclusively focuses on one or the other to the exclusion of the other, may very well be a false teacher because he is manipulating God and His people for his own selfish purposes.

The bad fruit of false prophets includes false living

It might be through a legalistic abuse of power over others.

It might be through a lowering of holiness by a spiritual, emotional, and physical abuse of others.

Bad teaching will eventually lead to bad living.

Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy cannot be separated.

This does not mean teachers will live a perfect life. But when they mess up, there should be a spirit of repentance in their lives. We do not want to crucify our teachers for not always getting it right. But do they excuse away their unrighteous behavior, or do they acknowledge it and seek to constantly turn away from their sin when it is made known?

The bad fruit often takes time to discern

You can only tell what bad fruit is when you know what good fruit is

The good fruit includes a right and proper understanding of God’s Word.

Jen Wilkin - False teachers are counting on the fact that people don’t know what God’s Word says.

They want to keep people ignorant of God’s Word so they can manipulate them.

Acts 17:10–11 (ESV)

The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived they went into the Jewish synagogue. Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.

The Bereans were more noble because as Paul and Silas preached to them, they examined the Scriptures to make sure that what they were teaching was accurate and correct. And many believed because they saw that Paul’s teaching was not his own, but really did come from God’s Word.

Dr. Pepper - nectar of heaven. Because I am so well acquainted with Dr. Pepper, I know when I have a knock-off brand. No other drink compares with Dr. Pepper, no matter how hard it tries. I am always disappointed when we go somewhere and they serve Mr. Pibb. I might take it and tolerate it, but it doesn’t compare to Dr. Pepper. But I only know it because I know the real thing so well.

The good fruit includes a right and proper understanding of the character of God.

Again, we need to learn God in His fullness, not simply the attributes that we want to focus on.

God is full love, but He is also fully holy and fully just. God is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present, transcendent (is higher and lifted up from us), but is also immanent, meaning He has made a way to have a relationship with us. We must be careful of focusing on only one attribute of God while ignoring others.

There is a modern worship song which has a bridge that says,

“I know there must be more But I can’t get past Your kindness I know there’s got to be more But I can't get past Your goodness”

Now I’m not saying this is a bad song per se. But there is a danger when we only want to focus on one attribute of God, even when we know there is more, but we refuse to go beyond it to see God in His fullness. We are in much more danger of being lured into false teaching when we fall into this mindset.

We must get to know God as He has revealed Himself, not simply take the parts of Him that I like while ignoring the rest.

The good fruit includes a right and proper priority on the person and work of Jesus.

Jesus is fully God and fully man

Jesus lived the perfect life of obedience to the Father.

1 Corinthians 15:3–4 (ESV)

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,

Jesus died on the cross, not simply as an example to follow, but to accomplish the work of salvation by paying the penalty for sin.

Jesus really died and was buried in a tomb.

Jesus physically rose from the dead on the third day.

Jesus ascended to heaven and is now seated on the right hand of the Father.

Jesus will return one day for His church.

Ultimately, the good teacher is going to line up with what Jesus has taught through this Sermon on the Mount. He has expounded God’s Word and given us a proper view and understanding of who God is, who we are, the high standards we are called to, our inability to do it on our own, and our extreme need for God’s grace to live out what He demands from us. Any teacher who does not line up with God’s Word in both word and life in this way is to be seen as a wolf and sheep’s clothing. And we need the Holy Spirit within us to help us discern and detect the false teachers. And this includes how you constantly should judge my words and my life according to God’s Word.

In summary, to discern the bad fruit and to follow the good requires us to know and keep our eyes fixed on Christ as revealed to us in His Word. This is part of why we regularly celebrate the Lord’s Supper, as we remember and celebrate who Christ is and what He has done for us until He returns to bring us home to Himself.

Conclusion