Matthew 7 Verses 15 to 23 Don’t Be Fooled June 23, 2024

Matthew 7 Verses 15 to 23 Don’t Be Fooled June 23, 2024 Lesson 12

Sermon on the Mount Class Presentation Notes AAAAA

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Background Scriptures:

· Deuteronomy 13:1-5 (NKJV) 1 "If there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, 2 and the sign or the wonder comes to pass, of which he spoke to you, saying, 'Let us go after other gods'--which you have not known--'and let us serve them,' 3 you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the LORD your God is testing you to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. 4 You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear Him, and keep His commandments and obey His voice, and you shall serve Him and hold fast to Him. 5 But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has spoken in order to turn you away from the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the house of bondage, to entice you from the way in which the LORD your God commanded you to walk. So you shall put away the evil from your midst.

· Luke 6:43-45 (NKJV) 43 "For a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. 44 For every tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush. 45 A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.

· 2 Peter 2:1-3 (NKJV) 1 But there were also false prophets among the people, even as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Lord who bought them, and bring on themselves swift destruction. 2 And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed. 3 By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber.

· Galatians 5:16-23 (NKJV) 16 I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. 17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, 21 envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.

Main Idea:

· Avoid those who speak for the Lord yet live lives contrary to God’s message.

Study Aim:

· Are our lives a reflection of the fruit of the Spirit or the fruit of the flesh?

Create Interest:

· What is the nature of the warning given in verses 15–20?

· Explain what Jesus meant by fruit in those verses. According to Jesus’ words in verse 21, who can claim the right to enter into the kingdom of heaven?

o If religious words and acts do not make one fit for the kingdom, what does?

· Let’s see if we can find out the answers to these questions😊.

Lesson in Historical Context:

· For several hundred years before the time of Christ it was generally believed that prophecy had ceased. The period between the two Testaments is sometimes called the silent years. With John the Baptist the prophetic voice returned, and in early Christianity prophecy flourished. To the crowd that gathered on the Day of Pentecost, Peter explained that the phenomenon of tongues was the fulfillment of Joel’s promise that in the last days God would pour out his Spirit on everyone, so that young men would see visions, old men would have dreams, and both men and women would proclaim his message (Acts 2:17–18; cf. 1 Cor. 14:29–31).

· As the church grew, the problem of false prophets became acute. Jesus had warned against the rise of false prophets who would deceive the people (Matt. 24:11, 24). John also warned his followers (1 John 4:1–3; Rev. 2:20). How were the Christians to recognize a false prophet? In earlier days a prophet was discredited if what he proclaimed in the name of the Lord did not come true (Deut. 18:20–22).[1] As we study this section, we should be able to recognize the relationship to false “prophets” today in the analogies given by Jesus.

Bible Study:

Matthew 7:15 (NKJV) 15 "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.

· Almost every phrase and word in this section would ring an answering bell in the minds of the Jews who heard it for the first time.

· The Jews knew all about false prophets.Jeremiah, for instance, had his conflict with the prophets who said “Peace, peace, when there is no peace” (Jeremiah 6:14; 8:11).

· Wolves was the very name by which false rulers and false prophets were called. In the bad days Ezekiel had said, “Her princes in the midst of her are like wolves tearing the prey, shedding blood and destroying lives, to get dishonest gain” (Ezekiel 22:27).

o Zephaniah drew a grim picture of the state of things in Israel, when, “Her officials within her are roaring lions; her judges are evening wolves that leave nothing till the morning. Her prophets are wanton, faithfulness men” (Zephaniah 3:3).

o When Paul was warning the elders of Ephesus of dangers to come, as he took a last farewell of them, he said, “Fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock” (Acts 20:29).

o Jesus said that he was sending out his disciples as sheep in the midst of wolves (Matthew 10:16); and he told of the Good Shepherd who protected the flock from the wolves with his life (John 10:12).

§ Here indeed was a picture which everyone could recognize and understand.

· He said that the false prophets were like wolves in sheep’s clothing. When the shepherd watched his flocks upon the hillside, his garment was a sheepskin, worn with the skin outside and the fleece inside.

o But a man might wear a shepherd’s dress and still not be a shepherd. The prophets had acquired conventional dress.

· Elijah had a mantle (I Kings 19:13, 19), and that mantle had been a hairy cloak (2 Kings 1:8). That sheepskin mantle had become the uniform of the prophets, just as the Greek philosophers had worn the philosopher’s robe. It was by that mantle that the prophet could be distinguished from other men.

o But sometimes that garb was worn by those who had no right to wear it, for Zechariah in his picture of the great days to come says, “He will not put on a hairy mantle in order to deceive” (Zechariah 13:4).

§ There were those who wore a prophet’s cloak, but who lived anything but a prophet’s life.

· There were false prophets in the ancient days, but there were also false prophets in New Testament times. Matthew was written about A.D. 85, and at that time prophets were still an institution in the Church.

o They were men with no fixed abode, men who had given up everything to wander throughout the country, bringing to the Churches a message which they believed to come direct from God.[2]

Thought to soak on for our lives today

· What the false prophets or teachers say may sound good, what they do may seem good, however, consider the results.

o What comes from their words and deeds?

o Are other people better because of them?

o Is the authenticity of their message evident in how they handle critical situations in their own lives?

o Is it truly a word from God or a popular perversion designed to deceive the hearer and line the pocket of the false prophet?

o If the teacher is false, his teaching will be false; if he is corrupt, his teaching will be corrupt and will corrupt those exposed to it.[3]

§ How can we apply this to our lives today?

Matthew 7:16-20 (NKJV) 16 You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? 17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them.

· Many people who “trust” Jesus Christ never leave the broad road with its appetites and associations. They have an easy Christianity that makes no demands on them. Yet Jesus said that the narrow way was hard. We cannot walk on two roads, in two different directions, at the same time.

· The first test to note is that if these show that true faith in Christ changes the life and produces fruit for God’s glory. Everything in nature reproduces after its kind, and this is also true in the spiritual realm. Good fruit comes from a good tree, but bad fruit comes from a bad tree. The tree that produces rotten fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. “Wherefore, by their fruits you shall know them” (Matt. 7:20).

· The second test is this: Did my decision for Christ change my life? False prophets who teach false doctrine can produce only false righteousness (see Acts 20:29).

o Their fruit (the results of their ministry) is false and cannot last. The prophets themselves are false; the closer we get to them, the more we see the falsity of their lives and doctrines.

o They magnify themselves, not Jesus Christ; and their purpose is to exploit people, not to edify them. The person who believes false doctrine, or who follows a false prophet, will never experience a changed life. Unfortunately, some people do not realize this until it is too late.[4]

· In the Old Testament, the test for true and false prophets was: wait and see! If the prophet tells you that something is going to happen, you will discover whether they are truthful by seeing whether it does. Jesus has a more graphic, and perhaps a quicker, method of detection.

o Look at the life of the person who is offering you advice. Think of it like a tree. Can you see healthy, tasty fruit on this tree? Can you see other people being genuinely nourished by it? Or is it, in fact, producing a crop of lies, immorality and greed?

· Within the Christian church there is always a temptation to ask different questions about people. ‘Is he one of us?’ people enquire. ‘Does she belong to my party, to our group, to the proper tradition?’

o But parties, groups and traditions have a way of attracting both genuine believers and true prophets on the one hand and false prophets and hangers-on on the other.

§ The only way to be sure is to look for fruit from the tree, and to be sure what sort of fruit it is.

· The ‘fruit’ cannot simply be showy displays of apparent spiritual power. False prophets can often produce that sort of thing. What counts is something deeper, something more personal.

Matthew 7:21-23 (NKJV) 21 "Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' 23 And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'

· The previous warning was particularly concerned with religious leaders, this one deals with the mass of members inside the Church. The real test of discipleship is obedience. Even preaching and performing miracles in Christ’s name is no proof that a person is accepted with God. Devils should be translated “demons.” Diabolos (“devil”) is always singular in the Greek. The word here is plural, daimonia, “demons.” The penalty for disobedience is separation from God.[5]

· The final warning in this sequence moves our attention to the final day, the day of judgment. ‘On that day’ in verse 22 is the first use, but by no means the last in Matthew, of a regular phrase which Jesus has transferred from the Old Testament warnings about coming divine judgment into his own warnings about what would happen when God finally acted. Some, it seems, will have done remarkable things ‘in Jesus’ name’ but without knowing him personally. Mighty deeds are not a final indication of whether someone really belongs to Jesus or not. There are some who will have done them, but who will turn out to be ‘evil workers’. What counts will be knowing Jesus—or rather, being known by him. What does that mean? Read the rest of the story and find out.[6]

Conclusion

Confessions of a Reformed Legalist

· Churches of my era led many to believe that Christians were morally superior people because we kept the rules. Obedience was compelled by fear of ostracism. Those whose lives did not match traditional standards of the church were shamed, shunned, or expelled.

· This was the mind-set I and many others of my generation grew up with. The result was a tendency to lump together the outright hypocrites (who should have known better) with the spiritually immature who stumbled back into sin.

· I abandoned my sense of moral superiority as I grew older. I still acknowledged the fact that there were people in my church who hypocritically hid their private sins. Some of these folks were the quickest to censor and condemn anyone they believed to be breaking the rules. Their legalistic orientation caused them to be more concerned with controlling the behavior of others rather than repenting of their own secret sins. But I distinguish them from fellow believers who stumble back into sin but then return to the Lord with repentance and humbled hearts.

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· Rather than jump to judgement, I am determined look to the fruit of repentance. Do I see the fruit of the Spirit in spite of their past failings? Paul says there is no law against this fruit (Galatians 5:22, 23). Make no mistake: I still care about godly behavior. I care deeply about injustice. I seek to live to please my Lord. But I also know I will never live without any sin on this earth. I also realize that others are in the same condition.

· I regret having lived as a legalist, and I now attempt to live in such a way that my own fruit is founded on “a broken and contrite heart” (Psalm 51:17) in keeping with repentance (Matthew 3:8). Such a heart is yielded fully to God. Most assuredly, Philippians 3:13-14 (NKJV) applies!

o 13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do,forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Actions reveal the content of the heart.[7]

[1]Robert H. Mounce, Matthew, Understanding the Bible Commentary Series (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2011), 67–68. [2]William Barclay, ed., The Gospel of Matthew, vol. 1, The Daily Study Bible Series (Philadelphia, PA: The Westminster John Knox Press, 1976), 281–282. [3]Ronald K. Brown, Bible Studies for Life, Summer 2016, Herschel Hobbs Commentary (LifeWay Christian Resources, 2016), 63. [4]Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996), 31. [5]Ralph Earle, “The Gospel according to Matthew,” in Matthew, Mark, Luke, Beacon Bible Commentary (Beacon Hill Press, 1964), Mt 7:21–23. [6]Tom Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part 1: Chapters 1-15 (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2004), 76–78. [7]Mark S. Krause et al., “Spiritual Discernment,” in The NIV Standard Lesson Commentary, 2018–2019, ed. Ronald L. Nickelson, vol. 25 (Colorado Springs, CO: Standard Publishing, 2018), 415.