2024-10-20 True or False (part 1)

Alright, we are continuing our series on being / / Kingdom Ambassadors as we finish up Chapter 7 of the book of Matthew, which of course is the end of the Sermon on the Mount.

If you remember last week I talked through how some bible scholars read these three sections that are found between Matthew 7:12-23. N.T. Wright says they are like warning signs along a highway, instructing us on what to pay attention to if we are to succeed in this journey of living for the Kingdom of God.

The first, as we looked at over the last two weeks, consisted of the Golden Rule, and The Narrow Gate.

/ / The Golden Rule, “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them…”

And / / The Narrow Gate, “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.”

Last week may have seemed like a bit of a heavy one. I don’t think any of us really like hearing that God has directly told us that life is going to be hard and that to succeed we have to give up what might come most naturally to us. But we would be lying to ourselves if we didn’t see this as the truth.

That’s what James warns us about in James 1:22-27. / / He writes, But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.

If you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless. Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.

He says something in that passage of scripture twice. In regard to how we act or don’t act he says that if we aren’t careful we could end up just fooling ourselves.

And it’s almost like this is a commentary on what we’ve been reading in Matthew 7.

Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them. And doing to others includes how we talk ABOUT a person, how we talk TO them and what we say to them. And so James says, / / If you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are fooling yourselves.

Basically he’s saying - If you say you follow Jesus but you run your mouth, you’re lying.

If you say you are a Christian, but you talk in a way that you would NOT talk if Jesus was actually physically in the room… You are fooled.

Paul says in Ephesians 4:29 (ESV), / / Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

But only when we like the person, and they haven’t made us upset, right?… No. Sorry.

Alright, what’s the other “Fooling yourself” statement that James makes?

/ / If you listen to the word of God, but don’t do what it says, you are fooling yourselves.

What did we look at last week? Following Jesus means doing what he says! It means being obedient to his word. It means being connected to the vine. It means actually following Him, which means following his rules and way of life. I think there’s a visual paradigm shift we have to make in our minds and hearts. It’s too easy to think of ‘following’ as just this nice little picture of us and Jesus walking along the beach reading ‘footprints in the sand’ together, and when we can’t go on, he carries us, and it’s so beautiful…

Is that true. Sure it is. I’m not knocking it. But, following someone means doing what they say.

Think of the things we say…

/ / “Follow my lead” - what do we mean? / / “Do this exactly as I am doing it.”

/ / “Follow my example” means / / “Do this in the same way I’m doing it.”

/ / “Follow my life” means / / “Model your life after my life.”

That’s what Jesus calls us to. Matthew 16:24-25, / / “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.”

So, don’t just read the Word of God, James says, but actually do what it says, THAT is truly following Jesus. Anything else is simply just fooling yourself.

Well, this week and next week we are going to tackle the next of these three warning signs that Jesus is giving us.

We are going to look at / / Matthew 7:15-20, which gets the heading “A Tree and It’s Fruit” but which I am giving the title of , “True or False” and we’ll look at part 1 this week, and part 2 next week.

/ / “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.”

So, what we are really looking at today is this first part that Jesus starts with, / / “Beware of false prophets…”

And to do that we have to ask some questions, and look at what role prophecy played in Israel’s history, which gives us context as to what the people listening to Jesus would have thought he meant by this, and of course what prophecy was during the time of Jesus and the early church, and then what it means for us today.

So, two big questions here:

/ / 1. What is prophecy and what makes someone a false prophet?

So, generally speaking I like to keep things pretty light and uplifting here. I prefer to focus on the positive. I prefer to look at what God is doing that we want to celebrate. But Jesus. Well, sometimes Jesus just hits us with some really big things that challenge us. Like this one. He starts with: / / “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” And he goes on to talk about the bad fruit that they produce. I mean, really, this whole section is about the negative and as N.T. Wright suggests, it is clearly a warning, and a strong one at that.

One thing you’ll notice as you study the life of Jesus and his teaching, is that even when he is talking about negative situations or warning of difficult times, he always brings in some sort of element of hope. And that’s really encouraging. You can talk about the negative, you can talk about what we need to be aware of, and what we need to be warned of while still holding on to hope.

Think of this. You ever pray, “God, I just need some encouragement this morning. It’s a rough morning, I just need a good pick me up bible verse…”

And you open your bible and flip to John 16:33, / / “Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows…”

Oh wow, ok. Not what I was thinking…

There’s a couple times where Jesus says these really hard things, and then he’ll say something like, “I’ve said these things so you might have joy in me.” or “I’m telling you this so you might have peace.” Even though he was talking about hard to swallow things, his purpose was to bring joy, hope and peace.

Case in point, John 16:33, let’s read the whole thing… / / “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”

Because through every difficult situation the end result is Jesus is King. The end result is Jesus has the victory. The end result is Jesus is Lord, he rose from the grave and we have our hope in that resurrection for our own lives, right?

So when we look at what might seem like a negative teaching of Jesus, “Beware false prophets looking to devour you like ravenous wolves…” we can remember, “There’s a real reason Jesus is saying this, AND in the midst of this, his peace, his joy and his hope are ever true!”

So, what does Jesus mean in Matthew 7 by “false prophets”?

First, let’s define prophet or prophecy.

Well, Jesus doesn’t actually use the word prophet. The greek word that Matthew has written in this text is / / pseudoprophētēs, which is the two words pseudēs, meaning lying, deceitful, false, and prophētēs, meaning prophet. So together / / pseudoprophētes means, a pretended foreteller or religious impostor, one who, acting the part of a divinely inspired prophet, utters falsehoods under the name of divine prophecies.

So, Jesus is literally talking in the negative here, using a word that combines false and prophet together.

Prophet, by itself, we would define as someone who has been given a message from God for a particular person or group of people. The Bible is full of prophets, and the Old Testament has many, what we call major and minor prophets. Some have the biggest books in our OT.

In the New Testament, Paul talks a lot about the gift of prophecy and those who have been given that gift. He mentions people having that gift in some of his letters, the working of it. We also have the book of Revelation that is entirely prophetic vision given to the apostle John through divine inspiration.

But, Paul encourages that all should prophecy, in 1 Corinthians 14:1, 3, 5 he says, / / (1) Let love be your highest goal! But you should also desire the special abilities the Spirit gives - especially the ability to prophesy… (3) one who prophesies strengthens others, encourages them, and comforts them… (5) I wish you could all prophesy…

The word there being / / prophēteuō meaning to speak under divine inspiration.

So, what’s Paul saying? He’s saying, “I wish everyone of you would understand what God is saying to people, and that you would be able to deliver that to those people, because people need to hear what God wants to say to them, for strength, for comfort, and encouragement!”

Why? Because we all need the word of God, and whether that is through Scripture or through the divine inspiration of a prophetic word, we know God is speaking to people. Now, it’s good to have the written Word of God, Scripture, the Bible, in right context to the prophetic. I believe that outside of ‘future’ events, or divine knowledge of information that a person would never know except by God’s intervention, prophecy will 100% of the time line up with what the Bible says. Which means, whether you hear it from the written Word of God, or you hear it from a Prophets mouth, it holds the same transforming power.

/ / Whether you hear what God is saying to you through Scripture, or through the mouth of a prophet, it holds the same transforming power because the Holy Spirit is the author of it.

Why do I say that… think of it. Let’s say I have to get up earlier than Kelley, and I’m leaving before she even gets up, and so, wanting to be sweet, I leave a note by her bed. When she picks up that note and reads it whose voice does she hear when she reads it? Hers, or mine? Mine, right? It’s from me. Whether she actually hears my voice or not, she hears my voice, those are my words, spoken to her through the writing of my hand.

Now, if I come in to our bedroom and say those exact same things to her, but this time in my voice, in front of her. Same deal, right? I would suggest that we should read Scripture in that same way, as the letter God has written to mankind. Hear it from His voice. Here’s the difference. We believe Scripture as the defining factor for prophecy. Meaning, if what we hear does not line up with what we read, we do not acknowledge it as divinely inspired.

Some people think that’s putting to much on the Bible. Can’t God say more than what is written? Well, sure, but let’s just put this to the test.

Paul says in 2 Timothy 3:16, / / All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.

The ESV says it this way, that / / Scripture is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness.

Then John the apostle writes, 1 John 4:1, / / Dear friends, do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit. You must test them to see if the spirit they have comes from God. For there are many false prophets in the world.

How do you think we test them? By using what has been given to us for teaching, for reproof, to tell us what is right and wrong, and bring correction. Reproof means to prove there is an error.

Think of it this way: If we should test everyone who comes with a spoken word saying what they have to say is divinely inspired, we can’t use in the moment divinely inspired wisdom to discern that. Because that too must be tested. John says, do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit - that includes us. When YOU think you’ve heard something from God, make sure it lines up with Scripture.

Because what does not need to be tested is what has already been tested, and that is the Word of God found in Scripture. So, we use the word of God to test every word that comes from or to us.

So, Paul had been to this city called Galatia, and he started a church there. He preached the gospel to them. And they believed in Jesus, got saved, started a church. It was awesome. But then, others had come, preaching something different, so Paul writes them this letter, we know it as the book of Galatians, and says, / / I am shocked that you are turning away so soon from God, who called you to himself through the loving mercy of Christ. You are following a different way that pretends to be the Good News but is not the Good News at all. You are being fooled by those who deliberately twist the truth concerning Christ. (Galatians 1:6-7)

So, Paul says these two things. / / “I want everyone to prophecy, but any word that is contrary to the word of God must be put aside.”

Why? Because Jesus warns against those that would use this type of gift, or the idea of the gift, as a way to lead people astray. N.T. Wright, in his commentary that we read last week, says it this way, / / “Watch out for people who will lead you off the road!”

Which road is that? The road you are walking on that leads to life, because that’s what we just read last week, isn’t it? The road is hard and the gate is narrow that leads to life! So beware anyone who would try to lead you off that road!

We read the Sermon on the Mount in succession. These things Jesus is saying play into each other.

And I want you to take note of the definition of the word that Jesus uses / / pseudoprophetes, a pretended foreteller (prophet) or religious imposter. Religious imposter could be a teacher, a preacher, a worship leader, a “Christian” friend, someone you think knows scripture but is giving you bad advice, someone you thought was a Christian or thought read the bible, but what they’re telling you isn’t sounding right based on what you know about Scripture… Beware the Religious Imposter that would try to derail you from the hard road and the narrow gate that lead to life!

As a side note, I want to very briefly just say that I believe there are two levels of prophetic use in the body of Christ. There is the ability to prophecy, which Paul encourages everyone to pursue, which I also believe that if we know Scripture, and we speak the word of God to someone, we are doing the same thing as if we were being divinely inspired to speak something to them. Because we already defined, hearing someone’s voice, or hearing their voice in the words we read from a note they wrote are akin to the same thing. And so, in that sense I believe we all, through the leading of the Holy Spirit are inspired to speak truth in love to those who need to hear it in a moment. That might be just saying the right thing to someone at the right time. If the Spirit of God initiated it, I consider that to be prophetic. It is divinely inspired.

But I also think there is what we would call the “office of the prophet”, and that is those who, like we see in the Old Testament, are given divine inspiration for a group of people, or have been given insight to see future things. But that number is small. There are more than 3,400 distinct names mentioned in the KJV of the bible. And there are less than 50 recognized prophets in the whole of the bible, and that is including people like King David, who was definitely prophetic, but we actually attribute only 16 people in scripture to writing major and minor prophetic books.

So, I want to address this idea of “false Prophets” that Jesus is talking about in Matthew 7 as both. The prophet that would say they have the office of the prophet, and those who would say they operate in the prophetic, meaning simply that they are delivering the “word of God” to you, but they are doing so falsely.

Let’s just define this “office” of prophecy as what we can call ‘big words’. Things we think matter to groups of people. Things we would say have a regional, or national, or global impact.

Depending on your life, what you listen to, what you’re paying attention to within the “christian world” you may or may not have exposure to any of these. But there are a lot of them.

There are a lot of people who would say of themselves that they hear God for the masses. Or even for the nation.

Now, I’m not going to mention any names or ministries here. Notice, Jesus doesn’t do that either, and I’m sure there were false prophets in his time. And the reason for that is because if you focus on the how to discern them, you don’t need to name them.

Paul says the spiritual gifts are to train and equip the believers in Jesus. When you are trained and equipped to discern who and who isn’t a real prophet, you’ll know whether or not to listen to them, won’t you? I see that as my primary role in your life. As your pastor, yes, I want to give you counsel, I want to love on you, care for you, but my primary role is to teach you the word of God so you are more equipped to fulfil your life in Christ.

Because, if you can learn to discern what is good fruit, you’ll know whether it is something you want to partake of.

And this is such a huge topic, and there is so much I want to say, but for sake of time I’m going to try and be as brief as possible. Mark Hitchcock, who is a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, classifies four distinct areas of / / prophetic ministry throughout Scripture.

The prophets would:

/ / Call people to a place of repentance.

/ / Call people to have love and compassion for their fellow man

/ / Call people to throw away their idols and return to God

/ / Tell people of the coming Messiah and His Kingdom

And we see that mostly in the Old Testament prophetic books, or the history of Israel and the Jewish people. Now, certainly we see this in John’s Revelation in the New Testament as well. He talks of judgment, repentance, compassion, idolatry and the coming of the Messiah and His kingdom. Jesus does as well in a few of his teachings. There’s a lot about social reform.

But in the NT there’s a shift. And that shift, I would say, is from that ‘office’ to the general public. In Acts 2, on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit fills the believers for the first time, Peter explains to the crowds that this is the fulfillment of what the Prophet Joel had said in the Old Testament, He quotes Joel 2:28-32, but reading it from Acts 2:17-18, / / “‘In the last days’, God says, ‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams. In those days I will pour out my Spirit even on my servants - men and women alike - and they will prophesy.’”

This opens it up for a whole world of people to be empowered to speak divinely inspired words from the Lord to people. This is why Paul says we should all pursue the special ability of the Spirit, to prophesy.

Dr. Hitchcock gives another very useful tip in his book, The Complete Book of Bible Prophecy. He goes through seven distinguishing marks of a true prophet, and I would suggest this morning that this is some of that fruit that Jesus is talking about looking for to distinguish if someone is truly hearing from God.

/ / The true prophet never used divination, sorcery, or astrology. The source of the prophet’s message was God himself.

And I would add to that, in New Testament prophecy that Paul encourages us in, the understanding and knowledge of Scripture gives you an amazing depth of encouraging and inspiring language of God to speak to people. Through the leading of the Holy Spirit and the divine inspiration of the Word of God you can encourage someone beautifully.

Why do we even need to say this, that a true prophet doesn’t use divination, sorcery or astrology? Because the world wants to look to anything for any sort of comfort. Ever had someone say, “Thoughts and prayers..” to you, or “putting good vibes out to the universe”, or ever get tempted to read the horoscope, check your astrology?

Here’s the test - If it’s not divinely inspired from the word of God, or divinely inspired and line up with the word of God…throw it out.

Now, one of the reasons I brought up the fact that Peter says the coming of the Spirit is a fulfillment of prophecy that all men and women will be able to prophesy, and that Paul says we should all pursue it, is because the great commission of Jesus Christ to his apostles was to go out into the world and create disciples. And disciples are those who learn, and learning requires practice and practice will inevitably involve failure. There must be place in the safety and confines of the church as a body of believers who are for each other and learning for our own lives and our mutual benefit, to fail at the practice of the spiritual gifts as we learn how to best use them.

That also means that there needs to be opportunity for correction.

There is a process to learning. You learn, you get tested, you get graded, you learn what you got wrong so you can do better next time. That is whether it is math, science, building a house. Everyone who ever worked with wood knows the saying, “Measure twice, cut once”….and it is often the arrogance of a young woodworker not heeding that message from those who came before them, and ended up measuring once, cutting once, and had to measure again and cut again.

Part of learning is failing and part of failing is correction and part of correction is the opportunity to get better at the gifts we all have. / / Condemnation says you failed and don’t deserve to do it again. Correction says, You failed, let’s try again, I’ll show you how.

Every week in university I hand in homework and my professors don’t care that I got up here and preached on Sunday. They don’t care that I led worship. That the presence of the Lord was here. That people’s lives may have been changed at our church. They look at my homework, judge it, and tell me what I did wrong so I can learn more.

I saw someone post something interesting online yesterday. I’ve heard it said many times before, and in some ways I absolutely agree. The church is meant to be a place where people feel safe, where the broken can heal, where the wounded can come and receive life. And I do agree. But also….and that is a very big but also…. the church is meant to be a gym, where you come and exercise your spiritual gifts, where you build spiritual muscles, where you train and grow in your walk with the Lord. A lot of people show up to church with the same wounds over and over again needing to be patched up. And we have grace for that, and there are seasons of hurt, and there are times of going through things. And Scripture does say that Christ came to bind up the broken hearted. And maybe we want to argue that the church is meant to be a hospital. But Paul very specifically calls for the Christian to run the race with all of your might and in 1 Timothy 4:7-8 he says, / / Do not waste time arguing over godless ideas and old wive’s tales. Instead, train yourself to be godly. “Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come.”

Larry Randolph, who is one person I do consider to be a real prophet in this world right now, tells this story of when he was a young pastor. He had this situation at his church, and he went to one of his mentors and was complaining and his mentor said, “Go memorize Ephesians 4” (And I could have that wrong, but something like that)… he comes back a week later and is talking to his mentor, having normal conversation, and his mentor asks him, “What ever happened with that problem?” and he asks, “What problem?” - he had to be reminded of his complaining because the washing of the word of God dealt with the attitude in his heart.

Maybe we need a bit more, “Do you even lift, bro!” when it comes to the spiritual disciplines.

So, back to Dr. Hitchcock’s marks of a prophet: And I want you to hear these in context to not just who we would consider to be a “big name prophet” but to anyone that may be included in that psdeudoprophetes, the prophet or the religious imposter, which could be us. These are checks and balances for our own life in how we talk of God and His Word to other people.

/ / 2. The true prophet never tailored his or her message to cater to the cravings or desires of the people. The false prophets spoke a message that would bring them popularity and money.

Man, we could go into that. But let’s just leave that one there for now, ok.

/ / 3. The true prophet maintained personal integrity and character.

This is what Jesus is really talking about in Matthew 7. What is the fruit of their lives?

/ / 4. The true prophet was willing to suffer for the sake of his message.

Call this prophecy, call this witness, those who are truly called by God have in the past suffered much. The early church was willing to die for their belief. I’m not saying any of us want to, I don’t think any of them wanted to. But the closer you get to God in relationship, and the deeper his work goes in you, the more you are willing to lay down your life for Him.

In the middle of the first century a man named Polycarp was brought before government officials and told to curse God and renounce Christianity or else be put to death. He responded with, “Eighty-six years I have served him, and he never did me any wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?”.

He was threatened with wild animals ripping him apart. He told them to bring it on.

He was then threatened to be burned alive, and when they piled the wood around him, and were going to nail him to a post, he told them to stop and said this, “Leave me the way I am. He who gives me power to endure the fire will help me to remain in the flames without moving, even without being secured by nails.” And the story doesn’t end there, but that’s not the point for today.

The point is, are we quick to deny the life Christ has called us to so we can maintain the life of this world, or do we daily crucify the flesh, like Paul tells us to, so that we might die to ourselves, and live for Jesus?

/ / 5. The true prophet announced a message that was consistent with the law and with the message of other true prophets.

Plain and simple. The true prophet spoke something that lined up with Scripture.

That’s the law and the prophets.

/ / 6. The true prophet, when predicting future events, had a 100 percent success rate. Any success rate short of perfect was not good enough! In the Old Testament, if a prophet was less than 100% accurate, they were taken outside the city and stoned to death.

All I will say on this is that many who confess to be true prophets today, would not be alive by those standards. And I’m not advocating for that. What I’m wanting to see in the greater church is a reverence for the Word of God and truth.

If you aren’t sure, it’s better to keep your mouth shut.

Don’t prophecy what you want or what you hope, prophecy truth or not at all. Because / / it is the truth of the word realized that determines the truth of the word spoken.

If it doesn’t happen, was it true?

And I want to pause here for a moment, ok. This is super important. Again, I said earlier, maybe you’re not even listening to any of these voices, you don’t listen to Christian television or get into Christian youtube channels etc… so that’s fine, but if you do, I need you to hear this.

I believe God speaks. I believe God tells people things. I believe in the divine inspiration of the prophetic gift. I believe the Holy Spirit leads us, guides us and directs us in all truth.

I also think there are many, and I mean many, who should stay silent for lack of discernment.

Let’s just address a potentially awkward subject: Four years ago we saw people who are considered prominent prophetic voices in the church get up and declare to be speaking the voice of God and say two things.

First, Trump was going to win. Hands down, give God the glory now, Trump is going to win. That’s what they said. “Trump is God’s man for the hour!”

When that didn’t happen, they turned to a different “word”. The election results were going to be overturned and Trump would end up in office as it should be, thus sayeth the Lord.

Every single one of them was wrong. Every. Single. One.

Whether you think the election was fair and 100% accurate, is beside the point. What they said would happen did NOT happen. Doesn’t matter if God said, “I WANT Trump to be president.” or “I’ve Anointed Him to be president.” or anything like that. The people didn’t vote, and the results show a different story. So someone wasn’t telling the truth.

Deuteronomy 18:21-22, / / “But you may wonder, ‘How will we know whether or not a prophecy is from the Lord?’ If the prophet speaks in the Lord’s name but his prediction does not happen or come true, you will know that the Lord did not give that message. That prophet has spoken without my authority…”

Here’s the read thing: The most tragic part about that is that of all the “prophets” that said that, hardly any, if any, came back and said, “You know what, I got that wrong. Please forgive my lack of judgment.” Over and over again they all tried to save face.

Now, I will say this, this is a bonus point this morning, ok. I believe prophecy often speaks of potential. And I believe many people see the potential that God is inviting his people to experience and instead of explaining it like that, they explain it as if God says it, it’s going to happen. But remember how I feel about “God is in control.” Is he going to control your life just so the prophetic word will come true? Prophecy isn’t always saying that it will necessarily happen.

Example: I have had prophecies over my life of notable things happening that have not happened. That doesn’t mean they won’t, but, i think that this point of my life there’s somethings that have passed. But it also means that the prophecy is subject to the obedience of the person receiving the word from God.

I would say this of prophecy. Often times Prophecy speaks to potential, not promise.

But here’s where that’s tricky. No one is going to want to prophecy ‘potential’ because that doesn’t sound very compelling, does it?

Thus sayeth the Lord, This candidate will win the election……..as long as enough people vote for him and there’s no funny business and all the districts act honorably and faithfully to the constitution and electoral laws and there’s no criminal acts, be that from republican or democratic leaning people.

In all transparency, God may have very well wanted someone specific in office, be that Trump or Biden. But we live in a country with an electoral process. God doesn’t produce ballots. God doesn’t rig elections because the bible says he can’t lie, and rigging an election would be a lie. Let’s just call it what it is, ok.

Now, let’s get really practical for a moment. Here is an interesting statistic.

This year, ok, with an election just 16 days away, the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University has done a study that revealed 49% of confessed “people of faith” aren’t even going to vote.

Now, if you’re banking on the people of God to listen to God for who they are supposed to vote for, and 49% of them aren’t even planning on punching that ticket….

What do I mean by all of that? Am I suddenly getting political when I tell you over and over again that I won’t? No, not at all.

What I am saying is that I think the prophetic culture of America has gotten out of hand, and we need to return to a biblical foundation of following God while relying on the leading of the Holy Spirit for our lives.

We have put such an emphasis on the gifts of God that we forgot to make sure they were operating as they should in line with the Word of God. And people with gifts can easily misuse those gifts and lead people astray and end up being exactly what Jesus is warning against in Matthew 7:15, Beware the pseudoprophetes…

Now, as your pastor I will tell you 2 things this morning:

Vote. It’s your civic duty to vote because that’s how this country works. Your voice is expressed through the choice to go to that ballot box and drop your decision in there. And when we don’t do that, we are saying we don’t really care what happens, and we don’t really think we have a voice. But we know that not everything in this country is perfect, but while we have that opportunity to speak through voting we have to take it.

Vote based on biblical value. Vote based on the word of God as the Holy Spirit leads you, to the best of your ability and understanding of that leading. That’s all you can do.

Because, this is the last point. And again, I’m focusing on this this morning because Jesus felt it noteworthy enough to focus on in Matthew 7. I don’t ever want to come across as negative, or painting a grim picture, but the reality is, and this is Dr. Hitchcock’s final point, that not everyone who seems trustworthy is actually trustworthy, and the only way to know that is to look for the fruit and if it lines up with Scripture:

/ / 7. The true prophet sometimes had his or her message authenticated by the performance of a miracle or miracles, but this test was not conclusive evidence…

Listen to what Deuteronomy 13:1-3 says, / / “Suppose there are prophets among you or those who dream dreams about the future, and they promise you signs or miracles, and the predicted signs or miracles occur. If they then say, ‘Come, let us worship other gods’ - gods that you have not known before - do not listen to them.”

Do you realize that scripture actually says the anti-christ will perform great signs and wonders?

What appears to be the anointing, or the gift, or the miracle does not validate the person or their message.

Here’s the problem with / / False Prophets. They don’t come with warning labels.

They don’t come with signs that say, “This isn’t true, don’t believe it.”

In fact, quite the opposite. They are usually well spoken, charismatic, easy to listen to. Someone that you almost feel you WANT to listen to just because you like them or you like what they are saying.

In Jeremiah 14, Jeremiah has been praying and prophesying to the people of Israel, but they don’t like what he’s been saying. And so there are other “prophets” telling the people what they want to hear. Jeremiah 14:13-14 says, / / Then [Jeremiah] said, “O Sovereign Lord, their prophets are telling them, ‘All is well - no war or famine will come. The Lord will surely send you peace.’”

Then the Lord said, “These prophets are telling lies in my name. I did not send them or tell them to speak. I did not give them any messages. They prophesy of visions and revelations they have never seen or heard. They speak foolishness made up in their own lying hearts….I never sent them…”

Jeremiah, a Jewish prophet to the Jewish people.

These other “prophets”, also Jewish people claiming to be prophets of God to the Jewish people.

You see where the problem is, right?

Jeremiah 14:1 says, / / This message came to Jeremiah from the Lord, explaining why he was holding back the rain:

And what did vs 13 say? Jeremiah says to the Lord, / / their prophets are telling them, ‘All is well - no war or famine will come. The Lord will surely send you peace.”

two “words from God”… complete opposite of each other… both by “prophets”.

And I don’t want you to think, well, this is 2500 years ago and completely out of context for us. And of course that would be true to some level. However, the context of this particular story doesn’t matter as much as the content of the message being spoken by the Lord, or at least for us as we interpret what Jesus is saying in Matthew 7.

And I already said this is a big topic. I could talk about this all day probably. I have so many thoughts on it. But what I truly think Jesus is warning of in Matthew 7 is that there will be those that will come and give information, teaching, worship songs, prophetic words that lead away from the true gospel of Jesus Christ and as your Pastor I will do my best to equip you and train you and help you see those faults, but ultimately it is up to each of us individually to, as Paul says, be about our spiritual training so that we are prepared for what is to come.

Paul warns Timothy in his second letter to him, 2 Timothy 4:3-4, / / For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear. They will reject the truth and chase after myths.

So, beware pseudoprophetes… false prophets…false teachers.

Beware those that would preach a different gospel to you than the one you have heard.

So, how do we end this on a brighter note? How do we take what Jesus is saying and turn it around?

How do we approach a heavy topic and say, “Jesus, now we need your joy, hope, and peace!”

I want to finish this morning by asking, \/ / Why is Jesus giving us this warning?

This warning is not just out of left field, but it’s in the context of the message he is preaching, the Sermon on the Mount. What it looks like to live in the Kingdom of God, a kingdom that is NOT of this world. And when we submit to that way, we will be less likely to fall for the words of the false prophets of the religious imposters.

When we employ the beatitudes, when we follow the teaching of Jesus, when we put the Golden Rule into practice and follow the hard road and enter the narrow gate that leads to life we can be sure we are following the good shepherd, not those who would try to lead us off that path.

Paul says in Ephesians 6:13, put on every piece of God’s armor so you will be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil.

Peter says in 1 Peter 5:8, Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour. Stand firm against him, and be strong in your faith.

Jesus says, in Matthew 5-7, / / Beware [the] pseudoprophetes, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves…

I believe this is what Jesus is saying to you this morning:

Beware the false prophets and teachers who will try to lead you off the path that leads to life.

They come promising an easier road and a wider gate, but it only leads to destruction.

Don’t listen to them, continue to give up your own way to follow mine.

Follow my teaching.

Seek out those who produce good fruit in their lives.

Those are the ones you should hang around.

Those are the ones you should listen to.

Those are the ones you should learn from.

And do this together. You need each other, now, more than ever!