10/27/24 - Two Trees / Two Fruits

I remember back in the day

when there were people on the street corner

with sandwich board signs

saying the world will end tomorrow

or something like that

If I were to say the name Harold Camping

I wonder how many would remember that name?

Harold Camping formed the Family Radio network in 1958

He broadcast in 30 languages online and a network of more than 140 domestic and international radio stations

He first predicted the world would end in September 1994

when it didn’t, he said it was a mathematical error

that he was actually referring to the end of the church age

a time when human beings in Christian churches could be saved

He then revised his math

and said that the world was going to end on May 21, 2011

his independent Christian media empire spent millions of dollars

to spread the word on more than 5,000 billboards and 20 RV’s plastered with the judgment day message

when the day came and passed

he revised his prophecy saying he was off by five months

Many followers quit their jobs and sold all their possessions

to help spread the word

When it didn’t happen either, he wrote an apology and posted it on the ministry’s website

he would suffer a stroke three weeks after the May prediction

and ultimately died at 92 years old in December 2013

having never seeing the end of the world

Choices

We’re talking about choices over the next few weeks

How many of you if you had a choice

and you do

would intentionally produce a lie that could effect millions of people?

How many would want to produce rotten fruit in your life?

How many would purposefully try to

and knowingly try to share wrong things?

this is the choice we are presented with this morning.

Jesus is going to present a different set of choices this week

that relates to the choices we had last week

last week’s choices were

do you choose the narrow path and gate that leads to life?

or do you choose the wide path and gate that leads to destruction?

This week is all about choosing different kinds of fruit and trees in our life

Jesus is going to set this up for us

and give us the bottom line right up front talking about Hidden Wolves

Hidden Wolves

Matthew 7:15 (CSB)

15 “Be on your guard against false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravaging wolves.

Jesus warns the people on the hillside and us

to be on our guard against false prophets

In order to understand what a false prophet is

we have to understand what a genuine prophet is and does

and compare the false ones to the standard

I think I’ve said this before

I used to be a bank teller

and one of the ways they would train us to spot counterfeit money

is to have us handle real money for days

we would be in a training room with thousands of dollars

doing fake transactions

learning how to balance the cash drawers

learning how to make change quickly

this was all before the computers did all this for you

One day without any notice

the trainer would slip in a fake counterfeit bill in the cash drawer

and when we were counting the cash to balance

I remember that something didn’t feel right

this was also before they had the pens that would mark on the bills

I’d be counting and suddenly, nope that bill is wrong

Because I had handled the real thing for so long

I was able to pick out a counterfeit bill

without even looking at it

Jesus is talking about false prophets, teachers, influencers

How are we going to know the difference

between ones that are telling the truth

and one’s that are even 1 degree off

the only way is to handle the Word of God so often in our lives

that when a false prophet shows up

we can pick them out without even having to think real hard about it

what is a prophet?

I don’t know about you

but when I hear the word prophet it conjures up images in my head

The long white beard

the tattered clothing

someone screaming that you’re going to hell if you don’t repent

sort of the Moses character from the 10 commandments

or the image of John the Baptist in camels hair and eating locusts

and these images in my head aren’t wrong, they are just outdated

A prophet is God’s spokesperson

In the Old Testament these were the ones that foretell God’s Word

The Old Testament prophet was not so much about telling the future

they were more about telling the truth about the present

and what would happen if people didn’t change their behavior and return back to God

There are laws about prophets in the Old Testament

Deuteronomy 13:1–5 (CSB)

1 “If a prophet or someone who has dreams arises among you and proclaims a sign or wonder to you,

2 and that sign or wonder he has promised you comes about, but he says, ‘Let’s follow other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let’s worship them,’

3 do not listen to that prophet’s words or to that dreamer. For the Lord your God is testing you to know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul.

4 You must follow the Lord your God and fear him. You must keep his commands and listen to him; you must worship him and remain faithful to him.

5 That prophet or dreamer must be put to death, because he has urged rebellion against the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you from the place of slavery, to turn you from the way the Lord your God has commanded you to walk. You must purge the evil from you.

In the New Testament, it begins with one prophet

That is John the Baptist

and his job was to make the way for Jesus to come

sharing the message of repentance and baptism

Matthew 3:1–3 (CSB)

1 In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea

2 and saying, “Repent, because the kingdom of heaven has come near!”

3 For he is the one spoken of through the prophet Isaiah, who said: A voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way for the Lord; make his paths straight!

New Testament prophecy was an honored gift

Acts 11:27–28 (CSB)

27 In those days some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch.

28 One of them, named Agabus, stood up and predicted by the Spirit that there would be a severe famine throughout the Roman world. This took place during the reign of Claudius.

Acts 21:9–11 (CSB)

9 This man had four virgin daughters who prophesied.

10 After we had been there for several days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea.

11 He came to us, took Paul’s belt, tied his own feet and hands, and said, “This is what the Holy Spirit says: ‘In this way the Jews in Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him over to the Gentiles.’ ”

1 Corinthians 12:10 (CSB)

10 to another, the performing of miracles, to another, prophecy, to another, distinguishing between spirits, to another, different kinds of tongues, to another, interpretation of tongues.

1 Corinthians 14:1–3 (CSB)

1 Pursue love and desire spiritual gifts, and especially that you may prophesy.

2 For the person who speaks in a tongue is not speaking to people but to God, since no one understands him; he speaks mysteries in the Spirit.

3 On the other hand, the person who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouragement, and consolation.

We hear of false prophets in

2 Peter 2:1 (CSB)

1 There were indeed false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, and will bring swift destruction on themselves.

1 John 4:1–3 (CSB)

1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

2 This is how you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,

3 but every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming; even now it is already in the world.

Revelation 2:20 (CSB)

20 But I have this against you: You tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and teaches and deceives my servants to commit sexual immorality and to eat meat sacrificed to idols.

By the time we get to the end of the New Testament

The prophet could be anyone

but the true meaning of what Jesus is saying

we shouldn’t get caught up in the semantics or the base definition of what we think a prophet is

The Principle that Jesus teaches

applies to any representative of God that shares His Word

This could be a pastor, a Sunday School Teacher, children’s worker

or anyone who is sharing about God

A quick side note,

Not all teachers have the gift of prophesy

The gift of prophesy is someone that is very black and white

they can see sin in people’s lives

and try to help them turn away from their sin

often times in a very blunt way

but not all teachers have that gift

so don’t get confused about the difference

between the gift of prophesy and who Jesus is sharing as a prophet

So if a prophet or a teacher is a spokesperson for God

a false prophet is NOT speaking for God

but often times is trying to persuade people down the wrong path

Jesus calls them ravaging wolves

a wolf ravishes a flock for its own gratification

Wolves are vicious or ravaging

they eat sheep

and seeing as the metaphor of sheep is members of the congregation

that’s not a great thing

The false prophets that Jesus speaks of

would try to persuade people with their teaching

their teaching may be plausible

and they may be very charismatic

teaching people, sheep, to act as a true disciple of Jesus

offering an easier way, wide path

to a narrow way of Christianity

and, in the end, would be destructive

In the context of the church

A false prophet would come into a congregation

begin to look like one of the sheep

act like one of the sheep

dress like on of the sheep

begin to teach things that sound like God’s Word

and may even include God’s Word

By being just a little bit off

can persuade the congregation

move some or all of the congregation away from the Word of God

convincing them what he says is correct

and begin to slowly tear apart that congregation

member by member through the falseness of what they say

They lead the flock of God’s community to abandon the narrow road for the wide road

and lead them to destruction

Unfortunately, I’ve seen it happen first hand

An example would be the teaching of legalism

legalism is a teaching that is extrabiblical

that means it is in addition to God’s Word

and outside of God’s Word

Things like you have to wear certain clothing to be a good Christian

you can’t do certain things to be a good Christian

tattoos are of the devil.

drums are of the devil

anything fun is of the devil

Jesus actually spoke in the King James

there were wise men at the manger

all of these sound plausible but are actually wrong Biblically

By adding more laws to God’s grace

we have in effect, made it easier for us, a wider path for us

because now we can check off what we think Christianity is

If Christianity is about clothing, we wear different clothes

if it’s about not cussing, we don’t cuss

if it’s about giving the church more money

well the church is out of luck

rather than taking the narrow path of God said being a follower of Jesus really is.

Wolves and sheep are natural enemies

They dress in sheep’s clothing means

they are like the hypocrites who pretend to be one thing but inside are quite another

The sheep are the citizens of the new covenant community

a congregation, followers of Jesus

and the wolves, the false prophets are counterfeit themselves in the clothing of leaders of that community.

Paul warns the Ephesian elders to be careful about these false leaders that will come into the church

Acts 20:29 (CSB)

29 I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.

And in that instance they did.

The whole book of Ephesians is a corrective letter

to those that had come in and tried to create laws

above and beyond what the Bible teaches

So how do we tell if what a person is teaching is false?

or how can we tell if someone who claims to be a prophet, a spokesperson, is real or not?

Healthy and Harmful Fruit

Matthew 7:16–20 (CSB)

16 You’ll recognize them by their fruit. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes or figs from thistles?

17 In the same way, every good tree produces good fruit, but a bad tree produces bad fruit.

18 A good tree can’t produce bad fruit; neither can a bad tree produce good fruit.

19 Every tree that doesn’t produce good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

20 So you’ll recognize them by their fruit.

A harmful weed cannot produce healthful fruit

What is fruit?

Fruit is the product of a person’s essential life

last week we spoke that conviction leads to behavior

conviction is revealed in fruit

fruit is not produced for the tree

a tree does not eat it’s own fruit

first of all that’s cannibalism

second of all trees don’t eat fruit to survive

trees get their nourishment from their roots

and God provides the trees with what they need

I spoke about the process of becoming fruit one Sunday night in September

Dr. Duane Milioni taught a class on fruit a few weeks ago

Based on what Jesus said

we can tell a person that is saved

or in this case real

by their fruit according to this passage

I don’t know about you, but this isn’t necessarily a comforting passage to read

because in my life I struggle with bad tendencies and habits, and thoughts

The thing to remember is, none of those are fruit

fruit is a natural occurrence that comes from a healthy plant

if a plant produces good fruit, it has nourishment, water, proper sunlight, temperature

if a tree produces bad fruit, there is a disease, or rot, bad soil, terrible root system

fruit doesn’t just appear on the limb of a tree

in order for it to be good or bad, it starts at the root

we as humans will always bear a mixture of good and bad fruit in our lives

the natural part of our lives is sin

sin produces bad things in our life

and the Spirit produces good things in our life, fruit

My job as the pastor of the church is to press people to produce good fruit in their lives

and to call out the things that could be harmful both to the individual and to the congregation

The Process of Becoming Fruit

That being the case, how do we understand how good and bad things occur in our lives?

Let’s kind of reverse engineer this

thoughts determine feelings and actions

actions are the end product

when you think of something good or bad,

that produces feelings, emotions, and then ultimately action

When you watch a chick flick

that movie will evoke thoughts about a memory, or something

that provokes emotions and then you wind up crying

However, when you watch a revenge movie

the movie provokes thoughts about who you want to bury

and that causes emotions of anger and vindication

that get you excited about doing something bad to someone

or at the very least, cause you to get in your car and drive really fast

that causes road rage and now you’re all pumped up about what you could do to the person in front of you.

From the Root to Fruit

Where do these thoughts begin

according to the Bible, all thoughts begin in your heart

James 3:9–12 (CSB)

9 With the tongue we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in God’s likeness.

10 Blessing and cursing come out of the same mouth. My brothers and sisters, these things should not be this way.

11 Does a spring pour out sweet and bitter water from the same opening?

12 Can a fig tree produce olives, my brothers and sisters, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a saltwater spring yield fresh water.

The tongue is incapable of producing anything.

That process has to go through your head

but the head is incapable of producing anything either

Everything starts in the heart, the well

your heart is where all your values, your will, your beliefs, and your desires live

Depending on what your heart believes, that is what generates the thoughts (the brain) that cause the actions or the fruit

There’s a problem with that though

What does the Bible say about the heart?

Jeremiah 17:9 (CSB)

9 The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable—who can understand it?

The heart is the root of the problem

The heart is the root of sin in a person

That’s encouraging, but what do we do about that?

2 Corinthians 3:18 (CSB)

18 We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.

From the Root to Fruit

So we are being transformed

It’s a process

I mentioned sanctification

the process every believer goes through to become more like Jesus

and it’s a daily struggle

until the day we stand before Jesus in our transformed bodies

we get to struggle and fight with the sin in our heart daily.

Is there a way to confront the sin in our heart?

This is where the disciplines come in

Our hearts naturally generate lies all the time

God’s Word , the truth from God’s Spirit, generates good all the time

Our job as followers is to pump as much as we possibly can of God’s Word

to over come the naturally generated garbage in our heart

When we can replace the lies of our heart with the watering of the truth of God’s Word on a daily basis

we have a chance every day to produce good fruit

If instead we are content to simply maintain life,

and not replace the junk in our heart with the truth of God’s Word,

we’ll always produce bad fruit

We can choose to just replace things in our head instead

all that will do is produce legalism by simply changing your thoughts and actions

You will be come a moralist. A person that does good without any fruit to it.

People that only work to effect their mind become a scribe or an academic.

People that try to change their hearts become true follower of God.

For me as a teacher and preacher of God’s Word

and for anyone else that hope to teach God’s Word to someone else

Charles Spurgeon puts it this way

If you cannot catechize your own heart, and drill a truth into your own soul, you do not know how to teach other people. - Charles Spurgeon

Catechize simply means to instruct deeply.

So for a false teacher, prophet

We compare what that person said to God’s Word

and we wait and watch for patterns before we begin to follow them

If the patterns in their life don’t prove to be in line with God’s Word

they are a false prophet

if what they are saying doesn’t fall in line with what God’s Word says

they area false prophet

Deuteronomy 18:20–22 (CSB)

20 But the prophet who presumes to speak a message in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods—that prophet must die.’

21 You may say to yourself, ‘How can we recognize a message the Lord has not spoken?’

22 When a prophet speaks in the Lord’s name, and the message does not come true or is not fulfilled, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him.

What they say must be tested by practice

To say one is a Christian is easy, and even Christian behavior can be counterfeited

but what a person really is will inevitably show itself by the way they live

This doesn’t mean a person can’t change

God’s Word has the power to change people and cause repentance

that’s the 180 turn away from whatever is wrong and headed toward God

How many televangelists/megachurch pastors/

health and wealth, name it and claim it, prosperity preachers

have had multi-million dollar ministries

all based off the backs of the people who buy their books

buy their videos

or have given a seed-faith to some preacher and expect a miracle

or purchase their prayer cloths and expect a miracle

or listened to their preaching and expect a miracle

and wound up on the wide road to destruction

how many of those folks were writing checks their character couldn’t cash?

So what is the choice for those that don’t claim to be a prophet/teacher/influencer

The choice is, how are you going to produce good fruit in your life?

are you going to feed your heart the water, fertilizer, nutrients

that only come from God’s Word?

Or you content to let your deceitful heart continue to pump out bad fruit?

Are you able to tell false leaders from the real thing?

Are you okay to measure whatever the news media, latest health and wealth preacher

or whoever influence you down the wide path that’s comfortable

but leads to destruction?

or will you measure everything that you hear with the Word of God?

put your trust in what God says and Who God is?

and then watch to see what that influencer’s patterns are?

These are the choices we face