Romans 8.12-17 + Matthew 7.15-23
Eighth Sunday after Trinity
With the words recording in today’s gospel lesson, Jesus begins to conclude His Sermon on the Mount. Having preached on true righteousness that comes from faith and the good works that flow from it, he concludes His sermon by teaching the crowd that that after He finished, false prophets would come to them. These false prophets would introduce teachings that deviated from His Word and the teaching of Holy Scripture. Having fed them with the spiritual food of His word, he warned them to be on their guard against those ravenous wolves who would lead them away from the grapes and figs of truth to the thornbushes and thistles of falsehood. By ending His Sermon on the Mount like this, Jesus teaches them to treasure what they have heard, do what He has said, and let no one take His teaching from them, since His teaching gives life and brings one into the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus’ admonition was not just for His original hearers. It is for all believers of all time. And yet, these days, Jesus words seem to have fallen on deaf ears. Jesus says false prophets come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. Many Christians today assume that all who call themselves Christian teachers are, in fact, teaching what Christ taught. Anyone who quotes Scripture to prove their teaching must be speaking the truth. Rarely do Christians today speak of false prophets with their false teachings. Now thanks to the internet, everybody’s a prophet. Anyone who imagines God has spoken directly to them, anyone who thinks they have something clever and new, has a platform to proclaim their teaching to the world. I wonder if Christians are more in danger of false prophets than ever, as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok are fully of theologians plying their wares. Yet so many imagine that there are no false prophets, or that if there are, they are obvious to the naked eye.
This applies in real life as well. I recently learned the hard way that many Protestants think that other Protestants can’t be false teachers. They will, of course, castigate the Roman Church for its unscriptural doctrines and practices. They will heap invectives upon the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses for being anti-Christian cults in which there is no salvation. But they are reticent to call Protestants of other confessions false teachers, even when those other Protestants teach radically different doctrines from theirs. Since the slogan is that every denomination teaches “basically the same thing,” as long as Rome is shunned and the cults avoided, one fulfills Jesus’ admonition to beware of false prophets. If only it were that easy. Jesus’ words teach us otherwise.
He says, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.” The sheep’s clothing is anything a false prophet uses to appear as if they were a true prophet, a teacher of Christ’s true doctrine. The sheep’s clothing that is usually used is the Scripture itself. Every Christian teacher uses the Scriptures. But not every Christian teacher uses the Scriptures rightly. Under the guise of being reasonable Christ’s saving work in Baptism and His bodily presence in the Lord’s Supper are rejected. Under the guise of upholding fairness and justice some will deny Paul’s words that Christ “died for all” (2 Co. 5:15) and John’s testimony that Christ Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world” (1 Jn 2:2). It would be unjust, they argue, for Christ to die for the sins of those who would not believe and be saved. Worse still, they hold that God never intended to save those who would not believe anyway. Under the guise of looking like the New Testament Church, others will teach that the Holy Spirit will give to all true Christians the ability to speak in language of angels, and that this is the true baptism of Jesus. All these false teachings—and countless others—originate in men’s hearts, and men twist the Scriptures to prove them. Using Scripture is no sign that one’s teaching is true, pure, and godly, for even the devil cited Scripture to tempt Christ in the wilderness, while false teachers use the words of Scripture, but abandon the pattern of sound words, the way Scripture uses those words, so that the words of Scripture may fit their own meaning.
Another sheepskin is the call into the ministry. Just because a minister has a legitimate call from Christ, through the Church, does not automatically make His teaching true. For many who start strong are lured away from teaching the truth out of love for money, worldly comfort, or peace in the congregation that would end if the truth were fully taught. They have a proper call. They genuinely seek the salvation of their hearers. They may be zealous and diligence. They might even be blessed with extraordinary gifts to cast out demons and do signs and wonders. But if they do not teach the true doctrine, they lead their people to thistles when they need figs, and thornbushes when they need grapes. You may ask, “How could such ministers be inwardly ravenous wolves?” Sincerity does not make the doctrine true. The prophet Jeremiah reminds us, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; Who can know it?” (Je 17:9). The human heart not only deceives others, it deceives itself, and many ministers have allowed that to happen. This is why Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven,” and “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?”
False teachers are an ever-present reality for us, especially in this last age of the world. Knowing that they will come is one thing. Knowing how to identity them is another. So, Christ teaches us how to spot them when He says, “You will know them by their fruits.” Outward appearance has little to do with it, if anything at all. No, you will know them by their fruits. That is, you will know them by their teaching. The fruit of a prophet is his prophecy. Since prophecy much of the New Testament is interpreting Scripture, you will know them by their interpretation. Does it align with the common Christian Faith, or can their interpretation of Scripture be refuted with the clear words of Scripture? Does the teaching glorify God and does it build up one’s faith and hope in Christ?
There is another fruit, and that is the life of the teacher. Does the teacher live according to Scripture? This does not mean sinless perfection, of course, but being blameless in the sense that no one can bring a valid accusation against him. Does he bear the fruit of the Spirit or the works of the flesh? Does He live as debtor to the flesh, as Paul calls it in today’s epistle, or does he live as a debtor to the Spirit, putting to death the sinful flesh and being led by the Spirit of God to live in daily repentance, faith in God’s forgiveness, and the good works which flow from faith? Does he teach others to sin, actively by encouraging sinful behavior, or passively by refusing to discipline sin in the church? To do so is to become a minister of sin and practice lawlessness.
Christ has commanded all Christians to beware false prophets. He has commanded you through His apostle Paul to “note those who cause divisions and offenses, contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and avoid them” (Ro 16:17). He gives you these and other such admonitions throughout the Scripture so that you pay attention to His word and have life. He wants to give you grapes not thorns. He wants to give you figs not thistles. He has the words of eternal life. Let no one separate you from His life-giving words by cunning or deceit. He wants you to be fed and nourished with His pure, unadulterated teaching, not an amalgam of truth and error. He wants you to do the will of His Father in heaven. And He says in John 6:40, “This is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” He wants you to believe in Him for the forgiveness of all of your sins. He wants you to believe His promises and receive His gifts so that you may be faithful unto death and come into everlasting life. To that end, Jesus bids you to eat good fruit from good trees, so that nourished with the pure gospel and Christ’s sacraments, you go forth from here to put to death the deeds of the body, to live by the Spirit, and suffer with Christ so that, on the Last Day, you may be glorified with Him. Amen.
