False Prophets (Matthew 7:15-23) - Steve Gregg

all right we are getting close to the end of this Sermon on the Mount and we come to these verses near the end of Matthew 7 where Jesus warns about false prophets and so I thought I'd talk in some detail about the subject since it's a great concern of the new testament and the old and that is that people sometimes speak for God but they don't speak rightly for God and they can be very harmful as they were in the Old Testament they'd lead people away from God and and in the New Testament there's strong warnings about it in fact the word false prophet which appears in the passage before us which is Matthew 7 verse 15 and following the term false prophet is not found in the Old Testament prophets are all referred to as prophets in the Old Testament but some of them are said to speak falsely the New Testament freely uses the word false prophets but in the Old Testament sometimes especially in Jeremiah and Ezekiel you'll read the word the prophets and then you have to kind of decide from the context there are these easy time with the real prophets or the false prophets but you can always tell from from the context but false prophets are simply called prophets so a friend of mine years ago once said if you if you call yourself a prophet you are one you're they're a true or false one you know if you don't call yourself a prophet you're not a prophet you're not a false prophet are a true prophet but if you claim to be speaking for God prophetically then you are a prophet you just may be a false prophet or a true prophet now Jesus I'm gonna read done the verses 15 through 23 in Matthew 7 jesus said beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly they are ravenous wolves you will know them by their fruits do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles even so every good tree bears good fruit but a bad tree Bears bad fruit a good tree cannot bear bad nor can a bad tree bear good fruit every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire therefore by their fruits you will know them 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 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 and then I will declare to them I never knew you depart from me you who practice lawlessness now in this first section verses 1 through oh it's here verses 15 through 21 Jesus first of all says there will be false prophets who will come and they'll be in sheep's clothing but inwardly they'll be ravening wolves it's interesting this picture of the wolf in sheep's clothing is found in Jesus seizures also found in Aesop's fables in the book of Revelation there is an evil entity that is referred to as the false prophet and he is described in Revelation 13 as having two horns like a lamb but a mouth like a dragon so the sort of the same kind of image he's got the outward image of a lamb but what's inside him what speaks out of his mouth is from the devil in that case of Dragon rather than a wolf but the idea about something wearing the clothing of a sheep which is really dangerous is what is the picture that Jesus is drawing now if somebody is dressed like a sheep they seem harmless and and they seem like a Christian but if they are really a wolf there are only there to do serious harm to the other sheep and to flock in general so jesus said you have to watch out for them because not everyone is what he looks like a lot of people look like Christians but they're not and you've got to know them by their fruit now we're going to talk a little later about what the fruit is how you do discern when somebody is a false prophet and what the fruit of a false prophet would look like and what the fruit of a true prophet look like because that Jesus said is the basis of proper judgment now that we should judge prophets is a given in fact Jesus even is implying it without using the word judge here earlier in the chapter in Matthew chapter 7 verse 1 he said judge not that you be not judged but it's obvious that that was never intended to be an absolute statement that you're not supposed to judge in anything in any way he goes on to describe what he does mean if you have a beam in your own eye don't be judging someone who's a speck in their eye get the beam out of your own eye first then you can judge the person I suspect he says she'll be judged by the same measure you use to judge others that's what he says hoping part of the chapter he goes on from that point early in the chapter to talk about don't cast your pearls before swine or they put his whole lead to dogs obviously since swine and dogs are metaphors for certain kind of people then if you're not ready to cast your pearls before swine you gotta ask yourself are these people what Jesus is calling swine are these people of Jesus calls dogs if not if so that I shouldn't waste my efforts with them if they are not what jesus calling swine toward Ogden I had been casting pearls to them is a safe thing to do but obviously that requires making a judgment so when Jesus said in verse 1 judge not that you be not judged people is not saying there's no circumstance which here to judge there's many circumstances in which we must and Jesus lays out some of them here you're a judge is someone a swine or a bit dog or are they neither is someone a true prophet or a false prophet now Jesus doesn't use the word judge but he says you'll know them by their fruits which means you'll have to inspect and judge the value or the quality of their fruit now Paul did use the word judge in 1st Corinthians 14 I think it's verse 29 he said look the prophets he means the true prophets in the church but the prophets speak two or three and let the others judge so prophets are supposed to and their utterances judged because it's a it's a it's a serious thing to speak in the name of the Lord it's amazing how freely some people do so and without fear but to speak in the name of God is a very awesome thing when people say oh I'm a proper you shouldn't judge me that's nonsense it's because you respect the Word of God that you judge those who claim to be speaking the Word of God because you respect God's Word but not people's you God's Word is not in the same category as anyone else's word and if somebody is a false prophet and they're saying thus says the Lord well it's your very respect for the word of the Lord that makes you say well I'm not going to just accept that as the word of the Lord just cuz you say so I respect in fact I live by I my life is governed by every word that comes out of his mouth that's how men live by not by bread alone but by every word comes out of the Father's mouth so if you're saying that what's coming out of your mouth is what's coming out of God's mouth if I can live on what he says I need to make sure you're not lying to me and that what you're giving me is really his word so Paul said that prophets should be judged he said it more than once he said also in 1st Thessalonians chapter 5 these are not in your notes but they just came to my mind but but 1st Thessalonians 5 verses 20 and 21 Paul says do not despise prophesying --zz but prove all things and hold fast what is good prove all things means to test them judge them see if see if things that are being said in the name of the Lord to you in the form of prophecies test them and see if they are and if they are good pull faster if they're not then don't now this idea of false prophets Jesus said there would be many of them it's not a rare thing apparently because in the passage we just read he said many will say to me in that day Lord Lord have we not prophesied in your name he's describing them as people who did not know he didn't know them he says but they prophesied his name and he says many will save that so there's gonna be many who falsely prophesy in Matthew 24 in the Olivet discourse Jesus twice mentions many false prophets it says in Matthew 24 11 she says then many false prophets will arise up and deceive many and then in verse 24 Matthew 24:24 she said for false Christ's and false prophets will arise and show great signs and wonders to deceive if possible even the elect so these are props that will show signs and wonders now it's interesting because Moses warned Israel about false prophets and mentioned that they would show signs and wonders we'll look at that in just a moment but before we do I just want to mention what John said in first John chapter 4 verse 1 again he's telling us to test prophecies 1st John chapter 4 and verse 1 he says beloved do not believe every spirit and by that in this context means every utterance that professes to be from the Holy Spirit every spiritual utterance every prophecy do not believe every spirit but test the spirits that we can prove them judge them judge prophecies test the spirits whether they are of God because many false prophets have gone out into the world now John says that many false prophets have gone out to the world and that was in his own day in the first century so when Jesus said many false prophets will come some people think Matthew 24 is necessarily talking about the end times you know the future times even maybe our own times are later but John makes it very clear that this many false prophets that Jesus said would come to deceive many places they're already here many false prophets have gone out already in the world have gone out apparently means gone out either from the devil or maybe even gone out of the church because later John says they went out from us but they were not of us or actually earlier he said so wherever they've gone out from whether they were in the church and left the church as you know schismatic or whether they are false prophets just out there in the world John says there are many of them in Jesus said there would be many of them so ever since the first century even to this time there are many false prophets when we think of false prophets we can easily think of something don't belong to our religious tradition Muhammad for example whom Islamic people consider be without prophet the greatest well because actually Muslims believe Jesus was the greatest prophet but they believe that Muhammad being a later prophet than Jesus is the one who's most authoritative they actually be Jesus was grand bahama but they don't believe that we should follow Jesus as much as Muhammad because Muhammad was a latest prophet the most recent prophet Mormons have the same idea about Joseph Smith he was supposedly a prophet and gave them Scripture and so forth so in some respects both in Islam which in no sense is a branch of Christianity and Mormonism which represents itself as a branch of christian both are false religions that are based upon the claims of somebody to be a prophet of God who if one would test them they could find out they're not but if if you don't test them that they will deceive many even the elect if possible now that's prophets who are outside of our present Christian tradition but of course even in the Christian Church especially in charismatic and Pentecostal circles the gift of prophecy is affirmed as a real gift today there are many churches that are what we call cessationist they don't believe prophecy as a gift in the church today so they believe anyone who prophesize today in the church is a false prophet but i don't like that the bible does not say that the gift of prophecy has ceased from the church and that doesn't predict that it will prior to the coming of jesus but the point is that charismatic sand Pentecostals are going to be the people today who were most likely to experience in their meetings the phenomenon of someone speaking prophetically which usually means saying thus says the Lord at least in the Bible it meant bad they usually introduced it that way and then they speak as if they are God as if it is God's voice this is different than a preacher or a teacher generally because a preacher a teacher talks about God like the Apostles did this is one difference between the Old Testament and the new the Old Testament is written by prophets the New Testaments are my apostles the Apostles don't speak as if they are God you know speak as if they are Jesus speaking they talk about Jesus in the third person they talk about God in the third person there are preachers about him the prophets are his mouthpiece where they always speak when they're speaking for God in the first person i the lord have said I the Lord will do this I the Lord declare and so forth and that's in at least in the early church it would appear the difference between a prophet and a teacher now there are false teachers too and false apostles and we'll see that in a moment but let me just show you that the phenomenon of false prophets goes way back to the time of Moses now he was not a false prophet and nor do we have any false prophets in his lifetime identified for us but he mentions that false prophets would come in Deuteronomy 13 verses 1 through 3 this is the first biblical warning about false prophets Moses said if there arises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams and he gives you a sign or a wonder so remembered Jesus said to be false prophets doing great signs and wonders so signs and wonders can't happen among false prophets even Jesus said many will say Lord we prophesied again we did we cast out demons admitting one in your name yes I never knew you so the fact that someone does miracles is no guarantee that you should trust them there's other ways to determine if they're to be trusted says if their rises among you a prophet or a dreamer of dreams and he gives you a signer a wonder 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 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 with all your soul so just as we are to test prophecies God through prophets even through false prophets tests us it's interesting when Joseph had those dreams from God they were prophetic dreams about his brothers eventually bowing down to him and the image of the sheaves bowing down to his sheep or the someone started bowing down to him this was God prophesying that his brothers what do you actually buy that time but when he was later sold into slavery in one of the Psalms I wish I could remember the one precisely at the moment it's talking about Joseph one of the Psalms was recalling the story of Joseph and it says when he was in prison the Word of God tested him let us say he had a word from God and he was being tested to see if he would have faith when there was seemingly no hope of that word being fulfilled he had had a word from God when he was still a boy in his home that his brothers circum now he's in a foreign land in a slave and imprisoned his brothers are hundreds of miles away there's no feasible way in which that prophecy will ever come true that his brothers were better and yet it did and having that word from God at a time when there seemed to be no possibility of it being fulfilled was testing Joe Jonathan Joseph excuse me Thank You Psalm 105 19 so so i'm 105 19 the word of the Lord tested Joseph but the false prophet sees test people too that's what Deuteronomy 13 says if there's a false prophet he may come and show you signs of wonder and they may actually come to pass now what's interesting is that since this prophet is trying to lead them away from you always he's clearly not a prophet if you're always a false prophet but we would say based on our New Testament knowledge of things that if this false prophet is doing true signs and wonders they must be from the devil they must not be or they're not from God we would say they're actually from the devil because these are false prophets they're counterfeit miracles on the other hand Moses doesn't say the devil is to see you says God is testing you he says don't fall a problem for the Lord your God is testing you to see if you love the Lord with all your heart soul and strength you know it's a matter of interesting thing because probably in fact it is the devil who is doing the deeds of the false prophets however the devil's agency is not in the picture when when Moses talks about it it may be that without Moses mentioning it he is describing works that demons work through the false prophets but that's not the point II wants to get across he wants to get across the fact that there will be persuasive false messengers who will God will allow to come even if they are active you know energized by the devil himself God is allowing it just like he allowed the devil to to test job and so forth so God allows the devil to test God's people Jesus himself had to be tough and by the devil or tested by the devil in the wilderness the Bible says and the Holy Spirit led him into that test so God led Israel in at times whether it would be tested to see if they love God or not how would the test shape up well they know what God said to do a false prophet will come and tell them let's not do that let's go worship Dana let's go worship more like they have a lot more fun over there in those churches where people are you know having orgies and sacrificing the babies and so for its and they get drunk and stuff up its big party over there let's go that way and you know are you drawn there will you go there well you failed the test if you do the point is that these false prophets are allowed to be there by God because he wants that test to take place but he wants his people to pass the test so he gives them the right answer before to test counts it's like if you're giving your students to test you give them the answer to the test before they take the test so God did with Adam and Eve in the garden there's only one question one question test they had will I eat that fruit and God says the answer is no don't you know the answer you have to give us know and you'll pass but they didn't they foolishly gave the wrong answer and so also Israel was tested and they were test by false prompting God gave them the right answer to the test before him don't listen to those prophets you are being tested recognize what's going on here and yet Israel did follow false prophets they did worship fail and why like all those so you can see that it's not God's fault he warned them but it is interesting that he does acknowledge that false prophets may do what appear to be supernatural things and probably by demonic power but if so it's God allowing it to be a test for his people of their loyalty to him Deuteronomy 18 is the next passage where Moses also talks about prophets true and false he says to them when you come into the land which the Lord your God has given you you shall not not learn to follow the abominations of those nations Sarma thing I'll call practices of the Canaanites there shall not be found among you this by the way Deuteronomy 18 9 through 15 here they're still not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter passed through the fire that was offering children to Molech or one who practices witchcraft a soothsayer or one who interprets omens like looking at the gizzards of slain animals himself or to two predict the future or a sorcerer or one who conjures spells or a medium or a Spiritist or one who calls up the dead for all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord because of these abominations the Lord your God drives them out from before you you shall be blameless before the Lord your God for these nations which you will dispossessed listened to the soothsayers and diviners but as for you the Lord your God has not appointed such for you now in verse 18 through 22 I will raise up for them a prophet like you that is like Moses God is speaking to Moses from among their brethren I will put my words in his mouth he shall speak to them all that I command him and it shall be that whoever shall not hear my words which he speaks in my name I will require it of him by the way this promise about this prophet is quoted both by Peter in acts 3 and by Stephen and his sermon in acts 7 and they both apply this prophet to the Messiah to Jesus this was not made real clear in the Old Testament that the prophet Moses spoke of is the same as the Messiah and some of the rabbi's believed it was and some believed it was a different person but the Apostles clearly understood this prophecy is about Jesus going on though it says in verse 19 and it shall be that whoever will not hear the words which he speaks my name I will require them verse 20 but if the prophet who presuming but the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name which I have not commanded him to speak or who speaks in the name of other gods that prophet shall die and if you say in your heart how shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord if the thing does not happen or come to pass that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken the prophet has spoken presumptuously and you shall not be afraid of it so the test one test of the Prophet that Moses gives is if he predicts something that doesn't go true then he's not a true prophet but he also said chapter 13 even if he predicts something and it does come true he's a false prophet if he's leading you away from Yahweh he says let's go worship other gods so these two passages both refer to beware of false prophets if someone predicts it and doesn't come true that's a sure sign he's not a prophet of God if he predicts something it does come true but he still is trying to draw me with me alright he's still a false prophet now in the time of the Babylonian exile both Jeremiah and Ezekiel had run-ins with false prophets in Israel because in their day some of the Jews have been taken captive into Babylon not all initially it can happen in three waves some were taken away in 605 some were taken away in 597 so we're taken 2586 so after the first wave had been taken away to Babylon there were prophets both in Babylon among the Jews and in Jerusalem among the Jews who were so they're saying this is not permanent God is gonna yeah he's gonna call us babblin to fall very quickly the Jews who are taking it battle they're gonna come back home soon this the city Jerusalem is not gonna fall this is the place where God's house is and therefore and they were speaking falsely or speaking words of comfort but they were false words of comfort because God had truly through Ezekiel and Jeremiah spoken words of judgment and horror and so these true prophets were up against these false prophets in Jeremiah several times mentions them in Jeremiah 5:31 he says the prophecy the prophets prophesy falsely so in the Old Testament don't have the expression false prophet but we can see that this is this could be said to be false promises the prophets prophesy falsely and the priests ruled by their own power and my people love to have it so that last slide there is really significant because he's saying my people don't want to hear the real words from God they want to hear smooth they want to hear company works they want to hear flattering words they'd love to have the profits tell them these lies tell me lies tell me lies tell me sweet little lies you know that's what these prophets were doing and the people love to have itself also in Jeremiah 14 14 says if the Lord said to me the prophets prophesy lies in my name I have not sent them commanded them or spoken to them they prophesy to you a false vision divination and worthless thing and the deceit of their own heart now it's just the deceit of their own heart it almost sounds like sin they themselves are deceived and what's coming out their heart is the deceit that already resides in their heart either that or you see if their hearts are set on deceiving other people but you know a false prophet could be either way false prophet could be a wolf in sheep's clothing on purpose he knows he's a wolf but he's there to bring trouble to the church or he could even be somebody who's not you know he himself is deceived deceived enough to go against God and to speak falsely in his name now when God says I didn't speak to these people I didn't command them I didn't tell them what to say I often think of modern cases of charismatic and Pentecostal prophets saying thus saith the Lord and you know as the Bible says whenever I hear such post I always one of judge him and I always want it to be true you know I always want to really feel like I've heard from God I God spoke to us I remember when I first I'd go to Calvary Chapel which is the first church that believed in charismatic gifts that I ever attended we had there were meetings there every night and Lonnie frisbee had a win Senate meeting there and he was the most charismatic of everyone who preached at Calvary Chapel in fact it became a problem so that he and Chuck Smith parted company over that very fact that Lonnie was way into the gifts the spirit and and I remember when I first start going to Calvary Chapel I went as many nights of the week is like the one one wins I missed it and my friends at school had been there the night before and lunch sundeck cities oh you missed it Lonnie Lonnie prophesied I remember thinking wow it was just so awesome that Wow God speaks like through Isaiah or three they liked it today through somebody I I believe it I mean I didn't think it was weird at all and I still believe it I still believe in prophecy I didn't hear that particular process he started off as true or false but the truth is I remember the aw with which my heart was struck when I thought there was a prophecy last night I wasn't there to hear it you know like God spoke and I missed it I need to hear from God just to always to me was such an awesome thing and I'm not a prophet myself so I can't testify to a lot of times it you know I've spoken for God with certainty but teachers have some love a different gift and prophets but nonetheless you know when I later read Jeremiah and said you know these people spoken I didn't speak to him I wasn't applying to any particular person's I knew who props I just remember thinking wow you know there's people who would actually claim that they're speaking for God and they're not I can't believe it you know how devoid of the fear of God these people say that God must be so angry and people deceiving people by this and that's what was going on in Jeremiah's and frankly you know I have to say in some charismatic tech churches I've been in modern times people speak the word Lord supposedly very freely very confidently and very wrongly in many cases and I think don't these people have any fear of God now i I've sometimes been in meetings where I thought maybe maybe a prophetic word was company I wasn't sure you know but I I didn't speak it out because I just thought I'm just not sure I'm not sure how a real prophet is sure although in the Bible the prophets had dreams and visions and heard words from the Lord and things like that we do - perhaps sometimes some people do but I don't very often and I've never really felt Campos speaking over part even though even sometimes I felt like well I feel like I might have something to say that is what God is saying or I've been in a congregation I was not preaching and I just wouldn't speak it out because that but if it's not of God I don't want to be a false prophet you know I don't want to I don't want to speak and be one of those that God says I didn't send you I didn't speak through you I didn't shoot you didn't have a vision from me I didn't show you anything so I think that a person is a real prophet must have some way of knowing for sure what it's really gone speaking although maybe not always because that's why Paul said let the prophets in the church speak two or three and let the others judge no he's not talking about false prophets there you start about people who are at least think themselves to be respected people in the church but they might make a mistake and think they're prophesied whether or not apparently it would appear to be what Paul's in flying in Jeremiah 23 16 Jeremiah says thus says the Lord of hosts you do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you they make you worthless they speak of vision of their own heart not from the mouth of the Lord and this shows that of course in many cases a person's own heart may be quite contrary what is in God's heart in fact Jeremiah is the one who said the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it describing the apostasy of Israel in his day they're speaking of their own deceived and wicked hearts what they want to say what they want John to be saying and we can certainly see that to be true in among many preachers today some may not claim to be prophets but they're certainly speaking sweet little lies in Ezekiel 13 any zico's contemporary with Jeremiah the same things were going on in his days in Jeremiah but Jeremiah was in Jerusalem Ezekiel was in babbling but there were the false prophets among the Jews in Babylon also in Ezekiel 13 verses 3 through 9 thus says the Lord God woe to the foolish prophets who followed their own spirit and have seen nothing o Israel your prophets are like foxes in the desert you have not gone up in speed to them you have not gone up into the gaps to build a wall for the house of Israel to stand in battle on the day of the Lord they have envisaged or envisioned futility and false divination saying thus says the Lord but the Lord has not sent them yet they hope that the word may be confirmed have you not seen a futile vision and have you not spoken false divination you say the Lord says but I have not spoken therefore thus says the Lord God because you have spoken nonsense and envisioned lies therefore I am indeed against you says the Lord my God [Music] we need to dramatic music from his cottage thank you that really sets us therefore thus says the Lord God because you have spoken nonsense and envisioned lies therefore I am indeed against you says the Lord God my hands will be against the prophets who envisioned futility and who divine lies so obviously those who prophesy falsely in God's name he sets himself against them and promises to destroy them now in the new New Testament in 2nd Peter chapter 2 verses 1 & 2 this the chapter division is a bit unnecessary the last part of chapter 1 of 2nd Peter he talked about the prophets of the Old Testament he said no you know the prophets the word of the Lord didn't come by the will of man but holy men of God were moved as they were our spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit and so he talked about the true prophets in the Old Testament but he also says there were false prophets in the Old Testament says to the church in second Peter 2 1 and 2 but there were also false prophets among the people even as there will be false teachers among you now you find that false prophets are somewhat equated here with false teachers now I think that in the New Testament the word prophet begins to morph a little bit although there is still the office of the prophet and listed by Paul there's still the gift of prophesy yet the spirit of the prophets is in all believers which was not true in the Old Testament remember in numbers when said would to God that all the Lord's people were prophets and that he who had his spirit upon them well in the Old Testament God didn't put his spirit on everybody in Israel and they only had a few who were prophets they got it through fun but Joel said in the last days says Lord I'll pour out my spirit on all flesh and your sons and daughters shall prophesy your old men shall dream dreams your young men shall see visions and are my servants of my made handmaidens out partly certain they'll prophesy so this idea of God poured out his spirit on all his people and then prophesy suggest that whereas in the Old Testament only a few people had the Spirit of God come upon them and they prophesied in the New Testament all Christians have the same spirit of prophecy come upon them that doesn't mean they're all prophets in the in the sense of holding the office of the Prophet because Paul says in at the end of first Corinthians 12 says are all apostles are all prophets are all teachers he said no not all are there are offices of apostle and prophet and teacher and so forth but not all are in those offices but all Christians do have the same spirit that was in the prophets in the Old Testament and therefore Paul says you may all prophesy one by one in first Corinthians 14 anyone might speak for God now I think that with this broadening of the function of prophecy in the New Testament the word doesn't only refer to people who say thus saith the Lord in that in that Old Testament sense although there were and are I think just say there were in the New Testament times people who argued with the office of a prophet they apparently did speak exactly the same kind of phraseology is the Old Testament prophets did but but every Christian who spoke whether is a teacher or an apostle or evangelist or whatever had the Spirit of God and should be speaking like a prophet in fact Peter said in first Peter 4:11 which is not in your notes in 1st Peter 4:11 said if anyone speaks let him speak as the Oracles of God there's nowhere anyone who speaks in the church should speak like a prophet like an Oracle like someone who receives a perfed were now he's not saying that everyone is a prophet never who speaks nutrition to say thus saith the Lord but rather everyone should speak whether it's a whether they're given an expectation of teaching you know whatever it is they're doing they may not be a prophet per se but they should speak with the mind of saying I believe this is what the Spirit of God would have me say and I know that I've mentioned I don't prophesy never have prophesied in a meeting or anything about that what I want to teach I do pray in advance that I will be able to speak as the Oracles of God I don't know I don't claim the same kind of inspiration that a prophet has because a teacher my definition is a different kind of truth claims that he's making a prophet is actually claiming if this is the word of the Lord coming out his mouth a teacher is saying this is what I understand to be true but we know in part and we prophesy in part you know I don't know everything but even though I don't know everything I should and everyone should when they speak in the church say I really feel this is what the Holy Spirit would say now you can judge it you should prove all things hold fast that which is good but whether I'm giving a prophecy which I don't generally do whether I teach which I sometimes do whether somebody gives an exhortation all right anyone who speaks let him speak like an Oracle of God Peter said because every Christian has the Holy Spirit and the meetings of Christians should not be I think what Peter says you shouldn't waste the time in the meeting having someone just speak out of his own out of his own mind if if he could be speaking like an Oracle of God people need to hear from God they don't need to hear all your opinions and so Peter kind of speaks to the church and says there were false prophets among them as there will be false teachers among you and we're going to find that Paul said there's also false pastors or he just referred elders and false apostles so all of those gifted people in the early church that God gave for the edification of church there can be false ones too and they all seem to fall under the same kind of nation is the false prophets and so a person being a false teacher is not exactly the same thing as a false prophet but he's kind of in the same boat because he has the Spirit of God - he should be speaking as as much as his conscience knows to do as the Oracle of God same thing when you exhort or encourage or basically say anything whoever speaks should do it as the Oracles of God so Peter said there will be false teachers among you and Jesus had said there will be many false prophets and Peter seems they've kind of linked them together there were false prophets in the Old Testament there's false teachers among you and he describes him this way who will secretly bring in destructive heresies even denying the Lord who bought them and bring on themselves Swift destruction and many will follow their destructive ways because of whom the way of truth will be blaspheme I I suspect that when he says denied the Lord who bought them it doesn't mean that they're saying I deny Jesus because if they did that they'd be recognized immediately is not Christian they wouldn't be mistaken for Christian prophets but Jude also who says a lot of same things Peter does in 2nd Peter Jude also has something about that in Jude verse 4 I don't have it in the notes here but I do want to read it to you because it's perhaps talking about the same pyretic 'el trend that Peters turned on those who bring great destruction and denying the Lord the populace in Jude verse 4 Jude is also talk about false teachers he says for certain men have crept in unnoticed that is into the church who long ago remarked out for this condemnation ungodly men who turned the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ so Peter said they deny the Lord who bought them this Jude says they don't know what what do they do they turn the grace of God into lewdness I think what he's saying is they're the ones who make grace cheap they're the ones who say for under grace so live as carnally as you want to they turn the grace of God into lewdness into license to sin and that is denying the lordship of Christ and there are by the way teachers who teach that it doesn't matter if you obey God because you're under grace and they would they they look at the true gospel they denounce that is lordship salvation lordship salvation is a term that really describes the true gospel as it's taught by Jesus and the Apostles but there's a heresy hyper grace heresy sometimes people call it that makes grace mean you don't have to be obedient and it says you have to be obedient is legalistic and it was things you have to have a Lord is has got a works righteousness they would say oh we're saved by grace Jesus your personal Savior not necessarily always your Lord that's kind of some a separate negotiation you can work out if you want to but you just get saved by grace when you accept Jesus as your Savior that's what they teach and and they believe that no matter what you do you're okay with it that's the false teaching that Jude talks about turning the grace of God into permission to sin turn and and denying the Lord that is still denied the lordship of Jesus if you if you affirm the lordship of Jesus your further you have to obey Him because he's the Lord you said why do you probably Lord Lord and you don't do what I say so these false teachers that Peter and Jude referred to are what we would call antinomian this is a something that that was developed in Gnosticism and it was some people mistakenly thought Paul taught it Paul didn't teach it in Romans chapter 3 says some people slanderously say that we teach let us do evil that good may come and but Paul didn't teach that but there are false teachers that do and Peter says these are people who do and they'll many will follow their destructive ways and because of whom the way of truth will be blessed being there is a teacher in Texas in the 70s who is an ex-military officer and he was really a stern kind of teacher but he had a lot of people who followed him how Lindsay mentioned this man he dedicated the book lately let earth to this man who and he referred as managers mentor but this man taught what he called super grace and and there were Bible studies all around the country set up home studies led by people who listened to his tapes this guy's tapes and then they would hold meetings and teach his doctrine and I ran into people from from his movement in several different places in the 70s I never run into him anymore I don't know whatever became of it but but every every single time I met a Christian who was in his movement just be around them they'd use profanity they use coarse language they would they were always smoking they were always drinking alcohol they are always been very libertine and this was their way of showing that they had they gotten the message from this guy that we were under a super grace that it's like if you know you're under grace you know you're not under the law of Moses but if you understand super grace you realize it doesn't matter what to do at all this is a very heresy of antinomianism which was part of Gnosticism and it's what Peter and Jude seem to be warning against and it's apparently the warning is timely in our own time too I mentioned there's things other than false prophets and false teachers also false elders now an elder in the Bible is what we call a pastor the difference being that Church has had multiple elders and many churches have only one pastor but some sure send multiple pastors associate pastors so forth but the elders were the ones who are commanded by God to Shepherd or to pastor the churches and Paul was talking to the elders of the Church of Ephesus in Acts chapter 20 in acts 20 verses 28 through 35 he calls the Tru elders of the church and he warns them about false elders tells him how to be good elders it reminds them about how he was as a leader among them he says therefore in acts 20:28 therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock among whom the Holy Spirit has made you overseers as their shepherds to Shepherd the Church of God which means pasture to the Church of God which he purchased with his own blood for I know this that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you not sparing the flock also from among yourselves men will rise up so even from the eldership itself some men would be corrupted some of the elders speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after themselves therefore watch and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn every one night and day with tears so now brethren I commend you to God and to the word of His grace which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified I've coveted no man's silver or gold or apparel yes you yourselves know that these hands have provided for my necessities and for those who were with me I've shown you in every way by laboring like this that you must support the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus that he said it is more blessed to give than to receive now one reason Paul point out his own example of how he didn't covet their money and he didn't he supported himself and he was more a giver and not a receiver it's because that was the opposite of what the false teachers where the false teachers came in on the take they came in hoping to bilk people for money as we shall see in subscriptions we'll get a little later but then so we see there's been false prophets false teachers and false pastors or elders there's also false apostles in Revelation chapter 2 and verse 2 Jesus commends the Church of Ephesus this way he says I know your works your labor your patience and that you cannot bear those who are evil and you have tested those who say they are and are not and it found them liars so there are false apostles and this church was commended for testing them now by the way when churches today claim that they have apostles among them they are usually part of what's called the restoration movement so it's a big movement among some charismatic not all of them and they believe in the restoration of the fivefold ministry from Ephesians chapter 4 verse 11 so there'd be that the church should in the last days have apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers they figure okay they may think the ideal Church will have all five now most churches don't have anything like a real apostle and frankly Muslims don't anything like a real prophet either but they often want to think they do so they lower the bar defining a prophet and they lower the bar for defining an apostle I happened to be in a church like that at one time not knowing until I've been there a while that this is what they were into and the pastor was regarded as an apostle and I challenged him on it more than once I said why do you think you're gonna possible he didn't have a good reason he just felt like they needed to have all fivefold ministry he's the pastor he must be the apostle and and I told I don't think he's an apostle when you say that to these people they used to say touch not God's anointed or something like that they usually say you know who are you you're a rebel you know you're rebelling against the man of God or whatever but actually to test people's claims to Apostleship is commendable Jesus commended the features because they tested those who said they were apostles and were not and found them liars there are Liars out there who claimed their apostles and testing them is something Jesus likes you to do he doesn't want you to follow false apostles or to be naive in 2nd Corinthians 11 2nd Corinthians 11 13 through 15 Paul wrote for such are false apostles deceitful workers transforming themselves into apostles of Christ and no wonder for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light therefore it is no great thing if ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness whose end will be according to their words so he says false aproblem Apostles are the messengers of Satan Satan impersonates an angel of light these false apostles impersonate apostles of Christ they're false apostles though and their end will be according to their works which is ominous because their works are of course pretty supposed to be very bad so jesus said in the summer the not when we first started this that we would know them by their fruit talks about how good freeze the trees don't produce bad fruit and batteries don't produce good fruit I guess we should ask well what is fruit then obviously it's a metaphor because these people are not trees though it's very common in the Old Testament prophets and even in the Psalms to refer to people as certain kinds of trees the righteous is like a tree planted by rivers of water whose leaf does not wither and his fruit comes as producing a new season or and Isaiah it says we will be called the trees of righteousness the planting of the Lord and you know when someone told Jesus that he had offended the Pharisees he said every plant that my father has not planted reflect out by the roots people are like trees in the metaphor of Scripture because in particular some fruit trees because people produce something now fruit is not the tree fruit is what the tree produces you can gather the fruit off the tree and put the put the fruit in a bowl you didn't put the tree in the bowl it's the fruit is created as something that's a product of the tree the tree is what it is a tree but people produce fruit too which is independent of themselves in a sense once it's gone out from them it exists as something to be examined and if you examine the fruit you can know something about the tree or the person from whom the fruit came I often have repeated because I think it's great I'm illustration you give Mike Juan Carlos Ortiz who is an assembly of God pastor at one time in Argentina I don't know if he's still living but he came to American pastor Nate in California but he wrote a great book in the 70s called disciple and he was talking about the difference between an orange tree at Christmas tree he said you know in Argentina in point of sorries he says we don't have very many pine trees and so at Christmas time everyone wants to have a Christmas tree so they they buy a real cheap fake tree he said these are made of wire and and cellophane and things like that but he says a real cheap you can buy one for two or three dollars but he says as Christmas approaches you see all kinds of gifts hanging on the trees a tree that costs two dollars might have he said an Omega watch hanging on it or a diamond ring and he says but the tree has no value even though it has valuable gifts upon it because it didn't produce the gifts he says after Christmas morning the gifts are all gone in the trees out on the curb waiting for the garbage collector to pick it up because the tree had no intrinsic value even though there's bedecked with valuable gifts but he said if you have an orange tree and it produces good oranges you know you've got a good tree you can't tell if a tree is good by omega watches and rings hanging on it because it didn't produce them but the orange tree produces the fruit he says so you can tell the value of a person a Christian buy the fruit not buy the gifts that are fallen because many people who've been scoundrels have had magnificent spiritual gifts things that they've exhibited it even those people who juice that many will say Lord we you know we prophesy get in we cast out demons knew your name we did many wonders you name it I'll say I never knew you person was a total fake might have gifts like your Christmas tree toes but he said if you go to your orange tree in your yard and you say why don't you have any omega watches on you he said the orange tree has a very good excuse you say nobody has hung any omega watches on me I'm not a watch tree I'm an orange tree I produce oranges that tell us what kind of tree I am the quality of the oranges I produce tells you what quality of the treatments but Elena watches don't tell anything about the tree that they're found on and he was of course making the point that gifts of the Holy Spirit are not at all an indicator of spirituality but fruit of the Spirit is you don't know the true prophets by their gifting giftedness you know them by the fruit well what is the fruit changing the metaphor from a tree producing fruit to a human being producing something analogous to fruit what is the fruit well there's three things in the bible that are referred to as screws and all of them are apparently intended we could simply say generically fruit is what is produced from your life what comes forth from your life but there's different categories of fruit in the Bible mention that come forth from some life one of them is what people speak excuse me Hebrews 13 talks about us offering up the fruit of our lips in praise and thanksgiving to God but Jesus also speaks up the words that come out of a person's mouth being like fruit because your heart produces your speech and therefore reveals your character in in Matthew 12 verses 33 through 37 Matthew 12:33 Jesus had a tree is known by its fruit brood of vipers how can you being evil speak good things for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks a good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things but I say to you that for every idle word men may speak they will give account of it on the day of judgment for by your words you will be justified and by your words you will be condemned now notice he first says you'll be known by your fruit and then he changes it to your words you'll be recognized as a good tree or a bad tree by your fruit that is you'll be justified or condemned by what you speak what comes out of your mouth is the fruit that your heart produces and out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks if you got bad stuff coming out of your mouth you got a bad heart and that's why God says every idle word you speak that has every care where'd you speak will be judged on the day of judgement why because careless words reveal what's in your heart what about words that aren't careless well you can be very careful about not letting out with your mouth what's in your heart lots of people have very wicked hearts and yet they're very disciplined not to reveal that in their speech they talk a good religious game they talk a very righteous game they talk love to someone they're trying to seduce they speak Christianese fluently even though they're trying to deceive with their doctors a person who's careful about his words the words he's careful about speaking are not necessary gonna reveal what's really nice are its the careless words every careless word a man speaks that's revealing what's gonna talk right he slams his finger in the door when he's surprised by somebody doing something wrong to him and he just something comes out he's an unguarded word that reveals it's in the heart now false prophets the fruit that they produce is false teaching comes out of their mouth what they teach is false according to Deuteronomy 18 we saw we looked at this already Deuteronomy 21 and 22 says if they predict something and it doesn't come true a false prediction is a proof of his fruit of a false prophet another thing we saw well we didn't see this we could have looked there but in 1st Corinthians 12:2 and 3 this is nothing about what comes out of the mouth to determine whether someone's true or false prophet this right at the very beginning of Paul's first discussion chronologically of the gifts of the Holy Spirit and he's just introducing the idea that gifts the spirit for the first time in any of his epistles in this passage in 1st Corinthians chapter 12 he introduces a subject this way verse 2 you know that you were Gentiles carried away to these dumb idols now Gentiles were pagans and the idols they worship were dumb now that he's not being verbally abusive calling them dumb he's saying they don't speak they're mute the gods you used to worship as a pagan we're not alive so and talk you never had to worry about whether a word was coming from them or not they didn't speak anything but to God you served now as a Christian does speak and he says therefore I make known to you that no one's speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed and no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit now what he's saying is as Christians you now serve a God who actually does speak you serve dumb idols before they didn't speak and therefore you never had to know whether it was them or not that never was them but our God does speak sometimes but sometimes people pretend that they're speaking from so here's one thing you didn't know if anyone says Jesus is accursed that's not the Holy Spirit if someone says Jesus is Lord that is the Holy Spirit now some people take this too rigidly and don't get Paul's point they almost say well if you get someone to say Jesus is Lord well that means they have the Holy Spirit not so I for a demon-possessed people say Jesus is Lord in mockery what he's saying is this when a prophetic word comes forth because that's what he's about to describe his prophetic words gifts the spirit we're not speaking to the church if the word belittles Jesus if it is the meaning of Jesus then it's not the Holy Spirit because the Spirit will never demean Jesus but if it's affirming as lordship if it is encouraging people to embrace him in obedience as their Lord well then that's what the Holy Spirit would do but he's saying there will be people who speak who think they're speaking from the spirit or at least want they want you to think they are and they're not and the way you know if a prophetic word in any sense be littlez Jesus or obscures Jesus in any way if something else is risen in in value in the prophetic word above Jesus or anything like that well then that's not what the Holy Spirit would do but if the Holy Spirit if the word is in fact encouraging people to embrace Christ's lordship to be obedient to him and so forth than that is what the Holy Spirit would do that's that's one way to judge Brasi the fruit of the prophets mouth whether it exalts Jesus or put is down would be some of the fruit by which you'd know it false prophets what policy and then there's one other thing we could observe what comes out of the mouth of the false prophet is that they deny that Jesus was truly incarnate that is that he's come in the flesh in first John for we already saw verse 1 but the verses that follower what I'm interested in here now first John for 1 through 3 it says beloved do not believe every spirit but test the spirits whether they are of God because many false prophets have gone out into the world hereby know you the Spirit of God every spirit that says that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God every spirit that does not confess that Jesus is coming flesh is not of God and that is that spirit of Antichrist or have you have heard that it was in coming and even now already is in the world so he says the false prophets they'll be denying that Jesus has come in the flesh now there's a very particular doctrine John has in mind here which arose later among the Gnostics it was incipient in some religious communities at this time it became full-blown Gnosticism in the next century but it was the idea that Jesus was not really fully human he wasn't really physical the dosa disks were towards one branch of Gnosticism taught that Jesus was just a phantom when he walked he didn't leave footprints you couldn't touch him he was he looked like he was physical but he wasn't now that's a heresy Jesus made very clear that he was a man and it's very important that we know he was a man but but the false doctrine that he didn't come in the flesh was later well-known among the Gnostics but I'm frankly too just say if you deny that Jesus came in flesh John's earlier writing the Gospel of John said in the beginning was the word the Word was with God the Word was God and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us so John's particular doctrine is not just that Jesus was human and flesh but he was the word that was made flesh that Jesus Christ the Word of God has come in the flesh that's the incarnation of Christ and he's basically saying false prophets will turn okay so I said the fruit of the Prophet could be the words he speaks if he speaks things that are false predictions if he says things are demeaning of Christ if he says things that deny the Incarnation these are some of the fruit of his lips that may prove him to be a false prophet there's also the fruit of actions though and this is also mentioning Scripture as the fruit by which one would be judged I'm sure we're all familiar of Paul's list in Galatians 5:22 and 23 of the fruit of the Spirit he says the fruit of the Spirit is love joy peace long-suffering kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness self-control this is behavioral stuff this is character you can judge a person by the fruit of their character not just if they're saying right or wrong things if they're living right or wrong because that's as important as what they say they have to live their message to in Ephesians 5:9 it says the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness righteousness and truth so if the Spirit is producing his fruit in you and certainly a prophet professes to be filled with spirit then the fruit that the Spirit produces will be love joy peace gentleness self-control patience and it will be in all goodness and righteousness and truth in Philippians 1:11 Philippians 1:11 Paul encouraged the Philippians to be filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God so the fruit of your life is righteousness and your life is bringing glory to Christ into God and praise to God that's your behavior knowing the prophets by their fruits you're going to look at their life as well as their utterances and there are several things that come up repeatedly as descriptions of a false prophets life and his character one of them is covetousness that covetousness is greed or love of money and by the way you will find that the false prophets you today almost always have this as one of their one of their motivations and Paul made it very clear he wasn't remember he said I didn't covet anyone's silver gold I didn't cover it I worked with my hands I provided for me of my team I exhibited what Jesus says you know more blessed to give than receive that was Paul a true Messenger of God that the false messengers second Peter chapter 2 and verse 3 it says after he's already mentioned the false teachers earlier 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 now when he says they will just exploit you with through covetousness it means that they're going to fool you into supporting them because they want your money basically they do it through covetousness now also might have something to do with the fact that they are trying to teach you it's something that appeals to your consciousness because I mean covetous teachers often teach covetousness as a motivation to others to out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks and we know that prosperity teachers today do that they appeal to people's love of money to to get them to believe they're their doctors and in Timothy first Timothy 6 first Timothy 6 beginning verse three through five Paul said if anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to the wholesome words even the words of our lord jesus christ and to the doctrine which accords to godliness he is proud knowing nothing but is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words from which some from which come envy strife revealing evil suspicions useless wranglings of men of corrupt minds destitute of the truth who suppose that godliness is a means of gain from which withdraw yourself teachers who suppose that godliness or Christianity is a means of getting rich people teach that withdraw yourself on them they are worthless they know nothing there they're only proud Paul says so this idea that they are after the money and Paul made it very clear when he spoke to the elders of essence I didn't want your money you'll you'll hardly ever find a false teacher or a cult leader who isn't covetous he wants and takes the money of his followers he sees religion as a means of getting game and that's bad character that's really bad character to a lot of money it's a root of all kinds of evil another feature of the false teachers in their character that Peter mentions in second Peter 2 is their sensuality including their drunkenness and their fornication and just living a sensuous hedonistic life in 2nd Peter chapter 2 verses 12 through 14 as he describes the false teachers he's mentioned earlier he says but these like natural brute beasts made to be caught and destroyed speak evil of things they do not understand will utterly perish in their own corruption and will receive the wages of unrighteousness as those who count it pleasure to carouse in the daytime they are spots and blemishes carousing in their own deceptions while they feast with you so these people are you know instead of having a holy Campello ship with the saints that the fellowship though they're carousing and to them it's just a big party in Jude I mentioned Jude has lots of parallels with the second theater talking about false teachers Jude verses 16 through 19 says these are grumblers complainers walking according their own lusts and they mouth great swelling words flattering people to gain advantage but you beloved remember the words which were spoken by Lord Jesus Christ how they told you that there would be mockers in the last time who would walk according to their own ungodly lusts their sensual persons who cause divisions not having the spirit these are false teachers claiming to speak for God's Spirit but they don't have the Spirit because they're obviously sensual person they might speak very spiritually but their lives are essentials so their their character proves them wrong there is there was one other verse I should have mentioned in second Peter while we were there and where is it here I thought it was in my notes but I don't think it is now see here oh it's yeah it's first 14 10 that read 14 - Timothy yeah oh I did did I read 4 - no I stopped I stopped before that I think I would like 12 ok first 14 is having eyes full of adultery and they cannot cease from sin enticing state unstable Souls they have a heart trained and covetous practices and are cursing children so they subvert and and some and seduce unstable Souls Paul mentions these people who do this also in 2nd Timothy 3 6 he says 4 of this sort are those who creep into the households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins led away by various lusts so these are teachers that seduce women I've heard in the 50 years I've been there afford so many stories about especially traveling preachers a lot of times traveling preachers feel they can get away because they they leave before the scandal can catch up with them a pastor who's involved in this kind of stuff it catches up with a boy still there usually and many of us know of cases little church we used to go to a Temecula pastor's in prison for molesting a young young girl at church I used to go to a charismatic Mennonite Church in Oregon I used to go to and one of the elders one of the most respected elders in the church got busted for having affairs he's a married man he had affairs with two other married women in the church for eight years before discussed the sensuality this covetousness these are character traits also they are said to be rebellious in second Peter chapter 2 and verse 10 we won't look at all these verses because there's just too many verses to cover coming to the end here but second Peter 2:10 says therefore brethren just getting and especially those who walk according to the flesh and the lust of uncleanness and despise Authority their presumptuous self-willed they're not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries which probably refers to honorable church leadership we know from third john 9 and 10 that there was this man in Diotrephes who loved to have the preeminence who would not receive john or those that john sent this obviously a false leader and and so we see that those who will not submit to Authority usually false teachers false pastors false prophets they usually are characterized by not being subject to anybody even criticism I mean not only are they failing to answer to somebody in some kind of accountability situation which isn't always possible to do Paul for example any traveling throughout the world didn't have some accountability group music answering to some we're miles away but it's not always easy to do but when you do have the power when you speak evil of those who advise you who have authority over you who even criticize you and you're wilful and you have to have your own way that's usually almost all the false teachers are like that they just are uncorrectable they don't they feel like they're a law unto themselves they're rebellious against Authority and even scriptural authority as it turns out so I'm gonna talk about two different kinds of fruit you can know the false prophet um the fruit of their lips the fruit of their actions and then there's the fruit of their impact what is the result of their ministry once they've gone by once they've come and gone what's left behind what kind of damage have they done what kind of holiness has been instilled in the church how much the fruit of somebody's life is the impact they've had Paul talked to himself in Romans 1:13 he said now I do not want you to be unaware brother how that I've often planned to come to you but was hindered until now that I might have some fruit among you also just as among the other Gentiles didn't I won't have an impact on your church I want to bear some have some good fruit for God in that town Philippians 1:22 he's still speaking about himself he says but if I live on in the flesh this will mean fruit from my labor yeah what I shall choose I cannot tell he says I'm thinking I'd like to die and go be with the Lord but if I stay I'll have more fruit more impact the fruit of his ministry is not time he's not going to talk about his character or his words he's talking about his the impact he has on the church James 3:18 says now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace that's a hard sentence to understand but notice he's talked about sowing and and bearing fruit you sow in righteousness are you sow in peace and you produce righteousness the fruit of righteousness is the impact of a of a peacemaker jesus said blessed are peacemakers they should be called the sons of God James said if you're a peacemaker in that piece you were sowing seeds that would produce the fruit of righteousness and that's an impact statement now the impact of false teachers puts the same Deuteronomy 13 months ago three says they draw you after other gods if a person is teaching what sounds like good a good message and living what looks like a good life but the impact you're having is drawing people to to be interested something other than God himself we're getting fascinated with something draws their attention away from Jesus there's lots of those kinds of things lots those kind of things I personally believe that I think the Hebrew roots roots movement is is in some of its manifestations like it gets people really interested in the Torah unless so in Jesus I think that there are fascinating little doctrines like full preterism that people really wrapped up in and they get all about it and you know it takes their heart away from serving Jesus in the same way because they're all faiths they're focused on convincing people of this little strange doctrine they've got sometimes there's a teacher who's got a little new wrinkle on a doctrine and he thinks it's all important he wants other people think it is because it's what distinguishes him from others and it's a it's a divisive thing and the fruit of it is division I'll tell you when you when you have people in your church for teaching Hebrew roots we have people in church who are trying to persuade people of full preterism that's divisive because first of all both of them are teaching heresies that the early church and no church throughout history ever taught and and and they're also disrupting the norm the normal Christian people are trying to focus on Jesus these people want to get their focus off of Jesus on to 70 AD or on to the Torah or some other thing there's so many different things people get focused on and they draw the the fruit of their ministries to draw attention away from Christ and devotion away from Christ although they may not say they're doing that that's the effect it really has another thing is that false teachers often their ministries will encourage loose living so that the impact of their life is that people are less holy they're just living more calm and compromise than they were before we mentioned that Jude verse 4 says that these people are turning the grace of God into license and the result is that let me get it here Jude verse 4 says for certain we have crept in unnoticed who long ago were marked out for this condemnation ungodly men who turned the grace of God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ now they they the way they preach grace it turns into lewdness and that means that the result is that people are behaving more lewd in Revelation chapter 2 two of the churches have false teachers that are pretty is very affect in revelation to the Church of Pergamos verse 14 says but I have a few things against you because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel to eat things sacrificed to idols and to commit sexual immorality so there's these antinomian teachers actually saying hey it's okay to commit sexual immorality you're saved by grace is really what's going on there santino mean ism also the Church of Thyatira in verse 20 of the same chapter they have a false prophet there who's actually a female in this case nevertheless I have a few things against you because you allow that woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess to teach and seduce My servants to commit sexual immorality and to eat things sacrificed to idols if you find that the affects of somebody's teaching is that people are more carnal then you've got a false teaching and by the way carnality partying fornication stuff like that is much more commonplace in the american churches today than it was a generation ago and i have to think it's because as them do the teaching they're receiving because if people teach like jesus time or like the Apostles taught then that kind of this living would simply not be permitted in the church and most people know better than to do it they know better than to live that way and come to church they might want to live that way still but they wouldn't call themselves Christians because they know better but the false teachers are telling them you're a Christian even when you're living that way which of course this country with Jesus said or what the Apostle said and that is bad fruit a bad fruit of their ministry so you can you can discern false prophets and false teachers by the fruit what they speak the way they live and the impact they have on the church those are all fruits of their ministries and Jesus said you'll know them by their fruits on these notes on the last page you just have an extract from the dedication I'll close with this because it's kind of it's colorful at the dedication old document written right around the end of the first century the Apostles had died but not long earlier this was written by leaders in the church in the second generation after the Apostles and it's a book that tells the church how to do things how to take communion how to baptize and things like that it's a sort of a manual of service for the for the churches it is not written by the Apostles but it was so respected in the early church that many thought it should be in the Canon of the New Testament it's a very good book I mean even if it's statements are not they don't have the authority of Scripture they do describe the mentality of the church who the very people who are evangelize by the Apostles because it's the second generation the people who are evangelize and disciple by the Apostles and how they did things so there's a section in there about prophets and ministers and let me just read some parts of the dedicated right here from the notes they've given you it says quote listen to anyone who comes to teach you such things as these but if the teacher has led astray and teach us a different doctrine that undermines what you have been told do not hear him however if he comes to increase righteousness and the knowledge of the Lord receive him as you would the Lord now I want to point this out he says if he teaches you something different than what you've been told Mary's not talking to 21st century Christians if someone teaches differ than what you were told by some preacher in the 21st century different than these people were told by the Apostles in other words if someone had come and taught Calvinism or had taught dispensationalism to these people they'd be teaching something these people had not been told because neither of those doctrines existed until centuries later Calvinism didn't exist till the 4th century and dispensationalism didn't exist till the 19th century so when those doctrines were taught if the early Christians who are trained by the dedicated heard him they say that's false that's not what we were told by the apostles that's not what we're taught by Jesus but going on it specifically addresses prophets it says you should treat apostles in that's as the gospel commands receive every apostle that comes to you as you would the Lord but he must not stay more than one day or two if necessary but if he stays three days he is a false prophet obviously after three days I guess stinks like a fish he has taken advantage it goes on like this when an apostle leaves you give him nothing except breath until he finds shelter so just give enough food to get him to the next place he's going to preach don't send him off with a lot of money if he asks for money he's a false prophet so if a minister came true it has for money he was a false prophet as far as the early church is concerned do not test or evaluate any prophet speaking in the spirit thank you this this is one unforgivable sin the one unforgivable sin not everyone that speaks in the spirit is a prophet only those who live in the way of the Lord so there's confirming our second thing the first thing says if they speak different doctrine we said that's one way you know a false prophet is by the fruit of what he speaks but always says if he lives in the way of the Lord that's the second thing his character in his conduct he says it says here not everyone who speaks in the spirit is a prophet only those who live in the way of the Lord thus it is by their conduct that you can tell false prophets from truth so that's that fruit that we mentioned secondarily similarly no prophet shall eat while he is in the spirit if he does he's a false prophet now apparently in the spirit meant when he kind of goes into a trance or something like that when he's in a trance or prophesy he gets they bring me food you know if he's he doesn't have an appetite when he's in trance so he's faking it if he eats while he's in a trance or lies in the spirit he's a false prophet even if a prophet teaches the truth if he does not do what he teaches he's a false prophet so the guy has to live it as well as teachers however if a prophet that has been approved and found true and lives out the cosmic mists the Church does not teach you to do all that he does himself you should not judge such a prophet I guess what he means is that he may be doing more than he requires you to do and that a man may live by stricter rules for himself than he teaches others to live like that's okay Paul did for example Paul said then he had the right to be paid for the ministry but he chose not to do so he said Peter did and the other apostles did but he and Barnabas chose not to do so so Paul lived by a stricter code than that which he enforced his teaching I think that's what this must mean one says if he does not teach you to do all that he does himself you should not judge such a prophet his judgment must be left to God for the prophets in the past also did such things but anyone who says in the spirit give me silver or asks for anything else do not listen to him but if he tells you to give to others that are in once let no in judging so this is it's interesting how they dedicate had this this section for the church to recognize true prophets and false prophets and it kind of equated them with false and true apostles if an apostle comes to you and asks for money is a false prophet you think it's a he's a false apostle but apparently the word false prophet or prophet has being used more generically of anyone who speaks to the church an apostle a teacher an exhort er a prophet anyone who speaks searches to speak is like a the Oracles of God and therefore would be judged as a prophet and it's no ski for food asking for money staying too long at the church's expense all these things were signs of a false prophet and apparently there must been a lot of people traveling around in me every Church who thought themselves prophets and called themselves prophets somebody had to have some way of judging who wasn't it was not anyway Jesus said will know them by their fruits and we've examined quite a few scriptures about what that looks like and move pretty much out of time so we'll stop there are there any questions about this wasn't danced around like that act like you're acting huh

Channel: SteveGreggVideos

Views: 2,436

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Keywords: Steve Gregg, the narrow path, Bible, Christian, false prophet, false teacher, Matthew 5, Deuteronomy, judge, judging, test, apostle, gospel, prosperity, prophet, Jesus, God, Holy Spirit, Bible study

Id: j2gY-B9bcUU

Length: 87min 9sec (5229 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 02 2019