You Will Know Them By Their Fruit #1

So this morning we're going to be continuing our study in the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew chapter 7. We're going to be starting a new section and we'll probably spend three or four weeks on this section we're going to read this morning. And this section is about false prophets. Jesus warns us against them. He teaches us how to identify them and tells us to avoid them lest we go with them into hell. This morning we're going to be focusing just on the first verse of this section. And my hope is that God will open our eyes. to the danger that false prophets present to us, and that He would help us to avoid them. Would you please stand as we read the Word of the Lord from Matthew 7, verses 15-23. Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor figs from thistles, are they? So every good tree bears good fruit.

but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, Did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons, and in your name perform many miracles? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. It seems like a strange thing to be warned against prophets. If I were to ask you if there is even such a thing as prophets anymore, some of you would say no. That that was an office that...

that existed for a time that God raised up men to be prophets, and yet that time is gone and we don't have prophets now. Now whether that's your conviction or not, the real question before you is, is this warning applicable today? Or do we not have anything to beware of when it comes to false prophets? This is not the only place where Scripture warns us like this. When Paul gathered together the Ephesian elders, At Miletus in Acts 20, he says this, Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God, which He purchased with His own blood. I know that after my departure, savage wolves, remember ravenous wolves in our passage here, savage wolves, will come in among you, not sparing the flock. And from among your own selves, men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.

Again, Paul warns Timothy toward the end of his final letter in chapter 4. He says, For the time will come when they, the people, will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires. And what will we call these teachers except false prophets? Jesus warns again in Matthew 24. Jesus answers and says to them, See to it that no one misleads you. For many will come in my name saying, I am the Christ. And we'll mislead many. And we could go on. These are all New Testament examples. But this idea of a prophet is not something that we ought to dismiss as irrelevant today. If you stumble over the word prophet, then I would simply say to you a teacher, a pastor, anyone who stands up and claims to speak on behalf of God. These are the ones that we're to be aware of, to be using caution and discretion with.

To speak on behalf of God is a serious thing. Eric's been talking about, in Sunday school, about evangelism and about outreach. And I wonder if one of the reasons that we don't speak is because we're simply afraid to speak in the place of God. If we're not like, well, I don't know everything. Well, I don't know many things. There's a solution for that. And it's to learn and to grow and to ask God to give you words to speak. But you have to realize that speaking on behalf of God is a serious thing to do. As soon as you align yourself with Jesus Christ, you're not sure what's going to happen or what's going to be said or what's going to come. Perhaps it'll be good. Perhaps it'll be dangerous. Perhaps it'll be costly. Perhaps it'll be painful. And so on the one hand, we understand that speaking in the place of God is an important thing, is a serious thing. Eric and I both...

felt a similar feeling as ordination came to the forefront. When I was going to be ordained, I was reminded of the passage in James where he says, not many of you should become teachers, knowing as such that you'll receive a stricter judgment. I thought, if I want out, now's the time. Because once you're ordained, it's like now it's worse for you if you fail. There's a stricter judgment. And so there is this sentiment among us that we say, yeah, I don't want to be the guy who does that, who takes on that responsibility. That sounds like a lot of work and very costly, and so I think I'll just be quiet. But there are those who either don't see those dangers, think they can outsmart those dangers, or simply don't care about those dangers. And they do take up the work of speaking on behalf of God. And those are the ones that we're warned to beware of.

Maybe another way of saying it is what I'm describing to you in terms of the pressures that pastors and elders feel in standing in the place of God and being his under-shepherds, that weight is not universally felt. In fact, I'd say it's mostly disregarded. To be a pastor, or to be an elder, or to be a teacher, is not thought of in terms of being one who will incur a stricter judgment. But rather that you're going to be the popular one, that you're going to be the cool one, that you're going to be the helpful one. When much of the work that faithful pastors, faithful elders, true prophets, real shepherds, call them what you will, much of the success that they do comes at a cost to them and is hidden from the public. The good work that they see is not done on social media for everyone to see and applaud and like and share. Though many of their failures...

and oftentimes their faithfulness is broadcast there as a failure. And so there's prophets, there's people around us who speak on behalf of God. All around us. They're on social media, they're on YouTube, they're on the radio, and they're vying for your attention. They're vying for your affiliation. They're vying for your money. And so Jesus warns us to beware of the false prophet. Beware of the man who claims to speak for God. because he'll lead you astray. And he's headed to a certain place, to hell. And if you follow him, you will follow him there. I think too often we presume too much of our own ability to sort out what's good and bad and right and wrong. And what we do is we suck in a bunch of bad, thinking that we can identify it and discard it. And I don't find that to be the case.

Especially with teaching. We could give another analogy. We could use simply the food that you eat as an example and say, how good are you at balancing that? How often are you like, yeah, I'm just eating whatever the heck I want. That's really what it's come down to. I might know a lot, but when it comes down to what I actually cook and eat, it's not what I should eat. We're just not very good at disciplining ourselves, discerning, or knowing what's truly good for us. And yet the food we eat is far more inconsequential than the teaching that we receive and the teachers that we follow. We've come to a time where this description that Paul gives in 2 Timothy 4, that there's going to come a time where they will not endure sound doctrine, has come upon us. It's a strange thing. I'm sure that you are aware that if you were to go outside or if you were to take the things that I would say here out into the public, all of a sudden you wouldn't be...

widely accepted or affirmed. And so we have come to a time where they will no longer endure sound doctrine. But it's not the world that Paul's talking about here. He's talking about the people who fill the church. And so we have to be careful of our finger pointing and saying, oh, look at all those bad people out there. Look at those. They don't know. They don't know. We know, though. False prophets don't go to the world, you understand. They don't go to the world and try to convince the world of a false gospel. They come to believers and try to convince believers of a lie.

And the way that they do it is by saying what we want to hear. And so we have to be aware of our propensity to want to be taught those things. Like, do you ever come to church or small group or Sunday school and get offended at what's said? At some point in your life, you should. At some point, something should rub you the wrong way. If all we're doing is saying what you want to hear all of the time, if Eric or I or the elders, if no one ever in a counseling meeting or something says something that you just go, you know what? Who do you think you are? Then either we're not doing your jobs or you're not paying attention. A true prophet or a true shepherd, a faithful pastor, is not one whose primary concern is whether or not you like what they're saying, whether you approve of them or what they're saying. You guys know Micaiah?

In the Old Testament, maybe you know the story of Micaiah. Micaiah is a prophet, and he's a true prophet. And the king hates him. He just can't stand Micaiah. Because Micaiah always comes and tells the truth. But there's all these other prophets, false prophets, who just tell the king what the king wants to hear. And so there's these two kings. They're trying to decide whether they should form an alliance and whether they should go up to war. And the other king says, don't you have a true prophet of the Lord around here to tell us whether we're... We should do this thing or not? And so then the first king sends a messenger. This is 2 Chronicles 18. He says this. It says, Then the messenger who went to summon Micaiah spoke to him, saying, Behold, the words of the prophets are uniformly favorable to the king. They all agree. Go up to war. And this is the messenger sort of trying to get ahead of the situation and saying, This is what we expect you to say. This is what you need to do. So please let your word,

Be like one of them and speak favorably. But Micaiah said, As the Lord lives, what my God says, that I will speak. When he came to the king, Micaiah, the king said to him, Micaiah, shall we go up to Ramoth-Gilead to battle, or shall I refrain? Micaiah said, Go up and succeed, for they will be given into your hand. Then the king said to him, How many times must I adjure you to speak to me nothing but the truth in the name of the Lord? So you realize that what Micaiah had just said, go up and succeed, was clearly and evidently not what he really thought. Sure, yeah, go ahead. Yeah, play in the street. It'll be good. I mean, it would be as if you were to tell your kids, no, no, no, no, no. That's boiling hot water. Yeah, just stick your whole face in it. Like, have at it. Like, the king knew immediately this is not what he really thinks. This is not.

what the Lord said. How many times must I adjure you to speak to me nothing but the truth in the name of the Lord? So he said, I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains, like sheep which have no shepherd. And the Lord said, These have no master. Let each of them return to his house in peace. Then the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, Did I not tell you that he would not prophesy good concerning me, but evil? And then Micaiah is struck. And he's thrown into prison and he's given like half rations until the king comes back from battles victorious. Of course, he didn't. And so Micaiah is treated very poorly, very harshly. But he was known to be a faithful prophet. The king hated him. It's a funny thing. The king wanted him to tell him the truth and was angry when he told him the truth. Is that ever you? Do you say, I want to be told the truth? And then when someone tells you the truth, you're like, no, you can't say that. That's not the truth I wanted to hear. That's not my truth.

Micaiah was a faithful prophet as opposed to all of these unfaithful prophets who just simply wanted to please the king. False prophets, or maybe we could just call them liars, are common. And we need to be aware of them. So what do you look for? What does a false prophet look like? Do they come saying, I'm here to mislead you to hell? Of course not. Of course not. Beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing. but inwardly are ravenous wolves. One of the first things we learn about false prophets is that they are liars and deceivers. Their whole goal is to mislead you, to get you thinking one direction when in fact they're going another. Another way to say this is that the greatest danger you'll face as a Christian to your soul will not come from unbelievers persecuting you or making your life hard. That is not where the danger, the greatest danger to you will ever come from. It will come to you from within the church. It'll come to you from false prophets.

If we were to describe the damage that they could do, an unbeliever versus a false prophet, what can the world or an unbeliever actually do to you? What's the extent of what they can do to you? The worst they can do to you is make you miserable and eventually, if it really gets bad, kill you. That is the worst they can do. They have no more power, no more authority, no more ability than that. That's all they can do. And you might say, that's enough. And I'd say, well, there is a worse thing to be done. Jesus warned in Luke 12, I say to you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who can kill the body and after that have no more that they can do. But I'll warn you whom to fear. Fear the one who after he is killed has authority to cast you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. Now you might be wondering, what's that have to do with our passage? And I say, read it. Read what happens at the end to those who follow the false prophets. What happens to them? I will say to them, depart from me, for I never knew you, you who practice lawlessness.

Now why is it or how is it that someone would have that sort of thing said to them? How is it that they would come to them and say, Lord, Lord, did we not do this, all this in your name? Only to hear from him in response, I never knew you. How is it that they could be so misled, could be so deceived? The answer is false prophets who've come to them and aimed at deceiving them in just that way. And so Jesus warns us time and again to beware of those who look good but don't do good. Now, it's worth noting at this point that if all you're concerned about is ease or comfort or familiarity or power or wealth or popularity or any of the things that the world goes after, if those are the things at the top of your priority list, if those are the things you say, that's what I have to have, then you will be the most susceptible to false prophets.

If what you really, really, really care about is your life, then you're a prime target. Now in saying that, I'm not accusing you of that. I'm warning you against it. I don't want that to be true of you. But to be able to identify the false prophet, to see the sheep's covering, but that it's not really a sheep, you have to have some other priority. Those priorities are the things that the false prophets will use to entice you. It's sort of low-hanging fruit and almost not worth using, but it is a good example. This is exactly what guys like Joel Osteen or T.D. Jakes or all of this health and wealth prosperity gospel, this is exactly what they do. They figure out what the world wants and then offer it to you in the name of God. That's all they do. Oh, you want wealth? Oh, you want health? Oh, you want comfort? Oh, what is it you want? Turns out it's all the same stuff that unbelievers want. Well, in the name of the Lord, you can have it. Just do this. Beware of the false prophets.

Joel Osteen's pretty easy to point to and say, there's one. There's one. Stay away from him. But many times, the sheep's covering is a lot better than his. And it takes time, actually, to identify. Next week, we're going to go into this talk of fruit. But we need to look ahead, sort of peek around the corner and say, how do you know? Well, you know by the fruit that's produced. And it takes time to identify the fruit. of a man's life or a man's ministry or a man's teaching. You remember Gamaliel's council when Peter and John were preaching in the early chapters of Acts. What does he say to them? He says, hey, guys, because they've arrested them, Peter and John, and they want to just get rid of them because they've said, you can't teach in this name. They've been freed by the Lord out of prison, gone right back to the synagogue. They're teaching again. And the council's just going, what are we supposed to do with these guys?

They don't want to kill them because they're afraid of the crowds, but they can't let them go on because they're unsettling the whole Jewish economy as it was there. And Gamaliel stands up and he says, hey guys, here's the thing. We've had guys come up before and claim to be somebody. And what happens to them? They rose up. They gained some followers. And then they went away. And he gave a couple of examples of that. And then Gamaliel closes with this. He says, here's the thing. If the things that they're saying are from men, You don't really need to worry about it because it will come and it will go. Like bad weather, it will come and it will go. But if it's from God, then you don't want to be found fighting against the Lord. And I don't think Gamaliel knew exactly what he was saying or believed the subject he was speaking on, the gospel of Jesus Christ. I don't think he believed it was from God, but it was a good warning. And so he says, let the men go. Let the men go. Don't fight them. And so it takes time to identify.

False teachers. We're not real good at identifying it. As much as we might want to try, you might think, oh, well, some of you are different than me. This is not me, but this is some of you. Some of you like to have a process and a procedure for everything, to prevent every problem before it ever could happen. It's impossible to do. The impulse, there's a lot of good in it, but it's impossible to prevent every danger or bad thing from happening. sometimes you identify it after the fact and you say, that's not good. In Jude 4, it says this, certain people have crept in unnoticed. And you wonder, well, how come they didn't have a process for catching them or noticing them? We're not told. We're just told that certain people have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

How is it that somebody who would turn the grace of God into licentiousness and someone who would deny Jesus Christ, how did they creep in unnoticed? Have you ever wondered, like, how does that happen? What did you say? They're deceitful. They're liars. They've disguised themselves. I think the best indicator you can have of taking a man's measure or a woman's measure is how they respond to correction and whether they're teachable. It's really the best measure. If they'll hear what you have to say, even though they don't agree, or if it's costly to them, that's a very good sign. If they're apathetic, if they just go, yeah, I know, okay, all right. They're like the son who says yes but does no, then that's not good. If they fight with you, give them a day or a week and see if they come around. Because not everyone responds well right away. But over time, you look and you see, how are they going to respond? Some of you are business owners.

You hire people. You don't know what you've hired until you have to correct them the first time. You really just don't know because they interview well and they show up to work on time at least at the beginning and they follow all the rules. But at some point, inevitably, they're going to have to have a conversation where they did something wrong and they need to be told, you can't do that anymore. Not like that. We do it like this here. And in that conversation, you're going to learn a whole bunch about that person and whether they're going to be a good fit at your company.

Because if they're just silent and they're stewing, you're like, well, okay, I guess this is not going well. And so it takes time to identify a false prophet. It takes time to identify the fruit of a man's teaching and his life and his ministry. Do you guys remember when Kanye West became a Christian a couple years ago? Do you remember all of this groundswell of excitement about how wonderful he was going to be for Christianity? And did you watch that all just drift away and amount to nothing? Those who were wise when they saw that happen had this thing inside of them that said, praise God, if the angels in heaven rejoice over a sinner being saved, then we ought to as well. But they also said, we need to get that man out of the spotlight and let him grow without the pressures of where he's come from. The Christians wouldn't have it.

The Christians wouldn't have it. The unbelievers didn't want it, but we expect that of them. They just spit them out of their mouth. But the Christians were all like, oh, we found the one. We do the same thing with Ben Shapiro, with Jordan Peterson. How many people say, they're so close. They're so close. So close to what? What is it they're so close to? What? They're not close. So close to being our prophet. That's what we're saying. They are so close to being our mouthpiece. And if it were to be that in God's economy he would save some high-profile man and the man would have a true conversion, the thing that should be done is he should be gotten out of the spotlight. Why would I say that? Well, if for no other reason, to see if his conversion is genuine. Do you not think Christians are a group of people that some might want to have influence over? Or that Satan might not corrupt the church?

And God's people through raising up men who look like angels of light, who look like true prophets, who look like they could do some good, only to lead astray those who follow them. It takes time to assess the ministry of a man, the fruit of a man, whether he's to be followed. And the reason it takes time is because our souls hang in the balance of it. We should not be quick to trust people and to entrust our souls to them. I've heard a number of pastors, when they've taken new churches, they come into the church and then it all goes south in the church within a year or two or five or whatever. It all goes south. And what they all say, whatever the details of the situation were, is that the people who were most excited for them to come, the people who were just like all in, you're wonderful, you're an answer to prayer, you're all these things, those are always the people who are their worst enemies. And the people who were faithful and the people that they came to love,

And build a real relationship? They were the people who said, we'll see. We'll come. I mean, we're going to come and we're going to listen and we're going to love you. But we're going to be assessing your ministry. We're going to be assessing the fruit. Those are the ones that do well. Those are the ones who heed this passage. You could change the analogy and come to just a normal church with not the... The preacher changing, but the congregant with visitors coming. The visitors who come and who are like, this is so wonderful. This is exactly what I've been looking for. I can't believe it. I have way less confidence that they will come and stick than the people who come and are quiet and who kind of think all the talking afterwards and the fellowship is weird and they're kind of like, well, you said some things and I don't know about kneeling. I have more confidence that that person, though it will take time,

is more likely to be grafted in than the one who comes and is just singing your praises. Because the one that comes and takes their time is actually assessing fruit. And I'm not offended by that as the pastor and the one who wants our church to grow. Not that you don't, but I do, right? We all do. I'm much more content to have people look us over, check us out, ask us questions. Don't ask just me questions. Ask you guys questions. Because that person has some sense that their soul is important and that they need to heed the warnings of Scripture, that they beware of false prophets, that they realize that not everyone who says they're telling the truth actually is. How do we decide who will follow these days? How do we decide who we'll listen to? I think there's two things that, at least, that guide these decisions. One is popularity. We're much more inclined to listen.

to people who are popular because we think that we can ride their coattails toward popularity. The other is that they're provocative, that they say things that are spicy, that they say things that are controversial. Vanessa was just telling me on the way to church today about some woman who said that the rebellious things that she did as a mom. Is that right? Three rebellious things she did as a mom. Big time influencer. Why is she talking about motherhood in terms of how to rebel? And it doesn't even really matter what the things were. The fact was, she was being provocative and saying, I'm being rebellious and you should too. Because that's actually attractive to us. Am I the only one who feels that way? Martin feels that way. He says yes. Do any of the rest of you like the spice, the woo? You know? Yes? Yeah, in the end, what I was left thinking about all of this is that we think we're learning, but it's really just entertainment.

What Vanessa said, and I think she was right, we didn't get a chance to finish our conversation, but what she said was that nobody's going to listen. All the stuff that this influencer is saying, it really isn't going to be helpful when the people that are following her actually come into contact with the trouble she's talking about. They're not going to remember it because it was entertainment. It's in a different category in their minds. Where if someone in person were to come to them and say, hey, about that. It's much more meaningful, much more likely to stick. So I thought you were right, honey. I didn't get a chance to tell you that because the baby was crying, but I think you were right. Ecclesiastes warns us that there's nothing new under the sun. Solomon, the wisest man to have lived, who when he could have asked the Lord for anything, asked for a double measure of wisdom, at the end of his life said this, that which has been is what will be, and that which has been done is that which will be done.

So there is nothing new under the sun. Now, you might think in our day and age, we've got, I mean, there's bridges. You guys know these two miserable concrete bridges, right, like down on 10th Street? You know when that bridge was built? 1916. There's an even older one right on Raceway, just on, what road is that? Not 10th, that one, the county line. Oh, it is Raceway. Raceway, just south of 36. There's another bridge down there, and it was built in 1908. It's really stinking old. Like it's over 100 years old. And trucks are forever getting stuck underneath it. And the Amazon truck semi almost made it all the way under that one. Like almost ripped the whole top of it this last week. And it happens regularly. Those bridges are over 100 years old. Have you ever thought what used to go through, when that bridge was built, what used to go under it? You do realize there weren't cars then. And it's just over 100 years ago. And so when Solomon says, that which has been done.

will be done. We're like, no, you don't understand. Our sophistication is so far ahead of anything that's ever been. It truly is new. But Scripture warns us, no, it's not. No, it's not. The false prophets and those who are seeking to be provocative and those who are seeking to gain a following will always be telling you there's something new, that they have some edge that's never been seen before, that's going to change the world. Jeremiah 6.16 says, Thus says the Lord, Stand by the ways and see and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But they said, do you guys know what they said? The people said? Do you know what they said? We will not walk in it. We want the new way. We want the exciting way. We want the thing that makes us feel affirmed. And if that's us, then we're not going to be aware.

of the dangers. And so for us, we have to look at our own hearts and we have to assess our own desires and say, what is it that we want? Like, if we're to be tempted, where are we most likely to fall? How are we most likely to be led astray? I said that there are things like popularity and being provocative that tempt us. But there are many other things that can reel us in. If you're the type of person who's melancholic, if you're the type of person who's inclined to feel sorry for yourself, Those who come to you and say, we've got the solution. We've got the magic powder. We've got the special thing. You want to lose weight? We've got the special exercise plan. Whatever it is. There's people who are pulling you in. They're reaching out and they're pulling you in. They're lying to you. They're misleading you. And their lies will be costly to you. Now there's a lot more that we could say about false prophets. There's a lot more that could be said about their disguises in terms of what the particularities are.

But what I want to end with is this question, because this is a question that came to my mind, and I think it's worth answering. Why does God allow his children to face such danger? If false prophets are so dangerous to us and can cause our souls such harm, why does God allow it? There's a number of reasons. The first is to purify and strengthen his church. Conflict between good and evil is inevitable. We can't live in a place or a time Even in the church where we check the evil at the door and it's not allowed in. The only place that we will ever inhabit where there will not be evil is heaven. And until we get there, we are going to have this constant struggle between good and evil. Righteousness and unrighteousness. And that's true even in the church. And so conflict within the church, identifying false prophets, shaming them, silencing them. Do you remember when Paul told Timothy?

Silence those men. I'm leaving you behind to set those things in order. Silence those. And Paul says of those who teach a different gospel in Corinth, he anathematizes them. A curse to be anyone who speaks a different gospel. That's strengthening. It's purifying. It helps us become more like Jesus. It helps his church become more faithful. And that's because that conflict between the false and the true prophets causes division. There's a place where Jesus says, I didn't come to bring division but peace. And there's another place where he comes and says, I didn't come to bring peace but a sword. When there's division, when we face danger, when we identify a problem and say, stay away, it causes division but it also causes unity. It also causes unity. Why else does God allow us to face these sorts of danger? Well, for one, it makes us draw close near to him. We're much more likely to draw near to God when there's a danger that we can see.

In his book, Mortification of Sin and Believers, John Owen argued that the reason that God allowed us to continue to fight with sin was to keep us humble and to keep us near to him. That he actually didn't allow us to overcome sin quickly or easily so that we would have to keep confessing our sins and repenting and humbling ourselves and coming back to him. Where if we were free from all of our sins, we would just wander off into destruction. And so he argued that God thought it was better and wiser and safer for us and for our good to have to daily fight against our own sins, failing at them and having to come back and to repent and to ask for forgiveness. And so when there's conflict, when there's danger, when there's truth and falsehood side by side and you have to discern which is right and which is wrong, you're more likely to draw near to God in that process than you are when everything is fine. This is how we grow, okay? This is how we grow. I've said before, it would be really nice if we could grow without conflict and without difficulty and without hardship and suffering.

But this is really what it takes for us to grow, to get off of our comfort zones and say, okay, I'm going to do what God wants me to do. I'm going to try his ways because my ways aren't working. I'm going to trust what God says. How do you get a baby onto eating people food? I'm not talking about the methods. I know you all have your methods and your timings and all that. That's not actually what I'm talking about. You can have some variation and that's fine. What do you do with them? You just practice with them. You just try. You say, here's a thing.

And they, you know, and their hands, and they spit it out, and they do all these things that are really obnoxious and messy and time-consuming. But you just practice at it with them because you know that they need to get to where they eat something other than mush or nurse. So what are they doing? What's happening? They're practicing, and they're learning this is food. And inevitably, you know, it's funny. When you're training a child to eat, they'll put everything in their mouth except food. Everything. chew on the edge of your table like a dog. They'll pick up your shoes. They just put everything in their mouth. And you're telling them, no, this is not food. This does not go in your mouth. You may not leave teeth marks on this. This is food. You're just training them. Because you know that that's something that they need to learn. They need to get to where they can use their teeth to chew up food instead of their toys. The same is true of us. The way that we grow and the way that we mature and the way that we come.

to adulthood as Christians is through practice. Not having our mouths trained, but having our senses trained. This is what Hebrews 5.14 says, solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. Proverbs says that the wise man sees danger and hides himself, but the fool goes on and is punished for it. There's this necessity of discernment, and this is what we'll talk about next week. It's what the sermon next week's about, is how to examine, fruit, and judge what's good and what's bad. My point today is simply to say we have to get to realizing that this is God's school for us. His church is our school. And we're not as good at discerning. You remember at the beginning I said we take in good, we take in bad, and we think we're really good at sorting out what's good and what's bad? We're not as good at it actually as we think we are. All we have to do is go back to what we thought five or seven or ten years ago and realize, man, I thought I knew what I was talking about, but I was an idiot. And if we're wise, we'll go, you know what, I'm probably still an idiot, but don't realize it.

And so God allows danger in the church to grow and to purify his church and to cause us to draw near to him and to value his word more. His words are not our words. His words are not just another piece of advice equal to everything else you can find from the self-help gurus. His words are words of eternal life. They are actually true. They actually have stood the test of time. They will actually do you real good. But if you reject all of this and you say, you know, I'm good enough at figuring this stuff out. Or I'll let other people figure it out. Maybe you'll say, I think that Dave and the elders and Eric, they're all good at it, so I'll just trust them and not worry about it. And you're a fool. I'm glad that you trust us, and we appreciate it, and you should. And yet you should also examine the things that we say and the things that we do. Our fruit actually ought to be examined from time to time. You'll learn a lot more if you'll do it. But if you follow blindly, then...

you're much more likely to be led astray. And the reason I'll say that is because I know good and well that even if you think that the leadership of this church is just top-notch and perfect, I guarantee you we're not the only people you listen to. So you need practice and warning to beware of those who would lead you astray. If we don't heed this warning, then we put ourselves in danger. We have to be able to identify those who are not doing good work. I'll end with this, just something I've said many times, but not recently, I don't think. Is that as men get older, in the workplace, if you had a guy who was 40 years old and who was still doing entry-level work, you might have the thought that something's wrong. And that would be an appropriate thought. You'd think something has not gone to plan because this is not normal. And sometimes there's good explanations for it, and sometimes there's not good explanations for it.

But you ought to be able to examine that man's life and identify what the problem is or what the contributing factors were. You ought to be able to examine the fruit and say that's good and that's bad. The same is true with the church. The same is true with those who teach. By the time a man gets into his 40s, presuming that he didn't become a Christian at 38, not a new convert, but presuming that the man's been a Christian for a while, the fruit should be evident. Well, what I should say is the fruit will be evident and whether it's good or bad should be discernible. There are those who will talk a good game but not do it. There are the sons who say yes but don't go out into the field and do the work. And it's our job to figure that out, to see and to discern and to sort it out so that we can be confident when we trust and when we follow and when we obey that we're not putting our souls at risk. And you'll face incredible pressures. It's a funny thing about liars and deceivers.

is that they're very sweet and friendly to you until you disagree with them or fight with them. And then, all of a sudden, the ravenous wolf part comes out. And you're shocked. And I would say, if you're shocked, you shouldn't be shocked. You should be able to see and say, you know what's going to happen when I push this button right here? They're going to go off. Because they're lying to me. Maybe they're lying to themselves, but they expect me to participate in it. And I'm not going to. Next week, we'll pick back up. This is a... A hard place for me to stop. I'd love to preach for another two or three hours and get all the way through this. But I remember reading years ago a series of sermons on one topic. And it was like three or four sermons. And none of the sermons by themselves stood alone. They just didn't. It's like, well, it's the end of the first quarter, so we're just going to take a break. And then he just picked back up the next week. So that's what we're going to do the next few weeks. We're going to pick right back up next week with, you'll know them by their fruits. And by the end of this, I hope that you have a good understanding of false prophets.

the fruit that they produce, and the danger that they present. Let's pray.