Fruit of False Prophets

[00:00:00] Good to see everybody again. Let's go to the Book of Matthew, chapter number seven. [00:00:08] Brother Mark led us in the song the Old Fashioned Way and good song. [00:00:20] Keep in mind, however, that not everything that is old is right. [00:00:24] And we're going to see that tonight. Because way back in the ministry of Christ, even then he warned of false prophets. [00:00:36] So, you know, there are people that peddle doctrines that use the age of the doctrine itself as evidence that the doctrine is right. And they would say things like, well, our church, our religion predates Baptist vice, such and such, or whatever. [00:00:54] So of course, as things change, there's definitely a need to guard against things changing and making sure that the things that are changing are not things that violate the Scripture. That's really the bottom line of it. That's what it boils down to. [00:01:17] And so let's look at Matthew 7 and verse number 15. We'll look at 15 to 20 tonight. Bible says this. Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. [00:01:31] Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles? The answer, no. Very good. Very good. Even so, every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire. [00:01:59] Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. All right, let's pray together. [00:02:05] Our Lord, thank youk for the opportunity again to meet with youh people. Lord, as we saw this morning, we share the Savior. We have the one thing that is most important, that is most significant, that is common among us, and that's our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and our salvation in Him. I thank you for your people that are here tonight and those that can't be here, but would be here, but are hindered in some way. I pray for them. I pray for those that are listening in as well, that they would be blessed and edified by the Word here tonight also. [00:02:45] And so, Lord, we ask you your blessing to be upon your word. Lord. We know that your Word has power. And Lord, I don't know exactly how this message might need to be used in individuals, hearts and lives, but Lord, however it might need to be used, would you please use it and bless it, Lord, and help us to grow from it. We just need to grow. We need to be wise unto salvation like you told Timothy. And so, Lord, bless us Lord, help me to say what I should say and keep my mouth closed on things I shouldn't say. And Lord, that your people might be strengthened and edified in Jesus name we ask. Amen. [00:03:21] All right, so as you can see here, we're going to talk about false prophets. This section 15 to 20 deals with false prophets. You go to verse number 21, you see another kind of false person, and that is a false believer. And Lord willing, we'll cover that next week. [00:03:43] And then starting in verse number 24, you have a false, what I call a false hearer. A false hearer. And this whole second part of the chapter, in fact, the whole chapter begins with judge not that you be not judged, but this whole chapter deals with judgment in some way, fashion or form. I mean, when the Lord says, beware of false prophets, he is calling us to judgment, right? So again, we said that already. But it just goes to reiterate that judgment is all throughout. In fact, right judgment, you could say right judgment is what is covered in this chapter in various ways. That's how you tell the false from the true and so on. So in the false prophets, it's interesting because like I said just a minute ago, the false prophets have existed a very long time. In fact, they predate the Lord Jesus Christ. They go back to the earliest time that prophets exist. And so what we've seen so far, especially when we were in the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, when in the Beatitudes, one of the Beatitudes said that we were blessed, right? If we were persecuted for righteousness sake. Right. Remember that. And so of course, persecution is always satanic in origin, no matter if a person is the one actively doing it and is the face of it, it is always Satanic in origin. [00:05:09] But the devil has more than just that kind of what we might call a direct attack to undermine and, and attack God's people. It is not just an assault of our faith and an oppression by Satan and by the powers that be or by family members or whatever. It's not always that kind of direct attack. One of the most common ways that Satan targets God's people is by means of false prophets. It is a completely different tactic. If you compared it to warfare, it would be something like, if you've heard of symmetrical warfare, which that means the two sides are roughly balanced. You have army against army, like the United States against Germany or Japan. [00:06:03] They're going against each other in that way. But then you have what is called asymmetrical warfare, which is when one side's much different than the other side. And that's what we see. We've seen a lot here recently. But the idea being is the tactics have totally changed. The way they fight war in Iraq and Afghanistan is totally different than the way they fought it in Vietnam or the way they fought it in World War II or Korea, because a different tactic was needed. And that is exactly what the devil has to undermine the. The people of God. But you've got to remember what is his goal. His goal is not just to undermine you and make your life hard. You know, I get so tired of some of these Southern gospel songs that are so shallow. And they, they essentially describe your Christian life as the devil just wants to get you down and he just wants to make you have a bad day. And no, no, as we saw on Wednesday night, he wants far more than that. He wants to obliterate you. And he wants especially more than that. He wants the name of Christ to be maligned. He wants the name of Christ to be rejected. That's what he wants. And he can do that when he brings harm upon us. [00:07:19] What we see here is, though we do not see the devil, he's not mentioned in 15 to 20, but we see someone who is being empowered and influenced and driven by the devil. The false prophets. Now, what is a false prophet at its core? Well, in order to understand that, you have to understand what a prophet is. A prophet in Scripture is simply this. A prophet in scripture is a person who bears, tells or bears the word of God. That's a simple definition. It fits all instances of it in the Bible. Someone who bears the word of God gives forth God's message. The New Testament describes prophets. The Old Testament has prophets. I know we think of prophets of people who foretell the future, but that's not always the case, neither in the New Testament or in the Old Testament. There are prophets who tell, who give warnings of judgment, who tell people to repent. Those are essentially what we would call a preacher, a preacher of righteousness. And so that's what a true prophet is. So what is then a false prophet? For that, hold your place here. Look at Jeremiah 14 and Jeremiah 23. I'll show you a good definition here and we'll see and get a better understanding of what a false prophet is. And that'll help us in our passage. Jeremiah 14, verse number 14. [00:08:43] Jeremiah 14, verse 14 says this verse 14. Then the Lord said unto me, the prophets prophesy lies in my name. See that? In my name. That means they were going out and they were Saying God told me to say this. I'm speaking on his behalf. [00:09:08] But what they were saying was not what God had told them and not what God had spoken. Okay? [00:09:14] God says this plainly. I sent them not. Neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them. They prophesy unto you a false vision and divination, and a thing of not nothing and the deceit of their heart. So even these people believed that God was telling them things. A false prophet isn't always insincere. Sometimes he's sincere, but he's still false, right? We got to get over this thing, this idea that somehow, because people are sincere and nice, especially the nice part, because people are sincere and nice, that makes everything they do okay. Well, they're nice. Who cares if it's false, whether it's nice? You can have knight's faults or you can have mean faults, but false is false, right? Look at chapter 23. [00:10:03] In fact, this whole message, sadly, is gonna. The Lord is gonna call us to be a little more. [00:10:09] A little meaner, if I can put it like that. [00:10:12] Maybe that's not the right word. But you'll see what I mean. Jeremiah 23, verse 25. [00:10:19] The Lord says this. [00:10:22] I have heard what the prophets said that prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed. I have dreamed. [00:10:31] How long shall this be? In the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies, Yea, they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart, which think to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams, which they tell every man to his neighbor, as their fathers have forgotten my name. For baal, the prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream. And he that hath my word. Isn't this a good exhortation? And he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat? [00:11:02] What is that saying? [00:11:04] What is in comparison the word of God in truth, to those who speak falsely? There is no comparison. There is no comparison. So what do you see here? What you see is a false prophet. At his core is a man who purported to be a prophet of God. One who said that he spoke for God to the people. But in truth, his words were not what God had spoken to the people. Right? That's what a false prophet is. And what Jesus says is in the first century. And remember, he's not speaking just for the three years that he's in his ministry. This is something that's going to last for time, you know, for a lot further than just the span of Time in which he lived there. Jesus is saying there will be would be false prophets and false teachers and that they would operate in the same kind of basis as the Old Testament false prophets. Which is they would say this is what God said or this is what the Bible says, when in fact it is not what God said and it is not what the Bible said. And here's the thing, this kind of thing is so harmful because people believe when they accept the words of a false prophet, because remember how he presents it. When they accept the words of a false prophet, they actually believe in sincerity that it is God that is saying these things. Things. [00:12:39] Now, that doesn't make a bit of difference as to the truth of the matter, but it does reveal that people sincerely are deceived. People are sincerely deceived. Now notice this. Back in Matthew chapter seven, as we look at the false prophet, the Lord says, beware of false prophets which come to you. That's to the disciples which come to you in sheep's clothing. Why are the prophets in sheep's clothing? They're dressed, just put it like this. The false prophets are dressed as their target. Here's why this is. The false prophets are so important is because unlike the type of attack, satanic attack, that comes in the form of oppression or direct assault, the false prophet comes in the form of subtlety and deception. [00:13:37] And its target, the target of the false prophet is the sheep is the sheep. [00:13:45] In other words, the whole idea of a false prophet is predicated upon an assumption that the people he's speaking to are people who have a basic receptivity, a basic understanding of spiritual things. [00:14:05] That's the only way it would be effective. What, you never see Jehovah's Witnesses? Do you literally never see Jehovah's Witnesses? [00:14:12] Approach someone who is an atheist. [00:14:16] Never. They don't. You know why? Because they're false prophets. Their target is sheep, the people of God. That's the only people that are effective, that they can be effective and keep as targets because those people have a predisposition to receive the things of God. In other words, the people would be like, well, I believe the Bible and I believe in God and I go to church. That's the target. That's who they're going after. Those people, not the world. Not people who don't know God or don't love God or whatever, at least in name. That's not who they're going after. The false prophets are targeting God's people. This is why you see so many cults. And this is not Just about cults, we'll see in a minute. But this is why so many cults. [00:15:04] If you talk to someone who converted, especially as an adult to a cult, if you ever get the chance, mark my words, ask them what they were before that and you will get an answer. They used to be a Methodist or a Presbyterian or a Baptist or a Catholic. They were inevitably, it is almost 100% of the time, those people were once people who were friendly to the things of God. [00:15:32] The false prophet got them because this is their target. And since the beginning of Christianity, since we see here and actually before that, but ever since the Lord brings it up here, Christianity has been attacked by counterfeits. It is probably the primary way, in fact, in history, in church history, there were a number of periods of long church persecution where the people of God were oppressed. The Roman Catholic Church, as a religious and political institution, oppressed the people of God in various areas of the world for like a thousand years, essentially. And they and the people of God have been oppressed. The Church of God has been oppressed in many ways over many, over many years. But now that most of the world, not all, but most of the world, lives in freedom, false prophets have, have grown exponentially. They're everywhere because there's freedom. One thing you will also not find very much of is you do not often find false prophets and places where there's persecution. [00:16:39] All of a sudden they decide, you know what, we should probably redirect our efforts to a more fruitful field. [00:16:48] Well, that's convenient. [00:16:52] It's because again, their target are the people of God. [00:16:57] And false prophets have to have liberty to operate. So Christianity is attacked by means of counterfeits. There are no, there's no such thing as a counterfeit Buddhist or a counterfeit Muslim. But there are just like, there's no such thing as, you know, counterfeit, you know, Cambodian reels. That doesn't exist. That's a, that's the, that's the currency of Cambodia. Nobody counterfeits those. But dollars are counterfeited all the time. You know why? Because those have no value. They're 4,000 to $1. [00:17:26] It's almost. Why would you spend the time counterfeiting it? They don't. [00:17:32] But you do find counterfeit Christianity everywhere. Every. There's probably more counterfeit Christianity. And listen, I'm saying counterfeit Christianity within mainstream Christianity. I'm not just talking about the cults. Counterfeit Christianity within the mainstream Christianity. There's probably more of that than there is the real. [00:17:54] It's everywhere because Remember, Jesus did not say beware of the cults. [00:18:02] He did not say beware of the cults. And we'll see in a minute that these false prophets are in churches. They're among God's people. They're not in some false religion. They're among God's people, where God's people actually are. [00:18:17] Now, the Lord tells us to beware. He says in verse number 16, ye shall know them by their fruits. That tells us that the hard part with false prophets is knowing that they're false prophets because remember, they're wearing sheep's clothing. In other words, it's not immediately evident that you're dealing with a false prophet when you are dealing with a false prophet. [00:18:45] Now, and you know, as sheep, we know that a false prophet. I mean, the Lord tells us in advance so that we know that a false prophet will appear as one of us. [00:18:56] Right? He's going to appear as a sheep. He will not immediately appear evil as he is bearing false doctrine or bad fruit, because if he appeared that way, his work would not be effective. So he appears as a sheep. [00:19:14] This is the danger of it because many naive Christians fall prey to these kinds of devices. And again, I'm not just talking about cults, although those definitely are included. You know, listen, there should not be a such thing as naive Christians. [00:19:35] Now, we should be ignorant of evil, but ignorance of evil and naivete are not the same thing. Naive Christians is equivalent roughly to the simple in the Book of Proverbs. And the Lord does not say nice things about the simple because they often fall into snares. We should not be naive. We should be knowledgeable. [00:20:00] And that means we have to be discerning and a little bit skeptical. Right? You say, well, that doesn't sound very nice. Well, I tried to tell you earlier that some of this is not going to sound very nice. [00:20:15] So we could say this kind of as a general principle, not everybody that claims to be a preacher and not everyone who handles God's word is true or should be believed, even if they have Baptist in front of their name. [00:20:36] If we say, well, he's Baptist, he's good. Oh, man, don't do that. Don't do that. There are false prophets among the Baptists, too. [00:20:46] That's not how you tell. The Lord says, ye shall know them by their fruits. Even the Baptists are subject or should be subject to scrutiny and skepticism. [00:20:58] We should have a healthy skepticism. You know, I've seen. I don't know if you've seen this, but I've seen a tendency among church people. I'll just say it like that, in the broadest sense possible to just be like wowed and wooed. When someone says they're a preacher, oh, well, he's a preacher, you know, or how many of you heard, well, he preaches it right out of the Bible. False prophet does too. [00:21:23] He does, Right out of the Bible. Right, right out of the Bible. That. Listen, that's not how it works. [00:21:31] That's not how it works. [00:21:33] We cannot, we cannot be. And you know, I'm a preacher. You know, people all of a sudden, you know, you have somebody coming out looking at your, you know, your washing machine or you're looking at your refrigerator or doing work at your house or you go to the store or whatever and you're talking and chit chatting and oh, they think you're just a normal guy. You know, you work, you down to the plan or whatever and the moment they know you're a preacher. Oh, pastor, pastor, pastor. [00:22:05] Listen, maybe it's just me, but when I see somebody who's a pastor, like we were downtown not too long ago, a few months ago, and this man came up to me, very well dressed man. He told me immediately he was a pastor. He told me he appreciated what we were doing. I'm glad for that. But it wasn't like, oh, he's a pastor. Oh, what? Well, you know, listen, beware of false prophets. They're bearing what they claim to be God's word. We should not be so naive and be like, oh, well, okay, well then he's a pastor. Bear not, you know, you know, okay, I'm going to say it, I'm going to say it. [00:22:46] Some of you have heard the way this term man of God is used, right? The man of God. [00:22:56] You need to be careful of people tossing around the man of God. And I believe it. And actually we'll discuss it in just a minute. But I mean, I believe in showing honor to spiritual leadership. [00:23:11] But this idea that you can't question me, you dare not be skeptical. You dare not, you know, you dare not ask questions. That is not right. In fact, that is directly contrary to the spirit of verse 5, verse 15. Let's go to one other verse first, John 4. Look at what it says. [00:23:33] Preachers, listen, I've heard it, man, preachers are so bad about beating the pulpit. The man of God, you better not touch the man of God. Not. I mean, it's bad hermeneutics, bad Bible interpretation, but it's also pretty dangerous for the preacher himself. [00:23:53] And it is not consistent with what the scripture says. Look at 1 John 4. 1 Beloved, believe not every spirit. You see this? That's a command. He says, don't believe everything, right? That's what he says. Do not believe everything. Believe not every spirit. But try the spirits, whether they are of God. Because many false prophets are gone out into the world. You see this? Try the spirits. Not every preacher. We're talking about prophets here. You see it in verse one. Not every preacher. This preaching, just because he has preacher over his name or doctor or whatever, that doesn't necessarily mean he's one that should be believed. He should be tried. That's what that says, right? You see? It should be tried. Now, how do you try? How do you try them? How do you judge good, preacher bad? How do you judge that? It is not his style. It's not his eloquence, it's not his delivery. That's not what the Lord is talking about at all. But anyway, I'm getting sidetracked. Verse 2. Hereby know ye the spirit of God. Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God. And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is that spirit of Antichrist. Where have you have heard that it should come? And even now, already it is in the world. So in the first century, the spirit of Antichrist was present in the world. It's still here. [00:25:20] It's growing. The spirit of Antichrist at its core attacks the identity of Christ, who he is. That's what it is at its core, and that's what this is here. [00:25:33] But the thing I want you to see from verse one is we need to have a little bit of skepticism and not just blindly believe everything that slaps a Christian label or slaps the word preacher across the top of it. The Lord says, try the spirits, because there's a lot of false prophets out there. The Lord tells us to have a healthy skepticism. [00:26:01] Now go Back to Matthew 7, if you would notice the means that the Lord has given us to try the spirits to test a prophet, whether he's a prophet of God or whether he's a false prophet. And that is at the beginning of verse number 16. It's also in verse 20. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Ye shall know them by their fruits. And this brings up. [00:26:34] This brings up an important point. Maybe I'll swing back around in just a minute, but TV preachers, Internet preachers, and let me say from the outset, our church, the messages, the lessons and things that I preach are. Are on the Internet, okay? So I'm including myself in this. But there is a basic and fundamental problem with Internet preachers and TV preachers and radio preachers. You know what that problem is? You and I have no way to test them. [00:27:08] It's not that it's bad. There's good ones, right? It's not all bad. I'm not saying they're all bad because they're not all bad. There's good, faithful Bible preachers that are on the radio and on the TV and on the. And on the Internet. That's fine and good. But that doesn't remove the issue. The problem is you don't know them. [00:27:26] You don't have any way to test them. And when people. And that goes for me, too, people that come to our church's website and listen to the messages or whatever, they don't know me. [00:27:36] Well, I like the way he preaches. That is not what it's about. Has nothing to do with that. But the Lord says, try the spirits. This is one of the basic problems with this modern. [00:27:49] This modern technology. [00:27:52] It has good, but it also has bad. [00:27:57] And so before I get to the fruit, let's look at the goal. The goal of the false prophets. Notice it says this in verse 15 of Matthew 7. It says, inwardly the wolves. Inwardly, these false prophets are ravening wolves. Ravening wolves. What does that mean, ravening? [00:28:20] This is the whole purpose of a false prophet. This is what he's trying to do. Okay? He's a ravening wolf. Now we probably think of the word. I know when I do, I think of the word ravening as he wants to devour, right? And there's definitely truth in that. But ravening doesn't mean devour. Have you ever seen one of these nature shows where you have, like, coyotes, especially coyotes in Palestine? The kind of wolves that they have are. They don't have coyotes. They never have had coyotes. They have Arabian wolves, which are basically a large coyote, but not anything like a gray wolf in North America, which are huge. [00:29:02] These are like big coyotes. But anyway, here's the point. If you've ever seen shows where they hunt, what you'll see is coyotes will get the prey, right? Will catch the prey, usually a weak one, and will grab it and drag it away. Have you ever seen that? [00:29:22] They don't eat it. They don't capture it like a lion does. A lion will capture it and will clap down on the animal's neck until the animal dies and eat it. Right there. That's not what a wolf does. It's not what a coyote does. It snatches the thing and drags it away from the others to another place. That's what ravening means. To raven means to do that, to take away by force, to seize or to divide as spoil, to carry off as prey. So the emphasis here is not in devouring, but to take away, which is important when you're talking about the people of God. Because the goal of the false prophet is to take people away from God, to take people away from the sheep, from the shepherd, from the fold. You see? And that's the danger he takes. Because once the wolf, once the false prophet has lured someone away, he can do whatever he wants. The protection of the sheep, the protection of the shepherd is no longer there. [00:30:29] Separate them from the rest. That's what's being described here. Now let's look at the fruit. [00:30:36] This is why you got to be very careful when you see someone. [00:30:40] Listen, I've seen it. When you see someone who's listening to a TV preacher or something like that, and Internet preacher, radio preacher, whatever, whatever, and, you know, it's like a little bit false. And then they start getting skeptical of their own church. And then all of a sudden, they're withdrawing from the people of God. You know something's going wrong. You know something has gone wrong. [00:31:07] That's the idea. [00:31:09] So let's look at fruits. It says this, verse 17, verse 16. You shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit. Neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Now notice this. The tree, the tree stands for the prophet himself. The fruit stands for the product, okay? [00:31:38] The Lord says, ye shall know them by their fruits. [00:31:44] Now, the Lord gives this comparison, this example of trees, and he says, every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. You know, there's a lot of people that listen to false prophets. And because the false prophets say some things that are good, they tolerate it despite all of the evil. [00:32:06] They ignore the evil because a few good things. And the Lord says, actually the good you think you're hearing is not good. They don't bring forth good. It's all a sham. That's why it's so dangerous. [00:32:20] And that's why the Lord's saying, don't tolerate it. [00:32:25] Don't tolerate it. Now notice this. [00:32:29] He says, ye shall know them by Their fruits. But that raises the question, what does he mean by fruits? [00:32:38] There are basically three possibilities, and I think all three are actually true and accurate. Number one, their fruit could be their doctrine. Number two, their fruit could be their lifestyle. And number three, their fruit could be the effect of their teaching upon the hearers. In all these cases, this could be evil fruit. You think of doctrine, in other words, false teachers, job's witnesses. You know, who was it, Sam? Wasn't it you that the job's witness approached? He's like, wouldn't it be glad if we just had a world of peace? Or whatever they say? You know, that's the idea. It's the alluring question. But listen, there are people that have their doctrine, that have doctrinal issues that should be absolutely rejected, right? That should not be tolerated. Usually doctrine that's false doesn't come as this big ugly thing of doctrine. No, it's usually a little bit off and a little bit off and a little bit off. And before you know it, you know, key things are just a little bit off and the whole thing has been subverted as a result. [00:33:52] So you have the bad doctrine, but then you have the bad lifestyle, which is fruit. [00:34:00] Their lifestyle is bad. [00:34:04] Now you think about, you think about false prophets and their lifestyle. Does it matter that you know, how a preacher lives? [00:34:17] Is the personal conduct, the private conduct, the everyday life of the preacher? Does it matter? [00:34:25] See, that's part of the fruit. That's part of the fruit. [00:34:31] If a man claims to be a prophet, but he claims to be someone who bears God's word, but in his own life is out of order, this is why we have standards, right, for spiritual leaders in the New Testament. If his own life is out of order, his lifestyle, he's wicked. In other words, he's immoral. And we'll see more of that in a minute. But if those things are all are out of whack, we shouldn't be listening to them because his fruit is bad. So you have the doctrinal bad fruit, which is the most obvious. Obviously you shouldn't listen to somebody that's teaching something contrary to the scripture. Obviously. But what about his own life? What about his personal, you know, his personal testimony? What about his personal holiness? [00:35:12] But the thing is, as I said, that's the fundamental problem with the Internet and technology preaching is that there's no way you can know that. Nobody knows how Joel Osteen lives. [00:35:26] And you know what? Nobody comes to our church's website knows how I live. [00:35:30] But that is how you test Them, you see what I'm saying? That's how you test it. That's the criteria. And this brings us back to the importance of the local church. [00:35:42] God designed this thing so that every one of his people is part of a local church. Where they know the preacher, you see, where they know the preacher, that the preacher is a man who has good fruit. [00:36:04] You can't do that in any other even. And I'm not trying to throw stones where stones shouldn't be thrown, because the truth is, I don't know the ins and outs. But extremely large churches, they don't know the preacher. It's not possible to know the preacher. It's not possible. [00:36:22] It's not possible to know his life and to know the fruit thereof. Now, we can assume, but it's not possible to really know. So sometimes we, you know, we look. We tend to look down on smaller churches and we think, well, you know, but when you go to a church that has 3,000 people, does anybody really know except a very small group of people? If the preacher is a man who bears good fruit, it's a problem because that is the way you determine the falseness or trueness of the prophet. [00:36:56] And the last thing is, this is the effect upon the hearers. Jesus said in Luke 7, wisdom is justified of all her children. When someone's preaching a message or holding a doctrine and teaching it, what effect does it have upon those that hold to that doctrine? [00:37:13] I mean, there have been a number of groups in Christianity among Baptists that have kind of sprung up and the groups have pet particular doctrines, but the fruit is rotten. The people that believe that are not godly, they're arrogant and they're cantankerous, and they do not exhibit a spiritual attitude and a loving, kind and gentle and gracious spirit. But that's the product of this person's teaching. And listen, any teaching that breeds arrogance, any teaching that breeds arrogance itself is not going to be a teaching. [00:37:55] It should be suspect. It should be suspect. Again, the fruit, the fruit. [00:38:02] You see, fruit is really the only sure and positive way to judge a prophet. You say, should I judge a prophet? Yeah, it's the only sure way. It's not how big his church is. [00:38:18] It's not how many downloads on his sermons that they have. [00:38:22] It's not the size of his crowd. It's not how beautiful his building is. It's not his popularity. It's not his delivery. It's not his, you know, it's not his learning, his education. [00:38:35] It's not his, you know, personality none of that has anything to do with Jesus says it's the faith fruit. And some people mistake the fruit. Some people think, well, he's got a big church, it must be good fruit. That doesn't mean. That didn't mean anything at all. [00:38:49] That is not the fruit. [00:38:52] We go back to the scripture, but remember, fruit is not immediately evident. [00:39:01] When you think of life cycle of a tree it grows, the last thing it produces is in its cycle is fruit. That means you're not going to be able to tell immediately. [00:39:12] You got to just hold off and say, well, let's just see how this thing goes. Let's just see how this thing goes. See what they say. [00:39:21] See what they say. Let's finish by looking at second Peter, chapter one. [00:39:34] Second Peter one, verse 19 says this. [00:39:44] We have also a more sure word of prophecy. So he mentions prophecy whereunto ye do well that ye take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place until the day dawn and the day star arise in your hearts. Knowing this verse, that no prophecy, the scripture is of any private interpretation for the prophecy. I'm repeating this on purpose. Came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. But there were false prophets also among the people. You see that even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. Now notice very with going to do this very quickly, what are the fruits of the false prophets as seen in second Peter 2, number one, doctrinal error. It says they denied the Lord that bought them the denial of the Lord Jesus Christ, the denial of scriptural truth. [00:40:44] What else? Division among God's people. [00:40:49] It says this, they shall bring in damnable heresies. Now we often think of heresy as a doctrinal error. But a heresy is actually its actual meaning, is a sect. Now often that sect revolves around a doctrinal issue. But it's a sect, it's a clique. That's what it is. [00:41:08] A heresy is a clique. And in verse two it says this. And many shall follow their pernicious ways. So whenever you see cliques start coming up and they exist among Baptists they do. They absolutely exist. But when you start to see that that's a fruit, that's a fruit that is not good, division among God's people is a fruit. [00:41:31] Verse number two says, and by reason of whom? Of the false prophet. The way of truth shall Be evil spoken of a fruit. The way of truth is slandered as a result of false prophets. How many people, listen, how many people have slandered Christianity and it's casted away as naught because of the money hungry, immoral TV preachers, right, that are flying around in their private jets and calling everybody that. [00:42:09] Who? I'm thinking of Kenneth Copeland who said that he would not fly on a plane to be in a tin can with a bunch of demons. So he has his own private jet. [00:42:17] It's that kind of stuff. It's that kind of stuff that causes people to look at that and say, well, they just throw out Christianity altogether. That's what we see here, covetousness and the love of money. Seen in verse three, it says through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you through. Also in verse number 14, anytime you see, anytime you see something a fruit of a false prophet is, you're going to see something about money. It's going to appear somewhere, somehow it is going to. Somebody's going to come, it's going to be shown. In fact, yesterday when we were knocking doors, I met a man named Paul. And Paul had been in church his whole life and he was disillusioned. You know why? Money. [00:43:05] Church people, probably preachers not using money, right? [00:43:13] It is a bad and a corrupt fruit of false prophets. It says verse three. And with feigned words make merchandise of you. That means fake. In other words, they're hypocrites, they're play actors. Hypocrisy is a fruit, a bad fruit of a false teacher. Verse 10. Look at what it says there. But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness. [00:43:41] Notice that immorality, it's also mentioned in verse 14 and in verse number 18 you often find where you find a, where you find a false prophet, you see and listen, you see sexual immorality. [00:43:59] This is an evil fruit. And this happens among Baptists too. [00:44:03] This is why I say this is not just the Job's witnesses and the Mormons and the, you know, Church of Christ or whatever. No, no, no, no. This is among Baptists. [00:44:13] That's why there needs to be some skepticism. [00:44:19] Verse 10, it goes on to say and despise government. Now you think of, you know, federal government, right? But government in this case is just the function or the office of governing a ruling. It's an authority. And these people do not like authority. They do not like God. Established authority structures. And so what they do, and that might be A husband with his wife that might be parents with the children. It might be the authority established in the church. But in every case they do an end around. Be very careful when someone does not respect God. Established authority structures, they are, that is a bad fruit of a false prophet. [00:45:05] Try to lure somebody away instead of going through the channel of authority, right, that God has established. Listen, if somebody tries to. I'm telling you, you want to make a dad mad. You want to. Sorry, that. I know that came out kind of funny. You want to make a father angry, Try to subvert. [00:45:24] Try to subvert one of his children without his knowledge. You will make a dad flaming angry. Because the authority structure that God has established is not being respected. [00:45:37] This is one thing false prophets do. Verse 14 talks about how that they deceive the hearts of verse 14, having eyes full of adultery. There's the immorality and that cannot cease from sin. Beguiling unstable souls. This is those weak minded, or we might say naive types that are deluded. [00:46:00] And then you see verse 17 to finish. These are wells without water, clouds that are carried about, carried with a tempest to whom the mist of darkness is reserved forever. Clouds without water, wells without water, clouds carried about. You know what that is? [00:46:18] There's no reality to anything they say. There's no power at all. You go to a well, no water, useless. There's nothing there. It's empty. It's smoke and mirrors. [00:46:33] These false prophets have been among God's people since the very beginning, since there were prophets. And the Lord simply says, listen, you know, especially in our time when Christianity has so expanded, right? [00:46:49] It's everywhere, especially where we live, right? It's everywhere. [00:46:55] And the Lord says, you just, you got it? We have to look at the fruit. [00:47:01] Not everybody that claims to be a preacher, that claims to be telling the, preaching the Bible or teaching it as someone that should be trusted, they should be tried, right? To see what the fruit is like. Because listen, as is the fruit, so is the tree. [00:47:20] Let's pray.