TPW 93 Wolves, Trees, and the Fruit that Grows on Them

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This is Pastor Patrick Hines here at Goodwill Heights Presbyterian Church, and today
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I'd like to post a sermon I preached recently on wolves in sheep's clothing and also the fruit that makes it known what kind of a tree we are, from Luke's version of the
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Sermon on the Mount in Luke chapter 6, and the importance of understanding that we bear the kind of fruit that shows the tree that we are, whether we are a good tree or a bad tree.
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And as I wrote that sermon and preached on it, I felt kind of bad.
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I felt kind of bad for, I know that there's soft -hearted people in the church here, so I finished the sermon off with helping people understand that even if you're going through very difficult times and things aren't going well in your life as a
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Christian, that you can still be greatly used of God and are still bearing the fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self -control that are listed in Galatians 5, 22 and 23.
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Very often people associate the fruit that grows on them with how they feel, and that's not a good thing to do.
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We should not base how we think we're doing in our Christian life on how we feel. There may be times that we feel very good, and other times that we feel very sad, but are still bearing the fruit, and God is sustaining others through the fruit that grows on us as trees.
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So I hope that you'll find this helpful. It's about wolves in sheep's clothing and the fruit that we bear, but also there's a pastoral section of encouragement to those that are discouraged, those that are experiencing tough times in their lives towards the end.
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So if you're feeling real convicted early on, just stick around for the end of the sermon. I've tried to speak to the soft -hearted folks among us there, so I hope you find this to be edifying.
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Let's pray together, please. Father, thank you for the opportunity to open up the Word of God this morning.
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Thank you for breathing forth these words to us. May we receive their truths with faith and love, lay them up in our hearts, and practice them in our lives.
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In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Please take your Bibles and turn to Luke chapter 6, Luke 6, verses 43 through 45.
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Luke 6, 43 through 45. And one of the things I've been doing in preparation for these sermons on Luke 6 is studying the
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Sermon on the Mount in parallel with Matthew, and so I want to read Matthew 7, 15, and then we'll read the passage there in Luke, because if you put them in parallel, this is the verse that would come right before it.
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So before we read Luke 6, listen to Matthew 7, 15. Beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
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And now Luke 6, 43. For there is no good tree which produces bad fruit, nor on the other hand a bad tree which produces good fruit.
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For each tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a briar bush.
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The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good, and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil.
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For his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart. May God bless the reading of his infallible word.
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Our Lord Jesus Christ was the master teacher, the master illustrator, and the master at driving home the most important truths that sinners must know in the most memorable ways imaginable.
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He is also, without comparison, the most convicting in everything that he said.
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Only the hardest of human hearts could listen to him without being overwhelmed by the simple profundity of everything he said.
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I've wondered what it must have been like to be on the plane there, to hear the Sermon on the Mount preached for the very first time, and listen to those wonderful things.
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Jesus' words penetrate to the very center of every human heart, and they leave no one unexposed, no one unaddressed.
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And here in our passage this morning, Jesus speaks about fruit, fruit that grows on trees, and we are those trees.
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Fruit is a biblical concept that starts in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve didn't eat animals, they didn't eat meat.
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They ate from the greatest array of fruits and vegetables imaginable. The produce sections of the grocery store ought to remind us of that sinless and pristine past.
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Even in our fallen world, God still gives us an incredible array of fruits to eat, to enjoy, and be satisfied by, and sustained by.
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Those amazing organisms, those biological machines created by God for us to eat in his infinite creative goodness, which he planted in the world, are what keep us healthy and alive to this very day.
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In this masterful, glorious, and convicting section of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus likens every human being on earth to a tree.
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The opening psalm that we recited together and then we just sang together gives the same striking and memorable image of human beings.
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The godly, who delight in the law of the Lord and meditate upon it day and night, are like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season.
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In that passage, the ungodly are said to be like the chaff which the wind drives away.
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The contrast in our passage this morning is so simple that it's terrifying. There are good trees and bad trees.
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One bears good fruit, the other bad. The final contrast is between the good man and the evil man.
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One has a heart with good treasure in it, the other has a heart with evil treasure in it.
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One speaks what is true and good, and the other what is false and evil. It is important, however, that we understand that in Matthew's version of the
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Sermon on the Mount, there's a very, very important verse that precedes this small section, which
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I read first, and it's our first point this morning. Matthew 7, 15, Jesus said to his hearers, in his first grand public teaching, he told them, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.
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This looks almost like a contradiction of what follows about good trees and bad trees, good men and evil men, and the fruit that they bear and the words they say.
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The contrast between the good and the bad, it looks like it ought to be obvious, it ought to be as plain as the noonday sun.
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But Jesus here says before, you have to watch out for wolves in sheep's clothing. They look like sheep.
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Watch out for them. Beware of them. You must understand, however, that in time, everyone will be exposed for what they really are.
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There are some who wear a sheep suit that is so tightly woven with every stitch that it's very, very difficult to tell that there's a ravenous wolf underneath it.
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And we just saw last week that we have to exercise charity and not judge harshly or hypocritically, but judge, we must.
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And when it comes to the difficulty we have discerning good trees from bad trees, we need to understand a very important single verse of Scripture that is tucked away in an often unnoticed location in Scripture.
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I hope that you'll mark it when you see it, 1 Timothy 5, 24. It's in your thoughts for Sabbath meditation, you need to put a star by that verse.
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Listen to it. Paul says, some men's sins are clearly evident, preceding them to judgment.
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But those of some men follow later. Some men's sins are clearly evident, preceding them to judgment, but those of some men follow later.
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Matthew Henry said this about that verse, ministers have need of a great deal of wisdom to know how to accommodate themselves to the variety of offenses and offenders that they have occasion to deal with.
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Some men's sins are so plain and obvious and not found out by secret search that there is no dispute concerning the bringing of them under the censures of the church.
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They go before them to judgment to lead them to censure. Others they follow after.
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That is, their wickedness does not presently appear, nor till after a due search has been made concerning it.
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Always remember something that human beings by nature as fallen are really, really good at. We are really good at self -deception.
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The ongoing suppression of truth and unrighteousness that goes on all day, every day without interruption in the heart of every single unbeliever in the world is something we need to bear in mind always.
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People may be inclined to have some interest in spirituality and the things of God, but a true change of heart takes a miracle in a new birth.
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To state this more plainly, every single human being is conceived as a bad tree.
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Everyone is a bad tree. The babies, as cute and sweet as they seem to be, all of them are bad trees. Prepare to bear all manner of bad fruit that will flow from that unregenerate heart.
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It's our hearts that are already bad. Repentance unto life and saving faith in Christ are nowhere to be found growing on the dead and unregenerate trees of humanity.
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And that's why we pray earnestly, God, save our children. Save my children. A supernatural rebirth is needed here from the loving, redeeming hand of God that must take place for that bad tree to become a good tree.
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The Lord spoke in Ezekiel long ago to the exiles. He said that God said this, then
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I will give them one heart and I will put a new spirit within them and take the stony heart out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh that they may walk in my statutes and keep my judgments and do them and they shall be my people and I will be their
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God. If God doesn't do that, bad trees stay bad trees forever.
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Just like Psalm 1, the blessed man is planted by God by the rivers of water.
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Notice that Psalm doesn't say how blessed is the man who walks over to the streams of water and digs himself a hole and plants himself.
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We're planted passively. God does it. We don't plant ourselves. We don't decide one day
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I'm going to stop bearing bad fruit and start bringing forth good fruit. The bad trees of humanity who do not know
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Christ and know not what it is to grieve over, to hate and to turn from sin, only know what
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Jesus taught was true of all human hearts. They only know this. Jesus said out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornication, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.
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These are the things which defile a man. What defiles us and makes us bad is what's already inside of us.
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It's what we are by nature, bad trees. Pharisees along with all of man's moralistic religions really do believe folks.
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They really do believe that the problem we face is somewhere out there. And what Jesus taught in his teachings and the word of God all the way from the beginning to the end is that the problem is not from the outside.
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It's what's already in us by nature. Martin Luther became a monk by his own words.
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He became a monk hoping that by entering the monastery he would escape the sin and corruption of the world.
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And he said, I only found out that all my sin and corruption went in there with me. Why? Because it's all in here.
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Woe to the person who does not yet see how bad they are. Woe to the person who thinks they're good.
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Woe upon the person who sleeps soundly at night with no fear of facing the holy tribunal of the just and holy
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God. In John Bunyan's classic book, The Pilgrim's Progress, when the main character is under conviction of sin, thankfully he meets evangelist.
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He meets evangelist, someone who understands the gospel, and he's told the right place to go to find the remedy for his sin.
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The man under conviction tells evangelist, I perceive by the book in my hand that I am condemned to die and after that to come to judgment.
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And evangelist points him to yonder wicket gate. And so begins Christian's journey to the celestial city, thankfully, thankfully in the story, the man under conviction of sin meets an evangelist, not a wolf in sheep's clothing, but an evangelist.
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Now had Bunyan wanted to illustrate the reality of false prophets who pretend to speak for God wolves in sheep's clothing, he could have had him meet false prophets instead of evangelist and been pointed to some other path, which led to a cliff with jagged rocks at the bottom to illustrate the point.
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Matthew 7, 15 gives us the primary reason so many people never find the only narrow way which leads to life.
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That reason is this, wolves dressed up as sheep who pretend to speak for God to people.
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They point them to every gate except the narrow one. They point them to the law.
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They point them to false religion. They point them to everything except the all sufficient savior, Jesus Christ, to his cross and righteousness alone as their salvation.
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The person folks is lost out in the wilderness somewhere and they're in desperate need of water. What could be more dangerous than for a guy to tell them, go walk that way, but there's only a desert over there.
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So many are deceived by wolves in sheep's clothing into believing that the broad way in which they walk is taking them to heaven when it's actually going to hell.
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By the way, all the advanced religions, all those broad, easy ways that so many walk in, the sign over the top of that way says this is the way to heaven.
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It's a lie. There are in our day multitudes of men who profess themselves to be ministers of Christ and teachers of the truth who are utterly devoid of both
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Christ and the truth. Such has been the sad reality of the world in every age since the fall and thus
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Jesus' warning about wolves in sheep's clothing is a warning to every person and every age, including our own.
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Now, you all have heard me preach many times that the greatest danger that Christian people face in every generation is deception, false doctrine, false gospels.
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Our greatest danger is not the rise of totalitarian government. It's not corrupt judges.
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It's not persecution. It's not even the LGBT revolution. It's deception. It's believing things that are wrong.
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It's false ideas, false gospels, false doctrines of what sin is, what grace is, those things being in the church.
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Nothing has ever brought more spiritual ruin to people and to nations than false gospels, false doctrines, and false ideas.
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There are lies and there is truth. When people believe that lies are true, destruction follows, spiritual and physical destruction.
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When people believe the truth, they are, as Jesus said, set free. The most dangerous people on earth are not anti -Christian secular social engineers.
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It's not the bureaucrats who want to control the worldviews of children through government education, nor is it the leaders and preachers of the religions of men.
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They're nowhere near as dangerous as wolves in sheep's clothing. Nowhere near. The most dangerous people on earth at any given time are people who appear to be
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Christians, but they're really not. The most dangerous people on earth are ministers, pastors, professing
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Christians and church members who preach false doctrine and preach false gospels in the name of true Christianity.
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The most dangerous people in ancient Israel were the false prophets who prophesied falsehood in the name of the true
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God of Yahweh. With the prophets of Baal, at least there was a clear line of demarcation to be seen.
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These men are for a foreign God, not Yahweh, not the true God. But the false prophets of Yahweh thrived on something which false prophets of all ages and generations also thrive on.
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You ready for it? Ambiguity and confusion. Ambiguity is the fortress of heretics.
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People listen to them and you know they never really can quite figure out what they're getting at.
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If people come to the defense of a false prophet and they begin their defense of that false prophet by,
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I think what so -and -so is really getting at, it's a dead giveaway that they're a false prophet. The mark of a true prophet, a true teacher, is the clarity with which they speak.
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The consistency with which they speak. If you ever listen to me and think, I wonder what he's getting at, I wonder what he's getting at.
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If people ask me, I don't know what you're getting at. If they ask me that every Sunday, I would quit. You will walk away from listening to true teachers, true prophets, with a better understanding of the text, a clear understanding of the gospel, a clear enunciation of biblical truth.
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There was a movie where this young guy was listening to these adults talk and they were trying to sound more erudite than they actually were.
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And his response to them was, that sounds so deep, it's almost confusing.
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That's not what you want to be listening to. False prophets were a major cause of the final apostasy and destruction and exile of Israel.
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Listen to a few of these passages. Jeremiah 5 .30, an astonishing and horrible thing has been committed in the land.
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The prophets prophesy falsely and the priests rule by their own power. My people love to have it so. Jeremiah 14 .14,
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the Lord said to me, the prophets prophesy lies in my name. I have not sent them nor spoken to them.
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What's behind that? They were saying the Lord sent us. The Lord sent us to tell you this, that peace, peace, when there is no peace.
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You guys are fine. You're fine the way you are. They prophesy to you a false vision, divination, a worthless thing and the deceit of their hearts.
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Jeremiah 23 .16, they speak a vision of their own heart, not from the mouth of the Lord. Ezekiel 22 .25,
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the conspiracy of our prophets in our midst is like the roaring lion tearing the prey. They have devoured people.
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They have taken treasure and precious things. They have made many widows in her midst. You see the image that's being used there?
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It's out of a ferocious beast just killing people, destroying them. Very same kinds of warnings permeate the
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New Testament too. Acts 20 .29, Paul said to the Ephesian elders, I know this. After my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock.
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Also from among yourselves men will rise up. Speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after themselves.
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Therefore watch and remember that for three years I did not cease to warn everyone day and night with tears. Romans 16 .17,
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at the end of that great treatise on God's grace, Paul says, I urge you brethren, note those who cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you learn and avoid them.
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For such do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ with their own belly and by smooth words and flattering speech deceive the hearts of the simple.
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2 Peter 2 .1, there were false prophets among the people, even as there will be false prophets among you.
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That's why Jesus said, beware, keep your ear to the wind. Listen carefully to what people are saying.
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1 John 4 .1, beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
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And on and on and on, I've got some more passages here, but you get the point. Paul gives us what is perhaps the clearest and most frightening warning about false teachers and false prophets in the
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Bible. 2 Corinthians 11 .4, listen to this passage. For if he who comes preaches another
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Jesus whom we have not preached, or if you receive a different spirit which you have not received, a different gospel which you have not accepted, you may well put up with it.
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And then in verse 13, such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ.
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And no wonder, for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore, it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works.
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We have to hear and heed that. Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.
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Therefore, it's not surprising if Satan's ministers transform themselves into ministers of righteousness.
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They're pastors, they're churchmen, elders. Satan's attacks, folks, are rarely frontal assaults.
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He looks like an angel of light. His ministers and his most effective workers tend to be great family men, successful businessmen, faithful churchmen.
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They will feed you spiritual poison and then turn their back on you as you die in your sins and perish eternally.
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You know, there's a long list of sins that God's wrath is revealed against in Romans chapter 1. One of those sins is the
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Greek term asunetas. It's just one word separated by commas in that long list at the end of Romans 1.
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Asunetas means unintelligent, without understanding. It's a sin to be unintelligent.
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It's a sin to be without understanding. Some translate it as undiscerning. People who are easily tricked. People who are easily led astray into falsehood.
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Undiscerning, that means unable to discern truth from error. Unable to discern that which ought to be obvious.
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Failure on our part to recognize, denounce, and put false prophets out of the church. It's a very, very serious sin.
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Often it is extraordinarily hard to do because these angels of light and ostensible ministers of righteousness and faithful churchmen are very humble, kind -hearted.
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They have many friends who are willing to protect them because of their friendships. But God's law requires that we value truth above all earthly relationships.
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You know who taught us that in the last generation? R .C. Sproul. Sproul lost almost every friend he ever had.
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Over the ECT document, Evangelicals and Catholics Together document, over the gift of salvation. I don't know what anyone was thinking by asking him to sign the
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Manhattan Declaration. He wrote a short article. I wish you guys would stop asking me to sign these dumb documents. I'm not going to do it.
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How many times do I have to say it? There's links to this and this and this over the past decades. How many times do
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I have to tell you you're not allowed to compromise the gospel? We have to value truth above relationships.
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And our generation doesn't do that. Our generation doesn't do that. The history of what's going on in seminaries and the cronyism and the silliness and the immature folly of people that have protected each other, the
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Norm Shepard controversy, Richard Gaffin frame. I don't care about saying their names. It's all out there on public record.
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You can look up all this stuff. It's pathetic. What's more important to us, that people go to heaven and not hell and that Jesus is glorified and his gospel is preached accurately or that we all hang out together and slap each other on the back and give each other high fives?
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Deuteronomy 13 illustrates this real well. God told the people of Israel, listen closely to this. Deuteronomy 13, 6.
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If your brother, the son of your mother, your son or your daughter, the wife of your bosom or your friend who is as your own soul, secretly entices you saying, let us go and serve other gods that you have not known, neither you nor your fathers, of the gods of the people which are all around you, near to you or far off from you, from one end of earth to the other end of the earth, you shall not consent to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him or conceal him, but you shall surely kill him.
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They were told to value truth and God more than their relationships. Why such a hard line law about that in the
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Old Testament? Here it is, because false doctrine is soul damning and it's an affront to God.
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There's only one gospel and there's only one Jesus that can save. That's why Paul said, if someone preaches another gospel, you guys are so undiscerning, you might even put up with it.
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If someone preaches a different Jesus to you, you might put up with it. What's Paul's point? There's only one Jesus that can save you.
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It's the biblical one, the one I preached to you. There's only one gospel that can save you, the one I taught you. If you have the wrong
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God, the wrong savior, the wrong gospel, you cannot be saved. And God gave Israel and he gives us a zero tolerance policy toward those who seek to deny the true
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God and the true gospel. And God also gave Israel a zero tolerance policy toward false prophets who prophesied lies in the name of Yahweh.
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In Deuteronomy 18, 20. 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.
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So what kind of track record did they have to have? You had to get them all right. I remember talking to a friend who was part of the
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Vineyard Movement and part of the Brownsville Revival and the Toronto Blessing and all that stuff. And he told me a good prophet would get about half of what he says right.
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Really? Half of what he says right? I've read quotations from charismatic leaders.
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Yeah, probably 85 % of the prophecies I've heard in my life are wrong. 85 % are wrong?
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To be a true prophet, you've got to get it all right. Summarizing God's disdain and the unspeakably great danger of false gospels which look to the law and not
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Christ for being saved, Paul summarizes in Galatians 5, 9, a little leaven leavens the whole lump.
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You hear what he's saying? Can't tolerate little deviations here and there on that. Arthur W. Pink said this, quote,
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The general characteristic of false prophets is that they make vital godliness to be a less strict and easier thing than it actually is.
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More agreeable to fallen human nature. And thus they encourage the unregenerate to be satisfied with something which comes short of true grace.
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So the Pharisees did, notwithstanding all their strictness. So the Papists do, notwithstanding all their boasted austerities.
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So Arminians do, notwithstanding all their seeming zeal for good works. So the Antinomians do, notwithstanding their pretended superior light and joy, zeal and confidence.
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This is the common mark of all false teachers. Rejecting the divine way, they manufacture one to suit themselves.
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And however they may differ among themselves, they all agree to make the practice of piety in the Christian walk an easier thing than the scriptures do.
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To offer salvation on cheaper terms. To make the gate wider in the way to heaven, broader than Christ and the apostles did.
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It is this which explains the secret of their popularity. They are of the world.
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Therefore they speak of the world and the world hears them. But of such Christ warned his people, beware for they feed souls with poison and not with the pure milk of the word."
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I'd like to point out ways in which two of those groups that he mentioned there do this. The Arminians.
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What about the Arminians? What about historic Arminian theology? The Arminians placed the decisive point of salvation into the hands of men.
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Acting independently of God. They tell men that they have the power, whenever they desire to do so, to make themselves born again
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Christians. The great Charles Hodge said, no more soul destroying doctrine could be devised than to communicate to man the idea that he has the power in himself to regenerate himself whenever he pleases.
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Listen to what it goes on here about the Arminians. All they need to do is make a decision. All they need to do is resist a little less and make that mental move toward Christ and then all will be well.
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If I really thought that was true, I would eat, drink and be merry and made sure three minutes before I died that I did that. Jesus come into my heart now and then go to heaven.
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This error has given us what is known today as the non lordship view of salvation. The idea that once you've exercised this autonomous choice, you're saved and you're saved no matter what.
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Even if you die professing atheism or no religion at all, no repentance, no discipleship, no following Christ.
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You have the power to make yourself a Christian by a free will decision. And once this is done, you're a Christian. You're going to have the number of souls that have been destroyed by that, by the lack of being called to repent, to take up their cross and follow
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Christ. The number of people destroyed by that is unimaginable. How many people do you know who have walked an aisle, prayed a prayer, committed their life to Christ and never darkened the door of a church again, never opened a
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Bible again, never showed the slightest concern for holiness, but they are smugly confident that they're going to heaven.
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I have family members like that. Family who are lost, but they were lied to.
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They were told, you're good to go. You walked the aisle, you prayed the magic prayer. And they can worship
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God their own way by contemplating trees and clouds from their fishing boat on Sunday morning, or by trying to win other golfers to Jesus on Sunday mornings.
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Don't give me that. Papists and Roman Catholics. Plays to the natural man's already existing beliefs, much the same way that the
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Pharisees always did as well. Rome tells people, as long as they haven't done anything really, really bad, like murder someone, join the
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Nazi party, committed adultery, or performed an abortion, that the sanctifying grace that was ex -operato infused into your soul through baptism is going to keep you out of hell.
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Sure, you may have to spend a little time in purgatory, being scrubbed down to get ready to go into heaven, but you're going to end up in heaven eventually.
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This is, of course, what every fallen person who has never been to church and never read the
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Bible already believes anyway, isn't it? I'm a nice person. I've never done anything really bad.
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That's the religion of the natural man. You ready for the religion of the natural man? Here it is. Be a decent person and you'll go to heaven.
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Be better than notorious criminals and all will be well when you die. Think of it. How many times have you heard non -Christians assert their confidence, oh,
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God's not angry with me about anything. I've never done any really big sin. Catholicism also denies the sufficiency of faith alone in Christ alone to save the sinner.
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This is the characteristic hallmark of all false prophets. One way or the other, they will get around to denying the justification that entering heaven is by faith in Christ alone and not by works.
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They will trumpet with the loudest possible voice, however, that you need Jesus. Jesus is great.
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Couldn't be saved without him. But they will always, always, always have the sinner in the final analysis, looking to his own obedience to the law as the decisive factor and their ultimate entrance into heaven.
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Listen to Jesus again. Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.
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I want you to think about that illustration just for a moment. It is hard to imagine a greater mismatch between a predator and its prey.
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What could a sheep do against a ravenous wolf in the wild? What's going to happen if those two go up against each other?
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What can that sheep do? Nothing. It can't outrun it. It can't outsmart it. It can't turn and bite it.
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This is what the shepherds of the church are there for, to beat away the wolves.
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The shepherds are to protect those who need protecting. What is Jesus emphasizing to us here?
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The incredible danger of false prophets. A wolf versus a sheep.
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Without protection, that sheep will be killed and eaten. And brethren, if we don't recognize that they will always be around and that they will always be attempting to infiltrate and ruin sheep, then we ourselves are fools.
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We're just not listening. We're not listening to the word of God. It says this constantly. Watch out for this.
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Jesus said, beware. Now look at Luke 6, 43. For a good tree does not bear bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit.
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For every tree is known by its fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they gather grapes from a bramble bush.
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A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good, and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil.
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For out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks. So folks,
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I want you to think about something. Congregation, what are the fruits by which false prophets are known? I've got three here.
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Number one, their beliefs. Their beliefs are one of the fruits, by which you can tell what someone says is true about Jesus, about the gospel, about how you get to heaven.
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Their beliefs is one of the fruits you got to judge. Number two, their personal character. Their personal character.
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And then third, the nature of their converts. The nature of their converts. True prophets preach according to Scripture.
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False prophets don't. They twist and distort Scripture for their own purposes. They'll pull a little phrase out of here, a little phrase out of there, from a context that has nothing to do with the way they're using it, and they'll use them like mantras.
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John Piper does that with 2 Thessalonians 2 .13 and Hebrews 12 .14. We've been chosen for salvation and sanctification of the spirit, belief in the truth.
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The passage has nothing to do with salvation. Nothing. Hebrews 12 .14, pursue holiness, without which no one will see the
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Lord. He takes that to mean, see, you're finally saved and get into heaven by pursuing holiness. It's not what the passage says.
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It's not what it means. False prophets twist and distort Scripture. The daily walk of true prophets will be an example of practical godliness, consistency, and piety.
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It doesn't mean they're sinless. But the daily walk of false prophets will not be. In the history of the church, it is remarkable to see the consistently immoral lives lived by heretics and by false teachers.
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This is not to say that the people of God never sin and never fall into great sin. They sometimes do. They sometimes did.
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But as a general rule, the bad guys' lives tended to be very chaotic and marked by almost constant scandal and immorality.
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They can be known by their fruit. Just remember that key warning again. 1 Timothy 5 .24. What an important verse.
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Paul said, Some men's sins are clearly evident, preceding them to judgment. When Benny Hinn lives like a king and stays in five -star hotels that are $12 ,000 a night with a woman he's not married to, some men's sins are clearly evident, preceding them to judgment.
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But those of some follow later. Some are much more difficult to detect. And Paul is saying, You've got to watch for both.
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For some, the sheep outfit is so tightly woven, it fits them like a glove. Always judge everyone with charity, folks.
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But remember what we just walked through together last week. Judge not, and you will not be judged.
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Condemn not, and you will not be condemned. Forgiven, you will be forgiven. Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye but don't perceive the plank in your own eye?
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How can you say to your brother, Brother, let me remove the speck that's in your eye when you yourself don't see the plank that's in your own eye?
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Hypocrite. First remove the plank from your own eye, then you will be able to see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.
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But eventually we do have to get to where we're going to pass the judgment on someone. Be charitable.
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Be quick to hear. Slow to speak. Slow to wrath. Slow to judge. Look for fruit over the long haul.
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Some people's sins are clear and evident, but others follow later. Some are just flat out reprehensible on the side of God.
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Others, their sheep outfit is much more tightly woven than others.
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Just remember, those who do the most damage to the church are people in the church. It's not the attacks from the outside, it's always what arises from within.
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In dealing with fatal error on the gospel, Paul gives us a critically important term and a text that we need to remember.
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Galatians 2, 4, and 5. You want to write that reference down? I've got it in your Thoughts for Salvation meditation. Paul said, and this occurred because of false brethren.
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That word, false brethren, it's one Greek word. False brethren, secretly brought in, who came in by stealth to spy on our liberty, which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage.
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So these people pretended to be Christians just to get into the church to bring people into bondage. And Paul said, to whom we did not yield submission even for an hour.
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As soon as they got the gospel wrong, we denounced them. That the truth of the gospel might continue with you, he says.
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You see, anyone can learn the lingo in the talk. Anyone can learn the lingo. But one way or another, our deeds will eventually find us out.
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There was a very well -spoken, high -profile Christian leader who spoke at a college campus not too long ago and spoke in front of a very hostile, anti -Christian faculty member, professor of philosophy.
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And one of that professor's Christian students asked him, so what did you think of so -and -so's talks? And he responded with only two sentences.
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He said, I thought they were very persuasive. I wonder what he's like in his private life. The gospel of Jesus Christ and the word of God are a fixed and unchanging message from God.
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That preached gospel is the power of God unto salvation. Christianity is doctrine at its core.
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It is a doctrine that results in a life. But remember that those who truly believe that blessed message of a full and free salvation and those who have repented of their sin and with the help of Christ are putting that sin to death and pursuing holiness, they will show that fruit to the world and to other people and to themselves.
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Every year that we've been here at this church, every year since we moved here, those apple trees up there by the manse, those apple trees have attracted the attention of my younger children.
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And every time there's stuff growing on them, they always ask me, can we go over there and pick some apples from the apple trees at the manse?
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And they would never think to ask or wonder if those things growing on those trees that they see at a distance are anything other than apples because that's what those things are.
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There's a real sense in which our lives demonstrate whether we are good trees or bad trees.
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And even if everyone around us sees that we're a good tree, but we ourselves know we're a bad tree, that can be a disconcerting thing.
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Is your life focused on yourself or does its fruit sustain, help, and encourage and bring light and grace and truth to other people?
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Are you a fruit bearing tree or a heap of chaff? That's Psalm 1's comparison. Do you carry with you the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self -control, which are the inevitable fruit of the
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Holy Spirit's presence in you? Those are the things that God always bears in our lives.
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Now, I want to do a massive gear shift now. Okay, shifting gears, big time. I want to make one final point along these lines.
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To those of you who are soft -hearted, to those of you who are sad, who look at your life and say,
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I don't see a whole lot of this fruit that you're talking about here, I want to speak to you directly. No matter how a true believer in Christ may be feeling, even if they are very sad, very down, they feel very lost, depressed, brokenhearted, their life will still sustain others by its fruit.
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The fruit of God's work and the life of one of his own dear children, it's not primarily feelings. The fruit born on the trees of the
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Lord will be seen and will be a blessing to others, no matter how we may presently be feeling.
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You can be feeling all those things in the depth of your soul and still be a wonderful and godly fruit -bearing tree.
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People who are broken, who are sad, are often the best at loving others because doing so brings them the next fruit in that list, joy.
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When the exiled Israelites returned to Jerusalem and they rebuilt the wall, they confessed their sins and it said that they wept hard.
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They wept hard for the better part of a day. That huge throng of people, they celebrated the
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Feast of Tabernacles and it says that they were weeping over their sin and thinking about how bad they had been.
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And then Nehemiah told all those weeping, crying people who were wondering, could
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God really ever love us again after how bad we've been? Nehemiah told them after seeing their repentance, he said to them, go your way, eat the fat, drink the sweet and send portions to those for whom nothing is prepared for this day is holy to the
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Lord. Do not sorrow for the joy of the Lord is your strength.
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Those who find themselves often in darkness will often be that much more thankful for the promise of eternal happiness.
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Those hurt by the unkindness of others will often find much more joy in showing kindness to others.
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Those who have been roughly treated will find themselves gentle and gracious to all around them and joyful.
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I don't have to live my life the way that people treated me. Those wearied by the utterly unsatisfying lies offered by sin will develop a greater measure of self -control when those temptations rear their heads.
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Don't you think for a second that the poor, the mourning and the hungry are not in themselves fruit bearing trees for their families, for their church and for the world.
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You may think your life is not a testimony to the grace, presence, reality and forgiveness of Christ because you're in a season where you don't feel a whole lot of joy.
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You don't feel much happiness. You feel little sense that anything that you do makes any difference. Please believe that even in your darkest moments and deepest sadness, that God's intention is merely to make your faith and confidence in Christ shine that much brighter on the other side of it.
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And there is another side of it. Psalm 51 7, The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart.
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These, O God, you will not despise. Never believe it, dear congregation, that your heartaches are forgotten or that Jesus does not measure out every tear that he decrees to fall from your eyes.
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Are you a good tree or are you a bad tree? How can God reap any fruit useful from my life when
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I feel like this? Listen to God's promise in Psalm 126 verse 5. Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy.
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He who continually goes forth weeping, bearing seed for sowing. You hear what he's saying there?
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The tears of your sadness are like seeds sown in the ground in your life. Shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.
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So folks, I want to tell you, if you're a true believer, if you're a good tree, if you're a Christian, happy or sad, hopeful or hopeless, walking high on the clouds with the sun shining on your face or traversing in the valley of the shadow of death.
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Remember these words from the one who bled and died to bring it to you, to bring you that peace. Remember this. I just want to close with this.
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Please hear this. Let this penetrate to your heart this day. Jesus said, therefore
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I say to you, do not worry about your life.
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What you will eat or what you will drink nor about your body, what you will put on is not life more than food in the body, more than clothing.
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Look at the birds of the air for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns just your heavenly father feeds them.
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Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
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So why do you worry about clothing? And I would add, why do you worry about anything at all? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow.
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They neither toil nor spin. Yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
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Now if God still clothes the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you?
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Oh, you of little faith, therefore do not worry. Saying, what shall we eat?
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What shall we drink? Or what shall we wear? For after all these things the Gentiles seek for your heavenly father knows that you need all these things.
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And then here's the verse. Let it define your existence, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.
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Why do you have to say that to us? Because we want to seek everything else first. I've got this issue.
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I've got that issue. I've got this issue with one of my children. I've got this issue with this person, with that person, with this thing going on in my life, with my health, and our sinful hearts, our doubting hearts, our hardwired to want to look at everything else.
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And Jesus says, you just stay focused on seeking me and my righteousness. All these things shall be added to you.
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Don't look at all those other things. Take your eyes off those other things. Focus on God and his righteousness.
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And then all these other things will fall into place. I'll take care of them. Don't worry. Therefore, I love this.
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You have to wonder, what must it have been like to be, let's say a Pharisee or a teacher of the law or a godly
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Jewish person standing there listening to this for the very first time. He says, therefore do not worry about tomorrow.
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For tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
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They had to have heard that and thought, extraordinary. There is someone who understands the heart of God.
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What's the heart of God for you? Don't worry about anything. You take care of the duties that are yours today and you sleep like a baby.
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Sleep like the birds that don't worry if there's going to be mosquitoes and worms. Sleep like the flowers that have no thoughts at all.
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They can't even worry about clothes and yet they're faithfully clothed by God. You don't see an occasional daffodil, an occasional wildflower that doesn't have those beautiful leaves.
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They always do. And God is saying, just look at nature. Look all around you. Don't you see my tender mercy over everything
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I made and I've redeemed you and you're my own. Don't worry about anything ever. So if you're thinking, well,
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I've done a little fruit inspection and I don't see a whole lot of it and I feel sad and I feel down. That sadness and that downness, that brokenness over sin, that's what gives rise to those other fruits.
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You know why? Because it forces us to lean upon Jesus Christ and nothing else.
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So whatever God decrees to come to pass in my life that brings that about, that's good.
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That's good. That's bright. Father, we thank you that in your sovereign decree in Providence, which we often don't understand, which vexes us, it's all a call to us to stop worrying and to learn to trust you more.
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You bear that fruit in our lives, that love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness.
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Lord, whatever burdens, whatever troubles, whatever sorrows, whatever heartaches or joys and happiness that we brought in here today, may we see it all as part of your loving and sovereign plan that we would be those fruit -bearing trees, those good trees that bear fruit, that sustain and help and encourage and build up all who know us.
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And we pray that you would keep our eyes focused on Jesus Christ always and him alone. We ask in his name.
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Amen. This is
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Pastor Patrick Hines of Brittle Heights Presbyterian Church located at 108 Brittle Heights Road in Kingsport, Tennessee.
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And you've been listening to the Protestant Witness Podcast. Please feel free to join us for worship any Sunday morning at 11 a .m.
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sharp where we open the Word of God together, sing his praises and rejoice in the gospel of our risen Lord. You can find us on the web at www .brittleheightspca
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.org And may the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you.