Matthew 7:12-20, How Do You Tell the Difference?, Dr. John B. Carpenter

Matthew chapter 7, we'll be reading verses 12 to 20. Hear the

Word of the Lord. So, whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the law and the prophets.

Enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.

For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

Beware false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles?

So every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.

A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

Thus, you will recognize them by their fruits. May the

Lord add His blessings to the reading of His Holy Word. Can you tell the difference?

You know, some things look alike, but are actually different. Like alligators and crocodiles, llamas and alpacas, turtles and tortoises, shrimp and prawns, crows and ravens, seals and sea lions, dolphins and porpoises, frogs and toads, mushrooms and toadstools.

Sometimes knowing the difference between two things is just academic, like between alligators and crocodiles, both can eat you.

Sometimes it can save you loss, like if you wanted to start an alpaca ranch and you started with a female alpaca and then you bought accidentally a male llama and it won't work.

And sometimes knowing the difference can save your life, like not eating toadstools, which can be poisonous if you thought they were mushrooms.

It's important to be able to tell the difference between things. Can you tell the difference between false teachers and true ones, especially since the false prophets are in sheep's clothing?

In other words, they look like sheep. They look like one of God's people, but inwardly they are something else.

They're a predator of God's people. It's important for you to be able to tell the difference.

For example, Charles Taze Russell, born in 1852 in Pennsylvania, raised a

Presbyterian, then a Congregationalist, and then became caught up in end times speculations, you know about the

Bible, the Book of Revelation, that kind of thing. He founded the Bible Student Movement. Sounds very serious, right?

It's spiritual, doesn't it? Like someone who's really interested in Scripture, you would assume that he's an earnest, well -meaning searcher for God, a sheep.

In his self -study, he concluded that the traditional doctrines of the Trinity and hell and others were not scriptural.

He believed that Jesus had been made divine, kind of a small -g God, after dying on the cross.

So there was a time when he was not God. And Russell also taught that the Holy Spirit is not a person but a force.

He founded the Jehovah's Witnesses. Now you know, just with a name, hopefully, a red flag should go up.

They're false prophets. But would you know if you lived around the year of 1900 when people from the

Bible Student Movement started coming to you, door to door, knocked on your door with copies of their Watchtower magazine?

More recently, Rob Bell was born in 1970, graduated from Fuller Theological Seminary, my alma mater, that's a good sign, and founded

Mars Hill Bible Church in Michigan in 1999, which quickly grew to over 6 ,000 people.

You might think, wow, all those people going, he must be good. You might think he's a genuine Christian teacher. In 2011,

Bell released a book entitled Love Wins. Not like a great book, done it? Arguing that we should be open to the idea that God's love eventually wins all people so that everyone is saved, no one is eventually destroyed, contrary to Jesus.

John Piper responded with a simple three -word post on Twitter, farewell, Rob Bell.

But the Love Wins motto sounds so appealing and positive, even Christian something. Even here in Danville, I saw bumper stickers on cars leased by a local church, got into it, said

Love Wins, and then the name of the church on it. You think, well, who wants to oppose that? Don't you want to be for love winning?

People couldn't see anything wrong with it. Recently, according to a report, Bell is selling a two -day seminar that you can go to listen to him.

Ironically, it's called discernment sessions for $600 per person. Do you have the discernment to know what is wrong with that?

Can you tell the difference? Here we're told four ways we can tell the difference. First, the rule.

Second, the roads. Third, the ravenous. And finally, the rotten. First, there's a rule that we can use to tell the truth from the false.

We call it the golden rule, and it sums up, Jesus told us in verse 12, all the law and the prophets.

That means the Old Testament. Remember, we talked about that in chapter 5. All the teaching of the Old Testament laws, like the

Ten Commandments, from you shall have no other gods, to the do not covet, and all the prophets, like what does the

Lord require of you but to do justice, to love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. And all of that,

Jesus is saying here, is summed up by the golden rule of Jesus. Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them.

It means that your desires for yourself are the measure you use for how you treat others.

You desire to be treated with respect, so you treat others with respect. You desire to be cared for, so you care for others.

You desire others to keep their promises to you, so you keep your promises to others. You desire not to be enslaved, so you don't enslave others.

You desire not to be aborted before you're born, so you don't do it to others. That's the way it works.

It's really an easy rule. Now, some people say that all religions are basically the same. Even Rob Bell wrote,

I affirm the truth in any religious system, in any worldview. If it's true, it belongs to God. Okay, that's true.

Just take it by itself. I kind of believe that. That's not necessarily wrong, but it leaves the impression that all religions lead to God.

At least it gives you that idea, and it doesn't warn about the fact that other religions can use truths to lead away from God, like bait on a fishing hook.

Right? You put bait on a fishing hook, not to feed the fish, but to attract it, to hook it.

For example, other religions teach something that sounds like the golden rule. Confucius said, do not do unto others what you would not want others to do unto you.

Buddha said, whatever is disagreeable to yourself, do not do unto others.

In Hinduism, they say, one should never do something to others that one would regard as an injury to one's own self.

Right? All those are true, right? It's true, but can you tell the difference between those rules and the golden rule?

Those are called the silver rule. Don't do to others what you don't want done to yourself.

It's the silver rule. It's about avoiding harm. It's passive. In contrast, the golden rule of Jesus is proactive, is for proactive kindness, positive action toward others.

Don't throw someone into a lake who can't swim. Well, so they say, the Confucian gentleman would never throw a child who couldn't swim into a lake.

But if he was walking past the lake, and there was a child in it drowning, he would let the child drown.

He's not obligated to do anything for the child. Just don't harm him or her. But Jesus said, you would want someone to help you.

You would want someone to take action, to take the initiative to help you if you were drowning. So you should do the same for someone else.

The silver rule is just passive, about avoiding inflicting harm on others.

It's really kind of easy. The golden rule is active, about looking for what you can do.

Positive for others. Can you see the difference? Jesus said in the beginning of the sermon in chapter 5, verse 17, do not think that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets.

Don't imagine that he's come to evoke the teaching of the Old Testament and replace it with something new and something different.

Here he ends, really basically come near the end of the Sermon on the Mount, with his golden rule, by insisting that it is not different from the

Old Testament teaching, but that it sums it all up. This, he says, this rule is the law and the prophets.

Second, the roads. How do you tell the difference? Well, look at the roads. There are two of them.

There's only two. One goes to life and the other goes to destruction. But how do you tell the difference?

Well, you might think since everyone wants to go the way to life and no one wants to go to destruction, then the big gate, the big gate with a wide road after it, that must be the one to life.

It's made to carry as many people as it can, but it's not. Enter by the narrow gate, in verse 13.

Two things that describe the road to destruction. First, the gate is wide that leads to destruction.

It's designed for maximum traffic. You can get a lot of stuff through that gate to fit as many people as you can with all their luggage and their

U -Haul trailers, and you can go through that gate. Like the 6 ,000 people who went to Rob Bell's church.

You might want to go the Buddhist way, where you say that all the world is maya, it's illusion, and you should see that.

You should be enlightened and then overcome your desires. You like that? Well, you could go that way to destruction.

Or maybe you want to go the hedonist way, where all you live for is pursuing your desires.

You like that? Well, you can go the broad way, too. There's a way for you. You want to go the materialist way, where all you live for is money and the things that it can buy?

You can fit on the road, too. There's a lane for you. It's the materialist lane. The Buddhist lane, the materialist lane, all going the same way.

They sound like they contradict, but they lead to the same destination. Or you may go your own way. You'll be the master of your fate, the captain of your soul.

Well, there's a lane for you, just for you. The lane to destruction is diverse, with a lane for however you want to live, whatever you want to believe, whatever you want to do.

It's broad enough to accommodate all the ways we might want to go. I looked up on the

Internet. The broad, the widest road. There's a highway in China, 50 lanes wide.

That's a big lane. And then it narrows down to four. Get a traffic jam when it does that. But 50 lanes wide.

That's the way to destruction. 50 lanes. Lane for everything you want. Second, the gate is easy that leads to destruction.

The way to destruction has no demands. Does it require any discipline of you? You don't have to take up your cross.

You don't have to deny yourself anything. Whatever you want, you can have it on the way to destruction.

You can get to destruction by any way you choose. Even by not choosing. Just by waking up every morning and doing whatever you feel like that day.

In fact, if it's just you choosing to go your own way, following your own whims and will, you can be sure you are going to destruction.

C .S. Lewis wrote, the safest road to hell is the gradual one. The gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.

That is the beginning is easy. A smooth, level, comfortable path with no curbs, no restrictions, no speed bumps, no traffic laws.

There's lots of people going that way, enjoying the trip. And that big road lets them take anything they want.

They can bring their U -Haul with all the stuff they live for in it. Well, the beginning is easy, but the end is hard.

And those who enter by it, the gate to destruction, Jesus says, are many.

We might think destruction is only for a few. It's like being expelled from school or getting the death penalty. It's this threat out there.

But only a very few rare people actually get it, the ones with bad lawyers or whatever. But here

Jesus says, destruction is not rare. It's common. Many go that way.

It's exactly the opposite of our way of thinking today. We think of the bandwagon effect, that if 90 % of the people are doing something, it must be good.

If most of the people are eating that or wearing this, well, then I should too.

I want to be where most of the people are. If there's a crowd somewhere, there must be something good or interesting there.

If everyone's watching that fight on Friday night, I will too. If a lot of people are going to listen to that musician or that band or watch that movie or that play or that performance or that game, well, it must be good.

So many people, it must be good. The pastor with 6 ,000 church members, well, he must be good. The politicians always tell us that the polls show that they are leading.

It's close, but I'm leading because they know that the people want to be where most of the people are. Contrary to all those assumptions, this way we naturally think, the majority must be right.

Jesus here tells us that one way we can tell the difference between the road to destruction and the road to life is that the road to destruction has a lot more traffic.

That 50 -lane road, lots of traffic. It's crowded. It's popular. Notice where all the roads are going.

Contrary to Rob Bell, it's going to destruction. That's what the Greek word means. Destruction means ruin, means loss, means perishing.

It's not just the destruction of the stuff or the money or the thrills we live for. It's what we saw earlier this year in Thessalonians, remember?

The eternal destruction of ourselves. How can destruction be eternal? It goes on forever, being destroyed.

That's what Jesus teaches. And one way you can tell true teachers from false ones is if they teach it too.

But there's another path, the road to life. It also has two characteristics in verse 14, and they're the opposite of the ones to destruction.

First, the gate is narrow that leads to life. The word there, narrow, means small or tight, like tight squeeze, tight squeeze on the way to life.

You're not gonna be able to get to life with a lot of luggage, trying to carry all the stuff you acquired.

No, no U -Hauls on the way to life. If you spent your life indulging yourself, you're gonna have to trim down to make it through.

You also don't get through in groups just because you're part of a group. No group entrances because your parents were believers or your family is

Christian. No, you have to go by yourself. It's single file. You have to come by yourself with your own faith.

Second, the way is hard. Literally, the Greek word there means compressed, like by pressure.

If you go the way to life, you'll be squeezed by hardship sometimes. Sometimes hardships you would not have experienced if you went the broad, easy way.

They don't experience the hardships you do if you're going the way to life. You might lose money because you made pursuing the

Lord, seeking first his kingdom, more important than making a little more money on Sunday morning.

You might be criticized by your family for putting the Lord ahead of success. They might accuse you of being selfish when you're really seeking

God. You might be pressured to put money -making ahead of the Lord. The hard way takes some strain.

It's arduous. When we come to the gate of the celestial city, we'll find it is very narrow, that we can't bring in any of the baggage or the sins or our proud religious accomplishments that we've been carrying around.

I went to church so many times throughout my life. I earned my way in. No, we have to lay them down. We get only in through Jesus.

He is the door. No one enters except through him. We have to lay down our own sense of self -righteousness and trust in the perfect life and sacrifice of Christ.

He's the one who earned the way in for us. He is the narrow path to life.

Can you tell the difference between true and false prophets? Third, a third way to tell is that the false prophets are ravenous.

Instead of being sheep, false prophets are ravenous wolves. Beginning in verse 15, the

Lord Jesus tells us, beware of false prophets. Now this doesn't just apply to people who claim to be prophets, because we read this with, well,

I don't know anyone that claims to be prophets, so I don't know any true or false ones. No, it doesn't just apply to the people who stand up saying, you know, thus sayeth the

Lord, as though they have a prophecy. But it applies to anyone who teaches or leads, who says that he has, he or she has a revelation or a truth that you should accept, that this is the way to life, this is the way to be a good person.

False prophets are the missionaries who knock at your door, perhaps clean -cut looking boys in their late teens with a nice iron white shirt and a sharp looking tie and a name tag that says, oddly enough, that they're an elder.

Wait, there's 19 year old boys and elder? Okay, I don't get that. Or false prophets are those inviting you to Bible study with them, using their

New World Translation, and leaving you with a copy of their Watch Tower magazine. And the fruit of their lives is to see people thinking they have to do the same kind of false prophesying in order to be saved.

It's kind of like a pyramid scheme. You get in and make others who make others get in.

That's how you get into heaven. Or a false prophet could be the secular professor at college who says that you could have your truth, your truth is good enough, that you are what you identify as.

It is true if it's true for you. The only false statement is the statement that there are false statements, which means that's a false statement.

Or a false prophet could be the sweet old lady who says that any behavior is fine, except pointing out that some behavior is not fine.

Or a false prophet could be a TV preacher using the Bible to tell you that you can use God to get rich and healthy.

You can get everything you've always wanted, if, of course, one thing you got to do, remember to send him a check, big check.

Or it could be the amiable friend who tells you that he just wants to have a good time, that's all.

Why be so hung up? Why stick to that narrow path? Or it could even be the respectable church member who, the last thing he wants to hear is that he is a sinner who cannot please

God by all his religious that he's done, all his religious works, but he has earned the eternal wrath of God, eternal destruction, if he does not trust in what

Jesus did for him on the cross. If he doesn't trust in that, what he does for himself can't help him.

How do you tell the difference between false prophets and the true ones? Well, Jesus says in the second half of verse 15, they come to you in sheep's clothing.

In other words, in disguise. They're camouflaged. So we're told, Jesus is telling us, sometimes it will be hard to tell the difference.

False prophets look like good people. They will come to you with the guise that you're most likely to accept in a way that appeals to you.

Like talking about how love wins. That sounds great, doesn't it? Perhaps you like the party life.

So the false prophet is waking up right now from a wild Saturday night and logging on to Facebook, inviting you to join him.

You like the clean -cut conservative look. Well, they'll come right to your door. Here they are wolves in sheep's clothing.

In other words, they look harmless. They look like one of us. So they'll say they only want to do

Bible study with you. But they are really ravenous, meaning rapacious, aggressively greedy.

They're grasping. They're grasping for what's yours. Maybe for your money, maybe for your freedom, for your soul.

They're like a robber, except instead of stealing from you with a gun, they're stealing from you with false doctrine.

Camouflaging themselves as someone you that you can trust and then getting you to give them what they really want.

Maybe your money to make them rich, like Rob Bell selling his books, telling people, modern people, that they don't really have to believe anything that's unpopular these days.

They don't have to repent of anything. And then, of course, give him $600 for a discernment session.

One way to tell if they are really a ravenous wolf is what they consume. What are they devouring?

Wolves like to feed on sheep. But in the natural world, you know, wolves aren't able to disguise themselves to look like sheep.

But in the supernatural world, our predators are able to do that. They are able to make themselves look like one of us.

But you can spot them by what they're devouring. How do you tell the difference between the false prophets and the true ones?

The fourth, rotten fruit. Jesus says in verse 16, you will recognize them by their fruits.

This is the prophets, the truth from the false ones. Russell, Charles Russell, the founder of the

Jehovah's Witnesses, had a wife, Maria, who filed for divorce under a claim of mental cruelty.

In other words, she said he was inflicting mental cruelty on her. That's rotten fruit. Rob Bell tells people in sexual sin that God accepts them just as they are.

They don't have to repent of anything. That's rotten fruit. Just like a wolf in sheep's clothing, a good and a bad tree.

You know, they can look the same, right? I couldn't see what a good apple tree looks different from a bad apple tree.

They begin by looking identical. We can tell them apart by what they produce. Jesus says twice in verse 16 and 20, you will recognize them by their fruit.

Notice the way he repeats that. That's for emphasis. Get this lesson through your head. Recognize them by their fruit.

When that fruit appears, you'll be able to tell if they're good or bad trees, true or false prophets. In verse 16,

Jesus says, are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? You're looking for grapes to go to the thorn bush? No, of course not.

You don't go to a thorn bush and expecting something, anything good. You'll get scratched is all you'll get. By its nature, it produces only thorns.

It's what comes out of thorn bushes. By the same principle in verse 17, every healthy tree bears good fruit.

It's just what it does. It's in its nature. Not that it becomes a healthy tree by bearing good fruit, but that by bearing good fruit, it demonstrates that it is a healthy tree.

Now, some people think that they can make themselves good people by doing good works. They think, I got some problems.

I need to do these good works. And once I've done them, then I'll be a good person. But the truth is that they cannot do good works unless first they are good people.

So what they need is to have their nature changed to be different people, to be born again.

They must have it in their nature for goodness to issue out of them. In verse 18, the Lord Jesus says emphatically, a healthy tree cannot.

Notice that, verse 18. Cannot. In other words, it is unable. It does not have the ability.

It lacks the power to bear bad or rotten fruit.

It's just naturally impossible. Impossible for a good tree to bear bad fruit just by its nature.

It can't. Now, in our more complicated lives, we may fall into sin like in 1st

John. If you say you're without sin, you're lying, 1st John says. But you won't continue in sin.

1st John also says that. You will bear the fruit, the good fruit, of repentance if you have a new nature.

You've been born again. The fruit is an expression of what the tree is. And then he says, nor,

Jesus says, nor can a disease or a corrupt or rotten tree bear good fruit.

It is not able. Again, doesn't have the ability as a bad tree to make good fruit, can get its willpower up.

I'm going to bear good apple this time. Squeeze out an apple. It's still bad. You can nag it.

You can discipline it. You beat that tree. You bore a bad apple. You can yell at it.

But no matter what you do, a bad tree will not produce good fruit.

Jesus tells us the only solution, Matthew chapter 12, verse 33, make the tree good.

You must be made into something different, converted, born again.

So what you produce shows what you have the capacity to do. We don't have the ability to produce what is not in us already.

Now, sure, some people will appear to be something they really are not. For some, that's what their religion is all about.

It's all about putting wool over their wolf natures. So they wear a wool coat over their wolf heart, putting plastic fruit on their branches.

So they look like good trees, but then you come up to that fruit. That's a plastic apple. But eventually you'll be able to tell that what comes out of them.

Their fruit is the impact of their lives. Do they tend to make themselves and make other people live for the

Lord to trust in Him, alone for their salvation, to get on and continue on that narrow path to life?

Or does it push people away? Or maybe encourages people. Go on that broad road to destruction.

It's so much easier. You don't have to repent of anything. Everyone's doing it. All these 6 ,000 people are doing it. Now here, doctrine matters.

Someone who does not believe in the Jesus here, the true Jesus of Scripture, and follow

Him cannot be a true prophet or a good tree. So we have our statement of faith, and we have the

Nicene Creed we recite once a month to help you to tell the difference. This is what good trees believe.

Or someone may believe the truth. They may recite the Creed, but they're so obnoxious and judgmental about it that he or she drives people away from the

Lord. So that also is bad, rotten fruit. Remember Sarah Ruth beating

Parker's back? Remember her? We hear the Lord Jesus repeats it twice in verses 16 and 20.

We know them by their fruit, not just by what they say.

We have so much confusion about this today because we've ignored what Jesus here repeated twice.

We've been dispensing assurance of salvation, telling people you're saved because they made a confession based merely on what they say.

They say they believe in Jesus. Well, they don't know much about Him because they've never been interested enough to find out.

But they say, unenthusiastically of course, that they believe in Him. And so they are those, there are many then in the church now who will assure them confidently because they said the right thing, that they are saved.

But Jesus right here says, we know true prophets, and I think we can assume truly saved people, by their fruit, by how they live, by their obeying

Jesus. For example, one thing Jesus commands is, be baptized. Do they obey

Him in that? Well, if so, that's a good fruit. If they don't, that's a bad fruit.

We know someone is bearing good fruit by how they live. Are they obeying Jesus? Not just by their words, by what they say.

They may talk sweetly about how they love Jesus, but if they have no hungering and thirsting for righteousness, no work to extend the kingdom of God to every part of their lives, to their dating, to their marriage, their entertainment habits, their use of money, they're seeking

God more than dollars. Are they seeking to be ruled by God? If they don't have that, then don't give them assurance of salvation.

Jesus doesn't do that here. This is the good fruit. It's what we believe and what we teach, how it influences others, and the fruit of a life over which

God is ruling more and more of. But if we don't have that fruit, He says in verse 19, we're in trouble.

Every tree, every single one, He says, that doesn't bear good fruit.

Notice that. Every tree, let's say most of the trees, some of the trees, some of the really bad trees we're going to cut down and throw in the fire.

No, every tree that doesn't bear good fruit is thrown into the fire. And fire there is a picture of God's judgment of hell, contrary to what

Russell and Bill taught, Jesus taught that there is a hell. Every single person who went down the broad, easy, popular road who consumed others, bore bad fruit, every single one is going to hell, is cut down and thrown into the fire.

How do you tell the difference about yourself, whether you are in the kingdom of God, whether you are a good tree going the narrow road to life?

Do you keep the rule, doing to others as you want done to yourself? Do you go the hard way?

That means sometimes you get pressured, you get criticized, you lose things, you sacrifice things.

Are you a sheep who hears the good shepherd's voice? Do you bear good fruit?

If not yet, just clothing yourself with wool, sheep's clothes, covering yourself with plastic fruit, it doesn't grow out of who you are.

You know, that won't work. Oh, you might fool others, might fool me, might even fool yourself, but you won't fool the good shepherd.

You don't need to go get a wool coat or fake fruit. You need a new nature so that you are a sheep, so that good fruit grows out of you.

You need to be converted into a sheep. You need

God to make you into a good tree, and only God can do that.