Wolves in Sheep's Clothing Matthew 7:15-20

Hell is a place reserved for the wicked.

Hell was first created by God as a judgment place for angels who rebelled against Him.

Matthew 25 -41 describes it as a place of fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

Satan and his demons were the first ones to sin, and the lake of fire became their tragic destiny.

After the fall of angels, humanity fell into sin. And what the Bible makes clear is that everyone who is not covered by the blood of Christ will be sent to this horrible place.

In previous sermons, I have talked about how there will be different degrees of punishments in hell.

Jesus described this in Luke 12, verses 47 and 48 when He said through this parable, that servant who knew his master's will but did not get ready or act according to his will will receive a severe beating.

But the one who did not know and did what deserved a beating will receive a light beating. The Bible makes clear there are different degrees of punishment.

The one that is more wicked will receive more punishment. The one who is less wicked will receive less.

It's not difficult to conclude that Satan's punishment and his demons' punishment will be greater than anyone else.

No one in the universe is more wicked than them. But we might wonder what type of people will follow in receiving the severest punishment.

The Hitlers of this world who killed millions of people will certainly be high on the list.

But the group we are going to look at today in the Sermon on the Mount, we would be right to conclude, is very high on this list in receiving the severest punishment.

This morning, we are going to look at false prophets who also go by the name of false teachers.

This is what the Apostle Peter wrote about these people in 2 Peter 2 verses 1 -3.

He wrote, False teachers will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction, and many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed.

And in their greed, they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

So as we see, the Bible describes God's righteous anger toward false teachers as a very intense anger.

And they will receive the punishment that they are due. But here is the frightening part and the question we need to ask.

Where are these teachers? And the frightening part is they're everywhere. We need wisdom from the

Lord to see who are the real ones from the false ones.

Who are the real teachers from the false teachers? This morning, Jesus is going to tell us how we can spot a true teacher from a false one.

So this time, I encourage you to turn in the Bible with me to Matthew chapter 7. We'll be looking at verses 15 -20.

And if you're using a red Bible in the pews, it's on page 965. This sermon is titled,

Wolves in Sheep's Clothing. And we are going to begin by reading the text.

Matthew 7 verses 15 -20. Beware of 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. This sermon is calling each of us to recognize the wolves in the church.

To recognize the wolves in the church. And we're going to see one warning sign in this text.

And we'll see that here as we get into this text more. But before we jump in, let me give you a little recap of where we were two

Sundays ago. We looked at the portion of the Sermon on the

Mount where Jesus describes things in twos. It started two weeks ago. We'll see it again today. Then we'll see it the next two

Sundays. These two categories. These two ways of looking at things in this life.

Last week, we saw the two paths. What we learned is that one path is wide and easy and many travel down it.

This is the path that leads to forever destruction. The other path is narrow and hard and few travel down it.

This is the path that all genuine believers of Christ travel down. The call of last week's sermon is to make sure,

I should say two weeks ago, is to make sure that you are on the narrow path that leads to everlasting life.

Now this leads us to our text this morning. We already read it, but now we're going to dig into it.

Let's look at verse 15 to start. Where Jesus says as He's talking to this crowd, as He's preaching to this crowd overlooking the

Sea of Galilee, He says, Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but angrily are ravenous wolves.

Now the crowd that Jesus is speaking to here, as I've mentioned before, is largely Jewish. Jesus is a

Jew and He's speaking to this Jewish crowd. They would have been accustomed to prophets.

They knew the Old Testament well. During the Old Testament period, they were true prophets and false prophets.

The responsibility of the Old Testament prophets was to foretell the

Word of God and to foretell the Word of God. Now those words sound very close together, right?

But they mean something different. To foretell was to proclaim His Word.

And to foretell was to proclaim something that the Lord was going to do in the future.

So a predictive prophecy. Prophets were judged by the reliability of their word.

This is what the Lord said about true prophets and false prophets in Deuteronomy 18.

Verses 18 through 22. He said, I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers.

And I will put my words in his mouth and he shall speak to them all that I command him.

And whoever will not listen to my words, that he shall speak in my name, I will myself require it of him.

But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.

And if you say in your hearts, how may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?

When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the

Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously.

You need not be afraid of him. Now the

Jewish crowd, listening to the Sermon on the Mount, knew there were true prophets and false prophets from what they learned from the

Old Testament as we just read. What is interesting about the Old Testament is that almost always the prophets were believers.

The one exception is Balaam, the son of Beor in the book of Numbers. And it's possible that even he became a believer.

But the general rule is that anyone speaking on behalf of the Lord in the

Old Testament was a believer. In New Testament times, anyone speaking on behalf of the

Lord would have been obviously a believer. The Jewish crowd would have known this.

They would have known true prophets and false prophets in their time. The apostles functioned as the primary prophets in New Testament times.

They proclaimed with 100 % accuracy the words of Christ to anyone who would listen.

And their letters were read in the churches in the first century. These letters are what we call the

New Testament. There were also others who had the gift of prophecy in the first century.

The Apostle Paul describes this gift in 1 Corinthians 12, verse 10. And as Jesus is preaching, this would have been about 30

AD. And he of course speaks to them as a true prophet.

And he would appoint apostles after him and gift other prophets with the ability to proclaim the word of God.

Because in the New Testament, the apostles were most like the prophets.

Although there were some other people who were also prophets during that time as well. But Jesus warns them that not everyone who claims to be from God is really from God.

As we already read from the Apostle Peter, false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you who will secretly bring in destructive heresies.

The Apostle Paul told young Timothy the passage that I read during the call to worship, where he told him that the time is coming where people will not endure sound doctrine, but they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.

Don't we see that in our world? Let's just find a teacher who tells us what we want to hear instead of what they need to hear.

What's interesting is that in the Bible times, the people who said the things that weren't popular, that people didn't want to hear, a lot of them were put to death.

A lot of them lived miserable lives. And so anybody who wants to be a teacher needs to realize that might be your life.

You need to teach what God tells you to teach, not what people want to hear, because things might not go well for you.

So you might want to think twice before becoming a teacher of the Word of God. Now as we have seen, we spot them by their teaching, and their teaching is showing a deeper problem about these people.

There's something seriously wrong with the heart of a false prophet or a false teacher.

I'm using these words interchangeably, these titles, false prophet, false teacher. But Jesus says in the second half of verse 15 that they come to you innocently.

He writes they come in sheep's clothing, but really they are ravenous wolves.

What Jesus is saying is that on the exterior, on the outside, they try to make themselves look like sheep.

Like they're good. They wouldn't do any harm. Right, I'm only here to help people.

I'm only here to love people. Really, they're evil. At first appearance, they look like sheep, but inwardly they are not sheep.

They are wolves. They have false motives for the position that they have put themselves in.

In the Bible, genuine believers are referred to as sheep, and these sheep are led by true shepherds.

They're supposed to be led by true shepherds. True shepherds are true teachers of God's Word.

This image is also in the Old Testament where God refers to his people as sheep.

Jesus says in John 10, 27, my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

It's interesting, if you drive a little bit east of here, southeast of here, past Randy and Sandy's place, up the hill, you'll notice that there's a sheep farm up there, hundreds of sheep.

Sheep and goats, in fact. Those sheep know the voice of their owner.

If any of us were to walk into that pen, they'd be like, this is a stranger. But when the shepherd comes, when their owner comes, they know his voice.

So do true believers. True believers recognize the voice of the true shepherd, and the voice of the true shepherd is heard when the

Bible is properly preached. Okay, so as long as I am proclaiming the Word of God as it is written, you are hearing the voice of the true shepherd, the chief shepherd,

Jesus Christ. Now, the thing about false teachers is that they are not content being mere sheep.

They want influence, and so they become shepherds. False shepherds, that is.

A false shepherd is full of pride, and the thought of people following him is too tempting to pass up.

So false shepherds weasel their way in to places that only belong to true shepherds.

And the frightening part is they show up as pastors, missionaries, and seminary professors.

They show up as lay teachers who hold offices in the church.

They are messengers of darkness who will only cause destruction wherever they go.

As I mentioned, these are people who at first seem like decent people. But if you dig a little into their lives, and if you see their track record, what you will learn is that this is a false disciple and a false teacher.

Jesus says they come to you in sheep's clothing, but they are really wolves.

Now in our area, on rare occasions, on very rare occasions, you might see wolves.

You're more likely to see them closer to Grantsburg. I remember Gordy told me one time that he saw one in Wolf Creek.

So Wolf Creek is called Wolf Creek for a reason, right? There must have been wolves there at one time.

I don't know about you, but of all the animals that we come across in this neck of the woods, I think a wolf is one that would scare me the most.

Even more than a bear. Especially if you run into a pack of wolves. Then you're outnumbered. Wolves are mean.

They have teeth that make quick work of their prey. They have jaws that are able to bite through things very easily.

And for an animal to be caught in a pack of wolves leaves no hope of getting away. I remember watching one of those animal shows and they got a bison.

All these wolves flocked to this giant bison and the bison had no chance because of this pack of wolves.

Wolves are one of the more dangerous animals in the North Country. And there are wolves in Israel. And the

Jewish crowd Jesus is talking to would have known about the danger of wolves. Wolves are a good image of a false teacher.

During the Apostle Paul's ministry, he appointed pastors in churches. And one concern he had is that from within the church, men would arise speaking false doctrine.

What he said is similar to what Jesus said. This is what Paul wrote to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20 verses 28 through 30.

He said, pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the

Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.

I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them.

So fierce wolves will arise speaking twisted things with the goal of drawing people away.

The false teachers have a giant ego. They're not content just being in the church.

And sometimes you see people, they go to a church, they realize they're not gonna get into the leadership, and so they start something.

They start a movement somewhere because they wanna boost their ego. And sometimes you see someone flame out of ministry because it didn't work out well, and it may be because the person's a false teacher.

And what happens is this person, they're not content being out of leadership. So they go to a different place and then they do the same thing somewhere else.

They love power and they have an enormous ego.

And you'll notice too that Paul mentions where oftentimes false teachers come from.

What's interesting is that when we talk about false teachers, Muhammad, the founder of Islam, is a false teacher.

Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, is a false teacher.

And these are people outside of biblical Christianity. But sometimes people come from within and they start something from within Christianity.

And these are also false teachers. And Paul says they come from your own selves.

These are people who were once happy to be in the church that believed in the

Bible, but they speak twisted things.

Now when Jesus says they are wolves, he further elaborates on what this means in verses 16 and 17.

Jesus writes, you won't 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. What Jesus says at the beginning of verse 16 is that you will recognize a false teacher by their character, by their fruit.

Obviously when we say fruit, we're not saying literal fruit. We're not talking about bananas and oranges and strawberries.

We're talking about a person's works. The Apostle Paul helps us understand what false fruit looks like.

In Galatians 5, 19 through 21, where he writes, the works of the flesh, the flesh is the sinfulness of man, are evident.

Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these.

Then he writes, I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

So when Jesus says you will know them by their fruits, his Apostle, the Apostle Paul, explains what he means.

The list I just mentioned there, that describes false teachers. Their character.

And he says things like these. Sometimes it's things not even listed that he wrote. These characterize their life.

The life of a false teacher. And Jesus asks the question in the second half of verse 16, are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles?

This is a rhetorical question with an obvious answer. And the answer is of course not. Fruit does not grow on thorn bushes or thistles.

Fruit only grows on healthy trees. As Jesus says at the beginning of verse 17, a false teacher who does not have the

Holy Spirit, and no false teacher does have the Holy Spirit, cannot bear godly fruit.

This false teacher will only travel down a sinful path. But true teachers, those who truly speak on behalf of God as they declare his word, do bear good fruit.

Right, so the teacher has to reflect the character of God. Now modern day teachers do not foretell like they did in Bible times.

Remember, foretell is telling the future. Now, sometimes you might hear someone make a prediction.

That's a mark, okay, this is a false teacher whenever someone does that, and we see that happen. People predict the return of Christ, that's a false teacher.

True teachers don't do that. Jesus said we don't know when he's gonna return. So a false teacher is doing their own thing.

What's interesting about the ministry of pastors is that pastors don't foretell, tell the future, but we do foretell.

Every Sunday when I get up to preach, this is what God is calling me to do, to foretell his word to you.

As one author has said, preachers are declaring God's revelation afresh.

Pastors are not prophets, but the office of pastor is the closest thing we have today to a prophet.

It's interesting that one of my pastor friends, they just had a guy who went to their church who said he was a prophet, and that's a red flag.

This person's dangerous. You don't want this person in your church. There are no modern day prophets.

Now in the end times, there will be prophets that arise again, yes, but the role of the pastor is to proclaim the written word as it already has been written in the

Bible. As a pastor preaches his word correctly, God's word goes forth. And this is what

Jesus says about true teachers compared to false teachers in verse 18. He says, a healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.

So true teachers, what we must understand is that they're not perfect people. I mean, just talk to my wife, right?

You'll find out that this isn't, I'm not perfect, I'm far from it. True teachers though are being sanctified just like all genuine believers in the church.

But at conversion, the believer becomes a new creation in Christ as 2 Corinthians 5 .17 says.

If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone, behold, the new has come. But this does not mean perfection.

The Christian life is spent fighting indwelling sin. As Romans 8 .13

says, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. There's a theologian who just passed away not too long ago, his name is

J .I. Packer. And what he said is that the Christian life is one of draining sin's lifeblood.

I mean, get that picture there. You're just draining it out. You're growing over time. You're killing sin. You're becoming more like Christ.

And sin will reach its full effect if we don't kill it, but it can be stopped. In the case of the believer, sin can be stopped.

For the unbeliever, living in the flesh can only be restrained. People wonder, how did someone like Adolf Hitler become so evil?

His sin wasn't restrained. It went to a level, an indescribable, horrible level.

But sometimes God in his grace restrains people from becoming as evil as they can be.

But that's not killing sin. Only the believer can kill sin and truly grow to become more like Christ.

And the point that Jesus is making is healthy trees bear good fruit. They do not bear bad fruit, and so it is with people.

Now, at the end of this section here, Jesus gets to the tragic trajectory of these false teachers.

This is their end in verses 19 and 20. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.

Thus, you will recognize them by their fruits. What we see from Jesus is that he describes their end, and then he gives the concluding statement in verse 20.

You will recognize them by their fruits. Any good conclusion will repeat and bring to a close what you already said.

And this is what Jesus does when he says, once again, you will recognize them by their fruits in verse 20.

But before he says that, he tells the crowd that bad trees that bear bad fruit are cut down and they're thrown into the fire.

At our house across the street, we had Derek Jorgensen cut down trees that needed to be cut over the summer.

And one aspect of his job, and anyone who tree trims, is to cut down dead trees.

There's no point in leaving a dead tree up. It's not going to bear fruit anymore.

I know, Gordy, you understand this. You've cut down a lot of trees. The tree trimmer comes and cuts it down.

Then the tree is taken to the fire pit, thrown into the fire, and burned. Or whatever you might do with it.

But that's the picture here. This is a sobering picture of what happens to false teachers.

The Apostle Peter gives this dark picture in 2 Peter 2, verses 17 through 19. These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm.

For them, the gloom of utter destruction has been reserved. For speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error.

They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption. For whatever overcomes a person to that, he is enslaved.

You see this dark picture of the false teacher. And remember, these are people who come in sheep's clothing.

They look good. And the Bible describes them in very dark terms.

And as I mentioned in the introduction, there is a severe punishment awaiting false teachers when this life is over, when the judgment comes.

As James 3 .1 says, not many of you should become teachers, my brothers.

For you know that those who teach will be judged more strictly.

Think about that. Now you might be asking the question, where are these people?

Who are they? Jesus is preaching to this crowd so that his people would have discernment.

We need discernment in our times. We need discernment in the church in America.

We need discernment in the St. Croix Falls area. The evangelical movement of which we consider ourselves a part started in the 1950s.

Before this time, pretty much everyone who was a Bible -believing Christian would have considered themselves a fundamentalist.

The fundamentalists were called fundamentalists because they believed in the fundamentals of the faith.

These were the people who fought against the liberals of the early 20th century, the people who denied the

Bible. The evangelical movement started because within the fundamentalist movement, people wanted to broaden out.

They thought they could reach more people if we're not seen as these far -right fundamentalists.

This movement has been called neo -evangelicalism. The new evangelical movement started in the 1950s.

They're not as conservative as the evangelicals before the fundamentalists.

If you go back to the reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin and all the Puritans and Jonathan Edwards and all of these people,

Charles Spurgeon, these big names from church history. These were evangelicals. And then there was fundamentalists.

And then now we have the neo, the new evangelical movement that came on the scene in the middle of the 20th century.

Now, why do I give this background? I give this background because the evangelical movement in America has never seen darker days.

And I don't think I'm overstating that. The evangelical church is going in the wrong direction.

I don't know if you follow this. And this should be no surprise since the world has had a pull on evangelicals for many years.

I think of all these churches that ask the world what they want and the world tells them what they want and then they say, okay, we're gonna make our church service to fit what you want.

Doesn't that sound like 2 Timothy 4? It will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires.

Now, you've heard me say this many times from this pulpit, but cultural Marxism has invaded the church.

This is the number one problem facing the wider church right now. This is a false teaching that has embraced identity politics, putting people in categories.

And when you do that, it only divides people. You are permanently an oppressor, for example, because you are white, even though you did nothing wrong.

So in other words, my son Isaiah is guilty because he's white. Now, where's that in the

Bible? Now, we're all guilty because of Adam, right? We all inherit sin, but everybody pays for their own sins.

That's what the Bible teaches. We're not guilty because we're born a certain color and we only need to repent of our sins if we ourselves commit the sin and you are permanently the oppressed because you are a minority.

Try sharing the gospel to someone who is a victim, who says, you know what? I'm not the perpetrator.

You know what the Bible says? We're all perpetrators for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. This ideology only divides and destroys and people think that it will somehow unite, but only the gospel of Jesus Christ unites people.

And by the way, we live in a very white area. We probably have 98, maybe 99 % of the people in the

St. Croix Falls area are white. And I would love to have people of different colors in this church, color of skin, but you know what?

That's secondary. What's primary is that anybody who names the name of Christ is a brother or sister in Christ.

And we don't profile people based on their skin color. Everybody is created in the image of God.

Everybody is equal. We must talk in these terms, not in the terms that society has given us.

And we need to praise God for the diversity. I mean, think of the animal kingdom, all these diverse animals.

He did the same thing with humanity. We have Hispanics, we have black, we have white, we have red, we have the

Asian community. Think of all the different skin colors and all the different ethnic backgrounds and there's so much diversity.

But you know what? God says that we are all to be united in Christ. Galatians 3, 28,

Paul writes, there is neither Jew nor Greek. There's neither slave nor free. There's neither male nor female for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

So in other words, we don't look down on others because they're different than us. We see each other as brothers and sisters in Christ.

And we should treat everybody that way. But sadly, there are many people in the church who are using the idea of cultural

Marxism, thinking that the Bible somehow supports it. And you know why they do that?

Because they see society calls it injustice. And so they look, well, the

Bible's for justice, right? But if you have a false definition of what justice is, then you're gonna be at odds with what the

Bible says because the Bible has the true definition of what justice is. I know this is confusing, but if there's a false definition of racism, then we need to talk about definitions, right?

Well, what does the Bible say that racism is? The Bible says that racism is when you look down on another because you think you're superior to them.

You're not racist because you're in a category. You understand where I'm coming from? So I'm very passionate about this because this is tearing apart the church.

And it's not trendy to talk about it, but we need to talk about it. And one prominent pastor that I really respect is named

John MacArthur. He's one of the few prominent teachers fighting this.

And what he has said, this is a man who's pastored since 1969. And what he has said is that this is the greatest threat to the

American church that he has seen. And he's seen a lot. Think about that. And he's a very trustworthy man.

Now, sadly, there are false teachers in the church pushing this forward and they are working for Satan and people are being led astray.

We don't see this as much up here. You might even say, we don't really see a ton of this in our neck of the woods.

It is here, but not as much as maybe in the city. I'm gonna share a story with you of something that's happened at an evangelical seminary.

There's an evangelical seminary by the name of Southern Baptist. It's called the Southern Baptist Seminary. It's located in Louisville, Kentucky.

And the teaching of cultural Marxism has made inroads there. They have several professors who are pushing this strongly.

And in the past year, a few brave true teachers of the Bible stood up against the unhealthy direction of the seminary.

You know what happened? They got fired. This is an evangelical seminary.

They said, we shouldn't be teaching this. People are teaching it, they stand up, they get fired.

I thought we were supposed to stand for the Bible. They're not standing for the Bible. They're caving to political pressure.

That's tragic. Sadly, there are even true teachers.

I'm not saying that everybody who's been sucked into this is a false teacher, but there are even true teachers that have been entangled with this false teaching.

And my prayer is that they would abandon this and bring their focus back on the gospel. That's what's been lost.

Is anybody sharing the gospel with people, telling them that they need Jesus to be saved? That doesn't seem like, that's not happening very much.

But this isn't the only danger to the church right now. I want you to see these things. We need to have discernment as a church.

So where else are the wolves? We see wolves in America with the prosperity gospel.

This has been going on. I know Sean watched a documentary not too long ago about the prosperity gospel.

The most well -known leader of this is Joel Osteen. Joel Osteen does not preach the

Bible. He does not preach the tough realities of sin. Watch him. You'll notice he doesn't touch it.

He doesn't teach about hell. He doesn't teach about judgment. He preaches a false gospel that says you will be healthy and wealthy if you follow

Jesus. What's frightening about Osteen is that he has a massive amount of followers.

He has thousands upon thousands of people who listen to him every week. And he has sold millions of books.

He's on TV. And my word to you as your shepherd is do not listen to him.

He's a wolf in sheep's clothing. And I mention his name to you because you probably know him.

And I want to protect you. That's one of my callings is to protect you. And he's got a nice smile.

I'm pretty sure his teeth aren't real. I mean, at least the, I think they've been bleached, but he's got a nice smile.

And they come to you as sheep. In fact, I've watched him before. They hold their

Bibles up and they say, we believe in the Bible. And then the whole service, he doesn't preach the Bible.

And I mentioned his name because I want you to watch out for him. And if I were preaching to a group of pastors, I would throw a few other names out there.

But you probably don't know who they are. So I'm not even gonna throw them out. And you might wonder, Seth, isn't that divisive to throw names out there?

Paul used names several times. He said, watch out for these guys.

They are teaching false doctrine. And we need to do that more.

Especially in a time when discernment is not good. You go to a Christian bookstore. They have some good books there.

And then they have all these false gospels there. What's wrong? There's no discernment. And my encouragement to you, if you listen to anyone in your own time,

I'd love to hear who they are, because I want you to be listening to the right people. And if you're wondering who to listen to,

I'll let you know. Because there are good teachers out there who are speaking the voice of the true shepherd.

And there are other people in the church who have very good discernment, who can tell you who to listen to and who to avoid.

So we are to recognize the wolves in the church. And Jesus gives us one clear warning sign in this text.

And that is through observing their ungodly character in words and deeds. The church in America is at an all -time low with discernment.

There has been an open embrace of false teaching. And what this shows is that many people have a hard time discerning truth from error, from discerning true teachers from false teachers.

And this comes with maturity. As you grow in the faith, you will be able to see things.

You'll be able to spot things. You'll be able to hear the voice of the true shepherd and hear the voice of the false shepherd and reject it.

That comes with maturity as you grow in the faith. And our mission as a church is to grow in Christ together.

And I think as we grow together, I know that God will help us to be able to grow in the important area of discernment.

False teachers only cause harm. And Jesus calls us to be aware of these wolves in sheep's clothing that are out there.

Now, next Sunday, we're gonna continue the two categories. We just looked at false teachers and true teachers.

Next Sunday, we will look at arguably the most sobering passage in the

Bible. At the judgment, some will be surprised that they are not welcomed into God's kingdom where Jesus utters the frightening words,

I never knew you. We'll look at that next Sunday. Let's bow our heads in prayer.

Father in heaven, these are sobering words. There are true teachers.

There are false teachers. And we can't be afraid to call out a false teacher.

We need to be careful though, Lord. We don't wanna label someone who's a false teacher who isn't a false teacher.

But when it's obvious, it needs to be known. And your sheep need to be worn and they need to look in a different direction.

And listen to true teachers. And Lord, I pray that at this church, that as we go through Matthew, as we go through the word of God, that more and more, we would better hear the voice of the true shepherd.

So that we'd be able to recognize truth from error and live a godly life in that truth.