In the mid 1980’s, there were an estimated 10,000 physicians who got phony medical degrees from medical schools they had never even attended. One such broker for these degrees, Pedro DeMesones, who served a three-year prison sentence for mail fraud and conspiracy, told investigators that clients paid him from $5000 to $27,000 for his services. (Spokesman Review, December 8, 1984.)
Can you imagine that? There are at least 10,000 doctors out there practicing medicine who may not have even spent one day in medical school. They evidently got medical school loans and, instead of using the money to go to school, they used it to pay Pedro for a certificate saying they went to school.
Now, some of you have retired and seem to spend almost as much time at the doctor’s as you used to spend at work. How do you know that your doctor is legit? How do you know he didn’t get his medical certificate from some guy named Pedro? Let’s think about it for a minute. How do you tell a real doctor from a fake?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaBxnMmMIkc *3 Stooges video of them as doctors*
Don’t you wish it was that easy to tell the real thing from a fake? So, how might you tell a real one from a fake? Does he look like a doctor? Does he talk like a doctor? Does he act like a doctor? Does what he says to do actually work? Does he prescribe meds that actually work? Does he know what he is talking about and does he prove it? If he doesn’t meet those minimum requirements, you should have some red flags about him. Right?
Knowing that your doctor is real and not a fake is pretty important, isn’t it? It could be a matter of life and death. But do you know what is even more important than getting wise, real medical advice? Knowing that you’re getting wise, real spiritual advice. We all want to know truth. None of us want to be deceived, especially when it comes to the most important things in this life.
If your doctor found out you had a horrible disease, would you want him to tell you the truth? If he found a tumor, would you want him to give you the truth about how to get rid of that tumor or would you rather he not worry you and just prescribe an antibiotic or something? You would want to know the truth so that something could be done. Changes would need to be made. Maybe some drastic steps would need to be taken. You would probably rather change your lifestyle than have that disease kill you.
How much more important is it to know spiritual truth that will affect, not only this life, but also your eternity? Would you want to know spiritual truth even if it meant you may have to make some lifestyle changes? Or are you so comfortable in this life that you are fine living in deception? And how do we know what is truth and what is not?
Have you noticed how often that medical research changes? One day they tell you that coffee is bad for you and then they change their minds and say it’s good for you. And for some of you, you don’t care. You’re going to drink it no matter what. It’s the same with eggs. “Never eat eggs. It’s bad for your cholesterol.” Then later, “Eating eggs is good for your good cholesterol and bad for your bad cholesterol” or something, I don’t know.
It used to be back in the ‘50’s that doctors would recommend certain brands of cigarettes, even to pregnant women. I heard an elderly person scolding a young mother the other day. “Back in my day, we didn’t have all those luxuries like you do today.” And the mother said, “Yes, but back in your day, the soft drinks had cocaine in them.”
So, how do doctors know what is medical truth and an even better question is, how do any of us know what is spiritual truth? Let’s look at what Jesus had to say about it in Matthew chapter 7. We are almost done with our study of the Sermon on the Mount and we see Jesus starting to wrap it up here as well. I really want to encourage you to be here next Sunday as we see what Jesus saved for last in this sermon because it may be the most important stuff.
But for today, it is vital that we understand how to tell truth from lies; how to tell real from fake and how to spot a false prophet. Look at Matthew 7:15-20. In it, Jesus said, “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? 17Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.”
We don’t have any false prophets today, do we? Surely that is just a New Testament thing, right? What is a prophet? Do we even have any true prophets today? Well, let’s look and see what the word means. According to my big, bad concordance, the word Jesus uses here is “pseudoprophetes” (sudo–prophet-tace) which is one word that means false prophet but the word prophet literally means “to speak or say in front of.” It is used of someone who speaks what God tells him to speak. It says, “The prophesying of the New Testament prophets was a preaching of the divine counsels of grace.”
A preaching of grace…kind of sounds like what preachers do today, doesn’t it? You know what? I think I’m going to give myself a title. Everybody else is doing it. What do you think? “The Prophet Todd Blair.” Man, that’s going to look good on some business cards, isn’t it? I also understand that chicks dig prophets. Am I right? Huh? That’s so ridiculous. No. I’m just Todd. But I do preach and my highest goal is to preach truth and to preach what God wants me to preach.
But Jesus said to watch out for false prophets because they come to you in sheep’s clothing. And when He says that, we imagine somebody dressed like a sheep but the real meaning comes from the fact that shepherds would wear clothing made from the wool of the sheep that they raised. This isn’t saying to watch out for false sheep but for false shepherds. Watch out for false pastors and preachers and other leaders in the church. They aren’t shepherds but are wolves that will tear apart churches and individuals.
Now, the first step in figuring out if a prophet is true or false may be the hardest part of all for some of you. The first thing you have to do is listen to them. I know. What a bummer, right? You know, I have had some crazy stuff said to me after I preached. Somebody once told me, "You always manage to find something to fill up the time." "I don't care what they say, I like your sermons." "If I'd known you were going to be good today I'd have brought a neighbor." Even, "We shouldn't make you preach so often." (Not actually true) (Arthur Myers, Berkshire Sampler.)
You know what? None of that is true. Nobody ever said any of that stuff to me. I’m just kidding. But it begs the question, how do you know if a preacher is preaching truth? It’s one thing to make a joke. It’s another thing to lie and deceive and be a false teacher. So, how do we know? Well, Jesus tells us in verse 16. He shifts His metaphor from sheep and shepherds and says, “By their fruit you will know them.”
Okay, so now we have to figure out what He means by fruit. I want to know exactly what Jesus said and what He meant and I think you know why but it will come up in just a few minutes. But first, let’s see what is meant by “fruit.” There are at least three kinds of fruit by which you might judge a preacher. Yes, you heard me right. We should judge preachers. Wow! It’s like Jesus knew what He was talking about when He first mentioned in the passage we looked at last week in verses 1-6 about the motives for judging. Just like you might judge a peach tree to see if the peaches are good or an apple tree to see if it was producing good apples, so we must judge a preacher by his fruit.
The first kind of fruit you might judge is in the realm of character and conduct. Like judging a doctor, you want to know if he acts like a doctor. Does he have the character of a doctor? When Jesus talks about fruitfulness, He means Christlikeness and Paul called it the Fruit of the Spirit. What is the fruit or the proof that a person has the Holy Spirit living in their lives (and we should all be bearing this fruit)? Paul says in Galatians 5, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”
The first fruit you should look for is actually the fruit of the Spirit. Does the preacher reflect those attributes in the pulpit and out? Is that his lifestyle? If not, it ought to send up a red flag. Now, when I say that, I can just hear some people chomping at the bit. I don’t see it in this church but I know there are a lot of people who are ready and willing to put the preacher under a microscope…and that should be okay.
But let me just tell you that preachers, pastors, leaders of the church here and all around the Christian world are sinners just like you. Just like you. So…if you judge (and you should judge) a preacher by his lifestyle, just make sure you take the plank out of your eye before you get to worrying about the speck in his. You make sure your life is right with God and you make sure your motives are right and you make sure you know his motives. And I tell you what, while this goes for all preachers, not just me, if you see something in my lifestyle that does not reflect the fruit of the Spirit, if you come to me in love, prayed up and with a Bible in your hand, I will listen to you all day.
But I learned as a little boy watching my dad pastor that Satan has a special hatred for preachers and pastors because he knows if he can take out the leader of the church, the rest are easier to get. If the wolf takes out the shepherd, the sheep are easier to get. Yes, leaders of the church should be held to a higher standard. But just make sure you are at the standard you should be before you judge anybody else, even a pastor.
So, the first fruit to examine is a man’s character. The second kind of fruit you should look for is his teaching. In Acts 20, Paul said, “Therefore, I declare to you today that I am innocent of the blood of any of you. 27For I have not hesitated to proclaim to you the whole will of God.” If a prophet is one who preaches what God wants, then that prophet has to preach all of it. He has to preach the whole will of God or some versions say the whole counsel of God. That means everything from Genesis to the maps and whatever God wants you to say about it. This includes the difficult parts, the hard sayings of Jesus and the parts that are controversial or hard to understand even if it drives some people away.
If you watch the megachurch pastors on TV, a lot of them – not all – but a lot of them never seem to get around to talking about sin or repentance. They never touch on abortion or homosexuality. Those are too controversial and people may not feel all warm inside hearing about that stuff. They may lose members and if they lose members, they might lose money.
Money is a big deal when examining a person’s fruit. If that’s all they ever preach on, that should raise a red flag. If they make everything about them, that’s a red flag. In fact, while not every sermon has to be about Jesus necessarily, preaching the full will of God has to include a substantial amount of Jesus and I’ve heard it said that you can’t bring God glory while making yourself look good. The goal of every message, in fact the goal of our lives should be to make Jesus look good even if the sermon is not all about Him.
The main issue here in regard to a man’s preaching is, is it truth? A preacher should preach about money sometimes and it’s fine to use yourself as an illustration sometimes. I’ll even listen to a guy preach if he has an irritating voice or mannerisms…if he is preaching truth. So, how do we know what is truth? Who decides what is truth? Is truth always the same for everybody?
Well, let’s go back to the doctor illustration. How does a doctor know what to tell a patient? Well, he has hopefully gone to school for many years. He has read a lot of books. He continues to study and learn. He has a lot of experience. He has talked with other doctors. He has seen what works with his own eyes. In short, he tells the patient truth because it has been tested and proven to work.
While modern medicine has arguably only been around for maybe a hundred or two hundred years, this Bible was written thousands of years ago by dozens of people under the inspiration of one Holy Spirit of God. And while I don’t have a lot of schooling, I have spent my life searching, trying, and testing the scriptures, just looking for anything that wasn’t truth. I’ve always said if I ever find one thing in here that isn’t truth, I’ll put it down and never pick it up again. If you can’t believe all of it, how can you believe any of it?
I’ve never found anything in here that wasn’t truth, though, and I have searched and I have talked with lots of other people smarter and wiser than myself who have also been looking. I firmly believe that the Bible is truth and is the source for all truth and if a prophet preaches anything that is not backed up by scripture, he is a false prophet. He may be a fine motivational speaker but that is something completely different.
Years ago, I went to San Francisco on vacation with some friends. When Sunday morning came around, none of them wanted to go to church, so I went by myself. It was walking distance from our hotel and so I let them sleep and I got my Bible and went on. It was a big church but I noticed as I got in there that nobody else had a Bible and I thought that was strange. Even the pastor got up to preach and didn’t have a Bible.
But at some point, he referenced Genesis chapter 3 and so I started turning there in my Bible and the preacher said, “Now, we see in Genesis chapter three that Eve went in and slept with her girlfriend…” and I thought, “Oh! That’s why nobody has a Bible. They’re just making this stuff up.” He might as well have said to turn in your superhero comic books to page 10.
John Calvin once said, “All doctrines must be brought to the Word of God as the standard, for in judging of false prophets the rule of scripture holds the chief place.” So, instead of taking a preacher’s word for it, like that congregation did in San Francisco, be like the Bereans who it says in Acts 17, “received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” Nothing is more exciting to me than when somebody says, “Hey, I looked up that passage you were preaching from and I have a question.” I could very well be wrong about something. I study hard and pray for nothing more than I pray for truth. But I could be wrong and I am open to that so check me and let’s talk about it. Being wrong sometimes doesn’t make a preacher a false prophet. Just because you don’t like a guy, doesn’t make him a false prophet. Everybody is different and has different styles and some people may believe differently than you do. That doesn’t make them fake.
Let me give you one more fruit by which you can judge a preacher. Judge their influence. What kind of effect their does their teaching have on others? If they are a pastor, what kind of church is it? Now, this fruit may take a while to ascertain. It may take years for this fruit to mature but after a while, if the church is ungodly, divisive and faithless, it is very possible the pastor may not be teaching the truth of scripture. You can’t blame people’s behavior on their pastor but when taken as a whole, over a long period of time, the Gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit will work through the truth of scripture and will change a church to become more like Jesus. That should be the goal of every prophet, preacher and pastor.
Look, if all you do is come to church even two or three times a week, I guarantee you are not getting enough spiritual food to sustain you during the week. If you are a disciple, a true follower of Jesus who is abiding in Him then you need more than just a sermon on Sunday morning and a Bible study or two during the week. You need to be listening to other preachers on the radio or TV. You need to read books by Christian authors. You need other sources of spiritual nourishment but if you just go to You Tube or the library or anywhere really, how are you going to know who is telling you the truth?
I go to a Bible study at Cates Street Baptist Church on most Wednesday nights. After the first few times I went, the teacher, a godly man in that congregation, said he was surprised that I didn’t have more to say during the Bible study. He thought I might be more argumentative and he was on guard for that. I told him to just relax. I said, “When I come here, I feel like I am being fed some real spiritual meat. This isn’t milk. This is meat. And if I get a little bit of gristle every now and then, who am I to complain?”
I can handle a little bit of gristle. He and I might not agree 100% on every little thing but I know that he is real and his love for the scriptures is real and he wants nothing more than to learn from Jesus and tell others what he has learned. That’s what a true disciple does and that’s what a true prophet or preacher does. I can judge the man’s character, his teaching and his influence and I know he is the real thing.
A false prophet intentionally deceives people, usually making himself look good or to gain power or money. If you study a person carefully and you realize that is what this person is, you need to have nothing else to do with them. Don’t ever hear them again. As for me, let me ask one favor of you. If you have a problem with me or what I preach, before you leave and go tell the world what a false prophet I am, would you please have the courage to come talk to me personally? That, too, is biblical and I would appreciate it. I promise I won’t get mad or even beg you to stay. I just want to know if there is something I need to work on.
Right now, we have come to our time of prayer and invitation. I want to encourage you to come down to the front here if there is anything in your life we can be praying for. Maybe you have a spiritual need or a physical need or a financial need. I don’t have all the answers but I know the One who does and I would love to lift you up this morning.
Maybe you don’t have a relationship with Jesus like we talk about around here. All you have to do is believe that Jesus died for your sins, ask God for forgiveness of those sins and allow the Holy Spirit to change your life. I’d love to talk with you more about that. Do that right now as the music plays.
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