What
comes to mind when you see the words false prophet? In modern times I
think of David Keresh or Jim Jones, but there have been false
prophets since man got kicked out of the garden. False prophets were
a big problem in the 1st century, they tried to add things
to Christ Jesus for salvation. Anyone who preaches salvation by any
thing other than Christ Jesus is a false prophet. Anyone who says you
need to do more than: confess with your mouth, "Jesus is
Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the
dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe
and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are
saved. (Romans 10:9-10).
The
Wichita Eagle newspaper recently ran an interesting story. There was
a pond in the middle of a housing development that was kept stocked
with fish. Evidently, a child had thrown a toy ball and it rolled
into the pond. One of the residents saw the ball bouncing around in a
strange manner in the water. When he went to investigate, he saw a
large flathead catfish which had obviously tried to swallow the ball,
but it had become stuck in his mouth. It must have looked like a
yummy piece of something that catfish like, but his eyes were bigger
than his mouth. If you are not a fisherman, you may not know that
catfish like deep water and usually swim near the bottom, so the poor
catfish was trying to get down to where he normally lived after he
came to the top for a meal. He was totally exhausted from trying to
dive, but was unable to because the ball would always bring him back
up to the surface. The man who found the catfish pulled him to the
dock with a long handled net and tried numerous times to get the ball
out, but was unsuccessful. He finally had his wife cut the ball with
a knife, while he held the fish, in order to deflate the ball and
release the catfish. That was one gullible catfish! He would
obviously swallow anything. A Christian would never be so gullible
would they?
Salvation
Army founder William Booth said, “I am of the opinion that the
chief dangers which confront the coming century will be religion
without the Holy Spirit, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness
without repentance, salvation without regeneration, and heaven
without hell!”
Booth’s
prophecy is becoming a reality more and more every day. But why, the
answer is simple there are many false prophets preaching a false
religion. Thomas Carlyle;
the Scottish
philosopher, once
asked, “Can there be a more horrible object in existence than an
eloquent man not speaking the truth?”
So
what is the big deal? Well a man changing a road sign may cause
inconvenience to drivers. One who labels poison as cough syrup may be
responsible for murder. But one who alters God’s truth can lead
others to eternal doom!
Matthew
7:15-20
15
"Beware of false teachers who come disguised as harmless sheep,
but are wolves and will tear you apart. 16 You can detect them by the
way they act, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit. You need
never confuse grapevines with thorn bushes or figs with thistles. 17
Different kinds of fruit trees can quickly be identified by examining
their fruit. 18 A variety that produces delicious fruit never
produces an inedible kind. And a tree producing an inedible kind
can't produce what is good. 19 So the trees having the inedible fruit
are chopped down and thrown on the fire. 20 Yes, the way to identify
a tree or a person is by the kind of fruit produced.
I. Description
of False Prophets.
Christ Jesus describes the false
prophets as those who wear sheep’s clothing — they
are deceptive. Shepherds
wore sheepskins with the skin on the outside and the
fleece on the inside. The sheep
became accustomed to the presence of the shepherd
and could spot him by his
sheepskin coat. But what if a wolf could wear sheepskin;
this would be the height of
deception.
Christ Jesus said that false
prophets are like wolves — they
are destructive. Ezekiel
speaks of false prophets as
“wolves ravening the
prey, to shed blood, and to destroy souls”
(22:27).
Zephaniah describes false prophets as “evening
wolves” which
“leave nothing for
the morning”
(3:3).
The apostle Paul said that “grievous
wolves [would] enter in among you,
not sparing the flock”
(Acts 20:29).
II. Beware of
False Prophets!
Beware of those who preach an
easy religion. Jeremiah
speaks of false prophets who
speak of “Peace,
peace; when there is no peace”
(Jeremiah
6:14).
The followers of false prophets
feel that their church is fulfilling its purpose if it is
acting as a social outlet or a
cultural center or as a boost to its members’ businesses.
The followers of a false prophet
are comfortable with the world and its ways. The
false prophet preaches
self-gain, prestige, and self-satisfaction. He finds out what
will be popular and preaches it.
On the other hand a true prophet
is never popular with everyone. His preaching may
border on offensive to some.
Beware of those who push Christ
Jesus into the background. The
false prophet
preaches a social gospel. He is
bent on saving society, but he is not too interested in
saving souls. Liberal
theologians deny that people are lost. So what is left for them to
preach? They look around them
and observe social needs. They cry, “Social
structures must be changed!”
And so they overlook the individual whom Christ Jesus
came to save, and they spend
their time trying to save society.
False prophets deplore
evangelicals, saying, “You are not interested in the whole
person; you are only interested
in their soul.” They denounce evangelism and classify
all professional evangelists as
modern-day Elmer Gantrys. They forget that Christ
Jesus, “has
come to seek and to save that which was lost."
Luke 19:10
A Man carrying a large basket of bread
on his head cried to the crowd, “Bread! Bread!” “What kind of
bread do you have?” a woman asked.
“I have bread that costs money and
bread that is free,” said the Christian merchant. “I’ll have
some of the free bread,” said the woman.
The man took his Bible and read the
words of Christ Jesus, “I
am the bread of life: he that
cometh to me shall never
hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst” (John
6:35). Those
who preach only a social gospel of bread for the body are false
prophets if they do not also proclaim that Christ Jesus is
the bread of life.
Beware of those who cast doubts
upon the Bible. The
Christian should beware of any
false prophet who makes little
or no reference to the Bible. Some do not even have
text for what they say — just
philosophical discourses. The Christian should beware
of anyone who quotes Scripture
out of context to make it say what they want it to
say. The Christian should beware
of anyone who accepts the Bible as only a piece of
great literature or who accepts
only a part of the Bible and rejects other parts of it.
III. The
fruits of false prophets. Fruit
trees may or may not be beautiful, but what really counts is their
fruit. There are many fruits of false prophets, the most notable a
“secondhand religion.”
What is secondhand religion?
It
is thinking that
being born into a Christian home makes one a Christian. It
is leaving religion to the wife and kids. It is joining a church and
thinking that makes you a Christian. It is letting the church mean
less than a fishing trip, washing the car, a football game, or
visiting relatives and the list goes on. The
fruits of false prophets are seen in the many church members who have
just enough religion to make them miserable.
Somewhere
down the line we have forgotten that one cannot be a practicing
sinner and a practicing saint at the same time.
The Scriptures say, “He
who does what is sinful is of the devil. . . . No one who is
born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in
him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. This
is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of
the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of
God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother”
(1 John 3:8 – 10)
Socrates said, “The surest way
to live with honor in the world is to be, in reality, what we would
appear to be.”
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