REVIEW
FLIP CHART: SOM’S KEY VERSE, GOAL, MOTTO
“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness ….” (Mt. 6:33a).
The law sends us to Christ for justification; Christ sends us back to the law for sanctification.
FLIP CHART: Show new “Perfect Righteousness” chart explaining steps to coming to Christ (As a worm, mourning, meek, spiritual hunger/thirst with the result of legal righteousness). Explain: moral righteousness, immediate moral change at conversion, gradual change through life’s challenges and speeding up moral change via CCRC (Concentration, Choice, Reflection and Confession/Thanksgiving). Key verse, “By one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy” (Heb. 10:14).
FLIP CHART: John Stott’s outline of SOM.
TEACHING GOAL: To help the church spot false teachers, false prophets.
To finish up his sermon, Jesus gives four powerful illustrations, all with a goal to pressing his listeners for a decision. All of the illustrations have within them a dire warning: destruction, fire, rejection, destruction.
Mt. 7:13-14 crystallizes our choices concerning the Sermon on the Mount, the previous 2 ½ chapters.
INTRODUCTION:
“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. (Mt. 7:15-20)
REVIEW: . . . . Some key ”SO WHATS?” From the two previous lesson.
1. False prophets plagued the New Testament church, plagued the church through history and are with us today.
2. Our Lord plainly warns us to be vigilant concerning false teachers.
3. We can not be passive and easy going, complaisant and laid back about the warning re false prophets because these people are very difficult to spot.
4. Like a wolf, a false prophet, false teacher will tend to be greedy, deceitful, and secretive.
5. Since it is very difficult to counterfeit virtue, we need to evaluate the character of a perceived false prophet.
6. Evaluating a person’s character based on the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount and the nine Fruit of the Spirit will help us to discover a false prophet.
OUTLINE:
1. Warning Against False Prophets
2. Spotting a False Prophet
3. Character of a False Prophet
4. Spotting False Teaching
5. The Gospel of Gaps
6. The Five “Solas” of the Reformation
A. The Reformation
B. The Evangelicals
C. Introduction to the Five Solas
D. Sola # 1 – Scripture Alone
E. Good Works
F. Justification
G. Sola # 2 – Grace Alone
H. Sola # 3 – Faith Alone
I. Sola # 4 – Christ Alone
K. Sola # 5 – God’s Glory Alone
SPOTTING FALSE PROPHETS – (C) THE DOCTRINAL TEST
IV. SPOTTING FALSE TEACHING
“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them.
CLASSES OF FALSE, MISTAKEN TEACHERS
Difference of opinion on Biblical Doctrine is not a sign of a false prophet.
QUESTION: What are some opinions about doctrine that would not class a person as a “false” prophet or a teacher or preacher of communicating falsehood?
Sometimes a person is wrong in what he is teaching just because of a lack of information.
“He (Apollos, a native of Alexandria, Egypt visiting Ephesus) began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to them the way of God more adequately.” (Acts 18:26)
Heretics are mistaken men! Not dishonest men!
READING: There can be no doubt that the commonest cause of all this is our tendency to approach the Bible with a theory. We go to our Bibles with this theory, and everything we read is controlled by it. Now we are quite familiar with that. There is a sense in which it is true to say that you can prove anything you like from the Bible. That is how heresies have arisen. The heretics were never dishonest men; they were mistaken men. They should not be thought of as men who were deliberately setting out to go wrong and to teach something that is wrong; they have been some of the most sincere men that the Church has ever known. What was the matter with them? Their trouble was this: they evolved a theory and they were rather pleased with it; then they went back with this theory to the Bible, and they seemed to find it everywhere. If you read half a verse and emphasize over-much some other half verse elsewhere, your theory is soon proved. Now obviously this is something of which we have to be very wary. There is nothing so dangerous as to come to the Bible with a theory, with preconceived ideas, with some pet idea of our own, because the moment we do so, we shall be tempted to over-emphasize one aspect and under-emphasize another. (MLJ, 11)
READING: Harold Camping is an engineer who started a construction company and then with some friends started the Family Radio Network (which now has 150 broadcast outlets and is even translated). Here is a quote from a “Southwoods Baptist Church Sermon” relating to Mr. Camping:
Yesterday’s Commercial Appeal told of popular radio speaker Harold Camping that has predicted the return of Christ on several occasions and now claims that the Bible teaches that Satan controls every church. His message is to get out of church, stay at home, and do not participate in baptism or the Lord’s Supper. Camping came out of a conservative, evangelical background. But what do you call him now, misinformed or false prophet? To deny the church of Jesus Christ, and to deny the two ordinances that Christ told His people to observe identifies Mr. Camping as a false prophet. That seems pretty obvious, and yet hundreds, perhaps thousands are under Camping’s influence.
I used to listen to Harold Camping while on furloughs in New Jersey. He was a strong evangelical from a good Bible teaching church, a very sincere man with a great knowledge of Scripture. So what is he now? Some call him a heretic, others a false prophet.
A false prophet is more than a “mistaken” Christian and a step beyond a mistaken heretic. A false prophet has a personal agenda. Character and motive are important here. Is the teacher intentionally deceptive? Is he clearly greedy?
Southwoods Baptist Church: I think that “ravenous” differentiates the false prophet from a preacher or teacher that is ignorant of truth or has yet to understand the Scriptures as he ought, and thus speaks wrongly or leads astray the church. There is no malicious intent on their part, and their fruits vindicate them.
WE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR SPOTTING FALSE TEACHING
READING: If we care for God’s truth and for God’s church, we must take Christ’s warning seriously. He and his apostles place the responsibility for the church’s doctrinal purity partly upon the shoulders of Christian leaders . . . . but also especially upon each congregation. The local church has more power than it often realizes or uses in deciding which teacher it will listen to. Jesus Christ’s
‘Beware of false prophets’ is addressed to us all. (Stott, 203)
“But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” (Heb. 5:14)
Although we are not to be judgmental, fault-find, censorious, nitpicking and hypercritical, we are to judge the character and doctrine of our teachers: “The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, . . . “ (I Cor. 2:15)
“And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best . . . “ (Phil. 1:9-10a)
QUESTION: We read, “By their fruit you will recognize them.” We know their character and their doctrine will give them away but what other fruit might help us discern if a person is a false teacher?
NOTING THE IMPACT OF A TEACHER’S TEACHING ON OTHERS CAN HELP US SPOT FALSE TEACHING
READING: They who, in fact bring the proud, passionate, unmerciful, lovers of the world to be lowly, gentle, lovers of God and man, — they are true Prophets, they are sent from God, who therefore confirms their word. On the other hand, they whose hearers, if unrighteous before, remain unrighteous still, or, at least, void of any righteousness which “exceeds the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees,” — they are false prophets. . . . . (John Wesley)
READING: . . . a third test which we must apply to teachers . . . concerns their influence. We have to ask ourselves what effect their teaching has on their followers. Sometimes the falsity of false teaching is not immediately apparent when we look at a teacher’s behavior and system, but becomes apparent in its disastrous results. This is what Paul meant when he wrote of error’s tendency to ‘eat its way like gangrene.’ Its gangrenous progress is seen when it upsets people’s faith, promotes ungodliness and causes bitter divisions. Sound teaching, by contrast, produces faith, love and godliness (II Tim. 2:16-18) (Stott, 202-203
So in spotting false teaching we have a character test, a doctrinal test and also an influence / impact test.
THE MOOD, TENOR, TONE OF TEACHING WILL HELP US IN JUDGING THE TRUTHFULNESS OF A MESSAGE
QUESTION: Why is mood, tenor, tone important?
Is there a sense of urgency, seriousness in the message?
“They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say when there is no peace. Are they ashamed of their loathsome conduct? No, they have no shame at all; they do not even know how to blush.” (Jer. 8:11)
The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, / To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame. (Elegy in a Country Church Yard, Thomas Gray)
READING: “One of the major characteristics of false prophets in the Old Testament was their amoral optimism, their denial that God was the God of judgment as well as of steadfast love and mercy. They were guilty, Jeremiah said to the people of ‘filling you with vain hopes . . .’ They say continually to those who despise the word of the Lord, ‘It shall be well with you’ and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart they say, ‘No evil shall come upon you.’” (Stott, 199)
False prophets directing people on to the “broad road” never feel a sense of urgency. They do not preach as “a dying man to dying men.”
“There is nothing in their preaching which searches the conscience and renders the empty professor uneasy, nothing which humbles and causes their hearers to mourn before God; but rather that which puffs up, makes them pleased with themselves and to rest content in a false assurance.” (James Boice, pg. 256, quoting Arthur Pink, An Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount)
Is the teaching filled with urgency? Does it sometimes seem cutting? Does it make me feel uneasy? Do I feel conviction of sin? Does it cause me to grieve for my sin?
This doesn’t mean all sermons / lessons will be like this. Some will be uplifting but the joy and uplift will be because of a renewed and inspired confidence in God, His goodness and grace and not because we feel better about ourselves.
THE CONTENT OF FALSE TEACHING
False prophets will “distort the truth.” (Acts 20:30) This means that they will start with truth and it will sound like truth but it will be distorted. The KJV says that will teach “perverse things.”
“The prophets are prophesying lies in my name . . . . They are prophesying to you false visions, divinations, idolatries and delusions of their own minds.” (Jeremiah 14:14)
“doctrines of demons,” “teachings of devils,” “things taught by demons” (I Tim. 4:1).
CLASS ACTIVITY: What five doctrines should we see in a pastor’s teaching that would assure us that he is not a false prophet? List them according to their importance, from one to five.
READING – FOUR DOCTRINAL TESTS:
First, “the false prophet avoids preaching on such things as the holiness, righteousness, justice, and wrath of God.” He does not want to be accountable to God himself, so he instructs others in a concept of God that is like a giant marshmallow in the sky. It’s not that he admits disbelieving these things; he just will not teach them. Yet these attributes of God are found throughout Scripture.
Second, “he avoids preaching on the doctrine of the final judgment.” He does not want to offend by such a subject so he can talk about heaven and leave his hearers with the idea that all will eventually make it. Much of this has crept into the evangelical world.
Third, “false prophets fail to emphasize the fallenness and depravity of mankind.” This is quite popular in our day, especially in the church growth movement, as many have followed the lead of Robert Schuller and others who avoids preaching on sin. They don’t want people to feel badly of themselves, and they certainly don’t want people to realize their helplessness so that they cry to God alone for mercy. They seek to make people feel good about themselves so that they attract more followers.
Fourth, “false prophets de-emphasize the substitutionary death and atonement of Christ.” They may talk about the cross but not as the place where God’s wrath was poured out upon His own Son to atone for our sins [The Sermon on the Mount, 250-251].
‘Tis there beside His sacred cross
Yes, on the nearer side
A place of perfect safety
Wherein I do abide.
This cross is my protection,
My place of safe abode
From the fury of the holy wrath
Of my offended God.
Note that these verses about false prophets follow the teaching about the narrow gate, narrow way. False prophets are adept at blurring instructions on how to get through the gate. They distort the message so that it is difficult for people to even find the gate. Most false prophets actually point to the wrong gate and in fact clearly say that the broad way does not lead to destruction. They teach that all roads lead to God.
Fifth, false prophets have a distorted view of Christ.
“All false prophets will have an incomplete, distorted, or perverted view of Christ. If Satan can confuse and mislead people about the person and work of Christ, he has confused and misled them at the very heart of ht gospel.” (MacArthur, 471)
ILL: The Church almost succumbed to the smooth, convincing teaching of Arius, bishop of Alexandria, in the 4th century except for the vigilance by Athanasius. (At that time Alexandria was the foremost city for learning in the empire, even surpassing Rome or Constantinople.) Arius was a popular preacher, capable and winsome in his teaching, and evidently quite convincing in his position that denied the deity of Christ. We’ve had 20 centuries of Christian history and theology to reaffirm that bedrock truth for us, but without readily available resources and a dependence upon the teachers for all biblical instruction, the 4th century Church almost swallowed this heresy. As people were jumping aboard this runaway train, Athanasius, a lesser-known preacher, spoke up against Arius’ teaching. Because Arius was so popular and respected, people began to speak against Athanasius. He was almost the proverbial “goat” among the Christian masses until finally his voice was heard (Athanasius was exiled 5-7 times from Alexandria by emperors etc who got involved in theology on the side of Arius), Arius’ teaching was put to the test of Scripture, and the Church was saved from a crushing heresy. Athanasius was able to test the fruits of Arius’ life and doctrine by the revelation of Scripture so that he was willing to lay his life down for the sake of truth. We learn an important lesson from Athanasius. He observed the fruits of false teaching – he saw the end result of where Arius was going with his denial of Christ’s deity, and that ultimately, the whole gospel was at stake. This was no personality clash or ranting about non-essentials. He recognized with certainty the high cost of embracing Arianism. Consequently, he gave himself no rest until this false prophet was silenced. We are challenged by our text to be no less vigilant and active for the sake of the gospel in our own day. (Southwoods Baptist Church, Sermon from the Web)
Athanasius was secretary to the Bishop of Alexandria at the Council of Nicaea in 325, when the Nicene Creed was written.
And we believe in one Lord Jesus Christ,
The only begotten Son of God,
Begotten from the Father before all time;
Light from light, true God from true God;
Begotten, not made; of the same essence as the father,
Through whom all things were made.
He also produced what is known as the “Athanasian Creed” which clearly spells out the deity of the three persons of the Godhead, the unity and trinity of God and the humanity and divinity of Christ.
SO WHAT???
1. A mistaken teacher is not necessarily a heretic or false prophet.
2. A lack of progress in holiness and godliness on the part of those shepherded may be an indication of a false teacher.
3. A false prophet’s teaching will lack a sense of seriousness and urgency. Conviction of sin will be missing in the teaching of a false prophet.
4. We need to look for teaching on the holiness of God, final judgment, the sinfulness of man, the substitutionary death of Christ and the deity of Christ when evaluating the teaching of a perceived false teacher.